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[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Military service can give you a mission and a clear sense of who you are, but when that identity is taken away before you’re ready, the loss can reach into every part of your life. A medical discharge, a health crisis, or a broken relationship can leave you facing a future that no longer resembles the one that you had planned.

[00:00:21] Rebuilding begins when you stop. Allowing your rank, your work, your family roles, or other outside structures to define your entire identity. You can choose the person you wanna become and reinforce that identity through small, repeatable actions. Our guest today, Paul Miller, knows what it feels like to lose the ability to walk, leave the military before reaching retirement and watch several parts of his life collapse.

[00:00:47] He shares how those experiences led him to create uncivilized rebirth, a framework centered on intentional identity visualization, daily discipline, and giving yourself enough grace to keep moving. [00:01:00] You will hear in this episode practical ways to begin rebuilding even during a season when something as small as making the bed feels like a victory.

[00:01:09] Before we get into this episode though, I’d like to take a moment to raise awareness for the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism.

[00:01:24] This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:40]

[00:02:01] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Paul. Welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here

[00:02:05] Paul Miller: Man, I appreciate you having me on. This is, ~uh,~ really cool. Thank you

[00:02:08] Scott DeLuzio: Y- yeah, no, absolutely. ~Um,~ before we jump into the conversation, for the listeners who are maybe just meeting you for the first time and not really familiar with you and who you are, can you share a little bit about who you are, your, your military background, and the stuff that you’re doing, ~uh,~ today?

[00:02:22] Paul Miller: Yeah. So my name’s Paul Miller. Those are the sounds that were given to me at birth to identify this human body. ~Um,~ when I was like 16 or 17… No. Yeah, I decided to join the service. Joined when I was 18. I served for 16 years. I joined two weeks before 9/11. So, like, in my heart, it’s like I knew I joined for the right reasons.

[00:02:47] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm. Sure

[00:02:48] Paul Miller: anyway, it wa- Well, it, like, lets me know that I didn’t join for some manipulation thing. I’m like… Anyway, served 16 [00:03:00] years. I did several tours in Iraq, a little bit of time in Kuwait. ~Um,~ I was infantry. ~Um,~ then I reclassed to combat medic. Then in about 2015, I came down with a rare disease, ~um,~ and I was in the Army National Guard, but I spent a lot of time on active duty orders for the war.

[00:03:23] So there was, like, all this money floating around, you know, early on. So it’s like I got to spend a lot of time on active duty, which was good. And then in 2015, I got a rare disease that because of it, I was medically discharged and then got put out and started navigating civilian life as best I could

[00:03:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and th- that’s, from what I’ve heard, I, I, you know, I, I got out under, you know, kinda d- different circumstances, but, ~uh,~ from other folks who were medically retired from the military, they [00:04:00] had, ~uh,~ you know, something come up or, you know, maybe it’s an injury or an illness like in your case, and they end up getting out, and it, it’s almost like, ~uh,~ you know, they weren’t quite prepared for it.

[00:04:08] Like, maybe they were planning on staying in for, you know, 20 years or, or even more and, ~uh,~ then all of a sudden something happens and, ~uh,~ they’re like, “Oh, now what?” You know, “What do I, what do I do now? Who am I now? What, what’s the next, ~uh,~ what’s the next phase of life for me?” ~Um,~ you know, from your experience, what makes that change, that identity shift, ~uh,~ after getting out of the military?

[00:04:30] ~Uh,~ you know, was it difficult for you, and, and why do you think maybe it’s so difficult for so many o- ~uh,~ other veterans?

[00:04:35] Paul Miller: So I remember the first time I first… I think I did four or six years the first enlistment,

[00:04:44] Scott DeLuzio: Okay

[00:04:45] Paul Miller: and the first enlistment that came up, I thought it was cool. I reenlisted, got a bonus. I was like, “Yes.” Then another one came up, and I just wholeheartedly did it. And then when [00:05:00] I hit about the 10-year somewhere mark in there, that next reenlistment, I gave it a little bit of time, and I was like, “I, I couldn’t imagine my life without this, so I’m gonna go for my full 20 since I’m this far.”

[00:05:13] Like, ’cause I think everybody plays around with that idea of, like, getting out, but for me it was, like, my family. So I had set this marker in my mind of roughly when it was gonna be done, and, and I was totally cool with that. I loved it. ~Um,~ but being put out before you’re ready is so, in my opinion, traumatic to identity and to the life you…

[00:05:49] the plans you have in life and the goals you have set because you’re like, “Ugh, I got this staff NCO thing down.” You know? I, I [00:06:00] know roughly when I’ll get promoted. I know when training is. I know soldiers rotate out. You know, blah, blah, blah, what I need to do to maintain, and then all that’s gone. So, like, the military was this pillar of identity for so many people, and because it’s, like, how you act, how you talk.

[00:06:20] It’s part of your being basically, and then it gets ripped away and without any warning. That is traumatic ’cause then you’re sitting there, you’re like, ” Who am I? I don’t have a uniform to put on. I don’t have a mission. I don’t have my normal family around me.” And the, my family was people in uniform. And You get lost inside of yourself.

[00:06:51] That’s what I found, and I’m- and I’ve heard other people struggling with the identity issue of like, “Who am I? [00:07:00] What do I do?” Like, it’s, it’s traumatic in my opinion. Very traumatic

[00:07:06] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and, and it’s, it’s something that kinda happens all at once, whereas, ~uh,~ you know, you might have had a set of circumstances if you didn’t have this, this medical issue come up, ~uh,~ where stay in for another four years and, and you can kinda see that coming up on the horizon. And over time you can say, “Okay, well, I know that 20 is coming up.

[00:07:30] I got, you know, four years, three years, two years,” whatever, and, ~uh,~ do I need to do for that next, that next act, that next phase of life?

[00:07:38] Paul Miller: Yes

[00:07:39] Scott DeLuzio: start planning that out, you know, whether it’s, you know, going to school and getting a, a, you know, a degree or, you know, some sort of training in for a, a job that you wanted to do after the fact.

[00:07:48] ~Um,~ or, you know, it is. You know, may- maybe looking in where do I wanna live even, you know, w- you know, what part of the country do I wanna live in? What part of the world even? You know, I know some veterans even, [00:08:00] you know, find places on, you know, other, in other countries. And, and, ~uh,~ you know, you at least would have time to kinda start planning those things.

[00:08:08] But then when it all kinda happens all at once, it’s like, wait a minute, I, I used to have all this time, now I don’t. Now, like, now it… That, that future date that I, I had in my head is now today, and now I gotta figure out what am I gonna do? Where, where do I do it? How do I do it? All that kinda stuff. Plus, you’re adding in this, this additional, ~uh,~ situation of having a, ~uh,~ a medical condition that you weren’t planning on having to, to begin with, right?

[00:08:35] And so this, this makes things that much more difficult, I would imagine, for you, right?

[00:08:40] Paul Miller: It’s kinda like a trauma hidden inside a trauma.

[00:08:45] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:08:46] Paul Miller: losing the ability to walk is traumatic, but then having another one sneaking in, it’s like, all right, you’re gonna be discharged and you’re no longer gonna have the uniform, so once you get over [00:09:00] this, this issue’s gonna kick off.

[00:09:01] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:09:02] Paul Miller: ~Um,~ and yeah, like a person can literally f- feel lost inside ’cause that planning time is gone.

[00:09:09] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:09] Paul Miller: That target is gone. You know, it’s like, I guess if you’re headed to an objective and you know, like, we’re gonna go hit this objective, but then you get ambushed way before you get there ’cause in your mind, you prepare for something, and you amp up, amp up, amp up, and you’re like, “Oh, I’m here.” But it’s like, boom.

[00:09:30] Like, not expect-

[00:09:31] Scott DeLuzio: yeah, and even, you know, when in situations like what you were just describing, you know, in, in training, you, you plan for what happens if we do get ambushed, and, and how do we react to contact and, and all that kind of stuff. So you kinda have a plan. You may not know exactly where the ambush is coming from.

[00:09:48] Is it gonna come from, you know, the mountaintops? Is it gonna come from a building? Is it gonna come from, you know, the field ac- across the way or where- wherever it’s gonna come from, you, you may not necessarily know. But when it happens, the training kinda kicks in, and you can, you [00:10:00] can kinda fall back on that.

[00:10:01] But when you have something that’s completely unexpected, completely out of the blue that you’ve done no preparation for, likely, ~um,~ you know, and who does? You know, I, I can’t sit here and say, “Yes, I’m, I’m prepared if, you know, tomorrow all of a sudden I have this medical, you know, injury or disability or, or something, that I know exactly what I’m gonna do.”

[00:10:20] I likely know I have no idea what I would do. I’d, I’d have to try to figure it out at that point. ~Um,~ I think a lot of us probably fall into that category. ~Um,~ and so, you know, w- what do you do? And, and how do you, ~um,~ how do you kinda reframe your mindset to be able to push through this and, and rebuild yourself and figure out how to do that?

[00:10:39] Like in, for, in your case, ~um,~ you know, how did y- how did these experiences, you know, between getting discharged and, ~uh,~ you know, the medical issues that you’re having, ~um,~ h- how did you kind of, ~uh,~ get yourself to, to push through and, and, ~uh,~ you know, be resilient in the face of all this?

[00:10:54] Paul Miller: There was always this, like, little voice [00:11:00] inside of my head, I guess my soul or whatever it may be, but just always telling me there was something bigger for me to do.

[00:11:07] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm

[00:11:08] Paul Miller: always like, “I have something else to do.” But in the initial days of it, I literally just took it one day at a time and just saw it as, like, being in a battle.

[00:11:19] It’s like I have to walk again, so I’m gonna focus on that. And then I would literally for years overcome this hurdle of walking. Then… And that took a few months. Then the very next year, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. That was a whole another battle. I had to stay focused and overcome that. And then during this, I’m dealing with identity of losing service.

[00:11:47] So I stayed really focused on my immediate surroundings. I didn’t think about the future much just because I think that would be scary,

[00:11:55] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm

[00:11:56] Paul Miller: I needed to stay focused right where I was. [00:12:00] But then after I overcame, like kind of life leveled out with MS, ~um,~ my wife left me with the kids in twenty twenty, and so my whole life shattered, gone.

[00:12:13] I lived in a town that wasn’t my hometown. I didn’t really have any friends, maybe one or two, and I had no, like, support group really. It was tiny. ~Um,~ so I was like, just yet again, just like crushed because I had found my identity yet again from losing my time in service or u- losing uniform and being a stay-at-home dad.

[00:12:36] I was medically retired, had a retirement. It’s like, I’m gonna be a great dad and just pour into being a dad and all this stuff. And so I found fulfillment in that, and then it was taken away. So I was like, “Oh, well, I feel hollow yet again.” It’s another pillar of identity. ~Um,~ for like almost a year I was fighting to get my kids back.

[00:12:55] ~Um,~ and that was a tragedy in itself.

[00:12:58] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:12:58] Paul Miller: ~Um,~ so [00:13:00] at first it was Discovering that I was lost inside without all these external things of saying, “This is who you are.”

[00:13:10] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm

[00:13:11] Paul Miller: Do this role and this is who you are, and we find, ~um,~ comfort in that of like, I’m wearing a uniform and they see me as this, so I must be a soldier.

[00:13:24] I change diapers, I go to the grocery store, wash dishes, I must be a stay-at-home dad. And then I started a business and it’s like, “Oh, I’m a businessman. I have a business with a name and people buy things, so I’m a businessman.” I had to shut that down and actually, like, that was traumatic, when you shut something down that you’ve worked on for so long.

[00:13:47] So I just had these, like, rough situation after rough situation just nonstop. And I finally got to the point where I didn’t know who I was. [00:14:00] I was on the phone talking to one of my old first sergeants, and I was like… I was crying. I was like, “I don’t know who I am. I literally do not know who I am.” And I guess you could call it a midlife crisis, basically.

[00:14:13] ~Um,~ and what I came to is that I had never chosen who I wanted to be. I had never planned on the character that I wanted to be, as in, what would I do to be me? ‘Cause I was always trying to make everybody else happy, fill these roles, and when they get pulled away, it’s like it’s not part of me anymore.

[00:14:35] Wait, what is me? And so it’s literally like a crisis, identity crisis. And, and what I eventually came to is, like, I had to build who I wanted to be. I had to plan that and then start living that and stop trying to please other people, stop trying to find these systems that I could be in to get an identity of like, [00:15:00] “Ooh, they validate me acting in this way,” so it’s like now I have some semblance of me.

[00:15:05] It’s like-

[00:15:07] Scott DeLuzio: But yeah, ~uh,~ I think that’s an important point is finding what is, ~uh,~ meaningful and, and, and, ~uh,~ impactful to you and not necessarily the external folks around you. Obviously, you know, if you have a family, you want your family to be happy and healthy and, you know, do, do the things that you need to, to provide for them.

[00:15:25] But, ~uh,~ eh, you know, at the same time, how you do that is open to interpretation. And, you know, as far as, ~uh,~ a career, a career doesn’t necessarily define you. It, or it shouldn’t necessarily define you, but oftentimes we apply that label. You know, I’m a, I’m a soldier, I’m a doctor, I’m a accountant, I’m a, you know, a mechanic, I’m a, you know, whatever.

[00:15:45] I’m, I’m a, that is who I am, ~um,~ is, is very often how we, we end up, ~uh,~ describing ourselves as, as far as, like, what our, our work is. ~Um,~ but there’s other things too. Like you said, you know, you’re, you’re a father. You, you know, ~uh,~ you, you had, you had a family to take [00:16:00] care of, and that was a big piece of your identity.

[00:16:03] What, what you, ~uh,~ felt like was, you know, I’m gonna be a stay-at-home dad, and I’m gonna, I’m gonna pour myself into this and do the best that I can. But, ~um,~ but then again, that can get ripped away from you, too. So, you know, where do you find, ~uh,~ that, that fulfillment, that, that piece inside of you that is, is yours?

[00:16:21] No one can take this away from you. No one can, ~uh,~ you know, rob you of this. It’s, it’s you. It’s who you are and, and, ~uh,~ you know, where, where do you find that, I think is kind of the, ~um,~ you know, the, the thing that you have to look at. And, ~um,~ it, it’s not an easy thing to do all the time. ~Um,~ you know, very often we, we keep focusing on those external things. ~Um,~ but, you know, I think we do need to maybe sometimes rely on, ~uh,~ you know, what, what’s going on inside of us and, and what would be fulfilling to us. ~Um,~ and, and that’s, that’s a, a difficult thing to do, especially when coming out of a, you know, military surrounding where in the, literally the name is in it, in the military service.

[00:16:58] You’re of service [00:17:00] to other people. ~Um,~ how, how do you now turn that inwards and say, “How do I serve myself? How do I, I do those things for myself,” right? And, ~um,~ that, that’s, I think, the, the tricky part that a lot of folks, ~uh,~ kinda get stuck on, right?

[00:17:12] Paul Miller: Oh, big time. And, and I think you hit on something so crucial. It’s like just kind of being yourself and to reconnect with yourself of like, what is me? Like, what is my mission? What am I supposed to do? Because we’re so… And this is what I learned, and I’ve met other people that have kind of gone through this as well, which was super validating, that they had to reconnect with themselves because they had been pleasing externally their whole life and s- for so long.

[00:17:48] Then when you’re by yourself and you have nobody giving you this validation, it’s like you don’t know what to do, and you can lash out, freak out and do all this stuff, and it’s like [00:18:00] nobody cares. You

[00:18:01] know, w- who am I? Like, how am I supposed to act? And, and that– a lot of that I discovered is like self-love and reconnecting with myself and being like, “Okay, I need to care for myself first.

[00:18:15] It matters how I feel.” And I– and when I say that, it’s like for other people too, like listening, it’s like it matters how you feel on the inside because the realest things are in, it’s all happening inside of you. Like when you see stuff, it goes into your brain and you see it in your brain. Sound goes in there and you hear it in your brain.

[00:18:36] You touch things and it goes in, you hear it in your brain. So your whole world is happening inside of you. Like you can see distance, you know, and hear distance and like 3D stuff, but it’s the way your brain processes it. So it’s like learning to be at home inside this body and loving it and caring for it and appreciating yourself.

[00:18:55] And I learned that it’s like [00:19:00] Some people are, like in religion, you’re taught that it’s selfish. You know, they ca- they love themselves so much. They’re so selfish, you know? But you can be super humble and care for your body and be… have an organized mind, and then the better you care for yourself, your body, the better you can care for other people.

[00:19:20] And the coolest thing there is, like, when you feel that self-love, you want other people to feel it, and then you’re like, “Ooh, I’m gonna be nice to them. I’m gonna be nice to them.” And then it’s like coming from such a genuine place versus I’m gonna try to act how a religious person would act. I’m gonna try to do this nice thing and take a picture for social media for them to see it.

[00:19:44] Like, service comes from such a more pure place when you’re doing it out of knowing how it feels and you want them to feel that, and like acknowledging that their inner world is the most important thing to them.

[00:19:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:20:00] Right.

[00:20:00] Paul Miller: ~Um~

[00:20:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and I, I’ve said this probably hundreds of times on this show, but it’s, the same idea as, ~uh,~ you know, if you’re on an airplane and they tell you to put your oxygen ma- mask on first and then help others around you. ~Um,~ it’s not selfish that you’re doing that, it’s just you’d be pretty useless to the person next to you if you’re passing out as you’re trying to help them.

[00:20:17] So take care of yourself first, and then you can take care of the other people. And it’s… It, it just makes sense. But then when we go apply it to other f- areas of our lives, ~uh,~ we get hung up on that. Like, “Oh, no, I, I’m selfish because, you know, may- my religion tells me I’m, I’m selfish for taking care of myself,” or society or some other internal, ~uh,~ messaging that you might have with yourself is, is telling you that that’s, that’s a selfish thing.

[00:20:45] You can’t do that and take care of yourself. You gotta run yourself ragged and make sure that everyone else is taken care of first. ~Um,~ but y- you can, you can do that, but not forever. You know? You, you can, you can go outta your way to help somebody who’s in need, ~um,~ and [00:21:00] not, not be like, “Oh, man, that, that guy’s, you know, pinned down by a car, but you know what?

[00:21:03] I’m kinda hungry, so I’m gonna go grab a burger first,” you know?

[00:21:06] Paul Miller: Gotta fuel up

[00:21:07] Scott DeLuzio: so you, you can put yourself aside for, you know, certain things for, for a little bit, but you, you gotta, you gotta, ~uh,~ be able to kinda weigh that balance, and you can’t do that forever. You know?

[00:21:17] Paul Miller: Yeah

[00:21:18] Scott DeLuzio: you can’t go save everybody, ~um,~ you know, if, if, ~um,~ you’re not taking care of yourself as well. you know, so I, I wanna, ~uh,~ wanna talk a little bit about, ~uh,~ Uncivilized Rebirth. ~Um,~ we kinda danced around that a little bit earlier, I think, and, ~uh, um,~ tell me a little bit about, ~uh,~ Uncivilized Rebirth and, and what that’s all about, and, ~uh,~ then we- maybe we can kinda dive into a little bit more about that.

[00:21:37] Paul Miller: Yeah, sure. So the name first off, Uncivilized Rebirth, is being who you wanna be outside of society structures. Uncivilized is like, not uncivilized as being a caveman, but, ~uh,~ uncivilized as I’m not gonna fill this role. I’m not gonna try to pretend to be [00:22:00] this. I’m not gonna play this part anymore. I’m gonna be me as in rebirth ’cause from a young age, humans are in a human…

[00:22:10] I call it a human herd in America, and you get put into a program, a– I call it a government programming facility. So you put them in a government, a public school, and then for like literally 12 something years, you have to go here, sit here, learn to think this way, learn to spit this information back out.

[00:22:34] And then you go out, and you get programmed by what you see on TV to wear or what popular thing is to like, to go do for vacation. And you’re in this zoo where you’re told how to dress, how to think, how to do everything, how to act, how to make sounds. Like, one of our biggest freedoms as a human is our freedom to [00:23:00] believe what we want and the bree-freedom to make sounds.

[00:23:03] We are controlled from a young age of what sounds we can and can’t make. I think that’s horrendous actually. Language is useful, but you’re telling these humans, “You can’t make that sound. You can’t make that sound.” So then there’s all these glass ceilings, but getting programmed in at a very young age. So when you’re older, it’s like, “We don’t have to worry about this human because we conditioned it from a very young age.”

[00:23:29] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:23:29] Paul Miller: So Uncivilized Rebirth is undoing that conditioning, undoing the belief systems and their structures I’ve built. One is the character trigger, and that’s the core of it is this structure that you create yourself. It has tapping, breathwork, visualization. You create your own symbol, which this part’s super cool, and then you fill out a character sheet of who you want to become.

[00:23:58] And this is [00:24:00] becoming the version of you that you think could be amazing and not being the old version of you that’s conditioned by society. Imagine going around and when people speak to you, their words mean nothing and you respond how you want to.

[00:24:16] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:24:17] Paul Miller: ‘ Cause if somebody comes up and they’re like, “Hey,” and they give a loud hey and a whistle, you’re like, you look where like, “Is that me?”

[00:24:23] Or your inner– You know how you energetically feel that hit sometimes like I’m late. You look at the clock, you’re like, “Oh crap.” That’s conditioning straight up. What if an- anything that came in your brain, you were able just to look at it and then be like, “This is how I’ll respond”? Because the human brain, like we’ve been around for a long time.

[00:24:45] Humans have been studying humans for a long time. We have been studied so much like, and we are the most highly trainable species on Earth. So [00:25:00] We have a soul in our body, and we are not free. Once you’ve been programmed by language and conditioned, stop at this light, which I understand for safety, but still you stop thinking about driving.

[00:25:13] Sometimes you zone back in, you’re like, “How did I drive three miles and not even know it?”

[00:25:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right

[00:25:18] Paul Miller: You were literally conditioned and programmed to do that. And so you create a character sheet and then a symbol, and whenever you look at the Nike symbol, you kind of know everything about that company. Or you see the Apple symbol and you think about a sleek design, you know, that CEO who was a little bit of a-hole and maniacal, but he did a great job.

[00:25:42] And you think about their stores and their, ~um,~ customer relations, and you get this feel of like, that’s a pretty good company, and they protect their brand very well. Just like, you know, Nike, just do it. Oh, that’s a sports company. Tennis shoes, ~uh,~ Michael Jordan, all that stuff populates in your [00:26:00] brain because here’s a powerful thing about symbols.

[00:26:03] Information can be connected to a symbol. That visual symbol can access all that data at once. You don’t have to think about it in a certain order and be like, “Mm, what was that word? What was this thing?” It’s like, it’s all there.

[00:26:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right

[00:26:19] Paul Miller: So– And that’s a feeling. There’s an identity with that company, you know? And so when you create your own symbol and create your own character sheet of who you want to be, then whenever you see your own symbol, all that information that you’ve programmed in because there’s a process to it, there’s a proper way to do it.

[00:26:39] Well, I say proper is the way I’m created it, and it works that way. So when you think about your symbol and s- obsess about it, you get a feeling of all the things you want to learn, how you want to act. It’s basically a new codex. I call it like lifting the needle off your character reel and putting in new [00:27:00] programming.

[00:27:00] Scott DeLuzio: Okay

[00:27:00] Paul Miller: how people are like, “Oh, that’s just Tim. That’s just Anitra,” or, or whoever. Those are people I used to know, but it was not referring to them if they ever watch this. It’s just two random people, and it’s like

[00:27:10] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:27:11] Paul Miller: just how they are. That’s not how we have to be Because if people programmed us externally, we can program ourselves internally from the inside out.

[00:27:22] And so it just takes awareness and certain processes. And so, ~um,~ what we’ll– what I do is like there’s tapping where you program in tapping, doing breathwork, so you have a very calm mind. Then you visualize your character, your symbol, you do your tapping. And so eventually when you do it enough, when you do your tapping, wherever you set your tapping up, all your information populates in your brain about the character you want to be.

[00:27:52] So to get a little deeper, so let’s say there’s this old behavior that Paul does, [00:28:00] and to– for that behavior to happen automatically, there has to be this external stimuli or an internal stimuli. Maybe it’s twelve o’clock at night or I feel lonely, and then all of a sudden this process kicks in like a robot.

[00:28:14] I go to the refrigerator, get ice cream out, go sit down and watch TV. But I know I don’t want to do it, but I do it, and I do it, and I do it. What’s happening is there’s energy going into the brain, going down a neural pathway, going to a marker saying, “Do this process.” And then the energy goes out and it’s like a sheet of music on a player piano.

[00:28:37] It gets put on and the body’s like, “Oh, move the arm, walk over here, open the fridge, grab the ice cream, get the spoon.” They’re processes that I’ve programmed in doing it over and over, and I get that ice cream dopamine hit. So the goal is to get that energy when it’s going down that neural pathway that’s really, ~um,~ [00:29:00] refined or like a really beat down path that you walk up to like you’re lost in the woods and you see this awesome path, but it leads to a bad spot.

[00:29:08] But you follow the dang path because it’s so easy to follow.

[00:29:11] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:29:12] Paul Miller: You got to create a new path in your brain, a new neural pathway to this new behavior that you want to do. So the character trigger is designed To capture that energy. And then once that energy is in a new marker, you’re like, “Okay, I’m gonna operate from this identity and do this new thing.”

[00:29:33] And it’s not easy building new neural pathways to a new activity when you could easily do the old one where the energy is going down that old pathway. So with this, somebody has to be, ~um,~ feeding their brain the proper nutrients to build the neural pathways, the myelin coating, the, ~um,~ for those neurons to fire.

[00:29:55] Like, if you have a highway and you’re like, “We’re gonna build a [00:30:00] Walmart over here,” and you have no exit, nobody can get there. Then there’s like, okay, we have all the instructions to build the exit, but we have no building material. That’s what it’s like for the brain. So when people are trying to do new things or do new behaviors or do that, they’re like, “I just can’t keep it up.”

[00:30:18] Well, one thing is like, if you don’t feed the brain right, you can’t… Your brain can’t build those things in there. So it’s literally wasting your time. You might be able to do it once. You know, you have the marker, I can do this skill, but I want to get it where I do it automatically.

[00:30:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:30:35] Paul Miller: So like I would– like part of it is with the inner work of like wanting to change how you are or how a person is, it’s changing your energy output and making sure you can build those pathways in your mind.

[00:30:52] So it’s, it’s so much more than like, “Go take a cold shower and r- you know, be David Goggins. Just be [00:31:00] hard.” No, like you gotta love yourself where you’re at. You gotta have the knowledge of what’s going on inside. ~Um,~ and then you need like the character trigger, in my opinion, to really… ‘Cause once you use it enough and you can activate it, it’s a feeling you get of having that future version of yourself.

[00:31:20] But then it’s like, ooh. It’s like this is… You start to embody that new identity. It… And it takes time, but it’s a r- it’s a really cool program

[00:31:30] Scott DeLuzio: It, it sounds like it, and it, it sounds like it makes a lot of sense, too, ~um,~ where, ~uh,~ y- you know, if you’re, if you’re just doing this on your own and not really… just kind of floating through life. You’re not, you’re not really giving it much thought, and it’s like, “Gee, why isn’t, why isn’t anything just working for me?

[00:31:49] Why isn’t anything, you know, working out the way I, I, I want it to?” ~Um,~ but you keep doing the same thing that you’ve always done, probably gonna keep getting the same results that you’ve always gotten. And [00:32:00] so making some sort of changes along the way is going to be necessary. ~Um,~ now one of the things that you, you mentioned, and I, I just wanted to back to, ~uh,~ you mentioned, like, the nutrition, kinda like the, ~uh,~ the, the building materials for the, the exit ramp, ~um,~ f- so that your brain can, ~uh,~ rebuild those, ~uh,~ those connections so that they go to the right place and not, not down the wrong path.

[00:32:24] Paul Miller: Yeah.

[00:32:24] Scott DeLuzio: what are some of those things that you would recommend as far as the, the nutrition goes to, ~uh,~ be able to build those things? ‘Cause we, we may have the goal in mind. We may have like, “Hey, I wanna, I wanna do things this way and that w- you know, whatever,” and we have our, our plan in, in mind. But, ~um,~ you know, without the, the right building materials, we, we may just, ~uh,~ be looking at some blueprints with no actual way of getting that done.

[00:32:46] Paul Miller: Yes. So here’s the way I do it. I eat leafy greens and vegetables because those are micronutrients that the body needs. It’s like vegetables are filters [00:33:00] for the nutrients we need from the ground. So I was like, I eat the ve- the leafy greens, all that good stuff. And then I like to take vitamin B supplement with thiamine, ~uh,~ vitamin D, fish oils or vitamin B complex, ~um,~ omega-3 fish oils for like brain food because we need to fuel the brain.

[00:33:22] ~Um,~ if we’re just eating junk food, it doesn’t have the energy

[00:33:25] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:33:26] Paul Miller: work. And so there– and there’s a couple other that I, others that I can’t think of right now, but I’d keep it simple. The vitamin B complex with thiamine, vitamin D, omega-3 fish oils, and leafy greens, and lots of leafy greens. That’s what our body needs.

[00:33:44] And I’ll eat eggs too, and, ~um,~ I like ghee butter. That’s a good brain food also.

[00:33:49] Scott DeLuzio: Okay

[00:33:51] Paul Miller: and then here’s a good cheat for that also is like in the program, I have cheat sheets, like PDFs. As you get to a certain point, it’s like, okay, here’s this [00:34:00] PDF to go over, like for grocery lists, you know, for feeding your brain.

[00:34:04] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:05] Paul Miller: ~Um,~ and I don’t have all that memorized,

[00:34:06] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:34:07] Paul Miller: but it’s easy to go to ChatGPT and be like, “Okay, pretend that you’re a neurologist and that I need to bring– feed my brain as, as well as possible to create a new neural pathway. What foods and what supplements would I take to do that?” And it’ll be like, “Boom, here you go.”

[00:34:29] And it’ll literally– Because it can access the human resource database of like about humanity, so it can tell you exactly how to shop to feed your brain right.

[00:34:39] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:40] Paul Miller: And so, yes, I think I should be able to sit here and spit all the proper data, but what I do is I keep it simple. ~Um,~ very simple, because it’s not that complex

[00:34:52] Scott DeLuzio: Well, and, and that, that’s a good thing, I think, ~uh,~ for, especially for folks who are, ~um,~ you know, listening to this and thinking, “Gee, I don’t wanna change [00:35:00] my whole diet around or, you know, ev- change everything about everything that I, I am doing.” ~Um,~ you know, ma- making a few changes, you know, g- taking some supplements, some vitamins, and, and those types of things, that’s not a huge, ~uh,~ change, I don’t think, for, for many people.

[00:35:13] You can, you can easily do that. Go, go into the store and get, finding some decent quality, ~uh,~ you know, vitamins and, ~um,~ you know, see how that works for you. And, ~um,~ you know, eat some more salad or you know, tho- those types of things. Like it’s, it’s not like the end of the world. It’s not, you know, like, ~uh,~ you know, to, to make that, those kind of changes f- in your life. ~Um,~ and, and see how that, that helps you, you know, along the way. ~Um,~ you know, don’t, don’t eat one salad and say, “Well, it didn’t work for me, and, you know, ~uh,~ I, I give up.” You know, you, you, you’re probably gonna have to have more than one salad, I’m, I’m guessing, in order for this to, to, ~uh,~ be effective. But, ~um,~ you know, it’s, ~uh,~ it’s, it’s kinda, you know, just working your way through the problem.

[00:35:51] ~Um,~ you know, again, we go back to, you know, you’re, you’re on a patrol and you get ambushed, and okay, this is a new piece of information. I, I have to, ~uh,~ you know, [00:36:00] figure out where, where the, the ambush is coming from. How do I react to it? What do I need to do? And you, you, you just react, and you, you adapt, and you, ~uh,~ you know, ideally overcome whatever the situation is that you’re, you’re dealing with. ~Um,~ but I know, I know a lot of times, ~uh,~ folks, especially dealing with, ~uh,~ veterans dealing with PTSD or other kind of traumas, ~um,~ you know, even, even stuff like with what you were experiencing with the, the medical, ~uh,~ issues that you were having and, and, ~uh,~ the discharge, your, your children getting taken away from you, all those kind of things, is ~Um,~ know a lot of f- times folks dealing with these traumatic in- incidents, ~uh, uh,~ they end up having some sort of limiting beliefs that they, ~uh,~ they, they just feel stuck and they, they don’t, they don’t even believe that they are capable of doing anything, ~uh,~ you know, more than what they’re currently doing. ~Um,~ and so, like how can they start challenging those beliefs in, in a way that allow them to, ~uh,~ kinda move down the path that you were just describing?

[00:36:56] Paul Miller: So [00:37:00] Those are those glass ceilings als-also talking about, like

[00:37:03] Scott DeLuzio: sure

[00:37:03] Paul Miller: we’re growing up or being raised or we go through a traumatic event, we can feel worthless. “Oh, my wife left. I’m pathetic.”

[00:37:13] You know, Oh, I failed this. I’ll never be useful.” And then those are those limiting beliefs. But in challenging that, it’s scary to…

[00:37:25] And because that becomes like part of who we are, and we become in this certain bubble of like, we don’t expand too far this way. We don’t explore too far this way. We don’t do too much this way. And so we limit ourselves, and we stay inside of that.

[00:37:41] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:42] Paul Miller: But to expand out of that, we have to initially look at what’s this limiting belief, and why do I have it, and what do I want to believe?

[00:37:52] What do I want to believe is true? What do I believe I can do? And that’s part of like developing the character [00:38:00] of like, who do you want to be? It’s like… And then in those moments when you come up to those glass ceilings of, let’s say it’s, “I’m gonna go date again after divorce, but I’m worthless. You know, I’m tainted goods.

[00:38:13] I’m no good,” and then I just pull back.

[00:38:16] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:16] Paul Miller: And then when those things come up, and it could be anywhere, it could be learning a new skill, getting a new job, or going into a new territory, whatever it is, we have to choose, okay, the version of the person that I want to be would do this. It’s fear. So now I would have somebody activate their character trigger and then be like, “I’m gonna do this now because this no longer serves me.”

[00:38:44] And then also it helps to do the deep dives by yourself, be like, “What was the initial thing that got me here?” Like, “Why do I hesitate at this?” And if we dig deep enough, seek and ye shall find, like you’ll find where you were in your [00:39:00] past, whether something happened, you learned something, maybe religion.

[00:39:05] Religion, in my opinion, is very limiting to our human capacity. And you’re like, “Oh, that’s where I started believing that.” And then ask yourself, “Does this serve me?” And then gently tell yourself, “You know what? I give myself complete grace for being this way. I did this to protect myself. I d-didn’t choose to believe this at this time, but this no longer serves me to believe this, and I’m gonna be uncomfortable stepping into this new season.”

[00:39:35] But when you choose to feel uncomfortable from being in your comfort zone, you’re growing, and you realize like, “Oh, it’s not that bad.” You know, it’s like when your parents are trying to… Or you’re literally, you’re, “I don’t want to eat that,” and you take your bite and you’re like, “Ooh, that’s good.”

[00:39:51] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right

[00:39:52] Paul Miller: I, for years I wouldn’t eat it.

[00:39:54] So you have to become uncomfortable to grow And you step through that. [00:40:00] Challenge those limiting beliefs, and then ask yourself like, “The highest version of me, like, how would I conduct myself? How do I see myself being?” And then you can run through visualizations. You know? Like athletes who perform at a high level, and soldiers as well, you know, it’s like they will play things out in their mind and visualize it and visualize it.

[00:40:25] And the thing about that is your subconscious is seeing it, and your brain is making a memory of you doing that. So now it has memories of the way you’re gonna conduct it. So here’s another little tool that I use in my work, is that somebody activates their character trigger. They go into their mental library, which is a really important piece.

[00:40:49] It’s like the operating system, how you interface inside your brain.

[00:40:52] Scott DeLuzio: Okay

[00:40:53] Paul Miller: And you go in there, and you imagine yourself that you’re 30 years in your [00:41:00] future, and you get that feeling. You look around, and you’re like, “Ooh.” Your subconscious sees you being 30 years in the future. You’re in that character that you’ve created, and now you’re making a memory.

[00:41:13] You’re– It’s being recorded, what you’re imagining. Then you remember back to the past to where you’re at And you know how you can remember like, “Oh, I remember all those times I went to the field and trained.” You know, you don’t have to remember each individual one, but you know all of them.

[00:41:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:41:31] Paul Miller: And then what you do is you remember all the times that you wanted to change and how you did change.

[00:41:37] You’re like, “Man, I remember doing so much better in all these, in all these events.” And let’s say it’s, ~um,~ meeting up with family members that are toxic and they make you blow up, ’cause family is such a contentious thing and they can keep us trapped in identities. And so you remember back 30 years in the past, I remember [00:42:00] all those times over the years after that I started controlling myself.

[00:42:04] I car- started controlling my emotions, and I did such a good job, and I was like so controlled, and I no longer fit the role that this family system wanted me to fit. Because a lot of people join the military ’cause they’re running away from a broken home,

[00:42:19] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:20] Paul Miller: and when they get out they can get put back in that role of playing small.

[00:42:25] But you’re a warrior. You went to war. You’ve done amazing stuff. You aren’t meant to play it small. Like you freaking bad A.

[00:42:33] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:42:34] Paul Miller: So you’re showing your subconscious and making a memory of all the things you did in the past that you’re going back in time to where you are now. So now your subconscious thinks it’s already happened.

[00:42:48] And so now when you go into those situations, you’re… and you hit your character trigger, check this out. There’s a coding now in those memories that identifies with that character [00:43:00] trigger, the character you want to be. So now when you in real time step into those situations, your subconscious is flipping through the files of programs.

[00:43:09] It’s like, how does this character act? How does this character… Boom, you control yourself. You control your emotions. You’re very clear with your words. And then y- you make it through these situations easier, and you keep doing this until it gets programmed in at the base level, so this is your base level of reacting.

[00:43:28] When I get triggered, I’m calm and cool and I say really calm things. Ooh, cool. I’m like reversing the whole triggering system.

[00:43:37] Scott DeLuzio: Sure, sure. And this, this to me makes sense too because, ~uh,~ there are, ~uh,~ other people that I, I’ve spoken with who have described, ~um,~ kind of a way to, to shift your mindset of who you are. ~Um,~ you know, if you are overweight and you have, you know, some, some health issues stemming from your, your weight [00:44:00] issues and, ~um,~ you want to be the type of person who to the gym, who eats well, who, ~uh,~ you know, does all the, the things that will help your, your weight and get you into better shape. ~Um,~ you tell yourself, “Okay, well, I am the type of person who, ~uh,~ you know, grabs a piece of fruit instead of a cookie,” or, ~uh,~ the, the type of person who, you know, goes to the gym instead of binging Netflix or, you know, tho- those types of things. And, and you start just telling yourself like that this is who I am, and eventually you do those things enough and it kind of becomes who you are.

[00:44:34] You know, so when you’re about to sit down and, and turn on Netflix, you’re, you’re like, “You know what? No. I… That’s not who I am. I’m, I’m the type of person who goes to the gym, so okay, let me go put my, my, ~uh,~ gym clothes on and I’ll, I’ll go to the gym and I’ll, I’ll get my exercise in.” ~Um,~ or, ~uh,~ you know, you’re in the grocery store and you’re about to buy some, some cookies or, you know, whatever, ~um, “Uh,~ you know what?

[00:44:53] Let’s go to the, the produce aisle instead and let’s get some, some, you know, fruits and vegetables and tho- those types of things and, and make some [00:45:00] healthier choices because that’s the type of person I am.” And, ~uh,~ you do those things enough, eventually it really does become who you are, and that, that’s just your, your baseline now. And as opposed to your, your previous baseline might, might have been something else that was, ~uh,~ a whole lot more unhealthy, and now you’re, you have a more much healthier baseline and, ~um,~ then you can, you can work on that and improve on that from there and say, “Okay, well, I’m… Not only am I, you know, the type of person who, ~uh,~ you know, goes to the gym, maybe I, ~uh,~ maybe I ride my bike to work,” or, you know, something like that too.

[00:45:32] And then I just add in those, those types of things to make even further refinements or, ~uh,~ you know, improvements on, on those types of things. But, ~um,~ you know, it, it can work i- if you believe it and you’re, you, you’re disciplined enough to, ~uh,~ kind of follow through with, with that as well, I think, right?

[00:45:46] Paul Miller: Yes, completely. And that’s reprogramming the brain, reprogramming the baseline. ‘Cause look at this, like, you join the military, like, here’s what a Marine is, and you’re gonna train and fill this role. [00:46:00] Here’s what an infantryman is in the Army. Here’s what an airman is. This is the role you’re gonna fill, and this is how you’re gonna do there, and we’re gonna make you do this stuff over and over and over till this is all you do,

[00:46:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:46:12] Paul Miller: that’s who you are.

[00:46:15] The character trigger is doing that. It’s like you’re going– you’re– in military and all these systems like police, firefighter, religion, ~um,~ whatever you go do, there’s something, a role you’re gonna fill, a character you’re gonna play. But now you’re saying, “What character do I wanna be? What role do I wanna be?”

[00:46:35] And then you do this stuff over and over and over until you create those baselines of who you wanna be. And, and you’re breaking out of those limiting beliefs, and you’re starting to eat healthy because, like, the highest version of a h- of a human is gonna eat clean.

[00:46:50] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:46:51] Paul Miller: Because, like, I tell my kids this, it’s like, “If you wanna build a strong house, do you use marshmallows or bricks?

[00:46:58] Bricks.”

[00:46:59] Scott DeLuzio: Right[00:47:00]

[00:47:00] Paul Miller: with the human body. Do you eat processed food or stuff from the ground? Because when we get put in the ground, whether anybody believes anything about where we came from or who created us, our bodies rot away and go back into the ground. And so to be the best version of ourselves, we need to feed ourselves from where we go back to and came from.

[00:47:24] I heard somebody say this. I forgot his name. Cool dude. I don’t think he’s alive anymore. But he’s like, “The Earth, when humans came along, the Earth peopled.” You know, it’s like an apple tree apples and the Earth peopled, and that’s where we came from. So, like, and like, I like where you were talking about eating clean and healthy.

[00:47:42] Like, that becomes part of who you are when you do it over and over, and you program that in.

[00:47:46] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:47] Paul Miller: ~Um,~ and it’s hard to fight the dopamine hits. That’s so freaking addictive. And, and the companies know that. That’s what they bank on completely

[00:47:58] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and it, and it’s [00:48:00] really hard, especially if you’re dealing with something that is, ~uh,~ quite addictive. It could be, ~uh,~ you know, or alcohol or, ~um, uh,~ e- even some types of foods, you know, sweets and, and even salty-type foods. So those types of foods that you just start to crave, ~um,~ and it subconsciously you kind of become the type of person who every day after dinner I’m gonna have a drink or two or three or four or, or whatever.

[00:48:27] And then that two or three or four becomes five or six or seven, and then it’s just easy to kind of fall into that trap of, oh, well, what’s one more? Oh, what’s one more? And then you, you start to become that. ~Um,~ and you’re not consciously thinking, “Oh, I wanna be that type of person who has seven or eight drinks a night.” You just kind of find yourself becoming that. ~Um,~

[00:48:51] Paul Miller: Yeah

[00:48:52] Scott DeLuzio: ~uh,~ oh, well, what’s the big deal if I have a, you know, drink at lunch or, you know, e- even earlier in the day or, or something. And it just makes it that much easier to [00:49:00] rationalize those bad behaviors, ~um,~ when, ~um…~ not to say that there’s anything wrong with, you know, having a drink every once in a while.

[00:49:06] ~Uh,~ that, that’s not what I’m, I’m trying to say. But th- you know, if, if that’s your, your default is like every day, ~uh,~ that’s what I’m doing, and every, every day, ~um,~ I’m gonna add more and more and more over time, ~uh,~ then, then it’s becoming a problem. And, ~uh,~ then you, you, you kinda need to tell yourself, “Okay, I am the type of person who maybe just doesn’t drink at all,” and let’s, let’s find something, ~uh,~ else that I can, I can say, you know, “This is the type of person I am.”

[00:49:30] May- maybe go to the gym instead or, you know, do something more productive with your time than just, you know, sitting, sitting around drinking a beer or, or whatever. Like, find something else to kinda occupy yourself that is you towards the type of person that you want to be ul- ultimately. And, and I…

[00:49:49] But I think going back to what you were saying before, you ultimately need to figure out who that person is, like who do you actually

[00:49:54] Paul Miller: Yes

[00:49:55] Scott DeLuzio: ~Um,~ and it’s not, ~uh,~ not easy when you don’t have a clear mind, when, when your mind’s [00:50:00] cluttered with, you know, drugs or alcohol or, you know, all sorts of other stuff that, that might just be, ~uh,~ rotting your mind away, right?

[00:50:06] Paul Miller: Oh, yeah. And, and I’ve been there.

[00:50:09] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:10] Paul Miller: I think a lot of people have, like, the drinking, the drugs or pills, and it is a slippery slope like you’re saying. You’re not thinking, “I’m gonna be a six-a-nighter, a 12-pack-a-nighter.”

[00:50:20] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:50:21] Paul Miller: It just slowly gets there. And the thing that I thought of when you were saying that, for anybody listening that might be there, it’s like Give yourself grace.

[00:50:32] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:33] Paul Miller: Stop with the shame, blame, judgment, and guilt, and be a loving coach to yourself. And really ask yourself, “Does this serve me anymore? Does it really serve me?” And maybe think about, like, what your great-grandkids will think about you. You know? It’s like, did he drink himself to death, or she? Was it just a drunk?

[00:50:55] Or did they stop drinking and change and turn their life around, you know, or [00:51:00] stop the drugs? And, but with that, instead of, like, driving a Ferrari down the road and then put it in reverse, all of a sudden totally change gears, we gotta give ourselves grace where we’re at. Like, anybody that walked your path would probably have ended up there where you’re at or maybe not have made it as far, ’cause there’s many people out there with stories that are just jaw-dropping.

[00:51:23] And it’s like, I understand why you drink. Understand, understand why you start doing drugs completely. But those seasons that we started those coping mechanisms are probably gone, and now it’s time to s- be like, “Okay, I don’t need to drink as much. You know what? It’s okay that I’m where I’m at, but I’m gonna slowly take steps to shift the direction I’m going.”

[00:51:51] You know? S- and, and when you give yourself grace and you love yourself and give yourself acceptance, you’re not operating from [00:52:00] shame, blame, and judgment because then when you’re like, “Oh, I failed again. I drank another beer. I’m drunk. Oh, I’m such a failure. Why even try?” Then you’re beating yourself up.

[00:52:11] That’s shame, blame, and judgment. You should be like, “You know what? I’m gonna try again tomorrow. Fuck it.” You know, “This is where I’m at. I’m gonna give myself grace, and I’m gonna try again,”

[00:52:20] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:52:21] Paul Miller: step back into that battle over and over. And to build something big, which a human character is a massive thing to build, it takes twenty-four/seven, it’s little step by little step.

[00:52:35] And then congratulate yourself. Let’s say you usually drink six beers, and one night you only drink two, and then you drink water. Be like, look yourself in the mirror and say, “I did a good job. I’m proud of myself. That’s fucking awesome, ’cause I coulda drank eight or six,

[00:52:50] Scott DeLuzio: That’s

[00:52:51] Paul Miller: I dialed it back.” Then you get that validation of those little steps, and you’re like, “Ooh, I wonder, can I do another little step?”

[00:52:59] [00:53:00] And before you know it, it’s, like, just water. You know? It’s like… And it’s a process. Like, it takes time, but you must love yourself tremendously. And i- it’s, and that is hard to accept, self-love. It is so hard.

[00:53:16] Scott DeLuzio: It is. And a lot of times in our, our heads, we are our own worst enemy, and we’re beating ourselves up, and we’re telling ourselves we’re, we’re not worth it or we’re not worthy of love or, ~uh,~ whatever good things might come to people by doing these more positive things. So what difference does it make anyways?

[00:53:34] I don’t deserve it, so, you know, maybe, maybe I just stick with the beer, or I stick with the, you know, getting drunk and doing drugs or whatever it is. ~Um,~ but to your, your point, like, it, it’s not an easy thing, but it’s, it’s so worth it because when you discover that these good things can happen to you, that if you allow them to, they, they can happen, ~um,~ y- you, you realize that your, your potential is, ~uh,~ [00:54:00] virtually limitless, where you can keep adding on another good thing, another good thing, another good thing until, ~uh,~ you know, you get to this version of yourself that you’re, you’re like, “I’m, I’m happy.

[00:54:10] I’m content with where I am right now. ~Uh,~ I don’t, I don’t need to change because of somebody else or, or whatever. I’m, I’m good right where I am, and if I do make a change, it’s ’cause I want to, and it’s because there’s something that I feel that I need to, ~uh,~ either add or remove or, or whatever, ~um,~ get to the place where I, I wanna be.

[00:54:31] But that’s on my terms, not, not somebody else’s.” Right?

[00:54:35] Paul Miller: Yes.

[00:54:36] Scott DeLuzio: So,

[00:54:37] Paul Miller: And

[00:54:38] Scott DeLuzio: yeah,

[00:54:39] Paul Miller: I’m sorry to talk to you

[00:54:40] Scott DeLuzio: yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s hard, but, ~um,~ you know, again, like we were saying, I, I, I think it’s, it’s totally worth it. But, ~um,~ I’m, I’m sure there are some veterans listening today maybe at a, a low point, and they wanna start moving towards a better future.

[00:54:53] ~Um,~ they, kinda maybe seeing that there, there could be a better future. Maybe they’re in a situation like you were in where, ~uh,~ you know, family’s [00:55:00] kinda falling apart or, ~um,~ you know, their health is not where they want it to be, or something is just not there. They’re, they’re not in a great place.

[00:55:07] What’s, what’s one small but meaningful step that they can take, ~uh,~ today, in the next 24 hours or in the next week or so to start moving themselves in th- that right direction towards a, a better future?

[00:55:19] Paul Miller: There’s a couple of things there I would say. ~Um,~ first off, mirror talk is so important.

[00:55:24] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:55:25] Paul Miller: When you get up in the morning, look in the mirror in your right eye and say, “I love you,” three times. Look in your left eye and say, “I love you,” three times. And at first it feels awkward, it really does. But when you do it over and over, your subconscious sees another person looking back at you, telling you that you’re loved, and it’s okay to love the vessel that you’re in.

[00:55:48] And right now it may feel like a really dark cloud over your life and like things are spiraling out of control. And the only thing you can control is yourself. And so what [00:56:00] I would say is sit down for a few minutes and envision your life, what you would want it to look like in thirty years, the most amazing version of yourself.

[00:56:13] And sit with that for a few minutes, what that would feel like. And it’s hard when you’re in the dark. I know it is. It sucks. But imagining is for free. So you can do that. And then come back to where you are and be like, ” You know what? It’s okay to be where I am. I give myself full grace.” And then the first things that I would tell you to do is keep making your bed, take your trash out, check your mail, do your laundry, fold your laundry, do your dishes, sweep your floor.

[00:56:42] Take care of what you can take care of, because right now, in this dark days, these dark days, you’re building habits. You’re building habits. So now is the time to lean on your discipline that you still have and take care of what you can take care of, because [00:57:00] when you come home to a messy house, everything gets worse.

[00:57:05] You’re like, “Oh, I gotta do this. I can’t even take the trash out. I c- I’m a fucking failure.” You know? It’s like, “My dishes are piled up, my floor is trashy.” Well, that’s your fucking fault. That’s the truth. It… But when you come home to a clean house in a shitty situation, you have a clear space. You don’t have this chaos energy, and you’re like, “Okay, cool.

[00:57:26] I did something good. Heck yeah.”

[00:57:28] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:57:29] Paul Miller: And so it’s like, if you’re in a situation, a shitty situation, just focus right where you are right now. Imagine where you can be, and then start doing the small things around you because those are victories. That’s a… Sometimes all you can do is make your bed when you’re so depressed and sad, but that’s a freaking victory

[00:57:48] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yeah. And, take those small steps and d- do that one, one thing, and then, you know, add, add onto that if you can, ~uh,~ you know, wh- when you can. You know, start [00:58:00] adding onto those things and, and you, you work yourself towards that better future, I think, right?

[00:58:05] And, ~um,~ you know, I, I think, ~uh,~ a lot of folks out there are, are probably in that, that situation.

[00:58:10] They’re, they’re in that, that low point. They’re in, ~uh,~ that, that situation. But, you know, doing those small little things, ~um,~ you know, to your, your point, you know, if you come home to a house that’s a mess, you know, that, that is your fault. ~Uh,~ if, if you left it a mess, well, it- that’s your fault. You… Bottom line, you can’t blame anybody else for leaving a mess when it’s your mess that, that you left there. ~Um,~ at, at the same respect, you can also, ~uh,~ look at it on the, on the flip side, I, I guess I should say, ~uh,~ where if you come home to a clean house, that’s also on you. You know, because you took care of that, and you cleaned it, and you, you made sure that it… Or, or maintained it anyways, if it was already

[00:58:43] Paul Miller: Yes

[00:58:44] Scott DeLuzio: You know, it’s, it’s a lot easier to maintain a clean house than it is to start from scratch at a filthy, you know, garbage everywhere and, you know, just a, a complete mess. So, you know, if you’re able to do that, ~um,~ that, that’s also on you, and that’s something you can say, “Okay, well, [00:59:00] did something good here.

[00:59:01] I, you know, look at this. It’s, it’s actually, you know, in pretty good shape.” You know? And that… Is it gonna be perfect? No. You, you live there, so, you know, it’s, it’s never gonna be perfect, especially if you have kids. I, I think anyone who has kids could probably understand that. But, ~um, uh,~ you know, it, it is what it is.

[00:59:15] You know? If it, if it’s in pretty decent shape, you, you can look at it and, and chalk that up as a win. So, ~um,~ for the listeners who wanna learn more, ~uh,~ about you and what you do with, ~uh,~ Uncivilized Rebirth, ~uh,~ where can they go to find out more information and, ~uh,~ and kinda get in touch with you?

[00:59:28] Paul Miller: So go to the Skool platform, Uncivilized Rebirth, search for that, and you’ll find the community that I’ve built, and you can join it. And then we can set up a, a Zoom call, or not a Zoom, whatever it may be, like video thing, and, and I’ll explain it to you in more detail. And on the page, it, like, tells a little bit about it, but not in great detail.

[00:59:55] But all I like to do is I like to do a call with somebody and explain it to them [01:00:00] what we’ll be working on. And there’s phases to it, lasts about three months. But the thing is, it gives you tools to create who you wanna be. And it’s not like stuff that is like try to make you cookie cutter or anything.

[01:00:16] It’s just internal tools to get your mind organized, and that is a powerful thing in and of itself

[01:00:24] Scott DeLuzio: Well, that is awesome, and I will have a link to that in the show notes for the listeners. ~Um,~ and I’ll, I’ll have a link to, ~uh,~ you know, any, ~uh,~ of the resources and, and things that we talked about. I know you, you talked about tapping and breathwork, and I, I’ve had some other episodes on, ~uh,~ the podcast about that as well.

[01:00:39] So if people are kinda curious what that’s all about before they, they dive into something like this, I, I can, ~uh,~ link to those as well just so that they, ~uh,~ you know, kinda have a, a baseline understanding of, of what it is. But, ~um,~ definitely, ~uh,~ you know, reach out, check out Uncivilized Rebirth and, ~uh,~ you know, start moving yourself in the right direction.

[01:00:55] It’s, it’s one small step that you can do today and, you know, things that will compound in [01:01:00] the future. It’ll, it’ll just kinda get you, ~uh,~ moving in the right direction. So, ~uh,~ Paul, thank you so much for, ~uh,~ coming on the show and sharing all your experiences and, ~uh,~ you know, the, the work that you’re doing now, ~uh,~ to, to help other folks out.

[01:01:11] I think it’s, ~uh,~ you know, a great, tool that, that is out there for folks to use if, if they’re, uh, in need of that type of, ~uh,~ guidance and direction. ~Um,~ and like I said, the, the, those links will be in the show notes and, ~uh, uh,~ thank you so much again for coming on the show, Paul.

[01:01:25] Paul Miller: Thank you for having me on

[01:01:26] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, you bet.

Read the full transcript

595 – Lee Stuckey
===

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Coming home can leave a veteran carrying nightmares, feeling isolated, and feeling the pressure to look fine while everything underneath him is falling apart. Our guest today, Lee Stuckey, lived that reality after three Iraq deployments and an IED blast. At his lowest point, a phone call from his mother interrupted him as he was trying to take his own life.

He eventually found a path back through service. The outdoors music, spiritual health, accountability, and self-assessment, that path became a hero. A community, Lee says, has served more than 13,000 veterans and first responders and helped prevent as far as he knows, more than as 600 suicides over 16 years.

Lee shares how opening his farm to other veterans gave his pain a new direction. How Brazilian Juujitsu kept him connected to disciplined people and how a heroes four [00:01:00] pillars can help someone identify where life is breaking down. This episode will offer a look at rebuilding purpose, one decision and one relationship at a time.

Before we get into this episode, though, I want to take a minute to raise awareness for the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism.

This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and serve as a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:58] Scott DeLuzio: Hey Lee, welcome to the [00:02:00] show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:02:01] Lee Stuckey: Yeah, I’m so super excited to be on here, Scott. I appreciate the invitation.

[00:02:05] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, you bet. ~Um,~ before we jump into the conversation, for the listeners who are, uh, maybe meeting you for the first time and not familiar with who you are, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

[00:02:14] Lee Stuckey: Yeah, so, so the condensed version is, uh, military school introduced me to the Marine Corps as a young wayward child. And, you know, mischievous, I tell everybody, mischievous, not malicious. I didn’t go outta my way to be like evil or, or create bad things. I was always the class clown, you know, just like to, to get in the middle of stuff.

~Uh,~ the teachers probably didn’t appreciate me at all of the ones I was asked to leave. And then eventually ended up at a place called Marion Military Institute, and that’s where I met my first Marine, who was a Staff Sergeant Sutton. Now, uh, when, when I left there, he was gunny, but just, just, I remember looking back, going through a lot of stuff in my life and getting into a lot of things.

He carried himself in just a whole [00:03:00] different demeanor and a manner than everybody else around him. And he definitely stood out to me. And so fast forward to college, go to Auburn University, uh, make a zero really good at partying. Terrible at studying, uh, social butterfly with a bowl cut. I looked like Justin Bieber with the hair where you have to do this.

And just a pudgy fraternity boy as a Sigma new at Auburn and just wasn’t going anywhere and, and really, you know, spending my time doing things I shouldn’t have been doing and not living a healthy life. And I looked back and remembered Staff Sergeant and, and that Marine said, man, I gotta do it. And I remember my parents, when I told ’em my mom, I said, Hey, I’m, I’m going to Paris Island on Monday.

And she goes, oh, that’s wonderful honey. Do you have friends there at this island? And I was like, no, it’s Marine Corps Bootcamp. And she’s like, well, why would you do that? And they tried to convince me. To not go in the Marine Corps. And my dad even bribed me with a new truck, a four wheeler a [00:04:00] boat, said, dad, I’ll, I’ll still be a kid that’s lost and have no direction with a new boat.

And I’ll probably end up, you know, wrecking the truck after that. And so dad, one day I’ll be okay and I’ll get my own truck and my own whatever. ~Uh,~ to this day I probably wouldn’t buy a boat. It’s better to have friends with boats, but, but, but definitely, you know, I needed a change. And so went, went to Paris Island, went off to bootcamp.

~Uh,~ I was a marine machine gunner, so oh 3 31 was my original military operational, uh, occupational specialty. And then I came back as a, a still freshman, you know, year two and did a lot better. And I made really good grades. I’d finished Paris Island, I’d finished School of Infantry. I had gone, you know, left for what was around seven months after I got back from School of Infantry.

Just things changed. I went from being a a frumpy fraternity boy who couldn’t run the initial mile and a half in like probably 14 minutes [00:05:00] and then magically Paris Island had me down to around 17, 17 30 for three miles. I remember walking past my mom at Paris Island when we graduated and my parents kept walking and I had to stop ’em and you can’t tell.

‘ cause since I put on some weight, but I was super skinny. I was about 150 pounds and it just really was a fresh start. It was a fresh start to really put a lot of that, those wayward ways behind me and have structure and new direction in my life and really the a plan to get to that next step. So starting every day with a routine and having a plan to get through that day.

And that’s where I really saw that huge 180 in my life. And if it wasn’t for a few incidents in high school, that led me to going to military school. I would’ve never joined the Marine Corps and I would still be wavered and lost and definitely wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am today. So you look at, you look at that as kind of like, that was my fa one of [00:06:00] my failures in life.

And if I just held on to, I made a huge mistake, but I knew I had to learn from that mistake and I had to get past it. And I’m glad I did.

[00:06:11] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And so many, uh, success stories start off in a way where you have some sort of, uh, some sort of, uh, failure if you will. You know, like, it, it’s not, I I don’t wanna say it’s a failure necessarily, because you know, you, you, it’s part of life. You, you try things, they don’t work out for you, and, and you, you adapt and you try different things and you keep moving on until you figure out, you know, how to, how to work your way through whatever it is that you’re, you’re going through.

And, uh, you know, in your case and many other people’s cases, I, I’ve talked to plenty of people who, uh, you know, we’re going down the wrong path in life and they decided, Hey, you know what? Let’s try the military. You know, one branch or another, they, they decided to go, uh, you know, in, into the military. Turn things around for ’em and, you know, they [00:07:00] get out and they are able to do so many, uh, things that they never would’ve imagined being able to do.

You know, I’ve, I’ve talked to people who, uh, graduated college, not only college, but got, you know, a master’s degree and they were failing outta high school and they’re barely, you know, getting by, uh, in, in high school and they joined the military and now they’re able to do all these other great things academically and then in their careers and all this other stuff.

They’re able to do so many things and, you know, so many of us have. Gone through the military and it’s a, you know, a shared experience that’s like, okay, well yeah, everybody, you know, who was in the military, we’ve all done these, these similar things, bootcamp, and, you know, other things like that. But, um, you know, it, it really is transformative to a lot of people and it, it allows them to, uh, see the potential within themselves.

Like, I, I, I was just kind of wasting my life away doing all this other crap. ~Uh,~ now I can go and, uh, do all these great things and, you know, nothing’s really holding me back [00:08:00] anymore. And it,

[00:08:00] Lee Stuckey: you remember the, the yearbooks had, you know, class clown, all those little sections. If there was one, I would’ve probably had most likely to be in a penitentiary, you know? But there’s no way, like in high school, I don’t even remember my GPA, but it was probably like a two, two or a two three. And then after joining the Marine Corps and ultimately getting a commission and going on to continued education in the military, like you’re talking about, I was able to get two master’s degrees.

So not only did I get an undergrad from Auburn University, which I love Auburn, it was such an awesome school, I was able to get an undergrad from Auburn University and then go on to get two master’s degrees. And have four point ohs in both of those master’s degrees programs. And that’s just a testament to that structure that the military provided.

And you know about failing, looking back on that, I, I failed and I fail and I fail, and I, I, I probably have a lot, a lot more failures and [00:09:00] success by far. But you look back at that and as long as you’re failing fast, it just means you’re learning. And I’ve learned a lot because I failed so much. And the only times I really, really have had success is when I bring in a group of awesome people that want to help us get through a mission and a program together and build something together.

That’s when we’ve had success. It’s never been I did this or I achieve this, or look what I did. The only thing I have ever done is failed miserably doing things by myself. So, you know, for anybody listening, if you can put that, I aside, I spoke at, or I was at a entrepreneurial class at UAB last week and everyone stood up and did their introductions.

There was 24 people in the cohort. I am the founder, I did this, I did this, I did this. I’m teaching a leadership part of it in a few weeks. And that was the thing, like if you just stick to I, I, I, it’ll never be, [00:10:00] we

[00:10:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And. There’s a saying, and I, I forget exactly where the saying comes from. I’ve heard it before, and I, I might butcher it a little bit here, but it’s, uh, if you wanna go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, uh, go together, you know, you know, and so I think that’s kind of to the point that you’re, you’re talking about here.

Yeah, you can go fast and you can break things and you can, you can do things on your own and, you know, make a lot of mistakes and do all the, the things on your own. But, um, when you want to go far, you want to get the, get things done, go together, get the people that are the, you know, more of an expert in certain things than you are.

You know, if it’s a business, maybe, you know, I’m, I’m not maybe the right, the best, uh, marketing guy. So let me get somebody in, in marketing that, that can help me out with that stuff. And, and, you know, sales or finance or whatever the things are that you, you need help with, um, bring those people together and. Clear your mind for the things that you’re able to do, and, and [00:11:00] then you can go, uh, a whole lot farther with those people along for the ride. And I, I think that’s, that’s kind of the, the point you’re trying to make there, right?

[00:11:07] Lee Stuckey: absolutely. And balance out those weaknesses. You know, we all have our gifts that I believe God’s given me, so I know them and like you, I I, I don’t know if you’re good at math, but if you start seeing me add up anything, you better pray. You better pull a calculator out. But, you know, we, we have those people that are good at finance, that are good at marketing, you know, that are good at team building, and so know each other’s strengths, know each other’s weaknesses, and be able to overlap the cover down.

[00:11:31] Scott DeLuzio: You know, I, I’ve joked with my wife before, I, I said if, uh, if we’re ever in a situation where we’re needing to do mental math and we’re sitting there, you know, calculating the numbers in our head and all that kinda stuff, and, uh, just know that I’m pretending,

[00:11:45] Lee Stuckey: Yeah, there, there’s not even a process in my brain that does

[00:11:49] Scott DeLuzio: It’s right now I’m thinking about what, what, what do, what do I wanna have for dinner or, or something. I’m, I’m just

[00:11:54] Lee Stuckey: I’m the same way. I do not like it.

[00:11:56] Scott DeLuzio: ~Uh,~ but, um, so let’s, let’s kind of move on, uh, you [00:12:00] know, a little bit. ~Um,~ so you, uh, you know, your time in the Marine Corps obviously, uh, was very, uh, productive for you.

You, you kind of turn things around in, in your own life. ~Um,~ but you had some, uh, some, um, ne maybe negative experiences in the Marine Corps as well. ~Uh,~ you know, going, uh, you know, deployments to Iraq, some IED situations and the kind of things that, uh, that maybe are not really on the, uh, the recruiting posters, uh, if, if you will, right?

[00:12:28] Lee Stuckey: Yeah.

[00:12:29] Scott DeLuzio: ~Um,~

[00:12:29] Lee Stuckey: you, you look at deployments though, and that’s your Friday night lights, and so we spend a lot of time in the Marine Corps or the military if you’re in a different branch and you get to practice all the way to Thursday. But you never get that opportunity to play Friday night lights for football analogy.

And so when I was, when I got commissioned and really in the 2003, right after the invasion, we went in with a, um, reserve unit. And then in 2007 I deployed with, uh, as an officer for my first, uh, deployment as an officer and then went [00:13:00] back in 2009. ~Um,~ and, and those deployments, that was your opportunity to play that Friday Night Lights.

And so the training that you focused on, all the way up to that point when things happened, it was second nature when things happened, you were so programmed and ready to respond. And we had such a great team and I was always so blessed to have really good leadership on those deployments, especially the 2007, which went from, um, January of 2007 to February of 2008.

So I was there for 13 months and then we had another one in 2009. And I was just so blessed to have really good commanders. I had Anna Reeves and First Sergeant Putnam. Who were just really, really good leaders and wanted to help us grow as lieutenants and, and staff and cos and they let us make mistakes and learn from ’em, and they let us build our team.

And so when, when, when I was blessed to take this team over in that invasion, we trained a lot. Before we got on that deployment, [00:14:00] we tried to cross train as much as we could. The machine gunner were doing com classes, casualty evacuation courses, my motor transport people were doing machine gun classes.

And so we tried to make as much as we could, an interchangeable unit to where all of the Marines could hop into a machine gun turn if, if we needed ’em there. They all knew how to use the radios. And so I was very blessed with such a phenomenal unit. A great company commander. A great company. First sergeant, my staff, NCO, uh, staff Sergeant Williams.

Retired as a first sergeant. We’re still friends to this day. I talked to him last week and just really, really solid group of marine. So that whole deployment, even though I got blown up during that deployment, it was awesome because everyone knew their job and everyone was so good at it that I knew regardless of what happened, we were gonna get through it.

And we were so fortunate to not lose any Marines. We had some Marines leave of the Purple Heart and were wounded, but we didn’t lose any Marines. So very blessed. And I remember [00:15:00] we had machine gun ranges every month and the Marines were like, sir, like why are we doing machine gun ranges in practice?

We’re already in combat. I was like, more of a reason to do more ranges. And so we would do these ranges and that was our opportunity to assess where they were that month and really look at, has something changed in their mind? Are they, are they back home mentally and are they not ready to shoot that machine gun?

Because out of my 13 gun trucks, I have 13 machine gunner that are behind this machine gun. I want my top 13 out of the company in that position. Because we had everybody for the majority, they could all drive a truck, they could all drive the mrap, they could all drive, you know, they could all get in the turret.

I could move them around based on that. And whoever shot the best got in that turret. And so we had our top 13 gunners and that was a coveted position to be a machine gunner on a security convoy. So we were just so blessed to, to really have some phenomenal marines. [00:16:00] They got it. And for a 13 month deployment, you really gotta keep people engaged.

’cause complacency traditionally kicks in. I think some studies say 90 days, you know, at best you’re gonna do six months. But that’s a stretch. I’m thinking 90 is probably the max. So to keep them engaged for 13 months to where every time you leave the wire, there’s a possibility you could lose your life or your buddies could lose their life.

I really, I, I’m confident that I can say our leadership did a great job keeping them. On task and making sure they were mission oriented to protect the people, the left and right of them.

[00:16:35] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and it’s great that you’re able to cross train everybody to be able to step into any roles because, you know, God forbid something did happen to somebody, you know, one of your machine gunner for example, gets, gets injured or you know, they, they’re not able to do their job. Somebody else can hop up in there and take over the machine gun and somebody else can, can be working on them, you know, from a medical standpoint, you know, whether they need a tourniquet [00:17:00] or some bandages or whatever it is that they need, you know, somebody else can, can handle that side of things as well.

So you don’t necessarily have to wait for your medic or corpsman in, in this case to, to come out and, and help, uh, with that type of thing. ’cause you, everybody is kind of cross-trained and, you know, while nobody may be. The, the top expert in that one particular field, they still can, can do things until you can, you can get people to, uh, to help out with that, that situation.

So, um, it, it’s one of the great things about, uh, the, the military is being able to do that type of thing. ~Um,~ you know, I, I served with a National Guard unit and we had folks who had their, uh, their civilian careers were, you know, they might’ve been a mechanic or a police officer or, you know, a, a wide variety of different careers and they brought all of that knowledge on their deployment.

And so when, you know, a vehicle needed some maintenance, we had our mechanic in our unit who, who kind of took a look and was able to go talk to the army mechanics to [00:18:00] say, Hey, this is what we need. And it was able to move things along a whole lot quicker. ~Um,~ and, and so just that. The more knowledge you can have, the better, you know, just ’cause your, your job is maybe a machine gunner doesn’t mean that you don’t need to know also some, maybe some medical, uh, training or, you know, to how to drive a vehicle or, you know, any of that other stuff.

~Um,~ it’s all important and, you know, having that cross training is, is, is super great. ~Um,~ you know, in information to have. So, um, now I gotta imagine with your, your deployment and, you know, getting blown up, that’s, that’s obviously not a, uh, an easy thing to deal with. ~Um,~ were, was there any, uh, issues after coming back home that you, you found yourself dealing with things like, you know, PTSD or anything like that after coming back?

[00:18:41] Lee Stuckey: Yeah, so, so I was blown up in 2007. It was November 16th, and I, I definitely don’t recommend parking on an improvised explosive device. It’s super bad for your health, but I, my tire actually initiated the IED, so it blew up underneath me and. We just, we got through it and [00:19:00] didn’t really stop and, and assess and takt time.

And so I think I was off, off the road for like 11 days or something like that, but it was short of the full extent and we just kept going because we had missions and I, we were, we were all focused on the mission and we were focused on getting it done. And actually looking back, my staff sergeant was blown up too.

I’m still trying to work to help him get a Purple Heart because he was blown up in there with me and I forgot he had his 10 day leave scheduled for like the next day or the day after that. And I forgotten about it. And I just, I was so off my own rocker and really don’t even remember any part of this. He spent that, that day at medical. And when we went through, uh, Baghdad International, went back to Camp Fallujah to go through medical assessments, he rushed through the process because he had, he wanted to go on leave.

[00:19:53] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:19:54] Lee Stuckey: And he, he had his whole family coming in and I believe it was a family reunion in Texas.

[00:20:00] His wife was coming in, everybody was coming in to a location and it was like the day after, if not two days at the most. And he was flying back to the States for his 10 day leave and his whole family was coming together. And so he didn’t tell them that he got knocked out and he didn’t tell them that he had lost consciousness as a machine gunner.

When I got blown up and my, my driver got knocked unconscious and years later he finally talked to me and was struggling really bad and is still struggling, and I’m trying to help him because he has a brain injury and he went through all this stuff, but he didn’t want to let his family down for everything they planned.

And so he just went through the medical process as quick as he could so he could get back to Texas and spend time with his family. You know, and obviously as he got older and he started having some issues with his head and some nightmares and sleeping issues and so forth. So now I’m working to get, you know, some witness a witness statement for him and, and help him get that.

But he’s [00:21:00] had some issues too. And just, you know, being transparent and, and telling people. And when I came back I just didn’t sleep

[00:21:08] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:09] Lee Stuckey: and I didn’t know if it was, you know, stress from the job. I was trained in mixed martial arts and I had a professional fight when I got back, which probably isn’t smart looking back after you get a brain injury, mixed martial arts.

But, you know, when you’re a Marine, uh, they’ve never said, Hey, y’all are really smart, right? So we, we ate crayons and that’s what people accuse us of. But, you know, I came back and I had this MMA fight scheduled. It was my first pro fight when I got back. And so I got back and I think I fought like the next month.

I wanna say it was March, but I, you know, it, it was pretty close after I get, I got back. So I was focused on doing that stuff, and I wasn’t focused on my health. I wasn’t focused on the fact that I was just staying up for three or four days, sometimes five or six, and then passing out from exhaustion. I’ve said this on a few podcasts, but the fortunate thing was I was fighting professionally, [00:22:00] and so I wasn’t gonna go out to the bars a lot.

I was really focused on staying in shape, but I just wasn’t sleeping. And uh, then as, as soon as I got hit for another deployment, I got ready to go to a Mosul rack with three one calve. And as soon as I got there, I started training for another fight. And so I was constantly chasing, staying in shape, taking care of Marines.

You know, I had a farm back in Alabama that we were running, and so I was running the farm back and forth. I had farm managers back here. My dad was helping me run it in my absence, but I had a fully operational farm back in Alabama. So I’m running the farm, I’m training for pro fights, and then I’m, you know, leading Marines and I was just exhausted.

And so I never sat back and said, okay, what’s going on with me? ~Um,~ the girl I was dating at the time, I was, I was sweating so bad. It was like I peed in the bed every night,

[00:22:55] Scott DeLuzio: Oh wow.

[00:22:56] Lee Stuckey: and it was so, it was drenched. I had to change the bed almost every day, and it [00:23:00] was embarrassing for the first part of it. But then I finally realized I wasn’t peeing.

I was just sweating really bad. And I talked to her about it and she was understanding, you know, she, she wasn’t obviously chastising me for it, but I was sweating so bad because when I would sleep, I was having such crazy dreams and my body was just living it, and I was just sweating profusely and having night tears.

And so when I would sleep, I’d have nightmares and I would sweat like crazy, and it was just a cycle. And so I went through that cycle over and over again from, you know, I went sleeping overseas. I got back in February. February of 2008, I got ready for a deployment deployed in oh nine. I came back from my deployment in 2009 and when I got back I had another fight.

And I had a fight as soon as I landed, you know, so as soon as I got back, I think it was like two weeks later, I had a fight and I, I told somebody else on another show. I just got a Facebook reminder, those little reminders, and it was a [00:24:00] picture of me like this, and my team was around me. ’cause I flew back in and I won this fight pretty quick. And so they’re all celebrating. And as they’re celebrating, I look back at that Facebook picture. I wanted to die in that picture. I wanted to die in that Facebook picture. And I was, I was going through the motions to do stuff and finish taskers. I had, and I was checking little boxes so I could go home and I could die.

And I just, I, I was so tired of being tired. I would wake up every day and put on this facade and I’m happy, Lee, if it, you know, whoever’s watching. If you know me, I’m always making people laugh or trying to make people laugh and trying to be, you know, the center of attention. Not in an obnoxious way, but just to make people feel better about themselves.

And regardless of what I’m ever going through, I never want to put the people around me through that same emotion. ’cause you know, 99% of [00:25:00] the time it’s not their fault. Like I’ve got exterior stuff going on. They didn’t cause it. So that’s how I was doing it. And I was a chameleon and I wasn’t telling anybody, I’m not sleeping.

I wasn’t telling anybody that I was having these crazy nightmares. The only person who knew was the girlfriend at my, at the time that I was having these night sweats and night terrors. And I wasn’t telling my commanders ’cause I want to get promoted. And so I didn’t want to tell them that I, I was starting to think about suicide.

So I came home, um, I wanted to see my parents. I wanted to see my mom and dad. I wanted to see the farm and spend a little time here. And then one Thursday night in August, I went to shoot myself. And as I was taking my life at my farm, my mom called my cell phone as I was pulling the trigger on a Glock with no external safety.

So if you know about a Glock pistol, they have no external safety. It’s a pretty easy squeeze. And she called at the split second. I was taking my life [00:26:00] and it was a Thursday night, around nine o’clock at night. And she calls me periodically, like once every two weeks, three weeks. Now she calls me a lot more, but there’s no, there’s no set mama time to where she checked in.

And I really believe as a Christian that God used her as a vessel.

[00:26:16] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:26:17] Lee Stuckey: God used her as a vessel to reach out and call me. ’cause he knew I was about to take my life. And he knew that we had more to do and that I had more to do on this earth as a vessel. And so. Just broke down crying, you know, answered the phone.

She knew something was up. She came out. She immediately, fortunately I was on recruiting duty at home and so she could drive about 30 minutes, uh, from the top Alabama to where I live in Shorter. And she came out and took me back to her house and, you know, just was like, what are you, what’s happening? She was terrified.

She didn’t know what was wrong with me. ’cause I was always this outwardly funny alpha male, you know, confident person. And I was just defeated. I was defeated. And I was at, you know, I, I was underneath the [00:27:00] hole. I had buried underneath it. And I finally told her, I just said, I just don’t wanna be here anymore.

And I just had so many emotional issues, um, just exhausted. And I’m, I’m weak, I’m a sissy. I don’t wanna tell anybody I’m struggling with all these things. I don’t wanna tell anybody I’m having any kind of issues, period. I finally realized after going through counseling and being transparent and opening up and talking to numerous counselors about this, that if you go through combat, you know, even tornado victims, rape victims, sexual assault, whatever it is, if you don’t have issues going through those types of trauma, you’re probably a sociopath.

And so the fact that I was going through these things, these, these abnormal events that aren’t supposed to happen to you, and I was having these normal reactions to an abnormal event in my life meant I was a normal person. And I had to figure out like, I’m never gonna be a hundred percent. Like after you go through things in [00:28:00] your life, you start taking percentages away from your life and you’re never gonna be a hundred percent again.

But how can I build it back up to where I’m gonna be? Okay? And so I started looking at how am I doing physically? And how am I doing financially? How am I doing emotionally and how am I doing spiritually and, and spiritually for me is most important. Being grounded in something bigger than yourself, even if you’re not Christian.

Being grounded in something bigger than yourself and believing in something bigger than you. And it’s not all about you and your life. And having that as a foundation to build everything else on. And that’s what turned into what is now America’s heroes, enjoying recreation outdoors. And that farm that I was managing was really just my farm.

So I could personally bow hunt. And I don’t even think I told any of my friends. I might’ve told one or two of ’em. They were really close to me, but I was very selfish with it. And I wouldn’t share it. I didn’t wanna share my blessings. That was my farm. Those were my [00:29:00] dear. And, and, and that was my opportunity to get away.

And when we started a hero and when I started sharing my blessings and I said, this is truly not mine. It’s God’s. I wanna share my blessing and help others and serve others with this. I had just enough money within the next couple months to buy the farm next to me, and I had just enough to get the next one.

And over the last 16 years, we’ve built programs in Tennessee. We’ve got a music record label, we’ve got all these programs. Once I said, this is not mine and for me this is yours. And for others, the blessings just started flowing. And, and that was really the eye-opening day. And these opportunities to see this is not about me. So, you know, as leaders, we don’t want it to be, I did this or I did that. We wanna recognize, even if I know that I was probably the driving force in pulling a team [00:30:00] together, I still wanna give the credit to my

team. A good leader is gonna praise his team and, and give them all the credit, and then take responsibility for any failures. I failed to be there. And with that, with stewardship, with property, with anything you’ve been given, the more you share it, the more I shared it. We started building these programs and since then we’ve been able to bring in thanks to a phenomenal community, thanks to my current board members, Dave Glassman, Lex McMahon, Jeff Tuggle.

I mean, they’re really my best friends. I talk to ’em all the time. I talk to ’em more than probably most friends talk to each other and they’re my board of directors. And then Aaron Peterson’s our, our quote unquote a hero house mother. But just having these super close people and then my wife is my best friend that really understands and gets it. The community that’s around this group and the hundreds of people that pour into us to make a hero successful is how we’ve been able to [00:31:00] help over 13,000 and how we’ve been able to stop over 600 suicides that we know about because it’s those people. Those couple hundred supporters that take that spiderweb effect in our message and spread it out and go to their social media and go to their churches and go to their workplace and go to their communities and go to their softball games and they hear, Hey, I’ve got a friend who’s a veteran going through a problem.

And they say, well, I’ve got a place so you can send them. And so really everybody taking their 1% of what our mission is and sharing it and growing it to a hundred percent for each of them is how we’ve grown. And I’m just so blessed to watch it grow for the right reasons.

[00:31:44] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and it’s, it’s great. It’s incredible just hearing you, you talking about this and you know, in my mind I’m, I’m thinking of the, the timeline and the, the transformation that’s taking place. Going from that basically that rock bottom moment where you, you didn’t want. [00:32:00] Anything else? You, you, you are done.

~Uh,~ and, and you, you wanted to essentially check out and, uh, you know, here, here you are now, years later, um, talking about all these people that you’re able to help, um, you know, serving something bigger than yourself, big, bigger than, uh, you know, just you and that one, one farm. And, uh, you’ve, you’ve expanded it to multiple regions and helping thousands of people.

~Um,~ you know, and, you know, hundreds of people are, are still here today because of the program that you put on. ~Um,~ and it’s, it’s just such a great transformation. And, you know, just thinking about, um, you know, what must have clicked and what must have registered, uh, at some point that, that basically. Opened you up to say, Hey, there, there is something more.

~Um,~ and, and I, I a hundred percent agree with what you said, that, uh, your, you know, your mom calling was not a mistake or, or an accident that it happened at the time that it did. There. There’s, there’s no coincidences when, when it comes to stuff like that, [00:33:00] as far as I’m concerned. And, and there’s definitely a, a reason that she called.

And there’s definitely, uh, uh, you know, more work to be done and, and you’re, you’re clearly doing it right now. And, um, you know, I I, I wanted to ask though about a hero and, uh, you know, what you guys do here. Like why, in, in your, your opinion, why you think that the outdoors and the, the hunting and fishing and those outdoor experiences, um, are able to help, you know, veterans and, and first responders in ways that more traditional set settings, you know, a therapy office or things like that sometimes can’t, uh, reach them.

[00:33:36] Lee Stuckey: So I consider it God’s creation and E, even if you’re not Christian, it’s so healing just to be out. A lot of people say, I’ve gotta get my vitamin D. And being out in the sun and just being outside and really enjoying seeing the birds, hearing the birds, watching the animals, seeing these beautiful farms that [00:34:00] we’re able to go to.

Being out with these boat owners on these beautiful sport fishing yachts, and spending time with them pouring into us and seeing the ocean, seeing the sunrise. You know, we do a morning walk and we do our beach trips, and I tell them, your cell phone stays in the house. You’re not bringing your cell phone.

And for an hour, they’re listening to the ocean and they’re, they’re watching the sunrise and they’re spending time thinking through, where did I want to be for me at 46? Where did I think I was gonna be? Where am I? Where do I want to go? How am I gonna get there? And so, taking that time, and it’s tough to be in a deer stand in Alabama. I know I talk a lot so people listening to this know me, they’re like, you talk in the deer stand the whole time. But being on your, being on your cell phone or watching stuff on your cell phone, the most of the time I missed animals ’cause I was texting [00:35:00] somebody. But disconnecting from screen time and completely disconnecting from that.

Reconnecting with what matters and using the outdoors as a place to reconnect with something bigger than yourself and just enjoying that time. And, you know, we have this, this new way of doing things in 2026 to where you have to respond instantaneously. You don’t,

[00:35:22] Scott DeLuzio: No,

[00:35:23] Lee Stuckey: nothing’s gonna happen. And if somebody gets mad, ’cause you didn’t text ’em back, you probably should talk to ’em about going to the doctor and talking to somebody about it.

You know, that’s their problem, that’s their problem, that’s not your problem. And I’m guilty of it

too. And so taking this time to schedule it in your day, every day and in your day, every day, starting up with no cell phone.

[00:35:45] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:35:46] Lee Stuckey: Start your day whispering with your creator before you enable and allow the world to yell at you.

So for me, I whisper with God every morning before I allow the world to yell at me. [00:36:00] So how profound is that? If you just set that phone away and don’t touch it and whisper with your creator before you enable and give the world access to scream at you. ’cause you’re the one that’s accepting that text message, that Facebook post, that email, that news on CNN or Fox News is gonna make you mad.

Whatever you watch, you’re the one that turns that on to consume it. So just don’t start with that. And you know, through a hero doing outdoor recreation and being outside, I encourage them while we’re doing those events, leave your cell phone in the lodge. You know the Gods will have ’em. So we’re safe and we can communicate to ’em.

Leave it. If you’re fishing, it’s not gonna work anyway. ’cause you lose signal after you get about three miles out. So it’s done. You can use it for taking videos and pictures, but just be in the moment and be present. Don’t be the person that goes to dinner and you’re on your cell phone the whole time you’re on dinner with a good friend that came in to see you.

Don’t even put your phone on the table [00:37:00] while you’re eating dinner. Put it in your pocket because you’ve immediately made that phone more important than your friendship.

[00:37:04] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:37:05] Lee Stuckey: So that’s really why, why I think the outdoors and being out deer hunting or out Turkey hunting or out fishing, or even we have orchards at a hero farm.

We have these beautiful orchards that are dedicated and greenfields that are dedicated to people who have been killed in action, wounded in action. Or if it says on their side, RIP, they took their own life and I don’t want their name to ever be forgotten. And so we speak about ’em. And when people sit in that shooting house, they learn about that veteran a first responder.

They learn about the sacrifice of that individual. And so being out there and being present in the moment and spending time with that person, you’re out there in the woods with.

[00:37:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. That it, it, it’s definitely something that has been lost because I know, you know, as, as kids growing up, there were no cell phones, there’s no internet, no [00:38:00] anything like that. And over time, you know, tho those things started to come along. And, um, you know, when we did first have internet, it was, it was dial up, it was slow.

It was, it wasn’t something that you were gonna be on all day long. It was something that you, you went on, you accomplished a task, whatever it was that you needed to do, and then you got off and, and you. You put it away in a sense, kind of like what you’re talking about with the, the phones. Keep them in the lodge while you’re going out and doing the thing that you need to do.

~Uh,~ and it was the same thing with, you know, video games and other things like that. It was, you didn’t carry the video game around in your pocket. You, you had a video game if you wanted to play it for 20 minutes, a half hour or whatever, then, then you did that. And then you went off and you did something else and you, you shut it off and you put it away.

It, it wasn’t something that was constantly around with you. And, and the, the cell phones these days, they just make it so easy for these distractions to be around us 24 7. ~Um,~ that it’s sort of changed our way of interacting with people where [00:39:00] even when we are face to face with people, sometimes people just don’t know how to.

Have a conversation outside of, you know, texting it to somebody or, you know, sending a message on social media or whatever. ~Um,~ and it, it probably, uh, creates a, a even greater feeling of, uh, you know, isolation and feeling like you’re all alone because you’re not really with someone when you’re talking to them through text messages or, uh, you know, Facebook messages or, or things like that.

Not to say that there’s anything wrong with communicating that way and you know, but when that’s your primary mode of communication, it probably causes some, some other issues. Right.

[00:39:39] Lee Stuckey: Well, now that you’re saying that, that makes sense. When people are in front of me and I talk too much, they’re trying to swipe left. They’re trying to get me away from him or just be quiet. So that makes sense. Now I’ll tell you, I had, I had a, uh, opportunity for about 10 seconds to get a, a video game when I was a kid.

I grew up on a quarter horse ranch and I asked my dad, [00:40:00] who’s 97, so he is about, you know, he was 51 when he had me. I said, dad, can I get an Atari? And he goes, what? What’s an Atari? I said, it’s a game. He goes, oh, I got a game. Go cut the grass and clean the horse stall. So that was my, that was my very brief opportunity to have a video game.

And I never had a video game, but I’m glad I didn’t. I grew up to work ethic and my dad was the one who would wake you up at five in the morning on Saturday and you would go pick up all the trash around our property. We called it the bar ditch, but the ditch or the, that was all the way around our farm and all the people that drive by it and throw garbage out.

We had to pick up garbage and we got to play for Saturday when all the trash was gone.

[00:40:44] Scott DeLuzio: Oh wow.

[00:40:45] Lee Stuckey: So that was a, you know, and if you think a piece of trash is under left my car. You didn’t hear my story.

[00:40:52] Scott DeLuzio: ~Um,~ so for the, the veteran who’s out there listening right now, uh, who’s stuck feeling like they’re stuck at [00:41:00] home, they’re avoiding people, they’re telling themselves maybe that they’re fine, but maybe somewhere in the back of their head they kind of know things are not quite right. ~Uh,~ what would you say is the first step towards reconnecting with their sense of purpose?

Maybe even, uh, sense of comradery with, with other folks and, and just getting out there.

[00:41:17] Lee Stuckey: Yeah, I mean, the first is getting healthy and getting healthy and, and finding something. You know, the great thing about the military is it gives you structure and you, you know, you know you have to do pt, physical training at 5:00 AM or five 30, and then you got chow and then you got this and you got that.

And then when you get out, you have no direction, you don’t have a schedule. So just really building a schedule. But not sitting in your house and not, and, and going and getting outta your house and finding a group to get involved with volunteering with a group. ~Uh,~ you know, if it’s not a hero, you know, a cancer society, a service dog program, but being a part of something that’s out in the community, and I, I’m, I’m worn out most of the time, [00:42:00] but I still structure it and I make myself go to, tonight.

I’ve got a Tuesday night men’s thing that starts at six 30 and I don’t dread going, but I’m worn out and I’m like, man, I’d really like to, to stay at the house and not go. But every time I leave those things I’m revitalized and reinvigorated and I’ve met some awesome people and so the connections and I’m like, always, I’m so glad I went because I met that person, or I heard that golden nugget in the speech that helped me move into Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Then I’ve got another thing I’m going to Thursday for the entrepreneurial program at UAB, and it’s just one of those things. I’m driving two hours for an hour and a half, but I know that hour and a half I’m gonna spend time with people that are gonna help me grow. So being, looking back when I was going through alcohol pro problems, I would sit in my house in my cabin over here and my wife wasn’t here, and I would drink and stay in there for like [00:43:00] four or five days, sometimes six. And I would do nothing productive. I’d watch TV and drink and then I would finally leave and go outside. And I’m like, it’s a whole new world out here. And it is crazy looking back on that life because I never did anything productive and I never got anything accomplished. And I was super, super unhealthy.

And so I, I, I don’t even want to think because I’ll be depressed about how much time out of 46 years I’ve spent. Doing something similar, whether I was 13 and 14 and, and getting into trouble or whatever, that wasn’t focused on building myself to be healthier, but whatever I failed at, I’ve always learned, rebounded and come back 10 times better.

And so if you’re listening and going through financial issues, I sat down finally after facing it and wrote out a list of ways I was gonna get out [00:44:00] of it, of ways I was gonna, you know, get employed, focus on doing work, you know, get more jobs and get back into fixing my credit card situation or whatever I had going

on. I just kept myself busy. What didn’t help my financial situation is sitting in the house for six or seven days, drinking it got worse. And, and, and the same thing with my physical health. You know what, what changed is getting around a person and accountability partner. Working out and getting in better shape and doing jiujitsu classes, and really focusing on getting in Brazilian jiujitsu and focused on a team that was gonna keep me accountable.

And then the emotional piece too. So whatever I went through at that time, I would sit there and just be like, this is it. This is the worst thing I’ve ever gone through in my life. And it really wasn’t. I look back on it and regardless of what timeframe in my life, it’s so small in comparison to the blessings that came out of that trauma.[00:45:00]

So I had a job last year and it was by far the worst people I’ve ever worked with in my life, like hands down. And I went through 86 days working with these people, and it was absolutely just terrible, unethical, um, gaslighting had no integrity, super high turnover, disrespectful. The most disrespected I’ve ever been treated in my entire life.

I didn’t say a word because the Bible says, don’t argue with fools. And I just put in my earbuds and I did what they were telling me to do and I grinded through and I stopped and said, for 86 days, what am I supposed to learn? Why am I here? How do I never come back here and I’ll never go back there? And how do I keep my friends from coming back to this similar position? That was honestly one of, one of the darkest, small, short [00:46:00] periods in my life because I’d retired and I’m a retired marine officer and I’d gone through a lot of chaos. I fought professionally and I, I’d done a lot of different things and I never thought I would come out as a retired marine officer and be treated with that much disrespect and be treated that terrible.

And, but I stopped and I said, man, I wanna build something out of this. If I hadn’t gone through that 86 day period, I would’ve not built legacy leadership. We would not be on this podcast. I would’ve not started. I’m almost finished with my book. I’m on final edits and I’m finishing my first book, all the Blessings that came out of that 86 day, I’m gonna call it a PhD in bad leadership.

I mean, seriously, that 86 days, that that three month period was a PhD on how not to run a company, how not to treat your employees and, and how not to be a leader. And so I learned from that and I’m finishing a book on it and I’m talking to [00:47:00] people about it. And I want to go to corporate America and really stress how important it’s to be a servant leader.

And so I, I took that whole thing, not a wha wha poor me thing. How can I grow from this and how can I build it to help others get through it? And that’s what it’s about.

[00:47:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And I, I think that the last piece is the, uh, probably the most important piece, obviously helping yourself to, to learn, you know, obviously what not to do, but being able to then take that and help others to learn what to do, what not to do, that type of thing. Because again, that’s serving something bigger than yourself.

That’s not just, let me just take all this information and hoard it for myself because I, I wanna, you know, be the best of, you know, best type of leader myself, but somebody else might be able to benefit too. So let’s share that knowledge. Let’s help other, other folks out. And, you know, as you, as you go and do that, that that ripple effect [00:48:00] will, will reach out and touch other people who then will touch other people and it’ll, it’ll continue down the line.

And, and so I, I think that that, uh, kind of mindset that you have there is, is pretty great.

[00:48:11] Lee Stuckey: Being super cautious though, and sorry for cutting you off, but being super cautious. About not allowing an environment to change you

[00:48:19] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:48:20] Lee Stuckey: a, about going into that environment because I watched a person go from being, you know, this Christian self-proclaimed all this stuff. And, and within a couple months he was a part of that, uh, of that team.

And I watched him transition pretty quickly to adapt to that environment.

[00:48:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:48:39] Lee Stuckey: And so being careful and cautious when you get in situations like that, when you go into environments, if it is a really toxic and bad environment, you don’t need to stay in it. You know, you’re, you’re probably not gonna change it, so you need to figure it out pretty quick.

But don’t compromise your own integrity. Don’t compromise your own self-worth, don’t compromise your ethics and morals, [00:49:00] and don’t change your belief system to merely fit in to a bad environment. I immediately saw it for what it was. It was like, woo, I gotta put on my spiritual armor and get through this.

But at no point was I gonna compromise who I am at 46 years old to fit into any situation. And so just being really cautious to not get in there, even though there’s a lot of lowering and really cool aspects of where this place was, I wasn’t gonna give into that and change who I was as Lee Stuckey and who I wanted to be.

[00:49:33] Scott DeLuzio: Right. No. And that, that’s, that’s a great point too. ~Um,~ you know, yes, you, you’re, you can’t always, uh, control the, the cards that you’re dealt, but you can control how you react to them and, and how, how you play the hand, uh, if you will. ~Um,~ and you know, it, you don’t wanna, uh, compromise yourself and your, your integrity and your morals and values and, and things like that.

Just because you got dealt the bad hand with the, [00:50:00] whether it’s the people that you’re working with or. Whatever people that are in your life in general, um, you don’t want that to, uh, be controlling kind of the outcome there. ~Um,~ I wanna, uh, switch gears just slightly here. ~Um,~ you, you talked about, uh, a hero and you talked about the music piece of it too.

We talked a lot about the outdoors and, and that type of thing. ~Um,~ where did the, where does that, uh, kind of fit in to the whole, uh, program and how, how do you find that music and creative expression can, can help veterans? ~Uh,~ you know, is it kind of complimentary to some of the outdoor piece or is it, uh, you know, kind of a, a separate program?

[00:50:35] Lee Stuckey: Now it’s, it’s so complimentary and it started with Bob Regan operation song. And so Rusty Tabor was, is one of our musicians with music for a hero, and really helped us see the power of it. You know, anybody listening knows that music has an important part of your life. You’ve got your, your breakup song, your together song, your your football song, your workout song.

Like we all have our songs that connect [00:51:00] and, and, you know, remind us of something. And so bringing music into it as a healing aspect was enormous. And so thank, I just wanna thank Bob Regan and Operation Song for inspiring us. Rusty Tabor to starting Music for a Hero with our program, which UL ultimately turned into a Hero Records, which is a record label for veterans and first responders.

And so when, when you had, our four pillars are physical, financial, emotional, and spiritual and the emotional piece, that’s where I see the music is, is really huge in that. And watching someone come in with so much trauma, they don’t wanna share it, they don’t wanna talk about it, it’s, you know, they keep it compartmentalized in a figurative tote in the back of their closet.

They don’t want it to pop open, but it rears its ugly head and that tote opens up when they’re drinking or whatever else. We wanna bring that out and [00:52:00] they’re, if they’re willing, link them up with our musicians and they write their trauma into their story and they take something that’s so traumatic.

That keeps them up at night, makes them drink alcohol and they can’t get past. And it turns into their story of resiliency. And instead of hiding it back in that figurative tote in the back of their closet where they don’t wanna look at it, I want ’em to put it at their coffee maker or at their front door.

And before they leave their house every day, I want them to be reminded of how resilient they are and what they’ve been able to overcome in their life because of their community, because of not being defeated by those things that bothered them back in 2007, 2010, 2015, or whenever that trauma happened.

And so it’s different. It’s not white coat to warrior, which is doctor to warrior. It’s a musician who really cares about him and loves ’em and wants to help ’em get through [00:53:00] this. And they write a three minute work tape, which is their comeback song, and it’s awesome to watch it. And you take a group of people. Who are very reserved and not wanting to share. And by the end of it, they play this song in front of the entire group on Saturday night. And we do test testimonials and it’s awesome to see this family be built within a three day period. And so we’ve got Rusty Tabor that I mentioned, who’s a Grammy nominated singer songwriter, uh, Mike Carotta, who I think he’s probably got five or six albums.

He might have more, but phenomenal singer songwriter who’s been writing for 30 something years. ~Um,~ we’ve got, uh, he’s, he was our original director for a Hero Records and now Jeff Sylvie took over as our director for Hero Records, who writes, he’s written for George Strait, uh, three drinks behind. He’s been writing for George for the last 20 something years.

Phenomenal. ~Uh,~ Casey Fall, she just had a new album come out on a Hero Records Friday, so her first album came out [00:54:00] and she’s got a fabulous, I think it’s seven songs on that album. Aaron Justice just wrote a song for a strength of a survivor. Aaron Justice is just another one. ~Uh,~ Jake Carrolson, Corey Rose, uh, Kevin Adair was one of the original guys that helped us build it.

And you’ve got, I mean, three to 400 years of songwriting experience all in one room that are helping these veterans and first responders build a song that’s gonna help them heal. It’s just been awesome. It’s my favorite part. I’ve been writing personally for over 20 years, and I tell my musicians, I write a poem until you give it a melody and then it comes, it becomes a song.

[00:54:40] Scott DeLuzio: Sure, sure. Yeah.

[00:54:41] Lee Stuckey: just so therapeutic.

[00:54:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And I. Talk to other folks who have used other, uh, creative art forms. ~Uh,~ not necessarily music, but things like, you know, uh, sculpting or painting or, you know, things along those lines where they just couldn’t talk about whatever their, [00:55:00] their trauma was. ~Uh,~ it, it was hard for them to put it into words, but they were able to put it on a canvas, put it on a, uh, uh, you know, mold the clay, uh, or whatever it was that they were doing.

And when they’re showing their, their artwork at, you know, in an exhibit or, or something, uh, people start talking about it and they, they feel like, now I can talk about it. ’cause I’m, I’m not talking about the, the thing that happened. I’m talking about this thing that’s in front of us, this thing that I created and, and why I created what was going on in my head while I was thinking about.

You know, shaping it the way I shaped it and painting it the way I painted it, and I’m sure the music is very similar to that, where there’s, uh, yes, sure, you’re, you’re putting it into words, but you’re, you’re thinking about it in, in the moment and you’re, you’re the, the song is coming out the way it, it came out because of the experiences that you had.

And, and it’s a way that you can get it out there without necessarily having to sit down and, and talk about it the way you might in a therapy session. ~Uh,~ it, it’s a little more creative way of doing it. [00:56:00] It’s maybe a little more colorful way of doing it, and it, it allows folks, I, I think, uh, to be able to, uh, share things that they maybe otherwise wouldn’t have.

Felt comfortable with sharing. And I, you know, I think it’s a, a great way of, uh, expressing yourself when, when you have this type of, um, you know, uh, this type of environment where there’s plenty of people there to support you and, and help you through and, and cheer you on as, as you’re, you’re sharing this stuff so you’re not feeling like it’s a, such a scary environment to be able to do that, right?

[00:56:34] Lee Stuckey: If you look how it’s set up, it’s set up deliberately to listen, to understand. It’s impossible to write a song with these songwriters if they’re gonna listen to respond or listen to solve a problem. And so, unlike a lot of us, and I fall victim of this all the time with people, people will call me and say, Hey Lee, I got a problem.

Like, well, I’ve got a solution. And so they don’t, you know, a lot of times they don’t want a solution. They want you to listen and [00:57:00] understand and just help them through it, but not just immediately respond. And sometimes people just want you to listen, but for a songwriter, they have to listen to understand, to capture what you’re describing.

So it’s such a great way to go through a therapeutic moment and really get through that process.

[00:57:18] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. ~Um,~ jumping ahead here a little bit for, uh, veterans who feel maybe like their best days are behind them, you know, their, their glory days, where when they’re kicking in doors and, you know, doing all the the fun stuff that we we did in the military, um, how would you help them start thinking about the legacy that they can still build for their family, their community, uh, and, and like in your case, other fellow veterans?

[00:57:45] Lee Stuckey: I don’t want to be the high school football player wearing my high school letter jacket when I’m 50. And that’s really how I look at that. Like nobody wants to be that dude. So I don’t want that to be the only thing I [00:58:00] accomplished. So, hey, back in high school, I threw a 50 yard. Like I I got you, man.

That’s awesome. You know, and, and just continuing to pour into your community, continuing to be a part of something bigger than yourself and continuing to move forward. I was able to go see a good friend of mine now who I just met, but just really took on to pretty quick, who’s a retired Army colonel. And we spoke in this car ride going to ha uh, eat at this place called Hug Molly’s, which Jimmy Rains has out there in Abbeyfield and it’s just an awesome country restaurant.

And then the car ride, he was telling me in the military, he used to always preach, we gotta win the last a hundred yards. It’s not about the flight over to Vietnam or Iraq or wherever you’re going. It’s with the enemy. It’s winning the last a hundred yards. And so you’re constantly working to win the last a hundred yards in combat.

And he finally realized after losing his wife of 56 years and going through [00:59:00] 17 months of depression and doing exactly what I’m telling everybody not to do, and locking himself up in a house. Not leaving his home and not talking to anybody and not asking anybody for help and not being a part of the community.

At 83 years old, he spent 17 months locked up in his house because his wife of 56 years passed away and he finally realized he wasn’t listening to his own vice. He wasn’t listening to winning the last a hundred yards. And for him winning the last hundred yards was continuing to be a pillar in his community and preparing for heaven and preparing himself for eternal salvation.

And so winning the last hundred yards is different for everybody, but you have to be in the game and you have to be present, and you have to participate to be on the field.

[00:59:50] Scott DeLuzio: That’s

[00:59:50] Lee Stuckey: you can use that for any analogy, but really just looking at it and saying, is that all you wanted to do? And if this is a net, I use the Netflix a lot because that [01:00:00] resonates with a lot of people.

But if you just wanna stop at, you know, Iraq in 2009 was my last deployment for combat. If I just wanna stop at that and that’s my last hoorah, my Netflix show would be over

[01:00:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[01:00:13] Lee Stuckey: the season would be over. You know? Now I’m at season 46 and I look back on all those seasons in my life, whether it be season 26, 27, 28, there’s a lot of seasons in my life that were dramas. There’s a lot of seasons in my life that were pretty emotional. And then if you watched it, you’re like, man, Leroy’s not gonna survive this season. I think old Leroy’s gonna die, and you would not have thought my character was gonna make it. And if you watch glimpses of my Netflix series, but I’m on season 46 now and I’m thriving and I’m dedicated, and I have focus and we have a plan, and I have an awesome wife.

And if I’d have killed myself 16 years ago, I would’ve never met my wife who I met eight years ago. I got married later in life, [01:01:00] but it’s the best person I could have ever had as a wife. And it’s who I believe God was saving for me. And if I would’ve killed myself 16 years ago, I’d have never met her. We would’ve never built a hero to help all these people.

I wouldn’t have this amazing I organization with the board members and the music for a hero people and a hero records. And the farms extended. Like all these things wouldn’t have happened because I wouldn’t continue to win the last a hundred yards I would’ve given up. And so take a look at what season you’re in right now.

What genre are you in? Are you in a drama? Are you in a comedy? Are you in a romance? You get to pick your show, you get to pick your character, and you get to pick the person that shows up every day to be on that season. And so I recommend a little romance, a little comedy, something happy, but get out of that emotional dramatic phase.

You decide what version of you shows up every single day, whether something happened [01:02:00] yesterday that doesn’t carry into today unless I’ll allow it to. So just stop, take an audit, and literally, if you’re listening, veterans first responders are just people. Take an audit. Take a sheet of paper. How am I doing physically?

And write it out. Am I where I want to be health wise? Am I where I wanna be physically? Do I wanna get in better shape? Do I want to eat better? Replace the bad food with good food? How am I doing financially? Is my spending outta control? Where do I need to save? Do I have a trip coming up? Do I need to prepare for it financially?

And get yourself financially in check? How am I doing emotionally? How am I doing spiritually? And write out an honest assessment of those things and do an audit and have your wife do it. Have your husband do it. Have your kids do it. Know what you’re looking at, doing a self auto to your family, and then just don’t get stuck [01:03:00] in the drama Netflix show.

They don’t end well, you know? But again, we get to decide what that outcome is, and I wanna leave a great legacy to where people remember the things I did for others and not the things that Lee Stuckey accomplished. I don’t wanna remember any like metric at like, he did this and that. I don’t, you know, MMA was an opportunity for me to meet people and me to witness to him and me to spend time with a great group of people.

But Marine Corps was an opportunity for me to meet people and grow friendships. Everything I’ve done in life is an opportunity for me to meet more people and pour into them and have them pour into me so we could grow to be a great community.

[01:03:46] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, uh, you know, if you’re at that point where you’re feeling stuck, feeling like you don’t know what that next season is going to have in store for you, uh, you know, like you said, you know, writing down, you [01:04:00] know, an honest assessment of where, where you’re you are is, is a good starting point. But also think of it as, uh, you know, a contract negotiation with, uh, with Netflix.

Like, how, how am I going to change what this next season’s going to look like? ~Uh,~ you know, do, do I want a, a bigger role in whatever this show is, is, is shaping out to be, and, and what do I want that role to look like? And so, you know, think of it maybe that way too, is, is that you’re, you’re. You know, auditioning for alar larger role in your own life.

Really, it’s, it’s, it’s the, uh, at the end of the day is what you’re, you’re looking for, but you’re, you have, uh, you have infinite opportunities out there and there, there’s so many things that you, you can do. It’s just a matter of what is it that you want to do. And, and, uh, you can’t do everything obviously, but you certainly can do something different than what you’re doing right now.

And if what you’re doing right now doesn’t feel like is, uh, suiting you, it’s not working for you, then try something new, try something different, and, and see where that takes you. ~Um,~ doesn’t mean that that has to [01:05:00] be the, the be all, end all that, that’s the only path that you can possibly take is you’ve made a decision one day that this is where I want to go.

You can always change that later on, but, um, you know, be honest with yourself and say, where, where do I think I can have the most impact? Where can I be the most happy? Where can I, you know. Whatever it is that you’re looking for, where can I find that? And, uh, you know, do, do what you need to do to, to get it done.

~Um,~

[01:05:25] Lee Stuckey: having accountability partners too. I, I’m an alcoholic and so my accountability partner is not an alcoholic. You know, if I know I have a weakness, the per, the people that, that I have accountability partners to keep me in check are people like Bill Boutwell, who I teach jujitsu at his gym at Montgomery Martial Arts, and I teach on Tuesday mornings, and I, you know, I, I go to Jiujitsu as much as I can.

Brazilian jiujitsu and going to training and staying in shape for 27 years now through Carlos Machata and, [01:06:00] and Machata Jiujitsu. That’s accountability. And there’s a different outcome when you lead training doing Brazilian jiujitsu on Friday night over leaving a bar. And so really having accountability partners and having a focus, you know, your environment and who you spend time with is who you become.

And so making sure my wife and my wife knows all my stuff. And so my wife is my accountability partner. My wife is my best friend. She’s absolutely my number one. And I put her before everybody. And so she is an accountability partner. She, I mean, she knows that I, I can’t do this, I can’t do that. I need to focus on this.

I give her our sche, like we do our schedules together. And so looking at it as a wife and husband, I’m the CEO as the husband, she’s the COO, she’s the chief operating officer. I do strategic planning and division for the family, and she’s the day-to-day operations person. She helps me manage our lives to make sure we’re in check physically, financially, [01:07:00] emotionally, and spiritually.

But having those roles and having those honest assessments with your spouse and your family and on Sundays sitting down with ’em, how are we doing? And coming up with a plan with your family. We give all these people we don’t know all this time on Facebook and all these opportunities to talk to us and people at work and people in the church.

Give your families time. Give my, I give my wife my calendar first. She fills her stuff up first of what we’re gonna do to be happy as a husband and a wife. She schedules the events we’re gonna do before anybody gets access to my calendar. And then just making sure you’re having those accountability partners keep you in check.

Somebody called me yesterday at nine 30 in the morning drunk. One of the warriors called me and said, sir, what do I do? I’m, I relapsed, I fell off the wagon. I’m drinking. I said, sober up and don’t repeat it tomorrow. And, and serious likes, Hey man, it happens. You know, we call ’em slips [01:08:00] in the alcoholic world, but sober up and what are you doing for the rest of the week?

And he goes, well, I don’t know. I was like, well, you’re a Jiujitsu practitioner. When’s your next juujitsu session? Now don’t go today.

[01:08:12] Scott DeLuzio: That would be bad.

[01:08:14] Lee Stuckey: don’t go today. You’re not gonna feel great. But, you know, put that on the calendar. And I told him, he knows I do Juujitsu. And I was like, listen man, I teach as much as I can and I schedule as many training sessions as I can.

And when I get busier in my life, I do more juujitsu. I don’t do less juujitsu. When my life gets busy and I have stressful meetings, I work out more, I run more, I eat healthier, and I do more juujitsu

[01:08:39] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[01:08:40] Lee Stuckey: because I have to keep my tank full. And there’s a great po um, a YouTube clip called Dead Leader Running, and it’s an eight minute clip.

It’s about eight minute and 30 seconds or something. Awesome, awesome YouTube video. And the guy talks about your tank being emptier or full, and he talks about this same [01:09:00] principle. If I know I’m gonna have a busy week, I have to do more jiujitsu. I have to do more time with my wife, I have to do more time with my dogs.

’cause those are the things that fill up my tank.

[01:09:10] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[01:09:11] Lee Stuckey: If your life is getting hectic and busy, you don’t do less of the things you love, that’s emotional suicide. If your life is busy and it’s gonna get stressful, you have to add in deliberately and intentionally. Add in the things that make you happier.

[01:09:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. ~Um,~ for the listeners who are out there, who would like to either find out more about, uh, a hero and, and your guys’ mission, what you guys do, whether they’re, you know, veterans needing the help themselves or family members trying to understand, you know, what’s available out there for their loved ones, uh, or supporters who want to get involved, either volunteering or donating, uh, donating, you know, money or time or whatever it is, uh, what’s the best ways to, uh, reach out and connect with a [01:10:00] hero and, and all the stuff that you guys are doing.

[01:10:02] Lee Stuckey: Yeah, awesome. So a hero usa.org. So A-H-E-R-O usa.org is our website. ~Uh,~ my actual email is a hero, Stuckey, S-T-U-C-K y@gmail.com. And then we have Lee Stuckey. Legacy is Instagram. I’m on LinkedIn as well as Lee Stuckey, and Facebook is Lee Stuckey. So, you know, feel free to reach out to me and if you’re a company.

You want us to come in and help you with servant leadership training? We’re starting to work with banks. We’ve worked with a natural gas company. We do leadership retreats. We have a lodge, we’ll come to you. But really taking a look at your company, your business, your leadership, and really teaching you how to maximize your employees to really, really fire on all cylinders and grow your company in a healthy manner.

And so that’s what I love doing, coming in and speaking to ’em, whether it’s a keynote, a leadership workshop, just an opportunity to [01:11:00] pour into your community, your company. And while we’re there, we’re looking at, uh, connecting them to veteran organizations and doing outreach within their community as well.

So I just love an opportunity to serve and would love a chance to help any of the businesses that are listening as well.

[01:11:14] Scott DeLuzio: Well, that’s awesome. And I will have a, uh, all those links in the show notes for the listeners so you guys can check it out there, uh, and, and check out a hero and, uh, all the other things here, uh, all the social media links and all that, uh, as well, right in the, the show notes. ~Um,~ Lee, I wanna, uh, first off, thank you for taking the time to come on the show, uh, being vulnerable, sharing your, your story, and, uh, and also all the, the great work that you’re doing with a hero and all the, the veterans and all the folks that you’ve been able to help along the way.

~Uh,~ it’s really, uh, you know, a great thing that you, you’re doing and I, I, I think, um, you know. A lot of us start off things like this where we’re thinking, okay, uh, I wanna be able to help just this one person. If I can help one person. I, I feel like I, I’ve had a success. I, I know I’ve, I said that to you earlier with, uh, um, [01:12:00] you know, this podcast.

That’s kind of how I, I felt when I started it. And then, uh, you know, all these years later, you, you look back and, and say, you know what? I, I know I’ve helped more than one person. So obviously mission success there. But, um, you know, I, I feel like you have had, uh, multiple, uh, successful missions along the way, and, and you, you’re, uh, continuing to do that.

So, uh, thank you for all the, the work that you’re doing to help out the, the veteran community and, and, uh, and for coming on the show. Really appreciate it.

[01:12:26] Lee Stuckey: Yeah, I’d like to just have everybody look up a couple songs too. So, strength of A Survivor is by Aaron Justice. ~Um,~ Casey Fall just had folded wings, which is another really good one about the things she faced. And then Rusty Tabor has my legacy, which was written by Jeff Sylvie, Mike Carotta, and Rusty Tabor.

And the My Legacy one stands out in this conversation the most as far as the beginning and the end. So it’s my legacy, the beginning and the end on the tombstone. So those years is not his legacy, it’s the [01:13:00] dash in the middle. So as you listen to that song, that song’s about a Marine that was dying of brain cancer and has passed away already.

He had Purple Heart. I think he had two, but I know he had at least one got brain cancer from the burn pits. And his legacy was his family and his legacy was spending time with them. And we were able to take them on their last deep sea fishing trip together thanks to Matt McDonald and the Breathe Easy and Patrick Ivy and we videoed their last fishing trip on this beautiful 72 foot Viking and let them spend their last moments together, deep sea fishing with their father before he passed away a couple months later.

And his legacy, that dash in the middle was his family. And so if you’re listening, you still have an opportunity to create and finish that legacy strong. So regardless of what you did yesterday or last year, whenever, it only matters if you let it define the rest of you. So making that that dash in the middle of your eventual tombstone worth something and leave a positive [01:14:00] legacy.

[01:14:00] Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. And that’s a, a great way I think to end it. ~Um,~ Lee, thanks again for coming on the show. Really do appreciate it. You bet.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Combat does not stay neatly contained in the past. It can follow a veteran into work, marriage, parenthood, and the moments when the mind has nowhere left to hide. The hope that many veterans have is to reach a point where those experiences can be faced without letting them dictate every part of life.

[00:00:19] Our guest today, Justin Morseth, shares how the Iraq invasion, moral injury, traumatic brain injury, and years of suppressing what happened overseas shaped his return home. He explains how treatment, prolonged exposure therapy, and finally allowing himself to be vulnerable helped him find a healthier version of himself.

[00:00:41] He also shares in this episode the mission behind Pets Healing Vets, where veterans and shelter animals are matched and supported together. This conversation offers a direct look at combat, invisible wounds, and the difficult work of accepting help before the damage spreads further. [00:01:00] Before we get into this episode, though, I wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something I feel is deeply important to our community, the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation.

[00:01:10] This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington, D.C. to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

[00:01:27] If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOTmemorialfoundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:35]

[00:01:48] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Justin, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here

[00:01:51] Justin Morseth: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it

[00:01:54] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, and I appreciate you being here as well. ~Um, uh,~ for the listeners maybe who aren’t familiar with you and who you are, could you share a little bit [00:02:00] about, ~uh,~ who you are and, and, ~uh,~ your, a little bit about your background, ~uh,~ before we get started here, just to kinda set the stage for who we’re talking with?

[00:02:06] Justin Morseth: Yeah, sure. ~Um,~ I am Justin Morseth. I, ~uh,~ am a former United States Army infantry officer, more notably known as, ~um,~ I was a rifle platoon leader with the 3rd Infantry Division during the initial ground invasion of Iraq. to joining the Army, I, ~uh,~ attended Denison University in Ohio, ~um,~ before I commissioned, and I grew up in Ohio. ~Um,~ currently I live in Bloomington, Indiana, where I do a lot of public speaking with the university about combat trauma and TBI and PTSD and moral injury and all things like that. And I’ve been doing that now for about six to eight years, and it’s been really, ~uh,~ rewarding for me, both, ~uh,~ for myself and for the students or law enforcement and all kinds of people that I usually, ~um,~ speak with

[00:02:50] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and you know, it, so you’ve been doing that for six to eight years. I’ve been doing this show for about seven years. I’m, I’m surprised it took this long for us to cross paths and, and, and get together on this. [00:03:00] But, ~uh, um,~ you know, I’m, I’m glad we’re here, and I’m glad we’re, we’re able to, ~uh,~ sit down and have a conversation here.

[00:03:03] ~But, um, so you talked a little bit about your, your time as a, a rifle platoon leader, um, in that, you know, that initial push into Iraq. Um, tell us a little bit about that and, and kinda when you look back on those, uh, you know, initial first days of, of combat, you know, what, what do you think people need to understand about things like the, the pace of, uh, activities, the pressure that’s on someone like yourself, a leader in a leadership position, um, and, and everybody involved as well, you know?~

[00:03:03] Justin Morseth: ~Yeah. The, the evasion was unique in and of itself. Um The invasion was very, well, essentially predictably unpredictable. Uh, it was, I mean, I don’t think we’ve done a full land invasion, full-scale land invasion since World War II. I could be wrong. I’m not 100% sure. Um, it was extraordinarily difficult, especially the first week, ’cause we had to go through a, uh…~

[00:03:03] ~We didn’t see a ton of combat in the very beginning until, uh… Can we start that over~

[00:03:03] Scott DeLuzio: ~Yeah, sure. N- yeah, no worries. Yeah, go ahead.~

[00:03:03] Justin Morseth: ~ask that question one more time?~

[00:03:03] Scott DeLuzio: ~Yeah, sure. Yeah, I’ll, I’ll just kinda pick it up from there, and then, then we’ll, uh, then I’ll let you answer that question. So, um, yeah, so,~ so you served as a rifle platoon leader. You talked about that kind of in the, the intro here. But, ~um,~ during that initial push into Iraq, ~um,~ tell us about, you know, when you look back on those, those first days of, of combat and the first days of, you know, that initial push, what do you think people need to understand about things like the, the pace of activities that you’re going through, the pressure on someone like yourself, ~uh,~ in a leadership, ~uh,~ position, and, and everybody who was involved, really?

[00:03:27] There’s a lot of pressure, ~uh,~ you know, the whole world’s looking at, at you guys, and, you know, no pressure, but, you know, don’t, don’t screw it up either, right?

[00:03:34] Justin Morseth: Yeah, the, the invasion was, it was like I said before, it was unique in and of itself. You know, we have not invaded a country before, and I think what was so difficult was every foot forward was new terrain. You know, we knew what the enemy looked like, but we had yet to see the enemy. had all these plans that we had been working on for the past six to eight months, you know, culminating at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin. [00:04:00] We had rehearsed these objectives, when it came down to it, when we invaded at 05 in the morning on March 20th, kind of anticipating seeing all these enemy tanks, infantry, conventional forces. But it really wasn’t like that in the beginning. ~Um,~ we had the initial push, and we saw moderate, light to moderate enemy contact. But something happened to us, the entire, all the coalition forces, on about March 24th or March 23rd, and that was we saying we had to went through– Iraq had the largest sandstorm in over 30 years, where this is where it, it got really dicey for us before we even saw the major combat operations. We were stuck in place for about six to seven days, because the sandstorm was so thick. ~Uh,~ at one point had to ration down to one to two MREs a day. [00:05:00] When I talk about predictable/unpredictable, we ran out of water, where we had to go pump water from the Euphrates River because we used the, the western side of the Euphrates River as our approach, as our tactical approach. But, ~uh,~ it was… And then we got hit. Our chemical alarms went off during that period of time, so we were already wearing chemical suits. So we were expecting, ~uh,~ weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein was gonna– So everyone already invaded with MOPP 2, where, you know, your pants and coat, so it was hot.

[00:05:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:05:33] Justin Morseth: there was one particular day during that sandstorm where our chemical alarms went off, everyone had to go to MOPP 4, you know, pro mask, gloves, boots, and that happened two times in one day, and they were a period of four to six hours a piece.

[00:05:47] And you’re thinking, we’ve seen combat, but we have not seen Saddam’s Republican Guards, his special Republican Guards, his elite forces. We have only seen his conventional regular army and what we call [00:06:00] Fedayeen forces, which are pro-Sunni, pro-Saddam rebel fighters. And that’s when morale got kind of tough.

[00:06:06] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm

[00:06:07] Justin Morseth: It, it, and there’s– combat obviously comes with a certain level of hypervigilance. Everyone has to be paying attention at all times. Communication is the most important weapon on the battlefield. And, ~um,~ we managed to get through that, and finally, the sandstorm finally in the evening, right around the evening of April 1st. So we had been stuck at this objective called Objective Raiders, and all of a sudden we got the marching order at 02 in the morning on April 2nd to attack through the Karbala Gap, which is our first major combat operations, which was the narrow 20-mile corridor in between the city of Karbala and there was a lake called Lake Ramaza, and we had to assault through there.

[00:06:55] However, this was where our task force was the most vulnerable. This [00:07:00] was the one place, the one opportunity that Saddam Hussein could drop his chemical weapons on us. Because if you’re a heavy, the 3rd Infantry Division, which you probably, which you already know, is a heavy armored division.

[00:07:12] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:07:12] Justin Morseth: We’ve got big toys, Abrams, Bradleys.

[00:07:15] We cover a large geography of space, so 20 miles is very narrow in the grand scheme of things.

[00:07:22] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:22] Justin Morseth: So on April 2nd I awoke actually at 01 to a dead bra- or dead battery in my Bradley. All my comm’s gone. I knew we were leaving at 2:00 in the morning, the entire Task Force 3-69. I was attached to a tank company.

[00:07:38] I was an infantry rifle platoon leader, but we were sliced over to Task Force 3-69 Armor. So anyways, I had to embarrassingly go call for my wing track to come over and jump my Bradley. You know, I’m the platoon leader, of course, I’ve got to have comms. And we finally make our LD, and everyone’s ready [00:08:00] to go.

[00:08:00] The sky’s… It’s pitch black, but there’s no sand than the dust being kicked up from the tracks. And we had a 20-kilometer movement to the Karbala Gap, and it wasn’t that far away. ~Um,~ it took us over four hours to get there, and through that time it was really scary because there were rock quarries around.

[00:08:21] And in the middle of March, my parent battalion, Task Force 2-7, their Alpha Company, one of the platoon leaders, this is what people don’t know, and this is why I like to talk about the invasion, Bradley fell 60 feet and dropped, killing two. Everyone else was severely injured. The Bradley was so damaged it had to be stripped for parts.

[00:08:42] And this is all hiccups that are happening prior to even meeting Saddam’s heavy, you know, conventional forces. So we finally get on. Anyways, we finally, we finally get around those rock quarries and it was very difficult and so, so scary. ~Um,~ [00:09:00] we finally get on our direction of attack skins, which was a roadway that took us up to the dike near the, near the, near the reservoir, Lake Hrazaz, and there was a, a large canal over it.

[00:09:11] We had those two crossing points to get through Karbala Gap, and we knew they were heavily defended by the fading forces. ~Um,~ so at 06 we finally made it through. We fought light to moderate enemy resistance. We did take prisoners, but the majority of them chose to fight and, you know, ~uh,~ the ugliness of war, ~um,~ was displayed there. Once we made that, we consolidated briefly, did a refit, rearm, and then we had another three-hour movement to what this place was called, Attack Position Waynes, which was a pre-planned fuel stop where we’d refit, rearm, eat, do whatever, and rehearse for Objective Peach. ‘Cause the next piece of the pie, it was 9:30 in the morning when we got there, was [00:10:00] our marching order was to maneuver at 12:30 towards Objective Peach, which was another 25-kilometer movement.

[00:10:07] So we haven’t slept really and We take off at 12:30 on time, and during the movement we’re in light to moderate enemy resistance on DOA Aggies, which is our direction of attack. However, scouts encountered, ~um,~ a lot of Fedayeen forces to our southeast, which was closest to the river. We were traveling northeast towards the Euphrates, putting us directly in line to Baghdad. ~uh,~ we had a hell of a time with these Fedayeen fighters conducting sloping patterns from south to north, hitting us from our flanks. So we had to maneuver our, ~uh,~ Alpha Company, Team Assassin, which was tank heavy, they had to maneuver into that area to protect our flanks as we continued with the main body on direction of attack Aggies. a lot of combat during that time, not particularly from my [00:11:00] company. We did see some, but mainly from Team Assassin and Team Rock, which was in our, our lead. That was my company that I got sliced away from. we finally, within five kilometers of the bridge, start taking heavy artillery, ~um,~ from the Republican Guards.

[00:11:15] And we’re on a hardball road– a hardball road, it’s an improved, like, gravel road, and at that point, we’re in attack column, entire task force going straight towards, the bridge. You can see, you can– You knew the Euphrates was getting close because you could see a thin green tint at the base of the horizon. then you also saw smoke billowing upwards, because we already had precise artillery targets. We knew the bridge was potentially gonna be mined and rigged, you know, with demolitions, because they did that another bridge fight on March 24th. ~Um-~ So we, what we did, what Colonel Marcone, our task force commander did was, ~um,~ drop mechanical [00:12:00] smoke and artillery near the four corners of the bridge to disrupt any demolition party to, ~uh,~ willing to explode the, ~uh,~ bridge. Al-Qaa’ bridge itself is over 400 meters long, so it’s over the length of four football fields, and the scariest thing about it is river below. The maximum or the most shallow depth of the Euphrates River is 33 feet deep. It’s a series of dams that go all the way down south towards Kuwait the, the m- and the deepest is 148 feet. So here we are already taking artillery within five kilometers. Ryan with, ~uh,~ you know, my good friend Ryan, he’s with Team Rock in the lead. taking most of the artillery at this point, and we’re still moving forward. We’ve got Apache attack helicopters above us. I mean, it was like something you saw out of the movies.

[00:12:53] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yeah

[00:12:55] Justin Morseth: the targets. We’re hitting the targets. ~Um, um,~ but once we get near [00:13:00] the bridge head, they had a reconnaissance battalion, Republican Guards and Fading Forces protecting that bridge head, and we were there for the better part of 30 minutes to an hour fighting them until we had fire superiority on the near side. ~Um,~ once that was set, we identified there were wires and demolitions to the bridge. at that point, was already planned, ~uh,~ contingency plan. Team Apache, which was our combat engineer element led by Captain Hibner, we first employed a bunch of smoke from our chemical platoon, which I’ve never seen M58 Foxes.

[00:13:38] They just– It’s like this big smoke stack above a one one three, and it just billows enormous amount of smoke. I’ve never seen so much smoke, and there was a platoon of four vehicles that went from north to south to create this gigantic smoke screen for our engineers because if you can believe it or not, we brought Zodiacs with us.

[00:13:58] Scott DeLuzio: Okay

[00:13:59] Justin Morseth: Desert. [00:14:00] So here we are launching four Zodiacs, two, ~uh,~ platoon of sappers, which is, you know, our highly skilled combat engineers, and then a platoon of infantrymen from Team Bandits Red Platoon. So the smoke screen is up at, at 15:45, they launch the boats They get in the water, their equipment’s too heavy, some of the boats start sinking. The current’s too strong. A couple of the Zodiacs drift 200 meters downstream. We’ve got Republican Guards are on the other side of the river engaging us with BMPs, tanks, a considerable amount of ballistic missile defenses, and plenty of infantry and RPG teams, trucks. I mean, everything you can think of conventionally is on the other side of the river.

[00:14:47] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:47] Justin Morseth: They float two, 200 yards downstream, and they finally make it back up to the bridge. There’s combat going on at this time, and we’re getting rounds and rounds of artillery. It’s everything outside the vehicle is [00:15:00] about as dangerous as it gets. We’re buttoned up, no hatch open, and time is our enemy at that point. we had to wait for them to trudge 200 meters back to the bridge and, ~uh,~ they clearing the bridge and at about 16:15, they blew the right span. So the right span of the bridge was now blown. A ra- Apache, the engineers radio us, tell them south bridge is a no-go, we’re still clearing the north.

[00:15:29] So we’re in this holding area. Company Team Steel. We’re the main effort that’s going to assault over. And we’re getting all this information. You’re thinking, okay, the bridge, the right span is blown, now it’s the left that’s clear. We’ve got engineers under the bridge. got direct fire, we’ve got artillery, we’ve got Apaches.

[00:15:49] All this stuff is going on, and all we can do is wait. You know, of course we don’t wanna go, and they’ve got burning cars apex of the bridge blocking our [00:16:00] position. ~Um,~ so at around– finally at around 16:35, 16:45, we get the all clear. But here’s where it gets even dicier for us is we couldn’t see anything anymore.

[00:16:14] It was no- I call it whenever I’d speak, I call it the white curtain of smoke just raised. It was the first time we saw the blue sky in over a week, so that part was great, but it just looked like you raised a white curtain in the air. And we had to wait for one of the sappers to come out of that smoke and drop two smoke canisters on the ground, two colored smokes, and that was our assault lane. And we were gonna go through the smoke, and I think there were cones on the ground, too. You couldn’t really see anything, and you had to make sure that vehicle in front of you was close ’cause you could go veer off and go wherever. And that was scary ’cause it was kinda like going through an airplane, but it lasted, it felt like it lasted forever.

[00:16:56] And then all of a sudden you come out of the smoke and boom, there’s the bridge [00:17:00] head. then all of a sudden I see Team Rock engaging, and then we’re going over the bridge And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie The Matrix.

[00:17:10] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:17:11] Justin Morseth: moving so fast, but yet it was in slow motion. I was sticking out of the turret. The 25-millimeter cannon was firing, you know, which was– I’ve not done that in live time, or training, and all guns were firing, engaged in something. here we are, we had to make it across the bridge, and you’re sitting there thinking, I’ve got 18-year-old privates in the back of my vehicle, and I always bring this up, that were just at their high school prom the year before. And here they are crossing a major bridge over the Euphrates River. You talk about having to grow up fast, and I think, and I always say this, they are some of the best versions of an American.

[00:17:55] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:56] Justin Morseth: ~Uh,~ anyways, I’m kind of digressing there, but I always talk [00:18:00] about that. But we had a– we fought until about 1900 hours, the area until, you know, it was declared clear. ~Um~ There was a lot of death and destruction on that side of the river.

[00:18:11] Scott DeLuzio: Sure, sure

[00:18:12] Justin Morseth: got into our blocking position, and then were told to hold. ~Uh,~ there was a potential enemy counterattack, and we had to wait for second brigade. They got mired in some vegetation, and they were way behind schedule. So now we had to hold it, hold the bridgehead overnight. We had the other company teams as reinforcement, but we were a good two kilometers east of everyone else. ~Um,~ did you wanna stop and ask another question

[00:18:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Well, I, I just wanted to point out to the listeners who maybe haven’t experienced things like this themselves, you know, for, for any of the, you know, the civilians or, or just the, the folks who are interested in, you know, what goes on in a combat operation. ~Um,~ I think one of the first things that you said was that, you know, it, it, basically nothing was going right.

[00:18:58] You know? And, and, uh, but- [00:19:00] As soon as you leave the gate or as soon you, you leave the wire or whatever it is that you’re, you’re, you’re le- getting into, ~um,~ you can kinda, like the plans that you have are good, like keep them around, but you can probably plan on them not being the thing that actually works out because, ~uh,~ you know, no, no good plan survives the enemy contact.

[00:19:20] Like it, it’s just not gonna happen. ~Um,~

[00:19:22] Justin Morseth: Bill is

[00:19:22] Scott DeLuzio: exactly, always, always. And so, ~um,~ you know, one of the things that I think y- we do well as an American military is, is that FRAGO, is that we’re able to, ~uh,~ you know, think on the fly, adjust, you know, as things are, are happening in real time. ~Um,~ you know, you had, you had a situation where your, your truck’s battery died and, you know, you’re, you’re, “Okay, I got no comms, I got no truck, I got, you know, what do I do?

[00:19:46] And I gotta leave in an hour. I, this is not like I can go, you know, make an appointment down at the, ~uh,~ you know, the, the motor pool or anything, get, get, ~uh,~ you know, parts replaced or whatever. It, this needs to be fixed now.”

[00:19:56] Justin Morseth: No

[00:19:57] Scott DeLuzio: and so, you know, how do I fix this? How do I [00:20:00] do this? ~Um,~ you know, and, and then when you take en- enemy contact, you, you don’t know, you can’t plan on exactly where they’re gonna be and what, what, ~uh,~ you know, ~uh,~ weapons or anything like that, that they’re gonna have.

[00:20:10] You, you can’t plan on, on that, ~uh,~ you know, all the time, you know, without really good intelligence, but, you know, that doesn’t always happen either. So,

[00:20:18] Justin Morseth: No. No

[00:20:19] Scott DeLuzio: so you’re, you’re showing up there and, ~um,~ you have to make decisions right away and, and right or wrong, you’re making a decision and, and you gotta, gotta just stick to it and, and make the, the next best decision as, as you’re going along every, every time, ~uh,~ you get that.

[00:20:35] So, ~um,~ yeah, I just wanted to point that out to the listeners who, who maybe haven’t experienced that. Even there, there’s, I’m sure there’s some listeners who have experienced combat and they’re, they’re probably sitting there shaking their head like, “Yep, same thing.” You know, different location, different, you know, ~uh,~ combat, but, you know, same, same type of situation.

[00:20:52] So, ~um,~ you know, I know, I know like for you, you do a lot of this, ~uh,~ you know, public speaking and you, you talk about this type of stuff a lot, so, ~um,~ you know, [00:21:00] it’s, ~uh,~ probably wasn’t easy when you first started doing this, but you’ve been doing this for, you know, several years now, and so it’s probably gotten easier over time to, ~uh,~ kind of discuss some of this stuff.

[00:21:10] But I know a lot of folks who come back home, they have a hard time talking about it to anybody, even, you know, family members or friends, and they have a hard time talking about the stuff that they did. ~Um,~ but, ~um,~ you know, more importantly, I think they, they sometimes have a hard time making peace with what they had to do or what they saw or, you know, people that they lost, things like that.

[00:21:28] ~Um,~ and I know, ~uh,~ you know, moral injury is something, ~uh,~ that, that you said that you, you talk about, ~um,~ you know, probably has shown up in your own life. How, how do you, how would you explain that to someone who has never, ~uh,~ experienced that or heard that term, ~uh,~ before?

[00:21:41] Justin Morseth: It’s gaining a lot of traction nowadays to the

[00:21:45] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:21:45] Justin Morseth: where it’s almost becoming a diagnosis. It’s, it comes down to one thing essentially, and I think if you were raised or if you have any sort of moral compass and you have to go through the things that I had to go through, the decisions I had to [00:22:00] make, ~um~ It’s difficult because in the moment you think it’s surreal. Like you– for example, Objective Peach, when we left, there was no paid time off, administrative leave, mandatory counseling or anything like that. And I explained this to– I was just at Indianapolis, one of the police departments there, talking about brain injury, moral injury, talking about what we’re talking about to them. And I, you know, I explained to them the transition from Objective Peach to Objective Lions, that wasn’t supposed to be our, you know, our mission, Objective Lions. And, you know, we left and I told them, I go, “We looked at every– I, I saw every body, the burning, the gore, and we just left.” And without having paid time off, administrative leave or mandatory counseling, you don’t process that. You’re not, you’re not allowed to pro-process those things in the military. In order to survive in combat, it’s anger, humor, and hypervigilance. how you survive, and obviously working closely with your buddies.

[00:22:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:23:00] Mm-hmm.

[00:23:00] Justin Morseth: But the moral injury component is, when I talk about it, I don’t believe in killing. I hate killing unless it’s justified. But when I speak I not only think about the brothers and sisters that we lost, you know, why did I make it home? But something that I, I feel guilty about is there’s an, there’s an anniversary for another group of people that we don’t think about, they live in Iraq.

[00:23:31] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:32] Justin Morseth: You know? I’m responsible, my guys are responsible for it, taking life, taking a grandfather, taking a husband, a brother, a nephew. They don’t know who I am or my unit, and they’re now gone. And they don’t– And maybe that person was the financial supporter, you know? And the burden that we– the decision that we made, that we had to do affected them. It [00:24:00] didn’t affect the soldier, it affects their families too. So I’ve tried to really open my heart and be more empathetic to that respect, and that really bugs me for some reason, you know?

[00:24:10] And I think a lot of it has to do with we didn’t get to process what we just did at Objective Peach.

[00:24:15] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:24:17] Justin Morseth: We just left it, and it, and it felt in a spiritual sense so dirty. You know? Like, not that I, I didn’t like doing it, but I, I had to do it. I didn’t mind doing it. It was for the safety and welfare of the mission and my men.

[00:24:32] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:24:33] Justin Morseth: But it just– For me, the moral injury component, it registered, it hit me hard is when my first son was born.

[00:24:40] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:41] Justin Morseth: I was not married, or I was married, but no kids at the time, so I didn’t really– I knew marriage, but I didn’t understand family, you know, and, and the dynamics of that, of having a kid or anything like that. But as soon as Sander, my, my firstborn was– I, you know, I’m embarrassed to say this, [00:25:00] but I do s-say it. I went home. My wife told me to go home and shower, and I went home where I should have been excited and happy, but I was panicked and sad.

[00:25:11] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:25:11] Justin Morseth: And I drank the entire day, and I don’t know why. I sh- I, I was happy. I did– You know, Sander was on my chest. I did all that. I felt good about being a father. But when I went home– Because I saw kids over there that you never want to see in that form. Not because of me or anybody in my task force, but you saw it, and it rots you on the inside if you don’t address it and make yourself vulnerable and talk about it. I kept that stuff buried for a long time until about six years ago, after I went through holy hell find this version that you’re seeing today.

[00:25:55] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:25:56] Justin Morseth: ~Um~

[00:25:56] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and when, I, I think a lot of [00:26:00] the, ~um,~ issues that, that people have, you know, one of the things that, that we do is we, we tend to, ~uh,~ dehumanize the enemy, and we, we come up with names for them that are not, you know, that guy over there. No, it’s not that guy. It’s, you know, it’s some derogatory term that we come up with just to make them feel like they’re less hu- than human than, you know, to us.

[00:26:21] And so if we do have to kill them, then, you know, it feels like, oh, well, you know, it’s, it’s almost like the same thing as stepping on an ant or a, you know, a spider or something like that. It’s, it, it’s not human, and then so it doesn’t matter. ~Um,~ but they are human, to your point. It, and, and they, they really are, but, ~um,~ I think that’s just a coping mechanism that a lot of us, it kind of came up with and, ~um,~ you, you know, and you’ve seen that through all the, the wars going back in, in our history is, you know, that, that same type of, ~uh, uh,~ you know, language is being used to kind of dehumanize the enemy because it just makes it that much easier to be able to pull the trigger or, or whatever, when, whenever you’re, ~uh,~ in that type of, ~uh,~ situation.

[00:26:58] And, ~uh,~ it, [00:27:00] it’s not … It doesn’t make it any better, but it, ~uh,~ may- maybe makes it easier in the moment. But then, you know, fast-forward to you come home and you get, get some time to actually stop and kind of think about it a little bit and, ~um,~ you know, then that’s when, I think that’s where some of the problems start coming in.

[00:27:15] Not, not right in that moment that, that you’re engaged in the combat, because your mind’s someplace else. Your mind is on survival. Your mind is on, you know,

[00:27:23] Justin Morseth: It’s a

[00:27:23] Scott DeLuzio: men. It’s on, on the, the vehicles that you’re, you’re in, and it’s on all of that type of stuff. It’s not on, you know, “Was this the right thing to do?”

[00:27:32] and blah, blah, blah. No. It’s, it’s, “I need to survive, and I’ll worry about whether it was right or wrong later.” Now is survival. And, ~um,~ you know, I, I think, ~uh,~ you know, to, to my point earlier, a lot of folks come home, ~uh,~ not really knowing how to have these conversations. ~Uh,~ they, they, they might feel, ~uh,~ ashamed or guilty or, or something like that, you know, because of, of the things that they had to do and, and it’s, it’s hard to, ~um,~ hard to put these things into words in a way [00:28:00] that, ~um,~ that allows you to first off have this conversation with somebody, whether it’s a therapist or a friend or a family member or something.

[00:28:07] But, ~um,~ you know, how do I, how do I tell, you know, how do I tell my wife that I had to do these terrible things, and now is she gonna look at me differently like I’m some sort of, you know, monster or some sort of animal that, that did all this crazy stuff? ~Um,~ you know, and so then you s- start worrying about all those kind of things and, ~um,~ you know, it, it’s hard, but it’s, it’s something that, that’s necessary, too, to be able to unpack and process this stuff that you had to stuff down while you’re in, in the middle of that, too, right?

[00:28:34] Justin Morseth: Yeah, I– when I first got back, made the mistake of just getting out. I resigned my commission. I wasn’t planning on staying in, I got out six months later, and I got a pharmaceutical job. ~Uh,~ but of course, people were interested, and they wanted to talk. The war was brand new, and they wanted to ask me a million questions.

[00:28:53] And then they, you know, people are really respectful, and they almost treat you like a hero. ~Um,~ but even though on, on the [00:29:00] inside you feel kinda dark,

[00:29:01] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:29:01] Justin Morseth: ~um,~ and, ~um,~ guarded. And the only way I was able to explain my combat was through sports.

[00:29:08] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm

[00:29:09] Justin Morseth: You know, I, I would explain it like a sporting event. Like I, you know, I played football, through college and, ~um,~ I would explain it as if like, oh, it’s no different, you know, it was n- no hard feelings.

[00:29:21] It was one team against the next. You know, the only difference is people died. And in some cases, the, you know, from a teamwork perspective, it is relatable. but that was the only way I could explain it. You know, I’d– I could talk about the gore some, but I was always You’re just always concerned what people are– how they’re going to react.

[00:29:46] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:29:47] Justin Morseth: ~uh,~ I am, and I told the, you know, I told the police last week or a couple weeks, or the academy that I talked to a couple weeks ago, it’s the literally the only time you can [00:30:00] get away with murder. You know? And you sit there and think about those things, and then you hear the news, so and so, a convicted felon murdered this and this and this, and you’re like, “Yeah, I did this for my country, but it was still an act

[00:30:14] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:14] Justin Morseth: of killing.” You

[00:30:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:30:17] Justin Morseth: get kinda mired and you kinda get stuck over there, and you get… I felt like half of– I had a combat boot still stuck in Iraq a dress shoe and a pharmaceutical suit. I, I felt completely different. And the biggest, the biggest thing I noticed was when I first started working pharmaceutical, I met my partner rep, and he was literally– I had literally just gotten out, and he was complaining to me about having to go to Chicago for five days to our sales meeting. in a five-star hotel, eat, drink for free. Cell phones were new then, so everyone had a cell phone. And he knew my background, and I was like, [00:31:00] I was puzzled.

[00:31:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:31:01] Justin Morseth: I go, “That doesn’t sound like a bad deal, even if I didn’t get deployed.”

[00:31:05] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:31:06] Justin Morseth: Go, “That’s way better than anything I’ve ever enjoyed in the military.”

[00:31:09] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right

[00:31:10] Justin Morseth: enjoyed the military, but as far as making it about as cush and Hollywood red– Pharmaceutical companies make everything as Hollywood red carpet as it gets. I mean, they doll it up. And that’s when I knew I was different. I

[00:31:22] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:22] Justin Morseth: knew I had a little bit of a shorter fuse. I had a worldview. I’ve seen the ugliness of the world.

[00:31:28] I– know, Iraq is not that, was not that advanced. It, it felt primitive. and It just, it was, I guess, confusing, you know, coming back here

[00:31:40] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s not an uncommon thing. Like, a lot of folks get that same kind of feeling where they feel like they, I, I don’t know, I can’t relate with these people who, you know, are complaining about having to stay in a five-star hotel for, for a week or whatever it is. You know, like, what the hell is wrong with you?

[00:31:56] If, if that’s, if that’s what you have to, to bitch about, like, that’s, [00:32:00] I

[00:32:00] Justin Morseth: It’s,

[00:32:00] Scott DeLuzio: going pretty good, right?

[00:32:01] Justin Morseth: yeah

[00:32:02] Scott DeLuzio: you know, so, ~um,~ but, ~um,~ you know, one of the things that, that I, I found, like, some other, ~uh,~ from other conversations I should say, ~uh,~ from people that I’ve, I’ve had conversations with, is the, the questions that, that you get asked from your coworkers or family or whatever, you know.

[00:32:19] Do you ever kill anyone? Or, you know, tho- those kinda, kinda questions which, you know, I, I always try to tell people, like, that, just don’t ask those questions. Like, that, that’s not a… You don’t wanna know the answer either way, because regardless of what the answer is, if I say, “Yes, I did,” then you’re gonna be looking at me like I’m some sort of, you know, bloodthirsty monster, and you- it’s gonna change your perspective of me.

[00:32:41] If I say, “No, I didn’t,” you’re gonna say, “Oh, this guy had a, a, you know, a, an easy deployment and he didn’t do anything on, on this deployment. What is he even bitching about?” You know?

[00:32:49] Justin Morseth: Yeah

[00:32:50] Scott DeLuzio: regardless of the answer, like, it’s gonna change your perspective of, of who I am, so, like, don’t, don’t even ask those types of questions.

[00:32:58] You know, like, hey, [00:33:00] you wanna ask some questions, you wanna, you wanna find out some, some stuff about it, fine. That, that’s fine. But certain questions, just think about it before you ask those questions, right?

[00:33:09] Justin Morseth: It almost feels like you’re at– you’re like an, a zoo animal at an exhibit, you

[00:33:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:33:15] Justin Morseth: a, in a way, you know.

[00:33:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:33:16] Justin Morseth: questions, you know, the, the difficult questions that, you know, not that they shouldn’t ask them,

[00:33:21] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:33:22] Justin Morseth: you gotta get to know the veteran first, I would think, before you ask.

[00:33:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:33:25] Justin Morseth: ~Um,~ I don’t have a problem saying it anymore.

[00:33:27] You know, I did two years. ~Uh,~ my VA counselor, Dr. Heidi Knox, she fought and fought and fought, and I went through two years of prolonged exposure, which was really helpful because then it made me just kind of accept it is what it is. I happened to be at Fort Stewart during that time. I, I did my job, you know, courageously and to the best of my abilities, I came home with all my men. ~Um,~ so But you do get looked at differently. But I do notice there’s a better sense [00:34:00] of admiration now from the general public

[00:34:02] Scott DeLuzio: right.

[00:34:03] Justin Morseth: that there’s so much more awareness. Like when I, when I spoke last– a couple weeks ago at the police academy, they had no idea the kind of stuff that we had gone through. They had no idea that there’s not this mandatory counseling following an incident like that, you know, the paid time off, the turn in your weapon.

[00:34:22] You know, they–

[00:34:22] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:34:23] Justin Morseth: then when I talked about TBIs, they did not understand the symptoms are associated with that. They can also look as if they’re impaired,

[00:34:31] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:32] Mm-hmm

[00:34:33] Justin Morseth: know. So, you know, and my– Dr. Heidi Knox, she asks– always asks me to speak. She’s my occupational therapist, and she’s excellent. ~Um,~ but she talks a lot about brain injuries and, you know, it’s so helpful for even law enforcement, for anybody, because we lose– When you have a brain injury, you sometimes get lost in thought.

[00:34:53] You sometimes, you have, ~um,~ auditory, you know, rem-remembering, you know, auditory, you know, [00:35:00] people asking you questions. Sometimes I’m like, “I’m so sorry, I get lost in thought,” they’ll have to ask a question again. Some people slur, so they sound like they’re inebriated. There’s all this awareness, ~um,~ because for me, I, I’m not missing limbs, and my biggest thing with, you know, with the VA, the VA is so much better now, but I think healthcare professionals, particularly with the VA, if you look like you or me, I’m assuming you have all your limbs,

[00:35:25] Scott DeLuzio: Yep

[00:35:25] Justin Morseth: you know, that you’re, you’re fine. But you wouldn’t know that I have a full-blown seizure disorder from a brain injury from falling off my Bradley before we took the airport and landing on my head.

[00:35:37] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:38] Justin Morseth: You wouldn’t know I have three heart conditions now associated with, you know, exposure and things like that. So when I talk to these people, I, I, you know, I, I say to them, “You’re not looking for the guy in a wheelchair that has his sleeve taped to his shoulder, you know, missing a limb.

[00:35:55] You gotta do your detective work, because on the inside of me, I have this going [00:36:00] on, this going on, and moral injury.” And yes, I think everyone gets some form of when they’re in a theater where their life is at risk, no matter what they’re doing.

[00:36:08] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:08] Justin Morseth: I think we all come back with some version of it or heightened anxiety But I stressed they had no idea.

[00:36:16] They’re like, “I would have never known that you had a seizure disorder or you have heart conditions.” You know, I got my act together once I decided to make myself vulnerable that there was something wrong with me. And when I made myself vulnerable, that’s when I got back to the best version of myself or closest.

[00:36:32] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:36:32] Justin Morseth: that’s, ~uh,~ that’s the other problem with, with veterans, though. We have to lower our guard, but, but that’s also dicey because the people with whom we interact don’t do a very good job making us feel enabled to lower our guard.

[00:36:45] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:36:46] Justin Morseth: You know, and that’s– I’m particularly talking about healthcare professionals. ~Um,~ but they’re so much better. And the VA, like I said, are leaps and bounds better than they used to be, but that is, something that I’ve struggled with

[00:36:57] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, for sure. And, you know, [00:37:00] over the years I’ve s- I’ve seen it get better, and hearing the, the horror stories from people years ago who, who went to the VA and just had no support whatsoever or, you know, like you said, “Oh, you have all your limbs, you look fine,” you know, g- you know,

[00:37:14] Justin Morseth: Right

[00:37:14] Scott DeLuzio: “You’re on your way.” ~Um,~ now they’re, they’re a little bit more understanding of the internal injuries, of the, the invisible wounds, of the things like TBI and PTSD and, and all, all the things that, that go on, ~uh,~ in- inside of you.

[00:37:28] You know, e- even, you know, the, the things like a heart condition or, or things like that. It’s like just ’cause you have all your limbs doesn’t mean your heart is in, in perfect shape. So, you

[00:37:37] Justin Morseth: My

[00:37:37] Scott DeLuzio: there’s

[00:37:37] Justin Morseth: Megan, sorry,

[00:37:38] Scott DeLuzio: No, that-

[00:37:39] Justin Morseth: ~um,~ pleaded with the VA, the neurologist. I was drinking a lot then because I just, I couldn’t calm down. You know, I was– At that point, I was in orthopedic trauma and total joint rep, so I was on call 24 hours, seven days a week. But that wasn’t the anxiety. It was just getting worse and worse, and I was running away from my problems.

[00:37:56] ~Um,~ and then the grandma seizures hit in ’13 and ’15, [00:38:00] and then I gave up on the VA because the neurologist said I was nothing but a drunk. And he called, he called my wife and I a marvelous dysfunction. Meanwhile, you know, I don’t have a problem saying this, ~uh,~ we did research on him, and he tested hot for morphine multiple times, and he was on probation through the VA. And, ~uh,~ that was the last part, and this was back in 2013– ’14, 2015. And my wife had gotten fed up and made, we made an appointment at Rush Memorial in Chicago, where they do what they call a SPECT scan. That’s the gold standard brain injury scan. The VA doesn’t do that. ~Um,~ but when I got the SPECT scan, the front, the frontal lobe was damaged. prefrontal cortex damage, and there was another area that was damaged. And I say this during talks, and I tell Dr. Noft yes, like I– if the VA did more, if they did SPECT scans, would be a lot more mild to tr-traumatic brain injuries, mild to moderate traumatic brain injuries

[00:38:56] Scott DeLuzio: sure. Yeah, and y- yeah, you kind of have [00:39:00] to wonder, you know, why aren’t they doing it? And, ~uh,~ you know, we probably can take a guess as, as to why they’re not doing it. But, ~um, ~you know, I,

[00:39:07] Justin Morseth: Yeah.

[00:39:07] Scott DeLuzio: I won’t go there. I won’t go…

[00:39:09] Justin Morseth: compensation might be, ~uh,~ an issue.

[00:39:10] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right.

[00:39:11] Justin Morseth: Even Dr. Knox, she’s like, “Yeah,

[00:39:13] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:39:14] Justin Morseth: a lot of misdiagnosed brain injuries out there.” I wasn’t diagnosed for– with one, not until I had to go through those grandma seizures, and my wife would always say that I was shaking in my n- at night. You know, I would do weird things that I, of course, was in denial of. You know, at that point, I wasn’t ready to accept it. And then when I finally decided to make myself vulnerable, I went to a head injury center that was not VA affiliated called After the Impact. It’s up in, ~uh,~ Ann Arbor, Michigan. It’s for professional athletes that suffer from head injuries and combat veterans, and it was there that I finally had to come to Jesus with myself, and I have been through a lot.

[00:39:52] I’ve been through a number of treatment centers and realized, okay, this, that, and that has happened, and they’re all dangerous.

[00:39:58] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:59] Justin Morseth: You [00:40:00] need to get it together. You, you’re not Superman like you think you are.

[00:40:04] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:40:04] Justin Morseth: have things wrong. Things are jacked up, and you’ve got to address them. And Scott, the only way I got better was because of that. I had to make myself vulnerable and accept the fact that I am different now. My body is different, I can still adapt, and I think that’s what I was hung up on, denial, and I’m never gonna be able to do whatever I did ever again.

[00:40:27] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. N- no one wants to be in that, that position where they, they can’t do the things that they used to do. You know, e- even just, you know, anybody, y- you know, a normal person getting older who, you know, maybe their eyesight’s going and they, you know, eventually can’t drive or they can’t, you know, their mobility is, you know, reduced and they can’t do some of the things that they used to do.

[00:40:48] No- nobody wants to get to that point. They, they… It feels terrible that you can’t do something that you used to be able to do. ~Um,~ I, I remember when I, I got home from Afghanistan, I, I had to go, ~uh,~ have a, a knee surgery, and [00:41:00] I, I, I went to physical therapy, and they were just having me do simple stuff like sitting in a chair and standing up, and sitting in a…

[00:41:06] I was like, seriously, I was carrying, like, 100-pound rocks up and down mountains in Afghanistan, and n- now I’m sitting, sitting down and standing up, and that, that’s my exercise right now. It’s like, what the hell is this?

[00:41:16] Justin Morseth: immortalizing.

[00:41:17] Scott DeLuzio: what has my life come to, you know?

[00:41:18] Justin Morseth: Yeah. That’s the only problem about the military. It, it shows you so many things that you never thought you could do, so then when you come back– For example, when I talk, I call, you know, I always say, you know, one engagement raises our trauma threshold. You know, just kinda like a seizure threshold.

[00:41:35] You wanna raise your seizure threshold. So all the combat, we kept getting stronger as far as more resistive, resistant to trauma and, you know, and that, and that stuff eventually snowballs

[00:41:47] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. ~Um,~ l- let’s, ~uh,~ let’s jump ahead a little bit here. Let’s talk about, ~uh,~ Pets Healing Vets. ~Um,~ talk about that, that organization and, and what you guys do with, you know, connecting veterans dealing with, you know, all sorts of [00:42:00] things, ~um,~ you know, with the, ~uh,~ the animals that, ~uh,~ that, that you guys connect them with

[00:42:03] Justin Morseth: First off, I cannot take credit for conceptualizing Pet Ceiling Vets. wife, the mighty Megan Morrissette, this was her idea, and we were at our worst. We were struggling with our marriage. I was at my worst. I was in denial. And we’ve always had animals, and As a way for her to cope with what everything was going on in our life, she would go down to the Humane Society and volunteer at the Hamilton County Humane Society in Carmel, Indiana.

[00:42:33] And she would dog walk, get them out of the shelter, walk them around. then she came back with this idea because she knew how much I loved my– the dog I had in the army, my, ~uh,~ s- I had a Alaskan Husky named Samson, and she just kind of had this idea, came home. She’s like, “What do you think of starting meeting with Hamilton County Humane Society?

[00:42:52] I was talking to a lady and starting a program geared towards pairing shelter animals with veterans with brain injuries, [00:43:00] PTSD, or military sexual trauma.” And I was not on board because I just thought that it was just a big arrow pointing to weak veteran.

[00:43:10] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:43:11] Justin Morseth: You know, I felt weak. I’m like, “No, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t need a service dog. I have all– I, I’m fine. I’m fine,” or anything, because that’s where I thought she was heading. But eventually, I got on board, and I talk about it all the time. You know, at IU, we have roughly 90 veterans in the program. ~Um,~ it’s a terrific way to– for those veterans, they meet with their dogs together. ~Um,~ there’s an annual event through the Humane Society called Tinsels and Tails, where they have a table where all the veterans, the new veterans that are in the program bring their dogs and everyone meets. It’s just another outlet for a veteran to, to communicate with another veteran that honestly are sharing the same kind of emotional problems, and they’re looking to fill a healthy void, you know, with their animals.

[00:43:59] And [00:44:00] it’s an amazing program. There’s– to the best of our research, we have not found an organization across the country that pays for the entire life of– that pays for all the costs for the entire life of the pet. That’s drop-ship food, you know, delivered to their residence, any vet care, emergency or not. ~Um,~ cover everything. There’s not one thing that they have to worry about except for water.

[00:44:24] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:25] Justin Morseth: ~Um,~ so it’s been a fantastic program. Some veterans are on dog number two, and the idea behind it is saving lives at both ends of the leash.

[00:44:32] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:44:33] Justin Morseth: know, they will come in and the– they have a behaviorist, an animal behaviorist that identify, that will meet with the veteran and identify his or her needs, their lifestyle, and then she will pair them, l- ~uh,~ bring out three animals for them to from based on their– on fit, and we haven’t had a single animal returned. They’ve all, they’ve all been fantastic experiences, and there are a [00:45:00] handful of them are on dog number two or cat number two.

[00:45:02] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:45:03] Justin Morseth: So

[00:45:04] Scott DeLuzio: And,

[00:45:04] Justin Morseth: really good

[00:45:05] Scott DeLuzio: a- and, and being able to, to do that and, and pair people up with, with these animals, ~uh,~ like you said, it, it does save lives on, on both end of the leash. It de- definitely helps the, the service member or the veteran who is dealing with whatever it is that they, they got going on. But, you know, you go to some of these shelters and some of these animals who, ~um,~ you know, they, they only have so much time at that shelter before they’re, they’re put down.

[00:45:27] And, ~um,~ you know, so it, it does save, save both of those lives. And, ~um,~ you know, those, those animals have, you know, in many cases, a lot of good years left in them. And w- you know, what better way to do that than to be supporting, you know, a, a service member like that or a veteran and, ~uh,~ you know, making their lives better, making their, ~uh,~ family life and their, their work life and all that kind of stuff better by just being there for them

[00:45:50] Justin Morseth: Yeah

[00:45:50] Scott DeLuzio: the things that they, they need them to be able to do.

[00:45:53] ~Um,~ you know, it’s, it’s not easy. ~Um,~ you know, the, the training and all the, the stuff that goes into it’s probably, ~uh,~ you know, pretty difficult and it, it, it’s [00:46:00] costly and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, one- once when you have that, that done and you have the, ~uh,~ the, the veteran able to, ~uh,~ you know, g- walk away with that dog, ~uh,~ or, you know, that animal a- and be able to, ~uh,~ you know, live a better life, it, it’s, you know, you look at it, it’s, it’s all worth it, you know?

[00:46:16] ~Um,~ it’s

[00:46:16] Justin Morseth: I like, the thing I like best about it is they– the veterans usually pick a pit bull. Misunderstood breed by the mis- most misunderstood American, know? And they just, they have this connection ’cause they’re both, you know, it’s like two pieces of broken glass. Pit bulls stay in, stay in those facilities forever, and they’re misunderstood, they’re mismanaged, sometimes get in the wrong hands. But that veteran will, nine times out of 10, they always choose a pit bull, and I love it. You know, because they literally are saved. It’s a no-kill shelter, some of those pit bulls have been in there for, like, two years. And there was one that was in there for seven years that, [00:47:00] her name was Princess, and she was just full of energy.

[00:47:03] I mean, nothing violent about her or anything like that. And this veteran had been through so much, he chose Princess because he wanted someone to just keep him busy.

[00:47:14] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:47:14] Justin Morseth: was just full of energy. And it was, was really, ~uh,~ I mean, it was dramatic, but it was really tearful because that poor dog had been living in that shelter, they treat the dogs very well, um, for seven years.

[00:47:27] And then, you know, that veteran was struggling and something in his life. And then the two, Princess and I don’t remember the veteran’s name, but he was acknowledged at the next Tinsel and Tail fundraising event. And it was so cool seeing that dog, because I’ve seen that dog a, a number of times. I don’t live up there anymore.

[00:47:46] I live down in Bloomington, Indiana. I’ve known Princess for a while, and she’s still alive and at– they have the best life. It’s pretty cool

[00:47:53] Scott DeLuzio: That’s awesome. And I, it was actually interesting, ~uh,~ to think about it the way you just put it, is that, you know, two misunderstood, [00:48:00] you know, the, the veteran and the, ~uh,~ the, the dog.

[00:48:02] Justin Morseth: happens that way, or it’s a cat

[00:48:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. The, misunderstood, but they, they work together pretty well, and that’s, that’s pretty awesome, ~uh,~ to, to see that happen, ~um,~ and, and have them rescue each other, ~uh,~ essentially.

[00:48:15] ~Um,~ and so that’s, that’s, that’s really cool. I’m glad you guys are doing that too because there’s, ~uh,~ a lot of… There are, ~uh,~ you know, other organizations obviously that do, ~uh,~ you know, service dogs and that, that type of thing for, for veterans. But it’s a growing need. It’s, it’s a need that, you know, I think people are realizing now that, like, this is actually something that is beneficial and it can work for, for certain people.

[00:48:35] And, ~uh,~ more and more people want to get access to a service dog. And so obviously with more demand and more needs out there, we, we need more organizations out there. So, ~um,~ you know, one of the things I love to do with this show is just raising awareness of, of organizations like this for, for folks who just aren’t familiar with, you know, what’s available out there.

[00:48:53] And so if you’re in that, that ar- area in, ~uh,~ you know, Indiana, ~uh,~ you know,

[00:48:57] Justin Morseth: Yeah, it’s

[00:48:58] Scott DeLuzio: definitely reach out

[00:48:59] Justin Morseth: resident. Like [00:49:00] they, we have them all the way up north

[00:49:01] Scott DeLuzio: Okay

[00:49:02] Justin Morseth: food gets shipped up there. Vet care, they’ll, they’ll pay for the vet costs up there. But, ~um,~ any Indiana resident, ~um,~ you– the only thing that will be a no-go is if you have some sort of violent history.

[00:49:15] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:49:16] Justin Morseth: if there’s anything criminal, that’s an automatic obviously no-go.

[00:49:19] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:49:20] Justin Morseth: ~Um,~ but and then you just have to have one of those three diagnoses from a VA or whoever healthcare professional. It’s a very simple process. You go to hamilton, ~uh,~ humane.org or just, you can just look up Pets Healing Vets and it’ll show up right there. But Hamilton Humane Society out in, out in Indianapolis, to their humane society page and it’ll pop.

[00:49:42] There’ll be a, a menu where you pop down. It’ll say Pets Healing Vets, and then it’ll pop up my story, you know, how it started,

[00:49:50] Scott DeLuzio: Perfect. Yeah. And I, I will, ~uh,~ I’ll, I’ll put a link to all that in the, the show notes and everything too, because I, I want, I want folks to be able to, ~uh,~ you know, find it easily and, and get [00:50:00] access to it, ~uh,~ because I, I don’t want them, ~uh,~ you know, stumbling around trying to f- trying to

[00:50:04] figure figure that out.

[00:50:05] So if I can make it easier for someone, I’ll, I’ll put that in there as well.

[00:50:08] ~Um,~ you know, so, ~um,~ I know we’re kinda running, running up on time here, and I, I don’t wanna, you know, keep it too long. I know there’s… We probably could’ve dove into so many more topics and, and…

[00:50:17] Justin Morseth: I k- I kind of get a little wordy sometimes.

[00:50:20] Scott DeLuzio: No, that’s okay. No, no, no worries there.

[00:50:21] I mean, I, I really enjoyed hearing the, the sto- your stories of, you know, your, your time in Iraq and, and your time coming home and, and dealing with the things that you dealt with. And, ~um,~ you know, the reason why I, I have folks like you on the show is because there are some folks out there listening who think that this is just them, it’s just their problem, that nobody else will understand it.

[00:50:42] But it’s like, no, man, there’s, there’s so many people out there like yourself who have experienced terrible things

[00:50:48] Justin Morseth: almost ga-

[00:50:48] Scott DeLuzio: combat.

[00:50:49] Justin Morseth: up.

[00:50:49] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:50:50] Justin Morseth: almost gave up, but then it just came down to, yeah, started thinking about the, the guys that I served with, and I’m like, “If they saw me right now, like [00:51:00] giving up, they would just think…” You know, that peer pressure you put on yourself. I’m their former PL. you know, I, I keep in contact with my platoon and I, I think humility is the only way to grow.

[00:51:11] And I’m like, “Guys, ~uh,~ you know, I made mistakes. I was drinking too much. Life got– life consumed me, and I was ignoring everything. I’m human.” And, you know, they’re like, “Sir, we’re all– we’ve all been through some form of that.” You know, every single member of my platoon. I’ve got some that are no longer alive, unfortunately. But it’s just something that stays with you,

[00:51:31] Scott DeLuzio: It is

[00:51:32] Justin Morseth: the only thing you can do is groom it the best way you can

[00:51:36] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and, and kind of grow around it and, and figure out how, how to navigate life with that, ~uh,~ baggage, if you will, you know, kinda k- carrying around and, and figure out, you know, the, what’s the easiest way to carry it, you know? Even, you know, think about carrying a rucksack. I know that’s, you know, as an infantry guy, you’re familiar with a rucksack, too.

[00:51:52] You don’t, you don’t want that rucksack low on your back. You, you wanna cinch that thing up nice, nice and high up on your back, and you fi- it’s the same weight, but it’s a whole lot [00:52:00] easier when it’s up high. So you, you-

[00:52:01] Justin Morseth: Awareness is– You’re right about awareness. We just, ~uh,~ I work with closely with IU and– not closely, but you know, I work with them speaking, and they are starting to branch out now and raise more awareness. And we worked for, ~uh,~ we did a talk with Republic Airways, which is a sub-carrier for the airline industry, and we talked about executives wanted us to come in and talk about military culture and combat. Why? Because they have a large number of pilots that are former fighter pilots that were, you know, dropping– They were flying A-10s, dropping munitions. And you talk about carrying a lot of weight, you know, dropping munitions on the ground, not knowing, you know, you knowing what you’re hitting, but just with the trigger, just like that, you know.

[00:52:46] So I think it’s really cool, the moral injury component, the baggage that pilots carry. It needs to just keep growing to other communities because when I worked, nobody cared.

[00:52:55] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:52:56] Justin Morseth: The first thing I noticed when I le- when I got out was [00:53:00] entitlement. The rat race, people are only concerned about themselves for the most part, you know, getting ahead, which I get. ~Um,~ but the awareness just, that’s kind of my mission now these days.

[00:53:12] Scott DeLuzio: Well, it, and I think you’re doing a great job at it, and, ~uh,~ you know, I’m, I’m, I’m sorry that it took so long for us to finally get connected, but I’m glad that we did. I had a, had a great conversation here with, with you and, ~uh,~ you know, I, I have, I feel like I, I, I wanna have you back on to, you know, kind of dive into some more of the, the topics that we, we talked about here.

[00:53:28] So

[00:53:29] Justin Morseth: There’s a minefield I led a task for– led a– during a thunder run going through that minefield, and we stayed the night halfway through because the D9 dozer became a mobility kill, and the Micklets didn’t work. It was crazy.

[00:53:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:53:43] Justin Morseth: the most vulnerable I ever felt because we were surrounded. I think I sent you the picture of it

[00:53:47] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. And, and it’s, it’s crazy. I, I, I’ll try to see if I can incorporate that somehow into, into the, ~uh,~ episode here for

[00:53:54] Justin Morseth: I asked my– I talked to my task force commander, Colonel Marcone. I’m like, “Sir, there is one thing I have [00:54:00] always wanted to ask you.” Well, I’m leading my ROP platoon, I was leading my platoon. We’re leading the entire task force. I go, “Nobody told me about these mines that were on Highway 8,” which is the east-west main artery. And he goes, “Justin, they put those in the night before.” And we were al- we’d already taken the airport. We were just trying to push further downtown.

[00:54:22] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:54:23] Justin Morseth: yeah, it was just a big nut roll, and there was working with Delta Force. I had Delta Force missions, three of– I mean, I was j- it was just a lot in a 21-day period to process

[00:54:32] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, and you think about that 21 days is not really a long time. I mean, you, you know, you think about, ~uh,~ you know, the la-

[00:54:39] Justin Morseth: You

[00:54:39] Scott DeLuzio: basically the, the last three weeks, ~uh,~ you know, what- whatever date you’re listening to this, think about the last three weeks. That’s not that long ago,

[00:54:45] Justin Morseth: Yeah

[00:54:46] Scott DeLuzio: that, that happened. But all that stuff that happened to you in such a short amount of time, and, and for anyone who’s been in combat, you know, five minutes feels like an eternity.

[00:54:55] And, ~uh,~ you know, nevermind three, three weeks of it, you [00:55:00] know?

[00:55:00] Justin Morseth: I actually am not an academic. I went to, you know, I went to Dennis University. I was not an academic giant there. I focused more on life and football, but I, ~uh,~ the most academic thing I’ve ever done in my life, you know those black and white composition books?

[00:55:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, yeah

[00:55:16] Justin Morseth: I’ve filled up six of them. I wrote every single day.

[00:55:20] So right now I’m trying to write a manuscript,

[00:55:23] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:55:24] Justin Morseth: ~uh,~ from my experiences. I got about 150 pages written, and I’m only like on book– just started book number three. So it’s been really rewarding. It’s not for me, it’s just for the relevance of all the people with whom I served during that 21-day time, ’cause people don’t know much about it.

[00:55:39] You know, when I’ve talked, they’re like, “I don’t remember that in the invas- in, in the Iraq War. heard these stories before.” Well, they did happen

[00:55:46] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And I, I think it’s super important for people like y- you to write these stories, ~uh,~ especially if you have all these, these, ~uh,~ these notebooks filled with information that, you

[00:55:55] Justin Morseth: Yeah

[00:55:55] Scott DeLuzio: don’t wanna forget. And, you know, people obviously are starting to forget, you know, despi- [00:56:00] despite the fact that they might say, “Oh yeah, we’ll never forget these things.”

[00:56:02] But, you know, yeah, they do. And, ~uh,~ so writing these things, ~uh,~ it helps, ~uh,~ you know, for generations to come will, will be able to look back on that type of stuff. So, you know, absolutely. And may- maybe when you get that, that book, ~uh,~ written, may- maybe we could talk to that.

[00:56:15] Justin Morseth: it.

[00:56:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:56:16] Justin Morseth: I’ve been working on it. I started last, not this past one. I, I had to pick a date that would hold me accountable, and I started on Memorial Day, not this past year, but the year before. So I’m like, it’s an honor for the guys that passed. I’m like, I have to hold myself accountable.

[00:56:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:56:31] Justin Morseth: I can’t let, I can’t let everyone down now at this point, no matter how bad a read it might be.

[00:56:37] Scott DeLuzio: I, I’m, I’m, ~uh,~ I’m, I’m holding you to it now, so, ~uh,~ I, when it,

[00:56:41] Justin Morseth: Boy,

[00:56:41] Scott DeLuzio: it, when it’s finished, I, I definitely wanna

[00:56:43] Justin Morseth: you know, it’s stuff like this that keeps me going though,

[00:56:45] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:56:46] Justin Morseth: I really appreciate you, you know, having me on. I’d love to have– And I’ve got a friend that he’s the professor at IU. He’s an Army infantry officer, and he’s got a very, ~um,~ unfortunate moral injury story. He

[00:56:57] Scott DeLuzio: Okay

[00:56:58] Justin Morseth: a JSOC commander in [00:57:00] Afghanistan, ~um,~ and he’s got a really good story.

[00:57:02] But he’s a professor that I work with at IU. I can give you his information if you ever

[00:57:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely

[00:57:08] Justin Morseth: one that, he’s the one that coordinates, and he’s really trying to launch this out into the civilian, you know, agencies, not just IU

[00:57:15] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yeah. I’d, I’d love to have a chat with him. ~Um,~ but, but Justin, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really, really appreciate it. I re- appreciate you sharing your story. I know it’s not always easy to, ~uh,~ you know, talk about some of these things, but, you know, coming on and, and being vulnerable and, and opening up and sharing these things is, ~uh,~ you know, hopefully a way to show other folks that it, it’s okay to talk about these things and, ~uh,~ that, that you can do it too.

[00:57:36] So, ~um,~ thank- thanks again and, and also for all the, the work that you and your, your wife are doing with the Pets Healing Vets. I, I think that’s, that’s pretty awesome too, and, ~uh,~ you know, thank- thanks so much for everything

[00:57:47] Justin Morseth: Thanks, Scott. I appreciate it

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Coming home can leave you with a job, a family, and a life that looks fine from the outside, while the structure, identity, and sense of purpose that you had in the military feel like they disappeared overnight. That isolation can get dangerous when meaningful connection is missing and people only check in after something has already gone wrong.

[00:00:21] Our guest today, Army veteran Sean Dillard, knows that struggle personally. After years of feeling disconnected, an injury and a period of heavy drinking pushed him into one of the darkest moments of his life. What helped pull him forward was connection, family, service, and eventually a rowing mission built around giving veterans a reason to show up for one another.

[00:00:42] In this episode, you’ll hear why Sean puts so much value on everyday connection, how his son became part of the mission, and why he encourages veterans looking for purpose to connect with communities that already exist. Before we get into this episode, though, I’d like to take a moment to raise awareness for the Global War on Terrorism [00:01:00] Memorial Foundation.

[00:01:01] This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington, D.C. to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

[00:01:17] If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOTmemorialfoundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:25]

[00:01:38] Scott DeLuzio: Hey Sean, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:01:42] Sean Dillard: ~Uh, ~super excited to be here.

[00:01:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. ~Uh, ~hey, ~um, ~for the listeners who may not know about you yet, ~uh, ~would you mind taking a minute just to introduce yourself, talk, talk through your, you know, army service and, you know, kind of what, what led you to where you are today?

[00:01:56] Sean Dillard: ~Uh, ~so my name is Sean Dillard. ~Uh, ~I’m an army veteran. I served from [00:02:00] 2006 to 2011. ~Uh, ~including a deployment to Iraq. ~Um, ~I was, ~uh, ~stationed in Germany for about two years, ~uh, ~or almost two years. And then, ~uh, ~went to Iraq and then went back to Germany and then came out and did a little stint of the National Guard for a year from 2010 to 2011. ~Um, ~so yeah.

[00:02:21] Scott DeLuzio: Cool. Cool. And, ~um, ~so we’re gonna kind of jump into, ~uh, ~talk about your, your, ~uh, ~work today that you’re, you’re doing now and, and all that, but. Just kind of as a, you know, I guess general background information, ~um, ~when you’re looking at the veteran mental health and suicide prevention programs and all those kind of things that are out there today, what do you think people outside the veteran community often misunderstand about Things like, ~uh, ~you know, isolation purpose, the, the things that continue to affect veterans after service.

[00:02:51] Sean Dillard: So, you know, I, I think the biggest misunderstanding is that people assume that war ends when they just come home. ~Um, ~[00:03:00] the, the truth is many veterans lose more than a job when they leave the military. ~Uh, ~they lose their structure, ~uh, ~their identity, purpose, you know, sometimes it who understand them best and, ~uh, ~you know, isolation is incredibly dangerous. you know, most veterans don’t wake up wanting to die, but they wake up leaving. Nobody would notice if they disappear. And I think that’s a huge difference.

[00:03:27] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:03:28] Sean Dillard: So.

[00:03:29] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, and that’s, that is a huge difference. And, ~um, ~you know, oftentimes when you’re isolated, like you’re saying that you’re, you’re not really. Paying that close attention to the, the people who might, ~uh, ~be affected by your absence or, or the lack of your presence. You know, if you, if you did go that route.

[00:03:48] So, ~um, ~you know, you’re, you know, very often in your own lane and you’re not really thinking too, too much outside of that, that area. And it, ~uh, ~you know. Then it just becomes, ~uh, ~you know, kind of starts to feel a little bit [00:04:00] hopeless. I, I think, anyways. And, and it, ~uh, ~makes, it, makes it a lot, ~uh, ~a lot harder on, on the person.

[00:04:04] And, and when you have that kind of community, ~um, ~around you, you got, got folks around you, then there’s, there’s something to wake up for. There’s other people there. That, that you can, ~uh, ~you know, kind of be around and stuff. But, you know, that’s, I, I know that those are general, ~uh, ~you know, terms, it’s not, that’s not the, the case for every single person.

[00:04:21] ~Um, ~you know, I, I don’t wanna, you know, paint this with a broad brush or anything like that, but, you know,

[00:04:25] Sean Dillard: I don’t.

[00:04:26] Scott DeLuzio: know, you did bring up some good points there.

[00:04:27] Sean Dillard: Well, and I, and don’t believe that, and I, I feel you can almost kind of, can do a little bit of a broad brush

[00:04:35] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:04:35] Sean Dillard: comes to connection. ~Um, ~the research that I’ve done over the last three years, you know, the significant difference of the, the impact of veteran suicide rates to, ~uh, ~what they are today. ~Uh, ~and they found one thing that was very, ~uh, ~very lacking in the, the situation of. The veterans who were part of a community were less likely to commit suicide than those that were [00:05:00] not. And

[00:05:00] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:01] Sean Dillard: know, being a part of a community, meaning that you’re having this connection, you have people that you’re talking to, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re, you’re, they’re talking to them about, you know, you problems or your issues or anything like that.

[00:05:13] It’s just a matter of, Hey, how you doing? What’d you have for dinner last night? You know,

[00:05:18] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:05:19] Sean Dillard: little things right there. Just remind people. That somebody cares about them and not just, you know, you know, the one thing that I struggled with a lot of times is when I had my, my moments of darkness and everybody’s like, are you okay?

[00:05:32] And then, you know, that’s when it really felt like, okay, well they only care about me when I’m in my moment of need. Like where is the care for me when it’s not those moments? And that’s where we’re

[00:05:44] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:05:44] Sean Dillard: our connection with people.

[00:05:46] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that’s that’s a good point. Yeah. ~Uh, ~I hadn’t, you know, thought of it about it that way. And, ~um, ~you know, I, I think, ~um, ~yeah, connection I think is, is huge. And we don’t value it as much as we probably should [00:06:00] sometimes. And, ~uh, ~you know, that, that could lead to some problems. So, ~um, ~you know, I know a lot of, a lot of times veterans transition out of the military, they, they feel like they lost their purpose and, ~um, ~you know, they.

[00:06:09] Their, or their, ~uh, ~that comradery or, you know, all the things that, that veterans tend to tend to lose when they get out. But, ~um, ~you talked a little bit about your own experience, ~um, ~but ~um, ~from, from your experiences, maybe even from the work you’re doing now, what are some things that, that veterans can do to start rebuilding their sense of purpose after getting outta the military?

[00:06:28] Sean Dillard: Well, well, you know, and that it’s interesting that you put it like that because. It took me 20 years to figure out my purpose. ~Uh, ~when I left out in the military in 2011, I mean, I was on autopilot. I mean, I was jumping from job to job, ~um, ~you know, and it wasn’t the lack of, you know, doing a good job at those places.

[00:06:47] I, I honestly, I started getting bored after being there for so long. ~Uh, ~I did the best that I could, and I’m just like, what’s next? And just, you know, I kept doing that over and over again and, you know, it was about. Two [00:07:00] years ago, I met a group of guys, Rangers Row, ~uh, ~you know, reached out to me and said, Hey, you know, ~uh, ~I, I run my, ~uh, ~my shirt, company shirts for vets. And so they reached out to me and they said, Hey, we need to see if you could donate some shirts. And I’m like, I can’t do that. I, I was an over the road truck driver running this business in the back of my semi, so it’s like I didn’t have the means to do that, but I was like, well, but I can, I can set you up a, a storefront.

[00:07:25] And so I did that. and then just in that alone, ~uh, ~I started going, or every week they would have a weekly meet team meeting, and they would have me on the meeting with them. And here’s four, two of ’em were Army rangers. Well, I think all of ’em were, excuse me. All of them were army rangers. And then two of them were also Special force guys. ~Um, ~I was just a specialist. I, I worked on night vision goggles when I was in the military, so it was like. This was just cool in its own self being,

[00:07:56] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:07:57] Sean Dillard: connected with these kind of guys. But [00:08:00] I started getting that camaraderie again just by having that connection with them. ~Um, ~and then it evolved. It went from, being, ~uh, ~their shirt guy to, ~uh, ~one of their rowers couldn’t do it.

[00:08:13] They asked me to be a part of it. And you know, at first I told ’em hell no. ~Uh, uh, ~oh, it, so it, their mission was they were rowing across the Pacific Ocean from California to Hawaii. So

[00:08:24] Scott DeLuzio: Okay,

[00:08:25] Sean Dillard: hell no at first.

[00:08:26] Scott DeLuzio: sure. That’s, that’s, that is a big, ~uh, ~endeavor to, to jump into,

[00:08:30] ~um, ~

[00:08:30] Sean Dillard: yeah,

[00:08:31] Scott DeLuzio: anybody, you know, even if you’ve been doing that forever, you know?

[00:08:34] Sean Dillard: so, you know, we ended up getting that moment and that’s just, that started building my purpose, but then, you know, it. There’s been a lot of things that have happened since I started that endeavor. You know, I, ~uh, ~changed and ended up, ~uh, ~getting injured during training. So I, I wasn’t able to do the row with them. I started going back down another dark path. ~Um, ~I almost committed suicide, ~uh, ~last year because of it, because I felt like I let everybody down [00:09:00] and then I was like, you know what? It’s, you know, it’s not about an epic adventure. It’s about can we make, you know, this purpose-driven. Thing again, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be an ocean crossing.

[00:09:13] It doesn’t need to be, you know, a 5K run. It just needs to be something connects veterans with veterans and it doesn’t even need to be just veterans, people that support veterans. Just making those connections, I think is what saves lives. I really do. And.

[00:09:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And yeah, even outside of the military community, you know, just having a, ~uh, ~a hobby or something that you’re involved with, ~uh, ~you know, maybe it’s a running group or a, you know, some other activity that you’re, you’re into and, and you just have those people in your life. They don’t necessarily have to be veterans.

[00:09:46] They, they could be anybody really, right.

[00:09:49] Sean Dillard: Exactly. I mean, it, it’s, but they just need to know that, you know. ~Uh, ~connections are there to make that happen. ~But when we do, you know, when we do have these connections with our com, with our military brother, I can’t even say the brotherhood and sisterhood that are veterans. Um,~ when we make those connections with each other, ~uh, ~I think it really [00:10:00] helps out a lot because we understand what each of us are going through.

[00:10:03] We understand. You know, what we went through with the service and whether, and, and the biggest thing is, and the misconception too, a lot of people don’t think about is there’s a lot of veterans out there that have never been to war that struggled just as bad. they, they went into the military with the mission in mind. They’re serving their country. They’re, they’re doing their part, and then they get out and they’re kind of just on the same like as with me on autopilot. No, I, I, I went, I was to Iraq, but. I was one of the lucky ones that came home. you know, and that kind of, that got to me a lot throughout my whole entire, you know, civilian life, you know, as I felt like I wasn’t a real veteran. ~Um, ~I felt like I didn’t do enough because I didn’t get shot, or, you know, I didn’t do this or I didn’t do that, and, you know, and it just, it, it weighs on you. And you know, and we just, we’ve got to look at the bigger picture that it’s not [00:11:00] just PTSD that are struggling and there’s a lot more out there, and it all comes down to making that connection with each other.

[00:11:08] And that’s, again, that’s how we save lives.

[00:11:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. ~Um, ~I wanted kind of switch gears just a bit, well, not, not entirely switching gears here, but I, I wanna talk about, ~uh, ~the, or some odyssey, ~uh, ~the, the organization that you were talking about before. Tell us a little bit more about, ~uh, ~kind of what they, their, ~uh, ~kinda mission is and, ~uh, ~do you have a, a.

[00:11:28] ~Uh, ~pretty big adventure coming up, ~uh, ~you know, coming in the, ~uh, ~near future here. So tell us a little bit about that and, and, ~uh, ~you know, kind of what, what the organization all about.

[00:11:36] Sean Dillard: So, yeah, and, and I, I forgot to touch on it, but yeah. I’m, I’m the founder of the, the Southern Illinois Veterans Foundation and, ~uh, ~through our flagship mission or some, or some odyssey, we’re using it as an adventure. ~Uh, ~community and or a purpose to help veterans reconnect with life. ~Um, ~our mission isn’t just to row a boat, it’s to remind veterans that they’re [00:12:00] not alone and to build a community that keeps them from reaching the edge. And so, or some odyssey, you know, originally, ~uh, ~me and my son, which he’s 11 years old, Aiden, like I, I had talked about before, you know, I almost committed suicide. It was last February is when it happened. And that was because, ~um, ~that was right around the time when I got injured and I had to have surgery, and I started drinking again.

[00:12:28] Real bad. Well, not again. I mean, I never really drank bad before, but I started drinking real bad and I got, I started spiraling out and it was, it was bad.

[00:12:42] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:12:43] Sean Dillard: But, ~uh, ~I had a, ~uh, ~service dog, well, a service dog in training, five-year-old month pup, ~um, ~serenity. She, ~uh, ~she stamp me out of it in the midst of my darkness. ~Um, ~and then after that I just, I kind of woke up and I said, you know what? Enough’s enough. I gotta stop [00:13:00] feeling sorry for myself. I gotta stop doing this, so what’s the next thing? And I just got to thinking about it. I’m like, you know what? I was so surreal and at peace when I was out on the water training. That like, we’re gonna figure out how to get back out there. So I started reaching out, went and borrowed a boat from a buddy of mine. ~Uh, ~started doing a little bit of fundraising, ~uh, ~to get to go towards our mission. My whole idea was, you know, I was gonna row across the ocean because that’s what I missed out on, and I was gun dead set on doing that. And then. Along the way, my son Aiden, he was helping me out with doing the fundraiser. ~Uh, ~we had the boat set up at our town, ~uh, ~town and Country Days Fair. ~Um, ~people coming by talking about it, and you should have seen him. He is up there, he is telling everybody about the different things of the boat and everybody kept asking him.

[00:13:53] He is like, so you gonna do this row with your dad? And he is like, no, but I want to. [00:14:00] And, and being so young, you know, I, you know, I was cautious about that. I didn’t really think it was probably a good idea. But then, you know, we started talking with somebody else and he is like, why not by the time you go to do the row, you know, he is gonna be older.

[00:14:14] So we were originally planning on doing it and, ~uh, ~20, 20, 28 is when we were planning on doing the row. So that would’ve put him at 13 years old and like, okay. And then. You know, miraculous thing happens. ~Uh, ~plans kind of shift we, ~uh, ~we ended up going down to Florida, me and Aiden, ~uh, ~we went and met with a good friend of ours, Paul, Lori. ~Uh, ~he’s rode across about every ocean that there is, ~uh, ~multiple times. ~Uh, ~he’s actually out on the water, ~uh, ~crossing from, ~uh, ~new Finland to, ~uh, ~the UK right now.

[00:14:49] Scott DeLuzio: Oh wow.

[00:14:50] Sean Dillard: having a wonderful time doing that. So, ~uh, ~anyway, when we met with him, you know, he had his, ~uh, ~cautions about Aidan being so young [00:15:00] and, you know, as a parent I do too. Being very young and crossing an ocean, you know, is pretty dangerous.

[00:15:07] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:08] Sean Dillard: And so he put the idea in our head about doing the Great Loop. And so, you know, the Great Loop is the American waterways, ~uh, ~from Chicago down the Illinois River, Mississippi. Through the Gulf down around Florida, then up the eastern coast, up through New York, the Hudson, through Canada, the Great Lakes, and back to Chicago over 6,000 miles. So after he put me on this idea of that, and he said this would be a good way for one, didn’t be able to train and learn how to do the ocean rowing and stuff like that. It’d be good practice for the both of us. ~Um, ~not only that, if something were to happen. We’d be a stone throws from the beach edge to be able to get help.

[00:15:52] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:15:53] Sean Dillard: if we’re rowing across an ocean and something happens, help may not help, may not arrive [00:16:00] for days. So, so I’m like, okay, you know what? You’re right. That’s a good idea. Let’s do that. And then I’m like, you know what? I wanna build on that. this feels like this is meant to be. Because not only though, now. We’re gonna do this, we’re gonna be so close to, to everything. We’re gonna have more exposure to bring more eyes on our mission. But then I’m like, you know what? That’s not good enough for me. I’m like, I don’t care about that. You know, I, I was on another podcast and before we got on the podcast, we were kind of talking and they had mentioned something about how people always kind of use that moniker. In veteran suicide. In veteran suicide. And a lot of people will do it and they’ll do this mission, they’ll do this ruck march and all that. But like, how are you actually ending veteran suicide? And I’m like, you know what? That’s a good question. Like we can [00:17:00] raise all the money in the world and we can help pay for service dogs and we can do this and do that.

[00:17:05] We can bring eyes on it, we can talk about it. And that’s a great step in what we’re trying to do, and that’s what we need to do and that’s what we’ll continue to do. But how can we even do it even further? And I said, you know what? I know what this row has done for me. I know what being out on the water has done for me.

[00:17:24] So now what we’re gonna do is we are gonna be bringing veterans along with us throughout the entire journey. every week, veterans will come on and row the boat with us and swap out every week. And so that way we’re building connection.

[00:17:41] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:17:41] Sean Dillard: that camaraderie again. You know, we’re gonna give them purpose after service is what I’ve been saying. And I, I really feel like that’s our way to help end veteran suicide. And, and, you know, not every veteran is gonna be affected by this stuff. Like, ~uh, ~I will, but I know that [00:18:00] there’s at least one out there, if not more. And if we can make that impact with them, then that’s good enough for me.

[00:18:08] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and you know, with any effort towards, you know, vent, veterans mental health or suicide prevention or all that kinda stuff, I think everyone starts off thinking, Hey, if I can, if I can help one person. You know, it’ll be mission accomplished. I know, I, I started that way thinking with, ~uh, ~the, this podcast, you know, if I can reach one person and one person is listening and, and one person gets to stick around till tomorrow and you know, then the next day and the next day after that and, you know, continues, ~uh, ~then.

[00:18:38] Mission accomplished. But you know, as time goes on, I, I think you’ll start to find that it’s gonna be a hell of a lot more than just one person who gets help from this. You know? ~Uh, ~yeah, sure. The, the folks who are, ~uh, ~participating will obviously get some benefit from it, but there’s gonna be other people who are on the sidelines kind of watching this, this happen as well.

[00:18:58] And, ~uh, ~I, I. [00:19:00] In my opinion, I think they’ll, they’ll probably get some benefit too, because they’ll, they’ll see that, hey, the, these other people can go and do something too. ~Um, ~you know, they’re, they’re just like me, you know, they’re, they’re the type of people I can see myself as that type of person. And, ~uh, ~you know, maybe I’m not in the, the shape to go, you know, rowing as, as long as those people are.

[00:19:19] But, ~um, ~you know, maybe. You know, I can do that too. Or, you know, something like that. And so, ~um, ~you know, it’s just interesting to see how, ~uh, ~the ripple effect, you know, starts helping o other people down the line too, that you may not have even thought of at this point. You know?

[00:19:33] Sean Dillard: Well, we’ve, you know, we’ve, ~uh, ~we’ve set the boat up and we’ve gone and we’ve talked to a lot of different people and been, you know, spreading our mission as much as we can. And I, and I run into a few older gentlemen, which I can tell you right now, there’s a lot of old people that row across the, the oceans.

[00:19:50] ~Um, ~frankly, Paul Lori, he is not a young kid anymore. ~Um, ~and he is still, ~uh, ~rowing across oceans. So age is just a number, you know, it’s a, it’s a mentality [00:20:00] thing, but that’s not even the, the biggest thing. If there’s a veteran who wants to come and row with us and is maybe not in the best of health, or, you know, may not be able to put all their weight into it, I’m not gonna tell them, no, you can’t get on this boat. ~Um, ~we’ll figure something else out. I mean, it, we just might row a little bit slower. You know, there’s three rowing positions. It doesn’t necessarily always have to be three rowers, rowing. ~Um, ~you know, so we’ll figure something out. I’m, I’m gonna make that connection and I’m not gonna tell a veteran no. ~Um, ~unless I absolutely have to.

[00:20:35] Scott DeLuzio: right, right. Absolutely. ~Um, ~and with some of folks, ~um. ~Being a little bit on the older side. Age is just a number that, that type of thing, these endurance events, I think, ~um, ~you know, really get to, ~uh, ~you know, someone’s mental and emotional state. You know, kind of, you gotta be kind of mentally tough.

[00:20:53] You can’t just, you know, wanna, ~uh. ~You know, ah, this is getting a little hard and, you know, just, just quit. Especially when you’re doing something like crossing the [00:21:00] ocean there, there’s no quitting. Once, once when you’ve gotten to that, you know, halfway point, there’s, there’s no going back. You’re, you’re gonna continue, you know, one way or the other.

[00:21:07] So, ~um, ~how has preparing for this, this type of row, ~uh, ~shaped the way you think about things like resilience and discipline and all that kind of stuff?

[00:21:16] Sean Dillard: I think preparing for something like this, it, it really teaches you kind of, ~uh. ~Humility And, and I say that because you can, you can get stacked up and racked up, you know, or I don’t even know how to put it. You know,

[00:21:33] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:21:34] Sean Dillard: galore and you can do all the preparations in the world for this. And I mean, there’s so much that goes into with all the training that you have to do not, and not just physical, but also mental training.

[00:21:47] That you have to prepare yourself for this stuff. You know, like, ’cause when we go out, like me and Aidan, we’re gonna be gone for two and a half months living on the water, just the two of us. And we will swap out with other people constantly. [00:22:00] But we’re gonna be the two common denominators, so we’re gonna have to get over being together for so much. ~Um, ~you know, but, but there is so much more to it that the reason why I say humility is because, you know, I’ve seen grown men. Break down, ~um, ~when they’ve done these things. I’ve seen Navy Seals that have locked themselves away in their rooms, you know, on the cabins when they’re crossing over. So, you know, I, I’m gonna try and prepare myself as much as I can, but I’m also gonna be prepared to say whether or not, you know, I’m having a tough time today.

[00:22:34] I need a break. And just like anybody else.

[00:22:38] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, that’s a good point. ~Um, ~and, and knowing when to ask for help or at least ask for, ~uh, ~you know, a little bit of leeway, you know, if you need to take a break or something like that, like what you’re talking about. But, ~um, ~you know, you were talking about doing this alongside your son, which is a big thing to do, ~um, ~and.

[00:22:55] That father son aspect of this whole journey, ~um, ~is, is [00:23:00] probably taught you a, a bunch of stuff about, you know, mentorship, ~uh, ~being a, being a father, communication, passing on lessons and, and things like that to your son. ~Um, ~how has that, ~uh, ~kind of affected you and, and you know, and your son and your relationship?

[00:23:14] Sean Dillard: So this, this, this adventure. So I, you know, I had said before I was an over the road truck driver.

[00:23:27] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:23:27] Sean Dillard: I, I did it for about three and a half years. and a lot of times I was out for about a month at a time. So, you know. really a lot of my stuff in my kids’ lives. ~I’ve got~

[00:23:38] Scott DeLuzio: ~Hmm.~

[00:23:38] Sean Dillard: ~four, hold on.~ I got four kids now. ~Uh, ~we just adopted another, ~uh, ~another boy, ~uh, ~just last month. So yeah, so, ~uh, ~but eight in, whenever I come off of the road and I started getting involved with all this stuff. I mean, he was just to my hip. ~Uh, ~we were working and we were doing like Walmart deliveries. ~Uh, ~and doing DoorDash. And, [00:24:00] you know, he would come with me every, you know, every chance he got.

[00:24:03] And, you know, as soon as he got outta school, you know, is your homework done? Okay, I want to dad come pick me up. And so he spent all of his time with me. which is also another thing, you know, we kind of get sick of each other sometimes too, but, but one thing that really stuck with me throughout all this and started to where I was like. Really gung ho about him being a part of this is we were in Walmart one day and was having a bad day and I ended up getting into it with one of the cashiers over something stupid then inadvertently got into it with the manager over something stupid I was wrong. But you know, I was pretty stubborn and I just didn’t wanna admit I was wrong. ~Um, ~but you know, it was almost to the point where they were gonna ban me from. Doing Walmart deliveries and you know, it was like, there’s just [00:25:00] another thing that I screwed up, another thing that I ruined and another thing that, you know, how am I supposed to take care of my family being a loser that I am, you know, it was just building up

[00:25:09] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:10] Sean Dillard: and it was all around the same time of, you know, ~uh, ~not being able to do the row, you know, and all that stuff.

[00:25:16] And I mean, I just, I broke down in the middle of Walmart. I started bawling my eyes out and my son. He, he’s 10 years old, you know, at the time, and he is dad. It’s gonna be okay. It’s okay.

[00:25:36] Scott DeLuzio: It’s, it is amazing sometimes just the, ~uh, ~the, ~uh, ~the innocence of kids sometimes, but their, their wisdom too, you know? ’cause I mean, fast forward to now, he was right. You know, thing, everything’s okay. You know, you’re, you’re, it wasn’t the end of the world at that time. And, you know, you. You made it through and ~uh, ~you know, but sometimes you’re in that dark place and you, you just don’t see your way through.

[00:25:59] But, but [00:26:00] sometimes just listen to that little voice could be, could be a great thing. Right.

[00:26:03] Sean Dillard: Yeah, I mean, and I mean, it was just as something as simple as that, you know, it was like right after that, you know, I calmed down. ~Uh, ~you know, I went over, apologized to the manager about everything, you know, and everything was fine. And then we, you know, we moved forward. But you know, Aiden is such a remarkable kid at his age to wanna do something and he is, you know, he, he’s not doing this because he wants to be on TV or get a record or anything like that, is he really truly cares and wants to make a difference.

[00:26:39] ~Uh, ~you know, I I, I’m part of Rotary and he, ~uh, ~he loves going to the Rotary meetings with me. And he’s met a lot of cool people with Rotary. And he even got an award, ~um, ~through my Rotary program. ~Uh, ~another lady, ~uh, ~seen all the work that he was doing for the Row and put him in for, you know, what’s called a Paul Harris [00:27:00] fellow. ~Um, ~that’s one of the, the highest honors that you can get in Rotary. And here he is, 11-year-old boy getting a Paul Harris fellow. I don’t even have a Paul Harris fellow. Yeah.

[00:27:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And you know, as a, as a dad of myself, I, ~uh, ~whenever you see your kids doing something awesome and they’re achieving great things, it makes you feel good that you know that you’re. Your, your kids are doing these things, not just because, ~uh, ~you’re telling them to do them or, or anything like that.

[00:27:30] They’re doing it because they, they want to and they’re enjoying it, and Oh, yeah. By the way, they’re kicking ass at it too, and that, that just gotta feel good too. Right.

[00:27:37] Sean Dillard: They’re, they’re, but I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you the, the biggest, his biggest struggle is french fries. ~Uh, ~we, we talk about, he, he’s already trying to figure out how to freeze dry french fries for when we go do our row. I mean, I. I mean, there, there’s, you know, there’s moments that we get on each other’s nerves and there’s moments that I get, I, I have to get angry with them and I [00:28:00] hate being that way, you know, but I’m like, I love you kid.

[00:28:02] And you know, I know we act like we’re best friends, but I’m still your dad,

[00:28:06] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right, right.

[00:28:07] Sean Dillard: so

[00:28:08] Scott DeLuzio: you know what, if he ever figures out the, the freeze drying of the, the french fries, I’m, I’m sure there’s some market there, you know, maybe even with NASA to, you know, get the, ~uh, ~the astronauts, some, ~uh, ~some french fries and, and a little comfort food up there in, in the space station.

[00:28:21] But, ~uh, um, ~you know, that, but that, that’s pretty cool. ~Um, ~so I wanna circle back to the, you you mentioned the Southern Illinois Veterans Foundation. ~Um, ~you know. You’re kind of working at the grassroots level, ~um, ~for veterans who might see a need in their own communities, you know, maybe outside of your area and things like that.

[00:28:36] But, ~um, ~they’re, they’re wanting to start something or they’re just maybe feeling overwhelmed by the idea of starting, you know, some sort of, ~uh, ~foundation or nonprofit, something like that. ~Um, ~you know, do you have any advice for those types of folks who are, ~uh, ~seeing a need but just don’t know where to start?

[00:28:51] Maybe, maybe a bit overwhelmed.

[00:28:53] Sean Dillard: ~Uh, ~I would say, you know, don’t, don’t go run out and start your own non-profit. ~uh, ~we only, we [00:29:00] only did it because we needed to have a, a fun, you know, to be able to do the row. ~Um, ~but it’s kind of evolved and it’s starting to be more than what we initially meant for it to be. But for everybody else, go out there, connect with of the American legions, the VFWs, ~um, ~you know, they’re not all bad, and I don’t mean that in a bad way, just. A lot of people get the, the notation that, you know, the American Legion or the VFW is just a bar and, and they’re not. ~Um, ~there’s a lot of ’em out there that really want to be more proactive. They wanna start doing service projects and stuff like that. ~Um, ~another avenue too is your DAV, ~uh, ~connect with them. ~Um, ~and then just look at what, just on Google. Hey, what veteran programs are in my area and. You know, you can start finding other ones. You know, that’s what I started doing when I got my, you my, my shirt business is shirts for vets. And, you know, I’m like, well, you know, I want to help out my veteran groups, you know, around here.

[00:29:57] And I just did that. And I just started, okay, well, [00:30:00] know, gonna help this people out. I’m gonna help these people out. And it’s amazing the different groups that are out there. And then you just gotta ask yourself, what do you wanna do? Do you want to help with the food pantry? Like me and Aiden, we, we help out with our, our local food pantry, which is not a veteran program, but it’s just our local food pantry.

[00:30:22] We help and rerun deliveries. ~Uh, ~every week we’ve taken a little break ’cause we’ve been gearing up for this row. But you know, that’s something that we did and it’s not even veteran related. I just feel like the more good you put out there, more you feel like you’re giving back. ~Um, ~and so that’s. You just gotta ask.

[00:30:42] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And, ~uh, ~you know, I had a guest on the show years ago when I, I first started the show and I, ~uh, ~what he said kind of stuck with me is that, you know, when you’re able to help other people, it, it does something for you that. Really nothing else can, can do. Like, [00:31:00] if you can, whether it’s, you know, serving at a food pantry or, you know, any other way that you can serve, whether, you know, maybe it’s a veteran, maybe it’s something else in your community, whatever it is that you’re, you’re doing and you’re out there helping somebody else.

[00:31:12] ~Uh, ~it, it gives you like a, a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning, a, a sense of fulfillment, really, ~uh, ~that it’s really hard to get anywhere else o other than helping. Somebody else in, in that, that kind of way. You know, and it could come from anywhere, like you said, a food pantry. It could come from, you know, your church or you know, some other, or organization in your town or whatever.

[00:31:34] ~Um, ~you know, there’s all sorts of different places that you can find ways to help out, ways to help other people. ~Um, ~and it’s just a matter of. Figure out what is the right one for you? What, what’s that, that organization that maybe, ~uh, ~is helping the, the de demographic that you really are, ~um, ~you know, connecting with or, or whatever.

[00:31:52] And that makes you feel full inside when, when you’re able to help those people. And, and it’s an incredible thing when, when you do it. ~Um, ~you know, even, even this show, [00:32:00] you know, I started this show seven-ish years ago, and, you know, I’m doing it because I, I love helping out the, the veteran population with, you know.

[00:32:08] Raising awareness for organizations and things that are going on in our community. And, ~uh, ~you know, I, I’ve, every time I get on a show with another veteran, I, I just feel like, you know, it’s just another opportunity to learn a little bit about that person and, you know, what makes them tick and, and what have they struggled with and what, what are they doing.

[00:32:27] But it also, so it helps me in, in that way. But, you know, it’s also helping other folks. So, ~uh, ~you know, it’s, it’s just a, a, you know, great way to give back and there’s, there’s tons of ways to do it. ~Um, ~just gotta keep your eyes open and, and figure out where those, those things are. Right?

[00:32:41] Sean Dillard: Yeah. Well, and you know, another thing, and you know. Because I’m into so much stuff that I did, you know, I could never cover it all. But you know, I did speak on, on Rotary,

[00:32:53] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:32:53] Sean Dillard: I would say, you know, if you are looking to really give back and want to do something, [00:33:00] ’cause. You know, even as a veteran, you can still serve your community, still serve your country, and still have a purpose.

[00:33:06] And it doesn’t have to be military or veteran oriented to do that. And, you know, my work with Rotary has been really fulfilling for me. You know, we, we go out and we do service projects. ~Um, ~I just joined Rotary last year and now this year I’m the president of my rotary club. ~uh, ~don’t ask me about that one, but. But

[00:33:31] Scott DeLuzio: I.

[00:33:31] Sean Dillard: it. But, but I do, I do love it. And I am actually in our rotary district. We are actually trying to start, veteran focused, ~uh, ~rotary clubs that just work on veteran projects and, and stuff. So they’re, they’re veterans and veteran family members or people who support veterans are running those individual clubs. And so my whole kind of thing with that was kind of, there’s a [00:34:00] lot of people that when they leave the military, that have done some things that, you know, were justified still leaves a dark, dark hole in their soul, you know, or how they may

[00:34:14] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:34:14] Sean Dillard: and, and I feel like when you give back, that kind of helps to fill that hole a little bit, you know, even though, regardless of whether it was right or wrong. You know, they still feel morally that they did something wrong. And so,

[00:34:29] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:34:30] Sean Dillard: I, I

[00:34:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:34:31] Sean Dillard: is a good avenue for that.

[00:34:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, ~uh, ~you know, I’m not involved with Rotary myself, but I, I’ve known some people who were, and from the, ~uh, ~conversations I’ve had with them, the, the different types of, ~uh, ~you know, kind of community projects and other things that they do, it’s just, you know, kind of incredible, ~uh, ~all the, the work that they do.

[00:34:49] And, ~uh, ~you know, I, I think, ~uh, ~you probably don’t even realize all the, the work that that does go in too. You know, all those projects, but you might see things all around your town that were [00:35:00] worked on by folks in, in their, ~uh, ~you know, local rotary, ~uh, ~rotary club. And, ~uh, ~you know, they. They end up having, ~uh, ~you know, a whole, whole better, ~uh, ~environment to live in and work in and, and play in, and all the things that they do because of those, those folks.

[00:35:13] And it’s, it’s really great, ~uh, ~you know, and, ~uh, ~you know, it’s a lot of, a lot of work, but it, it helps out a lot of folks too. ~ Um,~

[00:35:19] Sean Dillard: yeah. And they’re, and they’re some of the most nicest people I’ve ever met. I don’t, I went to a, ~uh, ~a president-elect training, ~uh, ~seminar and, it was hundreds of people and, I mean, everybody was just so friendly and so nice. And these are people that you know, don’t judge you. They don’t care. who you are. ~Um, ~all they care is about the, the good that you can bring to the table. And that’s it.

[00:35:44] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. ~Um, uh, ~as far going back to the, or some odyssey, ~um, ~you know, as far as making sure that the attention, ~um, ~that you’re, you’re getting for is, ~uh, ~translating into the support that you’re, you’re looking for as far as, you know, veteran mental health program, [00:36:00] suicide prevention, all those kind of things.

[00:36:01] ~Um. ~I obviously fundraising is a big piece of it, but is there anything else that you want folks, ~uh, ~to be able to, ~uh, ~contribute or help out with, ~uh, ~you know, along the way for your, your, ~uh, ~you know, upcoming adventure that, that you’re gonna be doing? Or is there, ~uh, ~you know, what, what is the biggest need that you guys are looking for?

[00:36:17] Sean Dillard: ~Um, ~you know, our biggest need is really just really the support, just getting the message out there. ~Um, uh, ~you know, another thing is, you know, we do need to fill the slots on the boat. so we really do need to get it known out there to veterans that, hey, you know, you know. Come and get on this boat with us. you know, the whole training aspect of it I think is gonna be, ~um, ~pretty exciting. ~Um, ~what we’re gonna be doing is, so before we even do the row, you know, we’re gonna have about 20 veterans that are gonna do the first leg of it, right? so, a month before we start rowing, we’re gonna bring them all here to Southern Illinois. And I’ve already been thinking about this. We’re gonna throw ’em into a barrack situation. [00:37:00] And then do like a two week bootcamp of, you know, the boat and the operations of the boat and all that stuff. Get them on the boat. So they learned everything like that. But I got really super excited thinking about that because I’m like, you know what, how many of these guys kind of miss when they were at bootcamp, being able to sleep in the, in the, you know, in the barracks and just doing stupid things with each other, you know? So I’m really excited to be able to do that again too. So that’s a big thing, you know, and, and I feel like the more veterans that we have that are gonna be doing it, you know, that’s more communities that can get behind that veteran and their mission, you know, to be a part of this mission. So, you know, that’s a big thing. You know, we are looking for sponsors. We do need a, a lot of sponsors. ~Um, ~you know, I don’t, I hate making anything about money when it comes to nonprofits and, and this stuff, but you know, it’s the ugly truth. You have to have money to be able to. To do this stuff.

[00:37:56] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:37:57] Sean Dillard: to make it a very low point of anything [00:38:00] that we’re talking about, but we do need to raise about $160,000 for the first leg of it. ~Um, ~that covers, ~uh, ~the boat. The boat we currently is, ~uh, ~$65,000. ~Uh, ~we do have a boat. We do have the boat right now. ~Um, ~we were able to put a $5,000 down payment on it and make payments, ~um. ~For that. So that’s awesome. So we’re able to start doing a lot of training and a lot of fundraising and going to Vince with it. ~Um, ~and then the other avenue of it, we kind of figured out, ~uh, ~it’s gonna cost roughly about $5,000 for every veteran to come and do this row with us. ~Um, ~that’s to include their airfare, their food, while they’re here, ~um, ~their lodging, all that stuff, you know, so none of the, the, the idea is none of the veterans are gonna have to pay for anything. ~Uh, ~they come here. ~Uh, ~the only thing we won’t pay for is their knick-knacks. They want to get at paddy wax, but, you know,

[00:38:51] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:38:52] Sean Dillard: that, you know, we, we will cover everything else. ~Um, ~so that’s gonna be the first leg of it, and then the next year after that, you know, and then we’re only looking [00:39:00] at, you know, $50,000 every year, ~um, ~that we go to do it.

[00:39:04] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Well, for the, the listeners, ~uh, ~who are interested in, ~uh, ~supporting, I’ll have a link to, you know, websites and all that kinda stuff. So, you know, any, any, ~uh, uh, ~you know, support that they can give, whether it’s financial or other type of support, they can go get all the information that they need and all that kinda stuff too, ~uh, ~you know, from, from your website and, and all that kind of stuff too.

[00:39:24] But, ~um, ~you know, it’s. It’s a, a, a great cause. I think that’s why, you know, I wanted to have you on the show and talk about what you guys are doing and, ~um, ~it’s, it’s a different way of, of handling things too. I know you said, you know, when you were, when you’re out there on the water, you, you just kind of felt some relief from the, the darkness that maybe you had going on in inside of you.

[00:39:43] And, ~um, ~you know, I know a lot of times veterans go out and they, they try a whole bunch of different things. From different types of therapies to different types of activities and all that. And sometimes things just don’t click with them. And so I like to have people like you on who have done something a little bit different.

[00:39:59] I mean, rowing [00:40:00] is not super different, but it might be something that someone just hasn’t thought of as far as, you know, how, how can I help myself get out of this dark hole that I’m in? ~Um, ~and, you know, getting out on the water and, and doing that type of stuff might be the thing that that works for somebody.

[00:40:14] And so, you know, I, I wanted to, you know, obviously. Share about what you guys are doing and, and kinda raise awareness for that. But also just, you know, for somebody who wants to just go, go out there and, and do it on their own, just see how, how it works for them. ~Um, ~you know, maybe get involved with a, a club that does, you know, rowing in their, their area or, or something along those lines.

[00:40:34] That could be great too. And you know, it, you, you, you never know until you try it. And so I, you know, at least raising awareness for this ~could~ be the thing that helps, you know, push someone into that right direction and, and, ~uh, ~you know, get, get the, ~uh, ~type of activity that they, they’ve been desperately looking for.

[00:40:50] ~Um, ~so, ~um, ~as far as the website goes, ~um, uh, ~where can listeners go to find out more information about what you guys are doing and supporting the RO and, and all that other stuff?

[00:40:58] Sean Dillard: ~Uh, Orum OAR or excuse me.~ [00:41:00] O-A-R-S-O-M-E-O-D-Y-S-S-E y.org or

[00:41:05] Scott DeLuzio: Perfect.

[00:41:06] Sean Dillard: So like awesome. But with or in front of it.

[00:41:09] Scott DeLuzio: Perfect. And, ~uh, ~like I said, I’ll, I’ll have that link in the, the show notes for the listeners so that they can check that out. ~Um, ~make it nice and easy for ’em and, ~uh, ~you know, support the row, support the organization, share it, you know, with other folks to get, get the word out there. ~Um, ~yeah, check it out.

[00:41:24] ~Um, ~Sean, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really do appreciate you your time and, ~uh, ~your, your commitment really to the, the veteran, ~uh, ~community and, and. Leading by example, getting out there on the water and, and doing, doing the hard stuff, ~uh, ~to show other, other folks that it can be done too.

[00:41:39] So, ~uh, ~appreciate your, your effort so much.

[00:41:42] Sean Dillard: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me today. This was, ~uh, ~really awesome. And just last thing I, you know, I just

[00:41:48] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:41:48] Sean Dillard: was, you know, at the end of the day, or some odyssey isn’t measured. By Miles Road, it’s measured by lives connected and veterans reminded that they are never alone.

[00:41:59] Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. [00:42:00] And, ~uh, ~you know, I think we, we covered that and, ~uh, ~I, I’m hoping that that’s what folks take away from, from this episode. ~Um, ~that you’re, you’re not alone and there’s, there’s a lot of folks out there, ~uh, ~in your corner whether you realize it or not. So, ~uh, ~appreciate you again. Thanks so much.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Leaving the military can be a tough transition. You might be carrying physical pain, survivor’s guilt, and wondering where your skills fit now that you’re out. The question becomes: What’s next for me? Where do you belong, and how do you keep moving forward? Our guest today, Dwight Boddorf’s story, is one of finding that answer the hard way.

[00:00:19] He went from being homeless at 16 to joining the Marine Corps, surviving a roadside bomb in Iraq, and living with years of lasting physical pain. After his service, he spent nearly a decade helping other veterans navigate benefits before stepping into local government. Along the way, he discovered that the same skills used in combat can make a real difference in small-town leadership.

[00:00:40] That experience eventually led him to write The Municipal Battlefield, a guide shaped by the real challenges leaders face during late-night emergencies. This episode is about surviving injury, finding purpose again, and realizing that even when things feel uncertain after the military, you still have a place and a mission.

[00:00:59] Before we begin, I [00:01:00] want to take a moment to raise awareness for something deeply important to our community, the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington, D.C. to honor the service members, families, and civilians impacted by the global war on terrorism.

[00:01:19] This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you want to learn more or find out how you can support the mission, visit GWOTmemorialfoundation.org.

[00:01:34]

[00:01:47] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Dwight. Welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here

[00:01:50] Dwight Boddorf: Thank you for having me. I’m, I’m looking forward to talking with you

[00:01:53] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. ~Um, ~yeah, like we were talking a little bit before we started recording here and, ~um, ~you know, we have a lot to talk about, I’m sure, and we’ll, we’ll get [00:02:00] into, ~uh, ~the conversation in just a minute here. But before we do, could you, for the guests who… Or sorry, for the listeners who don’t know you and, and your background, ~uh, ~could you just give us a quick, quick, ~uh, ~rundown on, on who you are and, and who we’re talking to here?

[00:02:13] Dwight Boddorf: Yeah, I’d be happy to. ~Uh, ~my name is Dwight Boddorf So I live in the greater Pittsburgh area in Pennsylvania. I’m a Marine Corps veteran, served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was wounded pretty severely with a roadside bomb, so life didn’t quite pan out the way that I had planned. ~uh, ~pivoted from there, worked with veterans for a number of years, ~um, ~in government and non-government roles until it led me to my kinda current calling, which is municipal government. you know, I’ve lived in the Pennsylvania area most of my life except for when I was in the military, ~um, ~serving with 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance out of North Carolina. I am a Stanford Hoover veteran fellow, where I’m focusing on figuring out pathways for service members who are [00:03:00] transitioning out of the service to get into local government roles, and a recently published author of “The Municipal Battlefield.”

[00:03:05] Scott DeLuzio: So you got a, a lot of plates that you’re spinning, and it seems like you, you have a lot, lot going on there. But, ~um, ~you know, let, let’s take it maybe a, a step back before you, you joined the M- the Marine Corps. ~Um, ~you know, what was life like then? What, what kind of led you to the Marine Corps, all that kind of stuff?

[00:03:22] Dwight Boddorf: ~Um, ~by happenstance certainly. ~Um, ~so my childhood was a little bit, ~um, ~unstable. You know, we, we moved around a lot. ~Uh, ~I ended up m- about half of my life, ~um, ~living with various relatives, things like that, grandma and grandpa.

[00:03:36] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm

[00:03:37] Dwight Boddorf: at the age of 16, ~uh, ~I became homeless, so I bounced around till I was 16, 17, graduated from high school, and the Marines came calling. ~Um, ~I’d actually thought I was gonna go to the Army first. That’s where I went to sign up, and the Marine recruiter called me and said, “Hey, you don’t wanna go there. We’ll give you a $50,000 bonus to come to the Marines.” And I was like, So that’s how I got into the Marine [00:04:00] Corps. ~Um, ~I was, you know, young, didn’t really know anything.

[00:04:02] I didn’t know what to research. I didn’t know what to look for, and I’m like, “Hey, you know, whatever sounds great, me up, you know. We’ll

[00:04:08] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:04:09] Dwight Boddorf: Ended up in light armored reconnaissance, and that’s kind of how all of that happened. So it really wasn’t a plan per se other than military something, just because for me it was a way out and a way to make sure that I had opportunities that I wouldn’t otherwise had, had I stayed in, ~um, ~my cur- my current situation

[00:04:27] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, ~uh, ~as a fellow infantry guy, I, I went Army, but, you know, that, as a fellow infantry guy, I g- I, I can probably attest to the fact that you, ~uh, ~probably weren’t expecting all the, ~uh, uh,~ the amount of time that you spent living outside in, you know, ~uh, ~you know, field exercises and, you know, deployments and stuff like that.

[00:04:49] Probably mirrored some of that homelessness, ~uh, ~situation that you mighta had,

[00:04:52] Dwight Boddorf: I was pretty

[00:04:53] Scott DeLuzio: going on.

[00:04:54] Dwight Boddorf: to it. ~Um, ~I, I will

[00:04:55] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:04:55] Dwight Boddorf: the thing that really surprised me the most is I think I never ate breakfast in the entire [00:05:00] Marine Corps when I was stationed in Camp Lejeune probably more than four or five times. You know, it was PT, there was training, there was… It there just simply didn’t exist

[00:05:09] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yeah, and, ~uh, ~so it’s, ~uh, ~it just, you know, a, a new world and, and a lot of new stuff, ~uh, ~for you. But, you know, it probably, I, I would imagine, ~uh, ~you know, looking back at it now, ~uh, ~you probably learned a bunch of, of stuff about yourself, about, you know, life in general from your experience as a teenager, and then moving into the Marine Corps and kind of applying, applying those things and getting them, ~uh, ~kind of melded together, right?

[00:05:35] Dwight Boddorf: Oh, yeah. ~Um, ~things that I think looking back probably impacted me more than I realized, you know, as, as a teen.

[00:05:42] there’s a lot of lessons that they instill in you that you might not really realize what they’re doing, but it carries throughout your life. you know, y- you see a lot of other veterans joke about certain things that you can tell when somebody else is a veteran, you know, when they arrive early, the way that they’re dressed, some of

[00:05:58] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:05:58] Dwight Boddorf: I- it’s [00:06:00] true. They, they kind of beat those into you. ~Um, ~but there’s other things, right? You know, you learn how to work in a team. They give you some sort of skill set. They give you, ~uh, ~framework for things that you really wouldn’t otherwise think about, things that I’m still applying today in my job, that I’ve carried with me since the Marine Corps, and we can, you know, kind of get into that a little bit later.

[00:06:21] But it absolutely, for me, it was, ~um, ~life-changing in ways that I expected, but in a lot of ways that I didn’t expect. ~Um, ~coming from my background and providing me with a sense of bigger, stability, friendship, ~um, ~a place to sleep, things to eat, you know, it, it was a transformational time for me.

[00:06:40] ~Um, ~I had planned on making that my career

[00:06:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And then you had mentioned, ~uh, ~you know, surviving an IED attack in, when you were in Iraq, and, you know, left you with a bunch of injuries and, and things like that. ~Um, ~tell us about kinda what happened there and, and what, how that affected you going forward. [00:07:00] What was, you know, maybe going through your mind during that time period?

[00:07:02] You know, w- were you able to finish your tour, ~uh, ~or, you know, what happened there?

[00:07:06] Dwight Boddorf: Yeah. So, ~um, ~I was only th- three months in, in, ~um, ~the Al Anbar province, which is kind of northwestern part of Iraq. so we were on a river sweeping operation, roadside bomb hit, ~um, ~killed two of my fellow Marines instantly, the rest of us. ~Um, ~I had some pretty serious, ~um, ~spinal damage, muscle damage, ~um, ~skull fracture, trauma-ti- TBI, all of those things.

[00:07:31] ~Um, ~so I was medevaced to Al Asad, where I spent about a good, I don’t know, month at Al Asad recovering. ~Um, ~from there, I actually went back to my unit and finished out my tour. ~Um, ~you know, I was in a little bit of pain, but I was in otherwise pretty good shape. I was 19. It was in the best shape of my life, you know.

[00:07:49] Hey, I just survived a bomb. ~Um,~

[00:07:51] I was like, you know, “I’m, I’m walking, things are good. It’s a little bit of back pain, I’ll be all right,” right? ~Um, ~so I finished out my tour, but the pain kept getting worse and worse and worse. And [00:08:00] by the time that I went back stateside, ~um, ~it got to the point that, you know, I had to go to the emergency room. and kind of like looking at me trying to figure out what’s wrong with you, and you explain to them this thing that just happened overseas, and they’re like, “Oh, that’s not normal. ~Um, ~let’s run some scans.” And so, ~um, ~story short, turns out I have some, ~um, ~serious nerve damage and, and muscle damage itself.

[00:08:21] So the force of the bomb physically forever altered some of my nerves and muscles, ~um, ~things that I’m still dealing with today that I’ve had to adapt my life with. As a matter of fact, I actually just had a, ~um, ~cervical rhizotomy yesterday on my C5, 6, and 7, and I will be back for my left side next week.

[00:08:39] And I have to get these done, six times a year just so that I can function. Otherwise, it would be constant pain management or like a internal pain pump. And it took

[00:08:51] Scott DeLuzio: Wow

[00:08:51] Dwight Boddorf: years and years and years and years to figure out how to even get to a point where the were, ~um, ~the [00:09:00] best thing for me.

[00:09:00] You know, I’ve tried every type of physical therapy and pain management and medication and, ~uh, ~self-reflection that you could think of. ~Um, ~and unfortunately, that doesn’t always but

[00:09:11] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:09:12] Dwight Boddorf: you have to keep going one day at a time and, and find something that does work, and that’s kind of where I’m at now. but it does impact me every day, ~um, ~in my work and my home life and things like that.

[00:09:22] ~Um, ~it’s, it has been a journey. This year will be 20 years, ~uh, ~on October 4th, after the, the bomb, and it’s, ~um, ~things that I still carry with me, not just physically, but, ~uh, ~emotionally and mentally as well, the, the service members and friends that I lost.

[00:09:36] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:36] Dwight Boddorf: ~Um, ~and you know, and how do you best live your life honoring those who didn’t make it?

[00:09:43] You know, that’s kind of been a, a driving force as well.

[00:09:47] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and that’s something I think a lot of veterans deal with, especially who’ve experienced something like you did. ~Um, ~you know, a lot of, lot of stuff going through their mind about the folks that they lost or the [00:10:00] experiences, ~uh, ~that, you know, could’ve gone one way or another if something else happened.

[00:10:06] And, you know, there’s a lot of what-ifs and, and all that kind of stuff, and I don’t think that those what-ifs are necessarily helpful. ~Uh, ~you know, they, they’re… You can just keep what-iffing the whole situation, but it doesn’t change anything really. And so, you know, we do that a lot to ourselves. I know I, I’ve done that to myself with stuff I’ve experienced.

[00:10:27] ~Um, ~I’m, I’m sure, you know, other, other folks have too. And, you know, ~uh, ~when, when you’re dealing with these things, you, you have to look at it like, “Okay, that happened. I can’t change it. What, what’s the next best thing that I can do going forward? How do I make the best of a bad situation?” And, ~um, ~you know, it’s not always easy when your, your brain is in that fog and, you know, you’re, you’re not really thinking 100% clearly.

[00:10:52] ~Um, ~and sometimes that, that fog lasts for a really long time. And, ~um, ~you know, but it’s, you kinda have to just keep reminding yourself, like, “What is that next [00:11:00] best thing? How do I make the best of whatever the situation is?” ~Um, ~but even, even, you know, after coming back home, after leaving the military, you know, just, you’re, you’re now dropped into a new world almost.

[00:11:15] You know, you’re struggling with, you know, your, your identity, your pur- sense of purpose, ~uh, ~figuring out what comes next as far as maybe a job or education or, or things like that. ~Um, ~in, in your case, what was your transition like? And w- and, like, where did you find your next mission?

[00:11:31] Dwight Boddorf: ~Um, ~I keep having a series of, like, happy accidents, I guess. ~Um, ~so I, you know, after that experience and after transitioning out, ~um, ~you know, kinda took my life plans from me, and not only that, now I’ve got all these physical disabilities and other things that I’m trying to deal with. And, ~um, ~I wanted nothing to do with, ~um, ~military veterans, any of that.

[00:11:50] I’m like, “Hey, I’m gonna use my GI Bill. I’m gonna go to school. What is the furthest thing that I can get away from, from Marines and the infantry?” Elementary education. [00:12:00] So that’s what I used my GI Bill for. But while I was in school, funnily enough, ~um, ~part of the GI Bill, they have a program called VA Work Study. And, ~uh, ~I was looking for extra money, you know, I was, I was young. ~Um, ~I was getting ready to have my first child. You know, any bit of, any little bit of money helped. So I ended up doing VA Work Study, which I worked in the financial aid office at Penn State, and this right when the new GI Bill came out, the post-9/11 in 2009. So they ha- they saw this influx of veterans into the school, and they didn’t know what to do with them. They didn’t know how to handle the GI Bill and things like that. So I found myself in this situation as a veteran and one of the first students there using the new GI Bill and working there, trying to help other veterans figure it out for my job.

[00:12:46] And that, I think, helped me in many ways and led me into a career path of helping veterans. ~Um, ~I didn’t realize at the time about, like, how much I needed that other piece of talking to other [00:13:00] veterans and not shying away from it, but actually leaning into it.

[00:13:03] And that turned out to be helpful to me in so many ways, not only from a personal perspective, but also for a career. So as my injuries continued to get worse when I went through school for elementary education, ~um, ~I had a hard time doing student teaching, ~um, ~getting up and down with the third graders, kneeling beside their desk playing kickball. Things were fantastic. I loved it, but physically it was difficult for me, more than I anticipated.

[00:13:28] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:28] Dwight Boddorf: ~Um, ~ so it really was not gonna be a long-term career option for me. I needed somewhere that I could probably sit and stand and move around as, as needed. Teaching wasn’t it, certainly not in elementary education. So I took the experience that I had in Veterans Affairs in higher education and actually took a Veterans Affairs job in a community college back here in Pittsburgh, and that’s really where my first career was in management in Veterans Affairs.

[00:13:54] And from there, I spent, you know, almost a decade working in various Veterans Affairs positions [00:14:00] and helping so many other veterans, but helping myself too, through the conversations, ~um, ~getting people access to higher education, VA healthcare, off the streets. We did a lot of things for homelessness, substance abuse, ~um- ~You name it, we, we did it across various things.

[00:14:19] ~Um, ~and it was just kinda one unexpected happy kinda accident after another that kinda led me to where I’m at now

[00:14:28] Scott DeLuzio: Sure, sure. And I know with, ~um, ~a lot of veterans getting out, ~uh, ~I, I forget what the exact numbers are, but I think within two years of, ~uh, ~getting out of the military, ~uh, ~about 80% of veterans have, ~uh, ~already moved on to another job for whatever job they, they moved on from, ~uh, ~after the military. They’re, they’re already on their second, maybe even more jobs, ~uh, ~something like that.

[00:14:51] It’s, it’s, it was a high number. It, I forget exactly the, the numbers. But whatever it is, the, you know, it doesn’t matter. It’s, ~um, ~it- the, the point is [00:15:00] that so many people get out not knowing what they’re, they’re gonna do with their lives, not having a, a good plan or, or getting into something that they absolutely hate and they’re like, “I can’t even stand this for, you know, a year or two.”

[00:15:13] ~Um, ~and so they, they leave and they go find something else. And, you know, I don’t know where those numbers, ~uh, ~you know, go to as far as, like, job hun- ~uh, ~hopping, going, going down the, the road. But, ~um, ~you know, in years three, four, five, six, you know, how, how many people f- finally land on something that they actually like.

[00:15:30] Dwight Boddorf: Yeah

[00:15:30] Scott DeLuzio: but something that you said is, ~uh, ~kinda important to think about is, you know, continuing to serve in a way, ~uh, ~you know, serving your fellow veterans, ~uh, ~i- is, is the thing that you found. And, you know, it doesn’t necessarily have to be at the VA or even a nonprofit that works with veterans. It could be serving in another way, serving your community, serving, you know, something that’s important to i- that individual, finding something that they can give back to and, and help improve.

[00:15:59] You [00:16:00] know, you know, you’re talking a little bit about, ~uh, ~municipal work and, and there’s, there’s stuff in every town and city across the country. There are programs out there that need, you know, people to, ~uh, ~to work these programs. And, you know, m- maybe it’s a veterans program. Maybe it’s a, you know, something with, ~uh, ~you know, animals or, or whatever the case may be.

[00:16:20] You know, you, you can find something somewhere along the way that, ~um, ~that is important to you and, and you feel like you’re, you’re contributing and you’re helping others, and you’re giving back in a, in a way that’s, it’s meaningful. It’s not self-serving in, in a way, you know? It’s, ~uh, ~you know, very similar to the military is it’s a big organization supporting the entire country, ~uh, ~that is, i- is a very meaningful and, and important job to have.

[00:16:46] ~Um, ~and then you just all of a sudden go into some menial nine-to-five job crunching numbers or, you know, you know, pushing papers a- you know, across a… It’s, like, kinda feels like you’re just wasting your time sometimes. And, ~um, ~not, maybe not for everybody, but some, some [00:17:00] jobs, you know, just feels like you wanna bang your head against the wall sometimes because it’s, it’s that bad.

[00:17:04] Dwight Boddorf: right. ~ Um, ~you know, I, I’ve, I’ve spoken with thousands of veterans over my career in various things, and almost– not all of them, you’re right, but a lot of them are looking for something a purpose. ~Um, ~and that could take a million different thi- you know, look a million different ways, but they still want that I’ve actually done something good and that you can tangibly see that I made a difference either in my community or my hometown or school or whatever it is, not just, you know, some arbitrary, ~um, ~paper to do a paper

[00:17:35] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah, exactly. And, and so, ~um, ~you know, again, there, there’s a million different things out there that, that you can do. It’s, it’s just a matter of figuring out what is that thing for you. ~Um, ~you know, from your experience, you know, you, you said you talk with thousands of veterans, ~um, ~that, that’s probably a pretty good, ~uh, ~sample size for, ~uh, ~you know, some issues that people might be having, ~uh, ~you know, when they’re, ~uh, ~trying to navigate through the VA system, whether it’s for [00:18:00] education benefits or other, you know, types of things.

[00:18:02] Where do, where do people seem to get stuck the most, from your experience? And, and maybe what, what could be done better to help them in those situations?

[00:18:09] Dwight Boddorf: Ooh, that’s a good question. ~Um ~I’d say there’s a couple places. So They don’t always know where to go, and that kind of seems counterintuitive in today’s day and age when there’s billion different things on the internet. ~Um, ~but that’s also part of the problem, right? There’s a lot of good information, but there’s a lot of bad information out there.

[00:18:27] Everybody’s a, a veterans expert all of a sudden. You know, everybody’s a, a street lawyer for Veterans Affairs. ~Um, ~so it can be hard to figure out what’s true and what’s not true, where do you go? And then once you get there, like, who e- who helps explain it to you? Some of these things are fairly complicated. There’s a lot of steps, and if you mess up one or two of those steps, it could set you back months and/or years, in which then people get frustrated with that type of system. ~Um, ~they get disillusioned. They then opt out [00:19:00] altogether. ~Um, ~we saw this a lot with the Vietnam veterans. ~Um, ~many, many, many, many of them did not take care or did not get their benefits that they, that they had earned because they were treated so poorly.

[00:19:08] And now, you know, in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, they’re, they’re finally starting to come around to get some of those benefits that they

[00:19:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:19:16] Dwight Boddorf: time ago, but because they had such a bad experience with the VA and other places, they didn’t want anything to do with it. ~Um, ~younger generations are getting a little bit better.

[00:19:24] We’re getting, y- you know, a little bit more support from the VA and communities and higher education and employers. But there still needs to be, ~um… ~A lot of work has to be done to improve that. ~Um, ~a couple ways that we could fix it certainly is better coordination. There’s a lot of different moving parts in the veterans ecosystem. So in the Pittsburgh region, just for context, we, ~um, ~we have one of the largest veterans populations in, in the country. We are– Pennsylvania has the largest veterans population in the country without an active duty military installation. We have no place [00:20:00] that anchors the military and veterans community.

[00:20:03] We’re just kind of scattered to the wind. And so what

[00:20:05] happened is there was, like, 40 or 50 veterans nonprofits that all came up in the gaps there, right? And so now you’re getting out in the Pittsburgh region, and all of these places are competing against each other, and some may explain it well, some may not.

[00:20:23] So we have no place. You know, they’re, they’re not coordinating with each other. And then you throw on top of that county veterans directors, ~um, ~in Pennsylvania, the state veterans division, the federal veterans division. It’s a lot to navigate. And places don’t really talk a lot. You know, the federal VA, the state and the county occasionally, but there’s not a lot of coordination.

[00:20:45] And then if you take all three of those with the nonprofit sector and then the employment sector, there’s almost no collaboration. You’ll see a couple of pockets here, maybe an initiative here or there, but a sustained true collaboration doesn’t really [00:21:00] exist.

[00:21:00] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:00] Dwight Boddorf: ~Um, ~there are several ways that that could be fixed.

[00:21:02] Some things are being worked on at the federal level or the state level, but the end of the day, like anything else, it’s gonna take a group of veterans to come together and say, “Hey, we need to fix this,” and

[00:21:12] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:21:13] Dwight Boddorf: make it happen

[00:21:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And when, I, I, I remember getting the information for all the benefits that were available to me as I was leaving the Army, and it was like drinking from a fire hose.

[00:21:28] It, it was so much information, and this was back in 2011, ~uh, ~time, timeframe, so, ~um, ~you know, yeah, the information was probably available online somewhere, but we weren’t using the internet the way we’re using it today.

[00:21:40] ~Um, ~you know, e- even that, not, that’s not even all that long ago, but it’s still kinda crazy how we, how much more we’re using it today. ~Um, ~but it’s, it’s, ~um, ~you know, just so much information that you can only retain so much. They give you little pamphlets and flyers and all that kinda stuff that, you know, what, what do you do with those after you get home?

[00:21:58] You know, you put ’em in a drawer somewhere. You, you [00:22:00] lose ’em. You forget about ’em. They might get tossed or whatever. But y- you end up having so much information that you don’t, just don’t know what to do with it. And then once when you realize, hey, I’m, I’m kinda struggling with something, I, I need some help with something, I don’t even know where to look because I, I’ve got s- just so much information.

[00:22:19] Where, where do you even start? And so, you know, that coordination that you’re talking about, I think is, ~um, ~you know, it’s a big deal because, ~uh, ~like you said, that, you know, nonprofits might pop up and fill in some of those gaps. But, ~um, ~you know, you might have a, you know, a great idea for a nonprofit. I might have the same idea, and we’re in the same area, and we just start, start our own things, and now we’re competing against each other when really we’re trying to solve the same thing.

[00:22:41] If there was some sort of coordination, we kinda come together and maybe work together, that would be, you know, even better, and that, that’d just serve the, the interests of, of the veterans. But, you know, even on the, the government level, on the, you know, the local, state, federal levels, ~um, ~I, I’m sure there’s some overlap between what goes on with all of those organizations, too.

[00:22:59] And, and [00:23:00] so, you know, just coordinating all the resources and, and making it available to everybody in a way that’s easy to digest, ~um, ~so you know what’s available when you need it and, and maybe even have people who can ask the right questions, like, you know, “Are you, are you dealing with X, Y, or Z? Hey, the VA has a program that can help you with that.”

[00:23:21] And maybe you didn’t even know that that was a thing, but, you know, someone can maybe help

[00:23:25] Dwight Boddorf: There are a few

[00:23:26] Scott DeLuzio: you through that.

[00:23:26] Dwight Boddorf: that are, that are doing that, but it’s not, it’s not standard. So I could say like when

[00:23:30] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:23:31] Dwight Boddorf: when I ran the veterans division at the local community college, we actually ended up creating like– when we would bring people in the process their GI Bill, we would go through those things and say, “Hey, like, like are you having nightmares?

[00:23:42] Are you having

[00:23:43] PT– like have you, are, have you enrolled in VA healthcare? Did you know about your VA disability? Did you know about your military unemployment?” Like we had a, a laundry list of things to go down through and ask people to help them get connected with resources and sign up, but not the norm, ~um, ~at most [00:24:00] higher education facilities. but it’s gonna take everybody across every interaction doing something like that, the VA, the employers, the healthcare sector, the education sector, all of that, because, you know, s- veterans are so dispersed throughout every-everything, right? It, that you

[00:24:20] never know where they’re gonna end up, and so you just need one touch point to kinda grab them and say, “Hey, did you know about all these things, and this is where you need to go.”

[00:24:27] But getting to the point to reach those institutions to train them on what to look for and how to administer it, and how often the VA rules and regulation changes is, is very difficult. ~Um,~

[00:24:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:24:39] Dwight Boddorf: it’s a, it’s a very unique problem, ~um, ~that we’re getting a little bit better at every day, and hopefully in another 50, 60 years we’ll get there.

[00:24:50] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Well, ~um, ~you know, and it, it, it’s interesting too because you’re, you’re saying, you know, they’re, they’re, people are, you know, coming from all different walks of life [00:25:00] who are, are veterans. They, they might have all sorts of different, ~uh, ~careers, all sorts of different medical issues, all sorts of different geographies that they live in even.

[00:25:08] ~Um, ~and so they, they have so many different, ~uh, uh,~ combinations of things that, that are working with them or against them in some cases that it, it’s hard to just say, “Hey, here’s, here’s one, you know, ~uh, um, uh, ~one size fits all approach to everybody.” You know? So you, you really do have to have somebody who can understand what’s going on with this individual person, who, ~uh, ~what’s going on with, with A, B, and C, and, and make sure that we know that we’re giving them the right, ~uh, ~direction

[00:25:36] Dwight Boddorf: Yeah.

[00:25:37] Scott DeLuzio: whatever it is,

[00:25:37] you know?

[00:25:38] Dwight Boddorf: that’s, a lot of knowledge too, right? So you, you’re,

[00:25:40] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:25:41] Dwight Boddorf: talking, you know, healthcare, ~um, ~housing, ~um, ~education, ~um, ~economics. it’s, it’s very difficult to find somebody that has enough knowledge that can speak across all those domains,

[00:25:56] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:57] Dwight Boddorf: but also [00:26:00] pay these people appropriately.

[00:26:02] So there’s a

[00:26:03] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:26:03] Dwight Boddorf: that, you know, the, the VSOs and the organizations, they do a really great job. A lot of them, you know, they’re d- they’re volunteering their time and they’re doing these things, but they’re, they’re part-time VSOs who maybe just focus on one slice of the pie, ~uh, ~usually disability benefits.

[00:26:18] But then when it

[00:26:19] comes to all these other things, you know, who do they turn to for those? And there’s not really a good national system. Some states have state or county level veteran service officers that are trained in all of those things. ~Um, ~but the turnover there is pretty high. Pay isn’t that great. ~Um, ~you know, ~uh, ~there are a couple national solutions on the table about making sure that every state a county veterans director, ~um, ~as part of state law, and making sure that they’re funded appropriately so that no matter where you are in the United States, you always know that whoever your county person is, there’s at least one person close to you that can point you to all these other directions. ~Um, ~you know, that would be a [00:27:00] doable fix in our lifetime.

[00:27:02] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and a- as you were talking, I, the fix was kinda coming to me, thinking of it kind of like a, a contractor building a house or s- or something. That, you know, the, your one general contractor isn’t gonna necessarily be the plumber and the electrician and the drywall guy and, you know, the flooring, carpeting, all that kinda stuff.

[00:27:18] They’re not gonna be doing all of those things, but they coordinate with all those, those specialists who do all of those, those things. And it would be great if there was that one person that you can go to or, or, you know, one group of people, ’cause it may be a big, bigger job than m- any one person can handle.

[00:27:33] But, ~um, ~ you know, depending on the, the area. But, ~um, ~you know, if you had that one person you can go to who could then say, “Okay, ~uh, ~you need to go talk to this person for this issue, and that person and that person, and, and they’ll get you squared away,” because those are the people who are the experts on education, on disability, on, you know, all these other benefits, right?

[00:27:51] ~Um, ~and, and that would be, you know, ~uh, ~probably a, a great way to, to handle it because, you know, you get, try to get one person who’s an expert on everything, [00:28:00] and they’re gonna, they’re gonna miss on stuff.

[00:28:02] Dwight Boddorf: Oh, absolutely. Yeah

[00:28:03] Scott DeLuzio: especially with the, you said regulations changing. I didn’t even think about that at the beginning of this conversation, but they, they probably change all the time, and, you know, who’s, who has the time to keep up with all that, you

[00:28:13] Dwight Boddorf: you and I have gotten out, I mean, the G- so most people don’t realize there’s seven different versions of the GI Bill, it all depends on like when you, when you served, when you got out, and even when between you and I, there was post-9/11 GI Bill and then the Forever GI Bill, which, you know, it’s all post-9/11, but there’s a difference in your lifetime of benefits where post, post-9/11, we got 15 years.

[00:28:35] You got out after, I think, 2015, y- you get it forever. There’s no limit on your, ~um… ~So, you know, if you wanna use your GI Bill 40 years from now, you can do that, whereas if

[00:28:45] you got out in 2008 like me, you had 15 years from 2008 and that’s it. Like, the, the rules change all the time. There’s massive, ~um, ~bills going through Congress right now to have some of the most consequential veterans update [00:29:00] in ~Um,~

[00:29:00] and you know, you, you certainly have to keep up with all those things. There’s always changes for what disability is considered what percentage. There’s new programs that the states come out with. ~Um, ~there’s court cases, court rulings that determine, you know, how things are applied and may impact things retroactively.

[00:29:18] So it really is, ~um, ~a vast career field. When people say Veterans Affairs, there’s a m- many kind of pick a lane within Veterans Affairs. It’s kind of like being a doctor, right? Is

[00:29:29] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:29:30] Dwight Boddorf: but then you’ve got a surgeon, you’ve got ENT, you’ve got audiology. Veterans Affairs is a similar kind of space. ~Um, ~and, and so is a lot of things in government to, to be fair. You know, you might have somebody that specializes in services, somebody that does, ~um, ~you know, economic development, so on and so forth. So

[00:29:47] Scott DeLuzio: Sure, sure.

[00:29:48] Dwight Boddorf: problem

[00:29:50] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:29:50] Dwight Boddorf: that, ~um, ~I would encourage anybody listening to help us figure out.

[00:29:54] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, exact- well, that, that’s kinda why I wanted to go down that rabbit hole a little bit is because, ~uh, ~you know, hopefully [00:30:00] somebody’s listening out there, and maybe it’ll just trigger something in their head that it’s like, “Hey, there’s a solution that I, I just thought of,” ~uh, ~you know, as they’re listening to this.

[00:30:08] And, ~um, ~you know, maybe there’s, there’s some way that, you know, you and I are, and other people smarter than us have, have not thought about yet, and there, there might be j- just that one person out there who, who, ~uh, ~thinks of it. And, and maybe that helps streamline the whole process. That would be great. ~Um, ~but y- you know, going into…

[00:30:23] You’re, you’re talking about, ~uh, ~local governments and, and things like that. You- you’ve, ~uh, ~talked about it kind of as, ~uh, ~another type of battlefield. ~Um, ~you know, for veterans listening who might not think much about, you know, their local government, their, ~uh, ~you know, the town councils, the police, the f- the firefighters, all that kind of stuff, ~um, ~in your, your mind, w- how does, ~uh, ~the military, ~uh, ~skillset that you, you developed in the Marine Corps, ~uh, ~kind of apply to that local level, ~uh, ~and, and, or, or does it, you know, the, as far as leadership and all that kind of stuff?

[00:30:53] Dwight Boddorf: No, it does, and I think more than most people realize. ~Um, ~you know, the– We do a really good job [00:31:00] when military members transition to say, “Hey, you should take a federal job,” right? We get you veterans preference. You have all these skill sets that line up We’re starting to do that with state level jobs, but I would actually say it’s a better fit for the local jobs. ~Uh, ~the reason for that is they are more resource scarce. They are more in need of leadership. ~Um, ~ they need people who are flexible. So when people think of government, you typically think of bureaucracy, right? That you’re just drowning in all this paperwork and it’s slow-moving and all this stuff. been at federal, county, and local government, and some of that is true, when you get into the very lowest levels of government, your cities, your towns, it is much more fast-paced than people think. So my town where I’m at, we have a police department that we share with another town, so we’re running two towns for police. We run a water treatment plant and distribution system. We run an electric system. We have our normal, ~um, ~public works, so streets, storm [00:32:00] sewers, winter plowing, all of that other stuff. ~um, ~admin IT, and we just regionalized our EMS ambulance, plus firefighting. There is always something going on. There is, you know, there’s accidents, there’s fires, there’s involvement, there’s, ~um, ~funding, there’s community events. So the skill sets that a lot of veterans bring in, ~um, ~particularly when it comes to decisiveness and adaptability, ~um, ~super, super helpful in local government. Big government, you can sit and study a problem forever. You’ll, you’ll sit there for 30 years, you’ll make all the best plans in the world, and you’ll never execute.

[00:32:38] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:32:40] Dwight Boddorf: if, if you’re a veteran like me, that’s gonna frustrate you, right? Like I, I– Give me enough information, right? And veterans really excel at this. This is one of the things that you learn on the battlefield in the military, right? You don’t– You, you’re never gonna have all the information you need, but you know when you get enough information that you can make a good, informed decision. And a, you [00:33:00] know, perfect is the enemy of good in a lot of cases. And so coming into local government, maybe having 75% of the information, on that, and living with that decision and moving forward is really what is needed. Otherwise, things don’t get repaired. Your,

[00:33:15] your roads don’t get repaired, your EMS falls apart, all of these things. ~Um, ~veterans are uniquely good at executing with little information and being adaptable, too.

[00:33:26] ~Uh, ~I get pulled about 15 different directions in every day. You know, one minute I might be writing a policy, the next minute there’s, ~um, ~a fire. Forty-five minutes later, we’re looking at, ~um, ~economic development. Ten minutes after that, I get a call that the gas company hit a gas line and we gotta go shut down a road. And, and then after that, there’s a flock of geese in the road that is causing problems that nobody can move, right? It’s, absolutely wild. But it’s, ~um, ~it’s something that a lot of military members and veterans can thrive in because it kind of gives you that [00:34:00] mission of there are things to do and you’re doing good for your community. There are parts of it that are fast-paced. There are parts of it, ~um, ~that just really, really, really fit the veteran skillset for many, many, many service members

[00:34:13] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and I could see that. As you’re talking about some of the challenges, I, I was thinking back to my deployment and the types of things that you had to do where you’re kind of thinking on your feet, where the situation changes and you have to adapt and make the, the, again, the next best decision that you can with the information that you have available to you.

[00:34:35] And, and sometimes it’s a real quick decision y- you have to make. You know, it’s a matter of, you know, seconds or minutes or, or so that you, you have in order to make that decision. It’s not like you can sit there for years pondering on, you know, what’s the best move to make here. ~Um, ~you know, you’re going to do the best that you can with the information that you have, and you’re gonna, you’re gonna move on and, and, ~uh, ~you know, it may not be the, the most perfect s- ~uh, ~[00:35:00] solution, but, ~uh, ~you’ll adjust later on and you’ll, you’ll figure out the next best thing as time goes on.

[00:35:05] And so, ~um, ~you know, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll be able to do that. And, and I guess all that to say is that I, I, I totally get where you’re coming from, where the, ~uh, ~military mindset that, that kinda quick thinking, adapt, overcome, that, that type of thing, ~uh, ~really could fit well in those s- situations. And, ~um,~

[00:35:26] Dwight Boddorf: su- supremely well. ~Um,~

[00:35:27] Scott DeLuzio: yeah.

[00:35:27] Dwight Boddorf: you know what else helps a lot is, is thick skin, right? You develop that in the military, so when you make those decisions, sometimes you’re gonna make– maybe it’s not an ideal decision, right? You had 75% of the information, and three weeks later you’re gonna be on social media because somebody picked apart the 5% way you could have done it better,

[00:35:47] Scott DeLuzio: Yep

[00:35:48] Dwight Boddorf: You know, in a perfect scenario and all these world, right? Y- you’re gonna have to learn how to deal with that and, and take criticism being a community leader. And, ~um, ~you know, it’s hard for a lot of people, even people with thick skin. But, [00:36:00] know, a lot of the service members and things that we were all taught to, you know, you deal with it, you, you move on, you live with the decisions that you have made, and, and you keep on keeping on. That is one of those kind of intangible things that they don’t really teach you when you’re going through public administration for your master’s degree, right? ~Um, ~and it hits you like a wall the first time that you find yourself plastered all over social media or on the local news channel or whatever it is

[00:36:26] for decision that still is arguably right, but could have gone a little bit better, or maybe you didn’t give enough

[00:36:32] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:36:33] Dwight Boddorf: whatever it is. ~Um, ~veterans tend to handle that pretty well.

[00:36:38] Scott DeLuzio: Now, ~uh, ~you mentioned your book, The Municipal Battlefield. ~Um, ~we, we’ve been talking obviously a little bit about, ~uh, ~municipals and stuff like that. For the listeners who might be interested, you know, thinking now a little bit more about, you know, maybe, maybe I do wanna help out a little bit more in my, ~uh, ~my community here, ~um, ~tell us a little bit more about the book and, ~uh, ~and, and what people can expect from that [00:37:00] book

[00:37:00] Dwight Boddorf: Yeah. So, ~um, ~the book was directly taken from, ~um, ~military doctrine. So I found myself after 15, 20 years in the government when I got into, after being at the federal government county government leading divisions, a master’s degree in public administration, got into the smallest levels of government and realized there was no book.

[00:37:23] There’s no manual. There’s no, what do I do at 2:00 in the morning when I’ve got a power outage, a water break, and these other things all going on at the same time? You know, the mayor’s blowing up my phone. ~Um, ~I’ve got KDKA and the radio on the other line. Like, how do you handle all that? What do you do? ~Um, ~are a lot of really great books out there, but, you know, they’re a couple hundred, couple thousand pages long.

[00:37:45] That’s not gonna help you at 2:00 in the morning. And so what I set out to do was write more of a field manual, a less than 150 page, here’s your guide, here’s what you need to know, ~um, ~major pitfalls, things that you should watch out for, things that you need [00:38:00] to have in your back pocket, right? operating procedures is intimately familiar with everybody in the military, right?

[00:38:06] So how do you apply that to your public works division, right? Checklist, making sure that when it’s snow season, snowplows are attached, things are greased, so on and so forth, that, you know, you can standardize all those things and get a little checklist, give it out to your public works director, or even for yourself going and ask them, “Was this done?

[00:38:25] Was this done? Was this done?” Right?

[00:38:27] don’t want to be the leader in the situation that half your snowplows broke down during the first storm because you didn’t do your due diligence.

[00:38:34] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:38:34] Dwight Boddorf: right. Well, and, you know, it’s, but it’s those little things that, that make you or break you in the small town. When you’re a, when you’re a big city, you have a lot of resources, you have a lot of different things, right?

[00:38:45] ~Um, ~but when you’re a small town and maybe there’s only 10 of you, y- there’s no hiding from that if you, if you forget something, if you don’t break something. And so this book was really designed to help give the bare bones and the essentials to small town leaders [00:39:00] for how they survive that. You know, here’s really, again, what you should be thinking about. Here’s your SOP. Here’s what you should, you know, reach out to, kind of be aware of, ~um, ~state level resources, all of those things. ~Um, ~so hopefully a handful of people find it useful. ~Um, ~I certainly would’ve been happy to receive something that gave me at least an outline of what I should be thinking about when it comes to running all the municipal operations, finance, public works, IT.

[00:39:26] ~Um, ~you know, who do you make friends with first? And listening who’s in government, I can tell you the first people that you make friends with are your police and fire chiefs, ’cause they will make or break you.

[00:39:37] Scott DeLuzio: That’s, that’s great advice. ~Um, ~and, and as you’re talking, you know, a, a book like this with the, ~uh, uh,~ kinda field manual layout and, and stuff, I think is uniquely, ~uh, ~you know, great for the veteran who wants to get involved in their, their local government,

[00:39:55] Dwight Boddorf: Yeah

[00:39:55] Scott DeLuzio: ‘ cause they’re already familiar with that kind of layout, and [00:40:00] they, ~uh, ~you know, they’re, they’re scrappy.

[00:40:02] They, they can figure things out on the fly, and they, they can, they can get the job done,

[00:40:06] Dwight Boddorf: I’ve gotten

[00:40:06] Scott DeLuzio: right-

[00:40:07] Dwight Boddorf: response from veterans because they look at it and they go, “Oh, I recognize this.”

[00:40:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:40:12] Dwight Boddorf: So it’s– I had, I put a translation matrix in at the beginning for people who have, who are not familiar with military because they’re looking at this expecting like a, a public affairs book,

[00:40:23] and it looks vastly different from any public affairs book that most people have ever seen. but if you, if you come from military world or even places like police emergency management, it’s a familiar that they, they recognize instantly, “Oh, okay, I know how to use this. This is helpful, straight and to the point.” ~Um, ~and that was really the intention, was something that was just absolutely useful in a pinch at 2:00 in the morning.

[00:40:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Well, ~um, ~for the listeners right now, for, like, you know, a veteran who might be listening who, ~uh, ~has been through, you know, some difficult times maybe with their transition, maybe with some [00:41:00] issues with the VA, ~uh, ~feeling like they’re overlooking them or doesn’t, doesn’t know where to, where they fit in, what, ~uh, ~what would you want them to take away from your story and, and your experiences?

[00:41:11] Dwight Boddorf: ~Um, ~it’s gonna sound a little cliché, but, you know, keep going. ~Um, ~not knowing where you fit in does not mean that you don’t belong, right? Keep going. You will find something. ~Uh, ~you will find your tribe. You will find where you fit in. It’s, it’s perseverance. ~Uh, ~at this point, you’re in a marathon, right?

[00:41:28] You’ve got the rest of your life. You find those things that excite you. You find the people that are gonna support you, and you always pushing one day at a time, one step at a time. you’re not done just because your uniform came off. There are other ways to serve and find what works for you

[00:41:51] Scott DeLuzio: Great advice. ~Um, ~Dwight, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your, your background, your insights, ~uh, ~things that you’ve gone through, some of the hardships that you’ve had to [00:42:00] overcome, and the things that you have done to get yourself through them and find a way to, ~uh, ~continue living a meaningful, purpose- purposeful life, ~uh, ~with, ~uh, ~you know, all the, the continued service that you’re, you’re doing.

[00:42:13] So thank you so much

[00:42:13] Dwight Boddorf: Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for everything that you’re doing for the veterans community as well

[00:42:19] Scott DeLuzio: Appreciate it

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: The switch, you learn to flip while in uniform where you can compartmentalize and focus on the task at hand can be hard to shut off when you get out. It helps you push through pain, stay locked in and get the job done. But life after the service has different needs when things slow down, but your mind keeps running.

What many are really looking for is a way to feel steady again, to be present with your family and to understand what is happening inside before it spills into your work, your health, or the people you love. In this episode, our guest today, Chris Irwin, brings the perspective of a retired Navy seal, the Navy Seal Foundation, and his rare sense work on mental fitness.

You’ll hear why mental toughness is only one tool, why awareness has to come first, and how veterans can begin training the mind without pretending everything is fine. Before we get into this episode though, I want to take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s important to our community. The Global War On Terrorism Memorial [00:01:00] Foundation.

This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians impacted by the global war on terrorism. Will be both a tribute to those who served in a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

If you’d like, learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT Memorial Foundation dot org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:38] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Chris, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:01:40] Chris Irwin: Thanks, man. Happy to be here.

[00:01:42] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely.

Hey, before we jump into the conversation for the listeners who maybe aren’t familiar with you, could you introduce yourself briefly and just share a bit about, you know, your background, who you are that,

[00:01:52] Chris Irwin: Sure.

[00:01:53] Scott DeLuzio: yeah.

[00:01:53] Chris Irwin: Irwin I’m assuming that’s in the, the title of the episode somewhere, so the listing. So, I. [00:02:00] Retired seal, retired Navy seal. I was in the SEAL teams for 20 years total. I spent 14 years on active duty, six in the reserves. So that was kind of my main career for an extended period of time.

Naval Academy graduate. I spent some time over in England going to graduate school before going to Bud s and then after that did a number of things. Started out kind of selling investment research and that wasn’t. Great. I learned a lot about transitioning out of the military through that experience, but my wife and I opened up the first CrossFit gym in the Virgin Islands back in 2011.

I think that was the same year that I got out of the military. Ran that for a few years. Loved it. Great experience. CrossFit St. Thomas in the island of St. Thomas. I then got a job as the president of a small beverage company, startup beverage company called Kill Cliff in the CrossFit space, and spent five years there as the president, learning a lot about small business, how to run [00:03:00] a business, how not to run a business. Really got my feet wet and with a lot of the job training, having not come from any kind of business background. I didn’t have an MBA or anything like that. And for the last eight years? Yeah, just, I think I’ve hit the eight year mark in a couple of

weeks. Like, so we’re recording this early July,

[00:03:21] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:03:22] Chris Irwin: At the Naval, or sorry, at the Naval, at the Navy Seal Foundation in various roles kind of moving up.

So I started as the West Coast Development Director, which is fundraising. Moved into director position, moved into the communications director position now the VP of Communications. So I, I run all of. Marketing communica communications for the

Navy Seal Foundation, which I know we’ll talk

[00:03:45] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:03:46] Chris Irwin: And then I’ve got a side project called Rare Sense, which is about mental fitness and, and it’s kind of a, a comprehensive look at how to build mental fitness beyond mental toughness, which I think is the key [00:04:00] component of it, because I think a lot of people they hear. Mental fitness coming from a former Navy seal, and they sort of assume it’s all about just grind it out and get up or like the message is gonna

be, suck it up, don’t quit, go

[00:04:11] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:04:12] Chris Irwin: And it’s really not the thing I’m talking about at all. Mainly because the demographic I’m focused on is other veterans and military members and people that are kind of come from that culture already and already understand how to do that. But that approach isn’t. Solving every problem that they have or every issue that they have, and it’s born from my own experience as a veteran struggling mentally struggling with chronic illness in a lot of ways, and finding that the, the tools I had been taught in the military while effective for that type of situation weren’t

helping me post service.

[00:04:53] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And I think a lot of folks getting out of the military recognize. Some of the stuff that you just were mentioning, that, that, that it [00:05:00] was definitely useful, you know, while bullets are flying and while, you know, things like that are going on, right? But,

you know, when you’re walking into Walmart, bullets aren’t typically flying and you’re, you’re,

[00:05:09] Chris Irwin: not

[00:05:10] Scott DeLuzio: you’d hope not.

[00:05:10] Chris Irwin: country. they might be

[00:05:12] Scott DeLuzio: they might be you, you never know on occasion that may happen, but your typical interaction, your day-to-day interaction, that kind of stuff is not happening. And so, you know, you, you can put that stuff aside. You can kind of store it away. When, when something bad happens, sure, absolutely. Check that stuff back in and, and start using tho those skills that you used in the military.

Because that, that’s absolutely critical. It doesn’t matter if you’re wearing a uniform or not, that, you know, survival is survival and

you know, whatever you need to do is, is what you need to do. But but a lot of, I think a lot of people kind of recognize that it’s, it’s just not. Helpful in everyday life and, you know, how do I turn that switch off and how do I, you know, move forward from there.

So we’ll get into that in just a minute. I want, I wanna kind of, cover both of the, these organizations that you were [00:06:00] just talking about here. The, the Navy Seal Foundation and, you know, your meant. Mental fitness stuff as well. But I want, I just kind of clarify to the listeners, these are two separate organizations.

They’re not the same organizations. Just you know, we’re talking before we started recording, the, the only common link between these two are, are, are our guest today, Chris here. And that’s, that’s really the only link. So I, I do wanna talk about ’em, but I don’t wanna confuse things and, and talk about ’em at the same time.

So let’s maybe start with the Navy Seal Foundation. Just start with that. Dive into there.

And you know, I know a lot of listeners are familiar with the Navy Seals and, and you know, that, that type of thing, especially nowadays, it’s gotten a whole lot more popular, you know, in, in you know, culture and things like that where, where people know about the Navy Seals, but maybe not the Navy Seal Foundation.

So tell us a little bit about what the Navy Seal Foundation actually does for for the community and, and you know, who they serve and all that kind of stuff.

[00:06:52] Chris Irwin: We are the largest nonprofit that supports the Naval Special Warfare community, NSW, Naval Special Warfare is what? [00:07:00] People typically think of as the SEAL community. It’s not just Seals, it’s also Swix, which are Special warfare combat crewmen. They’re the, the special boat drivers and it’s support personnel.

And in terms of the people we support, it is their family members. It’s veterans, it’s families of the fallen. It’s something like 25,000 people-ish that. We could support that would theoretically fall underneath our programs. Only about two, two to 3000 of that is seals. So, so you just kind of get a sense of like how big the community actually is

[00:07:36] Scott DeLuzio: Okay,

[00:07:37] Chris Irwin: the operators themselves.

The SEAL operators we. We’ve been around since 2000 in some form or another. There was actually another organization that stood up a parallel nonprofit, and those came together in 2011 to, to form the Navy Seal Foundation. But the, the EIN, the tax ID number for [00:08:00] us goes all the way back to what was then. I always screw this up. The The Naval Special Warfare, I think it was a Naval Special

Warfare Foundation, is what it was

[00:08:08] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:08:09] Chris Irwin: out of. And then there was this other organization that was fundraising and those came together to form the Navy Seal Foundation in 2011. We have four pillars of support, community, health, education, and legacy.

And underneath each of those pillars, there’s four programs. So four pillars, four programs per pillar, and. really spans the gamut of support that you probably could think of for those various groups of people. So it’s anything from respite, childcare to children’s camps, transition support, mental health, physical health programs, grants a whole series of programs for families that have fallen memorial services. I’m trying to think of what else is in [00:09:00] there. But

very comprehensive set of programs. The foundation started with essentially just a couple of scholarships and has now grown to be, we’re about 30 to $40 million a year that we will spend on

the. Community

[00:09:20] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:09:21] Chris Irwin: and we constantly evaluate our stuff too. So it’s, these programs are not set in stone.

There’s some that’ll probably in some form or fashion never go away, but we’re constantly evaluating to try and stay relevant. I mean, certainly to that point in recent years, we’ve really stepped up our veteran mental and physical health support and that. That, that falls under our health pillar. And just the amount we spend there now is something, I think $8 million or something like that last year.

And a lot of that is this program we have called the Warrior Fitness Program. It’s run by one of our [00:10:00] partners, Virginia High Performance, which is run, founded, and run by a, a former SEAL and his wife. They started on the East coast, we helped expand it. We expanded it to the west coast. We, we built basically a whole facility like A NFL combine level kind of, or NFL locker room, kind of a, or weight room kind of facility in support of it. And so like that alone is a multimillion dollar program that’s really changing lives, I think. I mean, we get that feedback constantly that. This has been life changing for me. I didn’t think that I couldn’t, could never be in pain again, and now I’m pain

free. That kind of thing.

[00:10:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And

you know, just, just from personal experience, having gone through stuff where you, you’re in pain and it seems like the pain’s just never gonna end. And no matter what you try, it seems like just nothing’s, nothing’s working. But then all of a sudden you, you find something that, that. Starts to work for you.

And it’s like, there, there’s that light at the end of the tunnel and you [00:11:00] start feeling the pain relief and you, you start to be able to do things that you weren’t able to do before. And you know, I, I had back issues and, and neck issues and you know, my all the, the medications, all the, injections and therapies and all the things that they were doing. Just none. None of it was working. And, and you know, started lifting weights and, you know, kind of building up the muscles again. And you know, I, I got to a point where I didn’t need any of that stuff anymore, and, and I, I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing that I.

I, I actually can I actually can bend over and like pick something up off the floor without feeling like, I’ll never get up again.

You know, like, it, it’s, it’s just a amazing, and so like when you, when you’re talking about this being life changing, to some people it absolutely is. I mean, seriously as something as simple as just picking up something off the floor was, was like a nightmare

[00:11:45] Chris Irwin: Yeah.

[00:11:46] Scott DeLuzio: for, me.

And I, I can imagine some other folks, you know, especially in the the Navy Seals and, and the other folks who support them they. Probably have experienced far worse injuries and, and things like that than, than I did. And, and you know, how do you [00:12:00] navigate life? How do you, you know, sit in the car, in traffic?

What, when your, your back is killing you and,

[00:12:05] Chris Irwin: Right.

[00:12:05] Scott DeLuzio: or, or, or go to work or, you know, whatever. You know, those things could be totally debilitating. And you know, if you, if you can’t figure out a way to get through that you know, you, you start, you start feeling. Kind of hopeless. And so this is a, a huge thing.

You know, I, I think, and you know, as, as you were talking before about the the community, the size of the community, you said, you know, 25,000 or so you know, people could technically be, you know, kind of encompassing in, in this, but only two or 3000 are actually Navy Seals. But if you think about it, like the Navy Seals is as great as you guys are and all the, the training that you guys go through and all the things like that, there’s so much other stuff that.

You guys don’t necessarily need to do. You, there’s logistics stuff. There’s all this other stuff that goes into you know, the, the work that you do that, you know, you can’t do everything. There’s only so many hours in a day and you know, so you obviously have to have some support team there. And those people [00:13:00] are.

Probably just as hard charging as far as their, their mentality and everything, you

[00:13:05] Chris Irwin: Yes.

[00:13:06] Scott DeLuzio: and, so,

Yeah, absolutely. You guys gotta, you gotta take care of the whole family right in.

[00:13:11] Chris Irwin: Yeah.

[00:13:12] Scott DeLuzio: And

you know, so I, I assume that a lot of folks, they, they hear, you know, the, the terms like, you know, support organization and, and stuff like that, and they’re just not sure what it is that you guys offer.

And, and so you, you talked a little bit about some of the stuff that you guys do, but you know, for someone who is, you know, kind of life scenario, someone’s reaching out to you guys for some assistance you know, whether they’re dealing with a, you know, an injury like we were talking about before, maybe the transition out.

Some sort of other crisis or, or whatever that they might be going through. What does it actually look like in, in real life when someone reaches out, what, what’s the, the process look like and what kind of you know, experience can they expect?

[00:13:48] Chris Irwin: It really depends on the type of person and where they are. I mean, I would say the overall process in terms of someone reaching out that’s standard,

they could call us. They can obviously go to our website

[00:13:58] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:13:58] Chris Irwin: click, there’s a button that [00:14:00] says request support. piece of it is pretty easy. But then where they get vectored so to speak, or kind of support they receive completely depends on, and I would say it depends on the immediacy of it. might, it might be a true crisis situation. I mean, certainly if there’s, if we lose somebody, if there’s a, a fallen, like there’s a immediate spring into action. Response that happens from us in terms of supporting the family, supporting the memorial service. The, the family members are then rolled into our gold star programs, which means we’re gonna support them on some level, essentially in perpetuity. So there’s, there’s kind of that kind of thing. Or it might be somebody in crisis, whether that’s suicidal ideation or it’s. Substance abuse or something like that, wounded. It might not be a casualty where someone has lost their life, but there might be a, a wounded. So

[00:14:56] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:56] Chris Irwin: kind of an immediacy there.

But then there’s other things where it’s [00:15:00] someone’s applying for a scholarship. That’s a process where twice a year we, it’s different on the two cycles, but we have two cycles a year where we it’s like, Hey, you wanna apply for a scholarship? And that’s. chil, that’s dependents, that’s active duty. It’s and I don’t think we ever turn anybody down. It might vary how much they get, but there’s a whole review process there. But my own family has benefited from that. My s, my oldest son who’s in college, applies for that and is received a scholarship. the last two years.

[00:15:33] Scott DeLuzio: Great.

[00:15:34] Chris Irwin: And and again, I think just about anybody who qualifies, who applies and actually goes through the process, gets something out of that.

I don’t think anybody is denied. That. And then there’s things that are sort of, I don’t wanna say routine, but things like respite, childcare, where service members deployed and that we’re just trying to take some of the strain off of the spouse

who has to deal with just everyday life, but has to do it without their partner for six months or maybe longer. And [00:16:00] so the ability for them to have paid for childcare where they can just drop off their kids and they can get done whatever they need to get done. And maybe that’s errands. Maybe that’s, I just wanna take a nap,

or I want to go to the gym,

[00:16:10] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:16:11] Chris Irwin: like that. kind of a thing where it’s, there’s an ongoing bit of support there.

So like I said, it really spans the gamut. I would say the other thing are extended programs or even things like camps where, you know, apply for camp, you sign a kid up for camp, there’s the camp in the summer. I think we have something like seven or eight camps at this point, different parts of the country that are supporting kids of varying ages as well. But then. Sort of extended programs, whether that’s the Warrior Fitness program with VHP, which is four to six weeks, or it’s like through a partner where guys are transitioning out and we fund any Naval Special Warfare member who [00:17:00] goes to something called the Honor Foundation, which is another nonprofit.

But we’ve, we fund the guys to go through that. So a lot of times the things that we’re doing we’re

not. We don’t wanna reinvent the wheel. So if

[00:17:10] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:17:10] Chris Irwin: out there do providing a service through a nonprofit or, or even for profit, I think that would support NSW. There’s no need for us to create a redundant program where we stand it up on our, on our own.

It’s like we vet the program is said, great, this program serves the need we’re trying to fill. We’ll just fund guys to go to that. So that’s the case with the Honor Foundation, which is essentially. like a mini cohort. Mini MBA. It is, are getting out, they don’t know what they’re gonna do next.

They don’t know anything about the business world. It’s training them up on that, giving the exposure to the options that are out there and allowing them to figure out what they want too, what they, appeals to them. Because I think I can speak to this personally, outta the military, [00:18:00] you might have an idea in your head initially like, oh, I wanna go do this.

But after you.

Go try that. It’s like, oh, that wasn’t the right

[00:18:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:18:08] Chris Irwin: And that’s okay.

[00:18:09] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:18:10] Chris Irwin: you can if you can negate the need to err on that by understanding the difference between, okay, you want to go work on Wall Street and grind yourself and make tons of money, or you wanna start your own business, or you want to go work in corporate America, or you wanna work in some small startup, those are all different. Avenues to take and just understanding what that entails, the pros and cons of each of those things is just going to set somebody up for

success that much more.

[00:18:41] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely.

And, and so there’s, there’s a lot of, you know, just taken, taken away from what you’re just saying here. There’s a lot of things that you guys will support folks in, and I, I think it’s a great approach that you take too, when, when you are not reinventing the wheel and you’re, you know, reaching out to other organizations that are already doing the thing that you’re, [00:19:00] you’re needing for this individual who needs support.

It’s a great way to collaborate because you know, there’s. A, you’re not turning people away. B you’re getting them the, the help that they need. But, but c also, and I think kind of more important that the experts in whatever it is that they need support with are the ones who are delivering that, that service to that person as opposed to someone saying, Hey, there’s a need.

Let’s go figure out how to do it. And you. Throwing it together. It may not, I’m not saying it would be throw together like half-assed or anything, but it may not be to the level of, of someone who’s been doing it already for, you know, 10, 15, 20 years or, or however long now. So, you know, it, you know, let’s, let’s collaborate.

Let’s work together. Let’s figure out how we can make this happen. And, and I think that’s a, a great approach. To how you guys do that. And, and so it, it kind of fills some of these gaps that might be out there for different services, different needs that folks may have where, you know, on, on your own you may be like, ah, geez, I don’t know that we can handle all that.

But you know, when you start [00:20:00] collaborating it, it kind of takes care of some of those gaps and actually start moving the needle as far as the, the support that folks need. Right? I, I think that’s, that’s a big, big big benefit to what. The way you guys are approaching things. Now a anything else with the Navy Seal Foundation?

I, I, I know I want, I wanna move over to the mental fitness stuff too. I just don’t want to shortchange the Navy Seal Foundation either. So anything else from that side that you wanna maybe talk about

[00:20:25] Chris Irwin: mean, what I

[00:20:25] Scott DeLuzio: before we move?

[00:20:26] Chris Irwin: for anybody that’s

interested, certainly go to our website, go

[00:20:29] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:20:30] Chris Irwin: seal foundation.org. There’s all the links to our social media. I would say the other things that are ways that you can get involved, we have tons of events throughout the year, and that can be anything from a sit down. Not black tie, but dress up fundraising style thing where there’s keynote speakers and that kind of thing. At different parts of the country, major cities for the most part, there’s smaller fundraising events, golf things,

athletic [00:21:00] events. We’ve got like, we work with the premier lacrosse league. We’ve got a lacrosse game coming up. well, you said

by the time this airs it’ll be over, but

[00:21:09] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:21:10] Chris Irwin: August, but it’s an annual thing where Seals and swix lacrosse against veteran guys, green Berets. And we, we do it with the Green Beret Foundation and it’s a, a friendly kind of match. And they do that. They’re doing that in Columbus, Ohio this, this year.

So there’s things like that too, and people can start their own. So there’s, there’s various ways to get involved beyond just, just donating, which is great. We also have a podcast that I host so like people can hear me talk if they want and kind of check out not to take any of your viewers away, and they stack another podcast into their list of podcasts that they subscribe to. There’s that piece of it. Yeah, I think outside of that we’re just there’s a lot of, I would

just say [00:22:00] there’s a lot of ways to get involved and find

[00:22:02] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:22:02] Chris Irwin: about what we do. I would say dig into those resources and, and check it out. We put out a lot of content. We put out a lot on our social media and our YouTube and we’ll, we welcome anybody to get involved

as they, at any level too.

[00:22:17] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Sure. And

I, I think that that’s a, a great point there is that you, you have so many different things that are out there really depends on e either the needs of the people who, you know, what is it that you need from the organization, like what you know. What can you get out of that? But but also if you have the means to give to the organization in one way or another depends on what it is that you prefer to do.

If you, you’re the type of person who likes to go get dressed up and go to a fancy dinner or you know, go play around of golf or, or whatever. You can help raise funds and you can help support the organization in, in a lot of different ways. So, I will have a link to the website in the the show notes, the description for the, the listeners.

I’ll even include a link to the the podcast [00:23:00] as well. So, yeah, no, I, I, I, I love, you know, sharing other.

[00:23:04] Chris Irwin: to snipe your, your

[00:23:05] Scott DeLuzio: Oh,

[00:23:05] Chris Irwin: in.

[00:23:06] Scott DeLuzio: you’re good. You’re good. I, I love actually sharing

other, other resources like that too, because you know, you never know where people might, you know, kind of resonate. You know, maybe they’re, they’re listening to the show and they’re, they’re doing okay with, you know, the stuff that we have, but maybe you have something better for an individual that, that’s listening.

And, you know, at the end of the day, I want, I want people to get the support and the, the tools, use the tools that are out there and available to them. If it’s found someplace else and find it someplace else, and that’s, that’s fine with me as long as they’re getting what they need. So,

[00:23:33] Chris Irwin: I appreciate that.

[00:23:35] Scott DeLuzio: yeah, absolutely.

No, no problem there. So let, let’s kind of move, move on to, to what you’re doing, the, the with, you know, the mental fitness and, and all that.

You know, I, I know there’s a lot of veterans who think of themselves as mentally tough but they may not necessarily be mentally fit you know, the way you kind of described before.

So, you know, I, I we’re all trained to just kind of push through everything and, and just, you know. Find a, [00:24:00] find a spot in your brain to just tuck that, that other stuff away and just kind of push through. What’s the difference in, in your mind between mental toughness and mental fitness?

[00:24:09] Chris Irwin: The difference is that mental toughness

is a component of mental fitness, but

[00:24:14] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:24:15] Chris Irwin: everything. And I think I said at the beginning, this was born from my experience of coming outta the military, really having some severe mental challenges that I was dealing with and that. Lent itself eventually to chronic illness struggles as well, physical debil debilitation in various ways, and I can get into the details if you want, but the long and short of it is that it was very severe at times to the point of suicidal ideation.

Even coming pretty close to taking my own life at one point and out of that process that. There were a couple things going on. The first was that a lot of the treatments I was chasing weren’t doing much. I was [00:25:00] chasing a lot of treatments, a lot of external.

fixed me, something fixed me a

[00:25:05] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:25:06] Chris Irwin: I gotta, there’s gotta be some drug I can take that’s gonna fix me, or some therapy I’m gonna go to that’s gonna fix me or put me in this chamber or whatever, and that’s gonna fix me. And I’m not saying that those things didn’t have any effect. Some of them helpful, but they really weren’t. solving the problem or problems for me. I, I, I should say, let me correct myself there. It’s, it’s rarely in these situations a single problem, and that part that is part of the problem is that we label things that way. But moreover, the, the tool we tend to either innately know or learn along the way when you come from a background or you enter into. A special operations pipeline or some kind of, in my estimation, some kind of first responder thing. Anything that’s [00:26:00] alpha type, that kind of culture, that warrior class, whatever that might look like, we’re good at it because we tend to be mentally tough. Meaning we can, to your point, compartmentalize, we can suck it up, we can grind through pain,

we can deal with it, or we learn that along the way.

[00:26:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:26:17] Chris Irwin: Right. E either it’s revealed or it’s like we sort of figure out, look, that’s what, just what you gotta do. And there’s a lot of messaging out there that basically says that’s the answer. That’s the solution. Because look, that’s what creates Navy Seals and that creates Green Berets and that’s creates firefighters and cops.

And, and some level that’s true. That is a skill that we need. But the, the fallacy, the mistake is that. We think that means mental fitness. We think that toughness equals fitness and it doesn’t. It again, it’s very, it’s a very valuable tool certain situations, on missions, on the job, [00:27:00] when you have to deal with that kind of stuff. But when you’re dealing with PTSD or anxiety or severe depression, that’s not an effective tool. In fact, I would say it’s counter

effective or counterproductive.

[00:27:13] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:27:13] Chris Irwin: so when your only tool is, we’ll suck it up. That’s, I always say the example of some guy sitting there with like a bottle of Jack Daniels and a and a loaded gun by himself, and he is dealing with whatever he is dealing with, and the only thing he’s got to work with is suck it

up. Go harder.

[00:27:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:27:35] Chris Irwin: That’s an awful message at that point.

Awful. It’s like the worst thing you, I mean, you think about that. If someone’s standing next to that guy saying that to

him, you’d be like, what’s wrong with you?

[00:27:47] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:27:48] Chris Irwin: And yet, that’s what we do to ourselves like that’s basically what we’ve been taught. And so I had to go on a, like a complete journey of, okay, we, we, [00:28:00] have to do an in-depth exploration of how do we actually try to solve these things because all of my content is based on the premise the sort of thesis, the premises that. This isn’t something to fix, like externally, it’s not a pathology.

’cause that’s part of the other problem is once you have mental problems, it’s like a problem that needs to be treated somehow. My thing is like, I’m not saying never, that’s never the case, but and large people are basically mentally out of shape in some form or fashion. They don’t have any of the training tools.

They’ve never been taught any of that stuff. They don’t even understand what’s going on for the most part. And so it’s, it’s basically a lack of knowledge and then a lack of application of that knowledge. And that’s the paradigm shift that I’m trying to bring about because the solution to every mental struggle out there is not take more [00:29:00] drugs and go to more therapy.

We don’t even have enough therapists to handle that situation. The same way if you’re outta shape and overweight the solution, I mean, you can do that these days, but most of that is on you to fix almost all of it.

[00:29:17] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:18] Chris Irwin: the actual work that needs to be done, eating right, exercising, getting enough sleep, someone can

tell you what to do, but you have to do it.

[00:29:26] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:29:27] Chris Irwin: I just feel the same way about health. Someone can teach you for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Again, someone’s gotta teach you this stuff, but you have to do it. No one else can do it for you. No one can think for you or something like, or feel for you. That’s nonsense. And that’s the paradigm shift I’m trying to bring about in an actionable way. Not just theoretic, not just in theory, but like, here you go. Here’s some of the stuff

that worked for me.

[00:29:55] Scott DeLuzio: You know, and I, I, I like how that, how you phrased [00:30:00] all that and, and how, how you’re, you’re thinking about it because you’re right. You do need to do the work. You, you can go to the therapy sessions and just have a bitch fest for an hour and, you know, just, you know. And then walk out and go off and do the same thing that you’ve always been doing, and you’re not gonna see any changes,

[00:30:17] Chris Irwin: right.

[00:30:18] Scott DeLuzio: that’s not really gonna be very productive.

So you gotta do some work outside of the therapy sessions. It’s not just the, you know, one hour a week or whatever it is that you, you end up going you, you have to do a lot more than that. Outside of the therapy and, you know, sometimes it, it feels like it’s a lot of work and it’s probably because it is.

But you have to do something to change. You keep doing the same thing that you’ve always done. You’re gonna get the same results that you’ve always, you’ve always gotten. And, and it’s not a good situation where, where you’re at if you’re, if you’re already there. So, you know, you, you talked a little bit about yourself and your experiences.

What were some of the warning signs that you were maybe experiencing some trouble? O [00:31:00] obviously the suicidal ideation and, and that type of thing

[00:31:02] Chris Irwin: that’s

[00:31:03] Scott DeLuzio: is,

[00:31:03] Chris Irwin: far

[00:31:04] Scott DeLuzio: that’s pretty far down, but were there other warning signs before that,

And things that maybe you wish someone had said to you earlier that like, Hey, you know, maybe you’re, you’re not doing as good as you think you might be doing, or, or something along those lines.

[00:31:16] Chris Irwin: Well, I would say. I didn’t know what was going on originally. So like for me it was, there was a lot of survivor’s guilt some PTSD things, just like ruminating thoughts, thinking things over and over and over again, not realizing that I was doing it. so it’s just a lack of awareness that. Aspect. And then the other part was lack of a aware, I mean, this is where it starts. I think it’s the, it’s the lack of that. It’s just we’re we are fused with our own thoughts and not able to objectively look at ’em. So we’re doing these types of things where we’re thinking about something over and over again, or telling a story over and over again, and we just think, well, that’s, that’s, that’s me.

I’m [00:32:00] tied up in, there’s

[00:32:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:32:01] Chris Irwin: ability to objectively look at that. then I, the same thing with kind of emotional energy. So there’s the. The thinking aspect of it, but then there’s the feeling aspect of it too, where pretty early on as I was getting outta the military, I started having panic attacks and mock heart, like things that felt like a heart attack and tremors and all sorts of stuff that I had no idea what was going on.

I thought first, I thought I was having a heart attack, but I was physically fine. And then my mind went to all sorts of places, which only made things worse. Again, not realizing what I was doing. I, so there was, I would say, so it’s hard to say knowing the warning signs because it was like, I didn’t even have the

awareness to recognize

[00:32:47] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:32:48] Chris Irwin: going on, which again, is part of the, which is like at the core of the problem for most people, they don’t have the recognition to. [00:33:00] There’s no internal awareness

[00:33:02] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you end up going down that road so long that it just starts to feel normal. That, that you’re, you’re experiencing what Whatever’s for so long.

[00:33:16] Chris Irwin: It feels, it is normal at

[00:33:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:33:18] Chris Irwin: in the sense that what you’re, what you’re doing is you’ve habituated it. So what starts off as this is how habits form and a ha habit is just a pattern of behavior that becomes imbued into you. We think again that that’s us. But really what we’ve done is we’ve ta taken something that we consciously do enough that our brain and nervous system says, oh, you do this all the time. I’m gonna automate this into your unconscious to free up some conscious bandwidth for you. It’s like, you know, on some level, your body and brain, your brain and nervous system is like,

sweet. I’m doing you a favor here

[00:33:53] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:33:54] Chris Irwin: you clearly this all the time. It’ll make it easy for you so you don’t have to think about it anymore. [00:34:00] But when you do that with something that’s self-destructive,

that’s a problem.

[00:34:05] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:34:06] Chris Irwin: Like that’s a, that’s a, that’s a destructive or negative. Negative, which I don’t love that term, but pattern of behavior that you’ve now unconscious, like it’s now an unconscious habit and, and then it becomes that much more challenging to overwrite it because you can’t just wish it away.

You can’t just sleep it off. You have to. Neurologically reprogram

yourself.

[00:34:32] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah. And for, for something like that. So, just a, an example of somebody who, you know, is having, you know, a bunch of drinks at night, you

[00:34:43] Chris Irwin: Yeah.

[00:34:44] Scott DeLuzio: going to bed like that,

[00:34:45] Chris Irwin: Been

[00:34:45] Scott DeLuzio: just because Yeah, exactly. I, yeah, I’m, I’m saying someone, but I’m, you know, I could, I could, might as well look in the mirror,

[00:34:51] Chris Irwin: Yeah.

[00:34:52] Scott DeLuzio: you

know.

[00:34:52] Chris Irwin: let’s say this

Hypothe

[00:34:54] Scott DeLuzio: This hypothetical. Yeah. A friend of mine is doing this.

Right.

[00:34:56] Chris Irwin: Yeah. Person, right?

[00:34:58] Scott DeLuzio: but so,

you know, [00:35:00] having a bunch of drinks at night every night, it does. It’s not like a, oh, I’m just gonna have a drink on, you know, Friday or Saturday night when I’m hanging out with friends. It’s, it’s like I’m doing it all the time because this is just what I do every night.

And. You get into that habit and then that, you know, couple drinks turns into a couple more and turns into a couple more, and then eventually you’re, you’re like just having a huge problem. But you don’t even necessarily recognize how you even got there. And so you almost need to replace that habit with some other habit that’s maybe healthier.

You know, maybe instead of having drinks, you, you know. Grab an apple or something like that. Now you’re having an apple every night or something. I don’t know. I’m just using that as an example. But, you know, it feels like you, you need to maybe do something to, to kind of trick your mind out of doing that same habitual action or task or whatever it is that that’s self-destructive and doing something else that is a little bit more.

Healthy and then, you know, at some point, you know, [00:36:00] maybe you don’t need to do that all, all the time, but it, it helps separate your unconscious mind from that self-destructive activity. Is, is that kind of, kind of the, the path that you, you you think about?

[00:36:12] Chris Irwin: I would say in that circumstance, I think the, the best thing to do is drinking every night is a downstream effect of something. It’s not a, an end in and of itself. doing it to do something, you’re either trying to numb yourself or you’re trying to distract yourself or cover something up or there’s a physical addiction component to it too, where you become physically addicted to, to something like alcohol. It’s mainly there’s some part of you that’s doing, engaging that behavior, and to me, again, the, the, the best, the better way to approach it is start with trying to figure out what you’re doing,

like why you’re doing it. So an awareness. It’s like, okay, I’m drinking every night. [00:37:00] Okay. Theoretically, you’re, you’re saying, I don’t wanna drink every night.

I know this isn’t healthy for me. what’s going on? Like, instead of just trying to replace it, like let’s get to the root cause of things. You know, it’s

[00:37:13] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:37:14] Chris Irwin: if you had a really bad smell in your house and you’re like, no problem. We’ll just let, let’s just buy some glade plugins. Fix the problem. Well, no you didn’t.

You fixed

the symptom. You didn’t fix the cause. It’s like

[00:37:25] Scott DeLuzio: Gotcha.

[00:37:26] Chris Irwin: smelly in your

house. Go find that.

[00:37:29] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:37:30] Chris Irwin: really it’s like go. And again, this goes into the mental training like. Meditation and some exploration and some journaling of like, alright,

am I doing this every night?

[00:37:42] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:37:43] Chris Irwin: the, other than the, physical addiction, which if it’s, it’s one thing if you, if you sort of collapse into full blown alcoholism where your body is literally dependent on alcohol and drinking all the time, it’s another thing if you just drink every night, and I know because I [00:38:00] come from a, a. Family of alcoholics, like my father was an alcoholic. I saw what true alcoholism does to somebody when they detox. I mean, you, you’re, you have a physical dependency on it. I never got to that part, but I can definitely say that I

got to a place where I was drinking too much.

[00:38:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:38:16] Chris Irwin: It never affected my work. I was never drinking to the day, and there was never a physical addiction.

’cause when I would stop it. It wasn’t like I was shaking or something like that, you know, I’m sure there’s some physiology there where there’s things that have to kind of recover or whatever, but I would never say that I was physically dependent. What I was, was mentally and emotionally dependent on alcohol and, and to me, again, the, the root of that is going on up here?

What’s this doing for me? What am I trying to escape? What am I trying to forget? What am I trying to get away from? That’s the thing to,

to explore ultimately, I

[00:38:55] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yeah, no, that, and that makes sense too, because, you know, to your point, [00:39:00] that smell in the house isn’t gonna go away on its own. You know, so you, you gotta figure out what, what’s the root cause and not just cover it up with something that smells better you know. Where’s that source of that, you know, did something die in the house?

[00:39:13] Chris Irwin: You could even, I mean, the point here is you could even stop drinking. You could, let’s say you drink beer every night

and drink a six pack of beer every night and you’re able to switch it to non-alcoholic beer. So you get rid of the alcohol and you, you just drink a six pack of non-alcoholic beer every night.

So no big, no big deal. It’s a lot of calories, but so it’s still not the healthiest thing for you. You probably still didn’t really solve the problem though.

[00:39:41] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:39:42] Chris Irwin: solved the downstream effect a little bit. You mitigated it, but did you really get to the core part of the problem? I don’t

think you did.

[00:39:50] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:39:51] Chris Irwin: know?

[00:39:51] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. And so I, I, I like the way you, you put it better than how I put it before, you know, just kind of replacing it because because you’re right that [00:40:00] that will just cover the, the symptoms to some extent, not, not a hundred percent. And it, you know, ultimately it’s not addressing that root cause.

And, you know, so you’re, you’re treating the. That, that downstream effect, like you said it, without really you know, affecting that root cause. So, you know, so in, in your work, you, you I did a little bit of looking into it. You, you talk about things like mind killers, like fear suppression isolation and, and the things that we tell ourselves.

Those stories that we tell ourselves in, in our minds. ’cause we’re. A lot of times our own worst enemy and you know, which, which one are you? Which of those do you think affects the veterans, the, the, the most after leaving the service and how can they start pushing back against it?

[00:40:45] Chris Irwin: Yeah. So let me just kind of frame that up a little

[00:40:49] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:40:49] Chris Irwin: People understand. I work with, I have what’s called a mind killer framework. Mind killers is like my kind of paradigm that I utilize [00:41:00] in my material. And the idea is that it’s five things. It’s the five. that we sabotage ourselves mentally and emotionally. I, I mean this is, again, this is about like 10 plus years of work, of just looking at everything out there, looking at modalities, looking at and trying to simplify it to something that’s approachable and actionable. So the idea is like really any internal mental struggle in my estimation falls into one of those categories or a few of them, but it’s some, some combination of those five things, oblivion, storytelling, suppression, fear, stagnation, those are the five. And then every single one has a countermeasure, which is. Sort of like the channel that you’re working in. You can think of it like strength, speed, endurance, and physical training. Most of my stuff, I would say all of my stuff actually

very much parallels physical fitness.

[00:41:53] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:41:54] Chris Irwin: whole idea of this trainable stuff then exercises that fall underneath [00:42:00] those. Now you asked me are veterans struggling with the most? I don’t know. It could be any one of those things.

In fact, it usually is all of those things

[00:42:09] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:42:10] Chris Irwin: level. I know for me. Fear was the biggest problem

in the form of anxiety, which is just a form of chronic fear and still is the thing that I have to work with the most on. But they also, in terms of sort of battling them, overcoming them, working against them. they tend to, there’s a sequence there for the most part. And so I, I always think it’s important to, to work with oblivion and awareness first, which is you gotta source the

problem. This is exactly what I was just talking

[00:42:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.

[00:42:45] Chris Irwin: The very first thing you have to do is turn the spotlight inward and get very good working knowledge of what’s going on with you. And most people have no clue. that. They just don’t, they think they do, but they [00:43:00] don’t, they don’t objectively look at themselves internally. and so the point is, the whole idea again is this is trainable and. The idea is like you can self-diagnose,

and that starts with awareness,

[00:43:15] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:43:16] Chris Irwin: It’s not for me to tell you what you’re struggling with the most. It’s for you to tell you what you’re struggling with the most, if you start by being more aware of what’s going on internally, you’ll figure that out. If you don’t

know already.

[00:43:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and that’s a hard thing to do because we. We don’t, I don’t think we do enough of that self-reflecting. We, we can look at somebody else and say, oh my God, that that guy has got this problem and that problem, and, and we can do that. But you know, with ourselves looking inward, it, it’s, feels like it’s harder to do and it may.

Be one of those skills that you, you need to work on to try to figure out how, how do I look in on myself

[00:43:56] Chris Irwin: Right

[00:43:56] Scott DeLuzio: and, be critical of myself in a, in a, a, [00:44:00] a

constructive criticism,

[00:44:01] Chris Irwin: Right,

[00:44:02] Scott DeLuzio: that type of thing.

[00:44:03] Chris Irwin: again, it goes back to like what we started with, the mental toughness stuff, which, and on a lot of levels is the opposite. It is compartmentalize. Don’t deal with

that. Don’t like just tuck it away,

[00:44:13] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:44:14] Chris Irwin: down. Temporary solution again? Yes. Middle of a firefight. Yes, there. Absolutely.

Middle of a whatever it is, five alarm, fire, whatever that term is. Firefighters responding to something or some accident scene, the cops are on at that point. Is that the point to sort of break down in tears? No. Like you got in that situation. You gotta, you gotta, yes. Suck it up. Go right? It doesn’t matter how much physical pain you are in, you have a mission to accomplish.

You have people’s lives to save, whatever it may be. Got it afterwards. However, now you gotta like deal with whatever that, whatever, however it affects you. And it, it’s

not to say that it’s the same for everybody,

[00:44:55] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s true.

[00:44:56] Chris Irwin: affect you. Now [00:45:00] you’re like thinking about this thing over and over. Okay. And that’s all right. You know, but now it’s time to like do some other stuff that.

[00:45:09] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:10] Chris Irwin: There’s another point that I wanted to make there that I, that escapes me at the moment, but, but keep going. There

[00:45:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:45:15] Chris Irwin: thing that I wanted to say that, that was kind of, highlighted with what you were saying. Oh, it was, you were talking about. Diagnosing other people, looking at people, and, and again, sometimes we’re, we’re still, we’re not even getting the root of it. You could even say, this happens to people, like, that guy’s got a drinking problem, or That guy’s has a substance abuse problem. It’s like,

but why?

[00:45:36] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, sure.

[00:45:37] Chris Irwin: real problem? That’s a symptom. That’s not

the actual problem.

[00:45:43] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yeah. And, and so we’ll, we’ll point those things out. We’ll, we’ll look at, oh gosh, that, that guy’s drinking so much, he’s doing, you know, whatever it is that they’re, they’re doing. And, and we will be able to point that out, but we may not necessarily know what’s going on on the inside with that person.

[00:45:59] Chris Irwin: [00:46:00] know.

[00:46:00] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:46:00] Chris Irwin: other

[00:46:01] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:46:01] Chris Irwin: That’s the pro, that’s a, that is kind of core

problem over the problem

[00:46:07] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:46:08] Chris Irwin: he probably doesn’t even know. And so if he doesn’t know how, is

anybody else gonna know?

[00:46:12] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah. And that, that goes back to that awareness piece that you were talking about, where you have to be aware of, of what’s going on and why it, why these things are happening. You know, a hundred percent, you’re, you’re right. You know, in a crisis situation, whether it’s a firefight or you know, a, you know, firefighters or police officers or whoever, you know, military, you’re, you’re in the middle of the situation.

Yeah. You can’t break down right there. You get you. Are going to have to compartmentalize that so you can focus on the task at hand help other people, help yourself do all the things that you’re gonna need to do. But at some point, whatever it is that you’re dealing with in that situation, you’re gonna have to pull that back out and, and deal with that.

And it’s probably easier. I, I would imagine. If you, the sooner after that, that situation that you [00:47:00] can pull that back out and start addressing it, then waiting years, you know, months, years, decades before addressing it because that, that is just going to be filled with a lot more of those symptoms like you were talking about, you know, whether it’s the, the drinking or other self-destructive behaviors.

Right.

[00:47:16] Chris Irwin: and, and that that particular pattern that you’re talking about is suppression. That is essentially just bottling it up, your emotional energy

and over and over again.

[00:47:29] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:47:29] Chris Irwin: of think that that just goes away, like it just disappears on its own, but it’s not the, I use a couple different examples.

One’s a little more crude than the other one, but. the G-rated version is, it’s like shaking up a soda bottle. So that first instance, you shake a soda bottle up and you just leave the cap on, and then if you just keep doing that. Like if you shake

it up once, like they see you drop a soda bottle,

[00:47:55] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:47:56] Chris Irwin: done that. You like drop it and you’re like, Ugh. Gotta sort of like unscrew the [00:48:00] cap slowly to let that dissipate. And so that’s kind of what we’re talking about. That’s like, okay, I’m gonna deal with this almost immediately after it happens. It’s not gonna be explosive. I can bleed off some emotional energy.

And there’s various ways to do that. But then there’s a lot of people like, well, oh, oh, well just leave it on.

Like, I mean, we can’t deal with this right now. and

[00:48:21] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:48:22] Chris Irwin: and then if you keep doing that, it’s literally like, you never open that up and you just shake it every single time you, you grab

it, you just, I’m just gonna keep shaking this thing

[00:48:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And somehow it’ll magically get better.

[00:48:33] Chris Irwin: it’s

gonna explode.

[00:48:34] Scott DeLuzio: right. Yeah.

[00:48:36] Chris Irwin: it’s something, something will

happen. Where it explodes,

[00:48:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:48:40] Chris Irwin: this is what happens with people emotionally, is we, we pent up our own emotional energy and we do it over and over and over again. Like we, some guys die in the line of duty and we’re just like, you can’t deal with that right now.

And something else is happening. My, you know, my family’s and I’ve just, I’m just gonna bottle that up. then what happens? Like just the slightest [00:49:00] little tink, right? Someone says something and they fly off the handle. Scream at somebody or someone cuts ’em off in traffic and they’re swearing and

pointing their finger

[00:49:09] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:49:11] Chris Irwin: like, yeah,

[00:49:12] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And, and unfortunately when, when we do those types of things, we’re where we’re constantly shaking the bottle you know, that, that metaphor that you just used there you know, we’re constantly doing that to ourselves. And we’re, we’re not releasing the, the pressure. We’re not releasing the steam.

We start getting really good at doing the bad behaviors. And, and that’s just gonna become our fallback to you know, handle any situation regardless of, you know, good, bad and indifferent, whatever. We’re just gonna start continuing to do that same type of behavior and just as an example kind of another.

Shake the, the bottle kind of example. I, my son was a pitcher in baseball and he had just had this nasty habit of, of kind of just doing the sidearm thing.

[00:49:57] Chris Irwin: Okay.

[00:49:58] Scott DeLuzio: I said, I said, look, if you, if [00:50:00] you wanna get the ball over the plate more frequently, you’re, you’re gonna have to change that, that up a little bit.

And you know, if you keep practicing with that sidearm, you keep doing it like that, you’re gonna get really good. At throwing it sidearm and get really good at throwing balls and not strikes, you know you’re gonna get really good at that,

and that’s not where you wanna be. So. Work on it and, and figure out how you can get that ball over the plate a little bit more more frequently.

And that, and that was you know, kinda like that, that same idea where you’re gonna end up doing that same thing over and over and over again and you’re, you’re just gonna get good at doing the wrong thing. And it’s, it doesn’t good in this case. Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. It’s just you’re, you’re gonna be, you know, the, the best at doing the wrong thing.

That’s not a good thing.

[00:50:45] Chris Irwin: And the, the thing with it is it has consequences. It is not a

’cause. There’d be people out there that say, well, so what?

[00:50:52] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:50:53] Chris Irwin: Like, okay, I’m good at

bottling it up. It’s like, what has consequences?

[00:50:56] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:50:57] Chris Irwin: consequence free.

[00:50:58] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And it’s not just [00:51:00] a consequence to you, the individual who’s bottling it up. It, it could spill out into your relationships, into your work, into other areas of your life. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. So, so that, those are the things that I, I think, you know, we we’re, I, I think we got the mental toughness stuff down.

You know, if you’re, you’re a veteran, you’re probably pretty good at, at the mental toughness. Not, not everybody maybe, but I think as a. As a community, we, we were probably pretty tough mentally but fitness I think we are lacking in, in that area quite a bit.

[00:51:30] Chris Irwin: I was.

[00:51:30] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And, and it’s it’s a shame, you know, we, we go through all this training to.

Do our jobs, and we go through all this, and then we get out and we have no idea how to handle the stuff that we’ve been suppressing all the, all these years. And so, you know, for, for any veterans who, who are out there listening right now, who maybe they have some success in their, their lives, maybe their jobs are good and, you know, things like that.

On the outside, things are looking good, but inside they feel like they’re falling apart. You know, what’s [00:52:00] one small mental fitness practice that they can start today without, without feeling like they’re, they’re a total disaster. And they gotta, they gotta start from scratch. You know? What’s one, one thing that they can start today?

[00:52:09] Chris Irwin: always start

people with some kind of awareness

[00:52:12] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:52:13] Chris Irwin: some kind of meditative practice. I just think it has to be there. Now, meditation can be daunting for a few reasons. One, people can see it as not aligning with their personality. I know that was a case for me for a long time where I’m thinking, you know, people that

meditate, that’s not. like me, that’s

[00:52:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:52:32] Chris Irwin: hippies and whatever, you know, swamis gurus and like those kinds of people, not me. It doesn’t need to be associated with anything like that. It doesn’t need to be tied to any kind of spiritual tradition or anything like that. It is just simply the act of noticing what’s going on internally and, and being able to objectively look at that. To gain an awareness of it, I saw, I, I’ll start people further back than that where [00:53:00] it’s part of the problem we have these days is we have no we have no mental bandwidth, and we fill up any space we used to have where we used to be bored with. We just grab our phone and we look at that. We have a dis, we have a 24 7 distraction device that we can I’m just gonna stare at this thing.

And

that’s a real detriment to our

[00:53:23] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:53:23] Chris Irwin: health.

[00:53:24] Scott DeLuzio: that’s right.

[00:53:25] Chris Irwin: doesn’t always have to be, but the fact that we, we don’t just spend any time with, with ourselves ever. And then we wonder why we have trouble going to sleep at night. ’cause it’s the one time where all of a sudden you’re just alone with your thoughts and you’re trying to like process absolutely everything from the day because you’ve have, you’ve spent

no other time letting that happen.

[00:53:46] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:53:47] Chris Irwin: So I start with people with just a, like a seven. I do a lot of seven minute practices. I find that’s kind of a goldilock zone because for people it doesn’t seem that daunting. Five minutes can be a little bit too short, 10 minutes. Some people. [00:54:00]

You know that thwarts, some

people, they have an aversion to, that feels long. Seven minutes is like, okay, I can do that. It’s kinda like the seven minute abs thing from, there’s nothing about Mary. But seven minutes of just do nothing.

Just sit there,

[00:54:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:54:17] Chris Irwin: get rid of all the distractions. Get rid of your phone. You can use it as a timer if you want, but just sit there for seven minutes.

Go sit outside. Or sit in a chair in your house or something like that just what you notice. See what comes up. You know, that’s kind of where I start. People at is that kind of stuff. And slowing down too. That’s the other thing. Just slow down. Everything is done. We, this is part of our hustle culture. And it’s the same kind of message that you get with all the go harder, get up earlier. And again, I’m not saying that that’s a bad message all the time. Like if you [00:55:00] want something in life, you gotta work hard for it. If you wanna, you know, getting up early and going to workout, that’s great. Like, that’s good. when it turns into just like go, go, go, go, go faster, more, more optimize like all this, this kind of messaging, again, we’re like ramping up our nervous system. We’re doing all these things to ourselves that make it harder to look at ourselves, to self-analyze and, and to get into much more of a parasympathetic state too.

We we’re constantly in this kind of sympathetic activated fight or flight. Nervous system status, and like we gotta learn how to downshift. So slowing

down is a big one for me too.

[00:55:46] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

That, that’s huge. And for the younger listeners who maybe were born with a smartphone in their hand, this is actually what we used to do back in, you know, the eighties, nineties, you know, whatever. Like we, we would [00:56:00] just

kind of be bored and that was okay, you know, or, or you are bored and that caused you to get creative and go figure something else out.

Do go do and use your brain instead of just being told what to think and what to watch and whatever, because that’s the next thing that happens to pop up when you’re scrolling through, you know, Instagram or TikTok or whatever it is. So, so, yeah, we used to just be bored and we were okay with that,

[00:56:23] Chris Irwin: Yes.

If it helps, think of it as an accomplishment,

[00:56:27] Scott DeLuzio: yeah. Yeah.

[00:56:27] Chris Irwin: is, I mean, that’s the thing. People are,

[00:56:29] Scott DeLuzio: I.

[00:56:29] Chris Irwin: sort of fed this thing. It’s like if you’re not accomplishing something at. Every single free second you have of the

day, you’re failing on some level. It’s like, well,

[00:56:38] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:56:38] Chris Irwin: if that’s your mindset, okay, this is an accomplishment. That is an

accomplishment.

[00:56:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. You accomplish being bored and that’s a, that’s a good thing.

[00:56:48] Chris Irwin: Yeah. You’re

[00:56:48] Scott DeLuzio: I, think,

[00:56:48] Chris Irwin: something by yourself.

[00:56:50] Scott DeLuzio: yeah. Yeah.

Your, your brain will definitely shift gears and and that’s great. Well.

Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today and, and join us and you

know, share all [00:57:00] your, your stuff with the Navy Seal Foundation and everything else that you have going on.

Where’s the best place that listeners can go to get in touch to find out more e either about the Navy Seal Foundation. I know you mentioned their website before, but anywhere else for them or, you know, for you personally? For, for the mental fitness.

[00:57:15] Chris Irwin: foundation.org

[00:57:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:57:17] Chris Irwin: website that’s got links to all of our social media and every, everything else about us. website is this chris irwin.com, T-H-I-S-C-H-R-I-S-I-R-W-I-N. All eyes. same thing that’s got links to everything. It’s got links to my platform. I’ve got a book coming out that’s all about this stuff.

It’s called Facing the Mind Killers. I don’t know when it’ll be out at some point. Hopefully before the end of the year. I, it keeps getting

pushed back a little bit, but that’s my fault. So

[00:57:43] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:57:44] Chris Irwin: point the finger at anybody else there. But yeah, I’m this Chris Erwin across the internet social media website, and

that’s the best place for people to

find me.

[00:57:53] Scott DeLuzio: Well. Sounds great. Well, Chris, thanks again for coming on. Really did appreciate the conversation and look forward to chatting with you again in the future.

[00:57:59] Chris Irwin: [00:58:00] Awesome. Thanks Scott.

[00:58:00] Scott DeLuzio: right.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Post-traumatic stress can leave your body reacting as though danger never ended. Sleep disappears, anxiety stays high, relationships feel the strain, and painful memories can influence everyday interactions. The goal is not to erase what happened or lose an important part of your story. It should be instead to keep the memory without letting it control your nervous system, your family, or your future.

[00:00:26] Our guest today, Dr. Eugene Lipov, joins me to explain why he believes PTSD should be called post-traumatic stress injury, and how a procedure known as a stellate ganglion block may calm the fight or flight response. He shares a personal loss that led him to his work, explains what patients experience during the procedure, and describes why treatment should continue with therapy and other support afterwards.

[00:00:55] We also cover secondary trauma within families, the origin of the term, the [00:01:00] God shot, the emotional weight attached to traumatic memories, and the steps a veteran should take when choosing a stellate ganglion block provider. This conversation provides a look at the procedure, including its limits, its risks, costs, and the hope Dr.

[00:01:16] Lipov believes it can offer. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to take a moment to raise awareness for something deeply important to our community, the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington, D.C. to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism.

[00:01:36] This memorial will be both a tribute to those who have served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOTmemorialfoundation.org. Now let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:52]

[00:02:06] Scott DeLuzio: Dr. Lipov very happy to have you here. Welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:02:12] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Thank you very much for having me.

[00:02:14] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And and likewise honor for me to, to talk with someone like yourself and we’ll, we’ll get more into, you know, what you do and all that stuff in, in just a minute here.

[00:02:24] But for the listeners who maybe are new to your work and not familiar with you, could you maybe just give a brief intro about yourself and you know, share how your path led from, you know, kind of where you started to where you are today.

[00:02:35] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Sure. So I, I was born in Ukraine and my father was flyer in World War ii, and I’ll become a parent by this is relevant, and out of a hundred, out of 10,000 people in his squadron a hundred made it home. So he had a significant. Problem or PTSD, and he was interesting gentleman to grow up with. So he [00:03:00] gave PTSD to my mother that’s technically called secondary PTSD, and she took her life.

[00:03:05] So I, he was a physician. My mother was a physician to, my brothers a physician. So I went to medical school and I was gonna be a surgeon and I went from surgery. To anesthesia after my mother’s death. So then, you know, before in surgery I did trauma surgery and stuff like that. So then I got to anesthesia.

[00:03:25] From anesthesia. I became a pain physician. As a pain physician. I was taking care of some women who had health flashes, and I figured out that Ella Gion. That’s an injection in the neck, takes away hot flashes. Then I had some pushback on that and then it becomes relevant to what we’re talking about.

[00:03:42] So I was trying to understand why it worked for hot flashes. In the process of evaluating that I was able to determine that telling England Block, which is numbing up the nerves in the neck, takes away PTSD in about five to 10 minutes. So. I published it in [00:04:00] 2008. First patient was treated actually 20 years ago now, and then this paper made it to Walter Reed where it was replicated.

[00:04:07] And since then, it been replicated a number of places. And Fort Bragg and places like that are the biggest user of this procedure in the military. So about 10 to 15,000 special forces guys been treated. With this approach and the reason I think there’s a place for somebody like me, I’m not a psychiatrist, and in fact I’m Antip psychiatry, I would say to the best I can be.

[00:04:33] And so that the idea is that PTSD and everybody’s talking about PTSD and. It’s an invisible wound and it’s gonna be like that forever, blah, blah, blah. I don’t take that approach at all. So to me, number one, PTSD is a visible wound. You can actually see it if you have the right scan. So if you close your eyes and you don’t see it, well open your eyes.

[00:04:55] So it’s like an x-ray, right? So if someone has a broken leg, but that’s [00:05:00] before the x-rays, like it’s an invisible wound, but life hurts. Well, now we have advanced scanners. You can actually see a change in the brain. So. SD is real. I think it needs to be re named to PTSI post stress injury and I’ve been working on that very hard.

[00:05:17] So in fact, if your listeners are interested in helping that change they can go to its itts pts.com. So the leader that has been trying to change that name in the army was Elli four Star General. In 2013, he went to. American Psychiatric Surgeon, please change the name ’cause it’s biologic. It’s real.

[00:05:38] We did a study that shows quite definitively that if you change the name, the stigma goes away. If the Stig stigma goes away, people will not get killed themselves. Direct relation. Right. The other thing is if you look at current, and I know I’m giving you a little more of an answer, but I think that’s overview, it’s nice background.

[00:05:59] If you don’t mind where [00:06:00] we can start. So there was a paper written in 2011 in jama, which is a big journal of Medical, medical Medical station by Dr. Hoag Ho’s psychiatrist and Walter Reed. And he basically said current therapeutics, which is psychotherapy and pharmaceuticals have a 40 to 45% efficacy rate.

[00:06:19] Which is suboptimal. I’d say. With a placebo being 35 to 40%, you’re not talking much and it takes a long time to work. The main problem with current therapeutics takes a long time and the compliance is very low, so people don’t like to do that. So this procedure works in 10, 15 minutes, and also it’s not really difficult, right?

[00:06:41] You don’t have to talk about your mommy or anything. Horrible thing that happened to you. You could talk about it later. And it’s, in fact what we find is after we can calm down and find like nervous system, people can stay chill. If people can stay chill, then they can do the processing. [00:07:00] They need psychotherapy and they can come off a lot of the meds.

[00:07:04] So what happens, from my perspective, and I’ve written a lot, lot of papers on that and presented it when somebody has trauma. Military trauma, sexual abuse, whatever, long-term bullying, any of that. What it does it activates fighting flight, nervous system, fighting flight, nervous system, then grows extra nerve fibers in the brain, which produce more norepinephrine.

[00:07:27] As all of those things are percolating in the brain, norepinephrine is what gives people symptomatology such as they cannot sleep. They’re anxious, they have a trigger finger. I mean, they’re always on edge. They are crankin needle, my technical term 85% of men who have sexual dysfunction from that, all of that together are the symptoms of PTSD.

[00:07:50] Whether you call it PTSD or PTSI, whatever. Just look at the symptoms, you know, if somebody has broken leg, doesn’t matter. You call it, you can call it broken leg [00:08:00] disorder. Okay? It’s still a broken leg. So to me, in fact, I did a TEDx in January of this year, and the point there was. Disorder. Postex in disorder disorder is what’s wrong with you. Injury is what happened to you, right? If you went and called the car and you got shut down and you had IED killed by your friends, your brain has been rewired. So the reason people cannot just snap out of it because the brain has now been rewired. There’s too many sympathetic nerve fibers. So if anybody would like to argue with me scientifically, bring it sympathetic nervous system.

[00:08:43] I know more about than most people for sure. I’ve written papers than that. I’m not a, I’m not a psychiatrist, right? So I’m not being held down by the same kind of. Principles that people have been applied for so many years, blah, blah, blah. But sympathetic nervous system is stuck in that position, and that’s why they [00:09:00] have those symptoms.

[00:09:01] So when you do the procedure in the neck, what happens is two things happen immediately. Norepinephrine drops so people can feel markedly better in 10, 15 minutes. It’s not because I’m giving sedative, it’s because I’m just lowering down sympathetic nervous system. Two long-term effect is it rewires a nervous system to Prera state.

[00:09:23] In fact, there was an article written by Dr. Alki in Long Beach, California va, where they did PET scans, which is one of those advanced scans I was talking about. And it shows that amygdala, which is a part of the brain that controls PTSD, is deactivated after the injection.

[00:09:41] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, okay.

[00:09:42] Dr. Eugene Lipov: So you can actually see physical changes that happens in the brain.

[00:09:47] It’s rapid, it’s fast, and it’s effective. And the compliance is very high. If somebody comes in, they get a procedure, poof. They feel good. If people feel good, they know there’s gonna be able to get out of this [00:10:00] PTSD hail or PTSI hail, whatever term you want to use. And that’s a whole thing. And the other part is like I’m very big into secondary PTSD, which is.

[00:10:10] When I treat guys or women from military, I like to try to treat their spouses or significant others. ’cause it’s like STD, you treat one partner, the other one’s gonna get it back. So you treat both. Sometimes I actually treat the children so I, you know, I’ve had sometimes bring five people in. I treat everyone the same day.

[00:10:30] ’cause if everybody comes down, then that’s much happier household. Right? So. So if the guy is not a crankin air. That’s great right there. In fact, there was an interesting YouTube video, which I wrote a chapter about this gentleman was a seal. He stepped an IED, almost took his leg off, you know, really unfortunate.

[00:10:52] So they show him there’s a beautiful video of that. His name’s Luke look and then. In the beginning, you know, it’s [00:11:00] like his wife said, yeah, sometimes he’s violent with me, sometimes this, and then he has a procedures. I interview him a month later and he says, you know what? PTD symptoms are gone. But that really is not the most important thing.

[00:11:12] The thing that really was good is I can get laid again. So the point is, you know, sounds trivial, but it’s not right. Cohesiveness, oxytocin. A 30 5-year-old guy says, you know, it’s like my blood vessels are fine. Why is this not thing? Why is this thing not on? So I wrote a whole chapter explaining why this whole thing is not on.

[00:11:34] Turns out again, everything’s already been studied. I just found it so, so norepinephrine levels kinda interesting. So if somebody has dill, norepinephrine, which is a fine flight, there’s no sexual interest, like who cares? Optimal yha. Like if a lot of, a lot of men had to go into battle, they come in that they had a significant increase in that libido.

[00:11:57] Too much no [00:12:00] interest. So if you think about it’s adoptive, if you’re running from the tiger, the way I explain it to the guys, you don’t want anything sticking out. Poof,

[00:12:08] Scott DeLuzio: right,

[00:12:09] Dr. Eugene Lipov: what do one, right? So the point is, after all rated my part. The point though is that. There’s hope. You can get yourself back.

[00:12:21] You can get your function back, which is mental function. If you don’t sleep, your mental function is off.

[00:12:26] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:12:27] Dr. Eugene Lipov: You know, sexual function. You can be comfortable in your own skin. You don’t need to drink. And you know, my last, last thing I’ll tell you about my favorite or least favorite diagnosis besides PTSD term is alcohol abuse disorder. It. Yeah, it makes it sound like it’s a separate condition. It’s a symptom. So you’re taking your trouble for a swim, but they’re gonna come back. So I’ll give you a real example. We took care of Lieutenant and seals. The guy was drinking a liter of [00:13:00] vodka a day for 10 years, please. Sturdy fellow, right? We do the block.

[00:13:06] Poof. PTSD goes away. Not a drink for the next two years. Because his machinery was not riding 5,000 per hour. He didn’t have to calm it down with alcohol and all the other drugs.

[00:13:19] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:13:20] Dr. Eugene Lipov: So there go. That’s kind of my broad overview, just to give you all the kind of who I am and why I am here.

[00:13:27] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and this is something that I have heard about for years now. I’ve heard other people who’ve used it and had great success with it. And, you know, I just, I wanted to bring you on the show as you know, kind of the the expert on, on the stoic ganglion block because you know, I want, I want other folks to know.

[00:13:49] That this is an option and that it can be, you know, that quick that you go in, you, you do the procedure and you walk out of the room [00:14:00] feeling a thousand times better than you did when you walked in the room, and it’s not like a therapy session where you have to go spill your guts out to a therapist over weeks and months and years.

[00:14:10] Dr. Eugene Lipov: thing I’ll tell you the two things I’ll tell you. This is how I usually talk with the guys, given I used to be a trauma surgeon, so I’m very direct.

[00:14:17] So, so I tell people I don’t care about trauma. You had, it doesn’t matter. Was that called the car? Was that being shot in the street? Was that rape?

[00:14:26] Does not matter. The patient does not need to cooperate to do a lot of work. Everybody’s been trained. You have to do a lot of work. Soul searching. Yes. After you calm the body down, it’s like if you have a broken leg, you don’t put a backpack on and go round up and down the mountain, fix the leg, then rehab.

[00:14:46] Don’t rehab before the broken leg. Right. So that I, I think that’s the key. And you know, it’s like, it’s one of the big things, you know, the other thing people go, it’s too good to be true. It’s impossible. Something that’s simple [00:15:00] to be actually effective.

[00:15:01] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:15:02] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Well, I mean, maybe, so here’s a book I wrote with an amazing writer, the got shot. So I’m doing a plug of course for my book, but I’ll, I’ll tell you why it wrong. So the GWOT shot, the term was introduced by a Marine. So he came in and he said, I’d like have GWOT shot. I said, what? What is that? I, I, I don’t know what that is. He said, well, people in my unit call it the Gutshot because the only entity that can change lives is God.

[00:15:34] So this is the God shot.

[00:15:35] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:15:35] Dr. Eugene Lipov: You know, I love the name so much, and that’s why we made, you know, that’s why we made that book. And, you know, I, I love the brain. All of those, I mean, I designed and cover, but I, I think the whole thing is, especially considering my mother’s death and my father’s struggles, that is really, has been a huge focus for me because it’s such a personal thing.

[00:15:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:16:00] Sure. Yeah,

[00:16:00] absolutely. Yeah. And that’s where a lot of you know, great innovations. Great. You know, investigations into different procedures and things like that. They, they come from, you know, a personal experience that you know, you, you had a personal problem that you were looking into and you’re like, Hey, this would be great if there was a solution to it.

[00:16:16] And not only just on a personal level, but for. All these, these soldiers and, and not just soldiers, but you know, anybody who’s dealing with some sort of trauma, like you said, it doesn’t matter where the trauma came from. You know, anyone who’s dealing with that, it would be great if there was this, you know, kind of, I don’t wanna say quick fix because it’s, you know, something that you obviously need to do some sort of work after the fact, but it, but it

[00:16:38] Dr. Eugene Lipov: quick. Yeah, yeah. Quick, quick fix implies not lessing, right? Quick fix also implies lying like quick fix diet gonna come right back. That’s not the case, but I mean, my encouragement is it does work by itself, but it works best if you have a therapist. But the, the key point after we do the block.[00:17:00]

[00:17:00] People can participate in therapy. They can participate being present. They participate being, having sex. They can participate being in normal life, and they can also reduce the medication because their body is not craving it. That’s what I’m talking about. It just, it’s a very basic, so if you think about what a sympathetic system is, is designed, if you’re riding from the tiger, is designed to keep you alive. That’s what it is. So what happens is if you are at the edge, something crazy happened to you, your system remembers it. That’s the whole thing. It’s designed to remember. In fact, what people don’t think about, which I do, is that you can pass PTSD on to two, three generations. Children can have that. So my father had PTSD, he gave me DNA genetics or epigenetic.

[00:17:51] I was more sensitive to develop PTSD because of that and my mileage death. That was quite the event that pushed me over.

[00:17:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:18:00] sure, sure. Now, for someone who goes in and gets this procedure and assuming they, they go do some sort of therapy after the fact, after getting this procedure, what is the the rate of I’m, I’m trying to think the right way

[00:18:14] Dr. Eugene Lipov: You wanna see how effective it’s,

[00:18:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. How well, how effective, but, but do they need to go back and do it again?

[00:18:19] You know, is, is there like a, a term of, of time that, that it’s effective for, I guess maybe that, that’s a better way to say it.

[00:18:26] Dr. Eugene Lipov: I think that’s a fair que well, the, you’re asking basically longevity of it. How long has it last and how effective is it? Those big questions. Right? I, I got asked that every day. You can imagine. So efficacy rate is probably 80 to 85%. Meaning if you come in these symptoms, you know, it’s assuming we do right and left side, you’re looking at probably 80 to 85% success rate.

[00:18:50] So we have, we definitely have a 15 one 5% failure rate. There’s no question, anybody who tells you what they do is a hundred percent effective, which I’ve heard quite a bit.[00:19:00]

[00:19:00] Scott DeLuzio: Okay. Mm-hmm.

[00:19:01] Dr. Eugene Lipov: You can make a decision on that. It’s, I don’t think that’s possible, but yeah, whatever. Longevity. Longevity is a variable. We took care of a guy 17 years ago who had to kill line.

[00:19:14] He had to shoot a child, 12-year-old kid in line of duty in the Iraq. He was late in his explosive belt. He’s still doing well 17 years later, as far as I know. That’s pretty cool. Equally. We had a policeman that was doing great for a year in Chicago, and then he had to kill a not a particularly nice individual in line of duty, and he had to combat.

[00:19:37] So it depends on your biology. It’s three things. Biology, how do you GWOT build it? What do you do afterward? Did you do psychotherapy? You do meditation, you do the right things. And number three, what happens to you if everything is great? Your chance coming back to see me is significantly lower. If you’re not doing great mm, then, then you’re not doing great.

[00:19:59] Right. [00:20:00] You’re gonna have, you gonna have issues.

[00:20:01] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Sure. And that, that does make sense too because you know, exposure to another trauma, you know, like another line of duty

[00:20:09] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Yeah. It’s not all about me, right. We, we, we are not, we’re not taking part of the brain out. We’re not knee in the head.

[00:20:15] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:20:16] Dr. Eugene Lipov: We are just resetting it, but if your computer gets stuck, you reset it. How often does it get stuck? Depends how much you use it, right? Depends. The software you run depends if you do the updates and blah, blah, blah.

[00:20:30] Computer in the brain is very similar issues, so it’s why rebooting the brain is very similar.

[00:20:38] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And, and the nice thing about reboot, rebooting a, a computer or your brain or, or whatever, is you don’t forget about everything that happened. You don’t lose all the memories of, of everything, but just how you. Handle those and how you process them are going to be different. Right. And

[00:20:56] Dr. Eugene Lipov: That’s exactly right. Yeah, that’s exactly right.

[00:20:58] Scott DeLuzio: so that, that’s a, the nice thing [00:21:00] about it, because I, I know like for me, having the experiences that I’ve had, I don’t want to forget about those because they’re an important piece of my story and who I am and everything.

[00:21:10] But I don’t want them controlling my everyday interactions either, you know?

[00:21:16] Dr. Eugene Lipov: let me give you a story. Remember I told you about the guy who had to shoot a child line of duty?

[00:21:20] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:21:21] Dr. Eugene Lipov: His name is Jason, a lovely man, so, so what he remember, so you can imagine how vivid that was, right? So he shoots a child, a body, pieces of the body, hits him in the chest on his flag jacket. I mean, it’s like, that’s it.

[00:21:39] I mean, I, I, I can’t imagine anything particularly worse, but, you know, maybe it’s possible. Anyway, so after the block, 15 minutes later, he says, here’s what I remember, Doug. Three things. Number one, I was going a hundred miles per hour. Now I’m going 25 miles up. Easy. Nice and simple. One, two, I [00:22:00] remember what happened, but I, there’s no color.

[00:22:02] Now it’s black and white. That’s the key. Now, why does that happen? Amygdala remembers. Anxiety and emotion. Hippocampus remembers something different, remembers facts. That’s why we deactivate the amygdala and that’s why you could remember it. So it’s important to remember that’s what makes you human right memory, what you’ve done.

[00:22:25] But it doesn’t mean you have to be, you don’t have to drive crazy on that.

[00:22:29] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:31] Dr. Eugene Lipov: So that’s my perspective.

[00:22:33] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. No, and that makes sense too. Now for, for someone who’s listening to this thinking, you know, maybe this is the right thing for me, maybe it’s not, I don’t know. But who, who is and maybe who isn’t a good candidate for, for the gang? Bach.

[00:22:45] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Very simple. I mean, so the simplicity itself, so there are two components. One physical, two mental.

[00:22:52] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:22:53] Dr. Eugene Lipov: So physically if somebody has a bad heart, bad lung bleeding disorders. Things [00:23:00] like that. We cannot do it. You cannot do it. Think of an epidural or something simple that pain doctors do. You’re not gonna do procedure and somebody has a bad heart or bleeding problems or an infection.

[00:23:10] So no. My other deal is no neck, no shot. Somebody comes in and they’re five minute pounds and there’s no neck. What am I gonna put needle? We’re not doing that. So that’s, no, that’s, that’s not safe for anyone. Psychiatrically. If somebody is actively suicidal, they have to be in the hospital. We’re not gonna do that.

[00:23:33] Also, there’s certain bipolars that we don’t do, but everybody else, it’s also helps. TBI, which is a very, it’s 30% to 40% of people coming back from. Afghanistan have TBI or BTBI, which is blast my brain injury. So the seems to help that as well. So the point is those are the patients. So the symptoms that, a big question you should always ask somebody, gives you whatever kind of story, [00:24:00] what’s symptoms is gonna help you, right?

[00:24:03] That’s a fair question, right?

[00:24:04] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:24:05] Dr. Eugene Lipov: It seems to help sleep a lot. Number one, indication of ELLA in China’s sleep dysfunction. PTSD, sleep. Interesting. Anxiety, feeling of doom, like something bad is going to happen, feeling of doom. Those are the main symptoms. So anxiety, being on agile all the time, those kind of things, but feeling of doom, sleep, all of those things that seems to very much help with because if you think about it.

[00:24:36] It’s really easy to understand if you almost got hit by a bus, let’s say, you know, your heart is beating fast, right? You’re not sleeping particularly good. You’re looking around every, you’re hypervigilant. Those are signs and symptoms of fight and flight, nervous system being rubbed up. But if it’s stopped in the rub opposition, that’s what you’re looking.

[00:24:54] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Okay. So it, it seems like it, it’s a good, most, [00:25:00] most people could probably say that. Yeah, I’m probably a good candidate outside of the, the conditions that you mentioned, you know, as far as, you know, heart, heart issues you know, things like that. And so. You know, this is a nice this is a nice thing for many people that might be dealing with some sort of trauma going through the experience you know, the day of the procedure or, or even before, if there’s some, you know, initial consultations and that type of thing.

[00:25:25] Walk us through what that experience is like. You know, the procedure, how it feels, any side effects, those, those types of things. So people have a realistic expectation around like. What exactly it is that they’re, they’re looking for looking forward to, with this.

[00:25:39] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Sure. So I’m a Chief Medical Officer for Stella Mental Health. We have, we have 24 sites in United States, one Israel and four in Australia. So basically we have an intake team. So intake team will ask you about, you know, they have bleeding problems, they have heart problems, you have to be healthy. They ask me [00:26:00] mental questions and we set the person up.

[00:26:02] Patient comes in, we give ’em a choice, least some sites give you a choice. You’re going to sleep or not being sedation or not. Some people are very freaked out by needles. A lot of like me don’t care. So we listen to the patient and then they come in. I had two sets myself, so. I think I’ve, it’s helped me a lot.

[00:26:22] So basically what happens is when you do an injection, the patient’s lying in on on their back. We use ultrasound to find right areas. We do little markings on the skin, numb up the skin. I clean it. Then medically, yeah. To make sure there’s no bugs. And then under ultrasound, we put needle in one spot on another side and we put bupivacaine in.

[00:26:47] That’s another thing people ask me, what is the drug you’re putting it in? Bupivacaine is a local anesthetic that’s been used since 1970s. That’s what’s used for pregnant women. So you know, it’s safe, it’s been around, [00:27:00] whatever. There are rare complications that could happen. Bleeding, seizures, things like that.

[00:27:04] Now. All of, at least our doctors are all trained to avoid it and treat it. If that happens, it hasn’t happened to me, but it’s possible. Right. I

[00:27:15] you’re prepared for that. And in about five to 7% of the people they can get horses. Like, I can’t talk like this, that last about two to four hours.

[00:27:25] That’s ’cause one of the nerves goes to sleep. Also, everybody that we put in the right area, they will have a droopy eyeball like this. It’ll be rad and the pupil will be smaller. That’s called Horner sign. It means we not up the right area. So it is a good thing. It’s not a complication. We expect that. In fact, if it doesn’t happen, which happens occasionally to me and others, we take people back to the operating room, make sure it does happen.

[00:27:51] So it does occurs, right? And then a lot of times people feel significantly better. Right after. [00:28:00] So basically it’s three things can happen. One, they feel great. Done. Thank you very much. Two, maybe I was like, eh, I’m a little better. Maybe. Maybe yes, maybe no. And about one to 0.5% people may get actually revved up from that.

[00:28:15] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:28:17] Dr. Eugene Lipov: So if they feel great. Goodbye. Thank you. Maybe, or maybe effect. We do the other side, left side, if they get wrapped up, we do. The other side, when it does, comes down the other side because sometimes when you do one side, the other tries to compensate. It makes people wrapped up.

[00:28:34] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:28:35] Dr. Eugene Lipov: That’s about, I mean, that’s, that’s the reality.

[00:28:38] We watch people about an hour, make sure they’re okay. They can walk, they can get, they can get a little monkey. As far as walking for the first 15, 20 minutes, that’s all normal. Occasionally people can get a na arm. I have sometimes local aesthetic escapes a little bit, not a big deal.

[00:28:54] Scott DeLuzio: Okay. And that, that wears off in a short amount of time

[00:28:58] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Eight hours? [00:29:00] Yeah.

[00:29:00] Scott DeLuzio: Okay, so, so it’s not, not a long term thing that, that people have to worry about for, for anything

[00:29:05] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Typically not.

[00:29:07] Scott DeLuzio: yeah. Yeah. So that, I mean, it’s, to me, sounds like there’s. A lot of upsides to this. If, if people are experiencing these types of symptoms with, you know, whether it’s PTSD or you know, whatever it is they’re, they’re dealing with and looking for a relief from that this sounds like there’s a lot of upside to it.

[00:29:25] Next question really is you know, for anybody who’s listening to this right now, if they wanna pursue this what’s the best way to find a qualified provider? I know you mentioned that you, you know, your whole team and everything is all, you know, qualified and trained and everything. What, what are the things that they should be looking for?

[00:29:39] You know, when they’re, they’re looking for somebody to do this procedure?

[00:29:43] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Fair enough. So, well, of course, I assume our company is the best. Stella mental health.com that can help you set it up. Number of VAs are doing it, it’s inconsistent. So and so when you do talk to people, there’s plenty [00:30:00] of people doing cell now, so there are three ways. The original way of doing it was just palpation landmarks.

[00:30:08] That’s how I did in 87. If somebody’s, so if you, if you interview clinician’s, gonna be doing it. You want to know what guidance do you use If it’s fingers run. Do not do that.

[00:30:18] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:19] Dr. Eugene Lipov: I’ve seen that done recently and I just, stupid, in my opinion, x-ray I don’t think is as good as ultrasound. Still acceptable if that’s what you have available and they’re good at it.

[00:30:30] Great. Ultrasound is the best, in my opinion. ’cause see blood vessels better. Also the people I prefer is people like myself, which is. Anesthesiologist, pain trained, double boarded, anesthesia and pain. You can have a number of physiatrists who are also boarded and pain. And then the question is, how many have you done if you’ve done two mm, I’ve done 5,000 by now.

[00:30:55] I’ve been doing it since 87, but I’m talking about it [00:31:00] should be over 10 or 20 or 50, something like that. And ask, what kind of problems have you had? I think those are reasonable expectations to ask.

[00:31:08] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:09] Dr. Eugene Lipov: And that some people just will not do it for PSD, they’ll only do it for pain and don’t be surprised and go, I don’t do it for that.

[00:31:15] Nah, I don’t wanna deal with psychiatric conditions. Psychiatric patients are pain the ass, I don’t deal with ’em. Okay. Alright. Well that’s, it’s their decision. I mean, they’re clinicians.

[00:31:25] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Absolutely. So, I mean, those, those are good things to keep in mind. So, we’ll, we’ll, you know, for the listeners, keep, keep all those things in mind. You know, take, take a look at their credentials and ask the questions. You know, don’t, don’t just. Assume that because you’re talking to this doctor that they automatically are the expert and, you know, know everything about everything.

[00:31:46] There’s

[00:31:47] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Having a nice pseudo doesn’t mean they’re good clinicians,

[00:31:49] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:31:50] Dr. Eugene Lipov: So you do wanna ask that. I mean, those are basic questions. And if somebody gets very annoyed with you, I’m sorry, how can you ask such a thing? I [00:32:00] would run.

[00:32:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah,

[00:32:01] Dr. Eugene Lipov: A, a, a comfortable physician, competent physician should be able to give you a reasonable answer to a reasonable question,

[00:32:06] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:32:07] Dr. Eugene Lipov: right?

[00:32:08] I mean, what, what are the guidance? I mean, asking what guidance are you using? It’s, it’s the first thing to ask.

[00:32:14] Scott DeLuzio: That that seems pretty reasonable. And if they can’t or won’t answer

[00:32:18] that.

[00:32:18] Dr. Eugene Lipov: right. If you can see, you’ll, you should be able to do a good job. If we cannot see, probably not as good. Right? Straightforward.

[00:32:25] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s just asking to, you know, am I gonna get lucky if I get, get it in the right spot or not? And

[00:32:31] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Yeah, I mean, I think I can certainty in 20.

[00:32:36] Scott DeLuzio: Sure, yeah. If you have the tools available, why not use them? And, and as far as costs and, and things like that are, are concerned, and I, I know the, the answer’s probably gonna be a varies, you know, depending on insurance and all the, these different things. But I know there’s, there’s some access through the VA and, and things like that.

[00:32:53] But are there there other programs that, that allow folks to get access to this? You know. Whether it’s [00:33:00] through insurance or other things like that. You know, what, what do people what can people expect as far as ACT is con is concerned?

[00:33:06] Dr. Eugene Lipov: You can expect a lot of variability. Some VAs will do it. Some VAs have a. Some will not. Some will have a long line, a long line waiting and some will not. I don’t know. There’s a lot of non-for-profits, especially in especially special forces that will sponsor this. Courts cost, normal costs between 900 to a thousand dollars.

[00:33:27] I think that’s what we charge per side. Some, I’ve seen somebody, actually, I had to call and try to take care of that. He wanted $12,000 up front. The veterans family was gonna mor mortgage the house to do three of them. So I called them up and it was not a pretty discussion. And that’s wrong. That, that, that, that right there.

[00:33:55] Mm-hmm. That, that, that’s no good. That that’s, I think that’s just that awful. So there is a [00:34:00] lot of variability. In the cost, I think, but I think a hundred thousand dollars per side is probably, seems to be pretty reasonable at this time. I really don’t know what people are charging. I don’t know. So, you know, it’s like use chat or Google and see who, who will do it, at what price.

[00:34:17] I mean, you could do easy research nowadays, right? Simple. But as far as insurance, conventional insurance will not pay for it. Typically, they, the exceptions, I don’t know.

[00:34:28] Scott DeLuzio: Well, it, it, it’s good to know, and the reason why I, I asked about that is for the, the case that you just brought up there is, you know, I don’t want someone going and going to a provider that’s gonna charge ’em 10, 20, $30,000 for something like this if it’s, if it’s available for, you know, nine, 900 to a thousand dollars or

[00:34:45] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Yeah, but Judge, no, that, in fact, if somebody does that, I send me the information, I’ll be happy to give him a call. That, that’s wrong, that that’s abuse, that, that, that gets to a different level.

[00:34:55] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:34:56] Dr. Eugene Lipov: that, that’s fine.

[00:34:57] Scott DeLuzio: exactly. Because I, I know sometimes people [00:35:00] will, will think of this like, this is gonna be the solution. I’m gonna be able to fix everything. If I, if I go and do this, I’ll pay anything. I don’t care. And, and they get there and they’re gonna, you know, lose everything. They, they,

[00:35:13] Dr. Eugene Lipov: yeah. But taking advantage of doesn’t mean it’s not gonna work, but taking advantage of somebody fiscally is really not a smart move. Right. I mean, that’s a, that’s a short term operation too.

[00:35:22] Scott DeLuzio: Right, exactly. And, and I, I don’t want any of the listeners out there to get taken advantage of, and that, that’s kind of why that, that question came up there. So, it’s perfect.

[00:35:32] so, so that, that’s great. Now as far as integration with other treatments, I know you mentioned therapy and, and things like that, so, so that, that’s obviously another option.

[00:35:42] What other treatments integrate together with thesal ganglion block nicely. What, what, what work? Well, are there other things like,

[00:35:50] Dr. Eugene Lipov: yeah, there’s a number of things. So number one, if somebody is in a bunch of psychiatric drugs, you wanna plan to start. What’s your plan of coming off of

[00:35:59] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:35:59] Dr. Eugene Lipov: [00:36:00] You should be able to stop most of those drugs if it’s going well. But it needs to be done under supervision of whoever’s giving it. It’s not like, it’s like, take away drugs, go away.

[00:36:08] No, no, no, no, no. You gotta go gentle. Psychotherapy. Absolutely. A meditation I think is great. Some people use psilocybin. I mean, it’s not readily available, but it’s certainly available to a lot of other people. You know, basically also. Vocational advice, like, you know, separation from the service could be very traumatic in a number of ways.

[00:36:35] You know, you have a lot of rights and you have a lot of, benefits. You should work with people who will help you navigate that. It’s a very complicated system. Navigating VA is a very complicated system, from what I understand.

[00:36:48] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:52] Dr. Eugene Lipov: help. A lot of veterans do not ask for help.

[00:36:54] Ask, well, there’s a lot of non-for-profits that will help you. There’s a lot. Also, if somebody is [00:37:00] suicidal who’s listening to this, please know there’s real hope. You don’t have to live with this continuously. So before you even think of doing something bad, think of the effect in others and there may be a way to fix it.

[00:37:14] This may be part of a big part of the solution. A lot of times I also integrate St and Ketamine together,

[00:37:20] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:37:20] Dr. Eugene Lipov: ketamine and Stella together as synergistic. Especially if somebody had B-T-B-R-T-B-I-I called SOF method for special effort force method, co figure. And then that has seemed to have worked very, very well for us.

[00:37:34] Scott DeLuzio: Excellent. Excellent. Well, it’s, and it’s good to know too because I, I know there are some people who are trying to balance, okay, which, which option do I choose? And it’s not necessarily a one or. You know, kind of thing. You, you can choose multiple options

[00:37:49] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Depends where you’re comfortable, but some people like hate the whole concept of psychedelics. Some people love psychedelics. Ibegain really has a lot of potential, but IGA can also kill [00:38:00] you. I mean, you gotta be careful. So when you do, I gain, do not do it in a cave. Make sure somebody’s monitoring you and that’s all being legit.

[00:38:08] Scott DeLuzio: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:38:09] Dr. Eugene Lipov: there is one place in Mexico that everybody seems to go to and you know, it’s like. Talk to your buddies, see who’s had a good experience. I mean, so this is how you could do it. A lot of times what they find is people who have EB gain have definitely sleeping after that. It helps addiction a lot, but it’s pretty brutal from what I understand.

[00:38:30] I’ve never done that, nor do I have an interest in doing it. But remember that, you know, everything has put upside and downside and then, you know, make sure you understand how to integrate.

[00:38:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, exactly.

[00:38:44] Dr. Eugene Lipov: To your buddies. See? See what works. See which play. I mean, it’s like, one thing I love about military people, they talk to each other and you know, they try to support each other.

[00:38:51] They help each other see what’s worked. I mean, see what kind of provider there is some providers which are amazing out there, and there are some providers who complete [00:39:00] bastards. So don’t go to people who are nasty.

[00:39:04] Scott DeLuzio: Exactly. Yeah. And, and the people who you either overcharge or don’t know what they’re doing and, and things like that.

[00:39:09] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Yeah. Or don’t care, like I care about veterans. My father was a veteran. I was a VA doctor for four years. I care very much about veterans and their families. And you, you know, the first time you talk to them nurse as opposed to like the, if some treats you like a piece of meat leave, go somewhere else.

[00:39:26] Scott DeLuzio: exactly. And, and so th this is all great advice and I, I do appreciate you coming on and sharing this, this advice. I think we’ve, we’ve covered quite a bit here in, in terms of you know, the treatment, how, how it works, what’s available, who’s, who’s a good candidate for it, and all that kind stuff. And I, I think this.

[00:39:44] Is just one of those options that I’ve, for the longest time I’ve wanted to have somebody on the show talking about this and, and here we are. So I’m, I’m so glad that you were able to come on and, and share your, your knowledge about this and and, and all that. So for the listeners who are [00:40:00] ready to go, they, they listened to this and they’re like, you know, this sounds like the, the right thing for me.

[00:40:04] What’s the best way to get in touch with you and, and find out more information about the, the procedure and how to move forward with you?

[00:40:10] Dr. Eugene Lipov: So it depends what you’re looking for. So if you go to stella mental health.com, you can set up procedure that that’s what you’re looking for. If you’d like to read all the sciences stuff, go to dr eugene lip.com.

[00:40:23] Scott DeLuzio: Perfect.

[00:40:24] Dr. Eugene Lipov: My YouTube is, you know, if you wanna subscribe to YouTube, I have tons of YouTube you can actually watch me hearing done. And I have a lot of other YouTube things there about like, you know, I presented this where, you know, so still Gland Block and a Commander from Police and I’ve done it and I, I did a grand rounds in. Harvard and MGH. So I mean, those kind of, there’s a lot of resources that people are interested.

[00:40:50] If you just go, you know, blah, blah, blah, not in the science part of it, how do I get it done? Just go to stella mental health.com. You’ll get that. It’s simple.

[00:40:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:41:00] Excellent. Well, Dr. Lipov, thank you so much for coming on the show. I, I really do appreciate it and thank you for all the work that you’re doing. It’s definitely making a lot of changes in a, a lot of lives, so I appreciate it.

[00:41:10] Dr. Eugene Lipov: Thank you so much.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Leaving the military often means adjusting to a very different pace of life and a shift in identity. That transition can feel more complicated when a long war ends in a way that raises difficult questions about leadership, accountability, and the systems that support those in uniform. Many veterans carry frustration, uncertainty, or a sense of that important issues were never fully addressed.

[00:00:22] Those feelings can be part of a broader process of reflection, engagement, and continued service in new forms. Our guest today, retired Army Officer Paul Darling, shares his perspective shaped by 27 years in uniform, a deployment to Afghanistan, time at the Pentagon, and his work with War 1 0 2 and the Tennessee State Guard.

[00:00:45] This conversation explores how military procurement. And leadership decisions may affect troops on the ground. How different people interpret accountability after conflict, and how veterans can look for direction and [00:01:00] community after leaving active duty. Before we get into this episode, though, I wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something that is deeply important to our community.

[00:01:07] The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

[00:01:26] If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their efforts, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:34]

[00:01:47] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Paul, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:01:59] Paul Darling: [00:02:00] Thank you. Glad to be here

[00:02:01] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. ~Um,~ virtually, yeah, ab absolutely. ~Um,~ you know, ~uh,~ before we get into the conversations for, for listeners who are just meeting you now on, you know, obviously virtually through, ~uh,~ through this episode here, ~uh,~ can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

[00:02:14] Maybe walk through your, your military background and, and type of stuff like that.

[00:02:18] Paul Darling: Yeah, sure. ~Uh,~ Paul Darling, a retired army officer. ~Uh,~ went to West Point, a, a mix of active duty and what’s known as Active Guard Reserve, which is full-time guard time, did some traditional m day time. I, after company command, I resigned my active duty commission, ~uh,~ because it was August, 2001, and I knew there’d never be another war.

[00:02:40] So there’s no reason to stay in. ~Uh,~ then I went to work for a little, little company in Houston called Enron. ~Uh,~ and then I found myself back serving in uniform. And, ~uh,~ it’s, it was a good ride. got a job, you know, after Enron and, and worked in engineering. Realized that I liked being a soldier. I didn’t particularly like being an, an engineer.

[00:02:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:03:00] Sure.

[00:03:00] Paul Darling: So, ~uh,~ almost all my troop time was spent overseas. The only time I was conus. Was, ~uh,~ for schools or my last two years when I got stuck in the Pentagon, which was, which was horrible. ~Uh,~ yeah, that’s why I got out. Anyways, ~uh,~ so did a couple deployments and, ~uh,~ my book is about my last deployment in Afghanistan.

[00:03:26] ~Uh,~ it’s called Taliban Safari. ~Uh,~ it’s a fantastic read. It’s the best book about Zobel in June of 2009. Anyone will read, so I recommend it, ~uh,~ obviously to everyone. And that recommendation has gotten about a thousand books over the past seven years. ~Uh,~ coincidentally enough came out right about when you started your podcast, so I

[00:03:44] Scott DeLuzio: yeah, we were talking about that just before we started recording. And, ~uh,~ you know, interesting timing wise that, that your book came out right around that time. And, you know, had I, had I been one of those people who, who caught word of it? Yeah, you probably would’ve been one of the first guests on the show.

[00:03:58] ~Uh,~ but you know, here we are, [00:04:00] we, you know, better late than never. ~Uh,~

[00:04:01] Paul Darling: I am shocked the marketing team at the University Press of Kansas didn’t, ~uh,~ didn’t reach out to you. That’s, that’s on

[00:04:07] Scott DeLuzio: You

[00:04:07] Paul Darling: I’ll

[00:04:08] Scott DeLuzio: what it was, it, it, I just wasn’t big enough at that point. They, they probably saw me and, and they were like, you know what, let’s, let’s not worry about this guy right now. And,

[00:04:14] Paul Darling: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:15] Scott DeLuzio: you know, so here we are. We’re, we’re doing it.

[00:04:17] Paul Darling: we are. ~Um,~ and, and as you, you saw, I did a lot of writing when I

[00:04:20] Scott DeLuzio: yeah.

[00:04:21] Paul Darling: Afghanistan and, and through the, really the rest of my, ~uh,~ my, my last tour in Afghanistan, you know, I learned some things. It was a good tour, ~uh,~ tour realized we could do a lot of things better.

[00:04:33] And so. wrote a lot, ~uh,~ selfishly I wrote to develop a platform to get the book published. I, I wrote the book in 2010 and it took me nine years to get it published. ~Uh,~ and part of those professional writing was to develop the platform. So a university press or something like that would go, ~um,~ Hey, he’s done enough.

[00:04:49] Let’s, let’s publish a book. ’cause I’m not good looking. I’m not a seal. I don’t have the hair. I, I wish. Yeah. So, that was a lot of the publishing, but [00:05:00] a lot of it was, I just. Ultimately we lost a 20 year war to illiterate goat herders. May, maybe it’s time for some introspection and a, a little less legion of merit and distinguished service medals to all the generals who lost that 20 year war to illiterate goat, hers.

[00:05:15] And maybe let’s, let’s think about what we did and how we could do better, but there wasn’t a lot of demand for that. Shocking.

[00:05:21] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:05:22] Paul Darling: ~Uh,~ so retired in 2016, ~uh,~ went to work in manufacturing. ~Uh,~ back in engineering, back in the cubicle. Still wasn’t that interesting, but, ~uh,~ didn’t have much life as a soldier. but again, because I’m a junkie, I joined the Tennessee State Guard, which is kinda the state militia, a lot of re retired former soldiers in that, and that’s kind of how I keep going.

[00:05:44] And was the Deputy Chief of Staff for operations, the G three responsible for training, and originally the Tennessee State Guard of which. Alvin. Sea York was one of our more distinguished members. He was a, [00:06:00] a colonel during World War ii. Too old to for the real war. ~Uh,~ so it was designed to only be former military. ~Um,~ but, ~uh,~ we’ve kinda lost that spirit of volunteerism. I I, ironic and sad for the volunteer state. So we have a lot of non prior service who serve.

[00:06:17] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:18] Paul Darling: And they don’t know much about the military, and we don’t have much time to train. So I was giving a lot of classes on basic stuff, ~uh,~ of war, theory of war, what is an op war, how do you do MDMP, things like that. there was such a demand for it. I decided to kind of turn that into a podcast. So the original impetus was to kind of teach what I would expect. Well, you know, obviously any soldier, but like a field grade officer to be conversant with, ~uh,~ not so much on the tactics and, and those things, you know, not troop leading procedures, but MDMP, that’s more important military decision making process.

[00:06:52] You know, who’s clause which sun zu, air power, land power, C power, things like that. And it just kind of rolled on from there. I, I had [00:07:00] a year’s worth of material. I did the first year. It was okay. I had, you know, a merry band of listeners and were donating enough that it wasn’t costing me anything.

[00:07:08] I was, you know, making a hundred bucks a month.

[00:07:10] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:07:11] Paul Darling: take it. Not quite my retirement plan, but we’ll see. And, ~uh,~ did the second year, so finished the second year and I’m now, I’m going into the third year.

[00:07:19] Scott DeLuzio: Excellent, excellent.

[00:07:20] Paul Darling: and so that also helped me recover some, from some personal issues that I had to deal with, ~uh,~ some family tragedies and, ~uh,~ that was a way to take my mind off of it and find purpose. Which I think every veteran and, and certainly the, the combat veterans and combat arms veterans, you know, nothing compares to close combat. There’s nothing

[00:07:40] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:07:41] Paul Darling: in the world. Had, you know, when the best, best, most fulfilling, no, that’s, that’s not fair. I don’t know. The most primal moment of your life.

[00:07:53] The most visceral, ~uh.~ What happens when you’re so young? What do you do with the rest of your life? That’s, I think that’s frustration for a [00:08:00] lot of, a lot of my fellow infantrymen.

[00:08:02] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:08:03] Paul Darling: Trying

[00:08:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:08:04] Paul Darling: what finds, what gets you going after that.

[00:08:07] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah. And I, I’ve, I’ve talked to a lot of people on the show and off, you know, offline, you know, in different areas. And that’s the, the thing that is holding them back is they’re trying to figure out how do I find something that feels like it means as much as whatever it was that I was doing in the military, it’s, and a lot of times, you’re right, it is a lot of the, the infantry type guys, but sometimes it’s.

[00:08:32] Anybody else too. You know it, you’re part of a, this organization and all those wheels need to be spinning in order for it to keep moving forward and accomplishing its goals. And so regardless of what your job was, you, you played a part in that. ~Um,~ and even if you didn’t deploy, even if you weren’t directly engaged in combat, you still had a part in that.

[00:08:52] You know, all those, those pieces need to fit together in order for. The ground troops to go do the things that they do. ~Um,~ you know, with, [00:09:00] without that, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of stuff behind the scenes that, you know, a lot of times the, the ground troops don’t see what happens behind the scenes.

[00:09:07] But, you know, the food has to come from somewhere. The bullet’s gotta come from somewhere. All those things have to happen. ~Um,~ and, you know, without that, you know. You’re kind of outta luck there. So, ~um,~ you know, a lot of, a lot of people supporting the, the ground troops, ~uh,~ that are out there. So, ~um,~ you know, how do you find that next thing and, you know, in your case you found this and, and, ~uh,~ you know, likewise for me, I, I found a lot of, ~uh,~ you know, purpose and meaning in doing this podcast.

[00:09:30] I wouldn’t have been doing it for seven years now if I thought it was a waste of time. ~Um,~ so I, I’ve been doing this as well and, ~um,~ you know, other people, they, they find. They find it in unexpected places. I find, you know, when they, they’re like, you know, yeah, sure, I’ll give it a shot. You know, and a friend invites ’em to go do something that is a little outside of their norm.

[00:09:49] ~Uh,~ you know, and they, they, yeah, sure. What, what the hell? I’ll go give it a shot. And then, ~uh,~ they, they’re like, oh my God, this is a thing I’ve been missing. This, this is that thing that, that I, I really need. So, ~um,~ you. [00:10:00] It, it, ~uh,~ comes from sometimes unexpected places. And, and when you push yourself outside of that comfort zone and you try something new, ~um,~ in, in this case, you know, for me, and maybe even for you, the, you know, podcasting is something new.

[00:10:12] I, I didn’t have a clue how to do it when I started and I figured it out along the way, you know, ~um,~ and. Here we are, you know, still, still doing it. So, ~um,~ but it was kind of funny as you’re starting to talk about yourself and your, your background and everything and talking about, ~uh,~ you know, getting out of the, the Army just before, ~uh,~ you know, September of.

[00:10:32] 2001, ~uh,~ you know, in August of, of 2001, and then working for Enron. I had a little flashback moment to Forrest Gump when he’s talking about all these, ~uh,~ different things that happened in history, that he just happened to be there and be, he was a part of, and all these different things that I, I was like.

[00:10:50] This could be a good story. We need to be sitting on like a bus stop bench or something with a box of chocolates. But, ~uh,~ that was just, that’s where my brain squirreled to, [00:11:00] so I felt like I had to share that a little bit. But

[00:11:03] Paul Darling: I just one thing about the military, you are a small part of history.

[00:11:08] Scott DeLuzio: yeah.

[00:11:08] Paul Darling: ~Um,~ especially, you know, I had a 27 year career, so I didn’t have a particularly good career, but I did have a, I did have a long enough career that I got to, to witness some interesting things and be part of, of history in, some impersonal ways and some in the more grand public ways.

[00:11:28] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, and I, I think everybody who serves. If, if they don’t recognize that, like they haven’t figured that part out for themselves, ~uh,~ they’re, they’re missing a, a bigger part of like what it is that they, they did in the military regardless of what they, their job was and, and when they served or, or whatever.

[00:11:47] Like they’re part of history. There’s always something going on that involves the military, you know, ~um,~ you know, even in peace time there, there are things that happen and all those people need to be there. ~Um.~ Even [00:12:00] for defensive purposes, ~uh,~ deterrent purposes, you know, during, during peace time. It’s not peaceful because we don’t have a military.

[00:12:06] It’s peaceful. ’cause we have people there who are, you know, try us, you know, that kind of thing. You know, don’t, don’t come messing with us ’cause we’re here to, to stop it, you know? ~Um,~ and so regardless, they’re, they’re a piece of history as well. So, ~um.~ Now as you were talking, you, you mentioned about some changes that you wanted to see it, you know, in the, the DOD or I guess, department of War now, I guess is what it’s called.

[00:12:30] But, ~um,~ and, and things, more things that can be done, struggles that, that maybe we had, ~uh,~ fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places that we, we’ve been in for, you know, 20 plus years. ~Um,~ from your perspective, what, what changes do you think matter most of the people who are actually serving, not just the people making the policies?

[00:12:48] Paul Darling: Well, so Pete X at the, the current SEC war, ~uh.~ Sees this, but he strikes me very much as a bottom up kind of guy. A lot of his initial things like, you know, higher [00:13:00] standards, no fat bodies, shave the beard, get a haircut, you know, that stuff. Starting at the, which I get, and in some regards, our crew was similar as guard infantry officers, but he was, you know, a traditional M day.

[00:13:13] He chased the deployments. He’s a Princeton, Princeton, Harvard guy. He didn’t need that. He, he wanted, he wanted to serve, he wanted to go to war. He wanted to go as an infantryman. And he, and he did. So he saw things that level. you know, so the first time he sees the Pentagon, he walks into sec war.

[00:13:29] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:13:30] Paul Darling: crazy. ~Uh,~ as sec def. ~Uh,~ so because of my experience and, and doing those final two years, ~uh, oh, I’m frozen. There we go. I’m back. I was worried about that.~

[00:13:38] Scott DeLuzio: ~You. Okay.~

[00:13:38] Paul Darling: When I did those final two years in DC I got to see a little bit behind the curtain when I went to War College. ~Uh,~ I did some more research and then while I was there, I got a, a better idea of how things worked. And these things have been building, I’ve been studying it fairly closely. And so the biggest problem is that the services have no responsibility for [00:14:00] the mission. The services are given the money. But the, the gccs and the functional combatant commanders, geographic combatant commanders used to be called the sinks. ~Uh,~ you know, Paycom, africom, ucom, centcom, NORTHCOM, ~uh,~ Paycom, I think I got ’em. Anyways, they have the mission, but they have to conduct the mission with what the services give them. the man trained and equip all falls under the services. So, for example. ~Uh,~ one of the things that I came back from Afghanistan very frustrated about was the, just the complete lack of effective air support from the Air Force. ~Uh,~ we spent all this money on all these aircraft, but they were never, they were completely worthless. ~Uh,~ it, it got to the point where I would call, I would stop calling for air support when I was in a, ~uh,~ troops in contact, when we call it tick, because I knew it’d be worthless. I’d spend more time talking to him and getting nothing out of him. Rather than just stay outta my [00:15:00] air, stay off my net, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll handle this myself. It incurred more risk, but it, they were just worthless. And specifically, ~uh,~ the need for a light attack. Armed reconnaissance, what we call lar light attack strike, you know, the propeller driven six hours of endurance light, munitions, ~uh,~ you know, not super fast, you know, turbo props. And everyone saw the need for this. Sentcom commander, ~uh,~ when it was, when Madison was Sentcom commander explicitly said, we need these. And the Air Force said, no, no. They, they didn’t say no. They, the Air Force lied and say, oh, of course we’re, we’re buying these. We’re gonna buy these. I swear we’re gonna buy these. You know, in 2006 they were saying they were gonna buy them. They never bought them, they never going to buy them, they never wanted to buy ’em. So they just lied ’cause they didn’t have to. Instead they bought F 30 fives and, and kept trying to tell us that the A 10 was fantastic. A 10 sucks. I don’t know how to break this to you. The pilots are great, aircraft itself was [00:16:00] designed to kill T 60 twos in Czechoslovakia. The only reason the Air Force bought the A 10 in the seventies was to kill the Army’s age 56 Cheyenne Helicopter program. And we were built, we were buying that because the Air Force sucked in Vietnam. And ~uh,~ so the A 10 has always been a fig leaf, you know, and it’s like, oh, it’s the best cast aircraft.

[00:16:19] It’s not even I mean, the best C aircraft is the AC one 30, but that’s too expensive. You can’t have that. You’re not cool enough. We only fly at night because I only fight at night. I, anyways, I, I’m digressing a little bit, but

[00:16:35] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:16:35] Paul Darling: is, and it’s not just the Air Force as I, that was my personal bugaboo, because if I had effective air support, I would’ve been safer.

[00:16:43] I would’ve killed more of the enemy. I would’ve been more tactically effective. Would we have won in Afghanistan? No, we were still gonna lose no matter what, but. At that time, I was thinking tactically and I was like, this was the tool that we needed to be more effective in Afghanistan. saw it and the Air Force didn’t care and the politicians didn’t [00:17:00] care because it was a cheap, effective solution. So the Department of Air Force is responsible to spend money. To get as much money as possible for whatever, they don’t care whether it fights a war that’s not their problem. And the budget doesn’t go through the Secretary of Defense. It’s now a SEC war. The budget goes directly from Congress to the Air Force, to the Navy, to the army, the, the three departments. So, and, and the Army screwed up like the strikers. The Army bought the strikers. That was the hotness for a since. ~Uh,~ I did Bosnia in 96. then after Bosnia, we went on this striker. Kick the whole purpose behind it was Zeki, who at the time was the, he was either Sac or he was US Army Europe commander.

[00:17:48] I forget which. when they were trying to get forces into Bosnia, the, ~uh,~ they, they took forever to get the bridge built over the Sava River. were flying things in, but they were [00:18:00] flying in Bradley’s and M ones, and they could only use C seventeens. They couldn’t use C one thirties, so he wanted an aircraft or a vehicle that he could fly in on C one s.

[00:18:09] The C one 30 transportable was the design criteria the striker, and they did all kinds of tests and they proved that yes, if you deflated all the tires and you took all the fuel out and it had no ammo. You could get it into a C one 30 and then another C one 30 would come in that had fuel in the crew and the ammo and all the equipment required to fix it. Now, at the end of the day, we never used C one thirties to fly strikers ’cause we never would because it was ridiculous. But the whole vehicle was completely compromised because Shinseki, who then became the chief of Staff of the Army. ~Um,~ don’t forget our, our wonderful Black Berets. He was convinced that this was the future.

[00:18:48] And here here’s the great irony. The excuse for vying him was that, well, we could rapidly fly in infant armored infantry to stop Russian aggression in central Europe. [00:19:00] Yeah, did we know? No. So, so we ended up spending $30 billion on MRAPs, the mine resistant, ~uh,~ anti ambush protected vehicles, which were wheeled armored vehicles. They were just like strikers only. They weren’t worthless. They weren’t compromised by the C one 30 transportable fig leaf. So that was the Army’s thing. We’re gonna buy a vehicle that nobody wants and who cares. And then, you know, for the Navy, they went through the Littoral combat ship. They went through the zumwalts.

[00:19:34] ~Uh,~ they can’t build a Columbia class to save their life. Virginia class is doing okay. they just con canceled the Constellation class. Which was a converted fre. Everyone knew the LCS was garbage in 2010, but it doesn’t matter ’cause the Navy buys whatever they wanted to. And, and here’s the thing is, when I was in DC I was the branch chief for, for plans. So I reviewed o plans and con ops [00:20:00] only from a National Guard perspective. But I, I read them, I got to read them all. the assumptions and I, I saw, you know, what the demand signals were from the. The, ~uh,~ combatant commanders and it was always a compromise. It’s like no one wants a striker brigade when you’re planning combat operations.

[00:20:17] No one, you either want an armored brigade or you want a light unit, ~uh,~ because you still have a, a large logistics footprint with strikers. So they’re either like, give me full on tank so I can sling lead, or just put ’em in Humvees ’cause I don’t care.

[00:20:33] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:33] Paul Darling: No one wants an LCS. They wanted BMD capable Burkes and TCOs. nobody. And then the F 35 is like, the Air Force is, well, you can have any aircraft you want as long as it’s an F 35. We, we just, we don’t care about anything else. ~Um,~ so all that to say, up the answer to your question is the money needs to be given to the combatant commanders to procure what they want. Taken [00:21:00] away from the services because if we’ve proved nothing in the past 25 years since nine 11 is the services have no idea how to procure to win a war. And this current fight in Iran is proving it. The Navy, you have one job, freedom of navigation to gain C control at the critical point so that we can go where we want to go. And can’t, we failed. So if you saw the MOU that was signed, that’s, you know, already toilet paper, ~uh,~ were we forced to do that? Well, because the Navy had given the president no other option to open up the street of Horus. The Navy should have said, we’ll open up the street. That’s what we do. Navy has no, not only did the Navy completely fail to, to give the president an option other than surrendering to the IRGC, they don’t even realize they failed. They’re such a fundamentally broken organization [00:22:00] that they, they think they have no responsibility for the current situation we find ourselves in politically President Trump’s only pressure was gas prices because oil wasn’t flowing. And why wasn’t oil flowing? Because I ran, shut it down in our navy that we gave trillions of dollars to and we let ’em buy their LCS and their zone wets and their F 30 fives. And they’re, you know, well they try to buy a constellation class, but they couldn’t have saved their lives ’cause they screwed it up from the get-go. The Navy can’t build ships. They’re still building Burkes as the, as pardon the expression, the flagship, ~uh,~ the backbone of the Navy. The Burke is a 19 early 1970s design. was the low end and the teco, the OSA class, were the high end. There’s very little operational difference between the Tecos and the burs, but we’re still building 1970 ERAS technology because the Navy has completely lost any capability to bring out something revolutionary that’s actually effective. The ALT was revolutionary. We [00:23:00] built three of them in their garbage. There’s no demand signal for them. LCS was very revolutionary, a revolutionary piece of garbage that was designed explicitly to execute the, ~uh,~ A two a d, the, ~uh,~ an anti-access area denial mission. We the LCS, or we justified the LCS to force to fight in the Littorals and specifically in the Persian Gulf. So here’s your mission that we spent of billions of dollars on, and you can’t conduct it. ~Um,~ so what I would propose is to get rid of the department of the Air Force Department of the Navy Department of the Army, and that we have mission secretary secretaries. We’d have Department of Expeditionary Warfare and Department of Strategic Warfare, it Sex Strat and Sex strike, whatever you wanna call it. get the budget and then they would divvy out that money to. The services to procure what the [00:24:00] combatant commanders wanted. They wanted a capability. If they, so if the CENTCOM commander wanted a attack arm reconnaissance, the, the secretary of expeditionary warfare would say, I have, know, a hundred billion dollars for this project. wants the project? Give us your best offering and we will decide how the money is spent. To actually execute the missions. So we would have mission secretaries instead of service secretaries. And if you go back in the history, and, and I was for, I, I did a lot of historical research. I was gonna write a book on this, and I realized that’s the pitch.

[00:24:37] It’s not a book. It would be, it’s an article. luck getting it published. Maybe now is a, a more opportune time. so the, Department of Defense was created in 1947, it was a compromise and. There was the idea of having a fourth secretary for nothing but procurement [00:25:00] the services screamed. They wanted control of the money.

[00:25:02] ’cause in the end of the day, that’s what matters the most officers care about how much money they have to spend and how many staff underlings they have. If we cared about winning wars, well we would and we wouldn’t promote everyone. Like how many generals have been fired for incompetence? How many generals were fired because they failed in Iraq or Afghanistan?

[00:25:21] Casey’s it. It, they still make Casey Chief of Staff of the Army. So even though they fired him for, for his failure in Iraq, they still gave him a four star and still made him chief staff of the Army. So, you know, is that really punishing someone for failure?

[00:25:35] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Right.

[00:25:36] Paul Darling: Yeah. So anyways, that’s, that’s my pitch.

[00:25:39] That’s, I think the money has to belong to the war fighters. The, so the secretary of Expeditionary warfare would have the geographic combatant commanders and the Secretary of strategic warfare. Would have the, ~um,~ functional war fighters, the, the functional combatant commands. ~Uh,~ you know, like Transcom, STRATCOM would probably fall, stratcom would fall under the strategic area, even though it’s kind of [00:26:00] both a war fighter as well as a functional, northcom would fall under strategic, you know, it would have to be fleshed out.

[00:26:06] War games, people who are smarter than me, and a lot of these things obviously would have to be a part of it, but that’s, that’s the gist of it. Money has to go to the mission, otherwise we’ll continue to fail at the mission.

[00:26:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and I, I’m, as you were talking, I was trying to think and kind of compare the different wars that have taken place over our nation’s history and going back to, let’s say, world War ii. Where there was a victory, and obviously the desired outcome, maybe not the exact path that we wanted to take to get to that desired outcome, but at the end, you know, we can chalk that one up as a win.

[00:26:46] And then looking forward into, you know, Korea, Vietnam, the, you know, global war on terrorism and all the other stuff that happened after World War ii, [00:27:00] I mean. To your point, they were, you know, essentially defeats and what changed and how do we get back to that type of, ~uh,~ type of environment where we go in and we win.

[00:27:15] We don’t drag out 20 plus year wars where, you know, where we’re, we’re spending billions and trillions of dollars on a war that we’re not gonna win anyway. And, and you know, what you were saying is, you know, we weren’t gonna win. Iraq or Afghanistan regardless. So, you know, kind of seems like silly to throw that kind of money out for.

[00:27:39] Paul Darling: for cheaper. Let’s, had

[00:27:40] Scott DeLuzio: Okay, sure,

[00:27:41] Paul Darling: been followed, we still would’ve lost, but we would’ve, it would’ve been cheaper in lives and money.

[00:27:46] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:27:48] Paul Darling: you know,

[00:27:49] Scott DeLuzio: Well,

[00:27:49] I, I, and I guess what,

[00:27:50] Paul Darling: cost fallacy I guess there

[00:27:52] Scott DeLuzio: yeah, I, I, I mean, I suppose there’s, there’s that silver lining where we can look at it like, okay, well it could have been cheaper, but, ~um.~ What could we have done [00:28:00] to turn the outcome around to make it a win as opposed to losses?

[00:28:06] Paul Darling: for Afghanistan.

[00:28:07] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:28:08] Paul Darling: ~Uh,~ you’d have to co-op the Taliban and we would’ve had to have gone into Pakistan. ~Uh,~ Pakistan. We were giving, we were paying Pakistan to pay the Taliban to kill Americans.

[00:28:18] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:28:18] Paul Darling: ~Uh,~ Pakistan was the center of gravity. Strategically for the Taliban. It was their safe haven. The cin ana for any counter insurgent or any insurgency is a safe haven, whether it’s internal or external.

[00:28:30] The Taliban safe haven was primarily Pakistan Iran,

[00:28:35] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:35] Paul Darling: primarily Pakistan. As long as they could run off to Pakistan and refit and re-arm and get supplied by the ISI, which we paid for. ~Uh,~ not real happy with Pakistan allies.

[00:28:49] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. I.

[00:28:50] Paul Darling: long as they had safe haven, there really wasn’t much we could do.

[00:28:54] ~Uh,~ and then the second thing is we should have had a decentralized, ~um,~ more [00:29:00] Republican. Articles of Confederation type Constitution, not a highly centralized one. the constitution that was installed after we overthrew the Taliban did not fit the personality of Afghanistan. is far more, far too much control in Kabul.

[00:29:15] Not nearly enough in the provinces,

[00:29:17] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:29:18] Paul Darling: left, left the provinces

[00:29:20] Scott DeLuzio: Okay,

[00:29:21] Paul Darling: to Taliban information operations. Not that they needed a lot. ~Uh,~ Karzai was not George Washington. He was a corrupt scumbag. ~Uh,~ you know, so we, we were, we were hurt in a lot of areas. ~Uh,~

[00:29:34] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:29:35] Paul Darling: is surrounded by a number of countries, not all of which were friendly to us, specifically Iran and Pakistan. the idea of a safe haven was always gonna be there for the insurgent. And the government we installed was far too centralized and the person in charge of it was far too corrupt. thus allowing the Taliban to generate combat power through information operations through our own stupidity. ~Uh,~ I think [00:30:00] those are the big areas that caused us to lose.

[00:30:03] It certainly wasn’t tactically or operationally, we lost endurance because of the expense, even, you know, after like 2014 casualties started dropping off quite a bit. ~Uh,~ so it, it’s just was no, and we saw how quickly the Afghan government collapsed. When

[00:30:22] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:30:23] Paul Darling: out, you know, Vietnam lasted for two years, and it was a invasion of tanks from North Vietnam that, that caused the South Vietnamese government and the, ~uh,~ Arvin to, to fall.

[00:30:33] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:34] Paul Darling: And that was two years after we left the, the Afghan National Security Forces collapsed in a, in a week

[00:30:39] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:30:40] Paul Darling: utterly collapsed. So we, and it’s impossible to think that the senior leadership didn’t know that they were lying or they were criminally incompetent.

[00:30:52] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:30:53] Paul Darling: they have no business wearing stars, and I have no, I have no reason to give any sort of feel to your respect to ’em based upon their rank, [00:31:00] because they succeeded in an organization that did nothing but fail. And a lot of these guys are my classmates. So sorry, bro. But you gotta take the l.

[00:31:11] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And, and learn something from it too, so that we don’t repeat this mistake in the next war, which, you know.

[00:31:19] Paul Darling: no one talking about it except for Hegseth, and he’s getting tons of crap. Hegseth saw it. He, he, I, I don’t agree with everything he’s doing, but I do agree with his perspective that this is a failed organization that needs to be revamped. the attitude from Department of Defense, from the, the senior leadership, both in uniform and, and from the sess is, oh, we’re perfect.

[00:31:39] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Well, yeah, and nobody wants to admit that they’re wrong or that they didn’t succeed in whatever they were assigned to do, and especially not something as big as a, a war, you know, a, a war that dragged out for 20 some odd years and like, no, [00:32:00] nobody wants to admit failure on any of those types of things, even though

[00:32:03] Paul Darling: a professional does. If a doctor kills a patient on the table, he goes

[00:32:07] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, sure,

[00:32:07] Paul Darling: I do wrong?

[00:32:08] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:32:09] Paul Darling: the hallmark of professionalism is to reevaluate your conduct

[00:32:13] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:32:14] Paul Darling: honest manner and to make improvements. So say in Vietnam we were probably more competent tactically and operationally than we were in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[00:32:25] And yet after Vietnam, we revamped everything in the Army. We went to Airland Battle. We, you know, published 100 dash five to Shaggy, stood up the school, advanced military studies. know, there was a lot of introspection after Vietnam to go, what did we do wrong and how can we do better? Even though we did better from a ground war fighting perspective than we did in Afghanistan, Iraq, there’s been none of that, ~uh,~ introspection revamping of doctrine and, you know, tearing down and rebuilding from the very beginnings like, like a Crate Abrams did, [00:33:00] or, you know, Patton’s kid or, you know, I into eg. ~Um.~ There was a lot of very competent officers who, even though the Army did well, we didn’t do good enough

[00:33:09] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:10] Paul Darling: they, they demanded that they do better. There is none of that going on. It’s just a circle jerk of we’re great, give us more money, let us buy whatever we want to. ~Um,~ so we’ve lost the professionalism that would allow the, the current arrangement of the service secretaries getting all the money.

[00:33:26] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:33:27] Paul Darling: So we don’t, we not only don’t give money to the mission, but the services feel no accountability whatsoever for their failures anyways.

[00:33:36] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. And I, to your, to your point, and I, I agree with what you’re saying too, even though we, we. Kinda went in two different directions there. But I, I do agree with what, no, I a hundred percent agree with what you’re saying because a, a professional would do what you said and, and wanna figure out why did this go wrong and what can we do to make this better for the next time so we don’t make those same mistakes.

[00:33:58] ~Um,~ but, you know, think about it, you know, take [00:34:00] it out of a military context. Let’s put it into a, a business context and, hey, we, we had a, a product launch and it didn’t go as well as we thought. Why did it not go as well? And you know, that person probably has a compensation package that’s tied around the success or failure of, ~uh,~ you know, whatever this project is.

[00:34:19] And there’s, there’s incentives for that person to, to succeed in whatever that is because of their own personal interest in this. Whereas a lot of times in government. You’re getting a paycheck regardless, and you’re gonna, you’re gonna be moving up in the ranks regardless, because it, it doesn’t matter.

[00:34:43] So you, so I think to my point was, ~uh,~ they don’t wanna make it sound like it’s a failure because then they may not move up in the, the ranks because they, you know, for those types of reasons. So, ~uh,~ you know that professionalism isn’t [00:35:00] a given in this kind of context. I, I think.

[00:35:03] Paul Darling: Well, it clearly isn’t, and they’re supposed to be accountable to Congress.

[00:35:07] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:07] Paul Darling: We don’t have veterans in Congress that much anymore. then those that have served, ~um,~ are, you know, we just, we’re not the same militaries as we were, were in World War ii, but at one point, over 80% of Congress were combat veterans.

[00:35:19] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:35:20] Paul Darling: I think it’s less than 10 or 15%. And a lot of these guys just, they were checking the block for political purposes, not serving from any sort sense of duty on our country. ~Uh,~ so the accountability from Congress isn’t there. The, the second reason I did my podcast is to create a more informed citizenry. Who can at least analyze a conflict And at look at the levels of war, look at the principles of war. Understand k Clausewitz, you know, what are the centers of gravity? What are, what are we targeting? What is sea control versus sea power? The difference between Mahan and Corbet and what, you know, who was du hay? What is air power? [00:36:00] And I’ll say 90% of Air Force officers have no idea what air power was, is. The du Hey Billy Mitchell Sense, or even half Arnold for that, for that matter. ~Um,~ air power is what the Air Force does. So what the Air Force does is air power. They’re, they’re in this tautological loop. They will tell you with a straight face, PJ’s are air power. No PJ’s have nothing to do with air power whatsoever. But it’s the Air Force does air power. So air power is what the Air Force does. So the, so as long as the nation has the Air Force, they have air power. If the Air Force could have nothing but rubber dinghies, but as long as it exists, they’ll claim that they have air power and, and that’s just the complete lack of intellectual honesty and thought, which is why we keep losing wars.

[00:36:41] But we keep spending more and more money. I’m a little jaded.

[00:36:45] Scott DeLuzio: No, no, I didn’t, I didn’t notice that at all. I didn’t pick up on any of that.

[00:36:50] Paul Darling: yeah.

[00:36:51] Scott DeLuzio: ~Um,~ no, but you know, to, to your point that, that professionalism that, ~uh,~ you know, that accountability is missing, you know, we, [00:37:00] we left Afghanistan, we left. However many millions or billions of dollars of equipment behind to the enemy that we were just fighting, and now they had all of that equipment that.

[00:37:17] Really makes no sense. Why, why we, we leave that stuff behind, ~um,~ you know, for them to just pick up and now they, they’re on level playing field as far as equipment goes. ~Um,~ unless you think about it from another perspective, again, another financial perspective, ~um,~ and maybe a jaded point of view, but, ~um,~ you know, now we have to go invest in more new fancy, shiny equipment.

[00:37:38] To, ~uh,~ to be able to beat these guys because they have all of our old equipment. So, ~um,~ you know, so how, how is that helping us from a, ~uh,~ from a country’s perspective, you know, ~uh,~ outside of helping tho those individual companies who are now going to benefit from it,

[00:37:54] you know?

[00:37:55] Paul Darling: so here’s an example. The, the division commander of the 82nd, who was the, the commander of the [00:38:00] last unit to leave,

[00:38:01] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:01] Paul Darling: in theory was responsible for that was General Donahue. He was a two star general. ~Uh,~ he just resigned as a four star general. Apparently, I, I’ve heard this, that he made the, the soldiers and the Marines were there, do a police call to clean up all the trash. So that the airport looked nice when the Taliban took over ’cause he wanted to have a ceremony with the Taliban, a transfer of authority, and then he made sure someone took a picture of him being the last person on the plane carrying a rifle that he borrowed. And so here’s a man who just was the senior military officer responsible for the, the greatest humiliation of American forces in history, far more so than Vietnam. And they still made him a four star. As long as people like you, you’re gonna get promoted. They, the mission doesn’t matter. The popularity contest is all that matters. And look, I mean the, the guy’s obviously very fit. I, I have to assume to a certain degree intelligent officer, but I’ll give [00:39:00] credit to the Navy. You crash a ship, you’re done.

[00:39:02] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:03] Paul Darling: But in the Army, you can crash everything and they’ll promote you.

[00:39:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:39:07] Paul Darling: I, we just, we gotta have some responsibility with our senior leaders, and there is none, at least in the Army.

[00:39:13] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And you know, part of the reason why I wanted to have this type of conversation about this kind of accountability and, and looking back and learning some lessons from all of this is, ~uh,~ that you know myself and I’m, I’m sure you and a lot of other folks who served in, ~uh,~ in these wars, they’re sitting there scratching their head saying like.

[00:39:33] What was it even worth? You know, what, what did we go over there and, and sacrifice our, our health, our lives, our, you know, relationships, our careers, our, all these things. Why did we go and sacrifice all of these things just to walk away and hand the enemy, the keys to the kingdom? And like that just, just didn’t sit well with me.

[00:39:57] And I know a lot of other folks as well, and. [00:40:00] You know, kind of felt like a betrayal to a lot of us. And you know, if we’re sitting here and we’re, we’re trying to convince ourselves that, oh, next time it’ll be better. It just sounds like a. You know, bad relationship, you know, where you, you got, you got a, ~uh,~ you know, domestic violence or something like that.

[00:40:20] Where, where it’s like, oh, well, you know what? They, they didn’t really mean it this time and, and, ~uh,~ you know, it’ll be better next time. Well, no, it won’t be because we’re not, if we’re not learning any lessons from this, it’s not gonna be any better, ~uh,~ you know, as we go forward. And so, ~um,~ you know, I know a lot of veterans, ~um.~

[00:40:34] You know, who got out after, after their service and, and saw all that, that stuff happen. ~Uh,~ they, they felt like, you know, it’s that whole mission that they had was, was for nothing. And the buddies that they lost.

[00:40:51] Paul Darling: Which is absolutely true, and it

[00:40:53] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:40:54] Paul Darling: having an honest assessment. You lose a war, all the, everything that you did was a sacrifice that was not worth [00:41:00] it.

[00:41:00] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:41:00] Paul Darling: So even with Vietnam, I can polish that turd a little bit because Vietnam the communists for so long. So I can say, and, and the, the government of Thailand has said as much Thailand would’ve been a communist government. We had not fought in Vietnam. If we had just left and they had rolled over in 1966 instead of 1975, would’ve lost Thailand. So Vietnam veterans can at least say the Thai people are not suffering like the Cambodians and Lo Asian and the the Vietnamese. Because of our efforts we did that, there was, there was one win.

[00:41:39] We could look at Vietnam as a greater battle in the Cold War and say. By fighting against communism in Vietnam and then later in Central America. Yeah, we, we won some, we lost one some, but at the end of the day, in 1989, and, and by 1991, the Soviet Union completely dissolved. did defeat communism in the end.

[00:41:59] We fought them [00:42:00] hard. We, like I said, we won some battles. We lost some battles, but in the end, the Soviet Union fell and the America emerged as a sole superpower. You can take that, that away from Vietnam. There’s nothing for GWOT. Absolutely nothing. The world is a less stable, more dangerous place after 20 years of sacrifice. And as we’re learning in Iran, we, we can’t do anything. I Iran’s just ridiculous.

[00:42:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and, and so we look at these things and. It, it defeats us on a individual level. You know, we were like, you know, that felt like I was doing something that mattered. It was important at the time, and it, it felt like I was part of something big and, and everything. And you know, turns out it might have just been better off had we done nothing and been, you know, not serving the way that we all did and, you know, going overseas and, ~uh,~ you know, doing all that kind [00:43:00] of stuff.

[00:43:00] And, ~uh,~ you know, so we. We leave the military, we, we miss the mission that we had. But ~um,~ now, now we’re trying to find a new mission. ~Um,~ but God forbid we make the same mistake and have another mission that doesn’t make, that doesn’t make any sense. So, you know, I, I, I felt, feel like, you know, we should, ~um,~ kinda look in a direction of something like, like you were saying, you know, finding some, something that has some sense of purpose, ~um,~ you know, for.

[00:43:26] Anyone who’s looking to find that, that new mission in life after leaving the military to find that sense of purpose, ~um,~ you know, especially if you’re feeling disconnected, you know, with all the stuff that’s been going on and, and everything, ~um,~ you know, like find something that gives you a, a sense of purpose, sense of meaning.

[00:43:45] ~Um,~ and if you don’t have that, like we were saying earlier on, ~um.~ Try something new. Try something outside of your comfort zone that you normally wouldn’t have tried, but just try it anyways. ’cause that might be the thing that starts to give you that purpose [00:44:00] again. ~Um,~ but, but think about like long term, like what is this actually going to accomplish?

[00:44:04] This shouldn’t just be for me to give me the warm and fuzzies. It should be trying to help, you know, some, you know, in, in your community, your, your state, your, your. You know, whatever that you’re trying to do to, to, to improve, I should say. ~Um,~ you, you should be looking at something bigger than just yourself.

[00:44:24] As, as that set central focus. Obviously you want that to be fulfilling for you, but, ~um,~ you, you wanna be able to help other people. And, and I, I think that that’s where a lot of people find that they are. Finding that sense of purpose. ~Um,~ and the reason why a lot of people don’t have that sense of purpose is because they’re, they’re isolating themselves from the rest of the world basically, and they, they don’t want to deal with the rest of the world.

[00:44:48] And then they wonder why they don’t feel like they have any kind of purpose and that,

[00:44:54] Paul Darling: is

[00:44:54] Scott DeLuzio: yeah.

[00:44:55] Paul Darling: not helping that.

[00:44:56] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:44:57] Paul Darling: as, as wonderful as it is chatting with you, [00:45:00] it’s not the same as, you know, a face-to-face interaction. It’s a

[00:45:03] Scott DeLuzio: I agree.

[00:45:03] Paul Darling: ’cause we can talk from across the country and have a great conversation.

[00:45:06] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:45:06] Paul Darling: that’s, I mean, that’s a, I, that’s a large reason why when the Tennessee State Guard. Just continue serve, volunteering. You know, it’s nothing to do with the National Guard. You don’t get paid. ~Um,~ you know, but once a month, I, I meet with my unit, ~uh,~ and we got battalions, very, very small battalions, ~uh,~ like 12 dudes if we’re lucky battalions, you know, throughout the state. But I, so I’m, I’m a nerd, I, I did a lot of studying, understanding, ~uh,~ when I was. ~Uh,~ in DC with the National Guard Bureau and, and policy plans and, ~um,~ strategy policy and plans branch chief, that I really looked into the Second Amendment to understand the National Guard’s role in the defense. And, and then going into the various militia acts, the Dick Act, ~uh,~ all the reformations that went through. [00:46:00] With DOD understanding 19 47, 19 86, Coldwater Nichols Act, national Defense acts, things like that. And I, one of the things about the the Second Amendment is, ~um,~ know, a well-regulated militia being necessarily the security of free state at the right of the people that keep bear arms should not be infringed. conservatives don’t really like the first part. Liberals don’t really like the second part, and both parts are equally as important. And the critical point for a well-regulated militia is it can’t be under federal control, which is why I don’t consider the National Guard part of the militia. It is in fact but a reserve to the federal Title 10 forces. The only true militias are the, the state guards, the state militias. that’s, that’s what a militia is, and it’s, it’s a multiple purpose. One, it is a check on federal power. But I think more importantly, it’s an opportunity for people within the community to get together every month for a very directive sacrifice purpose, [00:47:00] almost like jury duty. Like, okay, this is just something you have to do as a citizen. when you find that sense of duty to your community and to your, to your country, ~uh,~ in a, in a, in something that is very much bound in a traditional sense, it, it strengthens. I, I wish. Every county should have a, a, you know, the men, 21 to 45.

[00:47:24] All right, listen, once a quarter, once a month, we’re gonna get together for a day. We’re gonna inspect what everyone’s got, find out who needs things. Maybe we’ll go shoot, meet different people, and we’ll have a barbecue at the end of the day, forcing you to get out and, and look at it like jury duty and to regain that sense of civic duty, but do it as a, within the community. And the veterans who served on active duty, look, no one gives a crap what I did in the military, but when you’re in the state guard, you know, yeah. You wear [00:48:00] your badges, you, you have your combat patch, and because you have that experience, you, you still get, you get a little bit of respect for what you did. I think a a lot of people, know, you’re, you’re a bat boy. You’re tabbed and scrolled and maybe you got a stain. You earned that. That’s hard. That means something. You walk around in uniform, on a military base, you are Billy Badass. But out in the civilian world, no one cares.

[00:48:22] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:48:22] Paul Darling: PE you work hard to, to earn those laurels. And we have population that is so removed from military service that all we know is Navy seals.

[00:48:33] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:34] Mm-hmm.

[00:48:35] Paul Darling: were you a Navy seal? ~Uh,~ you know, no, I was, you know, I was in SFOD Delta. well you weren’t a seal.

[00:48:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, it’s, it’s seal and everything else basically.

[00:48:47] Paul Darling: there, there’s seals and there’s everyone else. And look, they look, they’ve got the best hair.

[00:48:51] I’m, I’m not, I’m not taking anything away from them. ~Uh,~ but there, there’s more to the service. And it is just funny that among veterans, it’s like, yeah, [00:49:00] okay.

[00:49:00] Scott DeLuzio: You are right.

[00:49:01] Paul Darling: we don’t have an informed population. We don’t have a population that has a lot of military service personally or within their family. And we’re developing this warrior cast. Which isn’t healthy for the Republic. And ultimately, to the earlier point, how do we do better? Well, if we don’t have a population that knows the military and we’re not electing people who knows the military, and we have senior leadership that have failed at everything and don’t seem to care in the military itself, we can’t succeed. There’s no accountability, there’s no truth telling because the senior leaders that we are trusting to fight and win our nation’s wars are failing, but they’re not being held accountable. So we’re stuck. So. There’s, ~uh,~ there’s my recommendation. Go join your, your local state militia.

[00:49:44] Scott DeLuzio: ~Uh,~ you know, that’s actually something I don’t think we’ve discussed on this show before. I, we might have brought up that, that somebody was in a state militia, but not as a, ~uh,~ way to continue serving and finding a, you know, a sense of purpose and meaning and, and all that kinda stuff. ~Um,~ a it. [00:50:00] And, and hell man, it could be fun.

[00:50:03] You know, you, like you said, you can, you know, there, there’s, there’s nothing wrong about having a good time doing, doing these kind of things and going out and, and volunteering for this type of thing. So, ~um.~ You know, should it be a, a mandatory thing? No, I don’t. Probably not, but you know, should it be a, you know, voluntary, you know, get, get out there and, and do it.

[00:50:20] Yeah, sure. Absolutely. And, and, and, ~uh,~ you get enough people who volunteer who wanna be there. ~Um,~ you know, you could have a pretty formidable, ~uh,~ force if you actually, you know, get some training in there. So, ~um,~ so yeah, this is another, you know, great way to, ~uh.~ Give back to your community and, you know, find a, a sense of purpose in, in life after, after taking off the uniform, putting on, you know, just a slightly different uniform, I suppose.

[00:50:41] Right.

[00:50:42] Paul Darling: Yeah, we still wear the acus. That’s the one thing

[00:50:44] Scott DeLuzio: Oh.

[00:50:45] Paul Darling: I’m like,

[00:50:45] Scott DeLuzio: Nevermind. Scratch that. Scratch that whole idea. That’s a stupid idea. No, nobody did it. No, I’m just kidding.

[00:50:50] Paul Darling: I miss the woodlands. I’ll tell you what.

[00:50:54] Scott DeLuzio: Well, ~uh,~ Paul, before we wrap up this episode, ~um,~ for the listener who might [00:51:00] be frustrated with the system, worried about the direction of the country or. You know, just not happy with how things have, have gone. What’s, what’s one thing that they can do this week outside of, ~uh,~ you know, maybe joining the, their state guard to, ~uh,~ you know, move that frustration into some sort of action.

[00:51:14] Paul Darling: Well, first off, you listen to my podcast and buy my book is the most important thing that you could possibly do to serve your nation. And I say that somewhat tongue in cheek

[00:51:24] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:51:25] Paul Darling: if you aren’t military and, and there’s no reason, it’s not a bad thing, it’s a volunteer force. And if you didn’t come from a family that encourages you, you know, just a lot of people miss it.

[00:51:34] Become more informed on. Military matters, and, and that’s kind of what my podcast is dying for. Be informed and then reach out, talk to

[00:51:42] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:51:42] Paul Darling: Say, what is our, what is our grand strategy in the Middle East? What are we trying to accomplish? What are, what is the, you know, what is our strategic center of gravity that we’re targeting in Iran?

[00:51:54] I wanna understand how you see this conflict that you’re spending my tax paying dollars over. [00:52:00] Have the ability to communicate in the language of national security, of military affairs. ~Um,~ I just be more informed and, and hold our, our elected officials accountable, I guess.

[00:52:13] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. ~Um,~ I, ~uh,~ accountability just in general, I think is, is, ~uh,~ missing, ~uh,~ from a, from a lot of. The ranks of the government. And that’s something that we need to change, I think. And, and that’s, that’s a good point. ~Um,~ for the listeners who wanna get in touch with you, find out more about your, your work and, ~uh,~ you know, get a copy of your book, all that, where, where can they go, ~uh,~ online to, to find some, ~uh,~ some more resources?

[00:52:36] Paul Darling: the book Taliban Safari, you can get it anywhere. Amazon, ~uh,~ if you wait in the spring and the fall, the University Press of Kansas has a big sale. ~Um,~ tragically my book is often on sale, but it makes you feel any better. I don’t make any money off of it. Like seriously, I make like 70 cents a copy.

[00:52:51] So, ~um,~ there, there’s that. Also, I, I’d be remiss, ~uh,~ part of this outreach is, ~uh,~ I’m part of a group called Real Plastic Heroes. guy in [00:53:00] Texas started it up, there’s eight of us, and he made toy soldiers, but we’re in GWOT garb.

[00:53:06] Scott DeLuzio: Ah.

[00:53:07] Paul Darling: he, he, he had us come down. He had replicas of everything that we wore, ~uh,~ when we were deployed.

[00:53:12] Took a bunch of pictures. ~Uh,~ an American artist developed the models, ~uh,~ and American factory is doing the injection molding. He had to recreate that whole process because it had been lost to the United States.

[00:53:21] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:53:22] Paul Darling: So, ~uh,~ and. I get something. I’ve never seen it, but I’ll get something if these things ever sell. And, ~uh,~ they’re also putting some of the profits towards various causes. ~Uh,~ my personal recommendation is, is suicide prevention

[00:53:35] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:53:36] Paul Darling: ~Uh,~ that’s, that’s a big deal for a lot of us. ~Uh,~ so check out Real Plastic Heroes. ~Uh,~ you can contact me through the War 1 0 2. Sprout website and just send me a letter or, ~um,~ or contact me that way.

[00:53:47] That’s usually the easiest way to reach me. ~um,~ yeah, that’s,

[00:53:51] Scott DeLuzio: Sounds.

[00:53:52] Paul Darling: it’s not about me. It’s about what I’m trying to sell.

[00:53:55] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I get it. And, ~uh,~ you know, I, I appreciate you coming on and sharing, sharing this, and I’ll [00:54:00] have links to all that in the, ~uh,~ show notes as well for the listeners so that they can find all that easily, ~um,~ you know, link to your book, link to your, your website there. And, ~uh,~ link to, ~um, uh,~ everything else that we talked about today and, you know, any other resources that we, we might have, I’ll, I’ll.

[00:54:14] Get some links out there for, for folks. So, ~uh,~ Paul, thank you for coming on the, on the show, sharing your, your insights into, you know, kinda what’s been going on over the last 20 plus years and,

[00:54:24] Paul Darling: Oh my gosh.

[00:54:24] Scott DeLuzio: know, ~uh,~ the experiences and all, all the things that you’ve, you’ve, ~uh,~ you’ve learned along the way. I appreciate it.

[00:54:29] Paul Darling: I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for what you do.

[00:54:32] Scott DeLuzio: You bet. Thanks.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: After 25 years in the Air Force, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan stint at the Pentagon, uh, retirement did not feel like freedom for our guests today, Benjamin Forrest, it felt like the point where everything he had pushed down, finally caught up with him going to therapy, was not working.

[00:00:18] Antidepressants were not working by Veteran’s Day of 2020, he was in a psych ward for suicidal ideation and treatment resistant depression. What followed was not a quick fix or a reckless leap. It became what he called Operation Healing Benjamin, a full commitment to finding a way back to himself when the standard answers were just not enough.

[00:00:40] That search eventually led him into, uh, psychedelic medicine, but this conversation is about much more than magic mushrooms. It’s about the cost of shutting off fear for years. What happens when a veteran cannot turn his heart back on, and why? Real healing requires safety, honesty, [00:01:00] preparation, and support.

[00:01:02] Benjamin shares what changed after his first ceremony, how he thinks about medicine versus drugs, which just numb you out and why veterans need to understand the legal, medical, and psychological risks before exploring this path. In this episode, you’ll also hear what any veteran can take from his story, even without psychedelics, make healing the mission long enough to become more present, more connected, and more alive.

[00:01:31] Before we get into this episode though, I want to take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s important to our community. The Global War On Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism.

[00:01:47] This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial [00:02:00] foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:02:04]

[00:02:17] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Benjamin, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:02:19] Benjamin Forest: Oh, thank you. So happy to be here.

[00:02:21] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:22] Hey, before we dive into the conversation today for the listeners who maybe aren’t familiar with you and, and who you are, could you just give us a, you know, quick background on, on who you are?

[00:02:31] Benjamin Forest: Sure. Probably the easiest tagline is from the Pentagon to plant medicine. I spent 25 years in the US Air Force. Time in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon, when I got out, when I retired, after a quarter of century, I felt completely broken. Therapy wasn’t working for me.

[00:02:52] Antidepressants weren’t working for me. And ultimately at my lowest point veterans Day of 2020, I wound up in a psych ward [00:03:00] for suicidal ideation and treatment resistant depression. So that wound up being a pivotal moment for me. The VA wasn’t able to help me it seemed, and so I left that experience of being hospitalized, realizing, oh, I’m gonna have to do this for myself.

[00:03:16] So on the way home from the hospital, I called my boss and I quit my job. And I decided I was gonna devote myself full-time to operation Healing Benjamin, as I called it, just wanted down this rabbit hole of like, what are the, all these different alternative ways that I can maybe heal because the stuff they were offering me wasn’t working. And pretty quickly in that process, I came across some information about psychedelics in this case specifically psilocybin or magic mushrooms, and. I could gather just told me.

[00:03:51] I think this could really help. I think this could unlock what’s wrong with me in a way that nothing else could. So on April [00:04:00] 16th of 2021, I had my first psychedelic ceremony. I took a large gram of psilocybin in a group setting under the care of a psychologist and some helpers, within one night. It just seemed to utterly transform my way of being. the depression lifted joy and connection came in interest in creativity, a new way of like relating to people.

[00:04:26] It was almost like it just rebooted my brain. And in that weekend, like recognizing the gravity of what had just happened to me, I realized. This is the most interesting thing in the world to me, and I’m gonna devote the rest of my life to this. So it’s been over five years and I have delved into a lot of medicine work myself. I got certified as a coach and started working with other people, helping them prepare for navigate and integrate journeys at the other end. And after doing that for a few years, I wound up writing a [00:05:00] self-help book about the sort of advice I give to clients capturing the greatest hits of psychedelics that I could find in those first five years. So yeah, it’s been a fascinating journey going from being a military officer to leading in a, in a very different way. It is, it’s been a remarkable journey and I’m very grateful for my time in the military. Actually. The further I would get away from the military, the more I can appreciate what it did for me. And then plant medicines just opened up a, a whole new world for me and it’s, it’s interesting

[00:05:35] interplaying between those two worlds.

[00:05:37] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And

[00:05:38] you know, it’s interesting the way you, you described the ceremony that you went through where. It was kind of like a reboot for your brain is I think the way you, you described it and as you’re talking to myself. You have a problem with your computer or you have a problem with, you know, some electronic device, [00:06:00] what’s the first, like, troubleshooting 1 0 1 thing that you do is you turn it off and you turn it back on and just reboot it and see what happens.

[00:06:06] Maybe the problem goes away and that seems like kind of what you were saying

[00:06:10] is is what happened. Obviously you didn’t shut your brain off. ’cause that would be terrible and that would be, you know, a whole disaster situation there. But but. In a way that’s sort of what it sounds like you, you ended up doing is, is just kind of rebooted everything and maybe cleared out some of that bad stuff that was going on up there and allowed yourself to be able to see some of the good and, and the more positive things in, in life going forward.

[00:06:35] Right. Is that kind of the way you see it?

[00:06:37] Benjamin Forest: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s two ways to kind of look at what happens with the psychedelic experience. And one way to look at it is through the medical lens. I’m not qualified to talk about it through that lens, but there can be, I think a brain chemistry level rebooting. That does seem to happen. And one of the terms around that that you’ll hear is [00:07:00] neuroplasticity and. It becomes this opportunity to almost brainwash yourself. I know the word brainwash has negative terms, but I actually kind of like it because that’s what it felt like. It was like running my brain through, you know, a carwash. And so that’s kind of like, you know, the medical lens of it. I think there’s, there’s that more heart centric lens to it as well, that, that I resonate a little bit more with. I think what the root cause of my depression was, is something I call emotional constipation. So when I was raised, it was a very

[00:07:35] kind of boys don’t cry environment. You know,

[00:07:37] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:07:38] Benjamin Forest: And you know, my dad kind of modeled that then I joined the military, which just kind of like amped it up because what do you do in the military? You put aside all your fear, all your frustration, all that stuff, and you do whatever the hell has to be done. And in a moment of crisis that can be lifesaving and valuable, like that’s a good

[00:07:56] skill to turn things off and do what has to be done.

[00:07:58] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:07:59] Benjamin Forest: But it [00:08:00] became a way of life for me and I didn’t know how to unclench that. And I think that created a depression where. just kind of pervaded everything because when you turn off your heart to the negative stuff like fear and pain, you’re actually turning it off to the good stuff too. So it becomes difficult to feel joy and gratitude and everything.

[00:08:23] So it was like there was this, this calcification of the heart and it just became clogged. It became constipated Damnit, the, the magic mushrooms were the laxative for that problem. And so I was able in the medicine to kind of go into my heart, all the armor, just fall away and just let it all out through screams, through sobbing, through beating of the chest. It just became this somatic release that felt permanent to me and five years later, yeah. Whatever happened was, you know, a permanent fix of [00:09:00] some kind for me. Yeah, it, it felt, yeah, miraculous. So whether it is the brain chemistry getting a good, you know, shake. And letting it reboot, or whether it’s, you know, the, the cleansing of the heart that’s happening in some, you know, more mythical, psychological way. I, I don’t know. I think both are probably true. You know, the separation of mind and heart is probably a little artificial. It’s, it’s all one system. It. Yeah,

[00:09:25] then found relief through that in a very physical way. It reminded me a lot actually of the body keeps the score, which I read later. There was so much emphasis in around the body release, I don’t know.

[00:09:40] I think that’s why therapy didn’t work for me at the time I just couldn’t get there in the normal state. I couldn’t just keep. Admiring the problem, intellectualizing the problem. Understanding it. Understanding it doesn’t make it go away. I think the physical, energetic release,

[00:09:57] yeah. Maybe can make it go away.

[00:09:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:10:00] Yeah, and you

[00:10:00] know, I, I think I’ve talked to enough people through this podcast and other places that people can go to therapy and they can, they can sit through the sessions, you know, every week or every, you know, however frequently they, they go to the therapy sessions and, and they can. Be told all the things that they’re supposed to do, and, and it it the way that they should, you know, change their thinking and all the, the different things that they’re, they’re supposed to do that the therapist is telling them.

[00:10:27] And on an intellectual level, it probably makes a lot of sense. Like, yeah, okay. If, if I had a good friend or a family member who is going through something very similar, I’d probably tell ’em the same thing because it makes sense. Like what, whatever it is that the, the, the therapist is telling them. But when it comes to yourself and telling yourself that, hey, you know, you’re not a bad person, that it’s okay to have feelings.

[00:10:53] It’s okay to do this, that and the other. Sometimes we just get in our own way too, and, and [00:11:00] that. It’s almost like you have to remove that roadblock from, from your head and be able to allow that that message to get through

[00:11:08] and, and believe that you’re maybe even worthy of it yourself. You know, there’s, I I, I know a lot of folks who have gone through something like that, and that was kind of the sticking point for them is that they just, they couldn’t figure out how to apply it to themselves.

[00:11:23] Benjamin Forest: Yeah.

[00:11:23] Scott DeLuzio: else? Yep. Hey, I’ll tell that same thing to anybody else, but for me it just doesn’t apply for some reason. Right. Like, why does that, why is that even a thing? Right? But but then, you know, the way you were talking about your, your brain almost feeling like it’s going through a car wash it, it seems like it just would wash all that, that be that.

[00:11:43] Bad thoughts or the, the negativity that you have going on in your brain. It just kind of washed that all away and that, that was just interesting the way you described it. I, so far, I’m you’re ge getting a few analogies here that, that are, are really working for me. They’re kind of clicking and ma making all this kind of make a little bit more sense for me.

[00:11:59] But, you know, [00:12:00] I, like I said, I know there’s, there’s a lot of veterans out there carrying, you know, whether it’s depression or PTSD or, or. Something along the lines of, of that you know, some mental health issue that they’re dealing with. And they’ve tried a lot of different approaches, whether it’s therapy or, or various things like that.

[00:12:14] And maybe they’re, they’ve heard of the psychedelics, that they’re just not sure that that’s the right thing for them. What do you wish more veterans understood about the psychedelics before they formed an opinion one way or the other on, you know, what, you know, what is this and how is this going to actually, you know, help folks?

[00:12:33] Benjamin Forest: Yeah, the mental barriers are, are understandable. You know, for people of a certain age like me, we grew up under you know, the DARE

[00:12:42] program and Nancy Reagan and just say No.

[00:12:45] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:12:45] Benjamin Forest: you know, as Millie. Military members. I remember being TDY in Amsterdam one time and walking by one of the hash bars and somebody suggested we go in and I was like, oh no, I, I wanna walk past that as quick as possible.

[00:12:57] ’cause there’s that fear. If I like inhale a whiff and I come

[00:12:59] back [00:13:00] and I get pulled for a drug test, I’m gonna get in trouble.

[00:13:01] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:13:02] Benjamin Forest: there, there was this almost like paranoia, like, wait, there’s not hemp in that, is it? I can’t eat that. So that, that aversion makes sense. And generally speaking, I think the military’s comprised of people who maybe lean a little more you know, conservative and, and that is another, you know, barrier there. I guess what I would say in response to people who do have those aversions is this is not about drugs. This is about medicine.

[00:13:29] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:30] Benjamin Forest: And typically when I refer to psychedelics whether it’s magic, mushrooms, ayahuasca iboga is another one that’s getting a lot of attention later lately. typically always use the word medicine.

[00:13:42] If I use the word drug, I’m either trying to be funny or I’m making a slip up because I really do believe that this is medicine. And so how do I intellectually parse the good drugs and the bad drugs? Right? Over here there’s, you know, meth, cocaine, fentanyl, you know, other things. And then over [00:14:00] here there is the classical psychedelics. I think the difference between these two is people use these ones avoid feelings and to numb

[00:14:11] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:14:11] Benjamin Forest: psychedelics do the opposite. They take you into your feelings. It is the opposite of numbing. And so for me, talking about those medicines as drugs and the, excuse me, those drugs as drugs, these as medicines, makes sense to me because what are we trying to do with it? Are we trying to numb and escape or are we trying to actually really go inside and experience what could be something really painful?

[00:14:38] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:14:39] Benjamin Forest: The other thing around that dichotomy of, of drugs versus medicine is typically when people are doing drugs, it is for fun or maybe out of an addictive compulsive habit. When people do psychedelics, when they do ’em responsibly you are going into it with intention. are thinking about what are the [00:15:00] things that I need to work on inside of me. What is the right container for me to do this in? Who’s gonna be watching over me while I’m in this vulnerable state? Like it is a, you know, therapeutic, intentional, ceremonial thing.

[00:15:14] It is not. I am experiencing some pain. I don’t want to feel, so I’m gonna go take a drug to make it go

[00:15:20] away. Complete opposite.

[00:15:22] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, because I, I think

[00:15:24] to your point, the drugs that people take to not feel to make that that pain go away, whether it’s, you know, emotional pain or, or physical pain. ’cause it, it can go either way with, with certain things. But when they’re trying to get rid of that, they’re, they’re not addressing the underlying root cause of whatever that pain is that there.

[00:15:45] They’re dealing with.

[00:15:46] Benjamin Forest: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:46] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. The, you know, whether it’s drugs or alcohol or, or whatever, it may numb the pain in the moment and it may make that pain be bearable in, in the moment, but once, when that drug or [00:16:00] the alcohol or whatever wears off. That pain’s still there. It’s, it hasn’t gone anywhere. You haven’t done anything to address that root cause, whereas what you’re saying, you know, you’re going into some of these psychedelics with intention.

[00:16:14] The, the goal is, I want to get rid of this pain

[00:16:17] Benjamin Forest: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:18] Scott DeLuzio: I wanna, I wanna, I wanna feel it, I wanna work my way through it. You know, it’s, it’s not like it’s just magically gonna disappear and, you know, like. Dust in the, in the, in the wind and just blow away. But, you know, it’s, it’s something that you’re gonna have to work through and get, get through it.

[00:16:32] But once when you do, it’s not like you need to have these psychedelics every day in order to function. You know, you know where, where sometimes people get so addicted to certain things that like, if they don’t have it, like they are, they’re in a world of hurt because they need it in order to even just.

[00:16:51] You know, get up and, and move around. You know, they, they need, they need that you know, from that addictive standpoint. And, you know, that’s, from my understanding anyways, that’s not the [00:17:00] case with the, the psychedelics. It’s, it’s kind of like a, let, let’s just do it as much as needed to, you know, work through this.

[00:17:07] And then, you know, if you don’t need it anymore, great. You don’t need it, you know?

[00:17:11] Benjamin Forest: And, and to give a real world example of the non-addictive nature of these medicines. I recently threw out about an ounce of psilocybin mushrooms because they had been sitting there for so long and I just wasn’t sure if they were so good anymore.

[00:17:25] Scott DeLuzio: Mm.

[00:17:26] Benjamin Forest: So imagine an alcoholic who throws out some

[00:17:29] liquor because it’s been sitting there for so long and he

[00:17:32] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:17:32] Benjamin Forest: around to

[00:17:33] it.

[00:17:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s, that’s not gonna happen. I, I mean, first off, would there be alcohol still laying around? I think, you know, extra alcohol would be kind of a, a, a thing, you know, a, a unknown concept to, to some of the, some alcoholics. But you know, but then would they actually get rid of it? If, if you know, that it was still there, that probably not, you know, they, they’d figure out a way to, to make it palatable, even if it was, if, even if it did go bad.

[00:17:59] Now I, [00:18:00] I wanna. Switch gears just a little bit here. Talk about your, your book and talk about some of the, the points to, to healing as you know, kind of, more than just, you know, like symptom relief. We’re, we’re talking about actual healing. This is kinda what we were talking about before.

[00:18:14] Healing you know, loving and living, you know, all those things that what does that look like in practical terms for, for someone who’s trying to rebuild their, their life after dealing with things that either cause depression or PTSD or, you know, any of these other things that they might be dealing with.

[00:18:29] Benjamin Forest: Sure. And so I, I wrote the book certainly inspired by psychedelics, but I also tried to write it in a way that it is universal. So, I took kind of the 10 best lessons that I had learned through my own work or working with clients and kind of came up with you know, the 10 Commandments of Psychedelia or the 10 habits of highly psychedelic people, whatever you want to call it. so, some of the lessons in there are around self-love. Some of the rest lessons [00:19:00] are around you know, connections to other people as we deal with loneliness. first chapter of the book is called Be Your Own Hero. I tried to write the psychedelic journey in the book. As a bit of the hero’s journey,

[00:19:15] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:19:16] Benjamin Forest: I’m a, a complete nerd about Joseph Campbell, a famous mythologist so many inspirational quotes from him that I adore, but the one that means the most to me when I’m talking about healing and transformation is this.

[00:19:31] In the cave, you fear to enter is the treasure that you seek. And so much of the book is inviting people to go into those caves that are frightening.

[00:19:41] face what is inside there

[00:19:43] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:19:43] Benjamin Forest: and find what treasure can be there if we’re willing to go on those kind of journeys. putting that kind of mythological template on my first experience, so the cave I was afraid to enter was simply feeling, oh my God, you mean I gotta go in there and actually feel the grief of my father’s [00:20:00] death? I actually have to go like, feel the fear that I suppressed, you know, in a war zone and. On and on and on. Like all of it had had just built up, and so it

[00:20:11] made sense. I would be afraid to go into that cave. It

[00:20:13] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:20:14] Benjamin Forest: it doesn’t sound fun,

[00:20:15] Scott DeLuzio: No.

[00:20:16] Benjamin Forest: but damn it, half, the second half of that sentence in the cave, you fear to enter is the treasure that you seek. And so the treasure for me was the liberation of the heart. like, oh my God, I had to go in and face that scary dragon inside here. But once the dragon left, that treasure was feeling alive again. Feeling connection, feeling purpose, feeling love,

[00:20:40] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:20:41] Benjamin Forest: just not feeling numb anymore. I, I thought so much in the weeks and months after that experience was like, is this what everybody else feels like all the time?

[00:20:50] And I was just too fucked up to know it? Or, or is it more like enhanced? I, because. you are deeply depressed or troubled in some way, it

[00:20:59] can [00:21:00] feel normal after a

[00:21:01] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:21:02] Benjamin Forest: So to have that relieved, maybe just the normalcy feels

[00:21:05] like euphoria.

[00:21:07] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah. And I get that too because you, you spend so much time in that, that kind of neutral zone where you’re just numb to anything. Like, there’s no real big highs. There’s no joy in, in, you know, gratitude. There’s no, none of that. And then there’s, there’s no real lows where it’s, you know, sadder, you know, anything like that.

[00:21:25] It’s just kind of neutral and you’re just floating through life it feels like sometimes. And then when you do get that. Spark of joy. It’s, it’s like, wait a minute is, is this, is this that thing that everyone else is talking about? You know? And it, it, it sounds crazy sometimes to, to think that way, but like, there are, I mean, legitimately like you, you said there’s, there’s folks who, who don’t feel a lot of joy or, or anything, you know, and.

[00:21:51] It’s hard to, you know, get through life that way. You know, without it, it’s, you know, it’s a lot better when there’s a balance of, of things, you know, not everything’s gonna [00:22:00] be rainbows and unicorns and everything’s gonna be, you know, great. It’s, there’s gonna be some downside too, but. You got, you gotta feel those things too.

[00:22:08] You, you, there’s gonna be, unfortunately, there’s gonna be death, there’s gonna be loss, there’s gonna be, you know, you might get fired from a job. You, you have to feel something when those things happen. And, you know, if you’re not feeling anything, then I, I don’t, in my mind anyways, and again, I’m not like a clinical anything, I don’t have any degrees in, in any of this kind of stuff.

[00:22:27] But I, I would imagine if you’re not allowing yourself to feel even the negative things, that’s just gonna pile on to that. That mound of emotions that you have to work through at some point to get yourself back to a kind of quote unquote normal state. Like, like everybody else kind of is, is living through.

[00:22:47] But you know, you, you had talked about, you know, things in your, your childhood and, and growing up and everything. And then plus add on your military service. You know, that’s a lot of stuff to work through. And then. You know, if, if you’ve never touched any of it and you never even chipped away [00:23:00] at any of it, I mean, you’re, you’re just gonna be you’re gonna be stuck there and, and.

[00:23:06] You’re gonna have to eventually work through some of that stuff before you start feeling, you know, something other than that neutral kind of baseline feeling.

[00:23:13] Benjamin Forest: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:14] Scott DeLuzio: you know, and, and so, and one other thing too I, I did, I mentioned your book and we started talking about your book. One thing I failed to do is mention the.

[00:23:21] The title of your book. So I wanna do that too for the, the listeners out there who might be interested in, in getting a copy here. And I’ll, I’ll have a link in the show notes and everything too. But so the book title, trip of a Lifetime, the Psychedelic Guide to Healing, loving and Living is, is the name of the book.

[00:23:36] So, so that, you know, it’s interesting too because, you know, it is scary to face some of these things, you know. Trained ourselves to not feel and not deal with these things for so long.

[00:23:50] Benjamin Forest: Yeah.

[00:23:51] Scott DeLuzio: Then all of a sudden we now we gotta unwrap this stuff and now figure out what to do with it.

[00:23:57] Benjamin Forest: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:57] Scott DeLuzio: there’s a lot, I mean, you know, [00:24:00] if, if you have a, you know, a messy room, right?

[00:24:02] I’m just gonna make this kind of analogy. If you have a, a messy room with a few things outta place and you look at it, it’s like, okay, that’s not a big deal. I can, I can sweep this stuff up and I can, I can rearrange stuff and I, I can put things away. Not a big deal. But then if you walk into another room that’s like, you know, a hoarder lived there and they have, you know.

[00:24:18] Piles of stuff up to the ceiling and there’s just like this little narrow walkway. You’re gonna look at that and be like, holy shit, how am I gonna deal with this? Like, that’s a lot of stuff to deal with. And I feel like, you know, you know, once when you start dealing with it and you start putting stuff away or getting rid of it, whatever’s not suiting you, you get rid of,

[00:24:37] Then it starts to become a little bit more manageable.

[00:24:39] And then you can, you can manage it on a day-to-day basis, but when, when you’re, you’re looking at this mountain of stuff that you’re, you gotta deal with it. It’s overwhelming. And, and to a lot of people I think, right?

[00:24:50] Benjamin Forest: Yeah, I think that metaphor completely works. So when I first encountered psychedelics, I was 47 years old, it was [00:25:00] so explosive because I had 47 years of unprocessed,

[00:25:05] you know, junk around my house, right?

[00:25:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:25:08] Benjamin Forest: But now nowadays, every, you know, a few months or so, I might do a a psychedelic journey and it just, it

[00:25:15] does become lighthouse cleaning. Like

[00:25:18] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:25:18] Benjamin Forest: the big renovations done, you know, it’s a basically clean house. But now yeah, when the messes come up, it’s a lot easier to, yeah, take out the trash or throw some stuff in the laundry.

[00:25:28] Scott DeLuzio: Right,

[00:25:29] Benjamin Forest: it can become yeah, just basic maintenance instead

[00:25:32] of a, you know, an overhaul.

[00:25:34] Scott DeLuzio: right. Exactly. And, and I guess that’s, you know, where we wanna be. I mean, even in your regular life, you, you don’t, you, you don’t wanna have a messy house. That’s a disaster. And walking in there, you, you know, having an ice clean environment to live in is, is generally better off. And, you know, I think that goes through your mind as well.

[00:25:51] You know, when, when you have something that’s easier to maintain it, it’s gonna. Provide you a, a much better environment for future issues that [00:26:00] may come up and, and being able to deal with those types of things. You know, and so I wanna kind of circle back to the listener here who, who might be listening, you know, a veteran who might be listening, hearing about your story, and thinking to themselves, you know, maybe this could help me.

[00:26:13] This, I, you know, I’ve tried everything. I’ve gone to therapy, I’ve gone to all these different things and I tried all these different approaches. None, nothing seems to be working for me. As far as you know, things like safety, you talked a little bit about that earlier, but safety, legal and medical considerations.

[00:26:28] What are some of the things that people need to understand before pursuing anything that involves psychedelics?

[00:26:33] Benjamin Forest: Sure. So, speaking to an audience here in the United States, we do need to understand that at the federal level, these are still schedule one drugs. They are not legal. Now there’s some caveats to that in certain research environments, including the VA and various academic institutions. There is psychedelic therapy research going on, that is a potential entry point. are [00:27:00] various places in the United States Colorado and Oregon being two of them. Where psychedelics have been decriminalized still illegal at the federal level, but not necessarily being, you know, prosecuted aggressively at, at lower levels. And then another thing, just to make it a little bit more complicated is there are churches within the United States that are, you know, identified as churches. Advocating for the protection under the freedom of religion. And so far, when these legal battles, especially the last 20, 30 years, have gone up to the Supreme Court, it tends to favor the freedom of religion. And so for the legal aspect, it’s not legal. There are certain potential entry points regardless. And there are also some really good charities out there. I’ll name a few of them. One is heroic hearts. That is a charity that [00:28:00] funds ceremonies. I think they’re mostly ayahuasca based and they can sponsor military members.

[00:28:08] And I think even the family members certain ones for psychedelic experiences. I think those are primarily done outside of the US for legal reasons. Another one I’ll mention is veterans exploring treatment solutions. And they, I think behind a recent documentary around Netflix of wins and war about some special operators who traveled out of the country to do iboga seeking treatment for PTSD and traumatic brain injury. And there’s, there’s several others as well. The, the mission within is another one. So the, the charities can provide a a gateway for people to do this with less of the financial burden. And also through a, a trusted entity that’s,

[00:28:57] you know, is as legal as they can make it in

[00:28:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:29:00] Sure.

[00:29:00] Benjamin Forest: World.

[00:29:01] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:29:02] Benjamin Forest: I, I do wanna make this crystal clear. If, if anybody is thinking about this, oh, I can just go get five grams of mushrooms. Take them in my bedroom and I will find healing. I think that is typically a pretty irresponsible thing to do, especially if you have significant mental health issues. There absolutely needs to be a container around any high dose usage of these psychedelics. And that’s for a few different reasons. One is just physical safety, You know, what if somebody’s at the door, a smoke alarm goes off, or you know, goodness knows what, or maybe somebody who just needs help getting to the bathroom without falling down. So there’s, there’s a physical safety there, but there’s also a psychological safety that whoever is facilitating the ceremony needs to provide.

[00:29:45] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:46] Benjamin Forest: You know, we alone. Can never fully let go. ’cause we have to protect ourselves like at a primal level. But if we have somebody trusted around us, or multiple people trusted around us, we can let go a little bit more and I think we can do,

[00:29:59] Deeper [00:30:00] healing that way.

[00:30:00] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:30:01] Benjamin Forest: The last thing I’ll mention is around physical safety. Back in the sixties and seventies, there was a lot of, disingenuous antis psychedelic propaganda, making them sound a lot more dangerous than they actually are. If you were to look up what is the likelihood of winding up in an emergency room on magic mushrooms versus almost any other substance. Amongst the safest, in fact. And to think in the research I looked at, it was the safest.

[00:30:31] It was much safer than alcohol,

[00:30:33] Scott DeLuzio: Okay,

[00:30:34] Benjamin Forest: it was even safer than cannabis. Curiously enough. So I think that’s indicative of a couple things. One, it’s a relatively safe medicine, but two, typically, and hopefully people are doing this in settings where there’s safe and there would be, you know, no need

[00:30:47] to to seek help.

[00:30:49] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:30:50] Benjamin Forest: The other reason why we, we should be doing this in a, in a container and with the facilitator is because that facilitator, if they’re at all [00:31:00] responsible, is gonna very carefully screen you for any medical conditions or medications you’re on. That could be problematic for something like psilocybin.

[00:31:09] If you’re on SSRIs, it’s not dangerous. it’s gonna nullify the effects of the psilocybin. So that’s something to tweak, with ayahuasca, you definitely don’t want to be on any kind of SSRIs. You know, need to be very carefully medically cleared for ayahuasca. ’cause there are rare cases where that can be dangerous. And iboga is one where. In addition to looking at the medications you’re on any reputable iboga practitioner will require an EKG of your heart because there are rare instances where a preexisting condition in your heart could cause problems. And all that is just, you know, being completely transparent about what, what the risks are in various areas. Not to put any emphasis on the danger of these drugs, because I think

[00:31:59] the danger [00:32:00] actually has been greatly exaggerated.

[00:32:01] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:32:02] Yeah. And again, everybody’s gonna be different as far as their, their medical conditions and medications that they might be taking and other things that might be going on with them. So. To your point, definitely find someone who can work with you. You know, if you’re choosing to go this, this route and, and investigate the psychedelics who is a medical provider, who can, you know, understand some of the interactions with these things and, and then be able to tell you.

[00:32:31] What is safe, what isn’t safe, and, and guide you through that so that you don’t go making a mistake. Going off, like you said, going off and, you know, sitting in your bedroom, doing it yourself and you know, thinking that you’re gonna wake up tomorrow morning feeling like a million bucks because that might not be the case depending on your, your situation.

[00:32:50] So, you know, regardless of, you know, what medications you may be on or, or whatever you know, just go talk to somebody who is, experienced in this field and, and has [00:33:00] some, some background in terms of what interactions there might be. And you know, so that way you can do it safely and not not put yourself in any unnecessary danger with, with any of this.

[00:33:10] So, so that’s definitely good advice there because you know, I, I know you know, you’re sitting there, you know, someone’s probably sitting there thinking to themselves, you know, what. I’m just gonna do this. Like, I’m, I’m gonna do it now. Yeah. I’m making my my mind, this is gonna happen right now.

[00:33:22] It’s like, okay, pump the brakes a bit. Let’s, let’s think about it and let’s do it the right way. If, if you’re gonna do it at all you know, don’t, don’t just go jump in head first because you, you may not know exactly what you’re getting into without, without some guidance. So, so I, I appreciate you sharing that that background on that because you know.

[00:33:40] You don’t know what you don’t know until you get into it. And that, that could be a, a big problem for, for some folks. So, you know, and you, you describe this, this transformation that you had to kind of like cleaning house in your brain or, you know, washing your brain and, and however you describe it.

[00:33:55] And you moved out of, you know, decades of, of this, you know, depression and, [00:34:00] and all the things that you had going on. And, and you moved into like a new way of living. It probably is a good way to to phrase it. What did, did you see change the most in your day-to-day life after that whole experience?

[00:34:13] Benjamin Forest: Hmm. I mean, the most immediate noticeable thing was just how I felt inside. Go from being, you know, kind of lethargic to being energized, to feeling apathetic, to being excited. It was kind of like a little flip there. So one really interesting tangible thing around that is this, when I was in the military multiple times, we did the the Myers-Briggs.

[00:34:38] People are probably somewhat familiar with that. And one of the measures is introvert to extrovert. And every time when I was in the military, and I took that test really extreme on the introvert side, after my psychedelic experience, I shared that with my coach because I was a little perplexed by how suddenly extroverted I was.

[00:34:58] And he suggested I [00:35:00] take the Myers-Briggs again. And sure enough, I wound up on the other end of the spectrum in terms of extrovert, right? So I don’t think it, it changed me. I think it revealed me, I think the wounded version of Benjamin was introverted and the more healed version of Benjamin leaned in, more extroverted.

[00:35:17] There was definitely a, a vast difference in how I was feeling, a radical difference in how I was connecting to other people. I had friends in the military, but honestly they were fairly shallow, guarded friendships. They were good bros. They’d be there for me, but you know,

[00:35:34] it wasn’t, you know, necessarily a close connection.

[00:35:36] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:35:36] Benjamin Forest: And suddenly I found it very easy to find close connections with people. And I also found that my values radically changed, honestly, when I was in the military. I was eating up the affirmations right and left. I wanted to get the promotions, I wanted to get the awards, like I wanted to be the number one threat.

[00:35:57] Like I, I, I drank the Kool-Aid, [00:36:00] like, I’m gonna play this game and I’m gonna win it. And after psychedelics, I’m like, yeah, I don’t really care that much anymore. Like,

[00:36:06] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:07] Benjamin Forest: you you wanna succeed in life, you wanna have a purpose. But I think the purpose that was handed to me by life do X, Y, Z suddenly meant less to me.

[00:36:16] And there was other things that were more important to me and to my happiness. So I really prioritized building positive human connections.

[00:36:22] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:36:22] Benjamin Forest: I prioritized getting involved in various communities, I also just started having fun again. Right. You know, being in the military can be a very serious business. And after psychedelics, I wound up joining an improv troupe, and for five years now, I’ve been performing on stage, just being silly, making an ass to myself. I did a, you know, a, a standup gig and everything. Like there, there was like a lightness and a, a playfulness that I was able to find in life that I just wasn’t able to to get to before, you know, I, I pulled the lever to turn off all the fear, and then it shut off my ability to

[00:36:58] be playful and [00:37:00] fun.

[00:37:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And

[00:37:01] you know, one of the things you were talking about there, I, I just wanna get back to it, is you know how. You, you notice that shift from, you know, being kind of more introverted before and then now you know, a little bit more extroverted you know, in that shift. But if you think about, you know, like a wounded animal they’re gonna act a whole lot different than they, than a regular healthy, un wounded, you know, animal would, would act.

[00:37:25] Benjamin Forest: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:26] Scott DeLuzio: They’re, they’re being more protective of, of themselves. They’re guarded and they’re not going to. Probably let you get close. If, you know, if you find an animal on the side of the road or something like that and you, you go to try to help it, it’s probably not gonna want you to get close. It’s probably gonna try to defend itself because they don’t know what your, your plans are and they’re, they’re gonna try to keep you away.

[00:37:48] And so they may lash out, they try to bite your scratch or whatever it is that they do because they are trying to protect themselves. And so it kind of makes sense the way you describe that. That experience where you were [00:38:00] pretty introverted, kept to yourself and didn’t really wanna let a whole lot of people in, you know, you had had friends, but they weren’t real close connections.

[00:38:06] They were, they were kind of, you know, maybe, maybe this is just me putting words in your mouth, but, you know, superficial kind of connections. But you know, if, if that’s what, what it was, you know, maybe it was just. Keeping those people away because, hey, I’m, I’m wounded on the inside and I don’t, I don’t know what you’re gonna do to me.

[00:38:23] So I, I keep, keep your distance and now that you kind of saw some sort of healing, you, you’re a different animal. You know, you’re, you’re a different, you’re a different beast right now.

[00:38:35] Benjamin Forest: It’s a good

[00:38:36] metaphor. I like it. I like it. I might borrow that one.

[00:38:38] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[00:38:39] Benjamin Forest: the, the, the idea of of being wounded you know, resonates like completely. And that idea of being protected and protective and defensive when you’re wounded, like, makes a lot of sense. And then the irony of that is putting up those protections and putting up those defenses [00:39:00]

[00:39:00] exactly the thing that’s gonna make things

[00:39:02] worse.

[00:39:02] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And, and you know, just like one, one of those animals that might be on the side of the road, some, you know, person with good intentions might go up to that animal trying to help and try to you know, get the animal to, maybe it’s a veterinarian or, you know, whatever. Try to, try to just help them.

[00:39:18] And then they’re lashing out and trying to keep that person away.

[00:39:20] They don’t realize that that person is, the thing is, is the, the thing that’s going to help them. Get away from whatever the pain is that they’re experiencing and you know, just, just like what you’re, you’re describing there, you know?

[00:39:33] So it’s, it’s just interesting, you know, all these, the, this conversation, I’m, I’m just coming off all these different metaphors and, and it, it, to me that just helps make things make sense. And hopefully for some of the listeners that, that kind of. Clicks with some of them as well. You know, maybe there’s some others that I, I’m, I’m missing.

[00:39:49] Hopefully some of the, the listeners may maybe are a little smarter than me and can, can figure out some, some as well, but maybe they can share some of those. But, but I know that some folks may maybe just not [00:40:00] ready for psychedelics at, at this point. You know, maybe they just can’t access ’em legally and they don’t wanna take that kind of risk and do it illegally or, or anything like that, or just think that it’s not the right path.

[00:40:11] But, I gotta imagine there, there’s something that you, you could take away from your experience you know, kind of separate it from the psychedelics itself, but what practices or mindset shifts from, from your work can you still, you know, help them move forward? Or, or towards like healing and connection versus just staying stuck in, in the position that they’re in?

[00:40:31] Benjamin Forest: Sure, sure. You know, I think the first lesson I would share, and this has nothing to do with psychedelics, is that necessity to care for oneself. So in the Air Force we had three core values, and I remember one of those core values being service before self.

[00:40:50] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:40:51] Benjamin Forest: That, that sense of sacrifice, that makes sense from time to time.

[00:40:56] But again, just like, shutting off your emotions, [00:41:00]

[00:41:00] that becomes toxic over time.

[00:41:02] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:41:02] Benjamin Forest: was so wrapped up in service before self, both to my military institution and also to my family. I was completely neglecting myself. And so what I would suggest to people who are struggling. around this stuff is damnit.

[00:41:21] You have got to make yourself a priority, not forever, but for right now until you can heal up your wounds. ’cause you’re no good to anybody else if

[00:41:29] you’re walking around bleeding all over the place.

[00:41:31] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:41:32] Benjamin Forest: there may be that moment where you just need to say, I am the priority for this moment, for this period of time. The mission is healing me.

[00:41:40] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:41] Benjamin Forest: And it’s kind of like I decided to create Operation Healing Benjamin out of, you know, my visit to the psych ward. Like maybe that’s what some of the listeners need to do. Like maybe this is a, a three month, six month, year period, whatever it is, where it is. Yeah. Hop operation, healing me. And that can sound a little [00:42:00] selfish, but it’s actually the most altruistic thing you can do. When you can clean up your own internal mess, you’re gonna be, you know, better husband, better father, better

[00:42:10] son, and switch the genders on that. If

[00:42:12] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:42:13] Benjamin Forest: not male is listening, but that’s how you show up best for everybody

[00:42:16] else is actually by taking care of this guy

[00:42:18] first.

[00:42:19] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And you know, I’ve, I’ve said this dozens of times on this show, but you know, you take a flight somewhere and one of the things that they tell you is put, you know, put your oxygen mask on first before you help other people. Right. And it’s, it’s the same mindset because if, if you’re helping somebody out and they’re, they’re struggling, you know, a little kid or whatever, they’re, they’re struggling and they’re, they’re fighting you and everything, and you pass out, you’re no good to them.

[00:42:41] And they’re, they’re gonna end up passing out. You’re gonna pass out. And then, then what good is, is it that you are even sitting there next to ’em because they’re, you’re not, you’re not gonna be doing anything helpful. You’re, you’re just gonna be passed out. And so, you know, sometimes you do have to prioritize yourself and, and take care of yourself when you’re [00:43:00] in that kind of situation where.

[00:43:02] There, there’s no other way, but you, you just have to fix yourself. You know, again, go back to that wounded animal theory. You know that, you know, a, a wounded, you know, whatever the animal is, if it’s a, you know, a mother or something, it’s not gonna be very much good to, it’s if it’s babies, if it, if it’s injured and it can.

[00:43:22] Defend them or keep up with them or anything. So, yeah, and you know what, in that moment you kind of have to prioritize yourself and, and say, you know what? I need to get better so that I can be there for them. And, and without that, you know, you’re, you’re just gonna be that same person carrying that same burden, you know, with the, the, the same.

[00:43:40] Wound, you know, whether it’s mental or physical wounds you know, you’re gonna be carrying that around with you and not being able to be the best version of yourself for those people that are around you. And, you know, absolutely. There, there are times when you need to put other people before yourself.

[00:43:56] A hundred percent. Absolutely. But when you [00:44:00] are barely treading water and you’re, you’re, you know. Just in the, you know, up to your neck in, in, in the deep end there. I mean, sometimes you just have to focus on yourself and, and figure out how to save yourself so that you can be there for those other folks, right.

[00:44:17] Benjamin Forest: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think my experience of operation healing Benjamin, of, of putting aside that time to really heal myself. I mean, I, I can see just in the years since the dividends that are paying off, you know, I, I relate to my mom differently. I relate to my kids differently. I’m a much better ex-husband than I ever was a husband, right? So, you know, I can see the fruits of it and at, at a larger level. Also brought me to a purpose where, you know, all I’m trying to do right now, frankly, is go out to connect with people who are suffering maybe in a similar way that I was and going like, Hey, look, I’ve been in the cave. I’ve got a map, I’ve got these supplies.

[00:44:57] I think I can be helpful here.

[00:44:59] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yeah, [00:45:00] absolutely.

[00:45:00] And, and guiding people through that, that, that scary place that they don’t necessarily want to go on their own. You know, sometimes following someone who’s been there before can be very helpful. When, when you’re. Facing that, that scary, big, scary task, that big scary thing that you might be dealing with.

[00:45:17] You know, walking alongside someone who’s, who’s already been there that, that could just be the thing that you need. Benjamin, before we wrap up where can listeners find your book and learn more about what you do and follow your work online, all that kind of stuff?

[00:45:29] Benjamin Forest: Sure. So, first of all, the book is available in paperback on amazon.com, I’m a little more excited to say that it’s also available as an audiobook. So you can buy that on audible, I think Apple and, and maybe a few others. I listen to way more audio books than I read physical books, so, check out the audio book.

[00:45:49] It’s read in my own voice. so you’ll have to put up with that. But otherwise, it’s Instagram’s kind of my main hub right now. I’m at Benjamin dot Forest dot Bliss, which I think is [00:46:00] in the show notes. And by the time this airs, I’ll have the new website up,

[00:46:04] Benjamin forest.com.

[00:46:06] Scott DeLuzio: Perfect. And yeah, again all those links to the book, to your website, to your social media. I’ll have all those links in the show notes for the listeners so they can reach out, they can connect with you, they can get a copy of the book in whichever version they prefer. I’ll, I’ll have links to all that there.

[00:46:21] But, but Benjamin, thank you so much for coming on, sharing your story. I, I think this is one of those things where, you know, it, it. Kind of is a taboo subject. Like you said, you know, for a lot of people of a certain age, I think, you know, we’re close enough in age that you know, we probably fall into that same category.

[00:46:36] But you know, just being able to hear your side of the story and hear how it’s benefited you and, and helped you in your life I I think could very well be the thing that helps some other folks. Hopefully, some of the listeners will, will take that away from, from this episode. So thank you so much for coming on.

[00:46:51] Really do appreciate it.

[00:46:52] Benjamin Forest: Yeah. Thank you so much. For my parting thought, I will just say this, it seems like reading the tea leaves of what’s going [00:47:00] on in our country, think psychedelics will be legal fairly soon,

[00:47:04] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:05] Benjamin Forest: and I think the reason that they’re gonna become legal is because of veterans. I think it’s immoral to look at veterans who are suffering, especially from the wars that we put ’em in and to withhold treatment from them.

[00:47:17] So, yeah, my hope is that the forward progress around this issue will continue and like we always do, the military people will bust down the door and then the other folks

[00:47:26] suffering can maybe follow in behind

[00:47:27] us. So

[00:47:28] Scott DeLuzio: I.

[00:47:28] Benjamin Forest: see how it unfolds.

[00:47:29] Scott DeLuzio: I hope, I hope you’re right. I hope,

[00:47:31] I hope a lot of people get some healing and benefit from this, and I hope it you know, is the access to it anyways is a little bit easier down the line. So thank you so much, Benjamin again for, for everything and and, and all the best to you and, and take care all.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Getting out of the military can leave somebody carrying pressure in places that no one else can see. Your job might be steady, your, your family might be counting on you, and life might be looking just fine from the outside. But inside, there can still be a fight to find purpose, stay calm, communicate well, and stop feeling like the best version of yourself got left behind with your uniform.

[00:00:24] Our guest today, Dave Birke, knows that world from more than one angle. He spent 23 years in the Marine Corps, flew fighters, taught at Top Gun, and now teaches leadership with Echelon Front. This conversation pulls leadership out of the boardroom and puts it where it matters every day, in your home, your work, your transition out of the military, your failures, and even the moments when pressure starts to take over.

[00:00:53] From this episode, you’ll walk away with a clear way to slow down, take ownership without crushing yourself, build [00:01:00] stronger relationships, and start moving toward a life after service that still feels meaningful. And before we get into this conversation, make sure you’re connected with Drive On beyond the podcast.

[00:01:10] Go to driveonpodcast.com/subscribe and join our email list. It’s the best way to stay connected, get updates from the show, and hear about resources, stories, and conversations built for veterans and their families. Before we begin, though, I do wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s important to our community, the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation.

[00:01:31] This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington, DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

[00:01:48] If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOTmemorialfoundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:54]

Introduction
—

[00:02:08] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Dave, welcome to the show. I’m really glad to have you here

[00:02:11] Dave Berke: Yeah, good to be here, man.

[00:02:11] Appreciate your patience. Glad to finally get connected

[00:02:14] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:15] Yeah, like we’ve been saying a little bit before we, we started recording here, I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for quite some time. And and, you know, we, we’ve kind of gone back and forth and, and here we are. So I’m, I’m glad to glad to kind of jump into it. But before we, we kind of dive into the conversation I’m sure some of my, my listeners are already familiar with you, but for some of them who maybe aren’t could you maybe introduce yourself and, and just tell us a little bit about your, your background and, and a little bit about who you are?

[00:02:41] Dave Berke: Yeah, for sure, man. I’m Dave Burke. I’m a leadership instructor at Echelon Front, which is a leadership consultancy. My background is I did 23 years in the Marine Corps, mostly flying airplanes. Flew a couple different fighters. Spent a little time on the ground. And then after I left the Marine Corps, I joined Echelon Front, and I teach leadership with [00:03:00] two Navy SEALs that started a company that have, has grown into a big leadership consulting

[00:03:04] company, and I’ve been doing that ever since

[00:03:06] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and that’s awesome. And, you know, that, that’s where I, I first heard your name kind of thrown around, probably listening to one of the episodes on on Jocko’s podcast. I probably… That’s probably where I first heard your name and,

[00:03:16] Dave Berke: Yeah

[00:03:17] Scott DeLuzio: know, then, then your name gets kind of tossed around. I’m sure that’s where a lot of people have, have kind of heard you as well.

[00:03:21] So, so like I said, really l- really glad to have you here and been looking forward to this conversation.

[00:03:27] Dave Berke: Awesome

[00:03:27] Scott DeLuzio: Now, so you did… You, you talked about flying the planes and, and things like that in the Marine Corps and you know, I know a lot of folks probably know Top Gun from the movies and, and things like that.

[00:03:38] And so I’m, I’m sure there’s some major differences between the movies and, and in real life. But w- what would you s- say about that environment that you went through kind of in that, that arena that teaches you about preparation and performance and, and all the things that, that come into it that maybe you’ve, you’ve taken forward to your career [00:04:00] now?

[00:04:00] Dave Berke: Yeah.

Top Gun & Preparation
—

[00:04:06] Dave Berke: Well, you, the question was great, ’cause yeah, there’s certainly some differences in the movies from the real Top Gun. Movies are awesome. Love them. I thought they were both fantastic. I don’t have anything critical to say about them. But yeah, they’re movies. They’re certainly not there to capture exactly what real life is like for a Top Gun instructor or a Top Gun student.

[00:04:19] And I think what you asked is, is, is true, is, is one of the differentiators there is, you know, that’s a school. It’s it’s a super demanding, you know, very demanding environment. They expect a lot of preparation and the preparedness that goes along with that. You learn a lot of good lessons at Top Gun, again, as a student, as an instructor, that apply to every aspect of life. Hard work, preparation take advantage of good luck and timing, good opportunities. You know, make the most out of those. Put yourself in a position to be successful. But ultimately, you know, the effort that you put into things leading to, hopefully, being very humble, being very open-minded, being very willing to learn. Those are all attributes that make you successful at Top Gun. And clearly, just by [00:05:00] hearing me say that, those are the same things. Those are universal. Those things apply everywhere. So Top Gun’s a great place, like kind of a microcosm for life, and what you learn there really has served me well in every aspect of my life

[00:05:11] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And, you know, when you’re talking about Top Gun, you’re talking about y- you know, f- flying these, these millions of dollars worth of plane and, and equipment, and you’re, you’re talking about real life and death decisions. But when you take that kind of that kind of mindset away from from that school and apply it to your daily life, I mean, you’re…

[00:05:33] Why shouldn’t you treat daily life like a life and death decision? You know, yeah, and not, not to say that everything has to be so intense at, at that level, but, you know, it real life deserves, you know, everyday life deserves that level of kinda care and consideration as well, where, where you’re, you’re not just floating through life and just, you know, not making good decisions because, ah, who cares, you know?

[00:05:54] It’s, I’m not dealing with a multimillion-dollar plane. I’m, I’m dealing with you know, my, my commute [00:06:00] to work or whatever. But you’re, you’re, you’re dealing with other things in life that, that could be you know, that you, you could take some of that stuff and apply it to, and, and why not make it better, right?

[00:06:09] Dave Berke: Yeah. I, I think that’s extremely well said. And yeah, certainly, I mean, flying airplanes, you know, combat in the military, there’s some uniqueness to that, and I wouldn’t deny that. But ultimately, you know, life is life. And, and the way you approach those things, I think that attitude and mentality you just alluded to is a good one to have in all aspects of life.

[00:06:26] And by the way, you know, everything that everybody does, I- I- I’m glad that not everything is life and death, but in all work that’s being done, you know, there’s livelihoods at li- you know, at stake, and companies and, and, and organizational success, and you’re trying to raise kids and families. And there’s a lot at stake in really all the things that we do.

[00:06:42] And I think to your point, take full advantage of that and, and try to get the most out of every single day. And, and it being life or death should not be the forcing function to have that type of mentality. So I totally agree with you, man, and I think, you know, you don’t wanna take things too seriously ultimately but [00:07:00] got one shot at this.

[00:07:01] Take full advantage of that and understand… You know, like I said before, the lessons and, and the things I learned there, they apply everywhere. And the life or death component of it should not be the differentiator. It’s

[00:07:10] just opportunities in life. Take

[00:07:11] advantage of them

[00:07:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And, and you alluded to in the, the beginning there when you introduced yourself that you you operated in kind of different environments throughout your military career b- between aviation and you spent some time on the ground, you said, and, and now, you know, to what you’re doing now is in, in leadership training.

[00:07:28] How did your understanding of leadership change or evolve as these various missions changed for you? D- like, how did… Or, or did they, did it evolve? Maybe it kind of remained the same.

Leadership Evolution
—

[00:07:38] Dave Berke: No, it definitely did. And you know, that was probably one of the biggest leadership lessons that I came to grips with in, in my professional career, and I, I wrote about it when I was capturing things that I’d, I’d, I’d learned in my life. When I joined the Marine Corps, you know, when I was a kid watching Top Gun in the movie theater fantasizing about flying airplanes off carriers and wanting to be a fighter [00:08:00] pilot and wanting to be in the military, I’d say most of that was driven by my individual goals, my individual pursuit, and what I wanted to do. and you don’t have to be in the military to know this, but ultimately, you know, what I came to discover is being in the military, like that is the ultimate team sport. And the work that I did, the goals that I was setting for myself, when I finally got into the Marine Corps and I started learning how the Marine Corps views leadership and views being an officer in the Marine Corps, it’s all about other people.

[00:08:28] It’s all about the team. So there was a lot of humility I had to learn and recognize that these things that I was pursuing, which kind of seemed to be about me, weren’t about me at all. And, you know, young immature, arrogant Dave Burk learned a lot of lessons in the military, and totally changed my leadership mindset is that the things that I’m doing shouldn’t be for myself, they should be for the people around me. And, you know, that was a, a, an important lesson learned that o- of course, a- applies to everything. Like we’ve said this before already, you know, every topic we’ve touched on so far is lessons that apply everywhere. [00:09:00] Leadership is leadership is leadership. Those lessons apply everywhere. I absolutely evolved in my time to get out of my, my singular focus about myself and focus on, on

[00:09:08] the team and the people you’re there to support

[00:09:10] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s interesting when, when you mention that there, I, I started thinking about folks who are getting out of the military or, or have been out of the military. They’re, you know, veterans. They’re moving on with their life and they’re, they’re reentering into the civilian world, if you will.

[00:09:23] And that teamwork and mindset that you were, you were talking about where, you know, you’re, you’re working to kind of support the team. It’s that ultimate team sport, if you will. And a lot of times veterans will just kind of try to go it alone, and they’re, they’re not relying on a team or any group of people.

[00:09:43] They’re, they’re just, “You know what? I’ll, I’ll be stubborn and figure it out.” I know I was guilty of that when I first got out of the military, and I, I got out and I struggled with all sorts of things and, and i- in my head, it was like, “Well, that’s on me. I need to figure it out.” And, and sure, that to some extent that’s true, but there’s so many resources and [00:10:00] people out there who you can, you can lean on to, to help you out.

[00:10:03] You know, no one’s an expert on, on everything, and so you can, you can kind of, you know, reach out to those, those folks to, to help you out and, and get you back on the right path and, and hopefully shorten the amount of time that you’re on that path and, and get you back on, on the right path. So,

[00:10:18] Dave Berke: Yeah

[00:10:18] Scott DeLuzio: know, I, I know, you know, a lot of times veterans, they, they leave, they miss having that, you know, whether it’s a clear mission, that, that teamwork that we talked about, or even that, that shared sense of purpose amongst other folks.

[00:10:29] What have you learned about t- building a team building that, that type of stuff up again after getting out of the military?

[00:10:37] Dave Berke: Yeah. I, I think I have a very similar experience there. And, and listen, to your point you know, I love that you know, that entrepreneurial spirit. I love that attitude of like, “Hey, this is on me. I gotta take responsibility.” And I think there’s some real powerful elements to that. But just like you said, and we know this in the military, and it’s really true everywhere is first of all, you’re gonna accomplish way, way more with a team than you are by [00:11:00] yourself. And ultimately, I think one of the things that’s really n- necessary, even if you’re, you’re in, in, in, in some sort of role or job where maybe it’s just you, you know, a business that you’re starting on your own or a pursuit that you have, you know, if you think of it outside just yourself, whatever it is that you’re doing very likely is gonna affect other people, family members, friends, community.

[00:11:18] Maybe you’re building something or designing something or creating something to get out into the world. You know, it’s not hard to recognize that over time like, hey, this is gonna be more than just yourself. And, and I think that should be embraced. I think one of the hardest things about the transition is of us when we’re in uniform, we kind of take for granted that what we’re doing matters, and we t- kind of take for granted that we have this clearly defined, understood mission that we believe in. you really have to find that outside of uniform too. When you transition, look, I got no judgment. You can go do any job that you want, literally anything. But you have to have belief in what you’re doing,

[00:11:57] and it really doesn’t matter as long [00:12:00] as you have belief in what you’re doing. And I think finding a career, finding a second path, finding a second place to go after the military, can get a little cloudy, you know, when you’re living on that government paycheck and you think, “Hey, it’s the private sector.

[00:12:12] I wanna go make some money.” You might be looking at how much money you’re gonna make or your salary or, or other things. could have a really high-paying job, but if you don’t believe in what you’re doing, you are gonna s- gonna struggle. So embedded in that, hey, you can certainly go it alone for certain things.

[00:12:28] I, I love that, again, that mentality and that mindset in certain areas. But eventually you’re gonna have to recognize it has to be about more than just yourself, and you have to believe in what you’re doing, and I think a team is something that really helps with that, people you care about, people you’re embedded with, people you’re working alongside or maybe people you’re serving, whatever it might be. Gotta think larger than that. It is certainly not about the money when you transition. It’s gotta be about something that fills that same void. Again, matter what the career is. You gotta believe in it, and you gotta pursue it in a way that fulfills those same needs that we [00:13:00] all have

[00:13:00] that, you know, it can’t just be us

[00:13:02] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And,

[00:13:04] you know, th- that’s very similar to something I, I had a conversation recently with my with my kids. They’re, they’re, you know, teenagers, and they’re talking about, like, you know, things that they’re interested in, and, you know, what, what’s that, you know, career gonna look like for them.

[00:13:17] And, and obviously, you know, they don’t have to know, have it all figured out right now and know exactly what they’re gonna do at this point. But you know, as they’re, they’re starting to think to the future and, and what might be that next step for them you know, th- they were looking at careers that, you know, what, what’s that salary for this career?

[00:13:33] You know, what, what’s that, that, that type of thing. I said like, “Yeah, sure, the salary’s important. You wanna, obviously wanna be able to afford the lifestyle that you wanna have and all that kind of stuff. But y- you wanna make sure that the job is fulfilling, too. It’s, it’s something that you, like you said, it, it’s something that you believe in, it’s something that, that is rewarding, it’s something that you know, ideally you will enjoy getting up and going to work every day.

[00:13:54] It’s not one of those

[00:13:55] Dave Berke: Yeah

[00:13:56] Scott DeLuzio: a drag to get up, get yourself out of bed and, you know, get to work every [00:14:00] day and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, find something that you- really turns you on, and then, then figure out the money piece.”

[00:14:05] Dave Berke: Yeah

[00:14:06] Scott DeLuzio: you know, once when you do that, I think all those pieces can come together.

[00:14:10] It, it’s not like, you know, mutually exclusive where you’re gonna have, you know, a job that you really love but you can’t make any money at. I mean, you

[00:14:18] Dave Berke: Yeah

[00:14:19] Scott DeLuzio: you can find that in, in a lot of areas. Now, maybe not everything. You know, if you know, what you’re really passionate in is no one’s paying for it, well, obviously you’re gonna have to find something else.

[00:14:28] But but, you know, if, if you can, you can find a way to make money at that thing that you really enjoy you know, I, I think that’s one of those things where people say you know, “You’ll, you’ll never have to work a day in your life if, if you can find something that you, you truly are passionate about and, and actually enjoy.”

[00:14:43] So, so I, I, I love that, that advice that you, you just gave there as far as you know, finding that, that passion or that purpose in, in the thing that you, you wind up doing after, after the military. So,

[00:14:53] Dave Berke: Yeah. I, I think it, it’s, it’s, it has to be central to any decision. And yeah, you know, kids, you know, they

[00:14:58] don’t always see the whole picture at [00:15:00] that

[00:15:00] age, but I think

[00:15:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:15:01] Dave Berke: good advice

[00:15:02] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, of course, advice coming from dad is, you know, taken with a grain of salt with with kids, but, you

[00:15:09] Dave Berke: of course

[00:15:10] Scott DeLuzio: is what it is. I try to do my best with that.

[00:15:11] So, you know, hopefully I, I say it enough and, and something latches on. But anyways you know, go- going back to your, your military career, can you maybe think of a time when maybe a, a setback or a failure taught you something that was more impactful than something that was successful?

[00:15:29] You know, something where you, you might have failed or a team might have failed and, and you know, that, that gives, gave you a, a super profound lesson or, or something like that

Failure as a Teacher
—

[00:15:38]

[00:15:38] Dave Berke: I mean, anything I ever learned in life that was really meaningful came from a failure. Like, there’s

[00:15:42] no question about that. And, you know, at the end of my career, certainly now reflecting back on it, things that I’ve, I’ve written about, things that I share stories about, things that I reflect on, all of the main key drivers of what I learned about what good leadership is, you know, the things you do and the things you think about, how you act and, [00:16:00] and how you think all came from a recognition about me either doing something wrong, a mistake that I made, a, a, a path that I was on that was the wrong path.

[00:16:08] So, you know, it’s… I know it’s a cliche, but failure is obviously the best teacher.

[00:16:12] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:13] Dave Berke: is true for me. And, and honestly, if you can identify, like, any leadership attribute, any leadership trait, any leadership mindset that I have learned to be true, I have discovered that through the process of, you know, shooting myself in the foot, making a mistake, doing something wrong, learning a hard lesson, seeing my ego get out of control. And so everything that I look back on that I recognize now is a model of good behavior learned from, from mistakes. Now, that said, I mean, there’s a lot of, a lot of folks out there that have done a really good job capturing these lessons, and I wish I was more open-minded early on to learning through other people’s mistakes.

[00:16:54] You’re not required to make the same mistakes that I and maybe you had made as well.

[00:16:58] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:16:59] Dave Berke: you’re gonna make… [00:17:00] I mean, listen there’s no avoiding it but boy, it would be certainly nice to capture something or latch onto something or embrace something based on someone else’s experience that can help guide you down, down the right path, and, and I think there’s some strength in that.

[00:17:13] But ultimately, in life there’s no denying in my life, and it’s probably true for most people, is that the things that really sunk in, that made the biggest impact came

[00:17:22] from, from some sort of failure

[00:17:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and

[00:17:25] you know, I bring that up because a lot of times folks who are struggling with some sort of failure, they, you know, whether it’s a, a failed you know, they got fired from a job or their, you know, a marriage or, you know, any- it doesn’t matter what the failure is really you know, they’re, they’re beating themself up, up over it because they, they’re, they’re just, they’re, they’re not sure, like, you know, okay, what went wrong?

[00:17:46] Obviously you wanna figure that, that piece out so you don’t go do it again. But sometimes they don’t take those lessons away and they kinda internalize it and, and let it define them that, okay, now I, I screwed up this, I screwed up that, I screwed up this other thing. Now, now that’s just who I am. [00:18:00] I’m a screw-up and I’m, I’m that type of person.

[00:18:01] But that, that’s not true if you can, if you can take some lessons away from that and instead of letting it define you and just being, “Well, that’s just who I am,” well, no, you, you’re someone who made a mistake and, you know, lots of people make mistakes or, or s- lots of people try things and fail it, at it.

[00:18:17] And I, I think that’s f- like you said, probably everybody has done something like that, and that’s fine. Like, you’re kinda, kinda supposed to make those mistakes. That’s how you learn. I mean,

[00:18:27] Dave Berke: Yeah

[00:18:28] Scott DeLuzio: think, think back to, you know, when you’re a kid and, and you, you know, fell off your bike as you’re learning how to ride a bike.

[00:18:33] Like,

[00:18:34] Dave Berke: Yeah

[00:18:35] Scott DeLuzio: well, don’t do that again. So,

[00:18:36] you know, figure out how to, how to do that a little bit better. And, you know, and then figure it out and, and move on, and you get better and better and better at, at lots of things and, and eventually, you, you’re not making those, those types of mistakes any- anymore.

[00:18:49] And, and I think that’s the lesson that you need to take away is, is like, what, what can I do to im- improve whatever this, this situation is so I don’t have to experience that again, [00:19:00] right?

[00:19:00] Dave Berke: Yeah. L- listen, I mean, I think that’s great advice. If you are listening to this or watching this and you are you know, cloaked in mistakes and failure and doing things

[00:19:10] wrong, in good company. I mean,

[00:19:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:19:14] Yeah

[00:19:15] Dave Berke: you know, listen, a- and, and, you know, you talked about, you know, y- maybe you got fired or maybe y- you know, y- you got divorced.

[00:19:21] Not everybody’s gone through that. Not everybody can experience that. But the idea that somehow, like, A, failure is what defines you, and B, failure is something you’re supposed to try to avoid, I mean, it’s just simply not how the, how life in the world works. And I think the beautiful thing about the concept of ownership, you know, that Jocko and Leif wrote about in their book, Extreme Ownership, they really defined how are you gonna respond to these things? And the only real failure with failure is failing to respond correctly, to do what you said, which is learn the lessons, make the changes, apply something different get better at doing things. Failure is a teacher, and the only thing that keeps it from working is the responsibility that comes along with that.

[00:19:59] And

[00:19:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:20:00] Yeah

[00:20:00] Dave Berke: you should spend hopefully less time wrestling with the reality of that you’re gonna make mistakes and fail. You are. We are. I do. I continue to this day. All of us do that, but there’s so much great benefit from embracing that if you’re objective enough to say, “Hey, this was about me. This is something I did.

[00:20:17] Here’s what I learned. Here’s how I can get better.” Then all of a sudden, those failures, even sometimes your biggest failures, can serve as your biggest lessons and make the biggest

[00:20:26] positive impact in your life. So

[00:20:28] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:20:29] Dave Berke: you’re

[00:20:29] making mistakes. Welcome to the club. You’re in good

[00:20:31] Scott DeLuzio: Welcome to the club. Exactly. You know, and, and I think, you know, you, you mentioned, you know, some of the stuff that, that Jocko had, had written about and you know, one of the, one of his sayings that, that he uses, you know, rather frequently is just, it’s just a one-word saying. It’s just, “Good.” You

[00:20:45] Dave Berke: Good

[00:20:46] Scott DeLuzio: like, good, yeah, you made that mistake. And I, I use that sometimes with, with my kids, and again, this isn’t like a, a parenting podcast, but it’s you know, more for geared towards veterans. But it’s the same idea,

[00:20:56] Dave Berke: Yeah

[00:20:57] Scott DeLuzio: in really any situation. But,

[00:20:58] You know, good. You know, what… You, [00:21:00] you might have messed up on that thing.

[00:21:02] What did you learn from it? You know,

[00:21:03] Dave Berke: That’s

[00:21:03] Scott DeLuzio: can take that lesson away from it at least, and, and that’s, you know, I, I think the, a good way to, to look at it. You know, and I, I think part of the reason why people don’t necessarily take away those, those lessons is especially in like a high-pressure situation, you know, people get overwhelmed really, really quickly, I, I think in, in some situations.

[00:21:22] And you know, especially as a, you know, a fighter pilot, I’m sure there’s, there’s things that were very high pressure in your career. There are things that probably got overwhelming really quickly, and you don’t really have time to get overwhelmed and worry about tho- those types of things. You kinda have to probably slow things down a little bit and think clearly to help you make better decisions.

[00:21:43] What were some, some ways that you found that you were able to kinda slow things down and, and be able to make better decisions without getting overwhelmed and, and, and really panicking and that type of thing?

Managing Emotions & Detachment
—

[00:21:57] Dave Berke: Yeah, I think you described it well. I mean, it’s certainly true inside [00:22:00] the cockpit of an airplane. It’s true in all aspects of life. You know, you feel the frustration, the anxiety. You feel the emotions start to rise. And if you react or act on those

[00:22:08] emotions, you’re gonna just probably make things worse.

[00:22:11] And, you know, that’s a good leadership lesson. It’s a leadership lesson from the cockpit, but it’s a, it’s an, and relevant to all aspects of life is you start to get a sense of those things starting to creep in, those emotions, those anxieties, those frustrations, and things start to escalate, really have to understand the path that you’re going down is probably gonna be destructive and, and counterproductive. And one of the things we teach at Echelon Front is this concept, what we call it detachment, which is essentially you gotta take a step away from those emotions. You gotta relax. You gotta take a deep breath. You gotta, just like you said, slow things down a little bit. That can be a little easy to say, harder to do, but one of the things that I think all people have the ability to do if they’re open-minded and humble and, and are self-aware, which easier said than done, but if you can kinda check your ego, you can be honest with [00:23:00] yourself of what it’s like when you start to feel those heightened emotions, when you’re getting those anxieties and those frustrations. We know… There’s a feeling, there’s a sensation to that. And, you know, as we get older, we become more and more equipped to be able to respond. Kids can’t do that.

[00:23:15] Kids throw temper tantrums. They lose their mind. They, they completely lose it, and we see that as parents. And one of the things we’re always trying to do is help them a little bit of control, and one of the best ways to do that is to know our own red flags, our own little indicators.

[00:23:28] What, what does Dave Burke do when he gets frustrated? In the cockpit, I would, you know, squeeze the control, control stick or maybe my shoulders would tense up, and I’d get f- kind of sore, fatigued, or I’d clench my teeth and go, “Oh, hey, that’s, that’s a sign of something.” And if I can recognize that early, I can intervene and do exactly what you said, which is, take a deep breath, relax, slow things down a little bit,” and I can set myself back up on a better path.

[00:23:53] It’s when those emotions kinda get out of control, it’s really hard to recover. And once you kinda lose control of [00:24:00] that, it’s hard to bring… You know, if I go to you and you’re completely losing your mind, I go, “Hey, hey, just calm down,” that’s not very

[00:24:05] helpful. It actually

[00:24:05] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:24:06] Dave Berke: things worse.

[00:24:07] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:24:08] Dave Berke: if at a, you know, a little bit of escalation we see in each other, we’re starting to get a little frustrated and we can intervene then, know, as adults, as leaders you know, as people who, who are learning about themselves, if you can be humble enough to recognize what that’s like for you, you can do a much better job intervening and preventing it from happening, which is really the goal.

[00:24:25] And I think, you know, that’s a little maturity, it’s a little humility, it’s open-mindedness, it’s self-awareness, but

[00:24:30] ultimately, it’s good leadership.

[00:24:32] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I, I remember years ago, I, I was learning to scuba dive, and one of the things that the instructor told us is, “Just don’t panic when you’re underwater,” and I know easier said than done sometimes when, you know, your mask f- falls off or, you

[00:24:47] Dave Berke: Yeah

[00:24:48] Scott DeLuzio: you can’t find your, your air or anything like that.

[00:24:50] So, easier said than done. But I– then again, a few years later, something happened where my, my mask got knocked off and I’m sitting there [00:25:00] underwater and I’m, I’m having this, this problem, and I’m thinking to myself, “Okay, don’t panic,” like, because it’s not gonna help me. I’m, you know, however, 60 feet underwater, and that’s not gonna help me by panicking.

[00:25:10] And you know, I… Now I just need to figure out, okay, what do I need to do to solve this, this problem? I need to calm down. I obviously– I, I can’t breathe because I didn’t have my, my regulator in my mouth, so, you know, I’m, I’m kinda screwed as far as that goes. So, I need to calm down and I need to figure out, okay, first things first, what do I need to do?

[00:25:30] And then do those things to solve the problem and just work through it. And then once when you do, then, then y- you can kinda get that sigh of relief and be like, “Okay, good. I, I didn’t panic. I didn’t, didn’t lose, lose control of the situation.” It was scary maybe at that time, but at the, the same time, once when you, you think through what needs to be done you, you kinda just, in my mind anyways, w- what happened with me, I, I distract myself with this checklist of things I need to do, you know?

[00:25:58] I, I need to be able to breathe. I need to [00:26:00] be able to see. I need to get all this, this stuff back i- in order. And if I, if I just start panicking, I’m, I’m not gonna be able to do any of that stuff. And so, you know, I, I just kinda worked through that checklist until I got through it and then everything was back to normal and I was, I was good to go.

[00:26:14] But you know, it’s again, just not panicking and, and working through the problem and, and figuring it out. So, like I said, easier said than done sometimes, but you know, it, it is what it is. You gotta, you have to you have to work through these problems and, and you know, not lose your cool while, while you’re doing that too.

[00:26:31] You know, and I, I know just switching gears a bit, I know we, we talked a little bit about parenting just a couple anecdotal comments here. But you know, I know a, a lot of the listeners are– they’re either leading at work while also trying to be present at home as, you know, husbands or fathers or f- you know, friends or, or whatever the case may be.

[00:26:49] How do the leadership principles that you teach apply inside the family, not just at work, but like inside family situations?

Leadership at Home
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[00:26:55] Dave Berke: Yeah, I think it’s a great question, and what I’ve come to discover, you know, when I [00:27:00] started teaching leadership at Echelon Front, it was very business-focused. It was about the companies that were hiring us and we were

[00:27:05] working with. over time, the more we did it, the more questions we get asked, the more we understood how relevant it was to our family lives, our personal lives, in our neighborhoods, our communities, our homes, our spouses, our kids. I mean, leadership is leadership, and good leadership applies everywhere. And, and by the way, does bad leadership. You know, if you have leadership and attributes in the military that lead you to failing with your team or your platoon or your squadron, you’re gonna fail at home, too. So leadership applies in every capacity of life, every aspect, at home, at work, in your community, and, and within yourself as an individual.

[00:27:41] We talked about that earlier. so there’s an undeniable link there, and I think something that I’ve really come to embrace and, and truly believe is that at home, I think, is where it matters the most. If you can apply these things… Listen, we go to businesses, we work at companies, we, we help them diagnose their problems, we give them some tools, [00:28:00] them solve their problems.

[00:28:00] It’s great. Gets them back on track, gets them back on schedule, gets them back on budget. Those are all great things, and that, that’s important. But if you were to ask someone to say, like, “Hey, I’m really struggling with my team that’s underperforming a little bit. We’re a little bit behind schedule, a little bit over budget on delivering this product,” and, “Hey, my kids are, are not thriving.

[00:28:18] They’re struggling at home. They’re not doing well at school. They’re on the wrong path,” which of those thing, two things matters more to

[00:28:23] me? I

[00:28:24] mean, it’s a simple answer.

[00:28:26] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:28:26] Dave Berke: turns

[00:28:27] Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely

[00:28:27] Dave Berke: yeah, the solution’s the same. so when we recognized that the, the, the principles apply at home and started tailoring some of the communication, some of the message, and some of the examples to apply in people’s personal lives, that’s when we saw the most important feedback.

[00:28:42] People come to us and say, “This has impacted my marriage. It’s impacted the relationship with my kids. It made my home better. It made me a better husband, made me a better wife, made me a better spouse,” whatever. There’s so much power in that, and I have come to understand that leadership is [00:29:00] exactly the same.

[00:29:00] Now, is hard at home ’cause your emotions are so closely connected to these people. These are your kids. These are your spouses. Th- these are the people you care about the most. So that idea of detaching from emotion, easier said than done, but ultimately, when you can apply the things that we teach to your personal life, that is where the strongest and most powerful and important impact is.

[00:29:23] It’s undeniable.

[00:29:24] Absolutely how you described it

[00:29:25] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And when things are not going well at home, like you, you mentioned, you know, your kids maybe are having trouble with whether in school or they’re just not thriving in, in one way or another you’re gonna probably take that to work with you, too. That’s gonna be in the back of your mind.

[00:29:39] It’s, it’s, it’s gonna affect your performance at work, too. So, you know, it, it has that, that impact across your whole life. It, you know, you can’t just, just turn it off as soon as you walk through the door at work and, and say, “You know what? Family doesn’t matter anymore because I’m at work.” And you know, it, it, you really have to be able to kind of balance those things.

[00:29:59] I know, you [00:30:00] know, people talk about work-life balance and all that kind of stuff, but it’s, you, you wanna be able to make sure that home is good to go when you walk into that door so that you can focus on work and, and get the, the job done. And if, if you can’t, if, if there’s so much going on at home, it’s gonna be really hard for you to be able to, to turn that focus for, for home, turn that off while you, while you’re walking through the door at work.

[00:30:22] And so, you’re absolutely right with, with what you’re saying there. I, I, I totally agree.

[00:30:27] You know, and going back to the, the veteran aspect you know, I, I think sometimes a lot of us get the the transition wrong when, when we’re trying to apply, like, military leadership lessons to the civilian workplace.

[00:30:40] You know, the way you talk to somebody in the military might not be the best way to talk to folks in a civilian workplace. And you know, we, we try to take that, all those skills and stuff, especially people who, you know, they graduate high school at, you know, 18 years old or so, and they join the military, spend 20-plus years in the military, and then they jump into [00:31:00] the civilian workplace.

[00:31:01] The– All they ever knew was a military environment as far as their career goes. It, it’s kind of hard to just turn that off. What are some of the things that you, you think that might help folks you know, kind of make that transition and, and kind of flip that switch a little bit easier?

Military-to-Civilian Transition
—

[00:31:16] Dave Berke: Yeah, I’m imagining, you know, the conversations how I used to talk to Marines and other pilots and in the ready room and, you know, 23 years of building the habit of, know, how you talk, the words you use the jokes you make. That doesn’t always translate perfectly. Now, listen, you know, to that point, you gotta authentically be yourself.

[00:31:35] You should not go out into the private sector and become some sort of robot. definitely wanna consider how you communicate and, and, and the, the, the way in which you, you deliver that. You know, I think having a family is, is, is a really good, And, and if you don’t have it, you can learn this. This is not something that’s, it’s a requirement.

[00:31:53] But, you know, I had a family, you know, while I was in the Marine Corps. You know, married with kids during my time in the Marine Corps. And one of the things that I [00:32:00] learned, and I learned this from my wife, and she has said this in my career, had said it more than once, is just like, “Hey, I’m not one of your Marines.” that was kind of her way of catching me, like I had slipped into maybe just some habitual tendencies and habits of how I might talk to a fellow pilot or a fellow Marine. Hey, these people aren’t your Marines. These people aren’t your soldiers. And so the point behind that is, you know, I think it’s a very good lesson in life, and something that it’s really not hard to cultivate this if you spend a little time thinking about it, is Everybody’s a little bit different. And how you interact with people, really you should always be looking for the best way to interact and the best way to communicate with someone that’s in their best interest. Rather than be like, “Hey, this is just how I am, you gotta just deal with it,” I always look to see what is the best way. I say this to my kids all the time, you know? communicate with my kids in ways I wish I never had to, but, you know, I got, you know, a couple of teenage daughters and, and they like using, you know, social media and stuff, and I can message them and they’re much happier doing [00:33:00] that than calling on the phone or, or talking in person sometimes. You know, like, okay, I’ll do it your way.

[00:33:04] And if it’s a better way to share interactions that way, ’cause that’s how they want it, I try to be a little more accommodating. And I think the point behind that is I think the best thing you can do when you transition out to start to build good habits is try to just focus on the strength of the relationship with the people you’re meeting for the first time.

[00:33:21] These are new folks. And one of the key elements of building a strong relationship is acclimating and accommodating them. You know, learning about them, learning what their interests are, learning how they like to do certain things, and try to adjust your way to strengthen that relationship is a really good way to do it.

[00:33:36] If your goal is to walk in and you’re like, “Hey, this is who I am and how I am, and I’m not gonna change,” your relationships are gonna suffer. And the best thing you can do when you get out of the military and transition to the private sector is the same thing you did in the military, which is strengthen the relationships as best you can.

[00:33:51] And one of the key elements of a strong relationship with someone that you just met and new is learning how they are, what makes them tick, what their preferences are, what they [00:34:00] like, what they dislike, and trying to make some adjustments and having the humility to make the change to acclimate to them.

[00:34:06] And that will help you with them. It’ll help you recognize that the way I might have talked to, you know, the Marines in the Red Room doesn’t work for everybody. And if

[00:34:14] you’re lucky enough to meet some folks that been, that cool, you can share that experience, and then that’s good to go. But like my wife always reminded me, “I’m not one of your Marines.”

[00:34:21] Well, neither are your friends in this new job, neither are your neighbors, neither is this new community. They’re just people. Learn about them, strengthen that relationship, meet them where

[00:34:28] they are, and that’ll help you a- along the way.

[00:34:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and it doesn’t,

[00:34:31] To that point, it, I don’t think you’re, you, you mean necessarily, like, don’t be yourself, you know?

[00:34:36] Dave Berke: Exact-

[00:34:36] Scott DeLuzio: also, you know, you know, be yourself, but also, you know, be accommodating to, to that, that person. If, if they’re, they’re not gonna, you know, take those jokes that you, you told in the Marine Corps they’re not gonna take those jokes the same way that a Marine might.

[00:34:50] You know, maybe leave those jokes at the door and, and and don’t kinda go down that path with them. But you know, you, you can, you can be flexible, too, I think. you

[00:34:58] Dave Berke: Yeah,

[00:34:58] Scott DeLuzio: still be yourself [00:35:00] with- without

[00:35:01] having the, the the intensity. You know, maybe, maybe kinda just water it down a bit and, and kinda calm it down just a bit so it’s not so in your face and so, you know, unpalatable for some people to, to kinda take,

[00:35:15] Dave Berke: advice. It’s

[00:35:16] Scott DeLuzio: I,

[00:35:16] know a lot of us,

[00:35:17] In, in the military, veterans and, and whatnot definitely, you know, we would get along just fine having the conversations that we normally would’ve had in, in the military. And we wouldn’t have a problem with it, but when you take that outside to, to other folks, it, it just doesn’t hit the same way that, that it, it would with, with another veteran or another service member or something.

[00:35:38] So, so that’s, it’s a, a tough thing, but it’s, it really does help to build the trust amongst folks and you know, create a new team that get that com- camaraderie that a lot of us miss when we get out of the military. I, I think those things are, are really a big big piece of it, is just working to, to build that team together and and, and, and those relationships all- all together, like you,

[00:35:58] Dave Berke: Yeah.

[00:35:59] Scott DeLuzio: were talking about, you [00:36:00] know?

[00:36:00] Dave Berke: That’s right

[00:36:01] Scott DeLuzio: and we were talking about ownership before a little bit, too, and I, I think there’s, there’s a, a fine line between taking ownership of your mistakes and, and the things that might have gone wrong, and then completely beating yourself up over them. You know, and I, I think that it’s, it’s kinda tough to find that balance sometimes, but it’s, I think it’s also necessary.

[00:36:19] You know, and so when you’re, you’re like, “Hey, you know, this is just how I am in you know, this kind of environment and this is just who I am,” well, maybe you need to take a step back and say, “Hey, I need to take ownership of this and, and you know, kinda change a little bit of of, of that just so I, I can get along with these people.

[00:36:37] And, you know, I gotta work with these people. I can’t really change that unless I go g- find another job, but I need to do something about that.” Versus you know, beating yourself up and saying, “Well, nobody gets me and I, I’m just you know, this outcast and nobody’s gonna, you know, be able to deal with me or, or whatever.”

[00:36:51] And you know, it’s a totally different game when you, you take a little bit of ownership of that versus, you know, totally beating yourself up over, over that kinda situation, too, [00:37:00] right?

Ownership & Balance
—

[00:37:01] Dave Berke: Yeah, and you brought up a really good point inside there, and I think ultimately the word that you used is the right word, is there’s a balance inside there. There absolutely is. And maybe one of the most ironic things about the title of the book, Extreme Ownership, is that you probably shouldn’t, for the most part, be operating in the extremes.

[00:37:17] The extremes are places for the most part we want to avoid. I think in that regard, you know, if there’s an attribute about you, there’s a, a tendency that you might have or just a natural state of things, hey, that’s okay, but that doesn’t mean you can’t soften that a little bit or make some adjustments or look to strike a little bit of a balance inside there. And I think the true… that is true for the idea of ownership as well. You know, we certainly believe in the idea that if there’s one place that you really wanna push the limits is you try to want to take as much ownership of you c- as you can. But if that becomes negative or debilitating or destructive or counterproductive, we’re not doing it right.

[00:37:51] We’re, we’re out of balance. So even in the idea of taking ownership, there is a balance around that, and I think you said a really good example of that. [00:38:00] I absolutely wanna take personal responsibility for those things. At the same time, I have to be my authentic self and be who I am, and that doesn’t mean I should be rigid and inflexible and it doesn’t mean I should completely reinvent myself, you know, as, as a, as a fake production to, to, to impress other people.

[00:38:17] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:38:18] Dave Berke: inside there between being who I are, who I am, and accommodating for the people around me to try to find, you know, some moderate middle ground there. And ownership is no different. If you’re, you’re taking it so much that it’s starting to, to feel destructive, you’re doing too much, you’re doing it wrong, you’re doing it you know, out of balance, find that, that good balance.

[00:38:37] And balance, by the way, I think is a good a- approach to all things. Try to be balanced as often as you can. Like I said, it’s ironic. Avoid the

[00:38:45] extremes as often as you can

[00:38:47] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And

[00:38:48] you’re, you’re right, it is ironic, you know, that is the, the name of the book there, and it’s, it’s a great book and, and it has a lot of great lessons in it. But, but, you know, the, the extremes, like for, for me just as an example, I, [00:39:00] I find that I operate in chaos pretty well. Like I, I can find I- the calm in the chaos and I, I can, I can figure my way through those types of situations.

[00:39:12] A few, a little while ago my wife had a, a medical issue and you know, I was on the phone with paramedics or, you know, 911 and, and all that, and I was about as calm as you could be. My kids were freaking out. My… You know, but I was like, just, I was calm. I was, “Hey, this is the, the situation in front of me.

[00:39:28] I’m just gonna, you know, focus on this and, and, and deal with that situation.” And but to that point, I, I don’t wanna operate in that all the time, you

[00:39:36] Dave Berke: Yeah.

[00:39:37] Scott DeLuzio: those extremes at all costs, you know? Those types of things are not… i’m glad that I was able to handle that situation well and it turned out with a, a positive outcome and, and that- that’s great, but I don’t wanna live there.

[00:39:49] I don’t wanna live in a constant state of chaos and a constant state of these extreme whether it’s emotions or, or, you know, things that are going on in your life. That’s, that’s [00:40:00] to me just too much and I, I think I, I need to you know, stay away from those as much as possible. But knowing that if those s- situations do come up, I can handle them, and that-

[00:40:12] Dave Berke: Yeah

[00:40:12] Scott DeLuzio: a good thing, you know?

[00:40:13] And so, you know, to your point, you know, avoid those extremes if you can and, and live somewhere in the middle, you know? And, and yeah, of course that, that balance is gonna swing one way or another and sometimes it’s gonna swing real far to the left or to the right and, and you’re gonna have to deal with that at that point.

[00:40:27] But you know, try to, try to level it out and get back to the center as, as quickly as you can, and I think that’s, that’s the best way to deal with it. You know. And, and so kinda to wrap the, the, this up and kinda put this all together here, for, for the veteran who might be listening here who’s, who’s feeling stuck in their life, maybe, maybe it’s their job, their family or just maybe just stuck in their own head g- can’t get out of their own way and that, that type of thing,

[00:40:51] Dave Berke: Yeah

[00:40:51] Scott DeLuzio: what is one leadership principle that you think they could apply today to just start moving in a better direction, to, to get themselves on a better [00:41:00] path?

[00:41:00] Dave Berke: Yeah.

Finding Your Path After Service
—

[00:41:01] Dave Berke: One of the things that was really remarkable to me when I left the Marine Corps, I had grown up my entire life just completely committed to the idea of being a fighter pilot in the Marine Corps. I was obsessed with it. It just, you know, from about 13, 14, 15 years old, like that’s, it was my entire life was geared towards that. And amazingly, I left the Marine Corps, you know, 20-plus years later because I’d lost a little bit of that passion. I had lost some of

[00:41:28] that. And what I discovered was there’s a whole nother world that’s out there that’s so much bigger than I had ever realized, and it’s really hard to see that when you’re singularly focused, and it’s really hard to see that when you’re kind of borderline obsessed about it.

[00:41:45] And listen, a lot of folks in the military, the men and women that join, it- to, to their credit, they- they’re fully, fully committed to that. And it’s hard to recognize that there might be something else out there that, that you can drive and derive the same interest, the same passion, and the [00:42:00] same positivity that comes from that.

[00:42:01] But I’m telling you, it’s there, and what it requires is you gotta look for it a little bit. And I think it gets back to something that we talked about earlier about what is the motivation of the transition? What are you looking for? know, I, I don’t begrudge anybody that wants to have a good, stable job where you make g- money and can comp- and can provide for your family.

[00:42:20] I, I think that’s a wonderful thing. But if that comes at the expense of of passion, of commitment, engagement, the things that really draw you to that, it is just a matter of time before that is corrosive. And to your point earlier aw- as well, it won’t just be corrosive for you, it’ll be corrosive for the people around you.

[00:42:42] So I think there’s a really important exercise of prioritize and execute as you’re m- making your transition, or let’s say you’ve made it and, and you look back like, “Man, I don’t feel like I ended up in the right spot,” first thing tell yourself is, “Hang on. Take a deep breath. There is an entire world out there.” There is something that you [00:43:00] can and will find that c- that invokes that same interest. And if you can remove yourself from what you were doing in the past, saying, “Okay, that is in the past, I’m gonna go do something different,” and you think about the things you care about, the things that you’re interested, what you’re gonna discover is there’s a whole bunch of different options. And there’s a little bit of a mechanical process in doing that, and you make a checklist and do those things. But ultimately, have to find something that you believe in. Now, if you believe in this thing, whatever it, I don’t care what it is. D- doesn’t m- I have no judgment of any job that you might wanna do or any profession you, you, you pursue. If you find interest and belief in it, and you take the lessons from the military, you work really, really hard, which means you’re good at it, I can guarantee you what will follow will be the success and the money and the stability that comes with it. So part of that is just getting it in the right order. And so if you find yourself stuck or find yourself frustrated or just find yourself not where you wanted to be, there’s a potential that we have those things out of order, and you might have to take [00:44:00] a little step back- Acknowledge maybe you put yourself in a place you don’t wanna be. Salvageable, fixable, no factor, good. Let’s start to think about what you really care about, what you’re interested in. Then you can pursue that in a way that you find what that is, you believe in what that is, you make an effort to get involved in that. You’re good at that, you commit to that. The byproduct will be is you will find that success, you will find that stability, you will find the outcome, and it’ll be positive for everybody, and your life will get better. Anything you wanna do, you can do.

[00:44:28] That opportunity is out there

[00:44:30] Scott DeLuzio: That’s amazing.

[00:44:31] That’s such great advice. Dave, I, I wanna thank you so much for coming on the show and, and sharing these leadership insights and all, all these principles that you’ve, you’ve been able to share. Before we wrap up where can people go to find out more information about you and, and Echel- Echelon Front and everything else that, that you’re into?

[00:44:49] Dave Berke: E- easiest thing to do is straight up just go to echelonfront.com. That’s our website. That’s a

[00:44:54] Scott DeLuzio: Perfect

[00:44:54] Dave Berke: consultancy. There’s links to me there. If you’re really bored, you can just, you know, Google my name, Dave Berke. As long as you spell it [00:45:00] B-E-R-K-E, you’ll find everything from, you know, the podcast we talked about, the books that we all wrote.

[00:45:04] Just, it’s all out there. But

[00:45:05] Echelon Front’s an easy way to get ahold of me, and I’m on social. And if anybody listening to this wants to ask me a question, fire away. I’m pretty good about, you know, at least Instagram, I’m pretty good about

[00:45:13] answering questions, or, or YouTube. So,

[00:45:15] Scott DeLuzio: Excellent

[00:45:16] Dave Berke: interact with anybody, especially veterans, you know, going through this, this search for themselves.

[00:45:20] If I could ever help,

[00:45:21] I absolutely

[00:45:22] would love to

[00:45:22] hear from anyone

[00:45:23] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And, and for the listeners, there are a hell of a lot more insights from Dave here on, on the, their website. All these articles that you’ve written and all, all these things on leadership and all the things, you know, letting go of things that you can’t control and all these things that…

[00:45:38] I, I was scrolling through your, your page earlier before we get, got started here, and I was like, “These are some golden nuggets that you have listed here.” So anyone wants to find out a little bit more about Dave and you know, his insights go check out the website. I’ll have a link to that in the show notes for the listeners as well.

[00:45:52] But that’s, it’s a great place to go, and definitely reach out and, and get in touch with Dave and, and his team, ’cause I, I, I feel like [00:46:00] you guys will definitely find solutions for folks who are struggling with one thing or another, whether it’s in their business or, or personal lives or whatever.

[00:46:06] So, Dave, again, thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. Like I said, I was looking forward to this conversation for quite some time and you know, I’m glad we, we finally got a, got a chance to make it happen. So thanks again.

[00:46:16] Dave Berke: This is awesome, man. Thank you. Appreciate it

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Sometimes the hardest part after service can be realizing that discipline alone does not fix isolation, stress, or the feeling that your next mission is still out of reach. There is a way forward that includes better people around you, sharper thinking, and the courage to ask for help without feeling weak for needing it.

[00:00:19] Our guest today, Jason McNamara, brings a blunt, veteran minded look at building freedom after the uniform. From money in business to mental reset tools and finding a circle that actually understands where you have been. In this episode, you’ll hear how to start small, show up differently and stop carrying everything by yourself.

[00:00:40] Before we get into this episode, though, I want to take a moment to raise awareness for something I feel is important to our community. The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism.

[00:00:58] This memorial will be both a tribute to [00:01:00] those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:13]

[00:01:27] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Jason, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:01:30] Jason McNamara: My pleasure, brother.

[00:01:31] Happy to be here, man. It is a beautiful day.

[00:01:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Could you maybe just start by introducing yourself to sharing a little bit about your background? You know, just real brief just to let folks know who you are a little bit and and a little bit about your background.

[00:01:44] Jason McNamara: Quick story. I was born in the Caribbean, grew up poor in South Florida. I realized, you know, that taught me the life I didn’t want to build. So I took chances. I joined the Navy. I volunteered to go to Guantanamo Bay, and then I volunteered to assist the CIA with [00:02:00] interrogations. I earned a couple of Navy and Marine Corps achievement medals. When I got home, I took a job with the state of Florida’s department of Economic Opportunity, helping disabled veterans overcome barriers to employ. That job was hugely intrinsically rewarding, but I’ll be honest, the pay sucked. So I got into sales learned how to be a trusted advisor, broke records there, bought a bunch of houses, retired, started the No more Nine to five club, no more.

[00:02:22] Nine five Foundation.

[00:02:24] That’s I’M today, that the fast version.

[00:02:26] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, that was pretty quick.

[00:02:27] But it, you covered a lot of ground there in, in you know, what was it like? Probably 30 seconds that you had there that you, I think you got your elevator pitch down, down pat there. But you know, you, you talked about your time in the Navy, you talked about, you know, growing, you, you were born in the Caribbean and then you know, volunteering to go to Guantanamo Bay and, and all that kind of stuff.

[00:02:44] Was it you know, what, what was, what was your inspiration to join the Navy and and, and do all those things that, that you did there?

[00:02:51] Jason McNamara: Well, you know, I, I had a, I had good mentors and bad men mentors growing up, people that taught me to do good things and bad [00:03:00] things. And I leaned towards, you know, trying to follow the successful people who I actually wanted to be like. And, you know, teachers, police officers, veterans, I’ve always respected them.

[00:03:08] And I wanted to be somebody who had earned respect. So that was a big driver for me. Just to change the. Course of my life, right from the people that I was growing up with, the social circle that I had acquired, I was like, you know, I can do better. And I know I could, and I did. So, you know, I wanted freedom.

[00:03:25] I knew I didn’t want to be pour together or forever. And the military seemed like, a really good opportunity for me to level up, and it

[00:03:33] definitely did that.

[00:03:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s interesting because you know, a lot of people don’t associate the military with. You know, you know, high financial status and, and things like that. Like it’s, it’s not the best pay in the military, but it gave you some tools that you probably used to push yourself forward and, and you, you kind of made the best of, of what that, that had to offer.

[00:03:55] How, how did you see that playing a role that the military anyways, playing a role [00:04:00] in your, your future? As, as far as the financial freedom and, and things like that go.

[00:04:05] Jason McNamara: Yeah, no, I was blessed to have a mother that taught me financial literacy before we get that little crash course in bootcamp. And you know, the neighborhood I grew up in, I was blessed to, you know, have a little bit of stoicism and resilience. ’cause you know, I was hanging around with older kids who were not always nice. So bootcamp to me wasn’t. It wasn’t that transformative. You know, I remember my RDC yelling at me and me kind of just, yes, sir, while I was chuckling. Like, I can do 120 pushups in three minutes, or I used to, not anymore, but I was, I was that guy that wasn’t afraid of getting burned, you know, like, Hey, yeah, you want me to go again?

[00:04:38] 1, 2, 3, 1, 1, 2, 3, 2 really happily. so I always had that. But what I did learn was more morals, more character. I learned. ’cause I, I wanted to be around people I could trust, and I learned how to become a person that was trustworthy. I learned how to not have shame. I learned how to look at my weaknesses or [00:05:00] my failures as lessons learned instead of beating myself up. And that eliminated a lot of excuses. That’s why I was able to consistently break records and achieve whatever I wanted to achieve because. when you decide, failure is not an option, right? Especially in the military, you know, we train to win, you

[00:05:17] can win at life.

[00:05:19] Scott DeLuzio: That’s awesome. That’s, that’s a great way to, to think about it. Let’s fast forward a little bit. You, you also mentioned the no more nine to five club. Tell us about that and, and kinda what inspired you to create that and, and how that’s maybe evolved since since you, you started it.

[00:05:34] Jason McNamara: So 2020, I was still working in sales. I had hit number one in 2019, and then COVID came. And there was a, a lot of events from nasty custody battle and I’ve got full custody of my kids to to you know, not having any more records to break. I realized when I went up on stage and looked at how much money I had made the company versus how much I knew I was, you know, had as taxable income, there was a large disparity, and I had made smart [00:06:00] choices and invested enough where I was making more mo, more money, not working through my passive income than actually working.

[00:06:05] And I was the number one sales guy. So that meant. well. so it was just a no-brainer choice for me. I was like, I’m working for less than what I get paid for when I’m not working. My kids need me more than anything right now. Let me make this my priority, right? Because I can go sell anything to, for anybody if I choose to in the future, if I need to go back to work. So the transition came, you know, I put in my notice at work and basically just transitioned into no more nine to five. I started multiple nonprofits in my community. I was bored. I went back to school and got my MBA from the University of Miami Go Canes. And and then I had an inclination to start the no more nine to five club.

[00:06:46] ’cause I realized that there were people out there with gaps to excellence that were looking for improvement. They were looking for, you know, somebody to be a trusted advisor and point out. in their plan, right? You know, give them constructive criticism from a [00:07:00] place of love as opposed to, you gotta give me $5,000 to coach you.

[00:07:03] And I just, I saw too many people making bad

[00:07:05] choices for me to sit around and do nothing. So I started the

[00:07:08] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:07:08] Jason McNamara: to five clip. I started exposing scammers. I started exposing scams, and I started poking holes in people’s plants.

[00:07:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And that is a great service to have. I, I know so many people who’ve started businesses and they. They, they thought, Hey, I got this great idea. They, they had no way of executing it. And it may have been a, you know, a great idea, maybe an, an actual need in the marketplace. But they had no, no business experience and they had no you know, background on how to actually execute that plan that they had and, and how to actually get it done.

[00:07:46] And sometimes having someone there to just kind of nudge ’em in the right direction and show ’em the light for the, those things that they may be missing. In their, their overall plan. Might be the, the thing that they needed to make that thing [00:08:00] a success instead of a, a, a failure in terms of, you know, not not actually taking off and, you know, making money or helping the people or doing whatever the the, the goal of, of that, that venture was.

[00:08:11] And so it, it’s a struggle for a lot of folks. Especially I know a lot of times veterans are very much very much independent, which is kind of strange for, for a group of people who spent all this time working in. In teams where you have other people to your left and to your right that you’re relying on to get the job done, whatever your job happened to be.

[00:08:29] And then you get out of the military and all of a sudden you feel like, well, I’m just gonna go conquer the world on my own. And it, you know, it doesn’t always work that way. Yeah, sure, you might get lucky and you might be able to, to do it all on your own. You know, right, right from the get go. But you know, most people need some sort of support.

[00:08:47] You know, you’re only good at so many things, and there’s other people who are, are great at things that you might fall short on. And so if you can rely on those people and to, to help you out and fill in those gaps, that that can be hugely beneficial. And, and having you [00:09:00] know, somebody there who can poke holes in the, whether it’s a strategy or, or the execution or whatever it is in, in the, the business.

[00:09:09] That’s huge. As far as I, I can tell. You know, it’s, it’s something that, that I think a lot of people need, and it seems like that’s, that’s exactly what you’re doing here. So I, I think that that’s, that’s pretty great. You know, I, I think you know, when, when we’re talking about veteran specifically you know, that transition to civilian life is oftentimes difficult and, and we just don’t know.

[00:09:29] We don’t know what we don’t know as we’re getting out. You know, how do, how does your work maybe address any kind of specific challenges that, that veterans might have as they’re transitioning out? Or, or is it, you know, kind of, more broad than that?

[00:09:44] Jason McNamara: Well, we definitely assist veterans as they’re transitioning. So we give, we have a 5 0 1 C3 a nonprofit. When I started the club, I didn’t charge anybody anything. We wanted to give away a lot of value for free. But as we went forward. I realized that free wasn’t valuable to [00:10:00] everybody. So we started a 5 0 1 C3 veterans first responders and medical professionals on the frontline.

[00:10:06] They get free common clarity neuroscience, brain entrainment, technology free for life, to learn how to reset their brain.

[00:10:13] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:10:14] Jason McNamara: also have, of course, you know, all of our meetings, masterminds, courses. We have a ton of free stuff for everyone. Civilians and veterans alike. But veterans get extra free stuff, right?

[00:10:24] Because I can’t, and I wanted to, I love working with veterans. I don’t need y’all’s money. I’ve got my own. So let y’all wanna come hang out. Camaraderie. We got a veteran specific group in the club. and I think we have a much higher percentage of veterans specifically entrepreneurial veterans too, and veterans that start nonprofits. other non-veteran led organizations. So I’m definitely veteran focused. One of the things I did when we worked at the state. I was a veteran’s rep, so I only served veterans, but everybody in the office, they had to give veterans priority of service. So that’s, that’s kind of what led me to this line of thinking, like, if you’re a veteran and you’re here for help, you [00:11:00] can cut to the front of the line.

[00:11:01] I’m gonna make time for you. We, our experts are gonna make time for you because you matter. Right. And our systems, our tools, our people, it’s, it’s all meant, you know, something we touched on is closing these gaps to excellence. I have friends that have made many, many millions of dollars. They’ve got decades of experience, and I learned from them. I, and I learned from the mistake that they’ve either committed on their own or watched other people commit. And that saves me from stubbing my toe. Over and over and over again to have wise people. Good. A good circle around me that I can trust. And a lot of us lose that from the military going back into the civilian life, you know, we might stay in contact with some of our buddies, we’d also don’t want to be the, the guy who’s trying to hold people up on the phone all the time.

[00:11:42] Right. You know, we have respect for our fellow veterans and we can’t always talk to our our family and friends, especially the friends before the service. ’cause it’s like, not the same anymore, bro. I mean, I still love you, but. We just we’re different.

[00:11:56] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right. Yeah. And, and very often you, [00:12:00] like, like you, you had mentioned with yourself, you, you wanted a, a different path in life. You didn’t want to continue going down the same path that you were, you were going down and, and some people’s, their, their path before the military was hanging out with the wrong crowd and, and people who didn’t have their, maybe their heads screwed on.

[00:12:15] Right. And they, they were going down a path that you really didn’t wanna go down. And, you know, after. You do all the work to do something that you can be proud of. Like you were, you were saying, you know, join in the military, serving your country, all that, that kind of stuff is something you definitely should be able to be proud of.

[00:12:32] You don’t wanna go throw all that away and go back to the life that you were living before that was going down the wrong path. So, you know, sometimes you, you might, you might just need to have somebody who. Is not currently in your, your circle. You know, may maybe some of the folks in your circle, they, they don’t have a entrepreneurial bone in their body, and, and so like asking them for, for help, they’re just gonna say, oh, yeah, no, it sounds like a great idea.

[00:12:56] And they’ll, they’ll offer nothing valuable in terms of [00:13:00] you know, constructive criticism or anything like that. So, you know, just, just being able to to expand your network and, and open up to, to folks like, like yourself and you know, people who are able to you know, offer that constructive criticism, I think is, is is such a, a great idea that, that you have there.

[00:13:17] Now

[00:13:17] Jason McNamara: Thank you.

[00:13:18] Scott DeLuzio: talking about some of the, the folks who’ve gone through this, this no more nine to five club, tell me about some of the success stories that, that you’ve, you’ve seen from people who have benefited from, from this program.

[00:13:30] Jason McNamara: So let’s start at the lower end, right? So I’ve, I’ve helped people that were in a halfway house get into, and I’m not saying I helped them get in a house and I help them turn their life around. So they have

[00:13:39] keys to an apartment, they’re, they joint custody of their children, a vehicle to go drive to, to work, or to network with their local community leaders. that seeing transformations like that is huge. You know, spouses of disabled veterans coming into the community, getting to know us before she says, Hey. The reason I came here is ’cause I heard about y’all. My [00:14:00] husband sits and cries in the shower. He’s not present for any of us anymore and I wanna fix it.

[00:14:05] And then months later he’s coaching his son’s football

[00:14:08] league. Those are some of the transformations that have happened,

[00:14:10] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:14:10] Jason McNamara: though it’s not always financial. Of course, we have had people come in like, I’m gonna shout out Tim Miller puddles be gone.com. If there’s any veterans here that have a messy dog spilling water bowls or spilling water all over when they drink, this is a veteran who worked at the Chrysler Factory for 30 years. He came up with this patent pen product that’s a gravity fed but low, high side water bowl that actually doesn’t leave a mess. It’s got such a little amount of water in the bottom that your dog can’t even fill the jowl. So all that drip is gone. Like this guy came to us with an idea. Now he’s on his second shipment.

[00:14:45] Like I went from idea to patent to manufacturing, to, I’ve sold 8,000 units and now I’m talking to wholesalers in the uk. Like tho those are some of the transitions that have happened. I can go on and on, but I think you get the,

[00:14:57] a little bit of the scope right.

[00:14:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:15:00] Sure. Yeah, absolutely. And as, as someone with. Two English bulldogs who drool all over the place. I can certainly appreciate a product like that. And, you know, they’re, they are leaving water on the floor and drool everywhere and it’s, it’s a mess. And we’re constantly cleaning up under, under the water.

[00:15:18] I’m, I’m, I’m going to. I’m going to check that out as soon as we’re done here. So that, that’s awesome. But, you know, I, I think, you know, the, these types of things are, are something that you know, someone might be sitting there right now listening to this, this episode, or you know, someone who who they know might be sitting there with a, a product idea or a business idea or, or something in the back of their head and they just.

[00:15:42] It’s like, yeah, I think it’s a great idea. I just don’t know what to do with it. And, and so stuff like, like this is, is huge. But also the, the stuff that, that you’re talking about with, you know, getting people into stable housing and, and that type of stuff is equally as life changing for some people who maybe didn’t see the path [00:16:00] to get there themselves.

[00:16:01] And, and how do I, how do I get out of this situation that I’m in? How do I you know, make things right with my, my family? How do I get. You know, custody of my kids and all that kinda stuff. You know, what do I need to do? I sometimes you’re, you’re so far deep in the weeds of, of things you can’t even see your way through it to figure out which way is the right way to go.

[00:16:20] And having someone there who’s on the outside who can kind of guide you to in the right direction is huge as well. So, like you said, not, not just is it, you know, business. Entrepreneurial type things. It’s, it’s all sorts of things that, that can make a difference in people’s lives. And, and that’s what we’re trying to do here with this show is, is really just you know, provide resources and, and services that are out there to, to people that they may not know about.

[00:16:43] And, you know, get them, get them in that right direction to get the help that they need. And improve their lives. And, and why, why sit there and struggle on your own if there’s, there’s somebody out there who can help guide you in the right direction. So, you know, I, I [00:17:00] think that, that, that’s, that’s huge.

[00:17:01] But, you know, obviously your, your background in, in sales and your time in the military, all, all the things that you’ve done have probably influenced you in one way or another to be able to get through to, you know, what you’re doing now. Do you lean heavily on, on that, that background you know, of all the things, you know, accumulated in your background to help folks in, in the mentoring and the, the other types of stuff that you do.

[00:17:26] Jason McNamara: Of course. Yeah. I, we, we don’t gate keep, like I said, I don’t charge people to give them my

[00:17:31] best advice. That’s why I built this community.

[00:17:33] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:17:33] Jason McNamara: I do do. As I remove people who don’t show up with integrity, I, you know, my PTSD, I’m a hundred percent too, by the way, I’m just gonna say this quick story. You know, a lot of, there’s a lot of things that happen in the civilian world that we’re not used to from women lying to divorce, to people stealing all. And there’s people out there that are crazy. They just have no common sense. And I try to stay away from all those people. So what I care about. Is the integrity of the no more nine to five club that everybody in there is [00:18:00] receiving and giving help where applicable. Now I have a belief that every single one of us has been through experiences that make us valuable to other people in life. We have to realize that for ourselves first and foremost. So do I apply everything? Absolutely.

[00:18:14] And I’m still accumulating knowledge. I’m still

[00:18:16] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:18:17] Jason McNamara: day after retirement. That’s, that’s what really, so. I talked a little bit about the neuroscience, the brain entrainment technology, and when I started this, people want financial freedom.

[00:18:26] They want entrepreneurial success. And I realized that they’re not coachable. If they’re not learning how to think for themselves, I can’t save them, I can’t help them. So that’s why we have a neuroscience company called Mind Trainer Pro and know, it’s so huge for people to show up and to ask for help. You know, I learned this, if I don’t ask, the answer is no. If you have a dream, if you have a goal, help. I have a team of people from all over the world that come into the club and form a community that are willing to help. the type of [00:19:00] vibrations I wanted to put out is that we need to all make sure that our cup is full when we show up.

[00:19:04] So you’re not showing up like a des desperate, scared human looking to hunt because you don’t want to hunt. In my group, I’m a bigger hunter. I love hunting. But I’ll also. Protect, you know, I’ll protect the integrity of what I want and if I, I feel somebody’s out of integrity, I let them know. I call them out publicly.

[00:19:20] I give them a chance to, we make mistakes, but I look for people’s character and that’s why I love working

[00:19:26] with veterans.

[00:19:28] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and I think that’s one of those things you, you had alluded to this earlier in your you know, when, when you first joined the military that, you know, it wasn’t the, the physical things that were necessarily the toughest for you and but you, you found that it. Kind of instilled that integrity and, and the values and, and things like that in you.

[00:19:45] And I think that’s, you know, across the board, a lot of, a lot of folks get that instilled in them you know, early on in their military career. You know, some people, even, even veterans, they, they maybe struggle with that themselves and you know that that’s okay, I guess, you know, I [00:20:00] mean, everybody’s built differently.

[00:20:01] But. That’s not the type of person that you want going through your, your program because you want to keep that integrity high and, and you don’t want to you know, worry about people doing the wrong things and, and trying to screw people over. And, and that’s, that’s obviously not where, where you want your, your program to be, to be headed.

[00:20:16] But you, you did mention one other thing. I I wanted to kinda circle back to kind of the, the neuroscience and the kind of resetting your, your, your brain and, and things like that. That kind of piqued my interest a little bit as you, as you had mentioned that I, I wanted to circle back to tell us a little bit more about that program.

[00:20:31] Kind of like, how, how does that work and, who is it best suited for?

[00:20:36] Jason McNamara: So, the best way to tap into that is through the no more nine to five foundation.org, right? That’s where entrepreneurs, veterans alike can tap in and see the free resources. But if people go to mind trainer pro.com, mind trainer pro.com, that’s where we actually have over a dozen systems.

[00:20:51] We have 15 systems currently. Each system is relatively affordable. It’s $14 and 97 cents. Our. All [00:21:00] access is $897 per year. So think of this as like a gym membership. If you buy it and you don’t use it, and again, veterans are getting it for free. The call and clarity system, if you buy it and don’t use it, you’re not gonna get in shape.

[00:21:11] If you buy it and use it, your brain is going to love you back, right? You can give your brain a little bit of love. Turn off the tv. Turn off the bad news. Turn off the gossip. Turn off the problems. And retrain your brain. You know, we’re running on vibrations, so we have different systems. We just rolled out a system, called the Freedom Mind Method.

[00:21:31] This is for people recovering, breaking bad habits. You know, I used to like to drink a little bit back in the day before I learned how to control my thoughts. Other people struggling with bad habits, whether it’s gambling or whatever, we wanna help them break those bad habits. We have systems for self-mastery.

[00:21:46] We have systems for athlete, we have systems for confidence in public speaking and business and sales and golf pickleball. We have so many systems so people can do the things they want to do. And we’ve got a bunch of systems in the works, but we’re rolling them out [00:22:00] slowly but surely. ’cause we want to make sure that we get a good user base for each system, get the testimonials posted. But the, everybody has a brain. And the thing is, is people don’t think about their brains, but their brain spend their whole life thinking about them. We gotta turn that around.

[00:22:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s. Interesting. There, there are so many different things out there and, and your programmed are, are tailored to those, those individual things that people might want to, to do. You know, things like public speaking. I know that that makes some people, you know, so nervous. They feel like they’re gonna puke, you know, and you know, it’s, but it might be an, an essential part of the job or, or essential part of, you know, some career development if you want to advance and be able to you know, get to a certain level in your career that you wanna get to, you might need to start doing some more public speaking.

[00:22:48] And that, that, unfortunately if you’re, if you’re struggling with that, you’re, it’s gonna maybe hold you back a bit. So being able to kind of retrain your brain and, and realize that, you know, it’s just. They’re just people that you’re [00:23:00] talking to. It’s not like, you know, it’s like you and I we’re having a conversation, but if there was 400 other people, we’d still just be having a conversation and you know, yeah, sure.

[00:23:07] Other people are listening. But guess what? At some point when this episode is released, those people are gonna be listening. There’s gonna be, you know, however many, you know, hundred, thousands, however many people end up listening to this episode. They’re gonna be sitting there listening to it and, you know, we’re, we’re just two people having a conversation.

[00:23:22] And you know, it’s, that’s one way to, to look at it a lot people. Have trouble getting past that. And so it’s, it’s you know, great that there, there’s a program out there that can kind of help you know, retrain that, retrain your brain to be able to adapt to those, those different circumstances.

[00:23:37] But I will have a link to that, that mind trainer pro dot com. I’m gonna put a link to that in the show notes because I think that that’s, that’s important. And like you said, it’s it’s available for free to veterans. So, I mean. Really, you’re, you’re chipping away at the excuses that people have for not, not checking it out.

[00:23:53] Like there’s, there’s no financial excuses there. I mean, yeah, sure. There might, it might take a little bit of your time. You, you might have to, you know, put ve [00:24:00] some you know, time and energy into it. But like you said, just like a gym membership, if you, if you get the gym membership and never go you can’t really expect to lose the weight or get stronger or, or more fit, whatever the case may be.

[00:24:11] This is, this is the same idea. You know, you, you can, you can use it, but it. But if you don’t actually go through the program and, and follow its steps and all the, the things that it, it’s telling you to do you know, it’s not going to benefit anybody. So, so definitely gonna have that link there.

[00:24:26] So, so I highly encourage folks right now, like, go, go take a look at that and and sign up for it. If, if that’s something that sounds interesting to you. But I guess, you know, I, I always like to leave the, the episode with, with some sort of takeaways, some sort of things that, that can help help folks.

[00:24:43] Obviously that mind trainer pro.com is, is gonna be a huge thing for, for a lot of folks. They can go check it out the no more nine to five club, that, that’s another thing that they could check out. But what are some maybe just practical steps like day one, someone who’s isolated themselves, they’re.

[00:24:59] They’re just not [00:25:00] reaching out to anybody. They, they have maybe some great ideas or they have some you know, struggles that they’re dealing with but they’re dealing with it all on their own. What are some steps that, that folks can take today to just start building freedom on, on their own terms and, and be able to you know, break free from whatever it is that they were dealing with before, whether it’s a nine to five, whether it’s a, you know, bad housing situation or, or whatever the case may be.

[00:25:23] What are some of those steps that they, they can take today?

[00:25:26] Jason McNamara: You know what? Grab a pen and paper and start writing. me 10 things that you’re grateful for. 10 good things that you see in your life. Do that every day. So the neuroscience is based on the frequency following protocol and the things that we think about, the things that we look for, we find more of. So if you’re looking

[00:25:44] for bad memories, you’re gonna keep finding them. looking for things to be grateful for, you’re gonna keep finding them. Also show up. Our events are free. You don’t need a credit card. And if you’re a veteran, we’ve got your back. I’ll send you coupon codes for everything.

[00:25:57] So, you know, put in [00:26:00] notes where it says, contact us. Say, Hey, I saw you on this podcast, then I really need your help. Or maybe I don’t need your help, or, I don’t know if I need your help yet, but I’m interested in exploring more. You don’t have to sound needy. Nobody.

[00:26:10] We all have needs, trust me. But

[00:26:12] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:26:13] Jason McNamara: showing up, and even if you wanna show up off camera in the background, muted. If you’re not showing up to listen, to absorb, to change the circle, to change the vibrations and trajectory of your own life. We can’t go knock down on your door and build your life for you. We need your help in order to give you a good life and you deserve it. you’re watching this, you deserve it. You deserve it.

[00:26:32] You deserve it. You deserve it. So come take advantage. Ask questions when you’re bold enough. Come on camera and live a great life Break records. One thing that I learned at the state of Florida was to help veterans with their transferable skills. Every single one of you has done some amazing things, and maybe you’ve been part of an amazing machine, right?

[00:26:50] I didn’t have to clean my guns. I turned them back into the armor. I didn’t have to cook my food. I showed up to the galley. But you’re all now doing all things. You’re cleaning your guns, you’re cooking [00:27:00] your food, you’re also paying the bills and ironing the clothes, and maybe you’re like me. I give myself haircuts.

[00:27:04] That explains this, right? I like cutting my own hair. So if you like to do it all for yourself, if you like to do it all by yourself, just realize that

[00:27:14] that’s okay. If you want the help of the community, if you want support, that’s okay too. But you gotta show up and ask for it. ’cause we can’t just put it in in the mail.

[00:27:26] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and, and there’s, there’s all sorts of examples of people who are asking for help from somebody, and it doesn’t look like asking for help, like in a, in a needy kind of way. But, you know, you, you. You know, have your, your car starts making a funny noise and you bring it to the mechanic.

[00:27:42] Well, you’re asking that mechanic for help, right? You know, some people who, who don’t like to cut their own hair, they, they go to, you know, the barbershop and they get their hair cut and you’re asking that person for help. Like, Hey, my hair’s getting a little, little shaggy here. And I, I wanna, I want, I wanna look you know, a certain kind of way and.

[00:27:57] So help me out with that. Help me get to that, that point. You [00:28:00] know, you, you know, you go to the doctor because you, you have a, you know, aches and pains or, you know, whatever it is that you’re, you’re dealing with, you’re asking that doctor for help. It’s, it’s, I mean, we do it all the time, but then when it comes to certain things, we just, I don’t know, we let our pride or ego or whatever get in the way and we just, just completely forget that side of life.

[00:28:21] Life is meant to be, you know, you know, you know, along with other people, lived along with, with you know, folks who can, can help benefit you. And, and like you said, there’s nothing wrong with someone who wants, who likes to do stuff on their own. Like you, you might enjoy mowan your own lawn or you might enjoy, like you said, you said you like to cut your own hair.

[00:28:40] Like, hey, you know, those are fine there, there’s nothing wrong with that. But there, there are probably going to be some things. You know, you’re not gonna be. A master of all things that and anyone has ever, you know, asked you to do. And you might need to ask for some help for something and you know, just maybe take, take inventory of, of those things [00:29:00] that maybe those things that you do in life that either you’re not all that great at or you, you recognize that you might need some, some help with, you know, whatever the case may be. Or, or maybe you just don’t want to do them. You, you know, they have to be done, you know, I know the law needs to be mowed, but maybe I don’t wanna do it. Okay. So what are those things? And then kind of take inventory of those and figure out who it is you can ask for, for help for those things.

[00:29:21] And you know, I, I think having some sort of mentorship is, is not a bad thing either. And kind of like what you guys are, are offering here just, just can help you know. Guide people in the right direction, I think. And, and that’s, that’s really great. So I, I, I appreciate those those steps that you, you mentioned you know, earlier.

[00:29:38] Because those are, are definitely great, great steps to, to take. And really anyone can start doing that today. You said pick up a pen and paper and just start writing down those, those things that, that you’re grateful for. You know, honestly, I think, you know, if, if you are focused so much on the negatives, that that’s all you’re gonna end up with is, is those negative things in your life.

[00:29:58] And so, yeah, figure out you know, [00:30:00] even if it’s just one thing today, one thing that you can be grateful for, you know, write it down and, and start small. If, if you need to, if, if it’s really that hard to, to come up with a list, start small, start with one thing and then, you know, add, add onto it over time.

[00:30:12] But, you know, start somewhere. I guess is, is kind of the point, right? Before we wrap up though yeah. Be before we wrap up where can listeners go to connect with you and learn more about, about the, the No more nine to five club? I know you mentioned the website a couple times. Are there other places that you like people to, to go to?

[00:30:29] Jason McNamara: My name is Jason McNamara on social media. Jason, no more. Nine to five. At the No more nine to five club at the, at no more nine to five. We have YouTube channels and social media channels for Mind Trainer Pro as well. And you can tap into us, you can meet us, we’re accessible. You can show up to Zoom and hang out and raise your digital hand and ask your question and we’re gonna answer it.

[00:30:51] That’s the cool part. We’re real humans.

[00:30:53] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. And that, that’s, that’s awesome too, is, is that you guys are accessible. It’s not, you know, [00:31:00] you’re not a, you know, an an AI tool that, that’s, you know, some, it’s nobody on the other end of it.

[00:31:06] Jason McNamara: One, one more

[00:31:07] quick flow. So,

[00:31:08] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:31:09] Jason McNamara: we do over 24 hours of live

[00:31:11] virtual events every single month, but we only

[00:31:13] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:31:14] Jason McNamara: summit once every three months. So next month, September, wellbeing, and Wisdom. It’s the second weekend. If y’all can join us, I’d, I’d be honored to give you a free pass.

[00:31:24] Shoot me an email, contact me on any of my socials. Say I’m a veteran and I heard about you on the Drive On Podcast and I wanna make sure. That we’re giving you a seat. So if that sounds interesting, if you wanna hang out with us for three days, six hours a day, and talk about these three core pillars that runs the club, wealth, wellbeing, and wisdom. If you have any of the two and you’re missing one, life is just a little bit less fun.

[00:31:46] Let’s make sure you got all

[00:31:46] three.

[00:31:47] Scott DeLuzio: And, and the, the date for that again? You said the, the weekend, the second weekend in September.

[00:31:53] Jason McNamara: Second weekend,

[00:31:54] Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It’s probably like the

[00:31:56] Scott DeLuzio: Perfect.

[00:31:57] Jason McNamara: 14th. I don’t have the in front of me, but it’s probably right around there, [00:32:00] whatever, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is.

[00:32:02] Scott DeLuzio: Perfect. I will, I will get those dates in the, the show notes as well just to make sure that, that folks know when that is and and we’ll, we’ll make sure all your, your socials Go ahead.

[00:32:12] Jason McNamara: I’ll give you a coupon code too.

[00:32:14] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:32:15] Jason McNamara: connect with with me on that. Make sure anybody can just

[00:32:17] get in free and pass that they will.

[00:32:19] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Perfect. I will I’ll, I’ll get that from you and I will, I will you know, add that in to the, the show notes as well. And then, then you know, that makes it super easy for folks and yeah. Check it out. Check out the show notes. It’s gonna be a ton of information in those show notes. I haven’t written ’em yet.

[00:32:34] Obviously we’re, we’re still recording the episode, but I can tell right now there’s gonna be a, a wealth of information in these show notes. So, check that out. Jason, thank you so much for all that you do. Giving back to, to folks and, and helping them in all these different ways that we talked about today.

[00:32:49] Really the work is that you’re doing is incredible and I really encourage the listeners to reach out to you, whether it’s through social media, your websites, whatever the case may be. Get out there, reach out and you [00:33:00] know, get the, the assistance that Jason’s offering here. It’s, it’s incredible stuff.

[00:33:03] So, thank you again, Jason.

[00:33:05] Jason McNamara: Thank you, sir. See y’all later. I.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Taking off the uniform can be harder than most people expect. One day, your rank, your role in the military, your, your mission, and the people around you all seem to make sense. Then you step into civilian life and suddenly you have to figure out who you are without all that being visible to the world.

[00:00:17] But that doesn’t mean your purpose is gone. It means that you have to rebuild it around the things that matter most to you Now. Thi it might be things like your faith, your family, your service to other veterans or your community, and connection with people who understand where you’ve been. Our guest today, John Smith brings a perspective of a retired MAs, Marine Master Sergeant, a veteran podcaster, a husband, a father, and a man still working through what transition means after 20 years in uniform.

[00:00:49] This episode. And talk about giving a grounded look at identity after service, why veteran stories matter. How pride can block [00:01:00] you from getting help, and how purpose can show up in unexpected ways. Before we get into this episode, though, I wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s important to our community.

[00:01:11] The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial will be both a tribute to those who have served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

[00:01:31] If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:38]

[00:01:51] Scott DeLuzio: Hey John, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:01:55] John Smith: It’s great to be here, Scott. Thank you for having on.

[00:01:58] Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. Yeah, I was on [00:02:00] your show you know, the unsung veteran a few weeks ago now, and you know, it was a great conversation and, you know, figured we can maybe pick up the conversation from, you know, I don’t know where we left off, or we can just continue talking about some other stuff here.

[00:02:11] But for the listeners who maybe aren’t familiar with you and and, and who you are, maybe they haven’t you know, heard your show could you just give us a. Quick intro to who you are and share a little bit about yourself and your background.

[00:02:23] John Smith: Absolutely fir yeah. No, I, I thank you for asking. I,

[00:02:26] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:02:27] John Smith: I don’t really have a well rehearsed intro for myself other than, you know, why I’m on the show, why I have a podcast is I’m a veteran myself. So retired Marine did 20 years, and the Marine Corps retired as a Mass Sergeant. So if you wanna know what I did, and I was kind of in the A BH community. so tactical error defense controller, it’s been a while since I said that. Like TADC, so Air Defense Controller MS was 72, 36, did that for 20 years. What I, what I am now is just a, you know, first I’m. A Christian [00:03:00] follower of Jesus Christ. Second, I’m a husband and I’m a father.

[00:03:04] And lastly, you know, I, I work and I, I run a, a podcast,

[00:03:08] Scott DeLuzio: Awesome.

[00:03:08] John Smith: like to put ’em in those orders.

[00:03:09] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:03:10] John Smith: that’s kind of like my order. You know, but yeah, that’s what I do. I think that was good. Right? I don’t

[00:03:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. No, you’re good. Yeah, no, it’s, it, you know, and honestly it’s just, you know, I like to just do a little quick intro in the, in the beginning here, just to make sure that, you know, we’re all on the same page. Like, who, who is this guy? Who are we actually talking to? Why do I wanna listen to this guy? And, you know, you spending 20 years in the Marine Corps, that’s, you know, you’ve, you’ve done some stuff, you’ve seen, you’ve been, you, you’ve you know, been around the block a little bit.

[00:03:36] And, and so, you know, you probably got some cool stuff to, to talk about there. And, i, I’m sure you had some, some challenges, some rewarding experiences throughout your time in the Marine Corps. You know what, just, you know, real quick, maybe if you don’t mind talking a little bit about that, that time your experience in the Marine Corps and see you know, kinda what, what some of the, the challenges were, some of the things that you took away that maybe you still use in your day-to-day life or, [00:04:00] you know, maybe some of those rewarding experiences maybe that you, you experienced.

[00:04:03] John Smith: I mean, that’s a lot. I mean, we could cover it the whole way, but I, I think I start with the beginning ’cause I think it’s unique. I, on my channel, I like to talk to veterans too and kind of hear the whole perspective, like the whole person element. And oftentimes I guess when, you know, I’m inter I’m on the other side of the thing.

[00:04:17] I’m not, I’m doing the interview, so I’m not doing the. Answering.

[00:04:20] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:04:21] John Smith: the first thing is like, why did I do it right? Like, why did, why, who, who’s crazy enough to go and join the Marine Corps, number one, then stick around for 20 years? I, and honestly, I think that answer changed over time. I’m a fourth generation Marine so, The Marine Corps was a choice because my dad was a Marine, had two grandfathers, were Marines, so technically probably third generation, but I claimed fourth ’cause I had two that were Marines. And sure there was probably more behind that military service. So when it came time to to join the military other branches weren’t really an option.

[00:04:57] I was always told the Marines are better than everybody [00:05:00] else. I still firmly believe that ’cause we got that that competition between services.

[00:05:04] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:05:05] John Smith: But definitely I wanted a challenge. So, I didn’t join until I was like 22. I joined late, coming outta high school. I didn’t want anything to do with the military. I wanted to just start working. Didn’t want to go to college. I was just a knucklehead. But my motivation story to join is like. Probably like a lot of people’s I was dating this girl for like two years she said, you need to go to college. And I was like, I don’t wanna go to college. And she’s like, well, fine.

[00:05:33] I’m breaking up with you. And I’m like, what? And then being dumb, I was like, well, fine. I’ll just join the military. It, it was also around the time nine 11 happened and, you know, invasion of Iraq. So there were some other things going on, but, you know, I made a real quick decision that had a, a long lasting effect on my life.

[00:05:57] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. I mean, and, and if you think about it, [00:06:00] it’s continuing to affect your life because had you not joined, you know, way back then, you wouldn’t be doing the podcast that you’re doing now. You might be doing a podcast, but it probably wouldn’t be the same. Theme in, in everything. You, you might be into something totally different and you know, who knows where life would’ve taken you.

[00:06:15] And you know, I feel like anyone who, who joins yeah. There, of course there’s gonna be challenges in, in the military regardless of the branch that you choose. But you’re, you’re gonna come out with a whole set of. Skills and set of discipline and things like that, that you can then go and take and apply to your, just your regular life that you know, other people.

[00:06:37] I mean, sure, you, you can have that if you never served in the military too, but it, it’s a different path and you learn it in a different way and you know, it’s you know, literally life and death in some cases in the military to you know, whether or not you’re, you’re following the instructions or you’re doing the things that you’re supposed to do, and you know, it.

[00:06:55] It just makes you really pay attention to those things a little bit more than your average [00:07:00] person outside of the military. So, so I’m sure, I’m sure experiences that you, you had you know, especially you said tactical air defense controller. I, I believe is what you said. You were right. That, that.

[00:07:11] I mean, I don’t know all that goes into it. I was, I was just a, a grunt, so I, I just walked around and shot things. So, you know, but I, I gotta imagine that, that had a le level of you know, attention to detail. You had to pay attention to exactly what you’re doing to make sure that things, you know, air assets were where they were supposed to be, maybe, and, and things that were going on on the ground were being coordinated and all that kind of stuff.

[00:07:33] So, so that people didn’t get. You know, injured or killed you know, even, you know, accidentally you know, so, you know, and, and then take that onto, you know, a deployment. I know you, you also served in several deployments as well. So those things probably got beaten into you pretty hard along the way, right?

[00:07:51] John Smith: Yeah, I mean, all that above, like I think with, like I said, I’ve, my, my experience and my variations to the military changed, like my mindset

[00:07:58] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:07:59] John Smith: essentially, I [00:08:00] joined. You know, I make this funny story. I joined ’cause some girl broke up with me. But you know, like I wanted to get, like, I taught the recruiter, I remember I was like, Hey, you know, I wanted to get some, I, I grew up pretty poor.

[00:08:11] We didn’t have money to pay for college and anything like that. So I was like, Hey, can you guys help pay for school? And they’re like, absolutely. So then I joined, like, and I quickly decided I wanted to go to college and I wanted to become an officer too because I was like, oh, you know, I get super motivated from bootcamp and like things shift

[00:08:27] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:08:28] John Smith: One thing stick stuck with me though is I, you know, I was, I started doing school while I was on active duty and you know, just getting the education and utilizing the military to get that education day by day. Now it did take me 16 years. Like I was like active duty. What? Between deployments and, you know, earning my qualifications, like you mentioned, I was in a very technical job. and then, you know. As you know, the military kind of puts the military first oftentimes, and like, they don’t care if you want to go to school, so you gotta make time for [00:09:00] that and weigh it. So

[00:09:01] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:09:01] John Smith: me a while, but I stuck to it. My plans changed. Like I thought I was gonna get out for one enlistment. you know, fast forward get engaged. I was like, well, maybe I should stay in the military ’cause I, you need to help pay for my family. So I reenlist. Fast forward from there. You know, I get divorced ’cause you know, that happens too sometimes in life. And, but I, I had kids so now I’m like, Hey, I’m gonna stick around in the military.

[00:09:28] ’cause not only do I wanna finish this degree, but I also want to have the benefits for my family. And, you know, I want to continue to build these skill sets and have an experience. And so like all that stuff shifted to a long, long career. Retired now with benefits. You know, remarried have more kids and stuff like that.

[00:09:46] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:09:47] John Smith: all those things.

[00:09:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:09:48] John Smith: so I, I could cover, you know, different levels of being unlisted different deployments ’cause I did security deployment too and you know, also controlling error assets like you said. So you did your, your did your homework on my [00:10:00] MOS, so

[00:10:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:10:01] John Smith: I

[00:10:01] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. I,

[00:10:01] John Smith: it.

[00:10:02] Scott DeLuzio: I, you know, I did, I did do a little bit of homework on that because I, I was reading it and I was like, that. That sounds awesome. And you know, it’s like, I don’t know exactly what it is, but I wanna find out a little bit more. I’m no, by no means an expert, but I did a little light reading on it just to make sure I wasn’t, you know, talking outta my ass and, you know, saying the wrong thing.

[00:10:20] And, you know, making it sound like I never heard of this before, which prior to meeting it I never had. So, and, you know, so, so you talked a little bit about, about your family and, you know, unfortunately, yes, there’s ups and downs with family life, balancing that with a military career and, and all that kinda stuff.

[00:10:37] And you know, having kids, having a wife, all that stuff is, is challenging. I know when I joined the Army, I was single and I had no kids, no, no relationships, anything like that. It was just. Me against the world and I, I didn’t really care if you know, I, I got. I had to work late, you know, or, or, you know, we had a, a long, [00:11:00] you know, long training exercise out in the field or, you know, whatever.

[00:11:02] And it, like, it didn’t matter because I, no one was waiting home for me to you know, come pick up the kids from soccer practice or whatever, you know, I, I didn’t have to worry about any of that stuff. But by the time I, I deployed, I was married and had my first son, just like probably a month and a half or so before I was deployed.

[00:11:21] And, yeah, it all changed. Like my mindset was like totally different than it was just a couple years prior when I had joined. And it was, it was just like a, a totally different experience, but, but yeah, things, things change, life changes. And I, I think that’s kind of a important thing to remember as we go through, because, you know, you served 20 years in the Marine Corps, and I’m sure the, the John who joined day one of, of bootcamp was a way different person than the, the one who, you know, picked up his DD two 14 and walked out and, you know, was now veteran John and, and [00:12:00] not you know, not, not the same person as, as the young, what did you say, 22-year-old who, who joined? You know, it’s, it’s a different world. You know, when, when you walk away from that. So, when, when you did get out of the the military though, were there any unforeseen challenges that you had, any, any issues that you were dealing with you know, when you got out of the military?

[00:12:19] Because I know a lot of times that transition period could be pretty difficult for some folks.

[00:12:24] John Smith: I mean, my biggest challenge was like just taking off the uniform.

[00:12:27] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:12:27] John Smith: I mean, I, I, I identified heavily with my military service. I think when you go up through the ranks, like I was a math sergeant when I retired. I, I retired out of a very top level marine school too. I was an instructor at the Marine Aviation Weapons Tactic School, which is the equivalent of top guns.

[00:12:47] Everybody’s heard Navy’s top gun thanks to Tom Cruise. That was like the, you know, I was on the Marine side. We have our own version of that. And you’re a handpicked, so once you hit the top of your ranks, if you’re well recognized, you get to, you know, [00:13:00] teach at this top level school. I never retiring from it, and I only bring all that up because I had this identity in my uniform that, you know, I was, I’ve put in all this work, I’ve put in all this. know, effort. I’ve earned all the achievements that I’ve ever tried to do in the mil in the military. And the military is really good at, like, if you’re good, you get promoted. If you’re good, you get an award. If you’re work hard on this, you get recognized. When you get out into the real world and you retire, like you’re just, you’re just a nobody

[00:13:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:13:31] John Smith: the end of the day.

[00:13:31] I mean, not really, but I mean like that identity in the military where you’re. rank and your service is, everything doesn’t translate immediately to civilian life.

[00:13:44] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:13:45] John Smith: so that was like the hardest transition. I still struggle with it sometimes. I think that’s, it’s a balancing game

[00:13:51] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:13:52] John Smith: why like I wanted identify. Is what’s actually important to me now as a Christian, first, as a [00:14:00] husband, second, and as a father, and then all the other stuff, you know, I’ll get to it. Because. To me, if I said I had, you know, identify as a, you know, veteran master sergeant, they did 20 years in the Marine Corps. I haven’t dropped that uniform.

[00:14:12] I haven’t learned, I still cherish all that experience and it’s always gonna be part of me. But that’s, again, I think the, the transition part, and that’s really the best advice I can give to people as they get out, is re-identify and focus. Don’t erase. ’cause that stuff is part of your identity, but the, the uniform comes off

[00:14:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:14:31] John Smith: And you gotta treat it that way.

[00:14:33] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, that’s a good point. And you, you also brought up another good point too, where, where you’re talking about how you know, when you get out, you’re, you’re essentially a nobody, I mean, not to that extent. That’s kind of a little extreme, but, but it’s, it. It’s like when you’re in the military and you’re in uniform, you know, say you’re, you’re wearing your dress blues and you have your rank on your, your uniform.

[00:14:57] You have all the medals that you’ve [00:15:00] earned and you have the, you know, the stripes that show, you know, number of years of service and all the, all the things that show who you are in, in the military context anyways. And someone could take a quick glance at you. Look at you versus another master sergeant maybe, and, and say wow, that guy’s got a whole crap load of metals on his chest, and the other guy has got, you know, next to nothing on his chest.

[00:15:27] This guy must be pretty squared away. And so you can kind of do that really quickly, just like looking at people and it doesn’t tell the whole story obviously, because, you know, I, I don’t know, someone might have had, you know, one medal, but they, you know. Did something totally insane and awesome and that’s, that’s what they got it for or something, you know, you know, like, and, and so it’s not obviously the whole story.

[00:15:49] And, and I’m not trying to say that it all boils down to what’s, what you wear on your chest, but you, you can kind of do a little bit of that and, and kind of see you know, [00:16:00] in a, in a crowd of people wearing their uniforms, you can kind of tell you know, if you have a. You know, you know, an E one or E two who is, you know, with, you know, 10, 15 years of service, they probably screwed up somewhere along the line.

[00:16:14] You know, like they, they, they probably probably didn’t have their stuff together. Yeah, yeah. Big time. And so, you know, they, you, you can take a look at that, that stuff and you can kind of get a sense. For who that person is. Whereas now you, you get out of the, the military, you hang up that uniform and you walk into a civilian job and nobody knows you from anybody else.

[00:16:36] And you now have to like kind of work to prove yourself all over again. And you know, versus if you were in the military and you just went to a different unit, people would kind of have an idea who you were before, before you even really got into it. And so, you know, it’s, it’s hard sometimes to separate yourself from that, that identity that you built, like you were talking about.

[00:16:58] But it is important [00:17:00] because it, it’s not everything in the civilian world. You know, people will give you a little bit of credit because you. A veteran and they’ll say, okay, you know, this, this guy’s, this guy’s good to go because he’s, he’s a veteran, but they don’t necessarily care about all that other stuff, all the medals that were on your chest or that your rank or any of that kinda stuff.

[00:17:18] They, they care, okay, you’re a veteran and they lump you in with all the other veterans. It’s not really a, a huge advantage, like, like some other things might be, but or, or the way some other people might, might think it is. But it’s. It’s a thing that, like you said, it’s part of your background.

[00:17:34] It’s part of your, you know who you are, so don’t forget about it, but, you know, make it, use it for what it’s worth and, and then, you know, create that new identity going forward. And I, I think that’s, that’s pretty good advice there. Now. I wanna switch it up just a bit here and talk a little bit about your your podcast, the Unsung Veteran, and I, like we said earlier in the episode, you know, I was, I was a guest on your show a, a few weeks ago, and [00:18:00] so I, I know a little bit about the show just from.

[00:18:02] The experience of being on it. I had a great time having a conversation with you and you know, I, I liked, I liked how the conversation just kind of flowed and, and everything, and I have a feeling that’s the way a lot of these conversations will flow on, on your show. But tell us a little bit about the show.

[00:18:15] Tell the, you know, the listeners about the show and you know, what they can expect if they tune in.

[00:18:19] John Smith: Well, the first thing I can tell you is I do held, I, I feel like I do hold a unique angle that other veterans don’t. And the angle is I wanna know about the person first.

[00:18:29] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:18:30] John Smith: Doesn’t matter what veteran, doesn’t matter how many years they served, what branch, what their job was. I, I generally think that everybody has a value story, experience and something to share if they’re willing to share it. And I, and I go after that angle and conversations, because again, that’s kind of like that, that Christian mindset as well is getting to know your neighbor sharing your neighbor’s experience. I, I, I came. I, [00:19:00] I started the channel ’cause I actually was up late night one time you know, in prayer. And it, it popped in my head like, Hey, you need to do a veteran, a veteran podcast. You need to hear stories and, I just didn’t question it. I was like, if I’m being compelled to do this, then that’s what I’m gonna do.

[00:19:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:19:17] John Smith: It’s grown from that. I really enjoy doing it. It’s, it’s a process. So I started was it, I think November, but I really got into it in January. So I’m six months in. Yeah, I think you were on a couple weeks ago

[00:19:29] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:19:30] John Smith: and as ever changing ’cause and you can kind of speak to this too, when you start. The podcast journey, what you find out is you, at least for me, I jumped in what I thought was a, a small little puddle and found out it’s a ocean of information to know you have to have like scope you need to like, kind of give some direction to some of your guests sometimes and, and then really pull out your message.

[00:19:55] And I think when I first jumped into it, my message was too broad. ’cause I was like, any veteran, any story. [00:20:00] Which is still that, but I kind of want to again lean on that person element is like really get to know each person that comes on, let ’em know how important they are, how important their story is, and how you know how to tell that story. And even if their story is just, Hey, last week I was really struggling with this thing. ’cause it was like, you know, PTSD, the military and they don’t even talk about their military service, but they talk about their struggle today. ’cause that’s still that story of that person and I think it’s valuable. Yeah, it’s a whole lot of what it’s kind of about. I actually just launched a new website. I know you know, I’m pretty happy about that to kind of get people on to, it’s, it’s just every cha ever changing. ’cause in the sense that I think the more I build up my craft, one, I’ll get better at it. Number two, I’ll have more people on to tell really great stories. And number three, have a catalog that people can go and find like-minded people. Important stories important advice, and really help out each [00:21:00] other as a community. So that’s kind of where I’m at. That’s where I wanna build out.

[00:21:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And that, that’s a, a great place to go with it too. And I, I found with this show that oftentimes I’ll have a, another veteran on as a guest and. I have never spoken to them prior to like the five minutes before we start recording. And we j just kind of do a little quick, you know, get to know you kind of thing.

[00:21:21] And, and we, we start chatting a little bit. And then by the end of the hour or however long it is that we record you, you almost feel like you know the person, like, like you’ve known them for. A long time, you know, and veterans have a kind of strange way of connecting like that. Doesn’t matter the, the branch of service or even the, the era that they served in.

[00:21:41] You know, I’ve, I’ve felt like I’ve made that kind of connection with, you know, Vietnam era vets, I’ve, you know, even Coast Guard you know, veterans. I, you know, I, I, I feel like I’ve connected with them all. So, you know, I, I feel like we’ve you know, crossed over you know, a lot of. Different conversations, but you know, one of the things that [00:22:00] folks can take away from that is that they, they too can have that experience.

[00:22:06] By going out and having those kind of conversations, that doesn’t mean you have to go start a podcast and learn how to do all that kind of stuff. ’cause you know, like you, I realized there was way more stuff that I needed to know than I I did when I started it. I, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.

[00:22:20] I, I realized very quickly when I started the show. But so, you know, even if you’re not, you know. Technically inclined, and you don’t want to get into the weeds of starting a podcast. I mean, there are veteran groups out there. You can go find those groups and, and meet up with people and have conversations with those people.

[00:22:38] You know, and there’s, there’s groups that do different activities and might be something that you’re interested in. It doesn’t necessarily have to be, you know, an American Legion or a VFW where you’re, you’re sitting around. Just shooting the, shooting the shit at, at the bar or whatever, you know, it could be, it could be anything really.

[00:22:52] It, it could be you know, any kinda activity that you’re, you’re into, I’m sure there’s, there’s some sort of veteran groups out there that, that you can get involved with. [00:23:00] And, and you start to form those connections pretty quickly. A lot quicker, I think, anyways, than you do with. Just a, a regular civilian who has never served.

[00:23:09] Not to say that there’s anything wrong with those people, but you, you just have an easier time. I’ve, I’ve found connecting with, with the veterans sounds, sounds like that’s kind of your experience too, right?

[00:23:18] John Smith: I mean, yeah, I think it’s, well ’cause I think there’s a stigma, right?

[00:23:21] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:23:22] John Smith: and I could be wrong. I’m this is my opinion and my opinions only belong in my, my head, but that’s what’s not the point. But no, I think there’s a stigma oftentimes that either we hold of ourselves as veterans, that nobody’s gonna accept us, they’re not gonna understand us.

[00:23:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:23:35] John Smith: They’re not gonna be able to relate to me as, you know, my life experiences. And some of that may be true for somebody who hasn’t served. Some of it also may be false. ’cause, you know, regular people go through hardship and divorces and family problems. They may have not seen combat the same way, but they may have, you know, had a traumatic event, you know, with a, you know, car accident or a family member who knows. [00:24:00] So again, I think we have our own stigmas of relationships and we kind of put up this barrier. so oftentimes starting a conversation with somebody who’s not a veteran is hard on the same time you know, part of having these what I think is important about telling these stories, whether it’s your channel or my channel or another Veteran’s channel. Somebody else can actually learn more about the person that is the veteran and see that we’re no different. Like the truth is we are no different.

[00:24:26] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:24:26] John Smith: trying to like do the silly thing called life and get to the other end and you know, hopefully be happy at the end of it. Like our life had purpose and stuff, you know? So yeah, I think all the above. I think it is a lot easier to talk to veterans for me just because of the same things. It’s that barrier. Stigma. What is this guy does? Because, yeah, I don’t know about new, I don’t know about you, but I know that if as soon as I tell somebody I’m a marine oftentimes, and I serve for 20 years, again, not too many people know what a tactical or defense controller is, or there’s anything besides a grunt or [00:25:00] infantry, right?

[00:25:00] They’re like, Marines mean bullets, sponge mean, Ooh. And I’m like, okay. And then they get the stigma that I’m or that I’m like. You know, a gun enthusiast, which I am, but that’s beside the point, or whatever it is. Right. And, you know, there’s barriers there too. So I

[00:25:20] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:25:20] John Smith: opening up these conversations, learning more about not only the person but the service member, it helps everybody across the field, you know, even people that aren’t in the military.

[00:25:30] So.

[00:25:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and, and especially these days where a lot fewer people served in the military you know, there’s a lot fewer veterans I should say now than there were, you know, coming right out of like, let’s say World War ii where there’s, there’s so many. People who served at that time period. And, and then you move fast forward a little bit to Korea and Vietnam and, and all that.

[00:25:52] And, and so there’s a lot of people who served around then. And so people were a lot more familiar with the military, but [00:26:00] now a lot fewer people serve a lot. Fewer people are familiar with what goes on in the military. And so hearing these stories from you know, people on your podcast, mine, other, other veteran focused podcasts even, even the, the books and stories that are, are written and, and all that kind of stuff just gives people a.

[00:26:18] A first person point of view of what has what has happened to that person in, in their service. You know, some of it could have been, you know, a smooth sailing you know, Hey, I, I enlisted, I, I did my, you know, I. However many years. And no, it was all, all good to go. I didn’t have any, any issues and you know, I’ve, I’ve had people like that.

[00:26:38] It was like, yeah, it was, it was pretty, pretty smooth and easy. Other people, they had a lot rougher road. But you get to hear those stories from those in individuals and get to hear, you know, what did they experience? What affected them. And then, you know, also for the, for the veterans themselves, it lets ’em know that they’re not alone.

[00:26:57] If, if they’re listening to this and they [00:27:00] hear the stories that, you know, so-and-so went through something similar to what I went through, it’s like, okay, well, I’m not the only one. I’m, I guess I’m not, you know, going nuts for, you know, not being, not dealing with this, all that, that, well, maybe I, maybe I.

[00:27:12] Can listen to what this person did and, and get a little you know, insight into, you know, how to, how to maybe manage this a little bit better. You know, so, you know, those stories I think, you know, that you were talking about are useful in, in helping other folks out in, you know, whether it’s a veteran or currently serving or even the civilians you know, find find some sort of common ground and some connection.

[00:27:34] But has this helped you find some sense of purpose and and, and meaning after the military service, I, I know this falls pretty, pretty low on that, that hierarchy that you gave, you know, from Christian to husband and father and, and all that. But has that helped you out at all? You know, kind of moving out of the military?

[00:27:53] John Smith: no, I mean, I think it’s, it is actually it’s actually at the top of my list, like is first I wanna be a, you know, known as a Christian, [00:28:00] but. Like I found it through prayer. I felt,

[00:28:02] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. True.

[00:28:03] John Smith: I felt compelled that that’s what God wanted me to do. And I’ve been doing it ever since. I try to cur, you know, I try to take it as serious, put as much much of my much of me into it as I can and make sure it’s a good product. But at the same time, I don’t forget why I’m doing it. Which you, yes. If I find purpose, I do. I’ve, I’ve had, and again. I think I’ve only done like 23 episodes. I, I know there’s, I’m new to the game and whatever, but even in that small amount of time, I started out talking to my friends and you know, thank, they, they, you know, I had a couple buddies that supported me and supported what I wanted to do. In those conversations it was a lot easier ’cause I knew those guys. I started

[00:28:43] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:28:43] John Smith: but it also allowed me to. Like this progression, it allowed me to deal with things I had never dealt with mentally. and I think we talked about that on when you, you had on, ’cause you wrote a book about your brother and,

[00:28:55] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:56] John Smith: Really dealing with stuff that you didn’t have to deal with when you’re in the military.

[00:28:59] ’cause [00:29:00] we just oftentimes don’t cope with trauma. We move on from it. You know, I had some deployments where, you know, I saw some things that. normal people see and lived through you know, indirect attacks stress of, you know, having rounds come at you and you know, taking the time now to talk to other ve veterans that lived that same experience helped me take a moment and think about how I actually felt.

[00:29:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:29:30] John Smith: And actually deal with those emotions again, just like you said, that can help somebody other, somebody else that’s going through it. But it also helped me. I’ve also had other veterans on that have dealt with, you know, PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, failing businesses, alcoholism transition problems with their va. All the above and in this small little window of things and each one of those conversations is [00:30:00] so because I’ve had people reach out to me and thank me and I’m getting a little emotional, but just helping others is, is what’s what it’s for. So.

[00:30:11] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yeah. And you know, from you know, sitting in, in your, your place, putting myself in your place you know, I’ve gotten those kind of messages too from people, like people just reaching out. Like, just the other day I, I got a message on I think it was Instagram or something like that, and someone, someone’s like, you know, I, I really needed this to find this this show or something.

[00:30:31] And, you know, to me I was like, you know, I started the show. Seven-ish years ago or so now. And I, I remember thinking to myself like, Hey, if I can help one person with this show, it’ll all be worth it. Right? And then you get those kind of messages, even all these years later, and it’s like, I, I know I help more than one person.

[00:30:50] And it’s a hell of a lot more than one person at this point. And, you know, so it’s not only is it worth it, it’s, it’s growing and growing and who knows what that person was [00:31:00] going through. I don’t, I didn’t know that person. I don’t know, you know, were they. You know, thinking that today’s gonna be their last day and that they’re gonna, you know, check out today or something like that.

[00:31:09] And they, they come across a show and, and it helps them and it, it keeps around till tomorrow and the next day and the next day after that. And, hey, if that’s the case, great, we, we’ve got, you know, another, another person out there who’s who’s able to. Still walk around this earth and that, that’s a wonderful thing.

[00:31:28] We, we lose too many veterans every day and, you know, we need to, we need to come together, I think, as a community and figure out that, a solution to that. And, and if I could play a small part in that, then, then great. I’d love to play a huge part in that and, and to help bring that number, that 22 a day or whatever the number actually is, down to zero.

[00:31:47] But. It’s, it’s a big project and it’s a, it takes a lot a lot of effort and I don’t think any one person has the answer to to any of that. So, you know, but, but those types of things, those types of messages that you get from [00:32:00] people or you know, comments and things like that, it, it just, it means the world and it, it really helps motivate you to, to keep going.

[00:32:07] I, I think but. But also just knowing that you, you helped someone, you played a, a small role in that person’s life is, is just a, a great thing too. So, through your, your conversations that you’ve had with other veterans are there any you know, common common issues that people maybe are dealing with that, that you have seen?

[00:32:27] I know you mentioned a few earlier or maybe a, a better question would be like if you. Had a veteran come to you who’s struggling with either the TRA transition to civilian life or finding a new career path, or just dealing with life in general, like some, you know, whether it’s PTSD or you know, anything like that.

[00:32:46] What kind of advice would you give to them to help them get over whatever the hump is that they, they might be dealing with?

[00:32:52] John Smith: I mean, well, my, like I said, I’m kind of new. I don’t, and I don’t, I, I, like I said, I looked at some other channels and I think there’s some [00:33:00] that are like very. Specific to like transition

[00:33:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:33:03] John Smith: are specific to like you mentioned, like PTSD or like maybe like whatever. And mine’s so broad that I don’t, I, and I haven’t done that many, that I don’t have like a good answer of like, oh, what’s, you know, what’s the. Main thing that veterans are struggling with? I, I, I mean, if I had to tell you, I think the answer is all the above.

[00:33:23] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:33:24] John Smith: people, so we struggle with normal things. We struggle with anxiety and stress and failed marriages and, you know, addictions and having a hard time to find a job or, you know, being a father and struggles with faith, whatever it is. I, I think. My best advice for people is just for me, and I, I try to, I try to think of this too, is like, if a veteran reaches out to me, I’ll, you know. Make time and be there for ’em and work through that problem with them. Finding the right answers. I think it’s a lot of times who you know and getting good connections and if I don’t [00:34:00] have the answers, you know, I have a Rolodex of people that may have already dealt with that problem or reaching out to ’em, but building up that network understand that you’re not the only one going through it, even though most people, again, we’re hardheaded.

[00:34:10] We have a lot of pride as veterans. I think that’s, we’re a very prideful, we can do it ourself. That’s a unique trait that all veterans kind of share. And again, correct me if I’m wrong, but just not being so proud and accepting help from others and asking for help.

[00:34:27] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:34:28] John Smith: That’s the first step is not always having to do everything yourself, which is why these channels exist. So why the communities exist is understanding you’re not alone. We all struggle,

[00:34:38] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:40] John Smith: and. Reaching out for help. And then if you can help others, help others too. So that’s also important. ‘Cause it also gives you a, sense of, you know, accomplishment or a goal or something to work towards. I do think, going back to the original question you asked me, veterans oftentimes lose that identity and then they don’t know [00:35:00] what their purpose is. And that’s where they start to struggle. ’cause they don’t have a purpose every day to lace up their boots, go into work, finish the task. so now maybe your purpose is help another veteran or help yourself so you can be there for your family, whatever it is. But finding your purpose is oftentimes important, and sometimes you need to release some pride.

[00:35:24] For me it was prayer. I found my purpose through prayer. So,

[00:35:27] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:35:27] John Smith: all weird, found my purpose through prayer. But however you find your purpose, you know, I, I encourage people to do that.

[00:35:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. You know, and, and that’s a good point too, is that you. You’ll find that thing that whatever that purpose is in sometimes unexpected places you know, things like, you know, you, you said your podcast kind of came to you through prayer, and that was not probably what you’re setting out and expecting from that.

[00:35:56] What, when you started praying that night, you know, and, and so, you [00:36:00] probably didn’t expect this, this whole thing to, to kind of kick off. At that point, and you know, you never, you just never know. So I think, you know, another thing just to kind of add on to what you said, and you know, I agree with what you’re saying, is just being open to possibilities that you may not expect to be anything that’s, that’s even relevant.

[00:36:20] You know, you, you might, you might not think that the. Event that you might be, you know, thinking about going to, you know, whether it’s a, a career event or, or something like that. You might not think that there’s gonna be anything good for you there, but, you know, go check it out anyways. What, what’s it gonna cost you maybe an hour of your time and, you know, go, go check it out and maybe, who knows, your, your dream job might be waiting for you there, or, or, you know, something along those lines.

[00:36:45] So, you know, give things a shot. Try things out. You know, part of the reason why this show exists, not, not, you know, in addition to sharing the stories, but it’s also to share the resources. You know, I look at your podcast as, as being one of those things, as, as a resource for folks [00:37:00] to to check out and, and hear stories and, and things like that.

[00:37:03] But there’s, there’s so many resources out there. There’s thousands and thousands of different things out there. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to cover all of them on, on this podcast. I, I wish I could, but, you know, I like to cover things that oftentimes people don’t really think too much about because you know, we, we think about the VA and we think about, you know, American Legion and big organizations that have big presences and, and things like that.

[00:37:25] But there’s other small nonprofit organizations that have really cool services that they offer to veterans, oftentimes free of charge. And they, they take care of everything for you. And, and it’s really changed some people’s lives. And if you’re open to trying something new, then awesome. You can try that out.

[00:37:43] And you know, like I said, a lot of times free of charge. So it’s really not costing you anything other than a little bit of time. And maybe that’s the thing that you need to completely change whatever it is that you’re, you’re going through. So, you know, I, I look at all of those things, put that all together [00:38:00] as you know, kind of the.

[00:38:01] You know, way to work yours. You work your way through these struggles. And, and I, I, I think that’s, that’s pretty awesome that, that we have these resources available to us. Before we, before we wrap up here there anything else that you wanted to add, anything else that you wanted to share, either about yourself or about your show or just, you know, general information for, for folks before, before we wrap up here.

[00:38:23] John Smith: Well, I mean, and I do, I do this crappy job because I know we bring on, we talk veterans and I barely ever talk about my military service. But you know, like I think when I had you on, you told this really funny story about the golf tee using the like, I thought it was funny.

[00:38:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:38:40] John Smith: Maybe, maybe my listeners did too.

[00:38:41] But there was a, like a golf tee you used like a ammo or a spent

[00:38:45] Scott DeLuzio: A spent round. Yeah. I use it as a golf tee. Yeah. It.

[00:38:48] John Smith: You know what, I, I think I’ll give you the pleasure of giving a, a pretty funny story to you guys and, know, we’ll see if it’s PG or not,

[00:38:54] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:38:55] John Smith: and then, and then you can advertise it. ’cause not many, many people in my career actually know, I, I don’t usually [00:39:00] tell a story unless it’s over a beer or a glass of whiskey. So. You know, I’ll give you the pleasure ’cause I actually respect you a lot and you know, I want, I want to get out there and then maybe people can search it

[00:39:09] Scott DeLuzio: Appreciate that.

[00:39:10] John Smith: in my community we have this thing called call signs. So the aviation community one of the things we do is we control aircraft during the dog fight.

[00:39:17] So you watch Top Gun when they’re aircraft are going missile and missile. We consider ourselves fifth wingman. Oh. Oh,

[00:39:23] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:39:24] John Smith: really weird. We’re actually not, but that’s beside the point. My call sign was goofy. Just ’cause generally I’m a goofy guy. Goofy looking, goofy, whatever. That’s not what the story is.

[00:39:34] I got that name literally just ’cause I’m generally goofy. That’s kind of a boring story. prior to that, I had a call sign. And the way I got it was really real, really, really embarrassing. So I’ll go through that story and it’s kind of long and I know hopefully you

[00:39:46] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:39:47] John Smith: limit. That’s alright. So when I first joined, I told you I was 22. All right. And I think a lot of people have this like, idea of how perfect their military experience is gonna be. So I was old enough to drink you know, go [00:40:00] through bootcamp. I go through MOS school I get sent out to my first duty station. And when I showed up, the day I showed up it was like 2000. I went through bootcamp in schools. I joined in 2003. I think it was like April, 2004. Around that time is when I got to my first duty station. I got there at like 10:00 PM at night. I, I’m going somewhere with it, I promise. I got there at 10:00 PM at night, checking into my alphas, and the sergeant on duty was like, going through my record and he sees I’m old enough to drink. But the problem is, at the time, the barracks had a lot of trouble with underage drinking, so he is like, I can’t put you in the room. And I was a, I was a PFC by the way, a E two. He’s like, I can’t put you in a room with other e twos and E ones because you’re, I was 20, I think at this point I’d already turned 23. and he is like, you, you could buy liquor. And I’m like, yeah, yeah. And he, so one, he hands me a beer while I’m standing there in my uniform while he is getting me in a room. Another he puts me in a room with a sergeant. All right. Which makes no sense. The sergeant started hazing me later on ’cause I, [00:41:00] you know, I was a, anyways,

[00:41:01] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:41:02] John Smith: That’s another story.

[00:41:03] So the very next day I wake up my sergeant, different sergeant, get your. We’re going out to the field. So I guess there was this like field operation going on he’s like, we’re gonna take you out there, you’re gonna help tear down the, the unit, tear down the system, and stuff like that. I, I preference is this because he never took me to s my equipment.

[00:41:24] I didn’t have any besides the cammies I was wearing. And I think I had a, a canteen. even know if I had a canteen, I might have had a water bottle. I hadn’t even got through the unit to check in to get my. Gear issue to me, so go straight out to the field. So I’m thinking, I’m just gonna be out there for the day.

[00:41:42] He is gonna drive me back. Negative ghost rider, he launches, leaves me out there. So I’m out there all day working in the sun, you know, new to the unit. Nobody knows who I am getting yelled at from every NCO from every angle. It, it was just a, a pretty terrible and crappy [00:42:00] situation. Again, I’m leading to somewhere,

[00:42:01] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:42:02] John Smith: so the co. At the time, at the end of the day though, we had this thing called a beer tent or beer mess. And the CO gets in front of everybody and he is like, alright who wants a drink? And I led with a lot because at this point I’ve had a pretty crappy day. Pretty crappy check in working all day. I really just needed a beer.

[00:42:24] Like it was like it had to happen, but I got the CO up there and he is talking about nobody gets a drink until I hear a, a clean joke, right? Clean joke. I was like, okay, I really want a beer, like bad. The other Marines in the field already knew that if they waited him out, he would still open up the beer mess.

[00:42:48] But I’m new PFC on the scene, don’t know nothing. jump up in front of everybody, God and everybody, and again, nobody knows who I am. I literally had just checked in, dropped off in the field. [00:43:00] They’re like, who is this PFC here? I looked like I was like 12 years old, even though I was 23. And I, you know, I tell a joke and the joke that I told him, this is the, this is the, this is the, the embarrassing part.

[00:43:12] Mind. You had to be a clean joke. I told the muffin joke. Are you familiar with the muffin joke?

[00:43:17] Scott DeLuzio: I’m not sure. I might be, but go ahead.

[00:43:19] John Smith: joke.

[00:43:19] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:43:20] John Smith: muffins are sitting in a oven, oven, one muffin leans to the other and says, wow, it’s hot in here. And then the muffin says, oh, a talking muffin. of the joke. stupid. aware of how cheesy it is, but he said he wanted a clean joke.

[00:43:35] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:43:35] John Smith: was the only clean joke I had. that was gonna be the end of it. Negative. So I got my beer. No laughs by the way. More like booze. Booze. And who the f is this? Dude? I think there might have been some objects thrown at me. Who knows? It was 20 some odd years ago. What makes this the more embarrassing is from that point on? I was known as muffin. The muffin man or muffin or [00:44:00] it is. every time the CO had a formation, would call me up, where’s the muffin man? Where’s muffin? Get up here and tell a joke. then I was like, oh. So now I’m getting like, this is like ostrich. This is like hazing ostracization. I’m being bullied by the, by the unit leader. Everybody else like is remembering me by this. So I would get up there and I would attempt to tell any other joke and he’s like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Tell the muffin joke. Like, and I’m like, what are we doing right now? this went on for a while. This went on for a while. I got known as a muffin until I just learned to not I, if he would call me up, I’ll blame. I ain’t coming up there. I learned to like, ignore it. Later on I got a different call sign, but most people don’t know my original call sign. They don’t know the story behind it. I keep that one in my pocket most of the time. Unless somebody, unless I come across somebody who served with me during that time and they’re like, whoop it.

[00:44:56] I’m like, shut up dude. [00:45:00] So

[00:45:00] Scott DeLuzio: that’s pretty good. And I, you know, I’ve heard you know, other folks who, you know, whether they’re pilots or whatever, and they, they’ve had call signs and and the stories that go behind some of those are pretty funny usually, and, or.

[00:45:13] John Smith: Oh, it could.

[00:45:20] Scott DeLuzio: Probably made them cringe at the, at the time. And then they just, you know what, let’s just own it. And now I’m, you know, whatever their call sign is. And, you know, it’s, I guess it’s just part of the, part of the environment, part of the, the nature of what, what it is that you guys are doing. And you know, it’s just, you kind of have to take it in stride.

[00:45:38] John Smith: Well, there’s a history behind the, the, you know, the call sign. It’s actually like a, it is, been around since the World War two with the invention of the aviation, the controller and stuff like

[00:45:49] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:45:50] John Smith: So there is some tradition behind it, and we do take it very seriously.

[00:45:53] But, you know, there are always like funny stories that

[00:45:56] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:45:57] John Smith: lead to the call sign. But your original question is like, how [00:46:00] people can find me. So my new thing is like the unsung veteran.com, come check out, you know, come check it out. If dude, I want. People to come on and just share their stories, share their experience. Come on, let me let people get to know you. And then

[00:46:11] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:46:12] John Smith: if you wanna be a guest, by all means, if you just wanna come check out the environment, come check out the environment.

[00:46:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:46:17] John Smith: now housed on a website which couldn’t point to YouTube or Apple Podcast or Spotify.

[00:46:22] Scott DeLuzio: Excellent.

[00:46:23] John Smith: So that, that’s to answer your other question.

[00:46:24] So long way to get there.

[00:46:26] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. No, I, I like it. I, I like having a little funny story to, to kind of tie things up here. So that, that was actually pretty good. How that, that name kind of stuck afterwards. It reminds me of a. A show I was watching a while back big Bang Theory was, was the name of the show. And one of the characters, he was becoming an astronaut, but he wanted his, his his name to be Rocket Man.

[00:46:47] So he arranged for he arranged for his cell phone ringtone to be Rocket Man. And he had his friend call him and, and have the, have that go on. And the, the other guy on the other end was like. Is that Rocket man? Is that, is that what you’re [00:47:00] listening to? And then his mom like called up and is like, Hey, your fruit, your fruit loops ready.

[00:47:05] And then all of a sudden his name became Fruit Loops.

[00:47:08] John Smith: Oh, that’s, that’s great. for your listeners and my listeners you know, my call sign is still goofy.

[00:47:14] Scott DeLuzio: yeah.

[00:47:15] John Smith: I go by goofy for short but there is some history behind that and it’s official. It’s been that way.

[00:47:20] Scott DeLuzio: That’s awesome.

[00:47:21] John Smith: so if you reach out to me as muffin, you may not get a response.

[00:47:27] Scott DeLuzio: That’s good. Well, John, thanks so much for coming on the show. I, I, I really do appreciate it. And I’ll, I’ll have a link to your, your site and your, your podcast in the show notes for folks to check out. But thanks for coming on and sharing your, your experiences in, in the Marine Corps and you know, the, the stuff that you’ve experienced along the way and all that kind of stuff.

[00:47:45] I, I really do appreciate it. And you know, appreciate you coming on the show. [00:48:00] Absolutely.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Getting clean, staying sharp and protecting your family can feel like a fight that never lets up. One bad influence. One moment of grief, one old contact or one wrong decision can pull a person back into a place that they fought hard to to get out of. But there’s another way forward, a way to rebuild your health, strengthen your mind, cut off the people dragging you down, and become the reliable father, husband, friend, and protector that your family needs.

[00:00:30] Our guest today, Adan Castaneda, brings the perspective of a Marine Corps veteran recovery coach and intervention professional who has lived through addiction, mental illness, PTSD, and the hard work of rebuilding. You’re gonna hear in this episode, practical Steps for Sobriety, fentanyl, awareness Building a Better Fire Team, replacing Destructive Habits and finding Purpose again without pretending the road is [00:01:00] easy.

[00:01:00] Before we get into this episode, though, I wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something that I feel is deeply important to our community, the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism.

[00:01:17] This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:34]

[00:01:47] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Adan, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here

[00:01:51] Adan Castaneda: I appreciate it, sir. It’s an honor to be here, and it’s an

[00:01:53] honor to speak my voice and for other veterans and families out there and just try to educate

[00:01:58] others on, you know, the fentanyl [00:02:00] epidemic. So.

[00:02:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:01] You hear a lot about it

[00:02:02] in the, in the, news and, you know, different people talking about,

[00:02:05] you know, fentanyl and, and all that stuff. And you know, when I, I saw your information come through and I was like, “You know what? This is, this is kind of a big deal,” because you know, I know there are some, some purposes that, that it’s used for.

[00:02:18] It’s obviously, you know, a, a drug that’s been developed, but, you know, it’s gone down the wrong path in, in a lot of, a lot of places, and it’s been used for the wrong things and you know, starts, starts to you know, wreck havoc in people’s lives you know, across the country. And so, you know, this is bigger than just a veteran issue, but it’s, it’s a veteran issue as well.

[00:02:37] You know, it affects a lot of folks you know, all over the place. So, before we, we jump into, you know, kind of the meat of the episode here could you start by maybe just sharing a little bit about yourself and your, and your background, kinda a little bit of who you are for anyone who’s not familiar with you?

[00:02:51] Adan Castaneda: My name is Adon Miguel Castaneda. I’m a United States Marine Corps veteran. I served in the Iraqi War during 2006, 2007, [00:03:00] Operation Iraqi Freedom six. I operated as a scout sniper. Got out, used the GI Bill, went to school for cybersecurity. I published a few books, one being my autobiography of my time in the service, how my whole life is like a game of chess, making the right moves, analyzing the chess board, saving your pieces, your family, your friends, and you know, keeping ’em safe and winning the game, right?

[00:03:20] Winning the game with winning strategy and just defeating your opponent. Every day is a a day against a reaper, right? Death is always coming after you, so every day you you’re alive and you survive is a, is a win. I studied, I also went to a program for, to become a nationally certified life coach, recovery coach, and intervention professional. So, you know, I speak from my personal experience as well as my education on that. and probably a few other things, can’t remember. But I, I’ve also– Well, the main thing is, like, I guess cops d if you heard of cops d co-occurring psych substance disorder. I’ve been diagnosed with, like,

[00:03:52] Many diagnosis, but the main

[00:03:54] one’s being schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, as well as

[00:03:57] PTSD for my time in the [00:04:00] service.

[00:04:00] So.

[00:04:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and, and that’s a lot to,

[00:04:02] for anyone to have to deal with. And when you,

[00:04:06] You know, start having, you know, medications being thrown in- into the mix, it, it, I imagine just makes things a whole lot more complicated and, and creates a lot of a lot of other issues that maybe are unintended consequences and, and we’re trying to figure out what, what the right solution is.

[00:04:22] And, and, you know, everybody is, is trying to do the right thing and, and figure all that stuff out. You know, it’s not always an easy answer. So, so you talked a little bit about some of the, the mental illness issue, and started off talking a little bit about the the drug situation. Tell us some, a little bit more about how these challenges kind of shaped your mission to educate folks on the, the fentanyl e epidemic and, and other stuff that you’re, you’re working on.

[00:04:48] Adan Castaneda: I would say you know, my experience with mental illness, a lot of mentally I people turn to drugs, and I’ve turned to drugs after I got outta the military. It could be from anything. It could be [00:05:00] from depression, like if you lose a loved one, that’s a big thing. Some families, they lose a loved one to drugs, and then more family members die from drugs ’cause they’re depressed, they use

[00:05:08] drugs. So it could be a combination of like, you know, poverty, low education genetics and just having that tendency to, you know, lean towards, you know, drug use. that Hollywood glamorizes it. So like Hollywood, you see a lot of stuff on the news or like, movies and stuff like that where they glamorize drugs, people wanna party, get high. So, you know, I kind of, wanted to, you know, feel good, feel better. Some people deal with childhood trauma, so childhood trauma and, you know, they turn to drugs to feel better, or they become alcoholics and, you know, to, to… ’cause they’ve had not really much joy in their lives, so they try to make themselves feel better induce that.

[00:05:43] So with mental illness co-occurring, both happening at the same time, drugs exacerbate mental illness. So if you’re, if you’re like predispositioned to mental illness, if it runs in your family or you have it doing drugs exacerbates that. and multiplies it, enhances it. So, you know, you, you might hear voices.

[00:05:58] People can hear voices on [00:06:00] like LSD or, you know, heavy dissociatives like PCP or, you know, e even weed. Like some people get psych psychosis like cannabis induced psychosis. So, you know, it shaped, it shaped– the way it shaped how I want to help others is because I’ve struggled with it. I struggled with my sobriety.

[00:06:15] It took… I’m 40 years old, so it took me, like, the past 10 years to really buckle down and start getting my life together. Diet, exercising, you know, hitting the gym as much as possible going to school, training, becoming a workaholic, keeping myself busy as much as possible on productive things that can benefit my life and support my family, take care of my loved ones, and just be a positive influence in the community and society.

[00:06:36] Try to contribute to my local church, the community, to the chess club, going to archery ranges, taking some flight lessons, traveling, seeing the world, all these things. And I wanna speak to others on, you know, them being able to, you know, improve their lives, but if they’re struggling you know, I have free, I have free free training, free training on, on YouTube and Patreon and my website, the recovery protocol.org, where it’s just me [00:07:00] speaking, but I also have a bunch of notes, and those are paid, but all the speak and all the information’s free.

[00:07:05] Content is free. But, like, there’s, for instance, there’s a 2,500, 2,500 bucket list. a lot of people who struggle with depression or mental illness or drug addiction, they’re like, they don’t see their future. They don’t see what kind of future they could possibly have. So I have an American Dream addition, like living the American dream, a lot of possibilities to get their career, you know, family and staying disciplined, motivating, hold each other accountable.

[00:07:29] But the 2,500 bucket list, all these things you could do, travel, do all these things, hobbies, chess, archery, like flight lessons, getting a new career, taking care of your family, building your network and circle of friends, being a positive influence in the community, speaking at church, hosting events, all these things you can do to just, you know, 2,500 things.

[00:07:47] And you can use AI to even, you know, build 10,000 things you could do, a whole lot more just to be a positive influence in the

[00:07:52] world. I went to my niece’s graduation in a one of the,

[00:07:56] the valedictorian, whatever it is, like the

[00:07:58] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:07:59] Adan Castaneda: mechanical [00:08:00] engineer, he– one of their main speeches was like, “Anyone listen to this, anyone, like anyone in the world, has the power to change the world,” right? And then Moha Ma Gandhi Moha Ma Gandhi said, “Be the change you wanna see in the world. Be the change you wanna see in the world,” right? You have the power. Anyone has the power, whether you’re a high school graduate, whether you’re still trying, even if it’s one person at a time, like Mother Theresa helping one, one

[00:08:19] person at a

[00:08:20] time, right? you know, I just try to speak my voice and

[00:08:23] help others from my experience, you know.

[00:08:25] Scott DeLuzio: And that, that’s great, and that’s honestly part, you know,

[00:08:29] part, part of the reason why I wanted to have you on the show is to share your experiences and share the, the ups and downs and the things that you’ve gone through. Because like you were saying, sometimes people who maybe are suffering from depression or some other mental illnesses or some other issues that they might be going through may not be able to see that there is a future ahead that does have a better outcome than whatever’s going on right now.

[00:08:54] You know, if you’re suffering with depression and everything seems like all hope is lost and, all, you know, [00:09:00] everything is just terrible day after day. you don’t even wanna get up and get out of bed or, you know, take a shower and put your clothes on and put one foot in front of the other and do any of the things that, that a lot of people do in day-to-day life, you kind of just feel like, “What’s the point?”

[00:09:16] And let- let’s just give up and not continue forward with this. But, you know, in, in your case, you know, you’re, you’re sitting here showing that there are things. You know, you came up with a list of 2,500 things, and that’s just scratching the surface of things that people can do to make an improvement in their life or to find some sort of joy or happiness in their life.

[00:09:37] And you know, take a look at that list. If none of those things, by some chance, none of those things happen to work for you, like you said- go to AI you know, a chat GPT kind of thing and, and plug it in there and, and just keep asking it for more and more different activities that you can, you can plug in there.

[00:09:56] And you know, eventually you’re gonna find something. And, and [00:10:00] it’s you know, sometimes it’s a, it’s a mindset thing though too. You have to be in that right mindset and want to accept some sort of change and accept that, you know, it doesn’t have to be this way all the time. We, we can make a difference.

[00:10:11] We can make a change in our lives, but we have to actually want to make that change. And you know, so, so sometimes you might look at a list and say, “Oh, you know what? All that 2,500 things, none of those things sound interesting to me, and none of those are things that I want to do.” Well, that might be something you have to look internally and say, “Why, why is none of those things you know, looking like they, they would be interesting?”

[00:10:34] You know, is it because you don’t want them to or is ’cause they’re really not interesting? I gotta imagine somewhere in a 20 list of 2,500 things, you’re probably gonna find something that, that could be interesting if you want it to be. But if you’re just gonna be a, a stick in the mud and not accept that there are some things that you can do differently you know, of course you’re not gonna find anything.

[00:10:54] But but if, if you want that change and you’re, you’re out there searching for it, [00:11:00] yeah, it, it’s out there. And, and programs like the, the recovery protocol that you were just talking about, your, your program there that’s, that’s a key part of of, of figuring this stuff out is, is stepping outside and doing something different than what you normally do.

[00:11:16] And you know, I, I think this is an important piece and I’d, I’d like to dive a little bit more into the recovery protocol and, and kind of what you do with that, how it’s maybe different from other programs and, and you know, how you’ve, you’ve seen it transforming folks you know, as they go through it.

[00:11:32] Adan Castaneda: Okay. The recovery protocol I developed not too long ago, just a few months, kind of like maybe three four months ago. But you know, I guess it starts off with disconnecting from your drug dealers,

[00:11:44] right?

[00:11:45] just to get back to one of your points, so like, you know, have the motivation to do anything. Like my case manager, I’ll tell you a story. She said you know, “If you have kids, especially if you have a little baby or a little daughter a little son, you know, you have this little person looking back at you, depending on you to survive, to live, right? To to take [00:12:00] care of it, you know, until it can take care of on its own.”

[00:12:02] Kinda so if you have– and you’re gonna have that motivation, you’re gonna have that push and that drive to not fail. You cannot fail. Failure’s not an option, right? You are gonna do something. You’re gonna figure something out, and you are gonna make money somehow. You’re gonna work, become a plumber, electrician.

[00:12:17] Like, I just started looking at, a car salesman. Anyone can become a car salesman. CarMax, CarMax is great for veterans. CarMax is nationwide. CarMax, you can work part-time. CarMax, you can be a master auto, auto auto mechanic a master mechanic technician, right? Making like 80 to a hundred grand in like two to four years, you can become a master technician.

[00:12:36] So, you know, anyone can do anything. They get their hands dirty eight hours a day, four hours a day, wherever you can do full-time, part-time, become car salesman for women if it’s too much labor to become a mechanic. Even Starbucks, right? Starbucks and Walmart have a college program, right? You could go to college.

[00:12:51] They’ll pay for your bachelor’s degree. You work at Starbucks, you know, probably part-time. Walmart, you know, they give you time to do online

[00:12:56] classes, and you could get a bachelor’s degree and do anything, become a social [00:13:00] worker, become a

[00:13:00] teacher, an educator. You know, you could do anything.

[00:13:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:13:03] Adan Castaneda: Anyone can do anything.

[00:13:04] Just put the work in. If you have a little, a baby depending on you, you’re not gonna fail. You’re gonna drink a little bit of coffee, get off of the drugs, right? So the recovery protocol, you know, you might have to switch. Your drug, you have to develop a new habit. So you have this habit. I had this habit, Look when I was a drug addict for many years, alcoholic and everything, mixing drugs and alcohol, getting just wasted all the time. But you have to develop this new habit ’cause all habits are like hand to mouth. Taking pills, smoking weed drinking alcohol, hand to mouth, so smoking cigarettes. You know, so you need to start, start drinking more water. Make that a habit. Get some Gatorade, Propel, you know, mix it with electrolytes and you know, just tea.

[00:13:40] I drink tea and then coffee to stay caffeinated, have some energy, work, be productive, have mental, you know, energy. You know, it’s also about dieting. Once you eliminate bread and sugar… Like bread’s a big one. It converts into sugar. It sores into like, you know, your liver converts it, it sores into fat.

[00:13:55] You know, it clogs up your arteries over time, leaves to heart disease. So I’ve eliminated bread [00:14:00] completely. No bread, no tortillas. You know, I’ve eliminated all added sugars. You don’t want added sugars. That just turns into triglycerides, clogs up your arteries. You know, I don’t eat out. I don’t eat greasy foods from restaurants. I don’t, you know, eat any of that greasy food. The Greasy hamburgers, none of that. Trans fat, has trans fat, clogs up your artery saturated fat. stay away from all that. Chicken and fish, right? Low sodium. Low sodium ’cause even sodium can be bad for you. Raises high blood pressure, bad for your kidneys.

[00:14:24] Low sodium chicken, I get Whole Foods. Eat some low sodium chicken and fish, right? Salmon. Eat fish two to three times a week. It’s good for your brain and your heart. Get on a really good diet. I eat black beans, has complex carbohydrates, cleans you out, has a lot of fiber, and I just eat vegetables and salads pretty much, and that’s my diet for the most part, and tea and coffee.

[00:14:44] like Salads, vegetables, fish, chicken And, and that’s pretty much it. And, and like walnuts, pistachios, and almonds, right? Walnuts, pistachios, and almonds, those nuts also reduce L- like, you know, LDL the lipo density, lipo whatever [00:15:00] protein, or whatever that is, you know,

[00:15:01] cholesterol. You it it’s good for your high density cholesterol, but bad for your low density lipoproteins, however you say it. But so You could get on an extreme, like extreme strict diet, exercise, do push-ups, cardiovascular, walk around the block, free exercise. You don’t need a gym membership, but I have a free gym membership. I walk a mile every day, at least one or two miles, right? good for your heart, good for your brain. It’s gonna help you think more clearly ’cause that blood flow is circulating to your brain better. You’re gonna make better decisions, be motivated. So number one dis flush your stash, right? Recovery protocol, flush your stash. Flush it, get rid of it, change your phone number delete your social media, and if you have to, leave the city and the state, right?

[00:15:42] Never contact your drug dealers again. They won’t find you on social media. They can’t hit you up. They can’t text you. You know, and that’s gonna protect you psychologically and, and spiritually from these drug dealers. Like, if I said you know, “I’m a drug dealer, and I’m going after your kids, and I’m selling fentanyl, and they’re gonna die.

[00:15:59] And I’m [00:16:00] telling you this as a father.” And so, like, you know, you’re gonna be like, “What the hell?” you gonna call the cops. Your adrenaline’s gonna spike. My kid’s in danger. There’s predators lurking on the street. There’s drug dealers out there, MS 13, cartel, drug cartel, all these gang members, and they’re selling kids drugs, and they’re dying in schools.

[00:16:16] They’re dying on the street, you know, a young– teenage adults, young adults, even elderly. So, you know, you have to be able to as a father, as a parent, be protective of your children, right? Be involved in their lives. You could get an app. Like there’s the Citizen app. If you heard of the

[00:16:29] Citizen app, it’s very popular.

[00:16:31] You can get a protect mode, protect agent mode. You could pay five, 10 bucks for the month and, the when the kid like is going to school or from work, you know, the, they could be on the live call with an agent, and they’ll monitor them for distress. If they scream or call for help,

[00:16:44] they’ll send a cop, EMS, ambulance, anybody, like a cop to go to their situation, GPS

[00:16:49] tracking and help ’em if they’re in danger.

[00:16:51] Scott DeLuzio: Oh wow.

[00:16:52] Adan Castaneda: So there’s, yeah, there’s things you could do to protect your family and obviously being involved, speaking to them, being like a life coach, being a coach to [00:17:00] your family, like as a father to your son or daughter or to your cousin or to a close friend, you know, speaking to ’em, being in their ear you know, every other day, every day as much as you can to get ’em in the mindset they need to change, right?

[00:17:12] They need to get clean. They need to make a concrete decision. I’m never gonna do drugs for the rest of my life. I don’t care if if a family member dies like everyone, you know, that happens to everybody, but I have to be the rock, and have to be strong for my family. I’m gonna feel sad, depressed, but a lot of people use ’cause they lose a family member, they get

[00:17:29] depressed, right? You know, or mental illness. I’m never gonna use no matter how bad I feel. I have to be strong. so like the

[00:17:35] main thing, another thing I teach is like being a guardian angel, right? A guardian angel,

[00:17:39] And I have these cards I pass out. If you could

[00:17:41] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:17:42] Adan Castaneda: is my grandmother gave me this guardian angel card you know, a man or woman, like a father, you know, a brother, sister, anyone can be a guardian angel, a protector, right?

[00:17:51] You’re a survivor. If you’ve survived drugs, you’re still alive. You have to be a protector. When I go out in the community, HEB, Walmart, Target, wherever the mall, I consider myself– If something [00:18:00] happens, I will try to be a protector. If I see something, I have to protect them. I’m an ex vet, I’m in a military, right?

[00:18:06] So I have the strength. And as men, if you have the strength to protect women and children, they’re, they’re physically weaker, so if something happens, you can help ’em. There was a school bus that got in a car accident. Someone hit a school bus in an intersection where I live. I went over there, I recorded it, saw if any kids needed help.

[00:18:21] I reported it to the news, to the police. was another dump truck that turned, took a turn too fast, turned over, and we had to give him a knife ’cause his seatbelt malfunctioned. He had to cut himself free, and then I helped, tried to help him up. I climbed up there. You know, he got down. I went, I went back in, got his phone, got his wallet, whatever.

[00:18:37] He had to call his boss or whatever. But you know, I would’ve been able to help him. So you have to be strong. You have to stay fit. You have to be competent and sober 100% of the time. If something happens in the middle of the night, you have to be strong. You can’t be all hungover. You can’t be on drugs.

[00:18:51] You can’t be drunk. You know, you have to be sober and competent to be able to stop an invader, a home invasion. You, you know, if something happens out there on the street, you have to be competent [00:19:00] enough to call the cops, talk to your neighbors, coordinate, and be reliable, dependable person in the

[00:19:05] community.

[00:19:06] Someone get to be on this person. They don’t do drugs. They don’t drink. They’re always competent,

[00:19:09] sober. They know what they’re talking about. They know what they’re doing,

[00:19:11] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And that, that,

[00:19:14] you hit on a lot of great points there. And,

[00:19:16] Through other conversations I’ve had with folks who have struggled with addiction they’ve said a lot of these same things, you know, who who’ve, maybe come out on the other side. You know, they, they’ve cleaned themselves up and, you know, they, they turn their life around and everything.

[00:19:29] A lot of the, the things that you’re talking about are very similar to, to the things that I’ve heard from other folks. So, you know, one of them being leave the area that is you know, that you associate with whatever the the drug is that you- you’ve been using. You know, if, One guy I, I talked to, he he moved from I think it was Arizona up to like Salt Lake City or something like that because he was like the people that he was hanging out around, all his friends, his family, they all were using drugs in, in Arizona.

[00:19:56] And he is like, “I, I need to break this cycle. I need to get away from this. And every time I [00:20:00] hang out with these people, I find myself always just gravitating back towards using the drugs. So let me, let me just move to a completely different area. I don’t know anybody up there. I’m just gonna start fresh and I’m gonna, I’m gonna do everything over up there.”

[00:20:13] And you know, he, he found ways to stay clean up there because it, it just took him out of that environment. Even, even soldiers from the Vietnam era who were over in Vietnam, a lot of them, they’d, they’d get into stuff over there that they’d, they’d come across. And people who never used drugs before ever in their life they would be over there and they’d be using some sort of drugs, whatever it was.

[00:20:37] And then they’d come back home, back to, you know, wherever they, they came from and they’d stop because they’re out of that environment. they, they took themselves out of that environment. In this case, the military moved them back, you know, to, to home or wherever they were from and And, and they no longer had that, that craving or that urge to, you know, to do that.

[00:20:58] So that, that’s, you know, a [00:21:00] good first start. You know, if you, you can’t seem to get away from, you know, the, the drug dealer, the friends who are always partying and doing all that stuff, like just move. And there’s– It’s a big country. You can, you can find a lot of places to go. And, and you can, you can figure that out pretty easily.

[00:21:15] But another thing you mentioned too is something else that I’ve, I’ve heard from folks is, is finding I’ll, I’ll put it this way, this may not be the best way to, to phrase it, but find a new addiction. Find, find something else that you can replace that, that drug, that chemical addiction with something like, something more positive, like a a physical activity. You know, whether it’s, you know, going to the gym and working out and you that type of thing, that, that, that could be super healthy for you by, by replacing it with that and, and just go all in on that or, you know, get into, you know, running or, you know, doing marathons and, and that kind of thing.

[00:21:50] You know, other people have found that those types of activities were able to replace the, the negative addiction [00:22:00] that, that, I mean, no addiction maybe is really all that great, but, you know, the healthier ones, the the ones where you’re, you’re improving yourself I think is, is okay. Like that, I don’t see really much problem with that if you’re, if you’re, you know, going to the gym and all that and you’re you’re still able to function and do, do, you know, your job or, you know, take care of stuff at home.

[00:22:19] You know, all those things are I, I think only going to improve by having yourself in a better mental state, a better physical state. And, and even some of those things that you, you talked about, like being able to take care of your family. You know, if you’re, if you’re always using drugs or alcohol or, or whatever, and you’re not in the right state of mind and something happens, whether it’s at home or you’re out with your family or, or you’re doing something you know, you’re not going to be the best version of yourself.

[00:22:45] You’re not gonna be that, that protector like you’re talking about. You’re not gonna be able to help that person who was in that vehicle that turned over or you know, help protect your, your kids against someone who might wanna do them harm or something. So, you know, think about like, do I [00:23:00] wanna be the best version of of myself or do I want to be someone who is basically just wasting their life away by continuing to do these types of drugs?

[00:23:09] And, and I, I think you know, especially when you, you look at the other people who depend on you, and quite frankly it could be anybody who, who could depend on you. Like the, the guy in the, the vehicle that, that flipped over they all were depending on somebody coming to help them out. You know, the, the kids on the bus, the the ve- the vehicle that, that flipped over.

[00:23:27] Like those things People need to be able to count on other folks and you know, the military has given us a, a way of being able to be that person to to go out and help people, whether it’s with, you know, physical injuries or, or, you know, anything like that. Like, we are kind of the defenders or the protectors.

[00:23:48] Even after the uniform comes off, we– it’s not like we forgot how to do those things. Maybe we don’t have as much practice, but we can still do ’em. And so I, I think all those points that you said are are excellent, excellent [00:24:00] points. You know, even, even the, the diet and the exercise and you know, things like that, I think those those types of things help contribute to not only the, the physical wellbeing, but overall the, the mental wellbeing being for, for folks who are struggling with, you know, whatever it is that they, they may be dealing with, whether it’s drugs, alcohol, that, that type of thing, right?

[00:24:21] Adan Castaneda: Correct. Yes,

[00:24:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:24:26] Adan Castaneda: And, you know, with the diet, like I also take a whole lot of vitamins, a whole lot of vitamins. I take nootropics, lines main for brain preservation, memory, nerve support, and, You know, they’re– Like vitamin D for women, they’re more prone to like certain types of cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, even men, cholesterol, cancer, like, you know, colon cancer, all these, prostate cancer. So, you know, all these cancers, some of them can be like well, prevented with nutrition, you know, vitamins, because if some of these, like vitamin D can prevent up to 17 different types of cancer. Vitamin C selectively kills cancer cells, right? I had a captain in the Marine Corps I met at a [00:25:00] hospital, RO, State Hospital, captain in the Marine Corps, he had thyroid cancer.

[00:25:03] They gave him dual therapy, like half chemo, half injection of vitamin C. They can actually give injections of

[00:25:08] vitamin C, like prescription grades. So like some people, that’s how, you know, that’s how important like vitamin C, vitamin D, these vitamins can be. You know, also take, you know, other, you know, neuro, they’re called neurotropics for like if you’re a heavy, heavy, if you have brain damage from drug use you can use peptides.

[00:25:25] I learned about peptides recently, if you ever heard of peptides, it’s very new. Like in insulin is is really a peptide, has been around for a long time. But peptides, there’s what’s called which is good for like, cognition. They have some for sleep, they have some for skin. They have different peptides for different things. You know, but NAS are for, I believe, cognition. So you’ll get a shot maybe in the, in the belly, like in a fat area or wherever they decide to put it, and then, you know, you get one or like one or two shots a week, I believe. And it can be kind of expensive, but if, if you struggle with like, memory damage cognition impairment, [00:26:00] deterioration, you know, sometimes neurotropics and peptides can kind of help bring you back and restore, restore brain functioning. So that’s, that’s more extreme and obviously there’s, there’s risks. There’s risks it can exacerbate maybe some cancer cells like some of these. There’s some risk if you have a, family history of cancer maybe. But you know, you have to look at all the pros

[00:26:20] and cons and see if, see if it’s right thing for you. Also wanted to say before I forget you know, with the fentanyl stuff you know, that stuff gets imported from India and China mainly, and then it crosses the border, not just Mexico, but also the northern border, of Canada, right? That’s how, you know, the smugglers will get in India and China. So like when a drug dealer in America, know, he’ll look at the dark web.

[00:26:42] He goes on the dark web and he’ll, he’ll see like an ounce of fentanyl for three or $400. very cheap. Maybe like after, after it gets shipped in the post office mail, you know, it’s maybe $400 total. So that $400 he can turn into $100,000, 100 K, 100 grand. that’s their [00:27:00] incentive. That money’s a financial, you know, thing. And whenever you buy, whenever anyone buys, you know, any of these drugs, not only they’re supporting the drug dealer, but that money trickles to the cartel leaders, the cartel. And they’re– anyone who buys drugs on the street, they’re funding cartel operations, which is, you know, attacking women and children Dismembering, you know, innocent people.

[00:27:20] You know, women with like, you know, getting killed with machetes and baseball bats from MS 13 gang members. That’s happened here in America. You know, there’s all sorts of the Sinaloa Cartel, there’s the cj NG Cartel. Their cartel leader was killed recently in February, I believe February 22nd, the CJ NG Cartel, New Generation. That’s one of the most ruthless cartels in, in the world, they’re responsible for dismembering like women and children, families, killing ’em in front of their families, killing cops, killing government officials in Mexico, and they’re responsible for the heavy fentanyl epidemic and drugs, fentanyl being smuggled in

[00:27:55] America. So when 70,000 to a hundred thousand Americans are lost from [00:28:00] fentanyl and drug overdose, that was a c CJ NG Cartel, the syn loa Cartel, the all these different you know, cartels out there. And, you know, we’re, we’re stopping that. So we’re stopping some of these border, you know, drugs being ODed at the border.

[00:28:13] We’re catching some of it, some of ’em, But education and awareness, right? It’s sad because

[00:28:17] parents who’ve already lost a child, they feel motivated and their purpose, their new purpose in

[00:28:22] life is to educate other families ’cause they’ve already lost

[00:28:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:28:25] Adan Castaneda: But they do go to schools, and education and awareness is working.

[00:28:28] Like the youth, younger generations, they’re learning from education and awareness. You have to be more aware of, you know, what’s out there and more opportunities out there, you know, and, and just staying away from bad influences on the street. So they’re learning at a young age, which is helping, but it’s, it’s– fentanyl still being smuggled in.

[00:28:45] So, you know, I try to think the main ways is like a mindset, positive network, positive fire team. My team leader said, I hope I can remember them, but four things to keep veterans alive, and this can work for civilians too, right? Stay away from drugs and alcohol, because [00:29:00] you do drugs and alcohol, that’s what veterans are drinking, Committed suicide or making, you know, car accidents and

[00:29:05] all that. Exer- thing is exercise. Exercise having you know, releasing endorphins, getting a good sweat, getting in shape, being strong, having that discipline like karate, kung fu, or boxing, having that discipline mindset, psychological resilience, psychological strength, physical strength. You know, it ties in together. And then the third thing is having a good network, a good fire team. That could be your family, your friends, your network, other veterans, you know, a good fire team. So that’s you know, your friends and family and other veterans, your, your brothers and sisters, your comrades. the fourth thing is go hunting.

[00:29:37] Hunting, right? Getting out there, peace, wilderness, living off the land, and that gets you be, You’re a veteran, right? Every veteran Marine, soldiers, riflemen first, right? So get out there, you know, get an animal, live off the land. You know, obviously eat it, eat it to your family, get out there, one with nature, peace, and, you know, get

[00:29:53] back in touch with yourself. and so those are

[00:29:57] the four things that can help.

[00:29:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:30:00] Yeah, and,

[00:30:00] You know, it’s interesting that you mentioned the, the hunting thing because that’s not something I, I would’ve thought would’ve,

[00:30:05] Fit into this. But as, as you’re talking, I’ve, I’ve thought of some hunting trips that I’ve gone on and the, the hunts that I, I’ve done, and just how all the other noise just kind of goes away ’cause you’re focused on the hunt.

[00:30:18] You’re, you’re focused on, you know, the other people who are maybe hunting with you and you know, you wanna make sure that you know where they are located so that you’re not accidentally gonna, To, you know, shoot them as, you know, an animal comes you know, in, in between you and them. You, don’t, you don’t wanna miss and, and accidentally hit someone.

[00:30:35] So you’re paying attention to all that. You’re paying attention to what’s going on in the present moment. You’re, you’re listening to the, to the sounds to, to hear, you know, is there, there an animal approaching? There’s animal moving away from you or whatever. You, you wanna, you wanna pay attention to all the, the things that are going on around you, and all that other noise, all that stuff from life, it just kind of, I don’t wanna say it disappears, but it, it quiets down and [00:31:00] you’re, you’re focused a whole lot more on the, the current moment and, and you’re focused on that hunt.

[00:31:07] And it’s you know, almost like you know, those those situations where, you know, anyone who’s been deployed, you’re, you’re scanning around and you’re, you’re paying attention to all the things that are going on. ‘Cause quite frankly, you do have a a lethal weapon in your hands, and you don’t wanna hurt any of the people that you’re with, that you might be hunting with.

[00:31:25] And you know, so you’re, you’re really paying attention to what it is that you’re doing and, and what they’re doing because you don’t wanna be in that wrong position either. You know, so, you know, it’s interesting that you mentioned that but you know, at first I, I was trying to see how that, that fit, but then, you know, it kind of makes a whole lot of sense now that I’m, I’m thinking about it.

[00:31:43] Like, you know, hunting is a, a great way to do, you know, some of the stuff that you were just talking about, and I, I I think that’s a, a perfect addition to that list, that those, those four things that you just mentioned there. And, and I think it, it, you know, a- another thing that that type of activity and, you know, [00:32:00] all those activities that you mentioned you know, another thing that that does is it keeps you away from those other bad influences.

[00:32:08] You know, the, the drug dealer that might live in, in your neighborhood or the you know, the, the friends that you, you might have who like to party too much or the, you know, just so those types of people. You know, you, you get away from that environment and you go hang out with the people who enjoy physical fitness and they enjoy getting out into nature and, and you know, whether it’s hunting or not, you know, just getting outside and, and being out there and not, you know, wasting that experience on, on drugs and whatever else that you might be doing.

[00:32:39] It, it’s just a, it’s a good replacement for those other things I think. You know, with, with all the bad stuff that we have going on in our, our cities and towns- and everything. that there’s a whole lot of good too that you can do too. You just have to kind of seek that stuff out, right?

[00:32:53] Adan Castaneda: Yes, sir. It is great. It’s more physical and for the mental challenge, like the professional, the gentleman, right? [00:33:00] Wearing a suit and tie. Chess, chess tournaments, right? I did a chess tournament. I, I participated in some chess tournaments. Get go to chess. You could get some play chess for free on chess.com and you could get very affordable training.

[00:33:12] I think it’s like $10 a month, you know, and you can start going to tournaments. You know, you get like this I guess a membership, and then you play, you shake, you know, other members’ hands, opponents, learn, get better, learn tactics, strategy, and it really develops the prefrontal cortex of the brain, executive function, decision making For, for teenagers and kids even and even adults, it can help less– make them le, make less risky decisions. ‘Cause once the prefrontal cortex executive functioning is strengthened, they’re gonna make less risky decisions. Studies have shown, I believe, that, you know, there’s some, you know, significant changes in the brain to where they won’t speed as much, they won’t do reckless driving, less likely to do drugs.

[00:33:50] You know, they’re involved in a, a mental, you know, I guess game that, that, you know, you have to use intelligence, aptitude, you know, intellect, memory, [00:34:00] cognition you know, concentration, attention. It helps build memory ’cause you have to memorize past moves, you have to understand, you know, past strategies, and you have to analyze, you know, patterns, patterns to you know, winning moves and winning strategies.

[00:34:13] So, life is like a game of chess. When you see life as a game of chess, I’ve written a book, autobiography called “Chess Perception” about my time in the service, my whole life in gel psych wards, childhood, you know, military making the right moves, winning the chess game. Like I said before, every day you win every day you stay alive and

[00:34:30] keep your family alive is a win against the

[00:34:33] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:34:33] Adan Castaneda: right? So, you know, and, and it’s about you know, just, just winning the game. Keeping your family members alive, healthy, safe, you know, and that’s kind of like the battlefield is the world. It could be your neighborhood, the community, the battlefield the chess board, right? So life is kind of like a game of chess, and once you kind of play on that level, you’ll understand, look, there’s a drug dealer over here, that’s the enemy.

[00:34:54] We need to do something. Get a restraining order, call the police, use the citizen app, make some reports. A lot of police [00:35:00] reports, you have all these police, police reports on record, then they’ll have this you know, drug dealer, you know, on record, pictures, license plate. They’ll know who this person is. Contact the FBI if you have to. Keep going to higher higher levels on the

[00:35:12] chain of command, right? And get this drug dealer where he belongs, rehab, prison, wherever, off the street, because they’re gonna kill some people.

[00:35:19] They’re psychopaths. I met a… I’ll tell you a story. I met a, I consider this guy a psychopath, right?

[00:35:23] I was at the hospital for, you know, mental treatment, psychiatric treatment, and it was court-ordered. I met this guy there. Didn’t even sell me drugs, but I knew him, thought he was a friend, thought he was just mentally ill, whatever. But a couple years later, hit me up on Facebook, which is social media, and you know, wanted to hang out.

[00:35:39] You know, I was in, I was in a bad state of mind. I purchased some drugs from him, and I could overdose and died. I ki- I pretty much blacked out, had trouble breathing Had to go to hospital, get a shot. They came in there for a little while. So, you know, anyone can easily lose their lives from someone you know, a friend, a supposedly

[00:35:55] friend, someone who’s close to you, someone you know, like, “Oh, oh, I know this person, I can trust them.” You can’t trust [00:36:00] anyone selling drugs. already breaking the law. They don’t know what’s in it. It could be a bad batch. It could be laced with anything. They could be laced with, you know, any drug. They could rape you, kill you, whatever, you know. So there’s people ha- that have used drugs to rape and kill their victims.

[00:36:14] John Wayne Gacy, you know, there’s like Ed Gain Jeffrey Dahmer. Some of these serial killers, like no- not notorious serial killers use drugs to disable and subdue their victims, then they rape and kill ’em, right? And it so happens to women at bars. Women at bars sometimes get their drinks

[00:36:31] spiked, and that’s a drug, and then they go…

[00:36:34] You know, sometimes they disappear or get abducted. They’re lucky if they just got raped and they’re still alive, ’cause sometimes they

[00:36:39] just disappear, get into the sex slave trade, whatever, and or they, you

[00:36:43] know, get killed and just left in the woods or

[00:36:45] whatever.

[00:36:46] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:36:46] Adan Castaneda: So, you know, once they disappear, they’re abducted, they disappear, they’re MIA, missing an action, you don’t, you’re probably dead.

[00:36:53] And it’s sad to say, but, you know. So drugs, you have to be real careful. Never leave your drink unattended anywhere at a bar. Never leave your [00:37:00] drink unattended, right? Just take it with you everywhere. Don’t drink it if, if it was left unattended. Just leave it. buying you one, whatever. And, you know, I don’t even put myself in those environments.

[00:37:09] So, you know, just, just, I guess be aware of these things. And

[00:37:12] that, that’s what I’ll say on that Before I lose my

[00:37:14] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no,

[00:37:15] Those are those are great points because,

[00:37:17] You

[00:37:17] know, especially for

[00:37:19] the, the point that you were making with you know, someone who was a supposed friend who said, “Hey, you know, I got… You know, come do these drugs or whatever, and let’s, let’s party, hang out,” whatever. You know, someone who’s willing to get you into that situation, you know, where you’re using drugs now, I, I really couldn’t consider that person a, a real true friend because, like, a friend should be kinda like a battle buddy who is going to be there and looking out for you, making sure that you’re safe, making sure that you’re, you’re taking care of, making sure that the things that could potentially harm you are, the, the risks are being mitigated.

[00:37:56] And, and if there’s someone who is gonna [00:38:00] get you some drugs that like you said, you don’t know if it’s a bad batch or if it’s, you know, got, got something wrong with it or, or whatever. Even if it’s, you know, a hundred percent exactly what it’s supposed to be, it’s still not good for you, and they’re just gonna lead you down that wrong path, and it’s, it’s not worth it.

[00:38:17] And so why, why would you consider that person a friend, you know, going forward if that’s the type of thing that they’re, they’re gonna do? you know, they know it’s illegal. They know that it’s gonna potentially get you in trouble. You know, and if you’re, you know, hanging out with that person and, and just accepting like, “Oh yeah, this person’s a, you know, good guy or whatever, and, and they’re not gonna do anything to you know, hurt me, at least not intentionally,” well, you never know.

[00:38:43] I mean, maybe they will. maybe the drugs have gotten to them and they’re, they’re doing something a little crazy or or maybe they didn’t know and they didn’t necessarily wanna hurt you, but here we are and now, you know, a situation like you were in where you’re having trouble breathing, you had to go to the hospital, all that kind of [00:39:00] stuff that’s, that’s never a good situation to be in.

[00:39:02] And you know, person I, I, I wouldn’t consider that person a good friend because they put you in that, that kind of situation. You know, I, I, I know accidents happen and, and on occasion friends will hurt other friends unintentionally, but you gotta know that when drugs are involved, like, it’s, it’s going to be not, not a matter of if you’re gonna hurt that person, it’s just a matter of when and, and it’s just not worth it, you know?

[00:39:26] So, you know, and I think all of these things, you know, look- looking back at all the things that we’ve talked about in this episode you know, everything from you know, ways that you can kind of mitigate some of these, these risks, you know, whether it’s leaving the area that you’re in or finding new habits to get into something, you know, a little more productive, a little more healthy changing your eating habits like you you said.

[00:39:48] your, you’ve changed all, all your diet and, and nutrition, all that stuff around. Versus, you know, going out and eating the, the stuff that will slowly kill you too, you know? The, the greasy foods and the, [00:40:00] you know, all the other stuff that, that a lot of times we just find it as the easier option, so that’s what we go into.

[00:40:07] And It’s, it’s easier to just keep taking the drugs maybe in, in some cases. You know, it’s easier to just do that. But sometimes you have to do the hard thing to, to get to the right place. And you know, I think that’s a, a big takeaway for really anyone who’s listening to this episode, veteran or not because unfortunately these things affect everybody you know, regardless of your military service or your whatever.

[00:40:32] These, these drugs and these, these ways of life, these lifestyles, they’re, they’re out there constantly and, and it’s a battle that you always have to be fighting against. Especially like you were saying before, if you have if you have kids or other loved ones who might be more prone to you know, getting involved with that type of thing you know, especially during periods of grief or loss or, or things like that where people might turn to something like a drug to [00:41:00] maybe just numb the pain.

[00:41:01] And that’s not, that’s not the best way to do it. You know, sometimes the, the best way through is to just experience that pain and, and deal with it and learn with it, learn, learn from it and grow with it and and, and move past it that way instead of just trying to shut it all out. I know it might sound like it’s easier, but long term it’s not, not gonna help anything.

[00:41:19] So, you know, a lot of, a lot of great points here that, that we’ve made. Anything else that you would like to share with the audience? You know, maybe You, you know, think anything else about your your program and maybe compared to other programs that are out there for, for folks as far as like, you know, other rehab or detox centers or things like that.

[00:41:38] You know, any any, any, anything for folks who might be struggling right now or have loved ones maybe who are, are struggling any, any kind of advice or words of encouragement that you can offer to them?

[00:41:49] Adan Castaneda: Well, my recovery coaching compared to, you know, to your first point, compared to the programs out there, you know, have free content you know, which can save lives. It’s a lot cheaper. I [00:42:00] started at 50 bucks a month,

[00:42:01] And $150 a month for one-on-one coaching. You know, a rehab, traditional rehabs at approximately $30,000 a month. If you have insurance, if you have insurance, though, then it could be like two to $7,000 deductible, I believe. That can still be pretty pricey for a

[00:42:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:42:17] Adan Castaneda: So cost is a big one, and also I stick around for more than 30 days. Rehab’s like 30 days for the most part. You can stay longer, but average is 30 day stay. And mine, I will stick around. I can stick around for years as long as I’m alive. Keep playing chess, you know, Tetris, all these, you know, brain activity games. Keep on giving any positive words of encouragement, advice to, you know, anyone on my Discord, and maybe I’ll just make free content.

[00:42:38] Maybe I’m– won’t get a whole lot of people signing up ’cause money’s the issue. But you know, holding them accountable, being a battle buddy, and talking to them as a veteran, as a 40-year-old, you know, speaking for more experience and hopefully wisdom, and trying to, you know, keep ’em clean. thing, some other facts I wanted to throw in there are is since 1999, the year 1999, over [00:43:00] 1 million I think 1.3 or 1.4 million Americans have died from fentanyl and drug overdose since 1999. So that’s a lot. So that’s why, my main point is like whenever anyone who’s thinking of drugs or doing drugs, anyone who’s struggling right now, it’s like…

[00:43:14] And, and a word, a piece of advice would be you have to think about this as a life and death situation. This drug could be the last line I ever

[00:43:22] do. This drug could be the last time. It could just spiral me downwards into a

[00:43:27] descent to where I never work my way back

[00:43:29] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:43:30] Adan Castaneda: So you, you can ascend upwards. You have to get clean, ascend upwards, you know, a career.

[00:43:34] And really the way to ascend upwards, in my mind, some people don’t like this, but it’s about living the American dream, right? I believe, you know, living the American dream. You see my background, red, white and blue, sarge and all that. I painted that. I, I’m very patriotic to where I believe you know, family, spouse, wife and kids, you know, whatever you can afford, a house, white picket fence, a dog, one or two dogs. That’s the American dream. A good job, right? A good job in a vehicle, right? [00:44:00] Symbolizes freedom, you know, all that good stuff. So living the American dream, having a family and a place to, a place to support them and raise them. And, you know, some people it, it is difficult for them to, you know, I guess have

[00:44:13] direction and guidance. They say that direction is more important than speed. So you have to know– have a moral compass, know what direction you wanna take, and it’s more important than speeding in a direction that is gonna end you up in a grave, an early grave or in jail or prison or psych ward or

[00:44:29] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:44:30] Adan Castaneda: So having, having a good direction, having a good mentor, you need a good mentor.

[00:44:34] It could be a coach. Go to rehab recovery.com. Recovery.com is you know, has a bunch of lists of recovery detox centers. My content’s free. You could try it out. If you don’t like it, go to recovery centers. If you have insurance, that’s, that’s great. I hope it really works out. Another thing I’ll say is anyone struggling with finances or finding a good program There’s faith-based programs, Christian programs.

[00:44:55] I got this, I got this dog tag which has a cross on it from [00:45:00] a program called You’re My Strong Tower. It’s you’re my strong tower.com. There’s actually thousands. There’s I think about over 3,500, 3,500 faith-based recovery programs. Christian based Catholicism, Catholic I think most of ’em probably Christian. So these are places where the attic can stay there for maybe a year. I’m, I’m sure there’s different timeframes, but You’re My Strong Tower is a 12 month. base recovery program where they teach the Bible. They help you work on craftsman woodsmanship. To where you’re you know, cutting out cross- crosses like carpentry, you know, and then you, you might be making these necklaces or somehow… And they use the money to support the addicts, gives ’em a year to recover, find work, find purpose, take care of their family, recover, get clean. And they’ve helped maybe like, a few thousand people. It could be expensive for I guess the churches. They use their funds to pay for it, and they’re free. Some of them are free.

[00:45:49] So faith-based recovery programs, ’cause recovery programs like detox or these hospitals, when I’ve been to the hospitals, they don’t focus on this diet or exercise or, [00:46:00] you know, doing archery, like archery or doing something mental activities like playing chess. They don’t really motivate you. They don’t guide you.

[00:46:07] Like, “You stay here. You can watch TV.” They might have some yoga classes. The recovery programs might be different, but the hospitals I’ve been to, they don’t stick with you long term. They don’t focus on like strict diet, strict exercise, you know, finding employment, being a car salesman, a mechanic, you know, aviation mechanic, going to college, get sending you to programs, sending you to a Starbucks or Walmart where you could get, a paid education, paid bachelor’s degree.

[00:46:28] They’ll pay for it. They have programs to where you get free education. So, you know, I I don’t think they have all that information. I try to be a resource hub and, you know, resource forum and give as much information as I can to help them. Even if it’s free, just lead ’em in the right direction. “Look, you need to get educated, stay outta trouble leave the streets, you know, get clean leave the neighborhood, leave the city, state, disconnect social media, change your phone number.

[00:46:51] You know, it’s a life and death situation. You know, go to a faith-based recovery program.” Google it. Just google faith-based recovery program, recovery.com. And if [00:47:00] you really need an intervention, as an intervention professional, you can hire an intervention professional to fly out to their house, talk to the addict, talk to the child, talk to the teenager, whoever it is, and get ’em to convince ’em to go to rehab and get help. The whole family will sit down, talk to each other, have a heart to heart moment and you know, they’ll get the addict help and get ’em on the right path. And some of them offer up to a year of counseling, a year of therapy and recovery coaching. those are a little more expensive, but you can get an intervention, an intervention professional to help guide you through all this, right? So there’s always hope, there’s always chance, there’s always a, a, a possibility and chance for change A positive positive change. And there’s all, there’s also even, like, positive change hypnosis. If you have limiting beliefs, “I can’t do this, it’s too difficult.” It’s like I have, you know, these issues or whatever.

[00:47:46] It’s like, well, positive change hypnosis. You can do anything, You, you, you’re the man, you’re the woman, right? You’re a business Wo woman, car salesman, whatever it is. I’m smart, I’m educated, intellectual, I’m intelligent. I could do this work. I could study. [00:48:00] I could get tutoring. Just never give up. Never give up.

[00:48:02] Whatever it is, try again. Get tutoring. If it’s school, tutor, tutor, tutor. New job apply for a thousand jobs. Apply for a thousand. If those don’t work out, apply for another 2000 jobs. You will get a good job that pays well. Just keep trying, keep applying. Never give up hope. Never give up trying. Try your best and in college, just keep getting tutoring. Study as much as you can. If you fail, try again, right? Try as much as you can until… And if you have to pivot, if you have to do something else, do something like manual labor or another work another job, whatever it is, to support your family, just pivot to another direction. You might, you might have changed, you know, your path, but you’re still not giving up. You’re never giving up. In the Marine Corps, in the military, you can never give up on a hype. You will die. You will– You can’t leave your friend behind. You can’t leave a, a buddy behind. Never leave a, a soldier behind.

[00:48:51] And, you

[00:48:51] know, never give up. Just never give up

[00:48:53] Scott DeLuzio: Great advice especially that last bit right there, never give up.

[00:48:57] There’s there’s always something out there. I, and I, I say [00:49:00] this all the time for, for folks who might say, “Oh, you know, I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried all these different programs. I’ve tried different services. I’ve tried all the, the things.”

[00:49:09] And for whatever it is that they’re going through, whether it’s mental health issues, physical health issues, they’re, they’re you know, maybe a drug addiction or alcohol dependency or something along those lines that whatever it is that they’re going through and they say, “I, I’ve tried it all. I’ve, I’ve tried everything.

[00:49:22] I, I, I just can’t seem to get past whatever my issue is,” trust me, there, there’s something else out there. There, there’s so many things. Just keep trying things and, and never give up. No, no matter, no matter what the situation is that you’re going through you’ve, you’ve survived all this, this way.

[00:49:40] You know, like you were saying before, every, every day is a battle you know, between life and death essentially, right? And you, you’ve, survived all the way up till today. And you, you have another tomorrow in you, and tomorrow after that, and after that, and after that. Keep, keep trying those things.

[00:49:57] You know, keep looking for things too, you know? [00:50:00] And that’s part of the reason why this show exists is to share resources like, like the ones that you’ve, you’ve been talking about today with folks who maybe just didn’t realize that some of these, these resources even existed. Well, here they are, you know?

[00:50:13] Now now you have no excuse. You know that they exist. So let- let’s get it done. Let’s, let’s get, get yourself into you know, some of these programs and, and figure out the best way to to help yourself. You know, and, and you try one thing and it doesn’t work, It doesn’t mean you give up and, and you just quit on it.

[00:50:32] You, try something else, and then that doesn’t work, okay, try something else, and just keep trying until you figure out what works for you. It’s, there’s no one size fits all solution out there. Everyone’s gonna need different things based on their unique set of circumstances that they’re going through, and, and that’s fine.

[00:50:49] There, there’s nothing wrong with that. you can try different things, and just because something worked for me or worked for you or worked for the next person doesn’t mean it’s gonna necessarily work [00:51:00] for whoever’s listening right now. But, but keep trying. You’ll find something at some point. And don’t, don’t give up.

[00:51:07] I, I think that’s maybe the, the key takeaway from, from this episode is kind of wait till the end to, to drop that, but, you know, don’t give up. Don’t, don’t don’t quit on yourself essentially, or, or your, or your family or loved ones or your friends, anyone like that who depend on you. You know, just by, by giving up, you’re, you’re quitting on them too, and that’s not fair to them, especially like you said, if you have, if you have kids.

[00:51:29] You know, tho- those kids are looking up to you and depending on you, and, and they, they need you to be the best version of yourself so that they can become the best versions of themselves. And, and that’s what I think any parent is gonna want for their kids is to you know, have a, a better life than, than what their, the parents had.

[00:51:47] And so, you know, figure out a way to do it. If not for yourself, do it for them, and and f just figure it out. And there’s people like, like yourself and lots of other folks out there who are, are willing to step [00:52:00] up and, and help and point people in the right direction help them themselves if they, if they need to, and do all the things that, Maybe someone with a, not operating with a clear mind is able to do for themselves.

[00:52:10] So, you know, ask for help. That, that’s no shame in that, asking for help. And you know, find somebody who can, you know, like you said, a, a fire team that, that can you know, kind of walk with you and, and make sure that you’re, you’re getting through these struggles in the best way possible. So, this has been a, a great conversation.

[00:52:28] You know, for for the listeners who might be interested in finding out more about your, your program you know, the, the recco, the recovery protocol and you know, the stuff that you, you have to offer to just remind folks where they can go to, to find more information about that?

[00:52:42] Adan Castaneda: The recovery protocol.org.

[00:52:46] The recovery protocol.org.

[00:52:48] Scott DeLuzio: Perfect.

[00:52:49] Adan Castaneda: And that, that, has you know, the link to my Patreon account. There’ll be just free, free links, free resources. There’ll be a button on the top, near the top to where, you know, all the videos are free, right? [00:53:00] And it- there’ll be a link to my YouTube channel. Rumble it’s just more speaking, me speaking my voice and being outspoken and kind of, venting and having a journal.

[00:53:08] But it’s something I also like. I just vlog. I vlog. But, you know, the Recovery

[00:53:12] Coach and main content, the recovery protocol.org.

[00:53:14] Scott DeLuzio: Perfect.

[00:53:15] Adan Castaneda: And and I also wanna say, like, this is my favorite Bible, the

[00:53:18] NK JV Study Bible.

[00:53:20] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:53:21] Adan Castaneda: New King James Study Bible. For anyone, you

[00:53:24] know, pick up a good Bible. You know, start being– going to church, your local

[00:53:27] community. But that’s the website,

[00:53:29] sir.

[00:53:30] Scott DeLuzio: Perfect. Perfect. And you know, appreciate you sharing that, that version of the Vi- Bible as well. I, I,

[00:53:34] I agree, you know, finding a you know, good version that you can, you can stick with is, is, is important and you know, especially people who are picking it up for the first time, you know, find- finding that, that good version is, is always a good first step.

[00:53:47] So, I appreciate you taking the time to come on the show, sharing the resources that you did, sharing what it is that you do and, and how you got there. I think it’s an important part of what you’re, you’re doing is, is your journey to getting there [00:54:00] so that other folks know that, hey, you know what?

[00:54:02] I might have this issue that I’m dealing with but there’s hope for me too. You know, if, if, if he can do it, maybe I can do it too. And not maybe, but you can do it too. You know, and that’s, that’s I think a, a great takeaway too. So, I appreciate you coming on the show and, and sharing your, your background and, and the resources and everything.

[00:54:21] It’s definitely been a great conversation. Appreciate it

[00:54:24] Adan Castaneda: Likewise. Thank you very much, sir.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Carrying pain can feel isolating. You might find yourself making others laugh, keeping your head down and hiding the tough stuff because sharing it seems risky. But there’s another way to get through it, one that lets you breathe. Speak honestly, and remember that needing help doesn’t make you a burden.

[00:00:18] Our guest today, TK Moyer, brings this kind of honesty to our conversation. He’s a Navy veteran. He’s a comedian, poet, actor, an author who opens up about childhood trauma, lessons from the military, the people who stood by him, and how comedy became a way to connect instead of Hide. After listening, you’ll have a better sense of how laughter, writing, breathing, and being there for someone else can help you find purpose again.

[00:00:45] Before we get into this episode, though, I wanna take a moment to raise something, raise awareness for something that’s deeply important to our community. The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service [00:01:00] members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism.

[00:01:03] This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:19]

[00:01:32] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, TK, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here

[00:01:35] TK Moyer: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you so much

[00:01:38] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, you bet. Before we dive into the episode, get into, you know, kinda all the stuff we’re gonna end up talking about here, can you maybe just start by telling us a little bit about yourself for any of the listeners who maybe aren’t familiar with you and, and who you are?

[00:01:51] TK Moyer: Yeah, of course. For those who don’t know me, which I’m pretty sure is everyone, I my name is Terrence Moyer. I go by TK. Fact, my mom [00:02:00] named me after two R&B singers from the ’80s, a dude named Terence Trent D’Arby and Keith Sweat, And I can’t sing a lick, so that’s why I’m really funny. I have nine sisters.

[00:02:10] I’m from North Carolina. I did six years in the military, in the Navy, and I, I loved every moment… I loved a lot of it. Not, I won’t say every moment, but I loved a lot of it. I’ve been doing comedy now coming up on 16 years, started off in the military, and yeah, I’ve made my… I wrote my own book. I’ve been writing poetry since sixth grade from a teacher that I did not like, and she did not like me. And yeah, we had a moment of clarity where she told me briefly, like, “If you wrote this, then you have talent, and I, I can now see your potential, but I’m still making you write 100 sentences before you go outside today.” I love comedy. I love acting. I got a BFA in acting. I’ve studied here. I studied in London, and I train emotional port- support animals for the VA. I give money to orphanages in Oakland whenever I can since I live in San [00:03:00] Francisco. And like, yeah, I think every second is a blessing. The next 10 seconds are not

[00:03:04] promised to anybody. do your best to just be nice when you can

[00:03:09] Scott DeLuzio: Well said.

[00:03:11] And so

[00:03:13] yeah, coming from that, that background you know, I, I know I had, I was not the best student in school either. You know, like when, as far as some teachers go, I, I was just especially my English classes, I was, I was not really all that great of a student in English. And then I, I went and wrote a book and I was like, “Oh my God, if any of my English teachers find out that I wrote a book, they might, like, just have a heart attack or something.”

[00:03:35] I, like, I didn’t want to even let anybody know about that ’cause I was like, “I don’t wanna have that on my head,” you know?

[00:03:40] TK Moyer: That would be a solid doubt. Sky wrote it? What Sky you talking about?

[00:03:46] my Sky.

[00:03:46] Scott DeLuzio: not that Scott.

[00:03:47] TK Moyer: Give me my yearbooks from ’97. Sky?

[00:03:51] Scott DeLuzio: The, the one with the dart hole, dart, you know,

[00:03:53] we use as a dartboard, that face? No, I don’t think so.

[00:03:57] TK Moyer: The, my blessing was, I had to tell Ms. [00:04:00] Warren was my sixth grade teacher. When I say we did not like each other, I mean, you would’ve thought she was a Blood and I was a Crip. We did not like each other at all, Right

[00:04:10] And like, it got to the point where, like, she used to call my house all the time, like all the time, and my mom, my auntie who raised me, she said one time, she was like, “Listen, Ms.

[00:04:19] Warren, I don’t call you when he with us. Okay? call us when he with you. All right? This is your problem now, all right?” But I remember it was St. Patrick’s Day, I was in the sixth grade, I think it was 1999, and I forgot to do the homework, which was write a poem about St. Patrick’s Day. So I got to class that day and I wrote a poem in 10 minutes. And she came in and Ms. Warren’s like, “Who did their homework?” And I, I did, so I, I technically did it, I just didn’t do it at home.

[00:04:48] Scott DeLuzio: Right

[00:04:48] TK Moyer: my hand up. She looked at me and she said, “I’m reading yours first.” And she came to mine and she did, it was, it was so incredible. She started reading it out loud to embarrass me, but the more she read, [00:05:00] the quieter she got until she was not speaking anymore. By, by the end of it, and she just looked at me like, she was like ” You wrote this?” I’m like, “Yes, ma’am.” And she was like, “Listen whole class, anyone who’ll admit to writing Terrence’s poem, have to– you get 100 for the entire week.” So my best friend Brandon goes, “Ms. Rowan, I wrote it,” like immediately. She read his, she goes, “You didn’t write this.” And this girl named Amy Brown, she said, “Ms.

[00:05:34] Rowan, he wrote it 10 minutes ago.” And then she was like, “You wrote this 10 minutes ago?” And I’m

[00:05:38] like, Yes, ma’am.” So I’m getting ready for like, you know, call my mom again, like I got it ready for it. And she walked to me, like it was, it was like, it was like the silence was deafening, she walked up so, so slowly and she was like, “If you really wrote this in 10 minutes, you are talented, and I was wrong about you.

[00:05:58] But you need to work [00:06:00] hard because

[00:06:00] this kind of talent does not come with a responsibility, and

[00:06:03] you’re better than this.” Yeah.

[00:06:06] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, it’s

[00:06:06] TK Moyer: called my mom that day, but

[00:06:09] Scott DeLuzio: you know, it’s a good message though you know, because, you know, sometimes

[00:06:12] folks that the, the talent that they have kind of go to their heads and they don’t put the effort in, they don’t put the work in, they don’t, they don’t nurture it and, and let it grow. And then at some point you just kind of plateau and then you’re, you know, everybody else catches up, and then you’re just like everybody else.

[00:06:26] And so, you know, you don’t, you don’t let that, you know, whatever the talent is, it could be athletics, it could be, you know, writing, it could be, you know, anything. It, it, it could, whatever it is, y- yeah, you might’ve been ahead of the class at one point, but, you know, that five, 10 years go by and you don’t do anything with it, well, then you’re, you’re gonna just be another average person.

[00:06:47] Not to say that there’s anything wrong with being average at something, but, you know, when you had

[00:06:50] TK Moyer: Yeah

[00:06:51] Scott DeLuzio: a, a natural talent early on, you know, grow that talent and, and do something with it, you know?

[00:06:56] TK Moyer: Exactly.

[00:06:57] Scott DeLuzio: yeah

[00:06:58] TK Moyer: not to cut you off, but my thing [00:07:00] was not to cut you off.

[00:07:00] Scott DeLuzio: No, yeah

[00:07:01] TK Moyer: is, though it’s, I think it’s also a point where you have to believe that

[00:07:06] no… Like, for me, it was always, “Oh, everyone can do this.”

[00:07:10] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:07:10] TK Moyer: But once you realize,

[00:07:12] no, they cannot, that’s when you realize, oh, I am a little, I am special,

[00:07:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah ‘

[00:07:18] TK Moyer: Cause I always thought, like… I’m, I’m, always loved doing jokes. I do not know, it’s a birth defect, right? Blame Chris Tucker from watching the movie Friday or blame Bernie Mac. I love Bernie Mac, like, he’s… Like I lo- I love me some Bernie Mac. But it wasn’t until, like,

[00:07:37] I remember my sisters and my teachers saying, “You keep saying people can do what you do, but they cannot.

[00:07:42] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:43] TK Moyer: You can do this ’cause you are Terrance,” right? And then for me seeing that as, and I, me continue doing it, I got to understand, like, oh, I do have a little, a little special sauce in me, so why not try it? the hardest part, too, trying it for [00:08:00] real and believing in yourself. Not to prove to someone, it’s just to do it, to see if you can really do it. the part that, like, it not only inspires people, but it shows you that

[00:08:10] you’re not a mistake

[00:08:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s a good point.

[00:08:13] Yeah, and,

[00:08:14] and, you know, we all have

[00:08:16] talents and, you know, your, your talents are different from mine, mine are different from the next person’s and, you know, but we all have something that, that we’re good at, whether we recognize it right now or not, you know, there might be something that we just haven’t discovered about ourselves.

[00:08:29] And, you know, so I, I think part of that is, is just trying new things and figuring out like, A, what, what fills your soul? What, what gets you motivated? What gets you moving? And, and also like, what, what are you, what are you good at? You know? What, what can you do that you look around and other people are like, “H- how the, how does this guy do that?”

[00:08:47] You know? And, and then you start recognizing like, “Oh, okay, well, I do have something special going on here, and maybe there’s something more to it. Let’s, let’s dig into that and, and figure out what it is,” you know?

[00:08:58] And, [00:09:00] and… Yeah, go ahead

[00:09:00] TK Moyer: What was yours, like your moment of clarity, your, your flow, your first

[00:09:04] flow state? Do you remember that?

[00:09:06] Scott DeLuzio: Oh gosh, I don’t know. I, I might still be figuring it out.

[00:09:10] I don’t know. No, but,

[00:09:12] TK Moyer: Okay.

[00:09:13] Scott DeLuzio: you know, it, you know, w- growing up as a, as a kid, I, it was, for me, it,

[00:09:18] like I, I didn’t have the confidence really in myself. I, I didn’t see anything that I had as being special or, you know, unique or anything like that. I looked at myself like, you know, I’m, you know, anything I could do, anyone else could probably do it better than me, you know?

[00:09:34] And so it, it took a long time for me to kinda get over that and, and recognize that there are things that I can do that maybe, maybe not nobody else can do, but maybe they don’t do it the way I do it. And so that, that took a long time for me to kinda figure out in life. And, you know, part of it was when I joined the Army honestly, and I, I joined later than, than a lot of folks do.

[00:09:56] I was in my kinda mid-20s at that point. But you know, [00:10:00] I, I had already done a lot of things. I, I, you know, graduated college, I did all this stuff, and I still felt like, well, yeah, anyone could do that. I, you know, you just go to, go to school, study, and, you know, do, do the assignments and everything and, and you’ll be okay.

[00:10:13] Just anyone could do it. I, I didn’t really see it as being special, but it wasn’t until I, I joined the, the Army that yeah, I think it was actually the, the drill sergeants that put the that confidence in me. You know, go- going to do some of the, the stuff that I would, I probably would’ve looked at and been like, “No, I don’t think so.

[00:10:29] I’m not going down that thing.” You know? “I’m not, I’m not doing a- any of those kinda obstacles.” And then, then eventually I started realizing like, yeah, sure, all the other guys I was with and all the other people who came before me and who come after me, they’re gonna do those things too, but, you know, that’s 1% of the population.

[00:10:43] Like, that’s h- a huge number of people. And so maybe that is something special. Maybe that’s something worth, you know, being proud of that, that, you know, and I, I know it’s basic training. It’s not like, you know, the biggest, biggest thing in the world, but, you know, there are plenty of people out there who haven’t even done that.

[00:10:59] [00:11:00] So, you know, that’s, that’s I think where, where that’s, that came from as far as my my attitude goes towards, towards that type of stuff, you know?

[00:11:08] TK Moyer: That’s facts. I have, I s- I do have nine sisters, and I love them to death and beyond. I do. That’s why I’m a, such a funny person ’cause it’s trauma. You know what I’m saying? But the bootcamp for me, I remember being terrified. Like, I remember, like, going in, I went to bootcamp like that, like, b- when I had a head full of hair.

[00:11:28] Like, you know,

[00:11:29] you know, you’re 18, you can’t tell nobody nothing, right? You got abs by burping too loud. You know what I’m

[00:11:35] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right

[00:11:37] TK Moyer: I, I went to the, I went to bootcamp like, “No one’s gonna mess up my head on purpose. I’m gonna go by myself.” But I remember my first weekend

[00:11:43] and understanding the world a little bit better from my bullying from my sisters, right? ‘Cause I’m like, “Why are you

[00:11:51] yelling at me?” “Oh, you can’t hit me. This is a gym membership.” Like, I get it now. You know what I’m saying?

[00:11:56] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right.

[00:11:58] TK Moyer: And it wasn’t until, like, from that, [00:12:00] and and, and no joke I, love this fact. A lot of people don’t care about it, but I love this fact. My drill sergeant, we call it

[00:12:05] RDC in the mi- in the Navy, was a, it’s a boxer named Terence

[00:12:10] Crawford. You

[00:12:10] ever heard of him?

[00:12:11] Scott DeLuzio: I, yeah.

[00:12:12] TK Moyer: His father was my drill sergeant, right? And like, I remember the day he told us, ’cause he was like, “Your name is Terence? My son’s name is Terence.” And I’m like, “How does he spell it?” And he told me, like, “He’s raw. I could beat your son up.” goes, without like… I remember the look in his face.

[00:12:29] It was so cool. He goes, “My son is gonna be world champion.

[00:12:34] You just wait and watch.” I’m like, Okay

[00:12:37] I’m gonna be the best comedian in the world. You just wait and watch.”

[00:12:40] Scott DeLuzio: That’s

[00:12:40] TK Moyer: said, ” Well, the fact that your name is Terence, I believe you.” And then from there, I just, I don’t know, it’s something about that moment, my sisters, and like, you know, just making people laugh on a regular basis that I learned

[00:12:55] about, I think people can do this, but I don’t see people doing it [00:13:00] the way I do.

[00:13:00] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:13:02] TK Moyer: maybe I am meant to do this, and it’s not, I’m not meant to be the funniest. I’m not meant to be Bernie Mac. if I can bring a little bit of light to someone’s life

[00:13:13] make them

[00:13:13] forget about their problems for 10 minutes,

[00:13:15] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:16] TK Moyer: I think that I’m doing my purpose on this planet

[00:13:18] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I could tell just in the,

[00:13:22] you know, few minutes that we’ve been sitting here ta- talking that you just naturally you have a funny personality. You’re, you’re, you know, kind of a, you’re a funny guy. You know, you’re not doing, you’re not doing your, your, your bit right now.

[00:13:32] You’re not, like, on stage doing, doing all, all your, your jokes and all that. But,

[00:13:36] TK Moyer: I’m a Gemini, baby. I can’t help it. It’s a birthday fact. My birthday is coming up this week actually.

[00:13:41] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, well, happy birthday then.

[00:13:42] TK Moyer: Appreciate it. I turn 19, finally.

[00:13:48] I’m sorry. Sorry, I’m sorry about that

[00:13:50] Scott DeLuzio: I knew it for a second, I was like, “Wait, I gotta do the math ’cause he might be, I don’t know.”

[00:13:56] TK Moyer: It’s the cocoa butter, that’s all it is. Stop. [00:14:00] Honey, stop.

[00:14:01] Scott DeLuzio: all right, so, so getting into,

[00:14:03] like, so how you got into comedy. You said you, you, you were kinda, you kinda got into that after getting out of the Navy. Is that, that correct?

[00:14:10] TK Moyer: C- well, no. So comedy has been a part of my life,

[00:14:13] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:14:13] TK Moyer: I was a child.

[00:14:14] Scott DeLuzio: O- okay

[00:14:15] TK Moyer: I d- I, I have nine sisters. I say that, but it’s not traditional. okay

[00:14:19] Like, so, not to get too much into it, but like, my mom and dad weren’t married, right? So my mom had three children Lakeisha Kimberly, and me, my dad had four me, Kirsten, Crystal, and Cherise. And then I got separated from them, and his sister, my aunt, adopted me. She had a daughter named Latoya, who I, like, grew up with naturally. Then she got married to a man named Joe, two daughters, Latonya and Shamika, I lived with for a long

[00:14:49] time. And then my aunt Sandy and Uncle Joe… Well, I said that way backwards.

[00:14:53] So

[00:14:54] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Gotcha

[00:14:55] TK Moyer: my Aunt Sandy and my Uncle Joe had DeAsia. And ever since my life, my sisters [00:15:00] have always been there, right? So I… So to me, the family means family. It doesn’t mean step-family or half-family. that’s it. And like, since… I say since a kid, like my, my sisters have shown me funny in different ways.

[00:15:15] Like my f- I think my sister Kim showed me the movie Friday at a y- age I should not have watched it at, right? I think I was like five. But I saw Chris Tucker oh my goodness. something about his charisma,

[00:15:32] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:33] TK Moyer: the way he spoke, the way when I saw him, I would stop breathing ’cause the way… Like, it was something about him.

[00:15:40] And I remember, I u- I used to get in trouble in elementary school for imitating him every day. “What?” Like, all of… Like, just get in so much trouble. then from there, I met, I learned about Bernie Mac, and then I thought when I saw Bernie Mac do

[00:15:55] comedy… I, I’m like eight years old watching Bernie Mac do his classic, “I [00:16:00] ain’t scared of you,” you know what I’m saying?

[00:16:01] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:16:02] TK Moyer: But in my mind, he was just going on stage and talking,

[00:16:06] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:07] TK Moyer: and like he w- it was nothing written. That was just who he was. So at a very young age, I started just making myself do that

[00:16:14] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:15] TK Moyer: And so like, like yeah, even when I do comedy now, like I go on stage, I have jokes, I have jokes for years.

[00:16:23] I like to go on stage with my back against the wall, nothing prepared. And then I can connect with the audience, and they get to see who I am. then once they trust me, I get to go into things. When, when people think you’re being

[00:16:34] funny, they don’t

[00:16:34] like you. It’s weird. They just think like,

[00:16:37] it’s it’s, It’s cringe-worthy.

[00:16:39] Scott DeLuzio: It’s like, like trying too hard

[00:16:42] TK Moyer: Don’t you hate that?

[00:16:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:16:43] TK Moyer: D- like, I, as a comedian, I hate when people hear like, “You’re a comedian?”

[00:16:48] And they just, for the next hour, they’re just throwing jokes at me. And I don’t wanna be rude, but I’m like, “Oh, you know what? I, I f- I gotta go to a [00:17:00] funeral or something. I gotta, I can’t, I, you know, I gotta do

[00:17:02] something.” Right? “My hot water heater just broke. I gotta go.”

[00:17:05] Scott DeLuzio: Right. You know, yeah, and, and it’s, “

[00:17:09] it’s,

[00:17:09] you know, it is interesting ’cause you, you don’t, you don’t go up to somebody who’s an accountant and just start, you know, talking taxes with them. You know, you don’t go up to, you know, a mechanic and just start talking, you know, cars and all that stuff with them, you know?

[00:17:21] It’s like sometimes they, they, they wanna be off work too. They’re, they’re people just like anybody else and, you know, like, so I, I get where you’re coming from with that. Not that I’ve, not that I’m that funny that, that people come up to me and start, you know, telling me jokes and everything like that.

[00:17:34] But you know, I, I have my moments though. But

[00:17:37] TK Moyer: but for me, like, it was like m-

[00:17:39] making someone laugh did something. It was a, it was a, double-edged sword in a good way, where I could make them laugh and f- they forget about their problems, and it would… And I would forget about, like, the things that I faced that I didn’t know how to talk about, right?

[00:17:54] So, like, as a kid, it’s like being separated from your family and you don’t know how to talk about these [00:18:00] things. It becomes, it becomes difficult ’cause you don’t trust people, and then you, the voice in your head tells you you can’t say things because if you do that, then they’re gonna give you

[00:18:10] up, and people are gonna keep giving you up and stuff like that.

[00:18:13] And that’s ter- as a child, that is terrifying,

[00:18:16] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:18:17] TK Moyer: And the only thing I had to do, which I, I didn’t notice until later in life, was just tell the truth, right? My Aunt Sandy, God rest her soul, she was an angel on this earth. Second grade, I remember her, like, get… Like, I think I got– the teacher called home every day on this one specific week, and on Friday I get off the bus, and she’s sitting on the stairs before you go inside, inside the house.

[00:18:38] And she goes, “Terrence, talk to me. I know you’ve been through a lot. I, I cannot e- I cannot even imagine what you’ve been through. But just tell me wrong can help you.” And I, like,

[00:18:51] it was like one regret in my life where I, I f- I was fighting internally, I was fighting myself, like, “Just tell her. Tell her that your mom every day, [00:19:00] you miss your sisters. That’s why you can’t pay attention in class. Tell her, tell her that you like to make people laugh because you’re thinking about your mom and you start crying, but you think about something funny to say so you can stop yourself from crying. tell her because she is sitting here begging you to do it.” But I didn’t because I was too afraid. I was a child. Like, I, I for- I forgive myself for that now, right? But it’s just, I, my trauma, even though I went through it, also helped me to chase my dreams in a weird way. And the thing about my auntie, she loved me no matter what. she, she was there that day. She said, she said it very clearly that day, but she never gave me up. She was always patient. I mean, she… And I, I annoyed her a lot . Like, a whole… I’m a frustration. But to love a child

[00:19:55] that is not yours, and you cannot even imagine what they’ve been through, and you have your own trauma [00:20:00] you’ve been through,

[00:20:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:20:01] TK Moyer: that kind of patient is a talent,

[00:20:04] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:05] TK Moyer: and it taught me, she taught me without ever saying it, that everyone can’t do what she done. Everyone can’t do what I do. And so, it’s my responsibility to use my talent and my trauma to help other people and do the same thing for them. Tell me, tell me what you need so I can

[00:20:22] help you. And

[00:20:23] if you don’t wanna

[00:20:23] tell me, I’m gonna be here regardless, and I’m gonna wait it out

[00:20:28] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. You know, and p-

[00:20:29] Going back to what you were just talking about there, it-

[00:20:32] that sometimes we look at folks who served in the military and the mental health issues that they, they might be dealing with after getting out of the military or even while they’re still in, and we look at it like, okay, well, it- it’s, it’s due to their military service.

[00:20:48] It’s because of, you know, the things that they saw or did in combat or, you know, whatever might have happened during their military service. But oftentimes it’s a lot more complex than that, and it’s it’s a combination [00:21:00] of things, and it piles up over time, and might come from things that happened in childhood.

[00:21:04] Like, like what you were talking about, how, you know, you had some kinda, you know, traumatic things for, for a little kid to be dealing with. And then, you know, dealing with all that, and then you’re still dealing with that because, let’s face it, as a kid, y- you’re not really equipped to deal with all these things in a great way.

[00:21:21] So, you know, you get, get to this point where now you go off and you join the military, and then they throw all sorts of other things at you, and now you’re, not only are you still dealing with childhood stuff, now you’re dealing with adult stuff, and it’s just adding on top of it. And, you know, eventually you can only hand- handle so much, and if you don’t know how to deal with it and, you know, compartmentalize and, and do all the things that you’re supposed to do to be able to handle all these things, you’re gon- you’re gonna end up in, you know, k- kinda some rough shape, right?

[00:21:52] But fortunately for someone like yourself, you’ve had this coping mechanism that you’ve, you’ve learned at an, at an early age. ‘Cause [00:22:00] humor could be… Really I, I find it as, like, a survival tool that a lot of people have used for dealing with these things that are internal struggles that they might be having.

[00:22:11] And you know, they might just use it to be able to get through that moment because, hey, this is a tough moment that I’m dealing with right now. I need to, I, I need to tell a joke or, or lighten the mood a little bit just to get past this moment.

[00:22:25] TK Moyer: Yeah,

[00:22:26] Scott DeLuzio: have you found

[00:22:26] TK Moyer: is

[00:22:27] Scott DeLuzio: basically been kinda, like, w- where comedy has kinda come into play for you throughout your life?

[00:22:33] TK Moyer: I would say, yeah, I say the comedy aspect

[00:22:37] to me is like an equation, right? So like, it’s trauma plus something else equals comedy, right?

[00:22:42] Scott DeLuzio: Okay

[00:22:43] TK Moyer: like, my father was in prison. He was in federal prison for a very long time. But the beautiful part about that was it showed me what love really was in a sense. Because even though he wasn’t there physically, he wrote me letters all the time. He called me all the time, right? [00:23:00]

[00:23:00] And like, I… Back then, I was more of a mama’s boy than a daddy’s son. You know what I’m saying?

[00:23:05] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:06] TK Moyer: And my mom was like… And I love my mom. She’s still alive. W- well, she’s still alive. She’s still alive today, are like, we are tighter than we’ve ever been.

[00:23:14] We have worked through our the past. have like really talked through it, forgiveness on every aspect from the, from the lightest conversation to the deepest, most scariest conversation you can have about your truth and her truth, and understanding where a different person’s coming from without judgment.

[00:23:32] And like that takes… That- it’s not a like a one-time thing to do, right? However, like growing up with my dad writing me and calling me and being there and having to be a chameleon when I’m at home, to be a certain person in front of my auntie and my uncle and their kids, and not show that I’m jealous that they get to say mom and dad and I [00:24:00] don’t.

[00:24:00] Or like, I didn’t go on a, a lot of trips because of what teachers used to say,

[00:24:05] this is a permission slip. Get your parents to sign it.” So I’d never give it to my aunt and uncle ’cause I’m like, “They’re not my parents,”

[00:24:10] Scott DeLuzio: Huh.

[00:24:11] TK Moyer: But from there, from that, that, I wouldn’t say stubbornness, but from that reality as a kid to growing up on a consistent basis, every day waking up and seeing these two people, who are not my parents, love me,

[00:24:26] and I can trust them, right? It, does something to you. And then on top of that, they’re sisters from every angle, mom, dad auntie, uncle, and combined, they all have different personalities. I don’t know how… I, like, I don’t, I don’t under- I don’t see myself being anything different ’cause all my nine sisters are like, they’re like n- all the different zodiac signs and Chinese zodiac signs. The only thing they have in [00:25:00] common is love, and like, and they accept me. And they are the, they are the ones who told me, “You think that’s funny? Then that’s not funny. Da, da, da.” They gave me the real world, so when I went to the military, was new

[00:25:12] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:13] TK Moyer: all. Like I was so afraid, like, oh my gosh, they’re gonna beat me up and bar full of soap, Full Metal Jacket, da, da, da, da. But then once I got there, these other people my age are terrified, they’re like, they’re not even hiding it. I’m like, “What are you, you crying about? You, you live with your mom. Like she, your mom’s gonna write you a letter, fam.” My auntie and uncle were very gangster. They don’t, they old school Black people.

[00:25:36] Like, they don’t write letters like… And then plus, like, when I called home, they didn’t know the number. I, I’m on the answering machine “Auntie, Auntie, it’s me.” “My bad, baby. How you doing?” Like, it’s old school like that, right? So I had, I learned that like, yes, before military it was rough, it was crazy, but it did make me tough and see a different point of view. [00:26:00] that point of view has, when I went to the military, I was like, “This is not Freddy Krueger to me.

[00:26:06] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:26:07] TK Moyer: This is literally the Teletubbies with a ugly mask on.” I know how to navigate it. I know how to talk to people who annoy me and frustrate me, who I have to work under and work for ’cause I have… I’m not gonna say which sister’s name in case they watching this, I had to, I had certain sisters babysitting me that I did not like at the moment, and I learned, okay, I have to work with you to get this done. We gotta take this chicken out to get unthawed because if Aunt Tammy get home, not unthawed, we all in trouble. We are a team. And then like once you learn those small things growing up,

[00:26:41] the military is just, it’s kinda daycare

[00:26:47] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And

[00:26:47] it’s, it’s an extension of that really. I mean,

[00:26:50] I, I, know there were some, some folks that I served with in the Army that th- they weren’t my best friends. They, they pr- You know, we were just two opposite people. [00:27:00] We, we had, you know, different interests, different likes, and, you know, sometimes there are some of them that, quite frankly, they annoyed me, and I probably annoyed them and, and whatever.

[00:27:10] But When it came right down to it, if shit hit the fan, we were gonna be there for each other because we were, just like you said, with, you know, doing stuff at home, like, hey, we’re all gonna be in trouble if we don’t work together. Guess what? Same thing with that, that stuff in the military. So that, that’s a, a lesson that, that you probably learned early on.

[00:27:35] You know, you’re, you’re at the age of, you know, still needing a babysitter, so you learned that early on. And then now you get into a, a environment where, yes, you really do need to work together. I mean, there, there’s, there’s no jobs in the military that are, are like, okay, you go off solo and you, you go, you know, take down Bin Laden because you, you know, you’re, you’re this badass, you know, whatever.

[00:27:56] You know? No. That, that’s not, that, that’s not how it works. Like, ev- everyone’s [00:28:00] working together to get this stuff done and, you know, like, but, but that lesson was, was learned early on. So, you know, it, it takes the good and the bad, you know? As, as, as you, you grow up, you know, there’s gonna be good lessons that you learn, like that one right there.

[00:28:16] There’s gonna be some, some things that aren’t so great, you know, stuff

[00:28:19] TK Moyer: Yep

[00:28:19] Scott DeLuzio: your, your family life and all that kind of stuff. And and the reason why I’m bringing this up is because I, I think everyone’s got a, a bit of that. You know, it may not be the same exact scenarios and all that, right? But, but you can…

[00:28:29] Everyone could probably think back to, you know what? That, that kind of sucked for my childhood, or that was really great for my childhood. I’m glad I learned that lesson at the age that I did. It really helped me with whatever or, or whatever. And, and so you, you get to this point where y- all these things are adding up, and it becomes who you are, and it, it kind of starts making sense when, when you look back at all these things that you experienced and all the things that went on.

[00:28:56] Now you look at, you know, maybe it’s a struggle that you might [00:29:00] be having now. It’s like, why, why are you struggling? Well, because of, you know, this, this, these other scenarios that maybe I, I didn’t really deal with it in the best way, and so maybe, maybe that’s why I’m dealing with this now. And so, you know, it kind of takes some, you know, a little bit of reflection to, to think back on those things and, you know, it sounds like that’s, that’s kind of like what you’re doing right now here is, is sharing some of those things that you’ve experienced.

[00:29:23] But it, it’s all kind of led into, you know, the, the person that you are today. You know, the whole, your whole upbringing, your, your military experience and all the other experiences that you’ve had betw- between birth and now. I mean, all those things, just like anybody else, it has shaped you to become who you are today and, and, yeah, we all experience things that are you know, maybe unfortunate, maybe they’re sad, maybe they’re traumatic but it’s what do you do with that?

[00:29:50] How do you deal with that to move on and, and keep, keep pushing through to have another day and, and m- move on from that, [00:30:00] right?

[00:30:00] TK Moyer: You saying that, that’s what, that’s how the book came into play,

[00:30:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:30:04] TK Moyer: So with the book,

[00:30:05] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, let’s talk about that a bit. Yeah

[00:30:07] TK Moyer: with the book is very special to me. I, I mean, anyone that writes a book would say the same thing. However, like I, I was able to do a few different things with this book. It is a memoir. It is, it, it, it is a memoir, but it’s like, it’s a sliver of a memoir.

[00:30:26] It doesn’t talk about This memoir has a direct journey, right? It goes from, it talks from very specific incidents, from happiness to like, away from my mom and sisters, and losing my father, and addiction and stuff like that. But it, you read all of that and you, and like, I’ll, forgive me, ’cause this is, yeah, it, it, this is like really close to the chest.

[00:30:55] I, it, it, it talks about a lot of things from the poems. So when you read [00:31:00] the book, you have to read it chapter by chapter, not just individually. each po- each poem has like a little, a little something that just, just carries over, right? you get to one poem at the very end, and it uses everything from everyth- from all the other poems

[00:31:20] to do- to pass it on to someone else, basically,

[00:31:26] Scott DeLuzio: Okay

[00:31:26] TK Moyer: giving it away, right?

[00:31:28] And I, I remember the day that it happened, like, it’s, like, everything in this poem, in this book is true. The, the, the point or, like, the last the conflict resolution of the book I remember the exact day it happened. I can still feel it. I can still smell senses that was around. I can still feel the temperature on my skin. I can still feel the emotions that I felt, and I can still feel the fear that I felt to be like, “How do I do this? [00:32:00] Because if I don’t do it, something bad is going to happen to this other person.” Right? I just remember just taking a deep breath and just really quickly remembering everything I went through. everything that I’ve been taught, being able to just, like, br- I think breath is the most sacred thing in this world, in my own personal opinion. ‘Cause no matter what, like, when I get fr- when I get panicky, I’m usually thinking about the future. You know, like something I can’t control. If I get, find myself being too frustrated or angry, I’m usually thinking about the past, right?

[00:32:35] It’s not until I breathe, like really breathe deep, and I feel my body in that moment, that I am present, and I know I made it this far, this situation’s in front of me. I want to believe that I can handle this, and if I don’t believe I can handle it, how about I just give it a shot?

[00:32:54] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:32:55] TK Moyer: let’s see what happens, right?

[00:32:57] When… Yes, when this happened, [00:33:00] when, when the climax of the book happened in real time, it was so terrif- like, it was- Oof, it was so terrifying. But I remember the moment I succeeded in helping this one person and just feeling like longer having that thought that I’m a mistake, no m- no longer having that thought a waste of breath, right?

[00:33:25] Because I was able to do something I never thought I could ever do. And then, like, oof, it is, it is… The, the poem, when, when you read it, if you haven’t read it already, the poem is called Turnham Green Station. It’s when I lived in London. It happened to me in London. And like, in, in Lon- far away from home.

[00:33:43] I’m

[00:33:43] from North Carolina. I have no one I can call because I was eight hours behind, I think,

[00:33:48] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:33:49] TK Moyer: London to North Carolina. In that moment, I just… I, I had to take it. I had to breathe and trust in my ability. And every, like, [00:34:00] everything I’ve been through, everything I used to be ashamed of, everything that I used to be afraid to talk about as par- to, to people, things I, like, took me years to tell my therapist about.

[00:34:10] All of those things for one moment when I took that breath, it was like, “This is who you are.

[00:34:17] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm

[00:34:18] TK Moyer: Now use this and make something positive out of it.” right? that, moment was so just I don’t… The, it was like a certain silence that like, I don’t know, it was just so, it was so calming, and I can still feel it to this day.

[00:34:39] Like it’s, so calming that I was… I, I just felt like this is what you were made for.

[00:34:44] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:34:45] TK Moyer: This is what you need to use your talent for. This is what you… This is why you’re able to make people laugh. This is why you’re a great storyteller. This is why you’re able to write. This is why you’re a great actor.

[00:34:54] This is why you’re a great artist. job on this planet is not to worry about [00:35:00] the things you went through. Those is obstacles. And I, and yes, a lot of them are horrible. A lot of them, a lot of pe- a lot… Children should not go through the things you’ve been through. True. the reason you went through it is ’cause you were strong enough, and because this is who you are going to be, and your job is to make

[00:35:18] sure

[00:35:19] that you can save other people from the same thing that you went through. No one

[00:35:22] else can do this but you,

[00:35:23] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:35:24] TK Moyer: thinking that other people

[00:35:25] can do what you do

[00:35:28] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Th- that’s absolutely right, and, and that ability to help other people probably fills you up in a way that nothing else can. You know, b- that, that just being able to reach out and help that one person in that moment that, of, you know, whatever their need was at, at that point you know, just being able to help is, is a, a great feeling.

[00:35:52] I know there have been times in my life where I’ve helped people who were in y- you know, real bad situations, could’ve been, [00:36:00] like, a me- medical emergency or, or something like that, and I’m, I’m, I’m, was there and I was able to help them. And in the moment it’s, it’s a little bit scary, a little terrifying, but at the end when, you know, it all works out and all, all things are, are good to go, it’s like, “Holy crap, I did that.”

[00:36:17] You know? I, I was able to do something that I, I was, I was scared to death. I, I, I didn’t know if I, if I could do it, and then I did, and I’m like, “This is a, this is great. I’m so glad that I was here, that I was able to help that person.”

[00:36:32] TK Moyer: Yeah

[00:36:32] Scott DeLuzio: you know, and, and it, it could be an- It, it doesn’t have to be something life or death.

[00:36:35] It could be, you know, “Hey, man, I, I just, I don’t know what to do right now. I’m, I’m struggling. I’m, I’m having…” You know, just being, being able to be there for someone and help ’em out. And I, and I bring that up because so often people think that they are a burden to other people if they come to them with their problems.

[00:36:53] Like, you know, if I come to you right now and I said, “Hey, I’m deal- dealing with all these things,” and, you know, like, I [00:37:00] feel like I’m unloading on you, and, you know, it’s like, man, I’m just dumping this stuff on th- on this guy and, and he’s, he’s gonna look at me like, “Man, what a…” You know, you know, whatever.

[00:37:10] Whatever you might be thinking. And that, that’s in my head anyways, but in the back of your, your mind you’re like, “I’m so glad that this guy came to me, ’cause I’m, I’m glad he, he felt comfortable enough to come to me and trusted me enough to come w- to me with these problems,” and, and whatever. And, you know, it, it might make you feel good, but it, and at the same time might, might be terrifying for the other person.

[00:37:33] But you gotta kinda let that go and say, “You know what? I, I might need the help. I might need to, to just swallow that pride and just go ask for it.” And, you

[00:37:44] TK Moyer: Yeah.

[00:37:44] Scott DeLuzio: not a burden to somebody else. That those… You know, think about it, if the, the roles were reversed, if someone else came to you and, and said that,

[00:37:51] I mean, you’re not gonna be like, “Oh my God, this guy again.

[00:37:54] Come on.” You

[00:37:55] TK Moyer: No, you, you will welcome it so

[00:37:57] Scott DeLuzio: welcoming. Yeah, exactly.

[00:37:58] TK Moyer: I, I’m always here for you, [00:38:00] brother. Pl- what I don’t, I don’t… I love you, I care about you, and if you need, if you are on that brink

[00:38:06] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:06] TK Moyer: where you think you’re about

[00:38:07] to lose it, please call me. Because if you don’t, if something happened to you, gonna be mad at you

[00:38:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s right

[00:38:14] TK Moyer: ‘ cause you know better. And the fact, like, ooh, it it, I, I don’t mean to cut you off, I’m sorry. You

[00:38:19] Scott DeLuzio: No, you’re good

[00:38:20] TK Moyer: You

[00:38:21] are taking the words out of my mind, my mouth, and my spirit right now. I’m some… I feel like I’m in Black church right now. Hallelujah. But like, for me, it’s always been, I, ’cause I do have those thoughts. I’m a hu- I’m only human. I, I do not, and maybe it’s ego. Sometimes it’s the ego. I don’t want no one to see me crumbling like this, right? when you know you need it because you, like, it’s getting to that limit and you think about someone that you know you can call, but you’re like, “I don’t wanna. They might be out on date night,” da, da, da, da, da.

[00:38:50] But if the roles were reversed, you know it for a fact, if that was them going through that, how upset you would be if they didn’t reach out to you, right? The [00:39:00] fact that you said that, my brother, Scott, my brother. You were in the military. I can tell you

[00:39:09] Oh my, oh my goodness, my… Yes, that’s, that’s… Isn’t that it?

[00:39:13] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:39:13] TK Moyer: That’s, I feel like that’s what, this is my opinion, I’m not getting religious or nothing like that, but I think the, the, secret ingredient to life is just to be kind to one another. Just, and I like, I get a, I have a issue with trying to always solve problems for people when a lot of times the problem that they need, the, the solution that they need is just someone to just listen to ’em, just just vent. correct their nonsense. Don’t tell ’em what’s right and wrong. Let them just get all of that out. Because once you do, only will you hear the lightness in their voice and how grateful they are, but now they do believe, like, “You know what? I was wrong in everything I thought about. I am cared for. I am loved. I am worthy. I do have someone [00:40:00] I can call when I need something. I do have someone I can call that can be there.” And like, that by itself, to me, is low-key better than paying an overdue bill, is low-key better than watching your best frie- scary movie. Being there for someone else and giving them that light that they need to see in the darkness is what we are meant to do here. It’s so easy to get caught up in the frustrations and the pains of life. ‘Cause I mean, we all go through it, but the best part of my day personally is when I can be there for someone, even make ’em laugh. You ain’t gotta tell me that you going through this, that, and the third, if I can see it in your face, and I can just distract you whatever, and I can just make you do that laugh, that real laugh that people do where they hold they stomach and they gotta back up, or they looking at you with they eyes wide, or they just can’t stop laughing, I

[00:40:54] have done my job for the day. Because that is literally feeding

[00:40:58] the soul,

[00:40:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:41:00] Yeah

[00:41:00] TK Moyer: what, that’s why I feel like that’s, that’s what we are here for

[00:41:04] Scott DeLuzio: that’s right. And, you know, going back to what you were saying,

[00:41:06] you know, you don’t wanna necessarily

[00:41:08] give the people the, the solutions that y- they’re, they’re looking for. You know, sometimes the best solution that a person can get is the conclusion that they come to on their own. And sometimes you need to have somebody else to talk to, to, you know, get, get those thoughts out with and, you know, just kinda going back and forth to be able to process that stuff.

[00:41:33] Some- you just keep it stuck in your head, it’s gonna stay the same, whatever it is stuck in your head. A- and

[00:41:38] TK Moyer: Are

[00:41:38] Scott DeLuzio: I think…

[00:41:38] TK Moyer: Scott?

[00:41:39] Scott DeLuzio: No, I’m not.

[00:41:40] TK Moyer: low-key?

[00:41:41] Scott DeLuzio: I’m not, no. ‘

[00:41:42] TK Moyer: Cause I’m, I’m telling you right now, you sound like… I got three

[00:41:45] Scott DeLuzio: I

[00:41:45] TK Moyer: th- well,

[00:41:45] I got two

[00:41:46] therapists now. One quit last week. But man, I’m telling you, you got the skills

[00:41:51] Scott DeLuzio: Look, I’ve been,

[00:41:52] TK Moyer: of

[00:41:52] Scott DeLuzio: been in enough,

[00:41:53] I’ve been in enough therapy to probably be one, but

[00:41:59] TK Moyer: [00:42:00] Amen.

[00:42:00] Scott DeLuzio: but, no,

[00:42:01] TK Moyer: my

[00:42:01] Scott DeLuzio: I have no, no qualifications, no s- no you know, degrees or nothing like that you know, that I can,

[00:42:06] I can say that I am. But you know, th- this is stuff that I, I’ve kind of picked up along the way too, and that’s, you know, part of it as well. But you know, this is just honestly with just life in general.

[00:42:17] I’ve, I’ve found that the more I’ve worked through a problem and, and tried to figure it out instead of just sitting there feeling sorry for myself, the better it is that, or better the outcome will be. You know, even, even things like you know, I’m having, you know, computer trouble or something like that and, and I’m writing into tech support and I’m, I’m trying to describe the problem and all, all the things that I’ve, I’ve been doing.

[00:42:41] And then as I’m describing the problem, I, I write it out and I’m, I’m like, “Wait, but I didn’t try this one other thing that just came to mind. Let me go try that other thing.” And then once when I do it and then, then it works and I’m like, “Okay, I don’t need, I don’t even need tech support anymore.” You know, ’cause sometimes you just need to be able to put it out there and, and think it through.

[00:42:58] Slow down, think it through. [00:43:00] And so, and I found that with, with like journaling and writing and, and stuff, like you, you slow down and your, your brain just starts processing stuff a little bit better than it would if you’re just sitting there thinking about it or even talking about it. W- ’cause when you’re writing e- everything is slowing down and you know, it’s just, just a, you know, way that our brains are wired, I guess.

[00:43:21] I don’t know.

[00:43:22] TK Moyer: Yeah.

[00:43:23] Scott DeLuzio: and

[00:43:23] TK Moyer: fact

[00:43:24] Scott DeLuzio: when you, when you… I wanna get back to your, your comedy a little bit and, and more about

[00:43:27] the, the stuff that you do. You know, so when you’re, when you’re doing your, your your comedy you know, how do you balance some of these topics, some of these more serious type things like your, the childhood traumas and, and things like that with the more funny side of things?

[00:43:43] Or, or do you incorporate those things at all? Or do you, do you kinda come up with, with other stuff that, that is completely unrelated?

[00:43:49] TK Moyer: It’s, it’s a, it’s a fine line to follow. So it’s, it go… For me, it’s like pure happiness, and [00:44:00] then

[00:44:01] the things that I cannot make fun of, the things that are just too near and dear to my heart, I write out into poetry,

[00:44:06] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:44:06] TK Moyer: I don’t try to make that funny.

[00:44:08] Scott DeLuzio: Okay

[00:44:08] TK Moyer: I just, put it out there. So, like, one of my favorite,

[00:44:12] one of my favorite jokes to do…

[00:44:14] So the, the true story is this. I’m gonna tell you the true story then the joke, Okay

[00:44:17] Scott DeLuzio: Okay

[00:44:18] TK Moyer: The true story is there used to be a TV show called In Living Color,

[00:44:21] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:22] TK Moyer: right? And my mom loved it.

[00:44:24] Her favorite, character was Wanda. That was Jamie Foxx in, in drag, basically, right? And so one Halloween she dressed me up as Wanda, right?

[00:44:34] Right? And I remember that being, like, my favorite Halloween ever. I’m, like, three years old, right? However, growing up now, a lot of people don’t know that show. So, and, like, the way I do jokes is not, I don’t do it in traditional sense. have to, my back has to be against the wall. I have to have no material.

[00:44:54] The crowd has to be looking at me and judging, and then out of nowhere a spark happens, and [00:45:00] I find the timing, and I find how to do something, and it just happens, right?

[00:45:04] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:04] TK Moyer: So the Wanda story, I’m… The joke goes like this. I, I, I talk to the crowd and I’m like how y’all doing? Da, da, da, da. Do y’all have a favorite holiday, right?

[00:45:14] And people are like, “Oh, Easter,” da, da, da. I’m like, well, mine’s just Halloween. I love Halloween. I’ve always dressed up for Halloween. I, I have a question for y’all. Have any… Like, what’s the most messed up costume your parents made for you? I’m talking about when I say messed up, I mean 90% duct tape, 10% imagination, People will say like, you know, “Oh, I was a sheet.” I’m like, yeah, Black people ain’t messing up no sheets for one night a year. That’s not what we do, right? And I’m like, I got all of you beat because I didn’t know we were poor at this point. I thought we were… My mom was, my mom was just creative. saying, so growing up it was my mother, sister Keisha, my sister Kim, and me. One more time. It was my mother, my sister Keisha, my sister Kim, and me. And one [00:46:00] year for Halloween my mom goes, this year for Halloween I’ma dress y’all up as each other.” And I’m like, “What?” She said, “Kim, you gonna be Keisha, and Keisha, you gonna be Kim.” And I’m like, “What about me, Mama?” She said, “That’s a good question, baby. be Keisha, too,” right? And like, and I’m like, I’m over here mad ’cause I was Keisha last year. what I’m saying? All right.

[00:46:25] So what I’m doing, instead of, instead of saying I wander, something that no one will understand,

[00:46:30] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:46:30] TK Moyer: I’m putting people in my perspective of understanding. I didn’t know we were poor.

[00:46:35] I thought we were creative. our creative way, I got three kids with no

[00:46:40] costume money. Y’all gonna just wear each other’s clothes, all right? ‘Cause it’s this, that, and that, right?

[00:46:45] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:46:46] TK Moyer: And then like, yeah, do that or I, I like to… I love, I love making myself

[00:46:51] the butt of the joke as well, right? I don’t like to punch down on any community or anyone like

[00:46:57] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:46:57] TK Moyer: I do not like to roast the crowd, [00:47:00] right? I… You never know what people are going through. You never know. So I feel like my responsibility, if anything, is to make you feel a part of the show. Also, this is crazy. I can’t believe, I can’t believe I’m about to tell you this. I’m a great comedian, yes, but you know what helped me be the best comedian that I am?

[00:47:17] You won’t believe this. a Segway tour guide here in San Francisco Being a Segway

[00:47:24] tour guide is the best thing for a comedian to do, especially in this city, ’cause we have hills, a

[00:47:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:47:32] TK Moyer: train someone on a Segway and get them, put them in an ugly vest and an ugly helmet, and take them out to the street with other cars, them forget about the world around them, and you just… One microphone, one… And they’re just listening. That to me is how you handle a crowd, I’m taking you on a tour. You’re gonna be safe. I’m gonna show you the sights. Some information I’ma tell you is not true, but don’t worry about that. Just look at it. You know what I’m s- Just look at [00:48:00] this bitch. Marilyn Monroe got married there. Yeah, For real? Maybe. Don’t, don’t worry about it. We’re gonna keep going, right? But when you can make them just feel like… ‘Cause a Segway, don’t get me wrong, I, I remember my first Segway tour, I was like, “This is the dumbest thing.” I tried to hide my face a lot. I felt so embarrassed.

[00:48:18] But on my tours, I just made people feel accepted and feel loved. So I do at comedy shows. And then I’m able to, like, tell about… When I talk about my personal traumas in a funny way, not only do people trust me and they see my point of view, but the judgment in their face goes away. It could be the, it could be a white billionaire in there who doesn’t even know what peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is, But when I talk about I talk about cheating on my swim test in boot camp, right, but then almost drowning in, in unemployment, they can all, they can put themselves in my shoes, and it’s, that connection right there is, was worth it. They’re gonna laugh ’cause they’re right there [00:49:00] with me. But, like, it’s something about, it’s something about the connection that makes the comedy worth it. It make, like… When you, when you connect with someone, the, the laughter comes. You don’t have to force it,

[00:49:13] right? ‘Cause they’re already, they’re alvery already right there. I can’t talk, I’m so excited. They’re already right there with you.

[00:49:18] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, yeah

[00:49:19] TK Moyer: But, like, yeah, but once you try to force it, weird. It’s like, yeah, it’s just no. like, that’s what I think my talent is. I, have made… I, I got challenged one time, it was a $1,000 bet, to make a person laugh in 60 seconds, and it was me against this other comedian. And he made this person laugh once, and I did it, like, seven times, right? And, and I wasn’t even t- I was talking about nothing except how I was upset That, my my right sock lost elasticity, and it’s up by my toes now. that’s why I’ve been walking with a limp, but I’ve been lying to people and say I got shot [00:50:00] in my ankle from the military.

[00:50:02] So I went on to take my shoe off,

[00:50:04] right?

[00:50:04] Like, it’s just that small connection.

[00:50:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:50:07] TK Moyer: yeah. So, like, yeah

[00:50:09] Scott DeLuzio: That, that’s pretty awesome.

[00:50:11] For the listeners who are out there enjoying this conversation, enjoying hearing what you have to say, maybe wanna check out some of your, your comedy or, or even your, your book that you mentioned w- where can people go to find out more information about, you know, maybe upcoming shows that you might have or your book or, or anything like that?

[00:50:28] TK Moyer: Best way to do it, ’cause I did have a website, but I, I’m… It’s too much maintenance. It’s where- Websites are terri- Like, I wanna be like you when I grow up so bad. But if you wanna follow me, if you have Instagram Facebook or Snapchat, I use the same name everywhere. I’m too lazy to create, to come up with different names. It’s TK Moyer, that’s M-O-Y-E-R. TK Moyer, the number 88. yeah, usually everywhere, and then my email is that as well at gmail.com. If you want my book, [00:51:00] if you’re curious about my book, Survivor’s Guilt: A Memoir In Verse, like, I’m so…

[00:51:04] I ca- I’ma hit you up after this ’cause we gonna be friends. Scott, you’re

[00:51:08] we’re, you’re doomed to be best friends now

[00:51:10] Scott DeLuzio: it’s already just in, in the books. I mean, it, like, it, it’s happening.

[00:51:14] TK Moyer: Okay, yeah. If you want that it’s on my Instagram, it’s on a link.

[00:51:18] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:51:18] TK Moyer: Also, if you have Am- Amazon, just type in TK Moyer TK space Moyer, and then like… Or just Survivor’s Guilt: A Memoir and version will come up. but if you want a personalized autographed copy from me, then go on my Instagram, hit the link, and I will put an actual more than two sentences autograph.

[00:51:39] I will, I will actually leave something in there for you, like only for you, right? And like, yeah, this helps me to not only you know, feed myself, I l- believe personally that, like, we only need but so much wealth in life. And what you do that money is how, like, [00:52:00] your life will be. So I, I like to, like, give money to charities and organizations, orphanages, and stuff like that.

[00:52:06] So like, yeah, TKMoyer88 on all social media progr- platforms. I don’t have an OnlyFans. I’m

[00:52:12] a, I’m a cool dude. But like, yeah, that’s, that’s about it

[00:52:15] Scott DeLuzio: All right.

[00:52:16] Well, TK, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing your, your story and,

[00:52:20] You know, how, how you’ve dealt with things throughout your life you know, from childhood through, you know, later on in life and you know, how, how comedy has played a, played that major role in your life. But, but also you know, just being vulnerable and, and sharing some of this stuff.

[00:52:36] It’s not, not the easiest thing to do, ta- just talk with strangers and, and letting the world out there hear all this stuff, but, you know, here you are doing it and you know, so I definitely appreciate you coming on. And you know, for anyone who is looking for you know, the, the books or, or the book or you know, any of those links that, that TK just mentioned, they’ll be in the show notes too, so, check that out and and we’ll go from there

[00:52:58] TK Moyer: Thank you so much, Scott, and thank you to Drive [00:53:00] On and everything. Like, I appreciate what y’all do, and just please, just keep… We need you. We need what you do. We need you in this world without, like, we really need you. My comedy is one thing, but the love and support you give to people

[00:53:11] and get that story out there, you, you do what I wish I could do on a daily basis.

[00:53:16] So just thank you so much

[00:53:17] Scott DeLuzio: I appreciate you. Take care

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Trying to keep the fridge full. While life keeps stacking pressure on your family can wear a man down fast. It gets even harder when your pride tells you to handle it alone. Even though the mission was never meant to be carried solo. The better path is getting connected to people who understand service, transition, dignity, and the weight that comes with asking for support.

[00:00:24] Our guest today, Vicki Cino from Soldiers Angels Shares how food assistance, VA connections, transportation help, housing support, and volunteer service. Can turn a rough season into a stronger next step. In this episode, you’ll hear how veterans and military families can find practical help without shame, and how giving back can restore the sense of purpose Many veterans miss after leaving the uniform.

[00:00:50] Before we get into this episode though, I wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something that is deeply important to our community. The Global War On Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This [00:01:00] organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism.

[00:01:08] This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:25]

[00:01:38] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Vicki. Welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here

[00:01:41] Vicki Sarracino: Thank you

[00:01:41] for having me. I appreciate you being

[00:01:43] here.

[00:01:44] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Would you mind starting off just telling us a little bit about yourself and your work with Soldiers’ Angels the organization that you’re with?

[00:01:52] Vicki Sarracino: Absolutely. So I’m the Vice President of Programs of Soldiers Angels. So I oversee all of the programs that we run, [00:02:00] both stateside as well as overseas. We do have 12 virtual programs or services. We support the deployed caregivers chaplain support, even the canines. and here stateside, we do a lot of boots on the ground with the VA hospitals and our biggest mission, which is our critical assistance right now, especially critical food assistance. I’ve been with Soldiers Angels for 11 years now. 21

[00:02:24] years in the nonprofit world, and absolutely love

[00:02:27] what I’m doing. Love giving back.

[00:02:29] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:02:30] it’s, it’s a great,

[00:02:31] Organization for folks who haven’t heard of Soldiers’ Angels before. Well, obviously we’re gonna get into it a little bit more throughout this episode, but, you know, definitely check, check them out and, and find out a little bit more about what they do. But so first off y- you mentioned the, the food insecurity and the food piece of things here is, is a big issue that you guys are, are working with.

[00:02:52] Tell us a little bit more about that and how that, that kinda came to be, like where, where that need came from and, and is that something that you guys have always been doing, or is that something kinda [00:03:00] more recent that you, you’ve been into?

[00:03:02] Vicki Sarracino: What’s the Food First Initiative is re is recent. It Soldiers Angels. Our mission is simple but powerful. The mission is to provide aid, comfort, and resources to military veterans and their families. Our major focus right now is on critical assistance programs that address food insecurity, homelessness support, transportation assistance and we also have a focus on ensuring that our deployed service members receive care packages.

[00:03:27] We try to do a hundred percent every month. But our board with a new strategic plan did go with a food fo a food first focus. And so we’ve done a

[00:03:36] lot to increase

[00:03:37] our food

[00:03:38] support over the last probably 6,

[00:03:40] 6, 7 months.

[00:03:41] Scott DeLuzio: Okay. Yeah, and

[00:03:43] so I, I have to imagine

[00:03:45] a, a piece of that is,

[00:03:46] You know, just rising costs of, of food, you know, throughout. I, I mean, we’ve all been to the grocery store. We’ve all seen, you know, prices of things going, going up, and it’s, it, it could be difficult for families, especially on you know, maybe it’s a fixed [00:04:00] income or, or something like that where they, they aren’t able to perhaps afford some of these things.

[00:04:04] Are you seeing a lot more need because of, you know, kinda economic factors, or, or how is that kinda playing in?

[00:04:10] Vicki Sarracino: Oh, absolutely. And one of the things that we take pride in too, I did wanna just mention this, is at Soldiers Angels, it’s not just about providing the resources, we build a human connection. So we want every service member and veteran to know that they’re seen, they’re valued, and they’re never forgotten even after they come home. So with the food insecurity we did see a, an increase towards the ends of last year. Obviously with the shutdown that happened, we kind of went into. As say, kind of hyperdrive we had already started increasing our food distributions. So we do have military and veteran food distributions in eight locations. And with those we do drive, it’s basically drive through the veterans and service members register. Once they’re approved, they’re approved for a year. They register each month, they come through. We try to give on an average of 75 [00:05:00] pounds of food per veteran family. And that’s everything from meats, produce, dry goods, canned goods, and they drive through.

[00:05:06] They don’t even have to get out in the heat, the cold, the rain, snow, you know, we’ll be outside doing that, but they don’t have to get out of their car. We’re, they’re gonna drive through and we’re gonna put it in their, in their car for ’em. When the shutdown happened, we knew that we probably needed to make a little bit more of a shift, and we started increasing our food pantries. We had already had a food pantry in Detroit where it’s sponsored by the Detroit Pistons. and then the Charlotte Hornets came in and sponsored a food distribution in Salisbury, North Carolina. We even took our conference room table out of our conference room, cleared it all out, and threw up a food pantry at our headquarters in San Antonio. And then have started moving our offices into bigger locations so that we could increase that effort. With the most recent being in Atlanta we just started that one a few months ago and we are

[00:05:54] getting ready to start one in Dallas as well as in Orlando and have

[00:05:58] more [00:06:00] scheduled.

[00:06:00] Scott DeLuzio: So with the

[00:06:02] the veterans that are out there, i- is it are there like just in tho- those regions that you mentioned, is that where you guys are, are currently located or are there other locations that you guys also will support in other ways? Maybe not necessarily with the same type of food pantry, but like with some other services that you guys offer?

[00:06:21] Vicki Sarracino: Oh, absolutely. So we have the eight locations where we have our food distributions in those locations. Most of them. We also do have food pantries. then we have our food pantry in Detroit, which we actually don’t have a full. Team there. We don’t have, you know, any full-time staff members there. But in other areas we also do work with the VA hospitals.

[00:06:40] So we’re, we work with them, the VA hospitals, doing patient visits comfort carts. We provide coffee and donuts for them to have, you know, kind of something nice when they come into the va. We wanna be that, ’em that change. You know, there, there was always a stigma there before that we wanna help change and be the smiling faces when they come in. And being honest, just what [00:07:00] inspired us with every, with me with Soldiers’ Angels was seeing how that veterans and military families are struggling. And there is a misconception that guarantees stability, but that’s not the real reality for many families today. We see veterans who’ve served honorably, but are gonna have to choose between groceries, rent, medication, or gas. one of the things that we do when we register our veterans is we also ask them if they need services such as. To be registered within the va and maybe when they got out of the military, they didn’t register for VA services, so they’re not receiving their medical benefits. So if they do need help with that, we wanna make the right connections for that.

[00:07:39] If they need help with their disability claims, that’s another question we ask so we can try to help make that connection. We even have a couple of partners that do job services. They hire veterans and so it’s another question we ask is, are you looking for employment? And if they are, we try to help make those connections as well. So kind of full circle within the va by doing what we do [00:08:00] there as well as connecting those veterans and then the after duty service members

[00:08:03] as well with these services.

[00:08:05] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and

[00:08:06] there’s there’s so many services that are available to veterans through the VA and y- you know, all the, the programs that are available. Y- you just mentioned, you know, medical care, but, you know, there’s other things too. There’s you know, job training. There’s, there’s you know, other career-related resources, which if someone is, you know, financially having a difficult time, they’re, they’re not able to find work or, or the work that they’re finding is not sufficient to support their family you know, in whatever area that they’re in, you know, things that you guys are offering are a, a great resource because they, they’re able to n- not have to necessarily worry so much about being able to put food on the table.

[00:08:46] That’s, that’s something that they’re able to you know, have provided for them through, through this program here. And so that– I mean, I was just at the grocery store this weekend, and y- you know, it’s you know, sometimes you look at the prices and you can’t [00:09:00] believe… Like I, I didn’t even fill up the cart, and I’m like, “What, what, what am I paying for here?”

[00:09:03] You know? And you know, so it, it’s a little bit a little bit tricky when you’re having you know, financial issues and, and things like that. Fortunately you know, I’m, I’m not in that situation myself right now, but but if I, if I was, that would be a huge stress is how do I feed my family? How do I you know, keep things going on at home so that my family is taken care of?

[00:09:24] And you know, that just leads to other problems when, when you’re dealing with all sorts of financial issues, and then that makes it even harder to, you know, find a job or you know, get that extra career training, those resources for you know, maybe changing your career or, or what have you. So, you know, that, that’s just– It’s not everything, but it takes a huge weight off of someone’s shoulders because they’re, they’re now able to go focus on, on the, those other things that will allow them to be self-sufficient down the road, and that’s ideally where we want everyone to be right?

[00:09:57] That we don’t want everybody to be depending on, [00:10:00] on this type of service, but it’s great to know that it’s there should you need it, right?

[00:10:04] Vicki Sarracino: and it’s not a, it’s not a

[00:10:05] handout. We, you

[00:10:06] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:10:06] Vicki Sarracino: hand up. And

[00:10:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:10:07] Vicki Sarracino: our holiday program, we have a Adopt a Family,

[00:10:10] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:10] Vicki Sarracino: is a program that we have where, you know, wounded ill and injured deployed service members, those that maybe can’t provide for their family for the holidays. We have angels, which is what we call our volunteers. They can adopt a family and provide a gift card towards the holiday meal, as well as a gift for each one of the, the children, you know, 18 or under, you know, that are school aged. And it, and it really helps you know them to have a little more dignity and and respect back. They’re able to then provide for their family.

[00:10:38] They don’t have to worry about. Having gifts for their children, having that holiday meal. One of the other things that we do within the VA hospital systems we also do canteen gift cards, which

[00:10:48] are, it’s their, you know, like the.

[00:10:52] Well the, the restaurant and the va.

[00:10:54] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yep

[00:10:55] Vicki Sarracino: canteen gift cards so that when veterans that can’t afford a meal, whether they’re for medical [00:11:00] appointments, they can, you know, have a canteen card that we provided to the VA so they can get that meal.

[00:11:05] And then we also do non-perishable box lunches for home homeless and out risk veterans. So if they’re being seen, maybe in the emergency room when they discharge, they can give them a box, you know, a box lunch to take with ’em. And we also do hygiene kits.

[00:11:19] you know, some of the stand the homeless stand downs and for patients

[00:11:22] in the VA hospitals as well.

[00:11:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, all that stuff

[00:11:25] is, is, great too.

[00:11:26] I mean, there’s just

[00:11:27] so many ways that, that you can help th- these people who are you know, every little bit helps in, in certain situations and you know, stuff like that. Even, even just something like a, a hygiene kit where, you know, if, if that’s what you’re lacking or you’re lacking a lot of other things too, but you’re, you’re lacking something like that, it’s just like one of those nice comforts that you, you can have to know that you can, you can at least take care of yourself, you know, keep yourself, you know, clean and all that kind of stuff.

[00:11:54] Especially being in a homeless situation where, you know, access to you know, clean facilities and [00:12:00] things like that are, are probably a little bit more difficult to come by and, and so it, it might just be that, that one little thing that, that kind of helps with, with the situation. Obviously not going to fix the situation overnight, but

[00:12:12] Vicki Sarracino: Right.

[00:12:13] Scott DeLuzio: just one, one more thing

[00:12:15] to to help out with that.

[00:12:16] So, you know, I, I feel like these organizations like, like, Soldiers Angels and you know, other organizations out there helping veterans in any capacity, whatever it is that they’re, they’re providing, whether it’s, you know, mental health services or things like what you are doing you know, anything really is like you said, it’s, it’s designed really to be a hand up, not a handout.

[00:12:38] And, and it’s, it’s like, you know what? We’ve all had, you know, tough times in life and, and, you know, whatever the situation is, you can get through it. Sometimes you might just need a need a hand. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That, I mean, ta- taking a taking a little help from somebody is, is not, like, a bad thing.

[00:12:58] It’s, it’s like, “Hey, I realize [00:13:00] I, I can’t handle this right now on my own. I’m, I’m overwhelmed with all these things going on, and I could use a little help.” And so, folks like you and, and your organization, Soldiers Angels, is doing exactly that and, and just helping folks out in, in the ways that they, they could use it.

[00:13:16] And, and I think it’s, it’s really a great thing. And it’s a great you know, effort that you guys are doing. And you know, now moving into, you know, more of the, the food security is, is kind of a, a big thing as well. And I know that’s, that’s definitely a big push for you guys g- going into you know, this year and everything.

[00:13:34] So, as far as, you know, the, the veterans and their, or, and/or their families who are hearing all, all about this and they think, “You know what? This is, this is what we need right now. We’re, we’re in that position. We, we need this type of help,” what’s that process like to get involved in or, you know, kind of benefit from the programs that you guys are offering?

[00:13:54] Vicki Sarracino: Well, one of the things kinda wanna caveat that too, is. With active duty. So a lot of [00:14:00] people don’t realize that transitioning from military life to to civilian life, to to becoming a veteran can be incredibly difficult. Because service gives people, you know, identity, structure,

[00:14:10] mission, community, and

[00:14:11] suddenly when that changes,

[00:14:14] they feel disconnected or

[00:14:15] isolated, which

[00:14:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:14:17] Vicki Sarracino: problems.

[00:14:17] Scott DeLuzio: Sure

[00:14:18] Vicki Sarracino: so we try to meet them where they are with our, such as our food, our food support, one of the most powerful things that we do is involve the veterans in the solution. So many veterans first come to us for assistance and later become volunteers. I think one of the things I love the most about our food pantries is we do what’s called a client choice model.

[00:14:39] So the service members or veterans come in and we have a volunteer that will take them basically and go shopping. So they get a card based on their family size that says how many proteins, how many, you know, fruits and vegetables they get. ’cause we wanna give ’em the whole, you know, enough to make you know, meals for a week to two weeks. And they’ll go shopping for, you know, based on their family’s [00:15:00] dietary needs and things of that nature. It makes them feel more empowered with a lot of the service members. They like the fact that we have our food pantries in our offices in a lot of our locations because they don’t have to go somewhere on base and have somebody see that they need help. A lot of people don’t realize that active duty military, the lower enlisted, a lot of them are on SNAP and, you know, food stamps. So, it it, it doesn’t just make a big difference in helping to give them purpose, especially when they turn that full around full circle. And the video that I did send you, it does, we actually do have a veteran talking about how much he appreciates what we do, and if he could physically

[00:15:35] do the work, he would love to come, you know,

[00:15:38] volunteer with us.

[00:15:41] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And

[00:15:42] you’re, you’re right. I, that, that was something that I, I think I, I didn’t phrase even correctly. But you know, the, the active duty service members are unfortunately, you know, in that situation where they, they may need some some help as far as their their food, their food and their family’s dietary needs and all [00:16:00] that stuff, too.

[00:16:01] It’s, it’s unfortunate that, you know, the, the pay is just not there for, for that to be able to

[00:16:06] Vicki Sarracino: Right.

[00:16:07] Scott DeLuzio: all of their, their needs. But you know, it, it, you know, it is what it is. I don’t, I don’t think you know, I’m- I don’t think I’m gonna be able to change all that right now. I’d love to be able to change all that, but you know, it’s, it’s one of those things where you know, it’s, it’s unfortunate, but you gotta figure out a way to, to get through.

[00:16:24] And, and you know what? This is one of those ways that you can you, you can help provide for your family. You know, it may not necessarily be taking care of everything that your family needs. You know, you still are, you know, getting some other benefits, and you have some, you know, resources that you, you might be able to tap into as well.

[00:16:41] But, you know, you, you can certainly ease that burden a little bit by, by using th- this type of resource. And I, I think that’s, that’s great. And, and you also mentioned that transition piece, too. And that’s a big part of what we talk about on this show is, is in that transition a lot of times veterans feel like they’re [00:17:00] all alone.

[00:17:01] They’re all by themselves. They’re, it’s me against the world, and I gotta figure this out, and there’s nobody else on my team. There’s nobody else on my side ’cause I’ve, I’ve lost my team. They’re all still in the, in the military, and

[00:17:12] I’m, I’m out on my own.

[00:17:14] So now what do I do? And I gotta figure it out.

[00:17:17] I gotta figure out how to get a job or, you know, maybe even go back to school or now provide for my family, keep a roof over their head, put food on the table, keep the lights on, all of those things. And it’s, it’s a lot when a lot of that stuff has been provided to you w- during your time in the military.

[00:17:35] You know, housing might have been provided or you know, you had, had some meals and things like that were all, all provided. You know, it, it makes it that much harder when you’re just not used to doing that. And so, even in that transition period where you’re, you’re trying to get your feet out, out, you know, under you and, and trying to figure out how, how does this all work?

[00:17:56] How do I, how do I do this? It’s nice to be able to have that, [00:18:00] that resource available to take that edge off, right?

[00:18:02] Vicki Sarracino: Yeah. And it’s not, it’s not easy, you know, and that’s one of the things that, you know, we try to get the word out to everybody is reach out. You

[00:18:08] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:09] Vicki Sarracino: go, come to our website soldiers angels.org. We have a lot of different services, whether they’re deployed caregiver, and, you know, a veteran in the VA hospital, somebody that needs food assistance.

[00:18:19] There’s a lot of things that we offer, but even if we don’t offer it. know, if somebody comes to me and says, you know, I need help with, you know, financial assistance,

[00:18:27] something that we may not offer, I’m not gonna just say we don’t do that.

[00:18:31] So I’m gonna try to find them the resources that

[00:18:33] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:18:34] Vicki Sarracino: can find for them. But there’s a lot of organizations out there that wanna help right now. So we really urge people to, to reach out to us. If you need food assistance, if you wanna volunteer, if you wanna give back, i, I think one of my favorite things is visiting veterans in the hospital. You know, one of the first veterans that I visited when I started back in 2014, Vietnam veteran, and he came out of the room after I, you know, I went in, I thanked him for his service and I gave him a [00:19:00] blanket. And I closed the door and he, he pulled it against me and I was like, you know what? Thought, thought I did something wrong. You know, I thought he was upset and he was crying, and he said, you know, no, I was in Vietnam. Nobody ever welcomed me home. Nobody ever thanked me until today.

[00:19:15] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:19:15] Vicki Sarracino: that just, that touched me right there.

[00:19:18] And then just the stories of the families that have been helped through our Adopt a Family or through our food programs. The vi we have some great YouTube

[00:19:26] videos that are just amazing, the testimonials of

[00:19:29] some of the veterans that we’ve touched.

[00:19:32] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that, that’s great. And

[00:19:33] you’re absolutely right about the Vietnam veterans, that

[00:19:36] they, they got definitely mistreated on their, on their return home, especially when you think that, you know, how many of them were drafted. It wasn’t even their choice to necessarily go over there, and they, they did it anyways, and they came back and they were the same country that asked them to go and do all this, that w- treated them like they were [00:20:00] the, the lowest of the low.

[00:20:01] And you know, you carry that weight with you all these years and then, you know, years later, somebody like yourself comes around and, and has this, you know, welcoming attitude and all this k- this kind of thing and tries to make things a little bit better for that person. And you know, that- that’s, that’s gonna uplift them quite a bit, I would imagine.

[00:20:20] So, but, you know, and in any of these, these circumstances, n- you know, obviously nobody wants to be in the situation where, where they need these services, and oftentimes it’s, it’s hard for for people, guys especially, I, you know, for whatever reason, we’re thick-headed or I don’t know what it is, but you know, we, w- just asking for help is just not an easy thing for us to do.

[00:20:43] Especially when we get it in our heads that, you know, we’re the provider. This is m- our job. We’re supposed to provide for our family, and we’re supposed to do all of these things. And then, you know, we’re, we’re struggling with it and we’re not able to, it’s, it’s kinda difficult to admit that, “Hey, I, I need help with doing [00:21:00] this thing that I’m supposed to be able to do.”

[00:21:01] And so I, I feel like some of those stories that you were talking about on your YouTube channel, some of those kinda inspirational stories would probably have a big impact on some of these people who are struggling to ask for help. Just hearing somebody else saying, “Hey, this is how it helped me and this is what I was dealing with and this is what they were able to do for me, and, and this is, this is that support that I got.”

[00:21:25] Because those, those stories are like, “Hey, you know what? I can kinda see myself in that person. I- I’m, I’m in that similar situation that that person was in, and, you know, they reached out, they did it, and so, okay, well, if they could do it, I guess, I guess it’s okay. I guess I can do it, too,” right? So, are there any stories in particular that stand out to you that, that you would like to highlight just to, for the listeners here to you know, maybe encourage them to go check, check out some more of those stories?

[00:21:54] Vicki Sarracino: Yeah, there’s actually one that really stays with me. It was a veteran who’d been attending one of our [00:22:00] food distribution for months. At first, he barely spoke and clearly wanted to stay invisible. You know, he is just very quiet. As, as I said, they don’t get out of their car, but he would just, you know, kind of nod.

[00:22:10] Over time our volunteers got to know him because he’d come every month and they greeted him by name and checked in on him and made him feel welcome. And eventually he shared that after leaving the military, he felt so isolated and disconnected from society. And one day he told us I came for the food, but I kept coming back because it’s the only place that I felt seen. and that’s the heart of what we do. You know, food matters tremendously, but it’s the human connection that can be so important to them. And like I said, many of them after that, they just, you know, we’ve even had some that we, we call them walkup veterans. They don’t have a car. They take a bus. And, you know, they carry back what they can on the bus or they might have taken a lift. and they, if they have to wait for a period of time, they’ll say, well, why don’t I help you out? You know, can I, can I just help volunteer while I’m waiting? Absolutely. And then we’ve had veterans that [00:23:00] came one that sticks out in my mind. Washington, DC last June when we had our very first one in Washington, DC had a veteran.

[00:23:07] He came into this wagon and we had a lot of food there. You know, we had meat and produce and all that. And he said. you mind if I just take what I can stick under my bed? Because he was living in a shelter and he said Anything that I can’t stick under my bed, somebody else will take. And so I just wanna take, you know, certain things and I’m like, of course.

[00:23:24] You know, so things like

[00:23:26] that really stick with you because not only did he need the food, he

[00:23:29] didn’t have transportation to even get there.

[00:23:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:23:32] Vicki Sarracino: and that’s one of the other things that we do with our critical assistance is we do provide transportation to veterans that can’t get to the VA hospitals for their medical appointments. the VA does reimburse for rides to medical appointments, but a lot of times veterans can’t upfront that cost.

[00:23:47] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:48] Vicki Sarracino: And so we wanna make sure that they’re able to get there, to get that medical exam or social services. Many of them are going from homelessness, chronically homeless to, to housing for the [00:24:00] first time.

[00:24:00] And that’s through the HUD VASH program, which is a relationship between the VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. And we have housing packs that we give them so when they move into their new house that the HUD VASH is giving them the stipend for. will send them a welcome kit, which is things to go, you know, things for their bathroom, their bedroom, their kitchen, and they actually get to go online and shop with our volunteers.

[00:24:24] They’ll go to Amazon and get to pick out their things. So it gives the, it gives them the sense of, you know,

[00:24:29] hey, this is, you

[00:24:29] know, I’m not, I’m not getting a

[00:24:30] handout. Somebody’s not just shipping

[00:24:32] me something. I get to help pick out my stuff.

[00:24:34] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:24:35] Yeah, and that’s,

[00:24:36] I think, important too, involving the individual in that whole process too so that they’re, they’re feeling like it’s more personal. It’s, it’s what they actually could use and, and would need and not just some generic

[00:24:51] off, off the shelf because they, you have a warehouse full of stuff and you just grab whatever, any old thing and just handed it to ’em, and it, that’s very [00:25:00] impersonal and it, it’s not probably exactly what they’re looking for.

[00:25:03] I’m sure they’d be grateful to get whatever they, they could end up with, but it just, it makes it that much better when you’re able to say, “You know what? This is the thing that I, I needed.” And, and it, it just makes, makes it a little bit more, more human, that, that connection that you, you’re building with that person, you know?

[00:25:20] Vicki Sarracino: Yeah, it’s special because then they, you know, their kids, when their kids get to see, you know, we sometimes we like to

[00:25:25] deliver ’em so we can watch them unbox

[00:25:27] their, their stuff and the kids get so

[00:25:28] excited when they see their new stuff for

[00:25:30] their beds

[00:25:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:25:31] Vicki Sarracino: that nature. So,

[00:25:33] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:25:33] Vicki Sarracino: it,

[00:25:33] Scott DeLuzio: yeah.

[00:25:34] Vicki Sarracino: it’s rewarding.

[00:25:35] Scott DeLuzio: and

[00:25:35] it,

[00:25:36] and it’s especially,

[00:25:37] Great when you see the, the faces on the kids when it’s something that

[00:25:40] they can appreciate, you know, you know, the– instead of just you know, maybe a, a generic you know, pattern you know, bedsheets or whatever, and it’s something that they’re into.

[00:25:49] If it’s, you know, baseball or cars or something like that, that they, they’re into, and it, it has that pattern on it, and then they, they look at it and it’s, and it’s like, “Okay, this is super cool.” And, and the, the [00:26:00] excitement on a kid’s face, it’s almost like,

[00:26:01] you know, Christmas morning when you, you watch your kids open up presents.

[00:26:04] It’s

[00:26:04] like, it… That’s, that’s just a, a, you know, great feeling. I know as a, a father myself, I, I w- I, I like watching my kids open up the presents more than I like opening up the presents myself. It’s, it’s just that kind of kind of thing. So, I can imagine similar for, for you guys, you know, just seeing the impact that you’re, you guys are making as well on, on all those folks who, who are benefiting from these services.

[00:26:26] Vicki Sarracino: Yeah, such as them. The volunteers too. ’cause the

[00:26:28] volunteers that, you know, sometimes they’ll be the ones delivering and

[00:26:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:26:31] Vicki Sarracino: just as,

[00:26:32] excited as as the, as

[00:26:33] the service members or

[00:26:34] veterans do when they’re getting those, those items.

[00:26:37] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Now,

[00:26:38] are, are there any challenges that you guys are having as far as, you know, volunteering and, you know, getting volunteers, I should say, or the logistics of delivering some of these services or products or, or whatever it is that you, you guys have going on? Or, you know, how, how do you guys overcome these, these things that, that might be seen as challenges to, to you know, someone from the outside looking in?

[00:26:58] Vicki Sarracino: Yeah, there are a lot of [00:27:00] challenges. One of the things people probably don’t realize right now is food banks are short on supply of protein for one. You know, it’s, it’s always hard, hard, the hardest to source is the protein. We wanna make sure that they have, you know, meats and, you know, if we’re gonna, if we’re gonna give ’em spaghetti and sauce, we wanna get ’em hamburger to go with it, you know, so we wanna give ’em full meals and, recently it’s not as bad right now, but recently they had gone through a period where it was really hard to to be able to source protein. So we started having to look at other vendors that we, in fact, we use a couple of places out of Las Vegas where we’re getting a lot of meat shipped out, and we’re, you know, we’re having to find cold storage to be able to put pallets of, of protein in there and, and order from other places, you know, like canned tuna, canned chicken. Costs are rising. food bank’s costs are even going up. So it’s, it’s, it’s not cheap. To buy it at the food bank either, but we’re also having to source from other, other vendors as well. And then the volunteers, you know, because [00:28:00] it’s, if you’re a volunteer, you have a choice to go today to help at a food distribution or not.

[00:28:05] So if it’s storming outside, you know, you may not wanna go. And sometimes it, like in Atlanta, it’ll take us 70 volunteers to pack out, sometimes 20 to 30,000 pounds of food in a two hour period. And it might be storming. We are very grateful that the majority of our volunteers are, they’re diehard volunteers.

[00:28:24] They’re gonna come in the rain, the sleet, the snow, just like the employees are. The veterans are there, you know, we make sure they don’t have to get out of their cars. We make it work. So there, you know, between the food costs, getting enough volunteers and the funding to be able to support these different, it’s challenging because, you know, each food pantry is about $50,000 to sponsor for a year and we’re opening, our goal was to open five new ones this year, and I think we’ve already. Are just about on the fifth one, and we’ve got a few more coming down the road that we’re working on. So, just finding those, those local partners, [00:29:00] whether it’s VSOs or companies you know, foundations to try to support. I have quite a

[00:29:06] few companies that have a lot of

[00:29:08] volunteers and they love coming out in full

[00:29:09] force, so we’re very grateful for that.

[00:29:12] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, that’s great. Yeah.

[00:29:13] Now from, you know, with some of these challenges, what are s- some of the things that can be done kind of on a you know, community or even a national level to support support these organizations like the, the food banks and, and things like that, the, all these, these issues that you, you kind of brought up?

[00:29:29] Do you think there’s, there’s anything that we, that people can do to help support this? Or you know, what, what solutions do you see?

[00:29:36] Vicki Sarracino: No, ab absolutely. We have a lot of people that will do food collections, food drives and drop them off at our food pantries. We have in our headquarters in San Antonio you know, we have a warehouse right there. A lot of the offices that we’re moving to, we have storage space, so just people that wanna collect food and drop off foods. We’re looking at doing Amazon wishlist where people will be able to go on and purchase food on Amazon. We [00:30:00] have some people or some companies that will donate to the food bank for us. So they’ll say, you know. They can’t give directly to another nonprofit, but they can give it to the food bank and say, Hey, we want this to go for soldier’s Angels.

[00:30:13] In fact in Atlanta, we just had that happen. We had a generous donor that said, Hey, we’ve got this, you know, $5,000 we want them to use for food and we want this extra money to go towards them setting up their food pantry. Because it’s not just the food, you know, if we’re gonna set up a food pantry, we’ve got shelves and, you know, industrial freezers and refrigerators and cold storage.

[00:30:33] So, between that. You know, volunteers always made volunteers.

[00:30:38] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:38] Vicki Sarracino: And then, and then the corporations I just wanna support, whether it’s sponsoring a food distribution or a food pantry and coming out in full force. And we have quite a

[00:30:46] few companies that do, you know, come out and bring 50 to 70

[00:30:49] volunteers for one event.

[00:30:52] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. That, and that’s great, and that’s, I think, a, a

[00:30:55] good, good way to solve some of these problems. Exactly what you, you said is, you know, getting [00:31:00] those, the, you know, between the volunteers and the donations and, and the, all, all those kind of things supporting those, those organizations. You know, I, I think that’s, that’s really what we’re we’re trying to do here and, and that’s, you know, part of what we’re, we’re doing with this episode is really raising awareness for what you guys are what you guys are doing.

[00:31:17] And hopefully there’s some interest in you know, folks, not, not just from a support side where they, you know, I, I, someone needs the services or, or whatever. Obviously we want those people to be able to get those, those services, but we also wanna be able to get you know, people out there volunteering and, and that type of stuff as well.

[00:31:37] And so that’s, that’s exactly what, what we’re looking for here. So, for the future of Soldiers Angels, I, I know you guys have evolved kind of a little bit over time as far as the services that you’ve, you’ve offered. If you had a, a crystal ball, like, could you tell the future of like where, where you guys are headed and, and what you guys are gonna be doing in the future?

[00:31:57] Vicki Sarracino: Well, right now we’re just focusing [00:32:00] on continuing to grow our food assistance initiatives, while also ex expanding the holistic services that address the full picture of the wellbeing of the veteran, which as I was mentioning, some of the other things that we’re trying to do, we can’t do it all. We need partners to be able to help us.

[00:32:14] That’s why we wanna refer, you know, those that need certain services that we don’t have, refer to others. but the needs of veterans are evolving, so we’re committed to evolving with them, which means expanding our food pantries, strengthening our spar, our partnerships with the VA hospital systems and the community partners and donors military bases.

[00:32:32] We opened up our food distributions to active duty. I think two years ago when we realized how bad the, you know, the lower enlisted were in need of food support as well. So we’re even looking at potentially putting a food, you know, food pantries on some of the military bases. We also wanna continue to reach younger veterans and military families earlier before that temporary hardship becomes a long-term crisis.

[00:32:54] So if we can catch them when they’re coming out then we might be able to help them with that transition [00:33:00] as well. I know that there’s a lot of. being made on exiting veterans and making things happen a little bit faster right now, which is great. But the

[00:33:09] heart of everything we

[00:33:10] do is the

[00:33:10] belief that no service

[00:33:12] member or

[00:33:12] veteran should ever feel forgotten.

[00:33:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:33:15] Yeah.

[00:33:16] And to that point,

[00:33:18] I, I think for,

[00:33:19] you know, some of those service members or, or veterans who might be a little bit hesitant to look for this type of help, you know, we were talking about that a little bit earlier you know, for whether it’s food related or other support services that they’re, they’re looking for you know, don’t, don’t be so hesitant.

[00:33:37] Get, get out there and, and ask for the help. That’s, that’s what it’s there for. That’s what people like you are, are working for. And there are there’s lots of ways that, that you can get the help. You might need to do a little research to figure out, you know, where the help is and, and where you can where you can find it.

[00:33:53] But it, there is help out there for basically any, any need you might have. And, you know, [00:34:00] just, just reach out and, and accept the help because you know, I, I can’t imagine you wake up every, you know, any, any morning, not every morning, but any morning thinking to yourself, “Man, what a burden this is to have to go and help these people.”

[00:34:12] Like, that’s, that’s not the way people think at all. And, you know, you– it, it probably fills your heart, brings joy to your, your life to be able to help these people. And so, you know, you’re– for the listeners, y- you’re not a burden to, you know, anybody. It’s, it’s what people like, like you, what you want to do and how you want to give back and support the the military and the veteran communities.

[00:34:37] And, and I think that’s kind of an important thing to, to keep in mind for some of these people who might be a little bit hesitant. Do you have any other advice for folks who might be a little hesitant on seeking that type of support?

[00:34:49] Vicki Sarracino: Yeah,

[00:34:49] absolutely. I would just say this, you’re not alone

[00:34:52] and there’s absolutely no shame in asking for help.

[00:34:54] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:34:55] Vicki Sarracino: I come from military family, I have family members that were [00:35:00] lower enlisted at one time and were on sta food stamps and snap and stood in lines to get food. Life circumstances can quickly change for anyone.

[00:35:08] And seeking support is not a weakness. It’s a strength. It’s a responsibility and it’s self-care. The military teaches people to look out for one another, and that’s exactly what organizations like Soldiers Angels are doing. We’re continuing that mission of service, and often taking that first step opens the door to much more than just the immediate assistance.

[00:35:27] It can lead to community and friendship, resources and stability and

[00:35:30] hope you serve your country. You deserve the support when you

[00:35:34] need it, and we wanna be there to do that.

[00:35:36] Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. Before we wrap up,

[00:35:38] I know you mentioned the website,

[00:35:40] For Soldiers Angels soldiersangels.org. Is there anywhere else that people can go to check out Soldiers Angels and, and the services that you guys offer?

[00:35:48] Vicki Sarracino: Yeah, our website would be the best for just seeing the services, but our YouTube channel has a lot of great videos. We have testimonials from. Veterans. The, the, the, the majority of our volunteers, and lemme [00:36:00] just say this, we have, it’s 72,000 volunteers. and a lot of them are veterans. Not all of them.

[00:36:06] A lot of them are veterans. A lot of our staff are veterans.

[00:36:09] We work with a skill bridge program, which is a program for, you know, military service members when they’re transitioning out the last few months of their service, they can actually work for, be still being paid by the military, but work for us. and get job skills for them to help with our transition. So yeah, we’re just, we’re, so honored to be a part of such a big. I don’t know, an adventure when it comes to the volunteers and the veterans and, and seeing it come full circle. I mean, I love it when I have somebody that says, I was deployed and I received a care package from you. Or I was medevac through launch, Joel and I received a backpack with sweats in it, and then I got, you know, something in the VA hospital

[00:36:51] from you and now I’m volunteering. So it’s always

[00:36:54] great to, to see that.

[00:36:56] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And

[00:36:58] you know, so

[00:36:58] I’ll have links,

[00:36:59] All these [00:37:00] links in the show notes for the listeners who wanna check out Soldiers’ Angels and, and everything that you guys have to offer. And, and we’ll, we’ll have some other resources in, in the show notes as well. But but Vicki, thank you so much for coming on and sharing what Soldiers’ Angels has to offer and you know, kinda providing some messages of, of hope and, and support and inspiration to some of the, the, the listeners who might need it.

[00:37:25] And you know, if some of the listeners maybe aren’t in that position where they need it, they might know somebody else who does, and they might be able to kinda nudge them in the right direction with some of the stuff that we talked about today. So, thank you again for coming on the show. I really appreciate it

[00:37:37] Vicki Sarracino: Well, thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure

[00:37:39] being here. And I can actually send you some more of

[00:37:41] those YouTube videos that

[00:37:42] that will probably be pretty inspirational people.

[00:37:45] Scott DeLuzio: That would be great. Absolutely.

[00:37:46] All right. Thank you so much

[00:37:48] Vicki Sarracino: Thank you.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Leaving the military can feel like losing the one place where people could read your face before you even said a word. When you come home, you go to work, you maybe sit with your family and still feel miles away from the people who really understand what you’re going through. The better path in your life could be learning how to stop carrying all of that baggage alone.

[00:00:24] How to find trusted people again, and how to build a life where service, family, work, and purpose can fit all together in the same room. Our guest today, Brian Rigg, brings that conversation through World War II history, uh, the Holocaust Marine Corps culture, and the idea of primary groups showing how connection shaped men in combat and why losing it after service can be really difficult to deal with.

[00:00:53] You’re gonna hear about why accountability, check-ins, older veterans therapy and meaningful books can help [00:01:00] a veteran rebuild structure when the old unit is gone. But before we get into this episode, I want to take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s deeply important to our community.

[00:01:09] The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

[00:01:31] If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:38]

[00:01:52] Scott DeLuzio: Hey Brian, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:01:55] Bryan Rigg: Thanks, Scott. Thank you so

[00:01:56] much for having me.

[00:01:57] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, you bet. Before we jump into [00:02:00] the, the episode here, could you maybe start by telling us, telling us a, a little bit about yourself and, and your background just for, you know, maybe the listeners who aren’t familiar with you and, and who you are just to kind of give a little background on, on all of that.

[00:02:13] Bryan Rigg: Sure. Thanks Scott. So I was born in Arlington, Texas raised here. Went off to Yale University, where I got a degree in German studies, English, and history. Got the Henry Fellowship, which is like a Rhode scholarship just for Harvard or Yale to go either to Oxford or Cambridge. And I decided to go to Cambridge and I studied under Jonathan Steinberg there and got a master’s and a PhD in European history, religious history, and the Holocaust. since then I’ve written six books on World War II and the Holocaust. My most recent one is called Japan’s Holocaust, and I’ve written two other books, one on a DHD and dyslexia and one to come out on religion and how unfortunately Christianity throughout the centuries, especially during the Holocaust, supported the [00:03:00] antisemitism that we saw instead of preventing it, which is really sad commentary on the theology, theological development of Christianity up to that date. I did a little stint in the Israeli army. I was a volunteer in the summer of 1998, and then I served in the Marine Corps from 99 to 2001 as an officer was an air contract, but got injured. So they stuck me in a think tank called the War Fighting Lab, which sounds much more prestigious than what, what it it was, but it was a good place.

[00:03:31] I was under Brian major Brian Goodmanson, and then later four Star General John Allen, and they really took care of me. I was supposedly like a 13th guy on active duty in the Marine Corps to have a PhD, so I was kind weird unicorn if you’ll once I got out of the Marine Corps, I was a professor for several years at SMU and American Military University.

[00:03:52] Did a couple of stints at my alma mater high school, Phillips Academy. And then in 2006 I said, you know, I [00:04:00] can’t feed my family on the salaries that they’re, they’re paying me as a teacher, especially at S-M-U. S-M-U does a very poor job of paying its teachers and professors even though it’s a very wealthy school. And I was like, if a wealthy school like this treats its professors like theirs, this is not gonna bode well for me, giving my kids a good life and so on. So I went on Wall Street. Eventually set up my own firm Rigg Wealth Management. And now my main job during the day is taking care of people’s stocks and bonds and, and their cash management and their life goals. But then on the side, I keep my foot in the academic world and continue to write books about World War II and Hot Loss and try to honor our history. I just wrote a book called Flamethrower, which is like the Band of Brothers for the Marine Corps. It documents the last Medal of Honor recipient Woody Williams life in World War II, with his unit Charlie Company, first Battalion, 23rd Marines of the Third Mar, the Third Marine Corps Division of World War ii.

[00:04:58] That fought on Guam and then [00:05:00] Iwo Jima. And I really did my best to kind of give back to the Marine Corps because when I got injured, I wasn’t able to go to flight school. for about a year and a half, they really took care of me to try to help me with my injury, get me back on my feet. And as you know, the Marine Corps is like a religion.

[00:05:18] I mean, they, they really take care of each other. They’re fervently passionate about their, their creeds. It’s the only service that you, you become, you don’t join and leave and you always are a Marine. So that was kind of my biggest surface, I think to the Marine Corps, was doing a five year intensive study of this Marine Corps unit. And going to 18 different archives in five different nations, Japan, China America. Germany and Guam our territory. And so that’s one way that I’ve kind of kept my foot in the door of continuing to do service. If you will continue doing academic research while during the day, I crunch numbers and place [00:06:00] trades for, for my clients.

[00:06:01] I’m a proud father of four, soon to be five children. I have a second marriage and decided to give it a a go again. If you’ve seen Bill Burr’s movie old Dads, that’s me now. I got a one and a half year old little girl and a boy on the way. So I’m a very proud father. I have three very successful older children. Older daughter is an elementary school teacher in Brooklyn, and an MMA

[00:06:25] Renaissance armor fighter.

[00:06:27] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:06:27] Bryan Rigg: a world champion in the lightweight division. And then I have a son who’s in his last year at Vanderbilt. And then I have another son that just graduated high school and is gonna go to University of Florida and he was the captain of his six, a private school football team, and they won state this year.

[00:06:43] So I’m very proud of my kids,

[00:06:46] As well.

[00:06:47] Scott DeLuzio: Well, yeah. Awesome. It seems

[00:06:48] like, you know, a great way to keep your, your yourself included in the, the Marine Corps and the, the culture and everything by doing all that research, telling the stories from, you know, all the people [00:07:00] who are you know, who served before us and you know, who have done so many great things that, you know, that those stories need to be told.

[00:07:07] And, you know, I’m, I’m sure some of them have been told them one way or another, but, but, you know, always discovering new things and new angles and, and stuff like that. And you know, figuring out ways to get those out to the masses so that people know the, the, we were talking before we, we started recording here.

[00:07:24] Know the, the sacrifices that were made for our country, you

[00:07:28] Bryan Rigg: Yeah. Amen. Scott, thank you for bringing this up. And on this note, I want to bring out something that was quite telling that I was shocked about. I mean, so we just had Memorial Day weekend. We’ve, we’ve often touted never forget, always honor, and, and we do as a nation, we do a very good job of doing that compared especially a lot of other nations and especially compared to a lot of other nations throughout, throughout time. But one thing that I was shocked by is when I was doing research on Iwo Jima, I went to the National Archives in [00:08:00] College Park, Maryland. And you would think that Iwo Jima, one of the biggest battles of World War ii, it is the battle for the Marine Corps. Like, you know, if it’s identification, you know, the flag raising on Mount Cachi and so on. was shocked that when I asked for several boxes of the fleet Marine Force documents, which was over at the amphibious core you know, that was the third core that, you know, was focusing on this, this operation. When I was looking at the third Mar Div division records and then the battalion and Regimental records, often I would get these boxes in the National Archives and they had folders inside that were still stapled.

[00:08:45] They had not been open since World War ii,

[00:08:47] Scott DeLuzio: Oh wow.

[00:08:48] Bryan Rigg: to myself here I am in a huge room. There’s many people doing research there. I’m probably the only one doing research of that particular day on World War ii, but over this battle that everybody [00:09:00] knows about. I was opening up files nobody had looked at in 70 years, and quite often what was even more fascinating, speaking of Memorial Day, so I was documenting this unit that was Charlie Company of the first battalion, 23rd Marines, and when I got a lot of their names, I went to the St.

[00:09:19] Louis National Archives where our personnel files are. And there was many guys in the chain of command that were lieutenant Colonels, colonels, even a few generals that when I got their files, they hadn’t been open since the forties or fifties since the guy left the service. And these guys were in charge of sometimes 20,000 men. And I’m thinking to myself, good Lord, we, we have this thing. Never forget, but almost, I would say probably 70% of all the, the guys that I document in my book, flame Thrower, nobody knew about in until I wrote about. I’m sure their

[00:09:56] families knew they served in the Marine Corps. They

[00:09:58] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:09:59] Bryan Rigg: [00:10:00] flag from when they were buried. They knew they fought on this island, but as far as who they were, what they did, what they saw, getting their letters, their fit reps, and so on, I was the first one to do this. And I was just, was thinking, man, if I looking at a battle that’s well known, and finding this out, much is not known about some lesser battles?

[00:10:24] Like I looked at Guam and most of the documents I looked at had never seen the light of day. Many people don’t even know that Guam was our territory. Japan had occupied it and had killed 10 thou 10% of the population during World World War II in concentration camps,

[00:10:38] sometimes on American soil.

[00:10:40] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:10:41] Bryan Rigg: So this excites me that I still am able to do these type of things, serve my nation that way with my brain and documenting history and how, how important it is to remember Memorial Day weekend that we had. But that how much is still out there that we, [00:11:00] we don’t know, especially about these men. I mean, I had several family members get in touch with me that once I documented what they actually had done on the islands, it brought tears to their eyes, gave him a sense of pride. Now they know not only was he on this island, but this is what he did.

[00:11:15] Here are the guys he lost. This is where he was,

[00:11:18] and

[00:11:18] that’s

[00:11:18] very important to remember.

[00:11:19] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And that’s, that’s piecing it together too, from not just that one individual, but then, you know, the other folks who were in that same unit who were serving with them. And, and a lot of them were probably friends or, you know, at least knew each other and, and things like that. I mean, anyone who’s served in any sort of unit in any capacity, you know, that there’s, there’s other, other folks there that you’re, you’re gonna remember probably till the day you die.

[00:11:43] And you know, as you’re serving alongside those, those folks unfortunately in combat, sometimes they don’t make it home. And you know, what, what happens to these people? And, and oftentimes those stories when service members come home, they don’t necessarily wanna talk about those things. So the, the family members don’t always know [00:12:00] about those, those types of things that happened.

[00:12:02] And, and it’s you know, probably very eye-opening when, when someone does learn of, of those things, you know, going, going forward. Right.

[00:12:09] Bryan Rigg: Yep.

[00:12:10] Scott DeLuzio: and so, kinda want to change gears just a little bit here. And I wanna talk, I still talking about some of the work that you’ve done, but there’s a, a concept of primary groups I believe that you’ve, you’ve done some work on as well.

[00:12:23] Can you talk to us a little bit about primary groups and, and what they, they are, and, and kind of how that, that might fit into, you know, the work that you do.

[00:12:30] Bryan Rigg: Sure, sure. Now, in particular where, where you read about this the most or find out, especially in the German language, is what the in World War ii, in the German army. Is that what

[00:12:42] you’re re referencing to?

[00:12:44] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yes.

[00:12:46] Bryan Rigg: So what made the German military so effective besides Germans being very law abiding, very disciplined, very team oriented people, especially back [00:13:00] then. Is that when they recruited guys into units when they had the universal draft reinstated in 1935, is that they recruited from that region. So you were going off to ba to training quite often in your actual platoon and company with guys that you had gone to, elementary school with junior high with and high school. You had dated each other’s girl girlfriends. Many of ’em were, you know, cousins, et cetera, et cetera. There was a very tight family unit dynamic already when they went in to train. So then you bring the training and then the, the test by fire and, and blood, you know, in combat, these units became very tight with each other because of all the social webbing that these guys had going into the military and then after their training and experience in war. So the primary group was very critical to German success in the early [00:14:00] years when they weren’t taking a lot of casualties after the, probably the first and a half to, for first two years of the four year war in Russia, these primary groups were largely decimated and, and, and gone. Germany was still a very effective fighting force.

[00:14:17] They still were recruiting from the regions. they were trying to fill the ranks so quickly. instead of having the disciplined approach of doing, you know, proper training and so on, when they were trying to fill the ranks in 43 and 44 and fast tracking training, so on the primary groups went away and they were not as effective.

[00:14:37] But even with that being said, if you study the Battle of Hurston Forest America really got its nose bloodied in late 44 that is a testament to how effective the German military training still was and how they, they taught how to work together as a unit. You know, as Napoleon said, you usually had to have a one to [00:15:00] three, superiority on the attack. To take over the position. Well, in many cases it was like one to 10 ratio

[00:15:09] to be able to take over these German positions.

[00:15:11] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:15:11] Bryan Rigg: 10 guys to take out one German, and we saw this also in Italy we were moving up. We never took over all of Italy Germans. Their defensive techniques, especially under general Hein, REI was truly remarkable that this little nation was able to do what it did with its population and then with its military culture.

[00:15:34] And then the primary groups kinda reminds me of a funny story I’m sure I probably don’t have all the facts right, but the general gist of it is true. So Daal was doing a tour of Russia in 43 and Khrushchev was showing him. Ba the remnant about the battlefield of Stalingrad and Dugal was looking at just a massive destruction all around him.

[00:15:59] And he is [00:16:00] like, what remarkable people. And Khrushchev said, yes. You know, we, Russians, we fought very hard. We lost a million people at this battle. We never gave up. And Tagal says, no, I’m not talking about the Russians. talking about the Germans, that they come 1500 miles here a million men to fight a battle here, and were able to sustain it for several months and almost what remarkable people, you know, Khrushchev didn’t like that too much, but there’s some truth to it that the Germans did so much more so much less in many respects than what other nations did And part of the reason why their success was so great early on.

[00:16:40] Besides the War of Movement, the Be Creek, blitz Creek was

[00:16:44] those primary groups.

[00:16:46] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and I, I can think back to, you know, my time in the Army, you know, other folks who have have served probably can relate to this as well. When you are putting together in a [00:17:00] unit, it’s not necessarily from the same local region. You’re not necessarily gonna be going to the same unit with your high school buddy like, like you’re describing here.

[00:17:10] You get people from all over the country and it’s just a big mix of people, different cultures and, and races and religions, and everything’s just kind of mixed together. But I know from my experience, I’ll, I would fight just as hard for the guy next to me who I didn’t know growing up. I, I maybe only met a few months ago you know, before we deployed.

[00:17:35] And I would fight just as hard for him as, as I would somebody who I, I knew you know, for, for the longest time because of that brotherhood that we generated. And it was, it was a very important thing. But I can only imagine the. Those folks who did grow up with these people, they, they’d known them since they were, you know, little kids playing, you know, at, at school or, you know, wherever in their neighborhoods.

[00:17:58] And [00:18:00] like, obviously you don’t want to come home and feel like a failure that you, you, your friend who you grew up with didn’t make it home either. So you’re gonna fight even harder perhaps for, for those people. I, I can, I can see how that would be very advantageous in a combat situation. Now these, these primary groups I’m, I’m wondering, like, I can see the benefit during combat.

[00:18:24] I’m wondering how. They affected the soldiers after the war after coming back home to tho those same regions where maybe not everybody came home and what, what happened? Or, or was there some way that, you know, the, the folks that they served with are, you know, who did make it home. They’re all in that area.

[00:18:44] Maybe they helped each other you know, dealing with life after combat. You know, a lot of, a lot of different ways that can go. I can see. But, you know, in your experience from, from kind of research that you’ve done, what, what have you seen as far as like the, the post-war [00:19:00] situation with those.

[00:19:01] Bryan Rigg: Well, I hope I got the name right. You know, we, we had that problem with the five Solomon Brothers in the Navy, you know, and the ship went down and all of ’em went down with it. And after that, you know, we did a very good job of making sure brothers were split off. So they weren’t in the same unit. Now in the Civil War, you know, we, we we had people usually from the same area recruited in the union, and I’m sure the Confederacy was like this to some degree. My great-great grandfather, David L. Davidson, he fought at Vicksburg. And when you look at his, company that’s in the plaque in the big Pantheon memorial for the Illinois. So soldiers, she’s with the hundred 16th Illinois. You look at his company out of like 50 names. Seven were davidsons all from the same area.

[00:19:49] So, and one of ’em was his brother we know and he died later on. Many of them cousins and so on. So you probably had the same dynamic that we’re talking about the Germans with the union, [00:20:00] units at least. ’cause a lot of ’em went from their regions. The one thing that you learned about from the Civil War, when they came from, you know, one area in World War I, they were doing this also in England, they’re doing this and in Germany as well. Is that if you were in a particularly tough situation, a tough battle and your unit got wiped out, you just destroyed a town,

[00:20:24] you just destroyed a village.

[00:20:26] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:20:27] Bryan Rigg: all those men are gone, the mothers are devastated, wives are widows and so on. So a lot of these guys, you know, the Germans they, they lost 7 million people during World War ii.

[00:20:40] About half of them were, were the soldiers. So that, you know, put that in context. Three and a half million men died in uniform. had like 18 million men go through the range. So it’s still a minority, but it’s still dramatic. When you look at America had 16 million in uniform and well, we only [00:21:00] quote unquote lost 400,000.

[00:21:01] But many American families have their story of, you know, guys they’ve lost and so on. So getting back to how these men are recovered, Germany is gonna be different than probably America or the British or the union example that I’m giving because in the British and American examples, they came back to adjust victory. Even if their town was devastated, they could keep their heads high and say, we fought, you know, to preserve the union, do away with slavery. You know, I had three, three great-grandfathers who fought for the union, I’m Sure.

[00:21:33] these are the topics that they had. You

[00:21:35] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:21:36] Bryan Rigg: though my great-great-grandfather lost a brother and some cousins and so on. England as well. Hey, we preserved the peace. We won the Great war. You know, we can go in parades and keep our heads high. The Germans come back and you got the Nuremberg trials, which, you know, we just had this movie Nuremberg, with Russell Crow showing about ing and that that dramatic event and history of how [00:22:00] you create international law to prosecute evil actors during war and violations against humanity, also how the, the, the people thought at this time period and what they actually did.

[00:22:14] We actually one of the best documented wars ever, if you will, because these trials really collected a lot of the data as they were doing their due diligence and also the trial in Tokyo. So, getting into your very interesting question about the Germans, it is truly remarkable that they come back. They’ve been devastated.

[00:22:35] Their towns have been, there’s not one brick on top of the other in Berlin, for example, and many of the other cities. they’re shamed, you know, because they fought for Hitler. All the stuff coming out about the Ner from the Nuremberg trial shows about their atrocities against the Jews and other, quote, unquote, what they called inferior people, un mention. so they didn’t have [00:23:00] parades. They weren’t able to put out flags if they had miniature reunions, which they did. They had to keep it very quiet. So these guys really suffered in silence with, you know, justifying serving their nation ’cause they were drafted and they were proud Germans. But then realizing what the end goal was gonna be, ultimately what they were doing to support. So these guys were extremely conflicted and quite often when I interviewed, I interviewed, as you know, from my bio, I interviewed 430 men of Jewish industry in the Nazi military. It’s 800 hours of video material that I’ve digital digitized in the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC has taken on this collection.

[00:23:42] It’s called the Brian Mark Ery Collection. It’s the second largest oral history collection in their possession. And when I interviewed these guys and talked to them a lot of times in the nineties when I was doing the interviews, this is the first time they were asked a lot of questions. ’cause they just repressed it. And they took a lot of that anger [00:24:00] and that frustration and the discipline that they learned in the military. they really did amazing things in their societies, as many people will know. It’s called the workshops, nda, the economic wonder of the sixties and seventies when all of a sudden you have this explosion of German industry on the scene. And they’re getting their pride back with Mercedes and BMW and and so on. and Opal. And you see kind of the same phenomenon in Japan. They also, at this time period with Suzuki and Yamaha and so on, Nissan just explode. And that’s kind of how they took all that frustration that, okay, I can’t talk about what I did in the war. This was embarrassing. do we get our pride back? And they shifted all that energy and patriotism, if you will, into doing things that were very productive and that could

[00:24:54] allow them to keep their head high.

[00:24:56] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:24:57] Bryan Rigg: to repress a lot of things, whereas, you know, you and I get [00:25:00] together, we have a beer, if we know we put on the uniform, were able to talk to each other fairly honestly and candidly.

[00:25:06] And we’re very proud. We don’t care if people overhear our conversations. Germans didn’t have that luxury after World War ii, even though many of them were very. Simple, good, hardworking men who only after the fact that they realize, oh my God, this was a lot more evil than I

[00:25:25] ever thought.

[00:25:26] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right. And. That sometimes like when you’re in the thick of it, you don’t see the whole picture. You just see, okay, here are my orders. I’m supposed to go and we’re gonna go fight over here. And those, those are our enemy. That’s what we’re being told. And so we’re gonna go fight those people. And then only after the fact, like you said, you know, through the trials and through other reports and things like that, you start to realize what was I actually a part of?

[00:25:52] And, and that that could have a dev devastating impact on somebody. But I, I would imagine being a part of that [00:26:00] primary group where, where several people from that same area are coming back and they all were involved in that. At least there’s somebody there who understands you and, and can understand what you’ve been through.

[00:26:12] ’cause they were through, went through the same exact thing and they probably are having the same conflicted feelings that you’re having and at least there’s someone there that you can kind of kinda go chat with at least. And not feel like you’re a total monster for you know, bringing up some of these things to someone who didn’t experience it right.

[00:26:34] Bryan Rigg: And I think that’s something that’s you, you, you hit on something that’s kind of interesting, these primary groups, so they come back to their towns and many of them return back to where they came from, from when they talk to these guys, they, they’re forced to have interaction with them because they went to school with each other.

[00:26:48] Those are their business contacts. A lot of times their family relationships, so they can, they, they have the contact with these guys and there’s probably more opportunity to have conversations to do the healing. [00:27:00] the problem, as you know, in our military, is that you’re, you’re right. We do a very good job during our training to bring a whole bunch of different guys from different walks of life and within 10 weeks, we’re willing to die for. You know, and when we’re, when we’re out there fighting, we’re not asking, Hey, is the guy on my right, black or white, gay or heterosexual? He’s like, he’s my brother in arms. He’s been trained. We’ve gone through this. I know I can trust him. And that’s a beautiful thing about the military. I wish, you know, I think, you know, we have so many problems with race relations in, in, in America right now.

[00:27:29] I think we had universal surface, which I saw in Israel. I mean, you have blacks and whites, Sephardic, Ashkenazi, you have Druze, which are Muslims and, and Jews that are Jewish. And they all come together and within 10 weeks they’re willing to die for each other. And they’re in a unit with each other quite often until they’re in their forties because in the reserves.

[00:27:50] And that’s a beautiful thing I saw there. And I have a brother-in-law who’s finish, and I know from Finland’s experience, they do the same thing. They, they, you know, [00:28:00] and they’re, they have horrible rush on the doorstep. So, you know, getting back to our experience you know, we have this wonderful brotherhood that we all have when we’re in the service, but then when we come back, we’re spread to the four corners of the earth, you know, in America.

[00:28:15] And we, we don’t have as many opportunities to come together and share experiences, and that’s really true healing. I think one aspect of the benefit of World War II was that when the war was over, you were stuck with your guys for several months in country and then on ship coming back, and a lot of healing happened

[00:28:37] because you were able to talk about what happened.

[00:28:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:28:40] Bryan Rigg: don’t have that, and Germany, I think after World War II because of the primary units, if they, if there was enough of ’em left afterwards. They had that unit cohesion still in their social dynamics. And as you could go next door and talk to your gunner, you could go [00:29:00] next door and talk to the men that were under your command or your commanding officer if you needed a device because you were fed up with your wife or you wanted to change a job or you are having nightmares. And we do a horrible job of taking care of our veterans after the fact of keeping them together for a few more months or forcing a reunion on them like every year. Because as you know, your

[00:29:22] brother’s in arms, you can’t lie to.

[00:29:25] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.

[00:29:26] Bryan Rigg: You can’t, you can’t fake being happy. Whereas in society, if people don’t know about the military, you’re not gonna give ’em time of day, but you may be really suffering.

[00:29:36] And just that little glance in the eyes that a brother in comrade, you know, in comrade would be able to recognize people in the regular life are not going to. So I think that’s another benefit of the German primary group, probably if you were to do a sociological study on it, is that it really enabled a good social dynamic for these guys to get a lot of stuff off their chest.

[00:29:57] And that probably part and parcel was one [00:30:00] reason why they were so successful in being incredible leaders in the economy the sixties, seventies and eighties. That, you know, put Germany, which is half the size of Texas on the map as a world

[00:30:15] economic power.

[00:30:16] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And,

[00:30:18] I, I, think that that was one thing I, I wanted to bring up is this just the size of, of some other countries, Germany being the one that we just happened to be talking about here being, you know, just land area, half the size of, of Texas. And when you look at the size of the United States when you have people from all over the country coming together, serving together, you have people from Alaska and Florida and Maine and California, and.

[00:30:43] All over the bit Midwest and every, everywhere else that you could think of all coming together and serving together. You know, and you shuffle that deck of cards basically. And, and it’s just a mix of people from, from everywhere. And then afterwards they go scatter back to where they came from. And [00:31:00] it’s gonna be a lot harder just geographically to get people to come back together and physically be together.

[00:31:08] I mean, I know nowadays, you know, you and I are not in the same, we’re not even in the same state, but we’re able to talk as if we’re sitting together in the same room because of technology way back when they didn’t have that kind of technology. You know, even sometimes a phone call would be difficult to do the way we’re, we’re doing a, you know, call like this right now.

[00:31:26] And so the. The benefit for them is that they were close regardless of where in the country they ended up, they were gonna be relatively close. And, you know, relative to the United States you know, for us it’s a lot more difficult. But it’s not impossible either, you know? You know, especially nowadays with the technology there are ways that you can get back in touch with people and you can, you can talk with them.

[00:31:51] And, and I think, you know, part of the reason why I wanted to bring this up is because I, I think so often we come back from combat or, or [00:32:00] we leave the service and we just kind of stick to ourselves and we isolate away from anybody that had anything to do with the military or anything like that.

[00:32:07] And we feel like we’re, we’re all alone. Well, that’s in part our own doing. You know, we, we kind of stick ourselves in a corner you know, shut the lights off, lock the door, and we, we don’t want to talk to anyone or do anything with anyone, and well, okay, then, then you’re gonna go out and complain that you.

[00:32:25] You don’t have anybody who understands you well, there’s a lot of people who might understand you. You’re just not getting in touch with those people. And I know it’s, it’s a two-way street. Obviously, you know, the other people can reach out and get in touch with you too. And, but it’s, but sometimes.

[00:32:40] You gotta take the initiative and be that person to say, Hey, you know what, I’m gonna, maybe I’m gonna organize this you know, reunion. I’m gonna get our our guys back together and, you know, maybe not everyone can make it, but let’s try to get everybody that we can and, and get ’em together. And have that kind of process that you’re talking about that that healing process where we, we can all get together, we can all share stories, we could all [00:33:00] talk and, and things like that.

[00:33:00] Just last summer, I, I went back to you know, visit with some of the guys that I, I served with. It wasn’t everybody that, that I served with. It was, you know, but a handful of guys were there and you know, we got to share stories and everything like that. It was, it was good to catch up. It was, you know, almost 15 years later that, that we had been in Afghanistan.

[00:33:17] And you know, being able to, to chat with them at that point was, was kind of cool to do. And, you know, we don’t do that every year. We don’t, you know, it’s, it’s been a while since I had seen some of these guys, but being able to do that was, was good. It was, it was, you know, good for me. Good for a lot of them.

[00:33:33] And. I think you know, enough people just don’t either have that opportunity or, or create that opportunity for themselves to, to go out and do that. And I I think they, they maybe discount the impact that it could have, right?

[00:33:48] Bryan Rigg: Yeah. Yeah. And on, on that, on the note, there’s an interesting book I recommend anybody to read, but especially our brother and sister veterans who are, are watching this. it’s a fr from a friend [00:34:00] of mine. He, he went to the same prep school that I did, Phillips X Academy, which was just a phenomenal when I was there.

[00:34:06] It’s kind of fallen off academically. What, what it once was. It’s kind of very ideologically really on the left, instead of giving a balanced picture, which is what education should be, it should be both talking about Republicans and Democrats and so on, and the same voice. neither here nor there, what I’m getting at.

[00:34:24] We went to a very good school. We’re very proud of our experience. He was there in the sixties. I was there in the nineties, and he’s one of the foremost experts on A DHD and dyslexia. His name is Dr. Ned Hallowell outta Harvard. And he’s proofread my work, giving me a lot of feedback. But he wrote a phenomenal book called Connect. And the whole premise of the book is saying people who live the healthiest lives are the ones who have kind of built in mechanisms in their lives that force them to connect. And he says, it is kind [00:35:00] of counterintuitive, you think, because if we talk about connection, which you and I are talking about right now, especially people who have gone through fire and sacrifice they need to stay connected to their

[00:35:12] units to stay mentally healthy,

[00:35:14] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:35:15] Bryan Rigg: but in life in general, we need to stay connected.

[00:35:17] But what net Howwell found out, which is very interesting, is that people actually kind of build in walls to prevent them from getting to those places of connection. But if they force themselves to break through those walls and connect, they feel so

[00:35:37] much better for having done so.

[00:35:39] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:35:40] Bryan Rigg: So, what, what this book basically shows is that people need to force accountability structures, if you will, like we had in the military that force them to connect. And you know, whether that’s like showing up at the bar once a week, you know, having your trainer that, you know, you [00:36:00] paid for, that you have to go to the gym. You know, accountability sectors that force you to connect with people that matter in your life. Family members, you know, birthdays, these type of events, weddings are very, very important. But reunions check-in times. You know, if you know that some of your buddies are struggling, you say, okay, hey, let’s just get on the calendar. Three months we’re meeting via Zoom. Like, you know, now we don’t have the excuse saying, well, it’s just too far away. I’m in Alaska and you’re in Florida. that doesn’t work anymore. So that’s one thing that this book is brilliant about, is just showing you how you gotta fake yourself out sometimes. set up a standard operating procedure in life that

[00:36:46] forces you to connect.

[00:36:49] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And it’s a piece of that discipline that we all had in the military where there was, there were certain things that you had to do, certain way that you had to do them, and certain times that had to be done. And, and all [00:37:00] these, these things that were set up for you. There was criteria, there were checklists, there were things that, that needed to be done in very specific ways.

[00:37:07] And so it’s like, okay, well that’s the job. I’m going to just go ahead and do that. Well, now that we’re out of the military and we don’t have, you know. Big military oversight hanging over us, telling us what to do, where to be, what to be wearing when, when to go to sleep, when to get up, when to eat, and all that kind of stuff.

[00:37:28] Well, we have to build that in ourselves and, and we have to have that, that discipline to stick with it and realize when things are not working, I think is, is also important. Because I, I know for myself, after getting back from Afghanistan, I, I kind of was one of those people who didn’t want to do anything.

[00:37:43] I didn’t want to go talk to anybody. I don’t want to, I just want to be alone. And I, I wanted to stay away. And you know, after a little while I realized, Hey, that’s not working. I’m turning into a terrible version of myself and this is not who I wanna be for, you know, for my wife, for my kids, for, you know, anybody really.

[00:37:59] I, I, I [00:38:00] just wanted to be a different version of myself. And, and I said, well, if what I’m doing isn’t working, continuing to do the same thing isn’t going to help anything. So I need to make some sort of changes and. And so that was step one is just recognizing, hey, this isn’t gonna work. I gotta, I gotta do something else.

[00:38:18] Step two is figuring out what is that something else. And sometimes it’s not as obvious to people what they, they need to do. Sometimes it, you know, even things like therapy and going and talking and confidence to somebody is, is terrifying to some people. But sometimes that might be what you need. And,

[00:38:33] Bryan Rigg: Yeah,

[00:38:33] Scott DeLuzio: And so,

[00:38:34] Bryan Rigg: we men in America, you know, been to the military, talking to a shrink is, you know, weak. And in many respects, I think the best shrinks, if you will, are a brother and comrades. But there is, you know, for good therapists, which they’re are a small minority but for good therapists, I think they can help some people really work through some, some serious issues.

[00:38:55] Before my second marriage, I did an awful lot of therapy ‘ cause I didn’t wanna go through the [00:39:00] same debacle that I had with my

[00:39:02] first divorce that I got blindsided by. So that kind of turned me around with the therapist I had. So I think, yeah, that’s another thing that we, especially men need to demystify that, hey, if you’re not getting the help from your comrades or your friends or you’re not getting help, period here, accountability, paying somebody, like paying a trainer will maybe force you to always show up.

[00:39:26] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right.

[00:39:27] Bryan Rigg: And get the help you need so you can go back and be a better husband and be a better

[00:39:31] father, and be a better coworker, and so on.

[00:39:33] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:39:34] And, And,

[00:39:34] there was, there’s actually a while back we were in our family was kind of involved in, in doing some you know, selling tickets to different events. And it wasn’t like we were trying to make a ton of money to any of these events, but you know, we would’ve given the tickets away for free.

[00:39:48] But what we noticed was we had limited capacity for how many people that we could allow into these things. And if we gave the tickets away for free, of course anyone’s gonna just take the tickets. But then only about, you know, a third of the [00:40:00] people would actually show up. So what we would do is we would say, okay, well it’s, the tickets are gonna be a dollar, $5, just something small enough that, you know, it’s not gonna be breaking the bank for most people.

[00:40:10] But but also. They are committed now, they, they spent money. They, they thought to themselves, am I actually going to go? If not, well I’m not gonna buy the ticket. If, if I am gonna go, well then, okay, yeah, I’ll buy the ticket and, and the, the attendance rate shot up to, you know, almost you know, full capacity.

[00:40:26] Obviously there’s gonna be some issues every now and again, but but that, that small, even a small financial investment will get people to really commit to it. And, and think to themselves like, how, how much do I actually want to participate in this? And, and if I don’t wanna participate it, well I’m not gonna spend the money on, on a therapist or, you know, what other other training you might be dealing with.

[00:40:48] Bryan Rigg: Yeah, there’s, there’s no

[00:40:49] pun intended when you say they have buy-in.

[00:40:51] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s definitely buy-in and, and you know, they’re doing it. It’s their own choice to do it too. And so if, [00:41:00] if they’re doing it, they’re, they’re now saying to themselves, okay, I’m committing to this resource, whatever it happens to be. And so that’s, I think, important as well, especially if you don’t have that group of people who you can, you can talk to even on, on a Zoom call or a, a phone call or whatever.

[00:41:17] You know, there’s, there, there are ways that you can still get that connection and, and get the help that you might need through, through a therapist or through some other you know, avenue that, that might be out there. So, you know, this is, this is all like, just, it’s interesting how the different different cultures, you know, the German people that we were talking about before and you know, Japanese people had, had their, their way of dealing with things and the, like, all around the world, there’s different ways of dealing with things, but I, I think it all kind of boils down to that connection piece.

[00:41:49] You know, regardless of where, what the culture was or what the war was, the, the time period or anything like that it’s really connecting with people who can understand what you went [00:42:00] through and and be able to talk with people. And, and if, if you don’t have that it’s, it’s gonna be a lot harder going through it on your own, I think.

[00:42:07] Right?

[00:42:07] Bryan Rigg: Yeah.

[00:42:08] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:42:08] Bryan Rigg: absolutely.

[00:42:09] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. So,

[00:42:11] So definitely great points that, that have been brought up here. I think a lot to be learned from history. You know, there’s that, that saying that history repeats itself and you know, if you, if you let it anyways and

[00:42:22] Bryan Rigg: well, if you

[00:42:22] don’t learn it, it definitely will repeat

[00:42:24] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:42:25] Bryan Rigg: and I like what Mark Twain said. He says, history may not repeat itself, but

[00:42:30] it definitely rhymes.

[00:42:32] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, sure. Absolutely. And that, that actually makes a ton of sense too because you know, we, we. Our, you know, our human nature is gonna force us into the, those same patterns and, and end up doing a lot of the same stuff you know, unless we learn something from it. And I, I think that’s that’s true.

[00:42:48] Not only in, you know, world history or, you know, US history or whatever you know, looking back in time at, at historical events and saying, okay, what can we learn from those things? But also in, in ourselves, in [00:43:00] our own personal histories, what mistakes have I made in the past and how can I avoid making those mistakes again in the future?

[00:43:07] And what can I learn from those lessons that I, I, I, I’m taking away from that, that mistake that I made or that, you know, thing that happened. Any of those things are, are, you know, equally as important to take, carry forward with you going down the line because you know, obviously you make a mistake once you don’t wanna make it again.

[00:43:25] So

[00:43:25] Bryan Rigg: Yep.

[00:43:26] Scott DeLuzio: let’s learn from those things

[00:43:27] and, and I think,

[00:43:29] it’s definitely something that you can learn from, you can overcome. But again, you have to be willing to learn from it and be open and receptive to you know, that those types of things. So, you know, when, when you’re taking a look at your yourself and saying, Hey, what, what have I screwed up in, in my, my life and what, what can I do better?

[00:43:49] Like, you have to be open to that type of criticism and, and you know, that self-reflection and, and all that. So, you know, and it’s not a a negative thing either. It’s not, you know, it’s, [00:44:00] it’s how we learn. It’s how we grow. It’s, you know, it’s, as a little kid when you’re learning how to ride a bike and you fall off and you scrape your knee, it’s like, well, I don’t want to do that again.

[00:44:07] So what did I do wrong as I was riding that bike? So I, I don’t end up having to do that again. You

[00:44:12] Bryan Rigg: it’s like

[00:44:12] having that, I’m sure you’ve heard of the OTA loop, you know,

[00:44:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:44:16] Bryan Rigg: you know, most military guys have, but you know how you observe something and you learn from it and then you build in mechanisms that you don’t do the same thing. again, and it’s kind of reminds me of a proverb, you know, it says, as a dog, return it to his vomit.

[00:44:30] So does a fool it to his falling. if you don’t build in mechanisms, and quite often with our brothers and arms and sisters in arms, you know, after a after action reports when you

[00:44:42] get together, those are brutal.

[00:44:45] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:44:45] Bryan Rigg: You did this wrong, you did this wrong. You could have got somebody killed. You did get somebody killed.

[00:44:50] You know, it wasn’t intent. But this, you know, and we have a system in place. If it wasn’t gross negligence, obviously help those guys, especially, you know, my brother was a, a [00:45:00] Harrier pilot and he said they were brutal with each other a lot of times after missions. You know,

[00:45:04] because there, it’s really a zero defect

[00:45:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:45:08] Bryan Rigg: And I think if we could build that type of mechanism into our lives after the service, ’cause I think all of us will realize having that part of our ser service made us better, made us more professional and to be open to that constructive criticism. Because, you know, normally your, your, your brother in arms are not

[00:45:29] doing this to make you feel bad.

[00:45:31] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:45:32] Bryan Rigg: You’re trying to do, do this to make sure you’re more effective in combat later on. then hopefully in real life, we can do that. But, you know, especially males, you know, we’re big egos with small legs. And so how you build that into the male psyche to be open to that criticism. Especially a guy who’s been in the service that comes back to the civilian realm and thinks, in many cases, rightly so, that are, [00:46:00] he’s surrounded by idiots. You know, ’cause they’re complaining about stupid stuff. They’re not organized, they’re not team oriented. And that’s, and to get a, a good feedback loop from competent people around you, sometimes it’s very hard to get, that’s something, another reason to stay in touch with your buddies that you went through the military with.

[00:46:18] ’cause they’re a cut above the rest of society, just from their experience.

[00:46:23] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. So, I, I think from this conversation so far, a lot of, a lot of good takeaways of, you know, having that community, having that connection, having you know, even manufacturing it yourself, finding, finding those people. If, if you’re not you know, around the area where all the, the people that you serve with are, I mean, there are places like American Legions and VFWs, and you can find, you can find your community somewhere.

[00:46:47] Bryan Rigg: Corps

[00:46:48] League. I

[00:46:48] Scott DeLuzio: exactly.

[00:46:49] Bryan Rigg: So many

[00:46:50] Scott DeLuzio: So many things out there

[00:46:51] that, that, you can go to and, and find the, the people who can understand you. Maybe they didn’t serve with you, they didn’t you know, know exactly what you went through because they [00:47:00] weren’t there. But, you know, they’re, they can, they can fill in the blanks and they, they can understand right.

[00:47:05] Bryan Rigg: and I wanna, I wanna offer two observations here. What you’re talking about with how to build community. If somebody’s listening to this and he is like, you know, I don’t have community, I don’t have many guys that I can go talk to in society, I’d ask them to do the following. Go to some of the local retirement centers in your hometown ask the director, Hey who would be three veterans that I should talk to that are here that, and especially three veterans that don’t get a lot of visits and go talk to those Korean and Vietnam veterans.

[00:47:35] And God forbid,

[00:47:36] I mean, if there’s a couple of World War

[00:47:38] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:47:39] Bryan Rigg: have to be over a hundred connect with him as an older brother, younger brother, type of dynamic. Talk to them. If you don’t have that, that connection with some, some veterans make the connections and add something to somebody’s life at the very end of his life.

[00:47:55] Give him some value, but also hear some of his wisdom. Another thing that you’re [00:48:00] bringing up that re reminds me of something to encourage our brother and sister veterans who maybe are struggling, a lot of times people. Say, what’s the point of it all? Especially after they come out of bad situations.

[00:48:11] Especially what I’m sure what you saw in Afghanistan. It was just a mess. And the society there was just so bankrupt. So, you know, questioning, what was I fighting for? Why did my brother die? Et cetera, et cetera. One book that’s helped a lot of people and helped me is called Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

[00:48:29] He survived Auschwitz. and it came up with a, a terminology called logotherapy. this has helped me when I’ve been in you know, bad situations in my life and I’m, I’m kind of struggling and floundering away, it starts to give me direction. He, he quotes Nietzche, but says, basically, if, if you can answer the why why you should do something, we’re talking now why to connect, why to work with your, you know, getting rid of your demons.

[00:48:59] Why [00:49:00] should you continue on developing the that helped you, the military and life and so on? you can answer that, why? You can deal with any how. And what Viktor Frankl, who I actually had the blessing of interviewing back in the 1990s in Vienna, he found was fascinating. He was in Auschwitz and some of the healthiest, strongest guys that would show up at the camp.

[00:49:21] They were the ones that died the quickest. And some of the guys that were middle aged overweight and whatnot, they were, for lack of a better term, thriving after a few months. And he is like, what’s going on here? very people that you would pick to survive this nightmare when they were placed in the work center, because Auschwitz was by and large a death camp. he’s like the very people that you think would survive or not, and the ones you don’t think were gonna survive or thriving. And when he interviewed them, he found they had a desire to get revenge. They had a desire to write a book. They had a desire to see their family. They had something that gave them the [00:50:00] walk. And then they can deal with any how of figuring it out. And this is a dramatic example of people finding the why and then ending up learning how to survive. But a lot of times, I mean, we veterans, we know we have a much higher rate of suicide, which is counterintuitive. This is not how we’re trained. This is not what we do to our units.

[00:50:20] This is not what do to our family. So having that why out there and answering that and and holding each other accountable, why you should do this will help people do the next right thing and do the, then do the next right thing and then do the next right thing. And I think just taking those steps at a time, you know, kind of like mission focus.

[00:50:44] And if the mission is just simple, I’m gonna have a good day today. I’m gonna be productive, I’m gonna love my wife, I’m gonna read books to my kids and I’m gonna call one Comrade and see how he’s doing. And just five minutes. Hey John, I’ve been thinking of you. Love [00:51:00] you.

[00:51:00] If you need

[00:51:01] me, I’m here.

[00:51:01] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. And, and coming up with that why could be, you know, a night and day difference for, for some folks. And you know, so I, I’m going to include a link to that book in the the show notes as well. Because I, I, I think that that’s, that’s important.

[00:51:16] Bryan Rigg: It’s an interesting last name. It’s F-R-A-N-K-L.

[00:51:20] Scott DeLuzio: yeah,

[00:51:21] yeah,

[00:51:21] Bryan Rigg: Yeah,

[00:51:22] Scott DeLuzio: It’s.

[00:51:22] Bryan Rigg: man, search for Meaning. And, and it is a quick read. Most people can sit down within probably four or five hours and have it read. And like I said, more people in my life that I’ve

[00:51:33] given that to has it made a difference.

[00:51:35] And then getting to the primary group for people who are interested in the German army, one of the best memoirs of World War II besides EEB, fle Eby Sledge with the old breed that I think is a great memoir. Marine Corps guy that was at PE Lou. And then Okinawa is called The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sayer, S-A-J-E-R. And besides [00:52:00] being a powerful book about showing you what the German soldier went through in World War ii, it’s also a very powerful book like Viktor Frankl hopefully helping people realize, you know what, it could be a lot worse. And this is how you get through

[00:52:16] things.

[00:52:17] Scott DeLuzio: And I, I think o oftentimes we forget that, you know, that it can be a lot worse. Not, not that that’s always necessarily the, the most uplifting way of, of, of looking at it. But, but realizing that, hey, you know what, there is some, a silver lining here. There’s something good that, that you can take away from even a terrible situation that you know, at, at least, you know, fill in the blank, whatever that thing is, what, whatever that thing is that makes it a little bit more of a positive spin, can completely change your whole mindset on that, that whole situation.

[00:52:52] So, so those, those types of things I think are, are real important as well.

[00:52:55] Bryan Rigg: Hey. Amen, Scott. Amen.

[00:52:59] Preach [00:53:00] on.

[00:53:00] Scott DeLuzio: well, Brian before we wrap up anything else that you want to add or any you know, resources or anything that you want to share with the, the audience, the listeners that you know, to send ’em your way to, you know, help, help them find more information about your works and, and that type of stuff for her?

[00:53:14] Bryan Rigg: Well, hey, thanks so much. I’m working on a

[00:53:16] new website. I do have a website, which is my name,

[00:53:18] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:53:19] Bryan Rigg: Mark rigg.com. It has all my books, Amazon, you can find all my books. Those guys out there who have veteran meetings and they like to bring in speakers. I love speaking about World War II and the Holocaust. One other book, if people are interested in collecting books like we just talked about, like Viktor Frankl’s, man’s Search For Meaning, that helps give you perspective. One of the best works, and it got the Nobel Price for literature. By the way, one of the best works on the Holocaust, to give you a feel for what that was like is Ellie Zel, W-I-E-S-E-L, his book called Knight. And that it’s a very quick read, beautiful [00:54:00] English but also gives you perspective. Now, like you said you can only go so far with people saying,

[00:54:06] Hey, it could be a lot worse when they’re in a dark

[00:54:08] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:54:09] Bryan Rigg: And so there’s a fine balance. I mean, my, my, my first wife, sometimes she would caveat ’cause I’m a Holocaust, world War II historian. When she was complaining about something, she said, now, sweetheart, I know I’m not on a train to Auschwitz. But hear me out, you know,

[00:54:26] please clean the dishes. There’s no house elves, you know, and it’s pissing me off you. So, you know, there is some benefit of having perspective meeting the person where he or she is at, realizing that maybe you can’t understand why they’re in such a dark place.

[00:54:44] You know, Hey, you have a loving wife, you have kids snap out of it, that, that’s easier said than done. Or, Hey, you’re not on a train to Auschwitz snap out of it. But helping talk that person through what he’s going through, [00:55:00] especially if he’s a person who’s seen combat and lost buddies and whatnot, which is quite often, a lot of the times the guys who are in a dark place have. Giving them perspective while talking about why they have the pain they do, the guilt they have, that they should have died or they should have done something differently and so on. Well, then hopefully at the end, if you can get him or

[00:55:20] her to come to that conclusion, you know

[00:55:23] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:55:23] Bryan Rigg: It could have been worse.

[00:55:25] I I, I’m not on a train to Auschwitz you not telling them that, but then them realizing then you’re, you’re giving them a lifeline that they could use themselves. And I think, I’m no psychologist, but from my experience talking with veterans, I talk to a lot of these German veterans I can’t tell you how often after I talk to them, that family members got in touch with me and said, I never knew this about him before.

[00:55:48] And now he’s talking more to me now. I realize why he was a kind of crappy dad when it came to emotions and so on. But it gave more understanding. So I think, you know, when [00:56:00] you asked me the wonderful question, what else would I leave the audience with? I, I think, you know, those three books are really powerful if you’re trying to use World War II experiences. To help you live a life today, because the enduring legacy of human suffering and human pain is universal throughout time. We really have it good. Even we in America right now veterans, and now you were in combat. I was not. compared to what a lot of guys had to go through in combat in the past, we have it so much better. We have the medical care. We’re only in country for six months or a year. I mean, these Germans sometimes were in

[00:56:40] projected warfare for six years. You know, that also should give you a perspective, you know, effecti that, that we, we have so much more to be thankful for than to be bitter about. And I think these books that I just mentioned helps me come to that conclusion, especially when I get all wrapped up in my own navel [00:57:00] and get

[00:57:00] upset about my own fate and

[00:57:01] where I’m at in

[00:57:02] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:57:03] Bryan Rigg: and so on.

[00:57:04] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And I, I think a important thing that you mentioned there is, is helping people come to the conclusions on their own as opposed to telling them what the conclusion should be. Because when the, when you come to that conclusion on your own, it, it’ll stick a little bit better than it will if you’re someone’s just telling you, Hey, this is the answer.

[00:57:21] This is how it because your, your brain is working through the process. It’s, it’s working that problem and getting it to a point where you’re understanding it and not just coming from somebody else’s understanding. And you know, it, it, it’ll help you tremendously that way. So yeah, as opposed to just telling people, Hey, you know, suck it up and deal with it and you’ll be fine, and, you know, whatever.

[00:57:41] Just, just smile and you’ll be fine. You know, all, all of a sudden. Right. But you

[00:57:45] Bryan Rigg: Yeah. And on that note, excuse me for

[00:57:47] Scott DeLuzio: yeah. No, go ahead.

[00:57:48] Bryan Rigg: I think on the note, it’s really important for people who are, it’s starting to click in their brains that they’re helping others, you know,

[00:57:55] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:57:56] Bryan Rigg: help their comrades like what you were saying, don’t, don’t [00:58:00] issue dec declaratory statements.

[00:58:02] Ask them open-ended questions.

[00:58:04] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:58:05] Bryan Rigg: What do you think about that? What has that told you or why, why did you say that? and then be open to the, the questions, you know, and you may be thinking, you know, suck it up. You know, this is not

[00:58:18] nearly as bad as what we went through

[00:58:21] Scott DeLuzio: right.

[00:58:21] Bryan Rigg: there, you know, what’s wrong with you? You know,

[00:58:24] Scott DeLuzio: That’s right.

[00:58:25] Bryan Rigg: that’s not a good open-ended question because

[00:58:28] you’re basically saying you, you know, snap out of it.

[00:58:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:58:31] Bryan Rigg: that’s not a good way to do it. So I think, you know, when I, especially with these German veterans, when I had the open-ended questions, boy, it was amazing of what they went through in the cathartic process.

[00:58:43] They went because sharing pain is disseminating pain, which is very interesting concept. You share your pain with somebody who you trust and you love, you’re, you’re not being told to shut up and do away with the pain, or [00:59:00] stop feeling the pain, you know, suck it up, grow a pair, you know, type of mentality. think that’s very important for people to know. It’s just like, okay, let them with open questions, share that pain. And that’s also part of the healing process that

[00:59:13] we can do for each other as veterans.

[00:59:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Brian, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your, your insights, your experiences, everything that you’ve done research on and all that. It’s definitely been I think a great conversation and I, I hopefully will be, you know, helpful to some folks out there who just maybe needed some of that perspective in, in their lives.

[00:59:33] So, thank you again for coming on. I really appreciate it.

[00:59:38] You bet.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Leaving the military can seem straightforward on paper, but it often feels very different in real life. Earning a degree, landing a job, making plans for the future and sorting out benefits, all help, but they can’t replace the sense of purpose, standards, mission, and close connections that shaped your daily life For years, many veterans do not expect how much this change can affect them.

[00:00:26] My guest today, Tamir Ransom, understands this firsthand. After retiring from the Army, he, where he worked in EOD and special operations, he faced the same questions many veterans do. Who am I now and how do I use all this training, this drive and pressure that I build up from my time in the military? In this conversation, we take a look at life after the uniform, why veterans need a strong, uh, pack, why it can be hard to leave combat behind, and why your next mission might just be taking care of yourself.[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] But before we get into this episode, I want to take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s important to our community. The Global War On Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism.

[00:01:19] This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:35]

[00:01:49] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Taamir, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here

[00:01:51] Taamir Rransome: Oh,

[00:01:52] thanks. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it

[00:01:54] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, you bet. Absolutely.

[00:01:55] Before we jump into the conversation here, for the folks who are listening [00:02:00] who maybe aren’t familiar with you and, and your background and everything, can you tell us quickly just a little bit about yourself and, and your, maybe your journey in the military?

[00:02:07] Taamir Rransome: Yes, sir. So my name’s Taamir Isaiah Ransom. I retired out of USAREUR as a G3 Counter-WMD SAR Major. Joined the Army October 2001 right after 9/11. Started off as a, a radar guy in the 82nd, and then got the soft bug and went EOD, stood up the regiment unit that for EOD, and then

[00:02:26] went to the National Mission Force and

[00:02:28] never looked back

[00:02:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and I think anyone who joined that soon after 9/11 that you gotta have to imagine the motivation was, you know, pretty much 9/11 and like, “Yeah, let’s, let’s go get some,” right?

[00:02:41] Right.

[00:02:42] Taamir Rransome: my recruiter calling me and saying that ’cause they were calling everybody out. I was working construction in Atlanta at the time, and he’s like, “Hey, you see the news?” And I’m like, “Yeah.” And he goes, “You still wanna join?” ‘Cause I

[00:02:52] guess a lot of people backed out. And I

[00:02:53] was like, “Are we going to war?”

[00:02:53] And he’s like, “I think so.” And I was

[00:02:54] like, “Yeah, I wanna join.”

[00:02:57] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, I think that that’s probably, that’s probably true. That’s [00:03:00] probably one of two ways that you can go. It’s like, “Oh, wait. This is getting real? No, I, I’m gonna back out.” You know, “I was just in it for the college money.” And then there’s the other people who are like, “Oh, no. Hell yeah, send me.” You know? So, so no, that’s awesome that, that you joined, you know, right after that.

[00:03:13] I remember when I, I joined. It was a, you know, few years after that, but you know, it was– The wars were Iraq, Afghanistan, they were, they were in full swing. And I remember the drill sergeant saying like, “It’s not a matter of if you get deployed, it’s a matter of when you get deployed af-after joining at this point.”

[00:03:27] So it’s,

[00:03:28] you know, y-you knew at that point you’re, you’re going someplace, you’re gonna be doing something. Just a matter of, you know, when and where. So, you know, it, it’s definitely a, definitely a different time period versus just immediately before 9/11, 9/11, where,

[00:03:41] you know, there was really nothing going on at that point.

[00:03:43] And, and it was

[00:03:44] You know, just a wh- a whole different world. So, so you, you said you, you served in the 82nd stood up the EOD unit supporting the r- Ranger Regiment, and you know, all that. So that must’ve been you know, kind of challenging, I would imagine. What were some of the, the things that you learned you know, kind of during that time?

[00:03:59] You know, what, what were [00:04:00] some of the kinda takeaways for you during that time?

[00:04:02] Taamir Rransome: Okay. So, I’ll, I’ll start with the 82nd. One of the things that I wanted to do is, like I had no clue. There’s really not too many people in my family who were military, so I didn’t have any real clue of like, special operations or, or even airborne. The airborne bug from a, like a drill sergeant, and like this guy was the epitome of like discipline and I was like, he always talked about his division and so I was like, “I wanna jump out of airplanes.” But then when I got to the 82nd and you get to Fort Bragg, anybody who’s been to Fort Bragg, they realize that you get a couple briefs when you first get here. One of the briefs is from the Green Berets, and then they give you another brief about staying off of Gruber Road, like, down Gruber Road a certain ways. And I was always like, “You know, what the heck’s down there?” And I figured out the unit was down there, and so I was like, “That’s where I wanna be.” So, there’s a couple other things that, that happened, but like the biggest thing for me that wanted me to go that pushed me to go SOF was during All American Week one of the s- the division sergeant major at the time said something I’ll never forget.

[00:04:52] He’s like, “Sometimes it’s

[00:04:53] tradition over common sense.” And for whatever reason that didn’t sit right with me and I was like, “I

[00:04:58] gotta get out of here, man. These guys are

[00:04:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:05:00] Yeah.

[00:05:01] Taamir Rransome: So, I would say that from a, from a challenging standpoint EOD school’s probably the hardest school, or if not the hardest school I’ve ever been to mentally. You know, everybody across all four services in the EOD career field you have to be a B student. So, it’s basically… It’s not like, I think the rest of the military is like to pass, but for EOD school it’s 85. And so any one, like minor infraction you got was a

[00:05:24] eight-point hit, and if

[00:05:26] it was a major infraction it was a

[00:05:27] 16-point hit, automatic failure.

[00:05:28] So

[00:05:28] it’s like the hardest school I’ve ever

[00:05:29] been to

[00:05:30] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, wow. Yeah and

[00:05:32] I, I

[00:05:33] gotta imagine that kind of ties into the job, right? You make one big mistake and

[00:05:37] Taamir Rransome: Yeah,

[00:05:37] Scott DeLuzio: it’s all over, right? So it’s, that’s not a job that you wanna make any kind of mistakes. Not that any job really, you know, you wanna make a mistake anywhere, but that, that one is, you know, all of a sudden you make a mistake, it becomes somebody else’s problem, you know?

[00:05:51] Taamir Rransome: Right. Yeah. The, the motto for EOD is

[00:05:53] initial initial success, total failure

[00:05:55] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:05:56] Yeah, exactly. There’s, there’s really no other option. There’s no

[00:05:59] [00:06:00] halfway with, with, that kind, that kind of job. But but you also made, made a bit of history as going through EOD you know, all that, that training and everything, but being the first Black Tier 1 EOD operator. Is that, that correct?

[00:06:13] Taamir Rransome: Yes, sir. And

[00:06:14] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah?

[00:06:14] Taamir Rransome: Black one. I didn’t know that was the case until, like, somebody told me. And at one point EOD career field asked me to do a commercial, and I was like, “Why?” And me and one of my friends and she’s like, “Well, hey, we’re the only ones.” And I’m like, “What are you talking about?”

[00:06:25] She’s like, “You’re the only Black EOD sergeant major in the United States.” And I thought about it, and because I know a bunch of different EOD units across the world, I was like, wait a minute, I’m probably the only one in the world, therefore I’m the only one in the universe. So I called dibs on that.

[00:06:38] really cool.

[00:06:39] But yeah, so I was the, the first Black tier

[00:06:41] one EOD operator in history

[00:06:43] Scott DeLuzio: That, that’s pretty cool.

[00:06:44] And, and having that, that unique of

[00:06:47] a, a perspective where you’re able to call the, you know, the only one in the universe, that’s pretty cool. But, but, you know, so all of that, that work that you did in the military, I know a lot of folks when they’re, they’re in the [00:07:00] military especially when they join at a young age, and it’s basically all they’ve known in their, their adult life, their adult, you know, working life anyways then they, they get to that point where, you know, they’re ready to hang up the uniform and transition out of the military.

[00:07:14] Gets to be a tough time for a lot of folks. What were some of the challenges that you faced during your, your transition?

[00:07:21] Taamir Rransome: For me, it was and I always consider myself like the, the poster boy for, for transitioning, right? Like I left the military with you know, dual master’s degrees from WGU. Also left with a, a post-grad certificate from University of Texas. I had, you know, did some– made some good decisions and, you know, had a bunch of properties and all that, but I didn’t realize that how much my identity would be affected, right?

[00:07:43] Like all I’ve known, and I like to use this from Shaw-Shawshank Redemption, I didn’t realize how much we become institutionalized. Like I didn’t think it would happen to me, right? Like so I, for the biggest part was like, one, I lost my purpose and my drive and who I was, or at least who I thought I was all in one fell swoop. And that [00:08:00] hit me really, really hard. And I don’t think a lot of people realize that. And I don’t, I don’t think it has to do with just, you know, doing over 20 years. I think just the, the way the military trains you to fight for that person to your left or right,

[00:08:10] like that identity they give you is, is like so ingrained in your

[00:08:13] DNA that even if you only do four years, like once you lose that

[00:08:16] It’s, it’s hard for anybody

[00:08:18] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, yeah.

[00:08:19] I, I’ve known people

[00:08:20] like, like you just said,

[00:08:21] who have only served four, six, or eight, you know, some odd years, and it had that same effect on them as they, they’re coming out. And it’s like, “Well, all right, now, now what the hell do I do?” You know?

[00:08:31] And, and who am, who am I? What do I, what am I supposed to do?

[00:08:34] And, you know, it doesn’t matter y- really how long you served, you know. If it was, you know, a short enlistment or, you know, you did your, your 20-plus years you know, it, it can happen to anybody. So,

[00:08:45] Taamir Rransome: Right

[00:08:45] Scott DeLuzio: And, and even like you said, you, you had lots of stuff going for you. You had, you know, all that education and, and all that stuff going for you getting out.

[00:08:53] But it’s, it’s more than just that. It’s, it’s that community. It’s the, the camaraderie, I should say, the, the folks that you’re with, [00:09:00] plus the, the mission, the purpose that you’re you’re having while you’re in the military. That all gets taken away, and now, now it’s just you against the world, basically, right?

[00:09:08] And it, it’s a little different mind- mindset. Now, stepping into mindset a little bit here, tell us about your, your book that, that you wrote and you know, like what, what it’s all about, what kinda the background on it, what, what inspired you to write it and, and all that kind of stuff.

[00:09:23] Taamir Rransome: Right. So, like I said my master’s are in data. I’m a data guy. I love, you know, patterns, and I love figuring out the– looking at patterns and figuring out the questions that nobody thinks to ask, right? And so one of the quest- I work with a lot of nonprofits, veteran nonprofits, and the question that keeps coming up is, you know, veteran suicide, right? And so, the question that was brought to me was, you know, why is there veteran suicide? And then I realized really quick there wasn’t– no matter what we say, like people try to boil it down to one answer, and I realized it’s not one answer. And so essentially the book was one, like I said, it was a love letter to myself initially ’cause I needed to write that [00:10:00] stuff to get it out there. But then I realized really quick that just from all my research on, and why my body is behaving or why my mind was feeling a certain way, that other people needed to hear this. And so, it was a lot more than 34 laws initially. I call them laws because I’m a Robert Greene fan, you know, “40 Laws of Power.”

[00:10:15] But basically I was able to distill everything that was going on from a veteran’s perspective down to 34 different issues. That is the reason why, we a lot of our brothers and sisters are, you know, committing suicide

[00:10:29] and feeling lost in, in the world after they finish their service

[00:10:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and that’s something that I started this show basically to to combat is the veteran suicide problem that we’re dealing with. And it, you know, it doesn’t seem to be getting better, you know, over, over time. You look at the from the start of, you know, basically from 9/11 through you know, current day, you look at the number of folks that we lost in combat versus the number of people that we lost at [00:11:00] home to suicide, and the numbers are just astounding.

[00:11:05] Like, if I hadn’t seen the numbers myself, I, I don’t know that I’d, I’d believe it if someone just told me in conversation, you know?

[00:11:12] Taamir Rransome: Same here. So I, I think I want to say that we’ve lost more– Since, since 9/11, we’ve lost more

[00:11:18] to suicide than we’ve lost

[00:11:20] in combat

[00:11:21] casualties since Vietnam.

[00:11:23] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. It, and it’s,

[00:11:25] Taamir Rransome: a lot more.

[00:11:26] Scott DeLuzio: it’s significant. Yeah, exactly.

[00:11:28] And and so tell us about some of the, the laws that you’ve k- kinda come up with that, that you, you refer to ’em as laws that, that might kinda point people in the right direction to, to saying, “Hey, these are,

[00:11:41] these are the things that, that might be the, the kind of root cause in, in some cases.”

[00:11:46] And I know every individual’s gonna be a little bit different and

[00:11:48] Taamir Rransome: Right

[00:11:49] Scott DeLuzio: their reasonings and, and all that kinda stuff, their life s- situation’s gonna be a little bit different. But I gotta imagine most people probably touch on at least one, if not more of, of these [00:12:00] things somewhere along the way.

[00:12:01] Taamir Rransome: Right. So, I’ll, I’ll talk about the first two initially just because those kind of lay the foundation for the book. Law one it’s, it’s essentially is that like the, your uniform is not your identity. Like who you were and, and everything the military gave you that was, that was you, right? We just– the military just gave you a really good to ex- to express who you actually are. So when you take the uniform off you’re not necessarily losing your identity. You still are you. You just gotta figure out where to point that, that weapon at, right? Like we are probably the most finely tuned weapons there are we just don’t have a mission for it. So find that mission. The other part of it is law two is you need a pack.

[00:12:36] I don’t call it a tribe ’cause I think that’s, that word is overused. I ca- I, I like to act in the military more to a wolf pack, right? Like we, we, we hunt, we live, we eat, we sleep together, we watch each other’s backs, right? And if, if you’re– you know how it is, man, if you’re sucking at work, like you’ll get called out for it, right? But I think that one of the things that I realize is that the, the pack protects you from yourself, right? So if you’re drinking [00:13:00] a little bit too much or not sleeping enough, like your, your guys, they’re gonna call you out. And then you may not say anything, you may not talk about it, but it’s just the right amount of call out that you need. One. And then I, I spend a few of the laws explaining to not only the service member, but the civilian on how and why, especially as an enlisted guy the US sees us. And a lot of it has to do with Hollywood, right? And so understanding that like, we are either painted as a hero or the monster, or we’re neither. Like, we’re so much more deep. Like, like veterans are so, so much– like we’re deeper than that, right? So it’s, it’s to me, those are like the most important things of like, hey, it’s not civilian’s fault, right? Like, because go to get a job, right, thing they may know about the military is “Full Metal Jacket.”

[00:13:40] That might be the one movie they’ve seen. And if I’m a freaking, you know, E-7, which is the same as a gunny in a Marine Corps, right? Like all they know is that one drill sergeant who forced a recruit into murder-suicide, right? So it’s just, it’s trying to educate the, the veteran themselves on why they feel a certain way.

[00:13:55] And then also the book is tries to educ- educate civilians on, you know, [00:14:00] why

[00:14:00] most veterans don’t like, Thank you for your service.”

[00:14:02] But I explain where

[00:14:04] thank you for your service came from.

[00:14:05] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And I certainly, I I certainly fall in the category where I, I do feel uncomfortable with the thank you for your service. But I prefer that a hell of a lot more than the way the guys coming back from Vietnam were treated, where they were getting spit on and called names and getting beat up and all those, these kind of things just because they served their country.

[00:14:25] And it’s like, you know, they, they…

[00:14:28] It’s, a lot of times they didn’t even have a choice. They got drafted, and then they went off and, and did the thing that their country asked them to do, and then they come home and their country treats them like crap. And, and that’s, that just doesn’t sit right. So I, I certainly prefer the thank you for your service over that.

[00:14:45] But but I get it, you know? It’s, it’s not the most comfortable thing. Y- you know, some people, maybe they feel like they didn’t do enough or they don’t deserve the thanks or, you know, they, they did certain things they’re not proud of or whatever and they, they just, they wanna put it behind them. And, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of different [00:15:00] reasons that someone might not like that type of thing.

[00:15:02] But,

[00:15:03] It, it’s also hard from the civilian standpoint who they feel like there’s some appreciation there and they, they wanna express it.

[00:15:10] Well, how do I do that without pissing this person off? And, you know, everyone’s gonna have their, their own little quirks, like maybe some person’s gonna like it, some person’s not gonna like it.

[00:15:17] Taamir Rransome: Great

[00:15:21] Scott DeLuzio: and, you know, at that point it’s a little too late to take it back.

[00:15:23] So, you know, it, it, it’s hard for, I, I guess for everybody. But but looking at it from, you know, trying to understand everybody’s kind of perspectives with all these different laws, and I know I, I, I don’t even wanna go into all of them right now because I, I feel like th- that’s why people need to go get the book and, and take a, take a look at it

[00:15:43] Taamir Rransome: it

[00:15:44] Scott DeLuzio: and try to understand

[00:15:45] what it is all about and what might be some of the solutions to some of these problems.

[00:15:52] So I, I imagine that’s, that’s part of the the book as well is, is kinda digging into the solutions, right?

[00:15:58] Taamir Rransome: Right, right. And so, all [00:16:00] know Joe complains, right? But– and, and I used to as an NCO, I would tell my guys like, “Complain all you want, but give me solutions,” right? And so every chapter follows up with some type of solution, right? Like, so example, I’ll go back and say the thank you for your service. It’s not that I dislike it, I just think that it stops the conversation before it starts, right? And so instead of thank you for your service, ask me a question. I think most veterans are– not all of us, right? But I would say a good 95% of us are okay with a decent question. Like, “Where’d you serve,” right?

[00:16:28] Like, or, you know, “What service were you in? Did you ever deploy?” Right? Obviously I tell people like,

[00:16:32] don’t ask the the number one bad question, like, “How many people did you kill?” Right? There’s some

[00:16:36] Scott DeLuzio: You’re

[00:16:37] Taamir Rransome: ask that question, right?

[00:16:38] Scott DeLuzio: right

[00:16:39] Taamir Rransome: with those, even with those like, it’s like, a, it’s a moment to educate that civilian, right?

[00:16:45] Like I think the book, it’s a thing of where I wanna educate veterans on like for, for guys who got out and don’t think that they deserve anything from the VA, like freaking file, fight for it, right? Like you, you already know how to fight. You were trained to fight, continue to fight for yourself, right?

[00:16:58] That’s the biggest piece of it, right? [00:17:00] Like, I would say the, the biggest part of the book is you are now the mission, right? So

[00:17:05] take that same thing that the military gave you, right? That same drive that you already have that’s

[00:17:09] naturally in you and fight for yourself, right?

[00:17:11] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:17:11] Taamir Rransome: as you’re fighting for yourself, educate civilians, right?

[00:17:14] Like, and because we’re so disconnected, I think Matthew said it a while ago, like America’s at war, but– or the military’s at war, but America’s at Walmart. Like, so take every ti- take every opportunity you can to try to educate the civilians so that we can

[00:17:29] that stigma of we’re either a hero or

[00:17:32] the monster

[00:17:33] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Exactly.

[00:17:35] And, and there is a big disconnect because

[00:17:37] I, I forget what the number is, but it, the, the vast majority of the population don’t even have people that they know who served in the military in, in combat operations, I, I should say. You know, they, they may know someone who maybe, maybe served, didn’t, didn’t really go anywhere as far as, like, a deployment or anything like that, but they, they may know that.

[00:17:58] But but they don’t really know much about [00:18:00] what goes on in the military other than, like you said, through the movies. And so, and that, that’s for a lot of people. Of course,

[00:18:08] Taamir Rransome: Brake

[00:18:08] Scott DeLuzio: gonna be those exceptions. There’s gonna be some folks who, who do know because they, they, you know, had

[00:18:13] a, had a, a friend or a father or, you know, somebody in the military, and they were able to learn through that.

[00:18:19] But but there’s a lot of people, they just don’t have a clue. And, and it’s, it’s hard to, you know, educate people when, when your baseline is basically not reality, you know? Whatever goes on in the movies is not real.

[00:18:31] You know, th- yeah, there’s… Sure, there’s some elements of truth in some of the movies, but you know, for the, the most part, you’re right.

[00:18:37] It’s either you’re, you’re the hero or you- you’re the villain, or, you know, s- there’s really not it’s not reality the way, the way these, these movies come out. And

[00:18:45] Taamir Rransome: Yeah

[00:18:46] Scott DeLuzio: You know, it, it’s hard to recondition someone’s mind because

[00:18:50] their, their mind is already conditioned on something that’s not even true.

[00:18:53] And, you know, how, how do you how do you get them out of that mindset and then into, back into reality, I [00:19:00] guess, right? So,

[00:19:01] So then when you, when you see these these, these veterans who are struggling because they’re like, “Nobody gets me. Nobody understands what’s going on with, with me or, you know, the guys that I served with,” or anything like that y- you know, it’s no wonder that there’s some sort of mental health issues going on in the veteran community, the military community, because you know, they almost feel like they got no place to turn, right?

[00:19:25] E- e- even with the civilian

[00:19:27] doctors who might be, you know, a good good resource to, to turn to, they just don’t feel like they, they can talk to them sometimes.

[00:19:35] Taamir Rransome: Well, so yeah, so you, you talk about the, the numbers, and I wanna say in the ’90s after the Gulf War it was something like 40% of all children had at least one parent in military. That number’s down, like under 4% now,

[00:19:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:19:48] Taamir Rransome: for, for our entire US population. And then to hit on the doctors even I, I cover that piece in the book too, is and, and there, there’s, there’s some docs out there that are starting to [00:20:00] hit on this, but it’s still not like mainstream, if you will. So for the most part, they go you know, if you’ve been to combat, you’ve done this thing, you got PTSD, right? But like, you look at the definition of PTSD, PTSD is des- it, it is a very important thing, so I don’t wanna knock that. I don’t think anybody, like let any– I don’t want anybody to think that I’m knocking PTSD. What I’m saying is PTSD is designed for like one incident, maybe two. So like 9/11, people who experienced and lived through 9/11, they have like legit PTSD. That was one like traumatic event that, And there’s there’s procedures to, to combat that and to handle that, right? What we all have, where you went through a prolonged traumatic event, like every day during a deployment, you’ve seen something traumatic, right?

[00:20:44] Depending on, you know, your job or whatever, right? And then you get back, you really don’t talk about it, but then you sign up and say, “Hey, I wanna deploy again,” right? And so there’s no, there’s no term for that. Like the closest thing that you can the closest term to that is moral injury. But even with that moral injury, just the way it’s [00:21:00] worded, it deals a lot with like shame. And so that’s still not correct. So like I don’t think there is a, any type of prognosis or diagnosis for like what you would call what the career war fighter has, right? So, and, and, and that’s one of the things that I try to get out there and educate people, like at least stop just calling it PTSD because that is not the right thing. The closest thing is moral injury, but

[00:21:23] that’s still not the right thing, and maybe they need to come up with something new

[00:21:26] for what we all actually have.

[00:21:28] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And th- it’s interesting. I, I don’t know that I ever really thought about it that way, but

[00:21:33] y-

[00:21:33] you know, from you saying, you know, about the folks who experienced 9/11 who are maybe in New York or, you know, Pennsylvania, w- DC, anything like that the nobody’s, nobody’s gonna sign up for like, you know, “Give me another 9/11.”

[00:21:45] Like, l- let me

[00:21:46] Taamir Rransome: yeah

[00:21:46] Scott DeLuzio: me go do another one of those. but

[00:21:48] but you do have service members who experience something traumatic in combat, and then they do sign up for go- send me on another deployment, you know? And, and let’s go do that. In a way, I, [00:22:00] I don’t know what the exact right answer is here, but in a way I think some of it is you kinda get addicted to the, the chaos that that you experience when you’re overseas.

[00:22:10] And you know, I, I know some folks, probably myself included, I, I don’t know, may- other people might, might argue against that, but I feel like, like some folks are better under pressure, under that kinda chaos. If it’s, if it’s not chaotic, then they feel like they’re out of control. And like

[00:22:26] when, when they’re…

[00:22:27] the things are chaotic, then they, they can act, you know, calmly and rationally, and they kn- they know exactly what to do, when to do it, and, and all that kinda stuff. But, but when it’s not that way, then they’re, they’re a mess

[00:22:40] Taamir Rransome: Yes. So, again, the book goes into that too, right? So it talks about what you just said, right? You know, we’ve all heard war is a drug and all this other stuff, right? Well, it actually is a drug, right? So they did this study, and I cover a bunch of this stuff in the book without going too, like, nerdy, right?

[00:22:55] Is that essentially in combat you are the best version [00:23:00] of you. Like, like to, to all standards, you are the epitome of like human evolution, right? And as you’re going through these things and, and you’re, you’re doing and operating, right, your body’s dropping like the equivalent of 12 milligrams of morphine into your bloodstream, right?

[00:23:15] When you combine all the adrenaline and all this other stuff. So like you get addicted to that. And there was a study, I forgot who did it, but basically they showed a bunch of Vietnam vets, right? Like a bunch of war movies and footage and all that, and they would think that these guys would like shy away from it.

[00:23:27] But what was happening was that, their bodies, their own bodies were producing this drug that is so freaking addictive that they weren’t shying for it. They were actually chasing that, right? So this is where you get the whole like come back from deployment, you’re adrenaline junkie, blah, blah, blah. Hell, this is where all the motorcycle clubs came from, right? It’s ’cause they’re– we’re chasing this freaking drug

[00:23:47] that our bodies

[00:23:47] naturally produce to that we only get in

[00:23:50] combat and extreme situations.

[00:23:51] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right. And again, th- there’s only

[00:23:56] so many ways to produce that. I- if,

[00:23:58] Taamir Rransome: Right

[00:23:59] Scott DeLuzio: going and [00:24:00] doing those a- adrenaline-filled activities, you know, skydiving, bungee jumping,

[00:24:04] you know, m-

[00:24:04] Taamir Rransome: Yep

[00:24:05] Scott DeLuzio: riding motorcycles, you know, real fast or, you know, whatever,

[00:24:07] Taamir Rransome: Yep

[00:24:08] Scott DeLuzio: those types of things

[00:24:10] are, are the things that will produce that.

[00:24:12] And even that,

[00:24:14] I don’t think is gonna come as close as a bullet whizzing by your head.

[00:24:17] Taamir Rransome: Yes

[00:24:18] Scott DeLuzio: it’s, it’s gonna be a totally different thing. You’ll… Sure you’ll, you’ll maybe take the edge off, but it’s not gonna be quite the same thing, right?

[00:24:23] Taamir Rransome: Right

[00:24:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, so, you know, but it, it, it’s hard, and I don’t think people understand that when you say, “Oh yeah, you know, bullets whizzing by your head,” or, you know, bombs going off or, or things like that.

[00:24:36] People think, “Oh, you wanna stay as far away from that as possible.” But then you, you mention something like that to a veteran who’s experienced it, and it’s like, “Yep, sign me up. Let me– Send me back in,” and, you know, “Put me in, coach,” basically.

[00:24:48] Taamir Rransome: Great.

[00:24:49] Scott DeLuzio: Send me back into it because

[00:24:52] I want more of it.” Because that, that drug that you produce is, is just so addictive.

[00:24:58] And despite how [00:25:00] traumatic it is you know, going back to that piece of it which does affect you, too, in, you know, in a negative way it, it’s, it’s so traumatic you… but you still want it. It’s almost like being in a bad relationship, you know, with, you know, abusive relationship, but it’s like something there is drawing you back in and you want it even more.

[00:25:17] And, and you know, that’s, that’s combat in a nutshell. It’s a bad relationship.

[00:25:21] Taamir Rransome: I

[00:25:24] I like the way you put that, man. That’s really good.

[00:25:25] It’s a super traumatic

[00:25:27] toxic relationship, but

[00:25:29] can’t go, you can’t walk away. And you

[00:25:31] Scott DeLuzio: And it’s day after day. It’s not like a one-time thing.

[00:25:34] Taamir Rransome: and it, it sucks because like when you, when you tell

[00:25:37] civilians, like you miss it, right? They– I

[00:25:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:25:39] Taamir Rransome: only other veterans

[00:25:40] understand what you say, like what you mean when you say that.

[00:25:42] So, that’s, that, that’s good. I

[00:25:43] like it. It’s a bad relationship. I like

[00:25:45] that

[00:25:45] Scott DeLuzio: It, it is, yeah. So that, so that’s awesome. And I, I, I think I might have screwed up here a little bit. The, the name of your book, I don’t think we even mentioned that “Mind of a Soldier,” right?

[00:25:54] Taamir Rransome: Yeah, mind of a soldier. Yep

[00:25:55] Scott DeLuzio: yeah, exactly. So, so I, I wanna make sure that we at least said that in there, so if [00:26:00] anyone’s listening

[00:26:00] and, and want– is interested and wanna pick up a copy of the book, that, that’s in there.

[00:26:03] I’ll have a link to it in the show notes and all that too. So, so that’ll be there. But but yeah, “Mind of a Soldier.” It’s, it’s an interesting title, interesting concept too, because there, there’s so much going on in a lot of folks’ minds. And it’s so complex because there’s so many different things that could be intertwined, and not any one thing is going to apply to every single person.

[00:26:26] But, you know, some combination of these things might, might apply to to all these people. And, and it’ll just be you know, interesting to see, you know, when pe- people start reading this book and, and taking a look at themselves and saying, “Oh yeah, that, that’s me. That’s what I’m going through.” And th- okay, this is what he’s saying might, might help me work through this or, or whatever.

[00:26:48] What, what’s the solution, basically. And it, it’d be interesting to see how much that helps folks, you know, down the line. But I think the key aspect to all of this is [00:27:00] really the desire for people to want to get better, to be able to work through these things. But I, you know, sometimes I wonder, you know, what is it in, in people that makes them n- maybe not want to work through these things?

[00:27:13] Is it, is it I, I’m not worthy of being better? Or or maybe they’re just so addicted to the way that they are that they, they just are stuck in that perpetual state of chaos that they, they just don’t, they don’t know how to get out of that. Even, even if you lay it all out in front of them, they, they maybe don’t want to go down that path.

[00:27:33] That’s another challenge, too, I think, with, with some people. Not, not everybody for sure, but, but I think there’s some people who maybe, maybe are just stuck in their, you know, the way things are, and, and that, that could be a, a challenge, you

[00:27:45] Taamir Rransome: So I think for I 100% agree, and, and I think it boils down to is, and it’s funny, veterans

[00:27:54] are, are, probably the worst demographic to help, right? We don’t trust anybody but our own, right? [00:28:00] So that, that’s a reason for the book, right? Like, “Hey, I don’t work for the government,” right? Like, I support other nonprofits.

[00:28:05] I’m– I’ve made it to the top of anybody’s, like, ladder if you– like, whoever wants to talk about that, like, we can, right? But, and so for me to come out and, and try to be as vulnerable as possible to say, “Hey, like, even me with everything that I’ve done and everything that I have, like, I still have these thoughts,” right?

[00:28:23] Like, and, and, and I still have these

[00:28:25] issues, right? I’m hoping that that’ll help people, at least not go

[00:28:29] get help, at least realize that they’re not alone, right?

[00:28:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:28:32] Taamir Rransome: it’s, it’s one thing that’s– like, the VA’s gonna always say, like, “Go to this freaking therapy, go to this, go to that,” blah, blah.

[00:28:39] Like, I’ve tried to do some of this stuff and it sucks, right? Like, so my biggest thing is, like, know how vets think and how vets operate, right? Like, here’s all of the tools that are out there. Go figure it out on your own, because you– I gotta– Like, one of the things that really that the, the military gives us, right, is that, that locus of control, right?

[00:28:57] Like, that whole thing of, like, we get the commander’s intent, right, and we can [00:29:00] operate. Like, you see, you hear it all the time, right? Some freaking squad got taken out and this– or a company got taken out, some private’s out there, like, slaying dudes, right? Like,

[00:29:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:29:08] Taamir Rransome: that’s just how our military is built.

[00:29:09] But then when we get out, it’s like they snatch all that

[00:29:12] control away and it’s

[00:29:13] like, “You must listen to this dude.” You b- you essentially get

[00:29:15] ambushed at your first

[00:29:16] VA appointment,

[00:29:18] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right,

[00:29:19] right

[00:29:19] Taamir Rransome: so, my goal is to just in the most understandable way possible, “Hey, here’s– there’s 45,000 nonprofits out there. One of them can help you,” right?

[00:29:29] VA. Like, if you don’t wanna go directly to the VA, you have the, you know,

[00:29:32] VFW, right? Like, and even I’m guilty of this where I always thought VFW was just for, like, World War II

[00:29:38] vets, right? so, but no, I’ve been to a bunch of them out here. They’re

[00:29:42] actually trying to modernize, right?

[00:29:44] But

[00:29:44] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:29:44] Taamir Rransome: guys know the VA in and out and do all your paperwork for you. So, like, it’s just as long as the, the, the DAV, right? Some of these, some of these organizations have been around for, like, 100 years plus, which is, like, amazing. As I was doing the research and it’s like, there’s help out there.

[00:29:58] I just don’t think veterans understand there’s [00:30:00] help because, You get everything you need while you’re in, right? Like, all your meals cooked for you, a place to work out. You get to, you know, pretty much wake up, work out, eat, freaking fight, right? Like, life is great. When you get out, like again, like there’s a tons of help out there, just I don’t, I don’t think the,

[00:30:15] Job of marketing that help, if you will,

[00:30:18] Is being done properly

[00:30:19] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And

[00:30:21] y- you know, to your point, when you’re in the military,

[00:30:24] that stuff is, I, I don’t wanna say handed to you like, like you’re, you know, a little child that needs, you know, to be handheld or whatever, but it’s, it’s just there for you. And it’s the the barrier to access the, the stuff that you need while, while you’re in, there, there’s essentially no barriers there.

[00:30:40] It’s, it’s like, “Hey, you need this? Go do it.” You know? W- whether you need a school, you need medical, you need whatever, it’s, it’s there for you. Go do it and, and take care of that stuff. You get out, now it’s on you to go do your research. What, what’s available to me? What, what do I qualify for? Do I have access to VA benefits?

[00:30:59] Do I have access [00:31:00] to this, that, the other? And I think part of it is just there’s so much confusion as to what you’re eligible for and what you’re not eligible for based on, you know, your, your service and, you know, conditions that you might have and all, all these things. There’s a lot of confusion around that I think with some folks.

[00:31:18] I know when, when you go through that you know, when you’re getting out of the military, they’re going through all these briefings and they, they’re telling you all these things that are available to you and it’s like drinking from a fire hose because there’s just so much stuff coming at you. There’s no way you’re catching it all.

[00:31:31] You know, and it, it’s just so much. But At, at some point you gotta say, “Okay, I, I know I, I have access to something. What is it that I, that I have access to, and, and what, what can I do?” At some point you gotta do some research on your own if you, if you didn’t catch all that stuff, or at the time you’re like, “Oh, that’s not for me.

[00:31:49] I don’t need that.” And then you realize, you know, six months, a year later, “Oh, crap, I actually do need something. I wish I paid more attention.” Well, you can’t go back to that, that class, but you can also, [00:32:00] you know, use Google. It’s your friend. You can go look up stuff. You know, your book is another resource.

[00:32:05] This podcast, why, why I have this is so that there can be discussions about different resources and, and people can hear fir- firsthand from people who have used resources or, or, or created resources like your book. And that just helps people understand what’s available to them. It may not be the thing for them.

[00:32:23] They may listen to this episode and say, “Hey, you know what? That’s, that’s not for me.” But they may listen to the next episode and say, “Hey, that’s a thing for me, and that, that’s a thing I’m gonna go try.” And so, you know, to me, I don’t really care what it is. I’m open to sharing all sorts of different resources, just so long as people are out there listening to it and, and trying to gather the, the knowledge and the feedback and everything from, from these resources so that they can get the help that they need, whatever that looks like.

[00:32:49] I don’t… You know, everyone’s got their own issues, but whatever that, that looks like, that’s what I want them to do is, is figure out how to get the resources that they need. And it’s, it’s hard because we’re, we’re stubborn, [00:33:00] too, as, as

[00:33:00] Taamir Rransome: Yeah, we

[00:33:00] Scott DeLuzio: as a group . You know, we’re,

[00:33:02] we’re thick-headed, we’re stubborn, and we, we, we don’t, we don’t want to ask for help.

[00:33:07] We, we wanna figure things out on our own. And one thing that the military did do is we gave us a good sense of problem-solving where we were presented with a problem. I know when I was overseas in Afghanistan you know, we, we had some problems every once in a while, and it was, it was amazing how many times it was like a, you know, a private who came up with a solution to the problem.

[00:33:27] And, and it’s like, “Oh, that, that’s awesome. Let- yeah, let’s get it done.” And, you

[00:33:32] Taamir Rransome: Yeah

[00:33:32] Scott DeLuzio: sometimes it might be, feel like it’s a hacked-together solution, but, you know, if it’s, if it’s dumb but it works, it ain’t dumb, you

[00:33:38] Taamir Rransome: Yeah,

[00:33:38] exactly

[00:33:38] Scott DeLuzio: know? So,

[00:33:40] Taamir Rransome: A- and that’s how I frame most of the book is like, hey, you’ve already, you’ve already been through all this, right? Like, we- you’ve been places where, you know, Murphy kicked in and the, the initial plan didn’t work, right? Like, and that’s what this is, right? Like, nobody’s coming to save us, right, but us.

[00:33:55] And so it’s like, and I talk about the system, but that’s the [00:34:00] VA, DOD, like, or DOW, whatever you wanna call it as a whole. It’s nobody’s fault, right? Like, again, like, the US and, and our military’s desire for war, like once they’re done with– Once we’re done fighting a war, like it’s on us to figure out like what’s the next step, right?

[00:34:16] And there’s a lot– Again, there’s tons of help out there. Like, I would challenge everybody to just go to their local VFW. If not one of the things that I found out is if you go to your county to that chamber of commerce, they usually have some type of like, vet- veteran, like, conglomerate there that they know where there’s all the different VSOs in your local area that’s there.

[00:34:33] If you just go there and talk to

[00:34:35] somebody, like,

[00:34:36] Don’t even ask for help.

[00:34:37] Pretend that you’re

[00:34:37] asking for a buddy,

[00:34:38] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:34:39] Taamir Rransome: See what they

[00:34:40] Scott DeLuzio: R-

[00:34:40] Taamir Rransome: right?

[00:34:40] Scott DeLuzio: yeah

[00:34:41] Taamir Rransome: if, if it’s that bad, if you, if you’re really that stubborn to ask for help, go, go, just say it’s for your buddy or something. But there’s tons of

[00:34:47] resources out there. Like again,

[00:34:48] 45,000 nonprofits that are out there supporting

[00:34:51] us and trying to catch us on the

[00:34:52] other side

[00:34:53] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. I mean, e- exactly. There, there’s so many resources out there. There’s no reason that we should be in this position where we have [00:35:00] so many people falling through the cracks. And in, in, in a f- in a way it feels like we’re, we’re failing all these people.

[00:35:05] Not in a way, it d- you know, it does. It feels, feels like we’re, we’re failing them.

[00:35:08] And they, they deserve better. And, you

[00:35:12] Taamir Rransome: Agreed

[00:35:12] Scott DeLuzio: from the VA, whether it’s from, you know, the nonprofit community, whether it’s from all these different,

[00:35:18] Organizations that are out there supporting veterans you’re right, the messaging just isn’t there. We,

[00:35:23] Taamir Rransome: Brake

[00:35:23] Scott DeLuzio: don’t know enough about what we don’t know.

[00:35:26] And, and so, you know, you very often can fall in that trap of feeling that, “Hey, I’m, I’m in this on my own. Nobody else is out there giving a damn about me. It’s, it’s just me.” And you know, s- sometimes the weight gets to be too heavy to carry on your own, and, you know, what are you gonna do with that? And, and if you, you think that it’s all on you and it’s all on your shoulders y- you might break.

[00:35:47] And, and that’s obviously not where we want people to be. There definitely are resources, it’s just a matter of getting the word out there, getting that education out there. And you know, so I’m, I’m grateful to be able to have conversations with people like you who are [00:36:00] out there doing the work, trying to, you know, raise awareness and so- come up with solutions to problems, solving these, these things and,

[00:36:08] and, and actually helping people in a meaningful way.

[00:36:10] Not, not in a self-serving way like you’re, you know, thinking that you’re gonna, you know, get, get rich off of, you know, writing this book and, you know, helping folks. I mean, obviously I want you to sell as many copies as you can, but but that, I’m sure that wasn’t the intention when you sat down to start writing was it was not, like, the, the financial impact,

[00:36:25] you know?

[00:36:26] Taamir Rransome: And it’s funny, I’m actually trying to partner with a bunch of

[00:36:28] nonprofits now to where we can give the copy out. Like, they can get sponsors to sponsor the book

[00:36:32] and give copies out for free, right?

[00:36:33] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely

[00:36:35] Taamir Rransome: if I could

[00:36:35] release it for free

[00:36:36] if

[00:36:36] I was a millionaire, I would, right?

[00:36:37] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah,

[00:36:38] sure.

[00:36:38] Taamir Rransome: there yet, so

[00:36:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, yeah. No, that, that’s great, and

[00:36:42] I’m, I’m, I’m, glad that there are people like you out there who are you know, doing the work and doing the, putting in the, the, the legwork to really figure out what the solution is. It– Using data, like you said, you know, that’s, that’s an important piece because it might feel good that, hey, I’m doing something, but if [00:37:00] it’s not the thing that we need, then it may not necessarily be helpful.

[00:37:03] Not, not to like knock those people and that they’re doing anything bad or anything, but it, it may not be the thing that is needed. And so when you look at the data and you figure out what is actually going on and what can we do to stop it, what, what actually works, that’s, I think, what we actually need.

[00:37:20] And so this kind of data, data-driven solutions is, is something that is, I think,

[00:37:27] seriously missing in a lot of the the conversations. It, it’s, a lot of it’s more like, from what I’ve seen, more like feel-good type stuff. And

[00:37:38] Taamir Rransome: yeah

[00:37:39] Scott DeLuzio: again…

[00:37:39] Taamir Rransome: to, easy to throw out numbers,

[00:37:41] Scott DeLuzio: yeah

[00:37:42] Taamir Rransome: but like, one of the things I realized it is funny my grandma used to say, “You can’t BS a BSer,” right? And I think veterans are the great– like, veterans are the greatest BSers out there, right? So we can pick up on BS really quick, right?

[00:37:53] So I didn’t wanna, I didn’t want this book to be from a, from a point of like, “This is how I feel.” Like, no, this is what I know. Like, and then please, [00:38:00] like, fact-check me, right? Like there’s gonna be parts and I… All the, like, feedback I’ve gotten so far, like it’s all been positive. Like, “Dude, you hit it right on the head.

[00:38:07] You hit this right.” But the fact that I can back that up with numbers and say, “Hey, again, thank you for your service. Where’d that come from?” It came from Vietnam, right? Because how Vietnam vets were– but we– but

[00:38:16] the, the country overcorrected. So now we just have this, this one phrase that

[00:38:20] everybody’s, like, uncomfortable with, right?

[00:38:22] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah

[00:38:24] Taamir Rransome: but like, across the board, like you s- you said it, like, hey, even said you don’t know the numbers, but, like, there’s something about going to combat, something about combat that makes you feel a certain way, right? And it’s like drug. No, it is a drug. Like, it is facts. That is a drug. There’s already been studies on this.

[00:38:36] So, like, to show to use those numbers and use my skill set as a, you know, data scientist to say, “Hey, I’ve pulled in all this data. I’ve un-nerded it all,” right? So it makes sense to our community, right? So then you can go, you know, you can read the book, or you can give it to your spouse or, you know, whoever.

[00:38:53] A hiring manager could read it and be like,

[00:38:55] “Holy crap, like this is what’s going on with

[00:38:57] these guys, these girls,” right? And, and

[00:38:58] hopefully affect some type of [00:39:00] change

[00:39:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And

[00:39:02] Taamir Rransome: started

[00:39:03] Scott DeLuzio: sure, yeah.

[00:39:04] And, and sometimes that’s what we need is just being able to talk it out and

[00:39:07] then, then maybe, you

[00:39:08] know, putting our heads together, you know, a few of us getting together and, and really talking it out and thinking about what the problem is and possible solutions. That’s, that’s where you come up with good answers to these solution- to these problems.

[00:39:21] And, you know, there, there’s no dumb answers that, that, you know, you, you’re not gonna, gonna come up with something that’s totally, totally dumb here. But the… anybody who’s coming up with some sort of, of you know, potential solution will maybe inspire some other even better thing in somebody else who kind of like pieces certain things together in a certain way in their head and, and it may come up with that, that one solution.

[00:39:44] But having these conversations and, and a book like yours is, is one of those things that can be the conversation starter to get people together and actually start talking about that. So truly grateful that you wrote that book and that, and that it’s out there for folks to check out. Before we [00:40:00] wrap up, where can people go to get a copy of the book and find out more information about you and, and kind of what you do?

[00:40:05] Taamir Rransome: Yes. I tell anybody, especially if you’re a vet, hit me up on LinkedIn Taamir Ransom, and then the book is on Amazon and Goodreads and,

[00:40:12] A bunch of other different platforms, but

[00:40:13] Amazon’s my main platform right now

[00:40:15] Scott DeLuzio: Awesome.

[00:40:16] And like I said, I’ll have a link to all of that in the show notes for folks so that they can

[00:40:21] check it out click through, get a copy of the book. Definitely get a copy of the book, I think. Just based on this conversation so far, it’s, it, it’s like, you know, exactly what we’re, we’re missing.

[00:40:30] It’s that, that missing link in, in all of this. We have so many good resources out there so many people with their hearts in the right place. Maybe they’re not doing the things that are needed, but their hearts are there. And if, if we get out there, get that message out there of like what actually is needed, then maybe those hearts can be swayed in the direction of the thing that’s actually needed.

[00:40:50] And, and you know, we can I don’t wanna say waste time like it’s a, a bad thing, but, you know, you, you can spend your time more wisely doing the things that are actually needed you know, based on the [00:41:00] data. Look at, look at the facts that are out there. And, and so that’s what your book does, and I’m, I’m super grateful to to you for having written it, and thanking you f- also for coming on the show and, and sharing your story here.

[00:41:12] I, I definitely appreciate it.

[00:41:13] Taamir Rransome: Thanks for having me. Appreciate you

[00:41:15] Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely

Read the full transcript

579 – Eric Gillis
===

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Leaving the military can feel like somebody just kicked the legs out from under. Your whole life. The familiar routine is gone. Your life’s mission is fuzzy, and all the stuff that you are trained to shove down starts making things at home, at work, and in other places in your life. A lot more difficult, but you can rebuild without pretending that the hard parts never happened.

My guest today, army veteran Eric Gillis. It gives a real no bs. Look at life after the military, including the struggle to adjust family pressures, dark thoughts, trying counseling, and finding purpose and structure that actually help you move forward.

By the time you’re done with this episode, you’ll have a better feel for how staying quiet can tear someone apart. How asking for help can completely change where your life is headed and how the same discipline that got you through your time and uniform can help you build something meaningful after service.

But before we get into this episode, I wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something deeply important to our community. The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington [00:01:00] DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism.

This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you wanna learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:32] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Eric, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:01:36] Eric Gillis: Yeah. Thank you so much for the invitation. I’m looking forward to our time together.

[00:01:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, you bet. Um, absolutely. Um, before we jump into everything,

uh, for the listeners who maybe aren’t super familiar with you and your, your background and everything, could you just a, a quick, background info on, on yourself and, are?

[00:01:52] Eric Gillis: Yeah, so I am an Army veteran that military and struggled for years trying to figure [00:02:00] out my place outside of the world of the military. Um, in, in that whole journey, I have decided recently to publish a book called The Rebuilt Warrior. currently, if you were to ask me who I am, I’m a husband, I’m a father uh, I’m an educational administrator at a middle school here in the state of Florida. And, uh, an author with to build this brand that other. Uh, veterans figure out how to rebuild themselves when they get and they find there’s struggles. And then my wife and I, uh, own a couple businesses, being, uh, a vacation rental company here in the panhandle Florida. And so, you know, just a lot of different things going on.

But yeah. Uh, but am thankfully someone who overcame what I thought I would be a statistic of someone who just couldn’t take it and ended it. And, and I’m now to share that journey with others.

[00:02:48] Scott DeLuzio: and it. it’s such an important thing.

Uh, a couple things actually that you, you mentioned there, is that a, you know, the veterans who are, you know, getting outta the military, having a rocky time, they’re [00:03:00] not alone. I mean, that happens all the time. And, uh, you know, I wish there was a magic wand that we could just wave over everybody getting out of the military And all of a sudden, you know, it’s just gonna be a smooth sailing for you.

But, um, of it is you kinda have to figure out where is your place in the world? But so long we, we spent in the military, I don’t care if you were in for, you know, one enlistment or you spent 20 years plus years uh, you know, going on, uh, in the military. Uh, so much of that is being told what to do, where to go, what, what to wear.

You know, when, you can eat, when you can. You know, shower sleep and all, all the things that you, uh, on a day-to-day basis in, in the civilian world, You have to make all, those decisions for yourself. Basically, told you know, what you need to do. And um, when you have, when you have all that stuff just laid out for you. Uh, sometimes it’s, it’s a tough transition to to go make all those decisions for yourself. Um, you.

know, but, um, but also getting there and telling your story and sharing it with other folks [00:04:00] I think is important as it, it other people that, Hey, you know, you’re a real guy.

You’re, you, you had real problems, you had real,

[00:04:06] Eric Gillis: Hmm.

[00:04:07] Scott DeLuzio: situations that you were dealing with, and now, now here you are. You know, I don’t wanna say you, you figured it out. Like you got the whole world, you know, you know, all figured out. But,

[00:04:16] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:04:16] Scott DeLuzio: know, ’cause none of us do. But, um, but you, you figured out how to move forward from that position that you were in and, and hopefully the lessons that you learned along the way can make it a little bit trying to figure out their place in the world.

So I think, think all

that’s, that’s super awesome uh, that, that you’re, you’re doing and, um, you know, we’ll, let’s, uh, let’s, you know, kind of get into it here.

[00:04:35] Eric Gillis: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:04:36] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, share, share a little bit more about, um. you know, kind of the, the, challenges that you had after leaving military and, and what overcome throughout all of that.

[00:04:47] Eric Gillis: Yeah, I, you said it best in that when I was in the military, everything was decided for you. You know, literally everything you did

was structured for you.

[00:04:58] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:04:58] Eric Gillis: And you. don’t. That was [00:05:00] the one I knew, getting out, finding a job, and there was obstacles I knew I would face, but I never, until in recent years realized how important the structure was for me.

That, that I knew what I was gonna do, what to expect. I knew everything was laid out for me and to get out. And so when I got outta the military, um. I was, I was leaving an infantry unit. I was not an infantry man, but I was leaving an infantry unit. And so there was this stigma where you just didn’t talk we were coming back from Iraq and, and, uh, I was with those infantry guys And they were like asking us, Hey, are there any problems? and, all of ’em were like, don’t say a word. And you’re like, okay, I’m not gonna say anything. care. And so

that that mindset carried on when I got outta the

[00:05:39] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:05:40] Eric Gillis: And so not only trying to find structure, but also having all these internal struggles and feeling like I couldn’t say anything about ’em because one, I didn’t want to break that code that I promised those guys. But two is I served with guys who paid such a greater price to me, guys who had physical ailments from it, and [00:06:00] then guys who ultimately paid that biggest price of losing their life.

And I thought there, I can’t say a word. And so. That made that transition even more

difficult for me because I bottled up so much, uh, that I was going through because I

felt like

I just couldn’t say anything.

[00:06:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And so many people have that same thing, myself included. I, I coming back from deployment to Afghanistan and you go through those mandatory mental health screenings and all that stuff, and they ask you, you know, how, how you sleeping? Uh, you know, are you, you know, all the, the things that they normally ask to.

Kind of get a assessment of your mental state, and it was like, oh no, everything’s fine, everything’s good. it was like, far from it, it was, it was like probably the furthest from it that, that it could have been. And um, you know, I was probably the exact person that they were looking for, uh, in, in, in terms of, you know, getting them to get help and in therapy and all that kind of stuff.

But, um, I, I didn’t want it. I didn’t, I, didn’t want anything to do with mean, I I just spent all this time away from my family. It’s like, no, I wanna go back to my family. And I, I don’t wanna be, wanna be. Forced to go to some counseling and, and things like that. Like, I’ll, I’ll be fine. [00:07:00] And

that’s, I think a lot of the, the mindset that we have um, and.

And it, it sucks that we have that mindset, but um, you know, we, we, do. And you know, fortunately I think things little bit And

[00:07:12] Eric Gillis: I do

[00:07:12] Scott DeLuzio: getting better, um, you know,

than, than they used to um, you know, this is, we’re looking back now almost 16 years now for, for me, you know, coming back. But, um, you know, it’s, it’s a, a whole mindset. Right. And I think that that’s kind of leads into the next thing I wanted to talk about is that that Mindset shift uh, with that idea that, that you can’t go back, but you can become something better than, than what where you’re at right now. know, you don’t have to be stuck this whole time. Um, how did that realization influence your, your journey along this whole, uh, transition?

[00:07:45] Eric Gillis: Yeah. So I was struggling when I got out. I, I didn’t, I didn’t. No, any of the problems I had, I didn’t know about and just knew that I couldn’t sleep. I did sleep, I woke up with very vivid uh, dreams and, and, and [00:08:00] still picture myself being over there. I knew like I would lay on the floor in the prone position, watching out just afraid, just hypervigilant all the time.

And so I’d reached this breaking point where my wife at the time said to me, either get some help. me and your kids are leaving. And my, my oldest son was about four. my youngest son was not quite two. Um, and ultimately what it led to me was I reached a point where I was like, well, they’re better off without me.

And, and I sat there one night in 2009 in the living room everyone’s in bed. And I took a handful of muscle relaxers that I thought would end my life, but it really became the catapult to the story that I tell now. Um, it didn’t end my life. I got help. Uh, I went to counseling. And a doctor said something powerful. That’s kind of become the motto of my whole I was crying just want to go back to who I was. The 18-year-old who graduated high school, was happy, loved the world. I want to go back to that person. And the doctor looked at me and said, you’ll never be that person, but you can be better. And that statement of you can be better.

Just became the catalyst for [00:09:00] my life of like, okay, I may never be that person. That’s okay, but I can be better. And that’s what I started. And so better meant for me going to counseling, better meant for me looking for ways that I could be more involved in my children’s life, better for me meant going and getting a college degree, finding a career that made me happy. Um, but yeah, it all started from that statement from a counselor sitting there and the

counselor saying, you can be better. And that,

[00:09:27] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:09:27] Eric Gillis: everything

for me.

[00:09:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And.

You know, all the experiences that you have in life, whether it’s through the military or just, you know, normal day, day-to-day life, you don’t even have to be a, a veteran. Anything that you experience, it’s, it’s gonna have an impact on you, good and bad. And, you know, it’s, it’s going to change your, your outlook and your perspective on things sometimes.

And, and uh, you know. You are gonna be what you make of that. And, and you’re, you’re only gonna be as good as, as you allow be And if [00:10:00] you decide that, Hey, I, I’m just gonna be stuck in this position. Um, and I, I think a lot of us get that way. Um, we kind of just feel like we’re stuck and, and maybe,

I don’t know what, what the.

Right to why we feel that way. But a lot of times we just stuck and

[00:10:15] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:10:16] Scott DeLuzio: and then we feel like there, there’s nothing better than what it is right now. This is as good as it gets and this sucks. So, um, that’s why, you know, a lot of people probably end up making the same kind of decision that you were talking about and decide that, hey, you know what, if, if it’s get any better, I don’t want any part of it.

And, and just let’s end it right now. And

[00:10:35] Eric Gillis: Yeah,

[00:10:35] Scott DeLuzio: that’s, that’s not the way we want things to be here, you

[00:10:38] Eric Gillis: no, the, the,

[00:10:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:10:40] Eric Gillis: there was a hopelessness. I felt there that it’s hard for me to even put into words, but I just looked at the future and I thought, my kids are not gonna wanna be around me. My wife doesn’t wanna be around me. I was in isolation, so I felt no one wanted to be around me, and it was a hopelessness

that I had created in myself.

It wasn’t real,

[00:10:57] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:10:57] Eric Gillis: but it, I had reached the point. And [00:11:00] so can understand where that decision comes from. When people make that awful decision that you can’t come back from,

[00:11:06] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:11:07] Eric Gillis: you feel a hopelessness where you go, if this is the best life has to offer me, I don’t wanna live this life anymore. And I think that’s kind of been the undertone of what my message is to others is that, but, but life can be better.

It may not be the pictures thing that you

think it’s gonna be, but, but life can be better. You can find happiness in little things. Um, and that’s what I, I’ve learned is like I can look back now and go, I don’t want to be that 18-year-old kid. I was dumb and, and had not experiences in the world. But I had fantasized that that was the perfect person. And, and I can look back now and go, that was

that was dumb. Like that doctor, it was a shaking on me of going, you

you can’t be that person, but you can be better. And it’s

[00:11:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:11:48] Eric Gillis: I’m, I’m way better. than I, I was as a, as an 18-year-old kid. But in the, in the moment of hopelessness, you definitely don’t feel that way.

You feel like this is it. I can’t go forward. And so if this is

what life is and I don’t wanna live this [00:12:00] life,

[00:12:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:12:01] Eric Gillis: thankful. There’s a lot of failures in my life that I, I’m. Um, I learned from a lot of failures that, uh, I still struggle with a lesson from. That’s the biggest failure that I’m glad I failed at, is that I failed taking my own life.

[00:12:13] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no,

that’s,

actually a great way to, to think of it too. Is,

um, is

as, as a failure, but as a, as a good one. Um, not, not all failures are bad,

[00:12:21] Eric Gillis: It became a, It really became a,

success,

[00:12:24] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:12:24] Eric Gillis: and helped out, obviously helped so much in my Now.

[00:12:27] Scott DeLuzio: yeah. absolutely.

and and you know that the ripple effect of, of some decision that, it has on not just the immediate family members, your, your kids, your wife and

[00:12:36] Eric Gillis: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:37] Scott DeLuzio: the, and the folks who are, are closest to you. But then the, the ripple effect of how it affects those people who are close to those people as well.

[00:12:45] Eric Gillis: Right.

[00:12:46] Scott DeLuzio: and then. It, those, those compounding effects, it goes out and, you know, further and further. And, um, it’s, it ends up having an effect on tons of people who you may not even know, all the people who it may affect. And, uh, [00:13:00] you know, it just, just ends up, um, you know, hurting so many people. And it, it just, it really transfers that pain from, from the person who’s right now in that moment to other people.

And that’s.

[00:13:10] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:13:11] Scott DeLuzio: You know, if you think about it, it’s really not fair to those people either.

[00:13:13] Eric Gillis: Oh no. Uhuh,

[00:13:14] Scott DeLuzio: on them. So, Um, you know, figuring out, you know, the way you did, uh, how, how to deal with it

[00:13:20] Eric Gillis: I.

[00:13:20] Scott DeLuzio: and how, to reframe your mind and, and uh, you know, move forward way better. and, then doing something like you’re, you’re doing, um, you know, with the, the Rebuilt Warrior, And doing all that stuff that you’re you’re up to now, um, only takes that.

Negative and turns into but it, it takes somebody else’s negative situation and become a positive as well. Um, tell us a little bit more about, uh, the rebuilt warrior and, and what that’s all about.

[00:13:48] Eric Gillis: Yeah, so, um, it, it was so I guess maybe about years ago, um, I was really silent about my struggles and, about the attempt to take my own

wife. ’cause a lot of it, was embarrassment.[00:14:00]

[00:14:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:14:00] Eric Gillis: um, one day I, uh, I was working at a, at a middle school and they go, Hey, veteran’s Day’s coming up.

You’re a veteran. Why don’t you just share something about Veteran’s Day? And I was like, sure. You know, it was like a, they didn’t know what to do and they asked me and I was like, sure, I’ll be happy to. And so I went and I shared just my story and it was the first time I’d ever shared about that struggle I shared about just that transition.

And even though I live in an area where there’s a couple of Air Force bases and Navy bases. Um, you know, a lot of people, the average person doesn’t have a true

idea of what someone who served in the military

[00:14:30] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:14:31] Eric Gillis: And I remember the emotion from the people afterwards, but what stuck out to me the most was guys who were veterans, who were going through, through similar struggles who had kept silent, um. In that moment, a safe space to come and have a conversation with me.

[00:14:47] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:14:47] Eric Gillis: And so I just began to share Um, I was working with somebody who, who I got outta the military and he was telling me about a road rage incident where he went and slashed the tires of somebody and I was like. hang on, let’s talk through this and, and [00:15:00] lemme tell you about what I went through.

And so it was just kind of that. And about four years ago I decided I just wanted to put it into writing. And the

main reason I wanted to put it into writing is ’cause I just wanted to help um,

no aspirations of anything beyond that. I,

[00:15:13] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:15:14] Eric Gillis: to help others. And so, um, I worked on that and in probably is whenever I kind of finished for the first time. the book the things that I’ve been through and started letting people close to me read it and, and so that’s where it came from. And the whole goal is that I want to help other veterans and, and other military leaders, but specifically veterans, make that. transition from out of the military into civilian world because what I’ve learned is, so I work as an administrator at a middle

school. We have nine other veterans that work there, and they are the

hardest working people that we have.

[00:15:52] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:15:52] Eric Gillis: and that’s what I want other veterans to see is like, you are so valuable. There’s companies that would love to have. your work ethic and your discipline, your [00:16:00] selflessness, the, all those wonderful attributes the military instilled in you. They want those in a civilian job. Because it’s so valuable. And so that is the, the heart of what I’m doing is to help them understand transition and then how they can use their skills to be that. And some of them are gonna be broken like I was. And, and so that’s that rebuilt warrior, and that’s how I came up with this framework called structure, because when I got outta the military, I realized when I was reflecting back of like the biggest thing I missed was structure. I missed knowing when to wake up in the morning. And then I would go to PT and I would go to eat breakfast. And at nine o’clock I was dressed and I was reporting to duty. And, and from nine o’clock to five o’clock I was gonna be doing these specific tasks, and at five o’clock I was gonna come home, you know?

And, And that became the routine of my life. And even I got out, I worked as a contractor from the military, and so it was just that I was just used to that structure and that was stripped away from me when I got out and, and. And there is no organization that’s gonna give that to you. You have to build that [00:17:00] yourself.

And so that’s where I was able to look back and at my successes and go, okay, it’s because I decided it’s, uh, along the way that I needed some structure and I built structure in my life. And I, and I think that’s one of the key, key ingredients for a lot of veterans as they’re transitioning out figure out what that

structure looks like, build

it and become disciplined

towards it.

[00:17:18] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, I, I think I’ve realized that as well because

I, I used to just be all over the board with. That structure aspect in, in my own life, there’s, there’s very little consistency with, you know, even the, the little things like,

you know, when I went to bed or when I woke up or, you know, any of those things, I, I just had no discipline to keep, keep that in, in order.

And

eventually I was like, I, I gotta figure something out here. And, and so, you know, at, at least, you know, going to bed, waking up, like, I, I try to do those in a, you know. Fairly regular schedule. Um, you know, going to the gym and, and all those types of things. I, I, I try to just make sure that that’s part of my day and that’s part of the [00:18:00] routine.

And then, you know, everything I, I can fit in, you know, where the schedule allows and if it, there’s not time today, there’ll be time tomorrow, and I’ll, I’ll figure it out and I’ll, you know, I’ll just make it work. So, um, you know, it, it takes that,

that chaos that you might feel when, when you’re getting out, when you’re, you’re like.

[00:18:18] Scott DeLuzio: You gotta figure out, the whole world. At least you got some structure in place and then you know when things can, can fit in to your, your schedule, to your, routine. Of course, there’s gonna be things here and there that, you know, you’re gonna have a early morning flight or something like that, you’re gonna have to wake up earlier, you know, something like that.

Of course there’s gonna be those things that that come up every once in a while, but you know, in general, your life is gonna be pretty much. Well structured and, and, and you, you get to move from that, that chaos to a more uh, steady environment that you can kind of control at that point. And you, it gives you control back in your life.

And that’s, that’s something I think important, especially for those, those, people who are, are just seems like there’s spiraling outta control. They don’t know, you know, what to do [00:19:00] um, you know, with themselves afterwards. And, and so, you know, just give yourself a little bit of that structure. And, and I like that, that.

Word that you structure uh, for this, because it, it really is, it, it’s, it’s, you’re putting up the guardrails and, and you’re giving yourself a solid foundation to stand right?

[00:19:17] Eric Gillis: Yeah. Yeah. No, you’re exactly right? And that, and that was, that was the mindset of it, of, of like, tell you, and, and, and you probably know this, like the structure is so consistent in the military.

Even like when it comes to the, I got out, I didn’t know anything about health

insurance, I didn’t know about paying for your

[00:19:33] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. ‘

[00:19:34] Eric Gillis: cause they did everything for you.

And so yeah, when you get out it’s not just like, I lose this like be here at this time and I got this and this, uh, plan going on. It’s also like I didn’t know how to, and so it caused all kind of financial issues when I first got out. ’cause I was like, oh it costs, $1,200 to rent a house. You don’t just take that outta my pay.

I have to now come up with that money and,

[00:19:55] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:19:56] Eric Gillis: Yeah, my, my, uh, wife at the time was a diabetic, and it was like, [00:20:00] wait, all her medicines were free. Now we’re paying hundreds of dollars

[00:20:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:20:03] Eric Gillis: You know, it’s just, it just really, yeah. It is that thing of I go from structure to chaos. Now how do I get back some sort

of structure in the midst of that chaos?

And

[00:20:14] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:20:14] Eric Gillis: that’s where that, that, that’s where I build it. And, and of course it’s. You come from the military, everything’s an acronym. And so that’s what structure is. It’s an acronym, uh, on how to rebuild yourself.

[00:20:24] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:20:24] Eric Gillis: is. for self-assessment. And It’s what I did when I went to counseling. It was I finally, time stopped blaming everything else.

I was blaming the military. I was blaming other people. I, and it allowed me to look at myself and go, alright, what, what good do I have? What strengths do I have? And then like, what, what are my weaknesses and how can I fix them? and, and that was the, the start of that. The T infrastructure was translation.

It was like, how do I now translate my strengths into something productive? Um, not only as someone trying to get into the workforce, but even as just in relationships, how do I [00:21:00] translate my strengths that? And the r was the one that was the easiest for me. It was responsibility because. In the military, it was all about taking ownership of your stuff.

And so it was like, all right, I’ve self-assessed, I’ve translated now I gotta take responsibility of the things that I can control. And there were quite a few things that I could control. And so it was taking responsibility for those because there was times that I got

out and I lost jobs because of my temper.

And it was, again,

easy for me to go, that was somebody else’s fault. And I was like,

[00:21:26] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:21:27] Eric Gillis: my responsibility. I’m in control of me and I got to take ownership of that if, if I plan on having any success forward. And then it was, the thing I loved about the military was the unity of mission, and that was what the u was of the unity of mission of.

We all worked towards a similar purpose. When I went to basic training, I remember the drill sergeant standing there and we had the painted middle area that nobody could walk. And, but I remember the drill sergeant the first night gave us a speech of the American flag and, and this tough, rugged man almost [00:22:00] got teary eyed talking about this is your purpose and this is what you’re willing to die for. And it stirred up inside of me this realization. I was like, yeah, that’s what my purpose is. Well, when you get outta the military, a lot of times you lose that purpose. You’re like, what, what? What do I do now? And, and that’s where that structure comes in of what is the unity of mission. And so like I’m working, when I work at a school, my, my purpose there is to make sure the kids are successful and safe.

When I’m working within the relationships of my family, it’s making sure my wife is. Jill’s cared for, loved, made sure she feels like, um, she’s set up for success. My kids feel like they’re getting the items and the skills they need to be, and so it’s that. moved to controlled execution. And that controlled execution was all about the discipline that made me consistent, and that’s where discipline came in.

And for me, I was almost 350 pounds at the time. So. over a hundred pounds over more than what I am now. And it was because I didn’t have any discipline in my life. I didn’t control the execution in my life. It was I would start [00:23:00] something and fail and just move on, start something and fail. And it was that pattern of being a failure and accepting that I was like, Nope, not gonna accept that anymore. I’ve knocked on the door of responsibility, now I’m going to this controlled execution, which means I’m gonna be disciplined and consistent in my own life. And, and that’s what that how helped. And then the T was trust building. It was how am I gonna be credible in my consistency? And trust was huge because I tell the story in my book of one night we were in downtown Samara, Iraq um, and I remember gunshots going off a little around me. I remember you would hear the sound of mortars, of whistling and, and, and, distance. and I remember looking, I was a chaplain assistant and, so the job while we were deployed was a chaplain was a non-combatant. So I was protecting him. And I remember looking in this chaos and seeing the chaplain fall asleep and I thought that man trusts me so much. That he is willing to go to sleep in the middle of a war, like knowing that fire. And then, and then I fell asleep and woke up the next morning [00:24:00] and, and it was all about this trust that we had built amongst each other. I trusted the guys on the outside watching guard my chaplain, trusted that I was gonna make sure he was safe.

And there was this circular

role of trusting and, and so that. what I had to get

back to is learning to trust people again.

[00:24:16] Scott DeLuzio: All right.

[00:24:17] Eric Gillis: had lost a lot of that and a lot of that was my own fault. And, um, then it was understanding systems because I was loving having SOPs and field manuals. I mean, if you, I, I always military, if you wanted to go use the bathroom, that was a field manual that told you how to do it, you know, if you wanted to. Uh, how to sweep your floor or how to. keep your room clean. It was like, there was, there was an

SOP or a field manual for everything

[00:24:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:24:39] Eric Gillis: and you get out and there’s so much gray area in the stuff you’re working in. And so It was I had to learn how to fix systems, learn what the symptoms were, how to fix them, and, and grow from that. And then the biggest one was the next R, which was resilience because that was where I struggled the most was that when adversity would hit, was not. [00:25:00] Um, what I used to be like, I, I think back to when I was deployed, and I remember one time we were at a local Iraqi school and build a playground and we were talking to the local leaders there and the chaplain was there and the battalion commander was there We were talking to them and outta nowhere, boom, an RPG hits. And uh, I remember I grabbed the chaplain, got him in the back of a Bradley, um, the guys returned to fire. They neutralized the threat immediately and. I look at that adversity and. I go, everybody just did what do because they were all trained for that.

[00:25:30] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:25:31] Eric Gillis: then I get out of the military and adversity hits and I just ball up into a turtle position on the ground stuck in my thumb, like a child going, what am I gonna do now? And it was like the military instilled all this resiliency inside of you, you know, go and, and live with within that resiliency. And, and, the final E was evaluation. And it’s this ideal of a circular. Uh, that I’ve went through this whole framework of structure and I get to evaluation and I go, okay, now what’s next for me? And then it [00:26:00] starts structure again. And so like, um, I got outta the military. I struggled. I went into education. Uh, I reached a, a point in education where I felt like I wanted to beyond just being a teacher to be an administrator.

And so, uh, I reset a evaluation and I said, all right, I’m gonna start over. And so, I started over with structure. My wife and I, um. Decided to buy a company And we had, we started that structure. process over. and so that’s what it’s meant to be. This circular thing of I’ve now what?

Evaluate yourself now Self-assessment, translation, responsibility, and, and it just grows you in every aspect of your

life. And that’s

what it was for my life.

[00:26:35] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, I like how that’s kind of, uh, I’m I’m screwing up the word here. Uh, there’s a cycle to it with

[00:26:42] Eric Gillis: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:43] Scott DeLuzio: uh, porking the pig right now.

[00:26:44] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:26:45] Scott DeLuzio: uh, Where, where you, you get, kind end, but it’s not the end because it starts all again. And there, there’s a whole, uh, life cycle that, that goes with this.

And so, you know, when, when a new stage of life, once when you’ve, you know, achieved. You know, whatever that, that you are trying to [00:27:00] achieve. It doesn’t mean that the, the process is over. Um, there, there’s still more life to have and there’s still more growth to have. And, and that’s, I think, going back to what that doctor told you way back when, uh, when, when he you know, you can’t be that person anymore that,

you were at, you know, 18 or so.

Um. you can be someone better. Well, of course, yeah, of course you can be better because you you’re gonna go through lots of changes. Life’s gonna throw you changes, I, I, I would argue that, you know, uh, the time in the military. Um, you know, all the, the good and the bad, uh, probably people a better person because you do have that discipline.

You do You know, a set of skills and You do know, things that you didn’t necessarily have before, uh, getting into the military. Um, it, but then, then You you grow from that and then you get out and, and what’s next? do I, how do I use that springboard to, to that next thing?

Again, you’re gonna have to start with that self-assessment and, and figure out how that uh, can be, how those skills and all that stuff that you’ve acquired o over those years,[00:28:00]

uh, how that can be used in, in the next phase of life. And I, think once when you figure that out,

then you’re going to do it again and, and continue evolve.

You know, at some point you might uh, you know, you said. You know, starting off in, uh, you know, education, teaching and, and stuff. But then eventually you wanted to, to, move into administration. That’s probably set of skills than, than you use in the, in the classroom versus, you know,

[00:28:21] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:28:21] Scott DeLuzio: the doing the administrative work.

So,

you know, it’s, it’s different, but it, it doesn’t make it better or worse. It’s, it’s just. You know, as you’re evolving, if that’s the direction you wanna go, that’s better. You know, if it’s,

[00:28:33] Eric Gillis: Right.

[00:28:34] Scott DeLuzio: if you’re, moving to something else and it’s not what you want, well then okay, then that’s, that’s worse.

And then you might have to reevaluate yourself and, and figure out where you need to go. But, um, you know, in, in this case, it’s, it’s moving in the right direction and, and pushing yourself through those. You know,

adversities that you’re, you’re into uh, you know, a way that you can use that, those adversities for, uh, for growth and, and pushing forward, um, to, to, [00:29:00] something just, just better overall, you know, um. you know, I, I, I wonder you were Day, uh, talk and, and how people kind of came up to you and, in you some, someone that they can, they can talk to bit. Um, how, you kind of encourage some, folks to see the struggles that they were going to through as, uh, opportunities for, future growth?

[00:29:21] Eric Gillis: Yeah, I think a lot of them were to what I was where

[00:29:24] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:29:25] Eric Gillis: we just like, was defined by like the mission was the failure and the mission SU was a success. There was, there was no middle ground and for a lot of ’em, they needed to know that it was okay

to struggle to get to success.

[00:29:37] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:29:38] Eric Gillis: just because you struggled doesn’t mean you failed. If you quit, you failed. And so for a lot of ’em, it was, they were struggling, struggling, struggling. And it was, just, they needed encouragement to, to keep pushing forward. You know, they needed that battle buddy to come along beside ’em and go, alright, you’re losing your strength.

Let me help you get along the way. Uh, and for some of ’em it was as simple as helping them understand that, that maybe the path they [00:30:00] had taken wasn’t correct. Um, that was of, of the men that I talked to was was, they had just. Maybe chosen something that really, truly didn’t play to their strengths. was me. I got out from being in the military trying to work in uh, in a church where I was trying to help people. And I was so broken and needed so much help. It was the worst decision for me. It made my life more chaotic. when I left all that, it was like, all right, now my life is getting better.

And so that’s how It was for a lot of ’em, was to explain to them like. You gotta find the right thing. But, but what I learned with most of them is they just needed some encouragement because they felt like that failure, they felt like the guy that I was, when I sat in that living room floor ready to let what I felt failure define my life, that’s how they felt.

And so it was, you’re not a failure. Keep moving forward. And that’s where the idea of Rebuilt Warrior came from is like. Well just rebuild yourself. Let the things that you’ve went

through, strengthen you, and refine you, and rebuild you into something

better. You can be better.

[00:30:59] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, [00:31:00] ab absolutely.

and and I, I think an important thing to remember through all of this is that, uh, is, is, something along the lines of what you just said, but you may not be in the position to be the, the helper, to be the, you whatever it is that you want to be. you might have gotten outta the military saying, okay, I’m gonna be this thing.

I’m going to, you know, get a job doing this, or I’m gonna, you know. Start a family. I’m not gonna, I’m gonna do something. And, and you might have it in your mind that that’s what you want. That might be the ultimate goal, but you may not be in a place that you’re ready for all of that stuff. And

[00:31:34] Eric Gillis: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:35] Scott DeLuzio: even, even some things, like you might have a, a job in mind and well, you might need to go back to school and.

And get a degree or, or something in order to get that job. There’s some jobs that you don’t have the degree you’re, you’re not gonna get the job, period.

[00:31:49] Eric Gillis: Right.

[00:31:49] Scott DeLuzio: you know, and, and there’s, there’s other, uh, other things too. Just in your own mind, you’re gonna need to get those things right. You’re, you’re gonna get a, a job and, [00:32:00] you The people that you work with, you might have, you might work with some jerks, and if you’re

[00:32:04] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:32:05] Scott DeLuzio: off the handle because you’re, you’re working with someone who you can’t stand and you’re, you’re always yelling at ’em and, and whatever, you’re probably not gonna have that job for much longer. So you gotta figure out ways to get your anger under control and, and all that kinda stuff.

There’s just a, a whole host of things that you might need to work on first

[00:32:23] Eric Gillis: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:23] Scott DeLuzio: you can get to whatever that ultimate goal is. And it does, doesn’t mean just because you tried it and

you you couldn’t get there, doesn’t mean that you’ll never get there. It just means that maybe there was something else that you needed to work on first before.

Jumping into the deep end, you know, you might, might, you know, crawl, walk, run like we do in the military. you

[00:32:42] Eric Gillis: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:43] Scott DeLuzio: might have to take it slow. It may not be

a thing that you, you can do, you know, immediately right off the bat, it’s, you know, something you might have to take a little time and work at, but

[00:32:53] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:32:54] Scott DeLuzio: you do it right, it’ll be worth.

You know, but if you just go jump into the deep end, you’re gonna really feel like you’re [00:33:00] just, just barely treading water. And it’s, it’s going to at some point, become overwhelming and, and it’s not gonna work out as well as you, as you might think, you know.

[00:33:08] Eric Gillis: Yeah,

[00:33:09] Scott DeLuzio: Um,

[00:33:09] Eric Gillis: absolutely.

[00:33:11] Scott DeLuzio: but, you know, you talked about your, your, a lot about your personal recovery and, and, the stuff that you went through, but you also had, you you did talk about your, your professional, uh, growth as well with all the the ventures that you’re, you’re involved in, which, know, on paper sounds like it’s a lot of stuff that You, have going on a plates that you keep spinning uh, you know,

[00:33:29] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:33:30] Scott DeLuzio: time. Uh, how do you manage to balance all of these things, um, as, as, you are going that evolution you know, Hey, I, I need to work on myself, all of a sudden you, you have all these other things going on.

Um, is it. Overwhelming at times or do you feel some, some sense of calm in, in having a lot of things going on at the same time?

[00:33:52] Eric Gillis: Yeah. Um, it does get overwhelming at times for sure. Um. I think that, may sound [00:34:00] cheesy, but so reflective on where I could be those moments, I, just find so

much happiness in that,

[00:34:05] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:34:06] Eric Gillis: that, that,

that, I’m, I, I have the ability to do these things that, I, am here and present able to do ’em. But, uh, but it does get overwhelming. But, I, I really feel like, uh. learned over the years to manage that well, doesn’t overtake me like it used to. Used to the least, least middle stress into a depression, and now I can see some of those things. My, my wife is wonderful at being able to spot some of those things, like even before I can notice ’em, at times she’ll go, Hey, I’ve noticed that you just don’t seem as joyful lately.

Is everything okay? Or, and, and, and so having that. Support too is huge. But, but yeah, I think there is some comfort. I think that I’m so afraid at times to not be successful, that, that, that I will venture into

something new, to, to have a safety net in

[00:34:53] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:34:53] Eric Gillis: And so, uh, so it’s led me to where I am today, which I’m, I’m really happy about.

Uh, but you, I have to be cautious at times because [00:35:00] it is real easy to. Maybe take on things more. I’ve learned the power of no. And, and that’s been helpful to be able to say no to things. Uh, like I was really active in coaching athletics for years, and this is the first year that I haven’t, and it was the first time where I’ve only had to go out.

I just time for that. Like, it, it doesn’t bring me the return on investment that. Everything else does, especially ’cause like my, my, oldest son had graduated high school and that was one of the major things was we stayed connected through, through sports. And so it was like, yeah, the, the return on

investment isn’t there. There’s other things I

can give my time and effort to that’s gonna have

a better payoff for me and my

family. And so

[00:35:34] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:35:34] Eric Gillis: those.

[00:35:35] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, I, I think the power of no is certainly a, a huge thing.

Um, I, I realized even with this podcast, uh, you know, just a, few months ago, uh, I, I was doing more episodes than, than I’m doing now. And I got to a point where I, I just felt like I I was burning out and something had to give.

And so I said, okay, let me, let me scale it back. I’m not, I’m not gonna walk away from it altogether ’cause I still like doing this and I I like helping folks out and [00:36:00] stuff. But, um, but it’s just something I, I couldn’t do as much as, uh, uh, as I was doing and. It actually, I, it out really great because not only I finding that I’m, I’m getting more listeners now, even with fewer episodes, um, I,

I feel like the quality has improved and, and things are just better overall, uh, with it.

So it’s kinda like a win-win all around. So you you know, like in my case, I, felt like I was, I was maybe letting people down because I was stepping back, but then, uh, I looked at it.

and I’m like, well, I’m actually. Probably reaching even more people now than I was before. So it, you know, has a nice way of surprising you you say no, it opens you up to being able to do other things that you maybe weren’t able to do.

And,

[00:36:42] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:36:43] Scott DeLuzio: And, that’s it. It, by saying no to something, you’re, you’re saying you’re allowing yourself to say yes to something else and. And that something else might be even bigger and better than whatever that thing was that you said no to. And

[00:36:56] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:36:56] Scott DeLuzio: don’t necessarily feel bad, uh, you

know, don’t, don’t say no to [00:37:00] everything, but, um, you know, say no to the things that, like in your case you said, you know, that, just didn’t have the return on And it doesn’t have to be financial investment. either. You

[00:37:08] Eric Gillis: Right.

[00:37:09] Scott DeLuzio: your your time, your energy, your resources, you know, whatever it is, you know, if it if that’s not filling your, your, your cup up and it’s not making you, uh. Uh, energized or happy the way it used to. Well then maybe it’s time to step away and, and say no to that, and that’s perfectly fine.

You know, that. So,

[00:37:25] Eric Gillis: yeah.

It is part of

growing too, as, as just humans.

[00:37:29] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:37:29] Eric Gillis: and our interests change. And, and, And, like, you know, when, when, especially like if you have kids, your kids are into certain things and as they grow up, you grow out of those things. Or you, you meet new people, you have new hobbies. And so yeah, it, it is okay to say no because you do, you

develop more and grow more and, and so

it’s important that

you learn to say no, so

that you can

[00:37:50] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:37:50] Eric Gillis: thrive in the things that bring you joy.

[00:37:52] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, there’s no, no sense in being stuck in the things that, that aren’t bringing you [00:38:00] joy, aren’t, you know, or or, people around you in one way or another. Um, there’s no no sense in doing those things if they’re not. Beneficial. So don’t, don’t feel like

[00:38:08] Eric Gillis: Right.

[00:38:09] Scott DeLuzio: you’re gotta force yourself to do those things.

And uh, you know, when it drag, you’re, you’re really re you know,

dreading getting outta bed to go do those things. Then it might be time to reevaluate and,

[00:38:19] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:38:19] Scott DeLuzio: maybe take a step back from, from some of that stuff, you know. But, um, you know, for the, the listeners who are struggling with, with their own transition, Dealing with life in general uh, you know, just things are, are just tougher for the listener that, that might be. Hearing this right now, uh, do you have any messages of, uh, hope or advice or anything like that, that you wanna leave the listeners with who might be facing their own battles and seeking a, a way forward and, and a way

[00:38:48] Eric Gillis: Yeah. First I would say if you are in any way in silence, need to know that you’re not alone. There’s people out there that are going [00:39:00] through the same thing you’re going through. You’re not alone. Seek help. If you have nobody. Reach out to me. I want to help you. ’cause I want you to know that you’re not alone, that there’s people that are struggling with it or have been through on that journey and are here to help you, um, because you’re loved, you’re important. The mission that you have may have changed when you got outta the military, but the mission is still important going through. Uh, whether that be caring for your family, caring for a career, caring for friends and neighbors, you’re important and you’re valuable. So never feel that. Don’t let the failure be the finishing point. Failure can help you grow in so many more ways than successes can at time. And so do that. And then I would say like what’s helped me, um, and I will finish. doctor in education after this summer, I have tried to be better in every aspect of my life and me is that I finally realized just to pursue the things I’m passionate about, I was passionate about helping kids and so I got an education um, [00:40:00] passionate about providing the future for my family.

And so that’s what led my wife and I to buy a business that. That we get the opportunity to and it’s just we found things we were passionate about and we followed ’em. And if you want to be a successful entrepreneur or you want to be successful in anything in life, find something you’re passionate about and pursue it. Because if you’re passionate about it, whether it makes you rich or not, it’ll

make you rich in your happiness, and

that’s the most important thing. You’ll

trade

everything for happiness, I’m sure of that.

[00:40:26] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And,

uh, you know, failures are not necessarily

the negatives that a lot of us have in our, our heads when we’re, we’re thinking about a failure. It’s man, I, I, I failed at this thing, or, you know, whatever. It’s,

it, it, uh, I, I think it was. Thomas Edison. I, I might have the person wrong. I might be attributing this quote to the wrong person, but if I am, I’ll, I’ll try to correct it.

But, um, But said, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t fail. I, I just found 10,000 ways it didn’t work, you know,

[00:40:53] Eric Gillis: Yeah,

[00:40:54] Scott DeLuzio: it’s

[00:40:54] Eric Gillis: so true.

[00:40:55] Scott DeLuzio: a success in a way because it’s like, okay, that didn’t work, so I’m not gonna waste my time [00:41:00] doing that anymore. I’m gonna continue doing some other things until I figure out.

Something that does work. And,

[00:41:06] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:41:06] Scott DeLuzio: you know, I, I say that to, to folks all the time. Not, not that exact quote, but you know, it’s the same idea with,

you know, therapy. You might go to therapy. and you might have a therapist that just you’re not clicking with. Okay, well.

[00:41:16] Eric Gillis: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:17] Scott DeLuzio: somebody else, or maybe that type of therapy that you’re doing isn’t working for you.

Okay, well try something else. There’s so many different forms of, of therapy out there, um, and, and it’s not necessarily that traditional sitting on the couch and, you know, spilling your guts out to, uh, you know, a therapist. It. could be all sorts of different things. There’s so many things out there, and that’s part partially why I even have this show out there is ’cause there are so many things I wanna help shed light on, on all the different things. You know, things like uh, the, the Resilient Warrior is, or sorry, the Rebuilt Warrior, uh,

[00:41:48] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:41:48] Scott DeLuzio: there, the Rebuilt Warrior is, is a great resource and, for guess now, now they do.

They, they’re sitting there thinking to themselves, man, I tried everything. Well, if you. Are just hearing about the now. [00:42:00] Well, you haven’t tried everything. There’s something else out there that you can give a shot and,

uh, you know what, if, if you try that and that doesn’t work for you, there’s something else too.

You, you can keep trying, keep trying, keep trying until you figure it out. And, and there’s, there’s no such thing as a failure in that respect. As long as you, you, you, don’t quit and you keep trying. I, I, I think it’s, it’s all successes as far as that’s concerned.

[00:42:21] Eric Gillis: absolutely.

[00:42:22] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. absolutely.

[00:42:23] Eric Gillis: You know the,

[00:42:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:42:24] Eric Gillis: Yeah,

abso, I, I agree with everything you said. Yeah, Yep. And just like the doctor told me, you can be better, you know, so

[00:42:30] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:42:31] Eric Gillis: don’t, don’t, just sit there and wallow in what you think is failure or, or

shortcomings. Just remember, you can be better.

[00:42:38] Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. Um, before we wrap up, uh, where can folks go to find out more about the, uh, rebuilt warrior and, uh, and, and everything about you follow you and, and find about about all that?

[00:42:50] Eric Gillis: Yeah, I have a website called rebuilt warrior.com. Um, that’s where you can just see all the different things that are offered. Um, I have a book coming out. I’m going to release it [00:43:00] on September Uh, I joined the military September 12th, 2002. a senior in high school. I joined after nine 11, the year after. Um, so it was just, it was important for me. That was the day I want to it. Um, and so you can find out about the book. Uh, it’s, it’s And and, and have people reading it. ’cause I wanna make sure some sure everything’s factually the way I recall so that’s done. And so I should have the first chapter on the website in the next month. And then I am filming a show called CEO next month, or excuse me, July. And that show will be coming out. And so that’ll be, all that stuff will be accessible through um, the website and then on social media. All the social media, the, the handle is the same

as at the reboot warrior. Um,

[00:43:42] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:43:42] Eric Gillis: any of those.

I try to post motivational stuff and obviously any of those, you can contact me and, and I’m happy to and support however I can.

[00:43:51] Scott DeLuzio: perfect. And I’ll have links to all those, in

the the show notes for folks who wanna

check it out and, uh, and

and click through and find out more about what you have going on, follow you on social media, all that [00:44:00] kind of stuff. So,

[00:44:00] Eric Gillis: Yeah.

[00:44:01] Scott DeLuzio: thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story.

Uh, definitely inspirational story. Um, and I’m, I’m sure, uh, the rebuilt warrior is going to help out a ton of people who maybe hearing about it for the first time here on, show, or, you know, at somewhere down the line. Uh, someone might, might just pick it up and, and say, you know what, this is what I needed.

And, and I’m, I’m, I’m sure that’s gonna help a of people. So,

uh, thanks again.

[00:44:24] Eric Gillis: I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Chronic pain can shrink your whole world. It can mess with your sleep. Drain your patients and make the drive to another appointment. Feel like it’s impossible leaving your family, getting the leftover version of you. But there are more options than taking another pill along weight at the doctor’s office, or even having another surgery.

[00:00:22] Our guest today, Samir uh, Hamida shares how Zeal went from. Almost wiped out during COVID to now helping veterans access VA covered medical massage therapy, including care that can come right to the home for veterans with more complex conditions that maybe don’t want to travel all the way to a facility to get their massage therapy.

[00:00:46] You’re gonna hear in this episode, what makes medical massage different from a spa visit, how the VA referral process works and why this kind of care may help with pain, sleep, stress, mobility, and day [00:01:00] daily life at home. But before we get into this episode, I wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s deeply important to our community.

[00:01:07] The Global War On Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial will be both a tribute to those who have served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

[00:01:28] If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:35]

[00:01:49] Scott DeLuzio: Hey Samer, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:01:52] Samer Hamadeh: Glad to be here, Scott. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:54] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, you bet.

[00:01:55] Um, before we dive into the conversation what, you do

[00:01:58] and, and your work [00:02:00] with, with veterans and, and things like that, uh, could you tell us yourself, your background and, and that kinda stuff.

[00:02:04] Samer Hamadeh: Oh, sure. Yeah. I was born in Fresno, California to, uh, immigrant parents from Syria and, uh, you know, living the American dream. You know, my. Parents came to get educated, make money, and I ended Stanford undergrad and grad um, uh, you know, beginning to work on tech businesses.

[00:02:26] A lot of us Stanford people do that. So moved to New York City in all these tech businesses, tech investing. So that’s what I’ve been doing. And we founded Zeal in 2013 as a platform to deliver massage therapy to the

[00:02:40] masses. So that’s what we were until COVID

[00:02:43] hit in 2020.

[00:02:44] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Uh, that was a tough time for a lot of businesses, especially anything dealing in person type stuff. It’s kind of hard to do massage therapy, visits or anything like that.

[00:02:56] Samer Hamadeh: I tell people in a matter of 12 days from February

[00:02:59] 29, it [00:03:00] was a leap year. That year.

[00:03:01] to

[00:03:01] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:03:01] Samer Hamadeh: 12th, we went from about 50 million in revenue, annual to

[00:03:05] zero

[00:03:06] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:03:07] Samer Hamadeh: So

[00:03:07] Scott DeLuzio: I can imagine.

[00:03:08] Samer Hamadeh: under that condition. We were functionally bankrupt, you

[00:03:10] know, basically on March 12th, 2020.

[00:03:12] Scott DeLuzio: That’s, that’s insane. Yeah. And, and it, it, it wiped out so many businesses and uh, but you must’ve been doing something right ’cause you’re still here, still still

[00:03:21] Samer Hamadeh: of

[00:03:22] Scott DeLuzio: doing it.

[00:03:22] Samer Hamadeh: resilience, which

[00:03:23] Scott DeLuzio: No.

[00:03:23] Samer Hamadeh: a lot of veterans understand. You know, military people power through adversity.

[00:03:28] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:03:28] Samer Hamadeh: power, we powered through the adversity. We said, let’s figure out what we’re going to do now. Um, we managed to, uh, launch a medical practice. We hired a bunch of nurses.

[00:03:39] We started doing COVID testing in the We did a physical project for Walmart. In the distribution centers, and then in April, 2020 through a stroke of luck, I like to say, or divine intervention or both the um, uh. VA called through its third party administrators and said, Hey, we wanna launch a massage therapy program [00:04:00] for veterans. help? And so long story short is we spent over the next couple of years, $13 million building a technology platform EMR for massage therapy. You know, electronic medical record. ’cause one didn’t exist. The VA to its credit is the first ever health plan to cover massage therapy as an actual healthcare benefit. And the

[00:04:20] VA has a history of innovation like that. We’ll talk about the bureaucracy

[00:04:24] of the VA as a challenge later,

[00:04:26] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:04:27] Samer Hamadeh: of innovation.

[00:04:28] They were spot on. They’re like,

[00:04:29] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:04:30] Samer Hamadeh: are suffering from opioid addiction, high levels of

[00:04:33] suicide. You, you know, you know all these stats, Scott,

[00:04:36] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:04:37] Samer Hamadeh: they’re massive pain. There’s a lot of injuries, and so what? You know, they don’t sleep well. So what can you do to help alleviate that pain? And you know, they wanted to get ’em off opioids. They wanted to stave off the surgeries, you know, try to reduce the number of ablations, epidural. So they said, let’s try massage therapy and other, what they call complimentary and integrative health services like acupuncture and Chihiro and [00:05:00] fitness and yoga. So we became the massage therapy network for the VA and what’s called their community care network. Which is the the VA care program that was created in 2018 by the Mission Act, now you know, five and a half years later, we are roughly a third of the 7,000 massage therapists that are in the network. The protocol has been advanced along the way as the data have been collected, and it’s now called medical massage therapy and includes. The actual massage therapy plus patient education and self-care, which is a fancy way of saying that we teach the veteran how to move better, how to do some stretches, give them a little bit of an exercise program, remind them to drink water, walk around the house, you know, garden a little bit to become active participants in their care. So. That in a nutshell is how Zeal became sort of a new company um, out of COVID and the ashes of COVID to now be [00:06:00] back to 50 million plus in revenue, know, mildly and you know, a big chunk of our business

[00:06:06] is working with

[00:06:07] veterans.

[00:06:08] Scott DeLuzio: And that’s, that’s a a huge thing too.

[00:06:10] I, I’ve talked to some veterans who’ve used

[00:06:13] uh, massage therapy. And I’m not sure specifically if it was through, through you guys or you know, somebody else, but, but through the VA And um, they, they said how much it was able to help them with, whether it was pain issues or, I, I think you had mentioned things like insomnia or sleep issues. a whole range of things that I hadn’t even considered. I, I just think of massage.

[00:06:35] You know, typically when you think of massages, you think of, you know, the, uh, you know, the relaxation, maybe muscle, uh, you know, things like that. Um, but there’s a whole lot of things outside of that that can be through massage, uh, therapy as I was looking on your website, things like, you know, and anxiety and, and all those types of things that can be, uh, benefited from, from well.

[00:06:55] Um, and. When you start adding in those things, it, it [00:07:00] now opens up a new avenue for some folks who might there feeling like, Hey, I’ve tried everything.

[00:07:05] Well there, there might be something else here. Right.

[00:07:07] Samer Hamadeh: Right? No. No. And it, and it really works. The VA’s own data show that,

[00:07:12] and this, this stat is the one that blows me away the most, that after

[00:07:15] 12

[00:07:16] massages, because that’s, that’s what a prescription is at the

[00:07:18] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:07:18] Samer Hamadeh: called a referral. 52% of

[00:07:21] veterans report that they reduce or eliminate opioid

[00:07:24] usage after those 12 treatments,

[00:07:26] Scott DeLuzio: That’s great.

[00:07:27] Samer Hamadeh: staggering number.

[00:07:28] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:29] Samer Hamadeh: many will talk about how, again, they. The delay or ultimately cancel the surgical intervention, right? 85% say my sleep is better, 89% say my mood is better, my stress is

[00:07:42] reduced, and all that ultimately leads to less

[00:07:45] suicidal ideation, right? The

[00:07:47] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:07:48] Samer Hamadeh: Um, you’re more, you’re, you’re more pleasant around the family, right?

[00:07:52] More helpful around the house. So all those quality of life measures really matter. And some of the newer data, just came out of the [00:08:00] VA shows that veterans who participate in what’s called Whole Health. Which is the program under which massage, you know, sits. So chiropractic care, tai Chi, fitness, yoga, you know, going to the gym, playing golf, like they put all this stuff under Whole Health. And the veterans who participate in that program,

[00:08:18] it costs the VA 24% less

[00:08:22] per year than it does without it.

[00:08:24] Scott DeLuzio: Oh wow.

[00:08:25] Samer Hamadeh: is also saving money. So it’s higher quality of

[00:08:28] life and they’re saving money. it’s, it’s really an incredible

[00:08:31] program. We’re just, we’re honored to be part of it.

[00:08:33] Scott DeLuzio: Oh yeah, absolutely. And it, it, it sounds like it, it’s a win-win for not only, you

[00:08:37] know, obviously the veterans benefiting because they’re getting the better uh, the better care, their, the overall health is gonna be better. The, you know, a lot of, a lot of that type of stuff is gonna be better. But, but uh, you know, on the, the VA side, um, a lot of, times.

[00:08:52] That’s one of the, the points that veterans have a lot of trouble is that it seems like the VA is trying to just [00:09:00] maybe uh, save some money and not do all the things, and, and veterans start to complain sometimes that they’re not getting all the to get. But in this case, it seems like, hey, the VA can save a little bit of money, and also the veteran’s getting better care than they would doing certain other things.

[00:09:17] So. Everybody’s winning in that, that respect. So like that, that’s a great situation to be in.

[00:09:23] Samer Hamadeh: Oh, absolutely. It just take, it

[00:09:26] is taking time to collect the data. So the

[00:09:28] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:09:28] Samer Hamadeh: know for sure even a year ago, like they suspected ’cause they tell us that massage therapy is reducing costs, but they have to prove it. Right. So, ’cause every massage costs, call it a hundred twenty five, a hundred thirty, $140 and you gotta do 12 of ’em. So on the face of it, one referral is, you know, 1500 to $1,800.

[00:09:49] But you have to prove that spending that money later leads to

[00:09:52] spending, you know, less money somewhere else, like you

[00:09:54] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:09:55] Samer Hamadeh: surgery or something else. So it’s taken time, but the latest research shows that they’re saving 24%. [00:10:00] From those veterans who are using the entire Whole Health Pantheon, which includes massage. I was gonna add one more thing for your listeners, which is, we also, unlike the other 5,000 plus massage therapists in the network, ’cause we’re, like I said, about a third of the 7,000 in the network. have the ability to go to the veteran’s home and it’s a really critical point. So we get a lot of referrals for what are called complex conditions. Two or more body parts, much more pain. Little bit more opioid use. Not, not all the way, like if you’re really addicted to opioids, massage probably isn’t even a good treatment for you. You probably have to go into a treatment center, get Suboxone, you know, and, and do all those other kinds of more invasive types of treatments. But for, you know, these complex conditions with two or more body parts, little more PTSD, we can travel to you and that’s an amazing opportunity for vets who can’t get in their car and drive an hour

[00:10:54] each way. Right? Which by the way, eliminates.

[00:10:58] The beauty of the massage to be in a [00:11:00] car for two

[00:11:00] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:11:01] Samer Hamadeh: But for those vets who can’t really do that ’cause they’re more immobile, or for those vets who live in a really rural part of a state like Arizona, where you are,

[00:11:09] or Utah or Montana, the fact that we can come to

[00:11:12] you

[00:11:13] is just a, it’s, it’s a godsend.

[00:11:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:11:16] Samer Hamadeh: so that’s the other part of it That’s interesting.

[00:11:18] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, it is. And I, I’ve had um, other medical services in the, in the past, um, not, not massages and stuff, but I’ve had like a blood draw, for example, like come to my house, did the blood test, and. I didn’t have to go wait in line at a lab or do any of the, that kinda stuff. They, they, they showed up, they did it,

[00:11:36] and and then they were gone and it was, the whole thing took five minutes or, you

[00:11:40] know, whatever. It was really quick and,

[00:11:42] Samer Hamadeh: va.

[00:11:42] Scott DeLuzio: uh, it wasn’t through the va.

[00:11:44] it was, uh, it was a separate thing. Uh, that I did

[00:11:47] for, for something else, but, um, but it, but it was great. It they just showed up and, and did so I can imagine something like, you know, the massage therapy, in the comfort of your home.

[00:11:57] You’re, you’re, you know, able to [00:12:00] have, you know, the. creature comfort that you might, you’d to in your own home, especially for someone dealing with something like PTSD or whatever that may not wanna be out in, uh, you know, certain areas, uh, you know, going, going there and, and,

[00:12:12] Samer Hamadeh: Yeah.

[00:12:13] Scott DeLuzio: in the waiting rooms and all that kind of stuff.

[00:12:14] It, it might just be, uh, you know, a little bit easier. I know, uh, that convenience of not having to. Worry about traffic or worry about, you to your appointment on time. All you have to do is just be and which you’re gonna be anyways if you’re at home. Right.

[00:12:27] So, um, so it makes, makes a lot of sense.

[00:12:29] But, um, So, so the whole deal with the VA and, and what you guys, uh, the way you guys are working with them, basically just getting a referral from your, provider for, uh, you know, the massage therapy services. Is that, kind of how it works?

[00:12:42] Samer Hamadeh: Yeah. So you, you have to get a referral, right? You can’t just call us and say, Hey, I want this. VA

[00:12:47] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:12:47] Samer Hamadeh: You have to go see your primary care doctor or the main nurse at the VA medical center, however you interface with the VA through your

[00:12:54] benefits, and you can ask directly. You know, is massage therapy appropriate for my [00:13:00] condition?

[00:13:00] Or sometimes your provider will just tell you, it is like, Hey Scott, you can benefit from massage. Do you wanna try it? And then they’ll write you a prescription. And if they think you would benefit from in-home massage again, because you have complex conditions, you’re a little more mobile, you live a little far away, then they can write a prescription for in-home.

[00:13:16] And that will come to us because there are very few other therapists who can go to the home. Our company’s built around it. So that’s how it works. And then at the end of 12, know, we’re sending back notes to your referring physician, how are you’re doing, how you’re improving all that data on sleep improvement, pain improvement, reduction in pain medication. And then the doctor will decide with you, should I write you another prescription for

[00:13:40] 12 or should we try something else?

[00:13:42] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:13:42] Samer Hamadeh: You know, the, the VA is smart to do what’s called multimodal. Pain management and multimodal is just a fancy way of saying try many things. So this veteran might benefit from one opioid pill a week and massage every week. This one might be no [00:14:00] opioid pills, two massages a week, one yoga class a week, go to the gym once a week. They’re just, they’ll kind of figure it out together. What is the combination of things that you will. You know, react to, and that you will be stimulated by so

[00:14:13] that you know, you improve and you don’t have to do surgery and you can live,

[00:14:17] you know, a

[00:14:17] more normal life.

[00:14:19] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s that’s awesome.

[00:14:20] Um, especially reducing things like surgeries and stuff. ’cause once you start poking around in inside, like if you can avoid doing that, that, that I probably a better situation if you can manage the pain some other way uh, than.

[00:14:33] Going and cutting things out or moving things around, or replacing things.

[00:14:37] You know, in some cases obviously that’s necessary and, and not avoidable, but um, you know, if you, if you can avoid it, I think that’s, that’s definitely a great, uh, situation there. Um, from the veterans who’ve, who’ve used these of services as far as like the massage therapy, um, what are some of the some of the feedback that you’ve received from, from these veterans, um, in terms of, you know, the, the benefits they’ve received?[00:15:00]

[00:15:00] Samer Hamadeh: it’s so, it’s all the stuff I said before, like better sleep, you know, lower usage of

[00:15:05] pain medication, not just opioids, but over the

[00:15:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:15:08] Samer Hamadeh: medication, more mobility. Um, so that’s some of the hard data we collect.

[00:15:12] You know, that the actual percentages that I’m

[00:15:15] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:15:15] Samer Hamadeh: like 52% reduction of, you know, or elimination of use. But then you have the qualitative data. So we collect surveys. We’ve, we’ve now done over 22,000

[00:15:24] surveys across 4,000 veterans. So because we, we put out these 22,000 surveys, the veterans, and uh, sometimes by the way, the spouse, we find that around the home. Our massage therapist can speak to, you know, the other people in the homes as there’s a family caregiver. So you get all this extra rich data that’s qualitative. Oh, you know. The past two weeks since getting massaged, Scott’s been more

[00:15:50] pleasant at the dinner table. Scott said that, you know, um, I

[00:15:54] can go to the movies now and sit for two hours.

[00:15:56] We

[00:15:56] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:15:57] Samer Hamadeh: we took a walk around the neighborhood, or he was [00:16:00] gardening for the first time in months or wow. through the night. You know, we get that one a lot. this is the first time I’ve slept through the night in a really long time. know, so,

[00:16:09] so those kinds of things always make us feel really good

[00:16:12] about the

[00:16:13] service we’re delivering those

[00:16:14] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:16:15] Samer Hamadeh: of life qualitative

[00:16:17] measures.

[00:16:18] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Absolutely. And you know, there, there are probably some folks out there who are listening to this thinking like, that’s never gonna work for me because of, you know, the, the pain is just so bad. Or the, you know, the condition I have, whatever it is, is, is just so bad. Um, but for, for me, when, when I’m sitting there trying to evaluate like, is this something that’s, that’s, worth doing?

[00:16:40] I always look at, well, tried it before? And if not, then. Maybe it’s worth a try, you know, and, and I look at it like, is there any risks? Like if I’m gonna take a medication there, there might be some side effects. And what are those risks to taking that medication that might sway me away from, from taking a particular medication.

[00:16:59] But, [00:17:00] you know, with a, something like massage therapy, you’re, you’re not gonna get addicted to it. You know, the way you. An opioid or, or something like that. So, uh, it’s not gonna necessarily interact with any medications or anything the way some other medications might, might interact with each other and, and cause some problems.

[00:17:17] So, uh, something like this to me seems like, like if it could possibly be a benefit, you know, why not try it? That, that, just like kind of a, a low hanging fruit kind of thing. Let, let’s give it a shot and see if it works.

[00:17:30] Samer Hamadeh: I agree and, and many of the

[00:17:32] referring physicians will say that to the veteran, like, I

[00:17:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:17:34] Samer Hamadeh: like it. I think

[00:17:35] you’re, you know, you’re, too stiff. Or maybe you’re relying too much on

[00:17:38] medication. We gotta get you moving. Give

[00:17:40] it a try

[00:17:41] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:17:42] Samer Hamadeh: You know, massage works on most people. It doesn’t work on everybody.

[00:17:45] We

[00:17:46] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:17:46] Samer Hamadeh: veterans. Sometimes they’ll get two or three or four and just decide it’s not for them, and that’s okay. And

[00:17:51] then the referral gets returned and the physician at least

[00:17:54] knows, okay, we tried that. Let’s try something else. It’s like, it’s like acupuncture. Not

[00:17:59] everybody [00:18:00] likes acupuncture, but there are veterans who respond

[00:18:02] well to acupuncture also,

[00:18:04] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:18:05] Samer Hamadeh: or Tai Chi or yoga. So the key is

[00:18:09] um, what you said earlier to try,

[00:18:11] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:18:12] Samer Hamadeh: point of the whole health program. You put a few of these things together and eventually you and doctor will find the right combination of things that

[00:18:20] ultimately makes

[00:18:21] you move better and

[00:18:22] saves money.

[00:18:23] Scott DeLuzio: Right, exactly. And, and that’s, that’s the thing is, is as you’re, you’re trying these various programs um, like you said, you, you named a bunch of, of different ones right there. But, um, as you’re trying them, you’re. you’re. also generating some data not just yourself, But also for your, your doctor to say, you know, whether or not this thing has any uh, benefits for you.

[00:18:46] And if it doesn’t, okay, let’s, we put that to the side and we, we don’t. Try that again and we’ll, we’ll Try something else and, and we’ll, we’ll continue uh, you know, trying new things until we figure out the thing that, that works for this, this individual. But, [00:19:00] um, you know, without the try without trying out what those different things are, um, you’ll never know for sure not it’s going to work for you Um, and so, so that, I think the great thing about this, um, it very. As far as I can tell, it’s a very low barrier to be able uh, get access to this type of service. If you have benefits, it’s, it’s really just asking for that referral. Um, if, you know, if the doctor thinks, well, no, this is definitely not going to help you in your condition for whatever it is, then okay, then you might not get the referral.

[00:19:29] But, um, But if it’s, if it’s something that might help the condition, then I, I don’t see why they, they would deny that or, um, you know, it’s, it’s pretty, seems pretty easy.

[00:19:40] Samer Hamadeh: but

[00:19:40] sometimes the bureaucracy does get in the way. But

[00:19:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:19:43] Samer Hamadeh: supposed to necessarily deny if appropriate. You

[00:19:46] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:19:46] Samer Hamadeh: they’ll, they’ll, refer if for whatever reason it isn’t, again, I’m not a doctor, so sometimes, like you said, it isn’t. Maybe the pain’s too great, maybe they’re too stiff.

[00:19:55] Maybe there’s an acute injury and you better not touch the area.

[00:19:58] Scott DeLuzio: right,

[00:19:59] Samer Hamadeh: [00:20:00] Doctor will figure that out with you and then decide. But there are definitely some VAMCs where they just don’t refer for whatever reason, and maybe they don’t have the budget for it. Maybe they decided it’s not something that they want to utilize. Um, so we’re, we’re in about a hundred VAMCs now out of 160.

[00:20:18] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:20:18] Samer Hamadeh: the, the massage program that is so everybody will be able to get it, but the more

[00:20:22] veterans keep advocating for it, the more

[00:20:25] that the VAMCS will open up the treatment.

[00:20:28] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Um, because

[00:20:32] that, that’s showing that there’s demand for it. That, that the veterans are, are looking for this and, and you

[00:20:37] know, it’s not just.

[00:20:37] you know, oh, hey, I, I wanna go get a massage. I, I want to, you know, have a, a, you know, spa weekend or something. And I, you know, it’s, it’s serving a purpose not that that doesn’t serve a purpose, but, um, but it’s serving a, a medical purpose for you to, uh, you know, reduce that pain or, or deal

[00:20:54] Samer Hamadeh: clear in their documentation when they set up this program, this is not relaxation massage.

[00:20:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:21:00] right.

[00:21:00] Samer Hamadeh: a spa treatment, it’s a medical therapeutic intervention.

[00:21:04] So that’s why in some cases veterans have said like, wow, this really hurts. You know? But it hurts in a good way. Like you’re

[00:21:10] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:21:10] Samer Hamadeh: scar tissue and really stiff joints ’cause you’re trying to get.

[00:21:15] know this pain to go away, right? And you’re trying to get that tendon or that muscle to move ’cause it hasn’t say moved

[00:21:22] in a while. And

[00:21:23] so that’s that. Like you said, it’s

[00:21:25] medical, you

[00:21:25] know,

[00:21:25] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:21:26] Samer Hamadeh: a spa weekend.

[00:21:28] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And, and so, uh, that, that medical, aspect I think is, is maybe different than what some people have in mind when, when it comes to, uh, you know, what a massage might be in for, from in their, their mind or, or whatever. So, um, but that’s okay again. Try see what happens, uh, and, and see if that’s the right thing for you.

[00:21:48] Um, and, of the, the, uh, main message here you.

[00:21:52] know, just keep trying things until you find the for you Again, like you. said, massage might not thing, but part of the reason why I [00:22:00] do this show is to share resources, like what you guys offer and, and share that with the veterans because they.

[00:22:07] It may be that someone was sitting out there with lots of pain, just didn’t even know that massage was even an option for them through, you know, the va, maybe nobody even mentioned it to them. Um, but now after hearing this episode, you have, hearing what you had to say about this. Now they, they have an idea of, um, you know, what options are available to them. a few other, uh, things as well, like, you know. Chiropractic, um, uh, acupuncture, Tai Chi, things like that, uh, in addition to massage, uh, therapy. And so now there’s, you know, just all, all from this one episode you know, plant those out in, into lots of people’s brains.

[00:22:41] And, and then they, they go and reach out to their providers and hopefully those providers are uh, receptive and they, they do. You know, provide those referrals for whatever the case may be, whatever, whatever treatment option makes sense. and then that, that’s how these things grow. And then, then, you know, additional options kind of maybe [00:23:00] sprout out from there.

[00:23:02] Uh, even as, as new modalities come, come out and, uh, you know, people start trying new things and discovering that, hey, this thing works for me That’s just gonna benefit, um, again, not only veterans, but it’s gonna be benefit the whole system because they’re gonna be able to, uh, free up some, some money that otherwise would’ve spent on expensive surgeries or medications or, or other things like that too.

[00:23:23] Right.

[00:23:25] Samer Hamadeh: Yeah.

[00:23:26] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:23:27] So, um, going forward, I know, I know you guys have kind of adapted, you know, you were talking about back in the COVID you went from, you know, having a. you know, a lot of, a lot of work, a lot of C clients, a lot of customers. And then shut, shut off, and you had almost nothing.

[00:23:45] Um, and then a little while later you had this, this deal with the VA and, and, you know, things picked back up for you guys. Um, but you’ve, you’ve overcome, you’ve, you’ve been resilient in this, Uh, are there other things that you are exploring in the future for, for [00:24:00] additional types of treatments or other, uh, things that that might be available to, to folks down the line?

[00:24:05] Samer Hamadeh: Yeah, there, there are actually three things we’re working on that I’m really excited about. within the va, we would like to be a bigger part of uh, what treatment options are available to veterans. So we’re exploring with our third party administrator partners, building out chiropractic and acupuncture networks.

[00:24:24] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:24:24] Samer Hamadeh: we can deliver those great services to veterans as well. Those two services don’t really lend themselves to visits to the home, so we’re gonna have to do them in offices. We do, we do have right now, about a hundred provider offices for massage, where veterans do come to a clinic get a massage in the actual office because not everybody wants a treatment in the home.

[00:24:46] But for Chihiro and acupuncture, we’ll have to do the same thing. So we’re exploring it. We hope we can deliver, you know, the same great service to veterans, but in another modality because what makes this interesting relative to how the [00:25:00] VA was doing business when we first started, the VA would call to make an appointment or fax a piece of paper or mail you your prescription. All this stuff took time.

[00:25:11] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:25:11] Samer Hamadeh: the VA has taken great pains the last five

[00:25:14] years to. You know, get with the 21st century, if you will.

[00:25:17] So a lot more automation. There’s

[00:25:19] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:25:20] Samer Hamadeh: calendars that they’ve built, they’ve done away with the call centers. There’s still some calling of course, but it’s getting faster.

[00:25:26] And so we have a piece of technology that allows you to click a link in your phone and fill out all of your medical practice paperwork. And we can book you an appointment pretty damn fast and come to your house pretty quickly. Usually within,

[00:25:39] you know, seven days of receiving your referral. And it used to be 30 plus for people to get appointments.

[00:25:44] So that time is confusing. So we wanna bring that same great technology and service to. Other treatments like chiropractic, acupuncture. The second thing we’re working on is we wanna bring this great VA modality called medical massage therapy or MMT [00:26:00] to consumers. So we were talking about relaxation and spa weekends before, well before COVID. Right. And even up to now we’re bringing a spa and relaxation weekend to consumers. We wanna bring this medical treatment to consumers. So we’re working on doing that, you know, and that will be launched this fall. And then the third thing is um, we want to expand our programs to other health plans. So for example, you know, we are now exploring DOD. you know, can we bring medical massage therapy to active duty military troops who are injured, who are in pain? So we’re working on that project. You

[00:26:35] know, can we go to commercial plans like the different Blue Cross Blue Shields

[00:26:40] of the world and say, you know, will you cover medical massage

[00:26:43] therapy?

[00:26:43] Look how great it is for veterans.

[00:26:45] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:26:46] Samer Hamadeh: you can bring the same program to your seniors or to the rehabilitation programs for. Say post-surgical knee, you know, a replacement or something. So, so I’m excited about just, you know, expanding what we’re doing in healthcare. [00:27:00] Doing more

[00:27:00] in massage, more with veterans and just more outside of the VA

[00:27:03] with, you know, other plans.

[00:27:05] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that, and

[00:27:06] that’s great too because

[00:27:08] um, people out outside of the VA obviously have a lot of, a lot of medical needs as well. And, um, it’s not all, all um, the veterans certainly. Could use a lot of these, these, uh, different treatments. And, um, the one thing that you, you talked about that I think really me was just, just the speed to be able get the care, you know, getting you know, a week or so versus waiting a month or, or even potentially longer in some cases.

[00:27:32] I, I would imagine um, because I, I know, uh, as, as a patient, it’s frustrating when they say, you know, you’re sitting here in, you know, February or something and have an appointment until June. And it’s like. Well, like I’m, I’m in pain now. I’m gonna be in pain next month and the month after and, and every month until that appointment.

[00:27:52] And that’s when I, I, I get to start that. And um, it’s, it’s really frustrating when, when that’s the, the, um, the case. But when [00:28:00] you, you bring in, you know, some other. Ways of scheduling and improving the, of uh, you know, sending things electronically versus sending it to the patient and then the patient going to you.

[00:28:12] And, and it’s a lot of back And, forth. Um. You don’t need to do any of that kind of stuff. And so when, when you have this option here, uh, where, where things just You know, within, within a week you, you potentially could be getting seen and, uh, you know, the, the benefits of that treatment, you know, almost right away. that’s great, you know, Um. But, but yeah. So before we, we kind of wrap up here, to let people, uh, know where they can find out more about Zeal and what you services that you offer, the benefits that, that are included in, in the type of, of uh, stuff that you guys have to offer.

[00:28:49] Um, but also, um, you know, just, uh, one more time again, just, you know, how they can go about, you know, going through the to get their benefit.

[00:28:57] Samer Hamadeh: Yeah, no, great So first you can go to [00:29:00] www dot zeal. Dot com slash VA zeal is z zebra EE l.com. Not, not spelled like the actual word. ZEAL. So ZEE l.com. And there’s a longer story around that ’cause people always ask, where’d you come up with that name? Well, we couldn’t buy the real word.com because the guy wanted like a half a million bucks. So we had to, we had to like. You know, misspell it a bunch of times and some of it got lucky and got ZEEL. So, um, So, zeal.com/va to explains how the program works, but ultimately, you know, you have to have the VA benefits plan. veteran has it.

[00:29:38] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:29:39] Samer Hamadeh: tell every veteran, even if you have a private healthcare plan, eligible to sign up for the VA plan, right?

[00:29:45] You should just sign up for it. ’cause it has all these supplemental benefits like massage that most normal plans don’t have. Uh, you know, dental care has all sorts of things that you may not get in a commercial plan. so you, you have to have that plan. You go see your care physician, [00:30:00] you talk about your pain and your injuries, and out

[00:30:03] together if medical massage therapy MMT

[00:30:07] is right for you.

[00:30:07] Scott DeLuzio: Perfect. Perfect. And so

[00:30:10] I’ll, I’ll have a link to that in the show notes and

[00:30:13] uh, that way, uh, folks can click right through and, and find out more information about Zeal and, and how they can go about using that benefit through the va. but, uh. Samer, uh, I, I’m really, uh, happy having you on the show and, and sharing this benefit that’s available to may not even exists. and, and now, uh, hopefully they’ll get out there and, and uh, utilize that benefit going forward. So thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all this Uh, it’s really been, been, uh, for me to kind of learn about some of the the benefits that are, that are out there and, uh, you know, again, like I said, hopefully of other veterans, it, it has

[00:30:47] Samer Hamadeh: well.

[00:30:48] thank you for having me, Scott, and thank you for the work you do on behalf of our veterans.

[00:30:53] Scott DeLuzio: Appreciate it so much.

[00:30:54] Samer Hamadeh: All right, take

[00:30:55] Scott DeLuzio: [00:31:00] Bye.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Getting labeled disabled can mess with your head real fast. It can make the future feel smaller. Your body feel unreliable and the life that you knew feel like it belongs to somebody else. But there is a way to stop letting that label run your life. Joe Gonzalez, or Guest today brings a look at Recovery, addic Addiction Purpose, and what it means to rebuild when your old life is gone.

You’re gonna hear about how the ocean became a place to breathe again for him. How a foundation and an app grew out of that pain and how taking ownership of your mind can change the way that you face the next fight. Before we get into this episode, though, I wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s deeply important to our community.

The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This [00:01:00] memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

If you’d like to learn more or find out. How you can support their mission? Visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:28] Scott DeLuzio: Hey Joe, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:01:31] Joe Gonzalez: Yeah, Scott,

listen, thanks for the invite. I’m really honored to be here. Really

[00:01:34] Scott DeLuzio: bet. Yeah, absolutely.

Before we get into your story, tell Telling,

You know about what it is that you do now and everything like that, for the listeners who maybe aren’t familiar with you, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?

[00:01:45] Joe Gonzalez: well background. I’m a US Navy disabled veteran, who believe it or not, has knocked on Heaven’s door three times and been turned away. In that series of midlife crisis, I was able to turn around [00:02:00] and make it a midlife awakening. found my purpose and start a foundation for other disabled vets to help them heal just like I did, as well as this really cool little app that’s doing some great things, and we’ll get into that and I’ll show you, but it’s one heck of a project and never been so in my life. Once that I’ve, you know,

through this and chosen this path, it’s, it’s

really taught me a lot about me Things that,

[00:02:28] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:02:29] Joe Gonzalez: things

I never realized I had in me,

[00:02:31] Scott DeLuzio: That’s awesome. Yeah.

[00:02:33] Joe Gonzalez: starting a, a startup tech company out of, I mean, what do I know about doing that?

I’ll tell you, it’s like once I committed,

there was no stopping me no stopping.

[00:02:44] Scott DeLuzio: it’s interesting that you say that because when I started this podcast, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing as far as podcasting goes. I didn’t know any of the, the technical stuff. I didn’t know what kind of microphones or cameras or any of the kind of nonsense that I needed, but I was, I was determined to start a podcast and, and get this, this story out [00:03:00] there and these messages from other veterans and stuff, and so.

I said, you know what, I’m gonna figure this thing out. Come hell or high water, I’m I’ll, I’ll get this thing done. And here I am, almost about, probably about seven years now later when this episode comes out, it’s be about seven years now that we’ll, we’ll have been doing this podcast. And,

[00:03:17] Joe Gonzalez: Seven years.

[00:03:18] Scott DeLuzio: I, and you

know, you just learn more along the way.

You just keep teaching yourself and, and,

[00:03:23] Joe Gonzalez: Of

[00:03:23] Scott DeLuzio: and you figure things out. You know, that, that’s kind of,

kind of, you know, life

[00:03:26] Joe Gonzalez: Okay.

[00:03:27] Scott DeLuzio: right.

[00:03:27] Joe Gonzalez: What number podcast is this for you?

[00:03:29] Scott DeLuzio: this is gonna be episode 577,

[00:03:33] Joe Gonzalez: Wow,

[00:03:33] Scott DeLuzio: so yeah, it’s

[00:03:34] Joe Gonzalez: Scott.

[00:03:35] Scott DeLuzio: a bit of this. Yeah.

[00:03:37] Joe Gonzalez: 500. Wow.

[00:03:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:03:40] Joe Gonzalez: for you, man. Congratulations.

[00:03:41] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. No, I appreciate that. Yeah.

But,

but you

know, all the stories, we were talking about this before we, we started recording here, but all the stories from all the, the veterans and all the folks who are out there helping veterans and everything, they’re all important in their own way, you know, to each individual, their, their story’s important to them, and I think it’s important [00:04:00] to get those stories out there and, and share a little bit about.

Each person and, and let folks know that, yeah, you might be going through some crappy times right now, but you know, you’re not the only one out there. That may not be in and of itself the most reassuring thing out there, but, but knowing that someone else has been through the same type of thing that you’re going through, they’ve been in your shoes and they’ve, they figured something out.

You know, they, they’ve, they’ve not thrown in the towel and just called the quits. They’ve continued pushing through you know, try one thing, Hey, it doesn’t work. Okay, try another thing and keep trying and trying and trying until you figure out what actually works. And, and then. As you were just saying, you, you know, life is, life is good, life is going well now, and things are getting a whole lot better.

And as opposed to if you just kept doing the same thing over and over again, you’d still be in that same spot. And

[00:04:51] Joe Gonzalez: no.

[00:04:51] Scott DeLuzio: you know that, that’s why I like to share these stories

and, and get ’em out there to, to folks and, and hopefully it, it changes some folks and, and helps, helps ’em for the better, [00:05:00] you know.

[00:05:00] Joe Gonzalez: No, of course. Listen, I was in, I was bedridden for two and a half years, and my biggest fear was staying that way. I mean, you know,

this all had the last one, which was the most tragic. 50

years old. I’m still a young person, you know,

[00:05:14] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:05:15] Joe Gonzalez: the idea of me bed rotting or couch

rotting front of the TV watching Maury would just like.

A fate worse than death to me.

[00:05:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:05:25] Joe Gonzalez: I, no way. There’s no way. That’s the last chapter in my life.

No way. that’s where it started. Just that,

no, you know,

[00:05:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:05:35] Joe Gonzalez: doctor finally tell us, look, disabled for life getting back in the water, it’s just not gonna happen. I, I, it was so inconceivable.

I be, in the water every day in my adult

life, man, surfing, fishing, I mean, you name it

not to be in the water. No.

[00:05:52] Scott DeLuzio: Right?

[00:05:53] Joe Gonzalez: No. And that’s where it started. I don’t know

where I was going with it, but that note,

that

[00:06:00] was, that was my line in the sand.

[00:06:02] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:06:02] Joe Gonzalez: You know,

[00:06:04] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:06:05] Joe Gonzalez: almost 10 years to get to this place.

But as a matter of fact, 23rd of

last month with my 10 year anniversary from the Komen,

just 10 years to the day almost, you

[00:06:16] Scott DeLuzio: Oh wow. Wow.

[00:06:17] Joe Gonzalez: Yeah, that was, that was a moment for me. That was those 10 years. And I put it on Facebook and I put like, God, 10 years ago was stuck in a traction feeding tubes. I still have my, I mean, I got my trach tubes still. I can’t get rid of that, but you know, just

a mess, man. And angry and bitter and

ah,

[00:06:35] Scott DeLuzio: So let’s

kind of get into that.

Be because you know, there’s been a lot of work that you’ve done that’s been kind of built around the healing aspect of things and, and finding a purpose. And, and obviously for you, the, the ocean, the water is, is a big, big thing to you. And I, I, I gotta imagine some of this sense of purpose and, and.

This maybe, I don’t know if you wanna call it a stubborn mindset that you have. It’s like, no, [00:07:00] I’m, I’m, I’m not listening to the, to this doctor. I’m gonna just

[00:07:02] Joe Gonzalez: Yeah.

[00:07:03] Scott DeLuzio: get, get it done here. How much of this is coming from your military service, you know, shaping how you handle the pain and, and the identity stuff?

I’m, I’m sure it’s a, a pretty big piece of it, right?

[00:07:13] Joe Gonzalez: All of it.

[00:07:14] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:07:14] Joe Gonzalez: mean, most of it is me. I mean, me, I’m me,

you know? But of course the military shaped me.

[00:07:20] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:07:20] Joe Gonzalez: it taught me never to give up. Of course, it taught me the grit that I needed, of course, but it brought it out

in me. It’s not like I didn’t have it, and the military

gave me this kit. all have it.

[00:07:31] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:07:32] Joe Gonzalez: just

the military, to use it. It’s like, no, no.

no. You’re not quitting with us. You know, there’s

[00:07:38] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:07:38] Joe Gonzalez: you know, although there are times I just get tired, you know, I mean, keep, you keep pushing, you keep pushing. gotta understand, even though I may not seem disabled, and that’s, that’s a thing. I have a breathing disability. My lungs are

My, my throat is, I have a

9% airway

[00:07:58] Scott DeLuzio: Oh wow.

[00:07:59] Joe Gonzalez: yours. Yeah. [00:08:00] That’s what I breathe with. That’s why I have the trach tube so I can breathe through it. even with those limitations, I’m still blessed. ’cause I’m able, you know, I’m talking to you, I’m walking around. I’m not confined to a

wheelchair anymore. I, I can breathe, you

know, if I, I, I have my limitations,

[00:08:18] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:19] Joe Gonzalez: You know, I, I, I’m not the young 20-year-old I used to be and knock him all dead. I don’t care. Nah, that’s, he’s taking a backseat. I’m taking a backseat to that. However. My drive is still there, my spirit is still there.

So biggest challenge with all this was meeting the new expectations of my limitations without pushing. Part of it was me

pushing how I can get over that, no

[00:08:45] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:08:46] Joe Gonzalez: the limitations. And that’s what took me a

good six, seven years to figure out. ’cause I kept pushing and

pushing, man,

[00:08:54] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:08:54] Joe Gonzalez: going anywhere. You gotta sync with this and accept it. And to me. That was by [00:09:00] far the biggest duffies challenge because the word disability

attached to your name, brother,

that’s that. That’s a head game

[00:09:10] Scott DeLuzio: It is. Yeah. No,

I, I, I know that because I

mean, I’ve had that myself.

I, I know I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve, who’ve had that as well, and, and it, it kind of just flips a switch in your head. It’s

like, oh, well I’m disabled now, so there’s must be a bunch of stuff I just can’t do anymore. But I. And to your point there, there are probably some things that you can’t do anymore.

[00:09:31] Joe Gonzalez: you

[00:09:31] Scott DeLuzio: I can’t imagine that you’re gonna go, you know, running a marathon

or, or things like that with, with, you know, breathing issues

[00:09:36] Joe Gonzalez: no.

[00:09:37] Scott DeLuzio: of thing. But being okay with that and, and understanding what those limitations are and adapting to. That situation so that you can still do things. It’s not like you’re, you’re bedridden.

You can’t do anything with your life, ever. You know, you, you still can get up and, and go, go for a walk maybe, or

go go outside and enjoy life and, and do, do certain things. Getting [00:10:00] out onto the water, you know, whether it’s fishing or, you know, whatever it is that you end up doing. You know, those, those types of things are.

Important to your livelihood and, and, and your lifestyle, I should say. And the way that you operate and, you know, you find ways that you can continue incorporating pieces of that in your life. May maybe, is it not a hundred percent everything that you used to be able to do? Probably not, but,

You know, at the same time, does, does it really need to be, you know, we, we can, we can do

a lot of things still even though they’re not.

A hundred percent the way we used to do ’em. You know, I, I’m not, I’m not 20 years old either. I can’t do the stuff that I used to be able to do back then, and,

[00:10:38] Joe Gonzalez: I.

[00:10:39] Scott DeLuzio: I know, right. But, but it’s okay. I, I think

that that’s okay. As we get older, we, we kind of change and, you know, life circumstances happen and, you know, whether it’s physical limitations or you know, other, other things that, that happen, you know, just keep doing as much as you can and that way you’re not, you’re not slowing down to the point where you can’t do anything.

Right.

[00:10:58] Joe Gonzalez: and to your point [00:11:00] too, it’s not only like going back to your whole life, going back to that peace of mind,

man, you know, because. When disability comes into your life, you’re like almost segregating in

your head, in your head,

you’re segregating yourself. Like, oh no,

I’m not with the

normal people. You know,

[00:11:16] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:11:16] Joe Gonzalez: the hell that means,

[00:11:17] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:11:18] Joe Gonzalez: know, whatever the hell that is. Because I don’t think anybody’s normal nowadays, but, you know, look around

this just normalcy. So

I said, it’s, it’s a head game

[00:11:29] Scott DeLuzio: It is.

[00:11:29] Joe Gonzalez: me a while to just come to terms with the fact that am who I am now, not as before. But in many ways better. And that’s the part I didn’t know.

[00:11:39] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:40] Joe Gonzalez: You know, that’s the part we all just kind of defeat ourselves

with. It’s like, oh no, can’t do it now. I’m like, nah.

You may have been doing the same way as

before, but you still can.

[00:11:51] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

In In in what ways, just going back to what you were just saying, in what ways do you feel like it’s, that you’re better than before? I mean, I mean, some ways, maybe not, not as much, but in [00:12:00] other ways you, you probably are, but what, what ways do you see yourself as being better? Just to get your mindset.

[00:12:05] Joe Gonzalez: The most important thing is my mindset.

[00:12:07] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:12:08] Joe Gonzalez: I’ve never had a more, I can

do whatever that fuck I want. I mean, you know, legally

and stuff. But there’s nothing stopping me.

[00:12:15] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:12:15] Joe Gonzalez: never had that drive. I mean, I’ve been ambitious. I’ve won and lost a few fortunes in my life. I mean, you know, I’m no, I’m no stranger to that, but not like

this. And the beauty of it was before it was always aligned with. Money, money, money, money. Make the money, get the big house, get the Porsche, get. it’s, I don’t care about the money, quite honestly. I can live on a hammock in Thailand for the rest of my life, you know, like a king and not worry about anything

[00:12:45] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:12:46] Joe Gonzalez: helping others.

It’s like the old cliche man.

one’s richer than a man who helps

another,

[00:12:52] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:12:53] Joe Gonzalez: a millionaire,

[00:12:53] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:12:54] Joe Gonzalez: a billionaire by, and I’m doing it exponentially more, you know, if we felt. Over [00:13:00] 18 vets right now, we’ve planted 2,500 pieces of coral to help out the coastlines. We’ve saved it. I mean, that’s what our foundation does. We raise money to help other foundations keep

doing what they’re

doing paid for by the app, which is

really cool.

[00:13:16] Scott DeLuzio: Well.

[00:13:17] Joe Gonzalez: it’s

[00:13:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:13:18] Joe Gonzalez: good ahead.

[00:13:18] Scott DeLuzio: let’s get into that a little bit. ’cause it, it sounds interesting

and, and I want to be able to

share a little bit about what, what it is that you guys do. So tell us a little bit about

the, the foundation and how, how that all works and, and, and what that’s about.

[00:13:30] Joe Gonzalez: first of all, the

foundation’s called Mother Ocean Fund, and what we do is we raise money for

ecological and humanitarian

[00:13:36] Scott DeLuzio: I.

[00:13:37] Joe Gonzalez: diving efforts at sea. Things like coral reef restorations, turtle and dolphin rescues and release excursions, shark tagging, debris, cleanups and stuff on the reefs, both on shore and in the water. Things like this and other organizations do, but I want to amplify it to make a bigger impact. That’s a foundation. we [00:14:00] funded is an app that I came up with called Aquatic Tribe. a marketplace app. Very similar model to Airbnb. how they play the middleman between a landlord and a tenant? Well, we’re playing a middleman with every dive shop, operator, and diver, so they could look at the, look up the schedules much easier. of you spending hours calling, you can get on my app within minutes. You can find all the dive shops, who’s going out, what time, the types of dive, the difficulty levels and such, the proceeds from that fund, the nonprofit.

So it’s a circular model where philanthropy and commerce

come together for a common good.

[00:14:43] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, that’s cool. Yeah.

[00:14:44] Joe Gonzalez: Thank you. Yeah, it’s a cool little project and it just, it came to be

well through a vision that I had I was,

Using ayahuasca.

[00:14:55] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:14:56] Joe Gonzalez: She put this together for me. She painted the whole picture. She showed [00:15:00] me a lot about my past and how I was behaving and why I was behaving the way I was behaving. And two, would it be like if I let all that go and what my life could look like? And I’ll tell you, man, that was like, Once I saw, she showed me the whole picture. It’s like, I can do this. You’re going to do this.

And from that being for brother, I was all in.

eight years ago.

[00:15:29] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:15:30] Joe Gonzalez: Eight years ago?

No, or seven years ago. Sorry. Seven years ago. And I’ll tell you ever since, it’s just sometimes I put in, 10 minutes a day because it’s all I had in me. Sometimes I do it 10 days straight, but whatever. I never stopped. by little sometimes, ’cause you gotta understand with this thing continued maintenance. had 14 surgeries. Since April of 2016, each one has laid me up between

weeks to a [00:16:00] few months. It just, It

you know, it depends on the the

aggressiveness of the the surgery, you

[00:16:05] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

Yeah. And that, that goes back to respecting those, those boundaries and limitations of

what, what you can and can’t do. You, you can’t expect right after a, a major surgery like that, that you’re gonna just be able to bounce right up the next day and be able to be at a hundred percent.

[00:16:19] Joe Gonzalez: though.

[00:16:20] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, sure. Sure.

[00:16:21] Joe Gonzalez: Yeah. Oh no, I’ll be fine. Yeah, yeah. Sit down.

[00:16:24] Scott DeLuzio: Right,

[00:16:25] Joe Gonzalez: Sit down.

[00:16:25] Scott DeLuzio: right.

[00:16:26] Joe Gonzalez: and luckily enough, the work that I’m doing is on the computer and I could now developing a, an app. So a lot of that, I did most of it in bed anyway, you know, just, okay, put on my lap and.

I could do what I can do, man, you know, like I

said, 10

minutes, some days, some

days, 10 days straight,

[00:16:43] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:16:44] Joe Gonzalez: 10

hours a day. You know, it depends.

It

[00:16:46] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:16:47] Joe Gonzalez: So.

[00:16:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, And, so all of this stuff is, is a big piece of.

Who you are, you know, based on the conversation just so far that you, you can tell that being out in the water [00:17:00] the, the, the oceans and, and things like that are very important to you, and that is something that kind of drives you and motivates you.

[00:17:09] Joe Gonzalez: Absolutely.

[00:17:09] Scott DeLuzio: but I think the kind of takeaway from all of that is for, you know, the listeners not everyone’s gonna have that same passion for the oceans and, and whatnot, but there, there’s something that you could probably find that you are. Passionate about, and, and you can work towards bettering that environment or, you know, whether it’s, you know, a nature thing kinda like what you’re talking about, or, you know, a you know, activity or, or something that you, that really motivates you and drives you and, and gets you out of bed and, and makes you feel you know, passionate and energized.

Those, those types of things are, are the stuff that we’re, we’re trying to look for. So. You know, you kind of have to keep your eyes open for those things when and it may even be something that you’ve never done before. There may be something completely new and you just have to be open to opportunities that might come your way.

[00:17:53] Joe Gonzalez: I listen, like the old cliche in business goes,

a need.

[00:17:58] Scott DeLuzio: hmm.

[00:17:58] Joe Gonzalez: You know, find a [00:18:00] pain in a business or an industry, there’s always a way to do it better, more efficient, faster, cheaper. There’s always a way. Just keep your eyes open. Keep that mental daddy, just look and you’ll find it. You’ll find your gap. You will. That’s how the universe

works. You just keep thinking about it and it will come to you.

go through it, it found me.

[00:18:21] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:18:22] Joe Gonzalez: And then building this, you know, yeah. It’s amazing. The creative process, man. I, I never knew I had it in me. I really didn’t. You know, you gotta realize I grew up, I was a DJ and a bartender South Florida and in, south, south California in the eighties. So imagine, and now I live in the Keys. I have two brain cells left, you know, during all that time, I’d be, I’d be impressed. So when this came out, he was like, I’m gonna develop an app, and I’m going, what? Open a foundation? What? You know? And it was incredibly intimidating, incredibly. I’ve never done any of this, but somehow [00:19:00] I mustered through it. And I swear to you, I know it sounds kind of, it’s like I had a cosmic rat tattoo dey on my head,

and he put in the strings. I’m like. this works. Oh,

wow. Look at that. And it started to connect.

[00:19:12] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:19:13] Joe Gonzalez: started, I mean, I started with the simple engine registration portal and the payment portal that was version one. I’m on version six with all sorts of other aspects, like, how did this come to be?

[00:19:26] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:27] Joe Gonzalez: I can’t believe I did this. It’s like, I’m telling you,

man, I’m, I’m merely a conduit for this thing.

[00:19:32] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:19:33] Joe Gonzalez: We’re just starting to grow. Once you dedicate your time. your effort and every thought in your being on it,

it’s done. It’s done.

[00:19:43] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:19:44] Joe Gonzalez: are just, it’s just a matter of time. It’s done. And that’s what I gotta keep reminding myself. ’cause I get impatient, know?

I wanna be the next base, the next Facebook tomorrow, know,

just like any other

entrepreneur, you know.

[00:19:57] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:19:58] Joe Gonzalez: for me, it’s not about the [00:20:00] money, about the impact we could make.

I wanna throw up, hey, we saved 10,000 via, 10,000 vets this month. 50,000

of coral last week got planted because of our

effort. what I wanna see.

[00:20:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:20:16] Joe Gonzalez: The money will come, you know,

that. I’m not even worried about that.

[00:20:19] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:20:20] Joe Gonzalez: we’re aligned with what our purpose is and

we’re meeting those but I just,

I’m good.

[00:20:27] Scott DeLuzio: Well, and something else that you, you had mentioned earlier on is

when you are out in the water, you’re, you’re diving, you’re, you’re, you know, scuba diving and all that. And if you can figure out a way to. Remain while you’re, you’re underwater and kind of a, you know. Unpredictable environment. You know, there’s, there’s sea life and there’s other things going on down there that, you know, it’s scuba diving isn’t without risks.

There’s, there’s obviously

[00:20:52] Joe Gonzalez: course

[00:20:53] Scott DeLuzio: risks there. And you

know, if you can figure out ways to remain calm and you know, under that type of pressure, you know, then that [00:21:00] mindset starts to shift. And then maybe you can start shifting that to when you get onto shore and when you’re back on solid ground and living your

normal day to day life.

Now, when. You’re taking people out through the, the Mother Ocean Fund is part of the, the purpose, like to to offer some sort of healing and therapeutic benefit through, through that for them as well. Yeah.

[00:21:21] Joe Gonzalez: You, you, you, you nailed it on that. You gotta understand, and this is the sad part about scuba diving. 1% of the world population scuba dives compared to surfing. Like it’s 13% fishing. It’s like 22 or 24%, you know? And every other water sport is double digits. Scuba diving. People say it’s ’cause of the

fear that I don’t believe that to be the case.

’cause if that were the

case, then you wouldn’t be on the water at all.

[00:21:46] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:21:46] Joe Gonzalez: be surfing, you wouldn’t, you know, it’s not the case at all. What it is, is just. People haven’t been exposed to it. And that’s what I’m trying to get people to understand.

Scuba diving is a lot more than just a sport. Mother

Ocean heals [00:22:00] bottom line.

[00:22:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:22:01] Joe Gonzalez: the de dein inflammation possibilities that the salt water has, the calming, the soothing where locked in, into what you’re doing, obviously, because you have to, you have to know. Check your. Gauges and make sure your levels are right. Make sure you’re descending and not descending in a certain way every 30 feet.

You gotta take a break. I mean, there’s all these things that are going on and you

think you’d be stressed about it, but you’re not. you understand the

rules, you’re flying

[00:22:29] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:22:30] Joe Gonzalez: feeling so much more, not just calm, but grounded and within yourself. You are looking at you. It’s like. You’re trusting yourself, the environment.

Sure they’re dangerous around every corner there’s something. Absolutely. I never feel threatened. I’ve had some close calls, I’m not gonna lie. I could tell you some diving stories, but at the same time, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re enveloped in mother ocean’s grace and it’s [00:23:00] covering you and protecting you at the same time

and make, giving you the confidence

you need to withstand whatever comes at you, you know?

[00:23:09] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:23:10] Joe Gonzalez: big risks either. You know,

[00:23:11] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:23:11] Joe Gonzalez: of these guys who’s, you know, trying to feed a shark and

just that’s not my game at all. I don’t know why. It’s ridiculous. I

respect it. Leave it alone.

[00:23:19] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

sure. Yeah. Again, there, there’s limitations. There’s limitations to what you’re willing to do. Other people, maybe they have a little more risk tolerance than, than, than you might have. But,

They, they’re willing to go out there and, and have that kind of adventure. But, you know, there’s, there’s certain, certain things that you wanna do, certain things you don’t wanna do.

And, you know, as, as long as you’re able to do the things that you wanna do and, and able to, you know, make a way for it to work. Then, you know, you’re, you’re all good there, so,

[00:23:44] Joe Gonzalez: Yeah,

[00:23:45] Scott DeLuzio: so that’s awesome. Yeah.

[00:23:46] Joe Gonzalez: it to be to everybody. And the thing is, know, scuba therapy is what we do with these adaptive divers. We take off, we say. Of veterans, women and children, kids with autism, people that are, you know, confined to wheelchairs and the pressure that [00:24:00] they have in a wheelchair,

the gravity,

it’s painful,

[00:24:03] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:03] Joe Gonzalez: it’s incredibly on their bats, on their joints.

When

they get in the water, of that is gone.

[00:24:08] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:24:09] Joe Gonzalez: So they could finally, for once ever just be

themself on them,

[00:24:14] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:24:15] Joe Gonzalez: is a huge, step forward

in your confidence, in your mindset. You know, I mean.

It, enables

you, who you

really are down to your core.

[00:24:28] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:24:28] Joe Gonzalez: about that when you got all these challenges in your life.

I know I did feeling sorry for myself. The depression, the anger, all that eats you up,

[00:24:37] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:24:37] Joe Gonzalez: you physically even worse. And that’s, of course, that’s mother side of the story. Addiction, Oxy, you know, and that, I mean, I went down the opiate trail. From my last accident, started off with prop off and then graduated to, I think it was it, morphine and another thing, and then [00:25:00] Oxycotin and Vicodin.

And going, and I, I got hooked, man. I got hooked. It was

first time ever, you

[00:25:09] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:25:09] Joe Gonzalez: look, stranger to the, the party. I mean, I’m not, but

this, nah, this this was very different. This

was very different for me.

[00:25:18] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, I’m sure. Yeah.

And it, and it’s unfortunate too

when, when something like that happens, you

know, there’s, you know, you go in for, you know, you’re having an issue with, with some sort of pain or you know, whether, whether it’s after a surgery or, or an accident. Or an injury, something happens, right? And a lot of times these doctors are prescribing certain medications and you know, growing up you’re kind of.

Taught to trust the doctors

[00:25:42] Joe Gonzalez: Yeah.

[00:25:42] Scott DeLuzio: and you know what? Whatever it is that they are you know, prescribing to you or telling you to do, you kind of, you just trust ’em to, you know that they’re, they’re right. And then, then you go down that path and you end up finding yourself addicted to something and it’s like, that’s not what the doctor intended, I’m sure, but that’s what ends up happening.

[00:25:58] Joe Gonzalez: Did you see

that or did [00:26:00] you hear about that

doc, that documentary about the opiate crisis

[00:26:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yep.

[00:26:04] Joe Gonzalez: it?

[00:26:04] Scott DeLuzio: I, I didn’t, my wife did and she told me a little bit about it, and

it was, it was it was interesting. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

[00:26:10] Joe Gonzalez: Look, I

live in, well, at the time I lived in Fort Lauderdale. Right. That’s Broward County here in Florida. The, that, that documentary reported that more prescriptions were written for oxycodone in Broward County.

In the entire nation.

[00:26:27] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, geez.

[00:26:27] Joe Gonzalez: Yeah. The prescriptions were written by doctors. I mean. And I didn’t even notice this until I started driving down the street when I was able to drive

and started noticing clinics, on every other corner like McDonald’s.

They were everywhere. It’s like, look at this, and the amount of people out in front

waiting to get in or getting their appointments or

whatever it is, they’re waiting for

[00:26:54] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:26:56] Joe Gonzalez: in the parking lot, just hanging out, smoking cigarettes, drinking [00:27:00] coffee, I

guess waiting to. Get their number called or, or whatever it is.

I was like,

wow.

[00:27:06] Scott DeLuzio: Too much. Yeah.

[00:27:07] Joe Gonzalez: you put your trust in the medical community and when it comes to

the bottom line, greed, it, it’ll

surpass anybody’s moral company. I mean, it’s just,

[00:27:19] Scott DeLuzio: Good. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

So

I wanna switch gears just a bit here and, talk about your book that’s, that’s gonna be coming out in, in a little bit here.

[00:27:28] Joe Gonzalez: Yes.

[00:27:29] Scott DeLuzio: you’re, you’re kind of going back and forth with

the, the publisher at this point on some edits and stuff, so it’ll, it’ll it not out right now as of the time of this recording, but it’ll be out in a little bit.

[00:27:38] Joe Gonzalez: The transcript

is out. You could

[00:27:40] Scott DeLuzio: okay.

[00:27:40] Joe Gonzalez: could download the PDF.

[00:27:41] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:27:42] Joe Gonzalez: but the hardcover and

the audio book, and know, the

Kindle book

and all that.

That’s coming out soon.

[00:27:48] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:27:48] Joe Gonzalez: That’s coming out soon.

[00:27:49] Scott DeLuzio: So the book again,

[00:27:50] Joe Gonzalez: It’s called Love That Doesn’t Sharpen Spoils. It’s a memoir about my last 20 years and three major [00:28:00] tragedies I had in my life that started to shape me and sometimes for the worst, to be honest with you, I’m not gonna lie, then eventually I learned the lessons that they brought me, everyone brought me a lesson. Of course, at the time, had no idea what they were. took a decade of me constantly trying to figure this out

because I didn’t want to live like this. One thing, I knew certain this chapter was not gonna be the last one

[00:28:28] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:28:28] Joe Gonzalez: life. There’s no way I’m gonna go out like this. No way. rotting and all that. No, that wasn’t me. So

was gonna get here. I

had no idea.

But

somehow was gonna get here

[00:28:42] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Sure.

Well, and

and

that’s, that’s great. And I, and I think again,

the, the message that you’re talking about here is is a good reminder to folks that. You can make it through no matter, no matter what you’re going through, there’s somebody else who’s probably gone through that too. And you can [00:29:00] use their, their journey, their, their story as as kind of like a roadmap for yourself and, and try to work through things.

I maybe not exact.

You percent follow those same footsteps, but, but, you know, make it your own and, and

[00:29:12] Joe Gonzalez: Yeah, of course.

[00:29:13] Scott DeLuzio: there’s hope for you too.

You know, there’s, there, it’s not just the end of the road, like you were saying. It,

there’s, there’s, there is some hope out there and you just gotta figure it out you know, on your, on your way through.

So,

[00:29:24] Joe Gonzalez: No, I,

no, you’re absolutely right. And the thing is too, you know, the bottom, at,

at the end of it all, you gotta love

[00:29:30] Scott DeLuzio: yeah.

[00:29:31] Joe Gonzalez: enough to pull this off, because if not, you gotta realign your, your judgment. You’ll never make it. You know, if you’ve got doubts and you got you, you won’t, you, you are already, you’re, planning to fail already. So to do

that, you gotta take a good look, hard, look at yourself, and well forgive yourself

[00:29:52] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:29:53] Joe Gonzalez: and that, and then, you know, ask for

forgiveness from others.

And if they tell you to, go

to hell, then [00:30:00] that’s

[00:30:01] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:30:01] Joe Gonzalez: And they will.

[00:30:02] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:30:02] Joe Gonzalez: will, you know, not everybody

is ready for that

and that’s fine. You don’t have to be, but you are.

what that, that’s all that

matters.

[00:30:10] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And I, I think to that point is,

you know, so long as you are the one doing the forgiving doesn’t mean you have to be okay with whatever happened. You know, you, you can still have, you know, forgiveness and you can, in, in that way, you can kind of just let go of those things so that it’s not holding you back and being a, a hindrance to yourself.

You start doing those types of things, it, it makes. Life overall that much better for you because you’re not stuck in the past. You’re not stuck hanging on like a, you know, a rock, you know, tied to your leg and, and dragging you down.

[00:30:45] Joe Gonzalez: Sure.

[00:30:46] Scott DeLuzio: you know, you’re, you’re able to be a little bit more free break, break free from that, the chains that might hold you back and you can, you can move on.

And if someone else wants to stay back because they’re stuck back there, well that’s, [00:31:00] that’s not on you, that that’s on them,

[00:31:01] Joe Gonzalez: Oh, I hear you. I know. And

that’s everywhere. Both friends, neighbors,

family, whatever. What? Everybody’s gonna be like that.

[00:31:09] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:31:09] Joe Gonzalez: it’s funny how, I know it sounds kind of bad, but. The more you go down this road, the more you find yourself the right path,

the less people will tolerate you.

[00:31:20] Scott DeLuzio: Mm

[00:31:21] Joe Gonzalez: That’s

certain. So your circle’s gonna get smaller and smaller And smaller. okay with that too,

[00:31:27] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:31:28] Joe Gonzalez: the way. You know, it’s

like, okay, know, it actually really shows

you who, your friends are,

[00:31:34] Scott DeLuzio: Well, it, it does,

and it, and it goes to the mindset of,

Quality over quantity. You know, you, you have, of the, the people in that smaller circle, it’s probably a, a lot higher. Quality group of people then,

[00:31:47] Joe Gonzalez: Yeah,

[00:31:48] Scott DeLuzio: know, if you just open, had a big open circle and had, you know, tons and tons of people in it,

[00:31:53] Joe Gonzalez: sure.

[00:31:53] Scott DeLuzio: the quality will be diminished.

Yeah, sure. You’ll have more people, but the, you know, are those really the people that you wanna be hanging [00:32:00] around?

[00:32:00] Joe Gonzalez: No, yeah, I know.

It’s hard, you know, because you’ve known him all your life.

[00:32:04] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:32:05] Joe Gonzalez: You, you got 20 years, 30 years with whatever, I mean, at our age. And the thing is. I do

miss him, but I don’t, and that’s fine with that. This new person’s like,

get over it.

[00:32:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, sure.

[00:32:18] Joe Gonzalez: this. Once You

find your purpose, a

very dangerous place to be for a

man. You know,

[00:32:23] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:32:24] Joe Gonzalez: unstoppable.

[00:32:25] Scott DeLuzio: it is.

And and you don’t want anyone getting in that way either. You don’t

[00:32:28] Joe Gonzalez: absolutely

[00:32:29] Scott DeLuzio: are gonna,

you know, try to hold you back

[00:32:31] Joe Gonzalez: right. Yeah,

[00:32:32] Scott DeLuzio: know, come up with any kind of excuses for you not to pursue whatever it is that you’re, your purpose is, you

[00:32:37] Joe Gonzalez: listen,

[00:32:37] Scott DeLuzio: know?

[00:32:38] Joe Gonzalez: it’s, a very tough road.

[00:32:40] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:32:40] Joe Gonzalez: is, you know, there’s a lot of rejection, there’s a lot of loneliness, a lot of, you know, there’s a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff that you have to overcome. the last thing you want is somebody adding to that.

[00:32:51] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:52] Joe Gonzalez: I’ll take on the industry challenges, I’ll take on the technical challenges I’ll build, okay, I knew that’s coming, you

know, [00:33:00] and I’d rather put my energy and effort and

thoughts into that.

[00:33:05] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:33:06] Joe Gonzalez: That’s what’s most important right

now. And if nobody’s aligned with that.

I’ll do It,

solo, but

I’m gonna do it. You’ll hear about

[00:33:13] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:33:13] Joe Gonzalez: This

is really a cool project.

[00:33:14] Scott DeLuzio: It, it, it sounds like it. And

I, I, would just wanna go back again, just circle back on something that you were talking about before, is that mindset piece that is such a big driver for you and, and such a big change in your, your life.

And just hearing you talk the last couple minutes here about your mindset.

You know, basically no one’s gonna get in your way. You’re gonna get this done. What you’ve, even if you gotta do it yourself, you’re gonna get it done one way or the other. And. I, I think enough people are out there who don’t have that mindset, who are, are finding themselves stuck because they’re, they’re feeling like they’re, they’re the victim.

That they’re you know, owed something that something is, is wrong or, you know, someone has wronged them, I should say. And, you know, all, all things are going [00:34:00] wrong in this person’s life and it just drags ’em down and, and they don’t have that, that mentality.

[00:34:04] Joe Gonzalez: I have

that too. No,

[00:34:06] Scott DeLuzio: Yep,

[00:34:06] Joe Gonzalez: Hang on. I have that too.

[00:34:07] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:34:07] Joe Gonzalez: For years. For years I was best blaming the world. Then it’s like, and every time I point the finger,

three fingers pulling back at me,

[00:34:16] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right.

[00:34:17] Joe Gonzalez: And it’s like saying that is one thing, but truly trying to understand. It’s like shit. City. You know, I remember I’m reminded of a, an interview I saw about Denzel Washington, the

the actor

[00:34:29] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:29] Joe Gonzalez: who he just got off doing the, the

hurricane, you know, the Boxer movie.

[00:34:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:34:34] Joe Gonzalez: And the guy was doing, doing three out workouts a day for like six, eight hours a day, you know, to bulk up, know, to get ready for that role. And he got chiseled. He got really big. So the reporter asked him, he says, was that your toughest physical role? He says, oh, near, no. The toughest role I played was the bunk collector sat perfectly still for 6, 8, [00:35:00] 10 hours a day, and just him and his thoughts, he says, my God,

that was by far the most physically challenging role I

ever had to do. And he’s absolutely right.

[00:35:11] Scott DeLuzio: Interesting.

[00:35:12] Joe Gonzalez: for

himself, that’s, that’s, that

is incredibly difficult. You know,

[00:35:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:35:18] Joe Gonzalez: you don’t wanna look at yourself, you don’t want. You don’t wanna look down on yourself, but you don’t wanna analyze the real you, your weaknesses,

your, your inabilities. I think that is a

hard pill to swallow, my

friend,

[00:35:31] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Sure.

[00:35:32] Joe Gonzalez: anybody, anybody, man, woman, old, whatever.

So that by far was my biggest boat of swallow. It took six years to finally under, even when I had these lessons. when I’m doing my ayahuasca, I was, you know, I had these dreams and these things that I went through. It’s like I was so stubborn. No, no, no. That’s the drugs, that’s the, the [00:36:00] Oxy talking. No ass. Listen, listen. Truly digest what’s being presented to you.

It’s you.

Yeah.

man.

[00:36:11] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:36:12] Joe Gonzalez: was yeah,

[00:36:13] Scott DeLuzio: That

[00:36:14] Joe Gonzalez: that’s a tough one

[00:36:15] Scott DeLuzio: it’s,

and, and, and we can be our own worst enemies. And you know, very often we are.

[00:36:20] Joe Gonzalez: Course.

[00:36:20] Scott DeLuzio: and it’s until you, you, you figure out that mindset that you’re talking about, that you’re, you’re able to maybe push through and it not to say that you don’t have those, those days where you have those kind of thoughts come through.

’cause I’m sure we all do and, but, you know, but. When you, you figure out your, your way to, to push past that, then the whole world opens up to you and you’re, you’re able to you know, look at it like, I, I can accomplish anything now. Like, no one’s getting in my way and I’m, I’m gonna do this,

[00:36:46] Joe Gonzalez: That’s

what I call the landlord principle, which is in my

[00:36:49] Scott DeLuzio: okay?

[00:36:50] Joe Gonzalez: I I, I look at mental illness or mental disabilities or mental, as bad

roommates in your

head, and I’m the [00:37:00] landlord.

I have to take that ownership.

[00:37:02] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:37:04] Joe Gonzalez: the switch is easy. You can under, you could understand the framework. However, keeping up with that, a challenge because

those roommates are never gonna leave

[00:37:15] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:15] Joe Gonzalez: disability. It’s never gonna leave. My addiction is never gonna leave. I still get called, I still get that feeling. And I got some, I got some sitting in my cabinet. I haven’t touched it, but it calls, Hey, maybe I should take like a half a tap, or, you know, just a little something that,

You know, ownership

your faults is also, you know, we want to admit at fault. But understanding that they’re there and then taking that twisting it around and using that edge to help you build something, a friend, that’s what this book is all about. Converting your, your chaos purpose. And you can’t do it without

purpose. Tell [00:38:00] you, even think about trying this role without having a

purpose, or at least beginning to look for one,

[00:38:05] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:38:06] Joe Gonzalez: getting your mind into that ’cause. You will always have the purpose to leverage yourself on those tough times. ’cause though you’re gonna get ’em, you know,

I saw this thing on, I think it was TikTok

about, you know, you ask God for courage,

he gives you battles.

[00:38:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:38:26] Joe Gonzalez: that’s so, you learn how to

fight, you learn how you know, the more courage you want,

the more battles it’s gonna throw at you.

You know,

[00:38:33] Scott DeLuzio: right.

[00:38:34] Joe Gonzalez: you want strength. It’s gonna kick your ass. gonna knock you down. Get up, you know? That’s, that’s how it works. And

with enough ass kickings that

I’ve taken, you

get to learn. You learn, you learn.

[00:38:48] Scott DeLuzio: You do. Yeah.

[00:38:49] Joe Gonzalez: a bit. You

know,

[00:38:50] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

And I, I think

that’s, that’s a

good point, is that you,

Are going to

experience some hardships and it’s just a matter of what you do with those things. And do you, do [00:39:00] you grow from them or do you let them beat you now?

[00:39:03] Joe Gonzalez: See, that’s the edge. See, that’s exactly what I mean, you know. either let it kill you or grow you. You know, that’s the ego.

[00:39:11] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:12] Joe Gonzalez: the double-edged sword we all carry. You know, if you let, the ego’s a very important tool. Believe me, the ego saved my life many a times. The thing about the ego is it gives you that sense of overcoming.

You’re not gonna let this take me. I mean, I almost drowned here in Lake Atlanta that we call it, and I swear to you. I was down scuba diving, lobster running about 20 feet out, two peer links out that we swam out, my old ringing popped. I’m 20, 25 feet underwater with about 60, 70 pounds of dead weight, no air. And I’m two peer links out and I’m trying to swim up, trying to get to the trying to get to the top. I’m fading. And I’m fading. And in my head [00:40:00] it kicked in and said, Hey. You can read that tomorrow’s paper. Read a seasoned scuba dive with 30 months something years of experience, it’s gonna die in 20 feet of water. You know how stupid you’re gonna look? Whoa,

I’m just muscled my way up to the top.

I mean, seriously. That’s the ego

[00:40:20] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:40:21] Joe Gonzalez: that that’s the ego and that’s the one that it saved my life. And I’ve, I’ve been in many scraps of my life. Same thing. Same thing. what helps. It’s the ego that drove me to drive this mission. It’s my ego that pushed me to write that book. It’s the ego that made me

build this from a hospital bed. So it has its privileges.

[00:40:43] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:40:44] Joe Gonzalez: However, you let it monopolize every one of your thoughts, you make your personality

all

ego. Well, I don’t need to tell you where that

goes. Just look around.

[00:40:53] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:40:54] Joe Gonzalez: Yeah.

[00:40:55] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:40:55] Joe Gonzalez: Yeah.

[00:40:56] Scott DeLuzio: nothing good would come if

[00:40:57] Joe Gonzalez: No,

[00:40:57] Scott DeLuzio: if that’s your whole entire [00:41:00] personality, right?

[00:41:00] Joe Gonzalez: course.

We are

like surrounded by it right now.

[00:41:04] Scott DeLuzio: yeah.

[00:41:04] Joe Gonzalez: everybody’s flexing this

Alpha Bravo. Yeah.

Yeah. It’s everywhere. And you

watch them self-destruct,

[00:41:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:41:12] Joe Gonzalez: literally,

you watch them self-destruct in front of your very eyes.

And that’s not a road I want to go down either, you know?

[00:41:18] Scott DeLuzio: No,

No, for sure. And I, yeah,

I, I don’t think anyone wakes up in the morning thinking, Hey, you know what? That’s, that’s the path I want to take. I wanna, I wanna go down that path of self-destruction. But they end up down there sometimes,

[00:41:29] Joe Gonzalez: see the thing is we don’t even see it.

[00:41:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:41:32] Joe Gonzalez: We don’t even see it while we’re in it. You know, you think the Andrew Tates, the Trumps, they, on a, on a very dangerous path for themselves. And the thing is they’re spreading that hatred ’cause they have the million dollar microphone. Right. All the eyes are on them and spreading that wildness to the younger generation. And that’s, I’m stepping in. I’m, And you’ll see me scuba Joe 11. I’m going after date. [00:42:00] I’m going after these big mouths and showing ’em, look their people. ’cause they’re, they are a bunch of young men and they, you know,

they glorify these, knuckleheads, what I call ’em

I’m I’m coming right at ’em.

[00:42:12] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:42:13] Joe Gonzalez: Look from a broken old

vet, can still kick your. You know, it’s

like just showing them

[00:42:20] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:42:21] Joe Gonzalez: physics, he’ll kill me. I mean, he’s a boxer, but I’m talking like from the purpose of life,

what’s really important.

I’m running circles around you and I haven’t done anything yet.

that’s what I wanna show these young boys

[00:42:34] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:42:35] Joe Gonzalez: You know,

this is not the way,

[00:42:37] Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:42:38] Joe Gonzalez: my

obligation. obligation

something better for the

next generation.

[00:42:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:42:43] Joe Gonzalez: We all have that.

[00:42:44] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely.

For the li, the listeners of who are interested in learning more about,

The, the Mo Mother Ocean Fund and everything that you’re doing there or, or your book or anything like that where can they go to find out more information whether it’s, you know, volunteering or [00:43:00] participating in some of the programs, any of that?

[00:43:02] Joe Gonzalez: Are you gonna put the links? I’m sure you’re gonna put the links

in the, in the bio right? Or

[00:43:06] Scott DeLuzio: Yes, absolutely. Yep. Yep.

[00:43:07] Joe Gonzalez: it’s, of the company is called Mother Ocean Fund. That’s a foundation, app is aquatic tribe.com. it’s mother ocean fund.org and aquatic tribe.com. And if you want to get the book, it’s in our Mother Ocean Fund store. the first item. You’ll see it along with a bunch of t-shirts and hats and stuff that we sell to raise money. And we do events too. We do happy hours and poker tournaments and music festivals and farmer’s markets on locals beaches. So if you follow us on Facebook, we’re everywhere. Every social media platform, all the big ones, Facebook, ig TikTok Threads YouTube, you’ll see us

[00:43:51] Scott DeLuzio: Great.

[00:43:52] Joe Gonzalez: announcing what our next

events are. We’d love to have you.

[00:43:55] Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely.

[00:43:55] Joe Gonzalez: all fundraisers and then they’re blasts. We’re partying for a purpose. [00:44:00] It’s

basically what it is down here in the Keys and soon in San Diego.

are you by the way? I forgot to ask

[00:44:06] Scott DeLuzio: I, I’m in Arizona, so pretty,

[00:44:08] Joe Gonzalez: Arizona. Okay.

[00:44:09] Scott DeLuzio: not exactly the best place for scuba diving, but

[00:44:11] Joe Gonzalez: No, they’re the rivers. That’s not

true.

river at the Colorado River.

[00:44:16] Scott DeLuzio: yeah, that’s true. That’s true.

[00:44:18] Joe Gonzalez: there’s good diving there.

[00:44:19] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:44:19] Joe Gonzalez: their shops. There’s shots everywhere, but there’s

[00:44:22] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:44:23] Joe Gonzalez: but there’s a body of water.

tribe is there, brother. We’re there

[00:44:27] Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely.

[00:44:28] Joe Gonzalez: now.

it’s quite a, it’s an evolutionary

sport, man. cause it will change you.

[00:44:34] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Absolutely.

[00:44:35] Joe Gonzalez: heals, bottle water heals.

And that’s what we’re trying to do.

Just bring that healing back to her.

’cause she’s, she so needs it,

[00:44:44] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Sure. Absolutely.

[00:44:46] Joe Gonzalez: you don’t need to get

into the conditions of our waterways nowadays. And that’s what I’m trying to fit.

Or at least help, you know?

[00:44:52] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yeah. And every little bit helps, I’m sure. And,

You know, that’s, that’s what you’re doing and, and getting people out there [00:45:00] to experience some of that on, on their own as well. So,

[00:45:02] Joe Gonzalez: Yeah, no,

[00:45:03] Scott DeLuzio: you

[00:45:03] Joe Gonzalez: and it’s really rewarding too. That’s, that’s my payment,

you know, that’s what pays me.

[00:45:08] Scott DeLuzio: that’s great.

[00:45:09] Joe Gonzalez: whatever comes from it comes,

but that, that’s what I,

want to see

more.

[00:45:12] Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. Well, Joe, thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing your story and everything that you’re doing you know, nowadays and, and you know, how, how your mindset changed all that, that information, I think is just really great. For some of the listeners who might be struggling with that mindset piece of it themselves, and, you know, whether it’s getting out in the water or finding something that, that suits them, I, I think is, is really important.

And so I, I definitely appreciate you coming on sharing, sharing your, your time and your story and also your dedication to, you know, the conservation efforts and all that stuff, I think is,

[00:45:46] Joe Gonzalez: Thank you.

[00:45:47] Scott DeLuzio: definitely inspiring. So thanks so much for coming on.

[00:45:49] Joe Gonzalez: No, thanks for having me, man.

Appreciate it. Thank you so much. And remember, one last thing,

[00:45:53] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:45:53] Joe Gonzalez: is everything. That’s the key. It’s right here, matter how bad you have it, [00:46:00] how bad you feel like your back’s against the wall

or you’re laid out flat or your. 20 feet under like I

was. It’s all in the air baby.

[00:46:07] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:46:08] Joe Gonzalez: It’s all in the air. Alright, thank you very much for having me. Appreciate you.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Carrying old memories into a new life can feel like you’re trying to lead a mission without a team. You keep showing up for work, your family, and everyone else, but sometimes the weight of that previous life stays with you until that that weight starts taking over. There is a better way to face it though.

[00:00:20] Our guest today, Brendan Kelly, brings a hard earned perspective from 22 years in the Army. Life after retirement, mental health treatment, and, uh, the writing that helped him turn silence into something useful for others. In this episode, we’re gonna give you a grounded book at transition out of the military PTSD, family Therapy and finding a mission after the uniform comes off.

[00:00:47] Before we get into this episode though, I want to give. Everyone just a, uh, little bit of information to raise awareness about, uh, something that’s deeply important to our community. The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. [00:01:00] This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington, DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism.

[00:01:09] This memorial will be both a tribute to those who have served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come. If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:25]

[00:01:38] Scott DeLuzio: Hey Brendan, welcome to the show. Really glad to have

[00:01:41] you here.

[00:01:42] Brendan T. Kelly: Hey, thank you, no, I appreciate being on the show and forward to a good conversation.

[00:01:49] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, me too. Absolutely. Before we get into the conversation though would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself and your background for the listeners who maybe aren’t familiar with you

[00:01:56] and, and who you

[00:01:57] are?

[00:01:57] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. You know, [00:02:00] I’ll, I’ll, I’ll give the cliff notes so. army active duty for 22 years. Then after that I taught high school for a bit, worked in the corporate world and you know, through some of my challenges I had that we’ll get into, you know, I started riding and that’s when I really found my niche and started putting things together.

[00:02:22] And you know, I’m fortunate to have a supportive wife of 33 years and three amazing daughters. And here we are now, Scott.

[00:02:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it’s. To me too because so many veterans have. Trouble when they transition outta the military, they go from you know, that, that structured environment, they have a comradery, they have support, they have all the, the resources there that they, they need. I know, you know, we all the time, we, we kind of bitch about the pay iss not great and

[00:02:50] all that kinda stuff, but

[00:02:51] Brendan T. Kelly: Nice.

[00:02:51] Scott DeLuzio: it’s but there, there’s a lot of other things that we have going for us in the military.

[00:02:55] Then we get out and we’re. Pretty much all on our own. And then we’re, [00:03:00] we’re trying to figure out, okay, what, what’s that job gonna be like? Where, where do I, where do I you know, how do I even apply for a job? You know, a lot of us join the military at 18 and never really had to apply for jobs or go on interviews and those types of things.

[00:03:13] There’s so much stuff that goes into it that we’re just not prepared for. And, and you oftentimes find people bouncing from job to

[00:03:19] job until they,

[00:03:20] Brendan T. Kelly: Oh yeah, yeah.

[00:03:21] Scott DeLuzio: Either find something that they love you know, something that’s their calling, kind of like what you were describing, or they just suck it up and deal with the thing that they hate.

[00:03:29] And it’s, you know, paying the bills, keeping the lights on and all that kind of stuff. But you know, it’s, it’s good to find someone who has found something that they enjoy and, and can continue doing that to keep, keep the lights on, put the food on the table, all that

[00:03:42] kind of stuff, you know?

[00:03:43] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:03:44] Scott DeLuzio: so. Looking back at your, your time, you said I, I believe you

[00:03:49] said 22 years in

[00:03:50] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:03:50] Scott DeLuzio: And, and you deployed multiple times, things like that. Over, over the course of that, that time period. Looking back at your time in the, in the Army, what parts of that experience stayed [00:04:00] with you the most? You know, after the uniform came off, what are some of the things that you’ve taken away that you find yourself kind of falling back to?

[00:04:06] Your, your, whether it’s training or just the environment that you’re used to and things like

[00:04:10] that.

[00:04:11] Brendan T. Kelly: No, I mean, you know, and, and you know, you’re in the military for 22 years. You know, I, I don’t necessarily like using the word institutionalized, but you get into that rhythm, you know what to expect. You know, whether it’s, you know, waking up every morning and doing physical training, then you know you’re going to, you know, go to formation, start the work day, close out the day, and there’s a group of guys that, and gals that you can literally depend on.

[00:04:41] when I retired. You know, it, it, it took some getting used to that, you know, a couple things. You know, one, as a senior non-commissioned officer, know, I wasn’t in charge of anybody anymore, and no [00:05:00] commands, no given anything. And you, you find yourself with time on your hands. And you’re used to that very professional, respectful environment.

[00:05:17] And I’m not knocking the civilian world because, you know, I found my niche, but is not the same, you know, regardless of what rank you had on your collar in the military, when you go to the civilian world. You know, you’re, you’re just another person out there, you know, trying to, as we say, keep the lights on and the refrigerator stocked and everything.

[00:05:40] I think being able to teach high school was a great transition for me because. I didn’t manage my classroom in a, you know, authoritarian military style, but I utilized those same techniques to have a rhythm, [00:06:00] you know, myself for my students, and they knew what to expect from me and vice versa. So, you know, it worked out nicely.

[00:06:08] Scott DeLuzio: That is good too. Because I, you know, I’ve, I’ve known teachers, I, you know, I have teachers in my family and, you know, sometimes hearing the, the horror stories of what goes on in a classroom. I mean, you have to come up with some sort of system to keep things in line, keep people in check and, and all that kind of stuff.

[00:06:25] So it’s, it’s, it’s hard when, when you don’t have that. But, but then when you’re, you’re able to kind of fall back on that that. Military way of doing things that, that, that way of thinking and, and being organized and having some sort sense of order and control over, over things. But like you said, not in an authoritarian kind of way.

[00:06:45] Just, you know, in a way that makes sense and everyone knows what to expect, when to expect it and all that. And, you know, that’s, that’s kind of the way, way to do it, I think. You know, so that definitely makes sense. But you know, as you, as you transitioned out, a lot of times we, we think about [00:07:00] the service, the past, the, the things that we had but sometimes that, that transition, like we were talking about is, is even harder. And when, when that structure is gone, we, we want to, We wanna grab onto something, we want to figure something out. And it seems like that’s kind of what you did in tho those early days is you, you kinda latched onto, you know, making that your own in, in the classroom. And, and that’s, good. I think you know, to be able to figure that out. Because not everyone does sometimes, sometimes people just. If they get out there and they just get bitter with the world and, and the people who are around them, their coworkers, their family, their, you know, everyone around and, you know, that’s not the best way to go. Continue operating through life.

[00:07:41] So, so it’s good that you, you figured

[00:07:43] some of that stuff out,

[00:07:44] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah

[00:07:45] absolutely. And you know, I, I wanna add in there, you know, it gave me. The opportunity to, you know, focus my mind purely on the teaching on the classroom and what I had [00:08:00] to do as opposed to, you know, all the other things going on in, in, in my melon. So,

[00:08:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right. And you gave yourself a, a new mission.

[00:08:10] Basically, you, you have

[00:08:11] Brendan T. Kelly: exactly.

[00:08:12] Scott DeLuzio: know, thing that you’re supposed to be doing. You, you had all these kids in your classroom that, that. We’re on you whether they wanted to admit it or not. They’re relying on you to, to teach ’em something and you know, we’ve all been, you know, sitting in a classroom not, not necessarily wanting to be there.

[00:08:26] And I’m sure that, you know, not necessarily that you’re a bad teacher or anything like that, that’s not what I’m getting at at all. But kids are kids and Yeah, it’s, they’re, they’re, they’re not always, they’re not always you know, awake. Let’s just put it that way. So, you know that, that. could be tough, but you still ha you, you have that responsibility to them and they, they are counting on you to do your job.

[00:08:45] And, and so your focus on and focusing your energy on that is, is kinda where you need it to be. now in kind of prep for this, this episode, I kind of did a little background, you know, research and things like that, and you I. [00:09:00] Found a little bit about you sharing your, your battles with like PTSD, mental health type things, and you know, you, you share some of this stuff publicly so that people know that they’re not alone. You know, at, at what point did you decide that you’re going to stop keeping these things boxed up, start putting it out there you know, whether it’s getting the, getting the treatment, getting the help that you needed, or even just. Just sharing and talking about it and, and putting it out there to the world so that other folks know that they’re not

[00:09:26] alone.

[00:09:27] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah. You know, unfortunately it took a while.

[00:09:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:09:31] Brendan T. Kelly: You know, I, I, I retired in 2010 and it wasn’t until, you know, late 2016 when I literally hit rock bottom you know, unfortunately, you know. Ready to commit suicide. I was done it all. You know, just the nightmares and the [00:10:00] constant ruminating in my mind.

[00:10:02] And you know, I’m very fortunate that my wife the knowhow or thought to reach out to a Veteran’s Crisis hotline, she got me to the hospital. when I was in the hospital for those two weeks. And, you know, they were taking care of me. I was getting some initial therapy. That’s when I really started talking about my past, you know, started talking about those demons I saw what actions were doing to my wife, my girls, my family and friends.

[00:10:46] it, it kind of clicked like, you know. It may sound strange to say, but I was being selfish.

[00:10:53] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:10:54] Brendan T. Kelly: You know, I, I, I had to get help, not just for me, which [00:11:00] by all means, that’s the most important take care of yourself, but I. I could be a better husband, a better friend, a better father, so I wouldn’t be angry anymore.

[00:11:12] So I, I could share with my loved ones what I went through the things I was dealing with because, you know, I was trying to do it all myself. I was thinking, you know, okay, I can be my own doctor, I can be my own psychiatrist. I, I can work through this. You know, I’ve led, you know, troops into battle.

[00:11:32] I can do this, but I couldn’t, couldn’t.

[00:11:36] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, and I think a, a key thing that you just mentioned there was that, you know, you led troops in battle but you didn’t go. Charging off on your own as a one man team where, you know, where you were kicking in doors and, and doing all the things on your own with nobody else with you. And so why should any of the other stuff be different?

[00:11:56] You know, why, why should your, you know, physical and mental health and, [00:12:00] and all the other things that you had going on, why should that all fall on your shoulders? You know, you’re, you’re maybe not. An expert, you know, then this is you, but also the listeners, you know, you’re not necessarily an expert in health related issues or physical health related issues.

[00:12:15] And yeah, you might be tough and you might be able to, you know, grin and bear it for a little while, whatever it is that, that you’re, you’re going through. But you know, you can only take so much

[00:12:25] before.

[00:12:26] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:12:27] Scott DeLuzio: You start to crack and you start to break and you know, yeah, it, we kind, we kind of train ourselves so that in the moment we can push through and, you know, we can push through the pain in that moment so we can accomplish the mission and get the mission done.

[00:12:40] But guess what? You, you took the uniform off, the missions done, it’s over. Now take a step back and say, okay, what do I need in

[00:12:47] order to

[00:12:48] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:12:49] Scott DeLuzio: the rest of those things? Because I, I can’t do it myself. You know, I, I’m not a mechanic. So I take my car in to get serviced. That’s not like a strange thing.

[00:12:59] People do that all [00:13:00] the time. Now sure, there’s some people out there who know how to do all the, the stuff when your car’s making that clunky noise or you, whatever, they, they can go in, they can fix it. Great. You’re, you’re educated in that type of stuff. I’m not. So if I went to do it, I’d probably make the problem even worse.

[00:13:14] And so why, why would I think that if I had a mental health issue, I’m not a therapist. I’m not a counselor or anything like that. Oh. That I wouldn’t make that problem worse either. So, you know, to your point, you know, you kind of hit that rock bottom moment. But you know, really if you had and this is for anyone, this is not just singling you out, but if you had stepped up sooner and said, Hey, I, I,

[00:13:36] need some help to figure

[00:13:37] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:13:37] Scott DeLuzio: well, you know, you would’ve probably been in a better position.

[00:13:41] Brendan T. Kelly: Absolutely. You know, you know, looking back on those years, if, you know, hindsight’s 2020, if I’d have had that knowledge and that mental wellbeing, I mean, things would’ve gone different. But, you know, things happen for a [00:14:00] reason and it, it took a while to understand that. And even, you know, as I was going through, you know, mental health training and getting better when I was in my outpatient program, when they started helping us learn about, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy, understanding and really giving.

[00:14:28] Everything that’s in here, a voice, getting it out and sharing and that, realizing that was then it is not now. And being able to accept that talk through it was powerful and. I, I would tell any veteran or you know, anybody dealing with a mental health challenge or challenges in life, find someone to talk to, whether it’s a best friend that maybe can, you know, at least be a sounding [00:15:00] board and give you ideas, you know, a spouse.

[00:15:03] Boy, anybody, because when we keep it, when we keep stuff built in, I don’t think people realize how much physical damage that does to us. know? And, and, and we, we don’t want that. Otherwise, you’re gonna find yourself in a dark place, you know, like where I was and having to go through some serious challenges.

[00:15:25] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, and it, it sort of has a ripple effect too when you’re dealing with all that stuff and, and it’s affecting you. It also. Secondhand affects those people who are closest to you and, and kind of spreads out, and not just your, your core family, the folks that you live with, but you know, your, your other relatives, your other friends, your coworkers, your, you know, in the case of being a teacher, your students even, you know, potentially could, you know, it’s affecting them.

[00:15:52] Then how is that affecting the people in their circle and is that rippling out from their circle too? And you know, so. Going back [00:16:00] to something that you had said earlier, how you felt like it was sort of selfish that you were not taking care of yourself. And you said it was kind of a strange way to to it, but I, I get it.

[00:16:10] I mean, because it, it could have that that effect on, on those other people. It’s not just affecting

[00:16:17] you.

[00:16:17] Brendan T. Kelly: Absolutely.

[00:16:18] Scott DeLuzio: and, and especially if you had let it go further and you. Let’s just say, God forbid you did end up, taking your life. How big of an impact would’ve that had on all those people as well. That would’ve been even bigger.

[00:16:31] You know, it’s not just throwing a little pebble into it into the lake and seeing the little ripples that’s throwing a whole boulder into the lake, and that’s splashing over everything. And, and that’s, that’s huge.

[00:16:40] So,

[00:16:41] Brendan T. Kelly: Yep.

[00:16:41] Scott DeLuzio: it’s absolutely good that you, you got the help that you needed. And you know, I’m, I’m sure as you, you’re starting to open up and start telling your story, you know. In these therapeutic kind of settings that you are probably starting to realize the, the power behind getting the story out there too, right? Is [00:17:00] that that kind of part of your transformation into writing and, and all that?

[00:17:03] Brendan T. Kelly: No, absolutely. ’cause you know, initially, know, writing was a form of therapy. You know, it was just getting the thoughts out, getting it, you know, on paper, getting it on the laptop, and, you know, it got to a point where I felt, you know, though my story was unique to me, it wa it’s not unique to the world.

[00:17:28] And people out there. So, you know, I felt I had enough I could build upon to make it a bigger story. To get out there to people, you know, to let ’em know, Hey, you’re not alone. You know,

[00:17:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:17:44] Brendan T. Kelly: there’s people out there though. You may feel you have the blinders on and you’re only seeing that darkness in front of you.

[00:17:50] Hey, there’s a light, there’s help.

[00:17:53] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And, and it’s, it’s good too. I think part of the reason why I even do this show is to share stories like yours because [00:18:00] there’s other folks out there who might be struggling and they don’t, they don’t understand that they’re not alone or, or if they do that, it’s, it’s just not really clicking with them.

[00:18:10] And so having someone come on and share that, that. Hey, I went through something similar and I, here’s, here’s my roadmap. You know, you don’t necessarily have to walk the exact same steps, but, you know, maybe you can, you can kind of find your own path out by, by using this as kind of a guide and you know, so I, I think turning those those stories, those even tragedies and things that might, might have happened you know, kind of makes it the story a little bit more relatable. other people to kind of see themselves in that, that story as well.

[00:18:39] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:18:40] Scott DeLuzio: again, through, through sort the background research and stuff, I, I found you had a, a thing which I thought was kinda interesting. Turning scars into stories and silence into sentences was something I, I came across. I forget exactly where, where I saw that, but, to you, what does that that mean in kind of practical terms for, for you as, as a writer, as a veteran, as you know, a, a husband, a [00:19:00] you know, coworker, all, all friend, all those things. What, what does that mean to you? I.

[00:19:06] Brendan T. Kelly: Me, you know, know, it took a while for me to write my little tagline because I wanted it to have an impact for what I went through. And, you know, thinking about, you know, the scars I have, I mean, things I’ve done in my military career, you know, in deployments and in life, they’re with me forever.

[00:19:29] You know, just like a scar, but. I can now turn those into something positive to help others. And on the silence part too, for too long I kept stuff to myself, you know, my best friend, my spouse, my soulmate. I wouldn’t even even share those dark, you know, thoughts and memories with her because you know, I didn’t want to put that pressure on her, [00:20:00] even though.

[00:20:02] She would’ve been an amazing help earlier on, ‘ cause I mean, she’s been there for me, but being able to take that silence and now turn ’em into sentences to add to the story. So, ’cause there are far too many people Have those scars, those mental scars that we can’t see keeping things silent, and they have to know that someone out.

[00:20:32] There’s been through it, through the similar things, you know, I’ve gone to war, I’ve taken a life, you know, sadly I attempted suicide, but here I am now. You know, by, you know, the grace of the universe being able to share this story and let ’em know you don’t have to hit rock bottom to get the help you need or to speak to [00:21:00] someone.

[00:21:00] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, and all too often people do end up hitting that rock bottom moment. And e either they, they get to the point where they attempt suicide and, and are successful and in, in that attempt. And, and they do take their life or you know, they, they hit rock bottom and then, then it’s like a long, feels like a long climb back out of that hole of, of whatever they’ve dug for themselves.

[00:21:24] And, you know, if you can. You can stop that hole from getting any deeper. Once when you recognize that there’s, there’s sort of a problem. It might be a lot. Less of a climb out of that hole down the line. Because you, you get yourself into a lot of bad habits. You get, you, you get to the point where you’re maybe harming relationships and doing all sorts of things that you, you really looking back on it years later, you, you like, you know, I really wish I didn’t do all those things.

[00:21:49] But you know, you, you end up getting there and, and it just makes it that much harder. So the, you know, kind of the earlier you can you can start working on that, the, the better. And, and so I think. Again, [00:22:00] part of the reason why I like to share stories like yours is to let people know that, hey, that’s kind of what you need to do.

[00:22:06] You need to get out there and you need to share your story. You need to get in front of all this. Because, you know, it’s, it’s not just gonna get better its own. You know, the another sleepless night is not going to make things better tomorrow. You

[00:22:18] know, having you

[00:22:19] Brendan T. Kelly: No, no it doesn’t. Yeah.

[00:22:21] Scott DeLuzio: that they’re just not gonna

[00:22:23] help things, You

[00:22:23] know?

[00:22:23] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah. You know, then with that, you know, I always want to tell people, you know, speaking to someone, talking to someone, that’s the beginning. The, I’m gonna tell you firsthand. It, it takes work to get better. you gotta put in the effort of changing your ways, changing your thought process, learning, know, I mean there these days, there’s so many resources available that can help you find comfort.

[00:22:55] You know, whether it’s, you know, meditating a little bit of day. Or even reading a little [00:23:00] bit about say, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy and what you need to do. You know, if you’re not able to speak to a counselor right away or someone, but it takes work. You’ve gotta be committed to do that work for yourself, your family, your friends, loved ones.

[00:23:17] And I mean, and when you get on the other end, I mean, it’s a beautiful thing.

[00:23:23] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. What I hear from a lot of people too, is, you know, they. They go to the therapies and they’re, they’re like, after, you know, a couple sessions, they’re like, oh, this isn’t working for me. I’m not getting any better or anything like that. They get frustrated and they just walk away from it. But it’s a lot of

[00:23:38] work.

[00:23:39] You, you

[00:23:39] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:23:40] Scott DeLuzio: the work. You can’t just go there, you know, sit in the, the therapist’s office for an hour a week and expect magic to happen, and then everything is rainbows and

[00:23:49] unicorns. So you,

[00:23:50] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:23:50] Scott DeLuzio: have to go in. Throughout the week, you’re gonna be doing some work. You gotta, you gotta really focus on changing because if you keep doing the same [00:24:00] thing that you’ve always done and expect some different results, it’s, it’s kind of crazy.

[00:24:03] You’re, you’re not going to see anything different. If the only. Different thing that you’re doing is going and talking to a therapist for an hour a week and you’re doing everything else the same. It, it’s not gonna really make much difference. You’re gonna have to do that work outside of therapy as well. You know, out outside of therapy sessions, I should say,

[00:24:23] To,

[00:24:23] Brendan T. Kelly: Absolutely.

[00:24:24] Scott DeLuzio: to to get the the benefits I

[00:24:26] guess.

[00:24:27] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:24:28] Scott DeLuzio: So I want to, I wanna kind of switch gears just a bit here and, and get into your, your writing and, and the, the stuff that you, you do there. Some of that was, you know, kind of stemmed from, like you said earlier, the therapy process and, and the, the writing that that took place and, you know, getting it down on, on paper or, you know, on, on the. The computer or, or wherever it was that you’re, you’re putting it down on for you, I imagine there was a, a therapeutic benefit to the writing, which kind of led you further into that direction [00:25:00] to to actually an author and, and not just writing stuff for the sake of writing it. It, it became more of a, a thing that you were more passionate

[00:25:08] about, right.

[00:25:09] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. You know, when, you know, I was to a point where I was getting, you know, all these thoughts out and them, and when I felt I had a story, I mean, it kind of literally just clicked. You know, I, I was looking up my folder of all these writings I was like, you know. I literally think I have something here and going back and starting to put it together into a book.

[00:25:40] And then, you know, writing stories about, you know, part of incidents that you know. I didn’t see because there, there’s, there’s always, you know, that yin and yang

[00:25:53] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:25:54] Brendan T. Kelly: and, you know, I talk about in my book, you know, about my actions or Jack [00:26:00] Mercer, he’s the character writing the book, his actions of taking a life in battle.

[00:26:05] And then in a following chapter, there’s kind of that, there’s the yin and the yang, like I said. Then in next chapters I talk about, you know, the soldiers on the other side. know how their life was, how, you know, they didn’t want to go to war. You know, they didn’t, they didn’t never want to wear the uniform.

[00:26:25] They were common people in their community trying to live until, you know. A dictator came around saying, Hey, you’re either gonna serve or we’re gonna, you know, do some bad things to your family. you know, being on the ground in Iraq and Kuwait and you know, around the world, you hear those stories. So that helped me to put together the pieces of the book really say, okay, here’s something of quality that can get out there.

[00:26:58] And then. course, [00:27:00] you know, the next task is finding a publisher that, you know, believes in you as well. So that took a little bit of work. But you know, it was interesting, you know, despite all the nos I found that yes,

[00:27:12] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And it, and it only takes one Yes too, right there. There’s a lot of times you, you’ll, you’ll get nos in life and it’s

[00:27:19] not just finding

[00:27:21] a publisher for a book. It could be any number of other things that you get a lot of no’s for, but oftentimes all you need is the

[00:27:27] one. Yes. And

[00:27:28] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah,

[00:27:29] Scott DeLuzio: a world of difference.

[00:27:30] So, you know, just because you’ve gotten two or three nos in a row, or four or five, six, whatever, doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing. It’s just maybe not the right fit with that

[00:27:40] particular. Person or

[00:27:41] Brendan T. Kelly: exactly.

[00:27:42] Scott DeLuzio: whoever that you were, you were with? You know, I, I think even the author of Harry Potter went

[00:27:47] to

[00:27:47] Brendan T. Kelly: Oh yeah.

[00:27:48] Scott DeLuzio: different publishers and, and got turned away multiple times.

[00:27:51] And now all of a sudden it’s international success. It’s, you know, making tons and tons of money and, you know, people are still reading it all, all, you know, to this day. And you know, it’s. [00:28:00] It’s amazing. It’s just a little bit of perseverance, you know, to kind of push through, especially if you believe in the work and you, you know, it’s, it’s solid and you know that there’s something good there. Yeah. Stick, stick with it. Now from your perspective, what what, what made you go in the direction of, of fiction versus writing, you know, like a memoir or, you know, speaking more in a direct nonfiction format.

[00:28:24] Brendan T. Kelly: When I was putting the book together, know, the book became not just about me. You know, granted a lot of what Jack Mercer goes through is, you know, what I went through. But you know, there’s more to the story and you know, the story I developed, you know, about, you know, the soldiers on the other side a a, a person’s impact, you know, that became bigger and then.[00:29:00]

[00:29:00] It also felt that, you know, I’ve had, you know, brothers and sisters in arms that have been on far more deployments than me. mean, I’ve had best friends that got home from a deployment, got transferred to a new duty station, and then boom, deployed It was a story for them as well of those constant deployments you know, you come home from Iraq, all right, now you get to go to Afghanistan and vice versa.

[00:29:33] So it became more than just me. It became, you know, everybody I knew a little bit of their story and, you know, building this overall book out, the Echo of Silence into than just a memoir of Brendan Kelly.

[00:29:51] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And being able to combine lots of different stories, different elements from not just your life but other people’s [00:30:00] lives I think maybe makes the story a little bit more relatable. ’cause there might be who can pick one thing

[00:30:05] out from,

[00:30:06] Brendan T. Kelly: yeah.

[00:30:06] Scott DeLuzio: From that, that may not necessarily be from your story, but it might be from somewhere else that fits into the, the, the, the book itself. And they’re able to something away from it and you know, be, be able to figure out their own situation. Not, not to say that it’s necessarily a, you know, a self-help book you know, in, in that that way. But sometimes you get those, those nice unexpected benefits sometimes when you’re, when you’re reading a book and, and you get, just inspired or you get another idea of, of things. And, you know, it doesn’t have to be a, a, a, a nonfiction book. You know, you, you can get those ideas from just about anywhere. So, so it’s great that you’re able to kind of combine some things and it take a little you know, creative liberties with, with some of it, and, and make it something that, that people can actually relate to. That’s really good. Yeah. [00:31:00] The book talks about, you know, those invisible wounds that we’re talking about, survival, forgiveness, all the, the processes behind healing and all that kind of stuff. For you, what was the kind of most personal of those aspects you wrote about and, and you know, do you think, how do you think veterans will, will kind of connect with all of that?

[00:31:22] Brendan T. Kelly: You know, the the most personal really part that I wrote is, you know, my first deployment, you know, the first battle scene where. You know, I took, I took two lives and, you know, I shared that story because that was the, know, reoccurring nightmare I had for years. But it was also, you know, I write this in the [00:32:00] book as well.

[00:32:02] That is when I from basically being a. Older child my young twenties, you know, to an adult, you know, my childhood was gone,

[00:32:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:32:18] Brendan T. Kelly: so, you know, writing that was a little intense. You know, there were, there was plenty of times I had to step back. I moments I cried and moments. I was very thankful that.

[00:32:32] I’m here now and able to write that. So it, it was a very personable section and know, and I tried to keep it as real as possible and my, and my editor, you know, was right on board with me keeping it, you know, very realistic. I know there are plenty of, you know, military members out there that went through that exact same thing.[00:33:00]

[00:33:00] And you know, they may handle it differently, you know, later on in life. But if you’re a military member, doesn’t matter what branch you’ve been deployed, and you had to be in those situations, you’ll know what Jack Mercer went through. You’ll fill it. And I wanted it to be real because it is intense. It it is.

[00:33:25] It is hard. It’s painful, sadly, that’s life.

[00:33:29] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s be a hard thing to write about you know, to relive those things and, and put it in such intimate details and, and things. I, and I, I understand it’s a, you know, fictional story, but still there’s some. Grounding in, in the truth and reality with, with some of that as well.

[00:33:47] And, and so reliving some of that is gotta be difficult, but you know, sometimes processing it in in that way can help you get, get past it and get through it. And [00:34:00] so, you know, writing. Has like a, a strange effect that I, I found anyways in, in my own know therapy and, and sessions that I’ve gone through where when I start writing things I. Obviously you can’t write as fast as you think, and, and so it forces your brain to kind of slow down and process some of that stuff a little bit, a little bit more than you normally would if you’re, you know, even just in this conversation here, if you were to describe all that to me, know, it, it would be a lot quicker than if you were to take a, you know, pen and pen paper and, and just start writing it all down. You know, it would, it would take you longer. And so of course you’re gonna process it a little bit slower and it’ll, it’ll. Get more in depth in, in that processing. So, you know, it, it’s definitely not easy. I know I, I’ve written a book myself and you know, mine, mine was nonfiction, but the the, the parts of the story that, that were the hardest to write were the ones that had the biggest impact on me.

[00:34:53] And, and they, they, took me a while

[00:34:56] to, to write those,

[00:34:56] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah. ‘

[00:34:57] Scott DeLuzio: cause I, I had to stop and take lots of breaks [00:35:00] because it, it was some, and sometimes it was just overwhelming and

[00:35:03] you know, But

[00:35:03] Brendan T. Kelly: Absolutely.

[00:35:04] Scott DeLuzio: But processing it is necessary too. You can’t just, you know, box it up and shove it in the corner of, of your mind and never think about it again.

[00:35:13] ’cause it’s going to creep out. That box is not, is not sealed tight, and it’s, it’s gonna creep out and it’s gonna come out in ways that you maybe don’t expect. And so you kinda have to deal with it and, and learn to, handle those situations, you know? You know, so again actually, I don’t, I’m not sure if we mentioned the name of your book.

[00:35:31] The the book, the, the Echo

[00:35:32] of Silence is the,

[00:35:33] Brendan T. Kelly: Yes.

[00:35:34] Scott DeLuzio: of the book. Right. So for folks who read the book you know, veterans especially, you know, given the, the audience of this show what do you hope stays with them after they, they finish the book?

[00:35:45] Brendan T. Kelly: Well, you know, first and foremost, I hope they appreciate it for, you know, its honesty, its clarity, and I, I [00:36:00] hope they take, take from it. Whether they’re going through something or know someone that is going through something, that it’s a call to action.

[00:36:09] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:36:10] Brendan T. Kelly: You know, that you know, Hey, I’m gonna pick up the phone and call my friend, you know, it’s been a bit, or I’m gonna speak to someone, know.

[00:36:20] At the end of the book when the story’s over, you know, I include the hotline, the suicide hotline guys in there, and I, I appreciate my editor was on board with this because I want them to, people to know you’re not alone. There’s, there are some, there’s someone to call. So I hope they take that hopefully.

[00:36:44] If needed. It’ll, it’ll give someone the strength just to, you know, get what they went throughout. Even as to it is to someone that may not understand. That’s okay. If they’re willing to listen, that’s powerful. [00:37:00] Just get it out and get that monkey off your shoulders.

[00:37:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So this, this story, this is your, your

[00:37:09] first,

[00:37:10] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:37:10] Scott DeLuzio: book that you’ve written. Correct. Okay. In, in your, your mind, why was this the story that you felt that you needed to tell first and, and, and why, why now? As opposed to, know, 10 years from now, five years ago, you know, whatever the case may be.

[00:37:25] What, kind of gave you that spark and, and drive to get that story out there?

[00:37:32] Brendan T. Kelly: You know, once I realized that I, you know, had a bunch of pieces and I started putting together I think that, you know, can drive me crazy is, when we talk about mental health and, you know. We look in the media, the news, or read about it. Too often they only bring it up if it’s, you know, someone famous that is going through something and then they’ll talk about [00:38:00] it for a week and then it’ll just go away.

[00:38:04] But facts said, the facts are, I mean, we have far too many people, you know, not just veterans. But people dealing with mental health issues, you know, suffering from PTSD from various situations and you know, their voices need to be heard. This isn’t a random thing where we can do a, you know, hey, this week is mental health awareness.

[00:38:33] You know, it is, this is a yearly thing. You know, this has to be a focus for everybody and you know, regardless of someone’s going through, you may think it’s minor, but to them it could be very powerful, very big. I wanted to get it out there, this particular story, and to let people know that, hey, this happens [00:39:00] to a lot of people at various levels.

[00:39:04] And it, it, it needs to be a conversation that is spoken continuously. So here I am.

[00:39:16] Scott DeLuzio: that’s, well, that’s absolutely true. I, I definitely believe that you know, we, we, for too long have just kind of. Made mental health related issues, taboo subjects, and, and we never really wanted to talk about it. Or someone did go and talk to a, a therapist or, or whatever the case may be. They were kind of looked at as like, oh my gosh, stay away from that person because that, that person might be a little crazy or whatever.

[00:39:40] And like, that was kind of the, the mindset like growing up like you would. Hear about that even on, you know, television shows and things like that. Someone’s talking to a counselor. They, they get these funny looks like, well, it, it’s really not that, that strange. Like it’s probably pretty, normal to, to have these sort of feelings and, and emotions and sometimes just know what to do with it [00:40:00] because maybe it’s a new thing to you and, and maybe even if it’s not a new thing, it’s been around, you just haven’t dealt with it in a, a great way and you don’t know how to handle it.

[00:40:07] So, just like anything else in life, I mean, you were a teacher, you know, those kids walking into the classroom didn’t know the stuff that you were teaching them. And if they did, they wouldn’t be in that classroom. They’d be in some other classroom and you know, so you know, you’re sitting there teaching them. are taking something away from that because you, you’re able to impart some sort of knowledge given the, the context of the class and all that kinda stuff. Just like, you know, a therapist or a counselor should be able to do that type of thing for, for anyone of their

[00:40:37] patients as well,

[00:40:38] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:40:38] Scott DeLuzio: they come in and you know, Hey, I have this situation that I’m dealing with.

[00:40:42] I just don’t know how to deal with it and, and help me out with this. And, you know, they should be able to, to. Help you figure that out. You know, they’re not necessarily gonna say this is the exact right answer and you have to do it this way because, you know, everybody’s a little bit different. But they’ll, they’ll give you the tools, the resources, and, and help you help yourself [00:41:00] in, in that way.

[00:41:00] So, you know, I, I think that that’s important the way you, you described that, you know, that that’s. know, why this was the story that you needed to tell and, and why, why it came out this way. So, anything else before we wrap up here? Like where, where can people go to get a copy of the book or to learn more about you and all that kind

[00:41:17] of stuff?

[00:41:17] I.

[00:41:18] Brendan T. Kelly: Yeah,

[00:41:20] the the book, the Echo of Silence, you know, we’re. Now looking at a a may release so it’ll be out very soon. You, you can do pre-orders. It’s available on my website at triple dub brendan t kelly.com. You know, you can find me on Instagram by the same name you know, it’s to buy my book or you just wanna say hello and you, you know, let me know your battles.

[00:41:50] You’re not alone. I’ll do my best to respond. You know, knock on wood, I’m pretty good at it yeah.

[00:41:58] Scott DeLuzio: Well, ex excellent. [00:42:00] And you know, again, for the listeners the, the, the book, the Echo of Silence, I will have a link to the book and you know, Brendan’s website and all that in the show notes, so you can check that out. You know, when, when this episode comes out here, you, you’ll be able to grab you know, hopefully grab a copy of the book and, and learn more about you know, his story and, and all the.

[00:42:19] The things that, that kind of go into it there through, through the website. Brendan, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing your, your your background, your, your thoughts, your insights on, on mental health related things, transition out of the military, all these types of things. So I really do appreciate you coming on.

[00:42:33] Thanks for your your, your willingness to be open and sharing, you know, with, with stuff, with this type of stuff. And you know, again, for the listeners check those links out in the show notes and and we’ll, we’ll catch you next time.

[00:42:46] Brendan T. Kelly: Thank you. Thank you everybody.

[00:42:48] Scott DeLuzio: Thank you.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Coming home does not always mean that you feel safe. Sometimes it means you keep your back to the wall, scan every exit and carry a weight so deep that you stop talking to the people that you even love most. There is a way forward though, and it starts by naming what has been eating at you. Our guest today, Larry Brant, helps unpack the difference between PTSD and moral injury, why guilt and shame can drive veterans into silence, and how faith, honest conversations and the right kind of group support can start restoring trust at home in your own head and in your relationship with God.

[00:00:36] You’ll walk away from this episode with language for what you may be carrying and a clear sense of where your healing can begin. Um, but before we get into this episode, I do want to take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s deeply important to our community. The Global War On Terrorism Memorial Foundation.

[00:00:55] This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the [00:01:00] service members of families and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial will be both a tribute to those who’ve served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

[00:01:12] If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOTmemorialfoundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:19]

[00:01:32] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Larry, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:01:36] Larry Brant: I am stoked

[00:01:37] to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

[00:01:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And uh, like I I said before we started recording, I’ve been looking forward to our conversation, so I, I, I think it’s gonna be a pretty great episode here for, for the listeners. So, um, we get into the meat of the conversation though, could you maybe just start by introducing yourself, telling a little bit about yourself, and, and who you are?

[00:01:55] Larry Brant: Sure. Uh, I’m Dr. Larry Brandt, which is still kind of weird to [00:02:00] say ’cause I just got the doctorate in May. Uh, so it feels a strange still

[00:02:05] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:02:05] Larry Brant: Uh, I’m currently an active duty Navy chaplain. I’ll be leaving the Navy this summer 17 years of active duty And, uh, before that I 25 years associate pastor in, uh, various Baptist churches. I was actually the music pastor and so I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree music, uh, and um. Worship in churches for 25 years and also did youth ministry, educational ministry, then in the last church I was in, which was in Lincoln, Nebraska um, I had some, uh, police and firefighters in the congregation approach me about doing chaplaincy for the city. went to my senior and I said, do you mind if I do this? And he said, no, absolutely not. Please, please do. And it was a great experience for eight years. And over that [00:03:00] time uh, God blessed and I eventually led the ministry for the city and had about, uh, 25 volunteer police and from across, uh, various denominations there in Lincoln, and it was a great experience. And during that, uh, I went a. Uh, chaplaincy training led by my denomination, and there, God’s calling to be a Navy chaplain. kind of like at Moses, at the burning bush, I tried to tell God how wrong he was in that. And I thought I had, you know, three great arguments there. You know, the first argument was, you know, uh, I was already too old. I was already past the cutoff. Next session they talked about these things called age waivers. And then, um, I said, well, I don’t have the right degree, because I had a master’s of church music And a master of leadership, they talked brand new things called online accredited seminaries. [00:04:00] I really thought I had ’em at the third one and I said, God, I’m a big boy. At that point in my life, I weighed over 300 pounds God said there’s this thing called diet and exercise. Uh. So, uh, I said, okay, God, if that’s what you want me to do, I’ll do it. But I would tell my wife. the idea of sharing that with her terrifies me. she was with me at that conference. And funny enough that very night went back to the Maro, the, the room to talk about stuff. And I’m dreading it. I feel like I’m on the long walk to the gallows uh, getting ready to rock this poor woman’s world.

[00:04:42] And we get to the room and she turns around and says, I think God’s calling you to military chaplaincy. And I was like, wow. He really did

[00:04:49] tell her, you know, we’re just so amazed when we ask big things of

[00:04:53] God and then we’re shocked when he comes through.

[00:04:55] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:04:56] Larry Brant: And, uh, so then that started a year And a half [00:05:00] process where I went back to school. I lost 110 got an age waiver and an I waiver and, uh, came in and a year later was in Helman Province, Afghanistan, with a Marine Corps infantry battalion. Um, and, uh, experiencing

[00:05:22] what it was like to be in war

[00:05:24] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:25] Larry Brant: being there Marines and sailors for that. And then fast forward a few years to uh, 2020 I was accepted into, uh, a Navy program. Uh, for, uh, to be able to work hospital and in order to be able to work in a hospital a chaplain, you have to have what’s uh, clinical pastoral education. So the Navy has a program for that on the east and the West Coast, and it’s partnered with the Veteran Affairs. And so I would, I would go to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and for the [00:06:00] first six months I did a residency at Naval Hospital San Diego uh, which was during the height of COVID and I was the ICU chaplain. Uh, I saw more death there than I actually saw in ’cause we were, we were, losing at least one person day

[00:06:17] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:18] Larry Brant: and trying to comfort, uh, the families and, but then also trying to comfort the healthcare workers. ’cause they were

[00:06:25] just absolutely demoralized

[00:06:27] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:06:28] Larry Brant: time. ’cause they, they were. Horrified that they, they felt so helpless. And then during the second six months, I did a residency with the VA Medical Center there in San Diego, and they placed me in what was called A-P-T-S-D Domiciliary. And, uh, the name of this place is called the Aspire Center. And um, if anybody from the VA is listening, please, please, please in other cities. Um, because did was they took homeless [00:07:00] vets off the streets of San Diego, who were diagnosed with PTSD, they would house them for six months uh, help them to get clean, their PTSD and moral injury and other issues to help them stay clean. would help them find housing and a job so that

[00:07:18] they didn’t go back out on the streets and they had an

[00:07:21] 85% success rate.

[00:07:24] Scott DeLuzio: Well, okay.

[00:07:25] Larry Brant: It’s just an amazing program. The staff there is just so dedicated to these residents while they’re there. And uh, really enjoyed about being the chaplain there, uh, or the chaplain resident there, ’cause they have a full-time chaplain. There had an equal seat at the table. The just wasn’t a nice person who would comfort people and say nice things and pray occasionally. The chaplain had a seat at the table and had a part of the plan for addressing how the resident was, the issues [00:08:00] the resident had was going to be addressed during the six months that they had ’em. And that was just wonderful and working with their PTSD and the moral injury. And so then when I graduated from that and went to my follow-on tour, you know, there’s always a payback for school. Uh, we came out here to the beautiful desert Oasis of 29 Palms California, smack in the middle of Uh, but uh, as I came to the Naval Hospital here, I went to my leadership and I said, for these?

[00:08:35] folks to be on the streets of San Diego

[00:08:38] before we really try to address this.

[00:08:40] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:08:41] Larry Brant: I know that we have very hardworking health uh, mental healthcare workers that are trying to address PTSD and hopefully moral injury as well. why can’t we compliment that something that would just reinforce what they’re

[00:08:57] getting and especially [00:09:00] addressing it from the spiritual

[00:09:01] le from the spiritual realm.

[00:09:03] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:09:04] Larry Brant: uh, so my, uh, my leadership totally bought, bought off on it. Uh, I took a program that was developed by psychiatrist and VA chaplain tweaked it for active we started doing it here and started seeing incredible results and just so excited over that. um, that. led me to, think about PTSD And, moral injury and the, chaplain, the average pastor outside of the gates of a military base, how much do they really know? Uh, and in talking with my pastors, uh, that I’ve had during my time in the Navy, if I mention quite frankly, a lot of the times they would be able to give me decent, a pretty decent definition. PTSD is fear-based trauma. It happens to you, it, it breaks you down [00:10:00] emotionally where you are paranoid.

[00:10:02] You are uh, know, concerned of for your safety at all times. You’re hypervigilant. know because thanks to that first deployment, Um, and uh, then also, but then I would say, so let’s talk it would be like a deer in headlights.

[00:10:22] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:10:24] Larry Brant: But then when I explained moral injury, is, you know, you’ve got PTSD as fear-based trauma. Moral injury is about when we choose to do something or sometimes are ordered to do something by those in authority over us, or we may decide we’re not going to get involved. And the end result in any one of those just completely goes against everything we believe in morally, and especially spiritually.

[00:10:56] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:10:57] Larry Brant: That it just breaks us down. It [00:11:00] eats us up with guilt and shame.

[00:11:03] in the words of, of of my folks, it

[00:11:06] fractures your soul.

[00:11:08] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, and that is something that I, I think not enough people are aware of what you just described, what moral injury is, and uh, they may know that something is happening to them from any of those levels. You know, the, the spiritual the, all, all those different levels there. But not being able to necessarily put a label on it and then be able to say, okay, how do we address this?

[00:11:38] And I identify what the problem actually is, and then. Then go from there. Um, obviously, you know, mental health professionals, they’re, they’re aware of what that is and, and they probably can spot it out in, in certain circumstances. But, from an individual standpoint, uh, who, someone who’s dealing with some sort of moral injury, if they’re not what [00:12:00] that actually is, then may not know even the right course of action to take and where, who to go reach out to, and, and, uh, you know, what does that next step look like? and uh, you know, it’s, it’s difficult when you don’t really have a, a roadmap in front I mean, a lot of progress has been made over the last, know, 10, 15 years or so in, in terms of mental health and, uh, not just the availability of it, but even just the, um, the stigma surrounding it and uh, how people address I, I know from my own standpoint, being in 2010 to Afghanistan when I got back home. I didn’t wanna go talk to anybody because I, I felt like that was like the weak thing to do, or like, that was for, that was for the real crazy people and I didn’t need to go do that. And so, you know, that, that type of thing was, was the mentality back then.

[00:12:47] And, and the tide has definitely shifted with all of that now. And I, I think more people are uh, willing and, and able to go and, and talk with people, uh, than they were before. The, the, the [00:13:00] stigma has kind of, uh, I, I, I think over the, the years, which I think is a good thing, you know?

[00:13:05] Larry Brant: I agree. I, I think it’s still there to some

[00:13:07] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:07] Larry Brant: You know, as I work with active duty Marines and

[00:13:10] sailors, there’s still definitely a stigma,

[00:13:12] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:13:13] Larry Brant: but, um. It’s nothing like what it was in 2010. And I know, ’cause I, I was in Afghanistan the first half of 11. And just going from then to now, the, the shift in uh, stigma and, uh, is,

[00:13:33] is, is, huge.

[00:13:35] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:13:36] Larry Brant: have more, you have more commanding officers now saying get

[00:13:40] help.

[00:13:42] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,

[00:13:43] yeah, absolutely. Uh, not only that, but uh, I’ve, I’ve even heard from some who are leading by example and telling their, their troops like, Hey, I’m going to a mental health appointment right now and I’m that, that’s where I’m gonna be for the next hour, or, you know, [00:14:00] whatever the time period is. Letting them know like that, that’s an okay thing to do.

[00:14:04] It’s not like you need to go tiptoe around it and Hide, you know, or anything like that. Like it, it’s a, an okay thing to do and, and they’re, they’re showing uh, that by kind of just leading by example and, and in some cases, you know, maybe whether they really, truly need it in terms of it being a, major issue on their end or uh, maybe they’re just doing it just to show that it’s an okay thing to do.

[00:14:26] Um, you know, whatever the case may be is, uh, I, I think a good thing because that, opens that door to a possibility hey, it’s okay for me to go, um, you my, my captain or my, you know, whoever is, is going and doing it too. So, okay, well cool. Then I, I guess I get to do it and, it it’s not that big of a deal.

[00:14:44] Um, I mean, it is a big deal, but it’s not a, a negative big deal type thing, you know? Um, and so. From your experiences through, you know? all the, the, work that you’ve done, uh, the, the the Aspire Center? Is that what you It was, yeah. [00:15:00] Um, and, and there and, you know, other places through, um, you know, the the types of work that you’ve done.

[00:15:06] Um, things that you’ve seen impacting people, you know, maybe their, from, a faith um, you know, with, with regards to the, the trauma like PTSD or moral stuff like that. How is that, how do you see it anyways affecting people on, on faith or spiritual side?

[00:15:22] Larry Brant: Well, you know, trauma can have a huge effect on a person’s spirituality or faith. Uh, and when moral injury sets in, um, moral injury causes that person and, and. and. trauma, whether it’s PTSD or moral injury, can do it can, it can set in and it can cause that person to just back away from everything.

[00:15:47] They, they will back away from their family. They will back away from their friends. They will back away from their faith uh, where they, they no longer, uh, [00:16:00] the PTSD perspective, they may feel like they no trust their faith,

[00:16:04] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:05] Larry Brant: uh, that their because of what the trauma that has happened to them, uh, from the moral injury perspective. quite frankly, many times because they’re just so full of guilt and shame, afraid that they’re and unforgivable

[00:16:21] because of the actions that they have done.

[00:16:23] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:24] Larry Brant: And, they don’t even feel it like

[00:16:27] they’re even forgivable by God.

[00:16:29] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:16:30] Larry Brant: And um, in many cases that I’ve seen where, where they kind of, uh, back away from everything because feel shattered inside or, or maybe another word might be actually afraid that their corruption could rub off on others.

[00:16:48] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, I, I hadn’t actually thought of it that way. I mean, I, I understand the, um, you know, maybe the unlovable or unforgivable that side of things, but I never [00:17:00] really thought of it from the, you know, my, uh, whatever it is that I did, what, whatever that negative thing is on, on my end, you know, corrupted in, in some way.

[00:17:12] Uh, and, and that’s a interesting way.

[00:17:14] to look at it. Um, obviously. That’s not a true statement, you know, the, the folks who are listening. Like, that’s, that’s not true. You’re not gonna rub, off onto somebody else. You’re not unlovable or unforgivable uh, from any, any of those perspectives. Um, and so how do you help kind of guide people through all of that, uh, to get them to kind of change on, on that end?

[00:17:38] Larry Brant: Well, the, the first thing we do is

[00:17:42] listen. We listen

[00:17:46] and we sit with them in their pain

[00:17:48] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:17:48] Larry Brant: and we don’t try to come up with a quick fix because that’s a quick fix isn’t gonna work. Um, know, usually [00:18:00] what brought them to this point isn’t something that happened very quickly. a period of time, and it may be quite frankly, decades since the event happened or series of events happened. Um, so they need time to really kind of begin thinking about that and processing this in a we do is we listen to their story and we sit with them in their pain. And, we model what it is to be God’s love for them. To, to just have that unconditional love and for them to slowly begin to feel like maybe, maybe I can

[00:18:46] one day be lovable again.

[00:18:48] Maybe I can one

[00:18:50] day be forgiven.

[00:18:52] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:18:53] Larry Brant: and it was, it was interesting. I was teaching, I was teaching a [00:19:00] suicide prevention course, or actually a suicide intervention course uh, the other day. And one of the, uh, staff sergeant actually, as he was modeling using the, uh, program, he made a statement. And I thought, I’m so stealing that for working with the people that I work with, you know, and nothing I do is original.

[00:19:21] We just repackage it well. Um, but he said, know. To the individual as they were doing their role play. And this just popped out of said um, you don’t have to be forgiven right now

[00:19:37] to choose to move forward.

[00:19:38] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:19:40] Larry Brant: thought to myself, that is

[00:19:41] such a true statement.

[00:19:43] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right.

[00:19:44] Larry Brant: Um, and then as, as we listen, as we sit with them, they listen to each other, know, they become a cohort um, of people who

[00:19:58] trust one another through shared [00:20:00] stories.

[00:20:00] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:02] Larry Brant: And then we also, do that we work with them on. We work with them on why there is evil in the world. We work with them on, forgiving

[00:20:11] self and forgiving others even. they feel like they have to forgive God,

[00:20:17] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:20:18] Larry Brant: may seem like a weird

[00:20:19] statement, but getting to the point where, where they’ll even talk to God.

[00:20:24] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:20:25] Larry Brant: We, we do uh, several things that we do with them during the course of time. ’cause this is an eight week course that we use and do, uh, one thing we do is called a two-way prayer log, or two-way prayer, uh, journal. And everybody know, you know, when you go mental health professional, many times they’ll tell you, you need to journal your feelings, journal feelings, journal your feelings, And, and that’s absolutely correct. It’s, there’s a lot of thing about, it’s very helpful to be able to put your feelings down on paper. It’s very cathartic, [00:21:00] but we kind of take it a step further. We said, what we want you to do is we want you to write out your prayer to God. And then after you’ve done that, through it. And then out how you think

[00:21:16] God would answer.

[00:21:20] And that’s the two-way part.

[00:21:21] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:21:22] Larry Brant: the, you know, these folks, through everything they’re experiencing, whether it’s PTSD or moral injury, through everything they’re experiencing, they’ve kind of gotten um, pigeonholed in how they view everything. it’s all about what they’ve done or what has happened it’s very hard for them to kind of get out of themselves and even to look at their situation from, you know, as, as we all say in the

[00:21:52] military, the 20,000 foot view.

[00:21:54] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:21:55] Larry Brant: And so if they begin to look at that prayer [00:22:00] and then begin to look at how would God answer that, it helps them to begin to see things outside of their own perspective. How

[00:22:11] does God begin to view

[00:22:13] me?

[00:22:13] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:14] Larry Brant: the way I think of myself isn’t

[00:22:16] really how God sees me,

[00:22:18] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:22:19] Larry Brant: and they, that begins to open themselves up

[00:22:24] uh, to seeing things for more than one

[00:22:26] perspective.

[00:22:29] Scott DeLuzio: Right. And it, it, at that point, it seems like there’s another possibility other than that one narrow view of yourself, which, you know, we can be our own worst enemy. A a lot of times with the way we think about ourselves, way we beat ourselves up and, and talk to ourselves, that inner monologue that we have.

[00:22:49] And, uh, And when you open yourself up to that possibility that there’s some other way of viewing yourself, without going and asking somebody else, Hey, how do you [00:23:00] think about, you know, what do you think about me? Or, or something that’s maybe kind of a weird question to ask somebody. but, but then you’re, you’re opening it up to that possibility that there’s some other way of, um, of someone looking at you or thinking about you or, or whatever.

[00:23:16] And, um, you know. If there’s version of that, why can’t there be two others or three others and and so And so, um, you know, just because your view of yourself is negative or you know, some bad yourself, doesn’t mean that everybody’s view is, is negative and there might actually be some good there and that you’re just overlooking, right?

[00:23:39] Larry Brant: That completely correct. And then what we’ll do is at the next session we’ll say. Has, has God said anything to you in your two-way prayer journal? And it’s amazing how these guys, and well, not just guys, but

[00:23:56] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:57] Larry Brant: it’s amazing how these folks will open [00:24:00] up and they’ll share passages that they’ve written from the, from the week, then they’ll share, what they thought could be God’s perspective. And then it is just confirmed and reinforced by the other members of the group who, and sometimes they’ll say, yes, I believe that. Yes, I think that’s

[00:24:21] what God would say. Or sometimes they’ll say,

[00:24:25] I needed to hear that too.

[00:24:26] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:24:27] Larry Brant: I, I needed to hear that message myself. it just reinforces that idea of seeing things from a different perspective.

[00:24:37] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:24:38] Larry Brant: thing we’ll do. Is um, you know, the Psalms have, um, a lot of scripture that just has looking at you know, when David messed up, psalm and, you know, uh, you know, and some of those psalms in there you can use, like, one thing we’ll [00:25:00] do is we’ll have, we’ll take Psalm 51 and we’ll tell them to write, to

[00:25:05] rewrite Psalm 51 using things

[00:25:08] that’s happened in their own life.

[00:25:10] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, okay.

[00:25:12] Larry Brant: And then uh, they’ll, and, and we’ll use other psalms as well, but then they’ll bring it that next week and they’ll read it to the group and it’s just amazing the effect that it has on

[00:25:25] everyone in the room.

[00:25:27] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that, that’s interesting way uh, an interesting way to look at it because there are a lot of,

[00:25:32] um, uh, just call it like timeless lessons that, that are incorporated there that you know, somebody else has made. same mistakes that we’ve made and they learned from it, and then they wrote about it and then they, you know, now that’s out there for everybody to, uh, to pick up and read and learn from and, and, uh, you know, in a way that also tells you, Hey, I’m not the only one who’s maybe made a or, or, done something I wasn’t so proud uh, whatever the case may be. And, [00:26:00] you know, how, how did this person deal with it And Yeah,

[00:26:04] Larry Brant: and David’s a perfect of,

[00:26:06] of recovery for moral injury.

[00:26:09] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:26:09] Larry Brant: Look at, I mean, he started out, uh, just think of how he started out you know, being just a kid fighting for God and his king tries to kill him.

[00:26:25] That’ll give you PTSD,

[00:26:26] Scott DeLuzio: I’m sure. Yeah.

[00:26:28] Larry Brant: and then stays honorable through all of that. But then later as he becomes king, he ends up setting up the murder of one of

[00:26:38] his own men in order,

[00:26:42] order to cover up his shame,

[00:26:44] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:45] Larry Brant: of sleeping with the man’s wife and getting her pregnant. And then when he’s confronted with that sin by the prophet, Nathan, David could have been rebellious, [00:27:00] but instead he, he totally, he, he got on his knee, well, actually he laid down on the floor wept, and prayed for God’s forgiveness. And we see him coming back to God. Now, he ma does he make mistakes?

[00:27:21] Absolutely. He does.

[00:27:24] But even

[00:27:24] through all of that, he was

[00:27:26] still called God’s Friend.

[00:27:28] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yeah. And, and if you think about it, like,

[00:27:33] which one of us hasn’t made a mistake at some point or another, like, no, none of us are perfect. Uh, we’ve all made some mistakes, some things that maybe we’re, we’re not proud of and might even be embarrassing or, you know, just things that, you know, happen to people.

[00:27:47] And, and so like, you’re not alone when, when it comes to that. We all have had certain things in our lives somewhere along the line that we made a mistake. We, we screwed up. We, we did the wrong thing, we said [00:28:00] the wrong thing, we went to the wrong place. Whatever it was, we did something wrong. And um, you know, that’s, I think part of being human.

[00:28:07] And, you know, unfortunately, sometimes we beat ourselves up so much that it types of injuries, right? These, these moral injuries, right?

[00:28:15] Larry Brant: And, and we just isolate ourselves.

[00:28:18] But if we can, if we can start. Getting them to share their story to trust. and that’s where I think uh, the church needs to really

[00:28:32] how to do that.

[00:28:33] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:28:34] Larry Brant: ‘ cause if the pastor doesn’t know what moral is, not because they’ve been neglectful, just simply because they haven’t been educated on it,

[00:28:41] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:42] Larry Brant: then what about the people in the

[00:28:44] congregation?

[00:28:46] Scott DeLuzio: Right?

[00:28:46] Larry Brant: And, but if, if we can teach the pastors and then teach the

[00:28:50] churches how to listen to these stories

[00:28:54] without judgment. cause sometimes they’re hard to hear. But if, if [00:29:00] can begin to listen to these stories without

[00:29:02] judgment, then they’re not going to feel

[00:29:05] so much like a

[00:29:06] monster anymore.

[00:29:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, Yeah, that’s true. Um,

[00:29:11] and.

[00:29:12] When you’re, when you’re able to say something and you’re not getting that, look from the, the other person that that’s, you know, sitting across from you, it makes it that much easier to be able to actually have that conversation versus

[00:29:26] uh, you know, someone who is judging you and, and thinking, oh my gosh, this person is a, is a nightmare and this person’s terrible, and all that, that kind of stuff.

[00:29:33] Then, kind of clam up and not wanna share anymore. And that’s a big part of it is being able to get it out and share it and, and everything. And um, part of what you were talking about earlier, and I I imagine this is a big piece of it, is that there, you know, groups of people coming together and, and. through these uh, these kind of classes and, and all this stuff together. Um, but community and, and support of, you know, other people who are maybe going through at the same [00:30:00] time. Um, you know, obviously different or whatever, but they, they might be dealing with some of the same uh, you know, whether it’s moral injury or PTSD or, or may be.

[00:30:08] Um, but healing together in, in terms of a, a community might be, you know, beneficial so long as you’re not sitting there with people who are just sitting there and judging you the whole time, right?

[00:30:19] Larry Brant: Exactly, exactly. If you, if, if the community can come alongside and show care and support, gonna go

[00:30:27] so, so

[00:30:28] far

[00:30:29] in restoring these folks

[00:30:31] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:31] Yeah,

[00:30:34] absolutely. Um, and

[00:30:36] you know, more, more so than just the. Individuals who might be dealing with this on their own, the greater community too. The um, you know, even within, you know, your, your family or your, whatever your social group is, or, uh, maybe it’s at your church, maybe there’s a, you a, church has a, a veteran’s group that gets together and talks about these types of things or, or, or whatever may be.

[00:30:58] Um, it, it’s important to have [00:31:00] those, those folks who are understanding of what’s going on, um, not necessarily understanding it. Like, been there and I know what you’re going through, kind of thing. But understanding it from a conceptual level, kind of what, like talking about so far.

[00:31:12] Um, you know, you don’t have to have gone through it yourself to understand what we’re talking about. I, I don’t think anyways. Right,

[00:31:18] Larry Brant: Well, and that’s by,

[00:31:20] just look at the folks at the va. There are many people at the VA

[00:31:25] have never been in uniform,

[00:31:26] Scott DeLuzio: right.

[00:31:27] Larry Brant: but they have dedicated their lives

[00:31:31] helping those who have been.

[00:31:32] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:33] Larry Brant: And you know, they were at the Aspire Center. And then plus the people that I worked with at the main VA hospital, know, many of them had

[00:31:42] never served, but they were, they

[00:31:47] were giving their all

[00:31:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:31:49] Larry Brant: order to help those who had and and help them. Come back from the trauma that they’ve experienced. And like when I was talking with these pastors from [00:32:00] across the United States in various places where I’ve been stationed, when I explained what moral injury is, single one had,

[00:32:13] oh, I

[00:32:15] know someone that

[00:32:16] that describes perfectly.

[00:32:18] Scott DeLuzio: right. Yeah.

[00:32:21] Larry Brant: and then as we talked about it, they were like, okay, I’ve got a new way to approach this person

[00:32:27] and, and, and,

[00:32:29] not

[00:32:30] just try to

[00:32:32] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right, exactly. Because there, there may not be that um, tool in the toolbox where you can just go and, and turn a few screws and get, get it fixed just right away, you know? And, and like you uh, you, you may not be able to be forgiven right away, but doesn’t mean you can’t start working on it, that, that type mentality.

[00:32:53] But um, I, I know there’s, there’s probably some veterans out there, uh, and, and other folks maybe even who [00:33:00] are going through some of this stuff. or PTSD, that type of thing, uh, that they’re, they’re dealing with, um, but they just don’t know how to communicate it with. Maybe their family members, uh, you know, a spouse or, you know, close loved ones or friend friends even, um, who maybe don’t know really what they’re going through and they, can’t really understand, uh, or, or they, feel like they can’t understand, Um, what are some of the, the better approaches to be able to bring these types of things you don’t feel like you’re necessarily going it alone, you know, at home or, you know, in, in your, your social groups, you know?

[00:33:34] Larry Brant: Yeah, especially, I mean, if

[00:33:36] you’re, you know, if you’re at a church and your church doesn’t

[00:33:39] have a veterans group, start one.

[00:33:41] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:42] Larry Brant: You know, and just, just go out to coffee. Or maybe you’re not a, maybe you’re not a veteran, maybe

[00:33:50] you’re a healthcare worker, you’ve experienced trauma as a healthcare worker.

[00:33:56] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:56] Larry Brant: a group for that uh, because, you [00:34:00] know, the, the VA and Duke University did a study that during COVID healthcare workers experienced more morally injurious events

[00:34:12] the average soldier who experiences combat.

[00:34:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

[00:34:19] Larry Brant: after what I saw at the ICU

[00:34:21] uh, I don’t doubt that at all.

[00:34:24] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:25] Larry Brant: Uh, or, or find a veterans group, find A Uh, also the, the called Building Spiritual Strength. If you’re part of a VA and your VA offer building spiritual strength, the va. Nationally offers building spiritual strength groups online. You can go into the va.gov and just in the search type spiritual strength, and that page for that will pop up.

[00:34:58] And then there are people

[00:34:59] that [00:35:00] you can contact in order to be able

[00:35:02] to get into a group online.

[00:35:04] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:35:05] Excellent. Yeah.

[00:35:06] Larry Brant: be very helpful. And if, if you feel comfortable, go and talk to your pastor just say, pastor,

[00:35:15] this is how I feel. I, I, I

[00:35:17] don’t wanna be looked at like a monster.

[00:35:20] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:20] Larry Brant: This is how I feel. And, and if the pastor’s worth their salt, no fun, no pun intended,

[00:35:31] but uh, you know, then they’re

[00:35:34] not gonna look at you like a monster.

[00:35:36] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:35:37] Larry Brant: They’re gonna, love you with the unconditional love of God.

[00:35:39] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:35:40] And

[00:35:41] you know, I, I know it, it’s hard sometimes when you, you’re bringing this stuff home. Um, you don’t, like you said earlier, you don’t want to, you know, quote unquote, like maybe affect or, or infect your, uh, your with this type of stuff. You don’t, wanna burden them with this type of stuff either.

[00:35:57] But, uh, at some point they’re probably gonna wonder [00:36:00] like, Hey, what’s You What, what’s happening? You know? And.

[00:36:02] Larry Brant: And. at and at some point, hopefully, uh, know, as you’ve begun to walk that path back to restoration, at some point to need to share some

[00:36:14] things with the people

[00:36:15] closest to you,

[00:36:16] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:36:17] Larry Brant: because probably up to this

[00:36:18] point you’ve done some pushing away.

[00:36:21] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:22] Larry Brant: And I can think of uh, more than one person in the group.

[00:36:26] We’ve been, I’m thinking of one man in particular. Um. He, joined our group.

[00:36:32] as a retiree, not active duty, but, ’cause you know, many military bases one of our chaplains uh, uh, he was known as the office Grump.

[00:36:44] You could, I bet you’re picturing somebody

[00:36:46] Scott DeLuzio: I am.

[00:36:47] Larry Brant: He was known as the office group. And one of our chaplains was, was deck plating, which is, you know, a navy term for just visiting the spaces, visiting the office. And the, the [00:37:00] chaplain mentioned to the gentleman, you know, a friend of mine is, is starting this group at the Naval Hospital. this might be something that, that would be good for you. And he, he actually signed up and I did the screening with him. and he came that first night. And, and we weren’t really sure he was gonna come back. Uh, he came, uh, he had the perpetual scowl, or as a friend of mine says, resting mean and you know, uh, and, and you know, but as people share, that first night, we’ll ask ’em what brings ’em in they’ll almost everybody will do a tentative share because they’re

[00:37:48] not sure how everybody else is gonna react.

[00:37:50] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:51] Larry Brant: But then when they, when they realize that the other people in the

[00:37:55] group are not recoiling in terror from them,

[00:37:59] then they [00:38:00] begin to open up more.

[00:38:01] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.

[00:38:02] Larry Brant: And, and then after that initial week, he came back the next week and we give them homework. You know, this isn’t just, you show up for a couple hours and then you don’t think about it.

[00:38:15] The way we give them homework, we give them that two week prayer journal. Every week there’s an assignment that we give them that they have to work on something or read something and then come back, be prepared to talk about it the next week. he took the notebook that we gave him that had the schedule and he took it to his VA counselor and he said, I’ve signed up for this class for the next eight weeks.

[00:38:43] This is what we’re going to be doing. And I don’t know the name of this VA counselor. All I can say is she’s brilliant because she adapted her counseling sessions that the

[00:38:57] topic of the sessions reinforced what we were [00:39:00] going to be

[00:39:00] doing in that class that week.

[00:39:02] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, that’s excellent. Yeah.

[00:39:04] Yeah. So they, they kind of work hand in hand as as opposed to just two completely separate. Yeah.

[00:39:09] Larry Brant: one was complimenting. The other,

[00:39:11] Scott DeLuzio: Right,

[00:39:12] Larry Brant: I knew the name of this person. I would say it. I don’t know it. But, but uh, when he came back the next week and, and told us that that’s what he had done first, we were a little shocked. We, we were, really sure he was coming

[00:39:26] Scott DeLuzio: right.

[00:39:27] Larry Brant: But then over the course of the eight weeks, we, we started to see, you know, the dropping of the guard, not the resting mean face was starting to chip away. And then the last, the last week uh, he came in and he said, you know, for 20 years I’ve hidden I did on deployment from my wife, [00:40:00] because I was afraid if I told her. She would

[00:40:06] call me a monster and leave.

[00:40:09] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:40:13] Larry Brant: But then this group has taught me that I’m not a monster. And I’ve decided to tell my wife been going on with me for the last 20 years. And I remember uh, we, know, we got together as a group. We prayed for him as a group. We all, thing as veterans will do. Um, and, but that was the last night.

[00:40:46] So, uh, I saw him a few months later I, I, wasn’t sure I was staring at the same

[00:40:53] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:40:55] Larry Brant: because he had dropped 50 [00:41:00] pounds. He was laughing and smiling and joking with

[00:41:04] people he didn’t even know in the hospital, because at that time I was the hospital chaplain.

[00:41:10] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:11] Larry Brant: so I saw him come down the hallway and, and I called him out and he came up and gave me a hug are you the same person? You know? And, but he, he told me that that night he went home and told his wife, he said, honey, I’ve,

[00:41:31] I, I need to tell you some things. And of course that

[00:41:35] gave her a little fear and trepidation.

[00:41:37] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:41:38] Larry Brant: But then as he began sharing some things, he said she began crying.

[00:41:44] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:45] Larry Brant: And when he was done,

[00:41:47] he was shaking, literally shaking, because

[00:41:50] he, he wasn’t sure what was gonna happen

[00:41:53] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:53] Larry Brant: and she jumped up and hugged him and. Thanked [00:42:00] him for sharing this with

[00:42:02] her, and she said, I’m go, I’m

[00:42:05] so grateful you’re trusting me.

[00:42:08] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:42:08] Larry Brant: grateful. You’re trusting me. I love you.

[00:42:11] And of rejection, she,

[00:42:15] he got unconditional love.

[00:42:17] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:19] Larry Brant: And when he got that unconditional love from his wife and then was able to kind of reconcile with his children, because he’d been keeping them at arm’s length as well,

[00:42:31] then he stopped eating his pain,

[00:42:34] thus the weight dropped off

[00:42:36] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:42:37] Larry Brant: and he stopped holding in all of that grief, angst, guilt, and shame, and started having joy back in his life again.

[00:42:48] His relationship with his faith was renewed and. You know, it was funny that, you know, as the, as that chaplain would deck plate, [00:43:00] some of the folks were saying, did you do to him? He’s a completely different person, and it, it is just amazing to see them when they journeyed down that path of restoration, the joy that they have in their face now. And I see him every couple of months now when we get together for planning for an exercise and, you know, he’s smiling, slapping people on the back, comes up, gives me a hug,

[00:43:29] it’s just a blessing. And, and that’s not

[00:43:32] the only story we have.

[00:43:34] Scott DeLuzio: I’m, I’m sure. And uh, I, I’m glad that you were able to share that, uh, particular story because, um, you know, some folks are, are probably out there, um, thinking that exactly the guy was thinking that you know, they’re gonna think, look at I’m a monster, that I’m, I’m this terrible person and want them to think that of me.

[00:43:51] So I’d rather, you know, keep them at arm’s length so that they don’t think that way of me, or I don’t wanna burden them with this or, or anything like that. But [00:44:00] um, I, I’ve said this before to some other folks that I’ve had on the show. You know, what if you, what if you flip the script and they’re having trouble with whatever they’re, they’re dealing with something uh, you know, maybe the same thing that you’re dealing with and, and put yourself in their shoes.

[00:44:15] And if they didn’t come to you and. Ask for, not even ask for help, but even just tell you what’s going on or something. How would that make you feel? You know, would, would you feel like, oh, they, they feel like they can’t, trust me, that’s not a great feeling. Um, or, you know, they, they feel like they, uh, um, need, need to Hide these things from me.

[00:44:35] Well, that’s not a great feeling either. Right. And, and so all of these things, uh, you know, if you, if you put yourself shoes, you know, think, how would you react or how would you feel if, if they were ones keeping the things from you? And, um, you? know, in a lot of cases, I would imagine that it, it would probably not be so great. And so, you know, why wouldn’t you share it with them? why wouldn’t you wanna open up?

[00:44:57] Larry Brant: Important in your

[00:44:58] life.

[00:44:58] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Right. [00:45:00] And, and obvi, like I understand like from some people’s perspectives, they don’t wanna ruin those, those uh, relationships. And they, they might think that, well, you know, these relationships are gonna be shot if, if I open up and, and this.

[00:45:15] But, you know, those people who, to your point, they, these are the most important relationships that you have. Um, they, they’re gonna want you to get better and, and wanna help you and wanna understand what you’re going So when you’re acting in a particular kind of way, they maybe can wrap their head around it and maybe, maybe help.

[00:45:36] Talk you through it or, or something, you know, along those lines. Um, as opposed to just being completely in the dark and not having any idea why you’re keeping that person away, why you’re acting the way you are or saying the things that Um, you know, if, if you open up and you, you’re sharing it with that person, at least they know.

[00:45:51] And, you know, not that they’re, they need to be, become a counselor overnight or anything but at least they have an idea of what you’re going through and it can kind of [00:46:00] make some sense to them and maybe they can help out in some way too. Right.

[00:46:04] Larry Brant: Yes,

[00:46:05] very much. Because they care. They’re the, they’re, they’re

[00:46:08] some of the most important people in their, in your life. And know, I know that uh, we, we did try to flip the script a little bit on him, and I remember him saying, my wife’s never

[00:46:19] killed anybody.

[00:46:21] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Well, that is,

[00:46:23] Larry Brant: we said, that’s true. I said, but do you think there’s some

[00:46:27] things that she’s done that she would

[00:46:31] feel horrible about telling you?

[00:46:33] Scott DeLuzio: hmm.

[00:46:34] Larry Brant: And he goes,

[00:46:35] yeah, I guess probably. So

[00:46:37] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:46:38] Larry Brant: it just, you know, you know,

[00:46:41] you know, we always,

[00:46:42] we have that phrase, you know, something bad

[00:46:44] happens and we’ll say,

[00:46:45] but did you die?

[00:46:46] Scott DeLuzio: right.

[00:46:48] right.

[00:46:50] Larry Brant: So we’ve tried to put

[00:46:51] things in perspective, but, but some of those in the civilian world

[00:46:55] don’t have that perspective.

[00:46:57] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, and it, it’s hard to get that perspective [00:47:00] without kind of being in there and until you start hearing some of the stories and, and maybe starting to understand a little bit about where they’re, they’re coming from. Um, I know in, in my case, uh, I had written a book about my experience in, in Afghanistan and all of the things that, that we went through.

[00:47:16] And guys that, I served with, they were in that where they didn’t wanna talk to their, their spouses about the um, the stuff that they went through. And they just kind of clammed up. They didn’t really, didn’t wanna talk, uh, you know, about any of it. Um, but then after I wrote the book, some of the, And got a copy of the book and they read it and they, they, they came their husbands and said, I understand what you’re going through.

[00:47:36] Because they were able to read it from, you know, somebody else’s perspective, but they, they were able to understand a little bit more about some of the stuff that they had experienced. And um, you know, they. They were grateful that their, that that book was available, that, that, that story was available to be able to understand that. but had those, those guys opened up and mentioned it earlier, um, you know, it, it might [00:48:00] have saved some heartache or some, some, you know, pain and suffering kind of along the way. And, um, you know, I’m, I’m not saying everyone has to do exactly what I’m saying here. You know, everyone has to do their own thing at the right time but um, you know, the, the longer you wait, the harder it becomes.

[00:48:17] I think, uh, with, with, with opening up and sharing some of this stuff and you, you kind of a routine or a habit of keeping people at that, arm’s length, that becomes unfortunate. It becomes comfortable for you. And, and when you, when you do that, it’s hard to get uncomfortable with it and, and bring them back in.

[00:48:33] Right?

[00:48:34] Larry Brant: Absolutely.

[00:48:35] I mean, I was, I was guilty of that myself.

[00:48:37] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:48:38] Larry Brant: I, I did not talk about my experience in Afghanistan with anyone other than fellow service members. And it, it wasn’t until after I got back from my last deployment that my wife actually confronted me she said,

[00:48:59] I, [00:49:00] I, I want to know.

[00:49:02] And I said, no, you don’t,

[00:49:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:49:05] Larry Brant: And she goes, no, really? I want to know

[00:49:07] were you really in any danger over

[00:49:10] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:11] Larry Brant: And I said, yes, I was. and she said, I, I ask some details? And I said, are you sure? Because some of this may be hard to hear, it’s not, not that I, I didn’t kill anyone or anything, but uh, where my, she, you know, she had experienced my, my, my sense having any safety. Um, we were at a football game once where I flashed, I had a flashback and actually threw her to the covered

[00:49:52] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:54] Larry Brant: Uh, if you’ve ever been to Tampa, the football stadium there in

[00:49:59] Tampa [00:50:00] has a life-size pirate ship.

[00:50:01] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:02] Larry Brant: And a buddy of mine at the time, actually uh, you know, one of my very best friends in the Navy is a rabbi and we were in Afghanistan together, and his brother for a the Buccaneers. so when I got stationed with the Coast Guard, ’cause the Coast Guard uses Navy chaplains in Tampa, he got us preseason tickets. So these tickets were smack in front of the pirate ship. And so we’re sitting there and he and his girlfriend come by and we’re having a very pleasant conversation, not paying attention to the game.

[00:50:39] I did not know that

[00:50:40] when the buck scored,

[00:50:42] they fired the cannons on

[00:50:43] the ship.

[00:50:44] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, I had a feeling that’s where this was going.

[00:50:49] Larry Brant: So, you know, we’re not paying attention, we’re just talking.

[00:50:53] And cannons went off

[00:50:56] behind me and. I was there,

[00:50:58] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:59] Larry Brant: right [00:51:00] back there. it didn’t matter who was next to me. I just, and happened to be my wife. Uh, I him, threw her to the ground, and laid on top of her then

[00:51:14] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:51:15] Larry Brant: Of course, I look up and my friend and his girlfriend are looking at me like, I’ve lost my

[00:51:20] mind. And I just said,

[00:51:25] I flashed back.

[00:51:26] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:51:26] Larry Brant: he had heard his brother talk about his experiences uh, uh, with his battalion in Afghanistan. And he goes,

[00:51:35] okay, Josh talked about this.

[00:51:37] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:38] Larry Brant: then, you know, so, so my wife was like, I

[00:51:41] know something happened,

[00:51:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:51:44] Larry Brant: know, and she had experienced it.

[00:51:46] You know,

[00:51:46] my going to a restaurant and sit, always sitting with my

[00:51:49] back to the wall and looking at all of the exits

[00:51:51] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:52] Larry Brant: And, and so finally. I had told her um, you know, we’d been in a few [00:52:00] firefights and, you know, chaplains don’t have any weapons. was the sort of the Lord in me and my RP keeping me safe, and my RP did save my life.

[00:52:11] He, he uh, moved me out of a, moved me out of the way just as a burst of machine gunfire landed where I was previously standing. And then a little later uh, my marines had discovered a cachet of weapons in some documents. And the interpreter, was saying, chaps, you’re in here. he was reviewing the documents. And I said, what, what are you talking about? in here that if you kill the Marine’s, holy man,

[00:52:42] will demoralize him. Well, truth be told,

[00:52:45] it would just make

[00:52:45] him matter.

[00:52:46] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, you don’t wanna do that’s.

[00:52:52] Larry Brant: Yeah, let’s kicking a hornet. The, the Marines would’ve gone scorched earth after that. Um, and, and I said, oh, [00:53:00] really? And he goes, no, below this you and rps

[00:53:04] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, wow.

[00:53:05] Larry Brant: So someone had gotten close enough to us to see us write down our descriptions and this in here that everybody in the

[00:53:18] area knew who I was and

[00:53:21] to put

[00:53:21] a target on our heads

[00:53:23] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:26] Larry Brant: and

[00:53:27] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. So that, those types of things.

[00:53:29] Larry Brant: that I don’t

[00:53:30] have much of a sense of safety these days.

[00:53:32] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, I, exactly. And that’s, that’s one of the, the things that I, I was gonna say is like, um, you know, while you didn’t physically do the things that some other people did, you know, you you weren’t out there shooting at the people, but those things still happened. You know, the, the things that you just described still happened, and.

[00:53:53] That affects you in, in one way or another. And, you know, it’ll, it’ll affect everybody differently for sure. Um, you know, some [00:54:00] people, you know, that’s, that’s just, hey, that’s just another day out in, in the field or whatever. And, and, and some people, it’s gonna affect lot more. And, and um, there’s no right or wrong way to feel about that.

[00:54:11] There’s, you know, we’re all human and we have different ways of looking at it and different ways of, uh, experiencing those, those types of things. It, it is, it is just what it’s, and, and, that’s, um, it it’s, but something that you have to deal with when. done when, when the dust settles and everything, you have to be able to figure out a way to deal with that.

[00:54:33] And, um, you know, it seems like a lot of these, these programs, a lot of the, the groups And and things that you’re, you’ve been talking about are great ways to be able to work your way through this stuff and communicating with people and, and opening up and talking about it and, and normalizing it in, in a way uh, not, not saying that everybody has to have this, uh, type of experience.

[00:54:54] That that’s not what I mean by normalizing, but normalizing it in terms of saying like, Hey, it’s okay to talk about [00:55:00] this and you’re, you’re not You’re not, you know, as a matter of fact, you’re human. You, I might think you’re crazy if you didn’t have any sort of reaction to, to some of these things, right?

[00:55:09] And, and that might be the kind of, the, the way that going forward we start to help more people is, is opening up to that, right?

[00:55:17] Larry Brant: If you think about it, less than 11% of veterans

[00:55:23] get mental health help, and half of

[00:55:28] that number drops off

[00:55:32] shortly after going to sessions.

[00:55:34] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:35] Larry Brant: Um, but if we can get them in some type of supportive group, then they are far more likely to get some complimentary help. And if even better, if you can have spiritual guide as well as, you know, a mental health helper and then the group. That’s [00:56:00] a triple whammy in helping that person

[00:56:02] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:56:03] Larry Brant: to, to come back from, from

[00:56:05] their trauma

[00:56:07] Scott DeLuzio: Right, exactly. And, um, yeah, these, these types of groups are, are all over the place. And I, And I think, uh, they, you know, for the individuals out there who are um, it’s really just a matter of. Taking a look and trying to find what’s area, or even, you know, some online groups, like, like the one that you mentioned earlier.

[00:56:24] The, uh, what is it? The building, uh, spiritual strength, uh, group that, that’s available online as well.

[00:56:29] Larry Brant: lost another, uh, launched another program called that is, that is similar,

[00:56:34] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:56:35] Larry Brant: and that that has been helping. and then, then if you can get in, Uh, for instance, my friend Dr. Carter, check, who is at the Tulsa va, Muskogee, va, sorry, sorry, Carter. but he runs a, a ministry called HUN Therapy.

[00:56:56] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:56:56] Larry Brant: basically where, veterans, [00:57:00] and, and just Google hunt therapy, Carter check. and it’s in locations in the country where they go uh, either hunting or fishing or even golf or, um, uh, uh, rough water rafting. And then using that in, in groups of, in to

[00:57:23] begin to rebuild

[00:57:24] resiliency.

[00:57:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. And, and the, the nice thing is there’s so many different ways that you can approach this. You know, like you were just saying, whether it’s, you know, any of those outdoor activities or, or uh, getting together in a group, um, you know, and, and sharing things, talking about things different. There’s so many different ways that, uh, there’s way for everybody to deal with this, uh, this type of stuff in their own way, the, in a way that will them.

[00:57:51] You know, maybe you’re not the out outdoorsy type and you, none of that stuff interests well then let’s put that aside. We’re not gonna worry about that for you, but there might be something [00:58:00] else there. There’s so many different things out there. Um, and, and it’s part of the reason why this show even exists is to.

[00:58:07] Shine a light on those types of things, um, because you only know what, you know, I mean, we’re all familiar with the VA and, and that the VA has, has stuff to offer. Um, but there’s, there’s, stuff out, you know, even outside the VA there’s stuff

[00:58:19] Larry Brant: yes.

[00:58:20] Scott DeLuzio: know, through, there’s, there’s new programs that are being introduced in the VA all the time. and so, you know, just being aware of these things that, that even exist um, is, is sometimes half the battle, because if you don’t even know that they’re there, you’re not gonna go and, and find them necessarily. So, um, So, th this, this is exactly what I, I wanted to try to, uh, you know, get across in, in this episode here too, um, is, is are different approaches and some of them could be uh, you know, faith-based type things and, and some not.

[00:58:49] So, not But, um, you know, they, I think if you just focus on one area your life without. Incorporating the full picture, kind of a more holistic view, [00:59:00] including your, your, your spirituality and faith and, and things. Um, like you might not be getting whole, the whole picture and and, so there might be some other, uh, areas that you need to explore as um, you know, this is, this is a great example of, uh, some of that stuff that, that I’m, I’m talking about

[00:59:16] Larry Brant: Yeah, I

[00:59:17] Scott DeLuzio: you know.

[00:59:18] Larry Brant: agree.

[00:59:18] Scott DeLuzio: Um,

[00:59:19] before we wrap up, I know,

[00:59:20] we’re getting of close on time here. Um, before we wrap up, is there, uh, any other resources or any you, might want to direct the, some of the listeners to, to go, about, you know, maybe any of the stuff that are in particular working on, or or other people that, that you, know of that have been doing great things that you wanna

[00:59:37] Larry Brant: Well, um, as I mentioned my friend Dr. Carter Check, um, he has, he has written some resources on moral injury terrific. Uh, I recently wrote a it came out at the beginning of February. Uh, it’s called Restoring the Broken. so, uh, I’ll make sure that you have that website and my email that you can show notes

[00:59:59] Scott DeLuzio: [01:00:00] Excellent.

[01:00:00] Larry Brant: you can go there you can get it on Kendall or in paperback or hardback. And it, what I did was I just simply to talk about moral injury and very plain language, and especially I wanted to challenge the church to get themselves educated on moral injury. Um, it’s kind of advertised as a book for ministry leaders, but to be truthful, wanted to just put. Uh, moral injury in plain language.

[01:00:30] So, I’ve had, had wives read this. I’ve um, people who don’t even go to church read this, um, and who, who said it really helped them what moral injury is, to

[01:00:45] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[01:00:45] Larry Brant: the one that they’ve been concerned with. I’ve had people with moral injury

[01:00:50] read it and say, makes my life now, makes

[01:00:53] so much sense now. Um, and, and then begin to take steps

[01:00:59] toward that path [01:01:00] of restoration.

[01:01:01] Scott DeLuzio: yeah, absolutely. And, um, will have all the links to all, all the resources that you mentioned, uh, today. I’ll have all those in the show notes uh, to be able to check out. Um, so make it nice and easy for them. Um, but it has been an absolute pleasure, uh, chatting with you today uh, I’m sure the, the have enjoyed this conversation as Um, so thank you so much for coming on the show and thanks for all the work that you do folks who, who are, are struggling and, uh, hopefully they’re, they’re not for much longer.

[01:01:28] Larry Brant: I sure hope so, and thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

Read the full transcript

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: There’s a certain kind of whiplash that shows up after you hang up the uniform. One day you’re running a mission. Uh, you, you have tight bonds with folks that, that you serve with, and the sense that what you do actually matters. And then life throws you a curve ball that you didn’t really train for, and your body reacts like you’re back in it.

Your sleep gets weird, your patience gets thin, and you start pulling away from the people who actually care about you, and you tell yourself you can muscle through it because that’s what you’ve always done. Today’s guest, Ryan McDermott knows that road all too well. Uh, he alleged soldiers as an infantry platoon leader during the Iraq invasion, then stepped into the civilian world and got blindsided by a major career shakeup that stirred up old combat stress.

This conversation will be, uh, talking about. What happens when that pressure drags a past back up to the surface? How writing can become a press pressure release valve and why tying your [00:01:00] identity to a job can set you up for a rough fall. It also gets into the things that still hold true when everything else feels unstable.

The your people around you, family, your purpose, and the decision to get support before the damage spreads. So if you’ve been. Carrying something like this. By yourself, feeling alone. Uh, this episode will be able to hand you some practical, uh, ways to study yourself throughout this process. Uh, but before we get into this episode, I want to take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s important to our community.

The Global War On Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial serves as both a tribute to those who served and as a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

If you’d like to learn more or find out [00:02:00] how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode. I.

[00:02:20] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Ryan, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:02:23] Ryan McDermott: Scott,

thanks for having me on today. Really appreciate

[00:02:25] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, yeah, you bet. Absolutely. Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to this conversation and you know, we’re, we’re here now. So, before we, we jump into the, the conversation for maybe aren’t familiar with you, could you just give us a little quick rundown of, of who you are, your background, that stuff?

[00:02:38] Ryan McDermott: Absolutely. I’m Ryan McDermott. I’m a West Point graduate class of 2000 and I was an Army infantry officer. And served with the infantry Division in 2003 during the invasion of Iraq, Third Infantry Division again post-military. I left the Army in 2006. Went to business school at the University Virginia my first business school [00:03:00] was, Lehman Brothers in 2008.

So I was part of the last associate class of Lehman Brothers. So one month. Into, my job at Lehman Brothers It went bankrupt and my job was in peril, and I eventually lost, uh, my job and was out of Uh, a lot of that triggered my post-traumatic stress disorder, which at the time I didn’t. I mean, it really exacerbated.

I had PTSD looking back and a lot of were evident. But that really put it into a, a very sort of, you know, a lot of extreme symptoms, I think, like, you know, and, and so pain

[00:03:30] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:03:31] Ryan McDermott: and all that. So I lived through that. And later on I’ve worked in national security in, in the defense ecosystem, the Pentagon.

I’ve done a tour, a couple tours in the Pentagon. Executive service member for in charge of industrial policy. I’m also the author of a recently, memoir. It’s, downriver, a Memoir Poet. It’s a story about the combat and and, and everything I’ve just talk about that today. I’m all about you know, the reason why I’m doing, I’ve, I’m I’m doing this and the same reason we Scott or earlier, [00:04:00] is sort of be a conversation amongst veterans and family members as well. Understanding that the har hardest part of war is, you sometimes the aftermath,

Trying to find purpose and all that stuff.

[00:04:09] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. uh, you know, one of the things that you, you touched on you know, kind of that, that job loss And that PTSD coming back in, you know, anyone who has job or even, even just transition careers they, they understand that it can be a very stressful time and.

Stress is one of those things that, that can bring on some of those, those triggers depending on kind of what uh, has gone on with, with that particular individual. So, you know, as, as you’re talking, I, I could imagine some people well, how, how could uh, you know, a job loss or something like that trigger PTSD.

And so I wanted to touch on that real quick just because like any kind of stress, uh, it could relationship stress, it could be job stress it could be, you know, any number of different things that that can. Trigger that And sometimes you even realize that it’s being triggered until like, oh crap, here it is.

And [00:05:00] you know, you’re, now you’re dealing with it. So, So, I just wanted to touch on that real quick before we, we moved on here. But you know, so you were in the third infantry in Iraq and, obviously were impactful to you, good, bad, indifferent, whatever. Like they, there were some, certainly some experiences there that you had.

Tell us a little bit about the, that experience for you and, and how how that went, went for you and, and kind of some of the you know, good or bad, whatever, whatever might have come from that.

[00:05:28] Ryan McDermott: know, my experience in the third of a tree division was one of the fondest, you know. Times of my life. I really enjoy I think everybody that serves in Third Infantry Division, as known as the dog face, you know, the dog face soldiers, the Rock of the Mar every, you know, everybody who serves there is very proud.

So there’s that part. And I had a lot of great soldiers. I was, I was a platoon leader in charge you know, 30 something soldiers for almost a year and a half, was, awesome. And I took them into combat. And so, you know, one of the things, you know. There’s a lot we could talk about during that period of time.

But [00:06:00] the Iraq, one of the, what my career in the Army was the Iraq invasion, the preparation of different training events that we did that culminated with the national Training Center out in California. And we trained for, we, it was weird because we trained for objectives that we were, it was like notional.

It’s like, okay, we’re, here’s a highway. If you go to this way, it’s a swamp. You go this way, it’s a swamp. And we expect the enemy to have a bunch of stuff at the end of it.

And we all died in this notional battle. And, and it was kind of

like, what are we gonna be facing?

[00:06:33] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:06:33] Ryan McDermott: we, you know, so we did that and we got, and eventually we got the call, we went to. We went to Kuwait and we got the plants. And so there’s a lot that I talk about there. ’cause you deal with family separation. And my book goes into this. It’s, not just the combat, it’s the family part, the separation and dealing with all those emotions that every soldier deals with when they’re separating from

family, but then focusing on the mission,

[00:06:56] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:06:56] Ryan McDermott: The book and, and I want to get the. culminating thing [00:07:00] was there was several different objectives that we had to take. My platoon, gonna, we were gonna be responsible for one, was

The bridge over the Euphrates River.

[00:07:08] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:07:09] Ryan McDermott: That’s where the ar, where the Army crossed is called Objective Peach. My was gonna be the one to take, to actually be the first to cross it.

I knew because of the, the way the operations orders came down, we were, we also were tasked to be among the first to take the airport and and, and so. The bridge fight is a centerpiece of my experience in the book. it’s a metaphor. The river metaphor throughout, and it also, and it has a literal in that culminating chapter, where, you know, we, were, we basically came upon the bridge.

We had to do, whole bunch of different operations that had to take And then we got, you know, the, the, the Iraqis blew up side of the bridge before we could cross. Fortunately, the other side was trafficable, but the enemy sent over a truck right before. And so we had a to like basically push it out of the way [00:08:00] and, and and clear the far side so that we can continue exploit and move forward that moment. And I go through the anticipation of weeks really. and then the

execution of it seconds. And the aftermath a way, because you deal in combat. we were adrenaline for three days, you know, three days straight, weeks of sort of, you know, and that’s kind of what it is. It’s like, wait, wait, wait. Intense battle, boom, you know, wait, you know, you sort of refit. the, the assault into Baghdad from around March 31st, I can’t remember to April 3rd, was basically a nonstop sequential operation. And and so anyway, I’ll

pause there. There’s a lot we could talk about with the book.

[00:08:47] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:08:48] Ryan McDermott: a lot of the writing was contemporaneous so this is not me just writing this from memory.

This stuff was written years and years ago. Same all the way through the Lehman [00:09:00] collapse, who, Scott’s where the bookend is,

I’ve basically spent 15 years

refining it. So.

[00:09:07] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And one of the things that you, you were talking about just a, was the the anticipation building up to whatever the operation is. And I remember that type of anticipation when it’s like there’s a big unknown going on, like. We can, you can make the best plan in the world and you can plan for all the contingencies, but there’s gonna, there’s gonna be something that you just didn’t think of and you know it’s gonna happen and there’s gonna, something comes outta the left field or whatever, and, and you’re, you’re anticipating that and it’s, and it’s like that ball of knots in your stomach or whatever, it just, just like that, that feeling that you have just before you get into it.

But once when you’re. It’s the adrenaline that carries you through and, and it’s, you’re riding that, that high of that adrenaline going, going throughout. And then you said there was a

[00:10:00] Like three or four days, uh, that you’re leading up to, you know, going into Baghdad you know, pretty much nonstop.

And for anyone been in any sort of firefight, like five minutes is too long for, for, so that, and then, then you, you end up with day after day after day, you know, pretty much continuous. That’s, that’s a lot. And, um. You know, having having that type kind of experience, um, on top of all prior to it, it, it probably changes you, in, some ways that at the time you may not realize, but then afterwards, you, you talked about.

You know, losing your job and, and other things where maybe there was, and this is me, I’m not a psychologist or anything like that, so this is just me being another grunt. Just trying to think through, you know, what was going on. Maybe. But, you know, at, at some point you had probably some safety and security in your life as far as your job and, and all that goes.

And then that gets taken away and then it’s like, oh crap, where’s that, where’s that safety blanket that I, I had at one point and, and now it’s gone. [00:11:00] And. And that might just be, you know, a bit of a panic inducing moment and, and that that could, you know, really mess with some people. So, get all of this stuff, like it’s pieces are starting to fit together now as, as far as I’m, as I’m listening to your story here, and it, it’s, it’s interesting hearing it from

uh, you know, one person’s point of view and, um, and, and to your point, you know, this was the story that you wrote is not just a from memory type of thing.

This is something that. been written years ago and refined over, over the course of time. And I know when, when I wrote my book that it was very similar to that. I, I started off with just notes years ago and then eventually I turned it into something that, became a book. But, you know, I, I, I know, you know, things like, as far as you, you were concerned, things that you were talking about as far as challenges of, and you know, maybe even, you know, career issues and, and stuff like, that you know, that’s something that. A lot of veterans deal with, for, for you, what were some of the things that, that helped in that. transition period? Getting outta the military, getting into the corporate and I [00:12:00] know there was some school probably involved there and, and all that kinda stuff, but you know, what helped you in that transition and, uh, what, what helped you as, as you were making of that

[00:12:10] Ryan McDermott: Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, and one thing, thought about this ’cause there’s a lot of things I didn’t, I did, wrong, but it was like I, I wasn’t doing right. We didn’t maybe have, we didn’t really have the tools. So if you think about it, I got out in 2006 and if you, if you kind of lay out the, the map of It’s kind of an early wa a relatively early wave of combat veterans from the g global war on terror, especially from Iraq, right. going out into the, sort of back into society and going to business school. So there weren’t a lot of combat veterans that were out in the corporate world at this point.

Not, not, I mean, you think about it now. We’ve had 20 years of combat veterans kind of coming out. When I, when I first. Went to business school. We were kind of, I the first wave

[00:12:58] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:12:59] Ryan McDermott: to go there. [00:13:00] Maybe a couple, maybe one or two years because of, of when you

can go but the thing is, is I think connectivity to other veterans, right?

And

[00:13:08] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:13:09] Ryan McDermott: And

and, and, I, there’s a couple in my class in particular at Darden, the University of Virginia. One is Eric Truing. on to be a, a very successful, he’s a very successful, uh, aerospace and defense executive. very good friend of you know, know, in terms of just being, you know, sort of being there if I’ve ever, you sort of, whatever is going on. And, he’s, and, and Chris X there’s another army guy. So the army veterans that to business school with right. Were great. And then there was some civilians, I think. Well, what I found challenging though was I was wanting to kind of tell my story back then, and I had PTs.

I mean, it was clear I had looking back like. I, I was adjusting adjustment issues and so forth, and I think a little bit of the civil, the little bit of a

divide there. I went to Wall Street,

I lost all the [00:14:00] connection

[00:14:00] Scott DeLuzio: Mm.

[00:14:01] Ryan McDermott: veteran, the combat veterans, all of them, you know, we all went to different loca, everything different.

The guys who were veterans in the banks, right? They were all

people who. They didn’t serve in, in

combat except some of the Vietnam era guys.

[00:14:15] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:14:16] Ryan McDermott: when I was at Barclays, one of the guys, one of the older bankers was a guy named, he was actually a descendant of Ted Roosevelt to, I think it was Ted Roosevelt iv. And Ted was a, actually a very, is a very, and I. checked in with him in years, but he’s a very strong advocate for veterans at, at that firm, at that time. And he was great. He, we, we had lunch in a couple times so, you know. The one thing for veterans, I mean, it’s, and now what’s really is helpful is really, you know, there’s a of time where I connected, reconnected with all my veterans, the guys I serve with on Facebook. didn’t really talk about like things like issues that we were having until, you know, even when I, you know, I [00:15:00] met my driver or, or reconnected with my driver from Iraq. from Iraq was a PFC at the time. I made specialist while I was there. And then, and then we, you know, we went, we went, our se I went my step a different way, and then years later I, I found out like he w he had you know, blown up by an IED and lost three of his limbs. He has a triple amputee Louis Rosa, and we met up in Washington DC after I had hit a lot of cha, I had hit a lot of challenges Seeing him and seeing how optimistic he was. It just was inspiring

[00:15:37] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:38] Ryan McDermott: and that was kind of a moment where I started to realize connecting with my. brothers who I serve with in my infantry unit and just staying in touch and just being like, you know, everyone’s kind of, there’s is is wrestling or something.

One of the, my other fellow platoon leaders, and so this is kind of a, an interesting thing, you know, some people think,

oh, this is just something, you know, [00:16:00] everybody, it doesn’t,

it’s

not, it’s not rank, it doesn’t, it’s

[00:16:03] Scott DeLuzio: right,

[00:16:04] Ryan McDermott: specific thing,

[00:16:06] Scott DeLuzio: right. right. You know, the, the other day I was actually talking to someone, he was. One Star General. When he got out he was. talking about the difficulties that he his transition out of the military and the. Careers that he thought were gonna be available to him and, and just they weren’t.

And so he ended up feeling like he was working his way up from the bottom all over again and reinventing himself and starting over again. In a way he, he was, but it, it was just really interesting to hear that it’s, it’s not just. You know, the lower enlisted or, or any enlisted or, it’s, it’s everybody all the way up to, you know, the, the general officers.

It’s, it, it’s really it, it’s a widespread issue. And, and forget about rank for, for, a minute here. It’s, it’s military period. It, us that have, have to deal with it. And so, part of that [00:17:00] is what you were just talking about is having that connection to. Other veterans, whether they’re people that you in combat or it’s people who, like you, went to school with some of them and, you know, maybe they weren’t necessarily the guys that you served with in combat, but you you made those connections and you had some other connection and bond, that you were able to, you know.

Uh, take away from that as well. the end of the day, having that connection is probably more beneficial than not. Uh, in, in most cases. I’m not. go out and get a battle buddy like that because, you know, some people it’s just not the right thing for ’em. But in, I would imagine in most veterans cases, it’s probably gonna be the right thing.

Now. I wanna get a little bit more into your book. You, you started talking a little bit about it just, just a, a little but again, the, uh, the, the book. Downriver, uh, memoir, memoir of warrior poet, you, you talked about a lot of, a stuff written years ago, and then you kind of refined it over, of uh, of years.

Was that kind of like a therapeutic process for you over, over that time period or, or [00:18:00] was it something like force yourself to do? Or, or maybe both.

[00:18:04] Ryan McDermott: Maybe Bo? Well, maybe both, but there was a part, it was one, I mean, there was multiple aspects. One, just documenting what. What had been done, but then as I was doing it, it became a very therapeutic thing, right? I had, I mean, I was having nightmares about, you know, like different scenarios and, and, and so forth getting blown up and you know, various types of, of things going on. and so writing was definitely a way of therapy. And I mean, I, there’s more science. I’m not a, I’m not a psychologist or anything like this, but I think there’s an aspect of like replaying something enough where it becomes kind of like. You’re able to kind of, I don’t know if it’s disconnection, but you’re able to kind of rationalize it where, in a way where it doesn’t have the same impact on you, you get calmer Those, whatever those triggers, I mean the you know, the things that

kind of trigger the anxiety,

[00:18:53] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:18:54] Ryan McDermott: It’s, it was a therapeutic process. So the, kind of summarize like the, the writing process is actually, I [00:19:00] think, kind of interesting is

[00:19:01] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

[00:19:01] Ryan McDermott: you know, when I was at West Point. I began writing a journal, and the journal that I wrote was actually became a cathartic process dealing with my high school senior year. my high school senior year, my parents divorced. We lost our I basically became homeless. My mother. Dealt with her a very difficult, crisis of her own. She ended up hospitalized in that process I of my best friends

[00:19:32] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, okay.

[00:19:32] Ryan McDermott: to finish out high school. And my family kind of structure foundation broke apart. I didn’t have a structure, so when I was at West Point, my family’s friend’s, family was. Was family. They provided that support and security and I wrote, so I began to write.

Based on that, I began to explore my spirituality and I became, you know, I went, became Catholic largely because of the family was Catholic and they [00:20:00] took me to, you know, we did church every Sunday. fast forward I didn’t really write that much after, you know, I wrote a little bit after West Point, but there was a gap. I go to combat. I basically go to war. And I get back, and when I get back, I start processing. I start writing again, and I write, write, write. then and then I did my last assignment. I did rear detachment, did more writing, and then I realized in real time I was like, we were experiencing things, losing as traumatic when

[00:20:28] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:20:28] Ryan McDermott: with, when you’re with families. We just had the anniversary of two soldiers, that, two troopers that were in our squadron, Minsu Choi and Landon Giles. I will never forget their names. I mean, these are, these are heroes that gave our, gave their lives for our country. And and so I was

[00:20:46] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:20:47] Ryan McDermott: stuff in real time at that point. When I went to business school, I stopped writing for a bit like it was. But then I started experimenting. I had some courses where I was able to write like a screenplay I wrote and I used [00:21:00] a lot in reflections and for leadership courses. And what ended up happening is I started to cobble together of things into almost a manuscript, very raw. And but then, you know, life happens And I’ve gotta go get a job, work on Wall Street, so that, that it sits on the back And then I go to lo then the whole Lehman Brothers experience happens. I lose my job. I’m outta work. I, I’m trying to fi figure out what I’m gonna do, and I start writing. start writing every chapter, like writing, you know, really structuring, and I poured myself into it. It was a way of just coping with that stress at that moment. And I pulled together every single chapter, and this was in 2008. And then I, I eventually got a job, another job. I landed somewhere. But, you know, I I, and this, you know, there’s some circumstances there, you know, but didn’t work out.

And I ended up having [00:22:00] to move, move careers into move out of banking. Banking was a, a, a lot of and it weighed on my that’s, that’s all in the book.

[00:22:08] Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Sure.

[00:22:09] Ryan McDermott: And then, and then what happened is I kind of wrote that, that what ended up happening is the, the, the manuscript I had in January, February of, of 2009

basically covered per

5% of what is now the book.

[00:22:25] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:22:25] Ryan McDermott: There is a prologue a prologue or inter or an introduction, and then there’s an afterward that

capture things, other things.

[00:22:35] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:22:36] Ryan McDermott: so it just iterated, iterated, countless times. And anyway, it’s very mundane. I apologize for going into all the detail, but that process of iterating and iterating and, and a, a creative thing. Help me take it from to

something where I feel

like it’s enriching. And that’s the point of the book.

[00:22:55] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:56] Ryan McDermott: the point of your story too. I would imagine, I, I’m not familiar with your [00:23:00] book, but we, you, the warrior poet thinks more introspectively deeply about things, and that’s a, the meaning of things. And so taking that and

creating something out of it that others can understand, I think is, is a, is a

very powerful thing.

[00:23:18] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, absolutely. And, and writing it in a way that other people can understand. People who hadn’t experienced what you experienced, whether they had served in combat or not. You know, I’ve served in combat. You served in combat, but I wasn’t where you were, so I can’t. Experience the same things that you experienced. you have to be able to describe it to me in a way that I’ll be able to understand what it was that you experienced, that the things that you saw, the things that you smelled, the things that you did, the, all the, all the stuff that went on. I don’t know. ’cause I wasn’t there. I, I could probably imagine some of it.

I, I probably could imagine some of it better than maybe someone who’d never served ever. I, don’t know for sure. And so, um, you know [00:24:00] anybody who’s gonna pick up that book, you don’t know who it’s gonna be. You don’t know if it’s with zero military experience whatsoever, or someone who has experience.

And it, it could be any of those people or anyone in between. And, you know, they, they still have to be able to take away something from that, that same story,

[00:24:17] Ryan McDermott: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:18] Scott DeLuzio: know? And you know, it feels like that is.

[00:24:22] Ryan McDermott: Yeah.

[00:24:23] Scott DeLuzio: It, that’s a hard thing to do in and of itself. But, one of the things that you were talking about is how you know, the, the people who are are writing these, these types of things are, you and, and things. And one of the things that I in writing is that I could tell you a story right now verbally, and I, I can, you know, get the words out and I, I can talk and talk and talk. And. I can talk almost at the speed of my thoughts. And so, um, I don’t give my thoughts much time to catch up or, or anything like that.

And so when I’m, when I’m writing though, whether it’s pen or even [00:25:00] typing it takes a lot longer to write than it does to speak. And so.

You have no other choice than to let your mind kind of wander for a little bit. And it’s still stuck on whatever it is that you’re writing about because you don’t wanna go too far off the, off the tracks there.

And so you get a little bit deeper when you’re writing of, of, you know, thinking about those types of things. At least that, that’s been my experience anyways. And some other. Folks I’ve talked to as well. And, and you, you start to process things differently than you would if you just talked about it.

So I know a lot of people go to therapy, you know, myself included, and go to like, you know, talk therapy and that, that type of thing. And it, it wasn’t until I, I actually started writing about the events that, that took place, that that things processed a little bit differently. And it, I’m not saying it’s, you know, a hundred percent.

Better or anything like that. It’s just different and, and you start to remember certain details that maybe you might’ve forgotten about or, you know, other things might pop back into your head and like, oh [00:26:00] yeah, man, I forgot all about that. And you know, just the way you write it might, might just be you know, a way to get yourself into you know, a little, little deeper in journey. um, and it’s, to me, anyways, pretty interesting. And so, As you were writing, you know, did kind of find that yourself like that, that some of that was, coming up?

[00:26:18] Ryan McDermott: you’re, you’re spot on and you’re triggering a lot of thoughts about, about the writing process. So when you know there’s, when you’re talking, you don’t necess. So for me, when I tell a story cold.

I don’t know what logical gaps I’m

leaving for the person who’s li listening to

it.

[00:26:36] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:26:37] Ryan McDermott: ‘ cause I’m not, I ha I’m automatically

filling in the gaps in my own mind.

[00:26:41] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:26:42] Ryan McDermott: And so it’s hard, you know, this is the hard thing, especially if it’s a really intense experience and you’re reliving it, you know, as you’re telling the story, there’s a lot of things you’re trying, you’re seeing in your mind and you’re trying to translate that.

Now, I don’t think, I don’t know if. I’m actually probably better at

writing my thoughts and speaking my thoughts.

So [00:27:00] one of the things in my writing process, if you take a look, and I still have old manuscripts, the first man, the first, what happens is, like, I was writing for myself when I first started, just for myself, and it’s like a, it’s like a guidepost that kind of, it’s like, oh, okay.

But I’m filling in automatically. So if a person tried to read my early writing. They’re like, I don’t really understand this. Like, here’s a question I have, I have, you know, what did it, what did it look like there?

Oh yeah. Let me, let me describe that now,

[00:27:28] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:27:29] Ryan McDermott: already got that picture in my mind.

[00:27:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:27:31] Ryan McDermott: So when you, when you write, I think what’s, and this is something for veterans, if you’re, if they’re interested in writing, I, I highly recommend this process of just right to write, step

back for time, as long as you need. Leave it on the shelf, back to it, look at it. Figure out if there’s an arc that’s like, I mean this was something later on I did, was to kind of really structure it and say, well, here’s the actual arc.

I wrote everything down. It [00:28:00] doesn’t make sense if you put everything into a story, you’ve gotta kind of trim it down to only the things that advance the plot of what you’re trying

to capture in your story arc.

[00:28:10] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:28:11] Ryan McDermott: And that’s but everything you were just hitting upon. You know about, you know, the process and thinking more deeply It’s, I started adding like dialogue along the way, describing the scene, setting that up. What are the smells? ’cause I didn’t do that in the

first iterations of my, of my manuscript. It was, was

pretty basic.

[00:28:33] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely.

And Yeah, and those things start to come back to you as, as you’re, you’re writing, I, I found anyways is you start to remember some of those and, um, you know.

Good or bad, I don’t know. You know, depending on the situation, but it, but it does help you kind of, I, I think anyways, process some of the, stuff that you’ve, you’ve gone through.

Now, I, I want to kind of jump around a little bit here and uh, kind of go back to that time. Back [00:29:00] in 2008 when you, uh, lost your job and you noticed some of the, the PTSD symptoms, uh. Maybe intensifying, for lack of better words at point. What was it for you that you yourself during that time? You know, a lot of people struggle even know where to turn or what to do. And may, maybe that was you as well at that point, but, what what did you end up doing And what did you find that that was the most helpful for you at that point,

[00:29:25] Ryan McDermott: Well, it took to be with you Scott, I, I wasn’t coping well

back then, but I think it’s important to talk about that. It,

[00:29:32] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:29:32] Ryan McDermott: so happened is, so 2007, it’s good to talk about the story. So

[00:29:36] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:37] Ryan McDermott: I did an internship at Lehman Brothers, and anybody around that time knew that that was a height of the market.

Everything’s going great. I, I want, I don’t know if the iPhone came out that summer or not, but I, I remember that it was like an interesting, it was a kind of a transition year where like a lot of great things were starting to happen, but there were little signs. Bear Stearns had a fund blow up. There was some, is like, there was [00:30:00] some issues in the sort of investment like subprime mortgages starting to show, didn’t ripple through the banks yet. So I go business school after my internship, I get a job offer. I accept it. And it comes with a lot, a, a lot of money. So I accepted the job offer, got the money, and that helped me pay for my school, pay basic living, living expenses. During my second year of business school, I didn’t have a choice I had to go to, so Lehman Brothers is going bankrupt.

I have a job there. I moved to New York City with my family. We start in August. It’s, I can’t control. So I think one of the

things that’s I’ve learned now that I think I was doing then, this was something

I was doing, was like focusing only on what I could

[00:30:41] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:42] Ryan McDermott: Things I can’t control, focusing on things I could control, which is to pass my tests that I had to pass.

Accounting exams, different certifications. Those were things I could control. In order to keep my job because it was, they were basically laying people off or whatever. If you failed at [00:31:00] your accounting exam, you were, you were out failed, you failed the certification exam, you were, you were fired,

or you, you know, they let you go.

[00:31:08] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:31:09] Ryan McDermott: so the coping mechanism, I mean, I think. Making sure you’re getting good sleep. what happened is once, once down and, and it looked like, okay, ’cause what, what I had to do was rotate through different groups. so you don’t really have like a spot. And what was kind of clear is that the bank was going to reduce the number of spots that the new associate class was gonna fill.

So they hired for like a booming economy, 2000 eight’s, not a booming economy anymore. So it was like musical chairs. You gotta

[00:31:41] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:42] Ryan McDermott: seat and before other people do, and sit down and take

it because otherwise you don’t have a job.

[00:31:49] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:31:50] Ryan McDermott: And that actually happened to me. And so one of some of the symptoms I had was I felt I isolated, I started having insomnia, nightmares. I [00:32:00] had like hand tremors and stuff because it was like very stressful. ’cause I was facing a situation where I didn’t know what, what would be offered. And there were

no jobs at that time. It’s not like, it’s not

like you could e

everyone was cutting.

[00:32:13] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:14] Ryan McDermott: Where

[00:32:14] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:14] Ryan McDermott: find a job

if every company is cutting jobs, especially in the world of finance. And so, now let me jump ahead. There’s a lot I kind of leave. For the

[00:32:28] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:32:29] Ryan McDermott: of between and 2011, There’s a I had a, a, sort of a collapse in terms of my and family life. I ended up separating from my my wife and so I don’t go into all the details.

There’s, there’s some in the prologue, the sort of introduction that kind of teases that out, but there’s a lot that’s not

[00:32:47] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:32:48] Ryan McDermott: What I realized, Scott, was that.

I needed help,

[00:32:52] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:32:53] Ryan McDermott: right? You have a, you know, I’m an infantry guy. I went through ranger school and there’s a sort of morbid right?

Like, you know,

[00:32:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:33:00] Yep.

[00:33:00] Ryan McDermott: you’re going through the woods and you’re looking for somebody else who’s sucking worse. ’cause you’re like, this, this is really hard, this sucks. And the only way I’m gonna like survive is if I see somebody else that’s sucking worse. And and at this point I didn’t get that sense.

So I was like, hit a point where I was like, man, I, I just have to get, I gotta talk to somebody. I gotta, like, you end up talking if, if you’re talking to someone about your problems more you should be, and, and it’s affecting your

relationships. You need a therapist or a counselor.

[00:33:31] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:33:32] Ryan McDermott: And so I went dialed some guy up and it’s in the book, you know, about how that kind of happened.

So my book structures counseling sessions is like these, these marker guideposts through the story. the proce, that process is real. I kind of had to. you know, it, it happened over a series of multiple, like probably 15. There’s only four or five scenes where it kind of lays it out. And so I [00:34:00] think that was a big thing is just sort of having that humility to say, you know what?

I need help. I need to talk through this. to really kind of begin understand, to get that sort of feedback of what’s

going on. cause I’ll tell you, Scott, at this point, I didn’t wanna say I had PTSD.

[00:34:15] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:34:16] Ryan McDermott: Mean all this stuff is happening and I’m just, you know, it’s like,

well, I don’t wanna, you know, it’s like

I’m just gonna, I’m gonna muscle through it.

[00:34:25] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:34:25] Ryan McDermott: the, that’s the army never quit mentality. And so moving further as my, and this is, is taken me a long time to kind of get to it. Is is a sort of, and you know, for me it’s my personal faith surrendering. You gotta surrender, let go and just, and and and have, you know, I don’t know if that makes sense, you know, for me, the, the purpose purpose me, you know, when I was serving it was about the mission I made this fatal sort of mistake, [00:35:00] was to think, okay, I’m a family man.

My purpose is to provide for my family. I have to get

a good job, I have to make a lot of money. Provide the best life for my family.

[00:35:10] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:35:11] Ryan McDermott: Now the problem with tying of that, and this is something I would caution anybody with, is when you tie your identity with your career, well guess what? Bad

things happen. Your career may go off the track. Well guess what? Your whole

identity is collapsed ’cause it was tied to your career. And so for me it, this, the sort of reckoning that I had in 2010 and 11 forced me to say, you know what? My purpose my family,

my children, and most importantly, and I need to

be the best possible father I can to them

[00:35:46] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:46] Ryan McDermott: they’re always gonna be my children. that purpose is always gonna be there. They’re gonna you no matter

what, and you don’t. They don’t, c they don’t

care what job you have.

[00:35:58] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right.

[00:35:59] Ryan McDermott: And they [00:36:00] don’t care. They really don’t even care like how much you, you spend on them and all that other stuff. What they care about is that you love

them, you’re present

in their life,

And you’re there

for them when they need you.

[00:36:11] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. And as you’re talking, I, I was thinking, to myself that, you know, you.

have to maybe find something to identity to that. It can’t taken away from you. You know, like your job, if, if that’s where your identity is, that could be taken away from you. You could get, you get fired or the, the business could go under and you get laid off or you know, something happens and or or you get.

You know, some disability and you can’t work that job anymore or, There’s a whole number of things that can happen that that job is not guaranteed tomorrow. Like something can happen and you may, you may walk in and there is no job left to be had. And if that’s what your identity is tied to, then you’re, you’re really, uh.

You’re really gonna be stuck if you [00:37:00] don’t know where to turn to next. But if you, if you do something like what you said and tie your that’s a constant in your life, you know, your, your kids, your family, your, you know, a spouse or, or you know, whoever, whatever someone has in their life. and if they don’t have something, find that thing that is a constant in their life.

that no one’s gonna. Take that away from you. You know, it, a you. know, and a thing that’s just always there. You know, and so way should something happen, job or you know, whatever else, people tie their identities okay, well you still got that anchor that is keeping you, you steady and then.

All the rest of it is just, okay, I’ll just find another job doing something else. And I don’t, I’m not, not to say you don’t care what that something else is, but it, it’s less important when it’s not tied to your sense of purpose, your sense of identity, all all you know, because ultimately, you know, for someone like you, what you described, your mission is to provide for your family and. at a bank or [00:38:00] some other company or, you know, whatever. It, in a way, it doesn’t matter because your job is to take care of the, the family and find that that something else, whatever that something else happens to be. And and then be able to, to kind of deal with it from there. So, um, I think that’s a good, kind of, a good takeaway from, from this is, you anchoring your, your sense of purpose or identity to something.

Unshakeable. Something that’s solid, you know, the, a good foundation that that’s not gonna just disappear overnight or, you know, in the next couple months or whatever. So, um. You know, ’cause no, no matter how solid you think your job is, it may not be, you know, because you never know outside of your control you know, you, you couldn’t control the financial markets.

You couldn’t you know investments that were made or, or other things that had place years before you even got involved with a company and now are coming in and affecting the company. Like, you couldn’t control any of those things. So, I [00:39:00] mean, you know. Why, why get all you know crazy about it?

[00:39:03] Ryan McDermott: Yeah, stoicism. I, I, I, think, wish I had, either I, wish I had gotten in into Marcus Aurelius meditations a lot like that should be reading.

[00:39:15] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:39:15] Ryan McDermott: and maybe it was, and I just missed it. But like, that should be required reading for everybody. Like everyone because it, the stoic philosophy for me, there’s a lot that, important ’cause it’s like, okay, there are things I can control, things I can’t control.

Also just understanding like you know, worrying ’cause like, know, how we exist in this life. I mean there’s a lot of, I mean, not to get philosophical, but it, it’s very helpful I think for me to, you know, for me having a personal, strong, personal faith, whatever it For me, having that foundation relationships and this, you know, relationship with family Lee is the ultimate foundation.

I think for me, my

relationship with my makers is important, is.

the baseline foundation

[00:39:59] Scott DeLuzio: [00:40:00] Sure.

[00:40:00] Ryan McDermott: family, but then also community, you know, fam, you know, family, friends. Because

there was a time where I kind of cut off from everybody and and so I think that’s, you know, when you extract, when you tie your identity to the relationships you have. And you build that. What what’s interesting is I

think you end up probably with more career success in, in, in life and contentment in a sense. And for, you know, for veterans, I think, I think one of the things is to find as you have through this podcast and your writing. Is to find that thing that ties to why you serve.

There was something that we all did when we signed up. We swore an oath. We said, you know, service to the constitution.

And and you can exercise service in a lot of different ways.

[00:40:51] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:40:52] Ryan McDermott: And and doing that. A is an easy thing, and it can give you, you know, I think for you, it gives you some feeling that you know, making, [00:41:00] making a

difference and same thing for me, or at least trying for

[00:41:02] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:41:03] Ryan McDermott: you know, so.

[00:41:05] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Absolutely. and and like you said, there are so.

many different ways that you can volunteer and, and continue to serve and give back in one way or another. don’t have to start a podcast or write a book or, you know, any of those things. It, it could even be as, as simple as, you know, coaching your kids.

You know, baseball team or something like that. And you know, it something to give back and, and have a sense of purpose, sense of, uh, uh, you know, something that’s just bigger than that you’re, you’re out there serving and, and you’re, you’re giving back to. contributing to something.

It, it’s something that, you know, if I don’t show up, someone’s gonna notice. Like, what, what is that thing? And uh, you know, if the, the coach doesn’t show up to practice or to a game or something, people are gonna notice, right? So that, that, that’s a thing, right? Um, but you know, there, there are other things too.

If, if if you have those, those things in your life you know, it gives you. reason to get out of bed in the morning and that reason to you know, put your [00:42:00] best foot forward and, and plan ahead and do, do all the things that you need to do to get ahead in life. And, and, uh, ultimately that’s just gonna benefit, not, not just you, but it’ll benefit those other folks who you’re, you’re out there serving as well. I, I think that it’s all, you know, good stuff and I think, I think it’s you know, maybe lost on a lot of people. Maybe they’re just too much in their own head and, and need to get outta their own way sometimes. And, and uh, you know, take a, take a chance and go try to, to do something, uh, bigger than themselves or, or even to better themselves, in, in one way or another, you know,

[00:42:34] Ryan McDermott: Yeah.

[00:42:35] Scott DeLuzio: So

all the, the stuff that you have going on, um, you know, you’ve, you’ve achieved a as, you know, careers and you know, writing this, this book all, all these. types of things and some of it was not, expected, you know, career changes and stuff.

Maybe, maybe not expected, maybe you exactly starting off with in mind. You’re just writing, you know, for the sake of writing, like, uh, you know, kind of like, what you said earlier. Is there anything else [00:43:00] in the future for you that, that, that, you’re about that you’re looking forward to?

Uh, kind of

[00:43:04] Ryan McDermott: Well,

great question. Always gotta have something to look forward to.

[00:43:08] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:43:08] Ryan McDermott: my my, my oldest son, so one with my kids, I look forward to.

You know, experiencing things then in their milestones. So my oldest son from West Point last year. He

[00:43:17] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:43:18] Ryan McDermott: second lieutenant armor officer down in fort Benning, Georgia. And so I, in the near term, I’m looking to go down there for graduation and help him move eventually to Fort Bliss, Texas, which is where he’s gonna be stationed. So I’m looking forward to that. And there, you know, and just seeing him continue to, you know, it’s weird seeing, there’s a period of time as a father where you see your child become a, you know, go from being like.

It’s still dependent on you two, completely independent, and, and you, and you become

very proud of the person they’ve become.

[00:43:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:43:49] Ryan McDermott: Your sons in college, looking forward to him graduating. And my daughter is taking a graduated high school last year. She’s doing a little bit of time. So I’m looking forward to that stuff, like seeing them continue to grow into great [00:44:00] people. Myself, you know, on a professional level, I’m actually, you know, I’ve, I’ve there’s, I’m really excited. it actually ties to my book in a way the guy, you remember I mentioned the friend, the, my, my high friend we were on the

same track team. His family took me in.

[00:44:13] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:14] Ryan McDermott: And I lived with him.

We did work together and all this stuff. So we used to do, d construction, demolition in, in high school and then actually in the summertime when I was in college a couple times did demo. We would go commercial demo. We, we worked together and we were great team. And we’ve stayed in touch over the years.

We’ve, he had like a, a different career path in banking. He actually, he went into banking too, straight out of college and worked at Wells Fargo and predecessor banks for 20 plus years. he did, he is. So for me, what’s next is on that front is he has a startup. It does it’s pH, it’s fti. They also, it’s, it’s in Rebo Financial and what they it’s actually pretty interesting. And so I’m, I’m gonna be wor I’m with him [00:45:00] on on, on doing some on

business development, getting the word out about this.

[00:45:03] Scott DeLuzio: Okay,

[00:45:05] Ryan McDermott: I gotta put a plug in.

[00:45:06] Scott DeLuzio: sure.

[00:45:06] Ryan McDermott: great about this is. small and mid-sized businesses.

A lot of company bank accounts, they’re not, they’re kind of squeezed on the interest rate. They don’t, they’re not gonna get more than nothing. I mean, depending on what you’re saving. Some banks offer savings some rates, some don’t. What his, his, his bank, his, or what his platform does is it basically you to connect your, any and all of your bank, accounts and, and they create. A bank account for you and you just, you can actually transfer money cash into an accountant, earns a higher interest rate. There’s also some data analytics that they’re, they’re building into so that auto automated. So the goal is to maximize your interest on your cash. And so I’m excited about it and I’m excited about taking that into the aerospace and defense ecosystem because a lot of our [00:46:00] companies. Lack a lot of the, the ca they’re too small to have like a full up chief financial officer office where person who can manage all the, cash and, and make sure it’s getting all the optimized interest rates.

[00:46:13] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:46:14] Ryan McDermott: Anyway, I’m going down a rabbit hole on

[00:46:15] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:46:15] Ryan McDermott: I’m excited to do that and it’s kind of reconnecting to me to that friend of mine who who was generous into his home when I was in high school.

[00:46:22] Scott DeLuzio: Well, that’s, that’s pretty awesome. And yeah, it’s, it’s great when, uh, those, those, old connections can kind of come back and, and of come full circle. Especially if there’s been some time where you’re, you’re kind of went different paths and then eventually you, you meet back up uh, you know, somewhere down the line.

So that, that’s pretty cool. Sounds like you got a lot of stuff going, going forward. A lot of stuff to look forward to, so that, that’s awesome. before we wrap up though, I, uh, I wanna give you a chance to. Let the listeners you know, who might wanna find your book or find out more about you and, kinda stuff where they can find the book and, where, where they can connect with

[00:46:53] Ryan McDermott: Okay, great, thank you. So the book is Downriver Memoir of a Warrior Poet. You can search that. My name is [00:47:00] Ryan McDermott. If you’re interested in finding that, you can, you can

you just do a search and it should populate,

[00:47:04] Scott DeLuzio: Yep.

[00:47:05] Ryan McDermott: website, book website is downriver memoir. Dot com. And there’s a lot of stuff I’ve written op-eds.

There’s also reintegration resources on there for veterans there’s some educational resources for wants to teach about it. ’cause There’s a lot we can learn about the Iraq war and, and other

stuff that, you know, from a leadership perspective and

[00:47:26] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:47:26] Ryan McDermott: perspective. and then I also have a Facebook page that’s

very pretty active with ongoing things.

But the best

place you probably find the book is on Amazon.

[00:47:35] Scott DeLuzio: Excellent, excellent. And I’ll have links to all that in the show notes for the listeners, so you can check it out Uh, Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the show and, and sharing, uh, your experiences and your story and, uh, you know, a little bit about your, your background and, everything. I, think it’s, uh, been a great conversation and I’m, I’m, uh, hopeful it, it will be helpful to some of the, some of the listeners out there.

So thanks so much.

[00:47:54] Ryan McDermott: Scott, for having me on, and thanks for what you’re doing. it.

[00:47:58] Scott DeLuzio: Appreciate [00:48:00] you.