Latest / Watts Up with Bowling Green Winlectric / Veterans First: Resources, Community & Support
Transcript
- Savannah Gillispie: Hey guys, thanks for joining us today Watts Up with Bowling Green Winlectric. Of course I'm Sean Willis with Bowling Green Winlectric and we are joined today by Matt Mutter of the Barren County Veterans Association. ⁓ you see how I made it through the start there? Okay. That's great. ⁓ It's rough sometimes. ⁓ Well, Matt, if you don't mind, could you tell everybody a little bit about yourself? what got you into ⁓ the Veterans Association? Well, ⁓ am a Navy veteran. ⁓ my family has some veterans in it. ⁓ my ⁓ father in law is retired Navy. I have a stepson that who is active Navy right now. Wow. so a a lot of military history, in in my family and ⁓ I'm r from right here in Barren County. I'm retired law enforcement from here in Barren County, which my My Navy career kind of led into that line of work. That's what I had planned the whole time. ⁓ ⁓ I'm just an old homegrown Barren County boy. Gotcha, gotcha. ⁓ Well, awesome. I g I can see how it kind of going through the family led you into that. Right. can you tell us and this is probably gonna be a much longer ⁓ little soliloquy there, but could you tell us ⁓ about ⁓ what the association is at the heart of it? ⁓ the Barren County Veterans Association is designed to be ⁓ I would call it a group, maybe a ⁓ conglomerate of all the other veterans organizations in the in a county. ⁓ we have several. We have ⁓ you have the DAV, Disabled American ⁓ Veterans, ⁓ we have the American Legion, we have the VFW, ⁓ we have a group called the Freedom Warriors. So there there's not just one organization. We all kinda come together. we also have the ⁓ auxiliary to the D A V, which is if you are not a veteran, you can join the auxiliary, DAV Auxiliary and still help ⁓ in veteran activities. ⁓ wow. So ⁓ even people who ⁓ they usually have relatives that were military or some you know, some background, but you don't even have to be a veteran if you want to help. You can join the auxiliary. ⁓ but this organization plans our annual ⁓ Memorial Day events. We put flags out at the city cemetery every memorial day. It's about I think last time I checked was about thirteen hundred flags. Wow. So it takes a while. ⁓ and then the Veterans Day events. We always have a Veterans Day parade and a Veterans Day dinner. So the as head of the Barren County Veterans Association, I'm usually the one that heads up all of those activities and and does the organizing. Wow, that sounds like that would take up quite a bit of time. I have a lot of help. ⁓ I just kinda point people in the right directions and I've got so many people that help. my wife being one included. She she makes sure I've got the right shoes on and with the right tie and I you know, all that kind of stuff. But ⁓ we've got so many veterans organizations and veterans in this area that'll that'll show up. ⁓ every year South Central Bank puts on a a big breakfast for Veterans Day. Wow. And that's become a ⁓ a really big thing in this area. It's always very well ⁓ attended. And very well received. ⁓ but it's just people people love our veterans in Barren County. Yeah, well that's that's awesome. I I will admit, I'm definitely not apprised of what the Veterans Association ⁓ really did or anything like that, but in talking with Savannah who ⁓ who helps us podcast, she's with Studio Twenty Two, and I know y I'm pretty sure you know Savannah. yeah, yeah. Yeah. ⁓ And I was like, I'd I'd really like to do something kind of w for the fourth, right? ⁓ on a podcast that would have something to do revolving around the fourth. And I'm like, I don't what am I gonna talk about? Hot dogs and cookouts. Like you know, but and she you know, she actually mentioned, Well, you know, Evie has, you know, her husband, which is your stepson. Right. That's right. Yeah. And that's you already know the background, too. Well No no, yes and no. I just knew that little bit. ⁓ I know Evie from you know the the coffee shop. But ⁓ but that was pretty much it. And but I I and and and I'm just bogarded a big portion of this. I've already talked longer than I meant to, but basically I wanted us to give a little platform. Once she mentioned that idea, I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, that's perfect, you know. And I believe we're gonna be airing this on the four. That'd be perfect. Is ⁓ is is I believe what we're shooting for, which is coming up really quick, you know, because we're we're just a few days away from that. So thank you, WCLU, for making this happen where we can get this to air on the fourth. But okay, so ⁓ you that ⁓ several different organizations and you as County Association lead and leading that, ⁓ Barren Veterans Association, you help pull all that together. Right. So ⁓ guess There's a lot of other things than those kind of air quote big events that you talked about that this association does. Those are the our two main ones that we do each year. But a couple of other things. ⁓ most people know we have the Veterans Wall of Honor here right here on the square, ⁓ which I think now has over fifteen to sixteen hundred names on it. Wow. And why people put me in charge of these things, I'm in charge of that too. So to get your name on there you go through City Hall, you can go ⁓ on the City Web City of Glasgow website, there's an application, the process to go through. Those applications come to me, I have the plaques made up and and we put ⁓ on the wall. Wow. and we usually have to have about thirty or forty before we put a group of ⁓ up. So sometimes it takes a year or two before we have before we accumulate that many names to put on the wall. Gotcha. ⁓ so that doesn't happen very matter of fact we just put some on about a month ago. We put about seventy names on there I think. Wow. So it was a pretty big addition. ⁓ another thing we just started a couple of years ago is veteran banners around the square. And what we did, ⁓ we took we started off I think with twelve, maybe sixteen names and we got veterans ⁓ photos, their names, their years of service or branch of service, and we made ⁓ banners, made like flags and put ⁓ on the light poles around the square. Well, that was a big hit. ⁓ so last year I think we had maybe twenty four and we went around the courthouse too. So that we're already I've already got names for this year. that's and we'll put those up ⁓ a couple weeks before Veterans Day. ⁓ shout out to Mayor Royse and the ⁓ the city workers there ⁓ they help out immensely on that. That's awesome. That's that's such cool thing. I've seen those myself. I'm ⁓ not a resident, I actually live in Smith's Grove. Right. But I am in Glasgow ⁓ very often and I saw those and you know, even though I'm not aware of what went into any of that, I was like, Man, that's real that's just really cool. Well, and I got the idea I was travelling to ⁓ some relatives houses in Mississippi a c a few years ago and saw ⁓ and there and I thought, Well, if they can do that in Tupelo, Mississippi we can do that here. And and now I've had other towns, ⁓ the city of Tompkinsville called me and want to know how we did it and how Now they're doing it. They're doing the same thing. That's so awesome. It's it's good just snowballs and it goes around to you know different different areas of the the state. Yeah, that's really cool. So are there ⁓ one of the things that I was kind of curious about is what happens to some of these veterans, ⁓ you know, from from someone who is n not in the know, so to speak, of veterans' affairs, ⁓ of any sort. One of the things I'm always kinda curious about is what happens with some of the veterans out there as they begin to age. ⁓ you know, maybe they've been on disability or something. You know, maybe they've lost maybe they didn't have much family or they've lost a lot of the family they've had. What happens with some of these people and are there programs in place ⁓ to help them whether or not it's through the Marron County Veterans Association or some of the other ones that that conglomerate comes together. There there are programs, ⁓ matter of fact you may be aware of the new ⁓ Veterans Nursing Home that opened up in Bowling Green. I that's it's brand new. Brand new. ⁓ it doesn't it it doesn't hold a whole lot of people, but it is I mean we've we've got it started and it's it's brand new. ⁓ but The the worst part is you you have to go, you know, if you live in Glasgow, you you have to go to maybe Nashville or Louisville or ⁓ Murphursboro, wherever, you know, you have to go I had to go to ⁓ for ⁓ my hearing. I have a loss of hearing from my service and I had to go to Nashville and get tested and ⁓ you know, I couldn't do that around here. Some of those veterans don't have transportation to those doctors' appointments or to the hospital. Luckily we have the D A V here that helps transport people. I know the ⁓ the group called the Freedom Warriors has transported many people to medical appointments and that's what it takes. ⁓ but the sad part is a lot of our people are getting older. ⁓ you know, I'm I'm almost fifty six years old and I'm one of the youngest ones in the in the group. And that's ⁓ that's just the truth you know, that's the reality of it. And these guys that are seventy five, eighty, eighty five years old, they're not always gonna be able to to you know, to do this and help people. I mean they love to do it, but sometimes they're just not physically able. Sure. ⁓ the DAV guys that do ⁓ they do the firing of the rifles at funerals. Right. That they're local guys, live right here and a lot I I would say the average age is probably seventy five to eighty. It's maybe seventy to eighty, somewhere in there. And it's it's sad that we can't get more younger veterans involved. ⁓ I work a full time job also, but ⁓ so I can't really participate in a lot of that. But we're gonna need some people to step up in ⁓ years to come. But if if anybody does need help, I I receive calls all the time. Somebody needs help to ⁓ a dri a ride to Bowling Green or I've taken people to Bowling Green myself before. ⁓ there's a office down there where you can file claims and things like that. ⁓ but just just reach out to me. I'm not a hard person to find. I think everybody in this side of the Mississippi's got my phone number. I'm not hard to find. But ⁓ Just reach out to me. We'll we'll make it work somehow. Gotcha. That's that's kind of you know it kind of the sad part about it, but definitely something I wanted to ask about. now you mentioned ⁓ previously if you aren't a veteran but you would like to help with some of these organizations, you can ⁓ submit to becoming ⁓ auxiliary. Auxiliary member. ⁓ and a matter of fact, we meet tonight. ⁓ the DAV has a meeting ⁓ on ⁓ Tuesday nights I think it's third Tuesday of each month. It's tonight, whichever one that is. And the auxiliary meets the same time we do. And the clubhouse is ⁓ it's on the left, go out twelve ninety seven and it's on the left right before you get to Donley Drive. It's kind of back off the road. It's a little br ⁓ blocked building, and that's where we meet on the third Tuesday of ⁓ each month. Gotcha. And the auxiliary meets, we have a meal, ⁓ we have ⁓ the auxiliary has their meeting, we have our meeting, and th and those Mo most auxiliary people are women. You don't have to be female to be a member of Auxiliary, but they do so much. They help decorate for ⁓ our veterans dinner. ⁓ they ⁓ this Saturday that we have a veterans ⁓ luncheon, female, female veterans luncheon this Saturday. ⁓ I've been advertising on Facebook and it's been a big hit for the last two or three years. And ⁓ and the the ladies the auxiliary really helps with that too. They s they set all that up. So do you ⁓ you previously I'm jumping all around here. I do that all the time. That's fine. That's fine. ⁓ I guess I got s you the ADHD or the TISM or something that just keeps me going everywhere. But what you mentioned about, you know, being auxiliary, of course, but you also mentioned giving rides, offering rides for people. Do you have to be an auxiliary member to be able to transport? No, no, you No, you wouldn't have to be a member. ⁓ just volunteer. If if you want to volunteer, reach out to me, we'll put you on the list. ⁓ 'cause I get people that call me all the time and say, Hey, I d I don't have a ride to my doctor's appointment. You know, I had to reschedule two or three months out. But so you keep a running list of of people? I ha most of the time I turn if they'll call me and then I will kind of turn them over to somebody else that will transport them. But but we'll but we'll get ⁓ there. Whatever if whatever we have to do, we'll get ⁓ there. Yeah, so I wonder I wonder if there's a way to this is not really something to discuss right now, probably, but wonder if there's a way that you could either have like a Facebook group or something just for the transportation. So if somebody's like, Hey, I need a ride, yeah, it might be easier to coordinate amongst all of the people who are willing to give rides. That's that's a good idea. ⁓ because I mean if I was available, I certainly wouldn't care to to give somebody a a ride, but I wouldn't Like, you know, it wouldn't be something that I s my wife schedules me for stuff like month ahead. So you know. But but yeah, that I to me that's like the easiest thing you could ever do is give somebody a ride. Like but if you don't have a w if you don't have transportation or you don't have family to help with that, that's very valuable. Yeah. That's you know, you think we you and I don't think much about driving from here to Bowling Green, mm-hmm. But if you don't have that ride and and you've got You maybe you got fifty dollars in your bank account, you don't you don't have the means to get there. Yeah. And ⁓ and all you're wanting to do is go to a doctor's appointment and you know, and try to get maybe try to get your disability started ⁓ from your service. Go to or or I don't know if they go to the social security or whatever those things. Maybe talk to somebody about your Medicaid or Medicare or whatever. I mean, I'm when you come out of service I know you have ⁓ you know, your health care's, you know, ⁓ provided for with the government or whatever, but I don't really know what that entails because I don't I'm not in the know. But and I can give you a good example of people wanting to help. it's been, I don't know, maybe four or five months ago, maybe longer, ⁓ we had a g ⁓ employee of the county government here in Barren County. ⁓ his wife was diagnosed with cancer. And was a ⁓ I think maybe a former employee of the school system, but then he went to work for the county government building. ⁓ some of us found out about it within about Twenty four hours we raised like fifteen thousand dollars for him. Wow, that is so awesome. And I mean that was just by word of mouth, by Facebook, by ⁓ texting, whatever. And ⁓ you know, that that was that was a good day. It was it was good. It was good. so that's so crazy that you just mentioned that because my next question was gonna be monetarily What if if anybody wanted to just donate, whether you know they don't want to donate time or donate money, what is the what are the ways, the avenues of which they can do that? You can always donate money to the ⁓ the Veterans Association, ⁓ which I'm over the bank account and and ⁓ all that, but ⁓ that money goes to pay for the meal for the Veterans Day dinner. No veteran pays for the for the dinner. All veterans eat free at and we usually have about two hundred, two hundred and twenty people show up and we'll have a guest speaker and it's a good crowd. We do it at the National Guard Armory every year and that money can go back to help pay for those meals. ⁓ sometimes we have people donate money to the wall. It say somebody wanted to put a name on the wall but they didn't have the forty five dollars to do it. People will say they'll give me forty five dollars and say, Give that to somebody and let them you know, put that towards a name on the wall. Right. And and I'll do that too. ⁓ that would be the easiest ways. ⁓ course any any veterans organization would accept monetary donations, I'm sure. ⁓ the ⁓ the guys that ⁓ do the the D A V honor guard that does the funerals and things, there there are people that there's one guy in particular that pays for all their gas. They they don't pay for gas at all. There's another guy in town that ⁓ surfees ⁓ Surfee's garage, I can't think of what he calls it, Shurfee's Center here in town. He does all the maintenance for free on their vehicle. That is so amazing. You it's people like that, the surfees and the people that buy the gas, ⁓ people that buy food for them. Especially like when COVID was on, they would sometimes they were doing two or three funerals a day. A day. Wow. That's hard to believe. ⁓ but we all know how crazy that time was. But you know, they're they would leave at eight o'clock in the morning and not get back till eight o'clock at night. And they've got to eat somewhere in between. And people were buying their meals and just it's just awesome what people do. What what a responsibility that must be for the I mean, honestly that I'm gonna tell you I got my feels a little bit there, man, because just to think of of the the the the emotional pressure right of going to those events like you said, some two or three times a day sometimes. ⁓ but anyway, that's that's not ⁓ I don't wanna be a big downer. But ⁓ so I'm glad we got to that point because that was my number one reason really of wanting to have this conversation and is to find out how people could help. ⁓ so ⁓ what is the way easiest way for them to reach out to you or and or the organization? Is that through Facebook? Is that You can do it through Facebook or ⁓ my cell phone number is two seven ⁓ six four six six four five six. ⁓ you can text, call, ⁓ anytime, it doesn't matter. ⁓ could we could we write that down to add that in on the screen maybe? ⁓ Kelly's got my number, ⁓ Todd's got it. They I think they all got it up here. ⁓ James Brown has my number. Wow everybody you're right. Everybody's got your number. No, I'm telling you, they've all got it. It's I've had the same number for thirty years. Yeah. I just want to make sure we're getting that ⁓ maybe even tagged at the end of the the radio part. ⁓ but definitely on our social media because we air these on our social media platforms as well, so we can put that on the screen. Yep. And then ⁓ the Facebook page. ⁓ just my personal Facebook page is fine. I think ⁓ the DAV auxiliary has a Facebook page which my wife is a part of and ⁓ that you can reach us through that Facebook or Yeah. Text email or whatever. Does ⁓ the ⁓ County ⁓ Association have a Facebook? We do not have one. No no worries. I just wanted to ⁓ and if ⁓ you know, is once they reach out to you then you could work out if they wanted to donate or something or we can figure out what they want to do. There ⁓ we really have a veteran center here in Glasgow, but Bowling Green does have one. ⁓ They like ⁓ I think maybe canned goods and ⁓ hygiene items and clothes and that kind of thing. Okay. So if you did feel like you want to do something like that, we could get that stuff down there. I had a ⁓ lady, her husband was a veteran, passed away recently, and she wanted to just donate all his clothes to a veterans organization. So you take new and used clothes. ⁓ yeah. Okay, okay, great. They'll take it all. That's good to know too. All right. Well, I've already pushed it a little bit more than I probably should have on the time, but I wanted to make sure we got you know, ⁓ some of that really good information about what we could do to help, you know, our community come together and really help this. It's an amazing association, amazing organization. Myself, I'm I'm really ⁓ glad that that you're leading that and ⁓ and and and taking that on. I know that's a heavy responsibility for you, but ⁓ thank you for doing that. ⁓ I don't have anybody in my family anymore. ⁓ I did have an uncle that served ⁓ my dad was in the merchant marines. I'll be honest with you, I don't even know what that means. But that was way before I was around. ⁓ but ⁓ you know, so I do have some family but none of them are around anymore. So I'm glad to see that there are people that are that are here to help ⁓ those who need well and I I will say people need to realize how lucky we are to have I guess may the public officials in this area because there's nobody in this area I couldn't call right now and tell them I have a need. the mayor, the county judge, magistrate, city council, they would they'd be on it. They'd be on it tonight. That's all that's not not a doubt in my mind. So we are we We're lucky. We want to complain about government. I mean look, I do, I'll admit. Everybody does. I it I mean, I just I'm a complainer by nature, but also I know that we are so thankful for we should be very thankful. And I am very grateful of so many things around here. And ⁓ you know, anyway. For a for a small town, we do pretty good for this. Yes, very much so. Matt thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Guys, I think that's gonna tie us up today. we ⁓ you know, please reach out to to Matt or the organization ⁓ via phone number or Facebook if you'd like to donate your time and or money. It's obviously an amazing organization helping so many people in the past and present. So ⁓ you for listening. ⁓ reach out to him for any help you might be able to give. See you guys.