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E10: Anger Management & Job Satisfaction · The Junto Podcast

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Music.
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Hello, America. Welcome to the Junto Podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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As always, I'm your host, Edgar Mills.
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Music.
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Hello, America. Welcome to Episode 10, and thank you for coming back.
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Today, we're going to be talking about a couple of issues that have,
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well, they've gotten a lot of attention.
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And it's veteran issues, and not just for veterans, but we're going to be talking
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about anger issues as they relate to the family dynamic.
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And then we're going to be talking about job satisfaction for veterans post-service
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and how that affects some guys, some veterans,
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and how it works on their psyche and in turn affects basically their whole life.
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So, I've had some technical difficulties.
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Pardon me if I disrupt that train of thought, but now I'm on.
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So, we're talking about anger control as it affects the family dynamic.
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And we're going to be talking about job satisfaction as it affects,
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well, your anger management and your quality of life. Okay.
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So wherever we, let me recap real quick.
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We're talking about the effects here that you may or may not be having on your
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family as you're going through things that you may or may not understand or
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may or may not have acknowledged yet or addressed at all.
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And the crux of that is reach out to someone.
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If you, don't be ashamed to reach out to a teammate.
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There's no way a teammate is not going to help you on some level.
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If you can't, if you don't feel like you can reach out to a teammate,
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but you need to reach out to someone who feels like knows where you're coming from,
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reach out to me, Edgar Mills at OspreyshootingSolutions.com or TheJuntoPodcast.com.
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I'm a veteran. I've got plenty of combat experience, combat time.
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I've been in gunfights. I've seen plenty of dead bodies and dead people and
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horrible, horrible things.
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And I'm more than happy to non-judgmentally walk you through things and try
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to help you find the right resources to help out.
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So, yeah, reach out. So let's get on to job satisfaction.
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Another problem that a lot of veterans have that may be a cause or not a cause,
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but a result of PTSD is that you find yourself just no matter,
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you get a job and it's maybe even a good job, but you're just unhappy.
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It's not fulfilling. You're unsatisfied.
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And that's possibly, there's some studies out there that attribute that to the
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lack of teamwork and camaraderie that the military has.
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Because I can tell you this, and especially combat arms, right?
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When you suffer with other dudes, it builds strong bonds.
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When you do hard things with other people, you build bonds with those people.
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Because it's something that average humans just can't relate to.
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But the people who suffer with you, you relate.
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So then that's one of the things. It's hard to find that in the civilian world.
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And then the depth of the work, right? In the military, I'm going to get cynical
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here for a second and say that me, much like.
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Thousands of other combat arms, special operations types, have been told how
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meaningful our work was.
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And you believe it. That when we go to these foreign countries and we free the
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oppressed, we're doing that under the premise that we're doing a good thing.
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We are freeing the oppressed and we're easing human suffering in the long run.
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So, and a lot of us believe that.
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It turns out a lot of those things were just untrue.
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However, it's hard to find that in the civilian world.
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What's meaningful and deep and
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meaningful? And what affects other people's lives in the civilian world?
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Well, I mean, some people argue the police. And even though it's still not a
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direct correlation, unless you're an MP, It's not a direct translation from military,
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but you're an armed professional and you have the opportunity to find yourself
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in life and death situations.
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And you still have to judiciously sometimes demonstrate absolute violence in
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the defense of yourself or someone else.
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So the potential for that there to to
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reach those levels of adrenaline and even
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the potential for teamwork is there especially if
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you're a SWAT guy or something you work with the same guys you know for for
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years and years and then what I think maybe firefighters that could be a high
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adrenaline job especially when you're training especially when you're on the
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job and the level of selflessness and fearlessness it takes.
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Well, not fearlessness, but your ability to manage your fear while you run into
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a burning building is probably, that's up there. That's meaningful stuff.
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In fact, I would argue firefighters is one of the last truly noble jobs out there.
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Then, of course, you have the medical profession. That's meaningful,
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Providing, you know, you're not giving out bogus vaccine shots or whatnot.
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There's other meaningful things to do, but it's hard to find when you've been
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in the military. For some people, for some of us, right?
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Now, PTSD or no PTSD, you do have to manage your expectations.
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The civilian world is different than the military world.
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And you got out of the military for whatever reason, whether you retired after
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25, 30 years or whether you, you know, you did 10 or 11 years and you're thinking,
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okay, I think I'm going to move on and do something better.
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And that didn't, you know, it just fell through or you just weren't quite prepared
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or you realize now that not that many people really give any deference to your military background.
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Some people just, it doesn't mean anything. In fact, sometimes,
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and there's studies that prove this, that it might work against you.
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I happen to know a guy right now who is
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a retired sergeant major and he's
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only just retired and he is trying
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to get a job as a police officer and he has not only not got a job yet but he's
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been disqualified from a few agencies he's as a sergeant major a special forces
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sergeant major by the way he has more experience and knowledge and,
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and I don't think they want,
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they don't want a guy who's already developed his sense of right and wrong and
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his personality and his, you know,
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his way he's mature in his thought process.
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So he can't be indoctrinated by some bull crap agency, you know,
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agencies stuff, you know, I mean, that's what I think I could be wrong.
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You know, maybe they're looking for longevity and they just want someone who's younger.
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But he's fit. He's lean and mean and he can do the job.
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But that has worked against him. So there's a study out there and let me see,
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I don't know, Workplace Integration of Veterans.
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That study shows that 40% of veterans hide their military background from their
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colleagues to avoid ostracism. Can you imagine that?
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40% of veterans hide their military background from colleagues to avoid ostracism.
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Now, I'm going to give you my opinion on that, why they do that. I will tell you.
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Every TV show on television in the past ever that depicts a military guy or
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a military unit or, you know, the main character was a veteran of whatever spec ops, blah, blah, blah,
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they always depict these guys as damaged,
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as mentally damaged with flashbacks and some kind of psychological defect,
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or they might have an outburst of anger and chalk it up to,
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well, back in spec ops, you know, whatever they say on TV.
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America has been conditioned to look at veterans as tightly wrapped, ticking time bomb.
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Racist, by the way, as well. A lot of people have labeled combat soldiers as racist as well.
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I want to say just the Biden administration in general kind of did that.
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So yeah, people, your average civilian out there looks at you like,
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oh my God, he could a snap and kill everyone in the office.
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And it's madness. It's absolute madness.
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Now, ironically, we're talking about PTSD. And yes, that's not to say there
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are people that, yeah, there are veterans that have PTSD and that's who I'm talking to right now.
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But if even with PTSD, if you're managing it and if you have acknowledged it
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and you're seeking help for it,
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chances of you exploding and killing everybody in the office are probably pretty
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slim. Yeah, probably pretty slim.
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There's a higher chance of you getting pitched by an FBI or CIA guy to go blow up a federal building.
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So what are you looking for in a job? I can tell you this, the Army does a pretty
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good job of transitioning these days.
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I would say back in, you know, 15 years ago, they didn't, but in the past 10,
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15 years, maybe they've started putting to put a lot of effort into one mental health,
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at least on the surface anyway, or at least until you're, you're on out and
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then they lay it, you know, so you don't do anything to put a black eye on the unit.
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And then once you're gone, you know, your VA problem, that's,
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I know that's cynical. I'm sorry.
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But they do a pretty good job at offering resources, right? And they do a pretty
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good job at job resources as well.
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But what I did notice about transitioning is that of all the job programs that
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they had and even, you know, the college opportunities and the various internship
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opportunities that were available. Yeah.
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During my transition, and this
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was five years ago, there was nothing that addressed entrepreneurship.
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There was nothing that put you on a path to start and run your own business.
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And I thought that was a little slack because my business was up and running
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already and I knew what I wanted to do.
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And so I was looking for things to enhance that and they didn't exist.
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Or at least the transitioning team didn't offer them.
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So, yeah, that's a thing.
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At any rate, as a civilian, again, there's not any direct translation.
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Now, I have said this, and I do believe this, there's two different paths there
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as far as translation from military to civilian work.
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There's the technical skill, whatever it is you're trying to do, right?
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If you want to get a job as a computer programmer, you need to know programming.
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However, some senior level guys, when I say senior level, I mean E8,
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you know, team sergeant to ops sergeant, sergeant major types,
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and then officers, obviously.
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Not all officers, by the way, and not all NCOs, by the way.
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But leadership and teamwork is absolutely critical,
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and I believe that a senior leader could go into a job cold not knowing anything
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about it and still successfully lead that organization and do great things.
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Now, very clearly, you need to get boned up on the very specifics and the very specific things,
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tasks, and goals and all of that job.
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But as a leader, a good leader, you can do it. You can do nearly anything.
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The question is, will they give you an opportunity?
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Will they give you an opportunity?
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A lot of veterans find themselves working in jobs where they are overqualified
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because, quite frankly,
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unless you're doing rocket science or brain surgery, not many things are hard
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to do. Not many things are hard to pick up.
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Know what i'm saying you can learn and and
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that that's not to crap on people who have spent years developing
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style technique on on their thing or developing expertise in their field that's
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not to crap on them but it is to nothing is that hard especially coming from
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the military because nothing in the military is that hard but there are bad
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leaders in the military that will make,
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a marginally difficult thing, extremely difficult.
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If there's one thing the army does is it takes the fun out of things and it
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definitely makes things harder than it needs to be.
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It is one big giant bureaucracy. And that is a fact in navigating bureaucracy.
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Oh my God. If you can do that, you, yeah, you can do it all.
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And so direct
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translation yeah it's hard i think
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for me the only satisfaction to be found is
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in my own business i've worked at a
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few different like contracting gigs as a you know role player or weapons guy
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you know my heart you know wasn't there and yeah what once you have a taste
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of sort of almost freedom.
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When you work for yourself, there's a freedom there.
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And it's not a freedom to, oh, I get to work when I want to or sleep late or any of that.
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It's a freedom in solving problems the way you see fit.
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And there's a certain freedom in trial and error and learning things kind of the hard way.
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There's a freedom, there's a liberation in knowing that you are responsible
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for your success or failure.
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The Army, depending on who the company or battalion leadership is,
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if one of your guys does something messed up, you're very likely to be fired
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as well, because they reckon you were responsible for that guy,
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even though he's a grown man, they reckon you're responsible.
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So, but as a business owner, running your own show and either reaping the success
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or failure from it, even when it's failure, it's still liberating.
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Because you've tried a thing and you've discovered that it did or didn't work and you move on.
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And you learn to develop yourself in that way. And it's very good.
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Not all people can do that. And
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look, there's no shortage of veteran entrepreneurs out there. Holy moly.
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T-shirt companies, you know, starting from the early 2000s after the global war on terror, right?
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T-shirt companies popped up everywhere. Coffee companies popped up everywhere.
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Dudes are selling cigars and frigging all kinds of stuff, you know,
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selling stuff, stickers, things like that.
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And some of them are doing quite well. Some of them have done quite well and good on them.
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And if they, and if they built it alone, good on them, if they built it from
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a sort of plug and play, you know, organization that, and they took advantage
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of that, great, you know, good on them.
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But for those of us out there, the veterans who, who you're,
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you're out there and you're finding yourself with this,
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you know, maybe you are struggling with anger and violence and it's,
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and it's messing with you And it's messing with your ability to maintain a job.
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That's possible. And that's take ownership of yourself as well.
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It's easy to blame and it's easy to think people are out to get you.
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And it's not just easy. It might be the prevalent thought in your brain.
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And, you know, maybe you think it's true. Maybe you think that your former unit
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is out there trying to sabotage your life.
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I would suggest that that's not the case. No matter how much you may hate someone
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in your former unit, I don't think they're out there spending any time or resources
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trying to torpedo your life.
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Your family certainly is not trying to undermine your life.
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They may say things that you don't want to hear But as long as those things
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are truthful And you don't want to hear them Then you have to take that.
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And sort that out Don't let it result in violence Or anger That's the way that,
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That's the way that has to be handled.
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Simply can't do violence, it's only going to lead to worse problems,
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potentially incarceration,
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potentially then losing your rights to own firearms, your rights to vote and things like that.
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And we talked about, you know, there's some, you don't want to be a homeless
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veteran with mental issues, living in a culvert,
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just waiting on the end or just surviving at the bare minimum to stay alive
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when there's no real, no real light ahead to, you know what I mean?
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So again, I'm going to have a bunch of resources here at the end,
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but there's a nonprofit out there called Warrior's Heart.
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I follow them. I have been following them for, for a long time.
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I can't remember when they, they started, but I suspect they're probably 10 years old or so,
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maybe about maybe 15 years old they have
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a like a resort sort of and I want to say Virginia and then I think also in
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Texas that's a resource that you can be referred to and when I say referred
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I mean go on the website and and put your name on there somebody's going to give you a call,
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I don't think you have to be referred by like your primary care guy.
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That's one. For that matter, Wounded Warrior, I'm sure if you make a call to
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Wounded Warrior, I'm sure there's a rep in whatever region you're in.
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I'm sure that they will put you with the right people.
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Wounded Warrior helped me with my VA rating.
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I mean, that was at no cost to me, by the way, and they helped me to get my VA rating.
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So there's organizations out there. You may not feel comfortable directly reaching
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out to an organization, but like I said,
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reach out to a teammate or reach out to me and we can sort through it.
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Your mind a little bit, if you're feeling this anger, right?
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First of all, be honest with yourself.
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If you're boozing, if you're boozing, that's not going to help.
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If you're self-medicating, that's not going to help you.
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That'll help you feel a certain way for a short period of time,
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but it's not going to help you solve any issues at all.
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And if you're okay feeling a certain way for a certain
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period of time and then going on this roller
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coaster of like emotion that you
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need some consistency in your life and you need some consistency in
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that in that regard you don't want
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your your mental health on a roller coaster reach out reach out to somebody
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reach out to me there are different things i'm gonna i'm gonna post i think
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i said it already but i'm gonna post a bunch of references and links on the
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website or on the podcast.
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There's an app out there called AIMS, and it's a website as well that anger
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and irritability management skills, and they just, it's free, it's confidential.
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You can get, you know, stuff on breathing management, meditation,
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frigging yoga, just all kind of other things that you can do on your own to
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help yourself manage anger.
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I can tell you I used to be an angry guy, and I'm not, and it's not from PTSD.
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I was just an angry guy. I grew up as an angry guy. And as a result, I was kind of an asshole.
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You understand that the most of the negative things, they can be manipulated
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to, to, to be positive. Yeah.
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You can turn crappy negative things around to be positive.
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You just gotta know how to do that. And you gotta, if you never had the tools,
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you don't, you never knew, right?
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If nobody ever, ever showed you those things, they told you,
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oh yeah, those tools are out there.
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And you never went and sought those things out, yeah, you don't know.
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There's even veterans crisis lines and things like that.
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Like if you don't have a teammate to call, if you don't have a team guy that
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you don't know him personally to call or reach out to,
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just hit the veterans crisis line. I'm sure a veteran is on the other end.
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But if you're a former SF guy and you don't want to talk to anybody but another
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SF guy, by all means, give me a call.
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There are a lot of ways to help manage anger,
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to help you get yourself on a sustainable path of mental stability that are far beyond me.
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I don't have the academic pedigree to help with that, but I can point you in
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the right direction. That's what I'm trying to do.
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So anger and home life. So we started out with, and that's what we're going
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to, we're going to hit that.
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We're going to recap that real quick. anger and home life, you absolutely,
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no matter what you've seen in your life,
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you absolutely don't have a right or don't have a reason to.
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Harm your family, whether it's just a simple smacking or whether it's a beat down.
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If it's done in anger, it's wrong. And you don't have that right,
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no matter how effed up you think you are, or no matter what excuse you think you have.
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The amount of trauma that can be relayed to your children via your violent outburst.
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Can be deep and wide and everlasting.
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And that's what they call a cycle of trauma.
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You're just perpetuating a cycle.
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You may be starting the cycle for all that.
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You do not have a right and you do not have an excuse to unleash violence on
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your family or anyone else for that matter.
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You have a right to be angry about things no
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doubt about it and and sometimes it's healthy to let that anger out i let my
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anger out if i if i am angry these days i gotta be honest with you i've never
26:12
been properly angry i haven't been properly angry in the past i don't know five years.
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But when I do start getting frustrated with things, the heavy bag is my meditation.
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I love to hit the heavy bag.
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And just going to the gym helps. But the heavy bag for sure is my meditation.
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And then the other thing that helps me sort of meditate, and it's not.
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Thing. And that's riding my bicycle. I've always loved riding bikes.
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I used to be a bike messenger way back in the day.
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And to me, that is one of the things to get out and just kind of feel the wind in your face, feel free.
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But when you're riding in the city, you got to, you got to be switched on.
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You can't be daydreaming about some other stuff. You got to be paying attention to what's going on.
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And that, and that's a good way to focus your brain.
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That's a good way to focus your brain.
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Anyway, find your way. You know what I mean? Find your way to do it.
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And these links that I'm going to have are going to offer some ways to do that.
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You have no right to do violence to your family.
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You have no right to do violence to your family.
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And you, it may be a big burden for you. You may feel like it's a big burden
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that you set the tone in your house.
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You are responsible for the tone of your house.
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And your anger will just, anger begets fear or matched with other anger.
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And you don't want to bring fear or anger into your house.
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Some veterans mistake fear with respect.
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Make no mistake about it. They are not one in the same. Make no mistake about that.
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Hell, there's some leaders in the military that equate the two Fear and anger
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are not one and the same Or respect, fear and respect are not one and the same,
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Don't get confused about it And then there's communication.
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You don't want to talk to your wife about some of the things that you go through,
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whether they were combat related things or not, maybe just things from your
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past, maybe some very embarrassing things.
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I got news for you. You probably haven't done more embarrassing things than I have.
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I'm never going to share those with anyone, probably. But if you got to get
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it off your chest, I will be a confidential source for you.
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You don't, I will take what you have to say non-judgmentally,
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and I will guide you, help you in a way that I think is beneficial.
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And you can sharpshoot that and take it or leave it.
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But you can certainly tell me anything that, you know, you've done in the past.
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To unburden yourself, I ain't just, I don't want to know all your secrets if
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you don't, but if it's a burden on you, you can, you can relieve that burden.
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For those guys who are religious and you want to go to your,
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your priest, if you're a Catholic and you want to go sit in a confession booth,
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if that truly does unburden you, then by all means do it.
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If you're a Christian person and you've just been out of the church for a while,
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or for some reason you've just
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gotten sour because everyone seems like they're hypocrites or whatnot,
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understand that the hypocrites that go to church,
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they may be hypocrites, but they may be trying to get better, just like you are.
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Being in church, going to church, doesn't make anyone...
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Jesus-like. Everybody, anybody is just on a path to try to be more Jesus-like, but we are human.
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We will never be what some churches say you should be.
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We will never be there. We are fallible.
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We are flawed.
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We were born from sin, and we are sinners. There's no doubt about it.
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Now, you don't have to bask and relish in the sin.
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You don't have to wallow in it and celebrate it.
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However, if you truly do want to be better, then you have to start somewhere
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by doing the things that better people do.
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And that probably starts in your house. And that probably starts with respecting
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your wife and your kids in the same way you want them to respect you and talking
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to them in the same way you want to be talked to. You don't get a free pass.
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However hard earned your anger is, you don't get a free pass.
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Man, that's probably a dead horse that's been beaten to death.
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One more time. no matter what you've seen or done you don't get a free pass,
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but you do have venues to get understanding and to get some help yep.
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Going to finish up here. I'm going to recap the job satisfaction piece.
31:51
It's hard for some veterans, especially if you're dealing with PTSD or some
31:58
kind of pent-up anger issue,
32:02
it's tough to replicate what you had on your ODA or on your team or your platoon.
32:14
You're never going to replicate that. In fact, you may get close and you may
32:19
find something that offers similar teamwork and camaraderie,
32:22
but it's just going to be different in the way you execute and the things you do.
32:27
Now I had technical difficulties earlier, and I don't know if this made it or not.
32:31
Then on the other end of that spectrum, we're talking about veteran dissatisfaction,
32:37
working in civilian and the civilian environment or getting even being able to get a job.
32:42
There's a study from a think tank called Macalester.
32:46
I think it's called the Workplace Integration of Veterans, something like that,
32:50
that 40% of veterans hide their military background from their colleagues to avoid ostracism.
32:58
40%. Can you imagine that? And I blame society.
33:03
I blame Hollywood television for that.
33:07
Anytime you see a veteran or even if it's military guy, you know, military show.
33:15
Veteran is depicted as, you know, PTSD ridden, anger issue, time bomb waiting
33:22
to explode psychologically.
33:25
You know, yeah, he's a selfless hero, but he's got a short fuse and he's a time bomb.
33:33
That might be true of a very small percentage of people, but I mean,
33:37
good God, man. If that's what your average civilian thinks about your average
33:43
veteran, that's a problem, man.
33:46
That's stereotyping veterans, which is just as bad as stereotyping people by
33:52
race or by nationality or anything else.
33:56
And, and, and, you know, they're dealing with it. And the fact that they don't
34:00
disclose that they were veterans, which is something by the way,
34:04
that at least to some degree should be admired just for the selfless service.
34:10
Now I would argue that you join the military has a lot of valuable benefits
34:15
and maybe it's selfless, but yeah, you're, it's a contract. right?
34:20
You're getting paid for, you know, you're getting paid for your service.
34:24
And yeah, you are asked to go do things that, that, you know,
34:28
your average human wouldn't go do, i.e. combat.
34:32
But to feel like they have to hide that at their workplace, that's a damn shame.
34:38
That's a damn shame. So there's that.
34:41
And then there's veterans who jumped from job to job.
34:45
And that's a small percentage again, and we're kind of talking about this in
34:49
relation to PTSD, but you just can't seem to find the job satisfaction.
34:55
Like it's just not there for you.
34:57
It's not, it doesn't have the
34:58
same level of meaningful impact that your military service seemed to have.
35:06
So, you know, how do you get that?
35:09
Well, like I said, there's very few jobs that directly translate,
35:14
but I'm sure there are jobs out there that will give you a sense of accomplishment,
35:20
possibly firefighter, possibly cop, you know.
35:24
How about something a little less violent or a little less adrenaline pumping,
35:29
but go coach some kids at the Boys and Girls Club, you.
35:37
There's going to be the whole, the adrenaline rush that you get from,
35:40
from getting shot at, but the level of satisfaction that you might get from
35:47
helping after school kids, you know, just,
35:50
freaking play kickball or baseball or, or go to the boys club and then teach
35:56
some, you know, do boxing and things like that, or jujitsu.
36:01
It might not make a, you know, you're not going to get rich doing that kind of stuff.
36:06
But if, if meaningful impact is what you're looking for, then do something like that. It's there.
36:14
Or just actively seek out jobs that companies that advertise that,
36:20
that seek out soldiers or veterans.
36:24
Because many companies see the value and your ability to work with a team.
36:30
And they see the value and appreciate the sacrifice of the selfless service.
36:37
And they see that that would be an asset for them. And they value the same things
36:43
that the military valued.
36:45
So there are companies that actively hire veterans. You got to find them.
36:50
You're not going to turn your TV on to see it, but they're out there.
36:53
And then there's all, hey, man, go find yourself a homie, another team guy who's
36:59
out, and go the entrepreneurial route.
37:05
Go, you know, get with some of these nonprofits, like Special Forces Foundation,
37:11
and just ask, hey, I'm a former this, that, or the other.
37:18
You know, what are some avenues for me to get started in my own business?
37:23
I got news for you. GoDaddy is not very expensive.
37:26
You can start a website and, you know, start printing off T-shirts, man.
37:31
And, you know, or sell them on, you know, you can, there's all kinds of things you can do.
37:38
There's a lot of guys that, team guys that I know of, that do,
37:43
they have a side business doing their own woodwork, custom woodwork.
37:46
So they're working on their talent, with their talent, something that they enjoy
37:53
doing, and they're doing, and then they're making money doing it.
37:57
There's guys making their own knives.
37:59
There's plenty of guys who get into the firearms training business like I have.
38:04
There's about a million veteran t-shirt companies.
38:09
There's dudes selling coffee, just selling all kind of things.
38:13
I know a couple of guys that do metallurgy and they make their own knives.
38:20
There's ways to break into it.
38:25
And if you're getting a VA rating already and you're getting a paycheck every
38:30
month, You know, go find a company that you think you like and, and go offer, you know,
38:40
to intern for free for X amount of time to learn, uh, to learn a thing,
38:46
to learn a trade or to learn something.
38:49
And then, you know, say, hey, look, I'll work for you for six months, you know, for free.
38:56
You teach me and then hire me or send me off to do great things or whatever.
39:04
I know plenty of veterans who do
39:06
tattoos or tattoo artists, and some make pretty damn good money at that.
39:12
So job satisfaction. action. I think if you're not going to be able to get the
39:16
same team dynamic, and you're not, by the way, it's just, you're never going to replicate combat.
39:24
And if that's where you got your rush, you may get close, but you're never going to replicate it.
39:30
You might go jump out of, you might go, you know, skydiving and,
39:33
you know, go dirt biking and doing all those things. And those things are awesome to do.
39:38
Those are good hobbies, but you're not going to be able to replicate you and
39:43
your homies jumping behind, you know, a thick mud wall while getting shot at.
39:48
It ain't there. It ain't out there in the civilian world.
39:53
I mean, if danger, you know, if you want to live dangerously and you want to
39:57
be, you know, if you can get a job with the police department in a major urban
40:01
area, and if you, if you want to be in danger zone, that's, that's about the
40:04
closest you're going to get is being a cop in a major urban city,
40:08
a major city. Um,
40:11
go into contract, you know, but the contracting business is,
40:16
I don't, I don't think the team dynamic is there with that either.
40:21
In some cases, the danger is there, but I don't think the team dynamic is really.
40:26
The thing is just guys trying to make, not all, I'm not, everything I'm saying
40:30
is kind of blanket statements, right?
40:32
But it's just dudes trying to get paid because it's good money depending on
40:39
the combat, you know, where it's at, who you're working for.
40:44
Yeah. There's a lot of things to do that veterans do. I know veterans that are
40:48
personal, physical, personal.
40:52
Trainers. I know veterans that have opened their own gym. Some of this,
40:56
you know, yeah, there's overhead involved.
40:58
I'm not getting into the money side of this. I'm just saying there,
41:00
there's a lot of things you can do where you can sort of lead the way on it.
41:04
You can set the, you can set the tone, you can set the ethos. Yeah.
41:11
So if you're having problems integrating and it can't be attributed to other
41:18
issues like anger, then branch out, take the leap and do your own thing.
41:26
Are you able to integrate with other humans at all?
41:30
Are you still are you a social were you ever social and if not then that's one
41:36
thing but if you used to be social when you're in the military but now you hate
41:39
going out and being around people
41:40
that may be a symptom that you have some anger issues or
41:44
something like that anyway i want
41:47
to reiterate this thing real quick this 40 of veterans who
41:50
hide their background that that's an
41:53
irritating number and that
41:56
and that that's just one more strike against our
41:59
kind of the way our culture is right now and i
42:03
know plenty of uh i'm a libertarian by
42:06
politics i'm sure all of you know this by now but there's plenty of libertarian
42:11
anarchists out there who hate on cops like proper hate on them and hate on veterans
42:18
equally because you're just a tool of the machine of the of the,
42:24
the tyrannical machine and all that stuff.
42:26
But I don't subscribe to that, especially with veterans. Well, and cops too.
42:33
Hey man, when you're 18 years old and have no prospects for going to college
42:39
or whatever, that it's a job.
42:44
It's a job. It's an opportunity for you to get Get yourself out of the low-income
42:50
part of town. It's an opportunity to get college money or to get some training in some kind of skill.
43:00
And then, you know, support your family and have insurance while you're doing that.
43:05
Some extremists out there who equate that to being welfare queens.
43:10
Well, I got news for you. You sign a contract and the military gets every ounce
43:15
of effort out of you. I promise you that.
43:18
You're not getting taxpayer money for free.
43:21
You earn the taxpayer money.
43:24
Now, look, there's soft jobs. There's soft skill jobs out there that,
43:28
you know, whatever, that may or may not be proper military jobs.
43:33
But, you know, the military is kind of a complex ecosystem of its own.
43:38
But I guarantee you, especially as combat veterans, as combat soldiers,
43:43
you earn every penny that the government,
43:48
that you signed a contract with, by the way, that they promised to pay you after
43:55
your 20 years or 25 years or three years or whatever.
44:01
So, yeah, even then, look, the fact that people look at veterans in a negative light is disturbing.
44:12
And the fact that they don't look at it as a patriotic thing,
44:15
but patriotism has been morphed over the years to be kind of ugly these days in some circles,
44:24
in some circles. And it's not ugly.
44:27
All right. you've done a good thing and that's
44:31
that so i'm going to recap here look
44:35
reach out edgar mills at ospreyshootingsolutions.com or the junto podcast.com
44:43
reach out if you need to talk to someone if you know someone who you think needs help.
44:54
And I will, we will help find resources that fit the person in question.
45:01
We will help to the best of my ability.
45:05
We will help to take the edge off, especially if it looks like it's at a point of violence.
45:13
Yes, reach out. Don't be ashamed.
45:18
Don't be ashamed if it's you. And if you're listening to this and you're one
45:23
of these guys, but you just think, who is this dude? He's just going to belittle me or whatever.
45:28
Ultimately, no, it's not. That's not the case at all.
45:31
I was never a golden boy in my job, in my career.
45:36
But I have the capability.
45:40
I have empathy for the underdog, 100%.
45:46
And if you feel like you're one of the underdogs. and look, if you were one
45:50
of these golden boys who could do no wrong when you were in the military and
45:54
now you're having problems, yeah, still reach out. Still reach out.
45:59
I'm not going to bust your balls too hard, but hey, no veteran is immune to
46:05
ball busting, all right?
46:07
No veteran is immune to ball busting.
46:11
Ultimately, we got to take ownership for the things we've done, ultimately.
46:16
But we can get there in a way that's sustainable, that we can get on a path that we can stay on.
46:27
To be a value to our family, to be healthy, physically and mentally healthy,
46:36
and to be the example to our kids and to be the supporter and the loving husband
46:46
and father that we're supposed to be.
46:49
There's not an end point to that, by the way, folks. It's always,
46:53
it's a struggle and nobody's talking about perfection here at all.
47:00
We're just talking about giving an honest effort to the journey.
47:06
Okay, good people. That's what I had to say today. I felt compelled to reach
47:11
out and say that these things.
47:14
Thank you for listening and, you know, share the podcast, share the websites and all that stuff.
47:22
Ospreysheatingsolutions.com, thejuntopodcast.com.
47:27
And as always, feel free to reach out with questions, suggestions.
47:32
And again, Thank you all for listening. I appreciate you guys and I love you guys.
47:37
Music.