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The Farron Dozier Show- Debut · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

0:18
Some of us still carry the burden of battle.
0:21
It threatens to drown us in our everyday lives.
0:25
In battle, we had our weapons and combat gear to keep us safe,
0:28
to keep us confident. But when we returned home, we
0:32
were not armed with weapons and gear to cope with our own minds.
0:36
I was lucky to find my combat gear, my mental weapon and it's
0:40
called Kamago Kamago's, a drug free device that allows you to
0:45
achieve calm in less than 3 minutes and moments of anxiety,
0:49
stress, anger, panic or insomnia.
0:53
Not with medication but rather by activating the
0:55
parasympathetic nervous system through a breathing regulation
0:58
and multi sensory stimulation. A recent study has shown that
1:02
Komego decreases PTSD and anxiety levels in veterans,
1:06
helping those who are suffering and having a long lasting
1:08
effect. Visit komego.com to learn how
1:11
you can get Komego through the VA or with a special veterans
1:15
discount code None. Well, good morning and welcome
2:04
to the show. This is the Frondose show on MBR
2:09
radio. How are you this morning?
2:10
I want to say thank you for taking time out to tune in and
2:14
listen in today. Hopefully this is going to be
2:19
very exciting for you. It's been a long time coming
2:24
because I have had opportunities to be on this network over maybe
2:32
about a year or so ago. And I finally pulled the trigger
2:38
and accepted the invitation. So I just want to say thank you
2:42
again for taking time out in your day to listen to the show.
2:48
I'm just going to have this first episode to reintroduce
2:52
myself to to this community of of veterans.
2:56
Some of you may not know me, and so I want to take you through
2:59
this timeline of how I got to be in front of you today.
3:06
I want to say thank you to the organization again at NBR for
3:10
allowing me to bring this conversation to their network.
3:14
I know they're located in Denver, Co and I appreciate that
3:18
because I have a slight connection to some conversations
3:22
that are connected to Denver as well.
3:25
So I want to be able to just share some information.
3:30
That first intro PSA you heard is call me go veterans like
3:36
myself. I did not want to take any drugs
3:40
and so I chose to use education and then I met this device, the
3:47
people that have this device. And so it is if if you believe
3:54
in your breathing techniques and and how people say you can take
3:57
breaths to calm your nerves, I want to tell you it it is
4:02
effective and it does work. So we are hoping that we can get
4:08
this to veterans through the VA And so I've partnered with them
4:13
to help share that conversation with our veteran community.
4:18
So shouts out to calm and go, all right.
4:20
So I have some tabs that I want to just kind of paint this
4:24
picture for you. A lot of times we say, you know,
4:31
the people ask who are you, right.
4:33
And a lot of times we go to what we do in life.
4:37
Oh, I'm a broadcaster or I'm an advocate or I'm a this, I'm a
4:41
that. But I learned for myself and my
4:46
transition out of the service was who is Ferran?
4:50
Who is Ferran? When Ferran shows up and it took
4:58
some time to figure that out, it took a lot of work.
5:03
It took a lot of healing. It took a lot of things going on
5:07
in my life in this journey that we call life, did this game of
5:11
life, it, you know, sometimes you got to tell the truth to
5:20
yourself. Sometimes you got to be honest
5:24
with yourself and tell yourself you know is there is is this is
5:31
this all is this it. Like at some point in my life in
5:36
my transition out of the service like I knew there was something
5:38
better and like I knew there was I was more than what I was
5:42
dealing with and my worries and my circumstances and my
5:45
concerns. And I've also realized that, you
5:51
know, we like, we like to de compartmentalize our life like
5:56
we like to put in our minds, You know, my career is over here.
6:00
My family life is over here, my friendship life.
6:02
Like we put these, these these blocks in our mind to section
6:06
off how we show up. But really it's still you.
6:16
It's still you as the common denominator in all of your
6:21
relationships. And so today, after peeling off
6:27
a lot of those layers like an onion and crying, discovering,
6:34
you know, and I use the onion because what do onions do to the
6:38
food? The onions bring flavor, but the
6:42
process of peeling that layer off and then chopping it up and
6:45
then tears in your eyes. But when you saute that onion on
6:49
a steak or whatever, you, you know, mixing that onion with it
6:52
brings out flavor. So imagine that your life, when
6:57
you go through these processes of dealing with whatever you're
7:00
dealing with in your life, that on the other side of it, there's
7:05
flavor, there's freedom, there's Peace of Mind, there's joy.
7:15
And so I just want to share with you that it is possible to find
7:21
peace in life, in your heart and your subconscious mind, but it
7:27
takes work, and you have to be willing to do the work.
7:32
People can't point it out to you, even though they pointed
7:36
out to you and you know they're right about what they're saying
7:38
about you. You don't want to look bad, so
7:40
you don't let people speak into your life because you have to
7:46
ask permission. As much as we care about our
7:49
loved ones and our friends and family, sometimes you just can't
7:52
speak into people's life. Sometimes you'd have to ask
7:54
permission. Sometimes people just want to
7:56
hear, be heard without any opinions, without any feedback.
8:02
But it also takes confidence for us to tell that to our family
8:05
and friends. Hey, I don't want no feedback.
8:07
Just listen. We talk about communication, we
8:11
talk about listening. We talk about all these ways of
8:13
being in life. But sometimes it leaves us
8:18
disappointed and upset and frustrated.
8:20
But not just with people, but with our self included.
8:29
And so the Front Dossier show is a is a variety show.
8:32
You're going to experience some fun, some excitement, some
8:35
laughter, maybe some tears. Because my purpose is to create
8:40
a relatedness in this conversation about life and
8:45
speaking to different aspects of my life and talking from that.
8:50
I'm not going to talk about my life.
8:51
I'm going to talk to you from my life experiences and before and
8:55
during after my military service.
8:58
And I'm going to allow veterans and those who say they care
9:01
about veterans to come on this show and do the same thing in
9:04
return. If you would like to be a part
9:08
of the show, if you would like to be a guest in the future,
9:12
you're more than welcome to come and hang out my Instagram and
9:19
Facebook. I mean, my Instagram and Twitter
9:21
is at the front Dozier show. You can also go to the front
9:28
Dozier show.com and figure out, you know, what you want to talk
9:33
about, what you want to bring, what you want to share as well.
9:36
So it's not just a one way conversation.
9:40
I'm going to bring people on organizations, different eras of
9:47
our military veterans, to come and share who they are and what
9:53
they're up to. So now today when people ask me,
9:59
well, who are you, Pharon? Like, who are you?
10:02
Who are you? I don't just say what I do
10:06
anymore. I also say who I get to be is
10:10
that others see their greatness through myself.
10:12
Expression. This is myself expression.
10:17
I've been in radio for now almost 14 years, and I'm going
10:24
to go through that journey as we continue the show today.
10:28
But also who I get to be is that others find their Peace of Mind
10:33
through their language, because language is so important.
10:38
How we talk, how we think, where do those thoughts come from?
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Can you catch those thoughts before they come out of your
10:48
mouth and and and not have to? As for forgiveness, after you
10:52
said something that you didn't mean to say, is it possible?
10:56
It is. And that last piece is
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demonstrating self forgiveness. This journey that I've been on
11:08
has been about self forgiveness and that is something that I
11:14
know. It takes confidence.
11:17
It took my it took confidence from me.
11:19
It took courage to be able to self reflect and to challenge
11:24
the 1st 40 years of my life to realize that you know what, I
11:29
don't have it all figured out. And maybe some of the things
11:35
that I said and that I'm told myself wasn't the truth.
11:41
Maybe it was for Ron's truth, but it wasn't the truth and the
11:47
ability to take those areas and look in life, have conversations
11:51
with people in my life, get what their side of the story was, get
11:55
what their perception of that conversation was, and realize,
11:59
man, I made-up a whole story that wasn't the truth.
12:05
And when you get a sense of another person's version of the
12:08
same story that you guys were in and those disappointments and
12:11
those upsets and those just and disagreements, guess what?
12:16
What becomes the truth now? Because I have a perception.
12:19
You have a perception. So maybe being the bigger person
12:26
saying, you know what, please forgive me.
12:28
I'm going to set aside my story because obviously there's two
12:32
sides, three sides, four sides, whatever.
12:37
But I'd like to restore this conversation, restore this
12:40
relationship. That's a different type of
12:42
living. That's a different person and so
12:49
that's what we're going to talk about on this show in so many
12:52
different ways, for people to self reflect, for you to hear
12:58
stories. Originally this show, my
13:05
military show was called Trench Talk.
13:08
I'm still debating on having it become trench talk, A part of
13:13
me, you know, I use the Ferrand Dozier show, but it sounds a
13:18
little selfish. And I haven't really dealt with
13:22
the title because I know that in radio, in the world, you want to
13:26
brand yourself. And that's how I came to use my
13:29
name because I was told by a very important person in my life
13:33
who was in radio for many years. They said you want to use your
13:37
show, You want to brand your name so people know your name.
13:41
Yeah, but what about when I have Co hosts and I have friends who
13:46
come aboard that want to join the team?
13:48
Then it's like it's my show and I'm not a selfish person.
13:56
So I added the trench talk as a segment.
13:58
Still, as it relates to my military community, because
14:01
there are different aspects of my life, I got a sports show, I
14:04
got a, you know, military show, I got a show about life.
14:07
So yeah, you know I'm working that out, but if you see the
14:10
name change, just keep rocking with me because it's still the
14:13
same person. But I had trench talk most of my
14:17
career when I joined in 1989 as a as a 19 year old, you know
14:21
being out and and I was a track vehicle repair supply fuel
14:26
handler truck driver And as a fuel handler my first initial
14:30
years it was like you know being on those log packs coming in at
14:34
like 12:00 at night delivering you know beans and bullets and
14:41
fueling vehicles. You know we would park and we
14:44
would sit under the stars and just talk about where we came
14:48
from and get connected in life. And even back then we used to
14:53
have to dig foxholes our self and so I remember having to do
14:58
those but the connectedness, the relatedness and I I I it was on
15:04
my heart to to have you know trench talk.
15:07
I never knew it was going to be a talk show.
15:09
I just knew that the conversations that we were
15:11
having as soldiers, that camaraderie that we experience
15:15
as strangers and then becoming friends, and then we'd be
15:18
willing to die for one another. It just took out his trench
15:22
talk. And as I retired and started
15:26
getting into another level of broadcasting, I found that that
15:32
could be the way that I could stay connected to veterans.
15:37
And so I used Trench Talk as an episode and then it became this
15:41
whole platform. And I've been blessed to use
15:43
Trench Talk as a radio show to partner with Calvettes at a
15:49
point in time in the past and use my radio show to have
15:52
conversations with veterans and their brand.
15:57
And to have a government contract like that was that was
15:59
was phenomenal to experience that.
16:01
So I know there's value. I know it's important.
16:04
I know there's still a need for space for veterans to come and
16:08
share who they are outside of that uniform, especially when
16:15
that uniform comes off. And for me, that's how I got
16:20
here. Because when my uniform was
16:22
coming off, my identity was attached to that camouflage.
16:27
My identity was attached to that rank.
16:31
And so after 24 years of service, I didn't know who
16:34
Pharon was. I had no idea who Pharon was.
16:40
I was lost. But being a huge sports fan back
16:46
then, my friends saw my behavior kind of shift a little bit
16:50
because I stopped going to the bar and watching this sports.
16:53
I found myself laying in bed all the time and my buddy was like,
16:58
why don't you do a a sports show?
17:00
I I've, I've, I heard that people do these talk shows
17:02
online and so I looked up broadcasting and I found Blog
17:09
Talk Radio in 2009 and in 2010 I launched my first episode on
17:19
Blog Talk Radio still out there, WDC, the movement What's to
17:25
Count Radio. But what I lost interest was in
17:31
the highlights, like the scores. I still wasn't watching it, but
17:36
I had a show and so I found someone who was in Boston.
17:41
His platform was sports log, Sports Wall, and he would post
17:45
sports all day long on his Facebook, you name it.
17:48
From hockey to badminton, like, the guy knew and knows his
17:53
sports. And so I reached out to him.
17:58
He agreed to be my host because I could just still talk trash.
18:03
But he knew sports, so I was still able to dialogue and
18:08
communicate with him. And we started that show.
18:14
I also had a a woman as well. She was into football and so she
18:18
would be on the show with us as well.
18:21
But her boyfriend at the time got kind of little jealous, so
18:24
she had to walk away from the episode.
18:28
But I still appreciated her to bring that woman's perspective.
18:32
This is 2010. This is before you know where we
18:36
are today with podcasting. It wasn't even called podcasting
18:40
when I started on Blog Talk, it was just Internet radio and
18:44
there was no cameras. It was my laptop and a phone
18:47
line. And because I was so nervous and
18:52
I was depressed and dealing with anxiety and having suicide
18:56
ideations, I also had a glass of cranberry and vodka.
19:03
And I would drink that like an hour before the episode because
19:08
I was nervous. I didn't know who was listening,
19:10
if anybody was even listening, if anybody even cared.
19:14
So, you know, we say sometimes alcohol takes the edge off.
19:19
It can. But we also know that sometimes,
19:22
even in the military that we celebrate with alcohol.
19:27
Now that's not right or wrong or good or bad, but it was what my
19:30
go to was. And so as we launched that
19:34
platform of WC, the Movement, What's the Count Radio?
19:38
I had a blast. It gave me something to live
19:40
into the future other than the uncertainty of my career coming
19:44
to an end. And so I can tell you that blog
19:48
talk show kept me alive. That blog talk radio show in
19:54
2010 kept me alive because I added that to express myself in
20:01
the dark spots. And it brought me out of that
20:04
darkness. For if it was only for those two
20:07
hours or that half an hour, it worked.
20:12
But as I began to talk about sports and stay connected to
20:18
him, sports log as we develop the show each week, at the same
20:25
time I'm going to the doctor because my health is
20:29
deteriorating. Something happened to me with my
20:32
health and I started to discover that this inherited gene that I
20:38
have called sickle cell trait was actually the cause of my
20:41
military career coming to an end.
20:45
And so that blog talk show not only became a sports talk show,
20:47
but it became a show that I started interviewing people in
20:50
this community of sickle cell that I had no idea existed.
20:55
I knew I had a cousin with sickle cell, but I didn't know
20:57
that I was also connected to this community.
21:02
And so as I found people who live with this inherited gene,
21:07
the show became a talk show and a sports show.
21:13
And then as I discovered that my sickle cell trade gene was not
21:17
only in the military community but athletes have collapsed and
21:21
died from sickle cell trade exertion with rhabdomyolysis.
21:25
And that even connected me more to the sports world, because now
21:28
I can share with athletes and help athletes who have this
21:31
inherited gene understand what the risk factors are for being
21:35
sickle cell trait carriers. So it became more than just a
21:42
talk show. It became a part of my
21:45
expression in life. And when I did have those
21:51
ideations of wanting to take my life because I thought life was
21:53
over completely, I held unto my daughter.
21:57
I have three daughters, Jade, Brittany and Deja.
22:01
At the time, Deja was with me and I held on to the thought of
22:05
her because I didn't want to take my life.
22:07
I knew that I had mental toughness.
22:09
I knew that, you know, I was strong minded.
22:11
But this was different. This depression and anxiety that
22:16
I was experienced was just a little bit different than I had
22:18
ever experienced in my life before.
22:23
Now we know peer pressure you know can cause some children to
22:27
to have suicide thoughts. And I I I did have a couple as a
22:30
child running away from home and things like that.
22:33
But this one when the my military career, that one was,
22:36
that one was rough. So I had these two things that I
22:39
was holding on to and so it became a talk show and it just
22:47
grew from 2010 to now here in 2024.
22:54
And I've been on different networks, I've been, I've had
22:57
different Co hosts and I've been able to express myself and I've
23:06
been able to share my platform with people to come on who's
23:09
nervous just like me. I was nervous before I started
23:13
and I've been at it for 14 years and I was nervous leading up to
23:16
this live. But once those cameras
23:22
disappear, and once you get connected to the person, like
23:27
there's that relatedness. And ultimately, I want you to
23:31
walk away from that relatedness, from this show that you can look
23:35
in your life and self, examine and discover what's what's your
23:41
game of life, what's your purpose, your passion, your
23:43
gift. But it's going to take
23:46
something, it's not going to happen by itself.
23:52
So a lot of the conversations in the future episodes, these are
23:57
just some of the categories. With these categories that I've
24:01
that I've chosen, they're endless.
24:04
You know, I can have a whole series for a whole year of just
24:08
these different topics, but these are the things that I felt
24:11
were important to me and important to our veteran
24:14
community. And there's a lot of resources
24:17
and information out there needs to be addressed and talked
24:20
about. And as we talk about these, we
24:24
get to talk from these because you get to put your life in
24:27
these conversations on how they show up for you.
24:29
And so this first conversation that we'll be having throughout
24:32
this show is transition planning.
24:39
Do you ever did? Do you think about that?
24:41
Did you think about transition out of military before you,
24:43
before you was forced out or before you know?
24:47
Like did you? Were you?
24:48
Prepared to transition out of the service back into the
24:50
civilian world that, as they say.
24:53
Sometimes we don't think. About that, especially when it's
24:55
not by your choice. My transition was not by my
24:58
choice. I've I bought that medical
25:01
board. I appealed it.
25:03
As many times as I could and they found me not fit for
25:07
service. From my experience.
25:10
From my sickle cell trade exertion and I'll talk about
25:12
that on the second-half. So I got a whole guide of
25:17
transitioning transition planning.
25:20
Another one that. We'll be talking about is
25:23
managing money. Some of us.
25:27
Like myself, nobody. We talk about a budget, but do
25:30
you have a budget? Do you even care?
25:34
What's? Your relationship to money.
25:37
What's your relationship to? Time in that planning, in that
25:39
transition planning, what's your relationship to time?
25:43
Some of us think that we. Have enough time and we become
25:45
procrastinators. Sometimes we.
25:49
Think we don't have enough time and we become anxious and we
25:51
worry about. Life one of these.
25:57
This next one is important to me.
25:59
Overcoming depression? There's a booklet.
26:03
That we're going to be talking from that talks about overcoming
26:07
depression. Another one is personal
26:11
resilience. Are you resilient?
26:17
We use that word to describe like, like what we do.
26:22
Like I I'm like you. You don't you, But you don't do
26:25
resilience. You have to be resilient, right?
26:30
That's a way of being. But are you resilient?
26:35
Are you really able to bounce back when things don't turn out
26:38
the way that they that you think they should turn out?
26:43
Because that's what being resilient is.
26:46
Is when something. Happens that you're when you're
26:48
up to something and it's not fun anymore because it becomes work.
26:54
Or a disappointment. Happens.
26:56
And you're like, well, forget it.
26:59
Do you bounce back and continue taking on that committed thing
27:03
that you said you was committed to doing or being?
27:09
So I I believe we have resilience kind of mixed up and
27:15
that's why our language is so important and how we use words
27:19
and how we talk. So we're going to talk about.
27:25
Being resilient as a way of being, not just as something
27:28
that we get to do. Because it shows up in the.
27:31
World differently and it's a different experience for you as
27:34
well. One of my main topics besides
27:38
that depression, When is the preventing suicide?
27:41
Suicide prevention it is. I mean, what can we say?
27:46
Our brothers and sisters, they say take their life one every 65
27:50
minutes. They used to say is 22 a day.
27:54
We know that that number is probably more.
27:58
So right now they say. One every 65 minutes, a veteran
28:03
male or female takes their life. And if you've ever been in that
28:09
situation like myself, I know what that feels like.
28:14
I know what that tastes like. I know what it is to have a.
28:17
Plan. But have you?
28:23
Ever really talked about what that looks like for you as a
28:26
person? And also we're going to.
28:30
Talk about some veteran benefits.
28:31
There's so many benefits as a veteran.
28:33
So, so, so, so many benefits. So these are the kind of.
28:38
Conversations we're going to have.
28:41
So I hope that. You enjoy.
28:44
You take time out to listen. Whether it's live or in the
28:48
archives again, you can follow along wherever you are.
28:54
You can reach out to me, send me a message if you want to be a
28:56
guest on the show. And we'll talk more about the
29:01
Frondose Show on NPR Tuesdays at 10:00 AM Pacific Time, 1:00 PM
29:09
Eastern Time. So I'm going to go.
29:13
Here and I'm going to play this public service announcement
29:16
again and then we shall return right here on the Ferrando sea
29:22
shore where we go, some of us. Still carry the burden of
29:25
battle. It threatens to drown us in our
29:28
everyday lives. In battle, we had our weapons
29:31
and combat gear to keep us safe, to keep us confident.
29:35
But when we returned home, we were not armed with weapons and
29:39
gear to cope with our own minds. I was lucky to find my combat
29:43
gear, my mental weapon, and it's called Kamago Kamago's, a drug
29:48
free device that allows you to achieve calm in less than 3
29:51
minutes and moments of anxiety, stress, anger, panic or
29:57
insomnia. Not with medication, but rather
30:00
by activating the parasympathetic nervous system
30:02
through breathing regulation and multi sensory stimulation.
30:06
A recent study has shown that komego decreases PTSD and
30:09
anxiety levels in veterans, helping those who are suffering
30:12
and having a long lasting effect.
30:15
Visit komego.com to learn how you can get Komego through the
30:18
VA or with a special veterans discount code.
30:44
All right. Welcome back.
30:45
To the Frondozia show right here on NPR Radio.
30:49
All right. So I've just kind of share with
30:51
you just, you know, a little bit of my life and what we plan on
30:54
talking about here on this talk show Tuesdays at 10:00 AM
30:58
Pacific Time. 1300. For you veterans, For you
31:03
soldiers. Eastern Time.
31:05
So I have some tabs I want to share with you, you know, just
31:08
of what I'm up to in life and if any of these things resonate
31:13
with you and you'd like to, you know.
31:17
Have these discussions. With me, they might be something
31:19
that you care about. So I'm going to share my screen
31:22
and on this. First one is my sickle cell
31:27
trait advocacy. I'm the founder of What's the
31:30
kind of sickle cell trait prevention?
31:32
This is my gift from God. I will say that because I was
31:42
born with this gene, this gene. I've had some some some health
31:48
complications with this gene as I shared earlier.
31:51
But also I found a whole nother community of people that I'm
31:55
connected to that I can share that need to hear my voice, that
31:59
need to hear where I'm coming from.
32:03
And maybe they realize that they're not alone, that those
32:06
experiences that they've had with their inherited gene could
32:09
be that sickle cell trait. And so I'm going to share with
32:14
you the website that I've had and then I use to advocate from.
32:21
I'm going to share that. And so this is my nonprofit
32:33
organization. Called.
32:36
What's the count of? Sickle Cell Trade Prevention I I
32:40
travel through the community bringing awareness to this
32:45
inherited gene. That is a public service
32:48
announcement that I created. You can go to the site.
32:50
There is a survey that I have that you can take that survey.
32:54
I usually introduce that survey in the beginning of my talks so
32:58
I can find out what people know about sickle cell trade before I
33:01
share my information. In my.
33:04
Community of Fontana August is Sickle Cell Trade Prevention
33:09
Month. So I've had a proclamation for
33:12
like 8 years now with the mayor and the city of of Fontana.
33:22
And so that is something that I get to bring awareness to in the
33:26
community. With the proclamation, I'm going
33:28
to take myself off the screen because I don't need to see
33:31
myself. So when you go to that website,
33:34
wdcoandsct.org, you can scroll through there and you can learn
33:39
about sickle cell trade. I haven't.
33:43
I'm actually going to play the PSA.
33:45
This is actually the PSA that I created.
33:48
When I came into this community, people said that there was no
33:51
public service announcement for sickle cell trade there.
33:53
We don't have any Psas. And so God had given me this one
33:59
for for man about five years before I actually put it
34:02
together. I would talk about it, but I
34:04
never took the actions. And I was in one of my seminars
34:07
from Landmark and the conversation was, what have you
34:10
put on the shelf that you wanted to do in life and you haven't
34:15
worked on that? And so.
34:18
This PSA came in my mind. I had put that on the shelf.
34:24
And so I made a. Commitment in that seminar 10
34:27
sessions that I would have this public service announcement done
34:30
by a certain date. And then I.
34:33
Looked in the future and I went. I knew what I wanted to look
34:37
like. And then I wrote down each step
34:39
on how I made that PSA happen. And I.
34:44
Was able to create it in real time.
34:49
And so I'm going to play for you this public service announcement
34:52
for my sickle cell Trade Organization called What's in
34:55
Your Genes, Man?
35:31
You really want to know? I do.
35:37
Exhaustion, muscle spasm, asthmatic issues, unexpected
35:41
sickle cell trait crisis, damn. Are.
35:44
You serious? When I was.
35:45
Young I found out I had sickle cell trait.
35:48
My mom's told me, but I ain't had no knowledge of it.
35:50
But when I got older I had a child.
35:52
The doctor told me my daughter has sickle cell trait.
35:54
You know the fact that both parents have sickle cell trait?
35:57
There's a 50% chance. The child may.
35:59
Have the trait and 25% chance the child may have the disease
36:03
and that's what's the. Count, do you know that 2.5
36:05
million people in the United States have sickle cell trait?
36:07
300 million people globally? I didn't find out I had sickle
36:10
cell trait until I was in the army 10 years.
36:13
Next thing you know, I had a sickle cell trait exertion site.
36:15
I thought that was a black. Gen. or something.
36:18
God, Man, the Black. Community is number two. 136,000
36:22
babies are being born with sickle cell disease.
36:25
Caucasian, Mediterranean, European, Y'all.
36:27
Know your bloodline, man. There is an inherited gene in
36:32
our community that has been. Forgotten.
36:35
The name is Sickle Cell Trait. WDCONSCT, also known as What's
36:40
the Count? Is out to bring awareness,
36:42
education and prevention to people all over the globe.
36:45
Want more information? Call us now at 323-215-5384 or
36:52
visit www.wbconsct.org. So that is work each one of
37:11
those persons that you see in that video.
37:14
That is their real life Turquoise Thompson.
37:17
She ran track for UCLA. She has sickle cell traits.
37:20
She experienced those complications during her track
37:24
career. The other gentleman.
37:28
Also experienced his conversation with his mother and
37:34
about his daughter having sickle cell trade.
37:36
He's a music artist myself. That is my real story about
37:42
sickle cell trade. And then the guy who was the
37:45
extra that came and sat down on the bench, he was part of the
37:49
crew. And he was able.
37:51
To get educated through our conversation as well.
37:54
So that is my public service announcement.
37:56
I'm very proud of that. I'm blessed to have that out as
38:00
a share. And again, it's very important
38:04
for people to understand that if you have this inherited gene,
38:08
there can be some risk factors and complications.
38:10
And I had no idea the Air Force found my sickle cell trait 10
38:15
years after being in the military.
38:18
And they told me that. I should be fine.
38:20
There should be no complications.
38:21
There should have no issues. However, that wasn't true.
38:26
And so. I end up having that exertional
38:29
collapse with sickle cell, with rhabdomyolysis and here we are
38:33
today, the donation page. What I've taken on this year is
38:40
actually the ROTC in the military.
38:45
Conversation. So I.
38:46
Have a ROTCRSP military awareness initiative.
38:50
And so the goal is to go out and educate soldiers, those who are
38:54
planning to be with soldiers because the Army in 2020 started
39:01
retesting their soldiers for sickle cell trade across the
39:07
board. So every annual PHA physical
39:11
soldiers are going to be tested, if they have not already been
39:14
tested, to find out their sickle cell trade status.
39:18
And I'm not saying I'm responsible for that, but I can
39:21
tell you the last 13 years that I've been advocating, I have
39:24
been speaking and pointing to this conversation about my
39:28
experience with sickle cell trade and what it looks like.
39:31
And so the Army has to protect those soldiers with those
39:37
inherited genes to identify them.
39:40
They are retesting all soldiers. So now when I go to the base to
39:43
speak, I actually meeting soldiers who have been tested
39:46
for sickle cell trade, but they still didn't get the knowledge,
39:50
they didn't get the understanding of why they were
39:51
getting the test done. Right, because there are risk.
39:56
Factors, you know, not everybody's going to have
40:00
complications but for. This is what you need to be.
40:06
Aware of, and so this is me actually at camp, Roberts
40:10
recorded a conversation about. This is how part of my
40:14
presentation is when I speak with soldiers at the base.
40:20
So doing my research when I started to become this advocate
40:23
and trying to figure out what happened to me.
40:25
I found this in. The medical books Most people's
40:28
sickle cell trait do not have any symptoms of sickle cell
40:30
disease. But that's true, Sickle cell
40:32
trait will never turn into sickle cell disease or anemia.
40:35
Two different conversations. But this word right here changes
40:40
the conversation. Although and it says although in
40:45
rare cases people with sickle cell trade might experience
40:48
complications of sickle cell disease such as so then that's
40:52
when I started paying attention because they've known but just
40:57
hasn't been addressed. And so it's not sickle cell
41:01
disease, it's just a trade. But this is from the medical
41:05
books. Pain crisis in the extreme form
41:09
and in rare cases the following conditions can be harmful to
41:12
people with SCT, Increased pressures in the atmosphere.
41:17
As I mentioned, places like Denver, Co where the air is then
41:20
scuba diving. And so that's me.
41:25
I had no idea. And it says here.
41:30
In during exercising, climb, mountain climbing exercise
41:34
extremely hard, with military and boot camp and athletic
41:38
competitions, so it's been there for years, but it hasn't been
41:42
talked about or addressed. So that's just one.
41:48
Of the recordings that I did at Camp Roberts, when I attend
41:51
about 10 * a year, I drive about four hours one way, spend the
41:56
night, wake up that next morning, do my conversation and
41:59
drive home. It's been a blessing.
42:02
I've done speaks, engagements at HBCU colleges.
42:06
That picture in the corner there is me at one of the HBCUS
42:10
speaking and even in my community I've had some events
42:15
to help bring awareness to sickle cell trade.
42:17
It is a very important it is a public health issue right.
42:21
It is a public and the whole part about being here on this
42:27
network is because they're we're, we're, we're they're
42:30
located in Denver, Co. As I mentioned in that
42:32
conversation, Denver, Co is not the ideal place for people to
42:38
come in with sickle cell trade and just start exercising and
42:42
playing games and you know, doing those kind of strenuous
42:46
things because the air is thin and the red blood cells carry
42:51
oxidant throughout the body. And so.
42:55
Being on this network and and connected to Denver, the Denver
43:01
Broncos recently lost one of their athletes, Ronnie Hillman
43:08
and Ronnie Hillman. Died from a.
43:11
Rare kidney cancer that's connected directly to sickle
43:14
cell trait and so to help bring awareness right to athletes, to
43:25
military veterans, to parents, to children, to coaches.
43:30
This is this is. My purpose this is who I get to
43:33
be. This is my activity of when I
43:36
get to show up. Just one of them is my sickle
43:39
cell trait talks. Who I get to be when I.
43:42
Show up as a person is what I shared with you in the
43:45
beginning. That others see their greatness
43:46
through myself. Expression that others find
43:48
their Peace of Mind through their language, and that others
43:52
help in that healing and demonstrating self forgiveness.
43:55
That's who I get to be when I show up as an experience, but
44:00
who I get to be as a person in my activities of life.
44:04
I got AI, got quite a few. This is #1.
44:07
The sickle cell trait talk is my #1 because I was born with that.
44:11
I found the scriptures in the Bible.
44:13
God has shown that that this is what he put me in my mother's
44:17
womb to be born to deliver this message.
44:23
And my military career was just a part of the process to get me
44:28
to be in front of you right here.
44:31
And so I'm. Blessed.
44:33
I know that this is important. I know that is important.
44:36
Sometimes I don't think it is. Sometimes I don't think anybody
44:38
cares about this conversation. But let me tell you, there's not
44:41
a day that goes by that I don't get reminded how important this
44:45
sickle cell trade talk is. And for people like Ronnie
44:49
Hillman, who lost their life to a rare kidney cancer that they
44:52
didn't discover until it was like almost Stage 4, and then a
44:56
few months later he passes away. We think that he would have the
45:02
best doctors to recognize what was going on in his body.
45:06
It's not a blame. But how many more people in life
45:09
are dealing with this And here to gene that they have no idea
45:13
that they could have health complications and that worst
45:17
case cause sudden death. I had all these symptoms except
45:22
for the cardiac arrest that I didn't die that day when I
45:24
collapsed at my master's on Academy.
45:27
I was at my military school working on my EA rank and that
45:30
morning I collapsed after the two mile run.
45:34
I had no idea. They thought it was dehydration,
45:36
heat stroke, rhabdomyolysis was the diagnosis because I had
45:39
renal failure My my kidneys were at 50%.
45:42
I was dying that day on the inside and had no idea that it
45:47
was connected to sickle cell trait until five years later
45:54
from a veteran friend who I was deployed with.
45:57
He was my platoon leader, I was platoon Sergeant and we never
46:01
talked about traits until he saw me on the base five years later
46:05
and asked me how I've been. And when I told him, he said,
46:09
oh, my muscles locked up, but I have sickle cell trait.
46:12
I got to drink extra water and I'm like, man, that sounds
46:15
familiar and here we are. He reminded me of my trait
46:19
status. Another part of my conversation,
46:26
I'm going to take you to the goaltenders because this is so
46:29
important. When I met Caldwell Williams, he
46:33
had been doing this mindfulness conversation for years, 60
46:37
years. He was doing this talk right.
46:41
And so when I met him, he was doing veteran suicide
46:44
conversations. And I connect with him.
46:47
Because I had been in that same path of my own self discovery.
46:53
And so I'm going to share with you his website that I'm a part
46:57
of about how we are helping the community deal with youth
47:03
suicide, veteran suicide, people who are who feel like we're lost
47:07
in our identity. But what is it really for us?
47:13
It's a human being flaw. We all deal with some kind of
47:19
experience of ourself and where does it come from?
47:27
So I'm going to play, I'm going to pull up the share my screen
47:29
again and I'm going to bring up the goaltenders website.
47:34
I just want you to see some of the things that he has been
47:38
doing. And as veterans, you know, even
47:43
today I still miss the, I experienced missing the military
47:47
today. And one of the things that we've
47:49
discovered is what do we really miss as a veteran?
47:53
Like what is the number one thing that we miss?
47:56
And guess what it is? What was your high point while
48:00
in service? My high point while in service
48:04
was probably just the the. Camaraderie.
48:09
Camaraderie within the troops. You know, it was that
48:13
brotherhood that I love. It's a brotherhood that I miss,
48:15
you know, being a part of something, you know, having a
48:17
mission. You know, I'm just going.
48:20
Out to. Helping people you know, gaining
48:22
the hearts and minds of you know, people from around the
48:24
world. That is what it's.
48:27
About ladies and gentlemen I know for me, that's that's even
48:31
why I created this talk show. Trench talk.
48:34
Because I wanted to stay connected to my brothers and
48:40
sisters in the military. And Caldwell has been.
48:45
Doing this work for veterans since about 2015.
48:49
But he's done this work, like I said 60 years back, for youth,
48:53
for corporations, helping them discover the most important
48:59
compelling thing for human beings is to belong.
49:02
We all want to belong. We want to belong in our
49:06
families. We want to belong to
49:07
communities. We belong.
49:09
We want to have friends. But guess what?
49:12
Sometimes that sense of belongings gets thwarted because
49:17
I don't feel like I'm good enough.
49:19
I don't feel like I'm worth it. I don't feel like whatever that
49:22
whatever your I'm not is you got to find out where it's coming
49:24
from because that could be enough to take you out.
49:29
So the sensible. Lung is what we talk about in
49:31
goaltenders. I got 3.
49:34
Videos clips I'm going to show you and I want you to listen to
49:38
these are real veterans, some combat some non combat that are
49:44
that have dealt with their life and and and Caldwell's education
49:48
has allowed was allowed to help them self discover.
49:55
One of the toughest points of my life was I had a really bad
49:59
mental breakdown. It it was between what happened
50:03
overseas to losing a friend who committed suicide when we came
50:08
back to decisions I've made during my lifetime and not being
50:14
able to be athletic anymore, not be able to run anymore.
50:17
Just a lot of things with the anxiety and everything else that
50:21
happened to a point where when they pulled me over, I couldn't
50:26
hang myself because my rope was in my trunk and I couldn't cut
50:29
myself. As hard as it was, I tried
50:32
couldn't do it. So I had about 200 pills I
50:35
brought from from ACVS store. It was so I ended up taking all
50:39
the pills and and I woke up in a hospital bed handcuffed with the
50:44
tube down my throat hearing all these pills come.
50:53
I've done two combat deployment rotations to Afghanistan and I
50:59
suffered major fatigue Ness. While.
51:03
I was over there with my mental and my physical health.
51:08
I was afraid to sleep with my daughter because I aggressively
51:14
move. Around in my.
51:15
Sleep, and sometimes I could be very violent.
51:19
With all the things that. Occurred with me.
51:22
And. All of those situations, they
51:24
lead me up to this point, checking into a shelter.
51:28
You know, I lost my my wife. My daughter and dealing with
51:39
PTSD. Is something that requires A
51:42
sophisticated sort of method of self discovery to be able to.
51:46
I wound up in Caldwell Williams program and everything that they
51:50
talked about was put. 2 words the things I felt.
51:54
That I couldn't say. You know the the information I
51:57
had gleaned, the personal insights I had.
52:00
It was as if someone had already gone through it and had pieced
52:04
it all together and understood how a person goes through the
52:07
self transformation. Discovery.
52:13
This transition from having wounds into using them to become
52:18
whole and complete, and that's what Caldwell Williams program
52:21
does. So dealing with PTSD.
52:23
Is. So I I can tell you that after
52:28
meeting Caldwell and taking his education, even after all the
52:33
stuff that I had taken for myself, I learned even more
52:37
about my life and my journey around what I was dealing with.
52:42
And so I'm going to share with you my personal clip.
52:45
I'm also a hidden pioneer with the organization that goes out
52:49
into the community, the high schools, and just give them
52:53
options in life. A lot of times we just think
52:55
that we can be football players and cops and gangsters and
52:59
military, but there are 40,000 plus type of jobs out there.
53:02
But what I tell people is you can open up any door you want
53:06
for those children, for us as veterans.
53:08
But if I'm emotionally not included by my emotional state
53:13
of myself, I'm not going to walk through that door.
53:17
So that's sensible. Long It is not just what you do
53:19
for me, I have to experience that for myself and we can show
53:26
people how you can read because you're already included.
53:30
We're already included. As human beings.
53:33
But the language, how we talk, we label each other blacks,
53:35
white, Asians, Hispanic, that disconnects us.
53:39
Even as a veteran, you know, we're trained to objectify
53:43
another human being into a terrorist, and then you can kill
53:47
that terrorist. But then what happens when that
53:50
brain remembers one day that that was a human being, It
53:52
wasn't a terrorist? What about in athletics?
53:56
Fans, sports fans kill each other in parking lots in
53:59
stadiums because of a team jersey that they're wearing and
54:03
they don't even own the team. But I'll kill you because you
54:08
are a Laker fan and you got on the Clipper jersey and we that's
54:13
how powerful objectification is that I can label you as a other
54:18
and then I talk to you as such. I label you.
54:22
As a white person, and I could talk to you how the world talks
54:25
about white people. You're black.
54:27
I'm going to talk to you about how the black people talks about
54:30
black people, How the world talks about because I'm labeling
54:32
you as a black person, not as a human being.
54:37
And these are conversations that we can have.
54:39
These are conversations that we're having.
54:42
As parents. We have our concerns for our
54:44
children. We want them to turn out.
54:46
My parents just wanted me to turn out as a child.
54:48
But they didn't really know. Because they had me as a child,
54:51
they were 19 and 20 years old. So what I'm 51 now is still
54:55
trying to figure out what life is.
54:57
So can I I can imagine, you know, my parents having a child
55:00
in such a young age. And then I looked at how they
55:03
grew up and what was going on when they were born and what was
55:06
going on when my grandparents were born post slavery.
55:09
So you can see. How that generation had passed
55:11
on ways to survive life. And then you have a child and
55:14
you want that child to develop and grow.
55:17
But we have concerns for our children.
55:19
But we we forget as parents is that our children grow up with
55:23
concerns on their own life. And now how do we put our
55:27
concerns aside and worry about what that child is worrying
55:30
about, not what we're worried about, because that's that
55:32
child's life. That's not our life.
55:34
So I had to then go back and heal my relationship with my
55:36
three daughters because I had treated them how my parents
55:39
treated me. And you see how the cycle kept
55:42
going on. But now I have a grandson, and
55:45
now that I'm educated and I'm aware of that, we get to break
55:47
that cycle and he will have the skills and the knowledge to
55:51
listen and then make his own choices.
55:54
And I believe that if we have this part of us as a core
55:57
conversation with our youth, then the jobs that we introduced
56:00
them to, they will look at an opportunity for them to be
56:03
included by either dialogue skills or by their merits, not
56:08
because of a race or a color. That society has built up what
56:12
inclusion looks like, and the military does inclusion by
56:17
objectification so well because it teaches us to transform that
56:22
person into a terrorist. Right.
56:26
So when we. Objectify one another now I'm no
56:28
longer connected to you as a person.
56:30
You're a other, and then that allows me to talk to you or
56:33
treat you in the other. And the military does it where
56:36
we can transform that person into a terrorist and then you
56:39
kill that terrorist. So I'm not killing the person,
56:41
I'm killing the terrorist. As parents, this is important.
56:50
Discussion. I have a page on here.
56:51
I'm the vice president of goaltenders, and so Caldwell has
56:56
trusted me with his education that when he passes away that I
57:01
will be able to continue this conversation because I've done
57:05
the work and I'm able to articulate it and actually train
57:08
it and teach other people. For those who are willing to
57:11
listen, you got to be willing, you got to be willing to do the
57:14
work. And not everybody's willing, not
57:17
everybody understands that there is an opportunity that you can
57:20
discover self forgiveness which can lead to Peace of Mind.
57:25
So this is the, this is the goaltender's website.
57:28
If you want information about that, you are more than welcome
57:32
to again, be a part of this conversation as well.
57:36
These are just some of the things that I'm going to be
57:38
bringing to the network, to my talk show, to talk about as far
57:44
as how we're going to help take care of our veterans and our
57:47
families and our children. That's the next generation.
57:50
The children are our future. That is not a cliche.
57:52
That is real life. And if you are an adult, you as
57:55
a child, your parents were children.
57:58
Look, go talk to your mom and dad and find out what it was
58:01
like for them when they were born.
58:03
Go to your grandparents and find out what it was like for them
58:06
when they were born. Find out how, why those families
58:09
came to the United States, fleeing from their countries to
58:12
come here for a better life. But then we still have those
58:16
wounds that we carried here. And yes, our black community for
58:20
some people still talk about slavery and the Jim Crow era,
58:24
but that's not my era. I don't have those emotional
58:27
wounds, but we can still acknowledge that era.
58:30
And then what is it today? It's my turn.
58:33
It's my turn. I can live in the past of the
58:36
upsets of slavery and Jim Crow era, or I can figure out how I
58:40
can move that conversation forward.
58:44
And so if you're interested in these kind of talks, this is
58:48
what I'm bringing as the Ferran Doze Show on NPR.
58:53
And it is very important, and I thank you for the opportunity to
58:58
do this first episode and just hope that you follow along at
59:04
Ferran Dozier is my, is, is my personal information.
59:10
But you can also go to I have a sports show on Sunday nights,
59:13
8:00 PM at Sports collective on Instagram.
59:16
All of my stuff is all over my pages, social media.
59:20
And again, make sure you go to MBR and and download the app and
59:25
you can catch us live on the app, interact with us on the
59:28
app. And again, I'm very grateful for
59:30
this to be the first episode of the Ferrand Dozier show.
59:34
And again, thank you for listening.
59:38
And I look forward to just bringing some content and not
59:43
talking about life as a veteran, but talking from life so that
59:48
people can start to heal, so that we can start to reconcile
59:51
our relationships, so we can find our purpose, our passions
59:53
and our gifts, all in the conversation.
59:56
All this lives in language. It's all in language.
1:00:00
And you have the power to control your language.
1:00:03
We have feelings and emotions and you don't have to become
1:00:06
them. I thank the VA for the kind of
1:00:09
the behavior that class helped me discover how I exaggerated my
1:00:13
thoughts were. So we're talking.
1:00:16
About all of these different conversations right here on the
1:00:18
front Doze Show, Charlotte saw. What's the count?
1:00:22
And we're going to end this. With this one.