Latest / None of Your Business Podcast / The Trauma No One Talks About: Soldiers Reveal the Reality of War in Gaza

Transcript

The Trauma No One Talks About: Soldiers Reveal the Reality of War in Gaza · None of Your Business Podcast

• 0:00
  The Israeli army, specifically a soldier, I don't care to what
• 0:03
  capacity. You are my hero and you are
• 0:05
  incredible people. When the war happened, I went to
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  Israel to fight. I came back and I felt in a way
• 0:12
  that I did something so meaningful fighting for Israel.
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  Impossible to go to Gaza and come back to see in person but
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  no one talks about it because no one wants to be the guy asking
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  for help but it's OK to ask for battery.
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  The fact is that in this land, whatever it is, there's millions
• 0:26
  of Jews that are residing here and they have a life here in
• 0:29
  this communities. And we're we're actively being
• 0:32
  attacked from all sides. And at the end of the day, you
• 0:34
  can't sit idly by. Even if you're.
• 0:40
  Business Oshi. None of your business, Michael.
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  It's the None of Your Business podcast hosted by Michael and
• 0:46
  Oshi. Welcome back everybody to
• 0:48
  another incredible episode of the None of Your Business
• 0:51
  podcast. I'm your host, Michael
• 0:52
  Greenfield joined with my Co host Oshi Schwartz.
• 0:54
  We are produced and sponsored by the Prime Source family.
• 0:58
  Thank you again to everyone behind the scenes for always
• 1:01
  doing an amazing job putting this together.
• 1:03
  Oshi, I saved the word incredible for this podcast.
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  I've never used it before. From what I understand, it's
• 1:09
  worthy that you saved it for this moment, yes.
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  So I'm anticipating this to be an incredible.
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  Well, it is, and it's because I'm here with two incredible
• 1:16
  people, and we're going to introduce you in a moment, Haim
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  and Akiva. But before I do, I just want to
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  mention, and I've said this before, anyone who teaches me
• 1:25
  something, I call them a rabbi. People say, hey, don't call me a
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  rabbi. You taught me something.
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  You're a rabbi to me, someone serving in the Israeli army,
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  specifically a soldier. I don't care to what capacity.
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  You are my hero and you are incredible people.
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  Thank you so much for joining us.
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  We are joined by Chi and Misels and Akiba Shapiro, if you guys
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  don't mind. Let's get straight into it.
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  Just give us a quick introduction.
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  I'm curious about your history, your background.
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  I know a lot of people already heard your story, but some of
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  our listeners have not. Some people know your story, but
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  maybe not as well. But I would like to know, take
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  us to the beginning of who you are as a person and what brought
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  you to the Israeli army. Like that's what I want to know.
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  Like that's. Yeah, I don't even ask those on
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  interviews anymore. Like tell me about yourself.
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  Sorry, that's why I'm saying I'm not.
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  I'm specifically saying I that's why I pinpointed it for a
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  reason. I said take me to the point
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  where you're like, I'm going to the Israeli army and a little
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  bit about your background, who you are, but let's straight to
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  like, I can't even go for it. Because I went first.
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  You go, you go. I went to Yeshiva Nordavid, 60
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  guys, two guys without visas. Somebody did come knocking
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  saying who are the two guys without visas, join or go home.
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  So I went home. Now I'm like maybe I should go
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  to. Got back on a plane the next
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  year, went right to the drafting office which got a goose went
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  in. Wow, that's all because you
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  didn't have a visa. It's all because I didn't have a
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  visa. Now I was born in Ariti Straw,
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  so I'm Israeli by birth and figured if at any point I wanted
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  to go back and live there, get it out of the way now.
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  Wow, I'm done. I don't understand.
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  So you were born Israel, but you lived here pretty much your
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  whole. Life My mother made aliyah when
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  she was 16. My father graduated undergrad,
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  was travelling Europe and decided to go through Israel.
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  On his way, my parents locked eyes.
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  Somewhere here I am, but they were in Israel at the time, so I
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  was born. There, right?
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  So the minute you're born in Israel.
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  Yeah, but he's you're an American citizen.
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  We're also. Dual citizen.
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  Yeah, dual citizen, right. So you didn't have a visa.
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  What does that mean? You didn't have a visa.
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  Because I have an Israeli passport, so I can go in and out
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  of Israel with my Israeli passport.
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  You don't need a student visa. So when you were there for
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  Yeshiva? Easiest calculation, 58 guys
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  with, two guys without. There is no sorting.
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  You know exactly you're going to.
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  The other guy didn't want to go. He hired somebody.
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  I think he doused himself in alcohol, urine, this that and
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  they wouldn't take him. Oh, is that a move?
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  Apparently it was a move. Pay attention Khareti people in
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  Israel just doused yourself. You weren't allowed to leave the
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  country. You couldn't leave Israel.
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  I wasn't. They didn't want me to stay if I
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  didn't go join the army as a citizen.
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  Every citizen joins the army. Interesting.
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  Wow, you mean every citizen should join the army?
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  Woo brings us to. Chime here by opinion.
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  We should take away the citizenship.
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  No, no. So Chime, tell us a little bit
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  about your background now then. OK, I'm Chime.
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  I grew up in Williamsburg Hasidis that my family so it
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  started I was fascinated about the Holocaust.
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  I was everything Holocaust related spoke to me a lot.
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  I was very interested in speaking to my grandfather about
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  it or whoever else was willing to talk about it.
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  I was like, tell me more. So back and forth.
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  In a way, I kind of, I wasn't the Holocaust denier, but it
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  just seems so far away from reality that I was like, tell me
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  more like, so I want to understand what's going on here.
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  And then when I went to Israel the first time, I was like, this
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  is amazing. Like you have, you had a
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  Holocaust and now we have our own country, our own state, and
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  we can fight as Jews, we can be Jewish and have a land and
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  protect and kind of try to prevent another Holocaust.
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  How old were you when you went to Israel first time?
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  That I remember 1011, I was there once when I was very
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  little that I don't remember or no decisions were made.
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  But since then it started like start to think about it more and
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  more. And as I grew older I was like
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  back and forth thinking does it make sense?
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  Does it not? And then I had a hard time just
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  where I was going in life in terms of Satmar.
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  So I was like, if I'm not as Satmar anyway, maybe I should
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  just do that and then continue my life on.
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  And that's what happened. So I went to Israel.
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  My initial plan was to join the IDF for 18 months.
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  I didn't know that I'm going to be good at it or I had no
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  background, no one really to tell me how it's going to be.
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  So I joined for 18 months initially and that became close
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  to six years. Wow, 18 months is a program for
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  those that don't understand. Yeah.
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  So I actually, well, I'll, I'll say that I ultimately thought I
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  was going for 18 months because I looked into nothing.
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  I had three or four friends that went, we're having a great time,
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  a little bit older than me. When I was going in, they were
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  getting out. I also thought I was going to
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  what's called Maha, the volunteer service, and I guess
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  getting close towards the end of the 18 months and I went to the
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  guy, I'm like, so am I getting out?
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  He's like, no, you still have another like 18 months left.
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  I was like, what are you talking about?
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  IDF tricked me. Wow, they tricked you to combat?
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  You had a you had a citizenship in Israel.
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  I know I didn't really. I didn't really think about it
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  before. There's a lot more.
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  Organizations today that will guide you where to go, what they
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  do, how long, how to get this back then.
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  Not that I would have taken advantage of it, because you
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  ought to be smart to do that, but yeah, not in any way.
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  Can I, can I answer something? You mentioned you joined the IDF
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  voluntarily and you're from Sotmer.
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  I mean, I think we we got to call this out there.
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  There certainly is a lot of conflict between between the
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  two. So what was that transition
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  like? Like how did your family take
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  it? That's a big jump.
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  You know, growing up in summer background and going to Israel
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  and then going into the army is a stark contrast.
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  So like what was like? How did that develop?
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  So there's a few separate parts in this.
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  So one part that I wasn't Southerner anymore means I was.
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  I still like a lot of Southerner people.
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  I have a lot of friends in Southerner and I have a
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  tremendous amount of respect for them just the way that I see
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  Israel. And in that aspect, I wasn't, I
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  was kind of openly saying I think Israel should be a state
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  and then whatever it is. So it wasn't such a surprise in
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  that aspect. And I, I had my struggle with
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  religion for, for a little bit at that time.
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  So it was kind of wasn't such a big deal.
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  I think people took it as a big deal in the beginning, but then
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  as time went on, I was explaining I have nothing
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  against anyone. I'm, you know, I'm not here to
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  poke anyone's eyes or in any way.
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  I'm just here because I think this is what I should do.
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  This is the right thing for me at the time and that's why I did
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  it. I'm still till today, I don't
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  think I ever bashed that matter. I have nothing against anyone.
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  Like I understand where they're coming from.
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  I understand what I believe. I think is the right thing at
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  it. Like now.
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  Yeah, I think that the communities have softened their
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  stance when it comes to Israel and Israel as a state ever
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  since. You know, lots of things have
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  been happening in the last four or five years.
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  I think it's changed a little bit.
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  I think it's shifted. I don't think it's as it once
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  was. Would you agree?
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  So I don't think here's the thing, the fight between Satmar
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  or the Orthodox communities with Zionism as a whole didn't start
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  when Israel was created, right? It started early 1800s, right
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  when the whole Zionist movement started when, when that old
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  thing. And that was their main issue.
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  And I think they didn't believe that Israel will ever become a
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  state. And with time, as Israel became
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  a state, they said, hey, there is no way that's a state and
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  we're going to fight the state of Israel because there's no way
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  that's going to actually continue.
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  Like they didn't believe that Israel will stay a state and now
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  that it was a fact. And there is millions of Jews we
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  have to protect, right? There's a couple million Jews in
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  Israel that they're there. They're Jewish people that our
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  people, We need to fight and take care of them.
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  At this point it's defense. It's literally self-defense.
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  That's what it is like. I look at, I look at the IDF in
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  a way like a shamram patrol of Israel.
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  Interesting. Like it's people who are Jewish,
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  people from every community, and they are out there to protect
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  their community. It's not like we're going to
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  somewhere else to fight, right? We have our community, we're
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  there. We grew up there.
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  We speak the language now we got to fight for it.
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  That's the way I see it. Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of
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  sense. Yeah, I actually like the way
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  you're looking at it. To be honest, I never heard it
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  that way. It's only.
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  Take that word state out of the. Equity for a minute.
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  The fact is that in this land, whatever it is, there's millions
• 10:22
  of Jews that are residing here and they have a life here and
• 10:25
  there's communities here and we're we're actively being
• 10:28
  attacked from all sides. And at the end of the day, you
• 10:30
  can't sit idly by. You got to do something about
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  it. And there are, there are people
• 10:34
  like you do and, and, and, and thousands and thousands of
• 10:37
  soldiers that are, that are out there putting their lives at
• 10:39
  risk to protect their brothers and sisters.
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  That's a very simple way to really look at it without all
• 10:44
  the politics. Right.
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  And if you speak to our enemies, they're not saying they're
• 10:50
  against Israel or particular parts of Israel.
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  They're saying very clear that they're against all the Jews,
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  right? And we know, for example, in
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  1937, there was the massacre in Chevron where they killed a holy
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  Shiva of boys was way before there was a state of Israel.
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  So they're out there to kill you.
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  Doesn't matter what you do, how you do.
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  They call a settler not just someone who lives in Judea and
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  Samaria. The guy in Tel Aviv to them is a
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  settler as well. So they're out there to kill
• 11:19
  you. They're out there to fight you.
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  And we need to protect ourselves.
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  That's why it's the Israeli Defense Force.
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  We're there to protect, to fight you.
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  You mentioned the words. Sorry.
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  Go ahead. No, it's true because you could
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  be walking in. I mean, you be in College in in
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  in Colombia if you're Jewish, not.
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  To get you right. Nothing to do with Israel.
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  Yeah, not even you're. Not even there.
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  Don't even. They don't even know if you've
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  ever been. Could be that you're even
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  against it, right? Could be your sattner.
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  Like real sattner. I feel like they're using the
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  word Zionism in general. And that's what I wanted to ask
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  you because you mentioned Off the Air before that there's
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  something going on with in your world and maybe you could talk
• 11:57
  about it for a second. But to try to explain to me at
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  least better and to any of the listeners, how the word Zionism
• 12:03
  is being used and how it's being abused, perhaps, And I'll just
• 12:06
  try to understand that better. So Zionism we're jumping.
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  Fast. Zionism was created right by an
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  idea almost 200 years ago, right?
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  The first Zionist Congress happened in 1897 in back in
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  Europe, that's in America started things.
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  So Zionism was created in order to take Jews together and have
• 12:31
  our own establishment. Because until then Jews were all
• 12:34
  over the world, right? And we didn't have even it like
• 12:37
  in the beginning, if you go down there weren't even talking so
• 12:40
  much about Israel. It was just let's get a Jewish
• 12:42
  identity and have us together because they had all those
• 12:44
  things against the Jews right now when they create, we're
• 12:49
  going to go a different pat and then we'll come back.
• 12:53
  So when they created Zionism, they created in a way, a big
• 12:56
  bubble, I would say. So there's a bunch of agencies
• 12:59
  that were being created, like the World Zionists Organization,
• 13:03
  the Jewish Agency, Jewish Federation, the Kakal, which is
• 13:08
  Kanakam. At least they bought a bunch of
• 13:10
  kind of agencies that were starting to fight for the Jews
• 13:13
  and for it to be a state. Now, the plan was once Israel
• 13:18
  becomes a state, this is going to be the government, the
• 13:21
  government of Israel and government agencies.
• 13:23
  Now, for a lot of different political reasons, it didn't
• 13:26
  happen that way. What happened was the Knesset
• 13:28
  open. You know, the founders of
• 13:31
  Israel, I'm talking in Israel, didn't go with the Zionist
• 13:34
  Congress, open their own thing. Now the Zionist Congress still
• 13:38
  has a big power. They own 30 to 40% of land in
• 13:41
  Israel. They still own and big budget, a
• 13:44
  lot of big influences. Now how what, Because they
• 13:49
  control so much money. How is it divided now?
• 13:52
  There is 500 delegate seats in the Zionist Congress.
• 13:56
  It's divided by thirds. 1/3 is Havrek Ness, it's from Israel
• 14:00
  have a say. 1/3 is Jews just from America, and a third is
• 14:05
  Jews all over the world. They get together once in five
• 14:08
  years through elections and they kind of form committees and
• 14:13
  subcommittees and those committees are in charge of the
• 14:16
  money and to represent the Jews around the world.
• 14:19
  Now, because it's Zionism, most Hasidic Jews or Orthodox, not
• 14:25
  even Hasidic didn't want to be affiliated with it because we
• 14:27
  know in the beginning Zionism wasn't so pro religion.
• 14:31
  Now what happened was a lot of the Reform and conservative
• 14:33
  communities took over the Zionist Congress.
• 14:36
  And what I mean by taking over is, for example, the the lawsuit
• 14:41
  in Israel against kosher cell phones was funded by WZO money.
• 14:46
  Woman of the Wall are being funded by WZO money.
• 14:49
  There's a lot of other different agencies that are being funded
• 14:52
  by money that belongs to everyone and should fight for
• 14:56
  Jews, and they're being used against a certain part.
• 14:59
  Of it sounds like they need Elon Musk over there.
• 15:01
  They really. Do.
• 15:03
  They really do. And they, and there's a lot of
• 15:04
  other bad things they're doing for the Jews saying, for
• 15:08
  example, there's fighting and saying we represent the Jews of
• 15:11
  America and we want a 2 state solution.
• 15:13
  I know I don't want a 2 state solution.
• 15:15
  I believe you guys also don't want a 2 state solution.
• 15:17
  But there are others saying they represent you, which they don't.
• 15:21
  So elections are coming up now and I'm running with Erik
• 15:24
  Sarkoi. This is just one of the Kareti
• 15:26
  parties. And what we're going to try to
• 15:28
  fight it. We're going to get in.
• 15:29
  We're going to be able hopefully to get a lot of votes and stand
• 15:33
  up there and say, no, you don't represent us.
• 15:35
  We represent the Jews. We're get we have the vote of
• 15:38
  the Jewish people from America and from around the world.
• 15:41
  And we're going to say this is what's important to the Jews,
• 15:44
  especially after October 7th. You have to be LED at least by
• 15:49
  people who are pro Israel. If you go until 1980, most of
• 15:52
  the Reformed rabbis were against Israel like in their idea.
• 15:56
  And this figure they took out everything about Israel, they
• 16:00
  added back on later. So we're going to fight for that
• 16:03
  and we're we're going to represent the Jews, God willing,
• 16:06
  we're going to win and we'll be able to change.
• 16:08
  We're talking about a close to $2 billion budget a year.
• 16:13
  It's a big. Number, I'm sorry, I know
• 16:14
  nothing about this, but I've never heard this in my life.
• 16:16
  This is to me complete news to me.
• 16:18
  I don't know. I'm I'm happy We sidetracked a
• 16:20
  little bit because again, I heard the word Zionism.
• 16:22
  And you know, I I, I have a friend of mine that I met once a
• 16:26
  while ago and his family is from Iran and he tells me that we
• 16:30
  love Jews and Iran. And I was just like, I was mind
• 16:34
  boggled by how he was telling it to me.
• 16:35
  Yeah, we protect, I think Mordechai, right, who was buried
• 16:38
  there for years. And and and then he said, but
• 16:41
  Zionism, that's a whole different world.
• 16:43
  And I was like, you know, I don't have the head for this
• 16:44
  right now. Just, you know, get me my car.
• 16:46
  You know, he was like an Uber driver and turned friend.
• 16:49
  Obviously happens to me. So that's why I was so, so
• 16:52
  curious about it. So you're saying that Zionism,
• 16:54
  from your perspective of what is, you know, this organization
• 16:57
  can be a good thing for us in terms of the community being
• 17:00
  aware that we should put our weight behind it.
• 17:04
  Right. So because they're out there
• 17:05
  saying they represent you, right?
• 17:07
  I don't think they do because I don't.
• 17:08
  I don't. So you saying you can't ignore
• 17:10
  it anymore? No, right.
• 17:11
  That's what you're saying. We have to get involved.
• 17:12
  So how does this election process work?
• 17:14
  Well, if I wanted to vote for someone, how do I OK?
• 17:16
  So the election process work, you got a it's an online voting
• 17:18
  cards on March 10 goes until May four or five everyone because
• 17:27
  it's been led by the forms. So everyone who checks over the
• 17:30
  box that they identify the Jew is eligible to vote.
• 17:33
  So if you just say yes, identify the Jew and pro Zionist
• 17:36
  movement, I can vote. Even if you're not Jewish but
• 17:39
  you check that box, you can vote.
• 17:41
  You're not supposed to, but if you identify that if your
• 17:43
  father's Jewish or your mother doesn't matter, you identify the
• 17:46
  Jew. You identify the Jew, you're
• 17:48
  eligible to vote. And by the way, I have a lot of
• 17:49
  non Jewish friends that use Chabad schools and they love
• 17:52
  being Shabbat dinners. They identify as Jews.
• 17:55
  Where's the money coming from for the WTO?
• 17:57
  Who's funding a? Lot of it.
• 17:58
  So it's a lot of, a lot of it's like like, you know, no money
• 18:01
  went from the government. It's mainly properties from.
• 18:04
  You're saying 30% to 40%? Of Israel belongs to them.
• 18:08
  Wow, so people. Think you can?
• 18:09
  Pay rent for that. It's it's there's a big income.
• 18:13
  It didn't you back in the day. No one cared about it.
• 18:15
  And even still today they're trying not to talk about it.
• 18:18
  So you don't know what's going. On Mind me asking, I'm
• 18:20
  clarifying. I walk the streets of Jerusalem
• 18:21
  a lot and I look up and I see beautiful churches and, and
• 18:25
  communities owned by Ethiopians and, and the Russians and Polish
• 18:29
  and, and, and, and then I, I realized several years ago that
• 18:33
  Israel has property that's owned by many, many different walks of
• 18:36
  life. Where's the property that's
• 18:38
  owned here? You're saying 30?
• 18:40
  Percent everything cacaal Karen came literally you see a lot of
• 18:42
  times in Israel public parks public.
• 18:44
  Property. That's all.
• 18:46
  All under them. There's a lot of like soap.
• 18:50
  That we don't really know about. That you don't know and they
• 18:52
  don't want us to know about that control, that money so.
• 18:55
  You're going to stand behind this now, you're going to
• 18:56
  campaign for it. You're going to go out there,
• 18:58
  you're going to spread the message, go out there and vote.
• 19:00
  Get us part of this organization.
• 19:02
  Let's make an impact because it's only every five years.
• 19:05
  And I guess this is something that you've been thinking about
• 19:07
  for a while now. So in a way, about a year ago, I
• 19:11
  was reached out by one of the parties that I don't really
• 19:15
  align with to come vote with them, to come like run with
• 19:19
  them. So I went down for a meeting.
• 19:20
  I was, you know, going back and forth and I said, I don't align
• 19:25
  with you guys. It's like, like, as much as you
• 19:26
  want me and you want my vote, you want me to help you vote, I
• 19:28
  don't, I don't align. So then I was starting to look
• 19:31
  around, who do I align with? And you know, how can I actually
• 19:35
  make a change? And then I found Edith Taco
• 19:38
  this, which is official the orthodox party running.
• 19:41
  I had conversations with them back and forth, you know, made
• 19:45
  kind of a deal what I can stand for and what I can stand for.
• 19:48
  And when I figured that we're actually standing in most of the
• 19:51
  things on the same, we agree on most of the subjects.
• 19:54
  I was like, OK, we're going. To work right, you don't have to
• 19:56
  agree with everything when it comes to this kind of stuff.
• 19:57
  How many people are representing this organization do you know?
• 20:00
  So in the WCO, you have about about 150 seats from the United
• 20:05
  States. It's a Kurdish 1.
• 20:07
  Five years ago, 25 delegates. We're hoping this year to get 80
• 20:11
  delegates. Wow.
• 20:12
  The number, but I think it's I think it's I.
• 20:15
  Really believe the total. 500. Right.
• 20:19
  So very, very interesting. I learned something new today
• 20:21
  and I appreciate the education. Interesting.
• 20:23
  And it's not something that I ever thought of and or ever
• 20:26
  knew. And it's good to know that we as
• 20:28
  American Jews can have a voice in Israel.
• 20:32
  It's one of the things that I've been dying to ask you guys
• 20:34
  together. And I have to tell you my own
• 20:37
  personal experiences. And I can sit here for hours and
• 20:39
  tell you, you know things, people that I've met and
• 20:43
  perfect. I told my wife I was coming to
• 20:44
  do this. She looks at me, the kid last
• 20:47
  night, dead in the face. She's like, no, you're not.
• 20:50
  She's like, I have to remind you to talk to people at the Shabbos
• 20:54
  table. She's like, you go sit and talk
• 20:55
  on a podcast. He's still wearing bringing
• 20:56
  time. I'm going to drop keywords and
• 21:01
  he'll just go. I don't have to say.
• 21:03
  Anything well, so far you're doing great and I'm I'm, I'm
• 21:05
  going to ask you this question simply because.
• 21:08
  In my mouth. I think that's something that
• 21:10
  people don't, you know, first, so we get a background real
• 21:13
  quick. You're in the healthcare
• 21:14
  industry, right? So that's something that they
• 21:16
  say, yeah. So that's something that under.
• 21:18
  Your business. I had one place to drop it.
• 21:20
  There we go. So you're in our industry, and
• 21:24
  it's fascinating to me that you know, someone in our industry
• 21:27
  like that just pauses his life and goes, Haim, what do you do
• 21:30
  when you're not fighting our. Battles.
• 21:32
  So at the moment I helped Rendezvous, which is an
• 21:37
  organization for former lone soldiers.
• 21:40
  Basically, I did a bunch of other stuff before the war.
• 21:44
  When the war happened, I went to Israel to fight.
• 21:46
  I came back and I felt in a way that I did something so
• 21:51
  meaningful fighting for Israel. The war is still going on old I
• 21:54
  have to be here now for a little bit.
• 21:56
  I, you know, I still have to continue doing for the
• 21:58
  community. And then there's a couple
• 22:01
  stories that happened. One of them, one of the guys
• 22:03
  that was fighting under my command in Gaza, fighting
• 22:06
  together, good guy. Is that why Haim is a relatively
• 22:10
  important person? He's a captain.
• 22:12
  You'll drink. Oh wow.
• 22:13
  Not just a soldier. Yeah, you just mentioned under
• 22:15
  your command. I picked up on that, believe me.
• 22:17
  Yeah. And so there was an earthquake
• 22:21
  in April of the 24 beginning of April 24.
• 22:25
  He calls me, he said. Haim, I know I am in a building
• 22:28
  in Manhattan. I know everything should be OK
• 22:32
  around me, but this small shake now took me back to Gaza.
• 22:36
  When we got hit in Gaza and one guy passed away, it was a big
• 22:40
  situation over there and my brain thinks I'm still in Gaza.
• 22:45
  I'm now sitting in Manhattan. How do I function and what do I
• 22:49
  need to do to be able to get back to work?
• 22:53
  Like he's like, I'm now stuck. Like my brain is back there.
• 22:55
  How do I get back into life? That was one story.
• 22:58
  There was another guy in the same week or maybe a week later
• 23:02
  that his family were called me up that he just tried to commit
• 23:05
  suicide and was in the hospital in Connecticut.
• 23:08
  Former soldier, if I can help with anything.
• 23:10
  I always knew about Nivo that was involved a little bit, but
• 23:12
  not as doing, you know, being busy every day with that.
• 23:16
  And I reached out to Nivo and it was like, hey, we have so many
• 23:18
  soldiers now that are coming back and struggling and a lot of
• 23:21
  them are reaching out to you anyway.
• 23:22
  How about for the time being, as long as the war is going on, you
• 23:25
  come join us and you help those soldiers.
• 23:28
  We could obviously talk about it probably for hours, but I think
• 23:32
  in the beginning of the war, anybody who wasn't putting on a
• 23:35
  uniform of fighting guys were asking, I need flashlight, I
• 23:38
  need boots, my unit needs new helmets, right?
• 23:40
  All the things that people weren't embarrassed to ask for.
• 23:44
  Bottom line, guys, you go to Gaza, you see, just experience a
• 23:49
  destruction. It's not stuff that you should
• 23:51
  see. Bodies in the streets, inside
• 23:55
  out, bodies that got run over, bite that whatever it is that
• 23:57
  you shouldn't see. Impossible to go to Gaza and
• 24:00
  come back the same person, but no one talks about it because no
• 24:04
  one wants to be the guy asking for help.
• 24:06
  But it's OK to ask for batteries.
• 24:07
  It's not an it's not an embarrassing thing.
• 24:08
  It's not my fault the IDF doesn't have it.
• 24:11
  Probably do have it, but guys wanted better stuff.
• 24:14
  Whatever it is, guys don't ask for the help.
• 24:16
  There's how many guys that came back that are can't get back on
• 24:20
  their feet because they can't get past a small earthquake
• 24:23
  because their mind takes them back to this devastation.
• 24:27
  PTSD. It's a real thing.
• 24:28
  People don't talk about it. There's not enough.
• 24:31
  You see the picture where you follow IDF Instagram, right?
• 24:33
  You see the beautiful faces of these girls and these guys with
• 24:36
  the face paint, you know, finishing their, what's it
• 24:39
  called? It's all awesome, indestructible
• 24:40
  IDF. It's not true.
• 24:44
  No, the IDF. Is indestructible, I know, but
• 24:46
  some guy correct. But emotionally, you don't think
• 24:49
  that there's this type of damage that people are going to live
• 24:52
  with for the rest of their life. OK, but this is what I wanted to
• 24:55
  ask and this is, you know, I'm happy you went back to this full
• 24:57
  circle because as I was traveling Israel after October
• 25:01
  7th and, you know, being inspiring myself, right?
• 25:05
  You know, people say I went to inspire others.
• 25:07
  No, I went to inspire myself and it was an amazing experience.
• 25:10
  What's a question that I as a civilian, let's call it for what
• 25:15
  it is, should not ask you as a soldier that I see you on the
• 25:20
  street and I go over to you and I say, what should I not be
• 25:23
  asking you, Akiva? Probably how many people you've
• 25:26
  killed. No, I don't know.
• 25:29
  Just probably There's there's. I'll tell you what you should
• 25:31
  do. You should do not what you
• 25:33
  shouldn't do. What you shouldn't do, you know,
• 25:35
  can go give you a list of billion things.
• 25:37
  What you shouldn't do, you know, I rather don't tell people what
• 25:39
  they should do. What they should do is tell
• 25:40
  them, hey, I'm here to help. Let me know what I can help you
• 25:43
  with. If you want to talk, if you want
• 25:45
  something I like, I think the idea of because I know myself
• 25:49
  what I do now in Baslow and everyday you want to offer
• 25:53
  someone help and say, Hey, this is what I can do for you and not
• 25:56
  this is what I can do for you. Or or because when you tell
• 25:59
  someone, Hey, this is the offer I have for you, they can say yes
• 26:02
  or no when you put them in a corner and like, Hey, you're,
• 26:06
  you know, you're struggling. I need to help you.
• 26:08
  It 1 is going to be a way tougher for them to open up two
• 26:15
  you putting him in a very bad position sometimes.
• 26:17
  You know there's the the Galatiano joke, right?
• 26:19
  Do I love jokes? There's the guy who was
• 26:22
  drowning, very wealthy guy, and he's always, you know, giving
• 26:26
  people stuff. And he's drowning.
• 26:29
  And someone said, hey, give me your hand, I want to take you
• 26:32
  out. And the guy doesn't give his
• 26:33
  hand. And they see his drowning, like,
• 26:36
  give me your hand, I want to take you out.
• 26:38
  And then a smart guy's like, hey, take my hand.
• 26:40
  And then the guy take it and he came out.
• 26:43
  So that's going to take tell them how to give.
• 26:45
  How many loan soldiers were back?
• 26:49
  Approximately so. Approximately, it's a very
• 26:53
  complicated subject because no one knows the exact numbers.
• 26:57
  I can tell you and you vote how many guys were involved with
• 27:00
  were involved with about the numbers go between how much we
• 27:06
  actually help on a day-to-day basis and how much we have in
• 27:08
  our database. So we have a close to I would
• 27:13
  say 7000 soldiers. We just know out of people we
• 27:16
  help on a weekly basis about 300 guys like I'm talking that we
• 27:22
  follow up case, we pay therapy for retreats, whatever.
• 27:26
  And then I would say on let's say Mr. Monas present or just in
• 27:32
  our database couple 1000. I, I have to ask you something
• 27:36
  that I know that I always think about.
• 27:38
  Why is the government not taking care of these type of things?
• 27:40
  And what are they doing and what, why is there a need for
• 27:43
  an, a vote? That's kind of getting me
• 27:44
  frustrated as I'm hearing you say this.
• 27:46
  Oh, is it organization that you're helping therapists?
• 27:48
  Almost like when you see homeless people and they're all
• 27:50
  vets in America and it drives you nuts, you know, So, you
• 27:53
  know, people blame drug and alcohol and then they just walk
• 27:55
  away. What's happening here?
• 27:58
  So it goes to to a few separate things #1 the government in
• 28:02
  Israel is saying, hey, if you're in America, it's not our
• 28:06
  problem, Come to Israel, we'll try to help you because you're
• 28:09
  in America. We don't need to help you or we
• 28:12
  we don't have anything going in America.
• 28:13
  Oh, so this organization is only for sold?
• 28:16
  Only for sold in America. Not just America, we have Canada
• 28:20
  and London as well. Anyone in the world not Israel.
• 28:22
  Anyone not in Israel, we. Don't have.
• 28:24
  We're trying. Hopefully we're going to get
• 28:25
  there. At the moment we're mainly
• 28:26
  America and where people reached out to get help and we have. 300
• 28:31
  people a week. You guys are busy.
• 28:32
  You're good. You're you're.
• 28:34
  Wow, we're very busy. So that's one Israel is saying.
• 28:38
  If you're not in Israel, we can't help you.
• 28:40
  Why that is wrong. OK, I'll give you an example.
• 28:42
  I had a guy in Muncie, not far that lives not far from us
• 28:45
  actually. His mother called me up and said
• 28:48
  my boy hasn't come out of bed for three weeks since he came
• 28:51
  back from Israel. He's stuck in bed.
• 28:53
  I don't know what to do. How do I help him?
• 28:55
  You know, I said, you know, give me his number.
• 28:58
  I text the guy. He never responds.
• 29:01
  So one night I went over to his house and said, hey, I'm here
• 29:04
  hanging out with his parents. And then he came out of his
• 29:07
  room. I can say it's now a few months
• 29:10
  later, the guy's already in college and has a normal life.
• 29:12
  What what it took was just to take him into our community,
• 29:16
  just show, hey, there's a few hundred other guys like you who
• 29:19
  came back and had a hard time explaining for people what it is
• 29:23
  so distance in Israel. But a guy like that, you can't
• 29:26
  send them back to Israel. I can't say, hey, get on a
• 29:28
  flight to Israel. They can help you over there
• 29:30
  because his mother is here, his father is here.
• 29:31
  You know, he has community over here.
• 29:33
  So we need to help him. Over here, you have to
• 29:36
  reintegrate into the system, right?
• 29:38
  And it's much easier to do when they stick to guys like you who
• 29:42
  get them, who understand that. But backwards, it's a little bit
• 29:45
  twisted because think about how many lone soldiers leave
• 29:50
  Teaneck, NJ, to go to Israel to volunteer for two years, year
• 29:53
  and a half, three years. Israel's hat and I guess happy
• 29:56
  to take them. These are really motivated guys.
• 29:59
  They're leaving their families, their comforts, their sports,
• 30:02
  their whatever it is that they have going on.
• 30:04
  Putting out a uniform, sweating, it hurts.
• 30:07
  The training hurts sometimes, but then when he goes back home,
• 30:11
  comes back to serve in war, like, it kind of like doesn't
• 30:15
  complete the full picture. And there's like a missing
• 30:18
  puzzle piece. And Kaya Minari, who run the
• 30:22
  boot, are trying to fix that missing puzzle piece.
• 30:26
  Is there, I'm just curious, is there anything that we and I
• 30:29
  like the way you said that before, by the way, and I'm
• 30:31
  going to repeat it because I want to make sure I got this.
• 30:33
  So when you go over to a soldier or someone that you know that's
• 30:36
  served, you tell them what you're capable of doing to help
• 30:39
  and you just put it out there in their world and if they accept
• 30:42
  it, that great. If not, you did your thing
• 30:44
  right, which is, which is great and.
• 30:46
  Sometimes you maybe have to show the show to them again so they
• 30:48
  actually understand what you can.
• 30:49
  Help So, so I'll tell you I, I, I do this a lot when people come
• 30:52
  to me for help in organizations. I can't tell you how many times
• 30:55
  I've done this and it it takes me on a journey that I don't
• 30:58
  even know where it's going to go, but it's always an amazing
• 31:00
  journey for me. I always tell people I have
• 31:03
  time. I don't have the money to give
• 31:05
  you as much as you want, right? Because people come for money
• 31:07
  all the time from organizations. What can I do if I have time, if
• 31:10
  I wanted a debt? And people always say, yeah, you
• 31:12
  have 5 minutes a day, go to the gym, you know, dive in three
• 31:15
  times. It just takes 5 minutes or
• 31:16
  everything just takes 5 minutes, right?
• 31:19
  If I really though wanted to dedicate 5 minutes of my life
• 31:22
  towards an organization like Nevut or to help lone soldiers,
• 31:26
  what can I actually do? So it gets a little complicated
• 31:30
  and I'm going to explain why I understand where I'm coming
• 31:32
  from. So in the beginning, I'm talking
• 31:34
  half a year ago, a year ago, I had a lot of therapists, like
• 31:37
  professional therapists who said hey, I want to start giving
• 31:40
  therapy to some of your guys. What happened was after 2-3
• 31:45
  months when it's not exciting anymore and they don't get paid.
• 31:48
  Then here I made a connection between a guy and a therapist
• 31:53
  and now the therapist is not getting paid.
• 31:54
  So he has no patience for the guy anymore.
• 31:56
  So I kind of have a little bit of hard time on the day-to-day
• 31:59
  things to relay on volunteers, not because I know it's not, I
• 32:03
  know it's important to them, but I need to have in a way
• 32:06
  something that I can kind of hold them accountable to make
• 32:09
  sure that actually happens because I had unfortunately some
• 32:11
  experiences. But I need to make sure things,
• 32:13
  you know, I'm business the same thing.
• 32:14
  You got to make sure it's in for both.
• 32:16
  Where you could help is you can make a barbecue in your house
• 32:20
  and I can have some soldiers that want to come out.
• 32:23
  You know, we can arrange something.
• 32:24
  I know now for perm, right? I'm doing in Lakewood by one guy
• 32:28
  inviting the community to come. I'm going to do it.
• 32:31
  Same in LA, some guy, you know, offered Muncie.
• 32:33
  I'm still trying to figure out where it's going to be now.
• 32:36
  Pause. What do you mean?
• 32:37
  Muncie is still trying to figure out where you can be.
• 32:39
  I mean, we're we're from Muncie. What What?
• 32:41
  What do you? If you guys have something, we
• 32:42
  can arrange something. Right, you're saying to to have
• 32:44
  like a pseudo or have like a pseudo meal.
• 32:46
  Come out and hang out now. I can't promise you now how many
• 32:50
  guys are going to come. I can ensure you that I'm going
• 32:52
  to invite 50-60 guys because the thing for me is at least I don't
• 32:56
  want to. I don't want my guys that that
• 32:58
  we're trying to help. I'm not putting a pressure on
• 33:00
  them. Hey, you must come perform like
• 33:02
  I'm not. I don't want to use them as
• 33:04
  like, Hey, come to this shul. I want to show the whole shul
• 33:07
  what big of a scan you are, because then I'm counter
• 33:09
  producting, you know, like I'm counter doing what I want to do.
• 33:13
  So what I do is I make events for them and I say, hey, if you
• 33:16
  having a rough day or even if you're having a good day, come
• 33:18
  out, let's meet other people. Let's get this community going.
• 33:22
  So in the end, we're there from each other.
• 33:23
  They make connections for whatever it is in life for Shadi
• 33:27
  come for jobs, for community, for whatever it is.
• 33:29
  So I like when people make events for them, sometimes for
• 33:32
  money, sometimes for not, not for money.
• 33:35
  It's just it builds the community of people getting
• 33:38
  together and helping each other and making I.
• 33:39
  Love that Akiva, you mentioned to me earlier before we started
• 33:42
  that you travel with some lone soldiers, but you've offered it.
• 33:46
  That's a nice thing. I'm doesn't trust me.
• 33:49
  By the way, the synergies between you are amazing.
• 33:50
  How did you guys meet? Can I can I say it on my side?
• 33:54
  And then you say yours? What do you think?
• 33:56
  My side? Someone tells me, hey, there's a
• 33:57
  guy not far from you. Who?
• 34:00
  His name is Akiva. He's a lone soldier.
• 34:03
  Good guy. Reach out to him.
• 34:06
  I call him up. Akiva's like, listen, I hate
• 34:08
  organizations. I never want to be part of this
• 34:13
  organization. I'd rather suffer alone than be
• 34:16
  part of an organization. Whatever you want, if I can help
• 34:19
  you, let me know. But I don't want to know you
• 34:21
  basically. And I said Akiva, so how about
• 34:24
  you help me help other guys? And that's how we got them on
• 34:28
  board. Smart, smart move.
• 34:30
  What's your side? It's.
• 34:31
  True, I did say those things, but I, I, I feel like I may have
• 34:36
  reached out to one or two people.
• 34:39
  I have unique opportunity to help guys, right?
• 34:44
  Somebody needs a change of scenery.
• 34:45
  I do travel for work a lot. I have a place they can stay
• 34:48
  with me. Especially guys who are
• 34:50
  struggling that can't like aren't ready to be like left
• 34:53
  alone or would do better with somebody.
• 34:55
  And so I feel like I reached out to offer that.
• 34:59
  But yeah, definitely probably said a lot of those things hate
• 35:01
  organizations. But this is one that you can
• 35:04
  connect with. Let me so, so let me explain
• 35:06
  what I but I think on a personal level I could tell you what I'd
• 35:10
  benefit from from Navood and I'm sure there is guys, what's it
• 35:12
  called? So like I said, you cannot go to
• 35:14
  Gaza as strong and as powerful as as you may think you are and
• 35:18
  not come back different. I can tell you I'm not the same
• 35:23
  person I was before I went just the decision making process
• 35:29
  alone to pack a bag and go off to Gaza where, you know,
• 35:33
  everything is booby trapped. You're always looking over your
• 35:35
  shoulder. I mean, I guess I can go back to
• 35:41
  October 7th and like kind of explain the difference between
• 35:45
  guys who have actually experienced fighting with Hamas
• 35:49
  before October 7th and guys who just heard the news and didn't
• 35:52
  really even know what Hamas was. Because there's definitely, I
• 35:55
  feel a group of people who like, OK, but Gush Khatif happens.
• 35:59
  So orange is a special color to Jews and it's run by Hamas.
• 36:03
  And every once in a while they shoot rockets over and like, but
• 36:05
  who really knows what they are, how bad, like, what they look
• 36:09
  like, what they feel like, what do they wear?
• 36:11
  What do they smell like? But when I was making the
• 36:15
  decision to go, I went through some crazy stuff I had in my
• 36:21
  head, what happens if I go and I come back to my kids.
• 36:26
  So I'm a father of four kids and my face doesn't look the same.
• 36:30
  I took shrapnel to the face. I lost an eye, an arm, a leg.
• 36:34
  I went through all these different things, deciding in my
• 36:37
  head like, would I rather come back to my kids this way?
• 36:40
  Would I rather die in the field? And that being said, I will say
• 36:45
  that I believed so much in this war and our right to defend
• 36:49
  ourselves and not only in Gaza and Israel, but here too, that I
• 36:54
  did make the decision to put my life on the line because Gaza is
• 36:58
  not playground, just not. And you probably what you see in
• 37:03
  the news is maybe 1/4 of what's actually happening there.
• 37:07
  Oh my God, you know, just hearing you talk.
• 37:09
  Akiva, Look, I'm you're a soldier, I'm the opposite of
• 37:12
  that. I'm a civilian.
• 37:13
  I'm the person that needs to be protected and just him when
• 37:16
  you're talking like I feel like I need to join you.
• 37:18
  I'm traumatized, like I need to join the vote now, you know, and
• 37:21
  dramatic decision like just to hear his how he's talking.
• 37:24
  I can only imagine the people themselves that are there on the
• 37:27
  front lines and it's been it's so traumatic.
• 37:29
  You have to think about that. I want to tell you, do I want to
• 37:31
  stay and die in the field or potentially be deformed to come
• 37:34
  back to my kids? Which ones better just to ever
• 37:36
  have to be in a position to have such a thought?
• 37:39
  I was thinking the same, your mind?
• 37:40
  Yeah, leaves a star on you. Oh so.
• 37:42
  That's my. That's one.
• 37:43
  SEC because that's my point. The loudest sound that I ever
• 37:46
  heard in my life was closing the door of my house.
• 37:50
  I don't even remember if I said goodbye to all of my kids like
• 37:53
  in a special way, because I think it's just probably easier
• 37:55
  just to walk out. But when I heard like my my next
• 37:57
  door neighbor was driving the airport, just clicking that door
• 37:59
  behind is the loudest sound I ever heard of my life because
• 38:01
  that means done decision made everything that you just but
• 38:04
  it's a traumatic decision. You have kids, you have kids,
• 38:09
  you go away. How long is the longest you've
• 38:10
  gone away from home? A.
• 38:11
  Week, Yeah. Did you think you could
• 38:13
  potentially die or come back looking?
• 38:15
  It's it's, it's, it's, it's. But now I know that I could sit
• 38:19
  in a room with these guys. I don't have to talk.
• 38:21
  Consider the corner. Every single one of these guys
• 38:24
  made the same decision. And so they know what I'm
• 38:27
  thinking and what I went through when I did that.
• 38:28
  That's what I benefit from it now.
• 38:31
  Ari, the guy who founded it, I I raised a lot of money for RCCS.
• 38:34
  Not plugging them here today at all, but Ari called me after.
• 38:38
  I went another organization you hate.
• 38:39
  Another organization that I cannot stand.
• 38:44
  They do good stuff, I think, I hope.
• 38:47
  But this guy, Ari, who who founded Navood called me, he's
• 38:50
  like, I see year after year you raise a tremendous amount of
• 38:53
  money. He's like, for us, funds and
• 38:56
  fundraising is a tough thing. How do you do it?
• 39:00
  I said let's get together and I'll, I'll walk you through kind
• 39:02
  of things. Now whether that conversation
• 39:03
  did or did not happen yet, I don't know, I don't remember,
• 39:08
  but still happy to have it. But that's kind of how it is.
• 39:11
  But then at the same time, when I heard what they did, I said
• 39:13
  I'm not interested in benefiting from you guys cuz maybe I'm too
• 39:18
  damaged to know that I really need it.
• 39:20
  But I have an opportunity to help some of your guys.
• 39:24
  And that was the phone call client where and now we're
• 39:27
  making that full circle here. But I said.
• 39:29
  You need to help me. I offered.
• 39:33
  Yeah. You know, Michael in the shul, I
• 39:36
  think it's a great example. You always have the people that
• 39:39
  ask on him in the shul, right? The active people that are doing
• 39:41
  things and they get recognition for it and they they get an
• 39:44
  award at the shul level, Mark or whatever.
• 39:47
  Then you have some of the people who do all The Dirty work when
• 39:51
  nobody's really watching and the, the uncool things, for
• 39:53
  example, after the kid is, or after shots, they're cleaning up
• 39:56
  and, and they do it every week and they're making sure, you
• 39:59
  know, they come back at night after hours.
• 40:01
  Much helps to sweep up the those people like, you know, and, and
• 40:04
  they don't take center stage, but they're doing important
• 40:07
  work, one could say the most important work because they're
• 40:11
  keeping the system running. They're keeping and and
• 40:13
  everybody else is having a good time and doing the glamorous
• 40:16
  things. That we all love to do.
• 40:18
  Everybody steps up for that moment.
• 40:20
  But guys like you are picking up the pieces.
• 40:23
  You know, these are young people not talking about veterans
• 40:27
  coming back from where they're 56 years old.
• 40:29
  These are teenagers. In a lot of cases, their whole
• 40:31
  life is ahead of them. They have the, the runways in
• 40:35
  front of them and they've already been damaged.
• 40:37
  They've already been through so much that people haven't
• 40:39
  experienced in a lifetime. Going into war.
• 40:42
  It's that's the, that's when your life is over.
• 40:45
  Nothing is ever the same again. And guys like you, you step up
• 40:48
  and instead of going back to your life and going into the
• 40:50
  business world and seeing how you can make more money now and
• 40:52
  how you can make a better life for yourself, you're choosing to
• 40:56
  help other people and sacrifice from your own life, which is
• 41:00
  which is really amazing. I commend you.
• 41:02
  I'm inspired by you. I think what you're doing is
• 41:05
  unbelievable. And you're not just doing it on
• 41:08
  a small scale. You're trying to see how you can
• 41:09
  make it bigger and help more and more and more people on the six,
• 41:12
  700 people on a weekly basis that you're helping.
• 41:16
  I'm just like blown away by this.
• 41:17
  And thank God that there are people like this amongst us.
• 41:19
  And I think this is what makes the Jewish nation so great, and
• 41:23
  This is why it's worth defending, is because of the
• 41:25
  love and devotion that we have for one another.
• 41:27
  These are people that you never met, people you don't know, and
• 41:30
  that's all. Reasons why people hate us.
• 41:32
  Exactly. Explain that.
• 41:34
  What do you mean yes? There's a jealousy to our
• 41:37
  connection to one another, whether we have been friends
• 41:40
  forever or not. When we walk down the street, we
• 41:45
  in an airport, right? You guys travel a lot?
• 41:48
  Yeah, you don't feel more connected to people walking by.
• 41:51
  Sure, look at the other people walking by each other.
• 41:53
  Don't even look at each other. Right.
• 41:56
  It's true. It's so true.
• 41:57
  You walk in an airport and you see another you.
• 42:00
  You lock eyes for a second and you give a little nod to each
• 42:04
  other like. You know, I almost could know
• 42:06
  you. I I.
• 42:06
  Probably do know if we went to a room together for 5 minutes and
• 42:09
  talked. We're probably related also.
• 42:11
  Yeah, yeah. It's a jealousy thing.
• 42:13
  Yeah. And that's that's a big reason
• 42:15
  why the rest of the world hates us.
• 42:16
  It is a big, it is a certainly big part is the jealousy.
• 42:20
  But you know, I'm going to be a little controversial for a
• 42:22
  moment. Sometimes we also, you know,
• 42:25
  sometimes we get a little bit too out there and people, people
• 42:28
  don't like that, you know, in in Germany when you know, before,
• 42:32
  before everything happened, the Jews were very, very successful,
• 42:36
  very successful. Like they own the banking
• 42:38
  industry. Like today we're in healthcare
• 42:39
  and real estate. Like back then, the financial
• 42:41
  district was run by by the Jews and the non Jews looked at that
• 42:46
  and they're like, how did this happen?
• 42:47
  Like what's going on over here? Are we being outsmarted?
• 42:50
  Like, you know, and and they hate the hatred and suit.
• 42:52
  And that's when real lot of problems began.
• 42:54
  So we have to be careful. We can't just, you know, flaunt
• 42:57
  everything. You know, we.
• 42:58
  I like the. I like the.
• 42:59
  Balance. We have to be very careful.
• 43:00
  To live a life thinking that the people around me are inspired
• 43:03
  and they are enjoyable. It doesn't always have that.
• 43:06
  I got it. I got it.
• 43:07
  Yeah. And and you know, it's an
• 43:08
  age-old question that we discussed also before we started
• 43:12
  here is do we ignore the hate? Do we fight the hate?
• 43:16
  How do we fight the hate? I'm curious what your opinion
• 43:18
  is. Crime.
• 43:20
  OK, so I think when it comes to hate, depending what type of
• 43:24
  hate, and that's how we're going to confront it.
• 43:26
  OK, If someone says not going to mention his name, but let's say
• 43:29
  this famous singer that's going around now with the swastika and
• 43:32
  whatever he does, right? This guy's nonsense, right?
• 43:35
  Yeah. Anything he says, it's just out
• 43:37
  of his mind. Right.
• 43:38
  He's extreme. Extreme.
• 43:39
  Everybody knows he. Does not.
• 43:40
  He does not need a response from anyone exactly, however.
• 43:44
  However, there's a guy who sees a picture of a dead baby on the
• 43:49
  Internet and says this is what the IDF does.
• 43:52
  This guy does need a respond sometimes because 1.
• 43:54
  He doesn't know that the picture from the baby is well taken from
• 43:57
  Syria from 2014 when Assad killed his people.
• 44:01
  That's number one. Number two, he doesn't
• 44:03
  understand that even according to Hamas, right?
• 44:07
  I'm talking according to Hamas, the IDF killed about 50,000
• 44:13
  people. Now if you go 50,000 people and
• 44:17
  they don't differentiate between a terrorist and a civilian and
• 44:21
  they also say they lost 30,000 Hamas soldiers.
• 44:25
  So right away you have 60% or most of the people that were
• 44:29
  killed even according to them are Hamas soldiers.
• 44:33
  Now take those numbers and divide the war where there is 2
• 44:38
  million people and terrorists with in between them and you got
• 44:42
  to fight 1 by 1. You have the ratio of death from
• 44:46
  civilians in Gaza is nothing like literally nothing according
• 44:50
  to the amount of people who just die something, sometimes from
• 44:52
  car accidents. Yeah, the lowest in the history,
• 44:55
  the lowest in. History like never.
• 44:56
  The ratio of combatants to civilian is the best ratio that
• 45:02
  ever happened, that ever happened in war, right?
• 45:04
  And we need to say that because people don't know that enough.
• 45:06
  Like I know that we had an incident in in Gaza that we had
• 45:11
  one time. It's complicated story, but we
• 45:15
  saw civilians that we said there might be civilians, might not.
• 45:18
  We looked after them and they were in a place they were not
• 45:21
  supposed to be. And we had reason to believe
• 45:24
  that they are terrorists. But they don't wear Hamas
• 45:27
  uniform, right? I asked for permission to open
• 45:31
  fire on them because we had a reason, you know, real reason to
• 45:34
  believe that they're they're bad people.
• 45:36
  Got denied. The day later we walk by there
• 45:39
  and a guy gets killed. His name was Michael Gal.
• 45:42
  Now, I can't tell you that those people for sure put an ID over
• 45:47
  there, but the chances are close to, I would say 95% of those are
• 45:51
  the people who did it and we couldn't do anything.
• 45:53
  And then ours all just get killed for that.
• 45:55
  That's I think that's how. Careful.
• 45:57
  We're being and we're being accused of the very opposite.
• 46:00
  The very opposite then. Like, where else did you hear?
• 46:03
  Like the hostages, right? Yeah.
• 46:05
  You have people who went to a festival.
• 46:07
  Yeah. You're not talking about someone
• 46:08
  who was a spy or like, and arrested with the case or
• 46:12
  something. You have people who literally
• 46:13
  went to a festival to dance. Yeah.
• 46:15
  And he took them hostages and you exchange them, one guy for
• 46:20
  200 terrorists, like people who actually kill people and show
• 46:24
  pictures and say he's going to get out.
• 46:26
  It's not prison. They aren't like they're
• 46:28
  terrorists. They're not prisoners.
• 46:29
  They're not prisoners. They're terrorists.
• 46:31
  They're people who are proud to kill.
• 46:32
  They say I'm going to go out and I'm going to kill again.
• 46:35
  They're going back to Gaza. They're joining Hamas again,
• 46:37
  right? Yes.
• 46:38
  In what? Right.
• 46:39
  The guy that was the leader of Hamas got out by prisoner
• 46:43
  exchange like that, right? It's beyond like you're taking a
• 46:47
  civilian, taking him hostage, taking, for example, the Bibas
• 46:50
  family, right? We gave back 600 live terrorists
• 46:55
  for the bodies of Jewish kids. That's insane.
• 46:58
  Not Jewish kids, Jewish babies, Jewish babies.
• 47:00
  Huge difference. Now we have to fight for that
• 47:03
  and we have to explain that we're not fighting because we
• 47:05
  chose this war. They chose.
• 47:08
  They chose to attack us. And when they're attacking us,
• 47:10
  they're not just attacking the border of Gaza.
• 47:13
  They're saying we're going to get to Tel Aviv, we're going to
• 47:15
  get everywhere. We're going to kill the Jews all
• 47:16
  around the world, right? We saw what happened in
• 47:18
  Amsterdam, right? Where they try to kill Jews in
• 47:21
  the streets of Amsterdam. We see what's happening in
• 47:23
  Colombia now and all the other universities where they're not
• 47:26
  just saying, hey, here's what we're protesting.
• 47:29
  They're saying we're going to kill the Jews, right?
• 47:31
  And, and they're saying it very clearly.
• 47:34
  We found Mine mine camp, right? Hitler's book against the Jews.
• 47:37
  And quite a few of the houses in Gaza, we found them.
• 47:39
  I saw them, so we got to fight back for that and that's where I
• 47:43
  think we do have to respond more.
• 47:46
  Yeah. What language is mine comfort?
• 47:49
  So it's written in German, but they.
• 47:51
  Could they could. Read it.
• 47:51
  No, they have it in Arabic. They actually have it.
• 47:54
  They have it translated in Arabic.
• 47:56
  And there's so much I want to get to, but my heart is racing
• 47:58
  right now. I'll be honest with you, because
• 47:59
  I'm still picturing myself. It's very, very difficult for
• 48:01
  me. But like, I've watched movies,
• 48:03
  right? You know, So you're like, you're
• 48:05
  you're scoping out the enemy and you have a question of whether
• 48:09
  you should proceed or not and you're asking for permission and
• 48:13
  then you're denied that permission.
• 48:16
  What goes on in your head then? Like, how do you react
• 48:18
  afterwards? Like what happens in the unit?
• 48:20
  Like can you take us down that lane for a moment?
• 48:23
  So I know that it like what you said, I keep a minute before
• 48:26
  that like, oh, you know, you can't, you're a different
• 48:28
  person. But I'm going to admit what else
• 48:31
  she was saying. We're the civilians.
• 48:33
  We're thanking you. It's just I'm, you're saying a
• 48:36
  story here and it's my heart's still racing.
• 48:38
  I'm just being honest with you and you could say it's none of
• 48:40
  our business, but I'm. No, it is our business because
• 48:42
  as Jewish people we have to fight together as people who
• 48:45
  like Israel, as people who want to defend the Jews.
• 48:47
  The reason why I chose now to go into politics a little bit is
• 48:50
  just because I realized until now I was fighting in the battle
• 48:53
  and I was doing a very good job and I was representing, you
• 48:56
  know, and fighting for you. But I feel there is a battle now
• 49:00
  in public ideas and policies that I'm really hoping to be
• 49:04
  able to change. So if you would have told me a
• 49:06
  couple years ago, I'm going to be back in the idea four months
• 49:09
  after my wedding for a month at a time and I'm going to be
• 49:12
  involved in a vote and maybe I'm going to run for design as
• 49:15
  strong as I would say, man, you're out of your mind.
• 49:16
  Like, dude, it's crazy. It's absolutely like I'm so far
• 49:19
  of this line. I was not interested in politics
• 49:22
  until like couple months ago or anything in this.
• 49:26
  I wasn't. But then by the more I'm now at
• 49:28
  the stage in my life that I see we can actually make such a big
• 49:31
  difference. Like, whatever we say, it's not
• 49:34
  just we're saying something. Our voices have an impact on
• 49:38
  actual policies, on actual where money goes, what gets defended.
• 49:42
  So that's why I chose this path a little now to to see what I
• 49:45
  can do, hopefully just to make a change and get back to normal
• 49:48
  life. Yeah.
• 49:49
  Just to run off that, I thought the next time I was going to go
• 49:51
  to Israel, take my kids, go visit my mom who lives there,
• 49:57
  No. Right.
• 49:59
  Amazing. How do you combat what Michael
• 50:02
  was saying before the digital online, You know, because that's
• 50:06
  at the end of the day where people get information from and
• 50:10
  it's it's you have to win that war to win that public
• 50:14
  perception. And you know your image gets
• 50:16
  tarnished when do. You think you could win that
• 50:18
  war? That's that's the challenge.
• 50:19
  You could win that war because I I don't know all the time that
• 50:22
  you could win that war. What do you think?
• 50:24
  Bottom I'll explain bottom line is there's an underdog in this
• 50:27
  story, no matter who entered whose country and took whose
• 50:30
  babies or, or, or did all the stuff that they did.
• 50:33
  I don't know what you want me to say on here.
• 50:35
  It's it's they look like the underdog because their buildings
• 50:40
  are getting toppled, They're wearing sandals in the winter,
• 50:43
  their tents are flooding. And we have We're a superpower,
• 50:48
  so we're always going to be on top.
• 50:51
  We're in the public perception. Yeah.
• 50:53
  How do you win that underdog story?
• 50:55
  It's such a difficult. OK, answer.
• 50:58
  So one, what means winning? Well in in in business and life,
• 51:03
  what means winning? If you win an argument with your
• 51:05
  wife, did you win or lose? I think you lost right?
• 51:11
  That's the old winner of the battle.
• 51:12
  You don't want to win because then you you lose.
• 51:14
  Yeah, Yeah. So you got to figure out a way.
• 51:16
  How do I let her win and I still get to win?
• 51:19
  And you get what you want. Exactly.
• 51:20
  Yeah, yeah. So what does that look like
• 51:22
  here? What does that concept look like
• 51:24
  here? That concept looks like here?
• 51:26
  Who cares what they put out there?
• 51:28
  We got our people back and Hamas is destroyed.
• 51:30
  But you could still look bad at the end that even though you
• 51:32
  accomplish your goals. That's what I'm asking.
• 51:34
  Right, So the way I look at it is, at least for now, there is
• 51:38
  something called winning the battle and winning the war,
• 51:40
  meaning to say we have a fight with terrorists in, let's say,
• 51:44
  Han Yunus, right? The neighborhood in Gaza.
• 51:46
  I need to win this battle that I'm fighting now, Terry,
• 51:49
  terrorists against me. I'm 20, guys.
• 51:51
  How am I going to win that battle?
• 51:53
  And then there is winning the war as a whole, right, As taking
• 51:56
  over, taking out Hamas and bringing back the hostages.
• 52:00
  So that's like a war. What we need to win is not just
• 52:03
  the battle with one argument. We need to win the battle as an
• 52:06
  whole. One, that Israel has the right
• 52:08
  to exist and to have a state and we got to defend our people.
• 52:11
  And two, what they did is wrong. And even though, yes, maybe we
• 52:15
  have a stronger military, that's not because we wanted a lot.
• 52:20
  We got a stronger military. We worked hard for it, right?
• 52:22
  If Hamas when they got back Gaza in 2005, right, if they would
• 52:26
  have focused their money on building buildings instead of
• 52:29
  300 kilometers of tunnels, they would have had the way better
• 52:32
  life. So we need to explain that.
• 52:34
  That's why we're doing this podcast.
• 52:36
  That's why we're talking about this story.
• 52:38
  That's why we're going to take videos out of this or other
• 52:41
  stuff we're going to do and keep on talking to our friends,
• 52:44
  employees, Co workers, whatever there is and trying to tell
• 52:49
  anyone who listens this is really what's going on.
• 52:52
  What you see here is just one picture of a story, right?
• 52:56
  It's about art, right? And art, especially modern art,
• 52:58
  right? When you see a a painting,
• 53:00
  sometimes you want to get into the what's behind it.
• 53:02
  Who was this artist? Why did he write it right?
• 53:04
  Why did he paint it? So what we're going to try to
• 53:07
  explain is what's really going on?
• 53:09
  What are we fighting about? They don't want when when
• 53:13
  they're saying from the river to the sea, right?
• 53:15
  They're not asking here for a Palestinian state.
• 53:18
  They're asking to eliminate all the Jews.
• 53:20
  And that has to be answered. And if we don't answer that,
• 53:23
  people are not going to know. So that's really my point.
• 53:26
  We got to. Find that I heard somebody else
• 53:28
  on a podcast recently say, I forget whose name was, it's a
• 53:31
  popular podcast. And he said, you have to ask the
• 53:34
  question, how did Hamas know in advance before they actually did
• 53:40
  that attack that they were going to be able to do it and that
• 53:43
  they were going to have the Western media that were still
• 53:46
  going to back them and the rest of the world, how did Hamas know
• 53:50
  this? They knew that the academic, the
• 53:52
  academia world, they knew, they knew that somehow they were
• 53:56
  going to be able to still get away with it and potentially
• 53:58
  even get support, that they did the right thing.
• 54:02
  They knew this in advance. Otherwise they wouldn't have
• 54:04
  gotten the cavalry going the way they did if they thought that
• 54:06
  this was just going to the rest of the world was going to say,
• 54:08
  oh, these guys were terrorists, but they knew the world weren't
• 54:11
  going to say that. Like, how did they know?
• 54:12
  What coordination do they have with who that they're able to
• 54:16
  get away with stuff like this, right?
• 54:17
  Which which means that there's an Internet battle going on and
• 54:22
  Hamas and whoever the, you know, their proxies are and all the
• 54:25
  different partners that they have, they're doing a really
• 54:29
  good job at it. They're actually getting their
• 54:31
  messaging out, as warped as it is, as twisted as it is, and
• 54:35
  they're turning it around. And the perception that people
• 54:37
  are getting is actually pretty positive.
• 54:39
  And like you said, they're looked at as the underdog.
• 54:42
  That's how they're looked at. And they're playing the victim
• 54:44
  card beautifully. They're they're playing in a lot
• 54:47
  of ways, like, like, like a fiddle.
• 54:48
  They're really playing it well. How are they doing this?
• 54:51
  How are they so good at this? I.
• 54:52
  Don't know that it's so hard to make the assumption that they
• 54:56
  would be. I mean, if I was them, I, I
• 54:57
  would, I would be very confident that I could look at the rest of
• 55:00
  the world, look at look at what's happening here, the Kyle
• 55:04
  Rittenhouse trial, all these different organizations that
• 55:08
  just have this stronghold. It's not so hard to see that
• 55:11
  America before this past election was heading in a in a
• 55:15
  certain direction. Like we said, we were talking
• 55:18
  before about transgenders. There's a very small percentage
• 55:20
  of population. It's a very loud voice.
• 55:24
  Yeah. So what do we do?
• 55:26
  How do we get better at this? Because it matters what the rest
• 55:30
  of the world is. Unfortunately, it does matter
• 55:32
  because it perpetuates our problems.
• 55:34
  If everybody is out there thinking that we're the bad
• 55:36
  guys, it just makes it much harder for us to actually live
• 55:39
  life. If I simplify it by saying that
• 55:42
  the whole concept of a Kiddush Hashem, it's even more important
• 55:46
  because I don't know that you could.
• 55:47
  I still not convinced that you could win that Internet battle,
• 55:50
  I think. But every interaction that you
• 55:53
  have with your Yamaha on with somebody who isn't Jewish,
• 55:56
  that's a +1 maybe. They one person at a time.
• 56:00
  Is that what you're saying? I'm not saying one person at a
• 56:02
  time give me a room of 30 people, but the point is, is
• 56:05
  that every Jew wearing a Yamaha has a positive interaction,
• 56:08
  treats people with respect the way that we're taught to do,
• 56:13
  right? So it's not one interaction at a
• 56:14
  time for you, it's one interaction.
• 56:16
  But there's millions of interactions, maybe a day
• 56:19
  between Jews and non Jews and they can look at you as
• 56:22
  respectful as a respectful nation.
• 56:25
  I like that approach. I'll be honest with you, Heim is
• 56:27
  not such a big fan because he's saying that we could win the
• 56:30
  battle on social media. I'm actually on your side on
• 56:33
  this. I don't think it's meaning to
• 56:34
  me. It's like just ignore.
• 56:36
  But yeah, of course, strategically to also get
• 56:39
  involved. We have to.
• 56:40
  I think everyone who cares has to get involved.
• 56:43
  Yeah. And everyone on their level.
• 56:45
  So for you guys, let's say it's in the nursing home industry,
• 56:48
  you gotta make sure that the people around you, your program
• 56:52
  coordinators, whatever it's called, the people in your.
• 56:54
  Administrators. Directors of nursing.
• 56:56
  They know, they know. Like you have to give them a DEI
• 57:00
  class once a year. Not anymore.
• 57:03
  Do you not anymore? Whatever it works, right?
• 57:06
  Give them as as, as an employee. You know I'm.
• 57:09
  Going to throw it back to Akiva then how is how is the war and
• 57:12
  your efforts that you've done and you being the hero that you
• 57:15
  are, and I'm saying that and I mean it, how has that affected
• 57:19
  your change in your operation and how do you bring that back
• 57:22
  to your world? First of all, I'm not sure how
• 57:25
  many people how many people know.
• 57:29
  You're saying within your organization?
• 57:31
  Interesting how? Many people know exactly what
• 57:33
  was happening. Do you try to hide it?
• 57:36
  I definitely didn't publicize it.
• 57:39
  A. Few reasons.
• 57:42
  One, there's high risks if right, right.
• 57:48
  And like I said in the beginning, I, I really don't
• 57:51
  publicize the decision that I made.
• 57:53
  Maybe I should, maybe it'll be more helpful for me.
• 57:56
  Really it's because after meeting him and Ari, I see how
• 57:59
  many people need help. And I think that a lot of people
• 58:01
  don't know the second-half of the story.
• 58:04
  They know the beginning. They know the guys that got on
• 58:05
  the flight LL reimbursed. They took each guy took 4 bags
• 58:10
  of gear that we worked so hard to.
• 58:12
  And by the way, it wasn't even usable because it was the wrong
• 58:14
  color. But doesn't matter because they
• 58:15
  put this effort into supporting the beginning part.
• 58:19
  Nobody focuses on the back end. And I think it's super important
• 58:22
  to start spreading the message that there are a lot of people
• 58:24
  coming back very damaged, and they should.
• 58:28
  Be rightfully so. Because war shouldn't be
• 58:32
  normalized to a point where, OK, like you went, you saw
• 58:37
  conquered, Yeah, came back. That's why.
• 58:38
  Everybody should try to avoid war at all costs.
• 58:40
  Look at the carnage on both sides.
• 58:43
  It's just all over. It's just that there's no happy
• 58:45
  ending here. But we are living in the reality
• 58:47
  though. Well, there is a happy ending.
• 58:49
  Happy ending is that we're going to fight it out and our kids are
• 58:51
  not going to have to fight. But if we don't fight it out.
• 58:54
  You think that there is an ending?
• 58:55
  Yes, yes. You think that this is not
• 58:56
  something that is going to continue.
• 58:59
  I mean, it's been going on for thousands of years.
• 59:00
  I think it's. Not the first time the American
• 59:02
  Civil War stopped at one point. Yeah, but we're we're.
• 59:05
  I think we're going. To but we're not actively
• 59:08
  killing each other. Not killing each other, I think.
• 59:10
  I guess you're right. Fight and stand up now strong on
• 59:15
  what we want and we say this is what has to happen.
• 59:19
  Then we can win If we say now let's let's make another hostage
• 59:22
  deal. So now you gave them a reason to
• 59:24
  do not to take hostages in five years again and then make
• 59:27
  another deal. So we're basically the way we're
• 59:30
  we're fighting the war now is in a way that we're giving them all
• 59:33
  the right to say, hey, let's do it again.
• 59:34
  It's going to work. So Haim and I went to hear one
• 59:36
  of our heroes, Ophir Winter, who was a brigade commander back in
• 59:41
  the day. He's retired IDF, he's general,
• 59:44
  I think, right, a retired IDF general.
• 59:46
  And somebody in the crowd asked him at the end, they were he was
• 59:49
  taking questions. Why is this taking the question
• 59:52
  was something on why is this taking so long?
• 59:55
  What do you think we went wrong? We think we're winning.
• 59:57
  Are we winning? And he he said, the issue is
• 1:00:02
  that you have a conversation today about what the day after
• 1:00:05
  looks like for Gaza. He said the second you ask
• 1:00:08
  yourself what the day after looks for Gaza.
• 1:00:11
  You've lost, you're losing because your whole mentality is
• 1:00:14
  you're thinking about their future and you haven't even
• 1:00:17
  secured your own hostages future yet.
• 1:00:19
  He's like, you should be stepping on your enemies
• 1:00:22
  throats, right? He said, he said at the end of
• 1:00:24
  time, right? What do you think?
• 1:00:25
  He said the mission or something says that at the end of time
• 1:00:27
  there'll be peace, there'll be sheep and lions together, he
• 1:00:30
  said. Who said the Jew has to be the
• 1:00:32
  sheep? Let there be peace, But you
• 1:00:34
  could be the lion. You should step on your enemies
• 1:00:39
  throats and you should not let up until you get what you want
• 1:00:41
  to know. It's extremely controversial.
• 1:00:44
  You want to get your your kids back, the babies back, the
• 1:00:47
  women, the soul. You want everybody to come back.
• 1:00:49
  I don't know that that's the right mentality to have when
• 1:00:53
  there's so much at stake because your kids could be doing this
• 1:00:56
  again in 20 years if we don't do this correctly now.
• 1:00:59
  And it sucks that it happened and it's heartbreaking and it's
• 1:01:02
  sad. I cried, I walked to the gym
• 1:01:05
  every morning. I think there was a period of
• 1:01:08
  time for months at a time. I cried every single morning.
• 1:01:11
  And it's, it's really sad for me that it took this for me to
• 1:01:15
  realize how important Claudius Straw was to myself, as well as
• 1:01:19
  what Ericius Straw meant to me. Every year.
• 1:01:21
  You have tissue bubble, right? And that's the whole point of it
• 1:01:23
  and never connected. But it's, it's, I don't, let's
• 1:01:29
  put it this way, I'm happy I'm not the one making the decisions
• 1:01:32
  because it's a tough decision to make.
• 1:01:34
  But I do believe that you have to go hard and strong.
• 1:01:39
  And I think you have to have tears of, of of what's a
• 1:01:42
  priority. And hostages shouldn't my
• 1:01:45
  opinion shouldn't be #1 because it clouds your ability to finish
• 1:01:49
  the job. Can I?
• 1:01:51
  Can I? Do your thing, Captain.
• 1:01:53
  So. One the hostages in a way is a
• 1:01:56
  priority because they're my people.
• 1:01:58
  As I, I said it before, not over here, but I said if I'm a
• 1:02:01
  hostage, I wouldn't want you to Take Me Out for prisoners or or
• 1:02:07
  terrorists. But if my kid or my wife is a
• 1:02:11
  hostage, I would do anything possible to bring them back like
• 1:02:15
  100%. And so now there's hostages that
• 1:02:17
  I know their families and I cared about them a lot, right?
• 1:02:20
  There's Eden Alexander from New Jersey, a local New Jersey kid
• 1:02:22
  that's still hostage and we know is alive.
• 1:02:25
  There is a kid who was also in the IDF that we know he's
• 1:02:28
  unfortunately not alive, also from Long Island that I want to
• 1:02:31
  bring him back. However, back back to your
• 1:02:35
  point, when we go into a box, let's say you ever guys did
• 1:02:37
  boxing before or watched MMA games?
• 1:02:39
  We watched. OK, So when I, when someone goes
• 1:02:41
  into a boxing ring, right, what is he thinking about how his
• 1:02:45
  opponent is going to feel in his rehabilitation after the fight
• 1:02:51
  or he's thinking, now how do I make sure that I'm the winner
• 1:02:54
  and I knock him out? What is he thinking?
• 1:02:56
  How am I sure that I'm going to be the winner and I'm going to
• 1:02:58
  knock him out? So when we go into Gaza, what we
• 1:03:01
  have to think is how do we bring the hostages back?
• 1:03:05
  How do we eliminate Hamas? When this is done, we'll be able
• 1:03:08
  to figure out what else we want to do.
• 1:03:10
  Now you have people who say all we want to do is to kill you.
• 1:03:13
  We're going to stand up. We're going to kill every Jew.
• 1:03:15
  We're going to make sure you guys are eliminated.
• 1:03:17
  So we have to fight that idea. Fight as much as we can and as
• 1:03:20
  strong as we can to make sure they're out.
• 1:03:22
  I agree with you. When this is done, we'll figure
• 1:03:23
  out that I agree with you. But in my priority, I wouldn't
• 1:03:27
  say how do we bring the hostages back and then how do we
• 1:03:29
  eliminate Hamas? It's together, I know, but I
• 1:03:31
  don't think that it can be. I think it has to be first, how
• 1:03:34
  do you eliminate Hamas and then bring the hostages back.
• 1:03:39
  And it might be more bodies than live people than you would have
• 1:03:43
  thought. But I think that that that's, I
• 1:03:45
  think it's a mentality on how you go about it.
• 1:03:48
  Because I don't think that you can go as hard as possible if
• 1:03:50
  your goal is look at him. It's it's a fact.
• 1:03:53
  It's a fact on the ground. There were areas that we knew
• 1:03:55
  there were bad people that we didn't bomb because we also
• 1:03:57
  thought there might be hostages. Right.
• 1:03:59
  And that's why I believe in special forces nations that we
• 1:04:02
  could do a lot more than we did. Again, I can't say on air a lot
• 1:04:06
  of things, but. Again, we know of how you go in
• 1:04:09
  and what the mission is, correct?
• 1:04:11
  There's about 5 to 7 hostages that Israel took out by military
• 1:04:15
  missions and not by deals, right?
• 1:04:17
  There's the three guys. And there's a couple cases where
• 1:04:20
  we actually did it and we're not retiring it a lot.
• 1:04:24
  We should do more of those, a lot more of those.
• 1:04:27
  That's what it means to me. I think I need to be able to say
• 1:04:30
  by winning, it's not just killing Hamas.
• 1:04:33
  Part of the war is to win the whole war as a whole.
• 1:04:36
  I have other other visions as well, not just about the
• 1:04:38
  hostages. How about we make sure that in
• 1:04:40
  Judea and Samaria that there's no terrorists coming out from
• 1:04:44
  there to Israel? That's also a separate war we're
• 1:04:46
  fighting now, right? How do we fight the Lebanon war?
• 1:04:48
  I think now if we're in fighting mode, you just go all the way.
• 1:04:51
  You got to figure everything out, fight whoever you need to
• 1:04:54
  fight politically and on the battlefield, and make sure that
• 1:04:59
  whenever this is done, we're getting to a normal life and not
• 1:05:03
  we're doing this now and in two years we're going to do another
• 1:05:05
  fight over there and then we're going to do something.
• 1:05:06
  I have. To tell you guys something, your
• 1:05:09
  conversation that you had three minutes ago, I was getting
• 1:05:12
  uncomfortable and I want to mention why and I want to
• 1:05:14
  mention why it's important for me to mention.
• 1:05:16
  This is because organizations like Nevut and other
• 1:05:20
  organizations that help lone soldiers and people that are at
• 1:05:23
  how important this conversation is for you guys to have.
• 1:05:27
  And only you 2 understand each other.
• 1:05:30
  Only you two were on the battle lines, you know, asking the
• 1:05:33
  question, can I take someone out, getting the answer no.
• 1:05:37
  And then having to deal with the repercussion afterwards of
• 1:05:39
  saying I could have saved that life and I didn't.
• 1:05:41
  That's something that we're hearing.
• 1:05:43
  We're listening here as civilians, right?
• 1:05:45
  And you, you were having an uncomfortable argument here a
• 1:05:48
  minute ago. And I'm thinking to myself,
• 1:05:49
  Akiva, I applaud you for coming on here today.
• 1:05:52
  I really. Do I'm an introvert?
• 1:05:54
  Not only, no, honestly, because you, we said it before, you're,
• 1:05:58
  you're in a, in a very, you know, tough position in terms of
• 1:06:04
  you're out there operating facilities and you're, you're,
• 1:06:06
  you're dealing with people on a daily basis, so much of which
• 1:06:10
  don't know who you are and what you're going through.
• 1:06:12
  And you're coming here and exposing that in a way.
• 1:06:15
  And I hate to break it to you, but we have thousands of
• 1:06:18
  listeners. Good.
• 1:06:21
  We don't have hundreds, we have thousands.
• 1:06:22
  But it's OK, we don't have millions of listeners, no.
• 1:06:25
  We don't. And you know what?
• 1:06:26
  Look, you know, we have a good quality group of people that are
• 1:06:28
  committed to what our cause is in our journey and the people
• 1:06:31
  that are along with us in our journey and.
• 1:06:33
  I always tell Michael about my journey is I learn more and more
• 1:06:36
  how awful of a person I am every time we bring on people like you
• 1:06:40
  on, on on the show. And I just hear stories of what
• 1:06:42
  people are really accomplishing, like real life things that are
• 1:06:45
  important. And you know, I just got back
• 1:06:47
  from vacation for, for, for a week.
• 1:06:50
  I just feel lousy about myself. I'm going into Shabbos and I'm
• 1:06:53
  like, I, I have to do some real soul searching and I keep saying
• 1:06:56
  I'm going to try to be a better person, but then we keep getting
• 1:06:58
  more guests on the show like this.
• 1:07:00
  And I'm like, like, who am I? Like what about where do I stay?
• 1:07:03
  I think. One of the things that I might
• 1:07:05
  understand that other people wouldn't, I think I called my
• 1:07:07
  family. I think I had like I, I, we came
• 1:07:09
  out for like a few hours and I called my family and my wife
• 1:07:12
  answers the phone. I hands it directly to the kids.
• 1:07:14
  And after I talk to my kids, I'm like, can I talk to mommy?
• 1:07:17
  Mommy said she'll talk to you when you get back.
• 1:07:20
  Wow, wow, that's. Crazy.
• 1:07:23
  Wow. So yeah.
• 1:07:25
  I want to point on that like people don't or people do but
• 1:07:29
  undervalue the amount of sacrifice takes from his spouse.
• 1:07:34
  Yes. I think in a way, myself, at
• 1:07:36
  least I was in Gaza fighting with my guys.
• 1:07:39
  I know what's going on. I know how things are happening.
• 1:07:42
  My wife had no idea I didn't have my phone for a big amount
• 1:07:45
  of the time. Wow.
• 1:07:45
  She knows I'm out there. She sees pictures of people
• 1:07:48
  coming out on body bags. She knows that I'm not in the
• 1:07:51
  best place, and she knows that she's at home and none of her
• 1:07:54
  friends understand even what it means that her husband is away
• 1:07:57
  fighting a. War the anxiety must be through
• 1:07:59
  the. Roof and they're like, you know,
• 1:08:00
  tell him to come back and he's going for sure going to come
• 1:08:02
  back. So on that .2 things number one,
• 1:08:04
  I'm going to sit and tell a story that happened actually
• 1:08:06
  local when I'm back already. My wife calls me up one day.
• 1:08:11
  No, I wasn't back. I was still there, but I had my
• 1:08:13
  phone and you know this and this guy, I'm like, I know about him,
• 1:08:17
  like what's going on? We need to reach his wife,
• 1:08:20
  right? Like we need to reach him right
• 1:08:21
  now. Something big is happening.
• 1:08:23
  And then other people start calling me because as an
• 1:08:26
  officer, maybe I'll be able to figure out what's going on.
• 1:08:29
  After like a couple of hours, we're able to track him down.
• 1:08:31
  What happened? This guy was in Lebanon and he
• 1:08:35
  had his phone with him and they were in a battle and he packet
• 1:08:40
  called his wife. So she hears a phone call that
• 1:08:47
  gunshots, screaming and gets hung up.
• 1:08:51
  After a few minutes she is 100% sure that her husband got
• 1:08:55
  kidnapped. She's sure she has.
• 1:08:57
  Like she's sitting at home, she can't talk to him, he's not
• 1:09:00
  answering again, she just heard gunshots and screaming.
• 1:09:04
  She is for sure her husband got kidnapped.
• 1:09:07
  Now she's reaching out everyone she knows to be able to track
• 1:09:10
  down her husband to figure out where he was.
• 1:09:12
  We got through his head. Commanders were able to track
• 1:09:14
  him down and say hey dude, you package called your wife.
• 1:09:18
  But imagine the trauma, the 10 hours this took until we're able
• 1:09:22
  to to track him, what she and her family were going through.
• 1:09:24
  She has a scar for the rest of her.
• 1:09:26
  Life, not just she, not a. Visual scar everyone internal
• 1:09:29
  scar for the rest of her life it's it's.
• 1:09:31
  It's mind blowing. And then you see other people
• 1:09:33
  that like I know, I know people who weren't able to go back
• 1:09:37
  because their wife didn't let them.
• 1:09:38
  And then they're saying, my friend there was one of our
• 1:09:41
  friends. He was with his unit.
• 1:09:43
  He came back because his wife needed him for a couple days.
• 1:09:46
  When he came back, his team went into an ambush and six of his
• 1:09:49
  best friends died and four other got injured.
• 1:09:53
  Now imagine how is he living now at home in Muncie, knowing that
• 1:09:58
  he wasn't there when his friends died.
• 1:10:00
  Maybe he was going to die. Maybe he wasn't, you know,
• 1:10:02
  unknowing. And then and then his wife is
• 1:10:05
  like taking the blame for not being able to help, like,
• 1:10:08
  because not like, you know, maybe if I wasn't there, I was
• 1:10:10
  going to be able to do a better shot and save those guys.
• 1:10:13
  Those traumas stay with you forever.
• 1:10:16
  And it it it has a direct impact on your family.
• 1:10:18
  There are those those memes that you see like how does a woman
• 1:10:21
  want to die? It's peaceful music in bed and
• 1:10:23
  somebody's massaging their feet. And then how does a guy want to
• 1:10:25
  die? And it's like rock music and
• 1:10:27
  he's running to a firefight and like it's just, there's a
• 1:10:30
  different mentality. But there are that's a real
• 1:10:32
  injury. I don't know what you want to
• 1:10:34
  call it, a morale injury. Guys who had the ability to put
• 1:10:38
  on the uniform because they're in the system, but either job,
• 1:10:42
  wife, family, or for whatever reason they couldn't go back
• 1:10:46
  messes with you maybe even more than some of the other stuff.
• 1:10:49
  It's like this deep regret that you wanted to do something so
• 1:10:52
  badly and things held you back. Right.
• 1:10:56
  And it would we help those guys as well like.
• 1:10:57
  We read there's a lot of guys like that.
• 1:10:59
  I even feel more bad for them than some of the other other
• 1:11:02
  people. I have to go back to finish that
• 1:11:05
  question. I was telling you before, Akiva,
• 1:11:07
  especially now after hearing all this, so.
• 1:11:08
  Wait a minute, I got once want. To tell you, oh, go ahead, sure.
• 1:11:11
  When I was in the army in 2009, there was some sort of situation
• 1:11:16
  in Gaza. Now how does the the IDF works
• 1:11:19
  in an interesting way. If you're, you do these really
• 1:11:22
  intense trainings twice a year, everything gets packed up.
• 1:11:25
  You're in the field for like 2 weeks at a time.
• 1:11:28
  So if a battalion is packed up and mobile and something's
• 1:11:33
  happening, very often you are the quickest option to go and
• 1:11:39
  take care of something. And we were in the middle of the
• 1:11:41
  trading. They sent us back to base to get
• 1:11:43
  some stuff. You guys are going to Gaza?
• 1:11:46
  I called my parents, I could tell something was different
• 1:11:49
  about like what was happening and I'm like you guys, so you're
• 1:11:52
  going to guys. I love you click.
• 1:11:55
  I didn't realize at the time because I was a schmuck what I
• 1:11:58
  did to my parents. So when I went back now I fought
• 1:12:02
  it out with my wife a little bit.
• 1:12:05
  She she's truly amazing in the fact that as difficult of a
• 1:12:11
  decision. I explained that I went through
• 1:12:13
  how I will come back if I got hurt.
• 1:12:15
  This that she probably had the same process and maybe slightly
• 1:12:19
  different. I didn't tell my parents that I
• 1:12:21
  was going. Whoa.
• 1:12:23
  My father found out the the last day that I was there the day
• 1:12:29
  before I was coming home. He's like I heard.
• 1:12:32
  Well, he called me. He's like, where are you?
• 1:12:34
  And I'm like hanging out. I'm around, you know, whatever
• 1:12:38
  he says, where are like he pressed and pressed and pressed.
• 1:12:41
  And I finally told him because it's like, what's there to lose?
• 1:12:43
  We'll fight it out now. I'm already out.
• 1:12:48
  Wow. We have we haven't put a special
• 1:12:51
  parent support group, so we have psychiatrist meetings sometimes
• 1:12:55
  in person, sometimes over Zoom where we try to help parents of
• 1:12:57
  soldiers just understand what the kids are going through, how
• 1:13:00
  to support how not like not support.
• 1:13:03
  The struggle of parents is a real struggle that.
• 1:13:05
  Yeah, family members in general, brothers, sisters, parents and.
• 1:13:08
  And there are a lot of organizations that focus on
• 1:13:10
  those elements and I'm happy that you guys are doing that as.
• 1:13:12
  Well, but this or Nevote is doing it mostly.
• 1:13:14
  For soldiers. When you when you go.
• 1:13:16
  When you go into Gaza and Haim will relate, it's autopilot,
• 1:13:20
  man. Your head's on a swivel.
• 1:13:22
  You know, you understand you see you're you're making these split
• 1:13:25
  decisions, but that type of adrenaline fast pace and it's
• 1:13:29
  not happening here. So parents, spouses, kids who
• 1:13:32
  understand they have like all this time to like calculate all
• 1:13:35
  these horrible things. Wow out in the field.
• 1:13:39
  If you're going to go, you just want to go quick.
• 1:13:40
  I'm. Just going to give a number.
• 1:13:42
  Since October 7 until today, as far as we know, we don't know.
• 1:13:46
  This might be one or two missing.
• 1:13:48
  That is 43 lone soldiers who were killed 43 that's that
• 1:13:53
  that's a very big number. And if you go and break it down,
• 1:13:56
  you have about 5 were who who passed away by suicide because
• 1:13:59
  they came back and and couldn't deal with it.
• 1:14:01
  One by Kodaks and the other one is in battle.
• 1:14:03
  I like it's it's it's the amount people don't under. 43 people
• 1:14:06
  I'm sorry were killed. 43 lone soldiers, Yeah, talking people
• 1:14:09
  who are not in Israel, American, French who went to Israel to
• 1:14:13
  fight after October seven. Yeah. 43 lone soldiers who
• 1:14:17
  passed away. From.
• 1:14:20
  From what cause? From.
• 1:14:20
  Battle or suicide? OK.
• 1:14:23
  That's a terrible number, by the way.
• 1:14:25
  Very big number. The number of suicide also,
• 1:14:27
  which is so terrible, I don't know.
• 1:14:30
  We speak about what we can do. Again, I'm going to take your
• 1:14:34
  guys advice and what you said and, and always offer what we
• 1:14:37
  can do and then let the person take what they can from it.
• 1:14:42
  Suicide is definitely a thing that's happening and it's it's
• 1:14:47
  it's very scary to hear. Every time we hear it, we sort
• 1:14:49
  of shut off our brains and we're like, OK, that's not happening
• 1:14:51
  to anyone We know until you do know, until you do know exactly.
• 1:14:56
  I wanted to actually wrap this up and asking a very important
• 1:14:59
  question, which is, you know, what do you take back?
• 1:15:02
  I am from, you know, everything that you've learned.
• 1:15:04
  How do you apply it to your world?
• 1:15:06
  You know what you said a minute ago, then you're answered a
• 1:15:08
  little bit of it is your, your adrenaline is rushing and
• 1:15:11
  you're, you're on a swivel. You know, when you're there, are
• 1:15:14
  there are there things that are practically speaking that you
• 1:15:17
  learn from your experiences that you can teach us or something
• 1:15:21
  that you've applied to your own life that you thought about and
• 1:15:24
  you said, OK, this is what I learned how to do.
• 1:15:26
  This is something that you know, I I changed the way I look at
• 1:15:29
  things or I do things and in your life and.
• 1:15:34
  It's a very big question, you know that.
• 1:15:36
  Yeah. No, I know, I know.
• 1:15:38
  By the way, when I said I want to wrap it up, I didn't mean
• 1:15:40
  this minute. I mean, in the next few hours,
• 1:15:44
  OK. Number one that I learned, I
• 1:15:46
  think, and it's the biggest idea that that was new to me is
• 1:15:51
  understanding people from different backgrounds, because
• 1:15:55
  in my unit I have a guy with pears and I have a guy who
• 1:16:00
  officially not like, you know, in his family, they eat non
• 1:16:02
  culture every day. And understanding how this can
• 1:16:05
  work together and how they work together.
• 1:16:07
  Different different communities, different people, different
• 1:16:10
  communication, I think was the biggest deal for me to
• 1:16:12
  understand until I was able to figure that out.
• 1:16:14
  So now I can, you know, understand how to speak to you
• 1:16:19
  and speak to Akiv and then go out to a different shul or a
• 1:16:23
  different political environment and understand what the language
• 1:16:28
  they're speaking or, or, or what's going on to a certain
• 1:16:31
  degree. That was a very big.
• 1:16:33
  Deal. It made you more empathetic.
• 1:16:35
  You're now, you're not very inclusive, you're less
• 1:16:37
  judgmental, but you you realize they're all coming from the same
• 1:16:40
  place, not from the same place. We all want the same thing.
• 1:16:43
  And your, your vision or what you're trying to do, you have to
• 1:16:46
  do it together, no matter where you came from.
• 1:16:49
  Yeah, and also we're all the same man.
• 1:16:50
  Like we really are all the same. We're.
• 1:16:52
  Cut from the same cloth. Same thing and what we want and
• 1:16:54
  what's important to us. If you look at the bigger
• 1:16:57
  pictures, we all want family, health, wealth, you know, like
• 1:17:00
  we all want literally the same things.
• 1:17:02
  The question is how we make it together and we're able to get
• 1:17:05
  to the same goal. That's that's a big deal.
• 1:17:08
  Nobody should be left behind. That's one thing that I learned.
• 1:17:11
  I think I was able to really understand to a whole new level
• 1:17:16
  how small things we do have a tremendous impact on the bigger
• 1:17:22
  picture. And I'll give you an example,
• 1:17:24
  OK, if we go into a mission now to this one building, right,
• 1:17:27
  what am I? I'm a foot combat soldier,
• 1:17:29
  right? But if I take 5 more minutes to
• 1:17:32
  just fill up my bottle or I didn't do one radio check right
• 1:17:36
  that I should have done and now I got to change the wire or
• 1:17:38
  whatever it is. My laziness and not being on top
• 1:17:42
  of this small thing has now an impact on the Air Force or when
• 1:17:47
  the when the planes are going to come in to drop the bombs on the
• 1:17:51
  tanks and how they're going to move on the helicopters who are
• 1:17:54
  standing behind on the radio systems, on the food that has to
• 1:17:57
  come in 20 minutes later. So I was able to see that a
• 1:18:00
  small thing that you don't do could literally have an effect
• 1:18:05
  on 20,000 people just like that with by by by small things.
• 1:18:10
  That's number one was super important for me to learn and I
• 1:18:12
  think it was very difficult because then everything you do
• 1:18:16
  is such a big and like if I say the wrong thing on the radio,
• 1:18:19
  like the wrong word, it could affect doho everyone, like
• 1:18:23
  literally everyone. So that was one big deal and
• 1:18:27
  it's that's another one. And then I think understanding
• 1:18:30
  the value of just life and family and people and what's
• 1:18:34
  important and what like coming back from there, you know,
• 1:18:37
  speaking to you know, one of my good friends died right next to
• 1:18:40
  me. His name was more Levy father of
• 1:18:42
  four kids and and you know, seeing that and then coming home
• 1:18:46
  and saying, how am I not forgetting his family now and
• 1:18:49
  how am I going to be the best father I can be for my family?
• 1:18:52
  And what does it mean to be a good father?
• 1:18:54
  Like like what does all those small things make?
• 1:18:58
  I think this was, I would say, the biggest 3 lessons.
• 1:19:01
  I would give it to those. Each one, by the way, honestly,
• 1:19:04
  that's a book of its own, each one of those lessons, but it's.
• 1:19:07
  I'm not going to argue with him, I think 100% and I can tell you
• 1:19:12
  times where people did not wait for us to move at how intense it
• 1:19:15
  was. And that it had an effect on the
• 1:19:18
  mission on on everything. Yeah, where the mission was Even
• 1:19:21
  so important that they didn't care.
• 1:19:23
  But then means your job wasn't important enough.
• 1:19:25
  On that well, we were we were, we were there was a a battle in
• 1:19:28
  Rafa and there was a Hummer that broke down in the middle of the
• 1:19:31
  battlefield and they sent us to go get them out.
• 1:19:34
  And it was, I mean, if I have explained even to Rafa, right,
• 1:19:38
  you know what, the sand there, even these hummers, you're
• 1:19:41
  getting stuck because the tanks are crushing sand into dust.
• 1:19:45
  It you, you can't. So we were trying to get these,
• 1:19:48
  the, this, this Hummer out with four guys and they're like, we
• 1:19:51
  need you guys to move. We have to blow up.
• 1:19:52
  I think it was a tunnel or a building. 5 more minutes, 5 more
• 1:19:55
  minutes. They just blew it up.
• 1:19:56
  We were all knocked right off our feet.
• 1:19:58
  Wow. But it's true, you felt very
• 1:20:00
  dangerous. I know it's dangerous.
• 1:20:01
  It was nuts. It was awesome, but nuts.
• 1:20:05
  So. I don't know.
• 1:20:08
  I can't say it wouldn't happen by by us, but we were trying.
• 1:20:10
  It shouldn't happen. Yeah, I can, but you were saying
• 1:20:12
  you resonated with the three things that he said.
• 1:20:14
  But what? Give us your own personal
• 1:20:16
  antidote of what it is. Maybe I haven't figured it out
• 1:20:18
  yet. OK, why?
• 1:20:19
  I'm agreeing with him, OK. That's fair.
• 1:20:21
  I agree. That's fair.
• 1:20:22
  Your your. Your mission know how to how, no
• 1:20:24
  matter how small you think it is, is part of a much bigger
• 1:20:27
  plan, especially as Jews, right? Never know, you take care of
• 1:20:31
  this, who you helped, who you're going to meet who this, but I
• 1:20:35
  mean, the biggest thing for me is you're right.
• 1:20:36
  You enter a room of 30-40 guys, whatever it is that you don't
• 1:20:41
  know their backgrounds, where they're from, they're religious.
• 1:20:44
  Why they're not religious. They got to fight with their
• 1:20:46
  girlfriend. They're why they you have no,
• 1:20:48
  but bottom line is there's a a a a mission and by by way of all
• 1:20:54
  having that shared goal unify. And I think that it's important
• 1:20:59
  to to not only forget that it's important in Gaza, yeah, because
• 1:21:05
  lives could be lost, but it's important anywhere.
• 1:21:07
  Imagine if you don't. Imagine if you start treating
• 1:21:10
  red lights like a like a suggestion.
• 1:21:13
  I'll say this. I mean, I think we're going to
• 1:21:14
  agree. One thing that Hamas did
• 1:21:16
  accomplish is they brought us a lot closer together, obviously
• 1:21:21
  at a very heavy price. And it takes sometimes moments
• 1:21:24
  like this in our history to remind us that we're much more
• 1:21:28
  alike than we are different. And as Jews, you know, we're
• 1:21:30
  more than just under one nation, under one rule, one law.
• 1:21:34
  We are brothers, we're family. It goes way beyond that.
• 1:21:36
  We're really our family. And when tragic things like this
• 1:21:39
  in our history happens, it really brings us together.
• 1:21:41
  But this one, especially, this one, especially from all of the
• 1:21:44
  world because of social media that people are able to see
• 1:21:47
  things there just literally clicked.
• 1:21:49
  Everybody clicked all together at once, which I guess is one
• 1:21:52
  maybe small silver lining that you.
• 1:21:54
  I have to say, Haim and Akiva, this clicked for us.
• 1:21:57
  This was amazing, the sense of togetherness and the the little
• 1:22:00
  things that we're learning and picking up from it.
• 1:22:02
  So I really want to thank you both individually and as a group
• 1:22:04
  for coming here together today. I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to
• 1:22:07
  take one second to plug in the boot one more time to your
• 1:22:10
  millions of viewers. Yeah, doesn't matter.
• 1:22:13
  We have the coolest viewer listeners.
• 1:22:15
  Fine for the millions. Of vote and.
• 1:22:17
  Vote Yeah. Well, you will get the details
• 1:22:20
  on how to vote. Yeah, but the bottom.
• 1:22:23
  Line is is for people who can't donate money, right?
• 1:22:26
  Ask what you can do, but definitely therapy costs money
• 1:22:31
  and therapy is one of the biggest things that a lot of
• 1:22:34
  these guys need. Yeah.
• 1:22:36
  And just so if you do have the ability to look in the boot up,
• 1:22:40
  there is a link on that page to be well either to contact these
• 1:22:43
  guys so you can. Yeah, definitely.
• 1:22:44
  We're going to be plugging it as well.
• 1:22:45
  We could put the. Link up, Michael.
• 1:22:47
  Yeah, yeah. So.
• 1:22:48
  There's also there is a need aside from throwing barbecues,
• 1:22:52
  there's a need to to financially support because therapy's not
• 1:22:57
  free. I'm going to give you an
• 1:22:58
  example. We had a retreat a couple months
• 1:23:00
  ago in America for 12 guys now. It was a full week intensive
• 1:23:05
  retreat where we had to bring down special guys like big
• 1:23:10
  people in the therapy world. One of them was like a former
• 1:23:13
  Green Beret that is now understanding the combat drama
• 1:23:17
  and knows how to work with it. Just a retreat like that for 12
• 1:23:20
  guys costs over $60,000. Because he got it.
• 1:23:25
  Because I don't want to. Like I know, at least for
• 1:23:26
  myself, when I tell a soldier I'm going to help him or tell
• 1:23:29
  his family I'm going to help him, I'm not going to be OK with
• 1:23:32
  any low class Medicaid therapist, right?
• 1:23:35
  You got to bring him the top of the line because you're talking
• 1:23:38
  about a whole family on the line there, right?
• 1:23:40
  His parents, him, his kids, his wife, you want to be able to
• 1:23:42
  support. And we need the best.
• 1:23:44
  We need it. And, and that's why it's a lot
• 1:23:47
  of money to really bring the best people down to support and,
• 1:23:51
  and give this help. And I can tell you that the
• 1:23:52
  people who did that retreat, I spoke to two of them just
• 1:23:56
  yesterday and said, Oh my God, this like, I'm still so much
• 1:24:00
  better about it. More than that.
• 1:24:01
  The guy told me, just so you know, last time I went back to
• 1:24:05
  Gaza, I was hoping that I'm never coming back alive because
• 1:24:09
  I just couldn't deal with it anymore.
• 1:24:11
  And now with the help that you guys are helping me get and
• 1:24:14
  providing, I want to live, I want to get back on my feet.
• 1:24:17
  I want to continue life normal, which is for me the biggest
• 1:24:21
  thing you can get. It's amazing.
• 1:24:22
  Again, thank you guys so much for joining us.
• 1:24:24
  Thank you to all our subscribers and listeners.
• 1:24:26
  Please don't forget to get involved like subscribe comment.
• 1:24:30
  Thank you again to the wonderful team at Prime Source.
• 1:24:33
  We appreciate you listening. See you next time.
• 1:24:35
  That's a Rep.