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Check A Vet Nation -Living After the War Within · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

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  The station where our veterans voices are heard.
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  MBR talk. Hey thanks for tuning.
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  In Welcome back are those of the speakers and do not necessarily
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  reflect the views or. Positions of any entities they
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  represent find. Us on the web at MB Radio.
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  Dot US for your five beyond. D Wars in all lines and in all
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  homes together. All right, welcome back to Czech
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  Event Nation. I'm Turbo and today we're all
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  we're diving into something most of us don't talk about out loud,
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  but it's always there. And with me today I've got the
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  President and CEO of Czech event, Michael Carmichael and
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  also the winner of our Brantley Gilbert raffle, guitar raffle,
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  Mr. Robert Peterson. How you guys doing I'm.
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  Doing great, I'm fantastic. Could have got somebody better
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  than me, but I'll fill in wherever I have to.
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  All right, So this first segment is going to be spotting the
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  wounds that no one sees, breaking the silence.
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  And then we're going to go into Segment 2, which is the brain on
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  trauma, tools for rewiring and also kind of a mission for the
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  end of the episode. And then segment 3 will be
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  survivor skills for civilian life.
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  And we'll kind of talk about team room throughout all of this
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  as well. You kind of want to explain what
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  team room is there, Michael? Yeah, I mean, team room is
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  loosely based on Alcoholics Anonymous, OK.
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  But it's not just about for veterans struggling with
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  suicide, there will be suicide prevention programmed into every
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  meeting once they get up and running.
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  And the group is a cohesive group.
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  So team rooms really about camaraderie, like let's get back
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  on the team. Let's get, let's surround
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  ourself with veterans, just the same type of people that we we
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  were when we were in, you know, the National Guard or the active
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  duty or like that. So it's, it's really a program
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  that's about camaraderie. And as as I look at
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  organizations that I think are relevant and, and let, well, let
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  me define relevant. If, if your organization's
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  membership is growing, then you're relevant.
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  If your organization's members are dwindling, like mostly
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  because people are aging out, for instance, the American
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  Legion in, in the VFW, what was what's missing there?
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  And then what's, what's, what is relevant about an organization
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  like the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association?
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  I think one of the biggest keys is camaraderie.
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  It's, it's doing things together that are meaningful and routine.
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  And so let's do some of that. So we came up with team room.
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  Absolutely. And we, we've been planning this
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  for a while now. I know me, you and several other
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  people have had lots of meetings and we actually had our very
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  first event down in Florida last weekend.
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  Off to a little bit of a bumpy start, but we're learning and I
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  think I think it's going to be a great thing as we go.
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  Yeah. Well, let's bring Robert into
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  this. Robert, what do you think about
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  organizations relevancy versus what would make a veteran
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  support organization relevant versus not relevant?
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  Yeah, I mean, I, I've seen so not only my event, but my my
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  dad's event and, and the Legion and VFW keep wanting him to him
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  to be a part. But, you know, for, for him, he
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  says all they are is a, a, a social club.
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  And so they just, you know, they just want to drink at the bar
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  and, and he doesn't drink. And so that eliminates half of
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  the half of the activities they want him to participate in.
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  And so he doesn't feel like there's, there's a lot of of
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  value. And yet I know he's pretty
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  lonely. And so he needs that, that that
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  idea of camaraderie would definitely, you know, fit the
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  model that he's looking for. He's got a couple guys that he
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  meets with online, reads through some different books.
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  And so he's doing that virtually, But it'd be pretty
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  good to have a place that he could do that, you know, in
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  person and be shaking hands and hugging.
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  And, you know, I think camaraderie to me is, is doing
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  life together, right where we're, we're, we're to have a
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  close enough relationship where we can actually talk about the
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  stuff, right? The stuff that none of us talk
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  about. And that's that's really inside
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  stuff. And I know you're you're in and
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  around Denver. Is that right?
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  Are you close to Denver or are you in there?
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  OK, so down here in the South, we all like you go into a
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  restaurant in the morning. I don't care if it's McDonald's
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  or a local restaurant like Martha's here in Murray, KY,
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  you're going to see big groups of good old farm boys and
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  they're hanging out together and you'll see these guys every day.
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  And when you think about it, I'll bet you if one of them
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  misses a meeting, someone's going to check on them, see,
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  hey, what's going on, what's up? But from a mental health
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  standpoint, we all have a normal, right?
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  And if you were around people in a routine way, we all get used
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  to each other's normal. And that's part of our
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  camaraderie, right? So learning that is something
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  that you have to be present to win.
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  Unlike a Brantley Gilbert guitar, we're used to it all out
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  of the blue. So yeah, that's so that's that
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  was a couple of things that I was thinking about with that.
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  Awesome. Yeah, I think team is going to
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  be a great thing once we get it up and going and getting more,
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  more leaders involved and trying to open up team rooms in their
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  in their local areas. I think that's our next little
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  project is finding some local leaders, which that might be a
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  little tough, but we'll get it done.
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  That's right. We, we've, we've built it, we've
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  been working on it for is it about 3 months turbo.
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  We've talked about it longer than that, but we've actually
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  been doing the planning, yeah, about 3 months, 3-4 months,
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  yeah. Yeah.
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  And then not, not this weekend, not the last weekend in, in
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  June, but the previous weekend was actually, I think it was the
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  20th was our very first team room down in Clearwater, FL.
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  One of our team members who helped us, you know, really put
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  the put the thing together and talk about let's build a
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  playbook so that we can hand it out to people that want to do
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  something meaningful for veterans, because we get that a
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  lot in the check of that booth. What can we do to help or what
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  can I do to help? So I can't just say, hey, go
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  have a a coffee social with some veterans and let me know how
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  that works. No, no.
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  I think the way we got it kind of laid out is.
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  Yeah, we had to build them. Bringing guys together is just
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  part of it. But like, one of the things that
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  I, I tried focusing on and I think that you really agreed
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  with was once we get the guys, guys and girls coming together
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  and we build that trust and we build that camaraderie, that's
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  when we start bringing in. And not every week and not every
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  single time we meet up, but from time to time, bringing in
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  experts from, from VA, from mental health centers and, and
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  talk to people about suicide and give them resources And not just
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  about suicide, but it could be drug abuse, it could be alcohol
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  abuse. It's just any subject matter
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  that the members want to talk about, you know, bring in
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  experts from time to time and share their, their knowledge.
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  Because a lot of guys that I've ran into just don't know where
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  to find this information or they don't know what the VA offers,
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  for instance. So I think that's a good would
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  be a good way for us to get that information out to the public
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  once we build trust with with the people that come to the team
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  room. Absolutely, absolutely.
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  I love that. That's a great point because I
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  think hanging out with some of those guys that do the breakfast
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  together, there's a big distrust of the government, which bleeds
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  into the VA. And so they're not sure they
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  trust the VA services to have their back.
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  You know, especially here in Colorado, you're, you're a
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  hunter and you grew up hunting and then you served in the
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  served in the military. And then you go to the VA and
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  say, man, I'm struggling with this.
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  And they want to take away your take away your guns.
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  And so guys are guys are hesitant to have trust a lot of
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  that stuff. They lose their audience, don't
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  they, Robert? I absolutely, yeah.
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  Yeah, it's like public speaking one-on-one.
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  Understand your audience well, if you stand up in front of
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  veterans or over the phone with a veteran.
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  And don't get me wrong, there is a time and place when when that
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  firearm or that bottle of pills or that thing becomes a
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  temptation to end your life. All right, now it's time to lock
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  it. Up.
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  Absolutely. But if you just say, hey, you
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  know, guys not feeling well, step one, lethal means safety.
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  We're going to lock up all your stuff.
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  Well, actually that's not really what's going to happen is you're
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  you're probably going to have to call the veteran that you're
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  talking to back because he's going to hang up on you or she's
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  going to hang up on you. You lost credibility.
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  We'll see. And that's why I don't want to
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  focus solely on VA programs because even though I think the
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  VA is a good resource, we all know there's issues.
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  There's there as well. But talking about the firearms,
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  for instance, there's a organization here in, oh, I
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  don't want to say it's not Dylan.
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  Anyways, here in Montana, like an hour from me, it's called the
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  Veterans Food Pantry. And he's actually part of a
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  pilot program to where if, if a veteran feels themselves that
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  they want to get their firearms or their weapons out of their
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  house, they can voluntarily call him and he'll lock him in a safe
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  until the vet is ready to get them back.
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  He doesn't have a predetermined time.
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  He doesn't have a, you know, all this bureaucracy is like, if you
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  want to do this, you call me and when you're ready, I'll give
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  them back to you. It doesn't get law enforcement
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  involved in anything like that. The other piece of that is what
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  it does to the vet himself, right?
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  If a, even if you're seeing a, a counselor or a therapist and the
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  therapist says, well, I don't think you should have those in
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  your house bad in my house my whole entire life and there's
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  never been an issue. Now all of a sudden this is a
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  that's, it's actually another, another wound like, like I've
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  seen it with my son-in-law going through through marital
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  counseling and, and they recommended that he, that he,
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  you know, surrender him to somebody.
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  And that actually caused more, more hurt for him, more trauma,
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  because now there's, there's a distrust, there's a, there's
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  this thing hanging over his head like a bigger cloud than than he
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  was dealing with before. And, and it's so frustrating.
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  And I, I mean, I get it, right. They obviously it's dangerous.
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  And like Michael said, it's there's absolutely a time and
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  place where, where that temptation needs to be taken
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  away. But but in the process it, it's,
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  I think we're in a lot of cases we're causing more trauma than
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  than we're helping. Absolutely, Absolutely.
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  Agreed. And and you know, as it just
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  came up, probably a good thing to capture and share with the
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  program and add to the program of team room so that it's
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  something that we can, you know, something that could be talked
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  about. That could be one of the things
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  that you talk about in in every meeting or if you have like a
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  sponsorship style buddy team sorted out, like, hey, man, you
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  know, you've been acting a little off.
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  You've been doing this and that. I'm not, I'm not telling you I
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  want to take your guns, but I'm, I'm here if, if, if that thing
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  ever becomes a temptation. But if you have a, if you have a
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  relationship, right, If you have a relationship, you have trust,
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  then when that conversation happens, it's coming from a
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  friend. It's not coming from an outsider
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  or a doctor or, or the government.
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  And so I think that's a fantastic approach to, to build.
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  It's really about the relationships, right?
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  The camaraderie that you can build, the trust you can have so
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  that you can not just deal with your junk, but somebody else can
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  call you out when when you're acting different than than your
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  normal. I love that.
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  Yeah. All right, Turbo, get us back on
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  track. Sorry.
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  Oh man, I. Got a couple minutes before our
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  first break. But I've got a script, but at
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  the same time, I love it when I don't have to go off a script
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  like, yeah, so this, this is great.
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  So anyway, it's been going great so far.
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  I love the conversation. You know, I, I remember as well
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  as you guys do coming back home from Iraq.
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  You know, I looked like I was fine, but inside I was a
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  pressure cooker. You know, it, it took, it took
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  10 years, but finally my wife looked at me and said, and I've
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  told this multiple times on the show.
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  My wife came to me and said that she's scared that I'm going to
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  kill myself and her and the kids.
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  And that was the moment that my my invisible wounds almost
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  became something you read in the paper.
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  So spotting the moods that no one sees or you know, like
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  trouble sleeping, that's related to hyper vigilance, angry
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  outbursts, the flight or flight mode, stuck on, avoiding crowds,
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  survival instinct, numbness, disassociation.
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  And it's not just combat vets, it's medics, MPs, survivors of
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  MST, which is one that hardly anybody ever talks about.
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  If you served, you've got a story and you're not broken,
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  you're injured. And just like any energy injury,
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  it can heal, but only if you admit it's there.
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  So this week, I'd like you to say one true thing out loud.
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  Start tracking your triggers and ask your family how they're
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  really doing. I love that and just so anybody
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  that might have missed it, MST is military sexual trauma and
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  sadly these days men are more account for more incidents of
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  being raped than women. Can you believe that?
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  And what makes it even worse is because pride or they're ashamed
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  or whatever, they they almost never report their perpetrator.
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  So it only gets worse. They're getting away with it.
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  Nope, it's, it's MSC is definitely a thing that I, I
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  kind of would like to take a somehow I would like to make
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  that a, a focus some way along with everything else we're doing
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  because I, I don't believe there's enough organizations
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  talking about it. I don't know how we would
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  approach that because that is a very sensitive subject.
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  But I think somehow we need to figure out something we can do
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  to, to get it out, to get the word out there to everybody and
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  say, hey, we know this happens. We're sorry, but we're here.
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  Well, I got a couple of guests that I can line up high degree
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  of confidence. They would they would go on and
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  and be brave. Hey, man, we're trying to save
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  veterans lives. We're trying to make a
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  difference. You you do that by being honest
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  and being brave. But I think that they are both
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  honest and brave. And I'm actually thinking about
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  female and a male who were who were suffered from suffer from
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  MST during their service. So we can see that up.
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  But it's certainly a very powerful thing that is way
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  underneath the shadow of PTSD, which you and you shouldn't even
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  say PTSD, like understanding your audience, talking about
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  taking guns away from veterans. It should be PTS post traumatic
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  stress. OK, whenever I'm around medical
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  professionals, I always, you know, like, hey, I can talk your
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  guys's language too PTS, so let's all be a little more
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  sensitive. It's not a disorder.
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  So PTS, but you know, PTS traumatic brain injury, those
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  are the things that cast the longer shadow in mental health
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  vernacular for veterans for sure.
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  But MST is is is so powerful. Definitely need to to tee up
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  something with with regards to that.
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  So I'm loving the conversation, fellas.
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  I'm going to take this off for a short break while this video
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  plays. Your video and your audio's
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  going to be cut off. There is a little box on the
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  right hand side that says private chat if you want to say
• 17:45
  something in chat. But for the next 4 minutes or
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  so, take the time to go get some water or whatever you got to do.
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  Love you daddy. Love you too, girl.
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  All right, welcome back to Czech Event Nation.
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  And that was Die Tired. I've fallen in love with those
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  guys over the past couple of months and I always play one of
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  their songs sometime in the show.
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  I'm hoping I can reach out to them and get those guys on here
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  one day. Did you see what they were doing
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  in the video? They were circling it up right.
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  That's right. That's right.
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  Just like a, a, A, just like Alabama, just like team room,
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  you know, And it's, it's, it's, it's that fellowship, it's that
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  camaraderie that we're hoping to achieve.
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  So it, that's how powerful it is.
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  Is it, it, it's surrounds us. And we may not even realize the
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  strength that we can get from the people who surround us.
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  That's right. And I think that video, the
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  video and the lyrics together just just show a powerful
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  message that I think a lot of guys really need to really need
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  to hear. That's why I play it every time.
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  And don't worry, John, I know I told you I play some of your
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  stuff. Just it's coming up, brother, I
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  promise. He's talking to our musical
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  ambassador, John Major. So awesome.
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  Well, hey, let's, let's talk a a second about why is Robert
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  Peterson here. And so one, we finally sold the
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  500th ticket to Brantley. Not finally.
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  It it seemed like it was a blink of an eye because who wouldn't
• 22:41
  want Brantley, Brantley Gilbert's guitar?
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  But we we sold the 500th ticket. I reached out to him.
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  He didn't answer some weirdo calling him.
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  So what I did was I sent him a text and I announced the winner.
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  And he's like, seriously? Well, yeah, seriously.
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  So Turbo and I talked about having having Robert on the show
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  just to talk about the guitar and congratulate him.
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  But then Robert started cheering a little bit.
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  Didn't you, buddy? Let's talk about that.
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  Yeah, I mean, obviously I shared that I was a vet myself and part
• 23:19
  of why I wanted to support your organization is because my
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  sister was a vet and she took her own life last year.
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  And So what you're doing is, is pretty personal.
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  And, and then I've mentioned earlier in the show, my dad,
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  dad's also a vet. And so anybody that's out there
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  trying to take care of, you know, our brothers and sisters
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  in arms and trying to deal with this stuff that obviously other
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  organizations aren't having as much success with yet, right.
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  And so it's still a, it's still a challenge that a lot of guys
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  and gals are facing in dealing with all of these things that
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  are happening. And so, so it's personal, you
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  know, I, I, I didn't give the money to win the guitar.
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  I gave the money because because I wanted to help your
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  organization and and and believed in your cause so well.
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  Thank you so much. And, and hey man, I salute you
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  because it's it. You're being brave, you're being
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  honest, you're being brave. And, and I already knew what you
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  were going to say, but still when you said it, goosebumps,
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  goosebumps. So thank you, man.
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  And definitely value added. Value added to the show.
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  So one thing that that we hear a lot is after something dramatic,
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  something happens. A lot of people say they wish
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  they would have seen signs that we should would have known, wish
• 24:48
  they could have done something differently.
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  Is is there anything that you wish people had done differently
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  or, or and what would you say to another family that was worried
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  about their veteran? Yeah, I mean, I think you,
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  you've got to talk. You, you've got to, you've got
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  to say it. I, I spoke to my sister on
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  Sunday night and I turned to my wife and I said that was the
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  weirdest phone call we've had. And in the phone call, I asked
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  if she was going to her next doctor visit with her husband.
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  And I made the assumption that that her husband was, you know,
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  was aware, was paying attention to was seeing what was
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  happening. And and then we got the call
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  Wednesday that that she'd she'd taken her life.
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  And in my heart of hearts, I said I should reach out to my
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  mother-in-law. I should reach out to somebody
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  else and, and I didn't do it. I didn't, I just assumed that,
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  you know, somebody else was taking her to a doctor's
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  appointment. Somebody else was seeing, was
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  seeing what I was hearing. You know, we just talked on the
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  phone and, and it was that it was that out of normal that
• 26:01
  Michael mentioned at the beginning.
• 26:03
  She was she was out of normal and, and I didn't tell anybody
• 26:08
  else. And so I absolutely, absolutely
• 26:11
  regret that. And, and absolutely, I have no
• 26:14
  idea if if it would have made a difference, you know, but but I
• 26:18
  definitely feel like if families that are out there and
• 26:20
  something's out of normal need to talk about it.
• 26:24
  Need to bring it up. We, we, we can't make a
• 26:27
  difference for the, for what happened, but we are making a
• 26:30
  difference right now for one of the 44 that we can lose
• 26:35
  tomorrow. And, and this, this talking
• 26:39
  point or this teaching point, when somebody's not acting
• 26:45
  right, one of the first things you should do is, is it, if it
• 26:51
  is serious and your Spidey senses are tingling, that, hey,
• 26:55
  this, this is a person who's in crisis.
• 26:57
  This is a person in distress. Ask the question, are you going
• 27:04
  to hurt yourself? Don't phrase it as a as a
• 27:08
  negative connotation, like you would never hurt yourself, would
• 27:11
  you? Well, you're not going to get
• 27:13
  the answer that they want to give because they'll just kind
• 27:16
  of go along with your little charade.
• 27:18
  Ask them, Hey, you're, you seem off.
• 27:23
  There's a lot of stuff that's weighing you down right now.
• 27:26
  You're going through a lot. Are you thinking about hurting
• 27:30
  yourself? And then shut your mouth and
• 27:33
  listen and don't judge. Be there, be there.
• 27:38
  I've, I, I have a lot of conversations like that with
• 27:42
  near strangers, often in pitch pitcher being somewhere that's
• 27:49
  supposed to be fun, like at a NASCAR race.
• 27:52
  And somebody that's a near stranger says, hey, I don't know
• 27:56
  why I, I don't want to hurt myself, but I feel like I need
• 28:01
  to hurt myself. I feel like I'm going to hurt
• 28:03
  myself. Can you imagine?
• 28:06
  So when it's somebody that you know, even if it's somebody you
• 28:10
  don't know, if your Spidey senses are tingling like that,
• 28:14
  ask the question. And you like the first 3 or 4
• 28:19
  times it happened and I, I went through that and the person who
• 28:25
  was sharing that suicidal veteran who was sharing, they
• 28:30
  were so freaking relieved to have said it.
• 28:37
  They were relieved to have shared that with another person.
• 28:40
  And they were no longer holding on to this little thing inside
• 28:43
  of them. And that made them feel a lot
• 28:46
  better. Now there's a lot more things to
• 28:49
  do to make sure that somebody's safe, like go through the
• 28:54
  Columbia 9, which is in all of our literature.
• 28:56
  But absolutely, Robert, you, you, you hit it on the head, you
• 29:02
  know, no regrets. We can't change the past.
• 29:05
  We can try to change one of the 44, the outcome for one that's
• 29:09
  going to end their life by suicide tomorrow or succumb to
• 29:13
  their struggles with suicide. But ask the question and don't
• 29:18
  be judgmental. Listen, listen, listen, listen,
• 29:21
  listen. And then and Rob, you know, I, I
• 29:26
  just want to thank you again for being here.
• 29:28
  I, I know it's not easy to share that, but one of the, the things
• 29:32
  that I learned in therapy and one of the reasons why I, I do
• 29:36
  this podcast is because storytelling absolutely saves
• 29:40
  lives. You know, I, I believe that
• 29:43
  wholeheartedly and, and just thank you for sharing.
• 29:49
  No, absolutely. Like, like the fact that there's
• 29:52
  44, every time Michael says it, it's like a jab in the gut.
• 29:55
  So anything we can do to stop? Where, where does this 44 come
• 30:02
  from? Everybody's like, I thought it
• 30:04
  was 22. You know, I'm doing, I'm doing
• 30:06
  22 push ups a day to prevent veteran suicide.
• 30:09
  I'll be like, hey, keep doing your push ups, but why don't you
• 30:13
  go call 44 of your friends or 22 of your friends?
• 30:16
  That would, that would go a lot. That would actually do something
• 30:19
  to prevent veteran suicide. But so 44 is based on a study
• 30:26
  that the University of Alabama and Duke did in in with the
• 30:32
  American Warrior Partnership and in trying to really identify the
• 30:39
  problem of veteran suicide. First we have to define the
• 30:42
  problem and and it is how bad is the epidemic of veteran suicide.
• 30:47
  So the V as unpublished number, the dad is out there, but you
• 30:52
  got to get it with your calculator and do the math
• 30:55
  yourself because frankly, I think it's, it's so
• 30:59
  embarrassing. They don't want to own their own
• 31:01
  shit. Own it.
• 31:03
  Amen. The V as number is 140,435 of
• 31:12
  our brothers and sisters of our nation's heroes, 140,000 plus
• 31:17
  have ended their life by suicide since 9:11.
• 31:21
  So deep dive. Duke did the analysis, the
• 31:28
  University of Alabama did the did the data collection.
• 31:30
  They found that the V as numbers underreported by a factor of
• 31:34
  2.4. Biggest reason, if you look in
• 31:38
  the methodology of it, the biggest reason is the VA doesn't
• 31:41
  count a suicide if it's a drug overdose in spite of having the
• 31:47
  data, whether they were swinging for the fence trying to check
• 31:51
  out or if they were just trying to get high.
• 31:54
  You see what I mean? We can be, we can be a lot more
• 31:57
  thoughtful. So, but what does that mean?
• 32:00
  Like let's put, let's put some context around this whole thing.
• 32:05
  In the worst four years of Vietnam, we lost 60,000 service
• 32:11
  members in combat, 60,000 in the in.
• 32:14
  Really. Most were accounted for in about
• 32:16
  four years, since 9:11. You know, think about gosh,
• 32:23
  that's 24 years. Now how many service members
• 32:27
  have we lost since 911? Robert, give me a guess. 5000.
• 32:33
  5000, that's a really, really good guess.
• 32:36
  The actual answer is just over 7000 and the Pentagon website
• 32:40
  actually has it. And that's even including,
• 32:43
  that's even including contractors.
• 32:45
  So wait a minute, we've lost. We've lost 7000 in combat, and
• 32:54
  when you apply 2.4 to the 140,000 which is the V as
• 32:59
  number, we're over 360,000. For every one service member
• 33:07
  we've lost on the battlefield, we've lost 50 to suicide.
• 33:13
  Are you freaking kidding me, man?
• 33:15
  That should be unacceptable. Are you?
• 33:18
  It is to me and I think it is to the the group here and that's
• 33:22
  why we're doing what we're doing.
• 33:23
  So anyway, a little background. I don't mean to rant.
• 33:29
  I I hope it was productive, but that's where 44 a day comes
• 33:33
  from. And and that is grounded in
• 33:35
  reality. Not I heard it and I'm going to
• 33:38
  go and wake up tomorrow and do 44 push ups.
• 33:41
  I still do 144 push ups. Anyway, that's coming.
• 33:47
  That's coming from ACW 4 too by the way.
• 33:51
  He does 144 push ups means I'm first, not 200.
• 33:54
  Be a good. Golfer but I'm not sure I've
• 33:56
  done 144 push ups since I was discharged.
• 34:01
  I I tell you what I tell you, Mike, I give Mike Mess crap all
• 34:05
  the time about it. But out of all the Chief Ward
• 34:09
  officers I've met, Mike, you still live it.
• 34:11
  And you know, you do, you know you do.
• 34:13
  But man, you, you still, you still live like ACW 4, you know?
• 34:18
  No, you don't even know what that means, Turkey.
• 34:23
  You're not right on the program. But the, the, the reason why I
• 34:27
  say that, the reason why I say that is because when we go to
• 34:29
  these events, you, you, you find your guys, right?
• 34:32
  You you find your specialist, your E fives, your E sixes and
• 34:35
  and you give us the mission and then you go and hang out with
• 34:38
  the two stars and and the current the commands to our
• 34:42
  majors and line up the next event while we're all taking
• 34:45
  care of what's going to happen today.
• 34:47
  That's right, you're doing the best you can with what I give
• 34:50
  you. Hey, hey, we make it happen,
• 34:52
  man. We make it happen.
• 34:53
  Right, but you know, that's a that's a whole Side Story to get
• 34:59
  it get into. But I, I would, I will share one
• 35:01
  thing with you. This belt buckle right here.
• 35:05
  OK, the guy by the name of Bryant Fontenot.
• 35:08
  That's the old Warrant Officer squash bug from before 2004.
• 35:16
  Before we were wearing branches on our on our BB us.
• 35:22
  He had told me that he had only given away 3 in his whole career
• 35:27
  and Bryant what? He was ACW 5.
• 35:29
  And I hate CW Fives, not Bryant, but generally.
• 35:33
  And he told me that he had only given away three of those
• 35:37
  buckles in in his career. And he was the senior Blackhawk
• 35:42
  driver in the Army. So what a long and distinguished
• 35:46
  career. So I hope that I tried hard
• 35:51
  enough to be, you know, one of one of three guys that really
• 35:55
  stood out in a guy like Brian Fonda's career.
• 35:59
  Love the guy. And and so, but being a Warrant
• 36:03
  Officer is that's a different thing.
• 36:06
  You know, you guys don't know what you're talking about.
• 36:08
  We're not all golfing. But anyways, back back to you,
• 36:13
  Turbo. Get us back on.
• 36:14
  Track you kind of stay true to the never see year round thing
• 36:18
  though, I'll tell you that sometimes that's.
• 36:20
  Busy doing the work of half a guy.
• 36:23
  I mean, five guys. I'm doing the work of five guys.
• 36:26
  Oh, no, no kidding, man. I'm just giving you trouble.
• 36:29
  I'm just, I'm just making sure you live up to the CW4 name, all
• 36:32
  right? That's all.
• 36:34
  The only thing that that means is you're entitled to a 30
• 36:38
  minute nap per dot in the military.
• 36:41
  By regulation not really, but if you ask me it holds that means
• 36:46
  each day I'm entitled to A2 hour nap.
• 36:48
  You mean from being? I only need 90 minutes.
• 36:53
  You know what, though, I'll tell you what, and I know we're
• 36:56
  getting off again, but I got to share this.
• 36:58
  When we were in Charlotte, we we got back from the activation
• 37:03
  from the booth. When we come, we come back to
• 37:05
  the camper and Mike's like, hey, man, I'm going to go take a nap
• 37:10
  and I'm like, all right, cool. And then and then me and him
• 37:12
  went and done something later. I can't remember what it was.
• 37:15
  His naps are not like I'm going to go in there and go to sleep.
• 37:18
  His naps are, hey, I'm going to come in here and just hang out
• 37:21
  and not do anything for 30 minutes and, and, and recharge
• 37:25
  my batteries and then we're going to go knock out some more
• 37:27
  stuff. Right.
• 37:29
  They after 30 minutes of NASCAR, everybody that doesn't
• 37:33
  understand what we really do. And if you don't know, we're
• 37:37
  literally out there hugging and crying with strangers, hearing
• 37:42
  their their story of, of tragedy and how how they lost their
• 37:47
  veteran. So at the end of hugging and
• 37:51
  crying with strangers all day, you you need a little break to
• 37:56
  reset. You know, you definitely.
• 37:59
  Can get your mind screwed back on right?
• 38:01
  Definitely takes a toll. And I just want everybody to
• 38:04
  know that I am kind of just just Joshua and Mike over here.
• 38:07
  He he does a lot to help our guys, guys and girls.
• 38:10
  And he does. If it wasn't for him, this
• 38:11
  organization wouldn't exist. It really wouldn't.
• 38:15
  And he's also been a great mentor for me.
• 38:17
  And I, I know you kind of chuckle when I say that, but
• 38:19
  it's true. Well, thanks.
• 38:22
  Thanks for that. Thanks, Sir.
• 38:24
  All right, so we're going to take us another short little
• 38:28
  break. The song I'm going to play next
• 38:31
  is actually from John Major. It's called Cocaine Kiss and we
• 38:34
  recorded this at Charlotte Motor Speedway, so I hope you guys
• 38:38
  enjoy. Yeah, I did the intro and this
• 38:41
  was the release of the song. Great song, great artist.
• 38:45
  John Major. Yeah, well, the the intro is not
• 38:48
  there. I cut that out for the video.
• 38:51
  It's OK. See a guy in a cowboy hat
• 38:54
  standing there? That would be me.
• 38:56
  Right. Why is it not playing?
• 39:00
  OK, there we go. way she had me.
• 40:13
  I couldn't help but to stop and stay here.
• 40:16
  The blue flame eyes melting my heart when she run her finger
• 40:22
  through my hair felt so round. It felt so wrong.
• 40:28
  Good Lord, it must be a sin before a made-up beat lied to
• 40:35
  that door. She turned around and hit me
• 40:39
  again as.
• 41:11
  He. Was.
• 41:23
  Saying a while ago, you know, we're doing doing this thing for
• 41:26
  Czech event. We actually we actually met and
• 41:30
  benefit and we talked a couple for probably two or three
• 41:34
  minutes and I played the show out in Franklin, TN And then he
• 41:40
  offered me to come on board and help out, check a vet.
• 41:43
  Fuck. It's a great idea and a great,
• 41:45
  great opportunity to be able to talk to people and you know,
• 41:48
  just got to be there for our veterans.
• 41:50
  I mean, I feel that's you know what, the least what you do is
• 41:53
  that right, You know, And so I told him, you know, when we were
• 41:58
  when we were up there. There's one song that I that I
• 42:01
  wrote about for my grandpa and I didn't get to finish this song
• 42:04
  before he passed away. But this is this song really
• 42:08
  means a lot to me and I feel it also fits the fits the bill with
• 42:13
  Czech event. So if y'all don't mind, I'd love
• 42:15
  to play that song for you. All right, you have to wait.
• 42:19
  Till the next next one to listen to you beat.
• 42:23
  The switch. That's.
• 42:28
  Great stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 42:31
  So welcome back to Czech Event Nation.
• 42:33
  That was John Major. You can find him on Facebook,
• 42:35
  Instagram, Spotify, TikTok, just about everywhere.
• 42:39
  And it comes out to a lot of the events that that we host as
• 42:42
  well. So go check him out.
• 42:45
  He's a great guy, great music also.
• 42:47
  And it said John Major music across social media and he was
• 42:53
  just nominated again for the second year.
• 42:57
  I think it I, I hope I'm not saying this wrong.
• 43:01
  Grand Ole Opry song of the year is, is what he has a nomination
• 43:06
  for right now. And he's I think he's a finalist
• 43:11
  maybe in the top 6 of over 80,000 people who were trying to
• 43:18
  get that. That's the kind of talent that
• 43:21
  that guy has. And you just you just saw him
• 43:24
  and and no, no where's hearts at with regards to hanging out with
• 43:30
  us and helping veterans. But John Major music, great guy,
• 43:35
  a great. Guy, I love him to death and we
• 43:36
  definitely got to get together and film some actual music
• 43:39
  videos. Next time we're all together.
• 43:42
  I'd love to do that. But anyway.
• 43:46
  I'm not waiting for you, I'm going to shoot it myself.
• 43:49
  And hey, hey, you can't do that without me.
• 43:51
  Come on, I'll. Watch a YouTube video.
• 43:54
  Tell me how? All.
• 43:59
  Right. So let's kind of let's kind of
• 44:02
  go to the survival skills for civilian life in this segment.
• 44:06
  It's not boot camp, it's it's real life after service.
• 44:09
  We all have got bills, resumes, routines, benefits.
• 44:14
  So here's some some quick little survival tools that that I found
• 44:17
  that helped me and I've been told to help other guys as well.
• 44:22
  Know the system before you need it.
• 44:24
  Do some research into the VA and other things you're looking into
• 44:27
  using and learn as much as you can about it before you apply a
• 44:32
  VRE for VR and E, for example, the veterans, that's the
• 44:38
  education bill. Rehabilitation education, I
• 44:41
  think is what it's called. A lot of guys, they apply for
• 44:45
  that not knowing all the all the finite details and they get
• 44:52
  denied for it. Part of that is doing research
• 44:57
  and learning what those advisors need to hear from you and see
• 45:01
  from you in your in your emails. So you can get that training to
• 45:04
  get your bachelor's degree, to get a master's, get whatever
• 45:07
  degree it is to move on to a new career field and get you out of
• 45:09
  that troublesome spot that you're in now.
• 45:14
  When it comes to the VA benefits, file early.
• 45:17
  Get that intended to file in as soon as you can.
• 45:22
  It'll make sense what you do, I promise.
• 45:26
  And use your GI Bill wisely. You know, don't, don't go and
• 45:30
  get a degree just to get a degree.
• 45:32
  Find something you're passionate about and something you love and
• 45:34
  chase that you'll just chase after something just for money.
• 45:39
  Translate your skills, you know, 11B logistics, leadership,
• 45:43
  there's so many more things within that than just running
• 45:47
  and gunning. That's right, that that
• 45:51
  leadership from being an infantryman, I was not an 11B, I
• 45:56
  was a 18 series, but it's just a a glorified infantryman with
• 46:02
  some language skills and cultural sensitivities and a
• 46:05
  couple other things in your bag of tricks.
• 46:07
  But that leadership is, is key. You know, if if you don't know
• 46:13
  how to twist wires together or run computers or something like
• 46:16
  that, hopefully the Army taught you a skill that's going to
• 46:19
  resonate in civilian sector. Exactly.
• 46:24
  And you know, it's and it's hard to translate those skills cause
• 46:26
  of the like for me, I, I didn't realize a lot of what I taught
• 46:31
  would actually translate until I, until 10 years down the road.
• 46:35
  And then I started thinking I'm like, well, shit, I was actually
• 46:37
  taught that the military, you know, you don't.
• 46:41
  Really, Robert, what? What was your MOS or what was
• 46:43
  your job in the military? So I was trained as a retail
• 46:46
  manager for the Marine Corps exchange system, spent a year
• 46:50
  doing that and actually took a Marine Corps exchange to Egypt.
• 46:54
  Was one of the first times that they'd shifted back to Marines
• 46:58
  actually running an exchange in, in, you know, in a deployment
• 47:04
  which played out in Desert Storm.
• 47:06
  But then I got transferred or got service support group for
• 47:12
  supporting the 13th MU, which goes on the West Western
• 47:16
  Pacific. So we trained, you know, for a
• 47:19
  year and a half to go six months on a ship and be prepared to to,
• 47:23
  you know, face the enemy, which is the uniqueness of the Marine
• 47:27
  Corps, right? We're, we're on the water, in
• 47:29
  the air and on the land and ready to ready to be the first
• 47:33
  ones in. And so, so yeah, I got to visit
• 47:36
  9 different countries through my Marine Corps experience and,
• 47:40
  and, and got a lot of training actually for me the computer and
• 47:45
  at the time using word perfect. So one of the jobs that I was
• 47:49
  able to get when I got out was working in a hospital where the
• 47:54
  transcription is typing all the stuff, but they need somebody
• 47:56
  who could get in and out of the, the software quickly to, to make
• 48:01
  edits. And so the doctors would make
• 48:02
  corrections. And I got hired to do the
• 48:04
  editing because I knew all the key codes for WordPerfect.
• 48:08
  If you remember back then, it had all these F, you know, all
• 48:11
  these F keys and you had this little bar across the top of the
• 48:14
  computer. But the Marine Corps taught us
• 48:16
  that because nobody else was using computers back in the
• 48:21
  early 90s. So what was the hardest part
• 48:26
  about coming back into civilian life after service?
• 48:30
  I mean, for me, the biggest thing was I'd married my high
• 48:32
  school sweetheart my second year in the Marine Corps.
• 48:35
  And then because of deployment, it trashed my marriage.
• 48:38
  And so I got divorced. And so really coming back
• 48:41
  lonely, broken, feeling like a failure and had a great a great
• 48:48
  experience with with the Marine Corps.
• 48:51
  I had great success, but the pressure of, of being an NCO
• 48:56
  and, and, and and losing my marriage just was, was too much
• 49:00
  to keep, you know, to keep going.
• 49:02
  And so ended up stepping out of, you know, basically being
• 49:07
  discharged honorably and letting letting it go rather than re
• 49:11
  enlisting. So what did you find that that
• 49:16
  helped you kind of build structure and and kind of get
• 49:19
  your life back after you? I mean, honestly.
• 49:22
  It was the church, Yeah, the, the I got involved in, in a
• 49:28
  local church. I met my, my current wife there
• 49:32
  and got my degree in Bible and, and actually became a
• 49:36
  missionary. And because of my experience in
• 49:38
  the Marine Corps, I was willing to, to go to a country like
• 49:40
  Bogota, Colombia as a missionary.
• 49:42
  And, and my wife and I served there for 10 years, raised our
• 49:45
  children, you know, the, the young early years of their life
• 49:49
  in Bogota, Colombia. And then I shifted to a role
• 49:53
  within the church organization where I traveled to support the
• 49:56
  missionaries that the church supported all around the world.
• 49:59
  And so now I've been to 32 countries and, and supporting
• 50:03
  ministries in different countries, much like supporting
• 50:07
  your nonprofit and, and learning, you know, what you're
• 50:10
  doing and helping them raise, you know, raise their money and,
• 50:13
  and get, you know, keep their organizations functioning.
• 50:16
  That's that's awesome. So, so how do you go or that
• 50:22
  that's a, that's a culture shock.
• 50:23
  I mean, going from the Marine Corps to, to doing missionary
• 50:26
  work in, in Columbia, that's a heck of a culture shock.
• 50:29
  I assume so. I would say no, it's not.
• 50:32
  Is it or is it not? No, I mean, I think, I think the
• 50:35
  Marine Corps prepared me for some of that.
• 50:38
  But the great thing about a lot of good mission organizations is
• 50:41
  they've actually got training to to help you transition and they
• 50:45
  prepare you for that culture shock.
• 50:47
  And then the bigger the bigger one is our family did a training
• 50:51
  when we stepped off of the field when we left Columbia after 10
• 50:54
  years and bringing our children home after 10 years of only
• 50:59
  experiencing that third culture for the most part, right?
• 51:01
  We've traveled some and visited some, but there were
• 51:05
  organizations here designed to support missionaries in that
• 51:09
  transition. And I think the military is
• 51:12
  missing some of that piece, right?
• 51:14
  They don't have, you know, we went, we spent a week at a camp
• 51:17
  in Palmer Lake, Co, isolated with only families that were
• 51:21
  experiencing the same thing. And they trained us.
• 51:24
  So the things to look for, they prepared us for, you know,
• 51:29
  things your children noticed, like my daughter noticed
• 51:32
  somebody smoking and, and we had a conversation about they'd been
• 51:36
  so isolated in our missionary experience, working at a church,
• 51:40
  going to a, a missionary school and, and, and so seeing people
• 51:45
  in the, in the, a different environment deal.
• 51:47
  So drinking and smoking wasn't a thing that my children had had
• 51:50
  experienced or seen. And so helping them process some
• 51:54
  of those things our son, my dad had said at one time, he's like,
• 51:58
  why is he always say sorry? Like he's just always, his
• 52:01
  answer was always, I'm sorry. And it was, it was one of the
• 52:04
  cultural things that he'd picked up and it was coming out in his
• 52:07
  English language. And, and it, it wasn't that he
• 52:10
  was necessarily, you know, it was just the word he was
• 52:12
  choosing to use instead of, instead of the appropriate word.
• 52:17
  So there was a lot of that really helped our family have
• 52:20
  some resources and understand the, the mental effect of
• 52:26
  transitioning from one culture to another.
• 52:28
  And so seeing those things happen in the missions, in the
• 52:32
  mission missionary world, recognizing these are the kind
• 52:35
  of things that the veteran world really needs, right?
• 52:38
  These these tools to transition bets not just off the field, but
• 52:42
  off of combat zones or off of overseas service so that they
• 52:46
  have the tools to come back. You know, the biggest thing that
• 52:49
  happened was I was gone for six months.
• 52:53
  And I know that's not a lot in comparison to some deployments
• 52:55
  nowadays, but but in those six months, my my wife turned 21,
• 53:00
  she was paying all the bills, she was taking care of, she was
• 53:03
  taking care of business. And I felt like she didn't need
• 53:06
  me anymore. And we weren't prepared for how
• 53:08
  to how to address that, how to, how to deal with that in our
• 53:11
  relationship. Yeah, it's that reintegration
• 53:15
  and and it was a blink of an eye.
• 53:18
  But at the at the end of the day, you know, I did 26 years in
• 53:23
  the Army and I really saw that metamorphosis of like coming
• 53:30
  back from Desert Storm, you know, hey, all right, we got
• 53:33
  back Friday, you know, have the weekend off show up Monday ready
• 53:38
  to clean guns and stuff, ready to get back to work.
• 53:41
  Compare and contrast that to as Iraq and Afghanistan were
• 53:47
  winding down. No, you it was like a pause X at
• 53:53
  the end of the trip for a week or more and classes and
• 53:58
  sensitivity training and and hey guys, gals, wrap your minds
• 54:04
  around the fact that they've been doing this without you for
• 54:08
  the whole time you've been gone. So they got it.
• 54:11
  Don't show back up and think, well, there's, you know, a new
• 54:16
  sheriff in town and I'm, I'm, we're going to go back to it to
• 54:19
  daddy's way or mommy's way. So now I can testify that the,
• 54:27
  the, the military is, well, the Army for sure has done a lot to
• 54:33
  reintegrate troops in the families.
• 54:37
  And I hope that they'll continue that progress.
• 54:40
  But yeah, that's something we didn't do in the in the in the
• 54:44
  old days for sure. Yeah.
• 54:47
  And, you know, I think a lot of people talk about that the Army
• 54:50
  doesn't, or military in general doesn't prepare them for
• 54:53
  reintegration and for coming home.
• 54:56
  And, and, and I agree with that to a point, But, but also, like
• 54:59
  you said, Michael, big Army, that the, the big Army, they are
• 55:03
  actually taking steps to, to get that training in.
• 55:09
  And a lot of it to me comes down to personal responsibility to
• 55:11
  the individual to take that training and, and, and use it.
• 55:16
  All right. But also part of that would be
• 55:18
  local, you know, troop level, squad level leadership.
• 55:24
  There's a, in my opinion there, there's a pretty big problem
• 55:29
  with the lower level leadership in the military.
• 55:32
  And, and I hate to say that, but when I was in, I don't think
• 55:37
  very many people really cared about their troops.
• 55:41
  I think they were more worried about climbing the ladder than
• 55:44
  they were taking care of their guys.
• 55:47
  And, and I, I apologize for making that a blanket statement
• 55:51
  because trust me, I know not every NCO is that way and I
• 55:55
  understand that. But I think there's a real
• 55:57
  cancer that that that deals with the lower level leadership at
• 56:03
  the unit level care more about progress.
• 56:05
  So there's for themselves and if they're their troops.
• 56:08
  Well, knowing, knowing the services are available is
• 56:11
  different than, you know, we can, we can say, hey, these
• 56:13
  services are available or we can help somebody understand the
• 56:17
  value and why it's really necessary.
• 56:19
  Because most of us are arrogant, right?
• 56:21
  I, I, I was a Sergeant in the Marine Corps.
• 56:24
  I was, I, I, I got it all Like I got it, like I got this.
• 56:29
  And then to have it all blow up in your face because you don't
• 56:32
  really got it. You didn't know, you didn't got
• 56:34
  it, but you sure thought you had it.
• 56:38
  Yeah, and I'm not trying to talk bad about NC OS or anything like
• 56:40
  that. So please guys, don't
• 56:42
  misunderstand what I'm trying to say here.
• 56:44
  We, we got you. But but talking about
• 56:47
  transitional issues out of a deployment or out of a event,
• 56:54
  think about this. I think that the most
• 56:57
  improvement yet to do is for members of the National Guard
• 57:03
  and Reserves. Picture picture a natural
• 57:06
  disaster or something like this. You're down triaging a hurricane
• 57:13
  or tornado areas or something like that where over the weekend
• 57:19
  you can literally be tasked to be sacking bodies and clearing
• 57:22
  houses and cleaning up a mess like that.
• 57:26
  No transition at all. Monday, plop your ass right back
• 57:32
  down on your desk at work, at at the bank, at at wherever you're
• 57:36
  at. Think about that.
• 57:38
  Oh my God, Yeah. That's, that's glaring When you
• 57:41
  bring it up like that or when I bring it up like that, isn't it?
• 57:44
  But that, that's what happens. And, and how do they plug that
• 57:49
  transition assistance into that other than what they do?
• 57:54
  And that's. Well, if if you need help,
• 57:56
  here's a phone number. We've got counselors, you know.
• 57:59
  Right, right. I mean, it's a difficult task
• 58:01
  for sure. Like I'm not saying that I have
• 58:03
  the answers because trust me, I I don't, but that's that's one
• 58:08
  thing that I I have seen better results.
• 58:13
  I've seen it get better as time goes.
• 58:18
  But yeah, and and another thing, and Michael, you probably know
• 58:20
  this way better than me there in G Watt, the G Watt era, which is
• 58:25
  now, I'm not sure what they're calling calling it because we're
• 58:28
  no longer Global war on Terrorism.
• 58:30
  But anyway, so the G Watt era if I'm not mistaken the National
• 58:37
  Guard and Reserve units were actually deployed like twice the
• 58:40
  times as active units if I'm not mistaken.
• 58:43
  No, I, I, I wouldn't say that. I, I know that I could speak
• 58:49
  from experience of being relieved by National Guard
• 58:55
  special forces detachments. And so, and even during the
• 59:02
  invasion of Afghanistan, I think we had, we were at, at at Karshi
• 59:10
  Khanabad, K2 and waiting to go in.
• 59:14
  And there were, I'm going to guest, but there were like 3 or
• 59:21
  4 National Guard detachments on the initial invasion going in.
• 59:25
  So they were definitely getting, I would say a disproportionate
• 59:32
  amount of the work. When you look at, when you look
• 59:37
  at how, how much time a normal National Guard Green Beret has
• 59:45
  downrange, you know, especially doing combat operations, it, it
• 59:50
  was disproportionately high. But we would literally be
• 59:55
  relieved by a team who might have been in the in the National
• 59:58
  Guard or a team from a different theater, like a first group team
• 1:00:03
  who's used to working in the Far East come to the Middle East.
• 1:00:07
  They would relieve us. But then we would come back,
• 1:00:10
  right back and relieve them. We were doing booking
• 1:00:12
  deployment. So I don't, I don't think it was
• 1:00:15
  that much, but it was, I will definitely say it was
• 1:00:18
  disproportionately higher than than what they than what they
• 1:00:22
  had ever been asked to do before from what I had saw.
• 1:00:25
  Right, right. I just know that that's one of
• 1:00:27
  the things that I'd heard a lot is that the National Guard and
• 1:00:30
  Reserve units were deployed at a rate that was that was higher
• 1:00:33
  than active units. It's just, I don't know the
• 1:00:36
  truth behind that. This is one of the things that
• 1:00:39
  I've heard. But anyway, so we're coming up
• 1:00:43
  on an hour and we should probably take our final break
• 1:00:46
  and then get back into the, to the final segment, which is
• 1:00:50
  something I, I would really like to kind of try and discuss and
• 1:00:53
  tie in how team room can, can assist with this.
• 1:00:56
  And then that that's family and the fight and how our time in
• 1:01:00
  service effects not just our not just us, but our families as
• 1:01:03
  well, you know, our our spouses and our children.
• 1:01:07
  See, once we get back from this last song break, which is going
• 1:01:10
  to be another John Major song called Outlaw, I kind I kind of
• 1:01:14
  like to discuss that and how team room hopes to to fill that
• 1:01:17
  void. Right what they need to be.
• 1:04:06
  Take the 10 unders down to the holler Land.
• 1:04:10
  Swing by an old oak tree. That old farm keeps on ticking.
• 1:04:16
  We can't turn it by hang Jesus taught us we.
• 1:04:43
  Love our neighbors, right, you're all of our neighbors and
• 1:04:46
  tonight and all weekend we'll be here playing music.
• 1:04:49
  So please come on, bring a bring a pocket with some money in it.
• 1:04:54
  He's got to get home. He's got to feed the man and the
• 1:04:57
  donations are always good for a non profit right.
• 1:05:00
  So thank each and everyone of you for coming and giving us
• 1:05:02
  your time and your your attention.
• 1:05:04
  God bless you and if. Any of you are veterans, thank
• 1:05:08
  you for your service. Gentleman right here.
• 1:05:11
  There's one right there. Yeah, raise your hand.
• 1:05:18
  All right, so welcome back. So I wanted to, I let that video
• 1:05:23
  play a little little bit past when he stopped because I wanted
• 1:05:26
  everybody to kind of see Miss Sheila and Greg Patton.
• 1:05:31
  They were with us at Charlotte and they were a get with us
• 1:05:34
  again and in Nashville. Were they with you in Atlanta by
• 1:05:38
  chance, Michael? No, actually they were up in
• 1:05:41
  Alaska. For.
• 1:05:43
  Their annual Gold Star Peak climb.
• 1:05:50
  There's a mountain in Alaska. I know there's lots of mountains
• 1:05:53
  in Alaska, but this one seems to be the IT sounds like it's a
• 1:05:56
  it's a really big one and and it's a it's a vacation for Gold
• 1:06:00
  Star families. For those that don't know,
• 1:06:02
  that's a family that actually lost immediate relative to
• 1:06:09
  combat. And so they go out there and
• 1:06:14
  that is a peer-to-peer support group for them where they can
• 1:06:18
  all rekindle their relationships that they have with other
• 1:06:21
  families and each other. That's where they were and they,
• 1:06:25
  they both Greg and Sheila made it up Gold Star Peak and they
• 1:06:29
  were So that's awesome. I, I think that they were
• 1:06:31
  relieved that they made it. But I, I told Greg when I talked
• 1:06:35
  to him on Friday or Saturday, I see you're too honored to quit
• 1:06:39
  at anything. He's he's.
• 1:06:41
  That isn't that the truth? Well, my niece didn't know that
• 1:06:45
  I was too honored to quit. I almost did.
• 1:06:47
  But. I'm ready to hang out with those
• 1:06:51
  guys again. You know, Sheila and Greg are
• 1:06:53
  great people and they're doing, they're doing great things for
• 1:06:56
  for Gold Star families as well as veterans in general.
• 1:06:59
  I, I, I, I love those people here soon on on Facebook and on
• 1:07:05
  the YouTube, I'm going to be posting up a video of Sheila
• 1:07:07
  giving a speech at Memorial Day that she shares about her son
• 1:07:13
  and about what they do with us and that how they try to help
• 1:07:16
  check a bit, but that'll be coming up.
• 1:07:19
  I'll try to have that out on Facebook around the 4th.
• 1:07:23
  I miss Memorial Day, but I'll have it up there for the 4th.
• 1:07:26
  Sheila, I'm sorry. I know you're probably mad at
• 1:07:28
  me, but great speech. I loved it.
• 1:07:31
  That's one lady I don't want mad at me.
• 1:07:34
  Oh man, I'm a bear because bear's got her teeth in claws.
• 1:07:37
  You got that right. You got that right.
• 1:07:41
  If, if do you remember the name of the book that Greg was
• 1:07:44
  telling us that his friend wrote?
• 1:07:46
  That he is. That was about him.
• 1:07:47
  Hold on, I'll plug it right now. OK, OK.
• 1:07:52
  So and and by the way, for those of you that that are saying that
• 1:07:56
  are asking, did you say Patton? Yes, I I said Patton.
• 1:08:02
  There you go. Gut smart in love.
• 1:08:05
  It's there is about most multiple gentlemen, but Greg's
• 1:08:08
  story is in there. It's mostly it's mostly about
• 1:08:12
  the Patton family. It's mostly about the Patton
• 1:08:14
  family. OK.
• 1:08:14
  Yeah, OK. Yeah, it's mostly about Greg and
• 1:08:17
  Sheila. But yeah, so.
• 1:08:19
  So that's a book about Greg and Sheila Patton, and they lost
• 1:08:23
  their son in 2010. Greg was actually in
• 1:08:28
  Afghanistan. Was it that he was in
• 1:08:31
  Afghanistan? Wasn't he?
• 1:08:35
  No, I think Greg was in Iraq and his son Jimmy was in, James was
• 1:08:43
  in Afghanistan. And so I met the patents back in
• 1:08:51
  2010 and we'll segue this into family and the fight and and
• 1:08:57
  team room and that stuff too. But what a powerful story.
• 1:09:01
  I'm at the patents in I think 2010 when I was attending the
• 1:09:09
  notification officer course. So that is the the classes that
• 1:09:15
  we take to put our uniform on and go and knock on the door
• 1:09:22
  and, and, and notify somebody that they've lost their
• 1:09:26
  immediate family member in combat.
• 1:09:29
  That's hardest thing I've ever had to do.
• 1:09:33
  Thankfully, I only had to do it once.
• 1:09:36
  But Sheila was my instructor for that.
• 1:09:39
  And, and none of us knew until the last day when she was really
• 1:09:44
  talking about the importance of it.
• 1:09:46
  And she shared her story because both her husband and her son
• 1:09:52
  were deployed in combat at the same time.
• 1:09:55
  And she got notification. Can you freaking imagine?
• 1:10:01
  And she was like, just tell me who it is.
• 1:10:03
  Just tell me who it is. I, I have to know, like, just
• 1:10:06
  tell me who it is. So that's How I Met him.
• 1:10:08
  And, and that's kind of the circumstance of what happened.
• 1:10:12
  So and then Greg was actually a brigade command Sergeant major
• 1:10:21
  literally responsible for about 15,000 troops of the some of the
• 1:10:26
  most elite infantrymen in the army in the 187 out of Fort
• 1:10:33
  Campbell, KY. So had a lot of heart to heart
• 1:10:39
  conversations with him about what that was like in and how
• 1:10:44
  the grieving process and stuff was for him and his struggles.
• 1:10:50
  But you know, he, he's such a patriot and such a hero that he
• 1:10:56
  said the gist of it was he didn't have time to worry about
• 1:11:00
  himself. He had 15 other families, 15
• 1:11:04
  other fathers, you know, that he had to represent and, and go and
• 1:11:09
  make sure their sons. It was, it was all men in in the
• 1:11:15
  infantry then like jump right back in and and get after right
• 1:11:20
  after he lost his son literally a day or two after the service.
• 1:11:24
  So that's the circumstance. Yeah, Greg actually after Iraq,
• 1:11:31
  Afghanistan, whichever, but Greg actually left to to go get Jimmy
• 1:11:37
  and bring him home. That's right.
• 1:11:39
  And then and he escorted the body back.
• 1:11:41
  No, he escorted him back and then then he went right back and
• 1:11:44
  went back to the combat. I mean, he he wasn't gone very
• 1:11:47
  long and he come right back to combat and did his job, which to
• 1:11:50
  me is just that's crazy. You know, that's but I mean,
• 1:11:55
  let's. Use that to talk about family in
• 1:11:57
  the fight and, and how, you know, I think through transition
• 1:12:07
  and, and the time in the service when it was all said and done, I
• 1:12:13
  had served 11 tours in combat. And I think that, you know, the
• 1:12:20
  wars are, you know, really fought off of the emotions of
• 1:12:27
  mothers and wives, you know, and, and, and the families back
• 1:12:31
  at home. And I'll, you know, mom, if
• 1:12:35
  you're watching and I know that you are, you know, I, I, I can't
• 1:12:40
  imagine what I put you through and I'm sorry, but wow, you
• 1:12:45
  know, because we're there, we're in the fight.
• 1:12:48
  We're, we're down range doing our day-to-day, whether it's,
• 1:12:52
  you know, today, we, we got a break and, you know, got got to
• 1:12:56
  go to Baghdad to the PX or something.
• 1:13:00
  But every day they're, they're home and, and just worrying and
• 1:13:03
  worrying and worrying that that takes a special toll on, on, on
• 1:13:08
  a person to have dealt with that.
• 1:13:11
  And so. Yeah, you know.
• 1:13:13
  But but family's in the fight for sure.
• 1:13:16
  Yeah, families absorb the war just as much, if not more than
• 1:13:20
  we do. You know, spouses walk on egg
• 1:13:22
  shells. The kids grow up confused and
• 1:13:24
  scared. Parents feel hopeless.
• 1:13:28
  It's it's secondary trauma. You know it, it's real.
• 1:13:30
  But just like PTS, it's treatable.
• 1:13:34
  But families, I think, don't get a lot of the I don't think
• 1:13:40
  people realize how big of a toll it takes on family members.
• 1:13:43
  Right. And it was cricket.
• 1:13:45
  Friends of the organization's volunteers, Steven Cricket.
• 1:13:49
  Well, shout out to cricket. She actually uses the term, I'm
• 1:13:54
  a veteran survivor. And I was like, well, what the
• 1:13:58
  hell is a veteran survivor? Think about it.
• 1:14:01
  That's that's somebody who is raised by a veteran.
• 1:14:04
  And I think that that's understandably A childhood
• 1:14:09
  that's going to be different from the folks next door because
• 1:14:13
  of the things that that veteran has has been through, has
• 1:14:18
  suffered with and, you know, the wounds, the wounds that didn't,
• 1:14:26
  the wounds that didn't, you know, that you can't necessarily
• 1:14:30
  see. So, yeah, for sure.
• 1:14:33
  Veteran survivor. Thank you, Cricket.
• 1:14:36
  Think about it. I like that.
• 1:14:38
  I like that term. A little bit more meaningful
• 1:14:40
  than army brat, huh? Definitely.
• 1:14:44
  So I, I just, I told you guys in the very beginning that if you
• 1:14:48
  guys wanted to say something in a break, we got a message board
• 1:14:51
  over here where you can chat. And I just now checked it and I
• 1:14:54
  found something out about Rob that I think is awesome.
• 1:14:57
  So, so you said that you're a Motor Racing Outreach
• 1:15:00
  Association chaplain and and you work with your local track to
• 1:15:04
  talk with drivers and teams and, and helping them the way that we
• 1:15:07
  help vets. Can you tell me a little bit
• 1:15:11
  about that? Because I think that's.
• 1:15:12
  AI mean absolutely. So they're just, you know,
• 1:15:14
  they're a community that I think a lot of a lot of veterans
• 1:15:21
  participate, a lot of, you know, families participate.
• 1:15:27
  And so there's, there's race car drivers, but then there's the
• 1:15:29
  whole, the whole family around, around the race car driver
• 1:15:33
  making their, the racing happening, whether it's the mom
• 1:15:36
  in the stands or, or in the pit crew or, you know, so, so we're
• 1:15:41
  available, you know, just for drivers, but for their entire
• 1:15:44
  family. And, and it's really for us,
• 1:15:47
  it's a ministry of presence, right?
• 1:15:49
  We're we're establishing trust in that community, much like I
• 1:15:53
  think you guys want to do with your teams that, you know, to
• 1:15:58
  having a team room where guys and gals have seen each other
• 1:16:02
  enough times and, and established trust that, hey,
• 1:16:06
  they're going to show up. Hey, they're not going to talk
• 1:16:08
  trash about us. They're not going to judge us
• 1:16:10
  for whatever we share with them And.
• 1:16:14
  That. Ship where we can start to
• 1:16:17
  recognize somebody's normal to go back to the term Michael used
• 1:16:21
  at the very beginning. And so being present in
• 1:16:26
  somebody's life enough to know to know their normal and and be
• 1:16:31
  able to have those kind of conversations.
• 1:16:33
  And that's why I'm a huge fan of your team room concept and and
• 1:16:39
  what it can develop because it's going to create those
• 1:16:42
  relationships of trust. It's going to create those
• 1:16:45
  opportunities and trust with the family.
• 1:16:48
  I think it's just as important as trust with the veteran
• 1:16:51
  themselves to know that you've got you're not just here for the
• 1:16:55
  veteran. You're here for their entire
• 1:16:57
  family in whatever way that that looks like, right?
• 1:17:00
  To how do we, how do we make this better for all of the
• 1:17:03
  victims of, of the things that are going on and not just not
• 1:17:08
  just seeing the veteran as, as, as someone that's broken, right?
• 1:17:12
  Because that's a lot, a lot of people feel like that's
• 1:17:15
  something that's happening rather than this is a situation
• 1:17:18
  where we can educate and help an entire family deal with this
• 1:17:22
  reality. And it's not that somebody's
• 1:17:28
  broken. It's they've experienced
• 1:17:30
  something different than most people have experienced.
• 1:17:32
  And now that's impacting their relationship with their spouse,
• 1:17:35
  their relationship with their parents and, and their
• 1:17:37
  relationship with their children.
• 1:17:38
  And all of them need the tools to, to be able to address that.
• 1:17:43
  And so I think it's fantastic that you guys are bringing that
• 1:17:46
  awareness to not just the veterans, but to their spouses,
• 1:17:50
  to their parents to, and, and making some things available for
• 1:17:53
  their families, because the impact is, I mean, we know the
• 1:17:58
  impact. Michael just just gave us those
• 1:18:00
  numbers and, and we don't, we don't want kids to, to be losing
• 1:18:05
  their parents outside of combat that that's ridiculous, right?
• 1:18:09
  And so, so we, we need to keep supporting organizations like
• 1:18:13
  check a vet and, and the tools that you're creating and, and
• 1:18:17
  the things that you're bringing together to support veterans
• 1:18:21
  are, are just incredible. And so I'm, I'm proud to have
• 1:18:24
  contributed and, and, and to, to be a part of, of what you're
• 1:18:28
  doing, even if it was just a conversation that Michael and I
• 1:18:32
  had at, at a NASCAR track. Well, wait, there's more,
• 1:18:37
  Robert. I'm a guy who learned in the
• 1:18:39
  Army to always reward good work with more work.
• 1:18:43
  Right. So you've done you've you've
• 1:18:48
  done some good work with this interview.
• 1:18:50
  I'm I'm I'm glad we had you, But let's let's talk about rewarding
• 1:18:54
  you with more work. Last year we were the official
• 1:18:59
  non profit of demo one, which demo Motorsports nationalized a
• 1:19:06
  championship demolition Derby and they did it at the the last
• 1:19:12
  great Coliseum and that's Bristol, TN.
• 1:19:16
  So we've been invited back this year.
• 1:19:20
  It'll be a couple weeks I so I think it's going to be in
• 1:19:24
  September. I have to double look, double
• 1:19:26
  check it's called demo 3 and love to have you come out.
• 1:19:32
  We'll, we'll, we'll cover your airfare, but you working as a
• 1:19:36
  chaplain and you, you doing that because check if that is a
• 1:19:42
  ministry and we need, we need more people like you to help
• 1:19:48
  help us do the tough work. So there's the invite.
• 1:19:52
  You don't have an excuse not to come.
• 1:19:55
  We're going to cover your food and, and, and your travel so.
• 1:20:00
  My wife My wife loves traveling to Tennessee and Bristol's one
• 1:20:03
  of our favorite spots, so. Yeah.
• 1:20:05
  And and hey, last time, I don't know how many times I actually
• 1:20:10
  drove the check of that truck around Bristol, the track, the
• 1:20:15
  track track. And the first time we did it, we
• 1:20:19
  were so excited to kind of steal the opportunity to drive around
• 1:20:24
  it. We were there for the race.
• 1:20:27
  And then the following weekend we we got invited to demo one,
• 1:20:31
  which was going to be the following weekend.
• 1:20:33
  So we just left the check of that trailer there, right.
• 1:20:36
  And we didn't really pack anything up.
• 1:20:38
  We literally kind of stacked the tables inside.
• 1:20:41
  Be like, see you in a week. You know, we're going to just
• 1:20:44
  pick up where we left off. And we got out and we got to
• 1:20:48
  drive onto the track to get to where we were.
• 1:20:52
  Well, here I am. I look around the track and
• 1:20:54
  there's nobody there. And I'm like, sometimes you just
• 1:20:58
  got to ask for forgiveness instead.
• 1:21:00
  That's right. Right.
• 1:21:03
  Oops, hot laps in the check of that truck with a trailer that's
• 1:21:09
  30 feet long and loaded. Did turtle get pictures?
• 1:21:13
  We need video hey. There's a social media post that
• 1:21:18
  that has all of this. And if you stop, the wall at
• 1:21:23
  Bristol is so steep you can't walk up it, maybe unless you're
• 1:21:27
  wearing climbing shoes. If you stop a car on it, the car
• 1:21:31
  will roll down the wall. It's that steep.
• 1:21:33
  So to have a trailer loaded with crap, I was literally driving
• 1:21:38
  that thing about 80 miles an hour around 1/2 mile track,
• 1:21:43
  which is teeny tiny and gripping and grinning.
• 1:21:47
  But then the first thing that happened is I got pulled over by
• 1:21:52
  the sheriff. Like they, the track had hired a
• 1:21:57
  couple of off duty cops to be there with their cars.
• 1:22:01
  So we're shooting the, you know, we had a camera out and we're,
• 1:22:05
  we're shooting the social media post.
• 1:22:08
  You know, we're, we're putting it together.
• 1:22:10
  Cop comes out and he's like, he's like, hey, what are you
• 1:22:13
  doing? You can't drive around the track
• 1:22:15
  like that. I'm looking.
• 1:22:17
  For my parking spot, what do you do?
• 1:22:19
  Yeah. And, and I, I was like, just
• 1:22:23
  like in Star Wars to Jedi mind, screw this guy.
• 1:22:28
  Like these aren't the drugs you're looking for.
• 1:22:30
  I literally looked at him. I said, it's OK, officer, we're
• 1:22:34
  shooting a social media post. And he looked at me and he was
• 1:22:37
  like, Oh well, all right then help yourself.
• 1:22:41
  And I was like, that shit work, man, that.
• 1:22:45
  Anyways, come to Bristol with us and we'll let you take a hot lap
• 1:22:48
  around the track. Yeah, I I get goosebumps all the
• 1:22:53
  right. Buttons.
• 1:22:54
  Just thinking about it, but super fun.
• 1:22:59
  Dustin Woods, he says he's going to put me in a car this year.
• 1:23:03
  I'm all about it. Probably in my family won't want
• 1:23:08
  won't want me to do that, but I, I want to do it.
• 1:23:11
  I, I still got that thing in me where I, I, I like adventure and
• 1:23:14
  I like fun. But please come on out and, and
• 1:23:18
  join us. We'll, we'll, we'll get you
• 1:23:20
  taken care of. That sounds great, Michael.
• 1:23:24
  Cool, but hey, it's always a blast.
• 1:23:26
  Called me about a guitar. You haven't told me anything
• 1:23:28
  about it. 4. 199 other people bought tickets and you're the
• 1:23:36
  one that won it. Those poor, those poor people.
• 1:23:40
  So we got Brantley Gilbert's guitar through a very dear
• 1:23:45
  friend of mine. He, he likes his anonymity.
• 1:23:50
  So I'll, I'll I'll leave his name out of it.
• 1:23:52
  But as the story goes, the the real story of Czech of that he
• 1:23:59
  was the first one to I was a part of a different organization
• 1:24:05
  with a completely different model.
• 1:24:08
  They they said they were going to prevent veteran suicide by
• 1:24:13
  hunting and fishing and and sporting events and and going to
• 1:24:18
  concerts model. Well, I knew in the beginning to
• 1:24:23
  me that simply doesn't work 'cause it's missing the two key
• 1:24:27
  ingredients and that's meaningful and routine.
• 1:24:30
  Those are once in a lifetime events.
• 1:24:32
  But we were at one and, and, and this fella, he, he said, is this
• 1:24:40
  the model to prevent veteran suicide?
• 1:24:43
  And I was like, I was like, no man, this.
• 1:24:46
  This is silly. This is these are these are once
• 1:24:50
  in a lifetime events where we're trying to find veterans who are
• 1:24:53
  struggling to uplift them. But as far as a sustainable
• 1:24:57
  model to try to keep somebody's gun out of their mouth, this
• 1:25:01
  ain't it. And so he asked me, what would I
• 1:25:04
  do? And it it's, hey, we have to
• 1:25:06
  raise awareness. We have to get Americans
• 1:25:09
  involved in their veterans lives and we have to provide
• 1:25:11
  education. The big guy looks like he just
• 1:25:15
  skated off the ice, used to be missing his, his front middle
• 1:25:19
  teeth as a badge of honor, you know, just like really an
• 1:25:23
  intimidating dude. And he, he comes in, he grabbed
• 1:25:26
  a hold of me. He, he said, Michael, you have
• 1:25:28
  to do that. So, but so a dear friend of mine
• 1:25:31
  gave me that guitar from Brantley Brantley's camp and
• 1:25:36
  said, you know, make, make the most of it and we'll see what
• 1:25:40
  happens. And, and that guitar we sold
• 1:25:43
  about, we sold 500 tickets at, at $20 a piece.
• 1:25:47
  So that's $10,000 that, that helped us fundraise.
• 1:25:51
  And you know, being in the church and, and being a part of
• 1:25:56
  other ministries, I don't need to tell you what a $10,000
• 1:26:02
  impact has on a grassroots organization like check of that.
• 1:26:07
  It's tremendous. Well, I just appreciate the guy
• 1:26:09
  that I bought the ticket from tape and mine to the bottom
• 1:26:11
  that's. That's not what happened.
• 1:26:18
  As soon as Turbo posts it, we found a little kid, his name was
• 1:26:23
  Dallas as a special kid, and we had all of the tickets there.
• 1:26:29
  And I said, I said, buddy, you just need to put your hand in
• 1:26:31
  there and you got to find that one ticket, find the one, and he
• 1:26:35
  pulled your ticket. So there you go.
• 1:26:36
  That's crazy. I mean it's how many tickets
• 1:26:42
  did. You buy.
• 1:26:44
  I think you did 6 for 100 bucks. So I think I did.
• 1:26:47
  I did, yeah. I gave 100 bucks and.
• 1:26:50
  And perfect. Yeah, it was.
• 1:26:53
  But I, I mean, obviously we walked, we were at Texas Motor
• 1:26:55
  Speedway. So we walked away from the
• 1:26:57
  Speedway and I'm like, I didn't think anything of it.
• 1:26:59
  Like I figured it was over and done with and we were watching
• 1:27:03
  the. Landmines he bought 50, Tickets
• 1:27:06
  50. He's probably mad at me now.
• 1:27:11
  No, because he's he, he is self-proclaimed the most unlucky
• 1:27:17
  person that he knows, but he's still trying.
• 1:27:19
  That's. I hope you saved it up for
• 1:27:21
  something's big because, Jordan, you know that that money was was
• 1:27:27
  very precious to us. And it came at A at a time where
• 1:27:30
  we really needed it. But yeah, yeah.
• 1:27:35
  I appreciate that I that I got the prize, but I absolutely
• 1:27:40
  didn't do it for the prize. Absolutely.
• 1:27:43
  I'm sure very few do. Speaking of this week.
• 1:27:47
  Are are Are you ready to release the information we talked about
• 1:27:51
  the other day or are we still keeping a keeping a hold on
• 1:27:54
  that? Type out what you're talking
• 1:27:58
  about in the chat. Oh yeah, we can release this.
• 1:28:04
  So we do have a next raffle, Patriot Adventures, Gabby and
• 1:28:12
  Joe, they just hosted us at the Atlanta race at at Echo Park,
• 1:28:19
  the artist formerly known as Atlanta Motor Speedway.
• 1:28:25
  So at Echo Park in in Atlanta, GA, they hosted us and, and
• 1:28:31
  they're starting up a nonprofit to help other nonprofits
• 1:28:36
  accomplish their mission by providing temporary lodging in
• 1:28:39
  the form of campers and stuff. So Gabby said, hey, what would
• 1:28:45
  you think about the next prize being a weekend trip to the
• 1:28:52
  race? So you'll have to provide your
• 1:28:55
  transportation there. But what check a vet's going to
• 1:28:58
  do if you win? We're going to put up six people
• 1:29:04
  in a camper. So you and, and five, five of
• 1:29:07
  your friends can come down. You'll, you can, you can occupy
• 1:29:15
  the camper as early as Thursday and leave as late as a Monday
• 1:29:20
  and hang out and get the whole NASCAR experience and that
• 1:29:23
  includes tickets and a place to stay for the whole time for you
• 1:29:27
  and Bob of your buddies. So how's?
• 1:29:29
  That race at Echo Park? At Echo Park, one of the two.
• 1:29:35
  Races next year I'll buy the 1st 5 tickets really because of
• 1:29:40
  course, OK. They're $500 a piece.
• 1:29:43
  I mean, that's a big. Problem make it happen.
• 1:29:48
  Have your accountant call my account.
• 1:29:51
  Whoa, I'm I'm supposed to have an accountant?
• 1:29:54
  If you're spending, if you're just kicking around money like
• 1:29:56
  that, you probably do have an account.
• 1:29:58
  I don't I'm. No, yeah.
• 1:30:02
  So we'll, we'll peel off the 1st 5 tickets of that.
• 1:30:06
  We're going to sell 1000 tickets because that's a lot.
• 1:30:08
  That's a lot bigger prize than the guitar.
• 1:30:11
  I wish it would last as long as as, as the, you know, actually
• 1:30:15
  having something in your hand. But how long does the memory
• 1:30:18
  last, especially something like that?
• 1:30:20
  Somebody better get a camera. You know what everybody now has
• 1:30:26
  a has a phone that's got a heck of a camera on it.
• 1:30:29
  Make sure to make those memories.
• 1:30:32
  But I I really appreciate the conversation and Rob, I really
• 1:30:36
  enjoyed having you here and I'm glad we got to speak.
• 1:30:38
  And it's been it's been a lot better than me than us just
• 1:30:42
  saying, hey, man, you won the guitar.
• 1:30:43
  This has been a great conversation.
• 1:30:44
  I really enjoyed it. And Carmichael, like always,
• 1:30:48
  brother, I love you. It's been great chatting with
• 1:30:50
  you. I love you too, man.
• 1:30:51
  You're doing a great job with the podcast.
• 1:30:54
  You're doing a great job with our newsletter should be
• 1:30:57
  released in the next couple weeks.
• 1:30:59
  Our our first episode of the newsletter.
• 1:31:02
  We're just consolidating e-mail addresses and and trying to deal
• 1:31:07
  with MailChimp. It's not as user friendly.
• 1:31:11
  It's not knuckle dragger proof, that's for sure.
• 1:31:14
  So as soon as we get those e-mail addresses figured out,
• 1:31:18
  we'll have that and Turbo, you're doing a great job.
• 1:31:21
  Yeah, Noah, my luck is probably just a comma instead of a period
• 1:31:25
  somewhere that's causing all the issues that I'm having.
• 1:31:29
  Dot com, not Comic Con. Oh man.
• 1:31:32
  But yeah, but now I got to go through 200 emails manually and
• 1:31:35
  figure out where the error is AT and why it won't upload.
• 1:31:39
  So that's great. But anyways, so yeah, I
• 1:31:45
  appreciate both your time and I'd love to speak with you guys
• 1:31:48
  again sometime. But yeah, so this has been Turbo
• 1:31:51
  with Czech of it and hope to see you guys later.
• 1:31:56
  Thanks guys, love you. Thanks for the opportunity.
• 1:32:01
  Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to Military
• 1:32:06
  Broadcast Radio. As we wrap up today's show, we
• 1:32:10
  want to remind you that the podcast of today's episode will
• 1:32:14
  be available right after we go off the air.
• 1:32:17
  So if you missed any part of the show or want to listen again, be
• 1:32:22
  sure to check it out. And remember, we're here to
• 1:32:27
  support and honor our veterans. Your stories and experiences
• 1:32:33
  matter, and we are committed to giving you a platform to share
• 1:32:37
  them. That's right, we're here to give
• 1:32:41
  our veterans a voice. So don't forget to catch the
• 1:32:44
  podcast and stay connected with us giving our veterans a voice.