Speaker 1: Mute for us.
Speaker 2: If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
Speaker 2: listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military nails, and straight
Speaker 2: talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 3: Hey, welcome back to softwarep Radio.
Speaker 4: This is your host Rad and I have a wonderful
Speaker 4: guest with me today. His name is Cole Lyle and
Speaker 4: he comes from US the United States Marine Corps. Served
Speaker 4: as a heavy combat equipment operator.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for having me on RAD.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, there's more to it than just the
Speaker 4: heavy equipment operator. You know, you also helped move some
Speaker 4: things around on Capitol Hill after you got out of
Speaker 4: the military. But what was it that got you into
Speaker 4: wanting to join the military? For my listener out there,
Speaker 4: that's like, well, what ticked you to go to the
Speaker 4: Marine Corps in the first place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so two separate answers to that. What made me
Speaker 1: want to join the military. I can't really pinpoint any
Speaker 1: one thing that made me be like, yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to you know, I want to join the military. I
Speaker 1: you know, I was an Eagle Scout, I you know,
Speaker 1: wanting to serve my community, and you know, was was
Speaker 1: involved in service projects with my church and all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff, and I really just, even at a young age,
Speaker 1: had kind of a fascination with military history. So I
Speaker 1: think I always just kind of wanted to. And then
Speaker 1: my mom said, you know, when you turn eighteen, you're
Speaker 1: either going to go to school, join the military, or
Speaker 1: get a job, but you're not staying in my house.
Speaker 1: And I didn't have money if you go to school.
Speaker 1: And I didn't want to work three jobs to put
Speaker 1: myself through school like my sisters did and go into debt,
Speaker 1: and so I, you know, I was like, the military
Speaker 1: makes sense. I want to serve. I remember going to
Speaker 1: boy scout campouts and being excited about it because I
Speaker 1: was at home with two older sisters and my mom,
Speaker 1: so it was like my only opportunity to be around
Speaker 1: a bunch of dudes. Sure, sure, and you know, I
Speaker 1: wanted the camaraderie and I had that sense of service,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to go do that. I think the
Speaker 1: Marine Corps in particular, you know, I talked to recruiters
Speaker 1: from multiple different you know, branches, and but my brother
Speaker 1: in law was not then my brother in law, but
Speaker 1: sister's boyfriend was a Marine, and I really respected him
Speaker 1: and admired him. And he was in Fallujah and so
Speaker 1: talked to me a lot about and he gave me
Speaker 1: the real He talked to me about, you know, the
Speaker 1: bad stuff about the corps and the good stuff about
Speaker 1: the Corps. But I ultimately just made that choice.
Speaker 4: To experience it yourself and just said, Hey, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm going to get on this bus or get on
Speaker 4: this airplane, get on this bus, get all these yellow footprints.
Speaker 4: Did you go to MCRD. Are you West Coast or
Speaker 4: are you East Coast?
Speaker 3: Marine? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I went to MCRD San Diego, San Diego, And you know,
Speaker 1: he actually tried to talk me out of it, and
Speaker 1: he tried to say, you should go to Yes, you
Speaker 1: should be an officer. But I, you know, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do that because again, a going
Speaker 1: to school, and I think I was pretty self aware
Speaker 1: at that point too to know that I wouldn't take
Speaker 1: school very seriously and I probably needed a little kick
Speaker 1: in the pants.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean school is not the easiest for a
Speaker 4: lot of people, right, Just graduating is just a big accomplishment,
Speaker 4: let alone, you.
Speaker 3: Know, grabbing your eagle scout.
Speaker 4: Good job on that, you know, staying staying true to
Speaker 4: that and going to all your campouts and you know
Speaker 4: community selfless service right code to all that you know,
Speaker 4: do a good turn daily, right, and so that's I.
Speaker 1: Mean this to this day, I can still recite like
Speaker 1: the Scout oath and lawn just off.
Speaker 4: Top of my head, as I would imagine here at Utah,
Speaker 4: it's pretty popular still Scouting. We have like the Order
Speaker 4: of the Arrow that's very popular. My son's and Scouts.
Speaker 4: He's a star right now.
Speaker 1: Well, you know the Mormons, they I do know the Mormons.
Speaker 3: Bro.
Speaker 1: It's like over fifty percent of Boy Scout funding comes
Speaker 1: from the Church. And that's why I you know, when
Speaker 1: all the scandals came out about the Boy.
Speaker 3: Scouts, No that's true. No, it's okay. It is what
Speaker 3: it is. It is what it is.
Speaker 1: You know, the Boy Scouts made the decision to start
Speaker 1: allowing like gay troop leaders and openly gay you know
Speaker 1: Boy Scouts. The Mormon Church like pulled all their funding
Speaker 1: and that's mortgage a lot of their camp sites and
Speaker 1: everything like that.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a fun story at a ceremony for
Speaker 4: one of our Scouts. You know, they bring your mom
Speaker 4: up because you've got to give your mam a hug. Okay,
Speaker 4: give your mama hug right, because you got you got
Speaker 4: your award. You're gettingr pinned.
Speaker 3: But this one young man had two moms.
Speaker 4: Okay because it's today, right, we're talking about exactly what
Speaker 4: you're talking about.
Speaker 3: And a scout master.
Speaker 4: He's old school but still new school at the same time,
Speaker 4: because here he is running a troop in this environment
Speaker 4: that you're talking about from the old school days. And
Speaker 4: he's like, okay, go ahead and bring your mama, and
Speaker 4: both moms get up and walk up front, and he's like,
Speaker 4: how do I handle this? And I'm watching him. I'm like,
Speaker 4: how's he going to handle this? He's like, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna let you choose. And he just pointed to
Speaker 4: the scout you can choose which mom you're this, and
Speaker 4: the other mom's like, well, you know he's yours.
Speaker 3: You give it to it.
Speaker 4: You know, it's really cool, you know, to see that,
Speaker 4: Otherwise that wouldn't have been a thing. You know that
Speaker 4: scout is still getting the same, you know, not tying
Speaker 4: the same. You know, a spree decors of unity and
Speaker 4: you know, the Scout oath and the Scout law and
Speaker 4: moving forward and is going to be tomorrow's you know,
Speaker 4: you the h well and.
Speaker 1: A lot of folks don't realize that if you get
Speaker 1: your Eagle scout and you join the military, you automatically
Speaker 1: get one rank. Like you don't join as an E one,
Speaker 1: you join as an E two after boot camp, automatic
Speaker 1: because the military respects the amount of not just the
Speaker 1: achievement in the award, but like the survival skills you
Speaker 1: learn and the basic not tying and like that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff that's actually something that they don't already. They
Speaker 1: don't have to teach you because you already know it, right,
Speaker 1: and you can teach you know, your fellow service members.
Speaker 3: You could be leaned on.
Speaker 4: You know, I've met sixteen year olds who I would
Speaker 4: be like, I will trust you with my life in
Speaker 4: the wilderness, you know, through the scouting program. And I
Speaker 4: know a recruiter would just love to get hooks into
Speaker 4: those young men, you know.
Speaker 3: And it's not a force thing.
Speaker 4: And that's what's great about our military is that we
Speaker 4: are a volunteer, right and so here you are looking
Speaker 4: to volunteer, you get in, you go over. Okay, so
Speaker 4: you enlisted as a marine, but what made you go
Speaker 4: into vehicles? You know what was it that made you
Speaker 4: want to do well?
Speaker 1: I wanted to Honestly, I wanted to learn something that
Speaker 1: I could potentially use after I got out. And so
Speaker 1: to be clear, I was I was a diesel mechanic.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a heavy equipment operator. Those are two separent things,
Speaker 1: thank you. But as a diesel mechanic, right, you could
Speaker 1: get out. You're working on seven tons what do they
Speaker 1: call it, Matt V's m wraps everything with a diesel,
Speaker 1: Everything with a diesel. You could get out and then
Speaker 1: go work for Caterpillar, or go work for Mac Truck,
Speaker 1: or go work for Force Pro or one of those things.
Speaker 3: Open your own shop, but be your own box, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's even it's just a skill set that I
Speaker 1: got a little bit of that because I grew up
Speaker 1: and my dad was very mechanical. But I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I just wanted something that I could potentially use as
Speaker 1: a job when I got Ultimately I didn't go that route,
Speaker 1: but that was kind of my rationale behind it.
Speaker 4: No, that's savage because you're getting instructed through the Marine
Speaker 4: Corps on how to do that job with efficiency, right,
Speaker 4: I mean, you know they say in the Air Force
Speaker 4: were they're all about attention to detail. But I bet
Speaker 4: you the Marin said the same thing during training. Your
Speaker 4: attention to detail is paramount. You know, you need to
Speaker 4: be attention to detail at all times. You need to
Speaker 4: make sure, Yeah, this fan bell goes on and this
Speaker 4: diesel wrench turns this way, and you're like, I got
Speaker 4: this in my sleep, right, So it's like, so you
Speaker 4: go over and you deploy right, and you're in the
Speaker 4: middle of Afghanistan picking place right, okay, and what hits
Speaker 4: the fan?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 4: What's going through your mind when I say this? You're like, operator,
Speaker 4: You're a diesel mechanic. Are you seeing it?
Speaker 3: Is it? Is it coming? Are you getting into any
Speaker 3: type of sorties over there?
Speaker 1: You know, most of my time, honestly, was spent on
Speaker 1: Camp Flout the Neck, which was a big base in
Speaker 1: southern Afghanistan. I got oj ted on the job, trained
Speaker 1: as a as a record operator, so I did that
Speaker 1: and again I didn't do like a whole lot of that,
Speaker 1: but you know, went out and was doing you know,
Speaker 1: fuel runs and a record operator for people who were
Speaker 1: unfamiliar or essentially military tow trucks, so anytime something gets
Speaker 1: blown up, which was very very often you'd go out
Speaker 1: and tow them back to base and pick them up.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: At one point in time, I think from nine to
Speaker 1: maybe even earlier than that, eighth nine to eleven twelve
Speaker 1: ish record operators actually had the highest fatality rate in
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps because you'd go out and they knew
Speaker 1: you were going to go out and tow up trucks
Speaker 1: that they had just blown up, so they'd have secondaries
Speaker 1: or ambushes or things like that. I honestly never never
Speaker 1: saw a heavy combat at some point, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean took small arms and indirect but it wasn't it
Speaker 1: wasn't like I was in.
Speaker 3: That thick of but the aftermath of it you saw that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean for the last month and some change
Speaker 1: month and a half two months of my deployment, I
Speaker 1: volunteered at the trauma center at Baston, which was the
Speaker 1: British Air base which was right next to it was
Speaker 1: literally an adjoining base to Camp Blowneck. So I spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time there because they were kind of
Speaker 1: understaffed and I'm not a doctor and I'm not a
Speaker 1: you know, a nurse, but I end the same combat
Speaker 1: like they call combat life saver training and medic training
Speaker 1: that we got. So I was like, I'll just be
Speaker 1: a ketch all. I'm just going to show up and
Speaker 1: do it. And I mean you can you can certainly
Speaker 1: imagine some of the things that come into a military
Speaker 1: trauma center. And it's not just marines and US service personnel,
Speaker 1: it's it's local nationals and kids, women. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it was rough, and that is ultimately kind of
Speaker 1: what led me to having some issues with post traumatic stress.
Speaker 1: And it seems stupid to comparatively, I understand why some
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, you didn't see combat, but what
Speaker 1: do you have these issues with? Like to this day,
Speaker 1: I hate hospitals like I just I get just real
Speaker 1: uptight and I just don't. I can't do them.
Speaker 4: So they'll wait till you're older to do them, because
Speaker 4: then you got the long hallway, the Vay road. That's like,
Speaker 4: you know, whoever's going to be wheeling you down that
Speaker 4: mile long hallway, they're going to be older too. So
Speaker 4: I was just talking to a major general who was
Speaker 4: running the Department of the Veterans Affair. We talked about
Speaker 4: that long hallway and exactly what you're mentioning, right, there's
Speaker 4: young veterans who don't want to go into the hospital
Speaker 4: because you know, we don't want to go, I don't,
Speaker 4: you know, But when we're older, we realize we have to.
Speaker 4: And at that point the caregiver who's with us has
Speaker 4: to go there too, and if they're older like us,
Speaker 4: you know, then it's.
Speaker 1: Just well, I mean, to be clear, I go, I
Speaker 1: just don't like going. I got mean when I because
Speaker 1: I know exactly what you're talking about. I mean, I
Speaker 1: have worked in veteran accacy for the better part of
Speaker 1: a decade, So I mean I get the need and
Speaker 1: the for our listener to try to go to deal
Speaker 1: with your issues before they become bigger issue. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean I.
Speaker 3: Have to like it. No, You're right, it's got to
Speaker 3: do it right. Just suck it up.
Speaker 1: And no one said you gotta like it. You just
Speaker 1: got to do it just you know, just just get
Speaker 1: it done. And the sooner you get it done, the
Speaker 1: sooner it's over.
Speaker 4: So getting out of the military, right, we're flashboarding through
Speaker 4: your life here, and uh, you've seen things and been
Speaker 4: a part of you know, uh, you know, trauma, and
Speaker 4: you're now dealing with this in your own way and
Speaker 4: you're at the VA, and what's the first line you
Speaker 4: through out there? Were you like, hey, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: just feeling this way, or who did you reach out?
Speaker 1: When we got back from Afghanistan, they made us all
Speaker 1: take what was called a post appointment health assessment, and
Speaker 1: it indicated I needed to go, you know, talk to somebody.
Speaker 1: And so they forced us to at least the first
Speaker 1: appointment if you were like red flagged based on certain
Speaker 1: answers and whatever, to go see somebody. And so I
Speaker 1: saw somebody, and you know, and then I was in
Speaker 1: a reserve unit, so I wasn't like active duty, so
Speaker 1: you know, I couldn't go see a military physician at
Speaker 1: a military hospital or anything on any frequent basis because
Speaker 1: I was in the reserves. So you know, I went
Speaker 1: to go see a VA psychologist and psychiatrist and and
Speaker 1: then I started utilizing of that center down in Texas.
Speaker 1: You know, was prescribed some SSRIs for sleep and depressions
Speaker 1: filled me. It's a I forget what the acronym. It's
Speaker 1: like a sarah something serotonin something inhibitor. It's a medical
Speaker 1: term for they're basically antidepressants. Okay, So the VA, that's
Speaker 1: what they prescribed for the symptoms of postraumatic stress and
Speaker 1: depression and sleep and all that stuff, but they don't
Speaker 1: actually because there's no pill for post traumatic stress. There's
Speaker 1: pills for these symptoms of post traumatic stress. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so I.
Speaker 3: Was taking rearing their heads, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, a year, year and some change
Speaker 1: goes by, and you know, I'm dealing I'm going through
Speaker 1: a divorce and having some issues as a result of
Speaker 1: you know, the pills and the therapy wasn't really working
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 3: And probably some thoughts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so you know, I mean, as a lot
Speaker 1: of men and women have. Unfortunately, I got inspiraled down
Speaker 1: and it was you know, one night, in one night
Speaker 1: in April in twenty fourteen, that I was like that
Speaker 1: close to becoming suicide statistic. If it wasn't for another
Speaker 1: marine intervening, you know, I would be. But as is
Speaker 1: often the case, like that night, I was probably drinking
Speaker 1: too much and in my fields and I really, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't, I can't explain it too well. But the
Speaker 1: next morning we should have been hungover, but I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I was just very clear and very like focused, and
Speaker 1: my mindset went from like you know, I was thinking,
Speaker 1: like why, why, why are you doing this to yourself?
Speaker 1: You know, you're At the time my divorce, I was like,
Speaker 1: you didn't do anything wrong. You weren't there, you weren't
Speaker 1: the party to this situation. That so you know that.
Speaker 3: And then you had a lot of factors hitting you.
Speaker 4: Dude.
Speaker 3: You had a lot, Yeah, a lot.
Speaker 4: You know, you had some something going on with the
Speaker 4: relationship and family. Yeah, your whole your whole bubble was
Speaker 4: just kind.
Speaker 1: Of like, you know, finances.
Speaker 3: The reason we've all been in a dark hole. Okay.
Speaker 4: Anybody that says they haven't, I just I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: you know, everybody's had a crazy thought in their head.
Speaker 3: It's just you can't you know. The follow through is
Speaker 3: the action and all that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I started I stopped thinking I have nothing
Speaker 1: and started thinking I have the opportunity to do anything
Speaker 1: because I didn't have anything holding me back or tethered me.
Speaker 1: And so I decided I wanted to go back into
Speaker 1: public service. And at the time I wanted to, like
Speaker 1: in my mind, I was like, yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: go into the foreign service. I want to serve in
Speaker 1: a diplomatic capacity. I only knew one or two people
Speaker 1: that worked in politics and policy, and so I contacted
Speaker 1: those folks and they got me plugged in, and it
Speaker 1: was on my path to doing that, but I realized
Speaker 1: I still needed to find ways to mitigate symptoms of
Speaker 1: postraumatic stress, and I didn't want to keep taking pills.
Speaker 1: And then, like I said, therap, it wasn't working. So
Speaker 1: I stopped doing that and ended up going and talking
Speaker 1: to a buddy of mine who had a service dog,
Speaker 1: and it worked phenominantly well for him. But the VA
Speaker 1: didn't provide any funding for it, and the nonprofits that
Speaker 1: I kind of researched had year long wait times sure,
Speaker 1: and so I ended up paying about ten maybe a
Speaker 1: little more than ten thousand to get my own dog.
Speaker 1: Her name was Kaya, German Shepherd, So you know, went
Speaker 1: up and interned in Washington, d C. And with Kaya,
Speaker 1: and somebody happened to be a senator stopped me on
Speaker 1: the street, Senator Tillis in North Carolina and started asking
Speaker 1: me about her because I'm not blind and don't have
Speaker 1: a WINSS you have a service do service dog? Got
Speaker 1: that question a lot.
Speaker 3: I think it too, you know. Through the airport, I'm like,
Speaker 3: what's up?
Speaker 4: I got an iguana service iguana.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, but you're Cada.
Speaker 4: You're Cada. I know your beautiful dog. So the Senator's
Speaker 4: interested in saying, hey, why are you usually a therapy pet?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so I told him and said the v
Speaker 1: didn't provide funding and researchers for it. So I he
Speaker 1: was like, well, come on by to my office and
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about this. Let's kick this around. And
Speaker 1: so I did. And he didn't initially do anything and
Speaker 1: write the bill, but he gave me the idea that
Speaker 1: if he was willing to listen, other people might be
Speaker 1: willing to listen too. So I drafted what became known
Speaker 1: as the initial version of the Pause Act, which is
Speaker 1: an acronym for puppies Assisting Wounded Service Members. So I
Speaker 1: went around shot that to a bunch of different offices
Speaker 1: to see if anybody would be willing to sponsor it
Speaker 1: and kind of spearhead it. And then Congressman DeSantis was
Speaker 1: the original, like the person before he was this big
Speaker 1: national thing.
Speaker 3: Before he was in the governor's office.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like, yeah, I'll do it, like as
Speaker 1: a as an IRAQ vet and then also having a
Speaker 1: service dog org in his district. He was like, this
Speaker 1: is a great idea, let's do it. So spent some
Speaker 1: years doing that. At the time, went back to Texas
Speaker 1: A and M to finish my degree. So I was
Speaker 1: flying back in political science, and I was flying back
Speaker 1: and forth from college station to DC to lobby for
Speaker 1: this doing political science. You know, it didn't pass in
Speaker 1: that Congress, but it took a few more congresses. But
Speaker 1: that's kind of ultimately what got me into veteran advocacy.
Speaker 4: Generally, so kind of becoming your own advocate, figuring it
Speaker 4: out for yourself, and then you're like, you know, could
Speaker 4: use your lead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I got a lot of fulfillment. I think
Speaker 1: one of the keys to overcoming issues of when you
Speaker 1: feel you know, misunderstood or lonely is serving others. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're having a bad day or having a bad year,
Speaker 1: you know, like go volunteer to soup kitchen, go volunteer
Speaker 1: at an American legion, or go volunteer I mean really anywhere.
Speaker 1: Just find a place where you can be useful and
Speaker 1: feel like you're serving and feel like you got a
Speaker 1: little purpose and people rely on you and depend on you.
Speaker 1: That was another reason why the Service dogs, you know
Speaker 1: they work so well is because yes, they're trained to
Speaker 1: mitigate specific symptoms for you. Like that's the difference between
Speaker 1: a service dog and like an emotional support animal therapy animal.
Speaker 1: Like a service dog is legally protected because it has
Speaker 1: specific tasks that it does for you to mitigate symptoms.
Speaker 1: But the yeah, the reason why they're so powerful is
Speaker 1: because they provide you with that sense of purpose and
Speaker 1: meaning and belonging that you get up. They need to
Speaker 1: be taken care of, they need to be fed, you've
Speaker 1: got to get out of bed, you've got to go
Speaker 1: for walks, you got to do all this stuff.
Speaker 4: You need to get up, you got to be fed,
Speaker 4: you got to go for walks, and they're there with
Speaker 4: you doing it, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's a you know, and if you find yourself
Speaker 1: spiraling down again and getting to that point where you
Speaker 1: know you're alone, and when men and women get to
Speaker 1: that point, they feel alone and they feel like nobody
Speaker 1: loves them. And the dog is a very powerful backstop
Speaker 1: when you're sitting there with a gun in your mouth
Speaker 1: and you are like, I can't leave this dog because its.
Speaker 3: Like are we eating that? Yeah, don't do that.
Speaker 1: Your dog loves me because that's a that's a huge
Speaker 1: I think they're so powerful in the fight against suicide.
Speaker 3: I think so also.
Speaker 4: And I mean I'm not against you know, doing push
Speaker 4: ups to prevent suicide or bring awareness to it. But
Speaker 4: you know, it's got to come down to the individual
Speaker 4: to you know, be on their own best recognizance and
Speaker 4: do their own thing.
Speaker 3: I can't I can't stop you from.
Speaker 4: Tattooing yourself, but I can stop you from tattooing me
Speaker 4: with whatever it is. But up to you, It's up
Speaker 4: to you to do whatever you want to yourself. I'm
Speaker 4: a big believer in self choice, right, Like, yeah, it's
Speaker 4: up to you each your call, man. And but I'll
Speaker 4: tell you, if anybody out there is listening to this
Speaker 4: and they're and they're tripping out, and they're like, well, okay,
Speaker 4: hit me up on Instagram and I'll talk with you, you know,
Speaker 4: if you've got to, if you're if you're out there
Speaker 4: like that, you know, if you need a lighthouse out there,
Speaker 4: you can also mission roll call.
Speaker 3: You know, let's talk about mission roll call.
Speaker 4: That's a whole other avenue where people can look to
Speaker 4: for some type of like a security blanket.
Speaker 3: Don't you think your website you can sell that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean so mission roll Call is a national
Speaker 1: advocacy program, So we are I mean, our mission is
Speaker 1: to advocate on behalf of all veterans in the United
Speaker 1: States to improve policies that will reduce the suicide epidemic.
Speaker 1: And the way we do this we're not like a
Speaker 1: direct service organization where like we're not out building houses
Speaker 1: for you know, so amputees or things like that like
Speaker 1: the Gary Sineyze Foundation or others. Our goal is for
Speaker 1: policy to change for the better using the direct voice
Speaker 1: of veterans. So as we all know, you know, suicides,
Speaker 1: there's no one thing we can point to that says
Speaker 1: this is why vets are killing themselves. So we get
Speaker 1: involved in a lot of policy discussions. But I've got
Speaker 1: about a million and a half veterans that are opted
Speaker 1: into our text and email polls. And when Congress or
Speaker 1: the VA or the White House comes out with some
Speaker 1: policy that says, you know, we want to do this
Speaker 1: or this or blah blah blah, whatever it is, we
Speaker 1: pull those veterans directly and we get pretty pretty high
Speaker 1: response rates, to be honest, depends on what it is.
Speaker 1: But and we're able to give that instantaneous feedback to
Speaker 1: those policy makers so they can be like, oh, maybe
Speaker 1: this isn't a good idea, or well, this has a
Speaker 1: lot of support in the veteran community and we didn't
Speaker 1: think it, did you know, So.
Speaker 4: Maybe you should take a poll of the debt ceiling
Speaker 4: being held hostage with veterans attached to it, so that yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe that's a poll that should be taken
Speaker 4: and set up the flag because you know, they want
Speaker 4: to cut out right now. Let's see, so we're in
Speaker 4: May and it is Mental health Awareness month. Okay, so
Speaker 4: there is a lot of like, you know, this chatter
Speaker 4: that politicians want to like, you know.
Speaker 3: Have a photo, a photo op.
Speaker 4: They want to have somebody in the background, you know,
Speaker 4: for this mental health awareness. Well what are they doing
Speaker 4: right now is they're trying to from my understanding, is
Speaker 4: you know, say, we're going to cut out all these
Speaker 4: veterans off site visits where they go and visit with
Speaker 4: people like maybe on a novel whole nation, you know,
Speaker 4: and they have to go out there and visit with
Speaker 4: veterans that are not able to get to the VA,
Speaker 4: and they want to call all these VA benefits out.
Speaker 3: How do you feel about that?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm actually really glad you brought that up because
Speaker 1: and there's a reason that we haven't done a poll
Speaker 1: on that. This is just classic. This is the thing
Speaker 1: that most veterans hate about Washington. Veterans benefits are not
Speaker 1: and we're not ever actually gonna get cut. They were
Speaker 1: using that as a talking point to try to win
Speaker 1: the messaging battle, But.
Speaker 4: It seems like a bad message from from where who
Speaker 4: I talked to on this show, and with like guys
Speaker 4: like yourself and veterans who are actually dependent on the payments,
Speaker 4: and these visits to cut eighty thousand jobs. When the
Speaker 4: last president got three passes with Nancy Pelosi in charge
Speaker 4: of the Congress, she was in charge, and she said,
Speaker 4: here's the death ceiling. Boom raised it, here's the death
Speaker 4: ceiling boom. Nothing was held onto it. No veterans were
Speaker 4: held onto it, No one was held to it.
Speaker 3: No one.
Speaker 4: You know, my mom, if she was still around, she'd
Speaker 4: be taking care of my dad. She would have depended
Speaker 4: on these benefits that are being you.
Speaker 1: Know, well, and I'm not even taking like political sides here,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying but.
Speaker 3: No, right, neither of mincuse.
Speaker 4: I'm saying both parties in the last administration allowed it
Speaker 4: to happen.
Speaker 1: But to be clear, I'm the facts are that, yes,
Speaker 1: they need to come to an agreement on the dead ceiling.
Speaker 1: Just raise it, which is just you know, raise it, yep, right.
Speaker 4: Just raise it for the Americans. Just raise it and
Speaker 4: then just figure it out everything else.
Speaker 1: Right, And certain people are trying to use you know,
Speaker 1: that as leverage to talk about spending because the reality
Speaker 1: is like we're at this point, like thirty one trillion
Speaker 1: something dollars in debt, which comes out to like ninety
Speaker 1: seven thousand dollars per taxpayer. Right, government spending is out
Speaker 1: of control.
Speaker 4: Well, twenty five percent of that was under the Trump administration,
Speaker 4: with three debt ceilings raised to make it thirty one trillion.
Speaker 1: It's a bipartisan problem, is it. Spending is a bipartisan.
Speaker 4: But it wasn't the last administration, right, they approved it. Well,
Speaker 4: I mean there's no hostages. There were some people, like
Speaker 4: some some conservative conservatives in the at the end of
Speaker 4: it, it just got passed with no no question I mean ceiling.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi like was the Speaker of the House.
Speaker 3: And she proved it. Yeah, so for Trump, yeah right
Speaker 3: right right, but that's not happening now for Biden.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm again, this is why I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to get into a political conversation because like we
Speaker 1: are nonpartisan and I'm not sure taking I'm not taking.
Speaker 3: Veterans that they that the death ceilings kind of well.
Speaker 1: Again, let me go back, because this is this is
Speaker 1: not it never was going to be cut because first
Speaker 1: of all, the budget that the GOP passed is like
Speaker 1: a guideline. It's not an actual legally binding thing. So
Speaker 1: even if the Senate passed it, it's not it doesn't
Speaker 1: go to the President for signature because it's just an agree.
Speaker 1: It's literally just an agreement between the House and the Senate,
Speaker 1: so that the appropriations committees, which are the ones that
Speaker 1: actually budget line items for programs and things like that,
Speaker 1: are like, oh, this is the budget that we should
Speaker 1: stick to not break what are called pago rules, so
Speaker 1: budget paygo rules. It's all like minutia, you know, stuff.
Speaker 1: In fifty percent of the last budgets that have been passed,
Speaker 1: there were no specifics about which committees should have this
Speaker 1: much money versus this much money. So There was no
Speaker 1: in this budget. There was no specifics from the House
Speaker 1: GOP saying that, you know, veterans benefits are going to
Speaker 1: get cut. The White House and Democrats coming out and
Speaker 1: saying the GOP wants to cut veterans benefits by you know,
Speaker 1: twenty two percent or whatever was a They got that
Speaker 1: number out of thin air because they said, if the
Speaker 1: GOP budget were to pass, that's f y twenty two
Speaker 1: budget levels, which is x dollars less than what f
Speaker 1: y twenty four budget is. That's the propose, because up
Speaker 1: until the budget was passed, we haven't passed an f
Speaker 1: y twenty four appropriations bill yet we're still on f
Speaker 1: y twenty three.
Speaker 4: Maybe if the Congress cut their paychecks like they want
Speaker 4: to cut the veterans paychecks, then maybe I'd be okay
Speaker 4: with that. Maybe if they want to take no pay
Speaker 4: for the job and show us the love of the
Speaker 4: game rather than this this hostage scenario.
Speaker 3: Because I have to just I have to digress.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: I'm seeing a different picture from a lot of people
Speaker 4: that I'm talking to who have been like department heads
Speaker 4: of the United States of America, and they're just like, Yeah,
Speaker 4: why can't we just be like, you know, done with it,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean? And and and a pull
Speaker 4: like that on to your veterans might help push that towards.
Speaker 3: You know, let them know about it. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: just a thing. Again.
Speaker 1: So here's the other here's the other reason why it's
Speaker 1: never going to happen. Because the Speaker and the Appropriations Share,
Speaker 1: which is the person with the power over the money
Speaker 1: for the veteran programs, and then the House Veterans Affairs
Speaker 1: Committee chairman all said no cuts to veterans benefits even
Speaker 1: though there's no specific like you know, so everybody was like, hey,
Speaker 1: pass an amendment to the budget saying that no veterans
Speaker 1: benefits are going to be cut. So they came out
Speaker 1: with their appropriation spill. They're proposed appropriation spill that literally
Speaker 1: increases the budget number for veterans. So it completely negates
Speaker 1: that argument.
Speaker 4: Well, if they if they cut it, would the Pause
Speaker 4: Act at all? Would that be affected if they cut
Speaker 4: these programs?
Speaker 1: Well they're not going to though.
Speaker 4: Let's just let's just say that Pause and Veteran Outreach
Speaker 4: and eighty thousand jobs and funding is cut for the
Speaker 4: debt ceiling.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you a question real, yeah, please please?
Speaker 1: All right, So, over the last ten years, do you
Speaker 1: feel like we've made significant improvements? And it's not true
Speaker 1: question now, I feel like we've made significant improvements and
Speaker 1: better on suicide, in access to care and quality of
Speaker 1: care to VA. Do you feel like it's gotten significantly better?
Speaker 4: So myself, I feel with suicide and the VA and awareness. Okay,
Speaker 4: So my take is, I think you can do only
Speaker 4: so many push ups to try to push an agenda, okay,
Speaker 4: without having to worry about the individual's mental health.
Speaker 3: Right, there's not.
Speaker 4: Much I can do when somebody just goes the full distance,
Speaker 4: and the vaight is going to have a hard time
Speaker 4: stopping from somebody from.
Speaker 3: Going the full distance.
Speaker 4: I find that alcohol is a heavy, you know factor
Speaker 4: in people that are making these sloppy decisions at that time.
Speaker 4: They're their own decisions though, because whether you're on some myahuasca,
Speaker 4: or you're on some type of cannabis, or you're on
Speaker 4: some type of pharmaceutical, or you take an alcohol, all
Speaker 4: your thoughts are in your own head. Yeah, okay, whatever
Speaker 4: you're spinning, all right. And so if you are on
Speaker 4: something and you don't have the clarity to call the
Speaker 4: VA because you feel that you don't want to go
Speaker 4: to the VA because they're not going to take care
Speaker 4: of you. Then you're not going to call the special
Speaker 4: hotline number and event, you know. And that's why I
Speaker 4: was trying to say, like earlier, if you have younger dudes,
Speaker 4: and okay, everybody's a dude to me. So you know,
Speaker 4: if you've served in the military and you can get
Speaker 4: into the VA, you should go into the VA and
Speaker 4: get checked because.
Speaker 3: They do have services, right, they do have things that
Speaker 3: are there. But we're prideful. I'm very prideful. You know.
Speaker 4: I could go have my injury relooked at and all this,
Speaker 4: but I'm just like, I don't want to go down
Speaker 4: the hallways anymore. Reminds me of my dad, reminds me
Speaker 4: of my grandpa, reminds me of my mom breaking her feet,
Speaker 4: pushing my dad, you know, in a wheelchair all the time,
Speaker 4: all the time, getting denied an appointment after getting scheduled
Speaker 4: for an appointment.
Speaker 1: So just the short answer, though, do I think that
Speaker 1: it's better over the last decade two decades? Do you
Speaker 1: feel like the VA has made some dignificant improvements in
Speaker 1: those areas suicide, access to care.
Speaker 4: And I think on paper they feel like they have,
Speaker 4: but I don't think in actuality it has really made
Speaker 4: a real difference. I think that people have made bills
Speaker 4: and passed things and spent taxpayers dollars on pamphlets.
Speaker 1: So my point there is right, over the last ten years,
Speaker 1: the VA's budget has increased by one hundred and four
Speaker 1: percent over the last since two thousand and one, it's
Speaker 1: increased six over six hundred percent. Since two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: they have hired twice as many, like they've gone from
Speaker 1: about two hundred and twelve thousand employees in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: or in two thousand and one to about four hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty four thousand, And the veteran population has been
Speaker 1: declining because sixty five percent of veterans are over the
Speaker 1: age of fifty five, Vietnam veterans that are, you know,
Speaker 1: unfortunately dying. Yeah, and so the veteran population is declining.
Speaker 1: VA usage is declining, but their budget and they're full
Speaker 1: time employee acount keeps going up, and we haven't seen
Speaker 1: a significant, in my view, improvement in those areas. We
Speaker 1: seem to always go back to the same conversations about
Speaker 1: why does the VA not do more on suicide. You
Speaker 1: know what, why do they.
Speaker 3: Well, why do you think the VA can do more
Speaker 3: on suicide?
Speaker 1: Well, I think that first and foremost, they need to
Speaker 1: make suicide prevention their number one overall priority. They need
Speaker 1: to redirect the Office of Suicide Prevention as a direct
Speaker 1: report to the Secretary instead of being housed under the
Speaker 1: Veterans Health Administration. Because it's not always a health problem.
Speaker 1: It's a financial problem, it's a relationship problem, it's a
Speaker 1: you know, I think we completely view suicide through the
Speaker 1: wrong lens. It's not always mental health. Certainly mental health
Speaker 1: can exacerbate that, but I think suicide is a conglomeration
Speaker 1: of parts of the human condition, you know that to
Speaker 1: your point, like, people make choices, and sometimes they're bad
Speaker 1: financial choices. That doesn't mean they need to go see
Speaker 1: a psychologist or a psychiatrist. Sometimes they just need a
Speaker 1: little you know, financial help man.
Speaker 4: Right, financial advisors who you would go and see, you know,
Speaker 4: for that issue. You'd go and talk to somebody saying, hey,
Speaker 4: say with financial advice.
Speaker 1: So and this is the other thing. The VA budget
Speaker 1: is the second largest budget in the United States government,
Speaker 1: behind the Department of Defense. Their budget request this year
Speaker 1: was something like three hundred and forty billion dollars. Okay, massive,
Speaker 1: massive funding the Office of Suicide Prevention, and the suicide
Speaker 1: prevention budget at VA is one tenth of one percent
Speaker 1: of that budget. One tenth of one percent is.
Speaker 3: A special ad.
Speaker 4: You're making me do math here, I'm doing like one tenth.
Speaker 1: Of the three hundred and forty something billion dollars. It's
Speaker 1: four hundred and ninety seven million. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: small percentage, and half of that goes to what you're
Speaker 1: talking about, advertisements. Whenever you see a choose VA ad
Speaker 1: online or superimposed on a hockey or something like that,
Speaker 1: that's ad dollars that the VA is spending from the
Speaker 1: suicide prevention budget. So that's number one, but part of
Speaker 1: that budget what they're doing well.
Speaker 4: And also broadcasters, just real quick, Broadcasters in Utah, I
Speaker 4: just want to let you know have to allow the
Speaker 4: military ad space per FCC regulations. So if you're listening
Speaker 4: to the radio late at night here and all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, it's like, have.
Speaker 3: You thought about joining of the United States Marine Corps?
Speaker 3: The Marine Corps here for.
Speaker 4: You, brought to you by Utah Broadcasters Association because there
Speaker 4: is a rule where, you know, the federal FCC allows
Speaker 4: these guys on the airwaves just like going to a
Speaker 4: high school. They get funding government, they get to have
Speaker 4: recruiters there. So I do know that some funding comes
Speaker 4: from like broadcast side as well as spent dollars on advertising.
Speaker 4: And it's not so much like advertising is going to
Speaker 4: stop suicide. Yeah, the individual listening right now is going
Speaker 4: to stop it. And themselves. My other beef with this.
Speaker 1: They all they'll always come out with like, oh, we've
Speaker 1: got this new app, right, We've got this suicide prevention app.
Speaker 1: Sure people check in on a daily So I was like,
Speaker 1: have you guys ever been so depressed and lonely that
Speaker 1: you're not gonna fucking check an app excuse me every
Speaker 1: day and be like, oh my gosh, I'm feeling depressed today.
Speaker 1: I gotta press this button and go talk to it.
Speaker 3: Unless it's got points to Starbucks involved, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I don't get sometimes the logic behind they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a really great idea. It's like a good idea.
Speaker 4: For you lived three hundred sixty five days, get a
Speaker 4: ten thousand dollars bonus on your VA check yeah, I
Speaker 4: mean just check in though you gotta check in some print.
Speaker 4: You gotta have biometrics, But I don't know if you're
Speaker 4: gonna if people want that.
Speaker 1: So that's that's my biggest thing. But in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: Congress past the Commander John Scott Hannon the Suicide Prevention Act,
Speaker 1: which had the staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox grants that
Speaker 1: literally was the VA providing up to seven hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars per organization community organization, not a VIA
Speaker 1: entity that had demonstrated they were in the community doing
Speaker 1: suicide prevention work. So they were leveraging community organis, which
Speaker 1: I think is the right approach because less than fifty
Speaker 1: percent of veterans in the United States even use the VA.
Speaker 1: There's like sixteen and a half million veterans in the
Speaker 1: United States for the census, less than half of them
Speaker 1: used the VA. So the VA is not even going
Speaker 1: to touch half the veteran population.
Speaker 4: And like, like what about semper sometimes you know, like
Speaker 4: the reservists out there, do they get access to go
Speaker 4: to the VA?
Speaker 1: Defense?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: You deployed?
Speaker 4: So would you would you let me ask a veteran
Speaker 4: were you did you go in yeah, really, I mean, yes,
Speaker 4: you are if you swearing. Here's the thing to me
Speaker 4: is if.
Speaker 1: If you no I said that in air caps?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, no.
Speaker 1: I definition a veteran, right.
Speaker 3: I was Malibu in it with your like bro, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we the legal definition of the veteran,
Speaker 1: you know, being like you have to serve one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty days. That's not training whatever. It's like, all right,
Speaker 1: do you think a reservist that does six years and
Speaker 1: has to like balance what I'm saying, reserve time and whatever,
Speaker 1: and that's what we're getting eighties and go do all this?
Speaker 1: You think they don't deal with some of the same issues.
Speaker 4: That's what we should be frustrated about, is why now
Speaker 4: all vets get the access to the VET to that
Speaker 4: three hundred and eighty billion dollar number you're thrown around that,
Speaker 4: why not you know, I mean, so you served two
Speaker 4: weeks a month, but then also you deploy as a
Speaker 4: reservist to full time combat. Yeah, brah, even at that point, okay,
Speaker 4: let alone just being in the military and you know,
Speaker 4: doing what you're doing, you're deploying now, you know, it's
Speaker 4: just a shock to me to hear that, you know,
Speaker 4: I just learned that the other day as well. In fact,
Speaker 4: I was talked to the president of AWP on our
Speaker 4: show and I saw that.
Speaker 1: On your website.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, Jim Lorraine and he was talking about that
Speaker 4: same thing and great guy to have on And also
Speaker 4: I noticed what as I scrolling through your mission roll call,
Speaker 4: that you guys are teamed up with him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's why. So that's why earlier I said
Speaker 1: we're a national nonprofit program. Yeah, we're not our own
Speaker 1: separate organization. So we're a program of America's Warrior Partnership
Speaker 1: because America. The way I look at it is like
Speaker 1: America's Warrior Partnership is like the big think tank that
Speaker 1: does the research with Operation Deep Dive and trying to
Speaker 1: figure out where the VA gets the data wrong on
Speaker 1: suicide prevention because they do. And we are kind of
Speaker 1: the smaller, more nimble organization designed to go out into
Speaker 1: the veteran community, talked abouts, get ground truth, do these polls,
Speaker 1: and do the advocacy work with the policymakers. So it's
Speaker 1: a different enough to where we are our own separate
Speaker 1: kind of program house within AWP.
Speaker 3: Oh that's very cool.
Speaker 1: So Jim technically is my boss.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh, not only is he a member or the president,
Speaker 4: he's your boss.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not technically my boss, he is my boss.
Speaker 3: He is your boss. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think he'll get a kick out of what I
Speaker 4: just said when he goes to listen to this all right,
Speaker 4: because we were talking about how you know, this all
Speaker 4: hits home and you know, being a caregiver helping veterans
Speaker 4: and and I'm like, not only are you a member
Speaker 4: of this, dude, you're also the president.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He's like, it's true.
Speaker 4: Right, who better to help try to lead the way
Speaker 4: than someone who's been through what you need help getting through. Right,
Speaker 4: That's why you say, go serve somewhere, go help somebody,
Speaker 4: do something.
Speaker 3: You know, have you done a good deed? You know? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Good turn daily?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: That's yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: So true and it can help you and it makes
Speaker 4: you feel better. And you don't have to put it
Speaker 4: on TikTok. You don't have to put it on Instagram.
Speaker 4: You can just open the door for somebody and just
Speaker 4: say have a nice day. You can just do something
Speaker 4: nice just to your speed. Be that person, you know,
Speaker 4: because it's contagious, yeah right, you know, it just is.
Speaker 4: So it's patriotism. I'm not gonna lie. And if you're
Speaker 4: out there and you want to try to join the military,
Speaker 4: go try it, give it your all, give it your best,
Speaker 4: raise your hand, step up. That's another selfless option. I'm
Speaker 4: not paid by any department to say these things, right,
Speaker 4: this is just a real, real talk, and I'm just saying,
Speaker 4: you know, you can try your best foot forward at
Speaker 4: going to your local recruiter, asking them questions and taking
Speaker 4: a test and see what the next test does and
Speaker 4: what the next test, and you make your own decisions. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so I would I would say give it a shot,
Speaker 4: because you know, we do have people out there that
Speaker 4: have the heart to want to serve. And you know,
Speaker 4: if you don't want to be drafted and you don't
Speaker 4: want to have a conscription like World War two or
Speaker 4: you know, through the dawna time conscriptions, right, an army
Speaker 4: of forced patriotism doesn't get anywhere.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but unfortunately, you know, if we continue to
Speaker 1: degrade the incentives to serve, then and frankly, young people
Speaker 1: are looking at how veterans are treated and they see
Speaker 1: sometimes they're not treated well, especially because Mission Roll Call.
Speaker 1: We did a national research poll that was a representative
Speaker 1: of the American population, and we found that sixty seven
Speaker 1: percent of Generation Z did not know a veteran or
Speaker 1: somebody currently serving on active duty, so they have no
Speaker 1: real touch points into.
Speaker 4: Well, that's just a flip of the of the switch,
Speaker 4: because it was just everybody has somebody that has served
Speaker 4: in this long, yeah, conflict of Afghanistan and a rock
Speaker 4: that we dealt with.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, military services is a family business at
Speaker 1: this point because eighty percent of people that have served
Speaker 1: also have an immediate family member that served, which is
Speaker 1: why you see Gen Z saying, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: know anybody, because it's all the same families that are
Speaker 1: just continuing to serve incentives like the GI bill, We
Speaker 1: don't take care of the veterans suicide crisis, We're going
Speaker 1: to continue to see it's like two years in a
Speaker 1: row now that the Army is not going to meet
Speaker 1: its recruiting goals, the Marine Corps is not going to
Speaker 1: and part of that's because.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that's where money should be spent on
Speaker 4: pamphlets for real, Like let's talk about the GI bill
Speaker 4: real quick. You don't know, like when you enlist, they
Speaker 4: don't tell you your recruiter doesn't tell you they're going to
Speaker 4: take money out of your paycheck every month.
Speaker 1: They don't do that anymore. That was the Montgomery GI Bill,
Speaker 1: So that forever GI bill passed in two thousand and
Speaker 1: I want to say seventeen or eighte okay forget okay,
Speaker 1: so they don't actually take money out of your GI
Speaker 1: bill anymore. And now if you serve, when you enlist,
Speaker 1: or if you're an officer before you get out, you
Speaker 1: can elect to give your GI bill to your son
Speaker 1: or daughter. So you don't even have to use your
Speaker 1: GI bill. You could transfer it to your son or
Speaker 1: daughter if you don't want to use it. So now
Speaker 1: people that I know that are going into service. One
Speaker 1: of my former interns last year, he's commissioning later this year,
Speaker 1: and I told him, I was like, man, if you
Speaker 1: want to go to grad school, do it while you're
Speaker 1: on active duty, like an online grad school program. You
Speaker 1: use tuition assistance, and then give your GI bill to
Speaker 1: your son or daughter. He doesn't kids yet, but you
Speaker 1: can transfer it to a dependent so that you not
Speaker 1: only get your grad degree paid for, no student loans
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but now your son or daughter
Speaker 1: has the GI Bill.
Speaker 3: A that's really good to know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, So my listener out there, you're listening, okay,
Speaker 4: if you're thinking about going to talk to that recruiter,
Speaker 4: bring up the GI bill, talk to him about it,
Speaker 4: get more information, get clarity, ask them. They're the ones
Speaker 4: out are the subject matter experts on a career right
Speaker 4: because they moved away from recruiting. But I'm just putting
Speaker 4: that out there because hey, you know, go check out.
Speaker 4: If you're listening to this and you're like, Scouts is
Speaker 4: still a thing.
Speaker 3: It is. There's a local Scout probably in your area.
Speaker 4: Go check out, you know, the boy Scouts, and they're
Speaker 4: still doing tree planting and eagle Scout projects.
Speaker 3: And we're up here in Salt.
Speaker 4: Lake and I mean literally they're getting ready to go
Speaker 4: do a camp crossover and the Order of the Arrows
Speaker 4: kicking off and it's a big where the jamboree is
Speaker 4: going on.
Speaker 3: So you know, you're.
Speaker 1: Bringing back memories. Man, I I can't I can't wait to,
Speaker 1: you know, to if I have the pleasure of getting
Speaker 1: involved again, to go on those campouts and help shape
Speaker 1: you know young man, because part of it too for
Speaker 1: me was like my dad and my mom got divorced
Speaker 1: when I was young, yeah, and so my dad wasn't
Speaker 1: like around, you know, I spent summers on the ranch
Speaker 1: with my dad and things like that. But the Scout
Speaker 1: masters were really good mentors, very much, and so it
Speaker 1: was it was good for me, and I kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to give back in some way,
Speaker 1: either through the Scouts or Big brothers, big sisters or
Speaker 1: something like that, so that I can kind of pay
Speaker 1: it forward and be that mentor for somebody else.
Speaker 3: That's very very awesome and very positive.
Speaker 4: And I like your energy and I like everything that
Speaker 4: you're after, and I wish that the VA would.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I talked to some dudes and I was like, these
Speaker 4: guys that are at the head of the VA from
Speaker 4: past administrations, and it's like recreational therapy.
Speaker 3: How come it has to be a certain rating.
Speaker 4: How Come you can't just be prescribed you know outdoors
Speaker 4: you know activities or going in skiing or trying to
Speaker 4: go swimming, you know, something like that, right, especially if
Speaker 4: the VA has a pool there for pool therapy, that's
Speaker 4: recreational you're in the water or going to your local pool.
Speaker 4: But just somehow, you know, taking some of that three
Speaker 4: hundred and eighty billion dollars budget that might have a
Speaker 4: slush fund or something, or instead of putting it in pamphlets,
Speaker 4: put it into memberships to the pool. For someone who
Speaker 4: can't get to the VA right like they want to
Speaker 4: go swim at their local pool. You can cover that.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you can cover pharmaceuticals. No, you know,
Speaker 4: that's that's the same thing with your Pause Act.
Speaker 1: Well, and that's why, uh you know, I said, I
Speaker 1: think we view suicide through the wrong lens, because you know,
Speaker 1: the VA's budget is broken down in three separate agencies.
Speaker 1: There's obviously the VA is the entire entity, but then
Speaker 1: there's the Veterans Health Administration, which is one, you know,
Speaker 1: one silo, and that's the brick and mortar healthcare system
Speaker 1: that you see the doctors and things like that. There's
Speaker 1: the Veterans Benefits Administration, which is the administration that pays
Speaker 1: out GI bill, pays out disability compensation, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: There's the Veterans Cemetery Administration, which admin cemeteries and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. So when a veteran passes away, if they're eligible,
Speaker 1: they can get buried in the National cemetery. But the
Speaker 1: Disability compensate. Half of the VA's budget is what's called
Speaker 1: mandatory spending. So it is like Social Security, it's veteran
Speaker 1: disability compensit. So Congress doesn't appropriate that money, they don't
Speaker 1: shoes to spend it. It's automatic. If a veteran has
Speaker 1: disability compensation, the government has to pay it. And that
Speaker 1: is what is potentially going to get delayed if the
Speaker 1: debt ceiling does not get passed. Because like Social Security
Speaker 1: check we don't actually know. This is pretty unprecedented. If
Speaker 1: it actually happens and the dollar you know, default stops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't know, but it's there. There's a strong potential
Speaker 1: that that disability compensation gets delayed weeks, months, however long ago.
Speaker 3: It's not a good thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing.
Speaker 3: Fixed incomes, so yeah, right.
Speaker 1: To pay for you know, mortgage.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying, homie.
Speaker 4: We just got to just snap out of this up
Speaker 4: and just get it done because there's people close to
Speaker 4: us who are relying on SSI and veterans benefits like
Speaker 4: lifetime trycare members. Yeah, dependence of one hundred percent rated
Speaker 4: family members who all they could do was die leaving
Speaker 4: their kin there, trike care for life. Yeah, okay, I
Speaker 4: know it all too well. Okay, it's just a close
Speaker 4: to that.
Speaker 3: You get.
Speaker 4: We could talk va all day on a record, off
Speaker 4: the record, you know again. My grandma died there. My
Speaker 4: dad basically had multiple heart surgeries there. My mom's veteran
Speaker 4: of a Green Beer. My dad was a Green Beret.
Speaker 4: My mom was pushing him the whole way, you know,
Speaker 4: and all I remember her feet erin. She'd say, my feet, Aaron,
Speaker 4: you know, pushing dad in the wheelchair when he's pushing
Speaker 4: three hundred pounds.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, the these women and these caregivers
Speaker 4: and these significant others that are out there, they're also
Speaker 4: the veteran, and I just want to show them love
Speaker 4: right now and let them know that if they're listening,
Speaker 4: I want to hear from you too. You know, if
Speaker 4: you are a caregiver or wife of a loved one,
Speaker 4: then you're doing that.
Speaker 3: Get on my show. Come on, I don't mind, I'll
Speaker 3: have you on.
Speaker 4: Just like just like Cole, we're just really talking, right
Speaker 4: We're trying to have a conversation with each other, yea,
Speaker 4: so it can happen and we can do this. And
Speaker 4: again my past guests have really hit me with we
Speaker 4: all have us on our name tape, US Army, US Marines,
Speaker 4: US Air Force.
Speaker 3: At the end of the day, it's all us.
Speaker 4: At the end of the day, that's what we should be,
Speaker 4: you know, all for one, one for all. And so
Speaker 4: you know, I want to thank you being on my
Speaker 4: show today. And I know it took us a couple
Speaker 4: of times to get together. And I know you're a
Speaker 4: new father, and congratulations on that. And you know, Mission
Speaker 4: roll Call is a part of the American Warrior Partnership
Speaker 4: and you should check it out and it'll be typed
Speaker 4: out in the dissertation on our website at software dot com,
Speaker 4: so you'll just be able to click on everything that
Speaker 4: you need to do. And I want to thank my
Speaker 4: producers that go in and do that for me.
Speaker 3: They listen to this and then they just write it out.
Speaker 4: I'm like, dude, thank you, and then they write it
Speaker 4: and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's a good conversation. So
Speaker 4: thanks a lot for all your hard work Anton and
Speaker 4: Chris and Mark so behind the scenes. And and I
Speaker 4: want to again thank Nathan who referred you to.
Speaker 3: Come on the show.
Speaker 4: All right, So thanks to day Yeah dude, and thanks
Speaker 4: for allowing it to happen.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Cole, thank you one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: It was a great conversation. I'm happy to come back anytime.
Speaker 1: If there's another debt sealing crisis or something like that
Speaker 1: going on, we need to just you know, kick around
Speaker 1: and talk about right.
Speaker 3: Well, it's on our minds, it's all of us. Might
Speaker 3: let you me. You're welcome back.
Speaker 4: That's one hundred percent okay, and I hope to shake
Speaker 4: hands with you in person one day.
Speaker 1: That's the end of the story. So I love Utah.
Speaker 3: So you know we're still snowboarding. It's the middle of May.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well anytime you're out here and the Jamboreez is
Speaker 4: going on. So again, if you're listening, I want to
Speaker 4: say thanks to you for being a part of soft Rep.
Speaker 4: Go check out our merch store at softwap dot com
Speaker 4: and also soft rep dot com. Forward Slash book Club.
Speaker 4: All right, we have a book club, and you know,
Speaker 4: go check it out and support that. So reading is
Speaker 4: cool and being nice to one another goes a long way.
Speaker 4: So on behalf of Cole and myself here a soft Rep.
Speaker 4: Thank you and saying peace.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to Silk Red Lady