Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Brandon Webb, former abcal in New York Times
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Speaker 1: That's s o f r EP dot com. Ah beat force.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
Speaker 1: listening to software radio, special operations, military news and straight
Speaker 1: talk with the guys and the community. Okay, welcome to
Speaker 1: Suffer at radio. This is Big Phield Campion on target,
Speaker 1: on time across the Pond, and I have across the
Speaker 1: pond this week. I'm back home in Blighty doing a
Speaker 1: bit and pieces and I wish, I'm bothered could compare
Speaker 1: with the Caribbean. This place is absolutely off the scale,
Speaker 1: falling apart weather wise. And we like talking about the
Speaker 1: weathers Brits. This place has gone down the pan. We've
Speaker 1: got weather warnings coming out of the Union. If you
Speaker 1: don't know what weather warning is, have a look on
Speaker 1: the box or have a look on social media, which
Speaker 1: is what I've been encouraging people to do. Look at
Speaker 1: social media, see what's going on around them, and pack
Speaker 1: their cars appropriately for the weather that they're going to experience.
Speaker 1: Because we are having some terrible time to with the weather. Flooding,
Speaker 1: we've got storm warnings, we've got wind, we've got high wind,
Speaker 1: we've got don't get on the plane, stay away from
Speaker 1: your boat. And if you're in your car, make sure
Speaker 1: it's packed properly. So that's where we're at. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go to in the detail, right, what else
Speaker 1: is going on. Well, don't forget create club. Have a
Speaker 1: look around there, and there's a few other bits and pieces.
Speaker 1: I've got a very special interview for you today. I
Speaker 1: am an Importsmouth and we're going to tell you all
Speaker 1: about the place where I am in a minute. But
Speaker 1: I'm going to introduce to you the CEO and founder
Speaker 1: have forgotten veteran's UK Gary Weaving, okay, and by the
Speaker 1: time we finished its interview, you will realize that he
Speaker 1: does an extremely important job. How are you boy? Hi
Speaker 1: feel Thank you for coming down an interviewing today. I've
Speaker 1: been really looking forward to to it and I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to telling you about what we don't cool. So
Speaker 1: just tell us a little bit about the fort. First
Speaker 1: of all, this this place here that because this is
Speaker 1: a remarkable place, isn't it. Yes it is. We're based
Speaker 1: at a seventeen hundreds of Napoleonic fort right on the
Speaker 1: coast of Portsmouth. It used to be a Royal marine
Speaker 1: base and there's got such history and death and it
Speaker 1: just has a really amazing military feel about it. I'm
Speaker 1: going to post some pictures on the social media, but
Speaker 1: when you see this place, the walls are about seven
Speaker 1: in foot fix. It's design is an old design. Apparently
Speaker 1: there was two of room done this way and it
Speaker 1: really is a massively impressive place. But more impressive still
Speaker 1: is Forgotten Veterans Duk, which is a charity supporting our troops.
Speaker 1: Just just did't was this? How did that come around?
Speaker 1: Forgotten resterin Duk sadly feel that the reality of the
Speaker 1: situation was that since I've come out of the Army
Speaker 1: Harbor's Royal Engineer, I'm an Afghanistan veteran, I really struggled,
Speaker 1: and when I came out into civilian stream, I really
Speaker 1: segregated myself and isolated myself because I couldn't handle my
Speaker 1: mental health. To be honest, every time I tried to
Speaker 1: go and get help, I got turned away from the
Speaker 1: civilians and they couldn't unders I couldn't understand what was
Speaker 1: wrong with me. So that the reality of what we've
Speaker 1: done here is simple. When I needed restite care, when
Speaker 1: I was at my absolute lowest, when I needed to
Speaker 1: have a break and to give my family a break,
Speaker 1: there was nowhere. There was nowhere designed to take me
Speaker 1: with the problems that I had at short notice. So oh, incidentally,
Speaker 1: all I've actually done is create what I needed to
Speaker 1: have for you. So from experience, mostly you had you
Speaker 1: had mental health problem, which is a huge problem at
Speaker 1: the moment. You know we're talking suicide. You know, at
Speaker 1: the time when celebrities are committing suicide. You know there's
Speaker 1: guys doing this on a regular basis, isn't it. Yes,
Speaker 1: When I originally started on Facebook, just by a pure fluke,
Speaker 1: one tweet has changed my life forever. And as sadly
Speaker 1: I tweeted, I've never felt so alone since I left
Speaker 1: the Army, and I went from thirty Twitter followers to
Speaker 1: eight thousand in nearly six weeks because I laid my
Speaker 1: heart out to the world and I told them what
Speaker 1: had gone wrong with me, how I fell, and what
Speaker 1: I could see was coming wrong with others. Okay, and
Speaker 1: I think that there's a very important point we had
Speaker 1: that that number one number one lesson in all of
Speaker 1: this from me and I see it repeatedly now, is
Speaker 1: you need to say you have to start, You have
Speaker 1: to stick your hand up and acknowledge that there's something
Speaker 1: going wrong. Yeah. Of course, when I needed a buddy,
Speaker 1: when I needed someone to talk to, someone to give
Speaker 1: me directions, someone to support me, someone to give me
Speaker 1: information about where I needed to go. There was nowhere,
Speaker 1: So I started a buddy scheme on Facebook and it
Speaker 1: just took off and we've ended up with nearly six
Speaker 1: hundred clients in our books. When I needed a hardship payment,
Speaker 1: you know, sixteen pound fifty to get to a mental
Speaker 1: health appointment, I couldn't get it, So we started up
Speaker 1: a hard sktship scheme. So their service has forgotten. Veterans
Speaker 1: have created were actually is what I needed in my life,
Speaker 1: and you know, yourself lived in experiences paramount and that's
Speaker 1: the problem. We're getting sort of cared for and treated
Speaker 1: by some civilians, not but some that really don't understand
Speaker 1: the military way and don't understand the brothership that the
Speaker 1: veterans and have just to explain, how did you fall
Speaker 1: upon this place, and what is the point of this place?
Speaker 1: What do you actually do? What? What what is it
Speaker 1: you're doing here that people aren't doing elsewhere. We've been
Speaker 1: very successful actually over the last year. We've only been
Speaker 1: open a year and we've actually had over seven hundred
Speaker 1: veterans come to us from all over the country silly
Speaker 1: times in the morning for emergency crisis care. So if
Speaker 1: a hospital in Birmingham, and that's quite a few hundred
Speaker 1: miles away. For the American audience brings us at two
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and says, we cannot help this
Speaker 1: veteran any further, but we really fairly should be supported
Speaker 1: and looked after for a few days. So if we
Speaker 1: get that call, my army a volunteers or people that
Speaker 1: live locally that are volunteers will go and get them,
Speaker 1: bring them to Fort Cumberland, and what we offer them
Speaker 1: is four days free nights of crisis support with a
Speaker 1: small care support team. But just bringing them here fill
Speaker 1: isn't the answer. Yes, it will unwind them, Yes it
Speaker 1: will relax them. Yes it will give them better understanding
Speaker 1: and send them home brighter. But if they're only returning
Speaker 1: to the problems at home that are already there, then
Speaker 1: we're setting them up to fight. So the moment they
Speaker 1: get hit day when they get here, my tea and
Speaker 1: my management team in the office, and our contacts in
Speaker 1: other charities, local agencies, police, adults, social care. You know,
Speaker 1: every client's different, every veterans different. What the problem? What
Speaker 1: sort of problems are you getting here? Is it financial?
Speaker 1: Is it mental health? Is it all of the above
Speaker 1: plus a few more. What was was the main thing,
Speaker 1: the thing to come through the door? Well, a lot
Speaker 1: of them come with post traumatic stress symptoms. But the
Speaker 1: reality is, at the moment in England does seem to
Speaker 1: be used as an umbrella term. And when you remind
Speaker 1: them a little bit and starts to understand the story
Speaker 1: a little bit of what's actually gone on, you soon
Speaker 1: here it's a culmination of mental health problems and often
Speaker 1: straw on the camel's back sort of things. So you
Speaker 1: have a little bit because I've always said, you're only
Speaker 1: two poor decisions away from having an absolute epic nightmare,
Speaker 1: because I mean, you have too much to drink one night,
Speaker 1: you go home, you smash your window, the police will involved. Boom,
Speaker 1: you have free nice boom, you're off, your job goes,
Speaker 1: You don't the plan. Now you've got no money, you
Speaker 1: can't pay your bills. Now you're getting into a situation
Speaker 1: where you're thinking your life room and thinking, oh my god,
Speaker 1: where did it possibly go wrong? And moreover, you're probably
Speaker 1: thinking how can I make it get better? Yeah? That's right.
Speaker 1: So unless we start helping the individual problems, whether it's debt,
Speaker 1: whether it's addiction, whether it's breakdown of family relations, homelessness, hardship.
Speaker 1: Unless we start addressing those each individual problems, the mental
Speaker 1: health is never going to improve. We take the approach
Speaker 1: here prevention is sometimes better than cure. Absolutely all day long.
Speaker 1: We don't have therapy, is said very qualified ones that
Speaker 1: are prepared to sit with them and talk to them.
Speaker 1: We do a care plan, We really look into what
Speaker 1: the issues are. But a lot of them just need
Speaker 1: to get their lives back in order and get their
Speaker 1: ducks back in a rug. That's I mean, it's commendable.
Speaker 1: How are you funding this here? What? What? What funding
Speaker 1: have you got? You've got anything? Well, the reality is
Speaker 1: we're called Forgotten Veterans UK and I'm also known as
Speaker 1: a campaigner for veterans rights. I've stood up from the
Speaker 1: beginning and been very honest and very vocal about my
Speaker 1: problems and the problems of our community when we try
Speaker 1: to get funding too doing the renovations. Sadly we've returned
Speaker 1: down on every grant we applied for. So high funded
Speaker 1: it myself and I mean, okay, just to put this
Speaker 1: into perspective, I came here before this had been done,
Speaker 1: and it was an empty shell of the inside of
Speaker 1: the wall. There was nothing here. You could not have
Speaker 1: lived in here. It was dank, there was rats on
Speaker 1: the floor, there was it was an absolute mess. And
Speaker 1: now I'm sat around as a ball table. There's a
Speaker 1: nice and floor has been painted, there's some leather sofas.
Speaker 1: You know, the place is looking like like home. Do
Speaker 1: you know when you are offering what you say on
Speaker 1: the tints, you know that you can come here and
Speaker 1: you can fully chill out. There's no luxuries ere film,
Speaker 1: because I will not waste money on unnecessary items. As
Speaker 1: long as things are clean, tide and sanitary, that's that's
Speaker 1: good enough for us. We see such a changing people feel,
Speaker 1: and it's actually a structure. They come usually for a
Speaker 1: C one, which is an immediate crisis camp. Then quite
Speaker 1: often they come back for a C two, which is
Speaker 1: I'd like to come back again, but maybe in a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. But then we build them up to
Speaker 1: the stage they come to a C free, which is
Speaker 1: a monthly group camp, and then we've really seen them
Speaker 1: engaging again, and we put them into a private network
Speaker 1: on Facebook that only people from full crumbling can access.
Speaker 1: So there's your socialization. We instantly enroll them into the
Speaker 1: body scheme, so there's your seven contact support therail. The
Speaker 1: umality of it is, for so many years we've been
Speaker 1: told what's wrong with us and what we're going to get,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them haven't actually stopped and spoken
Speaker 1: to the veterans. If you ask them what they want,
Speaker 1: they will tell you this is their home. They helped
Speaker 1: build it, they helped run it, and they feel like
Speaker 1: it belongs to them. And it's good to have some
Speaker 1: regulars back that are still going up the seventh step
Speaker 1: program because what they do is they sweep up the
Speaker 1: new piece and they support them because then you can
Speaker 1: see light at the end of the tunnel, can't you
Speaker 1: You can see you know what I was there? But
Speaker 1: actually was that? Now he's up here or that girl
Speaker 1: or whatever whoever it happens to be. Does this a
Speaker 1: little about the accommodation? What was the deal when to
Speaker 1: come here? Work? What do they stay? Currently? We've got
Speaker 1: it is a campsite, so if they want to camp outside,
Speaker 1: they can. They can also stay indoors if they wish to.
Speaker 1: It's usually the Navy in the r A F Escape
Speaker 1: that the Army lads are outside their players usual We're
Speaker 1: about to get some fully insulated jets that have been
Speaker 1: donated well with solar panels and log burners, so that
Speaker 1: will give outside winter accommodation. And if we get this
Speaker 1: next funding bid from the NHS, then we're looking to
Speaker 1: open to nighttime billits and a veteran's workshop as well.
Speaker 1: And we encourage the local ones that want to be
Speaker 1: involved and are fed up. They're they're too ill to work,
Speaker 1: but we encourage the local ones to come down here
Speaker 1: on the daily basis. What we run is the Seventh
Speaker 1: Step program film, and I'm not going to bore you
Speaker 1: with it into understand ultimately the first step is the
Speaker 1: hardest step. The first step is holding your hand out
Speaker 1: and saying please, can I have help? Okay, So that's
Speaker 1: the thought eureka moment. That's the that's them, that's the
Speaker 1: one we can go. We can work with that now, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we give them a second chance. I'm not interested in
Speaker 1: what they've done before. They don't have excuses, but often
Speaker 1: there is reasons. So we give them a clean slate
Speaker 1: and we don't judge them. That's also very important. You know,
Speaker 1: having visited a number of people imprison myself and that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. They're worried that when they get on
Speaker 1: the out, when I'm judged. Now I'm scarred, I'm doing
Speaker 1: I'm filthy now I can't There's nothing's going to touch
Speaker 1: me anymore, you know what I mean? And you know
Speaker 1: when I spent people Jim Davidson, those sorts of people
Speaker 1: at some stage, we're trying to have have all held down
Speaker 1: a decent job and we're doing the right thing. Of course,
Speaker 1: there has to be a reason, isn't there? Do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I think that's important. Well, the
Speaker 1: reason they followed me, and there reason that they listened
Speaker 1: to us is because I've come from that side of
Speaker 1: the track. I've had my own suicidal problems. I've got
Speaker 1: my own health problems. I've got my own mental health
Speaker 1: problems and lived in experiences paramount. And then ultimately, as
Speaker 1: they go up the program, they given more and more
Speaker 1: responsibility to support and guide others. And then ultimately at
Speaker 1: the end we then say, right, we're going to stick
Speaker 1: your mental health courses, We're gonna stick you on suicide
Speaker 1: prevention courses. We're going to invest into them like they've
Speaker 1: invested into our projects. And then they're ready to go
Speaker 1: back to step one and truly support someone else. I
Speaker 1: just want to talk about one thing, and this is
Speaker 1: very important. Hope. Hope is a very powerful world film.
Speaker 1: When you don't have hope, life becomes hopeless. When life
Speaker 1: is hopeless, it becomes dangerous. And that is when you
Speaker 1: lose the will to live. To have hope, you must
Speaker 1: have goals. If you set to bigger goals fill they
Speaker 1: will fail and slip back down to hopelessness. So what
Speaker 1: we do with them, we work on their positives, excel
Speaker 1: them for find out what is most important. And I've
Speaker 1: seen it in a lot of communities. The negativity that's
Speaker 1: been generated is almost overwhelming the positivities. And you're right,
Speaker 1: with nothing positives, there is no hope, is there. It's
Speaker 1: obviously they've got negatives in their lives. But what we
Speaker 1: get them to understand is there's negatives you can change
Speaker 1: and there's negatives that you can't. So you need to
Speaker 1: differentiate between the two. You can't change the past. All
Speaker 1: you can do is try and learn from it and
Speaker 1: move forward. And I asked them, if they eat too much,
Speaker 1: eat a bit less, If they drink too much, drink
Speaker 1: a bit less. If they don't get up in the
Speaker 1: morning setting along, take slow and grad your steps towards
Speaker 1: your negatives in a positive manner. Then the people around you,
Speaker 1: the people that some that have given up on you
Speaker 1: because of your behaviors, will finally see this isn't a
Speaker 1: fan this isn't a phase. This is their actions are
Speaker 1: always going to speak loud of the words. Aren't on
Speaker 1: your road to recovery, And especially if people do give
Speaker 1: up on you. I've been given up on myself before
Speaker 1: more than once. You know what I mean, You earned
Speaker 1: that right, you have to earn that right back, but
Speaker 1: you have no reason to learn that right back. Then.
Speaker 1: Look at the end of the day, Phil, if people
Speaker 1: hadn't given me dispersed chance, second chance, third chance, for
Speaker 1: fourth chance, I wouldn't be here today. And what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to instill into these veterans, young and old, male
Speaker 1: and female, doesn't matter what what service, what care, what conflict,
Speaker 1: is if I can come back from that broken, broken
Speaker 1: man they wanted to leave this world and turn my
Speaker 1: life into a positive to help others and become an
Speaker 1: asset to society, then they can absolutely and I totally
Speaker 1: concur with with all of that. You know, having been
Speaker 1: close to the win myself. More than once, I've asked
Speaker 1: myself that question, do I want to be here soon?
Speaker 1: As you ask myself that question, And it's a hard
Speaker 1: question to ask yourself. It's not nice, it's not something,
Speaker 1: it's not something you want to visit. Anybody you know
Speaker 1: will care about going through something. All of this is
Speaker 1: anybody going through. To be honest, most just want to
Speaker 1: feel that they mean something. I was lost because I
Speaker 1: had no future. I was disabled from the army, I
Speaker 1: had severe mental health problems. I wasn't getting supportive properly.
Speaker 1: The large charities were giving sloping shoulders because you're too
Speaker 1: much trouble. And I just didn't see a future for myself.
Speaker 1: And I'm lucky. I've got a wife, two children, and
Speaker 1: a house and a car. And my menical health was
Speaker 1: so dark that I convinced myself all I was doing
Speaker 1: was holding them back in life, and the greatest sign
Speaker 1: of love I could show them was to end and
Speaker 1: of my misery. I mean that is that that is
Speaker 1: a corner to being on it. That is a corner
Speaker 1: right there, and that is ridiculous. Do you mean in
Speaker 1: the terms of what you are now, what you were
Speaker 1: doing what you've say say now these it is. I've
Speaker 1: always said the people you don't get a lot when
Speaker 1: there's planet the time we got here, you should try
Speaker 1: and feel it as much positive as your game. I'm
Speaker 1: Brandon Webb, former Navy Seal and founder of the Create Club.
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Speaker 1: Subscribe to Create Club and will also include The Killing School,
Speaker 1: my best selling e book about America's elite snipers. That's
Speaker 1: Craig Club dot com. C r A T Club dot com.
Speaker 1: Was there returning point view? Was there a switch which
Speaker 1: you can go? Yet? When that switch was hit, that's
Speaker 1: when I flipped over. That's when I claim out. Is
Speaker 1: one of the hardest things I ever had was come
Speaker 1: home after a very serious or suicide attempt where I
Speaker 1: nearly died, and I explained to my nature children, MM,
Speaker 1: excuse me, well, I didn't want to be that dad anymore.
Speaker 1: That mean that you make your meet well up here
Speaker 1: watching that. That's just that's a horrible thing to doing it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I believe the voices in
Speaker 1: my head. I believe the negatives. I believe that I
Speaker 1: was no good. I wasn't. Man, You've been facing your
Speaker 1: children like that and realizing that it was one of these.
Speaker 1: That was a plunger moment, that was a boom. That's
Speaker 1: that's set that off. That's going to push me back
Speaker 1: a bit, you know what I mean, that's going to
Speaker 1: get me out of this. It did help, but the
Speaker 1: reality it was it wasn't my time. And I'm not
Speaker 1: a religious man, but for the grace of God, I survived.
Speaker 1: And the hospital said to me, I took nearly eighty
Speaker 1: thousand milligrams of tablets and if I had had one
Speaker 1: drink because I don't drink because of my poor mental health,
Speaker 1: I would have been dead. So it wasn't my time.
Speaker 1: And this was a twist of fate, you know, like
Speaker 1: news veterans, some of us had come from tubbled childhood's.
Speaker 1: Some of us have come from difficult places. I've seen
Speaker 1: your excellent tour and the life speaks you give Phil
Speaker 1: and you don't make bones to the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: pre Army use a bit of a boy. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: Geordan's own stuff, did I mean? You know, I didn't
Speaker 1: come from the best of the best of the stock,
Speaker 1: as it would be called, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But I think the important thing that I've always tried
Speaker 1: to get is a positive from a negative and deal
Speaker 1: with the cards I've got, do you know? I mean,
Speaker 1: because I can't change those cards I've got to deal with. Well,
Speaker 1: it's only now, all these years later. I came out
Speaker 1: in two thousand and ten in a terrible way. It's
Speaker 1: now two thousand and twenty. Only now until I know
Speaker 1: that my whole life experience has been for a reason.
Speaker 1: I've been in prisoned pre Army. I've done some things
Speaker 1: I'm not very proud of, and the reality is what
Speaker 1: it has actually tailed me into is a very liberally minded,
Speaker 1: open minded man that's willing to give the worst for
Speaker 1: cotton veterans a chance when others wouldn't. Absolutely, I think
Speaker 1: that is so important to two people that do think
Speaker 1: that they've forgotten as well. A prime example of some
Speaker 1: of our work, and I have to be careful because
Speaker 1: of GDP, but we had a young lady recently who
Speaker 1: hasn't seen and I haven't seen her children for six
Speaker 1: years due to her mental health. And instead of her
Speaker 1: being supported, it made her worse because she wasn't being supported.
Speaker 1: She came here three months ago and has spent time
Speaker 1: at camps, has spent time with the body scheme, the
Speaker 1: fair Abyss. She calls me whenever she needs to and
Speaker 1: we have now just got her access supervised visit for
Speaker 1: one weekend a month. The change in her has been
Speaker 1: absolutely phenomenal. And the social worker and the barrister pulled
Speaker 1: me over and said, what have you done? What? Why
Speaker 1: is this a different help? And I said because I
Speaker 1: showed care, understanding, gave her time and wanting to help her. Okay,
Speaker 1: So going back a little bit, because we sorts, we've
Speaker 1: gone down the different parts matter. What's it funding? How
Speaker 1: you find what? What? What is funding this? What's keeping
Speaker 1: this alive? I mean your passion, it's obviously keeping it
Speaker 1: alive for one and the staff. You've got a superb
Speaker 1: you know two of three personal friends for a long
Speaker 1: time ago, so I know them. How can people help
Speaker 1: with this? Complete will help? Well? Because how do we fund?
Speaker 1: There's nearly forty people that have involved in the charity.
Speaker 1: Some are on my internet team and based all over
Speaker 1: the country. There's about twenty hair that are based and
Speaker 1: supporting Hair but the management, the care support team. But
Speaker 1: no one gets paid. No one's ever been paid. I've
Speaker 1: never been made and that's kept the cost down to
Speaker 1: a minimum. So last year we gave about everything we
Speaker 1: raised away because I believe the money belongs to the
Speaker 1: veteran and I've taken this attitude from the start, and
Speaker 1: actually the British public and the veteran community has got
Speaker 1: behind me and said it's about time there is a
Speaker 1: charity of this EPOS and they want to give us
Speaker 1: their pounds because they know it's going to do the
Speaker 1: greatest amount of work. So you take the of each
Speaker 1: pound will be going. We'll be going straight to the
Speaker 1: veterans causes and and to the veteran themselves, which you
Speaker 1: know we do see with these other larger charities. People
Speaker 1: always bang on about the percentage of what actually of
Speaker 1: your pound that you donate going to the to the troops,
Speaker 1: and it always seems to be quite low for me,
Speaker 1: to be honest, past share our administration rates two and
Speaker 1: a half percent, so seven point five p of your
Speaker 1: money out of your pounds or your dollar will code
Speaker 1: directly to r on a veteran to raise these dollars though,
Speaker 1: what you're doing? I know you did the sleep out
Speaker 1: in Portsmouth and all that sort of stuff. Yes, what
Speaker 1: are your other avenues for raising? We run a stand
Speaker 1: in order scheme and people donate on the basis on
Speaker 1: a monthly basis. We sell a lot of merchandise. We've
Speaker 1: got people doing events and functions and fundraisers all over
Speaker 1: the country. We just had the most to this last weekend,
Speaker 1: the most incredible fundraisers. Two young veterans tabs for nearly
Speaker 1: eighteen hours through the night to have the circumference of
Speaker 1: the whole island. And they're nose five hundred quid is
Speaker 1: it fortunes? But that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter a
Speaker 1: community guessing up and supporting and helping ourselves. We've added
Speaker 1: another old soldier, the long serving soldier, most delightful old man.
Speaker 1: And he came to us and he said, I'd like
Speaker 1: to do a fundraiser Garry and I said, okay, what
Speaker 1: you want to do. And he leaves probably three hundred
Speaker 1: miles away, and he's actually used his public bus passes
Speaker 1: old age busper. Oh, this is more. This is this guy,
Speaker 1: Mrs Mountain right, this is where I'm staying this story
Speaker 1: because this is I'm going to try and get be
Speaker 1: honest and push this on my social media. So if
Speaker 1: you're looking into my social media, I might even get
Speaker 1: to interview this guy some because it's remarkable what he's
Speaker 1: up to. Yeah, he needed help to advise the route,
Speaker 1: because you know he's getting on a little bit. But
Speaker 1: he actually went us to bus to bus to bus
Speaker 1: to bus what would have took him four hours in
Speaker 1: the car and took him forty house and he actually
Speaker 1: went through storm Dennis. He took his dog to Whisper.
Speaker 1: Whisper had a small day set at the top of
Speaker 1: the show when I was telling you you need to
Speaker 1: be packed in your car. Probably he has got a
Speaker 1: lunch box and a bus pass and probably a mac.
Speaker 1: The dog came into Gamp through the arch and had
Speaker 1: a ruckstack on the expansion. He didn't have anything getting
Speaker 1: it Bury bar a couple of small things. But and
Speaker 1: that is what is about a community helping ourselves, veterans
Speaker 1: helping veterans our own ranks, with our own experiences. And
Speaker 1: I love to use lived experience. That man there. When
Speaker 1: we first started with him nearly a year ago, it
Speaker 1: was an absolute shell of a man that never left
Speaker 1: his house barely and now look at the change in him.
Speaker 1: Because all he wanted, like most of the veterans, was
Speaker 1: to feel like he belonged. I mean that that is
Speaker 1: a key thing, having some purpose, some belonging, especially when
Speaker 1: you mix this stuff with mental health. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring up a point as well. Alcohol. Alcohol
Speaker 1: does not help an in this situation, does it whatsoever?
Speaker 1: Alcohol is an absolute demon and most of this stuff
Speaker 1: isn't it. Yes, Sadly, when we get called out in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night because there's a suicidal veteran
Speaker 1: or self harm, usually alcohol or drugs is a big
Speaker 1: accelerator for the moming themselves. And I know why they
Speaker 1: do it because I understand because I did the same
Speaker 1: as I have. You know, I can't cope with my
Speaker 1: own head. So I'm going to get as pissed as
Speaker 1: I can because he makes it go away, but tomorrow
Speaker 1: it comes back twice as long only you've got less
Speaker 1: money in your public example, so once which is another problem.
Speaker 1: Do you deal with the problem twice had or do
Speaker 1: you carry on drinking? And that's what the problem that
Speaker 1: seems to be going on drink was promoted in the
Speaker 1: army to distress to Poland. And we all understand. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's probably as bad now, but certainly
Speaker 1: my day of your day, there was a beginning of course,
Speaker 1: piss up and then of course pissed up, a piss
Speaker 1: up because it's Tuesday, a piss up because somebody had
Speaker 1: a piss up. Most of my career was a piss up.
Speaker 1: I used to go on and I used to go
Speaker 1: on a piss up and then get get a certificate
Speaker 1: through the post. And now I'm qualified for something that
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize. You know, No, you're right, No,
Speaker 1: it was, it was, and that's not so bad now. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we gotta do with with with what's coming
Speaker 1: through the door here very well. When you're in a
Speaker 1: good headspace, you're confident, you're controlled, you're working your career,
Speaker 1: you feel happy, you're going up the ranks, that's fine.
Speaker 1: But when they come out and the isolation, the loneliness,
Speaker 1: the lost, the mental health that the drink starts fighting,
Speaker 1: that is when it becomes dangerous When he first did me,
Speaker 1: I got out. I'm all right. I brought myself out,
Speaker 1: you know, my own problems and whatever. I brought myself out.
Speaker 1: And I remember the first month I was out, I
Speaker 1: completely run out of money and have done coming in
Speaker 1: and I had to go and take one of these
Speaker 1: crisis loans out from the thing. Had no job to
Speaker 1: go forward, you know, the only job that was lollipop man.
Speaker 1: And you know the stories on the sky, you can
Speaker 1: see it. And I just felt at that point, what
Speaker 1: do I do? You know? I mean, I've been in
Speaker 1: the Saber squadron. I was SF I was flying doing this,
Speaker 1: doing that, doing the other. Do you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a great job. All of a sudden it
Speaker 1: ended for me. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, and it
Speaker 1: just you know, I can see it's almost like they
Speaker 1: come out and try to mix within the civilian world
Speaker 1: and they're either underrated and that their qualifications aren't taken
Speaker 1: into account or the higher or the managers and the
Speaker 1: higher people in these businesses fear them. So there's there's
Speaker 1: almost you know, that's the problem with clashes. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying completely. You know, there's lots of veterans that
Speaker 1: have gone into us, into society and became a civilian
Speaker 1: again and have done very well for themselves. To no
Speaker 1: one's saying that you join the forces, you're definitely leaving
Speaker 1: an alcoholic, a cripple with medious day you know, and
Speaker 1: not all do. But there's there's been something wrong for many,
Speaker 1: many years, and only in the last couple of years
Speaker 1: since I have been getting up on others and wearing
Speaker 1: their hearts on their sleeves and being honest about their experiences.
Speaker 1: Do you think that society as a whole nerd those
Speaker 1: because everybody comes out about everything, that there's only this
Speaker 1: inclusivity thing, which I'm all for, by the way, all right,
Speaker 1: do you think it's made it easier for people to go, well,
Speaker 1: there's a problem there. Do you think society has made
Speaker 1: it slightly easier probably for us to stand up and
Speaker 1: go I'm absolutely in turbo Bobbins there I need to
Speaker 1: speak to somebody. Well, let's look at it. Boot my
Speaker 1: day very to Boot when I was exactly and that
Speaker 1: was my next point when I was coming out PTSD.
Speaker 1: There's a dirty word mental health. As a dirty words,
Speaker 1: they almost segregate you from everyone else in case your
Speaker 1: mental health starts tractrified. Was never going to get a
Speaker 1: job if I said I had problems upstairs. Well, I
Speaker 1: know a very long serving colonel and he said it
Speaker 1: to me as it is, and and it's important that
Speaker 1: you know this. He said when he went through Sandhurst,
Speaker 1: he was taught that mental health is a choice. So
Speaker 1: if we've had generations of officers now taking over these units,
Speaker 1: these the squadrons, these roots, if that is what they've
Speaker 1: been taught, then no wonder there has been no understanding
Speaker 1: of what's been going. Yeah, yeah, I mean it was
Speaker 1: late probably nineties and they put a w RVs woman
Speaker 1: into the Naple in Northern Ireland. But if you've got
Speaker 1: seen in our office, it was like we're doing it
Speaker 1: was proper, round of your money, what you're doing you're
Speaker 1: not a man. Yeah, it's terrible. You know. I remember
Speaker 1: yourself coming back from serle owing when I was in
Speaker 1: the squadron and people almost going right, does anybody want
Speaker 1: to go and see the doctor as anybody got a
Speaker 1: problem with what they saw? Yeah, don't mean we all
Speaker 1: know there's loads of slogans and phrases that were used
Speaker 1: during service, you know, based to be a win, the
Speaker 1: last one there goes again. One thing that I will
Speaker 1: never say again to a man, and I think it's
Speaker 1: done more damaged than the many things, is a phrase
Speaker 1: man up. No, I think you're right. I think that
Speaker 1: sums it up. Man up shuts him down from talking.
Speaker 1: And that's the difference. Now the soldiers are getting supportive better.
Speaker 1: They are given the opportunity to talk in public and
Speaker 1: in private, and they're not being isolated and treated like
Speaker 1: a leper in case he catches everyone else. What would
Speaker 1: be We're coming at the end of this now, But
Speaker 1: what would be your message to do anyone who's suffering now?
Speaker 1: What would be your message? Because not everybody's going to
Speaker 1: be able to get down here realistically, do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? So some people are gonna have to
Speaker 1: you know, maybe here listen, think what can I do
Speaker 1: right now? Might be an America, for instance, I don't
Speaker 1: know if they have anything like forgone veterans in America.
Speaker 1: Thank you for asking me this because this means a
Speaker 1: lot to me. As I've stated, I've been for the male.
Speaker 1: I've been in a very dark place and I'm lucky
Speaker 1: to be alive. I have self medicated, I've drunk I've
Speaker 1: abused myself, I've abused my family. I've a counseling, I've
Speaker 1: a good counseling, bad counseling. And the one thing that
Speaker 1: has saved me, truly saved me, is selfless commitment to others,
Speaker 1: because you cannot be helping someone else with no gain
Speaker 1: to yourself to teach you self respect and self worth again.
Speaker 1: And this is all I'm trying to instill into others.
Speaker 1: Start finding yourself again because you are in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you're instulent once you've got that, once you've got
Speaker 1: to that stage that you're in the pit of it.
Speaker 1: You are instulent because you're the only one there, aren't
Speaker 1: you in your own mind? Yeah? I seen them regularly
Speaker 1: feel I say, have you got anighbor that's hold by themselves? Yeah, Actually,
Speaker 1: can't pop in for a cup of tea, can't get
Speaker 1: them some shopping. Then when you come back to can
Speaker 1: next you tell me how that made you feel, and
Speaker 1: they come back and make you said, guys, it made
Speaker 1: me feel great about myself. Yeah. No, I think you're right.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got to be helping other people, and
Speaker 1: you've got to be involved with other people. You can't
Speaker 1: keep these things to yourself. It's all right flying Maverick
Speaker 1: and again with various things. But this is not a
Speaker 1: matter that can be sorted out on your Here we
Speaker 1: work as one, we laugh as one. Rapport is so important.
Speaker 1: Eighty percent of my work is building a rapport, using banter,
Speaker 1: using lived experience, because once you have that eight percent,
Speaker 1: the others when you percent comes much much easier. If
Speaker 1: they don't trust you, they don't bondit you, they don't
Speaker 1: respect you, they're not going to listen to you. Where
Speaker 1: can people get older you if they want to, if
Speaker 1: they if they want help, and how can they help you,
Speaker 1: you know, if they want to donate or something like that.
Speaker 1: Well you can look us up on Facebook. We've got
Speaker 1: a lot of large presents on Facebook. There's a group
Speaker 1: called Forgotten Veterans UK. There's also our page Forgotten Veterans UK.
Speaker 1: We have a Twitter presence, we have a website. There's
Speaker 1: an emergency number. If they go onto any of our
Speaker 1: platforms and say I need help, one of my team
Speaker 1: will pick them up immediately. And people that want to help,
Speaker 1: it's quite simple. Donate that pound a month, arrange of
Speaker 1: coffee meeting for fund raising, get in touch get into
Speaker 1: your community. Get into your community and go and find
Speaker 1: people and then bring them to us, and and and
Speaker 1: we will help them. We won't abandoned them, but as
Speaker 1: long as they're prepared to help themselves, we are there
Speaker 1: for them. A hud Gary. Look, I've been hovering around.
Speaker 1: I was here on the day that you first found
Speaker 1: you first sort of opened this place. I've been on
Speaker 1: the periphery of the organization. You know, we supported you
Speaker 1: at the Rumble this year. I shall continue to support you.
Speaker 1: So the first time we've actually sat down and had
Speaker 1: a proper chat, I'll put nothing but respect. And I've
Speaker 1: been humbled by the stuff you've said this afternoon. Okay,
Speaker 1: I hope people out there are going to get a
Speaker 1: message on this, alright, I know, I say. I think
Speaker 1: the one key thing for me I have all of
Speaker 1: this is if you're suffering, say something, Please, say something. Please,
Speaker 1: They's open up and say something to somebody, and then
Speaker 1: you know people are Gary and coming up with Gary.
Speaker 1: Thanks for your time. I'm going to wrap up and
Speaker 1: just close the show as I normally do. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for your time, seriously, I mean selfless commitment to others. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: Thank you guy. You eard it their selfless commitment to others,
Speaker 1: and that is the way. I think. That was a
Speaker 1: very heart felt and honest interview given to me by
Speaker 1: Gary there. I hope you enjoyed checking out the other
Speaker 1: stuff that solf rep, but do another look on softwp
Speaker 1: dot com, have at the Create club dot com, and
Speaker 1: please come back next time. I'm on Until next time,
Speaker 1: Who Dares Wins and obviously all later on. You've been
Speaker 1: listening to self rep Radio. New episodes up every Wednesday
Speaker 1: and Friday. Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at
Speaker 1: self rep Radio.