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. Hello and everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back to Software Radio. Software Radio on time, on target.
Speaker 1: We bring you to the best of military affairs and
Speaker 1: current events, what's going on. We encourage all our listeners
Speaker 1: out there to check out all the great articles that's
Speaker 1: uh up on our website and uh absolute lutely uh
Speaker 1: you know, check them all out because we're trying to
Speaker 1: do the best we can here in these trying times,
Speaker 1: and they have been trying. But uh, all that is
Speaker 1: behind us. Now. We have a great guest on the
Speaker 1: line with us today and I think it's some somebody
Speaker 1: in something that will be of pretty good interest to
Speaker 1: all of our listeners out there, especially those who are veterans.
Speaker 1: We have Christopher Goldsmith's and that spelled with a K.
Speaker 1: And I made the mistake of email in the first
Speaker 1: time with the C so I apologize for that. But uh,
Speaker 1: Chris is on the line with us. I blame my parents. Well,
Speaker 1: if you see my last name, it's like, hey, no
Speaker 1: one ever smells my last name, right, So Chris, welcome
Speaker 1: to Software Radio and thanks for joining us today. Chris
Speaker 1: is the founder and president of High Grounds Veteran Advocacy,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get into all of that, but first
Speaker 1: we want to welcome Chris. Thanks for taking the time.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thanks for having me. Oh it's our pleasure.
Speaker 1: So I see you from Pleasantville, New York. Is. Where's
Speaker 1: that there? It's in Westchester County. Um, I can't tell
Speaker 1: you where in Westchester County it is because I moved
Speaker 1: here while I was in school. Last November is pretty
Speaker 1: much lockdown doing finals, and then spring semester came in.
Speaker 1: The pandemic was here. So I've I've seen the inside
Speaker 1: of my house in my yard and that's about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you know, it sounded almost like Superman, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I when my when my wife when we
Speaker 1: were doing the house hunting, my wife said Pleasantville, and
Speaker 1: I thought she was joking. Um yeah, because I was like, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the real thing, you know. Uh, it looks like
Speaker 1: what you might expect of a place named Pleasantville. Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get into uh High Ground Veteran's advocacy, but
Speaker 1: first let's talk a little bit about you. Tell our
Speaker 1: listeners about yourself and how you came to be where
Speaker 1: you're at. Sure so, um, so I'm an army that
Speaker 1: grew up in Long Island. We're actually recording on September eleven,
Speaker 1: significant day for I think everybody of this generation who served. Um,
Speaker 1: you know. I I think that a lot of little
Speaker 1: boys grow up with this real appreciation for men in uniform.
Speaker 1: I feel like at some point every little kid goes
Speaker 1: through this I want to be a firefighter, I want
Speaker 1: to be a cop, I want to be an army
Speaker 1: man phase. And you know, being a child of the
Speaker 1: eighties when the Cold War was still a thing, you know,
Speaker 1: I grew up on stuff like g I, Joe and
Speaker 1: Rambo and all this stuff. Right. So uh, I never
Speaker 1: grew out of that phase and my entire life from
Speaker 1: the time that I was like a toddler, I wanted
Speaker 1: to serve in the military. And when Number eleventh happened, Um,
Speaker 1: it gave I think a bit of a different sense
Speaker 1: of urgency. Uh. And rather than you know, just look
Speaker 1: at it as a license life of service, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of continuing the service of my grandparents generation fighting
Speaker 1: in World War Two. Um. You know, I joined with
Speaker 1: with anger, right like I think that a lot of people, um,
Speaker 1: you know who are in high school in my generation,
Speaker 1: uh joined the military just like that, you know, looking
Speaker 1: we want to get revenge. So yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's amazing because you guys who joined right out of
Speaker 1: like say nine eleven. I mean, those guys, it's it
Speaker 1: seems like yesterday that all that happened. And yet the
Speaker 1: guys who joined are almost that retirement time now they've done.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like it was that long ago. Well,
Speaker 1: the so we're deploying to Afghanistan today, We're not. We're
Speaker 1: not born or were let's see, yeah, okay, they could
Speaker 1: they could have been in Afghanistan for the last year
Speaker 1: if they were born you know, um a year ago yesterday.
Speaker 1: So it's uh yeah, it's crazy to think how much
Speaker 1: time has gone by, uh and how you know, nine
Speaker 1: eleven shape my life and the life of millions of
Speaker 1: other uh young Americans who have served overseas. And you know,
Speaker 1: I look at what's going on today with the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and I think about how many, ah, how many kids
Speaker 1: today are going to have their entire lives shaped by this.
Speaker 1: What I think, for especially the young ones, is a
Speaker 1: traumatic experience. Absolutely, and uh, you know it's it's funny.
Speaker 1: Well everyone thinks about it, and as you mentioned, I
Speaker 1: was going to bring it up further along, but we
Speaker 1: all remember where we were on nine eleven, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things that it will shape
Speaker 1: a lot of our perception I guess you could say,
Speaker 1: of the world for a very long time. Yep. Absolutely so.
Speaker 1: Um So I was in high school during September eleventh.
Speaker 1: I didn't graduate until two thousand three. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: I ended up joining the army as a forward observer. Um. I.
Speaker 1: It was one of those things where, like you know,
Speaker 1: I was buying all these military books and reading all
Speaker 1: the novels and stuff, so I knew what a forward
Speaker 1: observer was. Um and you know what cooler of a
Speaker 1: job can you have when you're eighteen years old and
Speaker 1: to blow stuff up? Right? So? Uh So I went
Speaker 1: to basic training January of two thousand four. Um loved it,
Speaker 1: loved every minute of it. I'm looking at my wall
Speaker 1: here of me wearing my my bc US back when
Speaker 1: we had those green uniforms and black boots that we
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to shine because they were a new generation.
Speaker 1: But we still did so our feet just swept like crazy. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so a year after that, I was deployed to
Speaker 1: irrect So January through December of two thousand five, I
Speaker 1: was mostly in Solder City, Baghdad, and for the last
Speaker 1: four months of my deployment UM was actually at Camp
Speaker 1: Liberty outside back then International Airport. UM. So, while I
Speaker 1: was in Solder City, extremely densely populated area that took
Speaker 1: away my indirect assets. So no mortars, no artillery, no
Speaker 1: attack aviation, no close air support. So they have this, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, for people who might be civilians listening to
Speaker 1: the program and don't know what a forward observer is.
Speaker 1: If you watch a movie like Forrest Gump, and you
Speaker 1: see a bunch of infantry guys, you know, walking along
Speaker 1: and they get ambushed and everybody hits the ground, and
Speaker 1: then you've got this nerdy guy with with glasses and uh,
Speaker 1: what looks like a telephone in his hand, laying on
Speaker 1: the ground, screaming into the telephone. I was the nerdy
Speaker 1: guy with the glasses, UM, you know, the bcgs, the
Speaker 1: birth control goggles. We used to call him. UM. So
Speaker 1: you've got this nerdy guy with the glasses in an
Speaker 1: infantry platoon and you can't blow stuff up, so what
Speaker 1: do you do with So they made me on the
Speaker 1: ground intelligence reporter. So basically I was a glorified personal
Speaker 1: security detail from my platoon leader, the lieutenant UH and
Speaker 1: the interpreter. So I went out on every single patrol
Speaker 1: much like the medic. They needed us on every mission,
Speaker 1: so we didn't get rotated out like the rest of
Speaker 1: the guys. Um. And you know, I went out with
Speaker 1: my full kid you know, my M four, all the
Speaker 1: ammo grenades and blah blah blah. But I also had
Speaker 1: a GPS, a notepad and a pen and a camera.
Speaker 1: So my job was to gather intelligence UH and write
Speaker 1: reports the end of every patrol to you know, send
Speaker 1: up the chain to see, you know, if if it
Speaker 1: means anything in the bigger picture, um, which you know,
Speaker 1: most of the time, I'm taking pictures of the local cleric,
Speaker 1: the sewage in the road, the trash in the road. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, if we meet any Iraqi police who were
Speaker 1: suspicious of I'm getting photos of them and taking notes
Speaker 1: on that type of thing. Um. But also at the
Speaker 1: age of nineteen, it was my job to be the
Speaker 1: guy who takes the close up photos of bodies as
Speaker 1: as they're being exhumed from mass graves. Um. And that
Speaker 1: is something that uh, you know, it wasn't really on
Speaker 1: my mind when I wasn't listening. Uh. It's not something
Speaker 1: that I was in any way mentally prepared for. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think a year of combat for anybody, um,
Speaker 1: you know, even if you're not doing the house to
Speaker 1: house fighting. The hero stuff you see in the movie
Speaker 1: is just you know, going outside every day and sometimes
Speaker 1: things blow up and sometimes you hear a bullet whizz
Speaker 1: by your head. You know, that daily stress UM could
Speaker 1: really you know, it changes your brain chemistry. At nineteen
Speaker 1: years old, you're still growing. Uh. So you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of became hardwired for this stress and the stress reaction.
Speaker 1: So when I came home from Iraq the end to
Speaker 1: two thousand five, it was pretty clear to everybody in
Speaker 1: my personal life back home that something was off. You know,
Speaker 1: I was a little more jumpy, a little more aggressive, um,
Speaker 1: and I you know, was really uncomfortable and proud unless
Speaker 1: I was heavily sedated with alcohol. But to me, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just coming home and I was doing the
Speaker 1: same thing that everybody else was, Right, my perception of
Speaker 1: normal was was just that, you know, you get off work,
Speaker 1: you drink your face off, have fun and uh. You know,
Speaker 1: if Iraq tell teaches you one thing, it's that you
Speaker 1: could be dead tomorrow. So you know, let's make the
Speaker 1: most out of every day. Right. So, um, you know,
Speaker 1: despite the internal struggles that I was facing, uh, and
Speaker 1: I was kind of denial about any PTSD type stuff. UM,
Speaker 1: my career went really well. I was promoted to sergeant
Speaker 1: just over two years of service. I was I was
Speaker 1: well liked, you know, performed well on every test they
Speaker 1: ever put in front of me, whether it was physical
Speaker 1: or mental. Um. And uh, you know, I may not
Speaker 1: have enjoyed my experience in the army uh in an
Speaker 1: after Iraq. Um, but I did my job, you know,
Speaker 1: I was, I was good at it. That being said. Um,
Speaker 1: after my taste of Iraq, uh, you know, being motivated
Speaker 1: to go get the Taliban and al Qaeda and ending
Speaker 1: up in Iraq getting shot at by uh the Mahi
Speaker 1: militia um, which had nothing to do with nine eleven.
Speaker 1: You know, I was kind of um disillusioned with the
Speaker 1: military experience. So I just wanted to get the hell out.
Speaker 1: So my contract was due to be up in May
Speaker 1: of two thousand and seven, and you know, I kind
Speaker 1: of looked at that as the light at the end
Speaker 1: of the tunnel. At this point, you know, again I
Speaker 1: put on the uniform, I go to work, whether it's
Speaker 1: peak or you know, hanging out in the motor pool
Speaker 1: or you know, being a calm sergeant for the for
Speaker 1: the company. Uh. You know, I was performing. But as
Speaker 1: soon as I took off my my uniform and went home,
Speaker 1: and I was just getting trashed. And I was like
Speaker 1: a totally different person getting in fights ours and frankly,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm lucky I was never killed or arrested. And
Speaker 1: in January of two thousand seven, so just about four
Speaker 1: months before I'm supposed to get out, President Bush announces
Speaker 1: the troop Surgeon to Iraq. And what that did was
Speaker 1: it put stop loss orders for I think my entire division,
Speaker 1: third Instrue Division out of Fort Stewart, Georgia. And instead
Speaker 1: of get out of the army, as my contract was
Speaker 1: originally said, I was going to deploy to Iraq for
Speaker 1: I was expected to be a sixteen to eighteen month
Speaker 1: deployment um and attack on the extra ninety days. Uh,
Speaker 1: stabilization post deployment, I'm looking at have my three and
Speaker 1: a half year contract extended to about five and that
Speaker 1: that was kind of a straw that broke the camel's back. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I had been suffering from nightmares, in person
Speaker 1: relationships are a total mess, and drinking myself into oblivion.
Speaker 1: But then finding out I'm going back to Iraq, I
Speaker 1: just kind of lost it. And you know, what had
Speaker 1: already been some serious anxiety and depression and what I
Speaker 1: would later find out is post traumatic stress disorder just
Speaker 1: became completely overwhelming. So the night before what would have
Speaker 1: been my second deployment, I went out onto a field
Speaker 1: called Heroes Walk where they planted a tree for everyone
Speaker 1: from the Third Idea who's died. And I chose that
Speaker 1: place to try to take my life. And so he's
Speaker 1: felt like a cemetery to me. Um, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a memorial for the guy from my battalion who is
Speaker 1: the medic from my battalion who has killed uh, and
Speaker 1: it felt like the appropriate place to go. I'm twenty
Speaker 1: one at the time making these decisions to end my life. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: my roommate at the time, a guy Steve Atchison, who
Speaker 1: went to basic training with our whole career where you know,
Speaker 1: kind of we're in the same battalion, so we was
Speaker 1: stuck together. He recognized those those final signs and called
Speaker 1: the cops and they found me, brought me to the
Speaker 1: hospital and and you know, saved my life. So after that,
Speaker 1: you know, I went from kind of being like the
Speaker 1: golden boy to treated like a criminal. Um. My suicide
Speaker 1: attempt was not viewed as a symptom of post traumatic
Speaker 1: stress disorder. It was viewed as an excuse or a
Speaker 1: betrayal of my unit. So within three months, I received
Speaker 1: two counseling statements, one for malingering, which is a medical
Speaker 1: diagnosis that staff sergeant with a high school education is
Speaker 1: not qualified to diagnose one with. And the second article
Speaker 1: wasn't even an article fifteen counseling statement was for missing movement,
Speaker 1: meaning not getting on the plane. I didn't get on
Speaker 1: the plane because I was handcuffed to a gurney having
Speaker 1: charcoal shoved down my throat. So um. Three months later,
Speaker 1: those two counseling statements were the only black marks on
Speaker 1: my record. And that's all it took to get me
Speaker 1: out of the army. And I went from being sergeant
Speaker 1: Goldsmith to Chris uh living in my childhood bedroom, wondering
Speaker 1: what the hell I'm going to do with the rest
Speaker 1: of my life now. I received what's called the general discharge,
Speaker 1: which is a step below fully honorable discharge. And a
Speaker 1: lot of people think that there's honorable discharges and there's
Speaker 1: dishonorable discharges. Well, there's actually six different categories. You can
Speaker 1: only receive a dishonorable discharge or a bad conduct discharge
Speaker 1: as a result of being found guilty at a court martial.
Speaker 1: So you've got, you know, formal judicial proceedings where you
Speaker 1: have to defense evidence and all this stuff. Right. Um.
Speaker 1: The other four types of discharge are what we call
Speaker 1: administrative discharges. So it's basically like anything that your manager
Speaker 1: at McDonald's could do to you in terms of like
Speaker 1: getting you out of their employment is basically the way
Speaker 1: that these administrative discharges work, except the ones in the
Speaker 1: military carry a lifetime of consequences. So the honorable discharge
Speaker 1: is what you know, eighty five of veterans are getting. Um,
Speaker 1: then there's general discharges. That's what I got, and what
Speaker 1: that does it strips you of your g I bill,
Speaker 1: And below that is called the other than honorable or
Speaker 1: O th H discharge, and that even takes away your
Speaker 1: health care. Doesn't matter if you're uh, you know, if
Speaker 1: you've deployed twice, it doesn't matter if you know you
Speaker 1: you had four or five years of honorable service. UH.
Speaker 1: If you have a single infraction, that's enough to get
Speaker 1: you kicked out, that's that's it. No more v A
Speaker 1: for you, UM, at least under the old rules, and
Speaker 1: we'll get to how those have changed in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years. UM. And outside of that, there's the
Speaker 1: uncharacterized discharge, which is really only given to people who
Speaker 1: are or typically only given to people who are washing
Speaker 1: out of boot camp for basing training. So I ended
Speaker 1: up with the general discharge and the narrative of separation,
Speaker 1: which said misconduct serious offense. So rather than get out
Speaker 1: with a military history that I could use to find employment,
Speaker 1: I got out with the military history that looked like
Speaker 1: a criminal record. So, you know, should I apply for
Speaker 1: a job and they want to know what I've been
Speaker 1: up to for the last four years, I've either got
Speaker 1: a lie or if they want to see my records,
Speaker 1: I've got to go right into during a job interview,
Speaker 1: explaining away suicide attempt. So the military, the Army UM
Speaker 1: it basically imposed what amounted to a lifetime sentence on
Speaker 1: me for UM as punishment for surviving my suicide attempt.
Speaker 1: And this led me to feel absolutely alone and just devastated.
Speaker 1: But luckily I did qualify for the v A and
Speaker 1: I was able to get healthcare, and after about five
Speaker 1: years of intensive therapy, I kind of started getting out
Speaker 1: of that stuck feeling and moving forward with my life.
Speaker 1: And I've come to learn that I'm not alone. In fact,
Speaker 1: there are five five thousand veterans today who are living
Speaker 1: with other than honorable discharges, so the level below my
Speaker 1: own UM where they're typically denied healthcare when they go
Speaker 1: to the v A. AH. These general discharges, these administrative
Speaker 1: discharges are increasingly popular. Back in World War Two, they
Speaker 1: didn't really use them. Started using them during Vietnam. You
Speaker 1: get you know, draftees, guys who don't want to be
Speaker 1: in the military. It's a quick way to get them out,
Speaker 1: you know, so they don't have what uh you know,
Speaker 1: some officers in the military referred to as problem in
Speaker 1: children um and for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: they've become a really commonplace. Something like fifteen percent of
Speaker 1: Marines who left the Core in the year of two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven did so with bad paper. So what that
Speaker 1: says is, either we've got a terrible, terrible recruiting problem
Speaker 1: and recruiters are just you know, or having a fifteen
Speaker 1: percent failure rate and you know, putting people in the
Speaker 1: Core who are just terrible human beings, or the military
Speaker 1: is misusing these types of discharges and imposing life sentences
Speaker 1: on folks who um Instead of treating them like criminals,
Speaker 1: be more appropriate to treat them like patients and rehabilitate
Speaker 1: them so that, you know, hopefully in a lot of
Speaker 1: cases they can be retained, stay in the military, and
Speaker 1: continue to serve their country. So how did you come
Speaker 1: about creating this, you know, this advocacy program. So in
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve, UM I had I had finally
Speaker 1: gotten a job and I was pretty happy with it.
Speaker 1: Is like a blue collar thing, working with my hands.
Speaker 1: And then Hurricane Sandy happened and wiped out the shop
Speaker 1: that I was working in, all the tools, everything I
Speaker 1: had built, So I got laid off. UM and that's
Speaker 1: when I found out I qualified for vocational rehabilitation. So
Speaker 1: it's not an educate Asian program, right, you don't you
Speaker 1: don't get this from the v A and you're guaranteed
Speaker 1: to go to school. It's it is what you know
Speaker 1: the name implies. It's uh intended to make you, to
Speaker 1: help you move forward in life in a way that
Speaker 1: you are going to be gainfully employed and satisfied. It's
Speaker 1: going to rehabilitate you. So in addition to medical treatment, UM,
Speaker 1: I went to the v A, got a counselor, evoke
Speaker 1: rehab counselor, and determined that it would be a good
Speaker 1: path for me to you know, finally head off the school.
Speaker 1: Now with a general discharge, I wouldn't get the same
Speaker 1: benefits as the g I bill um so no living
Speaker 1: stipends to you know, pay my bills with, but it
Speaker 1: would pay tuition, which was a tremendous health and at
Speaker 1: my community college, I went from being the guy who
Speaker 1: you know, kind of sat down in class, hood up
Speaker 1: earbuds in and like you know, you know, did my
Speaker 1: work and got out of there to being elected as
Speaker 1: the president of my student Veterans Club, representing something like
Speaker 1: two fifty vets on campus. And that being immersed in
Speaker 1: this veteran community is something that I had been completely
Speaker 1: lacking as a result of my bad paper district. Couldn't
Speaker 1: join the American Legion or veterans and service Wars, veterans
Speaker 1: of foreign wars or anything like that at the time. Um.
Speaker 1: But once I got that sense of community back and
Speaker 1: the leadership position, which is you know, that's what I
Speaker 1: was as a sergeant, gave me a sense of purpose.
Speaker 1: And there I I came across a lawyer, UM who
Speaker 1: I told my story too, and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: jokingly goes, there ought to be a law and good
Speaker 1: thing is is um one of those guys who used
Speaker 1: to write laws. So he was a staffer for then
Speaker 1: Senator Carl Levin, who was at the time the chair
Speaker 1: of the Armed Services Committee. So Sky, this lawyer, Chuck Cutolo,
Speaker 1: gave me a crash course in advocacy in Lammy taught
Speaker 1: me how to um tell my story, come up with
Speaker 1: legislative solutions, meaning like laming stuff that lawmakers can do
Speaker 1: to improve the situation, and help me get a couple
Speaker 1: of suits and head down to d C. Within my
Speaker 1: first year, Within a year of my first trip of
Speaker 1: going down to d C. I got my first bill pass.
Speaker 1: It's called the Military Mental Health Review Board Improvement Act,
Speaker 1: which is a mouthful. I didn't pick the name UM.
Speaker 1: But what that did was it made sure that people
Speaker 1: like me who apply to h to have their discharge upgraded.
Speaker 1: If you're applying on the basis of PTSD or tb
Speaker 1: I or military sexual trauma as a mitigating factor, that
Speaker 1: there has to be qualified mental health professional who is
Speaker 1: on that review board who can review your records. Now,
Speaker 1: prior to getting into school, I had appealed my discharge.
Speaker 1: I went down to UM Crystal City, right outside Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Where the Army has got their Army Review
Speaker 1: Board agency, and I had an in person hearing, and
Speaker 1: luckily I had a lawyer who was helping me out
Speaker 1: pro bono, and that firm paid to fly in five
Speaker 1: guys who I served with, including the captain who I've
Speaker 1: directly reported to my fire support officer almost my entire career.
Speaker 1: And you know, it ends up being six guys who
Speaker 1: deployed together, you know, crying and sobbing about the ship
Speaker 1: we went through together, and uh, you know, talking about
Speaker 1: the changes that they saw in me and my and
Speaker 1: themselves between pre and post deployment. UM. And at that
Speaker 1: point I had had you know, four or five years
Speaker 1: of mental health treatment records that I submitted as evidence
Speaker 1: for PTSD. And the law was is that there needed
Speaker 1: to be a doctor who reviewed any medical records for
Speaker 1: the distrudge review Board. UM. So the Army complied with
Speaker 1: the law but not the intent and had a pediatrist,
Speaker 1: the foot doctor, look at my PTSD records, and that
Speaker 1: foot doctor determined that my head was in you know,
Speaker 1: I guess find space and determined that my diagnosis of
Speaker 1: PTSD could not be definitively attributed to my service in Iraq. UM.
Speaker 1: This foot doctor even suggested, well, you can get PTSD
Speaker 1: from other things, you know, maybe you were in a
Speaker 1: car accident or maybe you got raped, um, which is insane.
Speaker 1: So he's basically asking me to prove that I have
Speaker 1: never been in a car accident or raped m completely
Speaker 1: ignoring you know, hundreds of pages of documentation about my
Speaker 1: treatment related to my service and Iraq. So it's um.
Speaker 1: You know, what started high ground veteran's advocacy is getting
Speaker 1: screwed over and seeing it happened to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: So this wasn't something that you had ever planned on
Speaker 1: doing or you know, after the military. This was just
Speaker 1: kind of thrust on you exactly. Yeah. And when I
Speaker 1: when I first started going to school, I had these ideas,
Speaker 1: this idea of being a prosthetics engineer. Um, a good
Speaker 1: body of mine, who is a power lifter, who's who's
Speaker 1: escape plan from the army was too after his contract
Speaker 1: was was to become an underwear model. And maybe he
Speaker 1: could have done that, maybe not. But the guy was
Speaker 1: basically like the Hulk, and he he lost one of
Speaker 1: his hands. Um, and he you know, after being in
Speaker 1: a hospital for a few months. He um, they basically
Speaker 1: gave him a clamp to put on his arm and
Speaker 1: he's still powerlifting. He's uh. I mean, the demand's a beast. Um.
Speaker 1: But I thought, you know, after after this guy sacrificed
Speaker 1: all this for his you know, his country, his entire
Speaker 1: body is just scarred up, had holes all over him
Speaker 1: in addition to losing his hand, like they're just gonna
Speaker 1: give him a hook two to mess around with. Um.
Speaker 1: So I started school thinking I'm going to be a
Speaker 1: prosthetics engineer. I'm gonna work on, you know, building my
Speaker 1: buddy a better hand, hopefully, Um, then I learned that
Speaker 1: after I took chemistry and physics and pre COLC, I
Speaker 1: hated all of that stuff. Um you know, I had
Speaker 1: the grades, but I didn't enjoy it. But what I
Speaker 1: did enjoy it was going down to d C and um,
Speaker 1: you know, helping to shape a law that I hope
Speaker 1: is improving people's lives. And I took that first experience
Speaker 1: that taking these tips from this lawyer, and turned it
Speaker 1: into a program where I could teach other veterans how
Speaker 1: to tell their own stories. Um so in ways things
Speaker 1: that they've experienced, not just in military, but as veterans
Speaker 1: that are really a result of loopholes or oversights or
Speaker 1: abuses that are correctible. And um, what High Ground Veterans
Speaker 1: Advocacy has done is we create We've created a fellow
Speaker 1: ship program where veterans apply by writing a two page
Speaker 1: policy paper basically trying to convince me that not only
Speaker 1: can they identify a problem, but also that they can
Speaker 1: identify solutions. And I helped them with things like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, literally telling their story verbally to an audience,
Speaker 1: writing opinion pieces, um you know, even email etiquette basically
Speaker 1: the way that Washington d C works and it's that
Speaker 1: skill set is transferable to so many things. You know,
Speaker 1: I've I've done a lot of work on bad paper discharges,
Speaker 1: helping bets like me who were kicked out. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I said in the beginning, how that's with O, T
Speaker 1: H S or you know, typically told to take a
Speaker 1: hike if they go to the v A and their
Speaker 1: denied medical benefits. Well, that's not the situation anymore. You know.
Speaker 1: We got two years ago we passed the Honor Our
Speaker 1: Commitment Act, which ensured that any VET who has served
Speaker 1: in supportive combat who believes they have PTSD t b
Speaker 1: I military sexual trauma related condition can walk into the
Speaker 1: v A UH and get emergency treatment when necessary and
Speaker 1: a diagnosis and hopefully, um, you know, if they get
Speaker 1: a diagnosis, the v A will take care of it
Speaker 1: because it's a service connection service connected disability. Now, now
Speaker 1: with your program, are you having um some success making
Speaker 1: inroads into because I know Congress can be just a
Speaker 1: a nightmare trying to get anything past in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so. Congress is a is a funny thing. It's
Speaker 1: really difficult for an outsider to come into Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: And make a difference our our in training. Portion of
Speaker 1: our program them is only a week long, and they're
Speaker 1: only face to face with members of Congress and staff
Speaker 1: for three days and formal settings. We help them schedule
Speaker 1: meetings and that kind of thing. But I tell all
Speaker 1: my fellows that the most powerful thing in Washington is
Speaker 1: the cup or the glass in your hand. All of
Speaker 1: the good work that I've ever gotten done is over
Speaker 1: a coffee or a beer. So not only are we
Speaker 1: doing classroom instruction and and helping people schedule meetings and
Speaker 1: coaching them through how to propose a policy idea and
Speaker 1: convince someone that they should put their name on it too,
Speaker 1: U we have you know what in the military we
Speaker 1: called mandatory fund um where we uh, we set up
Speaker 1: an open bar and we invite you know, all of
Speaker 1: my friends in Washington and and their friends who work
Speaker 1: on the hill and veterans service organizations who work, you know,
Speaker 1: for congressional staff. Sometimes we're lucky enough to have a
Speaker 1: member of Congress come. And the deal is is that,
Speaker 1: you know, I give all my fellows raffle tickets. And
Speaker 1: the only way you can drink is if you have
Speaker 1: raffle tickets. The only way you can get a raffle
Speaker 1: ticket all of our guests is if you talk to
Speaker 1: our fellow and you trade a business card for the
Speaker 1: raffle ticket. So our mandatory fund becomes a crash course
Speaker 1: networking session where they're connecting with the people who actually
Speaker 1: you know, who know how to get laws passed and
Speaker 1: who you know, hopefully they find someone who's particularly interested
Speaker 1: in their topic. You know, we've and we don't do
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know, see the website, see
Speaker 1: my work and they think, oh, this is an organization
Speaker 1: that just helps veterans of bad paper, And no, that's
Speaker 1: that's my story. That's my narrative, and that's what I
Speaker 1: used to teach veterans how to tell their stories. Um.
Speaker 1: But my latest class, we had a woman who served
Speaker 1: in the army in the eighties, uh and has since
Speaker 1: become a midwife. Now, when I first met her, I
Speaker 1: didn't know the difference between a midwife and a doula,
Speaker 1: and I kind of thought this like it's this hippie thing,
Speaker 1: like given birth and bathtubs type of thing. Um, but
Speaker 1: mid midwiffery, it's not midwifeery. Midwiffery is a science, and
Speaker 1: that science shows that midwives basically act as advocates for
Speaker 1: expecting mothers and expectant mothers who have midwives coaching them
Speaker 1: through the process of of pregnancy and giving birth achieved
Speaker 1: better health outcomes than someone who, you know, someone who
Speaker 1: just has relationship with an O. B. G Yan. So
Speaker 1: her her idea was to increase access to midwives for
Speaker 1: active duty troops and veterans. Um. You know. So we've
Speaker 1: done everything from that to fix in loopholes in the
Speaker 1: g I bill, UM to employment programs. UM. It's it's
Speaker 1: been a deserved diverse set of of of fellows with
Speaker 1: the diverse set of stories and policy ideas, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm proud to say that they've been
Speaker 1: pretty damn effective. You know. It's I wanted to ask,
Speaker 1: is it hard to get the guys to talk about themselves?
Speaker 1: Because I know, like, if you give a military guy
Speaker 1: a task, say okay, I need you to get in
Speaker 1: front of five people and teach this. They'll get up
Speaker 1: there and they'll rehearse it and they'll do a tremendous job.
Speaker 1: You ask them to talk about themselves and they get
Speaker 1: tongue tied. So is that something that you have to
Speaker 1: work with each individual? Yeah? And you know, everybody's got
Speaker 1: different levels of experience and different levels of of comfort
Speaker 1: and confidence, and we, um, you know, try to build
Speaker 1: a program. And we only do small classes, so it's
Speaker 1: usually around three fellow poor fellows in a class at
Speaker 1: a time for a week, and we dedicate um uh
Speaker 1: you know, each each fellow is kind of getting their
Speaker 1: own program, and we use them to coach one another. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we're we assigned homework, right, so we the
Speaker 1: first day is kind of this is how Washington works,
Speaker 1: a crash course kind of thing. You know, let's let's
Speaker 1: write out some ideas on how you can write a
Speaker 1: policy paper. And at the end of the day, I'll say,
Speaker 1: all right, well, by nine am tomorrow morning, you guys
Speaker 1: have got to be back here and you all have
Speaker 1: to have finished policy papers. So they go home and
Speaker 1: they the study real quick and kind of figure out
Speaker 1: how they're going to draft this one pager. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you know, again the glasses come out, right. All good
Speaker 1: work in Washington happens over a beer or coffee, so
Speaker 1: they're neither caffeinating themselves or loosening up getting to know
Speaker 1: one another. And then the next day, you know, you've
Speaker 1: got that little bit of camaraderie. Um. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's nothing like you're going to get in basic training
Speaker 1: of a few months of being being together, but having
Speaker 1: a task that's difficult, that's out of your comfort zone. Um.
Speaker 1: And and can be in a way painful for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Because a lot of people are describing
Speaker 1: painful stories. You can draw people together really really quickly.
Speaker 1: So are fellows or not just getting this network of
Speaker 1: people who live and work in Washington work on policy,
Speaker 1: but they're also connecting with other vets who are really
Speaker 1: driven towards improving the lives of of their fellow vets.
Speaker 1: Uh and service members and families. So very quickly they
Speaker 1: get comfortable with one another. And after you know, we
Speaker 1: teach them how to do their elevator pitch and we
Speaker 1: you know, started two minutes and get it down a
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds. By the time they've told their story sixty
Speaker 1: times to one another, they can say it to anybody.
Speaker 1: And Uh, it's it's really cool watching vets who otherwise
Speaker 1: might have been clammed up about their personal experiences, UM,
Speaker 1: learn how to use those personal experiences to improve other
Speaker 1: people's lives. So you're getting like a bunch of different
Speaker 1: vets who are passionate about a pluthora basically of different
Speaker 1: you know, subjects. It's not just maybe one thing or another.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's across the board. You're getting guys who
Speaker 1: are interested in changing a lot of different things, sun't you. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's you know, it's not everything is Pentagon focused.
Speaker 1: Not everything is v A focused. You know, in in
Speaker 1: one class will we'll have someone who's focused on jobs
Speaker 1: and employment. And like I said, midwiffery, which I didn't
Speaker 1: even know how to pronounce until I don't neither. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's funny. My son was born with a midwife.
Speaker 1: When my wife went being pregnant, she had a midwife.
Speaker 1: But until you said that, I always thought it was midwifery.
Speaker 1: So now he's twenty two years old and I just
Speaker 1: learned something new today. So well there you go. And
Speaker 1: and that right there, so we get to know each
Speaker 1: other really well this week in person training, and that
Speaker 1: right there became her trip. So who's a registered nurse?
Speaker 1: She's not you know, some kippy who you know has
Speaker 1: people give birth and bathtubs. This woman babies but herself.
Speaker 1: And then stop counting because she's like, what the fox's
Speaker 1: the point after a while, so she hasn't even counted
Speaker 1: for a few years. Right, So we would get into
Speaker 1: a room and you know, you're sitting in front of
Speaker 1: members of Congress who are very confident. They run for office,
Speaker 1: they've won elections. You know, they think they know a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, and you know they've got Ivy League
Speaker 1: degrees and all these Rhodes scholars and all those they're
Speaker 1: very impressive. But when you get them to accidentally say
Speaker 1: midwifery and this uh, this army vet who has dedicated
Speaker 1: her life to midwiffery, you really knocked them down a
Speaker 1: notch and you get them to realize very quickly that
Speaker 1: they're not experts and everything, and it's time to listen
Speaker 1: to this uh, this nice woman right here, because she's
Speaker 1: going to teach you something. So yeah, so basically, you're
Speaker 1: taking a very small group. Then I didn't realize how
Speaker 1: small your groups are, and you're you're tailoring you know,
Speaker 1: your class and the adversary goals around each individual person.
Speaker 1: Then correct, Yeah, And what we do is we we
Speaker 1: shape the experience so that every single thing from the
Speaker 1: applications to the interview process, that the in person training
Speaker 1: to the you know, the to do list on how
Speaker 1: to get your idea to become a law. Everything is
Speaker 1: individually tailored. Um I would I would love to have
Speaker 1: classes of or thirty people doing this, you know, churning
Speaker 1: out tons and tons and veterans each year to do this.
Speaker 1: But um it's impossible. You know, we we are. Our
Speaker 1: version of training is so hyper tailored the individual fellows
Speaker 1: that it's it's really all about them, and I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to divide my time and attention into that
Speaker 1: many fellows. And now I started this nonprofit while as
Speaker 1: a time student, while it was full time working for
Speaker 1: Vietnam Veterans in America UM, a congressionally charged service organization.
Speaker 1: Life has changed a lot for me in I unfortunately
Speaker 1: got laid off due to COVID, but I also graduated.
Speaker 1: So I'm at a point in my life where I
Speaker 1: am hoping to to get the resources together two do
Speaker 1: multiple classes per year. My goal is to basically be
Speaker 1: the premier training program for veteran advocates in the country.
Speaker 1: There's nothing quite like it. You know, there are veteran
Speaker 1: service organizations that do UM do fellowships and do advocacy training,
Speaker 1: but it's usually restricted to a certain number of things,
Speaker 1: Like if you are doing the Student Veterans America and
Speaker 1: vfw's Partnership training, Uh, it's really student veteran focused, right,
Speaker 1: And uh, when you take the entire population of American
Speaker 1: vets million, well then you cut it down to, you know,
Speaker 1: people who have recently served. Well, now you're just talking
Speaker 1: about you know, a few million, and then you cut
Speaker 1: it down to those who have deployed overseas, because you
Speaker 1: have to have deployed overseas to me and VFW, Well
Speaker 1: you've cut that down, and then you have to be
Speaker 1: not only a recent VET who's deployed overseas, but you
Speaker 1: also have to be a student. Right. So now you've
Speaker 1: only got this tiny population who are even avail eligible
Speaker 1: for training. Right. And that's not to criticize their program,
Speaker 1: but they're doing something very specific to help their organization's
Speaker 1: mission drive forward, which is improving the lives of service members,
Speaker 1: protecting and strengthening the g I Bill. But our mission
Speaker 1: is more broad than that. It is strictly to train veterans.
Speaker 1: So we're not limited by subject matter or era or
Speaker 1: branch or whether or not you've deployed. And you know
Speaker 1: you are you building are you building relationships with veteran
Speaker 1: service organizations or military service organizations? And you know, because
Speaker 1: I think you know these things could go hand in hand,
Speaker 1: could they not? Absolutely? UM? So I used to work
Speaker 1: at until this COVID layoff thing. I used to work
Speaker 1: at a veteran service organization in DC on the policy
Speaker 1: team for the last four years. And Vietnam Veterans America
Speaker 1: has hosted our training it's it's been our training site
Speaker 1: their office for the last few years. Some of my
Speaker 1: fellows have gone on to UM like one Maureen Elias,
Speaker 1: was in my first class. She's become a board member
Speaker 1: of High Ground Veterans Advocacy and UH for a couple
Speaker 1: of years was my colleague of Vietnam Veterans America and
Speaker 1: now works for Paralyzed Veterans in America. UM. And we've got,
Speaker 1: you know, fellows who have gone back to their their
Speaker 1: home states and who have become local leaders in their
Speaker 1: veterans organizations. UM. And you know that the mandatory fund
Speaker 1: that I mentioned earlier, UM, you know that that keeps
Speaker 1: your group of friends UH quite large. So UH you
Speaker 1: know I bribed people to hang out with us. UM,
Speaker 1: you know, to make sure that our fellows networks are
Speaker 1: as as good as they possibly can be. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think this is uh, this is a really
Speaker 1: different way of helping veterans and especially I would think,
Speaker 1: and I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination,
Speaker 1: but just you know, reading a little bit about what
Speaker 1: you guys do and talking to you, I think this,
Speaker 1: you know, having something like this out there would really
Speaker 1: help a lot of guys in that transition period, you know,
Speaker 1: when they know that their time is getting short as well,
Speaker 1: because that's the time when a lot of guys realize
Speaker 1: that they have either an issue or a passion. You know. Um.
Speaker 1: Uh is this something that you can get expanded upon? Yeah? So, um.
Speaker 1: You know, the pandemic has made kind of a lot
Speaker 1: for us, right. We can't do in person training. You know,
Speaker 1: there's no way that we're flying people from around the
Speaker 1: country to come to d C going to have chances
Speaker 1: to shake hands with lawmakers and stuff. So we're in
Speaker 1: kind of holding the pattern at the moment, but moving forward. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, what I hope to do is give people
Speaker 1: the same opportunity that I found when I met that
Speaker 1: that lawyer at my community college. Um you know, take
Speaker 1: the uh, the anger, that the depression, anxiety, and focus
Speaker 1: it into a positive And that's what I've done with
Speaker 1: my anibacy, um, you know, and how I was driven
Speaker 1: to serve not just by a desire to know, serve
Speaker 1: my country and uniform, but also you know, I wanted
Speaker 1: vengeance for those New Yorkers who died on nine eleven
Speaker 1: and for my friends who lost people on that day. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: that anger, you know is uh, I think always going
Speaker 1: to be a part of me in some way, and
Speaker 1: in that anger, I've learned to channel it into all right,
Speaker 1: well you know, the Pentagon, the Army, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: kick me out and messed up my life for a
Speaker 1: few years. Well now I'm going to be a pain
Speaker 1: in the ass to the Pentagon for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. And that's what I've done. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: rather than have a podiatrists looking over medical records, oh
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a foot doctor. But your PTV, well,
Speaker 1: now they have to comply with the law that I
Speaker 1: helped to write. The Military Mental Health Review Board improvement
Speaker 1: makes it so it has to be a psychiatrist, psychologist,
Speaker 1: or someone with specific training and mental health. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's uh, we are all about taking
Speaker 1: those things that drive us as service members, as veterans,
Speaker 1: you know, whether that's a desire to serve your country
Speaker 1: or UM, you know, you wanna make some perceived bad
Speaker 1: guys have a bad day, We'll figure out a way
Speaker 1: to do it in a positive way. Uh, improving the
Speaker 1: lives of service members, veterans and their families and you know,
Speaker 1: protecting their benefits as well. And UH, I think that's
Speaker 1: this is this is something I hadn't heard of until
Speaker 1: we were introduced, and I think this is a great program.
Speaker 1: How can people apply to this? So they can go
Speaker 1: to high Ground Vets dot org and they can check
Speaker 1: out our website. They can actually look through all of
Speaker 1: our fellows UM, so they can see what each class
Speaker 1: looked like and what kind of missions they picked up
Speaker 1: and see you know that there's a very diverse crowd
Speaker 1: in there. You know, we don't have a stereotype that
Speaker 1: we're we're looking for UM and will will be opening
Speaker 1: up applications when we feel it's safe to resume our
Speaker 1: training in DC. So for now, the best thing that
Speaker 1: people can do is go to high Ground Vets dot
Speaker 1: org and sign up for our email list, and as
Speaker 1: soon as we open up applications again, they'll be among
Speaker 1: the first to know. That's awesome. Hey, Chris, I want
Speaker 1: to thank you for joining us this afternoon. I really appreciate, uh,
Speaker 1: you're taking the time and talking to us again. I
Speaker 1: mean I I hadn't heard of your organization until we
Speaker 1: were introduced. And you know, I think our listeners should
Speaker 1: definitely and our readers as well check out high Ground
Speaker 1: vets um check out the things that they're doing, because
Speaker 1: there's different ways of you know, protecting and expanding our
Speaker 1: benefits that we've all earned and sometimes we're not getting
Speaker 1: and uh, Chris is living proof of that. So UM,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes we need we need advocates to talk
Speaker 1: for us. I think I wish I had the advocate
Speaker 1: when I went to the medical board and at Walter
Speaker 1: Read after I got hurt own active duty. Um, things
Speaker 1: might have turned out a little bit better for me.
Speaker 1: But that's a story for another time. Chris, thank you
Speaker 1: again for joining us. We really appreciate your time and
Speaker 1: what you're doing for veterans all over the United States.
Speaker 1: Thank you, brother, Thanks, thank you for helping to get
Speaker 1: us out there. High Ground Vets is a you know,
Speaker 1: a small organization. Um you know, we don't have an office,
Speaker 1: basically runs out of wherever I am with my laptop.
Speaker 1: So it's it's really cool to get this kind of exposure.
Speaker 1: So we really appreciate you guys helping us. Let people
Speaker 1: know to go to high ground Vets dot org sign
Speaker 1: up for our email lists so that when we open
Speaker 1: up applications, they can uh, you know, apply for the program. Awesome,
Speaker 1: and especially on today in nine eleven, it's it makes
Speaker 1: it even more important that we take care of our
Speaker 1: own because there's so many people out there that need help.
Speaker 1: So we want to thank everyone for listening today. Thanking
Speaker 1: are obviously our guest Chris high Ground Vets obviously as
Speaker 1: well on a software radio on time on target again,
Speaker 1: check out the organization see if you can help. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's something that one of our listeners is interested in
Speaker 1: checking out and joining the program. We hope you know
Speaker 1: you all do that and Chris, all the best to
Speaker 1: you in the future. All right, thank you brother, have
Speaker 1: a great day YouTube. Love been listening to self Repadia