EFR 842: How to STOP Veteran Suicide and Fix the BIGGEST Problems When Transitioning from Military Service and with Jeremy Stalnecker

00:00 - Chase (Host) The following is an Operation Podcast production. Most of the main issues I had transitioning from active duty I still hear are the same issues. What is the biggest problem service members face transitioning out and why are we still talking about the same issues decades later?

00:18 - Jeremy (Guest) Very broadly, I believe it's an identity issue. It's crazy that the day you walk out the door, people stop calling you. I think what's different in the military is there's just such a stark contrast. The culture is different, the uniform is different, the language is different, everything's different. And then you walk out the door and that's all gone. It all comes down to check the boxes, move on, and once you're out, you're someone else's problem. That's why I encourage veterans to get to know other veterans who have already been through this process. That's why conversations like this are so important. No one told me that. Right, I think that's largely why we're seeing so many veteran suicides.

01:03 - Chase (Host) Is there anything we can do to prevent any more veteran suicides?

01:09 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah, my name is Jeremy Stalnicker. I am the CEO of the Mighty Oaks Foundation, former United States Marine, and this is Ever Forward Radio.

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04:02 Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome to a special bonus episode here on Ever Forward Radio. I had the pleasure of connecting recently with yet another service member, jeremy Stahlnecker, and so I wanted to share this bonus episode with you today, as we are still in Veterans Day week here in the United States, the week of November 11th 2024. And his story was just too good not to share. So if you want to check out more great military content, check yesterday's episode with GORUCK founder, jason McCarthy. But today I'm here with Jeremy Stalnaker. He is a United States Marine Corps infantry officer and Iraq veteran, has the Navy Commendation Medal with V for Combat Valor and co-founder of Mighty Oaks Foundation, this incredible organization helping service members transition from their careers back out into the world and helping their families and just really transition at its core. You're going to hear a lot of Jeremy's story. What got him interested in the military, his experience being deployed and his struggles really with transition again is kind of the theme here this week.

05:03 We unfortunately just do not have, in my opinion, proper procedures, policies, staff and a community around what it really takes to help these men and women go from military service back out into the world again, getting them plugged into community, letting them know that what they went through they're not alone, letting them know that they still have a support system or how to create their own. If you or a loved one has served, then this episode is for you. And if you feel like this episode hits home and you feel like there's somebody in your life maybe a service member or a transitioning service member that might be able to relate to this, it would mean the world to me if you would share this out with them and just let our military community know that we're here for them. And I think this episode is going to help a lot of veterans, a lot of active duty, a lot of lotty dotty anybody going in or coming out.

05:54 I know I've been out now for quite a few years and to hear so many service members still struggle with the things that they are struggling with that I struggle with it just tells me that the problem is far from being solved. And the more of us that come together and just know that we're not alone, I feel like hopefully we're going to lose far less service members to suicide, because I think a lot of people struggle in silence and just feel like nobody can relate. And I'm here to tell you that is 100% not true. Well, jeremy man, do you feel? You feel the key to an IQ powers kicking in? Yeah, I feel it settling on my brain. He's lying.

06:30 - Jeremy (Guest) It's too soon, but I'll know. But you'll know when I go, like Whoa, yeah.

06:35 - Chase (Host) What? Yeah, well, it's a pleasure to sit down with you on the show. Yeah, it's good to be with you. I actually it was funny the last time we spoke I was on the way here to the studio and I was at a stoplight. Yeah, on veteran avenue, and we're talking veterans, yeah, yeah, I was like man, this is just. This is wild. It's a cool synchronicity. So here we are, ever ford radio, and when this is going live we're going to be kind of getting into veterans day 2024, and you know, you're a former Marine or Marines, always a Marine right.

07:04 - Jeremy (Guest) You know that gets really confusing. So in 2003, I pushed my papers across the table. So whatever that means, yeah.

07:11 - Chase (Host) Former Marine, former army here, and what I'm really excited to dive into with you is just kind of really putting a very real, very current pulse on the situation of what it means to be a veteran in the United States in 2024. Because when did you ETS? When did you get out?

07:30 - Jeremy (Guest) Uh, 2003. And then I I was on uh. I was reservist for four more years after that, but 2003, effectively.

07:36 - Chase (Host) So a lot's changed since then. A lot, a lot has changed. But what I was going to say was a lot hasn't changed, and that is in terms of the transition part. So when you were getting out, I was just to say was a lot hasn't changed, and that is in terms of the transition part. So when you were getting out, I was just getting started, so, and then I ETS and oh, nine and the some of the main well, most of the main issues I had transitioning from active duty to civilian life, I still hear are the same issues 13, 14, I don't math. Good, 15 years later, what is the biggest problem service members face, transitioning out from active duty, from military service, to civilian life again, and why are we still talking about the same issues decades later?

08:16 - Jeremy (Guest) It's interesting. I think culture has changed a lot, even since 2003. And so what I would have said then is probably different than what I would say now. But very broadly, I believe it's an identity issue.

08:29 When someone is in the military, the whole system is set up. The entire system is about taking a young person and turning them into a soldier or turning them into a Marine or turning them into an airman, whatever the case may be and very intentionally creating an identity around the job that they do. And so if you're 18 years old, you're coming out of high school, you, you know, you're still developing, you're still maturing, and then you have people that you respect, people that are very intentional, push a new identity on you and then, for however long you're in the military, that's your identity. I am this job, I am the uniform, I am eventually the rank, I'm the, you know the bill that I have. That's who I am.

09:11 And then you leave the military and you find yourself in a world that doesn't understand that and a world that largely you don't understand. And yet your identity is still back there, because when you were 18, still developing emotionally and psychologically and all those things that are happening that's who you became and now you're in a world that doesn't get it and that you don't get it, and so somewhere between you know, like I said, pushing your papers across the table, you're done, and finding your way into a new career and relationships and all those things there's a gap and that gap it still remains. It's crazy you can find this in people who retire out of just businesses, just out of careers that their whole world is that thing. Now they don't have that thing anymore and they have no idea who they are.

09:58 - Chase (Host) Yeah, I want to dig deeper right there, please, because I do want to primarily speak to the service member in this episode but I think what is really going to help them the most, beyond kind of understanding you know they're not alone in this situation is speaking to the non-service members to ideally kind of help wrap their head around what we all go through. And so, if you could describe that a little bit more to the non-service member person, to help them really get into the psyche of, oh, this is what that is like and you're kind of on the trail there with, you know, a long career.

10:33 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah, I mean imagine spending, you know, 30 or more years. My mom worked for Allstate Insurance for 35 years. That was the only job she ever really knew. She was amazing at it, she promoted through it, she made a lot of money doing it and then she retired, I think four years ago, and it was interesting during that period of time after she retired. I love my mom. She's amazing, Super high IQ. But she would say things like I'm lost, Like I don't know what to do Right, and she's worked through that.

11:02 We've got a lot of family around us and so that's helped. But I'm in this world of helping veterans transition and I'm hearing from my mother, who worked for a corporation, large corporation the exact same thing that veterans are saying, and it was what do I do when I get up in the morning? I don't have anyone to report to, I don't have, um, you know, a focus of effort today. I don't have clients, I don't have, you know, a focus of effort today. I don't have clients, I don't have all these things. So what do I do? I don't have a mission, I don't have a mission. So then it, then it becomes very personal. It's like I don't have a mission. So not only what am I supposed to do, but who am I? I'm not that person anymore.

11:37 I had a conversation with a friend of mine. This has been a few years ago. You might remember Joe Dunford, general Joe Dunford. He was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs when President Trump first took office. So, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, right.

11:53 But go back to when I was in the Marine Corps. He was our regimental commander, so I knew him as the CEO of our regiment. But I knew a lot of people who knew him. One of my friends was an adjutant who worked with him later on in his career and he and I were talking. Me and this adjutant he said man, general Dunford, called me this week and they were talking.

12:12 They knew each other personally and General Joe Dunford, who, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was part of the initial invasion into Iraq, led really, you know the military through 20 years of war. He told my buddy who's an adjutant, it's crazy that the day you walk out the door, people stop calling you. He said I picked up my cell phone a couple of times the first couple of days I was out of the military and just looked at it thinking there's got to be something wrong. So whether you're in business, you built something and now you're not doing that anymore or in the military. I think what's different in the military is there's just such a stark contrast. The culture is different, the uniform is different, the language is different, everything's different, and then you walk out the door and that's all gone.

12:59 - Chase (Host) What you're talking about, I think, comes a lot later. Maybe I'm just speaking personally, but, like I said, I I got out in 2009 and it really wasn't until the last two to three years so around like 36, I began to really process that there was a day that I had a support system for everything, had a support system for everything, for finances, for insurance, for equipment, for housing, for food, for medical, for where do I go, when do I have to be there and what uniform, what clothing do I need to wear for this event and then, literally overnight, all of that is gone and I didn't realize how much that affected me. And when I talked to other transitioning service members, it's the same thing and I came to this realization that whether you enlist or whether you go commission, there are months, months of training and transition to get you from civilian to service member.

14:06 Now, I don't know how it is in the Marine Corps, but I can tell you in the Army my transition period was a couple of days of go here, go to the S3 shop, take this transition course, check this box. If you even do it, it's usually just hey, sarge, can you just sign my sheet? Let me go back to my rack here. So why is the military not putting anywhere close to the transition out time as they are to the transition in time?

14:36 - Jeremy (Guest) I will tell you, between 2003, when I checked out and it was what you described we came back from Iraq. I was part of the initial invasion into Iraq in March of 2003. We were there. The Battle of Baghdad was our battalion, so you know this huge kinetic environment that changed shortly after we left. We came home June 1st of 2003, landed at March Air Reserve Base in Southern California. July 1st I was out of the Marine Corps, so I'm leading Marines in combat. I was a captain when I left, so I'm leading Marines in combat.

15:10 And then, 30 days later, I'm completely out of the Marine Corps, and the transition at that time was you go to the admin shop. They sign off on your paperwork. There's a series of classes you're supposed to take, and everyone said hey, sir, you don't need to do that, let me just sign your paperwork. I was happy to not go to those classes and so there was nothing. There was no.

15:31 This is how the VA works. This is, you know. These are the benefits you have available to you. This is where you go for help if you need help. None of that was ever communicated to me. So communicated to me. So you know. 20 years later, 20, whatever it is 22 years later. I'm still trying to work through the VA because I just, I just never, never, tried to figure it out until I needed it Right. So I will say that those that I know that are transitioning now have a lot more inputs, a lot more terms of input, than they did in 2003. But the problem, I think fundamentally, is just humans. You put humans into it, you create a system that people are required to go through and for anyone that's been in the military, you understand the checklist that everyone has. A checklist is a checklist and you go through that check. There's no, it's not really about helping people transition, because the ones helping have never transitioned you, you have?

16:29 - Chase (Host) that just blew my mind. How have I never thought about that before? How can you have someone there in charge of transitioning service members that are still?

16:37 - Jeremy (Guest) serving. So you have someone a staff NCO probably, who was given the job of helping people transition out of the military. So they wake up every day, they have a roster and they need to get through that roster. They need to make sure that the service members who are transitioning hit all of those wickets. They have all of those boxes checked. Their job is managing this process. But whether or not anyone gets anything out of that process, whether or not it's meaningful or helpful, it doesn't matter to them, because their job is to push people through that process. That's how the military works and unfortunately you know military medicine, I think the VA largely or this processing, this transitioning process. It all comes down to check the boxes, move on and once you're out, you're someone else's problem and you hate to put it that way.

17:28 - Chase (Host) But I think that's what it comes down to. You want to hear something wild? I was in a little bit of a different situation because my last unit technically, I was in a medical hold unit I was in one In the Army we call them the warrior transition units and so I was at Brooke Army medical center for Sam Houston, texas, and so it was definitely a unique situation, and so my transition I'm sure in a lot of ways had some unique variables to it, but I share stories and it has a lot of similarities to other, just normal ETS service members. And one of the main transition places I had to go to, one of the shops, one of the check boxes I had to check was the transition specialist, was also the recruiter. Interesting, wow, that's interesting yeah.

18:15 So, imagine the person whose sole responsibility their their job in the military, and we have recruiters in corporate world as well. Their job is to acquire and retain personnel, and they're also supposed to help me transition out.

18:33 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah.

18:36 - Chase (Host) Interesting.

18:37 - Jeremy (Guest) Um and and and to your point, though. That's why I encourage veterans to get to know other veterans who have already been through this process. That's why I encourage veterans to get to know other veterans who have already been through this process. That's why conversations like this are so important, because the person who was assigned that job of helping you process they did what they're supposed to. Let's not throw rocks at them, but you need people who have already been through the process to help you get through it.

19:01 - Chase (Host) I would like to kind of maybe shift gears a little bit and let's say let's assume responsibility. Let's assume responsibility. I am a service member and I am about to. I am, or maybe recently have, transitioned out of the military. Take, I'm going to joke. It's like a joke in my head. Before this conversation I was like how long can I go before not referencing Jocko? Let's take extreme ownership here of our situation. Let's not rely on or assume that there is going to be a person or a department or a checklist that is going to adequately provide what we need for transition. If we take responsibility as a service member, what do you think that looks like so that we are properly transitioning and supporting this identity transition as much as possible?

19:55 - Jeremy (Guest) And I think that's really important.

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21:55 - Jeremy (Guest) The only way you're going to get the help that you need and benefit from whether it's the services or whatever that is available to you as a service member or veteran is by taking personal responsibility. So that's the first thing, and again this goes back to the military culture. We like to tell people to take personal responsibility, but there's very little personal responsibility taken in the military. Personal responsibility but there's very little personal responsibility taken in the military. You're told where to stand and how to stand there and how to move and where to go to and when to stop and when to get up and when to sit down, and somewhere along the way you have a little bit more responsibility, but not much, and so I think that's part of the problem.

22:32 Right Now, you're in this in-between world where no one is doing anything for you. So taking personal responsibility for yourself looks like connecting to local veteran service organizations. Every community has veteran service organizations. You can Google those, find them, connect to them, find your VA rep in your community, know what your state has to offer. You were talking about Texas earlier. Texas has so many opportunities for veterans.

23:01 - Chase (Host) They do yeah.

23:02 - Jeremy (Guest) Know what's available in your state, wherever you live. We're in California. A lot of opportunities for people in California as well.

23:06 - Chase (Host) I had no idea about this until I got out that the state the last state that you served in, as well as the state of your home of record offers you completely different benefits and services, especially when transitioning. No one told me that. I only found that out like a year or two later after digging into a laundry list of things that I overlooked.

23:26 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah, yeah, so figure that out. And thankfully today there are websites that you know make all those things available, so it's it's not hard to find those, but it's the personal responsibility part. You have to go out and look for them and then start to make yourself, start to avail yourself of those things. That's one thing, the personal responsibility, I'd say. On the other side, I feel those ketones kicking in.

23:50 - Chase (Host) It's about 10 to 15 minutes. I feel like I'm talking fast. Yeah, no, you're good. On the other side, the ketone moment, yeah, the ketone moment. On the other side, the ketone moment, yeah, the ketone moment.

23:57 - Jeremy (Guest) Stay away from the entitlement attitude, because I think that hurts as many people as not accepting responsibility. So accept responsibility. Figure out what's out there, apply for everything that you can, talk to everyone that you can. Get other veterans around you that have been through this process, people that have been out a little bit longer, ask a lot of questions. So stay humble in that process. But then don't feel entitled, because when you start to adopt this entitled well, they owe me kind of attitude. That's when you get angry, that's when you get frustrated, that's when you stop, that's when you throw your hands up in the air and it's very counterproductive.

24:33 - Chase (Host) Yeah, I would love to explore that more. Entitlement I think it's a harsh word to hear, yeah, but when you think about it, many of us, especially I think, if we advance beyond the rank of e4 or really any officer ranking, yeah, but once you kind of get out of, well, I know in the marine corps e4 is um nco right, yeah yeah, so for us army specialists, but we don't really start in leadership until we hit e5, which is a sergeant.

24:57 But there there does come this kind of of by proxy sense of entitlement, I think with rank. And that's because, literally, we walk into a room and by staring at your chest or your shoulders or your whatever, your lapel, I can tell the level of respect that I need to. Well, there's always respect, man. It's a poor choice of words. The level of attention to detail to what I need to well, there's always respect, man, it's a poor choice of words. The level of attention to detail to what I'm saying, even the positioning in which I need to stand, any other certain commands that I need to alert the room to.

25:27 If you're outranking me, right and just, I know that, even if I have no idea who you are, by what is on your chest or on your shoulders, I can either tell you what to do or you can tell me what to do Right. Right, I can either tell you what to do or you can tell me what to do Right, and that, if you boil it down in civilian ease, is kind of an automatic sense of entitlement. Yeah, and so that's kind of hard, I think, for a lot of people to first come to terms with but then let go of, especially in the transition component 100%.

25:55 - Jeremy (Guest) I transitioned out of the Marine Corps. Like I said, I was leading Marines in combat and then I took a job on a church staff. I became a member of a staff. I was just there to help and I wasn't pastoring, but I was on a church staff. It that way. But I almost got fired from my first job working at a church because I became so frustrated and so angry that people didn't know who I was or what I had done or the experiences that I had had, you know. And then I would hear about Marines that I served with who went back to Fallujah and the experiences they were having. I tried to talk to other people about that and they just didn't get it. That's a sense of entitlement, that's a sense of you need to respect me for what I did for you, right?

26:40 or whatever, and whereas we live in a country where people do respect those who've served I'm thankful that we do. This is a different day than the mid-'70s and late-'80s or early-'80s. We live in a great time. People do respect you for your service, but if you want them to do something for you simply because you served, um, you're hurting yourself because no one cares. At the end of the day, they're thankful you served. Hopefully they're thankful for the freedoms they enjoy because of the service member, but they've got their own lives, their own situations, their own issues they're trying to deal with. You have to advocate for yourself. You have to figure it out on your own, you have to work hard, you have to succeed, and that's what that extreme ownership really is about. It's not about saying you know you owe me because of. If you have something that's available to you because you serve, take advantage of it, but no one owes you anything. No one owes you anything. So work hard and, you know, earn your way into whatever spot it is you want to be.

27:41 - Chase (Host) Can you walk us through a better understanding of service? We've said that word a few times now and I think a better understanding of service could help us better understand entitlement. And I think this is where service members get tripped up. Because I served, and with that, just by stating that there's a little bit of entitlement, it's like sure you should know who I am, you should know what I did, you should be grateful and kind of making a generalization here. I'm not saying everybody does this, but I you know I'm raising my hand here. I struggle with a part of that and it's you know I no longer walk into a room and by looking at the patches on my uniform or the rank on my chest or whatever, like no one knows where I came from, what I did and the level of command that I possess or don't possess. And so service, like a fundamental principle of service, is to do without acknowledgement, Right, but yet we hold on to that acknowledgement, don't we?

28:39 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah, yes, I had this conversation the other day with a friend of mine who did not serve in the military and he was asking me about particularly special operations units who have a lot of notoriety. He's like why do some units have a lot more notoriety or people understand them better than others? We were talking about, like, the Navy SEALs, and we were talking about these military organizations that have had movies made about them and books written about them.

29:06 - Chase (Host) Green Berets, Delta Force, Marine Raiders.

29:08 - Jeremy (Guest) And you start to think about our heritage going back to World War II and even further, those folks who served at that time. I'm sure they served for all kinds of reasons, but a lot of those folks served literally because they thought, man, if I don't do this, who's going to do it? And then they came home and a lot of them struggled, but particularly that World War II generation came home and continued to serve. That's why we call them the greatest generation. They literally just went back to work. They built America. Yeah, because service to them. They were probably serving in their community before they went the. You know whoever it was that they viewed as the bad guys trying to take away this, this life that we have. They went to fight and then they just came home. They weren't trying to get anything out of it. They were trying to protect their communities and protect their country and protect the ideals and all of those. So when they came home, largely they went back and continued to serve and I think that's one of the things that's really changed.

30:07 You know you blame everything on social media right and on media and on marketing and these kind of things. But yeah, that unsung, I'm just here to serve. I'm here to do my part. I'm here to you know, to stand for things that are important and and live for a cause that's bigger than me Largely. That's been lost in our culture and I think that that's also been lost with a lot of the men and women who go into the military Again, broad generalization. I know some after 9-11 particularly went in to serve because they felt like we had been attacked. But yeah, a heart of service says I'm here to serve and then when you leave, I'll continue to serve.

30:44 I view leadership that way, and I've talked about this a lot. Leadership is not a position. Leadership is really a state of being. It's understanding that I have some things that other people in my life need and I'm going to leverage whatever I have my time, my talents, my treasure, opportunities, connections for their benefit. Well, if that's the kind of leader that you are, then it doesn't matter what uniform you're wearing or what job you're holding or what title you have on your desk. I can always do that. I can always use what I have for the better of others. I can always serve.

31:17 And when I think about pure service, it's exactly that it's. I served in the military and I'm not in the military anymore, so I'll find somewhere else to serve. I'll serve my family, I'll serve my community. When we talk to men and women who are struggling with trauma through our programs, I will, whenever I can, make the statement that, at a time in our nation's history where we are absolutely desperate for leadership, we have more than 20 million veterans, men and women who have served, who've learned how to lead, that are sitting on their couches and cursing the darkness. Well, why is that? Because we said we served, but then we left that and thought now people need to serve us and that's a real problem. That was a lot of words. I don't know where it all comes from or even how to fix it, but a pure understanding of services is, yeah, very important.

32:09 - Chase (Host) Do you think that true essence of service and in this conversation we're talking military service, sure Do you think that essence of service has become tainted, diluted, because we live in an era now where service is coupled with a myriad of benefits. And what comes to mind for me is you know, you mentioned World War II. You know the greatest generation. These men went to war and just came back.

32:42 And to my knowledge, there was no transition assistance program. You know, the Veterans Affairs, I think, was just really getting started at all. There was no. Oh hey, if I go serve I'm going to get some college benefits. I'm going to get an enlistment bonus. I'm going to get signup bonus. I'm going to get you know forgiveness, I'm going to get some college benefits. I'm going to get an enlistment bonus, I'm going to get signup bonus. I'm going to get you know forgiveness, I'm going to get you know college, all this stuff. And I'll be very honest.

33:04 So I enlisted in 03 and I knew I'm enlisting during a time of war and I knew that should that be called upon me, I would do it. That was like the exchange. But I also was coming from a family situation, a life situation where I wanted to go to college but we didn't have money and I also love the idea of family legacy and so that kind of influence that was probably like 60, 40, my influence. So my decision to serve was heavily influenced by the benefits of said service. Now, it doesn't mean I wasn't willing to do the same job that everybody else was doing. But I'll go back to my question. Do you think benefits and incentives are diluting the core of service in the military.

33:49 - Jeremy (Guest) So I'll say this and then people can be mad at me for saying it, but I believe that we have largely incentivized brokenness, and what I mean by that is those who have been broken because of their time in the military are incentivized to stay that way. A lot of the benefits associated with whether it's post-traumatic stress or any of these issues we could talk about those benefits only remain if that person who's receiving those benefits does not get healthy, if they stay broken, if they stay broken. And so you know, I've talked to a lot of veterans who will say you know, I'm turning a corner, this program has helped me. I see things differently. I realize I can still be engaged in the world, but if I go back to work or if I go and do that thing, then I lose my benefits, and that's a real quandary that we as a nation have put people in.

34:46 - Chase (Host) And again, I think and let's be very real here, if I could interject yeah, please. So by benefits we mean we have healthcare benefits, we have education benefits, we have financial benefits. Those are the three main categories that come to mind for me, but I know there are others. You know, through such organizations like Fisher House and Wounded Warrior Project, and you know they're like ancillary and satellite benefits that you, your family and even extended family members can get while in still that broken place.

35:14 - Jeremy (Guest) And I think you know, I think I'm not going to be a government conspiracy. They're trying to keep the veteran down. I think it comes from a good place. I think it comes from a place of saying we need to support those who have gone forward and done these things for us. I'm for that. I think it's wonderful, and, again, if you have the opportunity to take advantage of those benefits, I think you should.

35:35 But don't ever let the incentives or the benefits prevent you from fully being who you're supposed to be, who you were created to be, whether it's an employee or an employer, or a leader in your community, or a dad or a mom or whatever. Don't let some amount of money prevent you from fully being who you are supposed to be. And so there's that side of it, I think. On the other side, what that brings with it, then, is the entitlement attitude, and it's very hard to parse that out. So how do you deal with that? I think you say well, number one, I'm going to understand my gifting and I'm going to do that. That's at the top of the list. And then, if I can also take advantage of the other incentives or benefits, I'll do that too, but I'm not going to let anything keep me own ways.

36:26 - Chase (Host) The brokenness part of service the brokenness, part of realizing what you really just went through, of years of service, of hearing, seeing, being involved in the real evil in the world, regardless of where you stand politically or emotionally, spiritually, there's shit that happens and in this job you're the person responding to it. And it took me, I'd say, about like 13 years, 12, 13 years before the gravity, the reality of what I experienced. And I wasn't even boots on the ground, I was my injuries, my audience knows this, but like I was training for deployment to Afghanistan, suffered career, my career ending injuries in the war game, training, and then I got medically retired, uh, but before that I mean working, military intelligence and working support missions for central America, south America, mexico, human trafficking, sex trafficking. Working. My main role was assigned to Eastern Europe, russia.

37:47 I was an intelligence specialist and so you know we're the guys with ears and eyes on all the behind scenes things of the bad guys moving things in the background of the world, and I didn't realize really the gravity of what I saw, of what I heard, of talking with the guys and the men and the women coming back from said deployments, you know, and it was just another day in the office for me, Right, and now I'm realizing, like Chase, that's some pretty heavy shit, it's not normal. No, it's not normal. And it's definitely realizing, like Chase, that's some pretty heavy shit. Yeah, it's not normal.

38:21 - Jeremy (Guest) No.

38:21 - Chase (Host) It's not normal, and it's definitely not normal for 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23-year-old human being in such developmental years that we talked about in the beginning I think is something, unless it is so traumatic or you are so aware of it, at that transition moment you kind of think I made it through unscathed, and I did. I got out, I was still navigating, literally learning how to walk again, and so I had some physical issues to kind of work through. But then years later the mental stuff kind of came in and so we think we're fine, we think we made it through the brokenness, we think we don't relate to that broken veteran, that broken service member that needs to stay on disability or is is limiting their potential, consciously or subconsciously, because they're stuck in that broken place. But the brokenness can come back and the brokenness can come in forms and waves that you were not expecting at all. So how do we lean into that when we think we're not staying stuck in the broken place?

39:24 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah, man, there's a lot to that question. It's interesting. When I came home, so, as I mentioned, part of the initial invasion, so the first Marine infantry battalion to breach the berm between Kuwait and Iraq into the southern objective was was my battalion. I was navigating for our battalion, so I was the second vehicle through the breach, First KIA of the war. Lieutenant Shane Childers was one of our guys and people have asked me what's it like going into combat? When I went into combat in 2003, I think we had two or three Desert Storm veterans with us.

39:58 - Chase (Host) My dad was Desert Storm.

39:59 - Jeremy (Guest) So we had a couple of those guys, a couple of guys who had been in Somalia, but really we didn't have any combat veterans. So this was new to there's 1,200 Marines in our battalion.

40:08 - Chase (Host) This is new to everybody right.

40:09 - Jeremy (Guest) So you go in. We went in the middle of the night. You got rounds coming back your direction. You're beginning to engage human targets, which you've been told your entire life not to do. So the whole thing's like upside down right, you've been training for it, you do it and then you just move on. You never stop to think about it. We made our way up to Baghdad. The Battle of Baghdad on April 10th was our battalion. We were ambushed going into the city, had over 100 casualties. I mean it was a crazy, crazy thing that took place there. Two include civilians being killed and little kids being blown up by us. I mean this just just war stuff, right, casualties of war.

40:46 Casualties of war going into the city, collateral damage, which is, you know, even a demeaning phrase. These are real lives, real people just trying to get out of the way. They did nothing wrong, right, and so you're caught up in all of that. Okay, so then for me, my story. We left Baghdad, retrograded back, and then, 30 days later, I'm completely out of the Marine Corps, I'm living in a home with my wife and two little kids and working on a church staff. Could that?

41:15 - Chase (Host) be any more polar opposite.

41:17 - Jeremy (Guest) Moving on right and so, like the bottom fell out pretty quick, I was. I was a complete disaster at home, throwing things, screaming at people. My little kids didn't want to be around me. My wife should have left me. She didn't and we've been married, you know, almost 27 years and I'm thankful for that. But at that time she would have been better served to take the kids and go. Like I said, I almost got fired from that job, like everything fell out of my life because I thought that I was okay. I came home, I didn't get hurt. You know, there's that moment of transition where you're excited about the transition, but it didn't take long before everything changed. Whether you know it or not, those experiences change you and you know I don't love the word broken. I use it. I don't love it because it connotes that there's something wrong with you now, that you can't ever get better. But you're different. Viktor Frankl I don't know if you've read his book.

42:19 - Chase (Host) Mansions for Meaning incredible book.

42:21 - Jeremy (Guest) I love it. But he's the one who kind of coined the phrase that you know an abnormal or it's a normal response to an abnormal situation is entirely normal. That's how some people describe post-traumatic stress. Your response to the abnormal of military service is probably normal. That's how a normal person should respond to those kind of things. So you're not truly broken, but you are indeed different and if we fail to acknowledge that, which I did, you're going to have a very long, very difficult road of trying to understand the confusion around relationships and how you respond in otherwise benign situations, how stress impacts you versus how it impacts the people around you. For me you know my wife would say it took us about 10 years to work through that. But for me I had to come to a point about 10 years into that, eight years into that, where I realized like, oh, I'm not different than these other people who have served. I'm just different than the rest of the world, right, but this is normal. How I feel is normal. How I feel is not unusual. It's not helpful all the time, but it's not unusual.

43:36 You have to acknowledge it and then surround yourself with positive people, not the ones who kind of wear that brokenness as a badge of honor, but positive people who have been through it, who have been able to chart a course forward. Surround yourself with those people, learn from them, stay humble enough to acknowledge man, I have problems and I need people who can help me to move forward in spite of those problems. Identify when those issues present themselves. Don't self-medicate, don't try to deaden the pain or take away the memories. Lean into it, but lean into it in a way that helps to make you better. My experience and I think what you're communicating as well, your experience is if you just push it off, eventually it's going to catch up with you. Absolutely it does.

44:25 60% of veteran suicides, which is another topic, but 60% are veterans who are 50 years old or older. Well, what's the reason for that? Probably a lot of reasons, but I think one of the big reasons is because people leave the military. They struggle for a long time and eventually say I just can't do this anymore, reach that tipping point. Yeah, and that's exactly to your point.

44:47 Whereas if we'll say, look, I served, I'm going to be different, let me develop or lean into the community that I have, or develop that community around me to the community that I have or develop that community around me. Let me learn about trauma. Let me learn about these issues that now are well-documented. Let me talk to people who've been through this. Let me have some people on speed dial that I can call when I'm struggling, when I'm having a bad day. Let me stay away from situations that make this worse for me. Your healing curve, if you will is is so much shorter if you'll just lean into it and realize like, yeah, I'm not. I'm not the same person I was before all this.

45:27 - Chase (Host) Beautiful statement.

45:29 I love that, thank you, and it makes me think of a unique position we can find ourselves more specifically, our community, our loved ones, our family can find themselves in when they are now in relationship, working with their, in proximity to someone that is having things come up now that they can't relate to an aspect that they weren't together when they served.

45:57 They can't relate to an aspect that they weren't together when they served. Case in point this year for me, I've had a lot, a lot come back in terms of PTSD and military memories and anxiety and just the worst mental health year of my life that a lot is coming back from my time in service and a lot of things that happen and memories and just things that I didn't realize I was suppressing, both in my soldier life and my civilian life. And my wife now we've been together almost 12 years but she only knows civilian chase so she met me several years after I got out of the army and so now it's almost like I have to paint the scene, translate, describe a lot of things before even getting into. Hey, here's what I need help with. Yeah, how do you think people like her, how do you think people that are married to working with, in proximity to someone that is going through this stuff now that they were not with them then, because that's gotta be even more difficult.

47:03 - Jeremy (Guest) No, yeah, um, yeah, I think it's. It's incredibly more difficult. I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but, um, it's a whole different ball game. It's a whole different ball game. They have zero context.

47:15 My wife and I were married when I was in college. When we were in college, and so my entire journey in the Marine Corps she was with me from. You know, when I went to officer candidate school, you know we were dating. We were married before I went to my first schools and then my you know everything. I was a part of all my training, everything. She was there for it, and so when I started to struggle, she had a lot of context for that. She knew who I was before, she knew what I had been through, what I experienced, and she knew who to reach out to because she was already plugged into that community.

47:49 For someone who and this is this is often the case, particularly people going to the military younger they get out and several years before they're in a serious relationship, yeah, the person they marry or that is involved in that relationship won't have the context or the ability to help them, and it will be a surprise and things come up that you know they didn't anticipate happening. There are a couple aspects to it, I think. One is the service member. As long as you're working toward healing and working toward getting help and not making excuses for your bad behavior, this is not where I want to live. This is not. I know this is not okay, but this is where I am, well then the people who love you have a lot of grace toward that. Okay, I get it. Where service members have a problem is when they start to try to communicate to the people who now say they love them that I am this way because of what happened to me and you're just going to have to deal with it. This is who I am right. It's that.

48:47 - Chase (Host) Back to the entitlement of service.

48:48 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah, it's the entitlement of service, it's the broken veteran thing, it's the you know, wearing the t-shirt that says you know, veteran PTSD, I could explode at any time, right. Shirt that says you know, veteran of PTSD, I could explode at any time. Right, it's that attitude. If you have that attitude, then the people that love you and want to help you will eventually leave because there's nothing they can do. You're now taking that mess and dumping it on them and saying you know this is your mess now and you just need to live with it and accept it. But if you're really trying, right, so let's say that person is really man. I don't love this. It comes from time to time. I'm trying to work through it.

49:25 There's a lot of grace. I think the steps would be different for every person. Every significant other is wired a little bit different. But again, get in a community of people that understand. Find some older, we'll say, spouses, in this case, some older spouses who did walk through that with their service member spouse and who can help you get the context that you need and help you to understand that. Surround yourself with the right people.

49:52 This can be difficult if you live in, you know, nebraska or wherever right, like there's not a community of those people around, but there are a lot of spouse support groups or a lot of organizations that can help with that. So that's number one, um. And then number two is just being very clear with your spouse about what they need, um, what you could do to help maybe relieve some of the tension, what you want or what they want you to do when they're having a hard time. Do you want me to lean into that? Do you want me to step back? Do you want me to reach out to your family and bring them in? Do you have friends that I can bring in? Of course we're going to build an SOP.

50:29 Build an SOP right, but I think it's important, because there's so much confusion around that I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do and so it becomes very frustrating. Um, some people like to be, you know, come sit with me, come, come spend time with me. Other people, you know, need to be left alone. Or hey, I love you. But it would be better if you know my friends, someone I serve with, if you could reach out to them. Some people you reach out to a friend and tell them your spouse is having a problem. That's, that's going to be another fight you're gonna have to deal with. So, when you're in a good space, I think is the right time to decide those things and to figure those things out and then just to walk through it.

51:05 There's not a clean answer because it's just, it's tough. It is so personalized. It is so personalized when you really love someone. You want to do whatever you can to help them. Just don't assume you know what that is. Talk to them, talk to other people, gather resources and really help them through that. And then there's the other aspect of don't become a caregiver. What do you mean by that? Be willing to give care, but don't take that identity on yourself. You are an individual. You have wants and needs and desires and you love, so you give care, but don't let that become the end-all and be-all of who you are. Your spouse doesn't need a mom. Your spouse doesn't need a dad. They need a partner who cares for them and can help them move forward in that, and you have to be whole in order for that to happen as well.

51:57 - Chase (Host) I want to get into next kind of your area of of specialty, and that's the community aspect and providing the support. But I just want to kind of drive home one more point and that I think that the best thing I ever did to help my identity, to help my remote understanding beginning of understanding of what I went through and just allowing those memories and emotions and things to come back so that I can put myself on a path to healing was I. I let the right person in, I lowered that gate for my wife. We were not even, we weren't even engaged yet at this time. But that's when kind of like the peak of this stuff started and I had my first panic attack in her presence and she was just like what's happening, what are you not telling me?

52:48 And I made a very distinct choice at that moment of it's interesting, because at the moment I realized that I cared more about this affecting my relationship with her than I did it affecting my own life, and so the fear of not letting her in, the fear of this being the reason why she doesn't stay with me, was more of a driving force to let her in and to begin to get help. Then I even cared about myself actually getting help at that time, and so I I hope that you know, take a moment, think about if anyone is listening. You're kind of, you know, connecting to this. Is there that person in your life? Yeah, Let the guard down, let them in. And if there isn't, make that your next mission. Find that one trusted resource, a friend, a colleague, a family member, a service member, your spouse, anybody find someone, choose to let them in and work on letting them in.

53:45 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah, Isolation absolutely destroys people and I think, as service members particularly service members who are struggling we tend to lean into isolation, and you have to have people who can speak truth into your life. And I would say, kind of to dovetail with what you said, if you're married, your spouse needs to be one of the people that has access to you, for sure, but you need to have someone else as well. You can't put that all on them and that goes back to they need to be whole so that they can help you. It's a partnership, it's a relationship, and so I've seen so many veterans who their friend, their one friend, is their wife. Their one friend, the one person they depend on, is their spouse. And so everything is about how hurt I am and you need to help me get through it. If you don't have someone else and I would recommend several someone's else, someone else's you know more people.

54:50 Your relationship is not all that it needs to be and, man, that's so important. If you're married to a good person, you have a good person in your life they will literally destroy themselves trying to help you. We'll know that and don't want that for them. Now you need to let them in. That doesn't mean shut them out. It doesn't mean this is my problem and not yours. I'm not saying that at all. You're exactly right. You need to let them in. You just need to have some other people that you let in as well. Yeah.

55:21 - Chase (Host) So let's talk about that, because I know this is a big part of your work and your mission over the last several years now. So what does a conducive to healing, healthy community support system look like for a transition service member?

55:36 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah.

55:37 - Chase (Host) What do you see working well for you and what you do, and what has been the biggest? Oh no, this does not serve us Interesting.

55:46 - Jeremy (Guest) Well, so I'll tell you what we do, and we're a faith-based organization, so we come from that position, and so what that means for me, for us, is we're not clinical. That's one of the big things it means. So it's not medication and it's not. You know a lot of the clinical therapies, and what we communicate to the people that come through our program is that we believe you were created. Creation comes with purpose and meaning. With purpose and meaning, there's hope, and so, in spite of what may have happened to you, what's going on in your past, there is always a path forward. You need to lean into that. There is always hope. There's always purpose. There was design. Your identity can be wrapped up in what's in front of you, not what's behind you, and so that's fundamentally, that's our foundation. But how we do that is, you know, to your point, it's community. It is. We have week-long programs where we'll bring is to your point, is community. We have week-long programs where we'll bring veterans, active duty service members, also first responders, to one of the locations that we have across the country. They spend five days with us. It's not clinical. So what that means is everyone who instructs in our program, everyone who leads in our program came through as a student. They don't have it all figured out, but they're in a room with other people of shared background, similar starting points, similar. You know pain and hurt and traumas. So you're all in this kind of together and the person who's standing in front of the classroom isn't an expert, but there are a few steps further down the road than the student, if we can use that term. And so they say something like look, I don't have it all figured out, but I know where you are because I've been there. I've experienced a lot of the same things you've experienced and I want to help you continue to take those steps forward. So it becomes very much a peer-to-peer, eyeball-to-eyeball situation and to me that is the most powerful thing that we do is have someone stand up in front of a group of hurting, confused, sometimes angry people, tell their story of hurt, brokenness, confusion and anger and talk about how they begin to put the pieces in place to continue to build their life as they move forward. And so it's very, very much community, it's very much we're supporting each other through this and, whether you were, we've had Vietnam veterans come through our program, we had a Korean War veteran come through our program and then you know everything since then a lot of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. It doesn't matter.

58:14 The common ground is we're humans that served in the military, so we have some unique challenges. We've had some unique experiences, some unique hurts. Often it's not related to military. It's often related to sexual trauma as a child or something that was brought into the military. So we have the same brokenness and the same hurts.

58:32 But there's hope because you're like me and you've experienced that same stuff and you've figured out how to move forward and you're putting some relationships back together. You're dealing with the aftermath of addiction and some bad decisions and there is a way. There is a way Because we all feel like our experience is unique to us. No one else has ever experienced this. When you're in a room full of people who have a similar background, there's a light bulb that comes on and it's very enriching, it's very empowering, it's so hope-giving and, um man, for us that's powerful. So that's that. Five days, right, they spend five days with us, and on the other side of that then we say we'll walk this out with you as long as you'll let us. And, uh, staying in contact is staying in community, and one of the things that we teach is you need to have a community, so identify who that is. We have a process that we walk people through to identify who that community is. Where are you going back to? Who's your community?

59:27 - Chase (Host) So it's not just your community, not just our community, but a community back home. Okay, great.

59:29 - Jeremy (Guest) You know, often a church community or a veteran community back home or something. So who is the person in your life? It could be people, but the person in your life, uh, we call it a corner man. It's good imagery you know who's in your corner. That that, first of all, knows they're in your corner. So this isn't just somebody you put down on a piece of paper. This is someone that knows hey, they may reach out to me and you have given them permission to speak truth into your life. We might use the word mentor.

01:00:00 It's like a sponsor and kind of like yeah, kind of um, probably not as structured as that, but it's a person who, who is close enough to you that they care about your situation personally, um, but maybe they're not as emotionally invested in your situation. So they're going to speak the truth to you. They're not worried about hurting your feelings. They care about you but they're going to speak the truth. But they know that if your number comes up on their phone in the middle of the night, there's a reason you're calling and so they're going to answer that and help you through that. So you have a community of people that you're in. And then you have a person that you can also reach out to.

01:00:42 Um, if you have struggled with alcohol or some kind of other addiction, um, maybe you've struggled with merit, your marriage relationship. You know you've got three or four specific areas. Maybe there are different people that you reach out to that are a little further along in that than you are, but those people know it and they can help you. So the community part of it is huge for us. We lead with story, we lead with testimony. That gets everyone in the same kind of community. Right, we're all the same here. There is a path forward. I can demonstrate that with my own life. And then the question of who are you going to call when you start to struggle? Because you're going to struggle. So that's what we do, and it's worked.

01:01:24 I mean we've had nearly 6,000 people come through our program. That's incredible man, and so it's been amazing that works. What's not working? What's not working is medication. I mean, if I had to pick one thing, it's over-medicating these problems. You can't get better if you're dead to the pain of whatever caused the problem, and that's, you know, medication. We have folks who come to our program that are on more than 20 medications a day. I mean that's insane.

01:01:49 In addition to whatever else they're medicating with, there's no way you can think clearly enough to process you know what you're describing those feelings that come up, and you have to be able to deal with that. You have to be able to process what you're describing, those feelings that come up, and you have to be able to deal with that. You have to be able to process that and acknowledge it. Otherwise you're deadening the pain and what ends up happening is you deaden the pain so much. You don't care about relationships, and so you lose them. You don't care about your life at some point, and so you may lose that. Medication is helpful as a tool. It's helpful as a bridge to get you to a place where you can heal. Sometimes you need medication. I'm not against it, but medicating away your problems and there being no end game. This is just what we're going to do now. It's not helpful at all. I think that's largely why we're seeing so many veteran suicides.

01:02:37 - Chase (Host) That's actually exactly what I wanted to bring up next with you. Two of the closest relationships, brothers, that I had during my time in the army. Both took their own lives. Yeah, terrible. And I'll never forget getting the phone calls from my other friends telling me Dice is gone, sure, downs is gone, sure. And immediately I went to this place, and I think a lot of us, unfortunately. Maybe, if you've been on the receiving end of the phone call, you go to that place of why didn't I see this? Yeah, what could I have done? Yeah, is there anything we can do to prevent any more veteran suicides? What do we need to be on the lookout for? Yeah, any more veteran suicides. What do we need to be on the lookout for? What can we realistically, tangibly, consistently, sustainably?

01:03:25 - Jeremy (Guest) do? Yeah Well, there's a lot to that. We wrote a little book on suicide, called Not the Solution, that someone could go to our website and download for free, and so we have a lot of suggestions in there. Let me talk about a couple of things. One I think we're looking at the issue of veteran suicide from the wrong end.

01:03:46 We look at it often from prevention, as in trying to prevent someone from hurting themselves. So let's lock up the guns, let's make sure they're not in a room alone or whatever. Yeah, mitigate that risk. Mitigate the risk right Now. Sometimes that has to happen, but that's where almost 100% of our focus is. Really, if we'd focus on the actual problem, which I would identify as identity and purpose, if you have a clear understanding of who you are, this is who I am. Outside of the military, I did that thing, but this is who I am now. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a you know, whatever. This is who I am. And purpose. This is why I'm here. This is who I am. This is why I'm here. If a person is clear on who they are and why they're here, then the chances of them hurting themselves dramatically decrease.

01:04:44 So, instead of us focusing on let's keep the guns away why don't we focus on making sure that someone who's transitioned out of the military, someone who's struggling we know they're struggling that they're clear on those two things. Who are you? Why are you here? What are you accomplishing? What are you engagedishing? What are you engaged in? This thing goes back to isolation. So if you see someone that you care about isolating, they're not answering phone calls, they're spending a lot of time by themselves. You know all the standard stuff. Engage with them. Ask them if they think about hurting themselves. You were afraid to ask that question. Don't be afraid to ask that question. Take it out of the dark and bring it into the light. Do you ever think about hurting yourself? I love you, I care about you. I want to know that. What if they're lying? How do we know if?

01:05:24 - Chase (Host) they're lying.

01:05:25 - Jeremy (Guest) You can't know if someone's lying, but you can watch their behavior. You can see again that they're isolating, that they're doing things that are contrary to what you know of them to be true. You know they're who they were before. They're not acting like that anymore.

01:05:41 - Chase (Host) Do you think more veterans would appreciate being asked that question if they have been thinking about hurting themselves, Is that kind of like a you know a little bit of a lifeline, Just like, hey, someone actually does care.

01:05:53 - Jeremy (Guest) I think we, we think that's going to put the idea in their minds. Um, I don't think it puts the idea in anyone's minds. I think it pulls that idea out of their brain and into the light. They may be lying about it, they may lie about it, but even the fact that you are highlighting it, you're talking about it, lets them know. People are seeing it and people are talking about it.

01:06:12 Okay, so you say you're not thinking about hurting yourself. Man, you're spending all this time alone. I can tell you're hurting. What can I do to help you? And just being there, being present and being engaged with people. The challenge is for most of us, we have friends that we've had and then we go on and do our own thing and we're not with them every day, and so it gets really hard. For sure, you can only be as engaged with someone as they're willing to allow you to be engaged. But we need to be very intentional about that and asking those kind of questions hey, I can tell you're hurting. What can I do to help you? Do you want to spend some time around people? There are some great programs. There are some good opportunities. They're not all clinical. This is one of the things we say with our program is you go to a ranch.

01:06:54 - Chase (Host) It's not the VA.

01:07:00 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah, it's not the VA. You go to a ranch, you eat good, you're around other veterans why don't you go do that? But then really focusing on those areas of identity and purpose, If they're consistently talking about what they did and who they were and those kind of things, those are warning signs to me. Again, there are a lot of things in those books, in the, in that book that, that outlined that. But just being present with people and being engaged with people, um, and helping them fully be who they're supposed to be, you know you know, identity and purpose are definitely the theme of our conversation today.

01:07:32 - Chase (Host) And to kind of bring it all back to that, I think and again this is just kind of reflection on my own journey, by no means am I an expert in- what to do and how to do it.

01:07:46 But when I have been faced with all this stuff and I'm choosing to face it and to no longer suppress anything, no matter how great or ungreat it is I think if I could go back and tell myself to do anything, no matter how great or ungreat it is, I think if I could go back and tell myself to do anything differently to contribute to a clearer identity and purpose outside of PFC tuning, specials tuning, sergeant tuning staff, sergeant tuning wherever I was in my journey in the military, it would be to just know that that there is an identity and is a purpose outside of that rank outside of that uniform outside of that base and to fan that flame.

01:08:33 To explore interests outside of the mission, to explore community outside of base. Like quit being a barracks rat. Like leave fucking base. Like go go find a community, go find people that are not service members, go find interests, you know. See maybe what you can. What other areas can you, you know, max out in besides your physical fitness test or marksmanship? You know, just try other things. I think, especially if you're serving, you know, for years on end, that just gets lost. And so I would really hope and I would love to get your input on this is to drive home the fact that do not lose your personal identity and personal purpose and mission just because you put on a uniform every day and are told what to do and told your purpose and told your mission.

01:09:26 - Jeremy (Guest) That goes back to your ownership idea. Right Is, and you know this should have been said when we were talking about transition specifically. But what can I do to be prepared to transition? It's exactly that. Don't be surprised when you're not doing that job anymore. There will come a day.

01:09:41 - Chase (Host) There will come a day, whether by choice, or injury or retirement, there will be a day when you do not put on the uniform.

01:09:48 - Jeremy (Guest) So are you taking advantage of the free education that you can get? Are you making those connections? You want to be whatever when you get home? Are you setting that up now? This goes back to the entitlement thing. Don't expect people to just roll out the red carpet for you when you get there. They want to help you, but you need to help them help you. So start doing that before you leave the military. I didn't do any of that. A lot of other people that I know who have struggled never did any of that and so, yeah, that's huge. Build your community before you're out of the military. Have whatever your community looks like. I know a lot of people in the jujitsu community. Build that out. Have a place to land.

01:10:26 If that's what you enjoy and those are your people. Then let those be your people. Maybe it's a church community, maybe it's something else. Don't be alone when you walk out of those gates for the last time, off base. You don't have to be so yeah, that's exactly right. And set yourself up for transition and then realize you know and this is back to you know how do we know? I don't know if we can know, but for the person that's struggling man, you have to understand that if you're serving other people, you're getting out of your head. If you're investing in other people, that's your purpose right now. What's my purpose? I don't know, but it's not sitting there worrying about your purpose. Go find somebody to serve. Go find somebody to take care of.

01:11:11 In my darkest days when I have thought, you know, my life would be better or my family would be better, the world would be better without me and I've had those days I think about my kids. I think about the investment that I can have in their lives. I have a 24-year-old daughter who's doing great. I have a 24-year-old daughter who's doing great. I have a 23-year-old son who's a police officer. I have a 16-year-old daughter. I have a 15-year-old son. They need me. Kids are 33% more likely to take their own lives if a parent has done it 33%. My kids need me. They're not going to be better off without me. So what do I do? What's my purpose? Well, if I can't identify something else, how about investing in their lives and helping them get to wherever they need to be? And we could say that.

01:11:54 Maybe you're single, maybe you don't have kids or a family. There's someone that needs you to be the best you can possibly be. They need that from you. And once you are able to get out of your head and do that, maybe it's podcasting and telling stories like this, maybe it's I don't know serving somewhere in a community. Maybe, because of your benefits, you can't draw a paycheck. Well, find somewhere to serve. Again, back to the service conversation. That's the best thing you can do for yourself and, you know, for the rest of us watching this happen. We need to encourage that. Yeah, you're amazing, go serve. Let me help you find a place. Let's do that.

01:12:34 - Chase (Host) A dream situation for me. An ideal situation for me would be that whatever branch of the military you're choosing to go into has equal portions commitment to training you for transitioning out as you transition in, as they do all the transitioning and stuff. Maybe that doesn't look like Army. Last I checked were like three months boot camp.

01:12:57 Maybe you don't have a three month boot camp to prepare you on the way out. But I think and I'll stand by this I think one of the best ways the Department of Defense could prepare any transitioning civilian to service member is to incorporate curriculum and to incorporate just a checkbox at least that, hey, you are signing up to put on this uniform and to serve this country and to do this job in this capacity at the highest capacity humanly possible. But know this, as there's a day coming that you're putting on this uniform, there will come a day that you will not put on this uniform and you need to begin to think about that now.

01:13:33 - Jeremy (Guest) Right, yeah, 100%. And I think that comes back to military leadership. And if the leadership was better about that. Coming from the infantry community, you know, when I was an infantry unit leader, I didn't care about the future of any of those Marines. I mean, it wasn't that I didn't care about them as humans or something, but what they did when they left was of zero concern to me and them having an opportunity to transition didn't mean anything to me.

01:14:02 I would have probably said well, you have the VA benefits and you have the GI Bill and so you can go to college and so that's where you'll learn it, and a lot of them never make it that far, or they get you know two classes in and go. I don't know how to relate to these people. I don't know how to study. I don't know how to do any of these things. If, if, military leadership would take responsibility for helping those folks transition, realizing that they're more than just an asset to be used and thrown away.

01:14:28 We used to say that the big green machine continues to roll, and it does and it does.

01:14:34 But using people until they can no longer be used and then pushing them out the door is not the answer.

01:14:42 And honestly, I don't think a system, a process, new legislation I don't think any of those things are going to fix that problem, because the military is very good about systematizing things and then making it happen. What's going to happen is when small unit leaders care enough to say you're three months out, maybe you don't need to do all of this training right now. I mean, how many conversations have you had with people that are like I'm supposed to be out next week, but I'm going on this field op because they couldn't find anyone else and since I'm leaving, they're pushing me out. So we create this problem. So it has to be a small unit leader responsibility thing where we say you're three months out. If you don't need to do that, it's going to be better for us to get you into some transitional classes. Maybe there's a community college we can introduce you, we can have someone go to you with some classes, we can make sure you've got all this figured out and not just trust the system to take care of them.

01:15:38 - Chase (Host) Yeah, if ETS is coming up in your world, you should not also be tasked out with?

01:15:43 - Jeremy (Guest) any new.

01:15:44 - Chase (Host) No, there's. There's no reason, it doesn't benefit anyone. I'm just getting flooded with so many stories of just and this is like a tangent off to you know poor leadership of just people, you know hiding behind their rank just because they can make somebody do something. They're like hey, you're going out, you're leading the FTX, I know you ETS next week, to your point but yeah, just poor leadership.

01:16:06 - Jeremy (Guest) And I mean, to be honest, I was that guy. Like, my regrets in the Marine Corps have nothing to do with anything that happened in Iraq or anywhere else. My regrets in the Marine Corps had to do with how I treated Marines I was responsible for and I could give you stories. I won't, but those are the things that bother me today, because that was the culture, that was the environment. You use them. If they can't be used, well then you discard them. If they do something you don't like, you don't mesh with them, well, you push them off somewhere else, but that's also the bitter truth of how the military works.

01:16:40 - Chase (Host) That is how the military works. I mean, we are nothing but just numbers in a line names in a line Blunt objects. To serve a mission, and I appreciate that. Yeah, I do appreciate that. This is the other side of the sword, this is the also truth. That's right.

01:16:57 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah, and so I think, again, small unit leaders need to be able to discern okay, that time is over, and now we're going to help you get ready to transition, because I don't want to be responsible for, you know, you making bad decisions later.

01:17:12 - Chase (Host) Yeah Well, um, I feel like I could probably do like two or three more offshoot episodes with you man here. You know just I love sitting down and appreciate so much anytime I get to connect with another service member, um, even though you know it's a soldier versus.

01:17:27 - Jeremy (Guest) I haven't made one joke this whole time, so I'm pretty proud of myself. I think it's the ketones.

01:17:35 - Chase (Host) Ketones bring us together, they don't keep us divided. And I say, you know, I really feel like I had a very unique military experience, even though you know, I served 03 to 09. I'm an OIF, OEF-era veteran, served enlisted, served during a time of war, which is a whole other, different world in the military, you're up-tempo. Everything is just completely different. That's right. You're never not training regardless of— and it's all real world, exactly.

01:18:03 - Jeremy (Guest) I was explaining that to someone the other day. When you know there's a war going on right now, it changes how everything is done. Yeah, yeah.

01:18:11 - Chase (Host) And you know I also had the pleasure of serving with soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marine, um. I spent a lot of time together with a lot of different branches uh, american forces, international forces, special forces, um doing a lot of cool things and it really gave me the opportunity to give me the eyeopening experience of, like I said earlier, there is very real evil in the world.

01:18:38 - Jeremy (Guest) Yes, that's right. Very real and therefore the military is needed.

01:18:43 - Chase (Host) It absolutely is. But also there are a very diverse group of people that come from a myriad of different backgrounds. Right, that's right. And regardless of why or how they got there, they are there. And I'm so grateful for that experience of facing those eye-opening experiences with the most eclectic, the most diverse, the most gangster, the most wild, rowdy, badass, scary individuals in the world, and it has truly molded me into a person that I appreciate and serves me now, at 39 years old, in ways that I mean you would have figured it out, we all figured it out. But now I reflect so often and go man, if I didn't have my military training, if I didn't have this person, if I didn't know this way of going about problem solving or SOP building or just the core discipline that the military gave me, I would kind of be worried about myself sometimes. Yeah, sure, and so that's my story, my experience, and I know we all have our own experiences. And also thank you for your service in all of this man, thank you.

01:19:56 - Jeremy (Guest) Thank you for your service, but thank you for bringing these issues to light too, because it is important. I think you're a good example of taking responsibility and finding a new path and making it happen, and that's an example all of us need to follow, and these conversations are just so important and they're not had enough. So, yeah, thank you.

01:20:16 - Chase (Host) And the work that you're doing is all very much in alignment with the mission here at Everford Radio and you know you'll appreciate this. So Everford was the mantra of my late father. I think I shared that with you when we connected before. But to take it a step further, he picked it up from his time in service. He was active duty with 100th Airborne in the Army for a while, persian Gulf vet and before that he was National Guard and his unit back in our hometown of Richmond, virginia, was the 116th Infantry Regiment.

01:20:42 He was a 11 Bravo just grunt as well, which is why he like, when I expressed interest in joining the army, is like Chase, you're not allowed to do what I did. He's like yeah, he thought I was too smart, so he kind of pushed me into the MI world, but the 116th Infantry Regiment, their unit insignia, was ever forward. That's awesome.

01:21:02 - Jeremy (Guest) And so he picked it up from his time in service. Super cool, so I love to share that with other veterans.

01:21:06 - Chase (Host) So you kind of have a deeper understanding of where I come from. But what do those two words mean to you? If I were to ask you, how do you live a life ever forward? What does that mean to you?

01:21:14 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah, I use the term, it's my podcast March or Die. It's ever forward. Don't stop moving forward. There are going to be obstacles, challenges, traumas in your past that hold you back, things that jump up in front of you that want to keep you from moving forward. But real life is a life that is moving forward. There are people who are breathing, there are people who are existing, there are people who are working and inside they're emotionally, spiritually, relationally they're dead because they're not moving forward, ever forward. Take one step, keep moving forward. It doesn't have to be a big step, you don't have to know where you're going, but keep moving forward, that's. You know I say this sometimes that, um, persistence is a superpower in our world, because so many people with a lot of opportunity, a lot of ambition, um, they stop moving forward. It's only those who persist, those who continue to move forward, that make things happen. So, yeah, that's, that's all of life.

01:22:11 - Chase (Host) And especially our military brothers and sisters. Man, I don't know about you, but I will never get this out of my mind. When shit goes sideways, when you're down range, no matter what's going on, when it's anything other than pleasant, right Like I go back to my I'm up, he sees me, I'm down.

01:22:30 - Jeremy (Guest) I'm up, he sees me, I'm down. You're just bounding, bounding, bounding every damn step. I'm up, he sees me, I'm down. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, just keep moving, keep moving. Take it to the enemy, don't let the enemy take it to you and to me. That is, that's the whole life the whole. Thing with life. Right is just keep moving forward.

01:22:47 - Chase (Host) Yeah, yeah. No matter how small, no matter how incremental, the important thing is that you're doing something. Don't stop.

01:22:53 - Jeremy (Guest) Don't stop. We overthink it. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know. Look, move to a place that's better than this one. Keep moving forward. Get out of the kill zone, find a place where you can impact the enemy. Yeah, it's great. Ever forward. Well, this is a pleasure, jeremy. Thank you so much. Thank you, I appreciate it, man. It's awesome.

01:23:12 - Chase (Host) Everything's going to be linked for the audience down in the show notes and the video description, but where can they go to connect with you and everything you're doing with the veteran community now?

01:23:20 - Jeremy (Guest) Yeah, so our organization is called Mighty Oaks, so mightyoaksprogramsorg is our website. I'd love to connect on social media. It's just my name, jeremy Stalmacher, on all the social things.

01:23:36 - Chase (Host) And seriously, if anybody is watching and you are a veteran or a veteran spouse or any which way related and you're suffering in any which way, I am not a mental health professional but I am someone that's very adamant about getting that help and if you feel like you have no one, like I'll be that guy for you, message me, dm me, email me. Chase at everfordradio.com. I never, ever want to get another message or a phone call where you know I'm having to then book a flight to go to a funeral. For more information on everything you just heard, make sure to check this episode show notes or head to everforwardradio.com