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Stories of veteran service and sacrifice straight from the people driving today’s most important veterans causes and veterans organizations around the world. The show shines a spotlight on their inspiring projects making a real difference for veterans and their families, and along the way we'll hear the stories that drive them to do their best every day as they work to support veterans and their memory.
00:00:00:01 - 00:00:28:14
Speaker 1
Before we start, a quick note that this episode discusses suicide, loss, and mental health challenges. If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available. Visit Find a comment. To find support in your country, or check the show notes for direct links and numbers to call or text. Helplines are available worldwide. They're free, anonymous and confidential. You don't have to go through this alone.
00:00:28:16 - 00:00:46:12
Speaker 1
Hey, it's Matthew Cudmore and welcome to Story Behind the Stone, a show where he talks service, sacrifice and story. On today's episode, we're joined by an extraordinary leader, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Walter E. Piatt, who started his military journey as a 17 year old infantryman who rose all the way through the ranks to become a three star general.
00:00:46:12 - 00:00:58:16
Speaker 1
And the director of the Army Staff today is the CEO of the Wounded Warrior Project. He channels a lifetime of experience into guiding wounded veterans and their families toward paths of hope, purpose and healing. Walt, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
00:00:58:18 - 00:01:19:09
Speaker 1
Thanks for having me. It's good to be here. Your military career spans more than four decades, beginning as an enlisted private in the 82nd and 101st airborne, culminating as a lieutenant general. Can you share just a little bit about that incredible journey, the path that ultimately led you to take off the uniform and step into your current role leading the Wounded Warrior Project?
00:01:19:10 - 00:01:39:08
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, it's like almost all my adult life and in the Army, I signed up. I was still in high school with 17. You to just. I just wanted to serve. I think at that time when I went to school, you know, my teachers had served. Everybody had served. I just assumed everybody goes into the military and everybody gets out, goes to war because of the military.
00:01:39:08 - 00:01:56:02
Speaker 2
It teaches school somewhere in a small town because I had role models all around me. My father was on, excuse me, World War two. Lot of my uncles, everybody served. So it wasn't uncommon. I really wanted to go, but it was tough. At 17, I had to have my parents signed for me and my mom didn't want to do it.
00:01:56:03 - 00:02:11:18
Speaker 2
And the recruiter came to the house. And when she met the recruiter, you know, she you know, she realized, you know, the Army was a good place for her, her young son to go, to which I'm glad she did. It changed my life. You know, the army is a great place for surrounded by so many people from all different walks of life.
00:02:11:20 - 00:02:35:09
Speaker 2
You meet and make lasting friendships with the people you serve with, and the mission is always changing. You know, it's extremely difficult work and sometimes it can be extremely dangerous, but it's so fulfilling. You know, you talk about people want to have purpose. I'd say, you know, join the military and especially me. I was an infantry soldier enlisted in later and officer infantry, kind of like the jackknife of anybody in the army.
00:02:35:10 - 00:02:53:11
Speaker 2
You get to do just about everything. They're going to get exposed and do a lot of things. So really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the training was always hard, rigorous, realistic. And our nation knows their military has to be ready to defend, you know, our freedom. So it took pride in serving. But it was it was a wonderful career.
00:02:53:11 - 00:03:17:14
Speaker 2
It wasn't by dishonest 1842 years. That was kind of a mistake. I got out, went to college. I thought my plan was to come back in for three years, and that just kind of snowballed into 42. But it was an honor to complete that service on the Army staff surrounded. They're just such hardworking, dedicated people. And the Army gets its fair share of its nation's problems, you know, cast upon them to solve.
00:03:17:14 - 00:03:40:21
Speaker 2
And every day in the Pentagon, there's people working really, really hard to keep this nation safe. I think sometimes people joke about the Pentagon or joke about so bureaucratic, nothing gets done. And I found it to be completely opposite. It was so many patriotic people that are working so hard, so that when our military does get deployed and they do, they're always deployed somewhere that they have what they need.
00:03:40:22 - 00:03:57:21
Speaker 2
And they're the best trained and best equipped military, not just the army in the world. So it was good to end it in the Pentagon to see that, because you work for the president, United States, the secretary of defense at that time. But everybody else, it doesn't matter if you're a three star, four star general, you're there to serve.
00:03:57:22 - 00:04:13:16
Speaker 2
You're there to serve. There's no real authority that comes with it. It you're there to work. You're there to. The military can benefit from your years of experience. When you were out in field assignments and doing those kind of things that the Army does. But and it was just an honor to do it.
00:04:13:16 - 00:04:24:05
Speaker 1
Through your service. You've published two books of poetry. She came to the Door to Wave Goodbye and Paktika, based on your deployments to Afghanistan. What led you to choose poetry?
00:04:24:06 - 00:04:45:04
Speaker 2
You know, it's always been my therapy. I guess. I didn't know it was therapy. Even when I was young. I was inspired about things that I would just write them down. And sometimes if it really wasn't, something maybe impacted me. It was something that I saw that, you know, I learned throughout my career that, you know, I had empathy was one of my top leadership values.
00:04:45:04 - 00:04:59:08
Speaker 2
And I think I just learned that from my parents. And growing up in a where I grew up and it was just you felt pain when you saw strangers in pain, you know, you felt it, you wanted to help out. And I think that served me well in the Army, because we do help a lot of people out.
00:04:59:08 - 00:05:21:01
Speaker 2
But I wrote about things I saw that touched me deeply. And when in the first book she came to do to revive, literally, it was like two in the morning, I was driving away. My wife literally came to the door and I missed it. And I thought, you know, just moved me. And then then to be deployed to Afghanistan and you see the suffering of the people there, and you see the bravery of the soldiers that are there, the bravery of the Afghan soldiers.
00:05:21:01 - 00:05:40:05
Speaker 2
And then there's salute nonsense of of war. You're just trying to write it down. What's really happening? Not in a commentary way, not in trying to get all the facts right, but try to get to that real emotion. And it helped me, I think, deal with the stress and the emotion of being deployed to combat. It was very helpful.
00:05:40:07 - 00:05:58:10
Speaker 2
People always ask me, can you recite some of your poetry? I'm like, no, I don't, I forgot it, I got rid of it. That's some of those memories I don't want to repeat. It was a way to express and if it helps anybody else, I don't. I could not make a living as a poet because I absolutely made nobody of these books.
00:05:58:10 - 00:06:26:21
Speaker 2
But sometimes someone will read it and say, you know, I understand what you're saying. I went through that same thing or just helped me there. And it just if it helps people remember things in a good way, then I'm glad to share it. And it was more. I did have short stories in. There was another year long deployment to Afghanistan, and you tried to tell the story of these young, brave, you know, soldiers in the United States Army, what they do and, and the extreme climates and terrain that they do it in.
00:06:26:22 - 00:06:47:13
Speaker 2
We got to see and be around more Afghan people, and you got to see the beauty of their culture. So I try to capture that. It try to capture, you know, war, although it's terrible. There's good people trying to do good things in the midst of it all. And I tried to get some of that out in my writing and also talk about some of the the impact of it, about losing friends, having people.
00:06:47:13 - 00:07:05:09
Speaker 2
I always thought I remember one contact where we had a soldier badly injured. I immediately went to, you know, what's his wife going to think? You know, she's going to get a call and probably 12 hours. And, you know, it just it really connected me like, we're here and I have a responsibility to win and bring everybody home.
00:07:05:09 - 00:07:24:16
Speaker 2
And. And I didn't do either. How do you deal with that mentally? How does the soldiers deal? They they either solve horrible things. They probably did a horrible thing and, you know, a legal, horrible thing or couldn't prevent something horrible from happening. And the guilt of that weighs them down and they try to displace it, tough it out, but it eats at you.
00:07:24:16 - 00:07:43:13
Speaker 2
You feel bad that you're back. And many friends did not make it back. And I've said many times the hardest part of surviving combat is living for most people. I don't know if that makes sense to people because people think you're alive, you're back. You should you should feel great. You know, you've made it all the way back to the beautiful United States.
00:07:43:15 - 00:08:02:17
Speaker 2
But they may be back here, but mentally they're still there, and they still blame themselves for the friends that they could. They feel responsible. They didn't come back with them. And so poetry helped me get a lot of those feelings of war out. And I wasn't trying to win a Pulitzer Prize, but I was trying to express emotions in a way that was healthy and helpful to me.
00:08:02:17 - 00:08:25:01
Speaker 2
And now I've really learned it is very helpful, and I'm working on another book that I hope to publish soon. It's kind of like the last decade of my four decades life. It talks about a lot of things, and also I've been starting one now since being a Wounded Warrior project, because the warriors I meet and their families, the stories are powerful and it hits me every single day and it's already pretty lengthy book if I just go with that one.
00:08:25:01 - 00:08:28:06
Speaker 2
But so I'm hoping to do two more in the next couple of years.
00:08:28:09 - 00:08:45:19
Speaker 1
In my research for today's interview, I came across a quote from someone that read one of your books. I had the pleasure to serve under Colonel Piatt as a wolfhound in the Paktika province of Afghanistan. It was an experience that I will always treasure. I learned more about myself and the nobility of soldiering in that year than any other.
00:08:45:20 - 00:09:04:04
Speaker 1
I can say that Colonel Piat is an officer who lives his beliefs and leads by example. He was the soldier with the most wheel time and the longest time outside the wire in the battalion. In essence, that meant that he spent more of our deployment in a vehicle on the frontiers, in the face of danger than any of the soldiers in his command.
00:09:04:06 - 00:09:13:21
Speaker 1
This behavior goes a long way to inspire an infantryman who is tired, scared, and homesick. Thanks again sir. No fear. What are you feeling when you hear that?
00:09:13:22 - 00:09:36:12
Speaker 2
Serving with the wolfhounds that year in that area in Paktika. They were some of the greatest people on this earth. I understood their fears. I understood the challenges they faced. But I admired their courage deeply because they did so much in such a bad area at the time, and they turned it into a really stable area, which I was so proud of.
00:09:36:12 - 00:09:57:05
Speaker 2
I said one thing before we left that we could win this war without killing one more person. And for a new soldier who's never been deployed before, that made no sense at all. I mean, they thought the lieutenant colonel was an idiot, you know, like this guy. What's he saying? You know, but I meant that we had to think this through, that it wasn't killing would not win.
00:09:57:07 - 00:10:17:11
Speaker 2
You know, we were going to have to do it. And that was going to be surgical with precision and hopefully not often, but it would count. But the rest of it we couldn't ignore. You had the it was the people and you had to embrace it, and you had to embrace a culture you didn't like. And I, I appreciate this comment from this warrior because, you know, I would say the same about him.
00:10:17:11 - 00:10:34:21
Speaker 2
Like, hey, you know, I admired him. It goes a long way for me to serve with someone like that and for him to say that, you know, hopefully something I wrote touched him and reminded him of, I think the value of our service at that time in that location and the value that we had together as a team.
00:10:34:22 - 00:10:51:13
Speaker 2
I had one warrior and I wrote, I wrote a poem about this called Sergeant on Duty, and we we'd been in it was a bad day and we'd consolidated and we had secured ourselves. And I went out to just kind of decompress myself, just to kind of check on the guards. But I was really just wanted to walk.
00:10:51:15 - 00:11:09:04
Speaker 2
And one of the sergeants had put his soldiers down for sleep, and he was pulling the watch. That's the kind of guy he was just a good, good, tough sergeant like the expected U.S. Army. But we started talking and we started talking about the culture. And he he asked me, he said, you like these people, you know, don't you?
00:11:09:04 - 00:11:27:07
Speaker 2
And I and we got into this discussion and he immediately before I could answer, though, he said, I hate him and I want to kill him. And I'm a Christian and I'm struggling. He's struggling with his belief. And I think that's what every warrior faces. You know you're there. You know, you're raising the United States of America great values.
00:11:27:07 - 00:11:52:07
Speaker 2
And then you get exposed to the worst of humanity. And at times you may have to take another life. It's not natural. I mean, in movies, people may make it sound tough, but it challenges what you are as a human being and you have to do it with the clarity. You can't, you know, overcompensate. But we had this discussion and I went into, well, I really don't like all the things about this culture.
00:11:52:07 - 00:12:17:18
Speaker 2
I don't like the way they treat women. I was raised with four sisters, and I was taught to treat women with respect. I but it's their culture, and we're not here to we're not here to change them. We're here to we're here to help them get there, get their country back. But it was a long conversation, but it stirred something inside of me, like, do I have what it takes to do to do this to, to to lead a infantry battalion in a combat area where we're going to have to take life.
00:12:17:18 - 00:12:44:21
Speaker 2
And it challenged you and one of my friends, he's an English professor, but he's a great army officer as well. He wrote about that. And like that's not uncommon with people have this struggle or this internal debate. And I think it keeps you grounded. It keeps the human side of you there, because you don't want warriors to just forget who they are and just, you know, pour themselves into a combat deployment and be some type of like, robot, just just acting with violence.
00:12:44:21 - 00:13:06:16
Speaker 2
You've got to you've got to keep that human there because you keep the human exposed. It's hard. It's sad. Be easier to displace that and just call everybody an enemy or dehumanize the culture there and just be able to, you know, just be able to use force to answer all your problems. But that's not going to work. And so it takes these brave men and women to face cultures they don't understand.
00:13:06:21 - 00:13:25:16
Speaker 2
They actually find maybe repulsive, pulsing because of their own moral beliefs, but yet they they've got to do it, and then they've got to be ready in a split second to, to get lethal with a potential threat because nobody's wearing uniforms and identify them as the enemy. So that's a long answer. But it it was a complex area.
00:13:25:21 - 00:13:46:10
Speaker 2
Every time I read that, would I just always want to reach back to them and say, you know, thank you for your service. I'm glad I in some way, if I inspired you, know, that you inspired me because nobody does it alone. I mean, there's no such thing as Rambo in the United States Army. We are a team, and we count on each other, you know, for the good and the bad.
00:13:46:10 - 00:14:04:15
Speaker 2
All of it. It is extremely difficult, I mean, to be deployed in combat zone. At that time, eastern Afghanistan was not a pleasant, pleasant place to be. So I admire I admire him. He's a fellow wolfhound. And, you know, I think the world of that organization and all those soldiers I deployed with that.
00:14:04:15 - 00:14:12:16
Speaker 1
Year, turning the lens to the work that you're doing every day, what's driving you? What's the momentum to committing to the Wooded Warrior Project mission every day?
00:14:12:20 - 00:14:37:04
Speaker 2
Well, it's a it's a wonderful mission. You know, we're we are in the business of rebuilding lives, you know, impacted by war and military service and help them find a new path of life, of hope and renewed purpose. It feels good. I mean, after 42 years in the Army, I was not looking for a job and I was going to be an unpaid, unskilled labor for my daughter and help her finish a couple of her buildings that her and her husband are working on.
00:14:37:04 - 00:14:56:14
Speaker 2
And this opportunity, I was asked to give it a try, and I never thought I'd get hired. But it's not a job. It's another calling to help people. People have put everything on the line for our country. Our job at Wounded Warrior Project, amongst other nonprofits, and we're not the only one, is to help bring them home, help them.
00:14:56:14 - 00:15:20:19
Speaker 2
He'll help them get their lives back, help them get their families back. The cost of military service should not be that your life is now going to be, you know, falling apart. It's never going to be what it used to be. And too often that's, of course, our veterans, many of our nation's veterans go on where, if you think about it, young warrior, sometimes in the course of military service has to accept the end of the life they thought they were going to have.
00:15:20:20 - 00:15:39:13
Speaker 2
Something happens to them. They wanted to be the sergeant major of the Army. They wanted to be the chief of staff. They wanted to be a professional football player. They wanted to do all these aspirations. And it's something happens where now maybe they lose a limb, maybe they can't walk, maybe they've got a traumatic brain injury and they can't function the way they used to be.
00:15:39:13 - 00:15:58:23
Speaker 2
And so for them, they have to learn to accept that, that that life is going to be over. But there's a new path of hope and renewed purpose. We find a new purpose, and many have. But it's it's not an easy journey and you need help. And many warriors, especially male veterans, don't want help and they don't want to ask for help.
00:15:58:23 - 00:16:19:22
Speaker 2
And so trying to break through this tough barrier to to help somebody navigate transition out of military, you know, and to find a new purpose in life when they didn't really want it. It's not easy. And sometimes if we don't succeed, if we don't find the warrior, that transition can be very dark place and and their life will fall apart.
00:16:19:22 - 00:16:41:11
Speaker 2
And next thing you know, they're isolating in their basement, playing video games, you know, drinking to yourself, medicating on alcohol or drugs or both. And their family becomes very distant from the people they love the most. They push away, and then maybe the marriage falls apart. Then they lose their job, then they lose their home. And then we might find them, you know, under a bridge with a bottle or gun in the mouth.
00:16:41:14 - 00:16:58:09
Speaker 2
That's unacceptable for me, because I've seen what these men and women have done, and we want to help them through that. Just because you served in the military doesn't mean your life is going to be damaged goods for the rest of it. I call it coming home, because transition out of the military is not enough. Coming back is not enough.
00:16:58:10 - 00:17:15:17
Speaker 2
Like coming back is what we did. Like think World War two, Greatest generation. We had ticker tape parade. We had great victory in Europe, great victory in Japan, complete and unconditional surrender. So great parades. We helped everyone demobilize all the military in months. We helped them get a job, helped them get to college, help them buy a house.
00:17:15:17 - 00:17:34:17
Speaker 2
So very successful veterans who want, you know, gave the world peace. But then dad didn't talk about the war for 60 years, you know, or Uncle Joe at every family event, drank too much and was afraid to be out. You know, they you know, they never so many families never got their parent back or never got to know their parent or what they did in the war.
00:17:34:18 - 00:17:55:03
Speaker 2
Now some transition and were completely healthy. But not everyone. Some of them lived with some very horrific memories and never learned how to navigate. That's coming back. Coming home is when we get everybody you get you home, mind, body and soul so that you can recognize that the things you did is not who you are. It's what you're asked to do as a warrior for this nation.
00:17:55:03 - 00:18:13:14
Speaker 2
And there's honor in that, but it doesn't define you. You may have done some really, really hard things and difficult things, but you will find strength and come back to yourself and that that's my mission. I, I so happy to be here. It really does feel like after the Army, it feels like I came home to family. Who knew?
00:18:13:15 - 00:18:23:06
Speaker 2
Warrior Project. They're just kind people. And our mission is to help, you know, save and rebuild lives. And it's honorable work. And it's an honor to do it.
00:18:23:07 - 00:18:33:07
Speaker 1
From your perspective, what did the veterans and the service members say about the impacts that your programs and projects have had on their lives and their families? Is there a story of a warrior that comes to mind right away?
00:18:33:08 - 00:18:50:14
Speaker 2
So many of them, one of them a lawyer, a very talented musician, but he lived with survivor guilt for the longest time. He actually wrote about it in his music, about about, you know, the heroes are the ones that don't make it home. And when I first met him, of course, I called him a hero because he is a hero.
00:18:50:14 - 00:19:14:01
Speaker 2
And, you know, kind of he was like, I'm not a hero. I'm like, you are hero. And you made it back. There's a reason. Like, I lost friends. We all lost people after nine over 11. But we have to honor, you know, more in the loss. It's a terrible loss. And, you know, I don't know if you ever stop grieving, but you honor their life through your own, and you're here, and we have to do something with being here to honor their sacrifice.
00:19:14:01 - 00:19:33:14
Speaker 2
And I think a lot of veterans can get behind that. You know, like, hey, I am important. I may feel uncomfortable with people calling me hero. I'm not sure anyone feels comfortable with that label because they saw the true ugliness of war. They know that, you know, people do heroic things, but I you know, I don't like that label thrown out.
00:19:33:15 - 00:19:50:18
Speaker 2
So I understand that. But because of their service, we have to live our life and honor that. I have a friend said just last week she was giving a talk. She lost her husband in war and she goes, this is a country worth dying for and we get to live in it every day. I mean, think about that.
00:19:50:19 - 00:20:07:22
Speaker 2
It's just so powerful. Like she lost her soulmate and yet she's honored to live in his honor. You know, everything she does by raising their family without him to doing all these things, giving back to the community as a way to honor his service and sacrifice because he believed it. We had another well, actually teammates. She was a spouse.
00:20:07:22 - 00:20:26:08
Speaker 2
She worked for us now, but at the time she was a military spouse. Her husband was special forces deployed lots of times. And one deployment, he gets wounded badly, he gets shot. And he came home and his physical injuries healed. And her words, he never did. You know, he was never the same. And he became ugly and he became mean.
00:20:26:08 - 00:20:45:03
Speaker 2
And she described not even liking him. How could she love him? She was confused. And they were heading down a path where the marriage was probably going to break up, lose his job, whatever is going to happen because he was questioning his self-worth. If he could get back to it, and she just decided, I reminded myself why he served.
00:20:45:03 - 00:21:05:06
Speaker 2
He loved his country. He loved his unit. He loved his small, his hometown. He wanted he loved his buddies. So he committed to that. That's why he deployed all the time. She goes. So I decided I would commit and stay with him. And I didn't know what to do, but I knew I wasn't going to leave. That determination, you know, was kind of that that was the light to kind of showed him his road home.
00:21:05:06 - 00:21:27:12
Speaker 2
And then she got help. And then that improved his path and he got home. And he still, you know, a special forces operator, you know, deployable warrior, that determination. Those stories are everywhere. It's a it's the cost of our freedom. You know, we send men and women to war. We have to help them deal with the impacts of that service, and we have to help them bring them all home.
00:21:27:12 - 00:21:34:15
Speaker 1
What does this work mean to you personally, and what does your family say about your involvement in the community through Winter warrior?
00:21:34:16 - 00:21:53:00
Speaker 2
My wife is one of our best teammates because we don't have to pay her anything. She's so she's so good, but she lived it. I mean, she lived it for, you know, all those years and one, one year I was deployed. It was the year I was impacted, I think. But but my daughter told her one day our daughter Jessica was young at the time.
00:21:53:00 - 00:22:10:00
Speaker 2
She said, you know, mom, I wish dad would come home so I could spend time with him. Now I just wish to have a come home so I could spend time with you. I mean, our military spouses sacrificed so much, especially in the peak of the war. You're always deploying, and they're holding families together that are scared and are frightened.
00:22:10:01 - 00:22:34:17
Speaker 2
Like when we're deployed, you know, 90% of it is kind of boredom or fun. It's not bad. It's not a not a bad place. But then there's the real hard stuff that gets there. But when you're not deployed and your loved ones deployed, you're 100% stressed and you know you don't know what's going on. You're fearful. And to deal with that as a family, like my wife is just, you know, just such a gift that bring us together and also the family.
00:22:34:17 - 00:22:55:09
Speaker 2
They always humbled me like I was always dad. I was never, you know, major or lieutenant colonel or colonel or general. I was dad when I came in the house. I was dad, and I was probably the lowest ranking of the four family members we had. It was at university that I needed it, I needed it, I needed that my wife had a unique way of bringing me home.
00:22:55:09 - 00:23:16:00
Speaker 2
She actually told me once because after nine over 11, I deployed every other year for the first decade of the war, she said. One deployment, she said, well, don't deploy until you deployed. And that was really telling to me like I was not there, I was there. I was thinking about the next deployment. I was thinking about something I screwed up on the last deployment.
00:23:16:00 - 00:23:35:01
Speaker 2
I was never with my family. In those precious moments that are the year in between, deployments are not easy because you got a lot of training to do a lot of things, but you do get some time with your family, and I was wasting it away with not being there, like mentally present in the moment. It just it was a powerful statement.
00:23:35:01 - 00:23:54:19
Speaker 2
And later on when I was introduced to mindfulness and I've been practicing since 2010 now, it made all the sense in the world, you know, I just wasn't there. And how many moments did I miss that? I was convinced never to let that happen again, because I think my for my wife and I think military families, they know, they know what it's like.
00:23:54:20 - 00:24:16:02
Speaker 2
They are they are incredible people. And for us, that's why we serve not just warriors, but their family members as well, because we know they're suffering from Secretary PTSD or they've been through trauma themselves, or they're seeing the impacts of watching their loved one, you know, being addicted to drugs or alcohol. You know, they're seeing bad things and it's impacting the families, or they've been exposed to a suicide attempt or suicide.
00:24:16:02 - 00:24:38:16
Speaker 2
And we have to help them because they do so much. I was fortunate, very loving family. It helped me so much, grounding me every time, helping me come home even when I didn't want to come home. You know, mentally it was just very helpful to me and I would not be here in this organization without them. And my wife has participated in several programs with me.
00:24:38:17 - 00:24:47:21
Speaker 2
She's a family support member herself. For both of us. It feels good that we get to give back because we've seen firsthand what what warriors do for our country.
00:24:47:23 - 00:24:57:05
Speaker 1
When you think about the next generation young men and women entering military service today, what is the most important piece of wisdom that you hope that they're carrying forward into their lives and their careers?
00:24:57:05 - 00:25:13:16
Speaker 2
For people going into the military, one, I think this generation is every bit as good as the last generation. I did too often when I was in, we always accused the younger generation to be a lazy or not good enough, and I never saw that. I just every young person I meet is just fascinating, especially in the military today.
00:25:13:17 - 00:25:34:06
Speaker 2
Our military is really good because our people are excellent. You know, that's what I tell them. Training in the military, you're going to train a lot. It's great. You're going to love it. But training prepares you for the expected and education prepares you for the unexpected. And I always face the unexpected. When I was deployed, there was never a doctrinal solution that you could apply to a problem.
00:25:34:06 - 00:25:54:08
Speaker 2
You're going to face a real life problem, like in training. Yes. You know, doctrine, doctrine matters, don't get me wrong, but I try to encourage them. Keep educating yourself. Keep reading, learn about, fight for perspectives that are different than your own, because you're going to be put in some very bad situations, and you're going to have to think on your feet and you're training.
00:25:54:10 - 00:26:10:13
Speaker 2
You're not going to find answers there. You're going to find it in your education and in your values and in your how you were brought up. So lean on it and keep pushing it and keep educating yourself throughout your time. Then when you're in the military, when I would tell them what I listen, I learned and there were many lessons.
00:26:10:13 - 00:26:28:03
Speaker 2
But one is war is the absolute worst of humanity. I mean absolute worst. I mean, it's the intentional killing of human beings, other human beings. How did we come up with something like this? But it's also necessary, right? Because we're not going to give up our freedoms because there's people that will take it and people that would kill us, our citizens, if we don't protect them.
00:26:28:03 - 00:26:44:17
Speaker 2
So that's unacceptable. We're going to defend it. But we can't allow the strategic purpose of war to mask the toll it takes on the young men and women to fight it. We got to be there for them. And I tell them, you got to be there for each other. You've got to know that when you do something really hard, it impacts you.
00:26:44:17 - 00:27:04:17
Speaker 2
It sticks with you. And you're not Superman or Superwoman. You're a human being. You're Walt and Walt isn't, you know, made a Teflon. Things impact you, and you got to deal with that just as much as you have to deal with the physical injuries. You have to deal with mental injuries as well. Try to expose them. One thing I like about this generation, I think stigma talking about mental health is gone.
00:27:04:18 - 00:27:27:09
Speaker 2
I don't see it anymore. I'm so glad. It's just something that did not serve us well at any juncture. Even the senior leaders openly talk about mental health and and getting the help you need and keeping you mentally tough and resilient. Or some organizations I work with say call it struggle. Well, you learn to have post-traumatic growth, not just post-traumatic stress disorder.
00:27:27:09 - 00:27:46:12
Speaker 2
And that is very possible. And it goes back to Homer when he wrote Odyssey, he talks about, I've been through this. I've been through war. I know I can take on more challenges because I've been through the worst. And, you know, I'm paraphrasing there, but that's what warriors should be coming strong because we've done hard things. We can do harder things.
00:27:46:12 - 00:28:05:05
Speaker 2
We're not broken birds, you know, that need to be handled with, you know, kicked clubs. We're we're tough human beings. And we get we can get them through that. So long answer to your question but I'm I do I will say this about this generation. They don't identify as the post 911 generation. They they think that's you old guys back there.
00:28:05:06 - 00:28:23:00
Speaker 2
Many of them weren't even thought about 911 in high school. That was an old war. We stayed in a lot in Wounded Warrior, probably like post 911. It's like we're just here for warriors, you know, we're here. This is a new generation of warriors. They're seeing their fight as you saw casualties taken in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, many places.
00:28:23:01 - 00:28:33:21
Speaker 2
They won't be the last. Our nation's going to defend our freedom anywhere required. And we need to be there for when those casualties come back to help them with that journey on that new path of life.
00:28:33:22 - 00:28:40:12
Speaker 1
Tell me a little bit about the impact of the Warrior Project. How are you measuring impact, success of your mission and the lives of wounded warriors?
00:28:40:13 - 00:28:58:08
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think when you talk to warriors, many of them, their first phrase back was wounded Warrior project saved my life. You know, one warrior said, the reason my wife has a husband, my kids have a father is because of Wounded Warrior Project. Another warrior said he was lost his leg in Afghanistan. He said, you know, losing the leg was the easy part.
00:28:58:12 - 00:29:17:00
Speaker 2
The rest of it was hard. And if it wasn't a wounded warrior project, I would not have been coming back to to be someone who could have a family, raise a family, hold on a job. Now he owns his own business, very successful. The real impact isn't measured. It's seen, you know, each individual and I love that the most.
00:29:17:00 - 00:29:36:19
Speaker 2
But you know, we do track so many things. And the the Warriors we talk to. If you're registered with Wounded Warrior Project and you're receiving some type of one of our programs or a couple of them, you're on a path to success. You feel it. I mean, even if it's something little is just helping you with your VA disability, they feel appreciated.
00:29:36:20 - 00:29:55:02
Speaker 2
And one of those one of those impacts, you get it that you see it. Once a warrior realizes that somebody on the other end of the phone or other computer screen cares about me is willing to do this for me, it's a big change. They light up and they realize, oh, this is an entitlement. This is not charity.
00:29:55:02 - 00:30:10:10
Speaker 2
This is something I earn through my service. So you walk them down that path and then you start to see them become, you know, the same spark goes in. And when they joined the military, now you see it again. And now they're off getting PhDs or doing great things or, you know, doing something they never thought was possible.
00:30:10:10 - 00:30:31:22
Speaker 2
That's the impact I really like. But when you look at our our data, our programs, you know, we took ten years with our Warrior Care Network to try to get a year's worth of of a method of treating PTSD down to two weeks. And we did it. And we found different ways to get really good treatment, even sometimes less than that or during remote therapy.
00:30:31:22 - 00:31:01:21
Speaker 2
So we're constantly experimenting and trying different things to figure out what's going to be the best way. We got behind the psychedelics and alternative medicine movement to say, hey, we need to explore because we did our own we fund to help fund our own experiments and studies, and it showed amazing results. And so we know we need to study more and learn more so that the best care, and it won't be one thing for anybody, but the best care can be applied when when the right, you know clinician says this is what you need.
00:31:01:22 - 00:31:19:16
Speaker 2
So the help is the help is out there. The science is out there where we meet. A warrior. And her family were very successful in making them feel appreciated and getting them to help. They need to return to being a stable and a productive citizen. Where we're not impactful is the ones that aren't registered and the ones we can't find.
00:31:19:16 - 00:31:34:18
Speaker 2
Our mission is to find every warrior everywhere. There's a lot of young men, and I was one of those, but I got out of the Army and went to college. I didn't want anything to do with the Army until they made me sign up for Selective Service. But but we have to find them because most they'll say, okay, I'll do my VA stuff later.
00:31:34:18 - 00:31:55:14
Speaker 2
I'm a young guy, nothing really wrong with me. And they want to go up and live isolated and be, you know, because they like that kind of stuff. And then we never get contact with them, and then they start manifesting things that they don't think for service related. Maybe it's just physical pain in the body, or maybe it's mentally, or maybe they experienced a track brain injury that know about it, and so they didn't get that right.
00:31:55:14 - 00:32:21:10
Speaker 2
So if we if we can find them and register warriors, I'm 99% think we're going to be successful because our programs are so powerful. But the ones we don't find are the ones that worry me. And the rate of veterans suicide in this country should alarm everybody. We're taking more casualties to suicide than we did in combat. That's unacceptable for me.
00:32:21:10 - 00:32:42:16
Speaker 2
And that's why I believe, you know, we laid out a vision where we want to save a million more lives, cure PTSD and veteran suicide and veteran homelessness. And I think anything less is just aiming to short what would be right if instead of 22 a day, 17 a day, about two a day? No that's not. No, it should be none a day.
00:32:42:18 - 00:33:09:00
Speaker 2
You know, you should be getting the help you need because it's what you did as a warrior. It's not who you are inside. Now. And so I think I think that, you know, veteran suicide rate is way too high. But I do believe there's a lot of very treatable things behind veteran suicide. I know suicide is a broad topic that is just sad everywhere for everybody, but I do believe in with a lot of veterans.
00:33:09:00 - 00:33:18:03
Speaker 2
There may be another thing there that if we can help, that they never get to that dark place. And that's why I think we can't stop trying and we're not going to stop trying it. Wounded Warrior Project.
00:33:18:04 - 00:33:26:01
Speaker 1
You talked about your incredible team. How would you describe them and how would you describe the big kind of projects, initiatives that working on 2026 and beyond?
00:33:26:02 - 00:33:43:00
Speaker 2
It's an amazing team. These are just kind, compassionate people full of empathy that just want to help other human beings. That's what we're made up of. We're not a corporation. We're not the United States military. We're kind of like, we like the Peace Corps. But, you know, volunteers wanted to help word. And that's why I love being around it.
00:33:43:00 - 00:34:00:14
Speaker 2
And we started in 2003 with just a wounded warrior himself, stuffing backpacks and delivering to Walter Reed. But with that backpack was a symbol. That one. You're not alone. We're here. We're going to listen to you. We're going to help you. Because he had been on that journey. He had been in that hospital bed. He knew what it was like.
00:34:00:15 - 00:34:24:17
Speaker 2
And he also made a promise. We made a promise that we would be there for you no matter what. At 23 years later, we have been there no matter what. We have grown that humble beginnings that ran up his personal credit card to now a large nonprofit that's providing 18 life changing and life saving programs. Free, free. No warrior family pays a penny because we're 100% donor funded.
00:34:24:17 - 00:34:47:05
Speaker 2
And it's because a grateful nation, America, cares about their military so that we have grown. But I think with that comes a responsibility. We must keep that promise for 30 more years. And to do that, we need to save a million more lives, expand access to care. We're going to find treatments that work for PTSD. Then we got to make it accessible and affordable for everyone.
00:34:47:11 - 00:35:18:05
Speaker 2
The only thing I do know is a future medicine will the cost will continue to skyrocket. And that's I think that's a certainty. And insurances may pay less and less for things. But I also think science is going to make prosthetics a lot better. We're going to get a lot more scientific breakthroughs, but they also have to be affordable and accessible to warriors, not just for a prosthetic leg, but also for the adaptive sports equipment they need to live productive lives and competitive lives and get them outside and get them doing things and not limiting them.
00:35:18:05 - 00:35:41:12
Speaker 2
And so I don't want to see anything not be accessible to a warrior in the future. And that's a scale that's large, and we're only going to continue to grow. I think we're continuing to grow. Veterans and combat can combat veterans in this country, because I think the United States is going to be in conflict somewhere, somehow. And we're there almost every day because it's required.
00:35:41:12 - 00:35:58:05
Speaker 2
It's not you know, I just I think it's going to be there because the United States, you know, it has a key role in keeping the global global security secure. So I think we're going to continue to see people come back from really tough deployments. They're going to need our help, and we have to be there. And we have to think differently.
00:35:58:05 - 00:36:19:04
Speaker 2
I think we don't know what the future holds, but we need to anticipate, learn, adapt, and we've been very good at that. And why why we're able to anticipate is we do one thing incredibly well. We listen. We listen to the warrior and their family. We don't prescribe, we don't tell them, here's what you're going to do. Here's the answer to your problem.
00:36:19:04 - 00:36:37:00
Speaker 2
We listen to them, and then we offer the resources of the program that might get them help. And some of them aren't even with us. Whatever that warrior needs is what we're going to try to get them on that path forward. So I think we're going to continue to do this. I wish there was a time when we didn't need organizations like ours, but I don't think that's coming.
00:36:37:01 - 00:37:03:22
Speaker 2
I don't think the government can do it all. We we serve to augment and supplement the government. They're much bigger. The solution to scaling will be through the VA and our medical enterprise. It will. We can't do that. But we can show them how. We can give them the we can fund and help experimentation, help more research, do more trials, get people in the right direction because we listen to what warriors are asking for and what works for them.
00:37:03:22 - 00:37:07:17
Speaker 2
And then we need to multiply that and make that available for everybody.
00:37:07:18 - 00:37:17:04
Speaker 1
For those listeners who want to follow the ongoing work, the daily progress of your mission, what's the best way for them to stay updated and get involved with the Warrior Project?
00:37:17:05 - 00:37:36:06
Speaker 2
Wounded Warrior Project is a wonderful start. There's lots of places to go there. We even have, you know, career openings for people looking for opportunities. We have volunteer options, and we just have information on what we're doing because America wants to connect and say thank you. If they've not served in the military, which a lot of people in the country haven't, but they still care.
00:37:36:06 - 00:37:54:03
Speaker 2
And we try to bridge that gap sometimes to let them say thank you to come out, help us in one of our programs or participate in one of our programs. We allow them to do that. If you're a warrior, go on register. If you're having problems registering, call our resource center. They'll get you on. We'll help you register.
00:37:54:03 - 00:38:16:11
Speaker 2
If you're a family member and your spouse or your child is having trouble when they're a veteran and they've served, call us and we'll help reach out to them or will help you get them registered. Because once we get them and again, it's free, we just want to get them registered so we can help them and provide them the care they need for the services they've done as an entitlement.
00:38:16:11 - 00:38:21:02
Speaker 2
They've they've earned and they've earned it doing some very tough things defending this country.
00:38:21:05 - 00:38:28:19
Speaker 1
Walt Piatt, CEO of the Wounded Warrior Project, I want to thank you so much for the work that you and your team are doing every single day. And thank you for coming on the show.
00:38:28:20 - 00:38:44:06
Speaker 2
We're going to keep the promise because, you know, we get to live in this beautiful country every day. Thank you veteran, because I think, you know, veterans have guaranteed our freedom. Thanks for having me. It was a real pleasure talking to you.
00:38:44:08 - 00:38:57:08
Speaker 1
Thanks so much for tuning in. Story. Behind the Stone is available on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on the Rise Across America Radio Network on iHeartRadio. Audacity and tune in to search for wreath.
00:38:57:10 - 00:38:58:11
Speaker 1
Thank you for tuning in.