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Veteran's Affairs Plus discusses the issues that veterans in Las Vegas deal with on a daily basis. Your host, David L. Washington connects listeners with relevant community resources and information that they need to help veterans or themselves.
Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU NV studios original program. You're listening to special programming sponsored by making moves, life coaching services. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Dave
Music 0:35
Come on, tell
Music 0:42
me what's going on. Good
Dave Washington 0:49
day Las Vegas. Good day Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host, got a couple long time friends in the building today. We'll be talking with them shortly. However, at this time, I'd like to talk about, you know, in fact, we just saw each other on Sunday, 75th birthday for Miss saree Cherie Sullivan man, she turned her birthday gathering for 75 years, three quarters of a century, into a fundraiser to continue the legacy of her husband, the great, great William Bill Sullivan. You know, I spoke at the upper ground, Upward Bound program several times. I trust that you guys did as well. What a wonderful job she did all of her and her colleagues and her saw Roz. It was just a nice, nice gathering of friends, a couple other things, and I plan to get her the former city attorney, brian scott, as well as Dr Keith Rogers. I'm going to have them on the show next month, and we're going to do two shows, because I want to talk about the things that Dr Bill Sullivan did for the children of our community. However, before I introduce my guests, I want to just talk about the madness again. We continue to be losing our humanity. More killings went on this past week. Some guy rolls up into it, and these are former military guys, former military guys, and there's something that needs to be done in terms of taking care of our former military people who may be suffering from all kind of mental issues, and we've got to address that. But one was in a church in the Detroit area, Michigan area, and then was a pier in North Carolina where guys just, just military, former military guys just, bam, bam, bam, shooting people. It's crazy. So I think we as a country got to do more to address the needs of our our veterans. And something I did not see, and I generally don't watch the entirety of the Ryder Cup, but I generally watch a little bit of it, and I just saw some crazy stuff. Man, that they said the Americans just went crazy on these Europeans, man and and Rory McIlroy, his wife, had to be secured by police because people was throwing I mean, it was just insane, man, when you get your butt whoop, you just take it, you know, take it. Take the butt whooping and go on. They don't even get mad and going crazy on people. But back to the issue of mass shootings. There's been 324 mass shootings in the United States of America. That's this year. It's insane, and I hope that again, we will do something to address the needs of our community, because it certainly is maddening and it's really sad. We're supposed to be one of the leading countries in this world, and we're showing that we have no humanity by shooting up one another. Then the last thing I want to say, and I want to check it out, I trust we'll be able to see it somewhere. But the Secretary of Defense, I guess he's called now the Secretary of War. I won't even call his name, and I know Jason has all really, he does a disclaimer. So a talk show host and I'm not a journalist, and I tell people I'm not a journalist, but this still doesn't protect me from saying something stupid. So I try to make sure I just don't call certain names. But he called 800 generals to a meeting today, and they say he spoke for 71 minutes. From what I heard, I'm going to check that out, because I think our generals need to be out there in the field, you know, protecting the interests of our country. So with that, I'm going to say one more thing about there's a bill, Public Law number 119, through 31 VA Home Loan Program Reform Act, I guess a number of veterans, and thank God I'm not in that position, but a number of veterans have lost their homes due to things that are not caused by them, but they put a bill together that at least will protect them until they can get some help. So with that two again, long time Las Vegas and friends, I consider. Them both to be we have Mr. Thomas Jackson and we have Mr. Kirby Burgess. What's going on? Gentlemen? Hello, Mr. Washington, good to see you. Mr. Washington Star, with you, brother. Now you are, you are a military veteran. What branch? How long
Thomas Jackson 5:16
I was an Army for? See, a couple of years. I actually did my tour in Vietnam in the thing is, when, in those particular times, we were drafted, and so I was attending Tennessee State University, and being, you know, from humble beginnings, I had to do a little work as well as to attempt to go to school. And during one of those periods, were doing my, you know, work experience, I got the letter we want, hello, you know, how do they do the greetings, basically. And I was in Nashville during that period of time, there was a selective service board in place, right? If, you lived in Memphis, which is what I did, you would have, if you went to another locality, you would have to register. That's why, that's just so that they could keep tabs on where you were. And so I was in Nashville at the time that I received my induction to be in service.
Dave Washington 6:18
So what do you feel you gain from that experience that helped you in civilian life?
Thomas Jackson 6:24
Well, the thing is, I was able to transfer some skills, actually, from high school to the service we didn't have ROTC. I was I graduated 1965 and in Memphis that we had a the acronym for in DCC, and it stood for the National Defense Cadet Corps during that period of time. It was everything was totally segregated. And so it was, and I graduated in 65 the Bill of Rights was on 64 so you can kind of give your idea of kind of kind of what was going on during that period of time. So it was pretty interesting in terms of how you know, you would matriculate to some of those issues. But it was pretty it was pretty challenging, but that same token, it was rewarding as well.
Dave Washington 7:17
Great. Okay, Mr. Kirby Burgess, tell us where you're from and how long you've been in Las Vegas, and where'd you go to school? If you'd answer
Kirby Burgess 7:26
those absolutely and by the way, thank you for having Thomas and me on the show today. It was our pleasure. I grew up in Arkansas, so not too far from Thomas. He grew he grew up in Memphis, upstream from on the Mississippi River. I grew up downstream in the delta where all the blues started, in a little town called Eudora, 3000 people, and that was my that's my roots. I went to high school down there, graduated from high school, went to college a couple years, and then I at that time, as Tom had indicated, that was a lottery to draft, and I had a high lottery number, and I never got the call, so I transferred to UNLV. So I'm an alum of UNLV, and been here since 1972 Yeah, this is so been in Vegas 53 years. This is home. Been here all my adult life, and my friends and family and everybody are here. You
Dave Washington 8:16
know, it's interesting. I'm from a little small farmer community, aleja, Louisiana, about the same population, about about 2500 330, 520
Dave Washington 8:27
miles from where I'm from.
Dave Washington 8:29
In fact, one of my cousins is currently the mayor down. Yeah, I tell people where I'm from is so small by the time you read the sign, you be what passed through? Well, we're certainly pleased to have you here. In fact, Marsha and I saw you both that we were at a gathering this past weekend, again, as I already mentioned, the 75th birthday celebration for Miss Cheri Sullivan. And it was, and I had, I had seen these brothers, in fact. So this is what I really want to talk more about okay, was me and Marsha happened to see these gentlemen and some of their colleagues breaking bread, and I'm like, Man, it'd be good guess for the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I knew Thomas had mentioned before that he was a military vet. So why do you guys do that? And either I want to hear from both of you guys, why do you why do you have these, these gathering I don't know how often you do it, but it's just always pleasing when you see me and I see black folks, Hispanic folks, you know, sometimes it's all men or all women, but they get together in a brick bread.
Thomas Jackson 9:38
Well, you know, we have a special, connected connectedness that we, you know, really embrace down at the court. And I fell right into that when I came from Memphis and became to work at juvenile court services, okay, you know, at one point we actually called ourselves the Department of Family and Youth Services. And. And you know, that resonated with me quite a bit, you know, because family is job one, as far as I'm concerned. And so, you know, in terms of being connected to some of these gentlemen, that our colleagues, as I like to refer to them, it just is reinforcing, and it gives me a sense of, you know, a connectedness, and it gives me a sense of value, right? Because, you know, we basically grew up together, you know, we know each other quite, quite well in terms of, you know, how we negotiate and train, you know, navigate around each other. Some of us actually play different sports together. We've, we've had family situations where we've had each other over to our, you know, our residences, and so we're really, you know, we're really integrated
Dave Washington 10:49
at the table. We there with Dwight, dormant, yeah, Dwight and I and Ernest, my brother in law, we used to play basketball. I stopped playing basketball at 35 and we thought we were old. We were the old time. Man, my knees, jogging, tennis, my knees start bothering me. I have, I have not played basketball since. And you bring it to me when you say, y'all, y'all play some sports together. Man, I'm like, I told you, White Earth, I'm done. Man, my knees are killing me. I ain't playing no more basketball, and my knees ain't bothering me, since
Kirby Burgess 11:22
Thomas makes a good point. I started working for the Clark County government in 1975 I believe, at family Youth Services, which later became juvenile justice services. And when I went there, I met Thomas and then the connection of where we're from, as I indicated earlier, being from the south, a bunch, a bunch of southern young men who came to Las Vegas by various means and over that time period. And you know that from the fire department, when you work there, you get to know people. You go through life's, ups and downs with them. You work, we worked with kids, which was our specialty, and our mission, and and you live life together. And I think through a natural process, as the experts say, an organic process, just find it a natural process. You, you just you, you have the connectedness. And that carries over, not just at the work environment Wait, but after that, because Thomas and I both have been retired at least 20 years more, I know I've been retired 21 years. I think Thomas may have retired about that time too. And since that time, we get together at least three or four times a year, Donnie Jerry's nugget, and we fellowship, and we invite a lot of the fellows and some the ladies too, but most of the fellows and we get together, and we break bread, and we just talk about life, issues, politics, we solve everything, but we're a hunger.
Dave Washington 12:53
As I sit across the table from you guys with my cap on, I got that great too. I've been retired. I think it's 20 years now. When did you start?
Thomas Jackson 13:03
Thomas? Same year that Kirby started, I started juvenile court. He was at the University,
Dave Washington 13:09
okay, yeah, because I started in 74 and I retired in oh seven, you know. So our career path was right along the same time frame, man. And as you mentioned, Kirby, it's so important to get together because I got a group that I meet with, a couple secretaries, Hispanic, white, black, couple males, white, and we just fellowship. Now there's others who I don't want to I eat barbecue and drink liquor with my friends. We were work colleagues. Y'all didn't like me. I don't want to be around y'all, and y'all don't be trying to fake the funk now, but, but there are people that you want to be around, right? And in this group, we meet a couple times a year. Then there's some other guys they want to meet every month. No? Yeah, every month. Man, it's just too much. Next thing we'd be in all each other's business, man, but I, but when I saw you, I told Mars on my radio program, because I think that there's, there's so many others that do this. And just to tell the story of why, why y'all do it? Well, y'all gave some important indicators as to why. You know, it's like family, and you you do things with family, because some of those folks that that I meet, we still invite each other to one another's gatherings, you know, family gatherings and stuff, because you build that bond. But everyone you don't build that bond with at work, no, you know some your staff members, you work to get the job done, to serve the mission. As you mentioned, Kirby, whatever that mission is, that's why you're there. And then beyond that, that's all gravy, man, when you get to meet with folks outside
Kirby Burgess 14:43
of that, well, I tell people that God puts people in your life for a reason, season or a lifetime, and and you just hit on that. Thomas, in this case, and a lot of the other people who show up, they're lifelong friends. I mean, we we look out for each other. We call when we're. Are having lunch or breakfast, and we call and check on each other, and we invite each other the events. And as you say, because the community is so small, even even though it's grown to over 2 million now, right for those of us who live there for a long time, it's still somewhat of a small community that's right, where we know each other. We see each other at Celebration, like Cherie Sullivan celebration the other day, for example, what I wanted, what I wanted to talk about, was just a whole. What this does is not only just good for the connectedness, it's good for from a mental health perspective, think about it, yes, because, because we all know each other, and we can talk about shared experiences and what's going on in our lives and grandchildren, as we talked about on the way in, and it keeps us connected, because as we get older, we start to lose friends along the way, either they pass on away or something or another. And having that connectedness keeps us going, at least it certainly keeps me
Dave Washington 15:56
going. No, that's that's a valid point. In fact, I won't call his name because I have no permission to but I got a friend that's going through some challenges, and I'm trying to encourage him to go to Doolittle senior citizens, or the MLK on MLK and Kerry, or to the Pearson center. People will be over there playing dominoes, because if you don't have no connectedness and you get isolated, I think it can further cause you to deteriorate mentally. Yeah. So it's important to that, to your point, Kirby, that just meeting men, and, you know, interacting man, keep them juices flowing in your brain, yeah. And you
Kirby Burgess 16:31
can move in and out of different groups, and because I have other groups that I hang out with, yes. And for example, at Spring Mountain youth camp, Thomas and I got invited to their forestry picnic. They were celebrating 55 years of a partnership with Youth Forest Service, where they have a barbecue and everything, and they acknowledge all of us, right? And then the basketball thing went out the window for me, too, about the time it went out over 40 leagues anymore, but I've taken up pickleball, and I know Dave can't see my one love Pickleball. I'm a member of a group called One Love and the commissioner is involved in it. Commissioner weekly, right? We show up and we play pickleball. Oh, show up and show out. Oh, man, we have a good time.
Dave Washington 17:17
I don't know if you guys know Homer Miller. He used to be a baccarat dealer, but he's into pickleball, and I've been trying to get him and the guy who organized their group on the show, but I gave up, man, but now so I got somebody else that knows I'm going to
Kirby Burgess 17:33
play pickleball after I leave here. Okay, yeah, yeah, because it's called One Love pickleball, and it's got to be at least 60 of us.
Dave Washington 17:40
So there's a little league. What do you guys? You move around, and you have particular courses that you play.
Kirby Burgess 17:45
Well, we play over Sunset Park, primarily, oh, yeah, okay. But once a month we have a potluck dinner and pickleball line dancing thing out at Hollywood Park out there by sunrise mountain. We had VIP, the VIP into a pickleball place tonight at six. So we kind of move all over, but every, every week, where's the indoor one? Indoor zone of sunset, road and buffalo around 215 Yeah? But, yeah, I'm trying to get Thomas involved. Hey, once I get that hip fixed,
Thomas Jackson 18:18
yeah, once I get that sacroiliac squared away, then I'm out there, right? But, but, you know, just gonna just Dave back into the isolation you talked about it and how difficult it is for kids now to move beyond being by themselves, and I think that contributes highly to some of the issues that are going on in the world. You know, no doubt, when we were young, you know, our issue was coming into the house, you know, I mean, everybody often stayed outside and played until mom hit the on the window and said, It's time for you guys come in high school, cut the Doo Wop eyes, come on. You know, the Riff Raff goes down. But I see a lot of correlation between people who are having issues in the news now and being isolated in terms of, you know, whether or not they're just living with their parents or they're just living by, you know, in a situation where they don't have connection with other people. And that seems to be, you know, something that always is connected to their dysfunctionality. So the thing about being with somebody is, you know, it really reinforces you. I had a 60 I graduated in 1965 and my classmates came to Vegas over the weekend, and it was a love fest for real. Okay? I mean, it was an opportunity to reconnect. We establish new memories. You know, we just had a grand, grand time and and, you know, they see not only you, but they see your family, and they interact with them, and they love them. They get to love it on their board. I mean, it's all reciprocal, though. And you know, it really does Spark, you know, a sense of just one. Trying to be with some bias, right? You know, the thing that the word comes to mind gregarious? You know that that's when we are all wanting to have our the person that looks like us, close to us. You know, we want to be close and connected to somebody Absolutely and that's that's thing that keeps me, you know, moving in a direction where, you know, just keep it moving, keep it connected.
Dave Washington 20:23
You know, next weekend, I'll be down in Palm Springs. We have a reunion of firefighters of what's called the southwest region. And the first time we had it, we've been doing this now 1012, years, or whatever, whatever the case may be. So these two guys came in with this idea. I don't know if you guys remember virgin sporter used to work for the County Fire Department. I remember. And then this other brother out of San Jose fire department, they were retired. Hey, man, we need people are dying, and we need to get together. Let's see. Good idea. Let's do it. I said what we're gonna do. They say in Las Vegas, Kirby, neither one of them live here. Man, they put it right in my lap. But we've been doing it every year, with the exception of the two years of covid where we didn't do so going down and hanging out with these brothers. We'll play some golf, we're gonna eat and we're gonna tell them same old lies. But just to interact with people who you spent time with over your career is very important again, for the psychic. In fact, the one or both of these brothers are deceased now, oh, man and one brother, his wife, well, he had written a book, but it wasn't complete, so she edited and got it out. It's called, they call me trusted, and it's a journey to dealing with the various unpatriotic, uncharacteristic, evils, if you will, of the American fire service, and he talks about it, and he challenged people. And I was always wondering why he never made it above the rank of firefighter, because he was challenging some of the dysfunction of the organization on the whole. And ultimately, he he made it better for guy, even guys like me, as far down as Las Vegas, he was always encouraged to go for fire chief. You got to do that. You're good brother, you you knowledge, you will. So this book that she has helped to get together for him work, put it finally together for him. And you know, because he's gone and he's an ancestor, but man, when I read this book, I might, man, this dude really had a lot to say about what was going on. So tell our listening audience, and you made reference, Thomas to the youth. And I know you guys worked a lot. Is there something that? And I know Wes gonna be giving me a sign here in a little bit. I can, I can feel it. He's gonna be coming saying, Hey, you only get he'll go like that. He hasn't done it yet, though, so just
Thomas Jackson 22:42
real quick though, I'll tell you a little story that comes to mind. You know, my wife and I, we were at a mall at one point, and there was a opportunity for us to go to get our car, and between our car and where we were, this juvenile was there, and he was using some pretty colorful language, and, you know, he's dressed in a certain manner, and you know, he had cocked his hat. And then I had to explain to my wife that, hey, I know this kid, and chances are, you know, he'll recognize who I am as well. So we've been ahead, you know, because there's a real close thing between fear and bravery. Okay, so I was going to be brave to go out just deal with the situation, and because, you know, I'm faithful, that means also going to work out in a good way. As I began to walk out, the little kid, not a kid, because he was an adult at this point, he turned around and he acknowledged who I was, and he said, Oh, Mr. Jackson, I am so sorry. And he went from here up to from a 10 to probably at one. And the thing that I attribute to that is, you know, even when a kid is thinking when he's in a bad place and you treat him good, he'll remember that that's right, and he'll respond to that. And so that was real reinforcing to me, you know, because a lot of my staff had said, If I don't see a kid, I got my heat, I'm going, you know, that kind of thing, thinking, How do you even formulate that kind of an idea around
Kirby Burgess 24:13
Thomas had presence on the job. I can speak when he was a probation officer, and later when he was in administration, and he trained and mentors his staff the same way, and I think that's why. But I want to quickly touch on one thing, because our generation, our group, and then subsequently our generation, we're mostly still low tech, and we we believe in face to face, eyeball eyeball contact and getting together the young people. Now, if you go into a university class or a lobby or even airport, they're on their phone, they're looking they're not engaged in a relationship with somebody else, talk to somebody, you know what I'm talking about. And and what we tried to do when we work with kids, we tried to get them to understand, that's why you can finally do that. That you need to learn how to talk to people and speak to people, and that's why our group, I think, thrives today, because we believe in face to face. I'm
Dave Washington 25:08
laughing, man, till I'm almost crying here, because yesterday I was trying to change my room reservation. And you know this, AI study taught me, Look, no, we can send you over here we can take No, I want to speak to an agent, associate, whatever you guys call them. That's what I need to speak to someone, because I told this thing me and technology just don't work well together. So they finally got me to an associate, and we got it all worked out. I'm like, No, this thing right here. It's my brains, man, but there's so much I don't know how to use and deal with this, but I think one of the things that we have to do, he just gave me a three minutes saying, look, okay, to me, is leave people with their dignity intact. See, when I had to deal with people on a disciplinary level, I didn't get in, even though I got a reputation of screaming and hollering and cussing, but that was on the drill field as a training officer, because you got to yell above these fire engines. Man, but in our office. Man, I ain't raising my voice because I ain't let nobody. I don't care if you the mayor, a councilman, you're not gonna talk crazy to me, and you're not gonna disrespect me, and I'm not gonna disrespect you, right? We're gonna do this as fellow human beings. I used to tell the union president. Man, let me tell you something. I don't want to fight with you, but I don't work for you. Do I want to work for you and your and the members, absolutely I do, but I serve at the pleasure that city manager and then elected officials over there, that's right, and if they asked me to do something wrong, I walk out the door before I mistreat people. I ain't doing that, but let's have some closing remarks from both of you and I, and I really appreciate you both being here on Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. We love it.
Thomas Jackson 26:46
Well, let me just say this that you know, over the years, I've been in service, and I've also been a probation officer as well as a supervisor and a detention facility for kids. And the thing that really strikes me probably the hardest is being having second chances. You know, people should have an opportunity to recover, that's right, and we should be embrace that redemptive process, because everybody you know make a mistake, that's right, and if they don't, you know, they're just about it's just that they haven't experienced that level of life yet. But I would think that we would also look at people in terms of saying that, you know, this, this job that they may, we may be seeing in front of us isn't the finished product, that's right. And so we should let that, you know, evolve to whatever conclusion it's going to but be encouraging, you know, and be honest, but also be of the Second Chance approach.
Dave Washington 27:41
Great advice.
Kirby Burgess 27:42
Kurt absolutely and he's absolutely right. I tried to model the same thing another leader of that organization. When I worked there. I tried to be a mentor and a role model to not only the staff, but also helping those kids, to make sure we had great staff in place, like Mr. Jackson and others who could carry the message. But in my takeaway from all of it is, you never stop growing, learning and helping others. That's right, and I've taken that not only into my community, but also into my church, where I try to be a role model. I try to be a person who can give advice when required to even asked for to the to the young people, let them know that I definitely was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. You know, I grew up. I grew up in the cotton field making 50 cents an hour, picking and chopping cotton. So I know exactly what it's like to go from there to where we are, like warp speed. And so I let them know too that there are second chances that we all have a starting point. But that doesn't tell the whole story. That's
Thomas Jackson 28:44
right, absolutely. Well, gentlemen, I really appreciate it once again. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more ahead. Mr. Thomas Jackson, Mr. Kirby Burgess, long time Las Vegas and and role models, both of them are, they're well appreciated in our community. So with that, gentlemen, I look forward to having you back on the show sometime in the future. So thank you so much for
All 29:03
coming. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Yep, appreciate it. All right.
Music 29:22
Hey, all the smoke in the air, feel the hate when they stare on the pain that we bear.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai