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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.
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This is a Kun V studios original program.
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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. You
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what's going on Good
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Morning Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. I have a long time adopted, I believe, family member in the house today, Mark. He is a good guy that's been around this town for a number of years, and he's a veteran, so we're going to have him to talk to us about a few things here shortly. Certainly want to announce again, the passing and condolences to the family members, all of our family members, on the loss of our sister, Kathy, we call her cat. She passed away, and was we had our memorial this past weekend. So I think she would have been pleased with how everything was was put together by her daughters. Because I think it was well, the main one, of course, was belicia, but she had some assistance from her sisters, so we are grateful for having a great outcome for her at the Church of Reese. Pastor, Pastor Reese at the Majestic house of worship, a nice little church right on H Street. So we're pleased that he was able to allow us to have her services there. So with that, I'm going to talk about a few birthdays that will occur and have occurred in the month of September. Uncle LC, Kennedy has a birthday this month. My youngest sister, Anita Armstrong, God bless. Always a busy body and a long time waitress downtown. And she is people love her because she does such a great job. Then, of course, fire chief Eugene Campbell, one of my colleagues, birthday is this month as well, and gone, but not forgotten is my mother in law, Mary fountain. So again to those folks who have oh and belatedly, RB Campbell, he was, I think, on August 30, if I'm not mistaken, but certainly want to acknowledge him. You know, I cover a lot each each show Mark about the things that are going on in the lives of veterans. And I don't try to tell people who to vote for, but certainly I encourage them to study the issues, make sure that their registration is current, and then go vote when the time comes. So with that, I have some other things to say in between the end of the show and finishing up with Mark here. Mark, how are you? Sir,
Unknown Speaker 3:18
good morning. David, I'm blessed. I'm blessed, and really glad to be back in the city. I left here, lived here about 26 years and you're correct, Your mom was my sister. So I was adopted into this family over 40 years ago, and one of the greatest gifts that God ever gave me was Was your family moved to San Diego about 20 years ago, and I came in for cat's funeral that you just got done talking about, and it just was a blessing to be with all the family, and I'm honored and privileged to be here with you today.
Unknown Speaker 3:51
Now, as I mentioned, you are a veteran. Tell our listening audience What branch and how long did you serve?
Unknown Speaker 3:56
Yes, I am a veteran. Very proud veteran. I served in the United States Air Force from 1984 to 1985 I had signed up for a four year term, and I had a very serious automobile accident. Active duty. I was stationed in Victorville, California, which was a small base then called George Air Force Base. The government has since dissolved it, and the Air Force Base is no longer there, but it was three about three hour drive from Las Vegas. So much of us buddies on the base that were from Vegas, we would drive home every weekend, spend time with our families here in Las Vegas and head back to the base late Sunday night or even early Monday morning to be there at our duty station. Well, this one particular weekend, nobody was around to ride with, and I was on my own, and on the Oklahoma pass, I was hit by an 18 wheeler. Peter built semi truck, and he hit me in in the driver's side rear, and I spun out and did a donut, and then he hit me again in the driver's side door, and the car just. Folded up like Saran Wrap and Reynolds Wrap, and glass broke and shattered, and the car rolled and donated, and I cracked my spine and just a lot of injuries. So I was discharged from the military and given, thankfully, 100% service connected disability, VA compensation, wow,
Unknown Speaker 5:22
man, I had no idea about the accident. You know, you get to know things as you live later on in life, or as you get later in life. So that accident, How long had you been in? Then,
Unknown Speaker 5:36
about a year, not quite a year when I was discharged, I had just passed one year. So it was like one year in two days, or something went that I had served, you know. So
Unknown Speaker 5:43
what was your job classification? I
Unknown Speaker 5:45
was a seven, what they called a 70230, I don't even know if they still have it. It was admin specialists. Basically, I was a secretary in military.
Unknown Speaker 5:55
No, I know a number of people who've had those particular types of jobs in the military, and that is one that's more easy, if there's such a thing as easy, to transition from the military into civilian life. And what's cat's granddaughter? That the one that looks like she's about 12 years old. She's 18, just doing and she is an air traffic controller. That's what her, her MOS is. In fact, that's her, her advanced training she's in now. And I told her, I say you will be there always shortage of air traffic controllers. So you picked a good job classification that could roll into civilian life.
Unknown Speaker 6:35
Yeah, I did. And you know, it's funny, you said that, because the Lord used that, that little bitty training I had, and when I got out of the military, some years later, I went to work at a bank. I started out part time as a teller, and I left as a vice president, so God just elevated me all the way up to the to the top. You know, couldn't do no better than that, I'm telling
Unknown Speaker 6:55
you for sure. So you're the administrative type. Okay, so where were you actually born and raised?
Unknown Speaker 7:01
David, I was born in Chicago, born and raised in Chicago, in the hood on the south side of Chicago. Lived there until I was not quite 18 years old, and then I left and came out to Las Vegas, and that's how I ended up getting in your family, I ended up going to a church on the west side. One of my buddies, I had already joined the Air Force, and my duty station of takeoff intake station was in Phoenix, Arizona. So I came out here to visit my buddy that was already stationed at Nellis. And then he invited me to go to a service on the west side, Morningstar at the time, and long story short, I went to that service, and at the end of that service, this woman hollered out, wait a minute. Tell that white boy he can't leave here yet he hadn't spoke to me. And I turned around, and she had a Bible under one arm and a purse under the other, and she came up to me and she said, Rena Watkins is my name. I just want to tell you that Jesus loves you, and I do too, and the rest is history. That was the beginning, and that's how I got adopted into this great family. And 45 years later, I'm still here.
Unknown Speaker 8:10
That is very interesting. Yeah, Grandma Reno was a very forward person. You know she Yes, she get right on. And my mother has similar characteristics, even though she was my mother's, what would you call it, stepmom, correct? Because my mother's mother passed when she was, I think, eight, nine years old. But yeah, Miss arena, and, you know what? And my daughter makes tea cakes, but Miss rina's tea cakes were the absolute best. Oh yeah, April makes a good tea cake, but I still can taste the ones that grandma Rina made back in the day.
Unknown Speaker 8:46
And you talk about bold, if you remember one of her famous, infamous, I call it mama isms was she'd always say Rena Watkins is my name, and I don't throw a brick and hide my hand.
Unknown Speaker 8:57
That is, well, so from Chicago, huh? And then you joined the Air Force from Chicago, and then came here,
Unknown Speaker 9:04
correct? I joined from Chicago, and then they told me that my intake, and when you, as you know, when you join the military, certain intake centers across the country, and the Intake Center for the Air Force at that time was in Phoenix, Arizona. So I had to come to Phoenix to go through intake, and then after the physical, and after the processing center in Phoenix, then they flew us to San Antonio, Texas, because Lackland Air Force Base is the training center still to this day for the Air Force. So that was the process. So I thought I'd kill some time and come out here and hang out with some buddies from the Air Force. God had another plan, David, he had another plan, and he had set it up so that I'd meet your grandma and and and not only meet her, I'll add, I also met him. So that's the one thing that that that your grandma and you all the Jenkins and the Watkins family have done for me, is they helped introduce me to Jesus Christ. I. But my life was messed up, and I didn't even think the military was going to take me because I had so many issues. But to God, be the glory. I'll say
Unknown Speaker 10:07
this, I am still trying to find my way as it relates to religion. I've been baptized. Me My mother, eugeno Watkins white, oh, man, she used to take us to church a couple times a week, you know. And I know how important it is to be to give yourself to God and try to follow that lead in terms of doing the right thing, etc. But I'm still a work in progress, if you will. And Marcia, my wife, she thinks I'm crazy. So you just listen to anything that anybody say, not really. But the bottom line is, I'm a god, believing a God, fearing man, no doubt about that. And in terms of where you were inducted, I was inducted as well in Phoenix, you know, interesting. Yeah, I got drafted. And the intake station was there in Phoenix, Arizona, and from there I went to Fort Ord, California, where I took my basic training and advanced training. Because my my advanced training was to be what's called a missile crewman. I had a marijuana possession just as I turned 18. So they said, No, we can't give you a top
Unknown Speaker 11:20
misdemeanor, misdemeanor, right?
Unknown Speaker 11:23
So anyway, the next thing they send me the mechanics say, I don't want to be a mechanic. Oh, and I know you fellow veterans out there have heard this story a few times, but I must tell it for the sake of Mark, to just let him know how I arrived, at where I arrived. I said I don't want to be and I had taken auto mechanics in high school, so I wasn't afraid to get my hands dirty, right? But I said, Look, I watched my mother bake cakes and I want to be a baker. Because they said, What do you want to do Washington? I said, I want to be a baker. They said, We don't have baking here, and it has a chapter on baking. I said, I'll take it. So that's how I became a cook in it. Wow. And it was a good ride, you know, like I said, I got court martial, but I said to myself, I'm not going out here with no bad discharge. So I asked him, How do I get out with an honorable let's say, Well, you go back through your basic training and, you know, get a new assignment. Blah, blah, blah. So I did all that, and thank God I did that, because otherwise I would have never got into the fire service, because I scored like 8687 on the test, got my five military points, and there I was, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 12:29
and correct me if I'm wrong, David, but we were so proud of you because you were the first African American fire chief in the city of Las Vegas. Is that correct? Am I wrong?
Unknown Speaker 12:39
No, that's correct. And one thing, people, sometimes they, they get it kind of twisted. They say I was the first black fire chief in the state of Nevada. No, I was not that that would be chief Earl green with the Clark County Fire Department. So I always want to straighten it out with people. But you know, like I told people, in my role, in my responsibility, I just happen to be a black man who was the fire chief, you know, don't be calling me the Black Fire Chief. You know, I got into with the press. I got into the press. I said, you guys don't call Mark Vinson, the Caucasian finance director. So why y'all calling me the Black Fire Chief? I'm the fire chief who happens to be black. If you want to state it that way, I can deal with it. They look at this dude is a fire cry. Yes, I am. I expect to be respected. And like I say, it had nothing to do with my race in terms of my leadership. From my standpoint, it was about to do the good for the all the staff, as well as the citizenry, and that's to the best of my ability, for six years. And you know,
Unknown Speaker 13:35
it's interesting that you brought race into it, because myself, or your listeners, I'm white. I was born and raised in Chicago, and with your family, obviously being black, African American, when your grandma adopted me and helped raise me up and rear me up in the Lord, I was never identified as just mark. It was always miss reena's White son. Miss reena's White son, the white boy that hung around and I didn't mind that one bit. As a matter of fact, it kind of enabled me even more to understand the need that I had to understand what God was doing in the relationship between she and me, because, you know, the story about them when they came from the south, and the way they were so mistreated in their generation, and then for God to put a white person, a white kid, into their lives and put them into mine. It was never a struggle. It was God fit from the beginning. It was just your grandma Rena used to say she and I had a hand and glove fit. We never had any color, any racial issues. So, you know, for anyone that's listening, I just want to say that, you know, of course, there's races. That's a fact. We're all a race of some sort, but we can get beyond that and look into each other for who we are, who the people are, as human beings, rather than the race and and we'll live in a better world. It'll be a better place,
Unknown Speaker 14:55
no doubt. In fact, I had no idea how far back. You had gone eight, met her when you were 18. Yes, sir. My goodness, sir. My goodness, yeah. So you mentioned that when you got out of the military, you went into the banking industry for a while. Correct,
Unknown Speaker 15:12
correct? When I first got out, because I had a cracked spine, and when they discharged me, I was in a back brace for a while, still under physical therapy, et cetera, et cetera. And unfortunately, my body had shut down to where, basically I was, like a little wimp, is the best way to describe it. I couldn't lift any more than five pounds. Well, the feathers five pounds, you know. So basically I couldn't do anything. It took a couple of good years for that healing process to take place into my back and my spine and my lower body, etc. So I bopped around doing whatever kind of jobs I wanted to do until I had the full healing. I was working part time. I think I worked at Wendy's on Charleston, part time, and McDonald's that kind of stuff, you know. And it took a good about 10 years before I really went to the bank. And then when I went to the bank, like I said, I started out as a teller, and then they liked what I did, and then they put me over to tellers, and they liked what I did, and they put me into personal banking, and they liked what I did, and they put me over to personal bankers, and then they put me as Vice Assistant Branch Manager. Then they put me as branch manager, and then they promoted me to, uh, to regional vice president, To God be the glory. So.
Unknown Speaker 16:18
So what are you doing these days?
Unknown Speaker 16:19
I'm doing ministry. I'm a chaplain, and I minister with all kind of people anywhere that Lord opens our doors. We go to prisons, we go to jails, we go to rehab institutions. We go to NA meetings, narcotics, anonymous. We go to AA meetings. We go to different associated meetings with anybody that has any type of addiction that they're helping to get recovery from. And we're blessed to just sit in when we're invited, and we just go in and pray for them and let them know, whatever their struggle, whatever their issue, whatever their addiction, Jesus Christ is the answer. The world today is looking for help. They're going to various rehabs, and they're going to various therapists, and they're looking and searching and seeking constantly. How do I get out of this mess that I'm in? Right? And I just want to share with your listeners today, Jesus Christ is the answer. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 17:13
so what recommendations or suggestions would you give to anyone that's considering joining the military, wow,
Unknown Speaker 17:21
it would be the best decision that you could ever make, in my opinion, if you're disciplined enough, and if you can handle the discipline. Let me make sure that's clear, because the military requires a lot of discipline, and if you can handle that discipline, it'll be the best decision you could ever make if you go into a branch, let's just say you want to go into the Marine Corps. And if you sign up and you do your one or two years and you don't like the Marine Corps anymore, you can cross over into another branch. You can go into the Navy, you can go into the Air Force. You might be able to try all five branches. Now, there's the Space Force, the new branch. So you can cross train into those if you want. But the perks and the benefits are unbelievable. The military will take care of you for the rest of your life, and also, if you get married and have a spouse and have children, they'll take care of your spouse and your children. So it's an honor to serve your country, but in return, the country will recompense back to you for your time that you put in the military.
Unknown Speaker 18:21
Well, said, All right, we had Mark Simon. He's a good guy. I didn't know how long he had been a part of our family, but I know now since he was 18 years old. Thank you, Mark for coming on the show, and I trust that people take to heart what you said about following Jesus Christ. Was for sure, you got to have some kind of base spiritually for your life. Thank you. Amen. Thank
Unknown Speaker 18:44
you for having me, David. God bless you.
Unknown Speaker 18:46
Thank you. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 jazz and more. We'll talk on the other side.
Unknown Speaker 18:58
Good day. Once again. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I'm your host, Dave Washington, I was hoping to have Faye duck and Daniel on this morning to give us a report on how her event turned out in July that she had down on the river. I spoke to her, and it was a very nice affair, and I want to soon get an update, and I'm hoping that it will be an annual event, but she's not very sure if that will be the case. She had some group to actually reach. Some group actually reached out to her and asked her to run this project, but it was about the river and its important importance to the city of Helena, Arkansas as well Arkansas as well as Arkansas in general. So certainly want to get a Fay on sometime in the very near future to give us an update on that particular project we had Mark. Uh, Simon on in the first half the show, and mark as a veteran, and I didn't realize he had been adopted by my grandma, Rina when he was 18 years of age. So Mark's been around our family for quite a number of years. Also, in that vein, he did remind me of one of the birthday in September that I seemingly had failed to mention, but I was going to mention on my next show, but I mentioned right now, and that's the matriarch of our family, Magnolia Kennedy. She is a star worth that keeps us all on point, and we love her very, very much, and wanted to acknowledge you AMAC for your birthday coming up at the end of September, so we appreciate you more than you'll ever know, and she's done some wonderful things for Marsha and I, as I transition in this whole issue with my my health issue with With this cancer. But we continue to pray and continue to try to be a good patient, is what I'm trying to do by doing some things to help myself with that I'm going to roll into the whole issue of again, voting, not telling you who to vote for, but I encourage everyone out there to make sure that you check out and ensure that you are registered to vote, because sometimes you get purged and don't even know it. So number one, make sure your your registration is current. Get yourself educated on the various issues, particularly that are important to you as an individual, and then take the appropriate action. And by that I mean vote. I think it's November 5, if I remember correctly. But the bottom line, our votes are important, and they do count. I want to talk a little bit more about and you guys know that I've read certain parts about Project 2025 Well, there was another one I happened to be going over last night, and it's called Schedule F, executive order from the former president. And essentially what they're talking about doing is they want to do put some restrictions on overtime. And I urge you to read that. I forget what page it is on in the overall project 2025, document, but they are looking at putting some hurt on the whole interest of overtime. And certainly we talked about what they want to do to VA and a number of government workers, they want to take them out and put in folks who are basically, I guess they would be more like political appointments versus civil servants, where you get certain classifications and and you're a long term and knowledgeable, in most cases, government employee, because I think it's important for us to be aware of what they and I'm talking about the folks of project 2025. Are hoping to do another thing I talked about some time ago, and that's the Department of Education, where they like to gut that out, take it out, and do a number of things that I think will be harmful to to our overall population. So these things, we must make ourselves knowledgeable of, and, and, and take the time to to address these things. Because if we don't, you're going to look up and say, Man, what the what in the heck happened? Where did things go wrong? Because I believe that we as a as a community, and I'm talking about a world community, because America, we are part of the world, and I think we all got to be considerate of one another. And you know, as I go about my day, I see a lot of homeless people, and I know a number of them are veterans, and I think that we can do a better job with that. But again, I just want to reiterate how important it is for us to one make sure your registration is current, educate yourself about the various issues related, not only on the national but on a local level as well, and then vote when the time comes. And I believe it's November 5. So please, please, please, get yourself in a position where you won't go there on the day of the election and say, I come to to vote, and they say, Oh, your registration is not it's not current. So get on top of that now, because it's very important. And also, as far as this show, and Wes brought it to my attention a couple shows ago, I've done over 100 shows you guys, and you can go to wherever you get your your podcast information. Uh, well, there's, I guess there's, there's different ways to access podcasts. And this is a podcast that you can listen to the various shows that we had. And like I said, Well, Said, over 100 where you can, if you're on the other side of the world, you can listen to this show. And we come on on Saturday mornings, at 7am every Saturday morning. So we appreciate our audience for listening to the shows. And again, it's called Veterans Affairs plus. And the last couple of shows, I've been doing a lot more on the plus side, if you will. And the plus side is so I have the ability to talk about things that I think are important to our overall community, and I'm talking about not only us as American citizens, but us as world citizens. Because to me, one thing that I keep encouraging people to do is pray for peace in the Middle East. We can talk about who's right, who's wrong, but there's a lot of lives being lost. And I know in war, you know, there's a lot of civilian casualties that occur, but when we can eliminate that, we should be about that, because some kind of way along the line of living life, we have lost our humanity. I think it's people just don't seem to care about one another. You know, long as I got mine, I'm not concerned about you, your health, or anything else for that matter. So the bottom line is, I think that we need to recapture our humanity, because it's important for us to have a love and appreciation, appreciation for all human beings, and we're going to certainly have our differences and oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that an organization that I have been a member of since I became since I served as fire chief for Las Vegas Fire and Rescue is the Metro chiefs have put out A document showing support and encouraging fire departments that are members of Metro to certainly do things and in fact, do a survey in support and just recognize the E what diversity, inclusion and equity, they are in full support, and I'm pleased to hear that. So those of you out there who are firefighters, we need to make sure we get on top of that and make sure we support it. And I can tell you that in an upcoming show, we're going to have Sheriff Kevin mcmahill. Kevin is just an outstanding guy, and one of the things that he's embarking upon is looking out for the interests of those police officers, those public safety officers who are who are having problems a lot of times. And I mentioned this on this show several times, where, when one of our engines rolled on his side, and we had four of our personnel to be injured in one more serious than the other. In fact, he became a quadrant collegiate, and I can tell you that Brenda Donahoe, our incident debriefing person, she came by my office at least three, four times. Chief, we need to talk. No, we don't need to talk. I'm good. Unbeknownst to me, I'm carrying the weight of this whole accident on my shoulders because it happened on my watch as fire chief and you know, and I take those things to heart, because our firefighters, men and women, they put their cells on the line for our citizens every day, and when that occurred again, It was on my watch, so I felt obligated
Unknown Speaker 28:44
to to be there for those individuals. But by the same token, I didn't even look out for myself. In fact, it was at in a class at the Carl Holmes executive development institute down at Dillard University, where one of the fire personnel, one of our students, she was the captain. She said, Have you ever been debriefed on that whole incident? And I start crying, and the tears just came, and they came. But you know what? I never cried after that again, because the pressure that I didn't realize I was carrying was now off of me. But God rest his soul that that officer who was a paraplegic, Captain Theo Adams, lived 15 years, and we want to say once again, we appreciate his service for Las Vegas Fire and Rescue. Wes has just given me the wrap up. So we will talk to you next week on this show, Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more, and we appreciate mark for being on the show this morning talk to you next week. You.
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