Hello.
My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the Leadership Lessons from the Great
Books podcast. Bonus.
There's no book reading usually on these
bonus episodes. These typically tend to
be interviews, rants, raves, insights, and other gentle
and sometimes more confrontational audio musings and, of
course, conversations with interesting people about
leadership. Because listening to me add an
interesting guest talk about leadership for at least a couple of
hours fourth maybe as little as an hour and a half is still better
than reading and trying to understand yet another
business book. Especially that business book
written by a large language algorithm that calls itself
ai that thinks it's smarter than you.
That's going to be a real problem coming up. We'll talk more about that on
the podcast, but not today. Our
guests today, has an extensive background,
only some of which I will read and then we will get into at
a deeper level. As we continue fourth
as we draw out as we have our conversation, today.
So he enlisted into the United States army in 1998,
which makes him a member of the tail end of Generation X. Like myself, I
graduated high school in 1997, Jesan he has served
with a plethora of companies, task forces, and
teams across the length and breadth of the United States
Army, including brigade s 9 non commissioned officer in
headquarters and headquarters company, 1st Brigade Combat Team,
5104th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division,
instructor for civil affairs qualifications course and operations
in the OIC fourth Bravo Company, 3rd
battalion, 1st Special Warfare Training Group a, and
battalion schools noncommissioned officer and battalion leadership development instructor
in headquarters and headquarters company, 51st Signal
Battalion A, 35th Signal Brigade A, Fort Bragg,
North Carolina. And if you think I just said a mouthful there,
you're correct. His deployment experience
includes 2 deployments to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi
Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom with Bravo
Company, 51st Signal Battalion A, 35th Signal
Brigade A, as well as 3 deployments in the southern Philippines,
one deployment to Afghanistan and 2 deployments to Hawaii.
And out of all those places, you could probably guess which one I've
actually been Tom, and it wasn't the Philippines or
Afghanistan. He is a graduate
of Warrior Leaders Fourth, Advanced Leaders Course with honors, and Senior
Leaders Course with honors. Also holds a certificate in business administration
and operations leadership, a certificate in leadership and management, as well as
an associate's in general education, all fourth Fayetteville
Technical Community College. He is a graduate of the University of Charleston,
West Virginia, and holds a bachelor of science in organizational
leadership. His awards and decorations are manifold,
including the Bronze Star Medal and the Philippine Bronze Cross
Medal. In addition to all of that, my guest today is
married to the former Candace Williams Daley and has 2 sons, Ethan and
Thomas, and 2 daughters, Kennedy and Catherine.
Just like myself, he's got 4 kids. I would presume, that
they are all well, they're all of the age where he's still in
it. He's still in the game and the game is
DMX used to say the game is deep and the pain is brief
and it happens every day. And so
I would like to welcome to the podcast, Kalen Buller. How you
doing, Kalen? Doing fairly well. Thank you. Yeah.
Alright. So what's it like to have your entire resume read to you? What's that
like?
I mean, it's unfamiliar, I
guess. I mean, most of the time, you're you're reading it, and I'm I'm
remembering stuff. Well, you're reading it off, and it's just all
flooding back. So it's Right. It's, you
know, a little weird, I guess. Little weird.
Little weird. But that's weird. I mean, when you when you start rattling it
off. So and you go through it when you say 51st signal battalion
a. Every single one of those a's, that's a that's an airborne unit. So it's
51st Single Battalion Airborne, 82nd Airborne Division,
50 4th Parachute Infantry Regiment. So, I mean, it all reads right,
but it's either special operations or it's airborne,
and you'll see those at the end of a variety of units all
across. I mean, you got Mhmm. Anything from SF groups to,
you know, tab units. It just depends on
it's military. Military lingo is tough to follow.
Sometimes Tom is for those of us in the, in the civilian
world. And, you know, on this podcast, we've interviewed
several folks, either around books, and had conversations with
them around their favorite books fourth just straight interviews with folks
that, do have a a a strong military
background because, quite frankly, and
I always kind of have to say this on the podcast because there's always new
listeners and people who just don't they just don't have an awareness of where we
are at or what we're doing in the world. For the last 25 years, we've
been war making, all across the globe, for good
or ill, and we don't get into the politics of that here.
I always say though, and actually I said this to somebody else fourth private
conversation yesterday. I always say that there's
only things you can learn in a certain kind of wailing Jesan you can learn
in a certain kind of way for having a bullet fly past your ear and
then having to deliver a bullet podcast the ear of somebody else, and you cannot
learn them in any other kind of way, including leadership
lessons. And so I value, people who come from that
background, and I value their experiences. And I like to bring them to my listeners
and talk about them on the podcast, but also to sort of
figure out how we can synthesize all of those lessons together,
into not only into the civilian world, but how we can merge those 2 spheres
together. And so I hope to be able to do some of that today.
So it's it's always a learning process. Exactly.
Always a learning process. And when you're dealing with leadership,
when you're dealing with people, it's a constant
adapting and and learning because that's what that's what
adapting is, is learning. So Exactly. Exactly. Well and
we are in a time of adaptation. One of the ideas that
I've been really focused on this last year on the podcast has been
the idea that and it is a challenging idea, and I just want you
to before I ask you the first question because I've really asked your question Jesan,
but, as as we kind of go through the podcast, I want you to sort
of roll this idea over in your head. But I think historically
we're at the end of a chaotic period. And I know it seems weird because
everybody looks out and all they see is chaos, But I think this is
the last dregs of the old chaos, kind of like a
cornered rat. You know? It's gonna fight all the way to the end, but
then it's when it's done, it's done. And I think we're getting to the end
of that in what I call the 4th turning. And on the other
side of that will be a spring, a springtime of awakening,
and a springtime of advancement. And I think that that's gonna be a great
thing for America. And so I like bringing on people who are coming out of,
as I mentioned in the opening, Generation X, who I believe
will be those future leaders in this in this upcoming
spring. And, I think their insights are going to be valuable
for the 2 younger generations we have floating around the world right now, the millennials
and Gen Zers, who have had significantly
different life experiences than the ones that we had. So,
I don't know if you agree with that thesis or if you wanna challenge that,
but I want to let you float it around in your head
as I ask you this first question. So for our listeners,
what is it that you do exactly? Like,
professionally? Professionally, personally, wherever you wanna
start. No. Professionally,
I'm a retired retired soldier,
and I now essentially take care of veterans the
same way I took care of soldiers when I was in the military. You know,
I teach, coach, and mentor, veterans and,
service members and their families on benefits,
be it health care Tom education to you name
it. They need it. I'll connect them to it. Mhmm. So
my official title is, veteran peer services
coordinator certified by the Texas Veterans Commission.
That is a position that is falls under the
veterans mental health department whose mission is
to reduce veteran suicide. That's essentially what we
are in the business of doing is mitigating crisis,
that veteran service members and their families are experiencing as
quickly in real time as we possibly can so that we
can combat that, that sue veteran
suicide number that's consistently
on the up and down, you know, depending on time of year, depending
on politics, economics, a
variety of things cause that that that stuff Tom happen. So,
what I essentially do is teach, coach, and mentor. I'm just doing it for veterans
instead of instead of soldiers now. Mhmm.
Mhmm. So let's go
into the background of that because that's a that's a tough
area to talk about out loud. When I was working in
higher education, I worked with a lot of students,
living in high rise apartment buildings. I did that fourth, well,
close to a decade. And when you do that, a
percentage of those students is going to engage in self harm and is going to
engage in suicidal ideation. It just comes with the, with the, with the territory.
Writers? And so I've had those,
conversations and I'm not minimizing them. I've had those conversations with people
who are on the edge or on the brink or ready to go over,
or even in some cases tried to go over and maybe it
didn't succeed.
So from their perspective, not from the perspective of others.
Right. And so I've had those conversations that have been in
that space, but not nearly to the depth that you've been in that space. So
my follow-up question there to that is how did you wind up
in this space? Sort of walk us through how you wound up in that
space starting in 1998? Because I'm sure you didn't come into the US Army in
19 90 and going, hey, I'm gonna ultimately work with veterans in their own suicide.
That's gonna be where I'm gonna end up. No. That was that was
far from it. So
I I'd like to say everything goes back to childhood. Right? I mean,
I was raised drinking out the garden hose and riding my bike,
you know, all across town, going to Blockbuster, and renting
video games to bring back home to play for the weekend Tom drop off on,
you know, Sunday night, but let's say you don't get a late fee. You know,
that that that kind of generation is what I came up with, and,
not really having any idea what exactly I
was wanting to do. You know, I didn't really figure I still don't
even know what I wanna do when I talk about it. So it's like it
comes down to, I was a sophomore in high
school, and my high school
invited and approved for junior ROTC for air Force
to be, added to the curriculum at my high school,
which was great, but it was also the 1st year that they started block scheduling.
So I ended up joining, Junior ROTC Air
Force Edition for, for the PE credit
because I was not very athletically inclined. Right? So I
was, you know, couch potato, Friday night, Family Writers,
watching, you know, home improvement, all that stuff, where
it was like, Friday night, you're watching TV. Right? So On ABC.
That's right. There you go. So that that was the thing that I grew up
with. So when I was trying to go, you know, play football or whatever, I
was not interested in sports. It just completely turned me off.
And so when I got to high school, I was like, wait a minute. You
mean I cannot get all sweaty and nasty and still get a PE credit?
Okay. Cool. Yeah. I'll do that. So for the 1st 6 months fourth the
1st semester of that, and it was also the 1st block schedule, so we went
from 7 credits per year to 8 credits per
year, with 4 per semester. And so I was grandfathered
in, being that my 1st freshman year, I only needed a certain number
of credits to graduate. So I was able to pick up extra credits junior, so
you know, sophomore, junior, senior year. So I actually graduated high school 6
months early in December. And then I joined
the military in March, and I graduated and
walked the stage at basic training the same week that my graduating
class walked the stage at high school. So I was already
in service, when by the time my class
graduated. But the the thing that comes down to it is is,
I went during junior ROTC. I went from being, my
first actual positive affirmation
came from that right up there. That top
one that's right up there is actually a certificate for,
my first accomplishment in Junior ROTC, which which
was, most improved cadet. Right? So I went
from being in the the gray man, like, in the book, not
doing anything at the beginning of the year Tom at the end of the year,
I'm out in front, like, calling commands for drill
team and color guard. Okay. Tom summer camps,
I went to the ROTC summer camps, for junior ROTC
that was then, ended up my senior year.
Because I was graduating early, I ended up as the cadet corps commander for the
1st semester. I left, I got a letter of recommendation from
my ROTC instructor. I enlisted. I was
the youngest guy in my basic training
company, but I was also one of the highest ranking.
Nice. So I kinda had it pretty bad from the get go. But,
I mean, all in all, joining when I did was essentially
my way out. Right? I wanted to get out of,
my hometown. I wanted to get away from where I grew up. I wanted to
go out and see some other things, but also, I mean, I was 17, and
I needed a job. Right? I mean, not everybody
makes, you know, good choices when they're when they're growing up.
I ended up having, being 17 and listening to
military with a wife and child on the way. So I had my
child about 3 weeks before I turned 18
while I was at AIT at Fort Gordon. So my oldest son, Ethan,
is now 25, going Tom 26. So it's no coincidence
that I retired at 21 years, the year that my son turned 21.
Right. So, you know, when you're 17 and you can't get a job anywhere, it
kind of, like, restart sun. Now I would have joined a lot sooner,
had the Air Force recruiter not essays me around a little bit.
January, February time frame, he pushed me off too much. And I was like, you
know what? I ain't got time to wait around. So, the
army started looking pretty nice, but I did. I enlisted, and,
I ended up going to the spent 8 years in my first
unit at Fort Bragg as a non airborne personnel. And then
after 2 tours to Iraq, I ended up essentially,
got tired of, what what they like to call the the big green
weenie Mhmm. And ended up being told
by the, the branch manager for my
MOS, I was a radio operator, was pretty much like, hey. We're gonna
force reclass you, and you're gonna go over to across the
street at the 82nd Airborne Division and carry a manpack for the lieutenant. And I
was just like, no. I'm not. Yeah. I had I had about a year I
had about a year and a half and some change left before, after, you
know, I was contemplating getting out at 8 years and being done.
And a buddy of mine, he said, no, man. You need to you need to
talk to this guy who gave me a business card for, Sergeant First Class
Jamie Rodriguez. And I called up this dude, and I was
like, hey, man. What do you got for me? He's like he's like, well,
come on over here and talk to me. And I'm gonna tell you, when I
met dude, he had the most beautiful mane of hair that I've ever
seen in my entire life, and I was like, there's no way this dude is
our first class with hair like that. And I'm I'm gonna tell you,
he's like, ma'am. Well, civil affairs, man. Let me tell you about what it is.
So I I did civil affairs, which was essentially,
if you look at the triad of the special operations
community, you got a pyramid. Right? And the tip of the spear, that pyramid
at the top, you got the green beret, you got the SF, the ODAs.
You got the big, mean, ugly guys that bag and tag and do all kinds
of bad things to bad people. Right? And then supporting them
underneath on the other corners, you got the psychological operations.
They're the voice and the essays, essentially, for for operations,
for special operations. So and then you've got the civil
affairs side, which they're essentially they're the face in the handshake. So
you got these 3 entities working together in order to,
complete the mission, which most of the time was along some type of
counterterrorism activity of sorts
or support the host nation government at, you know, aid and assist type
missions, depending on where you're at. You know, if you're over in Afghanistan,
you're doing a completely different mission than if you're over in the Philippines. Right? Of
course. Combat combat zone versus host nation support
stuff. So but that that triad, of
individuals being able to support each other and understanding, like, what your
role is in in the task at hand,
when out there doing you're not gonna find a better team. Right? So most of
what I learned leadership wise So there's 2
there's 2 folds to this. There is the
as the example of what not to do as a
leaders, and then the example of what it you
are supposed to do as a leader. So fourth my 1st 8 years, I'd only
knew one flavor of leadership. Right? Just that one, and that
was, you know, coercive
dictator. Hey. Let's tell you, Paper Book rank. I
win. Libby do what you're told kinda turning, to,
the actual effective, deliberate leadership that comes from being
a special operations where it's, you know, people are more important than equipment.
You have the you know, you follow basically the 12 self imperatives.
And as long as you are operating within those 12
soft imperatives and you're taking care of your people,
you're gonna have a smooth ride and everybody's gonna be having you know, everybody's gonna
be taking care of everybody else. So it just comes down to seeing both
sides of that coin and being able to tailor,
various leadership styles from throughout my career, I think,
is what really has allowed me to become
adaptable as I am to the situations that I find myself in when
I'm dealing with a variety of individuals, be
it a veteran who is suffering a mental health crisis in the
moment, to a grieving surviving spouse,
for, you know, a fallen veteran, to
that service member who who got picked up for DUI
back home, you know, in in, Erath County,
who was just home on leave and just made a poor choice, you know. It
just turns into there's a variety of opportunity
to, you know, make an impact as to how you approach
all those situations, as a, you
know, as a leader, as a veteran, as a peer, as a
you name it, that's what I can be in that moment just based on
the the the two sides of that
leadership coin that I've been able to to to use. To use.
Yeah. I actually prefer I actually prefer the you
know, nobody wants to be in that dictatorship type leadership role where the
only reason somebody's doing it is because they have respect for the position and the
rank and not the person. So I think that that you you can
run-in and identify a lot of different, like, toxic leadership traits
to identify people who are there for selfish reasons and doing it for
individual versus team, you know,
advancement. So it just comes down to I'd I like to
be the team player and give credit where credit's
due. Mhmm. Right? So it is
the going all the way back and all the experience that
I've had, my my childhood
was a big impact. My first duty station,
which was my last duty station. Right? And I'll talk about that later, but when
I say that, my first unit that I went to Mhmm.
And then that transition piece where I decided, you know, I
don't I don't wanna stop doing army.
Mhmm. But I don't wanna be where I'm at anymore. Really
set something, you know? Because, I mean, it comes down to retention writers, you know?
If you guys just like any business that has a company that
just turnover's high, you've got
poor reviews coming in from clients or customers, whatever
whatever it is you're selling, whatever you're doing. I mean, most likely,
it's not the it's not the product, you know, and it's not the
employees. It's it's your middle management, your senior
management not not doing their job as a effective
leader to, you know, provide proper
motivation and direction and guidance to get the job done effectively. I mean,
nobody wants their time wasted. And that's that's the one thing that I learned in
the military. Like, you really wanna piss off some solar,
waste their time. Waste their time. Waste their time. And,
and that's the one thing the military is known for is hurry up and wait.
Like, government in general, hurry up and wait. You you owe Uncle Sam
something, they'll reach in your bank account, take it from you. But, man, if you
don't Uncle Sam owes you something, you can take a number and stand in line.
We'll get to you next year. Right. So it just depends on,
that those kinds of perspectives. But
So there's a lot there that you that you gave me. No. It was great.
It was fabulous. I was taking notes the whole time you were talking.
And, you know, I find it interesting that, you know, you started
out as a 17 year old who just wanted to sort of get away from
where you were and get out and have new experience.
And that opened the door
Tom. Not to make it sound heroic,
but this is the word. It opened the door to further adventures. Right? It opened
the door to further things that you probably couldn't have, couldn't have
anticipated.
Going back to that for just a Jesan, one of the challenges of our
current era, of our current Tom, and this podcast does focus,
focused heavily on in our 2nd year, was the meaning
crisis among, or is the meaning crisis among young men.
Right now, you know, you talk about suicides among veterans.
Suicides among young men overall are way up.
Young men are struggling in our culture, and I have a a heart for this.
Young men are struggling in our culture to find meaning and to
define themselves. And so as an American society,
we've done a really awesome job of elevating
our girls and our women and putting them in positions of leadership,
education, all that kind of good stuff. We've done a really good job of that.
We have not done a good job. We just haven't. And this is where I'm
coming at it from this angle. We have not done a good job of
defining what meaning looks
like for young males. And so
the question that I have for you is this, every young
male, when you were 17, you were the same way,
needs a task to go on
in order to develop meaning. And you said you had a wife and a
kid, on the way, and and and, you know,
and and I'm not saying that I said between every 17 year old male needs
to have a wife and a child, is that what I'm saying? But I'm saying
that that sense of the the the
gas in the tank, right, being, hey, these people gotta
eat, and they're looking at me. You know? Yeah. That gave you meaning.
Talk a little bit about how maybe we can not
solve the turning crisis, but what are the ways that young men can get meaning
in this culture, in particular when you have less than I
believe it's less than 1 tenth of
1 percent of the available male population in America serves in the military.
So clearly that's a nonstarter with the vast
majority of gen Z ers and millennials for a
whole variety of reasons that we don't need to get into. That's a nonstarter. So
how do we solve for that meeting crisis? Because I do ask folks when they
come on and I was asking about last year in our last season, what do
we do around this? How do we solve this challenge? Because it is the challenge
of our time. Because if you have young women who are accomplished,
quite frankly, they're gonna wanna marry young men who are accomplished. They're not gonna wanna
marry young men who are not accomplished. And you have writers. I have daughters,
and we don't want them marrying young men that are unaccomplished. Right? So how do
we resolve this? What were some ideas you have maybe? And I know this is
a challenge question. It's not on the list, but it is something that pops up
from your experience. Yeah. Yeah. No. It's it's absolute I think it's valid,
actually. What what what you're talking about is actually extremely
valid, especially in today's, like, society. And I'm
speaking specifically just our culture in America, society.
Sure. Yeah. I mean, you could go macro all day, and we can go, you
know, down to micro. But I'm just so I just in just in,
American culture today with the and being a
parent, like, I have 2 adult children that are out in the world
already doing their thing. Right? Right. And I have
2 young children that are still at the home that are in you know, they're
not even in middle school yet. Yeah. So kinda turns
into when I look at
what needs to be done, like, I have control over what I have
control over. Absolutely. And I think what turns into is I
know the expectation that I have for my
children. Mhmm. The problem is is
being from the generation that I'm from and having the
experience I have, it has taken everything
for me to turn off the
the NCO, the noncommissioned officer that I have buried inside of me
Tom treat them as, you know, 7 9 year old children and
not soldiers. Because they don't they don't they don't have that expect
they don't know that expectation when they're there's no basic training for
them. No. Accomplish any of that. So everything that
they know, they know from the
parent. So when it comes to, like, children in general, and you we're talking
we talk about strong male role model in the house. We talk
about, you know, be the example in the home.
Like, I I try to exhibit,
a demeanor and a persona, for my son to
reflect as the man that he should try to strive to
be. Mhmm. And for my daughter, I try to do the same for the
type of man that she wants to marry. Right? So it really just comes
down to morals, ethics, values,
establishing accountability and responsibility at a
young age, and not, placating
to those feelings that, you know, most
people would placate to at that young age. If they're wrong,
they're wrong. Sure. And being identified as such and saying, hey,
no, this is wrong. But given given children, you know, you
gotta give them enough grace to learn. Right. So it just comes
down to the crisis that we're having with young men
today not, not stepping up to the plate
or not being capable or not having the motivation or the
drive or the whatever. I mean, at the end of the day, it's
all an individual event. I mean, you can turn to your
left, you can turn to your right, and you can point fingers all you want,
but you have the everybody has the ultimate,
you know, I'm gonna make this happen. Right? And it's more one of
those kind of, like it's the difference in
in, stepping up to a challenge, right, and
saying, I'm gonna continue to just do
this because I'm comfortable with it, versus stepping up to a
challenge and saying, you know what? I I I think I got this down. I'm
ready for something a little bit harder. I'm gonna go for the next thing and
the next thing and the next thing. And that's gonna be the difference between, like,
you know, the development and growth versus just stagnation and
death. So those two things kind of go hand in hand. So if you're
not actually pushing pushing forward to the next
thing, then why are you even bothering
doing anything? Like, don't even bother. Just you might as well just stop breathing. I
think that's really what's happened with a lot of them is they just see what
is going on around them in society. They think that, you know, it's
not gonna get any better. Right. Especially with the when they look at
it from an economy side of the house to the
political side to, you know,
everything from wages Tom interest rates to, you
know, credit ratings. You know, everything just starts to build on, and you're
taking you know, kids are not being prepared for that
by their parents Mhmm. Nor the education system.
So it really comes down to I think there's an unrealistic
expectation that most parents in America
today have on what the education system is supposed to
be doing for them. Mhmm. And so that unrealistic expectation
is ending in failure and not preparing the individuals
to go out into society and actually be successful. And, I mean, it turns
into there's a number of other dynamics that can you can go into and
really whittle down to those individual
opportunities and situations, or what if this, what if that. But really I think
it really just comes down to
providing the right example
Mhmm. For the child in the home. I don't care who their parent
is. As long as their parent is doing the right thing and doing things right
Mhmm. They're gonna they're gonna get what they need out of it.
And it just kinda turns into the they're gonna have that
internal drive or they're not, and they're either gonna get that
from the right example or the wrong example. But they're gonna
emulate what it is that they see every single day.
Right. So it just comes down to if you want your kids to do
better, you do better. Right.
Yeah. Well, you know, I I one of the things that I do say on
this podcast is all of our leadership problems, and quite frankly, all of our
leadership solutions, really do begin at the smallest level, and
family is the fourth organizational culture. It's the very first one,
you know? It's where you learn everything right off
the bat. And then to your point about school,
you're shoved out into the world where you find out that there's all these other
representatives from all these other organizations and they run-in their organization the same
way you came out of. And now that's where that's where the
friction begins. You know? That's where the learning the learning begins.
The learning begins. That's right. But you never you'll never stop learning.
It's it's Right. Yep. You would you could get to a point to where you
refuse to learn For sure. But that
opportunity to learn is never gonna go away. It just depends on,
the individuals who are in those positions of leadership or in those positions. I
mean, it just comes down to there's there's a variety of personalities,
and there's a variety of leadership styles,
and there's just it just comes down to
human beings. We're unique just like everyone else.
So So one other thing in your background that
I put a star next to that I wanna talk about is,
well, for fourth both you and I, there was an event
that occurred in September of 2,001 that sort of
shaped our generation. And it it it
ping ponged me with one direction. It ping ponged me in another direction. As a
matter of fact, that event, September 11th,
occurred literally 13 days before I turned 21.
And for me, I've characterized that as
literally the beginning of chaos for the last 20 years fourth. Like, it's been just
non nonstop chaos ever since up until about this point.
And and I'm comfortable. You talked about the word adaptable. I'm adaptable
to chaos. And I think a lot of us who are in this generation are
adaptable to chaos because it's all we've it's all we've ever known. And that, of
course, gets back to my my thesis that I had you I challenged you with
a little bit floating around in your head there about the 4th turning and about
getting to the end of all this. You were already in
service in, in, in, in, in, when, when September 11th
happened. Talk with us a little bit about
the 2 tours in Iraq and sort of what were some of the lessons you
learned, from book, because previous to that,
you know, the last major American,
deployment to the Middle East was the 1st Persian Gulf. And that was over in
like, I don't wanna say 10 seconds. But, I mean, like, I knew I knew
people who went there who were older older brothers and sisters of ours. Right?
Yeah. And then after that 3 days. Last about 3 essays. And then they
were walking around in and I'm not again, I don't wanna minimize anybody's service, but
they were walking around Bosnia in the mid nineties. There was
some discussion of sending American troops to Rwanda. Bill Clinton
could never get the public support for that, so that never got up off the
ground. But then, you know, we're, we're right into, into
the biggest deployment or I shouldn't say the biggest, the most serious
deployment of men and materiel to a place overseas since
probably Vietnam, where we actually
as a country decided, via our leaders, our
civilian leadership, Donald Rumsfeld, and, you know, George W.
Bush that, oh, okay. You got all of our
attention. Now you, you, you claimed you wanted it. Now you got
it and we're going to do the man dance. And the first
dance, I guess, is going to be ours. And you were part
of that, that push you were part of that engagement. So talk with us
a little bit about, because again, you were already in the thing. You
were already in the in the in the you were already 3 years in the
thing when September 11th happened. So how was that for you? How impactful was
that for you? How did that shift your thinking about,
leadership or or maybe even reinforce things as you think about leadership?
So
yeah. So at the time, September
11th, I was serving I was a I was a sergeant,
e 5, and I was a I
was very quickly, like, I very quickly made
e 5, once I made my unit. So it kinda
turned into I I started off as a PFC in basic
training. I had automatic promotion to e fourth 12
months. I was promoted to e 5. I was 19
years old. Mhmm. And then a week later, I turned 20.
And I'm gonna tell you, it is difficult having a
safety brief with a team of 6 guys who are
all in their mid twenties or late twenties, early
thirties, and I'm telling them, alright, guys. No drinking and driving this weekend.
Call me if you need me. And they're like, yeah. We'll we'll definitely call you
because we know you're gonna be sober because you can't even buy alcohol yet. So,
being a leader of of older people
Mhmm. Was was a very difficult and daunting task that I had
to deal with. So I very rarely, with new,
incoming soldiers, would express, like, let them know, like, what my
age was. But I carried myself very maturely
because I I had to. And it was the, you
know, I had the knowledge and I had the the training and I had
the the promotion orders. I had the things backing me up saying that, you
know, this is this is who I am. This is what I am. Mhmm.
And going at the time, I was actually the the school's
NCO for the battalion, and I ran the leadership
development course. That was a pre course to the Sorrells Leaders fourth that they
have now. It used to be called, the PLDC or the primary
leadership development course. It was a 30 day lockdown
course that you would go into, and in 30
days, you would go in as a specialist,
e 4 promotable, and you would come out as a e 5.
Okay. Most of the time getting promoted as soon as you graduated. So you
would leave the unit for 30 days and go, you know, live,
train, and learn with a bunch of other e fourth promotables,
spy, you know, staff sergeants, sergeant first classes, giving
you all the ins and outs on, you know, leadership stuff. Mostly a heavy
focus on land navigation. Right? But a lot everything else
everything else is pretty much leadership stuff.
That's where you go through, you memorize the NCO creed, you memorize the soldiers
creed, you go through basically, you have all check all these books, and then you
graduate, then you get promoted. So coming back to that, I was
currently dropping soldiers off at
PLDC. I was waiting and we get there early, like,
2 30, 3 o'clock in the morning because, you know, you've got so many people
that have hard slots, but then you got a whole plethora of other people for,
like, standby in case someone doesn't pass the weigh in fourth
somebody doesn't have all their writers, you know. Because if you show up and you're
missing an item, they they, nope. You're done. Go go back to your unit. See
you next class. That kind of thing. So I'm I'm I was sitting in my
car waiting for my attendees who had
already been accepted. They had already passed. I'm just setting with the
rest of their gear, waiting on them to come
and actually grab their weapon and grab their stuff and go to training. Right?
So, when I had a guy named,
staff sergeant fourth it was, sergeant Ryan
Austin comes over. He knocked on the fourth, and he was he was
there. He wasn't there as a
student, I don't believe, but he was there on
detail helping me move all the stuff. Because it's a big muscle movement to get
from to get a little bit and get set up. Over, knocks
on the window. He's like, hey, man. Something's happening. Turn on the radio. And I
was just like, what's what? He's like, yeah. Some plane hit the u the, you
know, the trade trade towers in in New York. I was like, no, man. And
then I turned on the radio, started listening. I was like, oh, man. This is
this is not good with what's going on. And so I didn't
actually, process what was
happening at the moment. I still had task at hand. Hey, I
still got soldiers that's gotta be somewhere. I got things going on. I'm just like
everybody. They, you know, put the blinders on and focus on what you got
going on and worry about New York and what's happening
later. But the only question came up that came out really quick
was if there's anybody that has anybody
or connection to anybody that works or lives in
Manhattan, New York where the World Trade Center was happening on, the the command
wanted to know. Who are the people who are gonna be greatest greatly
affected by this are gonna be those who have family relatives that are
in that area. So and and it was fourth where we were at, I mean,
there was a couple of people that, yeah, they had, you know, family members that
were, you know, you know, either worked in the area or worked in
the building or did something like that. So but going from there, it
was pretty much when I got back to the battalion headquarters and walked
in and dropped my stuff off on my desk, and I walked around to the
CQ where the TV was on, and I looked at the TV and saw the
news. Mhmm. I was just like I looked over at the the
guy that was sitting on staff duty at the time, and I was just like
you know what this means. Right? Mhmm. It is like it is like some
private. He's like, I don't know, sir. And I was like, means we're going to
war what this means. Like, from then, it was just pretty
much, everything
changed that day in regards to
training, in regards Tom discipline, in regards
to, like, there was no more,
laps on the wrist article 15 for, you know,
anything. It was like, if you were going in for an article 15, you did
some heinous something or other, we're not taking any crap. You're you gotta go because
we gotta we gotta we're going overseas. This is happening.
So my unit, the the 51st signal battalion, we
were slated to support the 22nd signal brigade,
out of the gate. So we rolled in we rolled in to
Iraq from Kuwait. I deployed out March
of 03. We,
we deployed March of 03, and then within 3
weeks, we headed north and crossed the border from Kuwait to Iraq,
and it was a terrible ride.
Right? Because, I mean, the signal equipment, we got big trucks, and we got gas.
We got antennas. We got jet fuel. We got You got all that good all
the work. You got all that good table work equipment. Yeah. We got all the
and we're and we're rolling through. We're in our our Humvees. We don't have
there's no alarm or anything. We don't know what that even is at the time.
So we we've got no doors on hanging up this side.
We got flak jackets on that are basically just
the shrapnel is all they're gonna stop. They're not gonna stop anything serious, but,
I mean, we rolled through after, you know,
after, I wanna say it was 3rd entry division. It could have been 4th entry
division. 4th ID or 3rd ID. I can't remember which one. But we rolled through
right after they rolled through. Let's just say that they decimated
everything. It was the sheer like,
I had never seen a level of carnage as up at
that point. Like, and then just that's when it was just like, this
is surreal. Like, this is like no other. And
then, you know, and at the time, I was, you know, I was
just the e five. I had 5 people on my team.
2 of them were NCOs. I just so happen to outrank them by data rank,
so they were just bodies. Right? And the
the equipment that I was on was the remote access unit. So I
was in charge of the team that would go out and set up
an omnidirectional antenna out
away from everything in the middle of nowhere,
just put this antenna up that shoots, that is actually
transmitting in all directions so everyone can have access to
this and they're, you know, so they can make phone calls from their Humvees and
stuff. And we we rolled that equipment fourth,
and we never set it up. So from that point, essentially,
my radio trucks were used to connect node
centers to node centers across. So I was actually a part of
the 22nd Signal Brigades historic moment of creating
the most fourth the
largest tactical communications
network in history in 2003.
So, I did that job for about about 4
months Mhmm. Of just manning radios Manning radio tower.
Soldiers. I, you know, I spent my 23rd birthday in a guard tower, you
know, on overwatch. So it just turned in like it was, you know, you were
there we were soldiering. That's what we were doing. Mhmm.
And everybody, you know we made the best of what we had.
Mhmm. We had terrible living conditions. Mail was always slow. I mean, it
was just the beginning of the war. It was there was Right. Dirt dirt floors
and winter tents is what we were living in. Yeah. So, I mean, it
was just miserable. So you had to have a certain level of,
like, sense of humor when it comes to the heat of the
day. Like like yeah. Alright. Hey, man.
Hey. The fourth song's coming over. Everybody get your tops on. Book look over here.
It looks right. It's like, everybody get your stuff together. It's like, hey, man. Wake
him up, man. He's like, get get him up. Get him up. Get him up.
Because we would just be like, we'd be passing out from the heat in the
middle of the day just just gone. So it kinda turned into we that's
where we really learned and came together as a as a team and
really built, you know, those bonds that were gonna get us through the
rest of deployment. But it was tough. The
first two tours the Jesan tour was not as
bad as the first one. It was more infrastructure, better organized,
better food, better every better everything pretty much. And it was like
no other like, you go to the field at Fort Bragg, formerly known as Fort
Bragg You go to this field for 2, 3
weeks and live in the woods and play army, pretty much. Right. Yeah.
Paint the faces up and do all the things, and
then you go to Iraq, and you're in the desert, and it is nothing like
what you trained in. Right? So you're just like, why are we even doing this
garbage back here in the rear? Like, this doesn't make any sense. Well, we're
doing this, and we're deploying to the desert. I mean, this is
completely asinine and stupid. And so after you
know, when I joined up, I mean, it turned into the, like,
the combat the combat recognition and combat patch that came from
those deployments. Those first deployments,
were probably the first one was probably the hardest. Right? 1st, 2nd,
3rd year end always, because you're establishing everything, staying in everything up.
Going back in because I was there from 03 to 04, came home
for 9 months, did a bunch of marriage counseling and stuff. I had some
issues on the on the home front there. Deployed again, came
home single. So the
by the time I was 24, 20
by the time I was 25 years of age, I'd been
divorced twice, filed bankruptcy once Mhmm.
And still doing the job and
trying to figure it out. And and at the same time, yeah, I
was you know, alcohol was kind of like a crutch.
Like Mhmm. Is this kinda, like, part of the the Yep.
The whole the whole system is, you know, you go out,
you're at Fort Bragg, you're running 4 miles every
week, You're doing PT you're doing physical training 5 days
a week. You know? Mhmm. And you're rocking at least
6 to to 8 miles a week, and then you've got a 12
mile validation every 3 months. You've got
the North Carolina sweltering humidity in the summer that is
just astronomical. And, by the way,
you're going out for, you know, nickel pitcher night at the,
you know, at the bar downtown on Bragg Boulevard, you know, Saturday,
Sunday night book to back, and then you're out running 6 miles Monday
turning, down our ends with, you know, 82nd Airborne
Division and everybody trying to do all their things. So
it it kinda turned into after those first two
deployments, I was really
it really messed me up. I really came into a place where I was just
like, there is no God. Mhmm. I was very
agnostic in everything and was just like, there's no purpose in
any of this kind of deal from everything that I'd seen and everything that
I witnessed and done. It was just like, there's this just this doesn't
make sense to me. It was very difficult to process, you know, at 25 years
of age. And now I'm looking at my Jesan, who's 25, and I'm just
like, the problems that you have can in comparison,
there is no comparison, but I'm not gonna, like, hold you to the same
standard because you didn't have the same upbringing that I had. You didn't have the
Yeah. The same experiences that I had. So it's no there's no real
comparison. So when you start talking about, like, that whole ending of the crisis rotation
type thing Mhmm. Yeah, you can see it in the generation of today that
that's probably accurate. It's gonna be pretty mellow
for, you know, upcoming before it starts getting gnarly again.
But, that period of time,
I really didn't experience growth
because I was not focused on development or growth. Okay. I
was in fact, I was stagnant at that point.
Yeah. Because my my I wanna say it was my 2nd
tour to Iraq. I was an e 5 promotable. I'd been in e
5 for about fourth and a half
years as a sergeant e five. And I've and
for, you know, 2 of those years, I've been promotable, and I just couldn't make
points. I didn't have the civilian education to make the points with the way the
rank structure works with how the promotion system worked Tom make e
6. So I'm sitting here looking at, like, e 5p,
pretty stagnant. I'm sitting here, and then, you know, there's this
this this guy oh, his name was Sarna First Class Letts.
And I was at The Joint. This is when I was at the end of
my Jesan rotation, I think it was, and this guy, sergeant first
class let's he was 82nd airborne division signal guy Mhmm. And
he was the signal liaison for the the 82nd signal
battalion Mhmm. Supporting the 22nd signal brigade.
And I was tasked just Tom be the 51st signal battalion
liaison. So we're all sitting in this big room, and at the end of the
night every night, we're briefing the brigade colonel or the s 3, you
know, major on what's going on with the
network. And this guy, Soren Letts, comes over, and
he's I I can't even remember what the argument was over, but he came over
and he said something. I was just like, sorry. I I was like, I know
what I'm doing. I've been in e book for, like, 5 years now. He looked
at me and he was just like, that ain't something to brag about, man.
Like, being an E5 for 5, that isn't something that you should be bragging
about. Like, what what the hell is wrong with you? Like,
why would you think that that's okay? That doesn't make me feel any better
about this conversation. Like, and I'm just like not even processing
what he's saying as far as like, you know, what are you
talking about? So but then it kinda came it dawned on me
later whenever I actually,
was leaving that position and we were getting replaced with another unit that
came in. That's whenever, he came, you know, he
came over and said, hey, man. You've got a lot of potential. Mhmm. You
have you have unlimited potential with your
with what you have already. You need to
he and he was based on the ones, like, you need to get away
from this signal stuff, and you need to go across the
street, and you need to go do something a special ops
guy. So and and it was basically just like he's just
like he he's like, there's no reason that you should be in e 5 for
5 years. He's just like, you're right. You know exactly what you're doing,
and you're up here. And at and at the time, man, you're at I'm at
the liaison. I'm, like, with the joint networking
operation center. 22nd center brigade running and
every battalion attached under that brigade that they have command and
control over, operational command and control over. I mean, there was, like,
15 different battalions, and every single like, there
were captains that were sitting as liaisons
next to me. Right? There were sergeant first classes
and master sergeants. We're talking, like, e 8, e 7,
o three level ranking guy. I'm the the
lowest ranking liaison guy. Yeah. And I'm an
e 5. And I'm just like and
going up and briefing the brigade colonel like it's nothing. But, you know, the
first couple of briefings I had that I had to get through, I was really,
like, hesitant on what it was. But I had some I had some great
mentorship there that basically was, like, hey, man. Here's here's how you breathe. Here's what
you need to focus on. Let me see your slides. Okay. This is what you're
gonna show them. This is what you're gonna say. This is what you're gonna show
them. This is what you're gonna say. This is what you're gonna show them. This
is what you're gonna say. Ask any questions. If they ask any questions, just
say, sir, I don't know, but I'll get back to you as soon as I
get back from my s 3. And then you go and you send that question
to your s 3, and then you report back to a v. You know? You
know? Just basically, I had a a a, you know, Sergeant First Class let
really that dude really set me straight. So there
are people like that in that early
years that really set up my success for
advancement later because they got me out of the the
wrong mindset. Right? So Bingo. Bingo. And
that's something that that's something
that I think and, and again, this
is sort of an offshoot of the young men, you know, kind of commentary or
comment that I had before Tom set up my previous question, but it
does sort of relate to this for young people in general. I think that
every young person and I've I've had experiences in my life where,
particularly in my twenties where I was stagnating, just like you
were. And somebody came along and said, you're
wasting your time here. You need to do something else. Yeah. And I looked
around just like you did. I looked around and went, you're talking to me?
What? Hey. Who? Who? I can sometimes jump at my
kids, you know? And
that, it's like the jay
Z song or the jay z rap song, that moment of clarity.
Writers? Jay Z raps. Thank God for granting me this moment of clarity,
this moment of honesty. And it is
that moment of clarity that I think
really people need in their twenties. And I think both young men and young
women need it. You need it less so in your thirties.
If you're looking for a moment of clarity in your forties, if
right. Right. That's how it could look. That's what they call that's what they call
that midlife crisis. That's a midlife crisis. Right. Exactly.
Exactly. Turning over at fourth is is it can be done,
but it is not comfortable. It is it is rough. Something that
you're yeah. It's gonna be a rough deal. And that that's that's what I
see on a regular basis doing what I'm doing now is
Right. And so that's where we're, yeah, that's where we're pulling this now.
Exactly. So, you know, I also
believe that folks in their twenties, and and you kinda talked
about this Tom, when you talked about alcohol as a crutch,
You're going to have and then I found this in my life
and and and when we talk with other folks on the podcast about this as
well, you're gonna have a get tougher a Johnny Cash
get tougher die moment. Like, you either have to figure it out
fourth you're gonna fall off the table and that's and that's it.
I had my moment in, you know, the upper Midwest,
in a little town you'd never heard of, you know, walking back home drunk in
the middle of winter when it was like, you
know, 12 below. And I was ill dressed for the weather. You're
either gonna get tough or you're gonna die. Like, that's the those are your only
two options at that point. But I think those kinds of
moments stick with people. And they do become the fundamental
foundational moments that allow you to then you use the word mentor,
mentor and coach others later on because you could speak from those experiences or pull
from those experiences. And so I want to talk about that
because you said the core of what you're doing with, with
Pecan Valley Writers is is reducing veteran suicide rates and
trying to bring that down and try to work with folks that are impacted by
this, by this phenomenon.
And the types of things that you that you have
experienced allow you to speak into those folks, those folks'
lives with a credibility,
and b, also, a genuine sense of
care. And I don't mean care in terms of
a feminist ethic of care or some like scholarly idea of
care. I mean, what I call hard headed empathy, right? Because you
could talk with them from a hard headed position and you can essays,
yeah, I've been down the road that you've been down and I know what
the clearing at the end of that path is. And you know what the clearing
at the end of that path is. And so let's have a credible, no
BS
works a works a couple of different ways. It
works if you could pull it off because you genuinely have had those experiences, which
you have had, or it works if you could pull it off
where, maybe you haven't had those experiences,
but you have enough to your point about authoritarianism fourth
lack of adaptability. You have enough
Sorrells authority. That's something we talk about on this podcast, moral and ethical authority
to be able to pull that off. Right. And
it's either gonna be one of those 2 approaches. Anything outside of those 2, either
experience or moral authority, isn't gonna get you there. And
so priests and pastors and counselors,
they have that moral authority. Even though they may not
have the experiences, writers. They just have that authority because of
the weight we give those positions in our culture. You're coming out of that,
that, that authority, or you're getting that authority from experience. So
talk with us a little bit about working with the veterans. What do you
see inside of, well, let's actually, let's,
let's make this very, very tiny to start with, and then we can sort of
blossom out from there. What are the
writers for pushing veterans
towards that clearing at the end of the path of suicide?
What are the drivers towards that? I mean, you mentioned
in your own life, you know, being twice divorced, alcohol, those types of things,
financial issues, all of those kinds of things. The common things that we sort of
think of is, are those the main drivers fourth is something else that we're not
aware of? So
it comes down to when you
really the fundamentals of just individuals
who died by suicide. If you look into their
if you look into what they were doing right up until fourth what was going
on right before, you're you're most likely, you're gonna see
signs. You're gonna see things. You're gonna you're gonna they're either gonna
say or do something that is gonna lead
to that outreach and help. Right? Unless
they are, like, just dead set on
they they put a mark on the calendar and say, you know what? This is
that's the day when it gets here. I've made a decision, and I'm gonna stick
to it. And they just live until that day, and they don't show any signs
or something. They're just they just accept. Right? Mhmm.
So, normally, that's not the case. Normally, it's a manifestation of a
fleeting thought that, is
just the right moment, right time where they actually have
access, and Tom little to no barriers or mitigations
to a legal means. Right? And it just ends up
being, what was most of the time
probably meant to be an attempt or an outreach to cry
just it becomes legal. Right? So, I mean, 70% of sue
of suicide deaths are via
firearms. Right? Okay. But you have
way more attempts with
other means, such as, you know, sharp objects or or
overdoses, pills, ingesting, some, you know, poisons fourth medications and stuff like
that, where it comes down to those are just it it's not that I
don't I don't believe that it has anything to do
with they just had more time or more
or less fourth that time was of the essence kind of thing. I think it
really just comes down to just that access to that lethal means in
that moment. Right? So it comes down to that
understanding, and that's one of the things that, you know, I'm I'm a certified instructor
on is counseling on access to those legal means. So that when I'm dealing
with a veteran who is experiencing, you know, the some kind
of depression, anxiety, or, combating post traumatic
stress disorder fourth something like that, where they're in that hazard moment,
that's when you turn to those closest to them and say, okay.
You know where all the firearms are? Go get them. Let's
remove those from the equation. Let's put time and distance between them,
so that this moment will pass. Right? So
it's calculated right now. The average is about 10 minutes.
10 minutes from the time the turning thought arrives, the execution of
of of the, of the suicide,
that every minute beyond 10 minutes increases
the likelihood of survivability by, like, 35% per minute,
you know, for 10 minutes. So Okay. Really getting into that that
that time crunch is, like, that's why it's so important that we get
the the veterans out there to know, you know, I if you're
having those thoughts, those fleeting thoughts, this is who you need to call, this is
what you need to call. And that, you know, 988 and press 1 is the
national suicide hotline. And there's,
you know, there's mobile crisis outreach teams at all the local
mental health authorities across Essays, you know. So, I mean, there's there are
organizations and and mitigations in place,
but it just comes down to educating the veterans, the the families,
and the service members on what those things are. Right? Mhmm. And
then getting them that understanding of, you know, well
yeah. I mean, if your if your if your veteran is talking to you about,
you know, they're not feeling they're not feeling very good today, and they don't really
feel like, you know, they just they start making comments along the lines that they
wanna go to sleep and not wake up. That those are, like, telltale signs that
you may wanna go ahead and start removing medications,
you know, sharp objects or firearms out of the
vicinity and put them under lock and key somewhere where they're gonna have
to, you know, time and time and distance between those.
Writers? So but but if you don't if you don't educate the family on that
kind of stuff beforehand, they see that, they're gonna you know? No one's gonna
think, oh, they would never do something like that. Right? So it just turns
into like, there's a lot of preparation and and
thought that can go into what can be done beforehand
to mitigate something that could be a potential threat,
in regards to the Let me ask you a question. So
very often in these types of conversations,
people will essays, Particularly
civilians will say. We seemed to not
have this problem with World War 2 vets, We seemed to not have this problem
with Korean War vets. We seemed to not have writers? And I'm I'm just setting
up the question. I'm not saying I believe it. I'm saying this is the question
that is often posed. Right? I'm
merely standing in because you gotta bring in other people, right, you know, with other
thoughts. Right. We seem to not have had this this this real
challenge until Vietnam. Is there something
in the social culture that broke since World War
2? Or or has this always been you mentioned
PTSD. Has this always been an issue, and we're just better at
catching it now? I wanna say that we have
defined mental health a lot.
Like, just the way that psychology and
psychiatry and mental health in general over the last,
you know, 20, 40 years, the improvements and advancements and understanding
of those different those
different types of wait. What are they called? There's different there's, like,
7 different parts itself.
You know, like intelligence, emotional functions, those different
levels of whatever. So but being able to break down and understand and
having the the a mental health professional that is trained and understanding
in those different domains, that's what they're called, those different domains.
Domains. Yep. In order to better
better understand and guide the individual into
understanding of what they're dealing with. Mhmm. And what they're dealing with
is manageable and treatable, and, you know,
it's it's not something that they have to continue to suffer
from by themself. Right. That there are that there are other
things that an individual can do in order to overcome those types of mental health
challenges. Now, but, yeah, I mean, World
War 2, Korean Korean War, you know, I
mean, yeah, I'm not gonna say that they didn't have their own mental
health issues coming back from those periods of Tom, but, I
mean, it was a different generation. I mean, you got you had the great
depression that led into, you know, World War 2. So if you wanna talk about
tough times, those individuals were
already hard. Right? Well, iron sharpens
iron when it comes down to it. And you're dealing with now,
you're dealing with a generation that is, you know, Cabbage Patch
Kids and GI Joes and, you know, carnivals on the
weekends and whatever. And now you're you're having a different a
different type of life, and then you're going in and
you're witnessing and experiencing,
traumas at such a depth that you'd
only seen in movies knowing it was fake.
Right. But then it's in front of you, and it's this is not fake. This
is not fake. Yeah. Real. Very like, it it is a
different level that an individual
steps into when they go from,
watching watching a movie, like Rambo to
going over and actually seeing what war really looks like.
And I'm gonna tell you, it's not always it's not always bodies and burning
bodies and that stuff. No. Most of the time you're dealing you're
you're looking at just, like, 15 to 20 emaciated
children that are barely closed. Yeah. That are
just filthy head to toe, that are just out with their hands out. Just
there's food food, you know, they're just and it's just those are
the kinds of things that just witnessing and seeing, you're just like, man, this
is this is a bad way. And then you come back to the first world,
and you're just like, where's the TV remote? Right. I can't find the
TV remote. Where is it? First world problem. Man, you got kids on the other
side of country, on the other side of the world that don't have water to
drink, and you're worried about what your damn TV remote is. Well, this is
the and this is the disconnect. I and I'm glad you brought this up because
you're right. Like, my so
my grandfather and my
yeah. My grandfather on my mother's side served in World War 2. And
then my I have a bunch of uncles and, who
served in, in Korea, bunch of them. And
then, by the time Vietnam came around, my father
was, was a Vietnam Vietnam vet. Writers. And,
you know, one of the things I push back on when people say,
well, what is this? Is this a new thing? Like, no,
But this is no. It's not a new thing because the human brain is the
same as it's it's been for a while now, at least
10000 years. If you wanna go by that by that fact
fact, factoring of time. And so we've been
dealing emotionally with trauma Tom your point, pretty much the same.
Our understanding of that has gotten better. The difference
between 80 years ago and now is to your point, yeah, those guys
were tough. I mean, book, I remember my
grandmother telling me stories of her father, you know,
having to, she was a sharecropper's daughter, one of like 12 kids,
writers? Having to, you know, get on a train and go get a job
somewhere that picking cotton. Right. And that job wasn't
available because he was in the fourth and he was African American, so that
job wasn't available. And then getting back on the train and coming back home and
having to eat his shoes coming back home. That's what my grandmother's
generation, who was the generation that went and fought Fourth War 2, was raised
with. That kind of poverty is
something that we can't even comprehend.
Even with everything going on right now in our culture, that kind of chaos that
we have, the moral, social, political chaos, we still can't comprehend that kind of
poverty. We just can't. We wouldn't even tolerate it now. There'd be riots in the
street if you had that kind of poverty.
Well, a person coming out of that is quite frankly, to
your point, like you said, iron sharpens iron, go to look at, oh, wait.
All I gotta do is go to Germany or go to Japan and kill a
bunch of people. Are you gonna give me 3 hots and a cot? Where do
I sign up? Where how how hard is this going to be? And, you know,
we've talked about, Peleliu and Okinawa on
this podcast. We've talked about, not only the invasion of
Normandy, but we talked about the Battle of the Bulge. We've talked about, like
I mentioned before, Colonel David Hackworth and his experiences in, in in
the Korean War. We've talked about Vietnam and we've talked about the Persian Gulf
War. And as the generations have gone on, that hardening,
I think, of the mind Tom your
point has shifted in America. And I
also think the knock on effect of us
understanding PTSD and mental health that came out of how Vietnam veterans
were treated, the the the the the sort of opposite effect.
There's a whack a mole. Right? So veterans Vietnam veterans are treated in one
way, and that was the whack, but then the mole popped up in a different
spot. And so I think that civilians like myself and folks who
have not had those experiences are extremely careful now
to, disintermediate
the soldier from the policy. We're very
careful to do that, I think. And we do it naturally now. We now
have 2 generations of people that just do that naturally. They don't even well,
I think we're crossing the Rubicon back in some sort of ways book to to
uniting those two things together, which I think is dangerous. But I think for a
while, we did. We separated the soldier fourth the policy. Like,
George Bush is over here to to paraphrase a ranger Jesan. George Bush made
his, made his thing and then this person had to go deal with it and
we could go deal with this person without having to talk about George Bush. We
don't have to talk about him at all. We can just go deal with this
person Jesan had to deal with the thing. And I think that that's an interesting
switch in our society and culture around mental health but also around
PTSD and how we deal with these deal with these areas.
You talked about the impact of
sort of the essays, well, the ways in
which time and distance sort of set up for people,
what they will do.
And you said any minute over 10 minutes is readers. You said what you said,
30% an increase in in survivability.
What are the if someone's listening to this, what are the and
they maybe don't know anything about Pecan Valley. They don't know anything about what you
do. This is the first time they're hearing about this. Maybe they've got somebody in
their house or they've got somebody in their life. They've seen some weird
things. What are the signs along that
path that they need to be paying attention to, that are just
common, right, that that they would just need to know?
We talked about for an individual who may experience a suicidal ideation
or someone who may be close to someone who's gonna be experiencing suicidal
ideation. Okay. That's a great distinction with a difference, I think, for
both of those, who close to and may be on the path to.
So, normally, and from from
what I've grown to learn over the years, I
have had a handful
of individuals. I could I couldn't count them on one hand. The number of
people that I know, who were either
service members or veterans who,
died by suicide. Mhmm. It really comes down
to
to paying attention to the
individual and where they're at and what they're doing. But, normally, what
ends up happening that leads to that kind of
behavior of, you know,
the the I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna
just end it. Right? Just f it. I'm just gonna just go. Yep.
Normally, there is some kind of breakdown of a relationship
somewhere. Okay. Right? So no it doesn't just they don't just be
like, oh, my life's terrible. I'm just gonna go do this today. No. Normally, it's
because there is there is a
network of support that is no longer there.
Right? So there was something that they were they were tethered onto
that they were leaning on, and it could be, you know, a marriage.
It could be, loss of
a child. It could be a number of things. Right? But, normally, there's some, like,
significant loss Mhmm. Of
something, be it a relationship or be it, you know,
itself value, like, value, like, individually. I'm gonna go and tell you, like,
my biggest and hardest period of time
in the military was during transition from military
back into the civilian side. And I and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go
and invite you. Like, we do, the Texas Veterans Commission
has a a course that is about
3 and a half hours long. It's called military cultural
competency that I teach at least once a month in
Granbury. And I'd like to invite you to come and sit in on that so
you can get some more clarity on, you know, military
culture from start to finish. Because it's very, very broad
stroke of everything that an individual goes through from the
day that they, sign their contract all the way
to the day that they're applying for VA benefits. You know, a very
very quick down and dirty broad stroke, and it it's
normally about 2 and a half, 3 hours long. It used to be 8 hours,
but it's been condensed to make it a little bit more palatable
for people who have no military background whatsoever. And it
Sorrells starts with, like, who here has got military experience
personally? Who has military parents? Who has military cousins
and family, distant family leaders, those kinds of things. And it's they're
trying to draw on some of the military experience they have. But
from my darkest time when was during
transition, when I went from having value and purpose,
doing a job, to all of the sudden,
no purpose anymore. Right? So and it basically and that's
just my own personal side of it of it because, I mean, I ended
up, very,
I was very upset with how my transition went when
it when it occurred because I was actually trying to develop
and grow. I was I found out that at 18 and a
half years of military service that I actually
possess a a medical birth defect,
unbeknownst to me, that I should have never been allowed to join the
military. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So it's kinda like not that I'm
missing a kidney or anything, but it's on that level. Sure. Right? But if it
had been caught during my in processing, they would have been like, oh, you gotta
go because Yeah. You can't do this. Say 18a half
is because at 18 years, I had developed an issue
that I went I say 18a half is because at 18 years, I had developed
an issue that I went to the doctor on. He's like, we don't know what
this is. Mhmm. We're gonna send you over to general surgery. They sent me
Tom dermatology. Dermatology sent me back to general surgery. Sent me to cardiovascular.
CardioVascular is like, oh, I I think I know what this
is, but I'm not the I'm not the guy to really diagnose it. You
need to go talk to a vascular surgeon. Mhmm. So I
went and I talked to a guy, and he's pretty much like, hey, man. You
know, what what's going on? I said, well, I just need you to sign off
on this so that I can go to Sears School so that I can get
promoted next year to sergeant Major because I'm trying
to advance my career. Right? I was the 1st sergeant trying to make the next
grade, and the only school that I did not have and the only
experience I did not have was SEER School, which is essentially that's the POW,
Camp Slappy turning, you know, where you go through the the what
happens if you how do you do or respond, or what goes through when you
do POW training? I don't know what goes on there because I didn't actually get
to go. Right. Without that, the doc said, well,
you know, I got some good news or bad news. Good news is is you're
gonna retire at 20 years. I was just like, that's the good
news? Yeah. What's the bad news? What's the bad news?
Bad news is is you cannot jump out of air wear
body armor anymore. You can't, you can't shoot a a
rifle in your shoulder anymore. You can't, you can't
do combatives anymore. You really need to stop
lifting heavy weights, like, specifically no more
push ups, no more bench press, no more Wow. Anything like that. Then
I was just like, are you serious? What I was like, what are you? That
that that can't be the deal. Right. What he's like, well so
I got diagnosed with, what I thought was a birthmark
on my chest that kinda looks like varicose veins.
I got diagnosed at 18 and a half years with what's called
an AVM. It's arterial venous
malformation. So this Okay. Venous malform it's essentially
the varicose veins, and Sorrells they're just venous malformations.
Yeah. Mine's unique because it's on my trunk, like, specifically,
it's on my on my right pec. Yep. And, it
and it's being fed by an artery. So Okay.
If I'd gotten hit in the chest too hard or if I got, you know,
an opening shock without a parachute harness comes down and it's, like, quite
over it and, you know, the rucksack straps come in, the pocket of the
shoulder with the with the m fourth 2 40 or whatever I'm
shooting. I mean, if I had ruptured that feeding vein
to this AVL, which is literally, like, just under the
skin, Like, it just barely pops out under under my
my pec muscle. It's just like if you had ruptured
that that artery during any of these activities over the
last eighteen and a half years, you would potentially bleed out internally in
minutes. And so that's when I my
darkest days kinda fell on me. So I was like, well, I think I've cheated
death enough. Yeah. I'm gonna go ahead and retire.
So, but being told that you can't that you can't
jump out of airplanes anymore when you're, when you're, you
know, a jump master in an airborne unit, if you can't jump, you
can't jump master. If you can't jump master, you can't lead paratroopers. So
it kinda you know, basically, I had to, you know, I had to roll it
in. So, that was when I went from from
having, you know, growth and development and a plan, and I was gonna,
you know, I was gonna make sergeant major, and I was gonna stay in 26,
27 Jesan, and I was gonna, you know, retire, you
know, between 27 30 years of service depending on how high up I
got. Went to being
Bye. Yeah. We're done we're done with you. So, like, here here's your
retirement check. Here's your here's your VA benefits. You know, go
have a good life. Do whatever. And I'm just like, what
will I do now? I don't know what to do. Like, what can I
do? So it it just really was a hard
transition for me seeing that I wasn't ready
to take a knee, face out, and drink water, and then, you know, find something
else. It was I was pretty much retired. Mhmm. I did
not choose literature than if I continue to do it, I was gonna be riding
the desk. Right. Up at fourth special forces
command doing, you know, school with NCO or something like
this is just something that was not fulfilling. Right? So
I think it really comes down to, like, that thought of, well, my life
is over. Right? Because I'm transitioning, and I
don't have a plan. I don't know it's basically the unknown is is in front
of me. You know, when you get the rug pulled out from underneath you and
fourth what you thought was, gonna happen is
no longer plausible or gonna happen. You know? When things change
abruptly and you don't
see any light at the end of the tunnel, you pretty much you're
just like, okay. Well, screw it. Now what do I do? That's Right. I
turning to alcohol heavily. You know? Mhmm. And that's where
that's what I turned to for a number of years until, you know, I
was seeing therapists. I was, you know, on antidepressants
and medications, and I would you know, I went through, like, 3 different
therapists and probably 4 different medications, and, you know, I've
been sober now for 2 years and some change. February 27,
2020 2. I gave up alcohol. I gave up social media. I
gave up caffeine. I gave up a whole bunch of things all at once just
to just to start over and hit reset. Yep.
So and it was it was probably the best decision that I ever
made was putting down alcohol and just hurting that off because
that allowed me to actually deal with the traumas
that I have. Right? And not just the military ones, but all the way back
to childhood traumas. Every bit of them. You know? So and I
probably have had more growth in
development in the last 2 years that I've been sober than I had in the
previous 20 Yep. In the military just because of
clarity of mind and and having that,
but and and doing a job like what I'm doing now, you know,
it it comes down to I really love what I'm doing. I
really do have a passion for what I'm doing. And I'm really and I
feel like, you know, it's, like, my calling kinda. Like, this is what I'm called
to do. Mhmm. Because I can actually, you know
I'm good at it. Right? So it it just turns into
one of my when I left service,
I was given I had a guy that hired me on. He was,
he was the guy that started his own VA claims consulting firm
for profit, which we'll get into later. I don't recommend anybody go and
use a for profit company at all.
There are there are plenty of free services out there, but you can,
you know, talk about that another day. It just kinda turns into this guy
was a retired, you know, officer, lieutenant
colonel, and he basically said that probably the best advice that I
ever heard in regards to transition that
really got me focused on stop
dwelling dwelling in the darkness of you no longer have
purpose or, you know, your vision is completely gone,
of what you wanted to do. You know, just get a new vision. And it's
basically when you transition out, and the and
the military is done with you, I don't care what branch you're in. And this
is something I would tell to any single service member that's currently
serving active duty fourth reservist or national guard was
that machine is gonna continue to run after you're
gone without issue. It is bigger than you are, and it
does not need you as bad as you think it needs
you. So when you do
decide to transition, you're gonna have 3 options to pick
from. And you pick 2 that you
want and just know you're gonna get the opposite of the third and be
satisfied with it. Right? Mhmm. So those those three options
are location, job satisfaction,
or money. So you work where you wanna work and be live where
you wanna live. Doing a job you love, you're gonna get paid
garbage money. Right? But if you wanna if you wanna do a job you
love and make the money you wanna make, you're gonna do it in a place
you don't wanna be. Right? So it just comes down to you pick the 2
that you want, you get the opposite of the 3rd. And it it really just
comes down to when,
doing what I'm doing. I'm I'm living where I wanna live. You know, I'm in
the Hill Country of Texas. You know, just a little bit south of Granbury.
Beautiful town, dinosaur capital Mhmm. Texas, Glen
Rose. And, I mean, it's beautiful here. So this
is this is where I wanna be. Right? Yep. This is the this is the
kinda atmosphere that I wanna raise my kids in. Right? Right. Small
town, great school district, great community,
great weather, and great people. Right?
And then the job that I'm doing is by far probably
the best job that I've ever found. Right? Just
being able to impact so many different people
towards goodness. Right? Because that's really what I'm
doing. I'm taking the veterans who are in a despair and
turmoil, and I'm providing them access Jesan the resources
that are gonna mitigate and allow them to
recover and recoup and regain control over, you know,
their future again, be it Mhmm. Through health care benefits fourth
education benefits or disability benefits or mental
health, access to to good mental health
treatments. Just those those things that I can and and and that, I
do way more than just that. I mean, there are several other categories that that
I cover, but just being that
that person that is the go to to take care
of somebody who I identify
with. Mhmm. Alright? So this comes down just like I
said, I'm I'm teach, coach, and mentor veterans,
service members, and families like I did my own soldiers. So
Right. Just basically get them where they need to go. But the transition
piece is really what I think
most people come out of the military. They don't
have if they don't have a plan and it turns
into loss of something Mhmm. It only
starts pushing them towards the what is called the coping mechanisms.
Could be anything from alcohol Tom drugs
to risky behaviors to whatever. Could be a number of different things
that they do in order to, fill the
void is what I like to call it. Hey. What are you filling the void
with that is that that you have inside? Right?
You gotta find something healthy to fill that void with. Well, doing this job is
what's filling that void for me. So, I that's
why I enjoy doing it as much. So that is
that is that reflects something that, not only have I heard
before, but that I that that I know just from even
working with individuals that I've worked with, you know, when I coach, you know, in
my consultancy, we coach the much put upon middle
manager. And when they lose purpose, when they lose mission, when they
lose the vision, or when that's no longer articulated for
them, then there is a long
decline, a long drop, and and then
failures of leadership begin to compound, and then it becomes a whole it
becomes a whole mess. Right? The whole dominoes begin to fall. And sometimes even
those dominoes fall into, into their personal lives.
That idea of having a mission, that idea of having a purpose is I want
to turn the corner here as we get ready to close. And I want to
talk about you know, leadership. And I wanna talk about sort of how
you see how how for you leadership linked into that
purpose admission. Now that's clearly something you've been doing and studying
and thinking about for a long, long Tom,
but now it's become closer to the core of your purpose and your mission.
So talk with us a little bit about how how that happened.
And here's a just anywhere book podcast. I'm gonna
gonna ask you the book question too. I'm gonna wrap it into this as well.
But, what are some books you would recommend for folks to to read that are
your favorite books that are around leadership? Okay.
Two parts on that one. Yeah. Sorrells, I'll answer the book question
Jesan. Yeah. Yeah. Because I I can go in-depth on it. Okay.
So the first part then from a
leadership perspective, I'm doing
what I'm doing and how it kinda translates over. So here's the deal. I have
27,000 plus veterans in my 6 counties that I cover.
Mhmm. That's that's estimated roundabout plus or minus, you
know, a1000 27,000. Mhmm.
Knowing what I know from networks and my my
work in civil affairs and doing, you know, counterterrorism
operations and humanitarian assistance over in the Philippines.
My my ultimate job there was
mapping the human terrain. Right? Who's who? Who's in power?
Where are the vacuums? Who where's the nepotism? Who's the
who's the behind the scenes power broker, this and that? So
I've essentially taken what I did while I was in the military, and I've applied
it to my 6 counties. And now here's the deal. I don't need 27,000
veterans to know who I am or I am. Right. Because
27,000 probably aren't gonna need me. Right. That one one or
2% of the veterans who are struggling are probably
gonna be the ones that are needing me. So,
I focus, on the community
leadership. Like, those individuals within the
community who are faith based leaders, business
owners, council members, first
readers. Those types of individuals are the ones that
I go and I meet with and I shake hands with. I get business cards.
I build relationships with those individuals. That's why you see me
at the that's why you see me at the, you know, the
Friday events for the Sure. Chamber of Commerce type stuff. You know? And I
do that across 6 counties. Right? So Right. It it just comes down to I
don't need 27 7,000 people to know who I am. I need those
250 specific individuals and positions of leadership that
those veterans are gonna turning in a time of crisis to know who I am
so that they can pass them to me because I'm gonna solve the problem.
Right. Right? So it just turns in and then at the end of the day,
I'm not even really the one that's solving the problem. I'm the one that knows
where all I hold all the keys to all the doors to
walk them down the hall to say, what are you looking for? Education? Alright. Come
on. This is door number 3. Let's go on down a couple more. Okay. Here
you go. Alright. What else do you need? Oh, okay. You need,
access to health care. Okay. Cool. Let's go on down. We're gonna knock on Tom.
We're gonna knock on VA. We're gonna go down and Tom to, you know, wherever
we gotta go. So it just turns into my my,
leadership style and what I did, and being
the face and the handshake of special operations really put me
in a position to build those relationships within my community Mhmm.
To establish, maintain, and grow
my network so that I can be the one that they're
calling when it's, you know, to mitigate that crisis that
veteran has. And I mean, I've done everything from Lorraine, you know, I've
connected a surviving spouse to a nonprofit in Crowley that
put a $30,000 roof on her home that was, like, completely dilapidated. Right? Right. All
the way to I've got a Tom building a ramp tomorrow for
a veteran on hospice who's got 6 to 12 months to live. I'm
putting a small porch in a deck, you know, a small deck in a
ramp for him and his wife so that she can just take him outside for
fresh air on, you know, on nice days. So it just really comes there's
a plethora of things that I have available to do, and I don't do it
all myself. That's never the case. It's always
partnership. It's always enterprise. It's always,
you know, bringing those entities together through
the, what do you call it, deliberate
intent Mhmm. Like, leadership approach.
Right? Hey. I'm I'm here. I always introduce myself as, hey. I'm the I am
your veteran peer service coordinator certified by the Texas Veterans Commission.
How can I help you today? Like, I'm I belong to
you. Like, not I'm not part of the system. Writers? So
I'm part I'm just another gear in the in the in the machine
to kinda help you get to where you need to go. So as far as,
as far as books go, I'll then answer the question
number 1 for you fairly well. So and I know we're getting to the the
end here. As far as some some books, when in regards
to leadership, I would say that
some ones that that I've read multiple times,
a couple of them were recommended by mentors
of mine, and then the one of them recommended by my wife
to help me that I've read in just last year,
I would say Mindset by doctor Carol
Dweck. Yep. Really good book
with if you want to expand your
understanding of why people continue to do the same thing over and over
again and never move podcast. Turning, you know, they just
they're just stagnant. Then you really gotta go and and and,
get that book. It is on audiobook. Most of the books I do are audio
because I drive all day, and I listen to them in the car, you know.
Yep. So, so it turns into yeah. The
Mindset's a good one by doctor Carol Dweck. Another one that
I've read I read it at probably once a
year every year because there's always a new edition coming out,
is a book called Influence. Yes. The Psychology of
Persuasion. Yes. Oh, you did call that. You know? By doctor Robert
Cialdini. That was that book. What I read it for the
first time as a staff sergeant on a CA
team before my first deployment to the Philippines. Mhmm.
And I'm gonna tell you that book was money in the
bank when it came to what I was doing on
those islands over in the Southern Philippines on
leveraging influence within, you know,
that network of people and how to
how to actually because, I mean, my job was essentially, you
know, complete my mission's mission and intent, my commander's
mission intent, and get as much as I could for with
giving it the least amount possible into
these regions. And, I mean, I we spent a lot of money in the Philippines
too. I mean, most of it was USAID money, but we did spend,
you know, taxpayer money, you know, building schools, roads,
hospitals, those kinds of things. But, you know, money
is a good motivator for a lot of folks, but that's not always what it
is because just they don't they don't take money from just anybody.
They don't like you. You're not one of them,
then they, you know, then they're not gonna be the one to be part of
it, but it just comes down to, influence was a good
one. Another one that's a small read that's
real recent that I've I've just picked up, probably about
6 months ago. Small little book. I picked it
up at Walmart on, like, one of those, where they where you can go and
you pick up the Bibles. Oh, yeah. Over from the book out. It's a
book called How Tom Deal with Toxic People by by
Gregory l Jantz, the doctor doctor
Jantz, and is also, coauthored with, Keith Wall.
But, this really helped me understand,
some of the people that I've had in my life that I
thought were, like, some of my biggest supporters, which actually, in
the end, they were not. Mhmm. But but how to deal with toxic
people if you are in
a subordinate if you're a subordinate and you are dealing with
what seems to just be absolute
horrible people. Read that book and get some
perspective on how to deal with them. Right? And it comes not just and
it's not just for, like, work related. So I was talking about, like, relationships. Right?
Like, how to deal with talking people relationships, you know, and how to
deal with, the different types of
personalities that are toxic and being able to identify those things where, you know,
fourth anything from gaslighting to, you know, drama queen, crisis
king type scenario stuff. So it just comes down to the those
books are really good. Some fun
reads, and some ones that I haven't picked up in a while,
but I probably need to revisit.
Was it the Mark Munson, subtle art of not giving a
f? Because yes. That that one will
kinda give you it it'll help you count your spoons because you're not familiar
with spoons. Like, I only got so many spoons in a day to use, and
if I use this spoon, I can't do nothing else. It's pretty much the same
principle. Be very careful on what you, what you pay attention
to and how you do, because, you know, the important things,
what you might think is important might not be what's really important. Might not be
what's really important. Yeah. It just helps you focus a little bit on on
what your priorities are and figure that stuff out. Some
other books that are pretty good reads from the from
the military side of it.
Book called Spare Parts is pretty good. It's by
Buzz. First name, Buzz.
Anywhere he is. Can't be reading that. But Williams.
Buzz Williams. Okay. Buzz Williams.
He's a marine, and it's essentially it's his story from
going from, marine reserves of 1st Gulf Fourth all the
way through, his
career, prefacing his his,
you know, his his older brother who he idolized, who would
died in Vietnam. Mhmm. That's a that's a pretty good one. It's
it's it's got some tough stuff. And then probably one of
the best ones that I've readers, just because
I'm involved in it, is a book called The
Brave Ones by Michael McCloud.
Okay. And so and it is actually a story. So
Mike McCloud was a fourth,
42 year old, professor
that joined the army to gain perspective to
write a book, and he was, he was
a photographer and a journalist, in our public
affairs office when I was in 82nd Airborne Division in their special annex
as the s nine NCOIC. Mike,
sergeant McLeod was probably one of the most
physically fit individuals that I had seen in a
long time at his age, like, this dude without PT
and just a lot of folks. But he's also got
tremendous,
accolades from his photography. Mhmm. But the
book is from his entry into basic
training all the way through preparing for
deployment into Afghanistan, the the
experiences that he had with, 1st Brigade,
with, you know, 1st Battalion, 2nd Battalion, 504th,
it it's really goes in. And there's it's
it's tough to read. Mhmm. There's a lot of essays there, I've
you know, I was there for. So it's comes into the lot of what he
did and and how he did it. But, yeah, it's a
that's a good one to pick up, just to get a
perspective of not the leadership side
of it Mhmm. But from the subordinate side of like, the
soldiering side of it and their perspective of the
leadership Of the leadership. Happened. So it it it really
because, I mean, you can read a book all day long from numerous leaders that
are gonna talk about the decorum and the, you know, the
the elegance of, you know, being in that elevated position, looking down at
the troops marching along. But you don't ever get to read about the
the 5 hour journey it took to get to that 2 minute walk in front
of the leader. Right. And and it because it starts at 2
AM with weapons draw, and then, you know, you gotta think. If you got a
100 and 30, 140 paratroopers who draw
out weapons, and it takes 2 minutes to book one
in, that mission lasts 2 hours. 2 hours. 3 hours
just to turn in weapons, you know. And it doesn't matter. I mean, and it
just comes down like, the way that he writes, about
the the the experience from the lower level dealing
with, you know, that leadership. And you got a thing, man. We had great we
had great leadership in over in First Brigade. You know? Mhmm.
There was a lot of there was a lot of, you know, really
awesome, generals that came out of commanding 1st
Brigade 82nd. You know, General Petraeus, you know,
McCrystal. There's a number of guys that that started off at
Brigade Command at 82nd Airborne Division First Brigade.
So, just the history and the lineage of that
alone. And then you go in, you read about what
how how his perceptions were as a as a young e five, or I should
say as a mature Mature. Yeah. Mature e five.
Because, I mean, he did garner he garnered a lot of respect
from, the senior leadership because he was
their age, and he was also equally
educated at the like, he could have easily had
gone to officer candidacy school Mhmm. And become a
lieutenant and and probably blow past all of
the individuals there. But, I mean, that guy was
really, really awesome. He was probably one of the
best, paratroopers that I had the pleasure to serve
with. Awesome. Well, that is a heck of a list,
and, we will, have that list in
the show notes with links to those books, below
this episode, of the podcast, and you can catch
that in any player that you listen to this podcast on.
Before I let Calen go today, and I wanna thank him for being on the
podcast, I wanna ask him the final question of today.
What would you like to promote today? If anything?
So it really comes down
Tom,
veterans in crisis. Right? You got so you got service
members. You got veterans. You got families. When it comes to
mental health, really wanna say if
you're specifically in Texas, right, every state has their
own Veterans Affairs state department. The Texas Veterans Commission
is the one from Texas. The VA has resources available
concerning mental health. Regardless of your discharge type, if you're in crisis,
you can go to any VA or ER and get immediate
crisis intervention for mental health.
All you do is go and say, I'm having a mental health crisis. This is
what I'm feeling, and I'm a a veteran. It does not matter what your
discharge type is. They will treat you. Right? There's a lot of stigma that comes
with the individuals who have other than honorable, dishonorable, or bad conduct
discharges who think, you know, they don't get normal VA benefits.
That's correct. But they do get, mental
health crisis intervention benefits from the VA, regardless. So
that is always an option. Local mental health
authorities across the state of Texas, 37, that covers every
single county, all 254, in the state of
Texas. There is a peer service coordinator that is aligned with
every single local mental health authority. There's a total of about
52 of us, and we all have volunteers that are part of what is known
as the Military Veteran Peer Network. So if you wanna
learn more on how to get involved with, taking care of veterans,
and that that's veterans of all ages, all
branches, as long as they're in Texas. I mean, I even
I talk to veterans who are not in Texas because they give my card to
their relatives up in Kansas or Colorado, and they call me. I
still set them in the right direction for what they need. But it just really
comes down Tom, there's a veteran in crisis, get on
the necessary stuff that they need, and you can find it at the
Veterans Mental Health Department through the Texas Veterans
Commission. You go to, the TDC website. You
can pretty much go on Google and type in TDC, and it'll should pop
up. Go to mental health, and that's that's basically where it
starts. But that's too much for you, just you can go on Writers Mental
Health Department and type in Military Veteran Peer Network, go
straight to the main page, and there's a nice easy map there. You can type
in your county, and it'll bring up the name, phone number, email, and
address for the peer service coordinator that covers the area that
you're in. It's not hard to find one of us.
It's, you know, that's what we're there for. We're we are
here to take care of veterans, families, and,
service members to get them the resources they need
to begin to live a life of joy and happiness,
get out of the turmoil and despair, and come over and actually have
a fulfilling life of happiness. Right? That's really what the goal is. I think
that's important for them to know is there are options, and they can
come on over and and get the help they need. Awesome.
And we will have links, to those websites. We will have
links to, the military veteran peer network, and we
will have links, of course, to the veterans crisis hotline,
that Kalen mentioned, previously. And of fourth,
we encourage, any one of our listeners, or the
friends or spouses or relatives of any of our
listeners, if you know a veteran in crisis,
even in your neighborhood, writers, please encourage them to
reach out to folks like Callan, and, and get in touch with
the military veteran peer network in your state, as
we are listened to in all 50 states, or,
if you are listening in or not, or and if you're listening in the state
of Texas, obviously, you wanna do that in the state of Texas.
988 is a nationwide for anybody.
Right. Fourth a veteran, they ask 988 and press 1 to
identify that you're a veteran. And that a lot of people don't
know. You can call 988 as a mental health professional and request
additional resources. Just let them know when you dial. I'm not in
crisis. I just need additional information. They will be more than happy to give
you any and all links and anything that you could possibly need or
want, mental health related. They'll be more than happy to provide that to
you. And we will have that number again in the show notes
below the player of this podcast that you are listening to
this podcast on. Once again, I would like to thank,
Kaelin Bullard for coming by today and for talking with us,
about his work and about his background and his experiences.
And my name is Essays Sorrells. And with that,
we're out.