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Veteran's Affairs Plus discusses the issues that veterans in Las Vegas deal with on a daily basis. Your host, David L. Washington connects listeners with relevant community resources and information that they need to help veterans or themselves.
Announcer 0:00
This is a KUNV Studios original program.
Wesley Knight 0:04
You're listening to special programming sponsored by Making Moves Life Coaching Services. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 90-1.5 Jazz and More, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Pick it back,
Music 0:30
pick it south. Come on, talk to me, so you can't see what's going on. Yeah, what's going on? Tell me what's going on.
Dave Washington 0:49
Great day, Las Vegas! Great day. This is Veterans Affairs Plus on 90-1.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. Shortly after I make a few announcements, we'll have mr. Gill. He has a dynamic program that he works with, and we're going to spend the the 25 minutes or so talking with him, giving us some indication, particularly to our listening audience about the good things that he's doing, particularly for veterans. So, with that, I'd like to correct a couple things. One thing about when when a show is taped, man, you get to at least go back when you mess up. Wes, I messed up. I said my son-in-law, who used to work for an organization, it was actually Caesar's Entertainment, and I said it was MGM. I'm like, whoa, boy, it's not MGM. So anyway, we want to make that correction. Also, I mentioned at the previous show about EDI, and I mentioned that we had 270-370-four students in Mod One. That's incorrect. It's 70-470-three to 70-four students in Mod One. Overall, we had 270-370-four students on campus at Dillard University, where we celebrated our 35th anniversary of the Carl Holmes Executive Development Institute, with 25 of those years being right there at Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana. I got a few editorial comments that I like to make from time to time, as Wes knows, and one you know, I listen to the president of FIFA, and and again, let me say this with something that Jason does before the program starts, prior to any of us talk show hosts start talking and giving our position on things. He does a disclaimer for the university. I want to reiterate. I do not speak for the university under any circumstances. I'm speaking for me, Dave Washington. Just some feelings that I have, and I'm and I heard the FIFA president. I don't even know his name is, and if I knew it, I wouldn't mention it. But he said that they are not a political organization, and I saw some political things that he did several times during the during the World Cup, and we know that by the time this show actually airs, it will be over, and we will say congratulation to whoever wins. I think it's an it's an outstanding that athletes who play soccer from around the world, you know, and it always triggers my mind, Wes, when we say we're the world champion Boston Celtics or the Los Angeles Lakers, or we play people from our own country. When the FIFA World Cup, that is actually when you say that you you world you are because you've played 36 played soccer against countries from 3632 to 36 different countries from around the world. So that's really world champions to me. And but so anyway, I just wanted to make comments of that. And then the RNC and the DNC, Democratic National as well as the Republican National committees. We need to understand, and I say this to anybody listening: these are businesses. They make money. They drive their candidates, and they do the kinds of things that's going to be good for them. But I'm going to continue to reiterate: elected officials, they are not our friends. They are to provide us with resources and get policies passed. That's going to help us in our daily lives, whether it's business, whether it's personal life. That's why they're there, and and in order to get things done, we have to push these folks, y'all, because otherwise they're gonna just do what they want to do, and then I heard a program the other week, and I and I just love this, and this is from the governor of Maryland, Westmore. One of his one of his, I guess you would call it, one of his slogans was work, wages, and wealth. You know, you gotta have an opportunity to have a job or a business, but I just love that, and I think that's something that we should push our folks to do. Whatever city, whatever state, whether it's local state or federal legislators, we need to push them. You know, so people can have work with a good wage, as well as you know some some people actually get wealthy.
Dave Washington 5:26
But I can tell you this, and I heard on the show earlier today, Wes, that that these it was somewhere I don't know where it was, but I still think it's important to state this. These people were cheering because some robot was able to work for 200 hours. I'm like, why y'all cheering? If this person, person, this piece of machinery is going to take your job, and I hope that there are opportunities in other areas because we know a robot. They're going. They're not going to call in sick. They're not going to call in because they got drunk last night. They're not going to call in because they want to go to a concert. So that's one of the advantages, certainly for those multi-million and billion-dollar folks who are driving people out of jobs. So my only point is we gotta we gotta try to make sure that we do things that's going to allow people to have a job and to make a decent living? And then the final thing I want to say is, again, I'm embarking upon conducting a voter education seminar. Only going to take about an hour, folks' time, but we need to know things before you go and try to vote, because there's all kinds of things going on, and those dates will be mentioned probably in the early August show. So with that, I'm going to welcome in mr. Gill. He is a an individual whom I met through text, believe it or not, and a program that he's doing through Crystal Falls, who works for Clark County Fire Department. How you doing, sir?
Raivadus Gill 7:10
I'm doing all right. Yourself?
Dave Washington 7:11
I can't complain. Tell us a little bit about yourself, so our listening audience can get a feel for who you are, if you will.
Raivadus Gill 7:19
My name is Ravadas Gill. I'm a 48 years old. I'm a war veteran. I served the country from 2002 to I'm sorry, 2000 to 2010. I was in war 2004 to 2006, and I was in the army. Obviously, not obviously, but I was the branch was army, and that's and I'm from Chicago originally, and I live in Vegas now.
Dave Washington 7:56
Okay,
Raivadus Gill 7:57
so yep, that's that's that's a little bit about me.
Dave Washington 8:02
Well, you know, Wes asked me, "Was you calling in? I'm thinking you were back east, and you know, I guess I should have asked a couple more questions. We could have actually had you to come into the studio, but nevertheless, it's good that you're on, and we just want to share the information that you have. That's going to be helpful to veterans. Now, were you in a position that you can your MOS that you can speak to it, or was it classified and you can't share that information?
Raivadus Gill 8:28
Oh well, my MOS. Well, yeah, I can speak to my MOS in the military was a a 14 Mike, which is a Stinger missile operator, air defense artillery. So pretty much got trained to use a Stinger missile to shoot airplanes out of the sky, but obviously we didn't use those in Iraq. We didn't need them anymore. By the time we got over there or whatever, we never, you know, they were outdated, but we still got trained to use them. It's pretty much infantry.
Dave Washington 9:03
Okay. Well, people have heard this out of my mouth before. I was supposed to be whatever whatever it is. I I never found out, but I was supposed to be a missile crewman. But I had a marijuana possession just as I turned 18, and they wouldn't give me a top secret clearance to go to. I think it was somewhere down in Texas. I was to be training whatever a missile crewman was to be. So I actually wound up. They wanted me to be an auto mechanic. I told them I prefer to be a cook if I could, and I went to cook school because I used to watch my mother bake cakes, and they said, "Well, we got a chapter on baking in our cook school. Well, you can do that. I said, "Fine. That's so. That's how I became a cook. But you you do some some pretty dynamic things, and I saw an interview that you did through what Crystal sent me. Crystal sent. So, let's talk about that because I think it's important for the work that you're doing is going to be helpful to a lot of veterans out there, and we got we got about probably now at least 1618, minutes that we can we can talk about this. So, give us some background on that and why and how did you start it?
Raivadus Gill 10:20
Okay, I'm a executive director for Operation Battle Cry, and it's a 501c3, and it's wraparound services for veterans. I connect them with transitional housing, compensation, mental health, and any any resource they want, I can get. If I don't know how to do it, I know somebody else who knows how to do it, and I I do this as the kind of like a battle buddy program. I walk with the veterans to their appointments, and you know, I pretty much help on average three to five veterans a month, and that's probably all I can. That's my bandwidth. Tell you the truth, because I do have a personal life myself.
Dave Washington 11:12
Right.
Raivadus Gill 11:13
But I give I give everything I can to help a veteran, and that came from when I came home from war after being hit with two IEDs, a bunch of just numerous shootouts, I was the first man in a door kicking in doors. I almost got hit with an RPG landed 20 feet away from me. So it was a much more other things, but I've been through it in war, and God gave me the ability to talk about. At first, I didn't like talking about it, but now I just, you know, He said, "Go out there and do what you need to do. So I do it, and but when I came home, back to when I came home, I didn't get this help that I'm the way I'm helping people. I didn't get the help. It took me 10 years to get my compensation, full compensation, and during that, I just learned, you know, how to do it and what the military was looking for.
Dave Washington 12:12
Right.
Raivadus Gill 12:13
So I said, I'm gonna open up a nonprofit, and I'm gonna help veterans out the way I wasn't helped out, and that's that's that's why Operation Battle Client was born.
Dave Washington 12:24
So after,
Raivadus Gill 12:25
because
Dave Washington 12:26
go ahead, go ahead. I'm sorry. No,
Raivadus Gill 12:28
go after.
Dave Washington 12:30
Yeah, I was just going to ask you. So you say you started this 501c3. So how are you funded, or if it's a funded organization, I'm assuming being a 501c3, you do seek some funding to assist you in doing the work that you do. Be
Raivadus Gill 12:46
totally transparent. I fund it myself. I'm an iron worker by trade, and I've right now, you know, it's our nonprofits have been around for like three, four years.
Dave Washington 13:04
Oh, okay.
Raivadus Gill 13:04
And I fund it pretty much. You know, we we go out and ask for grants and everything, and you know how that goes. I don't know if you know how to go, but yeah, we wait on grants. But right now, I also have a LLC called trigger happiness, and it's when positivity meets purpose. And right now, we signed a deal with Operation Battle Cries. Signed a deal with Dave and Buster's, and what we do with Dave and Buster's is we put on events there for veterans and the community, and right now we're doing first responders to it. This next one, and we put this big event on the veterans. We call it hot sauce with your medicine. I mean, not hot sauce. I'm sorry, applesauce with your medicine. So veterans get to come there, and it's free. And it's if you register, it's free. And you get a buffet, and you get a three-hour game card, unlimited game card. And we also have a panel discussion there also. And it's like maybe 3040, minutes of panel discussion. We keep it pretty light because it's Dave and Busses. We just want everybody to have. It's all about fun, community, and you know a little impact, and it's to reach you know veterans of all ages because the stuff we have now, you know, it's it's just it's just a little bit too outdated to reach veterans to reach veterans, younger veterans.
Dave Washington 14:42
No, and I can I can appreciate that because, you know, I I just in in my tenure tenure with the Carl Holmes Executive Development Institute, it's a trainee fire service professional training institute housed out of Dillard University, and I can tell you that. We have to keep motion in our in our lesson plans because some of the young guys say, "Man, we don't want just no talking heads. You got to keep us busy, keep us doing something, keeping us active. In fact, I mentioned last week on the show that I met with the general manager here, and I was telling them about something that I'm embarking upon. In fact, I'm starting with my own grandchildren, and that is an African studies curriculum that I'm taking them through, and and I plan to do this with some other young men in in one or two of the housing projects or apartments for seniors and families that Frank Hawkins is the executive director and owner of. So, and the general manager actually say, "Whatever you do, chief, you make sure you don't just be standing there lecturing. You gotta, you gotta give them something to do. And and to your point, you gotta you're gonna do something a little bit more up to date. And and you're a young organization. I admire what you're doing, and certainly anytime you want to come on the show and talk about some of the things that you're doing, the seat is open to include coming out here to the studio. I admire what you're doing, keep doing what you're doing. In fact, while I speak about admiring and appreciating people, I want to acknowledge and say congrats to Tony Marshall. He is-he was our guy who helped people do similar to what you're doing, get various types of benefits through through VA. Now he is the commander at American Legion Post 10 over over on Memorial Drive, Veterans Memorial down past Fire Station One downtown Las Vegas. So yeah, I think that's outstanding what you're doing. So one of your major projects now, and I think it's admirable once again to to have the vets to come there and kind of you know release a little pressure off their brain and do some fun things because I, my grandchildren, we've done various things there with Dave and Buster, so that's that's pretty cool. Further thoughts?
Raivadus Gill 17:13
Yeah, so that's that's that's what it's all about, you know. Well, trigger happiness-a short story of trigger happiness. How that came about, and it tells you why. It'll explain why I do events. Also, you know, I called myself in a place of in 2008 I would think it was 2007 2008 When I got back going for more, I caught myself on the couch in a dark place, and with a weapon pointed to my head.
Dave Washington 17:46
Oh my!
Raivadus Gill 17:46
And I was done. Something heavy was in me, and I, you know, I go around giving these speeches, but and I say I don't think I wanted to die, but I wanted the pain to stop.
Dave Washington 17:58
Right.
Raivadus Gill 17:58
And I was crying, crying, crying. I I didn't want to do it, but this was the only way to get that heaviness off of me. And as I'm about to squeeze the trigger, I look down on a coffee table, and it's a flyer on the coffee table, and I'm crying. And God said, "Open your eyes, open your eyes. And I open my eyes, and I had the weapon to my head still, and I look and I read the flyer real fast, and it was an event I was supposed to be at on that Friday or Saturday, and I said, "Oh, and you know I don't want to curse. I said, "Oh, so, and I dropped the weapon and ran out the house. That flyer gave me a positive purpose. It gave me somewhere to be, and that event saved my life. So by doing these events, I know it'll save another veteran's life because I am that combat veteran. I went through that. I had that heaviness. We all need to keep something around us that can trigger our happiness, and that's I spread that out to the world right now. Trigger happiness. It's a, it's that, it's that light that lives in your dark space. You know, just keep it around. Just, just, just keep around a wristband or something that'll snap you out of it.
Dave Washington 19:20
That's great.
Raivadus Gill 19:21
Yeah, and to that, my brother he came home and took the weapon. He was a veteran. He came home, locked the weapon up, so I couldn't use it anymore. And I knew that because I went back two days later, and it was locked up. But he was a Navy veteran, and a year later, he used that same weapon on himself, and. And I was like, "What the? Why didn't I do it? And why did he do it? And yeah, and the only thing I can think of is he couldn't. Something wasn't a rush. His happy, everything was gone. He thought that was it. But it's not it. It's it's not it. Your dark space is not it. Everybody have dark spaces.
Dave Washington 20:06
Sure.
Raivadus Gill 20:06
But how do we get out of them? You trigger happiness. Just like if I see a box on a road, it triggers something in me because I was hit with an IED. So that's it's the same triggering your brain don't mean all sudden bad. You can trigger goodness, right? We don't talk about that enough. Let's trigger goodness, and that's why I have this movement going on, trigger happiness, which is the LLC, but Operation Battle Cry is the nonprofit.
Dave Washington 20:35
That's excellent. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 Jazz and more. Got Brother Gil here. He's talking about a couple programs that he has. One's a 501 c3 the ones the ones an LLC. So this is outstanding work, and I think it's important for you to be on this program. And again, it's it's an open door for you because what you're doing is going to help a number of individuals to save themselves. And you know there's this song that I encourage people to listen to, is and it's called "Celebrate Me, and I and I I forget her name. I think it's Ira Ira Rose or something like that. But man, when you listen to that song, it talks about one celebrating themselves, whether anybody else do so or not. You we must celebrate ourselves, and I've I've had such a rich life, man, and I've told people how much I've been celebrated by others, but also some friends, as I mentioned last week, Frank Hawkins, his wife Cheryl. Man, you got to spend some time with you, and my wife always telling me, you need to sit down. No, I'll sit down when I die. You know, I'm an activist. I've been active all my adult life, and when I joined the fire department in 1974, there was guys who would they'd be gone in two or three years, and some the suicide thing, and some just natural causes, man, because they were laying around watching TV and laying on the couch. No, I'm gonna stay busy doing what I do, trying to to shed good light on people and do things to encourage young men and women to do things in a positive nature because we have an obligation and responsibility, I believe, to our fellow men and human. You know, women, men, we got, we got to do it. And so I admire what you're doing. I admire it. So thank you. Keep doing it. I'm sure we're getting close to our time now. So give us some some things that will be important for you to share. Oh, we got lots of time. Say we got six minutes. So the program that you're doing with Dave and Busses. How do people get involved with that? And how often are you going to do that with them?
Raivadus Gill 22:52
So, how you can get involved with it? You can follow us on Gold Trigger Happiness on IG, and you can also go to my our website oldbattlecry.org. Let's see, it's www.oldbattlecry.org. So we're gonna do it twice a year.
Dave Washington 23:19
Okay.
Raivadus Gill 23:20
Every Wednesday after Memorial Day, because it's such a heavy, it's such a heavy weekend,
Dave Washington 23:27
right?
Raivadus Gill 23:28
And we're gonna we want to do a reset to veterans, and every Wednesday after Memorial Day, we're gonna, you know, we want to bring veterans in to just reset. You know what I mean? That that was a heavy weekend. We we thought about our loved ones, but just remember why you're while you're alive. You're you're alive because they're not. I mean, you're you're you're you got to keep you know their spirit. Their spirit is there. You got to keep going. You got to you got to keep yourself up. You know they died for us to live, so don't don't disappoint them, and we're gonna do it every year after 911 Same concept. It's like, but the 911 is the one for first responders also.
Dave Washington 24:14
Okay,
Raivadus Gill 24:14
and it's called what a time to be. So I don't like to use the word suicide too much.
Dave Washington 24:21
So we're. calling the event. What a time to be alive, and that's september 16 at Dave and Buster's out in Summerlin. Okay, no, that's that's outstanding stuff, and I would imagine that these are just a couple of things that you got going right now. But but I would imagine just just talking to you, not having met you physically, that you will be embarking upon a number of other things. But I admire what you're doing. I think it's very important because we cannot forget about those who've gone to war, and the scars that they come back with. I tell people all the time, I was very blessed. I, I'm a Vietnam et Vietnam era veteran, 71 to 73, United States Army, but I did not go to go to to war. And one of my former bosses, Chief John Ryan, we were talking one day because he's been on this show a couple times, and he told me, say, I went over there 18, 19 years old to Vietnam. When I came back, I was a grown man, and it's just some of the stuff that I saw and that I went through. It it it made me grow up real fast. So what you're doing is going to, brother Gil, is going to be helpful to a lot of folks. So anything that I can do to help you to to champion your cause, I'm certainly willing to to wave the flag for you because I think it's important. I think it's very very. I
Raivadus Gill 25:49
appreciate you. Yeah, I appreciate you right now. You know, I just tell people, you know, spread the word. You know, just spread the word right now. We we are we are looking for some sponsors. Donate if you want to donate. You know anybody want to donate? We're looking for that because it's a free event for veterans. Right. You know, and yeah, it's we just want everybody come eat free and get a three hour game card and just enjoy enjoy life. You know. Remember, you know, the last event was incredible. I can send you a video of recap on it. It just was, it was amazing. Everybody loved it. So we expect we we fed over 150 veterans for free. It was a buffet.
Dave Washington 26:40
Oh wow! And
Raivadus Gill 26:40
we gave away 115 game cards.
Dave Washington 26:43
That is excellent.
Raivadus Gill 26:45
Yeah,
Dave Washington 26:46
and this is a kids
Raivadus Gill 26:47
are having a ball.
Dave Washington 26:48
Yeah, I was going to say the way you describe it, it's it's it's a family affair kind of a program that you're running through Dave and Buster's. That's that is outstanding because I think children need to get a chance to kind of loosen up too.
Raivadus Gill 27:04
Yes, especially in today's world. Yes, get there. I promise. It's just it's just a good feeling. And then, like I said, we have a panel there. We had six panel, and I think Chris is going to be one of our panelists on his next one of firefighter, first responder,
Dave Washington 27:24
right?
Raivadus Gill 27:25
To talk about you know you know everybody have dark spots and dark spaces and you know how do you get out of it? You know what I mean. So just just humanize it. Just just you know it's cool to talk about it. Nothing else is cool. You know, it's cool. Let's let's talk about it. And you know, people just keep it to themselves too much, and yeah, it's got this negative theme to it. But it's really not negative. We all go through it, so there's nothing wrong with feeling bad if we get out of it. Yeah,
Dave Washington 28:00
I'm telling you, it's it's absolutely critical what you're doing. So, once again, this is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and more. Any closing remarks? We got about a minute and a half.
Raivadus Gill 28:13
Closing remarks. Closing remarks. Like like you said, if you want to look us up, oldbattlecry.org, and just remember to if you're in a dark space, and I really preach this, if you're in a dark space, just remember to trigger your happiness, and everything is gonna be okay. All
Dave Washington 28:40
right, well said, young man. Again, you got a you got an open seat at the table. I think the work that you're doing is outstanding. So once again, Veterans Affairs Plus. We're going to be signing off. We rise the dawn of a new day. That's the performing and visual arts camp over at the West Side Theater. So they're having their program on the 30-first of July and also august 1. So with that, we're signing off. Thank you again. Appreciate you.
Music 29:19
All the smoke in the air, feel the hate when they stare, all the pain that we bear.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai