The Morning Formation Podcast
Hosted by KP Phillips—a U.S. Army combat veteran, former law enforcement officer, and seasoned instructor in tactics, firearms, and combatives—The Formation Podcast is built on the core pillars of Survivability, Situational Awareness, and the mindset to Adapt & Overcome.
Drawing from over two decades of real-world experience in combat zones and high-risk environments, KP leads authentic conversations with warriors, protectors, and everyday individuals who’ve faced adversity head-on. This podcast is more than content—it's a movement for those who understand that the fight begins before the event.
Through storytelling, lived experience, and expert insight, The Formation Podcast equips its listeners with the mindset, tools, and awareness to remain vigilant and prepared—whether on the battlefield, in the streets, or in everyday life.
The Morning Formation Podcast
Empowering Rural Veterans: Michelle Lang's Mission to Bridge Support and Community
This episode features a powerful conversation with Michelle Lang from Operation Honorary Salute, discussing the challenges rural veterans face and how the organization connects them with necessary resources. Listeners learn about the importance of community support, awareness, and the unique needs of this often-overlooked population, as well as how they can get involved in helping these veterans thrive.
• Transitioning nonprofit focus to rural veterans
• Importance of authenticity in resources provided
• Creating online support communities
• Engaging events to build camaraderie
• Highlighting benefits and educational resources available
• Changing perceptions about rural veterans and their skills
• Plans for expanding outreach and impact nationally
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Episode Powered By Act Now Education
Warriors fall in. It's time for formation. Today, folks, I have a great friend of mine that I had the fortune to meet in person at the military influencer conference in Las Vegas just what two years ago, right. And we interviewed her when she was running her last non-profit and since then she's transitioned her non-profit, which still focuses generally on the same concept of helping our rural veterans that are living out away from the city, that may have a little bit more difficulty getting the resources that are necessary for them to get jobs, find homes and things like that. So today I have Michelle Lang on the Morning Formation podcast. Michelle, thank you for joining me today.
Speaker 2:How's it going? Thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1:It's an absolute honor, and it's an absolute honor to be in your circle, or at least I hope I'm in your circle. I just wanted to ask you. You know, last time we talked, the name of your nonprofit was different. Talk about the transition from the last to the one that you currently have right now.
Speaker 2:So we started as Veteran Help Point in 2021. And it's kind of the same understanding. We're still trying to get resources to people that weren't near a big city, that weren't aware of what was available to them, but we didn't focus specifically on rural areas. But last year in June I held an event specifically for rural veterans in my hometown of Pennsylvania and it was really overwhelming the amount of connection there was and having people shift their mindset to like, oh yes, I am a rural veteran. I can't believe there's help out there for me and just realizing this is a really, really big need in rural areas for people to get connected to these outside resources that they can use and take advantage of.
Speaker 2:So we totally switched a lot of things I don't want to say. Our game plan is still pretty much the same as far as connecting people to resources, but now we're only connecting them to certain resources. We're being very, very strategic about it as far as who we're connecting them with. There's a smaller pool, highly vetted, and then we're building an online community for rural veterans where they can talk to subject matter experts, check matter experts, and then we do our in-person events and our. Eventually, we want to move to helping rural veterans and their families get meaningful rural employment.
Speaker 1:That's huge. Finding genuine, authentic assistance is huge. I had a buddy of mine who is a veteran. He does real estate and he says that it absolutely angers him. You know, during Veterans Day, when you have all these non-military real estate agents out there waving the flag saying we support this, we support that and really what they're going after is the dollars, right, they're going after the money and there's really no sole purpose there for them to assist. And finding that authenticity can be really, really tough for veterans. And, matter of fact, I think yesterday on social media, um juan perez jp was on his stories on instagram and he was talking about how ai was used to change his his voice into saying basically advertising like some debt service or whatever wow yeah, that authenticity finding, like the genuine stuff is really hard, so it's great that you're out there helping sort through kind of being like a I don't know Yelp, I guess, of assistance for our veterans right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have. So the model we used before was we were going for like an interactive map where people could go to these physical resources, no matter where they were, or they could use virtual Sorry, I'm just getting over like the flu and it's hanging on. But now we have a much smaller pool of resources and I'm like I keep thinking they're like the Avengers of resources, right. So this like super elite group of resources that is still very holistic, where people can use them no matter where there are, or these resources will fly them out to go like boulder crest, they'll fly you out to go to virginia or arizona or camp southern ground. So like there's so many things people can take advantage of but they just don't know about it yeah, spreading awareness is really challenging.
Speaker 1:I it blows my mind when veterans ask me like, well, I need help filing for my my uh service connection and it's like that's that's anywhere. All you got to do is look it up and you know, your American American Legion does it, VFW does it. If you want to get started with doing it and putting in for it, beyond that, you do need to have some type of advice to find, like, authentic and genuine people that are actually there to help you, because it is full of folks that are just looking at the dollar signs when it comes to utilizing the service connection and the VA home loans. But, overall, what are some of the resources that you connect veterans with? Because I know you just said that it's specific right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so before we had certain categories of help and we basically are sticking to that, so we have benefits. We want people to be able to get good information about their benefits. We want them to be able to have solid answers and a good resource to go talk to somebody about that, which is big if you're in a rural area, how to grow food where you're at, take care of yourself, va loans and real estate, which somebody just told me yesterday that 87% of veterans do not use their home loan, which is wild to me. That's so much higher than I thought I'm guilty.
Speaker 2:Housing is the number one issue. Number two two issue whenever I pulled people to rural areas of what they couldn't access because there's no rentals in rural areas it's super hard. You have to buy. I mean, I don't know. It's just, I'm really into helping people thrive where they're at, and this is what I want to do, and I think the VA home loan is an excellent way to do that. You can invest in real estate, you can invest in yourself and start building wealth, so I'm excited to share that with people. What other resources do we have? We have education. Act NOW. Entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:I'm familiar with ACT NOW.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to think what, like?
Speaker 1:my mind is blank right now, which is terrible, but Well, definitely, I know it's all listed on your website so we're gonna put put all it on there. I need to link you up with my last interview that I had with robert tolan. He is a. He lives up in ventura county here in california, which I guess is kind of rural outside of los angeles area. There's a little. I guess you get up to the upper parts of that county and there's a little more country. But I need to connect with him because he is a great asset of resources and just advice, especially for the Southern California area. So, overall, can you share some of the most impactful programs or events that you've organized so far?
Speaker 2:Our first big multi-day event was in June this past year in 2024. Multi-day event was in June this past year in 2024. We took it was like a third iteration of what we've been doing, but we took it and spread it over two days. So we had today, we had our golf tournament and date nights. So we brought in speakers from across the country. They came in and did a Freedom First speaker panel and then turned like our little theater into a 1940s post-World War II celebration lounge. It was really really cool. Had them talk about what freedom means to them and things like that, and that really got the community engaged and that got other veterans that aren't used to engaging in forums like that talking and feeling some camaraderie. So that was really really cool. And then we had a flag ceremony. So we had one flag in the ground for every veteran that had served in that county since the Revolutionary War. So there's about 3,000 flags. That was also very cool.
Speaker 2:And then the next day was like the big event. We had veteran resources, craft vendors, food trucks, music. Tristan Trick came up. We had some cool music there for the town. It was just really a celebration of rural veterans and their families and the goal with these events is to have communities that love to support veterans, but they don't know how to support them.
Speaker 2:Beyond saying like thank you for your service and hanging a banner on Main Street, how do you support them in an actionable way? And, as a result of that event, people learn how to support them, and so after that I would have people texting me, emailing me, like, Michelle, I know this person is struggling. Do you have any resources for them? Whereas before they didn't know who to go to, and we have a legion in town up there and they're really, really great resources. I want to help revitalize American legions in small towns, but if you're a civilian, it kind of feels like you're on the outside between. These resources allowed people to ask and just get curious, and so I thought that was a really really cool thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it can be really almost scary or unnerving for a civilian to walk up into a military environment and not understand the language, the lingo or not feel like they're a part. I was dealing with military spouses. A lot of times they don't feel like they're part of the whole military experience. A lot of times they have sort of imposter syndrome and I know that you're a military spouse and still going strong after all these years right With dealing with the military life, the moving and things like that. How do you think that has, overall, inspired you so far with this whole nonprofit that you're doing, geared towards the specific target audience that you're seeking to help?
Speaker 2:In a lot of ways. I mean here we're at Fort Bragg, liberty and the community here is so is so cool. I mean, the military spouse community, specifically at Fort Liberty, is just unreal. There's fantastic ladies and men doing awesome things and that in itself is really inspiring.
Speaker 2:We chose to live in the country outside of the noise of brag and it just it reminds me why I'm doing what I'm doing because I chose to live out here, because I wanted this lifestyle of rural peace and quiet. I wanted to raise my kids, you know where they could get dirty and be part of cultivating the land and things like that. But you do feel isolated out here and there's not. I mean, we live in a development but like we're all still pretty spread out so you have to make an effort to go meet your neighbors and know your neighbors and a lot of people who move to rural areas are not doing that.
Speaker 2:If you're an outsider moving to a rural area, it's pretty intimidating because you have like your groups, you have your cliques. Rural areas are very tight knit, very suspicious of outsiders and not everybody is like me. Where I go and knock on my doors and say hi, you know, I'm Michelle, we're the Langs. If you hear yelling, it's just me and my kids, like I don't call the cops, but not everybody's like that. So that's why I'm really excited about building this online community so people can have that and then they can be encouraged to create these in-person little meetups around the country, like that's what I see happening with our online community understand they're saying well, what's, what's the problem?
Speaker 1:like, you have the same benefits as everybody else. Like, why is there a problem with that bridge of of being in the military or getting out of the military? Understand that, even with from my personal experience. When I went in active duty as an officer, um, I commissioned and then months later I was OBC and then next thing you know, I'm in Iraq. Next thing you know, I'm like. At my first duty station I literally lost connection with everybody that I went to college with Everybody back from my hometown. It was almost like and especially back then there wasn't the internet like it is today we weren't following each other on Facebook and everything like that.
Speaker 1:But you just start a whole new chapter in your life and you know things change and people change. Paths literally split off into you know why intersections and people go different ways and when you come back you don't have those same roots anymore. They're gone. You know anyone that you knew the chances that you had to network.
Speaker 1:You know and I always tell folks that when you get out of the military to find the ideal salary, the ideal position, the ideal job location, all those three things in one basket is very difficult to do because you've spent the last like four plus years doing military stuff that 95 of the country would never understand what the hell it even means.
Speaker 1:They don't know. So I've sat across from recruits before having a conversation talking about what an army captain does, what I did when I was at war, and they're just looking at me like deer in the headlights. They have no idea. So that's what we're talking about when we're talking about you know needing the resources and the support because it takes time to get gelled back with the community and get gelled back with the civilian life. And you know it's great that you are so geared and I know you're a busy mom and you're a military spouse and you've got all these things going on in your life. Michelle, you know, over the next five to 10 years I mean you mentioned that you want to start these smaller rural communities all over the US and right now you're in Raleigh, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're just south of it.
Speaker 1:So the event that you just did, what city was that in?
Speaker 2:That was in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1:Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2:Very, very rural like, not even close to any city. My hometown, mccombsburg, pennsylvania, is where it was at. This year we're doing it again in Pennsylvania, but we're doing another one here close to Fort Liberty, because every year we want to add another event. My goal long term is to do one of these Operation Honorary events in every 50. I would love to do it all in the same weekend, like every year. I think that would be so cool. But that's a long term goal because people just felt so supported there and people don't do things for rural America and I really think and the people on my team, we just believe that rural America is like the next old new frontier, that's, that's where it's at. There's so much opportunity there. People, especially after being isolated for a couple of years, you know people want to go and they want to heal and people are moving to the country to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I live in LA and there's just in the last couple of years there's been a mass exodus of people leaving the big city, moving out into Idaho, texas, nevada, utah, just getting out of here, you know, because it's just, I think it's more of a mental meditation more or less just to get out and be in nature and be around people and try to ground yourself with family. So, overall, what is one thing that people misunderstand about rural communities and their veterans?
Speaker 2:Probably the number one thing about rural communities. Growing up in a rural community, I know this for a fact. If you're not from rural America, people automatically assume that you're dumber than them always. I mean, we've been called all sorts of things, you know, hillbilly. Even the town next to us used to call my uh school stump humpers.
Speaker 1:I mean just like so I like to see that mascot I know, but they, just they.
Speaker 2:I mean people think that people live, that live in rural america, are are dumber than them, are less than, and that is so far from the truth. Farmers especially, they're engineers, they're innovative, they're hardworking, they're mechanics.
Speaker 1:A lot of common sense.
Speaker 2:So much and the way that they can. Just, it's almost intuitive how they can look at a machine and figure it out because they have to, because it costs too much to take it to a mechanic to repair a million dollar piece of equipment, and that's the reality. I think that's the biggest misconception of rural America. Number two veterans living in rural America are not identifying as rural veterans. That's not really a coined term, that's not something that people say, and there's definitely different needs that are associated with rural veterans, like the lack of healthcare options, and people don't understand community care or they've been told that they can't use community care when that's not true. Sometimes you have to fight the system a little bit and say, yeah, it is within my rights to use community care and this is in the community care network. That's the reality. That's happening too. Also, accessing telehealth, you have broadband issues.
Speaker 2:There are so many issues that rural veterans deal with that they may not even know that they're dealing with, because they don't one know it's an option to ask a question, because when you're in the military you don't ask questions, right, you just you do what you're supposed to do. So now you're in the civilian world where, like, something doesn't go your way, well, now you need to advocate for yourself. Whenever you've been, it's been beat into you not to advocate for yourself because somebody else is supposed to be taking care of you, taking care of the problem. So my goal is to really open up people's eyes to the possibility of growth and thriving where they're at, by just using the benefits that are available to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's huge One of the things I think in my intro I talk about. You know, when the cadence you know fades out, who's going to tell you when to pivot and how to pivot? And nobody will, and really it's kind of a backstabbing world in a certain sense. My first job coming out of the military, there were other supervisors there that literally were all about sabotaging because I was 27. I was educated, had a master's degree, came back, had combat. I basically outclassed them on paper, so they thought that I was a threat and they treated me like so, and so it was almost sabotage sometimes, but fortunately I did have other veteran supervisors there that were willing to help me out. But it was still a really rough storm to ride out when you're that young and you're just're just trying to make it like at the end of the day. I'd really love to hear some of your memorable success stories that you've had so far. It's been what three years for you doing this right, yeah gosh there's.
Speaker 2:this is the tough part, because I I don't often get to see the final result of people's journey and their growth. Like last gosh was it. Last year I had somebody call me and she was very, very upset. It was very difficult for her to get out the words that she needed to say. She had been through a lot and she was alone in a new city and she needed support. She was very sick. Anyway, long story short, we were able to connect her with the resources that she needed to get her through that rough patch. Mentally she was not doing well. We could connect her with people. That's what she needed, and I did have people report back to me that she was doing well and, you know, standing on her own two feet again, and that's um. That was really good to hear, because a lot of times I just point people to resources, I do a warm handoff and get them in the system, Um, and then I don't get. I don't know what happens to them.
Speaker 2:I work so hard with so many people. I just had another veteran in Wisconsin who transportation is an issue. He couldn't get to appointments. He couldn't get to these other. He was battling some legal stuff too, and and I was the only person that wanted to talk to him about it and pointed him to resources and kept fighting for him.
Speaker 2:And what I've learned about people that ask for help is that they are some of the most resilient, strong people because they're out there willing to do the work and keep fighting for themselves. And I think that there's this misconception that if you ask for help, that you're weak and you're not a man. But the people that I talk to that are coming to me asking for resources. Whether it's I'm about to be homeless or I need help with the VA or I need an entrepreneurship resource, there's a whole gamut of people. The people that ask for help are the strongest people. They're the people that are willing to fight for their lives and fight for their future, and I think that's really, really important for people to remember If you're thinking about asking for help. It takes a lot of strength to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it definitely does. I know, when I first got out of the military myself, I literally threw everything away. I wanted nothing to do with the military. I wanted to separate myself. I didn't want to be identified as a military. I would never talk about it really all that much. Other people would remind me about it, but I just wanted to move on with my life.
Speaker 1:And then here I am back at the table again, trying to help out the community with just awareness, spreading awareness and getting involved with nonprofits and speaking to absolutely fascinating folks like yourself who are so driven to run a non-profit like this.
Speaker 1:Um, and I and I totally see the need of it um, I grew up part of my life in the middle of cornfields in ohio, so, living in a rural community, um, I know that it's very limited access and folks out there sometimes, you know, just like everywhere else, for the most part you know they don't want the help. You know I got it like I'm gonna. I'm to shoulder this myself and I'm going to move on and drive on Like we're always taught in the military overall, like collaboration wise. Do you have any plans, um, to partner to maximize your impact? Like is the VFW or American Legion, uh, in the works to, I mean, cause I know they have a very massive outreach out there, but anything like that in the future we, we do, and I just brought somebody on our board who is gladly taking over strategic partnerships, which I'm very glad.
Speaker 2:That's his strong suit and that's something that we're going to focus on on 2025. Because they're, like, even here in north carolina north carolina is the second, uh, highest rural veteran population in the united states. Texas is number one, north carolina is number two, but we're not doing much. Like I and I think, like out of the 100 counties here in north carolina, like 90% of those counties are rural. So North Carolina is super, super rural. There's a Rural Economic Development Center here that's really active.
Speaker 2:We are a national brand, but we also need to look at what we can do locally. So, going into these different states, seeing who we can partner with Like in North Carolina, it's the Rural Economic Development Center, in Pennsylvania, it might be the PA Department of Veteran Affairs so we have to be very strategic about different states and their needs, because that's another reason that people are getting overlooked is it's not just a blanket fix for every state or every population. You know, every everybody has their own culture between these states, and so that's something that we're also keeping in mind, too is how can we serve them the best based on what they actually need, not what they what we think they need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that that's that's being specific and being on target with the actual resource and the help is really important. The authenticity is also, you know, as equally important. So if somebody reaches out to you that lives in like Arkansas, are you able to provide them with assistance for resources out there?
Speaker 2:I thought I just helped somebody in Arkansas, but it was Alabama. Yeah, arkansas, I mean anywhere in the United States. That's what we do. Is we just connect people to resources? If you can't use what's on our website, which is growing, our goal is to have no more than a hundred resources on there, because I don't want it to be overwhelming. But if you can't use what's on there, I'm doing the work personally to connect you with the right people in your state or close to your hometown.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's huge because sometimes folks can get kind of lost in the sauce. You know, when you're Googling you're just calling like numbers that don't work anymore, emailing emails that don't work anymore, trying to find that help right and things just aren't updated Overall. How does Operation Auto Rule Salute contribute to the broader policy or changes or awareness for our rule veterans overall?
Speaker 2:well, one of the things that I really want to work with the va on specifically is better access to community care, because that is that's huge. In my town, in my hometown in Pennsylvania, people have to drive at least an hour and a half to get to a VA. So I mean, some of them do that, but then some of them don't do that because that's eating up their entire day. People don't have the time off or they don't have a driver. Meanwhile there's a critical access hospital with a specialty service clinic right there that they could have a relationship with, but they don't know about community care. They don't know that they can go 45 minutes away to take care of these things. So people's health is suffering and health problems are not getting caught because they're just not going and utilizing care that they've earned.
Speaker 1:You know and for folks that don't know, what are you talking about when you mentioned community care.
Speaker 2:So the VA, in order to try and limit these health care gaps for people that either are too far from VA or if the VA is too overwhelmed, they have designated. They've basically built partnerships with local hospitals or local specialists where you can go to that specialist and you can be seen and it's still covered under your insurance through the VA. But unfortunately, a lot of people don't know that this program even exists.
Speaker 1:Right, and actually I heard that they had tried to get rid of it last year heard that they had tried to get rid of it last year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's I yeah, yeah, I mean because that's what I had heard from someone that works at the VA, but I mean it's still there and I think they should definitely keep it. Lobby to keep that program because it is huge. I live in los angeles and, yes, the west, la west, la va is like maybe 12 to 15 miles from my house, but in los angeles that's a that's a two-hour drive through the city. You can't just look on a map and go plot, plot. Oh yeah, it's just gonna. You know, and it's folks that live out in rural communities. They might be 100 miles away from you know the nearest city where they might have a facility to give them their specific care, because you know there's certain VAs hospitals that are different sizes and offer different things. So that community care thing is actually huge for our veterans to have access to.
Speaker 2:It is really big and they did. They did try and limit it, and so I'm going to be interested to see that and I don't know if people don't don't realize this, but it is. It's an administration thing. So, yeah, the the passive, this outgoing administration, not super wonderful for va related things. So I'll be interested to see what the next administration does, because that was something that I think did grow the last time Trump was in office. But community care is, I mean people just are not going to the hospital, they're not going to see doctors, and without it, people just aren't going, they're not going to us till it's too late, right, which costs more money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no doubt. And you know the underlying thing with that, with the resources, is you know the veteran suicide rates. You know everything we're talking about, you know has a foundational stem towards that. You know whether it's you can find a job, whether it's you can get the proper healthcare. You know the proper help that you need. I mean all that stuff. I mean folks can sometimes feel kind of boxed in when they're kind of transplanted out of their community and then thrown back into it again. Things have changed. I mean let's not even get into the conversations Like when we were at war.
Speaker 1:I remember I had two soldiers before I came back that absolutely begged me. They begged me to extend, they wanted to stay in Iraq longer. And I was like why? And they said because when I go home I'm divorced, everything that I had is gone my house, when I get home, I'm going to have to take all my stuff and put it in storage because my wife left me while I was deployed. Just imagine coming back from something like that and not having the resources that you need, and they both lived in a rural community. So I really think that stuff like this is very impactful. The work that you're doing specifically? I kind of know the answer to this already, but I want to really underline it. What keeps you passionate and driven about serving rural communities and the veterans out there?
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm a rural girl at heart. I am a hick you don't sound like it.
Speaker 1:You don't have the accent.
Speaker 2:I know it's funny, though, because last time we were home for Thanksgiving my husband was like boy, I have full county accents coming out. And it's so funny because when I was back. Yeah, when I would go home at college from college, I only my college was about an hour hour, a little bit over an hour, away from me, but when I would come back on break, all my friends would be like, boy, you sound like a redneck.
Speaker 1:I don't know, it just does something to me it's the same thing with me and like pigeon English. When I go back to Hawaii, it's like it just comes back again. And then when I go to Ohio and I'm around my dad, it's like that that Ohio accent comes back out again. I'm sounding like a country singer. So no, I understand Totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. I mean there's just so much good. I'm so passionate about rural America and my own family's personal struggles when my husband was a veteran for the couple months that he was a veteran. That really grounds me and I know how much work that we've had to do as a family and as a couple and just as individuals to get through that lack of resources and that time and I just don't want people to experience that and I see so much growth and potential in rural America and my dream is to revitalize rural America with rural veterans and their families by being so mentally well and so supported financially well that they just take over and help these rural communities blossom and flourish and get back to that small town. You know boom that we we had long ago yeah, I miss it, man.
Speaker 1:So I, like I said I grew up part of my life in ohio and what you said about earlier, I forgot to really comment about that. But folks, I guess stereotyping, thinking that people that are out from the country are dumb, that's, that's not. The folks from the country know how to swing an axe, they know how to like mechanically fix things, they know how to get and I didn't know it until I moved to this giant city of la like how much I knew. Like people around here make me feel like bob vila, because I'm freaking. I mean I'll change a light fixture out and put a ceiling fan in and they're like, oh, did you do that magic? It's like no, it's like the wires are already there, dummy. Like you just connect the same colored wires together and put a wire nut on it, it's like duh.
Speaker 1:But no, I totally think that, like folks out, my dad is so like intuitively just good with his hands and good just can build things like I envy that and so you know that's. You're right about that. That is a misconception totally, and I'm just like I don't know. I guess that just comes from the hot, the, the um, beverly, hillbillies and all those sitcoms back in the day or whatever, but uh, well they don't speak properly, it's because you know we we don't talk right nobody does you know I say things like hey, you guys, you need to rent up your room.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you guys ever said that out there that's a Pennsylvania Dutch thing. But yeah, rent up your room. We're saying things like helter, skelter and all this stuff and people are just like you speak in another language it's not even English Like that's not right. So they just think you're dumb.
Speaker 1:It's like, well, you know, if you think about it, like nobody speaks correct. Because you go to boston, you go to like new england, you got the accent there. You go to florida, they speak a certain way. You go to like new orleans, louisiana area, it's different. You go to out here to california, hawaii, texas, everybody's got like these different accents and I I can hear it sometimes when people are talking and I'll be like are you, are you from this state? And usually I get it right. You know, usually I can.
Speaker 1:But uh it's the chameleons like you that are difficult, because when you go back to your hometown you pick up that accent again, and it's the same thing with me too. Like I, sometimes I sound like I'm from the islands and sometimes I sound like I'm from Ohio, so it just depends where you catch me at. But overall, michelle, how can listeners get involved with Operational Otter Rule? Salute and support your mission.
Speaker 2:Well, you can find us at ohrulesaluteorg and there we have a signup link where you can get on our email list. You can follow us on Instagram or Facebook. Operational Honor Rule Salute. I mean, every nonprofit always needs volunteers. We always need volunteers, we always need ambassadors, and even just spreading the word that there's resources out there for rural America, whenever that wasn't the point of their nonprofit, but how I can get them to lean into this audience to support them, is really, really cool. So I know that's not what you asked for, but I get really excited about this.
Speaker 1:No, I can tell you're super passionate. I know you've been in it for quite for a few years now, so you don't do something like this. I mean usually in the first year or so people decide am I in this or am I out of this? So you've been at it and I know you've been working extremely hard. Now, just to wrap things up for this interview, is there anything that I didn't mention that you'd like to mention before we finish off?
Speaker 2:No, I mean, the only thing is, if you guys want to be part of our online community, go to our website and sign up to join the community and then from there, we are going to be adding some subject matter experts this year and we're going to be adding some lives. So, like, you can talk to a benefits expert live. You can talk to a VA loan specialist live, things like that. So that will be a very cool addition for 2025. You just go to ohrollsaluteorg and then click sign up.
Speaker 1:OH Roll Salute folks. I will make sure that all your information, all your social media links are down in the description. If you're listening to this on podcast or if you're on YouTube, go down the description. It's all going to be down there as well. Make sure you connect with Michelle If you're interested in being involved in a nonprofit. That's very meaningful and this is close to your heart. Please join the cause and help her out with getting this thing nationwide Because, like she says, she wants to touch every single state, all 50 states, maybe 51 if Canada joins us and then Mexico joins us too, maybe 52. Who knows right?
Speaker 1:So we'll see about that in the next four years, but anyways, wild times knows right, so we'll see about that in the next four years, but anyways, wild times For folks out there. Michelle, I want to thank you for joining me again on the Morning Formation Podcast. It's been about a year or two. It's great to see your growth. It's awesome to be a part of your circle. For everyone else out there, as always, I want you to stay tuned, stay focused and stay motivated. Warriors fall out.