Welcome Home - A Podcast for Veterans, About Veterans, By Veterans
Welcome Home is a Willing Warriors and the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run project. The program highlights activities at the Warrior Retreat and issues impacting all Veterans. For questions or feedback, please email us at podcast@willingwarriors.org.
Welcome Home - A Podcast for Veterans, About Veterans, By Veterans
From Troubled Youth to Apache Pilot: Gerald Gangaram on Military Leadership, Mentorship, and Civic Education
Major Gerald Gangaram, USA (Ret.) shares his remarkable journey and the pivotal moments that shaped his path from troubled youth to distinguished Army veteran. Discover how a mentor in junior ROTC guided Gerald to West Point and set the stage for his career as an Apache helicopter pilot. Gerald recounts his experiences in flight school, his service in Afghanistan, and his leadership roles at the Army's flight school, shedding light on the unique approach to military leadership and training. This episode emphasizes the critical role ROTC programs play in mentoring and providing opportunities beyond military recruitment.
The conversation takes a profound turn as Gerald opens up about coping with severe injuries from a bicycle incident, battling mental health challenges, and transitioning out of the military. Hear about his struggles with feelings of unworthiness, the battle with depression, and the mentor's advice that transformed his life. We also dive into Gerald's insights on the VA's dedication, the need for robust support systems for veterans, and his current mission with the Bill of Rights Institute. Gerald's work with BRI underscores the importance of civic education and fostering better citizenship among future generations, highlighting the collective effort needed to honor and support those who have selflessly served.
Good morning. I'm your host, arry Zilliak, Director of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run, and today our guest is Gerald Gangrum. He is a Army veteran, medically retired Apache helicopter pilot, combat veteran, retired as a major, and he is with the Bill of Rights Institute, which I really wanted to have him on to talk about his service, the transition and then how he got involved with the Bill of Rights Institute. But, gerald, welcome to the program. Thank you so much, larry, so happy to be here. So if you would just tell us a little bit about your career, what made you join the Army as opposed to other branches and your time in service.
Gerald Gangaram:I appreciate that, larry. So I got my start in the Army specifically because of a mentor I had. I was in a junior ROTC program and there was a first sergeant that kind of took me under the wing and mentored me, and if it wasn't for him, I would not be here today, larry. I would have been wearing prison orange instead of army green, and so the army was very much influenced from him, because the way he taught it to me, I always thought I wanted to fly and I thought being a pilot would be really cool. But he told me you know the air force, yeah, that you'd be flying the army, you'd be leading and you have a knack for leadership and that's what you need to do. And it took a mentor pointing out that to me for me to find that way. In the end, he really wanted me to go to college. He never had the opportunity to go to college and he thought that would be very beneficial to me. And when he pushed me on, were you applying? I told him first sergeant, are you kidding me? I can't afford to go to college, let alone apply to college. Sergeant, are you kidding me? I can't afford to go to college, let alone apply to college and he told me you know, there's a school that doesn't have an application fee and that's the United States Military Academy at West Point. It's actually the only school I applied to and I got in because of how he helped me get to every one of the appointments I needed to go to, from sender visits, medicals, pt tests, all of those things, the interview process and if it wasn't for his leadership and getting me through all that, I would not be where I am today, larry. So I owe it to another army veteran right, and that's the good thing that I think I love about your podcast it's reminding us all that even when we take off the uniform, we can still be of service, and I think more and more we need veterans to keep remembering that. You know there's your job isn't, isn't done. We have so much more left to do, and it really was thanks to him and so many other mentors I had, just like him. There were also other veterans that put me on the right path. So I went to the United States Military Academy.
Gerald Gangaram:I graduated well enough to become an army aviation officer and then went to flight school, became a apache helicopter pilot, and that was a dream come true in so many ways. How'd you end up with the apache? So in flight school you start all over again and you order a merit list that we're so used to in the military, and thankfully it was. It was competitive to become an apache pilot, you had to be at the top of the class, but I didn't. Again, just good enough to make sure that I was competitive. To become an Apache pilot, you had to be at the top of the class, but I did again, just good enough to make sure that I was able to be at the top of that list to become an Apache pilot. And I say good enough because even being in flight school, you're among the best in that group, right? And then with the Apache pilots, you're again the same type of thing.
Gerald Gangaram:But it's also the mission that really was part of it for me. I didn't just want to get troops from point A to point B. Yes, that's a valuable mission on its own, with supplies and everything else, but for me I wanted it to be that my mission would be to get my platform, my weapons platform, from point A to point B, and then it was going to be time for me to do my job and develop the situation in that type of way. So I was very fortunate enough to become an Apache helicopter pilot, especially when I look at the rest of the trajectory of my career, where I would end up finally going to Afghanistan with my unit. I would be an executive officer there and we would do a lot of things in the southern portion of Afghanistan specifically. And even after that I had a successful time.
Gerald Gangaram:Where I then took over my command was as a Firebird 06, where I was in charge of the Army's flight school. So then I was training future Army aviators, not just for the United States but our allies as well, and the learning curve on all of that was tremendous. And I think one of the great things the Army and really military does in general is continue preparing you for the next thing and then forcing you to figure it out, and it's a trait that so many veterans have that we continue to. I see other professionals outside the military take for granted and overlook that. You know we trust the youngest people to take the most daring and audacious tasks, and when you look at how we do things on the outside world, it's like, well, let's make sure we put all these safeguards in place and at some point you need to let these people run, and I think we do a very good job of that in the military. For sure.
Larry Zilliox:I want to go back to one of the first things you said, which was how important the ROTC program is. I don't think people realize how important this program is and how it mentors so many young people, and it's unfortunately. People see it as an extension of the military and just a recruiting tool, which is so much more than that, because it allows people such as yourself to have a figure in their life. That kind of is the beacon for what they want to be. I just really I think people should make sure that they support ROTC programs as much as they can.
Gerald Gangaram:Absolutely, and, larry, here's the thing about JROTC programs. Jrotc programs are in a high school. The mission of it is not recruiting, just like you said. The mission is to motivate young people to become better citizens. That's it. The instructors for it are all prior military that have come out, but it's on its service. That's really what it is. The vast majority of students don't go into the military. Very few do. I'm an exception to the rule in terms of going into the military, because that was a path I didn't know about. The big thing about it, though, is, again, motivate young people to become better citizens.
Gerald Gangaram:Jrtcs are great if you have them in your schools, but that's actually why I got aligned with the Bill of Rights Institute, because you have to be in a specific zip code to be in a school that has a JRTC program if you're able to. The Bill of Rights Institute still wants to teach people to become better citizens and have that civil education without needing a program that is based on the National Defense Act of 1916. And, again, a great thing that it is. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that, but this is trying to get it where. It doesn't matter where your socioeconomic status is, what zip code you're a part of, if your state supports it or not. My Jared COTC program didn't exist a couple of years before I got there. It's only because Colin Powell noticed that the JROTC program was missing from his school, that he was part of in different things, that he kind of invigorated that specifically in New York and my school was one of the recipients because of it.
Larry Zilliox:So you're flying the Apache helicopter close in air support, yes, yeah. So talk a little bit about that, because for a lot of people who aren't in the army or haven't experienced an Apache helicopter coming to save their ass, talk about what it does, what this, what this platform delivers.
Gerald Gangaram:The patch helicopters was an advanced aircraft in the world, and it's not just that, from my bias I mean the history channel says it that way Disney has some modern Marvel episodes on it. Gotta be true. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me being in a flying tank. That aircraft is the only aircraft in army inventory designed to get shot at. So if we need one of something, we have two of something. If we really need one of something, we have three of them. You can blow up the right side of the aircraft and there are redundancies on the left side. Blow up the front of it, there are redundancies in the back.
Gerald Gangaram:There's no discussion when you slice the aircraft up in this way of where the pilots are in this situation. But again, the aircraft is designed to take a beating in this situation. But again, the aircraft is designed to take a beating. And with my time in Afghanistan, that's where I really got to do the mission of an Apache helicopter pilot, where I learned as much armament this thing has on it. You have your 30 millimeter cannon, your rockets, your hellfire missiles that can reach out and touch something from eight kilometers out. The amazing thing was on my very first combat mission where I got that troops in contact mission and we're flying out there and I'm like, all right, just getting myself ready as soon as we get there. There's nothing going on, larry, I thought I was late, I thought we got there too late and I was beside myself in some ways and I'm asking the guys in the ground. I was like, hey, what's going on? Develop a situation for me. And they're like, hey, everything has stopped as soon as you got here, even the dogs stopped barking.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, they heard you coming.
Gerald Gangaram:They knew what was up and the bad guys knew Stop doing bad things, because that was going to be the end of them. And, Larry, you know, the interesting thing is that the guys on the ground then asked me can you just stay in the sky above us for a little while, Make some noise out there so I can get some rest? Tonight we haven't gotten sleep because they keep coming at us, but if they know you're on station, I'm going to be able to safely sleep. And I realized that my job wasn't always going to be to end the bad guys at that time. Maybe it was just to give the good guys time to be able to know they could trust that that sound they were hearing we joke, that's the sound of freedom. You know. That sound was what gave them the freedom to sleep that night. And I was like I'll give you a bag of gas as much as I can to make sure that I'll just they can hear my rotor blades out there.
Gerald Gangaram:It was too dark for the enemy to see us, but they just heard us out there and they knew, hey, this today is not the day to be messing with Americans. Yeah, and that mission on its own was so high in my mind in terms of we don't always have to go kinetic to get the job done. Deterrence is a great thing. Sure, that's one thing our army is very good at. So when people are talking about different things with budgets and stuff like that it's you know, sometimes we have to just show that the only people we're competing against is ourselves, and that's a good thing.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, you're medically retired. I am Were you in a soldier recovery unit.
Gerald Gangaram:I was. I was in a short amount of time over at Walter Reed actually. Okay, yeah, yeah, the interesting thing about my head injury so I had a traumatic brain injury, right, I had my time in Afghanistan. But the interesting thing that's really hard for me Larry is actually telling my story, still about what happened with my head injury. And it's not for the reasons everyone thinks right, like you and your listeners know, yes, I had a head injury. And it's not for the reasons everyone thinks right, like you and your listeners know, yes, I had a head injury. You also know I was an Apache helicopter pilot. But even when I tell my story, you'll listen to that.
Gerald Gangaram:So all of a sudden I went from kind of moving around to all of a sudden there was an impact and I was stopped. I'm in the hospital and they're doing stitches. I had a maxillofacial fracture, which means I had a floating jaw, lacerations all across my face. I couldn't use my arm, I couldn't use my leg, I had broken teeth. I wouldn't find out for a little while that I actually didn't remember a lot of things, including my name, but I did know I was a pilot, and so I'm asking the nurse that comes over. I was like, hey, where's my co-pilot and also where's my wingman, are they okay? And she's looking at me with this and, bless your heart, look on her face. She's looking at me with this bless your heart, look on her face. And she says, honey, you weren't in the aircraft. And I'm like, oh no, is this something else that happened on the base and stuff? And she's like this wasn't the Taliban. You're not even in Afghanistan. And I'm extremely confused now and she tells me you were on the streets of DC on a bicycle and the person that hit you wasn't paying attention. And now I'm besides myself because for so many reasons, I'm like no, anything that was supposed to do this to me was supposed to happen in combat. What are you talking about? And I was just completely disoriented in terms of what year. It was a lot of different things and it would take a while for me to recover from that.
Gerald Gangaram:But the worst thing about it for me was that, yes, I was going to end up eventually becoming separated from the military, but I didn't think I deserved all the care that was going into things, because my battle like I have injuries for Afghanistan, my combat time and other times in the military. This was a bicycle incident. I didn't want to get any help. Mental health side, I didn't even want to see the neurologist. I was. They were putting me with these people at Walter Reed and stuff and it just it didn't make sense to me. It's like no, why am I, why do I deserve this?
Gerald Gangaram:And it honestly led me to some really dark places and, especially after a year, all of a sudden it took its toll on my family, my life, my professional side of things, especially when it was like, yeah, you're not going to be able to stay in the military because these injuries are so bad. I learned to do things like walk again, speech therapy, you name it, and I finally got to the point where I just I didn't think I deserved the treatment, let alone to live. And I saw myself as you know, you've seen and I had judged harshly people that had to get out of the military for whatever. And it's like, well, you know, if you just, you just need to get out into your time, and I was like I'm just going to get out and not not take up any more resources from people, and I didn't give myself any grace and I kept comparing what happened to me to what I had seen happen to others, and you know that guy left the leg in Afghanistan. He needs all the attention not me and that comparison that we do just eats us up, and I see people do it, not just when it comes to the injuries we have that we can see but even with stuff on social media these days where they think someone's life that they're seeing in one picture in one moment of time. And it breaks my heart now because it's not like everything's completely better for me. I still have my challenges when it comes to depression and things like that.
Gerald Gangaram:But one of the most interesting things that one of my mentors had told me and actually it was a supervisor I had that I helped him get a job when he was getting out and he took me to lunch one day to thank me for what I was doing and he told me he saw I was in a bad place and he said you know, don't rob the world of Gerald.
Gerald Gangaram:He said if it wasn't for you and what you did for me getting this job, my family wouldn't be set up now with me getting out of the army. He was so thankful for that, but it always stuck with him. He was like you know, if you can't stay alive for yourself, remember all the help that you can still give to others. You're still that leader, even if you're not wearing the uniform and identified with that uniform for so long, whether it was in the army, at West Point, in high school, in the JROTC and stuff like that was just I was used to. You know, people see the uniform and have the respect of the uniform. My resume is literally on my chest and I felt like I was missing that and it took a while for me to transition out of that and thankfully I was able to do that and I was given the affordability to do that by others that believed in me.
Larry Zilliox:Your care that you got at Walter Reed. It was top notch. Yes, I know it was VA. Do you go to the VA for treatment?
Gerald Gangaram:I'm a hundred percent disabled and so I'm I'm with the VA as well. Um, and you know, in the beginning it was it was there are good and there are bad. Right, the VA is very under-resourced for everything it needs to do. The people there, I believe, want to help. It's that there's a bureaucracy in place that makes some things difficult, whether it was me trying to get a certain medication and having to go through this whole process because the requirements are not based on what side effects work for people. But it's a, it's a dollar amount, right, like you would have with any other insurance company out there, not just within the government. Um, and there are those things that we can always do a better job of things, and I did have an incident where it took years to get appointments that really should not have taken that long.
Gerald Gangaram:It's not for, I think, lack of caring for anyone at the VA. I think it's especially not the doctors and those people that are on the front lines actually helping veterans, and I have very good relationships with a lot of people in that way that I believe, like the people doing that and want to care, they can do a lot more better, even on the private practice side, if money is all they cared about, but they usually are associated with veterans from their family or people they know and stuff like that. Bureaucracy I don't care what side you're on politically, it's bureaucrats in a lot of ways getting in the way of what people want to do, and I get that there's a reason for that when it comes to money and funds and stuff like that. But the mission of the VA is one that we need to take more seriously, right? We know the mission of a veteran or the definition of a veteran, right? Someone that has already written that blank checkout payable up to their life.
Gerald Gangaram:The veterans that we have at the VA are those that the government didn't cash up to their life, but they still are owed the services. For I mean, you play with your toys long enough, they're going to break. And these aren't just toys, these are people, they're not numbers. And we all hear those good success stories of, well, you know, this one sender got involved and was able to get Private Joe what he needed for this or whatever housing and stuff like that.
Gerald Gangaram:We have a long way to go because not everyone has a sender that they can call up in that same way, because that's just not the way that things work. Yeah, and in some cases, the best people that are helping other veterans get what they need are other veterans, and I commend us for doing that, and that just goes to the service nature that we all have. But we need help from other people as well, and I hope that the rest of America that I know wants this set up can just see that there are other things that we can continue to do together. Just to raise these issues in general, remember that citizenship is a two-way street. Yeah, yeah for sure.
Larry Zilliox:issues in general. Remember that citizenship is a two-way street. Yeah, yeah for sure.
Gerald Gangaram:So you're medically retired and you get out of the service and are you wondering what you're going to do? I'm wondering a lot of things. I am wondering how I'm going to make a living and support myself if I'm going to be on the street. In the beginning I didn't know I was going to be medically retired. I didn't know medical retirement was a thing. Thankfully, my bosses took care of me in that type of way and they actually stepped up as leaders and made that part of what was happening instead of just I thought it was just medical discharge. So I was very fortunate to be medically retired and I'm very thankful for that.
Gerald Gangaram:Not everyone is afforded that opportunity. But in the beginning I was kind of woe is me, partially because I had to focus still on medically recovering so I wasn't able to do started asking me to share my story in different ways and it wasn't necessarily about my injury and stuff, but just the life I had lived yes, in the military and also before with even how I, how I got into the military, and so I just started getting asked to share my story and eventually that became something where people started paying me organically to do it and flying me out to places to talk to their companies, and whether it was different CEOs or political figures or just small groups, even models and actors and entertainers and stuff. There's something about being vulnerable with others and allowing yourself to be in a place where you're it's. It's not preaching to people, but you're, you're sharing. Once one person is vulnerable, other people will resonate in terms of well, hey, let me tell you about how that, like I had a similar thing happen to me, because then they don't have to worry about trying to compare against each other, and so I started doing public speaking in that type of way, and then even some coaching and mentoring, and for me it became a very organic thing.
Gerald Gangaram:But the whole time I kept wondering what's that next second service going to completely look like? Is this what it is right now, or is there more to it? Because, again, I really do believe it's a we're not done. If you're done, you're just done with that first act. When you take off the uniform. What's the second service going to be? Maybe the third service, depending on where you're at.
Larry Zilliox:What leads you to the Bill of Rights Institute?
Gerald Gangaram:That is a great question. This is an organization that I was looking at some different things with organizations that I could align with that shared my I mentioned to you that first sergeant. Well, he passed away earlier this year and I remember speaking at his funeral and just this wave coming over me of you know, is this really all he wanted you to do, or is there more that you can do to continue the legacy that he had, because he would help not just me get into West Point, but thousands of other people get into college and that is no small feat where there were hundreds so many people that showed up to this man's funeral over the course of several days, flew in for it and everything because he had that much of a legacy and his legacy will continue to live on. When you look up the indexes of biographies, I know in the future and that got me looking at who else I could align with in terms of trying to do more and this organization with the Bill of Rights Institute. This is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. It was found 25 years ago and in it we teach teachers and students with the goal of ensuring all young people have access to quality civics and history education. It's all about learning the ideals of a free and just society, and the Bill of Rights Institute works with more than 76,000 teachers, and that means that their reach nationally is 7.6 million students a year, and their mission goes right to the heart of again motivating young people to become better citizens. What I love the most is that, larry, they provide all of their resources for free, so that means that we have more than 4,000 classrooms, and the 4,000 classroom resources are on our website, which is wwwmybriorg.
Gerald Gangaram:Quality education programs for students and teachers doesn't matter if you're a charter school, public school, your home school. Most teachers don't use their textbooks that are provided by the state more than two to three times a week, so what are they doing with that other three days a week? It means that they're getting them from somewhere else. We want to make sure they're quality products. These are done at the PhD level by people, and it's all about making sure that we can have discussions about things where it isn't just here are the facts of things that one person, a generalist, is writing about. No, this is something that people have actually looked at on both sides of the argument and it's how do we maybe debate these, especially now in the environment we have it's no secret library.
Gerald Gangaram:We live in a very divided and polarizing times, right, and BRI teaches students to think critically and look at both sides of an issue. We even have things that are point and counterpoint lessons. That means students are learning to engage civilly and respectfully even with people they disagree with. These are two very important life lessons that, especially now, we take for granted. Like people, me and you can come over to the table and we can discuss to a topic where we have very different things.
Gerald Gangaram:But I know, because you are my brother, larry, and I know, that a disagreement we have doesn't mean that I disagree with you as a person. Right, we don't have that in society these days. People are worried about their neighbors, like how is the biggest threat to our democracy and our threat supposed to be? Like, oh, we don't have that in society these days. People are worried about their neighbors. How is the biggest threat to our democracy and our threat supposed to be? Like, oh, I'm worried about what my neighbor thinks because they have a different political ideation. That has nothing to do with this. That's the thing, especially when it comes to members of our military have devoted themselves to defending our constitution and America's founding principles like liberty, justice, equality. Bri gives students the opportunity to learn about these principles and why they're worth protecting and preserving.
Gerald Gangaram:And I'll be honest with you, larry, when I grew up, I didn't learn about this stuff in the normal course of my classroom discussions right, I don't know if you did. No, not really See. And again, I got them from those mentors and stuff and even those teachers that went out of their way to do it. Those teachers need to be armed with something, and that's why I love BRI. See, if we don't learn about our rights, freedoms and responsibilities as citizens, it's easy to take them for granted, and my mom was.
Gerald Gangaram:My mom is an immigrant to this country, but she very much believed in this. Where she would have a, there was an American flag banner that she had put up in one of our rooms at some point, and on the bottom of it it said America love it or leave it. And my mom believed so much that, if you're one of those people that says, well, if this person does something with an election, I'm going to go to Canada or Mexico or something, my mom believes the government should buy that person a bus ticket because there's a long line of people that want to be part of this country, because we're not perfect, but compared to anywhere else that you might want to be. There are things that we do right and there are reasons why she wants to stay here and be a citizen of this great country, and she was someone that instilled that in me, along with others I had.
Gerald Gangaram:And the good thing about the Bill of Rights Institute is that BRI helps to educate future generations of American citizens for this same type of thing. Again, right, it's teaching civics virtues that are important to veterans and members of the armed forces, like courage, honor, integrity, responsibility. Founding principles are part of our doctrine at the Bill Rice Institute. They should be the bedrock of everything that we're doing in every organization. I feel these founding documents shouldn't just be stuff that the government uses. Why aren't they part of what our businesses use as well? This would be a much better place if everything had that as our center point, and then we go from there.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah.
Gerald Gangaram:Give us the webpage again. So the website is wwwmybriorg. Okay.
Larry Zilliox:And I'm going to have that in the show notes, and I really think everybody needs to go to the webpage and take a look, and these resources are top-notch. I mean, I've read through a good number of them. Make sure that if you know a teacher, send them a link. If you know somebody who's homeschooling their kids, send them a link. Your state representative, your congressperson, your mayor, send them a link. Spread the word, because this is an organization that's non-political. It's just geared towards making our younger people better citizens, and if we don't have that, we're going to have real problems. This is just such important work that you do. I really, really appreciate it. If there's one thing that you'd like to leave our listeners with about Bill of Rights Institute, what would that be?
Gerald Gangaram:solve a significant problem, that we have, a crisis we have in our country. We're all worried about political division. We're all worried about what's the future of our government and this great American experiment of democracy. We have to make sure that people realize that it all starts with what we're teaching our children.
Gerald Gangaram:Yes, math and science are great things and we need those, but there's proof that teaching social studies and citizenship and these types of history things will increase our ability to critical think. And if we can make sure that it's not just math and science knowledge base that, yes, we definitely need, we want to stay competitive in those things. We want to make sure we're still thinkers and we want to make sure that it's not about we don't let any of our donors it's all privately funded. We don't take any more of our money from the government because we don't want anyone to have their hands in this. We want to make sure these are the facts of history and we need to make sure that together there is a way forward that is unbiased, and that is why I'm so proud to be part of this organization.
Larry Zilliox:Well, I really appreciate you coming by and sitting down with us and talking about your service and your continued service to the Bill of Rights Institute. We don't say thank you for your service here, we say welcome home. That's what the big sign out front was and that's why we call the podcast Welcome Home. So thanks again. I really appreciate it. Thank you, brother. I appreciate it For our listeners. We'll have another episode next Monday morning at 5 am. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can reach us at podcast at willingwarriorsorg. Until then, thanks for listening.
