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 Combat To Community: How "The Battle Within" Supports Veterans And First Responders
A Purple Heart veteran turned advocate, Justin Hoover knows what it takes to look tough at work and feel lost at home. We sat down with the CEO of The Battle Within to unpack practical ways veterans, police, firefighters, EMTs, dispatchers, and frontline clinicians can get help early—before life hits crisis. The conversation is candid and actionable: why moral injury needs plain language, how timing matters three to six months after critical incidents, and what it looks like to replace “gut it out” with skills you can train.
Justin breaks down their toolkit. The trauma-informed one-day workshop meets units where they are and gives leaders and line staff a shared map for grief, stress, and recovery. Dogs for Valor, a Kansas City train-the-trainer program, uses service dogs to break isolation and rebuild confidence through real-world exposure. The five-day Revenant Journey creates a safe space to share the stories people think no one will understand and pairs that with emotional regulation so you can downshift from fight-or-flight and show up at home. For continued support, the Frontline Therapy Network funds initial sessions and matches clients with culturally competent clinicians across a range of modalities, not just one-size-fits-all CBT.
We also dig into the “mid-tier” gap—people who aren’t homeless or suicidal but are slowly burning out. Early, matched care changes that trajectory, protecting families, careers, and teams. Justin shares plans to scale their national network and build a Kansas City campus, arguing that now is the moment to invest in evidence-based programs and community mentors for the next generation of responders and veterans. If you or someone you love serves, this conversation offers a clear path forward and the reminder that your story is worth it.
If this resonates, share it with your team, subscribe for more grounded conversations, and leave a review so others can find it. And if you’re ready for support, visit thebattlewithin.org—confidential, compassionate, and built for you.
Good morning. I'm your host, Larry Zilliox, Director of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run. This week our guest is Justin Hoover. He is the CEO of Battle Within, and they're based in Kansas City area. And it's a nonprofit that supports veterans, active duty military, police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and frontline health care workers with services to help deal with mental health issues. And so that is something that we are always interested in here at uh podcast and at the warrior retreat. And so I'm I'm really happy that he's able to join us. So, Justin, welcome to the podcast.
Justin Hoover:Hey, thank you so much for having me, Larry.
Larry Zilliox:So uh Justin's prior service army, and one of the questions that I uh always ask is why would you join the army when you could join the air force?
Justin Hoover:You know, uh um growing up uh quite a few quite a few family members and friends of the World War II era and Vietnam era, it just seemed like the army was and the infantry was something that I always wanted to do. Actually, I was a senior when the towers fell and had considered considered joining, you know, a convention and I graduated. It was like, man, we kind of gone into Afghanistan and whooped these guys, and I don't really want to be a peacekeeper. So I went off and did some college and then uh at the lead up of the war, I realized that was my opportunity, and I enlisted that we went over the berm and um wasn't able to get training until the summer of oh three, but uh that was the start of my career.
Larry Zilliox:And w what did you do in the army?
Justin Hoover:Yeah, so I was an infantryman.
Larry Zilliox:Okay.
Justin Hoover:Uh I was with the 25th ID Lewis, so we were the striker brigade. Uh I was a radio op for my platoon. So um we deployed over in Iraq in 405 um up in the Talibar, Missoula region. Um, you know, it was kind of post-surge and uh quite a bit of hard fighting up there because there just weren't enough of us. Uh um, so yeah, it was a a very interesting to be up there and and quite enlightening for me as well.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah. And so you went in in 2003. When did you separate?
Justin Hoover:I did in 2006. My deployment was over. Um, I ended up Purple Hearts, the second one was uh thanks to a suicide bomber, I got a metabolic of the States. Um and then that that fall, I'm sorry, the next spring oh six, uh my enlistment ended and I realized that thanks to uh kind of some of those explosions that my reaction times were were pretty slow to be a gunslinger still. So it was time to to hang it up.
Larry Zilliox:How did you get involved with uh Battle Within?
Justin Hoover:Um did you transition No, no, I I came back to Kansas City where I'm from, um that career in marketing and really spent the next decade kind of doing marketing stuff, video production, web development, social media creation kind of before I became Facebook took it over. Um, you know, just kind of those different things and and I really enjoyed it. And then I always joke like I I was the last person you would think that would become the kit for vulnerability because that was that was not me. I had like that very infant mindset. Kind of throughout that time getting divorced and remarried, I really came into this work. Um, my oldest stepdaughter, she when she reached high school, you know, just had some challenges with suicidiology and self-harming and depression and trying to keep a kid alive in a war zone again. Except this time it was my living. My own mental health really took a dive. And I I tried several things and seemed to help long term. Um, and then I went through this program that my now teacher had a majors created, and it was this week-long really gift that really was life-changing. And I knew I needed to stay with this community for my own accountability and just the people and and the work. And um, so we started the Battle Within in 2018, myself, under other veterans, first responders, and community members. Um, really with the mission to make sure that everyone I can't say no, and you kind of listed them there at the beginning, you know, our veterans, our military, or first responders that include dispatch and correct frontline medical personnel, all those folks is the burst as our jobs may be, like the traumas impact us lives the same. And so to really create an organization that could give them permission, begin their journey and begin to take care of themselves and see that they are worth it themselves. It was was very important to me and it and everyone else that that really created the organization.
Larry Zilliox:And so some of the programs that you have, some you you've got a number of different programs. A couple of them jumped out at me. One was the trauma informed workshops. Now, this is something that you hold locally there in Kansas City area.
Justin Hoover:So we can travel with this. This is our only this service is really four departments, four chins. It could be a student veteran group at a college, it could be an employer with a big veteran first responder, you know, employee they want to offer it to. It could be a police department, a national guard unit, and what have you. Okay. Um, but really it's it's around grief and moral. So it's a one-day workshop. You know, I'm sure, I'm sure you sat through some of those suicide briefs, much like I did in the military, where it's it's a ranking officer, he reads the slideshow along with you for the first time himself. Nobody pays attention, and everyone's surprised three months later when when somebody completes suicide, right?
Larry Zilliox:Well, I'm and I'm a little older than you, so they didn't give they didn't even give that.
Justin Hoover:No, um, so our one-day workshops, they really are experiential workshops. It's an opportunity to really understand pre-fizz, what moral injury is, and to normalize that your peers. Um, so it's you know, it's not anything super intensive, super heavy. It's it's just kind of skimming the surface, but it really go a long way to help people self-identify. Hey, maybe I'm not bouncing back the way I used to. You know, you can do these jobs for 20 years and something changes in your life where you you do the same thing, it's not sitting with you well. And so really to have that opportunity to in that group setting self-identify that and create a trust where, okay, now I can continue with this organization with some of our other services. We've we've just really seen it be very powerful.
Larry Zilliox:I think there's a lot of value in delivering a product to an organization, uh, a department, uh, especially when you can impact the command at a command level, raise that awareness so that they understand what they're seeing in their frontline police officers or firefighters and recognize that uh they need help. And um and when they come forward and say they need help, they really understand why and get them additional help. Right. So yeah, I can really I can really see the value in a program like that.
Justin Hoover:Well, and we like to, you know, bring in counselors like the moment up. Um here in Kansas City, you know, a few years back, we had our our chiefs have been on a good run up until this year, and we had the the Super Bowl parade. And there's a gunman there, and you know, people died, and it was very impactful and hard for the city. We had a thousand, you know, first responders running towards the gunfire, right? And we did like a support group right after that, and it was very beneficial. But and that's kind of how how those events happen, right? Like you bring in the counselors, you do like the acute care, and then it's just kind of expected that everyone's okay, we're good now, let's get back to work. Yeah. And it's really like that three months, six months, where after you come out of that crisis stage yourself, after you go back to kind of your setting, that's when it starts to set in that, hey, maybe something's not right. Maybe I'm not bouncing back the way I usually do. So they really offer, particularly this one-day workshop in an instance like that, three months after a deployment, you know, four or five months after a critical incident, like an officer involved shooting or a pollen officer, that's where we see a lot of that impact because people are in a place now where they can accept that things aren't going the way they'd want them to be. And that's really our goal. How do we stop the suffering from being a year-long, decade-long, isolated, shameful experience that really leads to that spiral of depression and isolation and shame and stigma that we just see every day holds people in unnecessary suffering.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, you you know, it also affects the family because that spiral, you know, includes self-medicating with alcohol or drugs. Um, I mean, it's just it just affects a lot more than just that officer, that firefighter, that frontline medical person. Um, and what I think people don't realize is that when you have a traumatic incident like that and that involves a number of people, it affects that officer differently who's been on the job eight months as opposed to one that's been on the job for 18 years. And right anything that that the department can do to educate its people about how it affects differently different people and what moral injury is, um, is huge and it's a huge benefit. Right now, listeners, I want to direct you to the webpage. It's the battlewithin.org.org. I want you to go to the webpage and check it out. There's a lot of different services available. Um, our regular listeners know uh what I'm gonna say. That donate button is up there in the right hand corner. I want you to bang on it, give what you can. Think about talking to somebody in your department or organization about having um the folks from the Battle Within Out for that one-day workshop. Think about getting a sponsor for that. Maybe there's a local hospital or a local business that will sponsor it. I think really bring it to the attention of your command, uh, your management, and say, hey, this is something we need. This is not gonna hurt. This is gonna help. Yeah, again, it's the battlewithin.org. Uh, check it out. Donate, please. Another thing that jumped out at me is you have a uh dogs for valor program. So tell us a little bit about your service dog program.
Justin Hoover:Sure. Yeah, and I'll keep it pretty brief because that is our one service that is just for the Kansas City metro area. Um, and it's really because um it's it's a train the trainer model, getting someone a service dog. You own your dog from the beginning, or we help you find a rescue, you evaluate that dog. And then over six to nine months, you really train with the training team two times a week. You're doing group training and individual training to really get out into that environment. Because that's that's the huge gift of a service dog, right? Is it helps you break free of that isolation.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Justin Hoover:And so by having that where twice a week you're going out to the store, you're going to sporting events, you're going to the airport. By the time you graduate six, nine months later, you have a fully trained service dog. You really have that self-confidence to be out in your environment because you already have been. And truly you have a community of support that will help you reclaim your life.
Larry Zilliox:Well, and also, too, I I think it's a a great idea to give the veteran the skills to continue to train that dog.
Justin Hoover:Oh, and that's that's the beautiful thing. I mean, how many of our graduates go on to help be part of the training team for the next class? I mean, it really is um part of our organization's DNA, is having those mentors, having that community where they really feel empowered to give back in a safe and healthy way. Um, and you see that in our our five-day revenant journey, which is um a free five-day program held here in Kansas City. We we host classes about once a month. Classes will either be all men or all women, be in there with up to 12 folks, and it really is an opportunity to come together. And and this was the program that I went through that Adam Majors created, and we still use it. And I mean, it's it's just so powerful to have an environment where you can share your story, which is terrifying, right? Like, I I'm not gonna that's that's that's a very hard thing to do. I'd almost rather there at the beginning of my journey go back to combat than talk about my feelings, but to create have a space where you can explore that and have it be honored. Have people it it amazes me how many times somebody shares a story and they you can tell they've been holding it inside because they think this is so unique. Nobody will understand, right? Nobody will care, nobody will think their story is worth it. And then like three other folks will raise their hand and go, Yeah, me too. Very similar to my story. And that's so empowering because you aren't alone in this. We also teach those emotional regulation tools. So, you know, when if you're in that fight or flight mode so often and so long, it really changes how your brain operates, it creates neural pathways. You know, for me, I was on the trigger a lot. So it was always raising that gun for when there was a threat. And what that did is my brain was like, hey, violence of action saves your life. Let's let's do that quick and often. And there's no off switch when you get home. So now you just wonder why you're, you know, a jerk to everybody. You're kind of a nasty kid. You know, like you don't understand what's happening because your brain's still going, violence of action, yeah, that saved your life. Let's keep doing it. And so really having those emotional regulation tools that can help you get back that executive function can help have normal reactions to normal stimuli, uh, really sets that stage for long-term healing. And then we have at the end of that, we have our frontline therapy network, which again operates around the nation. You know, trying to find a therapist is like blind dating at $120 an hour.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Justin Hoover:You don't even get a steak dinner out of it. And so um, we have a vetted pool of clinicians that we vet to make sure they have the cultural competency, to make sure they have the education and the experience to properly serve our population. And then when you call, we we talk to you and find out what that need is, right? Like the VA, they love CBT. It's the quickest, cheapest, and it works for about a third of the people. We have like 20 different types of therapies. So sometimes CBT is the one you need. We got it.
unknown:Yeah.
Justin Hoover:Other times you need some others, and we have those, and we have great therapists. We can fund up to the first 10 classes to really be able to build that relationship because that's the hard thing, especially if you haven't done therapy, right? Is like, I don't know if this is gonna work. I need time to build that relationship. I need time to stop giving you the little piddly things I want you to look at. So you don't look at the deep hole that they have over here. Um, and so really having where that burden is is not on you financially is a huge way for people to to really get into therapy and see the benefit because therapy works. We're just so resistant to it. So that's our goal is to help people overcome that resistance and find those proven therapies that will work for them and and help create those long-term relationships for success.
Larry Zilliox:When you think about the veteran population that you help in your area, what do you think are some of the the mental health needs that are being unmet across the country for veterans?
Justin Hoover:Sure. Yeah, that's a great question. Um, you know, I think, you know, some of it is self-inflicted on each other. We like to we come from professions where you know kind of where you stand in the hierarchy based on what's on someone else's uniform from six paces away, right? And we're very conscious of where we sit in the pecking order. And that's great for combat units or for military units because that spirit core, like that's that's what bonds us together. But then I think we spend a lot of time cutting each other down of who did more and really whose suffering is greater. And that's that's our biggest fear is I have not suffered enough to be worth taking action. There's always somebody in greater need. And so I think we needlessly suffer because we have built those walls and those expectations around ourselves and we reinforce them in each other. So, you know, it's really creating that atmosphere where it's okay to get help. A lot of times, you know, I'm going into combat. I want to follow the guy that's already been in combat because he knows what he's doing, right? So yeah, like the best way to be an advocate is to take care of yourself first. You don't have to wait. I think that's the thing. Everyone waits until, you know, their life's a dumpster fire. Well, if there's smoke, you know there's probably fire. Let's take care of it when there's smoke. And that takes a lot of courage and that takes a lot of vulnerability, but really you see the benefit and your family sees the benefit when you get to take care of it much earlier in life. Uh, we actually had a 22-year-old dispatcher come through uh here a few years ago and just seen how her life has been and relationships have been improved. Like that's when I got out of the military. Man, I would have loved to have that, those tools and that that experience at that age, because what that would have done for my relationship would have been amazing. And at the same time, you know, the best time to plant the trees 30 years ago, second best time is today.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Justin Hoover:We've had so many Vietnam veterans uh come through and just had that life-changing experience. We actually had one, he said, I've been married for 46 years. I've really only been married for four because I wasn't present. It's never too early to start. It's never too late to start. But it really benefits you to to start earlier and later.
Larry Zilliox:You know, we also see an entire kind of mid-range population of veterans whose life would be better with some sort of counseling or help, some sort of assistance. So VSOs out there all tend to concentrate on the very serious issues. You know, the veteran who is suicidal, the veteran who is homeless, the veteran who is having real real serious mental health issues. And that's good and that's important. But below that is a whole segment of what I think would be best viewed as. Mid-tier veterans who have issues that don't bubble to the surface like they need, you know, to be sent to a mental health facility you know against their will because they're seriously ill. But they have issues. And if they just got those issues addressed, uh their life in general would be so much better. They would get, you know, maybe more promotions at work. Right. It would just impact, and I think that that is a whole segment of our veteran population that that just needs this kind of course, you know, this kind of therapy to just demonstrate to them that it's it can help. It can help improve their life, that they don't have to, like you say, wait until it's a dumpster fire.
Justin Hoover:Right. And I think part of that is if you look at funding, most funding is for suicide prevention, most funding is for homelessness. We don't really have a lot of and I wouldn't say that's unique to veterans. I think, you know, the best way to keep somebody out of poverty and homelessness is education. We don't, as a country, don't tend to fund education like we used to, you know. So I think it's we like to be saviors as Americans. We like to, you know, look, we this person was on the brink of suicide and we saved them. Count them on the wall and let's get them help. But you know yeah, I mean, you're 100% right. If it's, hey, I I learned the tools, I learned how to communicate what I'm feeling, I learned to normalize that what I'm feeling isn't the end of the world, they're not going to get to that suicidal place. They're gonna be able to reach out for help when life gets very hard and accept that help. Honestly, that's that's a much easier win and a much more gratifying win because they didn't have to go through years of suffering.
Larry Zilliox:They didn't have to lose relationships, they didn't have to feel that lack of self-worth for so long if they seek out that treatment when it, as you said, in that mid-When you look at your specific segments of population that you help, like veterans and law enforcement and EMS. Is are there any of those that you see jump out where their needs are gonna be greater in the coming years?
Justin Hoover:No, I I think that they're both are all pretty equal. They see a lot of trauma. They've there's a lot of people that enter these professions with trauma from childhood. Um, but honestly, like it gave them not healthy coping mechanisms, but it may give them coping mechanisms to be really proficient in these jobs. They get praised, they get promoted. It reinforces those coping mechanisms as unhealthy as they are, and they continue to go about them until they fail. And that's really the danger point because once those defenses fail, they fail catastrophically. And there's that fear and that unknown and that crisis. And when you have nothing to grab onto, like suicide becomes a much more viable option. And so just by teaching those healthy coping skills, you really are reducing that suicide risk because now I have something that I can turn to that's healthy, that's not turning people away, and know that I can ask for help and I'm not gonna be shamed for it. And that help is going to improve my life. And we we do, you know, we have folks that they graduate and then they have a job change. They, you know, medical diagnosis, they get cancer, or their kids get sick, or you know, just something, something like in their changes, life changes dramatically. And it's very hard for them. But man, I love when they come up to us and say, hey, things are things are rough. Like, cool, let's let's get you the help you need. And then you see them, you know, a couple months later and like, yeah, things are still rough, but I'm doing good. Like I'm able to navigate through it.
unknown:Yeah.
Justin Hoover:Man, that's much better than waiting two years of them suffering in silence and then them being in a crisis state. Creating those advocates, creating that self-advocacy is is a huge part of our success and our really our alumni's success.
Larry Zilliox:Where would you like to see the battle within in say five years?
Justin Hoover:Yeah. Yeah, right now we're working on really amping up our frontline therapy network program. Um, we are nationwide, but we know that there's a lot more folks that we could impact if we're able to scale. So we're working at scaling that, following that. Um, we are looking at putting up some brick and mortar campus in Kansas City that would allow us to expand the number of classes that we provide. That's on the roadmap here within the next five years. And honestly, you know, if you look at the world, it's it doesn't seem like it's getting to be a safer place. So I see this is the time to invest in these programs throughout the country, not just ours, but there's a lot of good ones throughout the country because I I hope I'm wrong, but America's not good at staying out of wars. So um, you know, I prepare for a new generation of veterans, a new generation of first responders, because we have so many retiring here that came in kind of during the Clinton era, retire a hundred cops, hundred thousand cops, you know, era 20 some years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Justin Hoover:Um, and so I feel like very grateful, particularly to the Vietnam era, because you know, they had it so rough coming home. And when we came home, the the GWAT era, uh, they weren't gonna let that happen to us. And I feel like the pendulum kind of swung the other way. It was almost sung swung towards like hero worship. So yes, you were welcomed home, but there wasn't really the help there. So I feel like we are having the research, we're having the clinical programs, the efficacy, we know what works. How do we sustain them and grow their capacity for that next generation? And I feel this is our window to make that investment. So we're ready.
Larry Zilliox:Well, listeners, you want to go to the webpage, the battlewithin.org, um, check it out, and donate, please. Uh, bang on that donate button, give what you can. Also, you want to talk to your command, you want to talk to your management, you want to talk to leadership and talk to them about the trauma-informed workshop that they can come out and provide to your organization and reach um a group of veterans, first responders, whoever. And that's gonna help your command, it's gonna help your company, it's gonna help your organization. And this is something you want to do sooner rather than later. So uh please take a look at the webpage, direct uh other veterans, battle buddies, um, family members to the webpage, have them take a look. If you need counseling in a particular issue you're having, or you have a relative or a friend or a battle buddy who you think needs counseling, reach out to them and they have their frontline therapy network. They can put you in touch with vetted resources that will help that have that cultural knowledge to understand um better what you're going through. And so please take a look at the webpage. It's the battlewithin.org. Uh Justin, uh, thanks so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it.
Justin Hoover:Oh, Larry, it's such an honor to be the here. Thank you so much for having us. Um, again, to anyone listening, if you're if you're thinking of needing services, we'd love to be able to help. Um, all of our services are confidential, and it's never too early. That's never too late to start. But I can't guarantee you that at our organization you will find people that understand, people that care, and please people that believe that you're worth it. And um, we look forward to being able to hear your stories. Um thank you very much for your time today.
Larry Zilliox:You bet. Listeners, that's the battlewithin.org. So we'll have another episode next Monday morning at 0500. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms. We're on YouTube and Wreaths Across America Radio. So until next time, thanks for listening.
