The Veterans Growing America Podcast

Jonathan Thompson | Alpha Six Battalion | Veterans Growing America

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 43:03

In this episode of the Veterans Growing America Podcast, hosts Coach R.L. Simmons and Donnell Johns sit down with Jonathan Thompson, a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and the founder of Alpha Six Battalion.

Jonathan shares his journey from serving overseas to navigating life after the military—and why so many veterans struggle not because of a lack of effort, but because they lose the systems, structure, and accountability they once had. Alpha Six Battalion was created as “apparel with purpose,” using clothing as a gateway to something deeper: information, resources, and community for the 6% who serve.

This conversation dives into:

  • Life after the Marine Corps and the reality of transition
  • Why entrepreneurship can feel isolating for veterans
  • How Alpha Six Battalion connects vets to real-world resources
  • Missed VA benefits and opportunities most veterans don’t hear about
  • Leadership lessons from the military that apply directly to business
  • Building accountability through structure, systems, and mindset
  • Why “coming back to the pack” matters after service

Jonathan also explains the meaning behind the Alpha Wolf character—designed to tell real veteran stories through humor, culture, and lived experience.

If you’re a veteran, entrepreneur, or someone thinking about betting on yourself, this episode delivers insight, honesty, and perspective you don’t want to miss.

 Connect with Jonathan & Alpha Six Battalion

  • Website (Resources): https://alphaVIBattalion.com
  • Store: https://alpha6battalion.store
  • Instagram & TikTok: @alphaVIBattalion

 Connect with the Hosts

 Visit the Veterans Growing America Marketplace in Woodbridge, VA Support veteran-owned businesses | Build community | Shop with purpose Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share this episode with a veteran who needs to hear it.

Veterans Growing America Podcast
Service. Ownership. Community.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of the Veterans Grown America Podcast. I am your co-host, Coach RL Simmons. I am here with my illustrious co-host, Donnell Johns, and we have another special guest for you today. We have Mr. Jonathan Thompson. He is the founder of Alpha 6 Battalion, and he is a veteran Marine. Welcome to the show, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02

Jonathan, first of all, thank you for being here. I know you, but my audience wants to get to know you. Tell us a little bit about your military experience and background.

SPEAKER_01

So I got into the Marine Corps in 2004. I served until 2008. My first duty station was in Okinawa. That's pretty much where I met my wife. I was deployed from there. While on deployment, my son was born. So I came back to a full baby. You know, now we're going through our second one. Six months pregnant now. But uh while serving, I was DMO. They renamed it to DMO. At the time it was called TMO. Most branches would know it as the transportation office. Okay. When you go to the office to get your household goods, your passenger travels, when you're PCS, and that was two aspects. In the Marine Corps, we had three. We had freight, we had household goods, and then we had passenger travel. I got deployed because I was freight, shipping vehicles, containers, gear, all that good stuff. So once we left uh Okinawa, we went to Yuma. That's where I separated from. I did some school in New Jersey for a little while, and we moved to Georgia. From there, I was uh, I guess my first job out of the military was in the transportation office at uh uh Fort McPherson, which was a good, an easy transition because I was doing the work in Yuma. So my first job out, I was able to literally just take the uniform off and just walk right into the surveillan position, you know, being 22, average age, 45 to 50, you know, was like a big change, you know, trying to navigate waters with actual adults, you know, being straight from the military and hot-headed and short-tempered, you know, that was that was a huge transition there. But um, the base, I'm pretty sure most people know, a lot of bases was closing during that time frame, 2008, to, I don't know, 15 or so. So Fort McPherson closed once it's it closed. I became a police officer. I did that for about four years in East Point, Georgia. Then we moved here. I was a cop over at Fort Belleville for a little while at the community hospital. And from there I got into contracting, and that's pretty much my route ever since. Contracting, then government again, and then contracting again, and then government again. I it's been back and forth between contracting jobs and government jobs, and you know, the rest is history. Now I'm here, you know, still contracting. I came up with the concept of uh Office 6 Battalion. It didn't start with that name, but the the idea started while I was on the road traveling, talking to uh, you know, service members, various young people. I remember when I was in that position, anytime I'd see a contractor come living in Okinawa, like, you know, how did you get into that kind of work? How did you fall? How did this, you know, what did you have to learn in order to step into that realm where you're a contractor working overseas for the U.S. And while we were on travel, we we got a lot of the same questions. And and many more. You know, that's just the tip of the iceberg. That's what kind of, that's where the seed came from to start Alpha 6 Battalion as like a resource for service members, veterans when they get in out. Kind of answer or cover some of the questions that people run into or the scenarios that people run into while transitioning. A lot of people spend a lot of time on base, never lived out in town. You know, the concept of buying a home is completely new. It's new, whether it's your first home or your third home, it's always a different scenario you might run into. But especially if you never lived out in town. So some of those things that you run into, we try to present that information to uh to people that way they could avoid stepping in it. Because once you're in it, you're in it. But if you could, if you could see the waters are rocky, once you you kind of have like that fronthand knowledge, you start seeing the waters are rocky ahead, you're able to navigate the waters easier since you're already familiar with a set uh situation.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely. Hey, let me ask you this though. I mean, you went through a lot of training, especially military, DOD. What are some of those experiences that led you into the journey of entrepreneurship?

SPEAKER_01

You know, different branches have uh different leadership style. I don't want to like paint a brush across all military, and even within the military, everybody has like their own leadership style. And I don't I I'm not saying this in a negative way, but we had a leader, a particular leader at one point where when we first met him, he came in and he came in hot and heavy. He was like, you know, I'm all about family, you know, I'm all about time off. If we do port side, starboard side, you know, port sides off, starboard side, man to shop, starboard side off, port side man to shop, you know, he came in with that, but like he never applied that. But that that concept that he he was talking about always stuck with me. Um But also when uh, you know, being a young troop and we was doing the work, I realized like a lot of the leadership, once they reach a certain point, they stop doing like that physical work. Being an NCO at the time I was E4 and I was helping my troops do the work, I always wanted to keep that aspect of not just tell, but you know, or show. How can I show you or just tell you if I'm not willing to do it myself? So I adopted that style, like, even though I might have to tell you or show you, I'm gonna help you with it. We're gonna do it together because if we're doing it together, we're pumping out more, more product, we're pumping out more um productivity from him, you know, even though, you know, the situation was what it was. After that, that particular meeting, I mean, that was our first time meeting him. He disappeared for a couple months. We thought he was he was TAD. Was like, well, what happened to the ward officer? Ward officer disappeared out of us. That at least that initial speech that he gave stuck with me. And I was like, I like that. I like, and then, you know, like I said, when we're into work, instead of just sitting back, browsing the internet, I see my troops humping, trying to push people out, PCS and out of the area, processing that paperwork. Why am I just sitting there, you know, watching them do it? Let me let's do it together. Let's crank out as many people as we can and and get it done. So that's that's pretty much how I adopted my leadership style as far as uh from military to to um entrepreneurship right now.

SPEAKER_00

No, that's good. In the army um uh disappearing is a warrant officer's superpower. So I'm with when you said that.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I mean, he came in and he did, he did have a young baby. The baby was probably maybe eight months at the time, so you know, it's understandable, you know. Yeah, like I'm talking about this guy was gone like months. But we didn't see him like when we walked by his office. The office was dark for months. Like, did he even move in? Like, I know he just got here, but we ain't seen this man at first.

SPEAKER_02

Oh yeah. That's why we call him the quiet professionals, because you don't see here or That's it. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01

So let's talk about even though he would he was MIA most of the time, he he did give me like an aspect. Like, I don't want to be like that. If I'm gonna tell my people, or if my people are looking at me to like lead, I want to be right there with them, you know. I don't want to just point and and say do, do, do. I want to be able to perform with them as well.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's a great, that's that's a great NCR right there. So let's get let's get into business a little bit. What inspired you to start your own business? I mean, you know, because going to school, they don't school, they don't teach you business. You know, that's something that you have to go after on your own. So tell me a little bit about what inspired you to start your own business.

SPEAKER_01

So I guess again, it goes back to um to humor. When I left, when I first got out while I was on terminal, I went to school in New Jersey, but it was like it was like a mobile tech training type of school. It wasn't like college credits, it wasn't like that. It was learning how to do car stereos, because I was into that stuff at the time. Fast cars. I still have a two-door car, you know, a little coop. Doing upholstery, installing uh car stereos. That's what got me into wanting to start a business. But again, at the time, you know, there was, you know, Best Buy, you know, there was Circuit City before Circuit City kind of dwindled. But they had a lot of heavy hitters, and even though I went to the school to learn how to do the work, I eventually wanted to like have my own shop. But then life happens, you know, you always have these plans, and then life happens. We moved, we went to Georgia, did the government thing, did the police thing. So like working on cars just wasn't, you know, feasible at the time. And then I eventually grew to a point where I didn't want to work on cars anymore. But I always had that itch where I wanted to start a business. So at the time of being a cop, they had a lot of t-shirt companies at the time, but they were all small. You know, the internet wasn't as big and prevalent as it is now, you know. The iPhones had had only just came out a, you know, four or five years ago. So I started designing police shirts at the time, because I was a cop, you know. And then companies like, I don't know if you guys remember them, Ranger Up came out. And then I was always rocking Ranger Up shirts. Like that, that was like my motivation. And then again, another seed in my head, like eventually I want to do something like this while I'm making shirts, et cetera. Even though it took me a long time, I finally made it to that point where that's what we do at Alpha Six Battalion. That's that's pretty much how it started. But then again, like I mentioned, while we were on the road with people asking us all these questions, I wanted to have apparel with a purpose, but also like the purpose was to provide like various resources to to people once they they separate, you know, service member and their family.

SPEAKER_00

Hey, so I I want to get into uh Alpha 6 Battalion. I want to talk about uh generally I know we we we touch based on it a little bit, but I want you to kind of dive in, tell the people what it is, what you do, what's your unique business proposition.

SPEAKER_01

So Alpha 6 Battalion, the name, uh I guess I'll start with that. The name comes from the 6% of veterans. So I wanted to have that representation a way that resonates with, you know, not just military people, but you know, having the battalion in the name that kind of like has your ears kind of twingle like, what's this? You know, it's obviously military, but the six represents the six percent of Americans that serve. You know, the numbers technically are around 6.4. Like, you know, I round down, but also we have like uh an issue within our community where sometimes some people make permanent decisions off temporary problems. So by creating the name off of 6th Battalion and trying to provide some of the resources that we're playing in and that we already have, you know, with our aim is to help people when they feel like they're, you know, they're in certain situations where they feel like they they're you know they're feeling some kind of way. It might, we, you know, we obviously don't have all the answers, but we, you know, we want to have that network with VGA, other vet groups where we could reach out to someone. Somebody might know something to help a particular somebody in a particular situation. Came across um vet organization, she was telling me about habitats of uh of humanity here in uh Spotsylvania. They were accepting applications for a duration. I can't remember uh at the moment, but only one vet they're looking to place a veteran family in a house. And only one veteran family applied for the program. And it's like, you know, people can't find out about these things because sometimes they're just not looking for it. So, like our aim is even though we do apparel, you know, they might find something that they like, they might find a shirt with a saying that they like, but they might come across that information we're putting out that, hey, if you live in this area, you know, there's this veteran organization that's working with Habitats with Humanity, and they're trying to place someone in a home. And maybe they might need to be that person that wants to apply. They might need that home. They, I don't like where we live right now, we need to move. Maybe this might be for us, you know.

SPEAKER_02

No, I like that. Yeah, I like I like the fact that, you know, not only are you supporting our veteran community with apparel, but you're also supporting them with information. Right. Let's talk a little.

SPEAKER_01

That's like the number one thing. Everybody has something to teach someone. You know, my wife was talking to um someone, uh, a vet, he was Marine Corps, he was telling her how the VA paid to get tents in his car because of this particular condition he has. I never even heard of that. So, like, we we all have a particular experience that we could pass on and we could, you know, help someone else that might have a similar condition where getting the VA to pay for their tents will help them. But we all don't know because sometimes we just don't talk to each other, you know. That happens a lot, especially when people get out. They kind of want to veer away from the military. You know, they I did 10 years, I did eight years. Let's say they had a negative experience. They just want to get, even though, you know, they might have honorable discharge, they just want to get away from the military entirely. And, you know, they're missing out on tons of information, especially if they're hurt. Like they don't even put in their VA claim and they just want to like completely check out. There's 20 years later, and they finally, you know, catch up with a veteran, and then you just start chopping it up, and they're like, I never even knew that. I didn't even know I could do something like that. Like, VA claim, what do you mean? I can't get a VA claim for that. Yeah, yeah, you can because I have it. Or, you know, I met this person where they have this condition and they're like, I've been suffering with that since, you know, XYZ. But information, like Donnell said, that's that's pretty much a pair of purpose. The purpose is information, passing on information, passing on resources to help people in in various situations.

SPEAKER_02

That's good. Yeah, information changes situations. Uh at Veterans Connect on Thursday, um, there was a guy that came in and this was new to me. He was telling me that if you're 30% or better, that you can go to urgent care and then provide that bill to urgent to the VA, and then the VA will pay for your urgent care visit. I had no idea. I mean, think about the number of veterans that may go to urgent care without any type of medical insurance or anything like that. And they may be 30%. Yeah. And now they don't have to pay, you know, to go to the hospital or at least the urgent care. Yeah, that that's that's awesome. I didn't know that either. I I need to dig dig into that. Yeah. Just just to put the information out there. Yeah, that blew my mind. And he showed me a bill. He was like, I'm only at 30%, and this is what this is what I have. So that was just great information that he shared. Yeah, absolutely. So what type of challenges did you face in transitioning, you know, either from the military into the business world or to the business world as a whole? What's some of the challenges that you faced?

SPEAKER_01

I guess, you know, f you know, when you're in the military, you always have people. Whether you're you're you got your your E3 group, you know, the E3 mafia, E4 mafia, Lance Corporal Underground, you always had like a group of people to like rely on. If I if I know A through Z, you know, I'm sorry, A through P, you know, they got the other half covered. When you go into business, and it's often glamorized, like you'll see it on on social media, I'm an entrepreneur, you know, but like people don't don't realize like all the hard work it takes, you know. And often you you're your you're your number one fan. You know, many times you might do things that, you know, don't resonate with people. And if if this is like something that that's your calling, you you won't drop it regardless, whether it resonates with people or not. You'll find keep pushing until you find that group of people that that does resonate with. So I guess one of the things is, you know, often you're you're alone. You you're jam, you're cranking out resources, you're cranking out whatever, whatever you're doing. You know, if you're writing books, you're writing books alone, you know, and you're like, I want to send this copy to someone. And you know you'd have you you beat up your best friend a hundred times for another copy. I know it's two in the morning, I'm texting you, I just sent you another copy. Again, I need you to read, I need you to review it. And then you gotta like, I don't want to say you gotta like beat them up about it, because sometimes, and I again, because you you keep pushing it on them, you know they might get tired of you. So you you kind of you gotta kind of quiz them to see if they actually read it. Like, all right, I put a particular error in there on purpose to see if they actually caught it, to see if they actually read it. Because again, it's you, it's it's you on your own. If you're cranking things out, you your brain is gonna tell you it looks good, but when somebody else actually reviews it, they might catch those errors. But if you're beating someone up so bad to the point where they're tired of you and they they're tired of your copies, they're not gonna catch that error because yeah, yeah, I reviewed it, it looks good, everything's good. Yeah, but did you see that that error that I put uh where I purposely, you know, they're like, nah, nah, I didn't see that. I I guess I'll look at it again, you know. But again, you know, this world, it could be lonely because in the military, you always have people to help you get a particular task done, whatever that task may be. There's always going to be someone you could probably rely on. But within this, especially when when when it if if it's not working yet, you know, you're alone, you you're not getting any traction, you feel like giving up, and you know, you you're not getting any any smiles, you it's not resonating with people, it it could it could be discouraging, and you're like, all right, I don't really want to do this anymore. But if it's if it's in you and you know, like this is my assignment, I know, I know it is, because it's been X years and I haven't given up yet, you know? Everything will eventually start turning for you.

SPEAKER_00

Hey, what is a key lesson or or a piece of advice that you learned in the military that you now apply?

SPEAKER_01

Um I guess I'll say the same thing, like not giving up. Because like I said, some people might uh and it could be demographics-wise too. Like you could be in a particular area where your stuff don't resonate here, but then you go somewhere else, and then you're like, you know, your stuff is selling. It's like, oh, well, what what changed? You know, you kind of change the location. That not giving up mentality that you you get from the military, you know. Somebody likes your stuff, you know, not just your family, not just your friends, you know what I'm saying? It just might take some time to find that crowd. And during that wait, that's when people, I don't know if you ever seen that image. It's like uh an image on top of each other's two guys, they're they're mining, and they're mining towards the diamonds. And like the the first guy, he's hungry, he's he's he's drilling and he's he's cutting at the the rock in order to get to the diamond. But the the guy on the bottom, he just had this much to go. And he in the image, he's turning around and he's giving up. But if he just pushed two, three more steps, he would have he would have hit his goal. And that's where that that's where that no give up attitude from the military helps push through. Because sometimes you're at that point. Donnell says it all the time when we uh van on the weekends, you know, this is hard. You know, sometimes if you don't show up for you, you know, nobody else is gonna show up for you. And and to have to have that no give up, keep fighting, keep pushing mentality that keep pushing drive to show up for yourself. That's when you start getting that breakthrough that people are looking for. Sure. Sure.

SPEAKER_02

You know, at VGA we say you're in business for yourself, but not by yourself. Um, and and that was evident, you know, on Friday, you know, when y'all met. I mean, I I jumped on the call and you guys was instantly jailing. You know Yeah. It's now we have a another community of people that can help you with your business, and your business is your superpower. Talk to us about what is what is your superpower, what is your business superpower?

SPEAKER_01

I think talking to people, you know, we do we do that a lot. I mean, that's primarily what we do. The shirts, the hoodies, all that stuff is stuff is for fun, you know. Somebody might see something that, oh, I was a ranger, you know, or I'm a vet, you know. I like to walk around that like our shirt, you know, it says veteran, noun, a person who saved you without asking questions. And people like that. They like that because, you know, they're walking around like hits, you know, that's all that stuff is fun and it is all for laughs and to make us feel good because we are only six percent. Like as many millions of people in the country, like only six percent of Americans have done it. That's that's wild work. But uh, I guess like having the ability to talk to people could be about anything, it could be about any music, you know. Being in the military, you get so much experience, not just work-wise, culture-wise, you know, various cultures, various music, it and it all like I mean, we used to go to like the bar, you know, and you would have the guys who, you know, they got that hip-hop vibe, and then you got the guy with the cowboy boots, and we're all just hanging out, and it's it's nothing. This is normal for us. You know, you even have the guy with the shorts, and he don't have no uh civilian shoes, so he'll still have on his regular military boots, and we're all looking good, and then hey, he comes, it's like, dude, you gotta stay. You you can't come with us.

SPEAKER_00

A couple of times, like, no.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, it never fails.

SPEAKER_00

There's only one and then it's like the socks pulled up, too.

SPEAKER_01

It's not even like he's wearing the boots. He got the boots pulled tight, it got the straps on, and the socks are pulled all the way up. It's like, you can't go with us. We're going to we're going to, you know, Dusty's down the road for some uh for some Drake, and here you are with your boots on. You ain't got no shoes, dog. You you gotta stay, man. You think you gotta be ready. But having that ability to like, it doesn't matter what what room, just being able to walk into any room and just know, like, I'm gonna walk into this area. And whoever comes across me, I'm able to have a conversation with them because we've been exposed to various different types of walks of life, all different kinds of culture, all different kinds of music. I only have to, my family's from the islands. My father, he only listens to reggae music. I don't have to only listen to reggae music. I can listen to my mom, she's from St. Lucia, from the islands too. She listens to country music. Don't even listen to reggae music unless, you know, my father's playing it. You know, I got the reggae, I got the cun, and having that ability to just talk to any person is like a superpower because and and I'm kind of introverted most of the time. I kind of, when I'm out and about in the world, I don't tend to say much if I don't have to. But when I'm like out there and I'm showing my stuff and I'm talking to people, I guess I tap into that other per other side of me because I can't just sit there and just hope people will, you know, come up to me and talk to me. I gotta be able to talk to people and bring them in and, you know, share what we do and why we do and who we do it for. You know, you have to have that ability to talk to anybody about anything about any time in order for them to like resonate with you to want to like buy like they say it all the time. Uh Donnell Jr., one of the things he says, people buy people, right? That that's his phrase, right, Donnell? Do I got it right? That is, that's 100%. Right. So, you know, if you're not able to adjust, not adjust who you are, just be able to be flexible and talk about anything with any culture, it doesn't matter who, it's gonna be a hard going. This is gonna be definitely a hard going for you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It's super cool just to see the growth of of people, people's business. Would let me ask you this question. If you had to, you know, rewind and start all over again, what would you do differently?

SPEAKER_01

If I had to rewind, I'd say a lot of times people tell you, um, there's never a perfect time. You all you definitely always want to wait until I have this. If if I had to start all over or rewind, I'd definitely start sooner because I like I I've told you, I've had the idea for so long. And even though the the idea evolved and changed a little bit, I would have started something because it would have given me some of the experience that I needed earlier and learned some of the lessons that I know now that would have applied, you know, I could have learned years ago. But again, you know, that there's never a a perfect time to start. But also, if I was to start again right now, I I guess I would focus on the foundation, focusing on the website, trying to get that stuff established. Because going back sometimes to try to get it set up after you're rolling, but people ask you questions like, oh, so uh is your is this on your website? You're talking about it, but it's not on your website. No, it's it it'll be that no, no, no. You can't have it, it needs to be there, you know. So like that's one thing. Like, I don't like to tell people some of the things that we do or what we're working on. I don't, for one, because especially if it's taking a long time, because certain ideas that people have, uh, it takes a while to get it ironed out correctly. Sometimes you have all those wrinkles and bumps in the roads that you, you know, you don't foresee it coming until you're in it and you're like, okay, how do I refine this to make it better or sound better? XYZ. Now, if you told the thousand people that you you have this and now the next time they see you, it's been a couple weeks and they're wondering, well, where is it? You know, so I like to get that done. So like, I like to just not say any any projects that we're working with. I like to just have it. The next time they see me, it's ready. It's here. Or something new is here, at least. Oh, this I wanted to tell you about this the last time, but we were still ironing some things out. But here it is. This is what I've been working on for the last few weeks, uh, last two months. It's ready, it's meant to help these type of people, XYZ, you know?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that's huge. That's huge. So, my final question is tell people about your experience at VGA and what why you're a member of VGA.

SPEAKER_01

So, and everywhere I go when I talk to people, I I always like, you know, if I'm talking about Alpha 6 Battalion, I always mention VGA. It's like kind of in the same sentence with the hyphen, it's right there, you know. Oh, where we work with a veteran group out of VGA, have you heard of them? And then it goes into the whole market thing. When I found VGA, um, I was actually kind of ironing out ideas. I was exploring ideas on and trying to compile a list of random businesses owned by veterans. My my intent at the time wasn't to start vending, even though I had like stuff I already got made. I wasn't looking to go out to to vend anywhere. I was trying to figure out a way to like do foundation. How can we start getting traction on social media? So I was looking for veteran businesses to interview about their time when they separated. You know, how did that go? What are some of the things that people should look out for once they leave? You know, once they're getting out. What, you know, what did you learn, let's say five to ten years that somebody's getting out today should be aware of, right? Because the transition, um, taps class, transition retirement briefings, that stuff, it's just the tip, just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more world experience that people experience, and you don't you don't run into it until years later. So as I'm getting this list together and I'm searching for veteran-owned businesses in my area, and my wife had previously told me about VGA. One of her uh co-workers goes there all the time. VGA comes up first, and I was like, you know, I'm asking her, I'm like, hey, babe, is this this uh the marketplace, the veterans marketplace that you told me about? She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, let me let me give them a call. It's Sunday, though. They're not gonna answer. Yeah, I'll probably have to call Monday or Tuesday. I just called just just for Grimms. And like half a minute later, half a second, I mean it rang like barely. Donnell answers. I wasn't even I didn't even know what to say. I wasn't prepared because I just knew in my mind nobody's gonna answer. It's a Sunday. And he answered immediately. He told me about it, and I got paperwork sent to me that day for me to vend the next weekend. So from the start, from the get-go, it was like, as soon as you tap into the community, if you're serious, you know they're they're serious. They're already, if you're serious, they show you they're serious right away. They they give you everything that you need for you to show up the very next week to start getting your stuff in front of people. And it's been a hitting the ground running ever since. Um, having uh vented in a little while, we had some things going on with work and then the baby, but um, we still get we still get uh people pushed to us through Donnell all the time. People talking about the hoodie. Hey, I need a hoodie. Okay, let me knock it out, I'll drop it off at the store for you. But like I said too earlier, it's a lonely realm, especially when you you're not getting the traction that you wanted, you're not getting hits on your website, people aren't watching YouTube videos. That that's kind of like a unicorn thing, especially uh for you to like blow up on social media. But like having VGA, having VGA behind you, get your stuff in front of like-minded people, especially if you're a veteran, service member, dependent, whatever the case may be. The people that's been in the same realm as you that are pulling in new people, because people that come to the store, they're just not, they're not all veterans, you know, they're not all service members, they're not all family members. It's just regular average Joes, regular average citizen that comes in that loves the military, loves to support, and they walk in and they see things that, you know, veterans are are making and they want to purchase from them, you know. And a lot of things, you know, it's so impersonal when you buy from like these big name companies. These people don't, you know, they don't, it's just margins for them. But like when you look at VGA, the people that come to VGA, it's like I'm actually supporting someone that's done something for the country. You know, whether I've done it or not, whether I'm part of that 6% or not, I want to buy from them because they've done something that I'm grateful for, or they have products where they actually care about what they're making instead of just churning out, you know, random junk garbage for profit. You know, there's a lot of care behind the things that people do at VGA, and people could tell right away, you know, as soon as somebody walks into the door, we have new family, we have return of family. And, you know, it makes people feel welcomed, whether you which is not the case when you walk into like a random Walmart or whatever the case may be, you know. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

In fact, Walmart asks me extra stuff when I'm leaving, they make me feel like I'm stealing.

SPEAKER_01

I know I just a party. Can I see? Can I see the receipt? Yeah, but brilliant things on the receipt. You're not gonna see everything on the receipt. They just put a line through it like they looked at you ain't look at it. You ain't looking at it. You ain't look at it. Where's the toilet paper that's at the bottom? Show it, show it to me on the on the list on the list. Show me the toilet paper on the list since you just looked at it that fast. Let me see. Show it to me so I can see. They don't care. They're like, uh uh, whatever.

SPEAKER_00

AJT, man. So before we close out, what I want to do is give you um the floor and the opportunity. Um, we have viewers and listeners, some of them may be veterans just interested in entrepreneurship, some of them are entrepreneurs trying to get started, and some people got the itch um and they got the bug, but they haven't got started yet. What are some uh um you know, advice and things that you would have for them? And and a lot, and I also open the floor just for you to give some last words.

SPEAKER_01

So a lot of, especially if they're veterans, a lot of what we're missing when we leave the service is is systems and structure. Finding someone to be accountable to, especially when you're doing this, especially when you're when you you decide you want to be an entrepreneur, you're you're accountable to the customer, but it's hard to show up if you're not accountable to yourself. So for me, we talked about it before we started. I don't use the title CEO. I give the title CEO to God because that helps me stay accountable. So if I feel like I'm reported to God, I'm working for God. So that gives me, especially because I do these these weekly meetings, and then if you're familiar with project management, I do like a daily scrum where even though it's two or three minutes, I'll list off a couple of the things. And what I do, I speak this into Chat GPT too, to kind of like map it out. And it helps me. I'll put, I'll have a chat for Scrum. I'll speak into certain tasks. Hey, Monday I did this, Tuesday I did this, this, and then I'll take that, consolidate it, and then I'll put it into my weekly meet and chat with God. And then that gives me like some of like my overview and kind of helps me keep structure and helps me, okay, I should probably focus on this this week. But having that structure helps you because it gives you someone to be accountable to. A lot of times people like, I want to do this, but I just have to I have a hard time showing up. You you have a hard time showing up because you feel like you're not accountable to someone. You just it's almost like a hobby. And if it's just a hobby, you're not showing up the way you need to. You're not basically performing like the way you can, you know you can, but it's just hard to get that structure, that system going for yourself. So I would say, uh, to anyone looking to get into it, find a structure. Find a way to, because you can say it all day, I'm going to the gym. And then you know you're supposed to go to the gym, but you don't go to the gym. Shoot, I do it now. I've I've been slacking the last couple months I was on it, but like the last few weeks because of the holidays and stuff, I I've fallen off. I gotta get back on it. But uh having that for me, having the higher power that I'm working for helps me keep that structure to keep accountability to myself and the business as well, you know?

SPEAKER_00

No, that's really good. And definitely you bringing up the structure with kind of treating it like a scrum and just ensuring that everything that you're doing is aligned in your your sprint and your sprint in life, right? So like when you do that, and that type of structure, man, will definitely keep you driven. I I appreciate you for sharing that because I never thought to apply that, you know, outside of the structure that I use it in now. But I mean, if I did use that type of structure, I would be on Glypath every single time. That was dope. Thank you for sharing that. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. No problem. So before we get out of here, how do the people get a hold of you? What's your socials? How do they get some of the gear? How do they get some of the resources?

SPEAKER_01

So our website for the resources is Alpha VI Battalion, Alpha6, but Roman Numero 6Battalion.com. Our store is alpha6 battalion.store. Same thing from the website, uh, the main website. You could get to the store, you can find the resources, you can find some of the things we have in the pipeline. Our social media, same thing, Instagram, TikTok, Alpha VI Battalion. You'll see our character. We got our character, Alpha Wolf. I created this character. It's almost like a like a G.I. Joe-esque universe I'm building with the characters that I have. Everybody is like various veterans, but the wolf, I made it, I made it a wolf to represent the brotherhood from the military, the wolf pack, right? There's even units, one of the uh She Vens with her daughter at VGA, and she said her unit in the Air Force was called the Wolf Pack. So she she bought one of my first uh Alpha Wolf hoodies. Uh at the time, I didn't even have an idea to like use him or to even make him. I just did a random hoodie with a wolf on it, and she's like, Oh, I like that. That our unit was called the Wolf Pack. And then I was like, you know, that kind of like started getting the gears turning. Yeah, and then I ended up coming up with the character that represents the veteran getting out of the military, and he's in awkward civilian situations, you know. A lot of what you'll see is random adventures that, you know, some of it is bringing our our designs to life. Not everything is like transition related. A lot of it is just for comedy, a lot of it is just for um, you know, laughs and giggles and bringing our ideas to life, like some of our Halloween characters ended up, you know, hunting my boy. No. And, you know, he did something that pissed someone off, and then all of a sudden he has these bounty hunters after him, you know. So um you'll see a lot of him on our social media, but there's a lot of videos where he's explaining various things, and it seems like comedy, but it's actual like real life scenarios. You know, I I did a video where all uh a couple of the consolidated stories that I got from people buying houses. They bought a house, all the water was turned off in the house, except for the half bathroom. And people probably think uh searching the house or when they're inspecting the house, this is only to save water, right? But when they closed on the house, they turned all in the water throughout the house, the house flooded. So I did a video about that, you know? I did a video. We had before we moved here uh from Laurent our AC seized, and um the part ended up being 17 years old, which was out of, you know, out of circulation, decommissioned or discontinued. So I did a video about that, you know, him complaining about old ACs, you're buying a house, and now you know you find out you to in order to repair it, you need a brand new one. So I use him to to to paint a lot of our our real life scenarios in a comical way. And it's been reaching a lot of people, probably will never even entertain anything veteran-related, America-related. They see it, you know, but they're they're getting these real life stories from this character's perspective, and they're like, oh damn, you know, in their mind, they're probably thinking, and they're sticking around. So I know it's resonating with them. You know, they might not all comment or say something. I got a couple of loyal people that's constantly speaking and saying things and sending me messages, and you know, we go back and forth. But for the majority of them, you know, they're they're getting a dose of the 6% that they probably never would have thought of before because of the character that we're using. You know, like I said, he's the only wolf. Everybody else is there's a couple other characters that are animals, but you know, we have just regular humans amongst them, you know. And like I said, it's kind of like an old school 90 street sharks vibe that I'm kind of depicting here. You know, it's wacky and funny scenarios, but ultimately it's pushing like real, real issues, especially when I was talking to the the 22 a day uh scenario. And, you know, again, people that would never even begin to entertain the plight of a veteran or even under begin to even care or understand anything about us or tune it in and learning things that they probably would have never thought of in their life.

SPEAKER_00

No, I love that. After we shut down the show, I I have a not really an idea, but it did spark is an idea. But it sparks something when you said something about the character. So I'll just kind of put a bug in your ear and maybe you can use that bug to kind of reset some of the stories as well. Yeah. Definitely, Bob. Definitely appreciate you sharing that. Definitely appreciate you for sharing your time um and experience with us. Truly appreciate you uh taking the time out.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no doubt. Well, appreciate that. Uh nail throws. Definitely open to any ideas. I tell people all the time if they have an idea, if they have a various, you know, military scenario they want me to do a video about, well, send me a comment. Drop me a uh drop me a comment, send me a message, hey, do a video about this. It might take me a while because sometimes dealing with the AI can be a little wonky, but I'll get to it and then I'll I'll make sure to do it in a funny way to make sure it brings light to the situation, but also some humor.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Appreciate you, brother.

SPEAKER_02

Hey, Donnell, how can people find VGA? Well, we before we get into that, let's talk to them a little bit about Coach R L and and and what you offer to the table. So let's talk a little bit about that. Tell them about you.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. Thank you for allowing me to share this platform as always. I help people individualize and personalize and understand their finances simply. I break everything down simply. My favorite thing to do in coaching is to be the translator of everything that you hear. So some of the things you see on social media, some of the ideas you have, and a lot of us haven't even had financial literacy anywhere, not in our curriculums in high school, not in college. You're definitely not, I'm not gonna say definitely, but most likely not gonna get it when you're enlisted unless you go out and seek it. And those are the things that I like to provide. In fact, I am pushing out the 2026 curriculum in March. In March, brand new book is called Growth Over Average Thinking. It's a money mindset book that is going to be on fire. Back to you, Donnell.

SPEAKER_02

So uh before we get into VGA, I did want to shout out Alpha 6 Battalion for this hoodie. Check this out. So it has my last name on there, the United States Army on here, the VGA logo over the heart, has Veterans Growing America on the sleeves, the rank I retired at, and then on the back it says leaders, it says heroes, it says entrepreneurs, and it says human beings. And uh this was an idea that I had, and I would just I just brought it to Jonathan. I was like, man, I would love to have a have a hoodie that represents my time and service and my organization. Um and he brought it to life. So thank you, Jonathan, for bringing this to life. Every time somebody sees it, they're like, I gotta get my VGA hoodie like that. And so if y'all want to get a hoodie like this, y'all gotta go to Alpha 6 Battalion uh and they can they can mock it up for you. Uh and it doesn't have to be Army on there, it could be Air Force or whatever uh branch of service that you served at, but Alpha 6 Battalion is the one that uh created this hoodie. And uh we want to just thank y'all for doing that. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, sir. I love that. Appreciate it. You you gave me the idea, took a little bit of time, but we got it ironed out, and it looks good. Yeah, it looks good.

SPEAKER_02

It looks real, real good. And so, how do people get in touch with VGA and get involved? So, number one, I want y'all to go to my uh website, veteransgrowingamerica.com, and go to our directory because you'll find more businesses like Alpha Six Battalion and Coach R.L. Simmons, where they're putting out information that they found not only their business, but the type of stuff that they have to offer. In addition to that, visit our store. We have a store in Wheelbridge, Virginia, where we showcase veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs, and we have tons of events where you can come out and support entrepreneurship from our community. And when you walk through those doors, bring your wallet because we want you to shop, baby. Sha, baby. Sha, baby. We appreciate you, Jonathan, for uh being here. Thank you for taking time to be on the Veterans Growing America podcast. It's an honor to be able to showcase the work that you do. And by the way, the wolf, we were the wolf pack uh in my basic training unit. So yeah, it was seeing that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's another reason why I came up with him, because you know, people that get out, you know, they want to be a lone wolf. It's like, you know, come back to the pack, you know. Yeah, come back to the package as a pack. Whether it's one or two veterans that buddies that you have, you're stronger together than you are navigating through life alone.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well done. Well, again, thank you for your time, Donnell. Thank you for sharing the platform. We are over and out.

SPEAKER_01

Appreciate it. You already know.