Real Stories of Resilience: How Invisible Warriors Is Changing Lives | Nancy Becher | Part 2

In Part 2 of our conversation, Macky Outlaw continues his discussion with Nancy Becher, founder of Invisible Warriors, focusing on the real-life impact of helping women veterans overcome adversity.

Nancy shares powerful stories of resilience, recovery, and transformation from women who have faced homelessness, trauma, isolation, and other challenges after military service. We also discuss the resources available to veterans, the importance of community support, and what civilians can do to help those who served.

This episode goes beyond the statistics and highlights the human side of veteran advocacy.

Topics Discussed:
 • Success stories from women veterans
 • Overcoming trauma and rebuilding lives
 • Community support and mentorship
 • Resources available to veterans in crisis
 • Leadership after military service
 • How Invisible Warriors makes a difference
 • Ways the public can support veterans
 • Hope, healing, and purpose after service

Whether you're a veteran, family member, advocate, or simply want to learn more, this conversation provides insight into the challenges and triumphs of the women who have served our nation.

#WomenVeterans #InvisibleWarriors #VeteranSupport #VeteranStories #MilitaryLife #PTSD #MST #VeteranAdvocacy #HiddenThreadsPodcast #MackyOutlaw #Army #Navy #AirForce #Marines #CoastGuard #NationalGuard #Resilience #Leadership #Podcast

Transcript

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Alright, this is Mackie and we're back with Nancy Becker with Invisible Warriors. And in the second part, we're gonna get into some real life stories where they have actually impacted people's lives. Veterans helped them post-traumatic stress, physical ailments, income resources, housing resources, and everything else. So tell me, you mentioned off when we're before we started recording that you had some older veteran ladies that would not leave the home. Have you ever had any of those where they got the resources where they would leave the home? We well, yes, we do retreats. And we've had two weekend retreats. One was actually in Scottsboro. The most recent one was a month ago in Fort Payne up on Lookout Mountain. The first one, the women walked in the door, and the very first thing out of one of the women's mouths was that she had been treated, she had been red flagged for suicide five times by the VA. Okay. And I'm going, oh, geez, I'm not here this weekend to treat this. This isn't, you know, a therapy session. You don't have a counselor with you. Well, I do have a master's degree in counseling and I do have a doctorate in sociology, but I'm not here for doing that. Right. You know? And I thought, what are we gonna do? Please, dear God, let this be okay. And we had a wonderful weekend. As we were getting ready to leave, I had everyone sitting around the table and I asked them all to say one thing that they were taking away from the weekend. Her comment was, I now know that I have a sisterhood. I now though that I have people I can talk to, people that I can count on, and I no longer feel that I have to hurt myself. Hurt or okay. All right. That's serious. That's serious. What about we mentioned earlier about female veteran homelessness? You said it's more prevalent among females than men. The the VA st it's very, very difficult to get statistics because the VA doesn't and census and all these things don't really separate them out. But to the best of our ability, there are twice as many women veterans as non-veterans who are homeless. Nine out of 10 have PTSD. There are many, many, many women veterans that are homeless that are also the single providers for children. A lot of them can't get jobs. So they are faced with um food insecurity. They're faced with, you know, living on the streets. One woman that we helped had been living in the tent camp in downtown Huntsville and had gotten beat up to the point where she was in the hospital. Like robbed and beat up. Robbed and beat up and really seriously uh hurt. And she was afraid to go back into that situation when they let her out of out of the hospital. And she had no place to go. Okay. She knew no place. So we found her someplace to go that would take her. But a lot of times these people are homeless, and I I understand both sides of things, but a lot of these homeless places want the the women to provide funding. Okay. And if I'm talking about the homeless veterans, anyone who's homeless, you know, but four veterans in particular, they they are there to support the women veterans with with homes. I talked to someone the other day, and she says, Oh, yeah, it costs them $150 a month to stay here. And I'm going, they probably don't have that. So how do you suggest they get that money so they can stay in your home and get off of the street? It it the system's maybe not broken, but it certainly is bruised, you know. So if I had $150, it may why am I coming to a homeless shelter, right? I guess it's your point. Yeah. I mean, yeah, $150 don't take you so far today, but now what about drug and alcohol abuse? Do you see that prevalent with female veterans? That's not really something that I've had a lot of issues with. We did have one woman that we were trying to help that was out of Jefferson County, and she was a drug addict, and she was actually over in Madison County and had seen a truck, uh an 18-wheeler, parked in a in a gas station, and the engine was running, and the driver wasn't in the cab. He was inside doing something. She also, not only was she a drug addict, but I think she had some mental issues, and she thought that they were trafficking women. So she got into the cab of that 18-wheeler and stole it, took off in it because she was helping the women get away from the psychotic episode. Yeah. She was having a psychotic episode. So we're very small, we're very unknown. So we don't get a lot of these things yet because people are just starting. I'll get a call once or twice a month from somebody at the VA, usually down in Birmingham, that's got somebody up in this area that's looking for help. Just in in my going to different events, I will talk to people who say, Oh, yeah, my sister, my sister-in-law, my you know, daughter is having issues, whatever. So we don't have a tremendous number of stories because we've only been around for a year. You know. So if you know, really, really doing what we're doing now, we've only been around for about a year. Right. So we but we've got way more stories than what I would like to have. Sure. So what's been the moment, I guess a real life moment, where you said, this is why we do this? Like you're maybe you're saying, hey, this organization, maybe we're not going to last, but then something happened. No, the woman that said she had been red flag for suicide five times, and she's been, we've seen her since then, and she's been much better. She still has times, but you know, she's no longer considering suicide. One of the women at the most recent retreat that we had was older, and she said, you know, I don't want to talk about all the issues I went through. I have a son and I have a daughter who are both in the military. They've seen their own issues. I don't want to burden them with the things that I went through. So I don't have anyone to talk to. And I'm a very successful business person, but they're all business contacts. They're not military. So I haven't had anyone that I could just sit and relax and talk to for, you know, an entire weekend where others get what I'm talking about. It doesn't have to be big, it can be little things, but it could mean a whole lot to that person. So tell me about the retreat. What goes on at these? Is it secret? No. No, it we have a lot of fun. This last one, the women stayed up. It was my birthday. They had a birthday party for me, a surprise birthday party. We watched movies about female veterans. There's a woman from Scottsboro who was in a documentary, and the first retreat, she actually came and watched the movie with us and talked to us about her situation. We watched that movie. They played phase 10 until 3:30 in the morning. Phase 10 is intense. Yeah. And then they played dominoes one night. And you know, it was like then they all went to bed, set their alarms, got up because we were overlooking the mountains, and they got up and at 6:30 and watched the sunrise. And then they all went back to bed. And at 10 o'clock, I had to find on YouTube, I had to find a video of uh Revel Lee to play for them. And they all kind of come down the stairs going, Did I just hear that? But it got them up. So, you know, and and cooking and just being there. And we did a decluttering session where we were not only talking about decluttering homes, but decluttering their minds and getting rid of some of the junk that's in their minds. We have monthly events where we're getting ready to have another decluttering event and just times to get together and just share. And like I said, we we do yoga and tai chi. And uh, we're we're trying to get a grant right now to have a an arts program where they can come and paint and write and do videos and and all kinds of stuff to to work on their issues because that's been proven as being very helpful for PTSD and MSD is being able to get out those feelings on paper in some way. We go on hikes, um, just all kinds of things. Right. Yeah, so I scrolled past my question here. I had it pulled up. What about female veterans that are struggling to support children? What do you guys have you see any positive impact there? We've had it, we've had a couple of times when the the children have been kind of secondary, but it was one woman called and said, I can't get to my VA appointment because my car died. And I have three little ones, and I don't know what I'm gonna do with them, and I don't know how I'm gonna get to the VA appointment. So we called number one, we've got daycare centers that we use as resources that will take them in on a, you know, just on a standby basis for a couple of hours. We called and got them in there. And you can you Uber is now working with the VA. So if you're a veteran and you're trying to get to a VA appointment, Uber doesn't charge you. The VA pays it. So I will pick up the phone and call, you know, my Uber contact, and I'll say, Hey, I need you to be at such and such an address at such and such a time. You need to take this woman to her VA appointment and then get her back. Hey everybody, Mackie here. This episode is brought to you by Invisible Warriors. While millions of women have served our nation uniform, many of their stories remain untold. Invisible Warriors exist to recognize, respect, and support military women and women veterans through advocacy, resources, community, and trauma-informed programs designed specifically for their unique experiences. If you know a woman who served, or if you're looking for a way to support those who have sacrificed for our country, visit Invisible Warriors.org and learn how you can help. That's Invisible Warriors.org. And so then she hasn't had to worry about missing her VA appointment. She hasn't had to worry about her kids. It's just we try to do anything that anybody needs help with. We try to find them the resources and the support they need. Okay. See here, you just described that one I was going to get into. Now, do you have any now that the younger we we've talked about a lot of the older women, the younger ones coming out of the military now, the recent wars. Do you have those participating in the program or what do you see in there? We have a few, but it's it's a harder story with them often, because they their whole sentiment is that they had fought their whole time they were in the service to be considered a veteran, not a female veteran. And so when we say we support female veterans, they bristle at it a little bit because they say, but we're veterans. Yet on the other hand, a story I told you offline was about this woman who was disabled. She had 20% disability benefits, and she has more injuries that she got while she was on deployment. But they were to her breasts and to her uterus area and all of those things. Um, she went to the VSO to say, I think I should be getting a higher ranking of disability. What can you do to help me? And now this is one single VSO. I don't know that this would be across the board, but he refused to help her because he said those are just women's issues. You're already receiving benefits. I'm not wasting my time. So they can't say that they're veterans, not women veterans, and then try to get support for issues that are considered female. Now, do you guys show them where they can go in my healthy vet and all those places and skip the VSO? I I'm working right now on trying to get my VSO accreditation so that I can help them. Right. So you can represent. But I mean, yeah, they can call another veteran for free and I can guide them through it. You know, and say, hey, log in here. A lot of people, I've dealt with some older veterans that never applied for benefits, and they didn't know you had to go in there and get a login and password, something like that. You know, those are things, yep. That those are all things I had. One of the one of the things that was the most actively used during this last retreat is I had a uh VSO benefits for dummies book that I had taken with me. And every single one of them fought over. I w I need the book. I need to see what it says about this and this and this. So they're yeah, yeah. And you know, they you know, once you get that login and password, you can do a lot of this without having to go through some knucklehead. I just read a statistic yesterday, however, that said, and yeah, I've got a I taught statistics when I was in my doctoral program, so I know you can make statistics do whatever you want them to do. But the the statistic I read yesterday that said it is proven that many more people who apply for benefits using a VSO than not get those benefits because they don't know when you're doing it on your own, you don't know the buzzwords, you don't know all the things that you know that these applications are going through AI now, and the AI catches certain things. And if you don't put those certain things in there, it's gonna kick you out. So they you really need to know. No, you don't have to use a VSO, and certainly don't go to some of these attorneys that charge you all this money for getting them because you shouldn't have to. So the attorney can come in play if you keep getting turned down. Yes. It's like the last resort the attorney is. I know attorneys hate to hear that. Yeah, they want to be the first resort. Yeah, I do want attorneys in my business every day. So yeah. But you know, you shouldn't have to pay for these services. You deserve this as being a part of whether you're a man or a woman, you deserve these things. And and they they are free if you you know find the right place to do it. Right. So the other problems with VSOs is that it's one of the organizations in town that is known for that's what they do. It can be eight to ten months before you can get an appointment to get in and see them to even apply for years. So if you can figure out how to do it on your own, but you also got to be careful because you could get sued. Right. You know, if I tell them to do something and they don't get the right what they think they deserve, they can turn around and sue me. So that's where the lawyer comes in at right. Yeah. So I know to run an organization like this requires money, right? But how important is the compute community of these women compared to the financial assistance people get? Much more. The the problem with all of this is it's it's trifold. We can't we want to support the women. That's that's our number one issue. And if I could do it without ever having to pay a cent for it, I would sign me up for that. But we can't afford our internet, we can't afford our marketing, we can't afford any of the things that's gonna cost me $10,000 for this gala that I'm doing. You know, we can't do any of that without the finances, we can't provide the programs that cost $10,000 for this last retreat. Thank you, Drake State. They had a VA grant that they came on and worked with us and provided much of the funding for this last retreat we had. So that was nice. That was very nice. That was incredible. So without people donating, without people volunteering, I'm a one-man band. Bringing Ed back into the story again, he takes me everywhere because of my disabilities that we talked about earlier. I can't drive, I've had many surgeries, I can't put my foot on a gas pedal, so I can't go anywhere without him. I can't, I'm in a wheelchair, I can't do things without him. Started out as a joke. We got him a name tag for when we were going around to all these events, and the name tag says legs. Legs. That's funny. But it's stuck, and now people will come up to him and they'll look at his name tag and say, How do you pronounce that? Is that Scandinavia? Right. You know, but he he does all of that. But without him, I'm basically a one-man band. I have one wonderful woman who volunteers as much as she can. I have a grant writer who volunteers as much as she can. But basically, if we're doing anything, it's me, myself, and I. So I need the volunteers. I I was yelled at the other day because I'm not paying. And I said, Well, isn't that what a volunteer means? But you know, it's so we can't do any of what we want to do. We can't get the women coming to events if we don't have events. We can't have the events if I don't have somebody helping me, and we can't do any of it if we don't have funding. Right. Yeah. So where does most of your funds, where do most of your funds come from? Donations and grants. Donations and grants. Okay. Now, if somebody wants to donate, they just go to your website, right? Just go to the website. Invisible warriors.org. Ding, right? Yep. Absolutely. Go there. And I've seen, I've been on the site, you can click donate and give ten dollars or ten thousand dollars. Yep. I you know, if you want to give me five bucks, give me five bucks. I will gladly take it. Right. All right. So the big question at the end here if one of the women you helped were sitting here today, what do you think she would want Americans to know about women veterans? We have bumper stickers that say she served to. She served to, all right. That's what I want. Yeah, I'm I'm guilty. You know, I just I think every veteran's just a veteran, right? And then once until you talk to somebody like you, you don't realize, well, they have different physical and emotional problems than men do. Men handle things differently than women. Yeah, and then the physical side is obvious, right? But and I, you know, I never thought about it until I started looking at your organization. It's a great organization. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks for coming. Hopefully we can get the word out here with this. Come to the regala, everybody. Sixty-five dollars for a ticket. All right, before we I gotta know what you're feeding people first. We are having a buffet with beef, chicken, and possibly seafood. Nice. Is your husband gonna wear a tuxedo? Yes. Uh, he's wearing his dress blues. Really? You know, if I tried to put my dress blues on, it would I wouldn't be able to breathe. But uh the uh yeah, so the gala, say it again. What day? It's June 12th at 5 30 at the holiday in mid-city. Okay. And what time does it start? Uh 5 30. 5 30. All right. And if you want to donate, if you can't make it to the gala, and if you want to donate, just if donating for the gala is really important, and I didn't mention that. There are nine women at TutFan, which is the VA senior home here in town, and tickets donated go to them. They love coming to this. And we're bringing nine of them. Gets them out of that building, right? So and they get to celebrate. I've been in there, it's not that bad. So, but it I wouldn't want to hang out there all day for weeks at a time. So all right, we're gonna get out of here. And if you want to donate, if you want to find out more, just go to invisible warriors.org. Invisible warriors.org. That's all we got, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye, y'all.