Episode 13: The Toxic Army Experience: Navigating Leadership, Love, and Mental Health Challenges

Brandon reflects on his challenging transition from Air Force, to civilian life and then to Army service, revealing how toxic leadership and workplace politics severely impacted his military experience and mental health.

Please start with Episode 1. Go to my site BrandonHeld.com

• Joining the Army as a food inspector to challenge himself and pursue an MBA
• Dealing with oppressive leadership from Sergeant First Class and Sergeant "leadership" who created unnecessary hardship in a non-combat role
• Experiencing improvement when toxic leaders left and Brandon became the NCOIC, allowing him to implement positive changes
• Facing unjust punishment after a personal relationship with another sergeant went wrong
• Seeking psychiatric help for the second time during military service due to overwhelming stress
• Meeting his future third wife, who remained supportive through his mental health struggles
• Finding clarity about what truly matters in relationships and leadership

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

Welcome back. Brandon Held, Life is Crazy, episode 13. I last left off at leaving Army Food Inspection School and heading to Fort Huachuca. Now, I know you remember earlier episodes when I talked about my three alcoholic uncles who all passed and told me, Everyone to a man that I should join the Air Force, even though two had been in the Army and one had been in the Air Force. I was about to learn the reason why they said that. My time in the Air Force had a bumpy patch. All in all, it was a good time. It was a good experience. It helped me grow and mature a lot as a man. It helped me reevaluate some things in life and get a bigger perspective. picture on life and a better point of view on my capabilities and abilities of the things I thought I couldn't do before, but I realized I could do. Right. Which just opens the door to you realizing, let me see what else I'm capable of and let me see what else I could do. And so joining the army was that challenge and also getting A next level degree, a graduate degree, a master's degree was also part of that next challenge. So I get to Fort Huachuca and I get to my unit and right away I notice that it's not as chill and as cool as I thought it would be. The sergeant first class is having us trying to meet in formations and there's eight of us in the unit. And we're mixed with veterinary techs, right? So we're attached to the veterinary unit. We're mixed with veterinary techs. So it's half food inspectors, half veterinary techs. The NCOIC, he wanted to show how big his dick was. In Sergeant First Class Villa, he wanted us to get in formations and meet like this was the real army. And we were food inspectors, right? We weren't infantry. We weren't anyone that was ever going to be on the front line. If we got attached to some deployed unit, we would be inspecting their food just like our job states. This was over the top and ridiculous. And I knew this from talking to my recruiter before and the instructors at food inspection school were talking about their food inspection lives and How great it was to be a food inspector. One instructor was telling a story how his PT, his physical training was getting up and going golfing every morning in Hawaii. That was how he started his day, was golfing. And then he would go to the office and do his food inspection duties, right? So here I get sent to Fort Huachuca to this ridiculous Sergeant First Class who wants to treat us like We're in the infantry. He really, at the end of the day, was just an alcoholic who had no morals or values. And he was just a miserable person. So he took that out on us in his unit. I had my immediate supervisor, Sergeant Fuller. She was also just a gigantic piece of shit. She was lazy. She abused her position. She would miss work all the time and just sit at home while we worked all day. Just had no problem just being the walking contradiction that she was, right? Just both of these leaders were terrible leaders and terrible human beings. And I just did not enjoy my time with them and under them, which was insane. About three years of my military career that I had to be there working with them and for them. I did meet Sergeant Jason Becker at the time and we hung out and he was cool. And actually we still maintain a friendship to this day. So shout out to my buddy, Jason. He was one of the few good things that came out of my time in the army. I signed up. to go to college and get an MBA, and I let Sergeant First Class V in my NCOIC, which means non-commissioned officer in charge, know that I didn't plan on making the Army a career. I planned on just getting my MBA while I was in the Army and getting out and doing something with that MBA. He didn't like that because Me doing things like going to leadership school and going TDY to learn different things and take different classes made him look good, right? Because that showed he was helping a soldier further his career. And because I had no interest in furthering my career because I was using the Army, I also didn't drink. They were all drinkers. They all went out. and hung out and drank. I did my own thing when I wasn't at work, usually playing sports or working out at the gym or both. I was still big into intramural sports, which I had done through college and weightlifting. Those were the things I wanted to do. And so when I was at work, it just sucked. I hated working for Sergeant First Class Villa. I hated working for Sergeant Fuller. When their time was finally up and Sergeant first class left for the desert to go to Iraq. And when Sergeant Fuller got out of the army and moved back to New Mexico, where she was from, those were huge reliefs off my shoulder. Another specialist that I work with, she was also a pain in the ass and she got out because she got pregnant and she went to have a baby. And then all of a sudden, everybody was getting out that I was working with or leaving, going to a different location. I suddenly found myself in charge of the unit, which was only a couple other airmen underneath me at that time, maybe three airmen underneath me. I went from being just a food inspector to being a corporal that was now the NCOIC in charge, which was formerly Sergeant First Class Fia's job. Things changed. Started to look on the up and up. I had gotten through most of my college degree at this time. I was reaching towards the end of getting my MBA, which is what I went to college for, to get an MBA, Master's in Business Administration, for those of you that don't know. And all the toxic people that I couldn't stand left. The old commander that was in charge left. I don't know, some, it was a captain. I can't remember his name. He was useless. He left. And now I had a captain in charge who was cool and I really got along with her. Her name was Captain Pike. I enjoyed working with her side by side because I went from being someone who Worked in the office at the commissary to now working at the veterinary office, sitting in the NCOIC's desk, which was right next to Captain Pike. Things changed dramatically. I changed PT. I made PT still where we could prepare for the fitness test and we could get in better shape, but we could just do it smarter because I knew a lot about fitness and exercise. The way army does it or did it back then was they just break you they don't care if they destroy your elbows and destroy your shoulders and destroy your back with the running and sit-ups they don't care that's what you know disability is for when you get out of the army but I didn't want to be disabled I got to change physical fitness I got to relax the unit a little bit Because there was no need for it to be treated like we were in the infantry. I'd come to find out that Sergeant First Class Villa, who was married with two daughters, was sleeping with that specialist. And oh, by the way, when she got out of the army to have a baby, that was his baby that she was having. He went to Iraq to run away from his problems, which were facing his wife and two daughters and now his soldier that he had gotten pregnant. He was hoping to die in Iraq because about two weeks when his time was up in Iraq and he was supposed to get out, he hung himself. He committed suicide. I knew that he wasn't a good dude, but I didn't know he did that. Some other people in the office, the secretary and the admin, Captain Pike, a few other civilians that worked there, were really distraught by his death. And I just felt no remorse. I just didn't like the man. Couldn't stand him. Thought he was a piece of shit with no morals and values. So the fact that he hung himself, it just didn't faze me. I didn't feel bad about it. And I didn't go to his funeral. Some people got upset with me. I stick to my beliefs. I'm not going to go pretend to mourn someone that I didn't mourn. I didn't care. I just flat out didn't care that he was dead. It was sad for his now three daughters that are fatherless. But he made his decisions and he had to lie in it. And that was the choice that he made. And so... Sergeant Fuller, I didn't like working for her. She made my life difficult. So when she got out and she moved away, she tried to befriend me on Facebook after and be friendly with me, but I wasn't having it. I didn't like her. I didn't want to pretend to like her. She just wasn't the kind of person I would like in real life. So all that had moved on. And now I was the NCOIC in charge of, as a corporal, of a few airmen. I had met someone at the commissary that I was starting to talk to, and her name was Sonya. It wasn't anything yet, but it was hopefully building to something. That was the way I felt at the time. And while doing that, there were other new people coming in. So there was a sergeant that came in who she outranked me. I had to meet her the day she arrived and welcome her to base. And when I did that, the day, the very day that I met her, we hooked up. We had a sexual relationship. Just that one time, though, we didn't for a little while. Other people came in. We had a certain first class come in, take over, become NCOIC. He wasn't a bad dude. I wouldn't say he was a great dude. Sergeant B had set the bar low, so he was better than him. We had a new commander, Major Dodd, come in and take over for Captain Pike. Captain Pike was still there, but Major Dodd was now the local officer in charge. The unit was changing, so I got sent back to the commissary one other time while I was at the commissary. I hooked up with that other sergeant again. But at this point, she was my supervisor. We were both sergeants. She outranked me by one month. She was younger than me. She had a high school education. And I was a few classes away from completing an MBA and seven or eight years older than her. But she was my supervisor because that's how the military works. After the second time we hooked up, I told her, I said, look, I'm starting to see someone else and I want to see where that's going to go. We can't do this again. This, this is done. It's over. I can't do this again. And she says to me, yeah, okay. I understand. And then the very next day, she tried to write me up for being angry. derelict of duty because she said I had to report to the commissary and I had reported to the veterinary clinic. None of that was true. None of it was true. And so obviously we're standing in front of the NCOIC and the officer in charge, and she's trying to write me up and get me in trouble for something I didn't do. They're standing there looking at me and I'm saying, this isn't true. This is not what happened. They're going, why would she do this? What reason would she have to write you up and lie about this? So I had to tell the truth and say, because we were hooking up, she got pissed off and upset that I said it was over. And so now she's trying to punish me. They looked at me and they were like, are you serious? This is the truth. You're not making this up. I said, no, it's a hundred percent the truth. They went back to her and said, this is what Sergeant Held said. Is that true? And she said, oh yeah, it's true. We did hook up once, but we hooked up once when I first arrived and he was the NCOIC and I had just gotten here. That was the only time we ever hooked up. We took this all the way to my first sergeant and commander who was a Lieutenant Colonel and they were both based out of Fort Carson, Colorado. They decided for whatever reason, they didn't want to believe me. They were going to believe her, this young piece of shit girl that outranked me by one month. All of a sudden they decided she was telling the truth that we only hooked up one time while I was in COIC and she outranked me, but I had a position above her. We didn't hook up any other time after that. Therefore, They were going to punish me and give me an article 15 while she would get in no trouble at all. And that wasn't cool with me at all. I was irate. I already had a terrible time in the army. I already hated the army. The only two things I liked about the army were getting my MBA and meeting my buddy, Sergeant Becker, who I would be friends with for life. And now I was going through this situation. towards the end of my army career. So I went to a lawyer, a JAG lawyer, and I explained the situation to him. He was very honest with me. He said, look, if that's what the commander believes, that's what he believes. There's really nothing we can do about it. We can make a case for you, but there's no recourse. So I ended up losing my sergeant rank and getting knocked back down to specialist. And she got in trouble or she didn't get in trouble. And so I said, look, half a year of getting out of the army, I don't want to work for a command who treats me like this. I don't want to work for a command that calls me a liar when I'm the one telling the truth. And so I don't feel comfortable. I'm in an uncomfortable situation. And I ended up going to the right people who agreed with me. that I had befriended through friendships and sports and stuff like that in the medical facility. And they said, you know what, we'll help you out. So they got me out of that situation and they got me where I spent my last several months in the army, just hanging out at the gym, just basically looking at IDs when people come in. And I got to do it in jeans and a sweatshirt or whatever. depending on the weather. I spent the last portion of my army career basically in civilian clothes because my leadership and command was absolute trash. There were absolute pieces of shit. And to follow up on that, my first sergeant, who was the leader of kicking people out, believed if You couldn't take a PT test within a year. He was just kicking people out left and right. This is the same guy that joined the military in the 80s under a judge who said you either join the military or go to jail. He had gotten in trouble. He makes it up to first sergeant status. And then he's just a real prick and a real asshole the whole way. He ends up getting busted, sleeping with a captain. And he gets kicked out of the army. He loses all of his benefits. His 28 years of military service, his senior NCO status, he loses it all. He loses his retirement benefits. He loses everything. And I tell you what, I never felt so good about hearing someone get in trouble like that as I did when I heard that happened to him. I can't remember this first sergeant's name who screwed me over when I was in my early thirties, but I'm just glad this happened to him. He deserved it. I did my time and finished out my time in the army. And as a matter of fact, I left the army about three months early because they made sure they wanted to screw me good because I wasn't, I wasn't still under their command coming to work every day, reporting to them. And they were who they were. So they kicked me out three months early with a general under honorable conditions discharge, which is fine. It's whatever. I know I was honorable. I didn't do anything to deserve the negative stuff that happened to me while I was in the army. You might say you hooked up with that girl. At the time she outranked me, had no idea that the NCOIC who Was under her rank, but apparently over her by position was not able to do that. I had no idea. So I didn't do that knowingly. But I do know that when we hooked up later and she was my supervisor, she was doing something wrong. She was doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing. And I would have never done anything to her or said anything about it. If she hadn't tried to do what she did to me. So that was my army career in a nutshell. Along the way, I met my third wife that she would end up becoming. So I met Sonya. It was a store worker at the commissary. She was. Young, much younger than me. She had a boyfriend when I first met her. Apparently that relationship was coming to an end. And so I don't know again if it ended and we got together right away. I don't know if there was overlap or she was still with him and she met me. I'm not sure, but it's, it wasn't like a jump into it. type of thing it was we dated for months months it wasn't like everyone else who we met and immediately we were hooking up or whatever or within days hooking up i was with her for a few months before that relationship progressed and turned into anything sexual or significant There was some definite overlap where I was seeing her, but I also had hooked up with this sergeant. We hadn't called ourselves exclusive or a couple. As a matter of fact, she had ended things with me and said she needed to be single for a while. And we weren't talking for some time. And she texted me out of the blue one day and asked me to come see her at this event she was at. It surprised me because I thought we were done. So I did. And that was what rekindled that relationship. During this difficult time, I was going through an army with the whole getting an article 15 thing. And this was all after the fact. And now, you know, Sonia and I were dating. It was exclusive and a real relationship thing. I told her I was going to get out of the army and she was pressuring me because she only knew military life. She didn't like the fact that I was going to get out of the army, even though I was going to have an MBA. I just felt like my world was falling around me. And so this time I checked myself in to a psychiatric unit. And so I found myself again in another psychiatric unit. because I couldn't handle what was happening to me in real life. Except this time I didn't threaten suicide. I didn't say I was going to kill myself. I just said that I was having thoughts of it and I wanted to get help. So yeah, for now, for a second time in my life, I was in the military, a different branch and finding myself in a psychiatric unit because Things were happening to me that I couldn't handle and I didn't know what to do. So I went through that a second time and I'm not going to go into detail about this second time around, but because it's just not worth detailing, it was just essentially the same situation. It was two weeks of me talking to a psychologist, being in groups, talking about my problems and working it out until They felt I was good to go and get out. But that's what happened. Except this time, it didn't end my relationship. She was there waiting for me. And when I got out, she was still there. She didn't go anywhere. That's one of the main things that led to me asking her to marry me. And for the first time, I was going to get married, even though it was my third marriage, to someone who I loved. genuinely wanted to marry and spend a life with that was the plan and the proposal and that's where I will pick up in the next episode thanks for joining me