The Weight of Service | Veterans on Purpose, Pain & Brotherhood

In this episode of The Dap and A Hug Podcast, we sit down with retired Sergeant First Class Jack Feemster alongside Sergeant Morgan Morris and Staff Sergeant Dewillis Lytle of the South Carolina Army National Guard for an honest conversation about military life, leadership, mental health, purpose, resilience, and the realities veterans face after service.

The conversation covers:

• Growing up and finding direction through military service
• Leadership versus rank
• The challenges of transitioning out of the military
• VA healthcare experiences
• Mental health struggles among veterans and men
• Discipline, resilience, and accountability
• The importance of listening and mentorship
• PTSD and broader conversations surrounding healing and support

This episode is centered on transparency, growth, and understanding the human side of military service.

To connect with the guests or learn more:
Jack Feemster — @jackfeemster
Sergeant Morgan Morris — @recruiter_moe
Staff Sergeant Dewillis Lytle — @solo_n_dacrowd

🎙️ The Dap and A Hug Podcast
Presented by Lyrikal Miracle LLC

#TDAPHUG #Veterans #NationalGuard #MilitaryLeadership #MentalHealth #RockHillSC

Peace and Love at The Dap and A Hug

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Hey fellas, I appreciate y'all for sacrificing y'all's time and doing this.

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Oh yeah, thanks for having us. Too easy, too easy.

SPEAKER_04 0:08

I appreciate y'all for having me here, you know. Uh so we're gonna get started. If you could please state your name and your rank and your affiliation with the Army.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Okay. Uh my name is Sergeant Morgan Morris uh with the South Carolina Army National Guard, recruiting and retention. Um, been in the National Guard for about five years now and holding strong. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

All right. Um, my name is DeWillis Lido, uh staff sergeant, also South Carolina Army National Guard. Um been doing it for quite a while, um, National Guard wise, been in 25 years, you know, got into recruiting and retention uh maybe two years ago. So it's been um it's been a challenge, been a journey, but you know, it it's all beneficial.

unknown 0:48

It's all beneficial.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Hey, hello everybody. My name's Jack Femster. Um I am a retired SART First Class, United States Army. Um I was a 19 kilo uh armor crewman, and I retired um out of the Army as a um tank platoon sergeant. Um, held several other um positions, you know, throughout his career progression, moved me through, instructed jobs, master gunner. Um I did about it all. I retired actually out of the inspector general's office at Fort Knox in uh 2005. Then I continued to work for the Army, Department of Army Civilian for another about 14 years. Um I finished my career as the uh Chief of Curriculum Development for the United States Army Recruiting College at Fort Knox. So around it. Uh but you know, just of note, um I'm a I'm a Rock Hill guy. I was born and raised here in Rock Hill. I graduated from Rock Hill High School in 1983. I think around June is when they graduated. Uh that November, I reported to boot camp at Fort Knox for OSHA training uh as a member of the South Carolina National Guard, second of the 263rd Armored Battalion.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

That was housed. This was the headquarters for it. And I was actually assigned to uh Charlie Company, which was out in Clover at the time.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

I did that for about a year, and then I didn't have any work. So I decided, hey, I think I'll just go active duty and be a tanker. I walked in the recruiter's office over on Cherry Road and said, How can I help you? I said, Well, I want to join the army, but I want to be a tanker. If I can't be a tanker, I'm not going in. He said, Have a seat.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

The rest is history. You got a long resume, man. I want to resume like you one day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:40

So you and I met at the gym.

unknown 2:42

We did, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:43

Can you explain uh to the audience and my brothers right here? Like, you know, I had told you I wanted to get some people alone to talk about their trials and tribulations, you know, how you got into the military and everything like that, and the whole gauntlet. And then you said, I am the gauntlet.

unknown 2:58

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 2:59

Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 3:00

So, you know, what I was referring to was, you know, like I've explained, you know, I started here at at, you know, 17 years old is when I when I actually joined the National Guard. My mom and dad had to sign.

SPEAKER_04 3:13

Hold on, I'm not trying to be disrespectful. Okay. I want you to take that mic out of that stand and hand me the stand because I'm what the people better hear you. Okay. And hold a little closer to that. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Thank you. So um, like I was saying, uh, I I joined when I was uh 17 years old. Um I retired from the Army when I was probably about 39 and a half. I did 21 years, you know. Right. And so I hung around um post-Army career at Fort Knotts, chasing money, trying to get in the civil service system, which I was uh successful in doing. Um, but that's you know, besides the gauntlet we all run as service members, um, it really starts when you get out, making sure that understanding uh not only where you've been, but where you need to still go physically, emotionally, mentally. You know, it's a struggle for all of us at times. Um people adapt better than others. Uh for me, I was fortunate. Um, and when I retired at Fort Knox, I became part of the VA system uh in Kentucky. And I really had a pretty good experience in Kentucky. I stayed there another 20 years uh until I retired from the Civil Service. Uh and I and I really only had good experience with the VA. And, you know, I stayed close to the military. You know, I retired from the Army and went right back to work on the same Army installation that I retired from. And Fort Knotts, you know, was the was the mothership for tankers. I mean, so I had been back and forth there my whole career. Um fast forward to 22, in 2022, I retired from the civil service. And uh I told my wife, I said, hey, I'm retiring. Uh we can pretty much go live wherever you want to. We can stay here or we can go wherever you want. And she didn't even hesitate. She said, I want to go home to Rock Hill so I can be with my mom and dad. I'm like, all right. Great, that's great. It was her turn. You know what I'm saying? So here we are. And um, you know, I've always stayed in shape. I go to the gym, but as you get older, the beating that your body takes uh during 20 years plus years in the military, it don't matter if you were a tanker, an engineer, you know, a sapper. And I know those are different things really, you know. And um, you know, it it takes a toll, and sometimes you don't realize it until you get a little bit deeper into your life. And so um I get down here and I'm trying to uh get in with the VA system here in South Carolina. It's terrible. I had, in my opinion, it's terrible. I I had terrible experience with the clinic here in Rock Hill. Um not being able to be seen in a timely manner. Um the community care program that they have is completely broken from Columbia all the way trickling down. Um I did mention that I retired as an IG. And then when I retired, I worked at high levels for the recruiting command. So I was very, I'm very used to dealing with people and talking with people at high levels. So I've um I started like a mini crusade here, and I'm like, you know, um, why is it so different from state to state? And I I just couldn't understand why, you know, um I would have such a good experience in Kentucky and then come to South Carolina, my home state, and have such a bad experience. And, you know, I talked to people in Columbia. I've been in working groups like this with the VA down there, and they still just can't seem to get it together. Um Ralph Norman, uh, a representative, I've been in his office to the point that they didn't even like to see me coming through the doors anymore. Because they knew what it was gonna be about. You know, and I don't I don't know, I don't know what that fix is, but you know, when I say the gauntlet, um let me back up. So a friend of mine that I went to high school with, and I've kind of reconnected with, he was in the Marine Corps. And you know, if them Marines, man, they always, if they've been in the Marines, you're gonna know it. It and he only spent four years. You think he was in there for 40. But he kept telling me I was, I would tell, I would be talking to him about, you know, my my struggles with the VA. And he's like, man, you need to go to Charlotte. I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like the South Charlotte uh VA, they got a great clinic up there. I'm saying, no, you know, I'm South Carolina, I want to stick with my stuff. Plus, I just didn't like the idea of driving to Charlotte. Right. So um finally it it took a dental issue. I had a tooth get messed up. And there's a I can take pain, but I can't take a toothache.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

Exactly. That's like mostly that's another type of pain. Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

So uh so you know I'm calling to South Carolina VA, I'm trying to figure out to get somebody to tell me what's this what is the um procedure for um seeing the dental to get emergency dental care. And I couldn't even get anybody to even tell me what it was.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Yeah, that's a lie.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

You see what I'm saying? Something's as simple as that. You know, nobody could give me a direct answer. So I got frustrated and I called the Charlotte VA. And they're like, yeah, we got a dental clinic. You can come up here seven days a week, 24 hours a day on dental, and we got dental sick calls every day. I'm like, okay. So within 15 minutes, they had switched me over from South Carolina to North Carolina VA. Had all already had me a primary care provider and appointment set up with that guy, and had all my other appointments set up within an hour. And and I've had nothing but great experiences with the VA in Charlotte. That's North Carolina. So, you know, that's something I'm still trying to figure out and work around, is why it's so different. It's the same. I mean, I always figured, you know, the VA is the VA. That's a federal agency. You see, they have a secretary of the VA.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

It should be a level playing field for everybody, regardless of what state you're in. It should be the same.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

And I had heard, you know, we've all heard the horror stories about the VA, this, and I had never experienced it up in Kentucky. It's a large veteran community up there. Because you got Fort Knott's and you got Fort Campbell. So it's a very long, large uh veteran community. But South Carolina has a large veteran community, just not around Rock Hill. It's all down around Columbia and Charleston, and I think up in Greenville area. But um, so when I say I've run the Gauntlet, you know, I've started out as a 17-year-old kid. Here I am, just turned 60. So I've experienced uh peacetime army, wartime army, uh the good, the bad, the ugly. I've been dealing with uh life as a veteran, a retiree for 20 years. I've been uh now um for I've been retired as long as I was E almo. So, you know. That's great.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

That's great.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

I have some life experience to share. Uh I have a passion for veterans, and uh, when you ask me to do this, that's why I'm like, I'll be glad to, you know, come in, step in, do whatever you want me to do.

SPEAKER_04 10:57

That means everything to me and more, brother. Yeah, no problem, my friend. I appreciate that. Um, I'm gonna kind of stay on track. Y'all want to add something to that?

SPEAKER_03 11:06

Um no, but you know, from veteran to veteran, you know, as we always say, thank you for your service. It's my plan. You know, um, as you say, you know, you went through the gauntlet, and I've seen, you know, you've been through a lot as well. Um, I'm not as tenured, you know, as you are. Um 19 kilo myself as well, which I I have that, so that's something we have in common. I started out um 11 Bravo, went to 19 kilo and everything. And as you say, it's different experiences all throughout where you go. Um, as you mentioned, when it comes to the VA, you would think everything would be the same on the same playing field, but in reality, we always have to remember that we can have the same picture, you know, all the time. But it's like, hey, it's a different artist to it. The makeup is different. So it's it's it's confusing and it's aggravating when it shouldn't be. Um, you know, just when it comes to dealing with the VA, that's a thing within itself. Um, you know, so I I get understanding I'm going through some stuff with them as well. So when you were saying that, I was like, I know exactly what you mean. Um but yeah, man, you know, just just thank you, you know, um, for sharing. And I'm pretty sure we're gonna learn a lot more from you with your experiences and everything that that's gonna come with this. You know, that's pretty much all I have for right now.

unknown 12:23

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Well, as uh Staff Sergeant Lido said, thank you for your service. Yes, sir. Um, I'm not as seasoned as y'all, you know. Um I know I know eventually I'm gonna have my own war story about the VA. Uh but right now, uh like I said, I've only been in for five years, so I haven't got there yet. But hopefully, you know, in my 15 years from now, when I do start working with the VA, uh maybe they they work on that situation a little bit more and I'll have to deal with what y'all have to deal with.

SPEAKER_04 12:50

Well, see, hopefully this conversation will prevent you from having any negative dealings with them. Right. That's why this conversation is important, gentlemen. You know what I'm saying? This is where it starts at. I'm beyond grateful, like I said before, for all of y'all being here. I'm gonna ask uh y'all a question. Um is leadership supposed to be comfortable?

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Me personally, leadership should be comfortable. Um reason I say that is because you all start from somewhere. Everybody, pretty much, if you're in the military, majority of most people have the same starting point. So as you go up, you see different things with, as they say, with rank comes certain responsibilities. So you know these responsibilities as you move up. So things the lower and lifted may in conference or may come into, they have probably already endured that or been through that themselves. So they should be relatable to a lot of things that happen at the top and at the bottom. So, yes, leadership should be comfortable, but once again, it's the individual itself. It's how they react to people, how they treat people, how they do things. Um but overall, leadership should be comfortable in my eyes, and you know, and that's just my opinion with that.

SPEAKER_04 14:06

Yeah, because that's fair. Everybody's getting it from the mud. Everybody going through that same struggle.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

I I agree a hundred percent with them. Um of course, you know, army is army. So you never want to get a hundred percent comfortable. You know, you want to keep at least two percent not comfortable because you just never know what might change. Um, but for the most part, uh, I feel like in my opinion, a good leader should be comfortable.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Um I concur with what the gentleman is saying over there. So I would just add there's there is an old saying that says, um, you know, uh good leaders are born, they're not made. Um and and I found through my time that that's true. Now, I will tell you the army provides, it does provide a level playing field where we all basically start the same. I think all the branches of the military are like that. And and we we all start out together. Not all of us are going to be a first sergeant, not all of us are gonna be a sergeant major, but we can all be good and effective leaders. You know, it's the difference between being a good leader and an effective leader. When you can be both, that's when I noticed, that's when you start having your troops kind of gravitate to you as opposed to away from you. You know what I'm saying? They come to you. They can't, they they gotta respect you and you know, um, not necessarily fear, but they should respect you and but at the same time be comfortable to come to you if they have issues. Questions. They can't, you know, you want to be, you want to maintain that type of relationship with your subordinates that they are comfortable to come to you with issues and problems, and just ask simple questions, you know what I'm saying? So um I but I do feel like the military, uh, the army I can really speak for. You know, the NCO Corps and the NCO education system over the years has been refined to, you know, it really does a good job building and developing young leaders. Whether they continue on to become senior leaders, it's an individual thing. We're not all gonna be able to do that. Right.

unknown 16:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Do hard leaders create stronger people? I'm sorry. Do hard leaders create strong people?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

I think that's I think that's on an individual basis too. Because some strong leaders, it depends on the person. Uh, because some people might crumble under a little bit of pressure. Exactly. Some people flourish under under pressure, you know. Um, for example, me, uh, I I flourished. I I came from a great background. I I told me and you had a little bit of conversation about you know my past. Uh I was 30 when I joined the National Guard, right? So I was a little bit older, a little bit more seasoned. Um, and a lot of my higher-ups, they gave me a lot more um, what's the word I'm looking for? They focused on me a lot more. One, because I was older, uh, and two, because I don't know, I guess they seen something to myself that I didn't see. Um, and with that in that small amount of time of them putting pressure on me, I was I promoted I got promoted to E5, you know, and uh in a time frame where most people don't. And uh with me being in for five years now, I'm already uh eligible for my promotion to E6. So I feel like without, and his name was uh starting first class uh Scheiter, without him being on my on my butt like he was, I probably wouldn't be where I'm at right now, you know.

SPEAKER_04 17:33

So I think y'all will probably agree with this. It's important for a leader to be able to respect the fact that every young man or woman has a different personality. Not everybody's the same. Right. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

I I kind of I don't I mean I don't know if you're not gonna No no you're good, brother. I kind of I kind of use that in my um my daily, my day-to-day uh NCO roles, you know, because like like I just said, you know, some people do really good under pressure. Some people, you know, you might have to coddle a little bit and and motivate them a little bit more, then you have to do the next person. Um I've learned in my civilian side of work and in my military side of work, it's everybody has a different way of approaching them. You just gotta figure it out. The better of a leader you are, the more you know your soldiers. You know what I mean? So you know how to approach each soldier differently.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Yeah. Um, and I'll say with that as well, it's just some people, uh I'll say, as you would say, hard leaders. They're gonna be hard on you because it's like anything you do. You see your potential at one level, they see your potential at another level. So you may have been one that says you're the top dog or whatever it may be in everything that you do. You've never had nobody to really challenge you. So you're gonna have that one leader or somebody along the way, they're gonna sit and watch, they're gonna observe. They've been like, oh, not to say they're trying to humble you, but they're gonna bring out more in you as well by being that hard leader. Because now you need somebody to push you. You've never had that. So when they get down on you, sometimes it's uncomfortable. You like, I don't, I don't, I'm uncomfortable. I've never been in this space, I've never been in this place before. But some people actually need that, as you said, to push them to be a better leader themselves. And it's it's one thing about it, like you say, some people are natural-born leaders. It's a true thing. A lot of people will gravitate towards you just because, and you don't have to do nothing. Some people, you need to be, as you say, caught a little bit. I need to mold you a little bit, I need to push you a little bit. So it's a it's a fine line in between that and everything, but once again, we have to look at that individual leader themselves. They have to know it's a it's a line, it's a boundary. Am I overstepping or am I not doing enough? And you know, some leaders have it, and they can see that within other people, and they know how to balance that as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

You know, and if I could just uh jump in real quick. Um I see things ain't changed. That makes me happy. Yeah. And when you say when you mention hard, being a hard leader, you know, in in the army, the word hard gets throws around a lot.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

It is missing the school, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

And for me, I, you know, as I came up through the ranks and and started developing my leadership style, uh, I was fortunate enough to be, you know, I'm 85 in Germany, in Republic of Germany, you know, a year before the wall came down. So it was a w it was a real mission over there. So I was very fortunate to have uh very, what back in the day, what we called strap NCOs. These were guys that come to work, spit shined every day, and look like, you know, we might look like trash when we went home at the end of the day from working in a motor pool. But when they we showed up the next day, guess what? We we knew we were expected to have shined boots, press uniform, you know, haircut right, just the basic stuff. But when you say hard, I I kind of developed my sense and kind of I considered myself hard but fair. And I would tell my anytime I got new soldiers in and going through the initial counseling phase and in processing with them, and I'd set them down and talk to them. Whether I was gonna, even before I was a toon sergeant when I was just a tank commander, I'm like, look, dude, I got the best tank in this battalion, and it's hard to keep it that way. And that's how I'm gonna do things. It's gonna be hard, but I'm gonna be fair with you, and I'm gonna have your back, and you're gonna have my back. Or we're gonna part ways in unfriendly terms. And, you know, when you're up front with a young man like that, they appreciate it. You know, you lay it out in front of them and tell them this is where we are, this is where we're going, and this is what you're gonna have to do to keep it going with us. I think they respect that, and and they gotta and they gotta know you got the back. And then you can be hard on 'they want you to be hard on. A lot of kids, that's what they sign up for.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:51

So before y'all joined the military, did you have direction in life?

SPEAKER_00 21:58

I can start with that one.

SPEAKER_04 21:59

Like purpose. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 22:00

So I thought I did. I guess you can say, you know, when when you're young and and just trying to figure out life, you might think of you might have a direction, but this never really works out the way you wanted it. Um me, I grew up in a little bit more fast-paced. I wasn't in South Carolina. I grew up in the DC, Maryland area. Um, it was a lot more uh hustle and bustle for me. Um I had a great mom. My mom retired from the Army. Uh she was she was struggling getting her VA benefits um, you know, activated while trying to figure out how to be a mom, you know, and and raise uh her kids. So we didn't really have everything that we that we needed at the moment. Uh so I started gravitating to, you know, older people that I shouldn't have been hanging around. Uh and that kind of just steered me into the wrong direction. Um, I don't know if if y'all are uh y'all know about the challenge academy, the national guard. So it's it's for at-risk youth. Uh I was a high school dropout, so I was one of those at-risk youth. Um, I had to uh fill out an essay and go through an uh interviewing process to get into the school. Finally did that, um, did the ASVAB and everything. I could have enlisted right into the National Guard right after uh I graduated. Um listened to some old older people that I was hanging around to tell me don't do it, and I didn't do it, you know. Uh what, maybe 12 years down the road, I made a decision to do it again. But it wasn't I I I still didn't have all my ducks in a row, but I was making better decisions, if that makes sense. Um but once I joined, I felt like the the atmosphere of having every every person in my unit from different backgrounds, different jobs, different career paths, degrees, all that, it kind of uh opened up my eyes to what I could be doing for myself. Um and in a small amount of time that I've been in the National Guard, I've been very successful of taking hold of what the military gives you and using it for my family and building myself, my wealth, and my family all at the same time.

SPEAKER_04 24:01

Beautiful. Were you still figuring things out before the military?

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Or are you um well with me it was sort of a thing to where um for one, I was pretty much always a smart kid. Um for the longest, I was the only kid. Um my mom's only child. Um started out. So I really didn't have like no close siblings or anything, you know, growing up without that. Now, my dad, you know, as they say, dad was dad. Um I did have other brothers and sisters later on throughout life I connected with. Um but for the most part, I grew up around, you know, like my uncles and aunts, you know, like my older relatives and everything. And so for me, I've always seen a work aspect, you know, just no matter what you do at the end of the day, work. You're gonna do something. Um and that's one thing I always knew that's like in me. I work. I don't care what it is, I don't care if a job is a job is not too big, a job is not too small. I work. Um but just growing up, you know, myself going through some things, some hardships and all of that, um, from Rock Hill, myself, between Rocky Hill and York, here and there and everything, growing up. So a little with me coming up, um, through the time my mom and dad separated, you know, during my teenage years. And so me, I was a mama's boy. Like I said, my mama's only child. I sort of went with her. And this where, as you can say, developed the heart coming from. I kind of went with my mom because it was a little more lenient than being with my dad. So I knew I could get away with some stuff because if I'm with dad, he ain't gonna stand for that. He's gonna get on me if they say, but in actuality, it was all for direction, for purpose, and everything to keep me on a straight path. Now I will say I've never been a bad kid, never been in no trouble, always an A B student. But what I found myself to do, I dumbed myself down to try to fit in. I was that kid, you know, and a lot of kids do that. If you're smart, you're smart. Like, don't be ashamed of that. Be yourself. Um I was a clown. I'm a people person, you know, Sergeant Morris can probably tell you, I can fit in anywhere. You can't take him anywhere. But going back, just with that, um, I'll tell everybody, you know, be authentic, be yourself. You know, that that's one thing about it. Um, with me, my brother, he went to school at Rocky Ohio, and the reason I got in a National Guard really was because of him. Like I say, things I had going through dealing with my teenage years. Um, I just wanted to graduate high school, which was one of the main things. You know, kind of short story. My grandmother, she ended up getting sick when I was a senior in high school, and during that time, she passed. Realistically, no one in my initial family had graduated high school. I was the first graduate in my immediate family to graduate high school. That was a huge accomplishment. And I made that promise to my grandmother on her dying bed. Hey, I'm going to finish school. This is my thing. Once I'd done that, I was like, you know what? I fulfill what I promised her. I'm just gonna go to work. Because at the end of the day, that's all I seen. Dad work, mom work, uncle's work. But I knew it was always something more I wanted to do. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but my brother went to Rock Hill High, had an academic scholarship to go play football in college, and he asked me one day, he was like, bro, what are you gonna do with yourself? I was like, I don't know, I'm gonna get a job and go to work. He was like, You're too smart for that. He was like, I see how you do. He said, I know you're clan around a joke, but you're too smart for that. And so, like, I can honestly say he sort of kind of planted that seed as well, like, there's more for you, go find it, whatever it is. He was like, I'm gonna join the National Guard. You know, I asked the question, well, what is that? He said, I talked to a recruiter, he said he can help me pay for school and I can get some benefits and everything. And me, I was like, well, I know I'm gonna work. I tried this too, just for something else. You know, long story short, I've been doing it for 25, no, 26 plus years, let me be correct. And so it's something that's stuck with me, you know, and I've had the opportunity to travel the world, I've been to like nine, ten different countries, you know, as, you know, veteran to veteran here. I've actually been in conflict, I've been in war, 07-08, Afghanistan. So I've seen the good and the bad and seen a lot of stuff as well. But what I can say, being resilient and somebody that's able to adapt to a lot of stuff, I think that has helped me a lot throughout my military journey and everything. And just learning from other people as well, being a sponge, you know, soak in the knowledge, soak in what somebody gives you, you know. It's all you can always learn something from somebody. You're never too old to learn. And that's one thing I've learned, and I tell a lot of people, you know, it's just life experiences.

SPEAKER_04 28:36

Yeah, all of I want you to uh add to that as well, but I can tell all of y'all are very humble. There's no ego. You know what I mean? Willingness to learn, listen.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Always, always you have to. As many mistakes as I made in my life, ain't no room for no ego.

SPEAKER_04 28:50

Yo, resiliency is very important.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 28:53

You got to have that.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Learn that in basic.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

That's key.

SPEAKER_04 28:58

Did you want to add something to that?

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Or well, I I would just tell you, uh, like I said, I was born and raised in Rock Hill. I was born in York General, old York General Hospital in 1965. Um grew up on the Mill Hill.

unknown 29:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Uh, you know, I'm a child of the 70s, and my mom and dad was divorced like almost everybody else's back then. Yeah. Um I was fortunate that, you know, even though my parents split up, my dad uh stayed a positive and constant influence in my life.

SPEAKER_03 29:30

Yes, I had I had that as well. So he wasn't there.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

I had two granddaddies that were in my life. I had uncles that was involved with me. And, you know, uh I was fortunate that I had good male role models. My main one, besides my dad being my granddaddy that I mentioned, just happened to be the battalion motor sergeant out here. And um so from the time I was, you know, as far back as I can remember, I was in this drill hall at Christmas time, uh-huh, New Year's parties. Um they always used to have dances and parties out here. The big time of the year is when they would come back. They called it summer camp back then, not AT. AT. Go to ATT. And they would go and they went to Fort Stewart every year then. Um so the when I was a kid, the big thing was the day that they were coming back, we was all the kids would be up here and they coming in. They had gamma goats back then, quarter ton jeeps, and so they'd come in and all the vehicles were still on dispatch. So my granddaddy would always get in something, throw the kids in it, take us down the road down through there, and ride us around in the vehicles. I don't know if he was supposed to do that, but he would tie your motors on it. So nobody said nothing to do it. Uh that's how I knew about the little room over here, the lounge.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Um, but um, yeah, I had a pretty good upbringing. Um, like I said, I you know, I wrestled and played sports all through high school, you know, so I was athletic. And um because I think because of my exposure to coming up here and being around my granddaddy and seeing all the soldiers and all that stuff and the in the vehicles and everything, it that planted a seed in me were really, and there used to be an M uh M60 tank sitting out front. And that kind of planted this, I always just wanted to be a tank guy.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

So it was like for you, it was like everything was sort of aligned in a way. You just didn't see it then. But you're like your path was pretty much already predestined, and you just walked into the city.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

I didn't want to go to college, hadn't had no interest in going to college, you know. Uh my dad and all his family members were all construction welders and pipe fitters, and they all made good money, you know. But I just wanted to be on those tanks, you know, and that's what I ended up doing. And and I got to do it for 18 years out of my 21. So I was very fortunate to be able to spend my adult life being a tanker. I didn't understand about I didn't know nothing about the NCO core and leadership and all the things that was gonna be um put in front of me coming up through there, but at the same time, I still got to go be on my tank every day, and that's what I like doing.

unknown 32:17

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 32:18

What uh what shocked y'all when y'all first entered the military?

SPEAKER_01 32:25

And for me, it's how easy it was.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Okay, you know what? Physically that's a that's a good one. Um, PT.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

I mean, we I got to boot camp up at Fort Knox, and it was November, so it was already cold up there. And we had guys from all over the country, and you know, we take all we ran every morning.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

And, you know, by the time we get to the second block, had guys falling out every day. I was a rogue on. I had done discovered at that point. If you get the rogue guard there, you can go run circles around the formation.

SPEAKER_03 32:57

Well, you can get up and take a break and let everybody else catch up to you.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah, for me, that was the biggest thing was uh how physically easy it was for me personally, you know. And that was I think that's just because I was hyper AD ADD kid, and I've been in sports all my life.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

So Andrew, y'all both enlisted at 17. Uh imagine how it felt for me, you know, turning 30 years old. Yeah, yeah. Um, but nah, I I can I completely agree with you on that. Um, I think one of my biggest things was I was worried, you know, with me being 30, trying to keep up with 17, 18-year-olds, you know, in basic training. But it's all uh it's all about resilience. We we use that word a lot in the military, right? But coming down to it, yeah, is it a lot of work? Yeah, it is. Does it they wake you up early? Yeah, do they yell at you for no reason? Yeah, they do. But at the same time, all of it is mental, you know? It's all about your mental resilience. And once you get past it and you realize that your drill sergeants are human beings doing their job that they get paid for every day, and you just so happen to be the product that they're that they're building, you know, then you start to realize and understand, like, okay, that they're just they're playing a game here, and I just need to, you know, fit my little piece of my puzzle piece into wherever, you know, wherever it needs to go to fit and just keep tracking on. Um, we we've uh I hear this all the time, especially in recruiting. What's basic training like or or what's this like? And you you're never gonna realize what it's like because you're gonna you I'm gonna tell you what my experience was, right? And you're gonna be like, okay, well, it must be easy, but it could have just been easy for me, you know. But it everybody, like going back again, everybody has a different experience. It's it's always the individual uh experience when it comes to the military. Um but basic training, and I I'm gonna say this loud and clear, basic training was is not as hard as I thought it was gonna be, right? The worst part of basic training is having other people in the barracks with you and their cleanliness. If you can, if you can get past a couple of musty soldiers or a couple of soldiers who don't want to, you know, shower when it's time to shower, then you'll be perfectly fine. Other than that, it's keep your head down, do your job, and it goes by.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

For me, enough, it was lack of sleep, though. I think I was sleepy for the first five years I was in the military. I would I would already be asleep, you know, in between. Uh so uh yeah, not getting enough sleep was really what was hard for me, not the physical.

SPEAKER_03 35:22

And I and I think, you know, just to piggyback what both of y'all said, it really wasn't a shock. Like basic training wasn't hard. Like once you figure out, you know, hey, this is the game they're playing. We have to play that game. And I think the biggest shock to me was everybody individually, like where you come from. We have some people come from Idaho, Wisconsin, out in the middle of nowhere, like straight, all they know is farm. They don't know nothing about nothing. You got people from the city, you know, you got people from New York or wherever they may be. And once you got all those egos and all those different backgrounds in one room and they clash, it's like a time bomb going on. Once you actually reset that time bomb in there, you're like, hey y'all, this drill sergeant see this, they see that. Once they see you figured it out and you work together as one, because at the end of the day, that's all it's about. It's all about one. Once you get that figured out, once I figured that out, and a couple of other guys were like, hey y'all, if we do this right here, they're gonna mess with us about that. But if we do it this way, they're gonna kind of bag off from us. And like the drill sergeant's like, okay, I think they got it. And that's all it is. Once you figure that out, you know, as he was saying, basic training isn't hard. It's all about cohesion, coming together as one, putting your differences aside, and getting on one page. Once you do that, that's pretty much it. Yeah, they're gonna wake you up. Yeah, you're gonna run. Yeah, you're gonna have to do some physical activity, but they're gonna teach you a lot of life skills too. They're gonna teach you that you're gonna lose sleep. But hey, some people be up all different times of night anyway. So now why you want to cry about your sleep? Now you're crying about it because you have to do something you really don't want to do, but it benefits you in the end. You know, and so that that's all it is. Basic training, it really wasn't a shock, it wasn't nothing hard, it's just getting cohesion, kind of one.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

My bad. If I can, um I also want to add, I think um being successful in in the military, uh again, individual basis, but it all goes off of um what you're willing to do. Um, I'm a firm believer, and and especially in the military, it's not about what you know all the time. You know, it's about who you know. The more you get out and out of your comfort your comfort bubble and you shake hands and you introduce yourself and and you and you volunteer for things, uh I feel like the it's the easier for the easier you can be successful, in my opinion. Um I feel like in the in the military in a whole, obviously it's uh it's you start from the bottom, work your way up to the top, right? But um, in order to be successful, it's it's kind of just laid out there for you. You show up in the right uniform, show up at the right time, do what you're told. Um the more you know, the more people you know, the better opportunities you have, you know. And um if more people join the military and stepped out of that little comfort bubble that they have, I feel like more people will be more successful and they'll have better uh success stories when it comes to people, you know, discharged out of the military. I don't know how y'all feel about that, but that's just how I feel.

unknown 38:19

No, I can't.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

I was gonna say that I think it'd be a good idea. Obviously, people probably fight against us, but uh out of high school, I think everybody should go to boot camp.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Automatically, like I'm I'm you know what?

SPEAKER_04 38:31

Um But what if they don't finish? I don't know how that would work, but I think they should get introduced to it and get put through it at least, man. It would help them. It's nothing but beneficial, it sounds like for me.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

I 100% agree. Um I mandatory, uh that, you know, obviously that's that's stepping on that's stepping on some uh what's the word I'm looking for? Stepping on nails, I guess. No, you're stepping on toe, you're stepping on some people's toes. You just never know, I guess. You know, it's it's a it's a benefit, yeah, right? But the one thing that that we are known for is one is having one of the biggest fighting forces, right? But without having people mandatory have to enlist. Oh my bad. It's an all-volunteer army.

SPEAKER_04 39:11

But see, it's a lot of people out here that aren't aren't open-minded, that are familiar with what you guys go through. And I feel like it would broaden the horizon and teach them some respect and back to resiliency.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

It 100% could, but I I will I would worry about watching my six. And maybe that's just me, but um, I feel like the people who sign up and say this is something I want to do, those are the people that you can trust 100% more than the people that that are are being forced to join.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Not all of those turn out by the time you see them, and by the time they finish, if they finish boot camp and you get them in a line unit, um, at that point, they might not be the best options you can get.

SPEAKER_03 39:50

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Because they have already at some point decided this is not something that I like. They checked out. You kind of I hate to use the word stuck with them. Um we like to we used to call it challenged with them because you're gonna be challenged to train that soldier regardless of what they want to do. You know, you they still gonna do a job. It just makes it more challenging for the leadership to keep those uh soldiers motivated and productive.

SPEAKER_03 40:22

And I I think with with those soldiers, when you get them like that, it's something at their core they don't want to share with you for one. And I think that's what happens with most soldiers when you got them, and you like, I would say with my experiences, you know, in my former unit, I've gotten some of the scumbag soldiers, they're not this, they're not that. And I get them, and they perfectly fine. And they be like, what did you do different with them? I say for one, I listen to them. That's the key thing. Like, when it comes to those hard leaders, they're always on them. You this, you that, you not this, you that. Have you ever stopped for a moment and taken the time to look at and ask this individual, hey, this is just my perspective. I seen you had an issue with this person and that person. What is the problem? A lot of times they're muted. Well, they won't let me speak, Sarge, or they won't, you know, they're just on me. Listen to your people sometimes. That will solve a lot of stuff. If you just take the moment to listen, we're like, all right, I heard what you said, but also it takes accountability. You were wrong in this instance, you were wrong in this instance. Now let's fix that. Once you fix those two things, you can pretty much kind of get somebody going in a good space. But if you're not open to listen to somebody and you just always on them, you're never gonna get nowhere with nobody like that. That's like us as individuals. If I got somebody always telling me I'm wrong, I need to do this, do it this way, that way, I'm gonna tune you out. Because what makes you you might be the expert on that, but what makes you think you know it fully to the T, because once again, you can always learn something. And that's just how I look at it with a lot of stuff and everything, man. You know, so it's just you know, how you approach people and how you treat people. You have to be, as they say, you have to be willing to take and give at the same time, you know.

SPEAKER_04 42:08

Right now, I'm not really some may say I'm backpedaling a little bit, but I'm gonna go back and circle back to what I said about the mandatory thing, right? Right. Because see, I found my resiliency through jujitsu at the age around 40. So I feel like maybe if they would just like increase an incentive for students coming out of high school to go to boot camp, I don't know what that would be, but maybe that would get them more motivated to go just to get that experience, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 42:35

So I I'm not against uh mandatory service. I I think it would do the majority of the young folks good to go like you're talking about, to go in and experience boot camp or learn some type of skill, job skill, uh you know, obviously going to be a tanker or an engineer, combat engineer, it's not gonna teach you a lot of skills that's directly transfer, but it's the it's the indirect skills that you learn, dealing with people's skills as a young person.

SPEAKER_04 43:10

Especially the kids that don't have any purpose. They should go.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

And like you mentioned before, out completely out of your comfort zone. You're going into a completely different foreign world when you mow into the the military side of the house. So yeah, I think it would be good. I just think the country wouldn't uh as a whole would not be happy with it. Right. I just don't think I think it would take something catastrophic that I wouldn't want the country to have to deal with to be able for them to put us on a foot in where we're gonna bring all the kids into the military. Now, like you mentioned, if they could come up with some type of incentive, you know, um you know, most of the countries, Germany, the European countries, Israel, they have compulsory service, it's two years. Um Um they have to go in, go do boot camp, go do their training, and then they go home. And they're like close, I think, to what we consider IRRs. Okay. I don't think they're like active like National Guard units where they drill regularly. I think they some of them do, but you know, it's like they can call them up like once a year. You have to at least once or twice a year, they have to show up, you know, at least, you know, get weighed and taped, maybe physical or something. But um, you know, I just don't know, man. I don't know if the United States is ready for that right now.

SPEAKER_04 44:36

Yeah, no, I've never served.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Like I said, I I'm a I'm a supporter of it. I just don't think the country as a whole would uh support it.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

I just I think it's a good idea, but it's pros and cons.

SPEAKER_04 44:46

What's IRR?

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Uh inactive ready reserve? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

Okay, cool. So pretty much like once you're active and say you get out or you, you know, you serve your your term in the National Guard, say specifically for the National Guard. We all, when we first joined National Guard, you know, um you serve for eight years. Now, active time of that is maybe three years, you know, four years or six years. Once you do those years, the IRR are the number of years left on that contract. So if you do four active, you got four in the IR. If you do six active, you got two in the IR. And so, like you say, if any major conflict breaks out, well, hey, we need you to come back in because we got something we need to handle or take care of. We need your assistance with something with that. Um, would it be a good idea to have everybody serve or go through some type of boot camp or something? Um, I could say yes, it would be beneficial. Because for those that don't have discipline or have structure, it puts you in that molar mind frame. It sets you up to where you learn how structure and leadership goes. As far as like when you get a job, hey, I'm in the floor manager. Hey, this is the lead of the ship. Hey, this is the operations manager. So now they see the different tiers of how things go and how things flow when it comes with that. For one, some aren't mentally always fit. Two, some aren't always physically fit. I mean, and that's nothing against them. That's just what it may be. So everybody wouldn't be able to do it. No. Would it help? I would say yes, but this is just me. With the way we the people of the United States are, you know, we're free. We're free to choose our own way in everything we do. So when it comes to now you're telling me I'm gonna do this, that's where it comes to. I don't want to do that because you're making me do that.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

And I and like you mentioned, also, I think the besides the will of the people, um, I think the next biggest challenge of that would be the physical unfitness of the young people in this country. That's a whole nother rapper, huh? It disqualifies so many kids for these guys. It makes their job so hard to try to find a kid that, you know, has not already been in trouble with the law, is not on all kinds of medications since they was in kindergarten.

SPEAKER_04 47:04

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Okay, and then uh I know can pass the ass bam, the test to get in, the aptitude test, and then on top of it, the kid, you know, is 30, 40 pounds overweight and never did nothing except play video games. You know, he's not a child of the 70s like I was. Drink out the water holes.

SPEAKER_03 47:28

That's right. That's right. You go outside, you did you done the whole shift outside as a kid. We didn't even know. All right, it's 10 o'clock, don't come back in the house at six or eight o'clock.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

Street lights come on, you better be back in here.

SPEAKER_03 47:40

That's it. Like I said, we'd have done a whole shift outside and ain't even know it. But you know, looking back over stuff like that, our parents programmed us for work, really. Because you just think about it. All right, you knew if I go outside at 10 o'clock in the morning, I can't come back into the house a certain time. And it was a routine every day. That's right. Now that I'm older, I think about it like, you know what? Hmm, they kind of put me in a work routine and I didn't even know. I could go do whatever I wanted to do within that time frame. But when you look at it now, you're like, I was on a shift. This is my play shift every day. I go out at this time, I come back at this time. And so it's just, you know, different perspective on how you look at things, you know, and everything. But yeah, we we we as a nation, we've changed totally, you know. Um, and and the thing is, like, I'm 44 myself, you know. I got kids myself, 26, 17, 11, and 9. Um, a lot of their structure and the way things are now, it comes from us as parents that we are today. Because it's lost. Like a lot of kids don't know how to work, what they do, they feel entitled. Oh, mom got it, dad got it. Can I have this? Can I have that? No. If you come from, I would say an old school upbringing, is your room clean? Did you do your chores? Are your grades good? Now we can talk about something you want. You just not going to get it just because it don't work like that. And then you got some of them kids that, you know, if they say they they want to crash out and have fits and tantrums, and if you from Noble School, it don't work like that. You know, you just said you get you get tightened up real quick. I was just thinking about this.

SPEAKER_04 49:17

I'm just gonna share this real quick, man. I was up in the woods, but like some of my friends back, like my niece was with us and up behind my grandma's house. You familiar with York? California circle. Yeah, Francis Mix, man. That was my grandma. Okay. Stay right down the corner right there. But um, but we came up out in the woods. She was like, go over there and get you a twig, get you a hickory switch off of it. We had to get our own hickory switch, bro. There it is. We came down the hill.

SPEAKER_01 49:41

Don't be playing neither.

SPEAKER_04 49:47

And don't try to fake it, it's gonna make it worse. Uh-huh. Be like fake crime going on. Uh-uh. There we go. I had to put that on.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

I'll be like, you know what, you last. I'm gonna get you last.

SPEAKER_04 49:57

So, what would y'all say is the difference between rank and leadership? Kind of tapped in on that a little bit earlier.

SPEAKER_03 50:04

I would say rank to me is just something on your chest.

SPEAKER_04 50:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:07

To me, that's all rank is. Leadership is what's in you, it's the qualities that you have. You know, it's something that naturally comes from you. You know, you can't really teach leadership. Now, you can give critiques of leadership, um, but as far as leadership itself, some people just, like I say, they naturally have it. And the thing I think biggest with leadership is you're not scared to fail. I think that's the biggest thing with a leader. I'm not scared to fail. Some, as they say, somebody got to be the crash dummy. Yeah. And most leaders are the ones that, you know what, they take it upon themselves to, you know what, I'm gonna step out there. If I fail, I fail. But really, you never fail at anything. You learn along the way. What I tried didn't work. I didn't fail. My way or method of doing something initially didn't work. So you learn from that. And like I say, most leaders, they just, hey, as you know, some would say they're outgoing, or you know, or they have no fear. You know, they don't mind testing themselves, they don't mind challenging themselves. Now, rank is just, hey, I can give you this, and this is what you are. Now, what you do within that rank, that's on you. But if you're a leader, you're going to be bigger than your rank, because you just don't want that. You want more than just what's on your chest or whatever it may be. So that's how I look at rank and leadership from my perspective.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

So, uh a good example I can throw out there for you guys, and I don't you might remember, you probably won't. Um, so when I when I first went in the army in '83. Well, I was two. Yeah, well, here's what back then. So right now in the Army's rank structure, you got uh E-4 is called a specialist. And then the next grade up is E5, that's a sergeant.

SPEAKER_02 51:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

So when I first came in the Army, you didn't automatically become a sergeant. They had specialist ranks, spec four, spec five, all the way up to spec seven, and very f a few spec eight. Um and the difference between a spec five and and a sergeant E5 was those spec fives were people that were the specialist ranks were not considered leadership positions. And the hard stripes were considered the leadership position. In a tank battalion and a tank company, or most of the all the combat MOSs uh would have been the engineers too. Um when you made E5, you didn't you didn't automatically become a sergeant. You was going to become a Spec V unless you were on in certain duty positions that required responsibility and leadership. If you worked in the mess hall, if you worked in the hospital, you know, use an X-ray tech, all those folks that worked in dental clinics, hospitals, uh, all that kind of stuff, those were that's where you saw spec five, spec six, spec sevens. Um now the mess sergeant was always an E7. Or cook daddy, he was the E7, and everybody else was specimens.

SPEAKER_03 53:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:07

So, you know, you knew don't mess with him. You know what I'm saying? Uh and so the army knew even back then that there was a difference between having rank and being a leader. The rank does not make the leader. The leader makes the rank.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

I kind of want to just touch on my personal experience. Um I don't want to call him, I don't want to call him by name, but my first sergeant at my unit, absolutely stand-up guy, right? Yeah, he's a first sergeant. He outranks you know most of the people in the platoon, you know, obviously, not everybody on in the whole uh unit. Uh but he's the kind of guy everybody knows this the National Guard, right? It's part-time, one week in a month, two weeks during the summertime. So you you're gonna see that person two to three days in the in a month, right? But this guy, uh, my first sergeant is uh one of the people who will literally check up on you every month. And when I mean check up on you, I mean he'll copy and paste, he'll probably change a couple of words out of the text message. But hey, how's everything going over the month? You doing all right? Change the name, change you know, a couple of words in the sentence. Um, but every every single person in my platoon was getting a text message from first sergeant every month. Maybe a week or two after drill, maybe a week or two before drill, he'll check in on us. I feel like that right there um goes goes a long way uh when it comes to leadership, checking in on the people under you. That right there, it goes, it makes the person feels like you you thinking about them or you care about them, but also it gives them a lot of people say, I got an open door policy, you know, in the military, but you as soon as you try to go open that door, you realize it's locked. You know what I mean? Um but with this first sergeant, you know that that open door policy stood strong because he wouldn't just be like, hey, how's it going? He'd be like, hey, how's the family? Oh, hey, um, remember you told me you were doing this. How's that going for you over the um over the break? That right there stood out for me a lot in my time frame in the National Guard. And it makes me want to be better than him when it comes to my leadership roles, you know. So that's I just wanted to you know sprinkle that on there for you a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 55:21

Nice. So mental health is big now. A lot more people are talking about it. Like, you know, the the whole pride thing, us as men, we didn't really talk about it back in the day coming up. Maybe seen as a punk, homeboy's clown, your Joan on your fry or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

I never heard I haven't heard Joan in a long time.

SPEAKER_04 55:38

Yeah, you from up north, so I heard that.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

I got a couple people from, you know, down by the boot, as they say. I'm like, what is that? You ain't never heard that.

SPEAKER_04 55:45

I'm like, why do you why do you feel like people in the military struggle silently when it comes to mental health? Or did because I think I mean I'm sure people still do now, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

I know what my answer is, but I won't hear theirs because I bet it's gonna be very similar to the city.

SPEAKER_03 56:01

Okay, um I would think a lot of people, it's for us, first of all, it's an image. You know, everybody can't be the top of the top. You know, like the military, we're the 1% of the 1%. So if I'm already this 1%, I can't seem weak to the next person or those I'm trying to protect as a whole. And that eats at a lot of people. Um, as you just said, we as men, you know, mental health is something big. A lot of stuff comes out, you know. A lot of people will throw out, well, you may have had mommy issues, or you may have had daddy issues, or whatever it may be. Um, and when you come from, say, a strong group of men as a man growing up, most men back then they didn't show emotion. Right. So you're not in tune with your emotions for one, because I fall down, what you crying for? Scrape that off, keep going, suck it up. You know, that's that's what you get sometimes. And we don't think about it, but if your program are wired that way all throughout your childhood, your, you know, adolescence, into your adulthood, you kind of lose that emotion to be sensitive or caring. And so when it comes to certain issues and stuff, all you know what to do is, as most men, we hold it in, we keep it to ourselves, we figure it out. For one, wow, we're supposed to be the head. If I supposed to be leading or showing, and you see a fault in me, and it's not a fault, but we think that sometimes. Like, I can't be like this because now everything under me may fall or it may crumble. I'm weakening it, I'm letting it down. And I think that plays a lot into why men or people in the military themselves, we hold a lot of stuff in. Now, I will say we do have those people, as you say, you know, your homeboys, homegirls, your Jones on. You got one or two you're gonna tell. Like, I can tell you this and it stays here. Yeah, yeah. Now, I will say when it comes to if it's a serious issue or something like that, they need to speak out on your behalf. Because a lot of time we speak directly but indirectly. Like we're asking for help, but we're not asking for help. So that's why we may talk to those one or two individuals and hope that they reach out on our behalf. And some people it's just pride and ego. And I think that's what it all boils down to at the end of the day. You know, at some degree, we're probably all at fault with it to something. But I think that just that image and masking of, you know, if I'm the 1% of the 1% strong, I can't show this certain side of me. And that's and that's not healthy. And that's, you know, where a lot of the mental issues and things come into play, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

I feel like I I can be wrong in this situation. Um, but I feel like that's uh that's more of y'all's generation. Um not to, you know, call not your age or anything like that. I see what you're saying. Um when you when you grow up, when you grow up, because my my my mom, my dad was the same way, you know, dust it off, get up, shake it off, you know, deal with it, right? Um, but I felt like I feel like as I got older, and I'm I'm 34, so you know, I'm not too much younger than y'all, but and I feel like in my generation, a lot of the uh the male mental health has been vocalized a lot more. I feel like in this generation now, a lot of them are coming out and saying, hey, I am hurt, or hey, I am I am dealing with something. Um and I need I need help to get it fixed. Uh and I and I feel like the more and more we we normalize it and the more and more we make it known, the better outcome that we have. And just like you were saying, you know, uh back in back in the day, our parents were stuck on a certain mindset, you know, hey, man has to do this, man has to do that, man has to be the strong power of the house. Um, but we still have those same roles. Uh, but I feel like now it's the situation or the issues that we're having mentally is it's more vocalized in my generation. Um maybe I could be, maybe it's just me, because I, you know, I raised two little girls and maybe I'm just a little bit more sensitive, but I I will I speak on my emotions, and this guy he works with me, so he knows I'm I'm the first person to be like, yo, I don't like that, or I'll speak on how I feel about something. Yeah, but at the same time, I feel like me being um open about my emotions doesn't make me weak. And I feel like once as men we get past that stereotype about your emotions, it doesn't make you a weak man. I feel like that's when we'll start, you know, going in the in the right direction.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

Here we go. So I've seen it all. I I've been I've I have seen it all. I've I've seen things and been involved in situations that was heartbreaking, um, both with military members and their families. Um and uh, you know, mental health is not, you know, people used to laugh at it, not take it serious, and guess what? It it's not a big deal until it is a big deal, and it affects you personally. Then it becomes a big deal. And um, you know it's tough. And and and and I agree with what they said, you know, the from the time you go into the military, you you hear things like warrior's ethos, um fight to win, you know, first to fight, you know, the warrior mentality. Um and that means stuff to people, especially young men uh and women. Um and it does make it hard, especially if you're further along in your career, a military career, and you know, if you pass, say you pass ten years, man, you over the hump. You you're trying to get to the end at that point, you've committed. And so you're gonna pretty much put up with whatever, try to put up with whatever is put in front of you. And it gets hard, man. And um I I have seen, even before I got out, that it was starting to change. People were starting to pay attention to it more, but you know, people wouldn't say nothing because of a career. And back in the day, man, when I first went in, you know, those late 70s, early 80s military families, it wasn't like mom and dad and a and a boy and a girl. It was mom and dad and six kids.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:19

Mm-hmm. You know, depending on dad's income.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:21

They couldn't afford not to be in the military at that time. So people kept things quiet and and and just suffered and dealt with it until bad things happened.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:33

So I have some facts I want to share. Okay. Now, the VA reported approximately 6,398 veteran suicides in 2023. About 17.5 veteran suicides per day. 61% of those veterans who die by suicide in 2023 were not receiving the VA health benefits, the health care in that year prior to that death. Um, there's there's been talks about uh uh alternative treatment. You know, I wanted to bring this up. It's uh for veterans that deal with PTSD, you know, traumatic, you know, brain injuries, uh addiction, so forth and so on, right? And what it's called is IBogaine. So I wanted to give some facts about that. And uh before we get to this part, though, I gotta say this isn't medical advice. We're discussing research, public testimony, veteran experiences, and broader conversations around mental health and alternative therapies. Want to make sure we put that disclaimer out there. Right, right. Alright, so albigaine is a naturally occurring psychoactive compound found in the root bark of Tabernacle Aboga. The aboga plant originates in Gabon, Cameroon, and Congo basin regions of Central Africa. Aboga has been used for centuries in buitly spiritual practices, initiation ceremonies, healing rituals, and spiritual guidance traditions. And how it affects the brain. Uh researchers believe that it interacts with serotonin systems, dopamine systems, opioid receptors, and glutamate. That's NMDA pathways, which is N methylene, N-methyl deaspartate receptor. Now, the possible studied effects include interruption of addictive patterns, reduced cravings, emotional processing, trauma confrontation, neuroplasticity, and mood stabilization. Now, have y'all heard anything about this at all before today?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

Is it like the bark or the micro dosing on the uh mushrooms?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:44

Well, the mushrooms are something separate. This is this is from the obogatrice.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:47

It's like a bark extract.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:49

Yeah, I believe. No, I haven't never heard it.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:51

So honestly, I I have. And and uh, you know, full disclosure, I I've been around people that have tried it uh for the reasons you spoke of. And um including a close family member that was struggling and with pretty good results. I mean, he says that it has helped him tremendously.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:14

That's what I'm saying, bro. Keep going, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:17

All right. So it's going down in Texas, man. They got like an initiative going down there, so I'm gonna give some information on that. We're in South Carolina. Okay, but just Texas doing this. It is uh has become one of the biggest centers for IBogaine research discussion in the United States. Uh Texas approved approximately $50 million in state funding for Iba Game Clinical Research Initiatives. Now, a few important people to mention. You got Rick uh Rick Perry, he's the former governor of Texas and public advocate for Iba Gain Research. You have Brian Hubbard, he's the executive director of Connected to Americas for Iba Game. Marcus Lutrell, I'm sure that name rings the bell, right? Yeah. He's a retired Navy SEAL survivor of Operation Red Wings, and also the author of Longstream. Survivor and he publicly discussed PTSD trauma and psychedelic assisted therapies. He was on Joe Rogan's uh experience, that podcast talking about that. Now, when stories like that start to become public, especially from people with that kind of military background, that credibility, right? Yeah. What does that do for the conversation surrounding mental health?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:23

I would say it more than likely it shifts the narrative of having a negative effect. If someone pretty much, as you said, with those credentials or high standards is supporting something like that, a lot automatically, a majority of people they're going to grasp to it because they're going to look at him as high profile. Or if he's doing this, it must be something right. It must be something good. You know, you really don't know the effects of it because you don't know how, you know, mentally, physically, psychologically it's going to affect you as a person. You know, he can only speak on it for himself. But if he has research or numbers stating certain things, well, you know, that may be a difference with it. You know, he's just, he's the face of it, and I got these numbers, you know, to back me up that hey, I said this is a good idea. These are the numbers that shown proven for that. But at the end of the day, how many of those numbers do we know that really it didn't help? So, you know, you kind of have to be skeptical with that stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:24

Yeah. You know, and that's what I'll say about that. And I agree with you, man, but it hit harder and home for me because my man right here, he knows somebody that it tremendously helped, man. And that's that's big, and people need to know that and hear that. Like everything and for everybody. Right. And they're still doing research and studies. But fortunately, there's an executive order signed on April 18th of this year.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:44

You know, did y'all know Trump signed that um it's accelerating medical treatments for serial serious mental illness? That increased the federal momentum towards psychedelic assistency therapy research, PTSD treatment, veteran mental health, and traumatic brain injury study. Now, I'm gonna say this real quick. We have to have these conversations in South Carolina. You know, this is the Bible Belt. Yeah. Alcohol is widely accepted. You know what I mean? And um, but any other type of uh conversation becomes very, very controversial immediately, you know what I'm saying? But if we really talk about, truly talking about helping veterans, helping people struggling with trauma, PTSD, and you know, the addiction issues, depression, suicide, that's you know, that's really the major one, man. These conversations deserve a space, bro. And respectfully to the people who influence mental health policy, healthcare policy, and research conversations here in South Carolina, the invitation is open to come on the Dappen the Hub podcast and sit down and have a serious conversation about helping people. I mean, like, so people have been going to Mexico to get these treatments. So why do you think people are traveling outside the United States? So what does that say about our country? Marcus Latrell. Um to you, brother.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:02

Oh, Marcus Latrell, you know, I follow him, I follow Joe Rogan, of course. Um, you know, he's been taking other veterans down to Mexico, high-profile veterans. The uh the cat from Kentucky that won the Medal of Honor was struggling really bad for a while. Uh Marcus Latrell took him to Mexico. He underwent the treatment. I don't know how long he was there. But Ducky came back and re and he is sufficiently well mentally now. He he rejoined the Marines. Did y'all know that? No. You know who I'm talking about? The guy from Kentucky, Meyer, Dakota Meyer is his name. So he won a mail of honor. I believe in Iraq. And um, you know, come home, got out, and was suffering severe PTSD, you know, couldn't function, was getting in trouble at home, you know, the normal stuff. Right. And then uh I don't know if he heard about Marcus or Marcus reached out to him, but he's like, hey dude, I've been going down here to Mexico to get these treatments, and it's really helping me, and I'd like to take you down there and at least try. It's been 180 degrees since then. So something's going on. Something's going on. My concern with it is acceptance because it's something new and people don't understand it. Right. Something new over here. Yeah, and then you know, the government, I'll just leave the government, is gonna have to figure out a way where they can control it, regulate it, and make money off of it. Or they're not gonna ever approve it. You're telling me that's that's the world we live in.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:39

And I know you got to get out of here. I don't want to end the podcast, I'm gonna keep going, y'all, but I know you gotta go. Can you go ahead and look into the camera and anybody that's struggling with mental health, don't have like really directional purpose in life? Like, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:52

I would say reach out.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:53

Keep put the camera. I mean, yeah, reach out.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:56

Um, reach out. There's people you know. If you're a veteran, reach out to your brothers. Find us. We're here. We'll talk to you. I'll help you. You know, I'm easy to find around Rock Hill. I'm at the gym three, four days a week. No healing. Um, you know, I'm with uh this guy, just reach out to me, especially if you're having issues with the VA and you can't get the service you need. Um, call me. Get in touch with me. I'll come up there and advocate for you. And I know what to say and who to say it to.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:26

Yes, uh. Hey, we're just not getting started, brother.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:29

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:30

I'll be seeing you again. So we're gonna talk, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:32

All right.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:32

You gotta go?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:33

Gotta go.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:34

All right, good luck with the house, man. Um thank you so much. Thank you, all right.

unknown 1:11:41

All right.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:42

Yeah, I gotta Oh, yeah.

unknown 1:11:44

Thanks again for your service. Oh, yeah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:51

All right, man. See, that's what I'm saying. It's about it's about testimony, man. You can't deny that.