Gun Room Therapy: How Donald Dunn Uses Media to Heal Veterans

[00:00:00] If the people listening today heard nothing else, what do you want them to hear? Um, take care of the veterans out there. Check on and understand that we're more than that. So don't be afraid to think that you're talking to somebody that's got PTSD because that could be anybody.

Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potentials, growing to the men we dream of being while taking care of our responsibilities, working, being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves? Well, that's the big question in this podcast. We'll help you answer those questions and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man podcast.

Welcome to the Fallible Man podcast. Your home for all things, man, husband, and father. Big shout out to Fallible Nation. That's our private [00:01:00] community. There's more about that in the show description and a warm welcome to our first time listeners. We know there's a lot out there. So thank you for taking the time to listen to us.

Be sure and drop us a review or reach out to us on social media at Fallible Man. Tell us what you thought of the show. We'd love to hear what you have to say. My name is Brent. And today my special guest is CEO of Heroes Voices Media Foundation, veteran and fellow podcaster, Donald Dunn. Donald, welcome to the Fallible Man podcast.

Hey, I appreciate you having me, man. This is awesome. Donald, how are you at trivia? Um, I make fun of people on a game shows. Does that count close enough? Right now? I, I purposely did find one that, uh, probably it's outside your wheelhouse. I like, I like historical trivia, but I found out my veterans actually know history as opposed to a lot of people.

So I try not to ask those. So which member of the spice girls was known as sporty [00:02:00] spice? Is it Melanie Chisholm, Emma Burton, Jerry Haleywell, or Victoria Adams?

I'm gonna go with Victoria Adams. Lock it in. I don't, I really don't know. That's fine. Guys, you know the rules. Don't jump ahead. If you're a Gen X er and actually followed the Spice Girls, you might know the answer. If not, make your best guess. Don't write it down if you're driving. That's a bad idea. And let's come back to that a little bit later.

Now, Donald, I don't do big introductions. Because no one actually gives a crap about accolades. So in your own words, today, in this moment, who is Donald Dunn? So today I am a guy that has finally gotten over a lot of my PTSD and issues. Um, so I am starting to grow and moving forward from, from that. And I focus more on trying to fix some of the [00:03:00] things that went wrong during those times in my life.

And, uh, helping veterans. So those, that is the main purpose of me. If I'm not at work, I am focusing on my podcast and my nonprofit and myself. All right. If you won 10 million tomorrow, what would you spend it on? Um, well, first it'd be my nonprofit. That's, that's where I would, uh, I would focus. Um, there's, we're still very early in the stages for that.

So there's still a lot of stuff that needs to be done. And, uh, there's a lot of pieces of the, the project that are, you know, that we can get into later, but it will, will require a lot of, uh, uh, assistance and help and money. So, I love it. At least you're, you're clear on where your heart wants to go. So that's a good start.

I would buy myself a truck too. Nothing wrong with that. You got to get to work [00:04:00] somehow, right? Exactly. If you could go back and give your 18 year old self. One piece of advice. What would it be? Um, focus more on the training. I think, uh, subconsciously I knew school was not for me and I don't think even me going back now telling myself to go get a degree would change that.

So I would say focus more on my training and not look at the early years of my military career as a means to college and a means of supporting a family.

If I was to sit down with you and your buddies. What's a funny story they would tell on you? Oh, I think everybody loves the story about my commander that got in trouble and his punishment with one of my privates. So I had a private, this was late in my career, that did [00:05:00] not want to be part of the military.

Um, as a matter of fact, when he met me, he came from A. I. T. And in this packet, it said that the soldiers still needed to pass an A. P. F. T. because he hadn't passed one yet. So he was literally the 1st soldier that I ever seen that got out of a training without passing a test and he walked up to me and he said, uh, I'm private Thompson and I don't want to be in the army.

Is there any way you can chapter me? That was day one, and it didn't get better from there. And I tried working with him and legal was getting really picky about chaptering people before the 18 month period. They wanted to get their money's worth out of the, the training and the soldiers. So 1 day. The, the company commander had gotten in some trouble and his punishment was he had to interview all the, uh, the soldiers and then report back to the battalion commander on what he learned.

And so, when it was Thompson's turn, me and him got called up there and the commander in a [00:06:00] serious voice looks at him, goes the private Thompson, what brought you to the military? And he said, uh, call of duty, sir. And, uh, the commander said, well, I get that. You know, your family probably served and your dad and you felt that urgency to do something for your country.

And this kid had the dumbest look on his face and he looked at me and I looked at the commander and I said, sir, I think he's talking about the video game. And the commander looked at him and he goes, yes, sir. I thought it was like call of duty, but it's not. Can you chapter me? And the interview ended right there.

Wow. I, I'm, I can't even begin to imagine the look on your CO's face. Oh, yeah, he, he, and he was not, he was not a, uh, he ended up getting chapter himself later, but he was one of those guys that had some very strong, uh, nonproductive, uh, beliefs Thompson definitely ended up on the wrong side of [00:07:00] that. That's, uh, I, I never understood guys who ended up in the military who didn't want to, since there's not a draft.

Nope. So how do you, like, it's not a small process getting into the military. No, it's not. It's a huge headache. How do you get all the way there without really wanting to be there? I never understood that. Yeah. And what surprised me was, you know, part of training was to weed out people early before they get somebody killed or, or hurt, you know, that are just not going to cut it.

And, uh, I don't know what that deal was, but when you started seeing soldiers come from basic training and that have not passed a PT test. You have to start asking yourself where the focus went to because it was not about helping others because if he's obviously not going to drag somebody 100 [00:08:00] feet was needed if he can't even do 15 20 push ups.

So, and maybe he could have done them. And that was just his focus of trying to get out of the military. I don't know. But, uh, I never seen him pass a PT test till I chaptered him. So, I don't know. I didn't know you could get out of a, out of boot without passing on. I didn't either. He was the only one. He's the first and only one I ever seen.

That's, yeah, that's just, that alone is mind boggling. I couldn't get out of boot without that. Yeah, me neither. What purchase of 100 or less have you made in the last year that's had the most significant impact on your life? Oh, wow, that's a good one. Um, 100 or less. So,

my, it's a monthly fee, so technically it's under 100. But, uh, the support group that I use. Okay. Yeah, it's called, uh, Warriors Way Mindset. [00:09:00] It's, uh, not a non profit, it's a for profit company. It's helped me out quite a bit. All right. Warriors way mindset. So you guys take note of that. If that's something you need some to check out, we'll try and get a link for that for you.

Now your podcast is two drunk dudes in a gun room. So I've got to ask whiskey, bourbon, rye, or scotch. Oh, definitely bourbon. And, and I do like some rye. I'm kind of picky on the brands for the rye, but I love, I love bourbon. Man, after my own heart, what kind of bourbon? So I actually like a cheap bottle.

It's hard to find, but I absolutely love it. It's called a Walker's K. It's a 35 buy, but, uh, I have to order it online cause I can't find it locally. So I usually get two bottles and it runs me with [00:10:00] shipping and everything, about a hundred bucks. I have a friend who is a. Connoisseur. The dude has nice and expensive taste in alcohol and he has a budget to afford it, but I was at his house one day and first time I've been over there and actually gonna have a drink and he was like, Oh yeah, I got bourbon pours me some bourbon and it's a higher end and it's like, wow, do you have any cheaper bourbon?

It was way too smooth. Yeah. No, no, if I don't want to like punch somebody after I drink it, it's a little too refined, like, you know, so I actually make my own. So I, yep, I do. I have a barrel. I have a buddy of mine. I don't have any. Oh, I do right here. So I have a buddy of mine that makes some really good shine.

And for some reason, I don't know why, but [00:11:00] everybody locally around here thinks that it should be like ever clear. And so nobody wants to buy the middle part of his run. And so he sells it to me for 60 bucks for a gallon and a half. And, uh, I take that and mix up my own little bourbon and my own little barrels.

Whenever I go to events, I give it away to veterans. I put them in little pint bottles and I'll give them to veterans and people that are part of that area. Awesome. Oh, I feel like we should be sitting down smoking cigars doing this. What's one random fact that people don't know about you.

I like science and math. I don't say that publicly too often, but I am into spreadsheets and numbers, and I find it relaxing. Um, I don't talk about my poker days very often, but, uh, math kind of led me to playing poker, and I kind of played, while I [00:12:00] was in the military, I played semi pro for a while. Wow. And, uh, but I, I absolutely loved it.

Oh, mathematicians make good math. Make a poker players. Yeah. You know, when I went to school, I was not that kid. That was very, uh, popular or, uh, liked by the teachers. Um, I've always had a temper. So PTSD didn't help that. It kind of brought that even further out. And, uh, so I, I met my wife in 7th grade. We got married right out of high school and still married today.

And, uh, um, the teachers literally pulled her aside after, like, into the 9th grade. So we've been together for 2 years. And told her that I was not the kind of guy that she should be having a long term relationship with because it would not work. Um, they did the same thing to my best friend. Um, he was a gifted student.

Very, very, very [00:13:00] smart and very successful today. And they told him the same thing, you know. So, I wasn't liked by the teachers and I, and uh, I did like to fight. It didn't matter what the reasoning was. And, uh, so I never really talked too much about liking good stuff like science and math. I like a little bit of history too.

And, uh, I just kind of stuck with that stereotype of what people stereotype me as. But those were the topics that I did good in. The rest I got kicked out. How long have you and your wife been married now? 29 years this July. This last past July. So, next year. Thank you. That is outstanding. And she actually was dating my best friend that I was just talking about, prior to me.

So, and he told me the same thing. Well, she's not exactly your kind of girl, but uh, yeah, if you want to ask her out, go ahead.

Those are the ones, like, [00:14:00] those are the stories that like, seem to, my wife was not my typical type. I'm married 22 years now, but like, she was not the type I dated in school. And we're, we're so opposite on a lot of things, but those are the kind of the relationships that you see that last. Yeah, absolutely.

Right, where you compliment each other instead of like, marrying somebody like I would have dated in high school would have been a disaster. I'm sure I would have been divorced already. Yeah, me and her are completely different and she's, she's a very brainiac and my worst subject is English. So, you know, back then the thing was to pass notes back and forth.

I would get my notes back with ready and call over them and she wouldn't respond to them until I corrected it. So, yeah, it used to drive me absolutely nuts. But yeah, I love that. That was the kind of person she was. Donald, what's [00:15:00] one thing everyone should know about you before we get into today's subject?

Um, I'm very pro veteran and, uh, I do take that very serious because I think there's, there's a problem in our community and there's a problem with the stereotype. That is, is. Focused on us and, uh, we can definitely get into that when we start talking about my nonprofit. But I, I don't like the fact that when you say the word veteran or soldier, any Google search, it will be followed with the words PTSD, mental health and stuff like that.

We have that problem in our community, but that is not who we are. That doesn't identify us, you know, and I feel like the world has has excluded us from opportunities of living dreams. And. And when I say dreams, I mean the big things like when you're a kid and your parents tell you, you can be anything you want to be [00:16:00] after serving.

I feel like those opportunities are taken away from us. And so that's where the focus of my nonprofit is. It's not so much on the mental health. We're here to help with that and direct you to somebody that is great for that. But I'm here to get rid of that stereotype and to get rid of us being put in that glass.

This is a breaking case of war. You know, we're, we're way more than that. All right, guys. We've been getting to know Donald just a little bit in this part of the show, getting to feel for who he is. And in the next part of the show, we're going to dive into warrior service and coming home. We're going to roll our sponsor.

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Now let's go on to the show guys. Welcome back in the first part of the show. We just spent some time getting to know who Donald is in this part of the show. We're gonna dive into warrior service and coming home. Now, Donald, tell us the story of Donald Dutton, because there's, there's a lot to unpack there, and before we worry about the rest, I think they need to understand.

So, I came in the military in 94. Um, during that time frame, there was really nothing major going on. It was about college. It was about taking care of my family, and that was the primary reason why I came in. Um, I couldn't find a job right out of high school. I didn't have a college degree. I didn't have much [00:18:00] experience.

the fields that I wanted to go in. So I joined the military and, uh, you know, what's the odds of anything happening? It's kind of the way I looked at it. And the only place I couldn't take my wife was Korea. So what's the odds of my first duty station being that? So I moved my wife back home when I went to basic training A.

1. T. And off to basic training, I went and straight out A. I. T. My 1st duty station was Korea. So there was the 1st year that I was away from my family. And then from there, I went to Fort bliss did, uh, 18 months at Fort bliss. Worked with the Patriot missile there. So it was, uh, my first combat, um, unit and then from there I went to Germany and Germany is really where me and my family got to be together because I sat in the field most of the time in Fort Bliss and, uh, by this time we did have, um, one [00:19:00] child and went to Germany.

I was in bomb holder. I was in a mechanized infantry unit. Absolutely loved it. Um, mechanized infantry is a great place to be. I was a mechanic. That's what I came in as, as a 63 Sierra heavy wheel mechanic. And so when I went to that mechanized infantry unit, I got to be part of the maintenance and I got put on the recovery because I had, uh, the recovery identifier and, uh, I got to do a lot of really cool stuff.

Um, the first deployment I ever went on was kind of misleading. I went to Bosnia. It was a peacekeeping mission, and the biggest threats were his landmines and, and kids bringing you unexploded ordinances that they were trying to do the right thing and trade you a grenade for some candy. And so those were really the biggest, uh, um, enemies that we [00:20:00] had.

There wasn't an enemy firing at you. And so that was what I envisioned deployments to being like, and, uh, it was there for nine months and, uh, my wife gave birth to our second child. So I have a boy and a girl and, uh, came back and I decided at that point, if I'm going to stay in, it's going to be for a career.

And if I'm going to do something, do something, I know not very many people do. So I volunteered to go into. A unit called the 1 60th, it's a, uh, low tier special operations, um, unit, uh, they're an aviation unit as, as we like to say, we're the, we're the highest overpaid uber with some of the highest paid high paid people.

Um, our, our mission is to infill, exfil, uh, [00:21:00] delta special forces seals, those types of people. So, I went there and, uh, went through the selection course and made it through the selection course and, uh, spent ten years there. Third battalion in Savannah. I absolutely loved it. It was the best ten years of my career and, uh, that's when 2009 11 happened was, uh, while I was there and I still to this day remember asking, uh, so our first battalion had went shortly after.

And then, uh, 2nd battalion went and then we went and before we went, I remember asking our regimental commander. I said, uh, when is it our turn? When do we get our turn? And, uh, all of us were still angry and pissed off that. What had happened and we wanted to be a part of it and he looked at me and I'll never forget this [00:22:00] today because exactly what he said came true.

He said, he said, watch what you wish for, because you might get it. And then you might not want it. And so shortly after that, we deployed. And, uh, total, I ended up doing 68 months. Deployed between Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. I spent most of my time in Afghanistan. And, uh, the early parts of the, uh, the deployments, again, were kind of misleading.

You know, the first missions that you were a part of was nerve wracking, and then as they kept happening and things kept being okay, you learn that you're pretty good at what you're doing. And it's just a job, and you start forgetting about how dangerous it is. And June of, uh, June 28, 2005 is when I got my [00:23:00] first taste of, uh, what can go wrong and how bad it can go wrong.

I had just left Afghanistan and, uh, I got back and two weeks, ten days or so after getting back, we lost, uh, an aircraft that was shot down. And I lost several friends that was on that aircraft and being a part of those funerals and a part of helping the families that was left, it becomes a very eye opening experience about how dangerous our job really is.

And when things go wrong, how fast and how bad, you know, that 1 incident, 16 people lost their lives. In a matter of seconds. And, uh, so dealing with those funerals and, uh, dealing with the families that are packing up and trying to figure out the rest of their lives, um, you don't get much time to to grief.

I mean, [00:24:00] I, I got the news that, like, 9 o'clock in the morning and until 6 o'clock that night, we were putting together funeral detail teams and starting the practicing for the ceremonies. And so the tempo goes straight from holy shit to now I got to make sure that I am proficient. My classes are straight.

The ceremony is flawless because it's it becomes that much more serious when, you know, the people. And, you know, the families so shortly after the, the funerals, um, it wasn't long and I was back on the road again deploying. So that tempo, because we were doing 3 months in Iraq, 3 months in the States, 3 months in Afghanistan.

We had, we had a battalion element of 300 and some people spread out over 5 different theaters. Um, so we were short, you know, it was me and 2 other [00:25:00] mechanics, the skeleton crew flight teams. And everything else. And, uh, so back on the road, things start going through your mind and you start looking at the missions differently.

At least I did. Maybe not everybody. And, uh, you still have that anger in you because that's the only emotion that. The military gives you to deal with everything is anger. And, uh, that's I can honestly say that's when I started changing as a person. Um, I, uh, I slowly started resenting myself because I didn't want to deploy anymore.

I didn't want to I didn't want to take the chance of putting my family in the situations that I seen. And, uh, I decided that at that point I was becoming a piece of crap. [00:26:00] And, uh, when you start getting going through depression, man, it's amazing of how much you reality doesn't become true anymore. You believe the confinements of what's in your head, not necessarily reality.

And I was slowly pushing my family away. And, uh, it got to the point where after my last deployment, it was, uh, I had left the special ops community. My career had kind of took a crap, you know, drinking and other forms of, uh, not necessarily positive behavior was, was taking over. And so I ended up leaving the unit because, uh, of the tempo and just the fact that I didn't feel like I was worthy of being there anymore.

And, uh, I went to a unit with the plans to, to retire. So, um, I got the opportunity because of how long I was there to [00:27:00] basically pick my duty station. And I, I just told the, the Sergeant Major, I said, I just want to, just send me overseas where my family can stay here. I'll come back and then give me a hop back to Fort Stewart and I'll retire out of Fort Stewart.

And that's all I wanted. So I expected to go to Korea. He sent me to Qatar and, uh, I was like, Okay. I didn't know what Qatar was. Qatar is supposed to be the place where we send troops to. For their two weeks of R& R, if you're a single soldier, or not two weeks, your four day weekend, I guess you really, it's all it is.

And so I was sent over there to run the, the rental vehicles, the non military vehicles. And, uh, I was the first to ever deploy from Qatar, because I left a special operations unit. The regiment, or the, uh, base sergeant major there was my first armored division sergeant major when I [00:28:00] volunteered for the 160th.

And the regimental commander was going to deploy to, um, Kandahar as an engineer to look at things and determine how they can improve that base. And because of my experience, my regimental SAR major said, we're not going to send his driver. We want you to be his driver to protect him. And I was so sick of deployments.

I'm not going to even lie. But I did it. I went. First person to ever deploy from Qatar. And, uh, when you're at Qatar, you don't even have military equipment. They don't issue you anything. And so I had to go get issued crap that they had there. Just to have the stuff to deploy with. And, uh, a lot of the people that I was with were [00:29:00] officers that have never deployed, had no combat experience, and probably couldn't qualify with their weapon if they had to.

So, that deployment became kind of interesting, and we, I left there, came back, and went back to the infantry in, uh, um, Port Stewart. And that's where I retired out of. I did one deployment with them. And 7, 8 months before I was to retire, another deployment came up, and I was to the point where I had my bags in the container, and it was sealed, ready to ship before Obama lowered the numbers, and we had already cut ourselves so thin that we had to start cutting leadership.

And so my first, luckily, he had pulled me off of, uh. The deployment, so I could focus on retiring. So I ended up not having to go, but, uh, you know, I said something, so they put me in charge of the rear D. [00:30:00] And, uh, you know, I don't know for the, for the civilians that are not familiar with how Rudy works, you're, you're not left with the cream of the crop.

You're in charge of the ones that they don't want to deploy or physically can't because of medical reasons or something. And, uh, I had a few privates that, uh, was there and I remember, I remember day 1 of me being in charge. I pulled them all together and I said, I want you to all bring in your classes. I said, I want to take a look at him and I had this private look at me and he goes, oh, we're going to start that shit already.

And I said, what shit is that? And he said, class a inspections. I said, this ain't a class a inspection. I said, I'm making sure that you guys are correct because you're going to be wearing them a lot. I said, every 1 of those guys that you see leaving are not ready for Afghanistan. The unit had never been to Afghanistan in its history.

This is the 1st deployment to Afghanistan. All their fighting had been in Iraq, [00:31:00] and if you've been in both theaters, it's not the same thing. Afghanistan is a more in your face type fighting. Iraq is more of an explosion type, not worrying about the ambush that's coming afterwards. And that unit lost, I believe it was nine soldiers.

In that, uh, battalion or in that, yeah, battalion, you know, so that's more funerals that I got to do and be a part of the ceremonies and, uh, watching families become widows at that point. And I'd had enough, you know, I was getting into that point where I, I really was thinking I would rather be dead than alive.

And, uh, me and my family had been we have been separated so far, you know, emotionally and, uh, you know, I, I never told and I, this is the one regret that I have. And that's the 1 thing I'm focused on now to [00:32:00] making it right is I never told my family. I thought I was protecting my family by not telling them the stuff that I had seen the things that had.

And I realized real quick that, uh, now not real quick, but I realized now that all I really did was leave my family wondering what happened to the, the person they knew and the dickhead that they're living with, you know, and, uh, my wife knew I was going through things because for about two years we didn't sleep together.

She slept on the couch or in another bed because she got tired of being elbowed and me screaming at night. She would ask me what's wrong and I would just tell her, you know, just a bad dream and she would say, what was it about? And I would lie and say, I don't remember and go about my day. And, uh, at that point, I didn't know what anxiety was.

I didn't really look into PTSD because the chain of command always believed and and the, the, [00:33:00] the myth that people talk about about how, if you, if you go into seeking mental health, you're, you're kind of condemned from your unit is not a myth. It's, it's true. You know, I seen it as a leader. I've been behind closed doors where leadership had made comments about soldiers that were talking about suicide or, or going to behavioral health.

Or whatever and, uh, the army there towards my end of my career brought in this program where they brought in civilian therapists and it was supposed to be confidential. Your chain of command didn't have to know you were talking to them. They weren't psychologists, they couldn't give you medicine or anything like that.

They were just literally counselors and, uh, they were supposed to be anonymous. Nobody's supposed to know, but every battalion, their office was right next to the commander's office. You weren't going in there to see if they'd done their PMCS on their vehicle. I can promise you that. So they seen you going in [00:34:00] that office.

They knew you were going in there because you were, that's the way it was looked at. It was perceived. And, uh, I don't know how many soldiers, you know, that that statement was accurate about, but I can tell you 100 percent of them was considered that. And, uh, um, so I never said nothing, you know, I just I went on and I got deeper and deeper into depression.

And, uh, I started, uh, planning how to take care of my family after I was gone and looking at insurances and and, uh. I made another crappy decision when I got out. I couldn't find a job. You know, it was shortly after the, the ramifications of the 2008 depression and Ford and all them had made extremely cutbacks in my town.

There was a dealership for every brand. And when I actually got out, there [00:35:00] was a Chevy dealership. That was it. None of the mom and pops were hiring mechanics. The Chevy dealership did not, wasn't hiring anybody. And you could pretty much pick up a rock and hit somebody with it. And it was probably an unemployed mechanic of some sort.

So, I decided to start a business because I lived so far away from any of the bigger cities where a job might be offered, and so I started a trucking company, and I bought a semi truck, started driving, and I put myself in a truck, living by myself six weeks at a time, driving 11 hours a day, working 14, and doing nothing but getting in my head and thinking.

And then you fast forward to all the negativity from politics and, and when you're listening to the radio shows and, and everything else, all that drama and that noise becomes magnified. And when you're already in your head, you can't figure out what's real and what's not [00:36:00] anymore. It puts you in a really dark spot and, uh, that's where I was until, you know, finally 1 day.

I, I, I finally broke my shovel from the hole that I was digging. And, uh, I couldn't dig anymore. And, uh, from there that day is where my life I didn't know it at the time, but that's where my life began. You know, that's where I started learning who the new me was. And stopped worrying about the old me. And how do I find the old me.

So, in a nutshell that's how my military career went and where I ended up before I started doing the positive stuff and And podcasting and everything else and now I've spent the last, honestly, the last year, um, fixing that and I probably spent the last, the previous 2 years of that trying to figure out how [00:37:00] to get to where I am today.

We're step 1.

That's in a nutshell, man. That's that's where I'm at Donald. Thank you for sharing that with us. That's so much to unpack. Can I ask you this? How common is this for soldiers to have that much difficulty transitioning? Back into civilian life and carrying all this. We just, we're at a crazy point in history where we've had the longest continuous war in the history of the United States.

We have more veterans, more servicemen who are coming back with battle experience, being deployed in combat zones than any other time in history. Vietnam was the only thing that was close to as long. And so this is, this is a very large portion of our population who is coming home from [00:38:00] this horrendous thing that is war.

So, so there's a couple parts to this and, and I've learned them since I've been podcasting and, and I can kind of relate back to myself. So there's, there's two major problems to this answer. One is our war lasted multiple generations. So I was that first half of that generation. Um, I was on the back end of my career, say, past the 12 and a half year point and meaning I retired before the wars were over.

Then you got the generation that came in because of the war and they didn't retire until 20 years later and they fought that same war for 20 years. The problem is, is how you reach me and I relate to things is going to be completely different to this new wave of people that are retiring now. And how their PTSD is and, and how you're going to relate to them.[00:39:00]

And I don't think, you know, no different than Blockbuster. Blockbuster didn't change anything about its life and it became extinct. And I think that's one of the problems with the VA is they're not adapting to the new generation that's retiring now. They're still treating people like from the Vietnam War and that's somewhat related to my generation, but not this new generation.

So, when a soldier leaves and and I said this, because I do mean it, the military gives you 1 tool, you know, let's call it. Let's say your emotions and how you respond to things is your tools and in your toolbox. The only thing the army's gonna give you. Is everything you need to survive from food, shelter, clothes, weapons, emotions, and the only emotion you need to survive is anger.

And through your training and through your years of service, you can't pass your PT test. They tell you to get mad. [00:40:00] They start yelling at you use that anger to fuel you. And so when you deploy, you're looking at the other people like that. Same way you're looking at them like. They're nothing and you look at them with hatred and you use that anger to make it back home.

And then you come back home and you're outside and somebody cuts you off and you instantly respond with the only tool you got. Anger. The finger comes out, you chase them down, you yank them out of their car, and you want to go through the enemy. And when the average soldier sees red, the brain kind of stops thinking and goes into the tools that it knows of how to deal and how to maneuver through that enemy.

Now that may be a, uh, a, not necessarily the full case of the way the brain [00:41:00] thinks, but, uh, you're gonna go back to your life lessons. And through this war, everything you did in training was to get you to survive that war. So then when you leave, you've done all these awesome things, man. You've, you've brought soldiers back alive.

You've fought the enemy. You are now convinced there is something out there called evil. That, that evil does exist. You know, and if you've seen some of the things that I've seen. You would agree with me that, that evil is out there, that there's, there's things that are not human that make people do things.

And, uh, um, I'm not going to get into religion and, and all those beliefs, but it's just not normal to see people blowing themselves up. You know, I was at the front gate of a fob to pick somebody up when a lady [00:42:00] detonated her car. She had a, uh, uh, IED underneath the passenger seat. And on that seat was her 13 year old daughter and they were going to detonate when they got to the gate, but the car ran out of gas.

And as a soldier started approaching the vehicle, because it had stopped, she got nervous and self detonated and injured and killed people to include her and her daughter. That's not normal. I don't know. I can't believe a human could just wake up one day and say, this is what I'm going to do. There has to be evil that Exists.

And so I'm a firm believer in that. And, uh, when you see these things over and over and you get out in the world, you're going to pull what, you know, to deal with things. And unless somebody gives you a different tool and you find the right people to relate to you, you're not going to get those tools. And the other thing too, is, is soldiers [00:43:00] don't want to admit that they're, they're broken.

As long as I look like the guy to my left and my right, I'm good. And when you leave, you no longer have that guy to your left or that guy to your right. And everybody looks different. And so I did the same thing that everybody else did. I went through that phase of, I'm not jacked up. You're jacked up. You know, your thinking is messed up.

Because now I'm dealing with people that can't even picture the stuff I'm talking about. They're living, you know, their worst day was the, the latte was cold. And now they're in a bad mood. You know, so. Um, you, you, you run into that language gap and soldiers will just go at it alone. So, they isolate, i. e.,

they start a company that doesn't involve dealing with people. They put themselves in a truck. If you, if you Google and look at what the statistics of or how many veterans become truck drivers, I [00:44:00] think you'd be astonished. And it's because we don't want to deal with people. And we don't, we don't want to deal with what's in our head, because that's, that's more scary than anything.

And I started a company that I was not mentally prepared to handle. I wasn't financially ready to handle, and I just continued to dig until my shovel broke, you know. And I think that's why it's so tough when soldiers come back, is they think the Army and their military experience will carry them through the civilian world.

But it's a different world, it's different rules, and uh, it's not going to make sense. And I think that's, if you don't come prepared and you're not given more tools, you're not going to be able to deal with it. And, uh, that's why so many people, when they go to the VA, you know, I'm a firm believer the numbers are probably 70 to 30%.

70 percent have a negative experience, [00:45:00] maybe 30 percent have a positive experience. And, uh, when you go and you get that negative experience, you literally walk back out of there saying, To hell with this, I'll deal with it myself. And, uh, that's where, that's where, why there's so many small mom and pop. 501 C's that are trying to help veterans because they're they're falling through the cracks by the millions

guys. We've been discussing Donald's story, where he's coming from, what he's experienced as a veteran and what that transition looks like. The stress, the emotions, the pain, the difficulties of coming home from combat. We're going to dig into what exactly PTSD is. If you're not familiar with that, the way they talk about the support options and the concept of media therapy, which you may not be familiar with and Donald's doing a lot of work with, I'm really [00:46:00] excited about that.

Now, Donald, for our listeners who may or not know somebody or may not be familiar with it, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, what is PTSD officially? So, PTSD is, is basically a condition where your, your brain is sorting through trauma. And it's, it's still kind of, it's got multiple symptoms that a lot of people don't recognize.

Um, because it doesn't happen overnight, it slowly grows on you and, uh, you start believing a false sense of reality and that becomes from the depression, which is the symptom of PTSD, you start making, uh, you can start making, uh, erratic decisions, spontaneous decisions that can affect your business say, um, Getting rid of a truck, it's almost paid for [00:47:00] and then buying a hundred and sixty thousand dollars semi with a thought process of a week, not taking into consideration different business things and different timeframes and different plans.

So, spontaneous decision, making isolation, all of these are forms of and when you say it, a lot of people seem to think it's. This guy that is reliving flashbacks and seeing the things that had happened and living through them. They think of the Vietnam era guy that is walking down the street and all of a sudden he thinks he's back in Vietnam and he starts low crawling, you know, and, uh, that's not necessarily it.

Could that be part of it? Absolutely. But that's not necessarily. That's not the majority. I don't think and I think it's important for people [00:48:00] to get over the stereotype that Because you're a veteran that you have PTSD That's not necessarily the case. There's different levels of it and everybody's trauma is different PTSD is not a military It is a human problem.

Um, you can have PTSD from a sexual assault, childhood abuse, car accidents, uh, and never serve your day in the military. Just because you were not in the military does not mean that you can't get it, or that you don't have it. Um, because it's, it's all things that you're going to change in your attitude and your, your thought process.

Not so much your right arm's going to start hurting. And you're gonna say, Oh, I must have PTSD now because I feel a pain. It's things that are happening to you that you don't see coming. And, and you, they happen so slowly that to you, they start becoming normal. [00:49:00] It's the people on the outside that Are just confused on what, what the hell is happening.

And, uh, that's, that is one of the, the things, um, soldiers that have it is, is because of, and this is my opinion during this war, there was so many commanders that was like, yep, send us next. Yep. Send us next. And you would be home for three months. And you would already be hearing the talks about a, in about a year, we're headed to here.

Hey, we're headed to here. And so you literally would have three months of your time to relax, digest everything that just happened to you before you started training up for the next mission. And so your, your mental thought process gets wired into that kind of thinking. And when you get out, your brain is still wired that way [00:50:00] to change it.

You've got to change the way the thought process happens. And you can't do that until you can identify what's causing the, the reason for your thinking and the way you're thinking. Um, I can't speak as a psychiatrist, so I don't have a medical degree. I can tell you what has worked for me and what my psychiatrists have said and what, um, what I've done good and what I've done bad to help myself.

And that's what I share with my, my form of my nonprofit is the things that worked with me. And, uh, one of the big things I'm a big, big pro supporter of is, is a law that needs to be put in place on how fast and how often you can deploy a soldier. Because the special operations unit, they don't get any what's called dwell time.

And this is [00:51:00] something that, uh, this is the reason why I've got so many deployments and so many years deployed. They weren't nine month deployments like the conventional army. They were three months deployed. 3 months back, 3 months to another place, 3 months back, and so 6 months out of the, out of the year, for 9 years, I was deployed, but 3 months I was back, I was gone training with the Rangers or whoever that was back.

So, there never was any time to mourn, go through fear, analyze events that happened to you. And your brain becomes wired to think that way. And when you get out, and those threats are gone, they're now different kind of threats, like bill collectors, and people cutting you off on the highway. Everyday living events, they become [00:52:00] magnified.

And those same wire paths in your brain treat them as life threatening events. And so it is not uncommon to see somebody that is happy one minute and two hours later, completely pissed off, you know, they have these manic ups and downs and that roller coaster rides and all of these are, are forms of what they call PTSD.

And, uh, if you, if you Google it and you look at the symptoms. I would say probably 99 out of 100 people could say, Oh, yeah, I must have PTSD because the symptoms are very generalized, you know, um, the biggest mistake you can make is to and I hear veterans do this and it kind of tears our community down.

is to think that because I won and I'm better and it did it in two months. Why are you [00:53:00] still messed up? All of our traumas are different and that's what caused the PTSD. Our life events, the things behind us, those are the things that we deal with. Um,

we, uh, we as veterans have to understand that a guy that came from Compton that was running the streets with gangs, heard gunshots every single day, may not get PTSD because a mortar round went off a person that came from Beverly Hills PTSD That the worst day of their life was a broken fingernail, may have PTSD from seeing a person get injured, a car accident that happened on base, wasn't even war related.

So [00:54:00] your life events and the history behind you also shape you out with how you deal with things. What are you accustomed to from the time you grew up to that point? So it's not a race, it's not about who can get healed the fastest. It's about the steps that you're taking to get better, and you do that every day.

Um, the memories will always be there, of things that caused you to, to have these problems. It's the rewiring of your brain on how you sort through them, and how you can rationalize them. You know, I used to, and, and I'm still that guy. I see a box on the, on the side of the road, or something that, out of the normal, I still stare at it.

You know, does that mean I still think it's a bomb? No, but my brain still perceives it as a potential threat, you know, and and those types of things will never go away. You know, I don't like running over. [00:55:00] Because one of the things that was done all the time in Afghanistan was they quit using garbage to set up bombs.

They started putting them in roadkill because we were used to it. They knew us better than we knew them. And so these are training tactics now that are that you're taught to to counter defend what the enemy's doing to you. That when you take away, you're still doing, you know, um, from Bosnia. I seen kids that would not walk on anything that was not hard.

If there was a mud puddle, they walked around it and it's because they were taught as kids. Don't walk in the grass. Don't walk anywhere because there could be a landmine. Because we were there trying to find the 1. 5 million landmines that were still in the ground where there was no maps to it. So, you take that kid who was grown up that way, I mean, he's probably going to be able to deal with [00:56:00] harsher events before his mental thought process starts breaking down.

So, that's the part that, that you're, you're dealing with is everybody's different. So, how do you deal with them? Um, one, stop being afraid. If, if you're dealing with a veteran, That is having a bad day and has PTSD don't want. Don't be afraid to ask him. Are you thinking about killing yourself? You're not going to put that thought in his mind.

I promise you if he was thinking about killing himself, that thought was already there, but that conversation may change the outcome, you know, and now, you know, I can't leave him alone. I need to get somebody here to get some help. Um, to don't think you have to talk about the problem. You're not going to solve it.

Overnight PTSD is something that [00:57:00] it takes years to change. It is a internal battle and sometimes that brain just needs that break, um, on my app. So, when I started my podcast, 1 of the 1st things I did is I created an app called 2 drunk dudes in a gun room and it basically had access to my videos and a chat button and if you were having a problem or you needed somebody to talk to, you could reach out to me.

And we could talk and some people used it. Um, and nine times outta 10, the people I talked to, we just joked around and talked about the weather and stupid events and, and dumb private stories and, you know, things that we did in the field. And we didn't talk about war unless they told me what they were going through.

I never asked them because most of the veterans just needed a break from that fight. And within an hour or two, they felt better. They could go to sleep and wake up tomorrow. [00:58:00] Refresh to start that fight again. And that's what sometimes you're providing is just that, you know, let's let's go to the park and talk about some bullshit, you know, let's talk about the weather.

Let's talk about the football game last week. Let's take their mind off the problem and let them re group, get that rest that the mind needs. And then they can live till tomorrow to fight another day. Um, when that conversation stops, and the talking stops, and their forms of therapy stops, that's when they're in their darkest moments.

And I promise you, the thoughts of suicide has been in every single veteran's mind. You know, and if you're not, if you're not there to talk to them, they're gonna handle it their own way. And if you're not thinking things clearly, and you get in that [00:59:00] depression, and you start believing that nobody likes you, nobody wants to be around you, your family's better off without you, Your job sucks, your life sucks, you suck, and this happens day after day.

Me, personally, I took a lot of stuff out on my son. Um, the day that my life changed was my worst day in my life. I threw my son out of my house the day after a hurricane. What, what dad does that? You know, I literally have turned myself into a piece of shit by telling myself I'm a piece of shit and then being mad at my son because he looks just like me, he acts like me.

He is part of me and all I see is that piece of shit and that became my reality and and the reason why I threw him out was because he got into an argument with his mom. He was my son, but he was 22. And I the truth of the reason why he got thrown [01:00:00] out was because I couldn't deal with my shit. I hadn't gotten any help.

I have gotten deeper, deeper. And in my house, we had my wife, myself, my son, his girlfriend, his kids, their sister, her mom and dad. I mean, everybody, my cousins. It was all living in this house during this hurricane, and, uh, I just couldn't take it no more. Anxiety was just relentless, and I hadn't been trained enough to realize that when the anxiety gets like that, my temper comes with it, and as it grows and it fuels, it becomes this fire that's in my chest, and I can't breathe, and I lash out at anybody and everything.

And I tried to go for a walk, and when I came back, I walked into an argument. That just instantly set me off. And if it wouldn't have been for my wife, it would have turned into a physical argument because I was to the point where I was willing to hit him. [01:01:00] And, that's when I realized I need help. This ain't normal.

This can't be normal. And so, I didn't go to the VA. I, I didn't want, nothing to do with the VA. Previous argument while I was getting out because of me, not because of the VA guy. You know, what he did to piss me off. Isn't the problem. The problem is, I allowed it to piss me off. And, and that's the way you've gotta change your thought process, is it's not the person's fault that made me mad.

It's my fault for letting it get to that point. And, uh, I didn't, I didn't file for a VA claim till almost four years after the military, because I told that guy when I went to ask him a question, to go F himself that I didn't need your [01:02:00] damn money because he asked me if I had an appointment and I said no.

And he said, we'll walk in periods or tomorrow, not today. And he walked away and he had nobody to talk to. He had no customers. He was standing out in the hallway shooting the shit with some other soldiers. And all I wanted to ask him was what paperwork I needed to bring for my appointment tomorrow. And I went from having an okay day to not even thinking or filtering what I said anymore.

And I let that moment dictate three years of My life, which made it harder to file my claims later and again, that's that's another form of PTSD. Irrational. Thoughts and reactions. And so, because of that, I reached out to a buddy of mine that was seeing a civilian therapist. And that could have been the best thing I have ever done.

Because that guy specialized in PTSD. And [01:03:00] after talking with him, he explained to me how bad off I really was. And the really cool part about that was he wrote several books about PTSD and to get an understanding what soldiers was went through. He literally as a civilian, um, worked with the seals and went through seal training just to see what the training was like before he wrote that book.

He was the one that was helping. The Fort Stewart, uh, base medical set up their PTSD program. He had brought in several different, uh, things that therapists can do, several different types of treatments, and he trained and certified all the therapists in the local area. And, uh, he, he dealt with the medical side, so medicine.

And versus counseling and talking, um, and he, once he got you stable, then he would recommend you to a therapist to, to talk and so forth. [01:04:00] Um, but because of his ability to be able to relate to the special operations world, and he looked at my DD 214 and said, you've deployed 68 months. It's not normal to think you're going to come back normal and after several tests, he discovered that, you know, I probably do have some TBI.

Um, I've got some memory loss that type of issues. Um, but I never, I never filed those claims. I never did those tests accurately. If I could get out of taking the test when I came back, I did, you know, so I've never been diagnosed with it and I've never went back to the VA for it. But, uh, after, uh, Getting stable man.

I was looking through a different lens and I didn't like what I was seeing what I have done Which was even harder on me because now the reality is Reality, it's not my little [01:05:00] world that's going on in my head. I'm seeing the truth I'm seeing the financial situations that I put my family in I'm seeing the connections that me and my wife used to have that we no longer have I'm seeing kids that resent me because I all through their puberty years.

They were living with a dickhead, you know Um, I did that They didn't do that. And I never explained to him why they didn't know. Because if you ask dad, he's fine. If you know, our deployments became so normal that when the first deployment I had, my wife took me to the flight line and was in tears when I left my last deployment, my wife rolled over, gave me a kiss and said, see you in a year.

That's how. Numbed my family had became to it. Um, and and that's not something that family should should get to. [01:06:00] But, uh, I think, uh, I think the biggest thing that people can do and I didn't mean to kind of go on a tangent, but, um, the biggest thing that people can do is to listen and to notice the changes because they're not going to notice them.

So, when you see somebody that you're just talking to online all the time. You don't see them no more, you need to reach out. If they're your neighbor, talk to them, wave. Those little things of them knowing that when they walk out the door, somebody notices them may be what they need to walk out that door again.

And that's not just, I don't, I don't honestly believe that's just for soldiers. I believe that's for anybody that's gone through trauma or everybody's dealing with it in a different way. Donald, we did, we've established that the VA is not necessarily the most [01:07:00] functional of resources for veterans. And there are, we talked about off, off camera, we talked about some smaller options.

Now we're going to kind of roll this together. Tell us about media therapy, what that is, and then translate that into your three projects that you're building out to help veterans. So when I started this podcast to give you a little bit of back history, um, it was me and my old first son and he owned a gun business.

And we were trying to put ourselves around veterans again to help ourselves as much as it was to help anybody else. We needed that camaraderie again. And so one day I told him, I said, why don't we start a podcast? And he, he just kind of laughed and he said, well, what would we call it? I said, let's call it two drunk dudes in a gun room because we spent so much time in his gun room building guns and our, our [01:08:00] relaxation was to go to the range and shoot, um, and just have fun.

And we like to drink a few beers and have a good time. And so the name was just humorous to us. And that's kind of what we wanted the show to be about. And we brought our veteran friends on and some 501 C's and. And so on and so on, and, uh, by the three quarters of the way through season one, I realized I was talking about things that I had never even told my family about, and the stories were getting deeper, and, uh, I was getting things off my chest, and my buddy was having a hard time absorbing some of those, and so at the end of the year, end of season one, he dropped off, um, for personal reasons, and I just kept the show going because I realized That I was in therapy, um, and I no longer cared whether one person watched my show or [01:09:00] whether 10, 000 people watched my show.

And I still feel that way today because it's about me. It's about healing for myself and getting me to talk to people and interact with people. And so Season 2, I no longer had a co host and I started bringing on guests for every episode. Um, because I couldn't do it by myself and I started getting these veteran musicians that came in and, uh, they had the same problem I had, but it was magnified, you know, it's hard to get your show seen, heard, found through all the other rhythms on all these platforms.

And if you say the wrong thing, the show gets, you know, muted, silenced, hidden, whatever you want to call it. Um, and these veterans, they were trying to pursue their dreams. They were musicians. That needed to get gigs because that bought food, paid rent, mortgages, you know. And they were giving their dreams a call, calling [01:10:00] after they gave their country their calling.

And so, one day I had this, this idea. Why don't I just start a radio station that plays Music from these veterans and help eliminate some of the outside noise and the algorithms and the competition between people that have got 15 years of experience and they're just starting out. And so I did, I started a radio station called gun room radio.

Uh, we're licensed through, um, BMI. We're licensed through ASCAP. We play our, we pay our royalties to the musicians. Um, we do anything that a regular radio station would have to do, except we're online versus. Radio waves. Um, and then I realized what all this stuff ties together. Um, music is a form of media.

It's an art, you know, the songwriters, the [01:11:00] podcasting, it's, it's talk radio, but it's, it's using media to tell my story to get the stuff that is burying me that I'm capped up on out so that I can breathe and think. Um, so I turned it into a nonprofit called it's a nonprofit. Hero's Voice Media Foundation and our goal is to get it to where if you're podcasting, you see some success to get you to keep podcasting until like me, you find the people that can help you.

Um, if you're a veteran, you're gonna find out real quick that a veteran podcaster is gonna get surrounded by other veterans. You're gonna have Lifelines phones to call five oh one Cs that you've interviewed that can help. Um, and the list goes on and on of the resources that you're gonna find, but if you think you're gonna be the next Joe Rogan and you start looking at your [01:12:00] stats and the cost of what it costs to become, um, longevity in the podcasting world, you're gonna get frustrated and you're gonna quit and for the average person that might not be a big deal.

But if what you're quitting is the only form of therapy, whether you realized it was or not, I promise you, you're not going to close it and go to the VA and talk to them because before you started podcasting, you already experienced that. So now you're a veteran that is no longer talking. You're isolating and you're still back to being pissed off at the world and you're going back down that dark hole.

You started podcasting because you had a story to tell, you had something to say, and you wanted to be heard. And so that's what we do. It's called Military United Podcast Streams. It's a group on Facebook. [01:13:00] It's a page on Facebook. But, uh, anybody that is a veteran that is podcasting can be a part of it. Um, there's currently somewhere between 8, 000, 9, 000 followers on it.

You can stream to that page. You can upload your videos to that page to help your stats and help get seen and help get people to hear your story. Um, and to help find other podcasters, other 501Cs, other people that can help you. Um, I offer assistance with people that need help learning how to navigate podcasts.

We're trying to put together a little group for all the podcasters that may have an extra mic, an extra this or that. They don't need that. They can donate to other people and help them get started. Um, And that's what that program's about. So that's one of the projects. The other one was the radio station that has now grown from one listener or one radio state, one artist to under just under a hundred artists and probably [01:14:00] five, 600 songs and three different stations.

So we have our vet mix, um, station, which is every single veteran and every single type of genre and every single song. And then we have. our country station, which is called Semper Fi Country, and it's all the country music from all the veteran country artists. And then we just started Ranger Rock Wave, which is our rock and roll channel.

And it's same thing. It's all the veterans. Veterans and veteran dependents. And, uh, we, we, we open that up because if you are a spouse or a child that's pursuing music and you're in an active duty family, you're just as much in the military as what your family or the husband or the soldier is because you deployed when they were gone, your mind was gone with them when.

They PCS, you had to leave. So trying to start a career in the music industry is going to be [01:15:00] extremely difficult if every 18 to 36 months, you were moving to another state. And by the time you got local gigs and regular gigs, you were moving on to another place again. So we opened it up to the dependents as well.

We've got two or three military spouses, a few children of veterans, and the other ninety six percent are all veterans. We also partnered with a nonprofit called Operation Encore. They, they kind of helped me through the legality of the radio station. And, uh, um, they're, what they do is they take artists that want to mute veterans that want to be artists and they take, they, they sponsor three to five a year.

And they invest a lot of money into them. They get three of their songs recorded. They put them through a music bootcamp with an industry leading artist. Um, and they put [01:16:00] together some gigs for them. And as long as they're an operation encore artists, and as long as they're. And they go to any of the events that Operation Encore is having.

They will pay for your travel to get you to another gig as long as that gig is paying you to be there. And so they do some awesome stuff. They partnered with Zach Brown and several of the artists that were on my radio station. Operation Encore reached back out and said, Hey, I never heard of this person.

Can you connect me with that veteran? And they would, they invited several of them. Jen Ford was one of them. They got invited to go down to Zach Brown's, uh, um, songwriter convention called heroes week, um, at his camp. And they just sat together and talked about songwriting and, and did some camaraderie and some bonding.

And, um, you know, it was a, it was an amazing event and I was honored that. Several veterans were, were found through the radio station [01:17:00] and that's what the radio station is about. That's what, uh, MUPS, uh, the podcasting streams about is, is helping you build yourself, build your confidence and get you streaming and talking and writing and making sure you don't stop.

Um, I am now in the process of laying out the third part of this program. It is called, I had to change the name. It was originally going to be called Warrior's Words, but uh, somebody has bought that domain just to resell it and they want like, um, a fortune. Yeah. So I changed it to Words of Warriors. Um, and what it is, it's for our authors, people that are writing books.

poems, magazine articles, blogs, and we're going to help you get your content out there. We're going to, I'm, I have in all these programs, I reach out and I've got people that I'm going to have come in and do some, uh, um, online, uh, [01:18:00] webinars to help with public speaking, helping with the business side of podcasting, helping with publishing and navigations, formatting of how you write a book, how do you lay it out, you know, the business stuff, and, and I'm going to bring in That can specialize in that and talk about that and anybody that is a member gets access to that and it there is no sign up.

It's not you don't pay no money to be a part of it. You are a veteran. You qualify in the question. Um, the radio station plays every single song. And that's why the genre channels had to start because. The original radio station got so big that it was literally taking three days for your song to get played one time.

Because there was that many songs being played. And, uh, that's what it's about. It's, it's about getting the veterans out there. And, and like I said earlier, telling the world that we are more than just somebody that you put in a bottle and you say [01:19:00] breaking case of war. Because we have dreams and we have aspirations and they should not be punished because they spent the first 15 years of their life fighting for this country.

And now they want to become musicians and the industry is not going to give you the same opportunity. You're going to have to be twice as good as your counterparts to get picked up or have one amazing ass story that they can sell and make money off of for a label to want anything to do with you at that age.

They're looking for that 18, 19, 20 year old that they can turn into a songwriter, build into a musician and make money off their backs for years. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not talking down on them. I know I get passionate about this when I say it, but it's not right that there isn't a program out there to recognize the artist that is busting their ass at 40 years old because he fought for his country first.

I have artists that have [01:20:00] literally gave up everything and are living in a van. Gigging from town to town, to town to town year round to make this dream happen. I think they're putting in the work. I think that's fair to say that they deserve a radio station that plays just their music. Um, I, I, I advertise for these at Veterans nonstop.

Um, if I see that they're gigging somewhere, it is shared. I tell the world about it. Um, but like anything else, we need help as well. And, uh. I mean, I'm even running an ad right now on Facebook. We're, we're looking for DJs. I'm looking for people that have, uh, that are podcaster and then want to promote their show, but are willing to do it in a way.

And also play these people's music. I don't want the radio station to be a playlist. I want the listeners to [01:21:00] know why that song that was just played. Was it wrote the story about that better? Um, my first artist that ever signed up, um, for Gun Room Radio, and, and, and I, I, I tell everybody this, my disclaimer is we had absolutely nothing to do with his success, um, because he is so talented, and he's been busting his ass.

But his name is Scotty Hasting. He just got picked up by a record label, um, last month, I think it was, and, uh, he's currently doing a duet with Dolly Parton. And he's made it and he has one hell of a story. He was shot ten times in Afghanistan, um, by a machine gun. He's got two purple hearts. He was also blown up by an IED.

Um, he jokes about that purple heart. He doesn't feel like he should have gotten it. The 2nd, 1, there's no question. He's deserved it. There was a guy hiding behind the building. You can go to Scotty hasting music dot com and he's got the video because he got tired [01:22:00] of telling the story over and over. But, uh, um, you can, you can see it on YouTube wherever if you just type in Scotty hasting, but, uh, he, they were going after a bomber.

And they got ambushed and a guy came around the building with a machine gun, and he got shot from right to left. I think it was. I can't remember which way it was, but his, uh, he's got nerve damage in his right hand, five, six rounds, hit his chest through his plates, uh, got hit in the leg. You know, he literally got from this machine gun.

Um, total 10 times was hit. They had to carry him 300 yards. away from the town to get a helicopter even in, uh, to pull him out. And he was a Paralympian in archery. That's what he did. He was big in archery. He was big into sports before the military. [01:23:00] And when COVID came and the Olympics left, he, instead of feeling sorry for himself and, and not fighting, he picked up a guitar and learned how to play the guitar and now is in Nashville, labeled, got an amazing song that just came out.

Um, and, uh, he did that. He's living proof of what a veteran can do because we do have dreams. Some of it is to be a doctor. Some of it's to be a lawyer. Some of it's to be a podcaster. Some of it's to be a musician, you know, a race car driver. There's a five Oh one C out there that I like to tell everybody about.

They have like 10 race cars and some big sponsors. And if you're a veteran, you can apply and they take you to the track and they put you in these cars to race, you know, you're for a weekend, one weekend that that time you are [01:24:00] isolated from the world, surrounded by fun mechanic guys like to joke and you get time to race in these cars, you know, and it's not about winning.

It's about going out on the track. And running balls to the walls and getting some of that adrenaline again, and being hung around a bunch of veterans and talking. And I think that's an amazing 501c. They're called Battle Scars. Um, battle scars racing, I believe is what it's called, but, uh, so our big, our big deal is, is, and, and, and everybody asks me, so when do, where, what do we have to accomplish to say we accomplished our mission?

Um, hopefully here in the next few weeks, our TV channel will start. It's going to be on Roku. It's going to be two channels. There's going to be a podcasting channel. And there's going to be everybody in my generation misses MTV. What the [01:25:00] hell happened to it? Why is it not just music videos again? Right.

MMTV is coming and it's military music television and it will be nothing but veterans. Musicians that have recorded music videos. There's a Shannon book just recorded one a few months ago. Um, Operation Encore funded it. I believe their budget was somewhere around eight grand. And it took two weeks. The song was wrote.

They were at, they asked Shannon book to write a song about gold star families. And he came up with this song called Dear Mom. If you've never heard this song, grab some tissue. Go to YouTube and listen to it. Operation Encore heard it and said, Yes, that video will happen. And they made it. Um, they had a director come in, professionally done.

And it was released on YouTube for free for the world to see. And that's what I want to focus on. Is, [01:26:00] is the work and the effort that these veterans are putting in. They need to have a TV channel. But it doesn't stop there. Um, I'm in talks with some people. We are trying to make the VMAs. I think if we can have the country music awards, why can't we have the veteran music awards?

And I want to get the, the, the veterans that have made it. George Straits and, and all of them that served, but are now successfully in the industry. I want them to host it, and for one day, I want to get several of these artists that are voted, that have put in the time, that worked their ass off, to come to Nashville, play.

The paparazzi, the red carpet, the cameras, the press, and they may never be the next Garth Brooks, but they will be for that day. And, I think it's only right, you know. They need to experience [01:27:00] that. You know, people see them. We see what you're doing and I want the world to see it too, because this isn't about money.

You know, we can turn the event. Even I would, I would much rather go a little bit, step further with that event. Um, I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Did you know that there's a Miss America veteran pageant? No, I wasn't aware of that. There is. So the requirements are you had to serve honorably and you have to be female and they compete, they have the selections.

You have to get nominated from each state. As a matter of fact, you can go back to, um, one of my episodes. I had a lady that is representing Texas this year. And the difference is in the Miss America pageant, each of the contestants have a nonprofit that they're supporting. And if they win, that support gets recognized and goes to that nonprofit.

[01:28:00] Well, the Miss America veteran pageant has its own nonprofit. There is homeless shelters out there for female veterans. There is not homeless shelters out there for female veterans with children. So that's what that pageant supports is assistance and help for them. And so if you participate, that's what you're supporting.

You know, it's not individualized anymore. And if you go to their website, their website is bad ass. You've got all these women that are in these amazing long gowns covered in dirt. They are warriors and it is amazing. Whoever put that up, I'd love to have them on my show and shake their hand because they did an amazing job representing the warrior and the female veteran.

And so I think that's awesome. But, uh, you know, my hat's off to whoever created that program. I think it's amazing. And, uh, I'm [01:29:00] gonna do the same thing. You know, let me ask you this. You're a military veteran, podcaster. Have you ever wondered why, if you search for a veteran podcast, it takes you to either the political, government genre, or the mental health genre?

I haven't actually searched that, so, Um, That doesn't surprise me at all. There's no veteran podcast. You either confirm, confirm to everybody else and you change yours to comedy genre or something like that. But if you're a veteran out there and you want to talk to somebody and you want to hear, uh, another veteran podcaster, there's not a category for that.

And I don't know about you, but our humor is just a little bit different. Our comedy is not the same as the genre that I'm put in. Oh God, there needs to be a channel just for veteran humor. It really does. I, I agree. And so I am currently putting a list together. And we're gonna have our [01:30:00] own rankings. And the requirement is you'll have to be a veteran podcaster.

And you'll be on a board and I'm, I'm pulling those rankings through Apple and through Spotify, the major channels, and that'll be added on MUPS here shortly to on their on the website. And, uh, I think it's important that we recognize and see the work that veterans are doing. Not just think about the mental health.

There's, if you search PTSD 501c, I can't add anything to that category. That's not there. There is a bunch of people doing amazing work for that, but what I can do is network. I'm good at networking and I can help you podcast and help you keep doing what is actually therapy. Whether you realize it or not so that you don't give up and the veteran community is damn good at knowing when you need a foot up your ass Or a handout and a hand up Donald.

How can [01:31:00] people help you? How can people, people listening to this are going to be moved. I'm I'm how can people reach out and help you? So unfortunately, as much as I love the work, it does take money. And, uh, um, we're still trying to raise the money to, to become a full fledged 501 C. Um, this just started the 501 C part of this just started, uh, A few months ago, and, uh, I work with the, the organization called hero stock.

Um, so they're, they are a full fledged 501 C, um, so you can donate to them if you want to tax deduction, or you can go to heroes voice media foundation and, uh, you can donate there. Uh, you can go to my podcast and you can donate through my podcast on my podcast. I started a, uh, a page. It's called, uh, um, the wall of fame.[01:32:00]

And, uh, if you donate as little as 10 bucks. To helping us come up with the lawyer fees and everything. That's what we're raising the money for is, is to pay the lawyers to do the, the 501 C part, the, the, um, incorporation part and, and all the, the legal stuff and, and make it all legitimate. Um, that cost is 1800, you know, um, I believe in it so much that I put 200 a month in there and, uh.

On top of covering everything else, the podcasting, the airtime for three channels, the Roku channel build, the web page graphic designer that I hired, you know, I am in, I'm not just a salesman, but I started this wall of fame and your name will go on that wall on our web page. And once we raise the money.

10 for that as well. Um, so you'll see that my dog, little and who's literally my best friend, and I'm going to have that wall built in a plaque that will stay with our foundation from [01:33:00] the time till it's never a foundation again, whenever that is, um, and, and you will be a part of building something. I'm strongly believe in and, uh, as a matter of fact, my dog's name is on there.

I donated 10 for that as well. Um, so you'll see that my dog, little and who's literally my best friend. She was with me in my semi truck. I've had her since she was a puppy and we've both gone through shit together. Um, she probably needs a therapist now from all the stories I told her, but, uh, um, you know, even her name is on there and I believe in it that much.

Um, everybody that's bought a hat, a t shirt, uh, a raffle card. Their names on there as well. Um, because they're all people that have believed in this and, and are helping build it. Um, so you could donate there. Um, if you have a show and you want to advertise on the radio station, we've made it extremely cheap for that.

Um, as a [01:34:00] matter of fact, you can be a corporate sponsor on the radio station if you cover the airtime for a year. For the radio station, it's 39.95 a month. I think I got it set there for $45 and that covers everything, the time and everything that it goes into putting in the channel. Um, so for $45 a month, you can be a corporate sponsor.

I don't know anybody that can advertise on the radio for $45 a month, and that makes sure that the. The radio station continues to drive on and that's 45 more dollars a month. And I can donate towards heroes. Voices media foundation to get it built. Um, if you go to gun room radio dot com, you can reach all the radio stations there.

You can go to Google or Apple and download two drunk dudes in a gun room. And, uh, you can, uh, um, download the app for that and you can reach the radio station through that. [01:35:00] And, uh, you can also go to gun room radio on on Google. Me and Apple are currently fighting on the, I guess the name or something, but they, they won't let the app gun room radio be on the.

Apple yet, but Google, um, you can go to Google and download gun room radio and the app is, is there as well and, and you can get access to all the radio stations that way. It does not require an account does not require a sign in an email address there's no questions, you download the app and you hit play.

And that's, that's as simple as that I'll never know who it was that did it. And if you love it, you can listen for hours if you don't leave for a minute later, I won't be able to find you in a laundry in a laundry mat somewhere saying, why'd you leave. You know, because. We don't track on any of that stuff, and I know that's kind of a big deal to some people, but, uh, um, I think, I think you'll find that you do realize that the talent that's out there is amazing, and it's, I get it all the time.

Why have I not heard [01:36:00] this person before, you know, and so just being a listener is supporting us, because without it, nobody would be willing to advertise on the radio station. Nobody be willing to advertise on my podcast. You know, 100 percent of every, every single dime that gets donated goes towards this project.

I don't take any of it. I have a full time job. I support myself. I'm a general supervisor for a mining company for the maintenance department. I take care of myself and I, I'm trying to build something that I strongly believe in. Um, we have no paid staff. So if you wanted to do a due date, like I said, and you have a podcast or a show or something that you want to, you know, promote.

I don't charge you for being on there. I've had that question asked several times, but, uh, you're doing us a favor and I'm, I allow people to create their shows, to make them their shows. All I ask is that you are [01:37:00] talking about the veterans and you're playing the music are there so that the veterans get heard.

Um, I've created a chat areas where we can post where the, uh, where the artists are gigging quick references to their histories, their bios. If you want to talk about them individually and then play a song, I've made it super simple. And, uh, you know, if you have a spare hour and you want to, you want to create an hour long show, or if you want to create a three hour long show, DJs is, is the one thing that's been really hard for us to find.

And, uh, you know, people either think it's a job and want to know how much I'm paying them to do it, or they think it's a way that they can make money from it. And it's neither one of those, you know, I want you to generally care about the veteran community. I won't, I won't allow somebody to get on there.

That's just doing it for self fame. So that's, uh, that's it in a nutshell. You know,[01:38:00]

we, we've been going for a while and honestly think I could go for several more hours with you. Uh, but big takeaway, if, if the people listening today heard nothing else, what do you want them to hear? Um, take care of the veterans out there. Check on them and understand that we're more than that. So don't be afraid to think that you're talking to somebody that's got PTSD because That could be anybody guys for Donald and myself.

Thank you for taking the time to listen, support your local veterans, support the people you love who have been touched by this, who are coming home. Let's do this better than previous generations did as always be better tomorrow because what you do today, we'll see you in the next one. Take care. This has been the fellow woman podcast, your home [01:39:00] for everything man, husband and father.

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