Rally Point 62

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rally Planters fun.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Once again, folks, it's us at the Rally Point Show.
Your host, Serge James Himaway, and my co host.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
I'm in a Macnu and our guest host we have
with us today, introduce yourself.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
I'm Justin Leadford from Warrior Wellness Radio.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Very cool, and Justin is going to be joining us
from time to time as a guest host here on
the Rally Point Show. So, now that we've introduced the gang,
everybody doing good, feeling.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Good, hey man, living, breathing.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Oh yeah, right on, Well let's jump right into the show.
And so now we have with us our guests. We
have Naomi Copeland from Southwest Florida Honor Flight with us. Hi, Naomi,
how are you?

Speaker 4 (00:45):
Good morning? I'm great, How are you fine?

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Thank you? Thanks for being on the show with us
this morning to talk about your upcoming Honor flight with
Southwest Florida Honor Flight. Are you getting excited?

Speaker 4 (00:56):
Yes, we are really really rubbing up with logistics and
plans and very very excited today.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Very cool. So for our listeners that maybe aren't familiar
with Honor Flight, can you give a quick overview of
what Honor flights about and how Southwest Florida.

Speaker 4 (01:13):
Honor Flight operates absolutely so. Twenty years ago this year
in May, Earl Earl Morse and Jeff Miller got together
and they worked at a VA hospital in Fringsfield, Ohio.
They saw a lot of World War Two veterans come
through their doors, and it was about that time Bob

(01:35):
Dole was raising funds for the World War Two memorial
in DC, and Jeff and Earl just had conversations with
their patients and said, you know, when the memorial built
in your honor is finished, will you go visit it?
And they said yeah, yeah, yeah. And unfortunately future you know,

(01:55):
fast forward, you know, several months in a year or two,
and the World War Two veterans had not gone and
seen their memorials. So Jeff and Earle were visionaries and
new SOMEVETHNA pilots and they went to them and said,
we've got the World War Two veterans. Could you fly them?
And on May twenty first, two thousand and five, about

(02:16):
two dozen World War Two veterans boarded in Sesna aircraft
in Springfield, Ohio, flew to d C, were honored at
their memorials, and low and behold when they returned the
community was waiting on the tarmac to welcome them home,
and that birth the Honor Flight. We are a network.

(02:38):
We are about one hundred and twenty six hubs throughout
the United States, including Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska. There
are ten hubs in the state of Florida, and Southwest
Florida Honor Flight is one of those ten and we
cover Charlotte, De Soto, Hardy, Hendry, Highlands, Manitee, and Sarasota counties,

(03:03):
so we cover seven counties in the state and lots
of veterans. There's over one hundred thousand veterans in just
so seven counties and to date we've flown a little
over twenty one hundred veterans.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Wow, and that is fantastic. Thank you for giving that
overview of how Southwest Florida Honor Flight got it start.
And so what is the projection with this upcoming flight?
What is the date for the next Honor flight that
Southwest Florida Honor Flight will be hosting.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
Our next flight will be on April eight. We will
be flying from Pontagorda Airport with a chartered Allegiant aircraft.
We will begin making phone calls to the selected veterans
we will be honoring during the month of February and
March to fill the aircraft and we've got big plans

(03:56):
for twenty twenty five. And I should just also you know,
we're also very excited about this particular week because on Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
our network, so all of the hubs across the United
States comes together for what we call a summit, and

(04:17):
we're so excited. It is going to be in downtown
d C, this time in Crystal City. Normally it's held
in Baltimore, and it is going to be a twentieth
anniversary celebration of Earl and jaff forming this amazing opportunity
for us across the United State to be able to

(04:39):
honor our veterans. So we get to network with other hubs,
learn best practices, learn new tips and techniques. We're going
to get the updates on all of the memorials and
construction going on in DC, and just had to best
be prepared for that April eighth flight out of.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Panagorda outstanding and by the way, good morning, Naomi's Jay Sarge.
I will say I have a master Starry here. So
it's going a little confused in justin Hello, Hello, good morning.
One of my questions for you are is excuse me?
With the different hubs that you have here in Florida,
in throughout the United States, are you guys are Thomas

(05:18):
or one another? Or you guys kind of work together?
How does that usually work?

Speaker 4 (05:21):
We work together? We obviously it's all about the veterans,
and so it's whatever the veterans' desires and wishes are,
and so we do our very very best work with
all of the hubs across the United States. Last year,
the number of veterans still waiting for their honor flight

(05:41):
was over forty two thousand veterans across the United State.
And so there are veterans that maybe could I think
about snowbirds? I get asked all of the time. Does
the veteran have to live here? They don't. We've taken
a couple of brothers that live here in Port Charlotte

(06:01):
and their brother lives in Michigan, and the brother flew
down so that he could experience the honor fly. All
three of them were veterans together, so that they could
all be honored together. Kind of you know, a bond,
a special form of healing maybe together and share share
those memories and those veterans and every veteran always say

(06:22):
the honor fly is one of the best days of
their life. So we do our very very best and
make sure that the needs of the veterans are met
and whatever their wishes are. So it's just when we
all work together as hubs across the United States.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
Okay, So I have a question as the new kid.
So I know that it sounds like a great program
that I know a lot of veterans are going to
want to get on board with. So how do you
How do you determine who gets put on the waiting list?
How does how does that work? Is there costs associated?
Because I know that there's a lot of veterans that

(06:57):
feel like it doesn't apply to them. I've talked to
a few Vietnam veterans that don't think that they fit
the criteria. Can you explain what the criteria is and
the waiting list process?

Speaker 4 (07:10):
Absolutely? Those are really great questions. And I will tell
you fund raising for the flights are always you know,
that's always a challenge, but I will tell you getting
the veterans who submit their applications is actually harder than
raising funds, and that is because we know, you know,

(07:32):
I think you know. World War two veterans were the
greatest generation. There are many still around, and I will
tell you I believe that a lot of them move
from the north the Midwest and the northwest through Florida
where it's such an amazing climate most days year round,
and I think they get healthier, This is just my opinion,

(07:54):
and they live longer, and so they by the time
we get to them and find find them, you know,
they're one hundred, they're ninety nine, they're pushing one hundred
and one. We've had one hundred and two year old
World War II veteran. So that's always the challenge is
making sure that the veterans understand and our belief in
our hub at Southwest Florida honor flight is you were

(08:16):
the flag of our nation. You were willing and ready
to serve whenever you were called. You deserve to be honored.
And so a lot of hubb early on only would
take combat veteran veterans who saw combat, and that has
evolved over the years because it is all veterans deserve

(08:36):
to be honored. The waiting list. So what happens is
veterans will submit an application. We fly our veterans at
no cost, so our veterans fly completely for free. We
do all kinds of fundraise to ensure that our veterans
do not have to pay a dime because they've already

(08:57):
paid a price for our freedom and Guardians Company veterans
and they do pay a portion of the flight cost expenses.
And World War two veterans obviously take priority. Korean veterans
are the next person, if you will, that takes priority
because we know we're we're you know, there's fewer and

(09:18):
viewer World War two veterans, there's your in viewer Korean
veterans as well, and then anyone with a life limiting illness.
So if they if and how we define that is
if they would sbmit their application and it would be
a couple of years before they would maybe get their
call FORU or fly and they are in the middle of,
you know, seven episodes of cancer. We're going to get

(09:42):
them on the flight as soon as we possibly can, respectfully,
and then everyone goes in a wait list. It's by
date application received, and it's always a little challenging because
we could have a World War two veteran who is
a friend of a Vietnam veterans who just submit their application,
and we're going to try to do our very besty

(10:03):
friends and brothers and sisters together on their honor flight.
So it is always a juggling act. We never intend
to hurt anyone's feelings. And sometimes we've called people and
filled the fly and one I can give you one example.
In the spring of twenty twenty four, this is a

(10:24):
perfect example. I had confirmed a Korean veteran on his
honor flight. His stepdaughter was going to be his guardian.
A month goes by, and about three weeks before the fly,
I get a call from the stepdaughter and says, hey,
my stepdad has been in the hospital for ten days.
We appreciate the fact that you know we're going to

(10:47):
get him on his honor flight, but we just don't
think he can make it. And I said, you're sure,
you know because I have to submit a manifest a
TSA and they're like, no, go ahead and remove both
of us, which we did seven days before the flymitted
our manifest The day before our orientation, I get a
phone call from the stepdaughter, would you mind if we

(11:07):
brought dad orientation tomorrow. We just want to give him
an idea of what it looked like. And I said, absolutely,
please bring him. And he came in to the location
where our orientation was being held and I immediately turned
to my vice president and I said, he absolutely has

(11:27):
to get on this flight on Tuesday. There's no ifans
or buts about it. I will not go on the
flight and I will give him my seat. Let's get
him on the flight. And we had did a little
bit of maneuvering and we were able to get him
on the flight, get his information to TSA, get him through,
and he passed away ten days after the flight. So yeah,

(11:51):
so we were able to honor him and get him
on his honor flight as a last act of respect
and honor, and it was the best day of his life.
He talked about it for the ten days after the
flight until he left our earth. So that is kind
of the pecking order. There is no charge for our veterans.

(12:13):
If you have worn the flag of our nation and
Southwest Florida Honor Flights Hub, you should submit an application
right now for our In preparation for our conference this
week in December, we had to submit our statistics, how
many veterans we flew, how many guardians we flew, how
many flight we flew, and how many are on our

(12:33):
weight list. And I will tell you Southwest Florida Honor Fly.
We have been working diligently and non stop for the
last three years to get the veterans in those seven
counties of Charlotte, DeSoto, Hardy, Henry Highlands, Manatee and Sarasota
counties informed about Honor Flight. We are here. We serve

(12:56):
all seven of those counties, and our way list has
gone from about forty applications to four hundred. And I
will tell you most hubs have two in three thousand
applications on their wait list. We went three years ago
from flying one flight a year to flying two flights

(13:17):
a year, and my intention and plan for twenty twenty
five is to have a third flight. We're working on it.
We've got some meetings coming up that I'm hoping will
be favorable and we will be able to add a
third flight in there. It is one hundred and eighteen
thousand dollars per flight. We charter an aircraft. We charter

(13:39):
buses because we fly into Baltimore that take us to
downtown DC. We provide dshir to recognize our honored veterans
and our guardians. There's surprises along the way, there's breakfast, lunch,
and dinner along the way, there's snacks, so it's efensive
and we raise all of those on for each and
every flight in all seven of those counties. So we've

(14:03):
managed to raise one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars now
two four, five times and a sixth time for our
April flight, and so we just I know, sometimes it
feels like all we're doing is the fundraisers, but we've
got the veterans that we need to get on their flight,
so we constantly have to be doing fund raisers to
raise the funds until we have a windfall of some business,

(14:25):
some family, some individual who will help pay it forward
continue flying veterans on their honor flight day.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Outstanding, and Naomi, I want to say a quick bet
I wish I appreciate what you guys are doing during
a real life impact that you're having here in Southwest
Florida is that there are a lot of veterans that
served in the States and didn't get a chance to
get deployed. And one of my frustrations I've met at

(14:54):
a veteran organization I served as that they said I
don't deserve and I served during the v ERA. No,
you served during Vietnam. I go, remember the planes and
supplies were packed here on state side and sent overseas,
so you're part of the overall mission. And that being
the case, that translates into undeserved to get benefits. And

(15:14):
as a service officer, I'll say that the fact, and
this is the true life situation. After going on your flight,
about a week or three days later, they come to
a Veteran Service office or their local VFW American Legion
and events, and they signed up for benefits because after
going on that flight, they had that sense of camaraderie

(15:35):
and like I served my country, I said, you're damn
straight you did, and you deserve the benefits that you
deserve to have. And that being the case, your flight
gave them that sense of pride and integrity. And I
want to say thank you for that, because that's a
true life repercussion of them coming off of your flights
and them coming in to get their benefits that they
so rightfully deserve. I say thank you for them and

(15:55):
for the future veterans that will be on your flight.

Speaker 4 (15:58):
Yes, and you're very, very welcome. And I'll tell you
there have been hub and I'm sure we'll hear about
it a little this weekend that they don't they don't
take anybody but combat veteran. And I think of two
stories that I have. One has touched me personally because
it's my husband, and another is another gentleman that I

(16:18):
met while I was tabling at mission barbecue one day. So,
my husband is a Vietnam era veteran, Vietnam Airport Vietnam
veteran era veterans. He you know, we're from Illinois. He
left Illinois, went to San Antonio, went through boot camp,
and he actually returned to Rantol, Illinois, which was a

(16:40):
training center and he was the athletic director there. And
so he laughs and jokes with me and says, well,
I just, you know, passed out basketballs. And I'm like, no,
you passed out basketballs to keep the pilots so that
they could fly those aircrafts and be sharp and be agile.
So I think about that and I'm like, you you served,

(17:00):
You did so much more the yeomen who thinks that
they just pushed paper. You pushed paper to get our veterans. Now,
veterans are active duty at the time where they needed
to be to maybe serve on the front lines or
provide food support for those that were, you know, on
the front line. One of the things that's amazing to

(17:21):
know is I have a fantastic volunt We are all volunteers,
so every single penny goes towards lying our veterans on
their on or flight. I have a fantastic board of twelve.
I think we're up to now fourteen volunteer board members.
One of my board members is a medical doctor who
literally deals every single day with veterans and their PTSD

(17:44):
and he gets to hear those stories. We bring her
along and she knows the fools. She has all of
the tools in the toolbox to work with those veterans
who might be you know, a little panicked, a little anxious.
Maybe it's just about flying, Well, maybe it's about you know,
what happens when they land and we get down to
downtown DC and we don't force We ask every veteran

(18:06):
to get off, every boy the bus at every stop,
and there's bunches and when we get to the wall,
if you can't you know, if you're not comfortable, just
we'll hang out with you. We've got people, and what
we realize is they slowly start inching their way over
to the wall and they just stand there in awe
of it, and all of the names, all of the

(18:27):
families who have given their most precious item, if you will,
their most precious thing, possession, their sons, their daughters, for
our country, for our freedom, and they just then start
walking up to the wall, and they might just put
their hand on the wall to begin with. And I'll
tell you on our Facebook page, we have amazing video.

(18:49):
We go live all day long so that family members
across the country and back home can see their loved
ones on their honored day. And it's just some of
the most sacred moments that I have ever witnessed. And
I you know, I've been involved in Honor Flight. I
had the honor and privilege of being my World War
Two father in law's guardian on his light on Veterans

(19:11):
Day twenty ten. He passed away. Four months later, I
drank the Honor Flight kool aid, and I have been
all in on Honor Flight since then. And so this
light in April will be my twenty fourth light. Fifteen
of those flights, I paid my own way to be
a guardian to someone I had never met. And I

(19:31):
will tell you when I talk guardians and veterans, I say,
I promise you you don't know who your guardian is
going to be just yet, but you will be fat
lifelong friends. I've experienced the joyous time and the most
saddest times with them. I've said goodbye to several of
them or to their spouses. I think about just yesterday,

(19:52):
I received a tech message at eight o'clock in the
morning and a veteran we had the honor of flying
in October of twenty three took his last for us
here on earth. And there'll be a ceremony for him
on Wednesday. And that's one of the things that Jay
that happens when we give them this day of honor.

(20:13):
We connect with them and they are friends of ours,
their family members, and we have gotten a chance to
say goodbye to them and fold their flag at their
service and present it to their family members. And we're
going to get to do that again this Wednesday for
a wonderful veteran who we were able to honor well.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Naomi, I think I can speak for all three of
us when I tell you that we recognize how blessed
we are to have you being in charge of the
hub in our area. You touched on some things like
generational barriers. I don't know if you knew this, but
up until about and fifteen years ago, technically guardsmen and

(20:55):
reservists were not considered veterans, which was an egregious thing
that I am so glad that. You know, our government
doesn't get much right. However, I think they got that
one right, making sure that we give the honor where
it's due to our Garden Reserve brothers and sisters. Massage
always says, if you served, you deserve, and so yeah,

(21:15):
that holds true in Honor flight as well. And I
really hope that when you go to the conference and
you talk about these kinds of things, I hope that
other hubs will open themselves up to accepting and including
more veterans on their honor flight to give them these experiences.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Yeah, and Mihanda, you really really touched on something there.
So I will also share every hub puts together their
flight a day agenda, itinerary a little differently. Some hubs
they don't go to the changing of the guard at Arlington.
I can't imagine missing. To me, that is one of
their I love Sarasota National Cemetery as well, and I

(21:55):
think Arlington is the most sacred ground. I think Sarasota
National Cemetery is the second secret holy ground. Every national
cemetery is holy ground, just wherever you live and wherever
it is. Please please please go see this. Go visit
to cemeteries, lay your hands on the stones and say
their name. They can never be forgotten. And we had

(22:15):
gone the flight before that we had one female veterans,
and on that flight we had forty two confirmed thirty
seven flu And for the first time we added a
saw at the Military Women's Memorial and we honored our
women veterans for an hour. They were all presented a
beautiful pedfolio with their record of service. The women veterans

(22:39):
out there, please go to Military Women's Memorial, Please register
your service with them. I believe we'll hear the fistic
later this week. I believe there's a lot of women
veterans and only less than one hundred thousand have actually
registered their service record with the office there. And so

(23:00):
that's set something for me that we cannot forget our women.
They you know, some of them were on the front line.
Some of them are you know, we're in Vietnam, we're nurses.
Some of them were walked in World War Two. And
I don't know if you have seen the netflix of
the eight eight. I think I will. You have to

(23:22):
see it. And we cannot forget and not honor the
female veterans that have served. And so if there's a
flight that I only have one on it, personally, I
will consider that a failure for myself because we we've
got to remember them. And so I throw those women
into that mix of priority, uh in getting on a flight.

(23:44):
And so I've got probably forty or fifty female applications,
female veteran applications, And I know I have Amanda, So uh, Amanda,
We're going to be giving you a phone call here
in a couple of weeks to wait for you to
experience on Oor day. And I know you were in DC,
you served in DC. But it's different, it's different.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yes, absolutely, And I've been I've actually cleaned several of
the memorials that we will visit. So and being the
child of a Vietnam veteran, my father will not go
to Vietnam Wall. Half of his high school graduating class
is named on that wall, and my father spent three
tours in Vietnam. So I fully understand when you said

(24:25):
there are certain veterans who are probably going to stay
on the bus. I can absolutely understand that that's that's probably,
in my opinion, that's the most powerful memorial that I've
been to. So I've cleaned the Korean War Memorial Vietnam
Wall in d C. And the Vietnam Wall is definitely
one of the most impactful and just moving experiences, just

(24:48):
because of not just seeing all those names, but everything
from its design to even the cards, mementos, things like
that that are left at the wall. Yeah, if you
can see those, read those, if it doesn't get you
somewhere in your feelings, something wrong with you.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
And a quick shout out to those honor Guard guys
that watch that that guard that memorial. I've seen. I
had the iron to be on my Honor Guard myself,
and they set the tone in the atmosphere there. Yeah. Yeah,
and I say, soldiers, excuse me, my fellow veterans, keep
doing what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
So, if there was someone out there who was willing
to do that and wanted to donate or make that connection.
How what is the process for that if they wanted
to reach out.

Speaker 4 (25:36):
Yeah, so, we we have a donate now button on
our website again s w FL Honor Flight dot org.
You can also send us a good old male in
the post office. We have a PO box four ninety
five zero six five for Charlotte, Florida three three nine.

(25:58):
And we appreciate shape the individuals, the foundations, the organizations,
the Elks, the Rotary, the Kawanas to name a few
that have given support financially over the years. Every dollar
does make a difference. We also have a monthly Hub meets.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Okay, folks, we're back on the air here and during
this segment, I want to focus on one of our
co hosts, Justin And as I said last week, the
ry Point Network is going to start branching out and
be more diverse in what we need as a veteran
community with our families. And as you know, Justin here

(26:40):
our co host, is doing the Warrior Wellness program and
we kind of dipped into a little bit, you know,
put your little toe in a toe into you know,
we'll edit that out and put our foot in the
water and kind of get a feeling for what's going
on here and justin Tel America, what you're doing and

(27:03):
how you doing it. Hight.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah, So what Warrior Wellness is is basically it's a
program that's going to be dedicated to supporting military personnel
and veterans through you know, comprehensive approach of physical fitness, wellness, education, therapy, volunteerism,

(27:26):
all those things combined. So if you are a veteran
and you are in a bad place physically, mentally, whatever,
either I will have the answer or I will get
you the answer. What the main idea is behind Warrior

(27:50):
Wellness is to get veterans off the couch, out of bed,
out of their heads, whatever the case may be, however
you want to call it, and just get a motivated,
get them active, get them back in the gym. I
actually work at the YMCA, the Frans Ross YMCA here
in Port Charlotte. However, the program is not limited to that.

(28:15):
I want to get veterans out, get them active. If
that's at the YMCA, great, if it's not. If it's
getting them plugged in somewhere else, that's great too. I
just want to get them out there. It's not a
good place to be living inside your head. I want

(28:35):
to get them out, get them personal training, get them
gym memberships, whatever the case may be. However that does, however,
that does come with costs associated. So always looking for
help to try to get that piece taken.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
Care of most definitely, And for all you guys listening here,
I want to have the master sergeant explain a little
bit of his background. He's a trainer, a physical trainer himself.
I believe in aquatics as well, swing swimming lessons and
let you know how this thing goes, folks. I'm a
little sergeant below master sergeant somewhere around the you know,

(29:18):
down that tree. But the fact of the matter is,
mass aren't when't you explain in America what you've done,
your rank, what you're doing now, And it kind of
correlates to what we're doing here today, this program getting
out of the getting out of your getting out of
your head, so to speak. And folks, we've all been there.

(29:38):
We're transitioning out of the military into civy life. It
can be a unique experience, usually having structure and being
at certain times on time every time and then all
of a sudden it stops like a rock being thrown
into the water, and they're like, what I do next?
So mass, aren't don't you do a little background yourself? Okay? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (30:03):
So I retired in twenty twenty after twenty two years.
So I was a master sergeant.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
E eight. For those that don't always know Army, right,
y'all sitting here with Air Force versions. I mean I
know Army rank. However, KAMA in the Air Force mass
starts in seven, So give the credit where it's due.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
Right, Yeah, So Army master sergeant is higher than an
Air Force Master sergeant at ooh yeah, and yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
So anyways, for once the Army's out numbering the Air Force,
I will be nice.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
I will be nice. So yeah. So throughout my career
I went to Iraq a couple of times. I was
on a mid team, so ten guys out in the
Iraqi desert with an Iraqi Army brigade. So I did
that for fifteen months in total, wunch guitar a couple

(31:04):
of times. Kuwait worked at the White House for four
and a half years doing logistics there humanitarian missions to
Puerto Rico. Pretty much any of the assignments that most
people didn't have. Like, those were all the places that
I went. I was never at Fort Bragg, Fort Campbell,

(31:24):
Fort Benning, any of them.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
He didn't make it to any of the regular stops
on the Army World Tour.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
No, No, no Fort Hood, no Korea like, none of that.
So yeah, so Fort Levenworth, you know, I was there.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
To make Levenworth. Unless you know, if you're there for school,
it's one thing from what I understand, but otherwise you
don't want to go.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
No, it's a bad place.

Speaker 4 (31:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
So I was on the outside. I was outside.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
I was on the good side of the fence, right there,
you go.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
So yeah, so I was a mission command training program
and just like anything that no one has heard of,
that's where I was. At Army Space Command. I was
space before space was cool. So Army Space Command.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
First seems like a complete and total oxymoron Army Space Command.
But we'll continue. You said you'll be nice. I guess
I'll be nice too.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
But I do think it's funny that you're at White
House com Agency because we had Air Force people in
there too, And it was funny because we said jokingly
call it walk.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Right.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
So basically I got out after twenty two years. Ea,
Master Sergeant, did all these great things throughout my career,
had leadership positions, and then when I came out, it
was a real slap in the face. I didn't know

(32:56):
how to adjust. I didn't realize that that was the case.
But my wife reminds me every now and then that
I'm not a great civilian. And when I finally got
a grip on that is about the same time that
I met Jay. And now I'm kind of coming out

(33:18):
of my own shell. And that's what has motivated me
to get other veterans out of their shell because I retired.
I went to work at forty one, went to work
for twenty something year old, and you know, great for them,
they're doing their job. But then I'm like, wait a minute,

(33:39):
don't do you know who I am? Do you know
what I was?

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Nope? Because when you retire, it don't matter anymore.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
It does not matter. It does not think it's gonna matter. Nope,
and it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
It really doesn't. The only time that that ever seems
to matter is maybe if you retire close to a base, maybe,
because then when you go through the gate and they
look at your ID. They might be like, have a
good day, master sergeant or whatever, But Nope, when you
live one hundred miles away from the nearest military installation,
that matters absolutely zilch. And I would say, like, I'm

(34:13):
not saying that to be insulting. I'm telling you, like,
I think there are You're touching on something that I
think is relevant that there are a lot of veterans
who have a very hard time putting down the uniform,
the rank because it identified them. It was their identity
pretty much for their entire adult life, right, and that

(34:33):
can sometimes be a very difficult shift for people to make.
I mean, I had an advantage. My husband retired almost
ten years before me, so I got to watch him
go through transition. He had zero problems putting down the uniform,
his rank, whatever, he could have cared less. And it
was funny because I wasn't really sure I was more
huahuahua like blued up air Force than my husband was,

(34:56):
So I really didn't know how I would be when
I retired. But it is just kind of a thing
where it was like, within a week it got weird
hearing people call asking for Senior Master Sergeant McConnell i
was like, that's that feels weird, you know what I mean.
So everybody's different though, for everybody, just like everybody's career
is different. Like you said earlier, your career is very

(35:16):
different from most people. I think everybody's transition is different.
And that's definitely worth touching on, especially as it pertains
to warrior wellness, because it sounds like warrior wellness was
created not to be a one size fits all, but
to be a true to size for the veteran and
for their needs as they transition right right exactly.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
And one of the problems that I had and they
coming into civilian world is thinking, like you were saying,
that experience meant something. I saw an indeed commercial the
other day where the lady sitting there being interviewed and
he's like, okay, so we're what's your degree in? She's like, oh, well,

(36:00):
I have all this experience and he's like okay, so
what's your degree in? And she's like, well, I don't
have one. Are you telling me that if I had
a degree and anything that it would be better than
all my experience? And he's like yeah. And so I
found that out real quick, that you know, twenty two
years of logistics experience means that you're qualified to do

(36:22):
an entry level position and.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
So right, or when you're trying to go back to
school and use your veterans benefits, good luck trying to
find a job that says this degree is required, right,
because it will always say preferred, which is such an
ambiguous term, and it leaves a lot of veterans kind
of in limbo between being able to successfully transition into
a job that matches the pay they had on active duty,

(36:46):
like you said, and then but also give them the
opportunity to go to school and use the benefits they
earned because of the way the system is set up.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
Right, Yeah, and just basically just starting at the bottom
in general is a tough transition. But then also having
conversations with people, just having daily conversations and you know, hey,
we should do this, this, this, and this, and they're like, okay,
who are you new guy exactly? And you try to

(37:17):
it's it's hard to adjust, Like you don't want to
give your resume when you when you talk to people,
but it's like sometimes you find yourself like, hey, I've
done this, I've done this, I've done this. I've done this.
You know, I'm capable of, you know, doing a word document.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
You know.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
Don't ask me if I know how to do an
Excel spreadsheet. I assure you that I do.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
As a logistician, I would expect nothing less.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Right, right, But those are the questions you get, like, yeah,
you know how to do this?

Speaker 1 (37:45):
New guy like, well you yeah, you're definitely right, because
I can tell you. The first job that I held
after I retired was a job that was typically held
by younger people, right that maybe didn't have as much
you know, career or life experienvarience. And it was very interesting.
It was very telling. I'm not really going to go
into too much detail about what career that was. However,

(38:07):
it was very interesting because sometimes I would get talked
to in such a way that it really made me wonder, like,
I am not the type of person who's going to
tell you what I did, what my rank was. I
don't do that. However, Comma, there were times when people
would speak to me so disparagingly that I would kind
of wonder like if they knew what I did in
my past life, would they still talk to me like this?

(38:28):
Because I'm pretty sure they wouldn't, right, So I would
definitely say that's kind of another challenge that goes into
that transition and probably leaves a lot of people isolated
and not as you know, active or interactive, And that
seems like that's where warrior wellness kind of comes in,

(38:50):
is to pull them back out of their shell and
back from that edge of you know, isolation, like you said,
being too much in their head, and your program is
designed to help pull them back away from that and
help them see that, you know, you compare the two.
You can come out of the military, you can transition,
you can still stay active, you can still I mean

(39:11):
some of it. For some veterans. At this point, it's
not a matter of being ripped and skinny and being
able to run a sub six mile. For some folks,
it's a matter of let me be able to and
I'm not even making a joke here, but let me
be able to bend over and pick up a jar
or something without throwing my back out, or let me
bend my knee without throwing my hip out like something

(39:32):
like that. I mean, to some degree, at some point,
fitness becomes more about mobility and agility than it becomes
about physique and appearance, definitely.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
And I will say this one of shortcomings of our military,
now I'll say this once is that when you transition
out of the military, it can go different ways. One minute,
there's gonna be a whole presentation, you get your flag.
Sometimes you're sitting in the office, you're processed out and

(40:03):
that's it. You're turning your equipment, you're out the door.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
There is no confetti bomb, there is no balloons, parades,
not thirty days.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
It's grand, but after that thirty days, you got to
rediscover yourself. And I'll be the first one to tell
you one of my hardest transitions into civilian life and
getting a job is being addressed by my first name.
I would lose my mind or get there the frowny
face like I don't know you.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Oh, it didn't bother me.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
It took the transition, and it.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
Was weird to me being called Senior mcconaughe. I. After
I left my last base for the last time, that
became really weird because I still would have to call
back because I did scale Bridge, so I was still
technically government property for six months while I was down here,
so I would have to call back there for things.
Maybe it was medical or something personnel related or whatever,

(40:54):
and to me it was almost like who is that
when they would say my right, I did. I think
some of it though, was I was well. My experience
with my last tour made it to where I was.
I came into my last tour thinking I'm not exactly
sure I'll punt it twenty I may stay longer because

(41:15):
I was still so in love with the Air Force. However,
by the time that tour came to a close and
it was time to retire, I ran into that headlong
with one leg wrapped around it. I did a bellkick
outside of the base Commander's building we call it the
Wing Building. The day that I did my final out.
As soon as I was done, I came out, and
I Am not kidding. My girlfriend made a boomerang video

(41:37):
of me doing a bell kick like I'm grey. So
I was ready to go. I was happy to I
was thankful I did it, but I was glad it
was done, yeh. And so for me, it was just
a different mindset and I was ready. I was on
that euphoric wave, like you're talking about, the euphoria of
like it's done. I did it. I'm finished, and so yeah, yeah,

(42:00):
and you're right, that does wear off after a little while,
and then it kind of leaves you with what's next.

Speaker 4 (42:05):
Yeah, how I.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Went from going a million miles a minute down to
like what do I do with my hands? You know,
like there's nobody telling you what to do, where to be,
when to be there. There's no you know, long litany
because you know, we retired at the same rank, so
we're Piers per se. So yeah, exactly, It's like you
went from having a day full of one hundred and
eighty nine emails requiring a responsor a follow up, as

(42:29):
bunch of meetings, a bunch of you know events you
had to attend. So now it's like my calendar's clear,
what am I going to do?

Speaker 4 (42:38):
Right?

Speaker 2 (42:39):
You know?

Speaker 3 (42:39):
And you and I have talked about it before. You
kind of like measure you don't mean to, but you
kind of measure self worth based on like how many
things you're doing output.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
I absolutely it's kind of like if I'm not involved
in doing things and contributing and helping, whether or not
it leads to a paycheck, I mean sometimes it does,
sometimes it doesn't. I think for me a lot of
the things I like to do don't have a paycheck
assigned to them. But it is what it is. It's
not why I do it, but it's the productivity. Yeah,
it's the involvement. Like that's how we judge our you know,

(43:12):
our purpose, our value, whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 4 (43:16):
Right.

Speaker 3 (43:16):
So, well, like you were saying, so when you got out,
you were ready to get out, and so I was too.
So I so I was in twenty two years, So
I was at e seven. I made eight at nineteen years.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
So I'm like, oh my gosh, So you had to
say I'll stick around for two more years.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
Three more three more years.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
Oh yeah, so we only had to commit to two
when we think your contracts.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
Yeah, so I made I'm eighty eight at nineteen years.
So I'm like, all right, so let me do twenty two.
By the time I hit twenty two, I was crawling
out the door. But that's another story for another day.
I've touched on it a few times, just like my
personal mental con you know, situations. But so yeah, I'll

(44:05):
definitely dive into that. I've already done it other times.
But I had this great plan for when I retired,
was like, oh, man. You know, the wife's going to
be there, so I'm to be like, you know, I'll
owe all this to Casey. You know, I got my
four daughters here. You know, here's my slide show of
all the wonderful things I did. Uh nope, COVID, Uh yeah,

(44:27):
fill out your clear and papers yourself, meld this in.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
You do your tap. Mine was do your tap online.
That was my favorite. That was like click click, click,
click click, that's my power point. I absolutely got zero
out of TAP. The only reason I got anything out
of it was because I used to work in Airminen
family Readiness, so I had friends that ran the TAP
program at their respective basis, and if I had questions,
I could ask them. But I got nothing out of

(44:54):
going over a slide show and watching videos. I would
have it on in the background while I was other things.

Speaker 4 (45:00):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
My exit retirement in the time of COVID, yeah it was.
It was not fun. The only reason that mine was
halfway decent was because by the time my last day
of active duty came around, I had already been down
here for five or six months. So I waited to
have my ceremony until I was here, and I did
it my last day on active duty. Thank you Bert's
black widow for taking care of me letting me have

(45:24):
my ceremony there. It was wonderful I got to have
that because we were still in the great free state
of Florida, so we weren't subject to some of the
you know, the encumbrances I will say, of the situation
of the time. So that was kind of nice. But yeah,
I mean still though, I mean, even going back to that,

(45:47):
it's like, I think all of your experiences that you've
been through, everything from you know, adversities near the end
of your time on active duty, you know, your mental
health challenges, which thank you for being so trans parent
about those, and then kind of how you like you
said you self professed, you know, crawled out the door.

(46:08):
I think all of those experiences, though, were necessary because
if it didn't happen that way, you might not have
been motivated to create war your wellness. You might that
might not light your soul on fire like it seems
to do had you not had those experiences. So I
would dare tell you that while some of them weren't pleasant,

(46:28):
they weren't fun, you know, and it might have caused
a lot of hurt, pain, blood, sweat, tears. If not
for those things where your wellness may not exist as
it does and as it will.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
All right, Well, so I owe everything that I'm doing
right now to my youngest daughter, Olive. So she's eleven
right now. When I retired, I retired. I don't know
if it was the way that I exited, but like
I was just so glad to be done that I

(47:03):
just continued to spiral. I did nothing, you know. I
went to work at the at the Upis, at the
ups loading.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
Truck you were, mister Brown.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
Oh yeah, loading trucks on loading trucks. But like that
was it, you know. So I didn't want any kind
of authority or responsibility.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
That's most of us.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
Yeah, I didn't want to do.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
Have alarm fatigue. By the time we retire, we're like,
give me the lowest position, and then you got to
love it when they come back to me to go
but you're overqualified, You're like, I don't care.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
So I didn't. I didn't do anything. I didn't want
to do anything for a couple of years. And then
my daughter Olive, she wanted me to coach softball, so
she played coach. She played softball for a couple of years,
and then she decided she wanted me to coach, and like,
I couldn't even be like you were saying, like I
couldn't even been down to get a ball.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
That's pretty cool, though, that your daughter asked you to
be her coach. Most kids are like, oh, my dad
is my coach, you know what I mean. So that's
kind of cool. So I did something right there.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Oh yeah, so I coached for three seasons. I'm not
coaching now. It's a lot. It takes a special kind
and I'm not it.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
But a lot of politics.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Yeah, but no, I mean she's awesome and the experience
was awesome. And I don't think she realizes like how
much of a change that she made in me, because
I was I was a lump. You know, I was
not going anywhere. I was not doing anything. I was
content with just living out my days. And when I

(48:39):
started practicing with her and realized, like, just in that
quick a time, you let yourself go, how immobile I was.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Problem, I get it.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
Yeah, So man, I guess it just kind of all
fell into place because then Amelia and my other daughter
are of my other daughters, she started going to Sky Academy.
So when she started going to Sky Academy, which is
part of the why, I started working at the Y

(49:15):
and like that, that changed everything. So it just kind
of one of my daughters got me active. My other
daughter got me to join the Y, which turned into
me working at the Y, which ended up me being
you know, seven seven different things at the why.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
Yeah, but again all paths leading to warrior wellness yep.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
Which which brought me to warrior wellness.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (49:41):
So there's other people that are in the dark hole.
They need to come out. They need to know that
they're worth something. That first sergeant that they used to be,
that senior master sergeant that they used to be, that
person is still in there.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
And they're out there.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
Yep, you're not a shell of what you were.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
You know.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
Let's get you back to, you.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
Know, feeling good in this season of life.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
Feeling good in the life.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Let's work on you and then we work about anything
of SOLF.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
So how do people before we wrap this up, how
do people contribute if they want to donate to this,
if they want to partner with you, whether they're a
private donor, whether they're maybe a nonprofit in the community
or a business owner, how can people get in touch
with you and or make a contribution to help Warrior

(50:31):
Wellness become you know, kind of take off for lack
of a better term.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
So yeah, So my main idea, like I said, for
war Wellness, is to have no cost gym memberships for
veterans along with personal training. The problem is that the
idea is out running the funds, so I need to
I need to get caught up on that piece. So

(50:57):
if you're interested in answering donating, please reach out to
me at Warrior Wellness Radio on Facebook. Just send me
a private message and we can discuss it. I plan
to have a website up and running soon, but as
of right now, I do.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Not absolutely Okay, So social media folks, if you're on Facebook,
go to Warrior Wellness Radio, give it a like, take
a look around, interact some with the page, and if
you have questions and you want to donate or find
another way to provide support for Warrior Wellness, you can
send a message to Justin and he'll get it and
the partnership can begin. So thanks for being on the

(51:35):
show today, Justin and being our host. Yeah, being a
guest host and talking to us about warrior wellness. We
really appreciate it absolutely.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Thank you guys, care and once again, folks, that's our show.
And right now I want to thank our guests are
being on there, and I want to thank you our
listeners out there for keeping us here helping you. If
you have any concerns, comments or ideas for our show,
please contact me at Heminway at one Rallypoint dot org.
That's HGM I n g W A Y at one
Rallypoint dot org. And at this time, when I thank

(52:06):
my producer for being the man behind the mics and Amanda,
I think that's pretty much for our show for

Speaker 1 (52:12):
Today right Owned Rally Pointers fall Out dismissed