Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rally pointers ball in. Good morning everyone, justin Leadford here
along with Paul.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Poleshi, Good morning veterans, and.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This morning from the DAV Chapter eighty two. We have
the Senior Vice Commander, Steve Binz. Hello, and also with
him we have are the public relations director or Ashley Abbott.
All Right, So Ashley, what's going on in the world
of the DAV. What's the HAPs What events have you
(00:30):
guys had going on coming up? What's going on?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, we just had a very successful walkathon at the
mall at the Port Charlottetown Center. We raised close to
six thousand dollars. Over six thousand dollars. We had a
lot of great participants, some new people showing up to
find out what we're about. And then we also had
a lot of vendors that support veteran needs that were
(00:56):
there to be able to share their information and what
they can offer for veterans. So it was huge success.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, then the next weekend at the Amvets three twelve,
you guys came out there and I appreciate you coming
out for the Veteran Resource Fair and setting up and
a lot of fun folks.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, yeah, I had a nice view of the water too.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Oh yeah, no, it's nice over there. So hopefully we
got more folks into the door over there and they
start getting more business and start getting more members. Do
you have any events coming up?
Speaker 5 (01:25):
We do.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Our next big fundraising event is on December sixth, so
save the date. It's going to be a poker run
in honor of Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. So your cars,
your trucks, your jeeps, your motorcycles. We'll have a little
fun jaunt around town with some adventures along the way.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Oh awesome, Okay, all right, Steve, what is going on
with benefits and all the great things? Is there anything
any updates for twenty twenty five that maybe people who
haven't been listening don't know about what's going on.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
He has a site called the Commander's Action Network, which
that entails the bills that are passed before we're going
before Congress in Washington, DC, And this was a way
for you to sign up and voice your opinion for
yes or no for these ballots. But also you can
(02:21):
also notify your congressman and your county commissioners let them
know what you see or what is wrong, what needs
to be changed.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
What's the thing that comes up the most for you
guys right now? What are people coming in and talk
to you about currently?
Speaker 5 (02:36):
Right now, people are talking to us about death benefits.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Death benefits, yes, okay, so.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Because yes, because we've we've seen a spike of them
in the last month and so we're doing in depth training.
We do training once a month with the service officers
and during that training we have been specifying and going
over the benefits and bringing the veteran's spouse prior to
(03:04):
the veteran passing away in to help plan their legacy
because some of these forms, they can already have them
pre filled out and ready to go when the veteran
passes because the VA will send them the paperwork. Then
you got the poor person mourning their veteran that passed away,
(03:29):
and that's hard to deal with. So this way, if
you have ahead of time some of it pre filled out,
it'll help alleviate some of the pain. And the veteran
who passes away, they get a sense of relief prior
to them passing away, knowing that their loved one is
taken care of.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
So what if they didn't do that? So what if
what if the veteran passes and the spouse is like, oh,
by the way, my husband and my wife who were
in the military, but they you know, didn't do anything
leading up to it. What off the top survival benefits
are most people entitled to that? They just don't realize.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
The burial benefits. Whether they are service connected or not,
they still get some burial benefits. Okay, it's up to
two thousand dollars for burial if they are service connected,
meaning that they died due to their service connection disability.
(04:28):
The spouse is it allowed to receive DIC, which is
double indeminisity compensation, and that's based on the length of
the marriage, the length of the disability. For example, they
got to be married at least eight years and they
got to have ten years with that disability. And then
(04:52):
on the death certificate it has to be in the
long death certificate form it has to state the cause
of death was service connected. After the ten year mark,
the veteran can pass away from anything and the spouse
will still get covered. Okay, it's part of the tenuere
provision with the DIC with within the VA.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
What about documentation that should they get ready with.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Part of the documentation is we have some forms that
they can pick up. We also have a planning the
legacy book that we go over with the veteran and
their spouse, and we also have a death benefits one
that we go over with them in the spouse. For example,
if they've been married more than once, they got to
(05:39):
get all those Mayorg's certificates, divorce degrees, marriage certificate, divorced degrees.
So some of those stuff may take time to produce
that stuff. So that's why we want them to do
it kind of ahead of time, put it in a
safe spot because unfortunately, we see many spouses that their
(06:03):
loved one passed away and the spouse is left. They
didn't know what they're being compensated for. They didn't know
how much he or she was receiving, and it'd be
kind of nice to for them to actually be aware.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Okay, this is for any veteran.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yes, okay, And sometimes you know this is you want
to make connect that what they passed away from this
service connected. You want that on the certificate. And so
when sometimes the spouses don't know what they're getting compensation for,
they don't know to make sure that that's on their
death certificate.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, I know that. When we had the Veteran Resource
Fair at the YMCA back in May, we had a
lady she was like in her eighties nineties, but she
had like a full packet of her husband's stuff, and
so we had her talk to the VA toxic exposure
screening folks and you know, to find out that, yeah,
(07:03):
he was entitled, therefore she was entitled. So really just
keeping that accountability and keeping keeping track, keeping the paperwork.
Talking about toxic exposure. There's a lot of things going
on with the pack dect. So have you guys heard
a lot about that lately.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
Yes. In twenty twenty two, the pack deck came out
and it added more presumptives for veterans of Iraq Afghanistan
wars and also for the Vietnam veterans the Iraq Afghanistan Wars.
The benefits that or the presumptives that they added are
(07:41):
seasonal allergies, which then it falls under another category after
that is that they go through a toxic screening and
they're not sure what they actually have been in contact with.
So with that being said, they fall under Gulf War syndrome,
(08:05):
which kind of unexplained illnesses which lead to missed work.
If they're working, if they're not working, it's all right.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
So what's the tie in with toxic exposure and PTSD
traumatic brain injuries? Because I had never heard that piece
of it. I mean, I just knew that it was
basically like agent orange. If you're you know, in before
the Goal War, and if you're after the Gol War,
you got golf syndrome, or you're around a burn pit.
(08:36):
And that's like the basics that I know of the
Packed Act.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
Yes, you are correct, justin the Packed Act and the
agent orange, toxic exposure, all that stuff. PTSD is post
traumatic stress disorder, which can be shown in various ways.
Every individual may experience trauma, processes a trauma a different way.
(09:02):
TBI is traumatic brain injury, which means your brain was
knocked or from a car accident, from a bomb explosion. Basically,
does a milkshake in your head, It bounced from one
side to another, which could lead to access white matter
and just other disabilities that people may not see. And
(09:24):
then you have the actual burn pits exposure itself. We
as veterans do not know for sure what exactly was
being burned overseas. Again, we're in a third world country
and they're burning attires, they're burned in trash, on the
side of the road, everywhere's trash and explaining to the
(09:48):
civilian medical professionals some of them don't understand that we
do not fully understand what we ingest while we were
over there.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Right, yeah, yeah, it's completely different over there. I know
we were. So I lived on an Iraqi base when
I was over there, as ten dudes on an Iraqi
base and uh yeah, there's like old refinery around the corner,
and you know, we were burning stuff every day and
just like really sometimes we would get bored and just
throw stuff in the burn pit, just see what would happen.
(10:23):
It blow up and yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
Yeah, there is a lot of downtime when you are
over there, and you come up with ingenuitive type gang yeah,
exactly to pass the time.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah. So, like all I knew was when I got
back from Iraq, they were like, were there burn pits?
Were like yeah, and they're like all right, sign this
and that was it. So they're like, okay, now you're
on the burn pit registream and that was it. Though
I never really heard anything after that. So if you go.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
On the burn pit registry dot com website, you fill
out a small little questionnaire and in the questionnaire to
ask you if you like an in person screening. With
that in person screening, they schedule for two follow up visits.
One is for a chest X ray and one is
actually for a nurse practitioner to meet with them and
(11:13):
discuss it what you were exposed to.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
So if you go on to VA dot gov and
you look up the pac DECT, I know that. So
if you're interested to find out if this applies to you,
it's going to ask you the locations you were in
and then it's going to ask you symptoms. But how's
it worded for presumptives presumptives? Yeah, yes, it's going to
ask you your presumptive. So basically it's kind of foolproof really,
(11:38):
if you just put in a little bit of effort,
you know, yes, I was at this location, Yes I
have this this symptom, and then you know, you just
connect the dots and say, hey, maybe I should go
talk to somebody.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Yeah, And most of those symptoms are they're with the sinuses.
They're also with the stomach with ibsc ritoboo syndrome and
unexplained illnesses. Unexplained coughing, coughing on black stuff. It all
(12:10):
comes stems back from being around the burn pits.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Does some of that also include tours of duty within
the States or with other countries other than the Middle East?
Speaker 5 (12:23):
Right now, the Pakdag is exclusively to golf overseas. I
understand people have been deployed stateside two different locations and
they are come in contact with those hazards, same type
of hazards. It's not a presumptive. But if you have
(12:43):
any medical, any documentation saying hey, I was in Hurricane
Katrina and I was exposed to a floodwaters they're fishing
out people and saving them, that could go a long
way as long as it's documenting medical records.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
See because I was in Puerto Rico right after Hurricane
Maria for sixty five days and we left, we came back.
I mean, it was horrific, but there was definitely no
questions about our medical once we got back. Like, I
don't think that it's still in there, Like no one
knows that I was there, really, you know what I mean.
(13:21):
But then also like the water in Camp La June,
things like that, So does that count as toxic exposure? Yes,
or or how is that worded? Or how can you
make that work?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
To the water at Camp La June. There are specific
dates and times from nineteen fifty three to nineteen eighty seven,
I believe is when if you were stationed at Camp
Lajune for longer than thirty days and drank the water there,
you and then your descendants or your offspring dependence, they
(13:53):
can be entitled a compensation for being around that water
because they later determined that that water or was not
good qualities drinking water.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Right, Because there's a lot of things like Paula saying
that happened state side, you know, with I mean even
with like National Guard or reserves when they're on like
Title ten orders, you know, but they're like on the
border in Texas or because I was in a unit
that got sent down to Texas to do border control
at one point, and hurricane relief. You go to all
these different locations, and you always see on the news
(14:25):
or the weather channel, you see humpies or not humpies,
but like like Deuce and the half driving through the
flood water and stuff like that. You know, those guys
are getting exposed at all sorts of things.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Oh, you think that's a runoff and you know yes,
oh yeah, And I've been out to Ford, Irwin, California
and National Training Center out there and they have garbage
pits out there that's ay asbestos warning. Make sure either
take a picture of it, of the signs, show some
sort of proof, right, that will help support cases in
(14:57):
order to claim and get some disability conversation.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Really, I think just living in the barracks up to
some point.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
Yes, that that is a true fact, living in the barracks.
I was stationed in Korea Camp Casey, and there's black
mold in the barracks and I coughed out black stuff
for the next year. What this cough would never go away?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, so yeah, so like black mold as bestis. So
like you're saying, the packed act is basically falls under
like the Gulf and Asian areas. But however, like that's
still like it's it's got to be a part of it, right.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Yes, there, they're trying to get ahead of it. Oh,
they don't want millions and millions to die prior to
something being done about it. They learned from the via
nom vets and they're spose your age and orange to
start taking exposure to hazardous and toxic materials more serious.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Right, And this is why I always tell veterans to
make sure that even if you feel like you're not
entitled to the VA, or you didn't do enough, or
you didn't do any of these high speed things, that
that's how they that's how they build statistics. So if
if fifty people that think that they didn't do anything
in the military, if you know fifty one hundred people
go in there and they all have the same symptoms
(16:32):
and they are all in the same place, you know
that that's how they that's how they start to recognize
these things. So even if you think that you didn't
go anywhere or do anything significant like that, that information
might be significant.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
So yes, and the hardest thing is most veterans have pride, right,
and the VA looks at it as well, you didn't
go into sitcall while you were in service. However, the
reality you're going to sit call every day is not
a good thing. You can't go to sick call when
you're in Iraq or Afghanistan like pause time out right,
(17:06):
I'm not gonna shoot today, let me go over here.
So the reality is everyone they want it documented. But
the best thing is buddy letters, statements. Buddy statements people
in your unit that you were with. They can help
support your case.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
So if I didn't take the time to go to
sick hall or like you said, I had too much
pride or whatever, but I know that my condition is
from while I was in the military. So so a
buddy letter is what, like, how do I get a
buddy letter? Does it have to be on a specific form?
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Soody with us. So buddy letters used to be you
could write it on a napkin and it used to fly.
Now the VA is cracking down and they want everything
on a specific form for every and that form is
twenty ten to one zero, which is it states in
(18:01):
who the veteran is, and then it says who you are,
if you are a friend, spouse, loved one, and then
you fill it out basically in form in terms of
how this disability affects them were you're there, where you're
not there, and how it affects their quality of life.
(18:24):
Had they not gone in the military, their quality of
life would have been a different way versus going in
the military.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
So okay, So if I don't know any of these people,
I can't remember any of their names, but I have
my orders to show that I was in that place
at that time. Does that count or no?
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Yes, physical orders and also on your DD two fourteensky,
those play crucial and key role in any disability, meaning
that the VA has a duty to assist. And if
your records are incorrect with your D two fourteen, there
(19:06):
are ways to go about to get it corrected. It
does take a while, okay, just like what's that certificates,
there is a way to get them corrected. It does
take a while, but on the long desker to give
it form, they give you twelve spots to fill out.
So as long as one of those twelve would tie
(19:26):
into a service connection, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Okay, got it.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I just want people to know that if something happened
to you in the military and you can't do a
buddy letter because you don't know any of these people,
you can't connect. Even in the age of Facebook, you know,
for whatever reason, you still can't reach out to somebody.
As long as you have orders to prove that you
were in that place at that time, not all hope
(19:52):
is lost.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
So well, and there are certain ribbons and awards that
are automatic indicators that you experienced an incident.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Enter like if your infantry combat infantry badge would be
one example, and that you engage in combat being an
infantry role. If you were a non infantry member and
you have a C A B, which is a combat
action badge, it says that you were non infantry. However,
(20:23):
you're engaged in combat with the enemy.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
You know, there's a surprising number of Purple Heart recipients
that do not get VA benefits and have a zero rating.
It's it's crazy because they don't go.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Well, that comes down to we are a Purple Heart
community here in Charlotte County, and we need Purple Heart
recipients step up and file claims, right and because obviously
you've been injured, you were awarded this metal and so
(21:03):
you deserve some compensation to help offset some of the
disabilities that came along with that award.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, and that's part of the reason for the show
is for veterans to start talking and say, hey, this
is what's wrong with me. Maybe it's wrong the same
thing is wrong with somebody else. You know, if if
it's okay for me to talk, then it's okay for
them to talk. And you know, if I have this problem,
even if I don't want to talk about it, maybe
(21:32):
I can get somebody else to to Maybe I can
help somebody else by bringing my situation forward.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
See I wanted to point that out is you're not
just helping yourself by speaking up and reporting what you know,
the injuries that you're in, the conditions that you're living with.
You are, in all likelihood helping your fellow soldiers and
veterans out. And that's really really important to change that perspective.
(21:58):
It's not an act of selfish to go file for
your your benefits. This is also helping.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Your fellow veterans right exactly.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
On a separate note, I'm actually looking to meet the
Purple Heart recipients in our community and document their story. Okay,
so those that are interested, you know, with the DAV
them doing it through the DAV, but we want to
not only honor them, but we want to tell their story.
I think it's an important history that needs to be
(22:25):
recorded that that often goes silently into you know, the past.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Absolutely, So if if there's a Purple Heart recipient and
they are up for that and they want to come
talk to you, they're going to come to the Port
Charlotte mall.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yes they are, okay, so talk to us and I will.
I will sit down with them at their convenience. I
want to I want to hear their story. Document it.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Okay, so we'll point them in your direction.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
It's not history.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
We want lost right exactly exactly. So if okay, So
switching gears a little bit. So if a veteran ends
up with one hundred percent disability, Oh, what are some
of the benefits that that they're entitled to?
Speaker 5 (23:11):
The veteran receives one hundred percent disability benefits verification letter
in the mail. In that letter that it contains the
Post nine to eleven, Chapter thirty five GI Bill for
their dependents that are under twenty three years old. They
(23:33):
also have the ability to enroll their spouse in champ via.
It's a lengthy process. It's two forms, but it does
take a while. The average time is like eight months
to get a spouse.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Enrolled in it.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Oh wow, and those two those with that.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
When you're one hundred percent, you're allowed the veteran is
allowed free dental and you go to your Port Charlotte
Clinic Award Cape Coral Clinic. While you're there. You tell
me you want to go to Dane Danil looks you
up and sees, yes, you are one hundred percent from there.
(24:15):
They can't give you appointment in thirty to forty five days,
they send you out to community care. And community care
they take care of things pretty quickly with Danel and
get your tea back.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Oh well, okay, if somebody does want to come talk
to the dav how do they find you guys? Because say,
I don't know where the mall is? What do I do?
Speaker 3 (24:39):
All right, so we are we are right in between
forty one, which is Tammy Ammy Trail and one seventy
six where the Port Charlotte Town Center mall is right
on that corner, and you go in between jac Penny
and Dillard's and our offices are right there.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, park on the Dillards in because I always park
on the wrong end and have to walk through the
mall and it's horrible.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, you can go right in there, Dswshoe Warehouse right okay,
right there?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
All right, Well, thank you guys for coming in. Ashley
Steve and uh yeah, we'll talk to you guys next
month and if you have anything exciting to talk to
us about just let us know and we'll throw it
in there.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Sounds great, and we'll have more questions for you.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Absolutely, of course.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
The following rally points segment contain some material of a
sensitive nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
All right, welcome back everyone, and with us in the studio.
Now we have I would say former marine, but there
are no former Marines, thank you. So we have Ron Zeleski,
who is the founder of the Long Walk Home. And
the last time we talked to Ron was about a
year ago, and the reason for that was he was
(25:51):
walking across America for the third.
Speaker 6 (25:55):
Time, the second time.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Second time. This time he wore shoes, but he walked
from Key West to San Diego. And Ron tell us
a little bit more about the Long Walk Home and
what the purpose of that is.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
The purpose of the Long Walk Home originally it started
out I just started out to create awareness because I
was angry for thirty three years. When I got out
of Marines, I stopped wearing shoes, and in my head
it was a memorial for my friends that had died
and suffered. But actually it was just enacted defiance because
(26:32):
people would ask me, how come you don't wear shoes,
and I'd say, I don't feel like you've got a
problem with that, because back then I had the cash
and the bank to back up any check. I wanted
to write right, you know, right now, I don't, so
I stepped back a little bit. And then when I
realized I'm the problem, after nine to eleven happened, I
(26:53):
started having nightmares about you know what happened when I
was in the Marines and I'm non combat and I
went in to hurt my parents. I got in because
I won the draft lottery. My number was thirty four,
so and I'm going anyway. So I went with a
buddy that I've grown up since we're six, and he
(27:16):
got caught for this stuff we did. So he had
a record and the only branch that were taken was
the Marine. So I went in with him to hurt
my parents because you know, at that age, you see hypocrisy.
You don't see you don't see gray arias. And to
me now, there are no gray aries. It's black and white.
We make up gray areas for stuff we want to.
(27:36):
You know, you buy my trash, I'll buy your trash.
But no, I'm not buying my trash anymore. I was
angry for a long time, and like I said, I
realized I'm the problem. And that's when I did my
first barefoot walk. It did the Appalachian Trail barefoot two
thousand and six and seven then and to create awareness,
(27:57):
but it was it was me to forget myself awareness
for what awareness about the suicides because I didn't know
because I had buried my head in the sand with
my anger and blamed everybody. And then I learned that
eighteen vets a day were committing suicide back then, and
I realized I'm the problem because I didn't do anything
to stop it. I allowed it to happen, So I'm
(28:19):
the problem. So that's when I went to do something
about it and went to Washington, which was like talking
to a brick wall. And then I went walked across
the country barefoot twenty ten and eleven because now I
had a petition. I had this plan and going to
Washington to tell them what to do. And then I did,
and it was like I was talking to the same
(28:40):
brick wall and nothing happened. And then I realized I
don't tell somebody what to do, I'd do it and
then ask them for help and in Washington's case, then
you give them the credit for it. So then I
opened up a homeless shelter and I did that two
thousand from fourteen to sixteen, and basically I enabled drunks.
(29:06):
I didn't really help anybody. I just enabled them. And
I realized I had judged everybody that came in my door.
You know, you're a drunk, you got to quit drink,
and you're a bum.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
You got to get a job.
Speaker 6 (29:18):
You're an attic, you got to you know. So I didn't.
I made them defend their position. They couldn't hear me, Chris, Well,
I drink because you know I have this pain in
my thing. Well, I do drugs because of the pain,
and you know. So they had a million excuses. But
they were just defending because I judged them right. And
(29:39):
then I realized, when I judge them, I'm not helping them.
So then we developed this program ten Challenges to Service,
and it helps them make the shift because then you think,
because if you do not think nothing's ever going to
change in your world, you're going to see the world
the same way you've always seen it. So we developed
(30:00):
this program and it really works. I mean, it's powerful
It's simple but powerful. It's like a twelve step program,
but instead of for you know, guys that drink or whatever,
it's for guys that have anger issues and are making
that transition out. After we did that and I was
having trouble getting it out there, I figured, well, let
(30:21):
me do another walk. And this walk, instead of just
creating awareness, which what the other ones were was to
create awareness, I realize awareness doesn't help people. It's what
you do with awareness that makes the change. So we
went across. So this is a learning curve, this walk,
because we'd go through you know, I'm in a mission
(30:43):
to get to the West coast before the summer so
I don't get stuck in the desert in the summertime, right,
So you know, we'd create awareness. People would know about
us and they'd be all excited, and then we'd leave
and then on the way back, we'd go back to
them and a lot of them forgot about it, changed
their mind. But we trained a hundred people on the
(31:03):
way back. But I realized we can do it more
effectively because, like I said, awareness is nothing unless you
do something, And this is a way for people to
actually help a veteran or their fellow veteran. And you know,
I feel more of a marine now than I did
when I was in. I had an attitude, got into fights,
(31:25):
all of that good stuff. But now I feel more.
Speaker 7 (31:28):
Of a marine because I'm back for the wounded, right,
And I had turned my back on them when I
get out because of my anger, and I blamed everybody,
but it wasn't me because I went against everything I believed.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
I wasn't in combat, but I had a moral injury
because I was raised my whole life to be good
and loving, and then they trained me for twelve weeks
to kill. Then some of us they put in life
and desk situations where we kill, and then they pull
us out and take us away from our family, because
the guys you're in with are closer than your own
family because they got your back. And then you pull
(32:03):
us away from that, leave our weapons behind for the
enemy to kill everybody who said you'd protect and they die,
and then you get home and they say, get over it.
It's about money in politics, right.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
This is what civilians don't understand when they get this,
because they say, why are you guys so angry? Why
do you kill yourselves? Well, imagine you're in a car
driving your whole family, and you know, people get killed
in the car accidents, and you get into this horrific accident.
Everybody gets killed but you, and it might be your fault.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
You'll never know.
Speaker 6 (32:32):
Get over it.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
You don't get over it. We don't get over this.
It stays with us forever.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
It's part of us.
Speaker 6 (32:39):
We can change how we look at it, but it's
always going to be part of us.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
And it's what we do with that.
Speaker 6 (32:43):
And that's what our program does, is help you forgive
yourself because that one instant in time doesn't define you.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, the transition is a very difficult thing. That's that's
been my thing for the last two or three years,
is trying to transition. I'm still trying to transition. I know.
When I got out, kind of like how you're saying,
like I wanted to get as far away from the
military as possible, and then at some point you just
miss it because that's all you know. I mean, You're
(33:10):
like like for me, I was in the Army when
I got out. I was in the Army longer than
I wasn't in the Army as life, and when I
got out, it's you know, you're eighteen again, trying to
figure out what you want to do when you grow up,
And I'm sitting here at forty one trying to figure
out what I want to do when I'm become an adult.
It is very difficult, and people don't understand that. And
(33:31):
you go straight into the workforce and you're working for
somebody that's half your age, and you you're just a
guy at the job, and you're like, hey, you know
I used to be somebody. Why am I at the
bottom of the totem pole when six months ago I
had two hundred and eighty four soldiers under me? You
know what I mean? Yeah, it's it's definitely. Civilian life
(33:52):
is so much different than people realize. I mean, if
you've always been a civilian, it's not your fault any better.
Speaker 6 (34:00):
Yeah, they don't.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
It's it's definitely Transitioning is definitely a very difficult thing.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
It's like we've seen behind the curtain of the Wizard
of Oz, the civilian hasn't right. And I just want
to go back to you said you're trying. Don't try
to make the transition. Make the transition.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
You know what to do.
Speaker 6 (34:19):
You make a list, you do it. That's part of
what our program does. Because I'm trying to drink water
from this bottle. It's not gonna happen till I say
I'm going to drink from this water.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
That's true. That's a good point. Yeah, no, I so
I started. I actually I met Jay who was in
the studio with us. But he is not behind the mic,
so uh, speaking of Wizard of Oz, he's the he's
the man behind the curtain. So I met Jay actually
about a year ago. He was introduced to me by
Steven ar Deutsch. That just kind of changed everything for
(34:49):
me really, you know, he gave me a voice. I
had a town hall, talked to veterans. I told them
my story from beginning and you were there, yeah, and
you're And I really felt like that's what I needed
to do at the moment, like I had never told
people my story. And then you know, they got to
read it on the cover of the sun like the
(35:11):
next day, which that was a great surprise. But once
once you drop that armor and just become vulnerable, it
makes it a lot easier to help others when you're
able to say that I've been in the same place
that you are, and you can get through this. It
makes it a lot easier to, like I said, help
(35:32):
others once you've learn to help yourself.
Speaker 6 (35:35):
And when I went through the desert on my first walk,
the Indians gave me an eagle feather and that's a
big deal, and they invited me to their ceremony and
they have a ritual where every soldier of every warrior
comes and speaks before the whole tribe and they make
them leaders. In our country, we're spit at or well,
(36:00):
not so much now, but when I was in, and
we're discounted, discarded, and we have the training to be
leaders because we know what it's like to serve, and
we're more patriotic even though people think we're not because
we're angry. I'm angry this country because I know we
(36:22):
can do better and it hurts me to see what
I see and we don't have that because you know,
we're all scientific and we're civilized and all that. I
don't think we're really civilized, you know, I just think
that's some line of bs. But I'm going off the
rails here.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
A little bit.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
One of the things talk is cheap, right, you know,
And a lot of people say thank you for your service,
and I would get angry because I could look in
their eyes that they were afraid and they're just saying
it because they think it's the right thing to say,
and they don't even know what they're thanking me for,
and they run away, right, and I to say, well,
(37:01):
how are you going to thank me? What are you
going to do? And then it would make it worse,
and then it would really run away. And then I
talked to a buddy of mine and he says, you
know what I say to them, ron, because he says,
I say, you were worth it. And when I started
doing that, I realized that I had an expectation that
(37:22):
they were going to be grateful that I was in
and would have given my life for them. Right, So
I did it for the wrong reason, having an expectation.
But when I say thank you for your service, now
it's like I did it because I wanted to. In
my case, I didn't really want to. I got drafted.
But there's a lot of guys that go in because
they want to and they're doing it for the right reason.
(37:47):
So that really helped me. And then the people that
I've said that to have cried because they said, nobody's
ever said that to me, so but it helped shift
my perception. And that's because I looked at it different.
And that's what I work to do. Like I said,
you know, I'm going to beat this dead horse that
you know, if you don't change the way you see
(38:07):
the world, I think nothing's ever going to change. That
changes it for me, because it's easy. When I go
to the VA. The angriest guys there are the guys
from Vietnam War. They're the guys. You'll know. You hear
somebody screaming, an old guy. Yeah, that's who's screaming because
they're angry.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Do you notice that, Paul, a lot of your I
was just listening to you that you spent twenty years
in the service. I spent one year, nine months, and
fourteen days. So when I got out, I fled. We
were told to take off our uniforms as quickly as
possible and meld into civilian life. And I think that's
(38:48):
why we're so angry. It's not so much the recognition.
It was I saw it as an honor. I was
really honored to be in this surf.
Speaker 6 (39:02):
And to be treated the way we were, to be
called baby killer. When I got out, and they didn't
know me, and they're the ones that sent us there.
I'm a nineteen year old kid. It's like I decided,
you know, to declare war on some country and kill
people where you're God or your mind.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
That's that upsets me.
Speaker 6 (39:22):
And it's like that today's and in that vein of
you know, talk is cheap. We do our program. We
have our program attend Challenges to service. We're doing it
at the American Legion Post in Venice Post one point
fifty nine. That's starting the third Let's see what day is, Yeah,
(39:46):
the third of September at ten nine thirty in the morning,
and then we're doing it at the YMCA. That it's Monday.
I think it's the twenty second of September, and that'll
be at ten o'clock. It'll be on our website. Our
(40:06):
website is thelongwalkome dot org. We also work with incarcerated veterans.
We work with at the largest woman's prison in Florida
and Okalla. I'll be going there Thursday.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
What are some of the things that you do there?
Speaker 6 (40:21):
We do our program there. There's a thousand women in
that prison. The first day we worked with fifteen veterans
in that prison. After the first day, there was a
drop in violence in that prison.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
It's like a miracle.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
It's like a miracle.
Speaker 6 (40:40):
And one of the neat things, like one of the
women was saying that, and I wouldn't want to be
here for all the money in the world. She's in prison,
are fifteen years old outside talking about killing himself. She's
helpless because she's trapped in prison. So I talked with
her and I gave her some ideas that she could
(41:03):
use her to talk to him or write a letter.
The next time I saw her, she was smiling and
she said thank And you know, people look at the
people in prison is you know, as monsters because of
the way TV is. Trust me at prison is not
like any movie you're going to see.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
And it's.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
When they tell me their stories, I'm ashamed and embarrassed
because I should be in prison because they didn't have
anybody to support them or back them up, and they
continue to behavior because that's all they had. So we
work with them, and it's when I leave there I
am wiped out. And we go to death row and
work with them as well, and people say, why would
(41:44):
you do that? Because they're going to die hope is
an amazing thing.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah, So do you primarily talk to veterans when you
go there.
Speaker 6 (41:54):
Yes, And we're teaching them to teach the whole prison.
The guards have been coming into our program because they
want and know why there's such a big shift in
the prison.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
So you meet with the veterans, the veteran prisoner kind
of teach them life skills, leadership skills, and then they
kind of they go throughout the prison and spread that.
Speaker 6 (42:16):
Right because we give them the same book. We give
them the same book that we use so that they
can use it to spread it right. And that's what
Because anybody that's listening to the station, if you want
to truly help, you want to say thank you for
your service, join our program. Join our program, and then
you have more tools to have an in depth conversation.
(42:39):
Help somebody shift. If you're talking about whether and war stories,
where's the shift? There is no shift. The guy feels
good for that moment and then tomorrow night he'll kill himself.
But if you make a shift, that little shift changes
the trajectory of their life and it affects the entire family.
I'd rather work with you before you were on the
(43:00):
ledge because when you were on the ledge, you avoidage,
destroyed your family, lost your job, an alienated everybody, and
the damage is unbelievable because you think, oh, it's just
this one guy. Well he's destroyed his whole family.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Yep, exactly, and you you don't really think about how
much one conversation or one comment can make to somebody
like that can really change, like you were saying, the
trajectory of somebody's life. And I had an incident a
few years ago that I was telling you about once again.
(43:36):
If you want to know about it, you can read this.
You could read the Sun from September last year. But
I was telling you, like what triggered me? I don't
even know. It was a conversation that I was having
and it was kind of like I'll show you and
that was all that it took.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
But if.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
The same thing that I would always tell my soldiers
is that if you if you could just see the
next day, if you like, by tomorrow whatever whatever, that
horrible thing is right now, like that's not even going
to exist. Like I look back six years ago, I
could not tell you for any amount of money like
(44:20):
what triggered me. But it was just like in the
moment thing. And and that's another thing that survivors should
know too, that it it might not be your fault.
It's it's not your fault. You know, if somebody makes
that decision and a spur in a split second spur
of the moment, you can't necessarily control that, you know.
(44:43):
And so a lot of people, you know, survivor people
have survivor guilt and carry that with them, but like
that individual may not have ever thought about it until
they were in that moment.
Speaker 6 (44:58):
I'm mean, I deal with suicide a lot because of
the people I work with, and to me kind of
I mean.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Fear.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
You know.
Speaker 6 (45:06):
I used to say I'm not afraid anything. I was
afraid and I wouldn't admit it. But when I realized, yeah,
I was afraid, and now I work to be fearless.
So I said, well, what am I afraid of? What's
What's the worst that can happen? They're going to shoot me? Okay,
What's I'm going to lose everything?
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Maybe?
Speaker 6 (45:21):
So then it just gives me freedom. Because people are
so afraid of everything that they don't live. They're walking dead.
But when you become fearless and you're not afraid, Well,
so what this can happen? So what then it frees
you up to do anything. And any veteran that's out
there that wants a purpose, join us. Become a mentor.
(45:44):
Take this program and when you take the program, you know,
we'll train you to be a mentor and help the
next guy. We had one guy that I was doing
the program with who had a gun in his mouth.
Took the program and I said, oh, well, you do
a little bit more and we can make you mentory.
He says, well, I hope you're not upset with me,
but I helped my buddy. He had a gun in
(46:04):
his mouth, he was drinking a fifth a day, twenty
seven years old. Believed that he was a monster, and
I did the challenges with him, but I only did
the first challenge, And the first challenge is what are
you grateful for? It took him two days to answer that,
but when he answered it, it changed his life because
he saw something to be grateful for. He's not a monster, right,
(46:26):
And yeah, it's simple. That's what it's about, you know, And.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
There is there's all there's always something to be grateful for.
You don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. But
if you're at the bottom, you got to nowhere to
go but up.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Right, So if you're in that situation and you're at
the you feel like you've hit rock bottom, then if
you truly feel that way, you only got one way
to go.
Speaker 6 (46:48):
Yeah, And you know what, the guy was grateful for
what's up. He was grateful he wasn't Polish in a marine.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Well, I've been grateful that the marine for other reasons.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
You know, I was.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
I've said that in the last six eight months. I
don't think I ever knew a marine. A year ago,
I don't think I had ever known a marine in
my life, and I definitely didn't try to know one.
But all the marines that I've met in like the
last few months since I started doing Warrior Wellness, started
doing the radio show, it's I mean, they're all good people.
(47:28):
It's amazing. Surprised you, Yeah, surprising. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (47:35):
I find when I go to places and where there's organizations,
there's more Marines involved than any other branch and there's
fewer of us. But we know the cost of war,
right more than most these last war when my time
(47:57):
it was like ten guys behind everybody that was on
front line, and these was because all the subcontractors, that
number was a whole lot less. Most of you guys
were on the front line and saw action. But whether
you saw action or not, you had the same We
all had the same training. Yeah, and where like a parent,
(48:19):
like I was just talking with Jay, when you're behind,
or like a parent and your child or your buddies
out there on the front line, you can't do anything
to save them.
Speaker 4 (48:31):
You're helpless.
Speaker 6 (48:32):
I didn't realize how stressful that was they had kids,
because before them, I didn't care about anybody. So people
don't understand that either these people civilians that never had
a child, what they go through when they suffer. Is like,
especially with women, how anybody could send a doughter in
with some of the stuff I've seen and heard.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Well, we've had that conversation with female veterans before. People
had problems with women in combat roles and stuff like that.
But really, if you think about it, it doesn't matter.
Like the support mos is like they're they're on the
front lines, just like like stuff had to get to
the front line somehow, and so all those support moss
are are already out there on the front line. So
(49:14):
the women in infantry positions and things like that. It's
already happening, been happening for for the last the whole
time I was in, so the last twenty years at least,
you know you had females on the front line because
that's where they are, that's where they had to be.
So all right, well, I would love to talk to
you much much more and we'll definitely have you on again.
(49:36):
We're gonna have to wrap it up though, Okay, no problem,
thank you so for Paul Pleshi and our special guest,
Ron Zeleski, who If you want any more information about
Ron's program, Long Walk Home, it's the Long Walk Home
dot org. Please go on there, check it out, support him,
(49:57):
support the program that he's doing, helping veterans, helping get
awareness out there about suicide and help save a life. Really,
with everything that Ron does, it's helping to save lives.
So keep that in mind and with that, rally pointers
all out.
Speaker 8 (50:19):
Suicide is preventable and each of us has a role
to play in suicide prevention.
Speaker 9 (50:25):
Suicide is complex, There is no single cause.
Speaker 8 (50:29):
And it's not always a mental health issue. It could
be loss of a job or home, financial or relationship, issues, pain,
or leaving the military.
Speaker 9 (50:39):
Suicide does not discriminate. It affects all ages, races, and genders,
veterans or not.
Speaker 8 (50:46):
If you know a veteran who is struggling, connect with them,
let them know help is available.
Speaker 9 (50:52):
There is quick and easy access to services in times
of crisis.
Speaker 8 (50:56):
Dial nine eight eight, then press one. Talking of it
is okay.
Speaker 9 (51:01):
Don't keep it inside, don't be ashamed, don't wait.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Reach out.
Speaker 8 (51:06):
Find resources at VA dot gov slash reach.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
If you're having suicidal thoughts or problems dealing with a
loved one, there's always hope. Please reach out and contact
one of our programs that we've sponsored,
Rally pointers ball in. Good morning everyone, justin Leadford here
along with Paul.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Poleshi, Good morning veterans, and.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This morning from the DAV Chapter eighty two. We have
the Senior Vice Commander, Steve Binz. Hello, and also with
him we have are the public relations director or Ashley Abbott.
All Right, So Ashley, what's going on in the world
of the DAV. What's the HAPs What events have you
(00:30):
guys had going on coming up? What's going on?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, we just had a very successful walkathon at the
mall at the Port Charlottetown Center. We raised close to
six thousand dollars. Over six thousand dollars. We had a
lot of great participants, some new people showing up to
find out what we're about. And then we also had
a lot of vendors that support veteran needs that were
(00:56):
there to be able to share their information and what
they can offer for veterans. So it was huge success.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, then the next weekend at the Amvets three twelve,
you guys came out there and I appreciate you coming
out for the Veteran Resource Fair and setting up and
a lot of fun folks.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, yeah, I had a nice view of the water too.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Oh yeah, no, it's nice over there. So hopefully we
got more folks into the door over there and they
start getting more business and start getting more members. Do
you have any events coming up?
Speaker 5 (01:25):
We do.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Our next big fundraising event is on December sixth, so
save the date. It's going to be a poker run
in honor of Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. So your cars,
your trucks, your jeeps, your motorcycles. We'll have a little
fun jaunt around town with some adventures along the way.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Oh awesome, Okay, all right, Steve, what is going on
with benefits and all the great things? Is there anything
any updates for twenty twenty five that maybe people who
haven't been listening don't know about what's going on.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
He has a site called the Commander's Action Network, which
that entails the bills that are passed before we're going
before Congress in Washington, DC, And this was a way
for you to sign up and voice your opinion for
yes or no for these ballots. But also you can
(02:21):
also notify your congressman and your county commissioners let them
know what you see or what is wrong, what needs
to be changed.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
What's the thing that comes up the most for you
guys right now? What are people coming in and talk
to you about currently?
Speaker 5 (02:36):
Right now, people are talking to us about death benefits.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Death benefits, yes, okay, so.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Because yes, because we've we've seen a spike of them
in the last month and so we're doing in depth training.
We do training once a month with the service officers
and during that training we have been specifying and going
over the benefits and bringing the veteran's spouse prior to
(03:04):
the veteran passing away in to help plan their legacy
because some of these forms, they can already have them
pre filled out and ready to go when the veteran
passes because the VA will send them the paperwork. Then
you got the poor person mourning their veteran that passed away,
(03:29):
and that's hard to deal with. So this way, if
you have ahead of time some of it pre filled out,
it'll help alleviate some of the pain. And the veteran
who passes away, they get a sense of relief prior
to them passing away, knowing that their loved one is
taken care of.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
So what if they didn't do that? So what if
what if the veteran passes and the spouse is like, oh,
by the way, my husband and my wife who were
in the military, but they you know, didn't do anything
leading up to it. What off the top survival benefits
are most people entitled to that? They just don't realize.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
The burial benefits. Whether they are service connected or not,
they still get some burial benefits. Okay, it's up to
two thousand dollars for burial if they are service connected,
meaning that they died due to their service connection disability.
(04:28):
The spouse is it allowed to receive DIC, which is
double indeminisity compensation, and that's based on the length of
the marriage, the length of the disability. For example, they
got to be married at least eight years and they
got to have ten years with that disability. And then
(04:52):
on the death certificate it has to be in the
long death certificate form it has to state the cause
of death was service connected. After the ten year mark,
the veteran can pass away from anything and the spouse
will still get covered. Okay, it's part of the tenuere
provision with the DIC with within the VA.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
What about documentation that should they get ready with.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Part of the documentation is we have some forms that
they can pick up. We also have a planning the
legacy book that we go over with the veteran and
their spouse, and we also have a death benefits one
that we go over with them in the spouse. For example,
if they've been married more than once, they got to
(05:39):
get all those Mayorg's certificates, divorce degrees, marriage certificate, divorced degrees.
So some of those stuff may take time to produce
that stuff. So that's why we want them to do
it kind of ahead of time, put it in a
safe spot because unfortunately, we see many spouses that their
(06:03):
loved one passed away and the spouse is left. They
didn't know what they're being compensated for. They didn't know
how much he or she was receiving, and it'd be
kind of nice to for them to actually be aware.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Okay, this is for any veteran.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yes, okay, And sometimes you know this is you want
to make connect that what they passed away from this
service connected. You want that on the certificate. And so
when sometimes the spouses don't know what they're getting compensation for,
they don't know to make sure that that's on their
death certificate.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, I know that. When we had the Veteran Resource
Fair at the YMCA back in May, we had a
lady she was like in her eighties nineties, but she
had like a full packet of her husband's stuff, and
so we had her talk to the VA toxic exposure
screening folks and you know, to find out that, yeah,
(07:03):
he was entitled, therefore she was entitled. So really just
keeping that accountability and keeping keeping track, keeping the paperwork.
Talking about toxic exposure. There's a lot of things going
on with the pack dect. So have you guys heard
a lot about that lately.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
Yes. In twenty twenty two, the pack deck came out
and it added more presumptives for veterans of Iraq Afghanistan
wars and also for the Vietnam veterans the Iraq Afghanistan Wars.
The benefits that or the presumptives that they added are
(07:41):
seasonal allergies, which then it falls under another category after
that is that they go through a toxic screening and
they're not sure what they actually have been in contact with.
So with that being said, they fall under Gulf War syndrome,
(08:05):
which kind of unexplained illnesses which lead to missed work.
If they're working, if they're not working, it's all right.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
So what's the tie in with toxic exposure and PTSD
traumatic brain injuries? Because I had never heard that piece
of it. I mean, I just knew that it was
basically like agent orange. If you're you know, in before
the Goal War, and if you're after the Gol War,
you got golf syndrome, or you're around a burn pit.
(08:36):
And that's like the basics that I know of the
Packed Act.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
Yes, you are correct, justin the Packed Act and the
agent orange, toxic exposure, all that stuff. PTSD is post
traumatic stress disorder, which can be shown in various ways.
Every individual may experience trauma, processes a trauma a different way.
(09:02):
TBI is traumatic brain injury, which means your brain was
knocked or from a car accident, from a bomb explosion. Basically,
does a milkshake in your head, It bounced from one
side to another, which could lead to access white matter
and just other disabilities that people may not see. And
(09:24):
then you have the actual burn pits exposure itself. We
as veterans do not know for sure what exactly was
being burned overseas. Again, we're in a third world country
and they're burning attires, they're burned in trash, on the
side of the road, everywhere's trash and explaining to the
(09:48):
civilian medical professionals some of them don't understand that we
do not fully understand what we ingest while we were
over there.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Right, yeah, yeah, it's completely different over there. I know
we were. So I lived on an Iraqi base when
I was over there, as ten dudes on an Iraqi
base and uh yeah, there's like old refinery around the corner,
and you know, we were burning stuff every day and
just like really sometimes we would get bored and just
throw stuff in the burn pit, just see what would happen.
(10:23):
It blow up and yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
Yeah, there is a lot of downtime when you are
over there, and you come up with ingenuitive type gang yeah,
exactly to pass the time.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah. So, like all I knew was when I got
back from Iraq, they were like, were there burn pits?
Were like yeah, and they're like all right, sign this
and that was it. So they're like, okay, now you're
on the burn pit registream and that was it. Though
I never really heard anything after that. So if you go.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
On the burn pit registry dot com website, you fill
out a small little questionnaire and in the questionnaire to
ask you if you like an in person screening. With
that in person screening, they schedule for two follow up visits.
One is for a chest X ray and one is
actually for a nurse practitioner to meet with them and
(11:13):
discuss it what you were exposed to.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
So if you go on to VA dot gov and
you look up the pac DECT, I know that. So
if you're interested to find out if this applies to you,
it's going to ask you the locations you were in
and then it's going to ask you symptoms. But how's
it worded for presumptives presumptives? Yeah, yes, it's going to
ask you your presumptive. So basically it's kind of foolproof really,
(11:38):
if you just put in a little bit of effort,
you know, yes, I was at this location, Yes I
have this this symptom, and then you know, you just
connect the dots and say, hey, maybe I should go
talk to somebody.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Yeah, And most of those symptoms are they're with the sinuses.
They're also with the stomach with ibsc ritoboo syndrome and
unexplained illnesses. Unexplained coughing, coughing on black stuff. It all
(12:10):
comes stems back from being around the burn pits.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Does some of that also include tours of duty within
the States or with other countries other than the Middle East?
Speaker 5 (12:23):
Right now, the Pakdag is exclusively to golf overseas. I
understand people have been deployed stateside two different locations and
they are come in contact with those hazards, same type
of hazards. It's not a presumptive. But if you have
(12:43):
any medical, any documentation saying hey, I was in Hurricane
Katrina and I was exposed to a floodwaters they're fishing
out people and saving them, that could go a long
way as long as it's documenting medical records.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
See because I was in Puerto Rico right after Hurricane
Maria for sixty five days and we left, we came back.
I mean, it was horrific, but there was definitely no
questions about our medical once we got back. Like, I
don't think that it's still in there, Like no one
knows that I was there, really, you know what I mean.
(13:21):
But then also like the water in Camp La June,
things like that, So does that count as toxic exposure? Yes,
or or how is that worded? Or how can you
make that work?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
To the water at Camp La June. There are specific
dates and times from nineteen fifty three to nineteen eighty seven,
I believe is when if you were stationed at Camp
Lajune for longer than thirty days and drank the water there,
you and then your descendants or your offspring dependence, they
(13:53):
can be entitled a compensation for being around that water
because they later determined that that water or was not
good qualities drinking water.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Right, Because there's a lot of things like Paula saying
that happened state side, you know, with I mean even
with like National Guard or reserves when they're on like
Title ten orders, you know, but they're like on the
border in Texas or because I was in a unit
that got sent down to Texas to do border control
at one point, and hurricane relief. You go to all
these different locations, and you always see on the news
(14:25):
or the weather channel, you see humpies or not humpies,
but like like Deuce and the half driving through the
flood water and stuff like that. You know, those guys
are getting exposed at all sorts of things.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Oh, you think that's a runoff and you know yes,
oh yeah, And I've been out to Ford, Irwin, California
and National Training Center out there and they have garbage
pits out there that's ay asbestos warning. Make sure either
take a picture of it, of the signs, show some
sort of proof, right, that will help support cases in
(14:57):
order to claim and get some disability conversation.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Really, I think just living in the barracks up to
some point.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
Yes, that that is a true fact, living in the barracks.
I was stationed in Korea Camp Casey, and there's black
mold in the barracks and I coughed out black stuff
for the next year. What this cough would never go away?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, so yeah, so like black mold as bestis. So
like you're saying, the packed act is basically falls under
like the Gulf and Asian areas. But however, like that's
still like it's it's got to be a part of it, right.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Yes, there, they're trying to get ahead of it. Oh,
they don't want millions and millions to die prior to
something being done about it. They learned from the via
nom vets and they're spose your age and orange to
start taking exposure to hazardous and toxic materials more serious.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Right, And this is why I always tell veterans to
make sure that even if you feel like you're not
entitled to the VA, or you didn't do enough, or
you didn't do any of these high speed things, that
that's how they that's how they build statistics. So if
if fifty people that think that they didn't do anything
in the military, if you know fifty one hundred people
go in there and they all have the same symptoms
(16:32):
and they are all in the same place, you know
that that's how they that's how they start to recognize
these things. So even if you think that you didn't
go anywhere or do anything significant like that, that information
might be significant.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
So yes, and the hardest thing is most veterans have pride, right,
and the VA looks at it as well, you didn't
go into sitcall while you were in service. However, the
reality you're going to sit call every day is not
a good thing. You can't go to sick call when
you're in Iraq or Afghanistan like pause time out right,
(17:06):
I'm not gonna shoot today, let me go over here.
So the reality is everyone they want it documented. But
the best thing is buddy letters, statements. Buddy statements people
in your unit that you were with. They can help
support your case.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
So if I didn't take the time to go to
sick hall or like you said, I had too much
pride or whatever, but I know that my condition is
from while I was in the military. So so a
buddy letter is what, like, how do I get a
buddy letter? Does it have to be on a specific form?
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Soody with us. So buddy letters used to be you
could write it on a napkin and it used to fly.
Now the VA is cracking down and they want everything
on a specific form for every and that form is
twenty ten to one zero, which is it states in
(18:01):
who the veteran is, and then it says who you are,
if you are a friend, spouse, loved one, and then
you fill it out basically in form in terms of
how this disability affects them were you're there, where you're
not there, and how it affects their quality of life.
(18:24):
Had they not gone in the military, their quality of
life would have been a different way versus going in
the military.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
So okay, So if I don't know any of these people,
I can't remember any of their names, but I have
my orders to show that I was in that place
at that time. Does that count or no?
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Yes, physical orders and also on your DD two fourteensky,
those play crucial and key role in any disability, meaning
that the VA has a duty to assist. And if
your records are incorrect with your D two fourteen, there
(19:06):
are ways to go about to get it corrected. It
does take a while, okay, just like what's that certificates,
there is a way to get them corrected. It does
take a while, but on the long desker to give
it form, they give you twelve spots to fill out.
So as long as one of those twelve would tie
(19:26):
into a service connection, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Okay, got it.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I just want people to know that if something happened
to you in the military and you can't do a
buddy letter because you don't know any of these people,
you can't connect. Even in the age of Facebook, you know,
for whatever reason, you still can't reach out to somebody.
As long as you have orders to prove that you
were in that place at that time, not all hope
(19:52):
is lost.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
So well, and there are certain ribbons and awards that
are automatic indicators that you experienced an incident.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Enter like if your infantry combat infantry badge would be
one example, and that you engage in combat being an
infantry role. If you were a non infantry member and
you have a C A B, which is a combat
action badge, it says that you were non infantry. However,
(20:23):
you're engaged in combat with the enemy.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
You know, there's a surprising number of Purple Heart recipients
that do not get VA benefits and have a zero rating.
It's it's crazy because they don't go.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Well, that comes down to we are a Purple Heart
community here in Charlotte County, and we need Purple Heart
recipients step up and file claims, right and because obviously
you've been injured, you were awarded this metal and so
(21:03):
you deserve some compensation to help offset some of the
disabilities that came along with that award.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, and that's part of the reason for the show
is for veterans to start talking and say, hey, this
is what's wrong with me. Maybe it's wrong the same
thing is wrong with somebody else. You know, if if
it's okay for me to talk, then it's okay for
them to talk. And you know, if I have this problem,
even if I don't want to talk about it, maybe
(21:32):
I can get somebody else to to Maybe I can
help somebody else by bringing my situation forward.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
See I wanted to point that out is you're not
just helping yourself by speaking up and reporting what you know,
the injuries that you're in, the conditions that you're living with.
You are, in all likelihood helping your fellow soldiers and
veterans out. And that's really really important to change that perspective.
(21:58):
It's not an act of selfish to go file for
your your benefits. This is also helping.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Your fellow veterans right exactly.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
On a separate note, I'm actually looking to meet the
Purple Heart recipients in our community and document their story. Okay,
so those that are interested, you know, with the DAV
them doing it through the DAV, but we want to
not only honor them, but we want to tell their story.
I think it's an important history that needs to be
(22:25):
recorded that that often goes silently into you know, the past.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Absolutely, So if if there's a Purple Heart recipient and
they are up for that and they want to come
talk to you, they're going to come to the Port
Charlotte mall.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yes they are, okay, so talk to us and I will.
I will sit down with them at their convenience. I
want to I want to hear their story. Document it.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Okay, so we'll point them in your direction.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
It's not history.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
We want lost right exactly exactly. So if okay, So
switching gears a little bit. So if a veteran ends
up with one hundred percent disability, Oh, what are some
of the benefits that that they're entitled to?
Speaker 5 (23:11):
The veteran receives one hundred percent disability benefits verification letter
in the mail. In that letter that it contains the
Post nine to eleven, Chapter thirty five GI Bill for
their dependents that are under twenty three years old. They
(23:33):
also have the ability to enroll their spouse in champ via.
It's a lengthy process. It's two forms, but it does
take a while. The average time is like eight months
to get a spouse.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Enrolled in it.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Oh wow, and those two those with that.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
When you're one hundred percent, you're allowed the veteran is
allowed free dental and you go to your Port Charlotte
Clinic Award Cape Coral Clinic. While you're there. You tell
me you want to go to Dane Danil looks you
up and sees, yes, you are one hundred percent from there.
(24:15):
They can't give you appointment in thirty to forty five days,
they send you out to community care. And community care
they take care of things pretty quickly with Danel and
get your tea back.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Oh well, okay, if somebody does want to come talk
to the dav how do they find you guys? Because say,
I don't know where the mall is? What do I do?
Speaker 3 (24:39):
All right, so we are we are right in between
forty one, which is Tammy Ammy Trail and one seventy
six where the Port Charlotte Town Center mall is right
on that corner, and you go in between jac Penny
and Dillard's and our offices are right there.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, park on the Dillards in because I always park
on the wrong end and have to walk through the
mall and it's horrible.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, you can go right in there, Dswshoe Warehouse right okay,
right there?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
All right, Well, thank you guys for coming in. Ashley
Steve and uh yeah, we'll talk to you guys next
month and if you have anything exciting to talk to
us about just let us know and we'll throw it
in there.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Sounds great, and we'll have more questions for you.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Absolutely, of course.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
The following rally points segment contain some material of a
sensitive nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
All right, welcome back everyone, and with us in the studio.
Now we have I would say former marine, but there
are no former Marines, thank you. So we have Ron Zeleski,
who is the founder of the Long Walk Home. And
the last time we talked to Ron was about a
year ago, and the reason for that was he was
(25:51):
walking across America for the third.
Speaker 6 (25:55):
Time, the second time.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Second time. This time he wore shoes, but he walked
from Key West to San Diego. And Ron tell us
a little bit more about the Long Walk Home and
what the purpose of that is.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
The purpose of the Long Walk Home originally it started
out I just started out to create awareness because I
was angry for thirty three years. When I got out
of Marines, I stopped wearing shoes, and in my head
it was a memorial for my friends that had died
and suffered. But actually it was just enacted defiance because
(26:32):
people would ask me, how come you don't wear shoes,
and I'd say, I don't feel like you've got a
problem with that, because back then I had the cash
and the bank to back up any check. I wanted
to write right, you know, right now, I don't, so
I stepped back a little bit. And then when I
realized I'm the problem, after nine to eleven happened, I
(26:53):
started having nightmares about you know what happened when I
was in the Marines and I'm non combat and I
went in to hurt my parents. I got in because
I won the draft lottery. My number was thirty four,
so and I'm going anyway. So I went with a
buddy that I've grown up since we're six, and he
(27:16):
got caught for this stuff we did. So he had
a record and the only branch that were taken was
the Marine. So I went in with him to hurt
my parents because you know, at that age, you see hypocrisy.
You don't see you don't see gray arias. And to
me now, there are no gray aries. It's black and white.
We make up gray areas for stuff we want to.
(27:36):
You know, you buy my trash, I'll buy your trash.
But no, I'm not buying my trash anymore. I was
angry for a long time, and like I said, I
realized I'm the problem. And that's when I did my
first barefoot walk. It did the Appalachian Trail barefoot two
thousand and six and seven then and to create awareness,
(27:57):
but it was it was me to forget myself awareness
for what awareness about the suicides because I didn't know
because I had buried my head in the sand with
my anger and blamed everybody. And then I learned that
eighteen vets a day were committing suicide back then, and
I realized I'm the problem because I didn't do anything
to stop it. I allowed it to happen, So I'm
(28:19):
the problem. So that's when I went to do something
about it and went to Washington, which was like talking
to a brick wall. And then I went walked across
the country barefoot twenty ten and eleven because now I
had a petition. I had this plan and going to
Washington to tell them what to do. And then I did,
and it was like I was talking to the same
(28:40):
brick wall and nothing happened. And then I realized I
don't tell somebody what to do, I'd do it and
then ask them for help and in Washington's case, then
you give them the credit for it. So then I
opened up a homeless shelter and I did that two
thousand from fourteen to sixteen, and basically I enabled drunks.
(29:06):
I didn't really help anybody. I just enabled them. And
I realized I had judged everybody that came in my door.
You know, you're a drunk, you got to quit drink,
and you're a bum.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
You got to get a job.
Speaker 6 (29:18):
You're an attic, you got to you know. So I didn't.
I made them defend their position. They couldn't hear me, Chris, Well,
I drink because you know I have this pain in
my thing. Well, I do drugs because of the pain,
and you know. So they had a million excuses. But
they were just defending because I judged them right. And
(29:39):
then I realized, when I judge them, I'm not helping them.
So then we developed this program ten Challenges to Service,
and it helps them make the shift because then you think,
because if you do not think nothing's ever going to
change in your world, you're going to see the world
the same way you've always seen it. So we developed
(30:00):
this program and it really works. I mean, it's powerful
It's simple but powerful. It's like a twelve step program,
but instead of for you know, guys that drink or whatever,
it's for guys that have anger issues and are making
that transition out. After we did that and I was
having trouble getting it out there, I figured, well, let
(30:21):
me do another walk. And this walk, instead of just
creating awareness, which what the other ones were was to
create awareness, I realize awareness doesn't help people. It's what
you do with awareness that makes the change. So we
went across. So this is a learning curve, this walk,
because we'd go through you know, I'm in a mission
(30:43):
to get to the West coast before the summer so
I don't get stuck in the desert in the summertime, right,
So you know, we'd create awareness. People would know about
us and they'd be all excited, and then we'd leave
and then on the way back, we'd go back to
them and a lot of them forgot about it, changed
their mind. But we trained a hundred people on the
(31:03):
way back. But I realized we can do it more
effectively because, like I said, awareness is nothing unless you
do something, And this is a way for people to
actually help a veteran or their fellow veteran. And you know,
I feel more of a marine now than I did
when I was in. I had an attitude, got into fights,
(31:25):
all of that good stuff. But now I feel more.
Speaker 7 (31:28):
Of a marine because I'm back for the wounded, right,
And I had turned my back on them when I
get out because of my anger, and I blamed everybody,
but it wasn't me because I went against everything I believed.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
I wasn't in combat, but I had a moral injury
because I was raised my whole life to be good
and loving, and then they trained me for twelve weeks
to kill. Then some of us they put in life
and desk situations where we kill, and then they pull
us out and take us away from our family, because
the guys you're in with are closer than your own
family because they got your back. And then you pull
(32:03):
us away from that, leave our weapons behind for the
enemy to kill everybody who said you'd protect and they die,
and then you get home and they say, get over it.
It's about money in politics, right.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
This is what civilians don't understand when they get this,
because they say, why are you guys so angry? Why
do you kill yourselves? Well, imagine you're in a car
driving your whole family, and you know, people get killed
in the car accidents, and you get into this horrific accident.
Everybody gets killed but you, and it might be your fault.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
You'll never know.
Speaker 6 (32:32):
Get over it.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
You don't get over it. We don't get over this.
It stays with us forever.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
It's part of us.
Speaker 6 (32:39):
We can change how we look at it, but it's
always going to be part of us.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
And it's what we do with that.
Speaker 6 (32:43):
And that's what our program does, is help you forgive
yourself because that one instant in time doesn't define you.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, the transition is a very difficult thing. That's that's
been my thing for the last two or three years,
is trying to transition. I'm still trying to transition. I know.
When I got out, kind of like how you're saying,
like I wanted to get as far away from the
military as possible, and then at some point you just
miss it because that's all you know. I mean, You're
(33:10):
like like for me, I was in the Army when
I got out. I was in the Army longer than
I wasn't in the Army as life, and when I
got out, it's you know, you're eighteen again, trying to
figure out what you want to do when you grow up,
And I'm sitting here at forty one trying to figure
out what I want to do when I'm become an adult.
It is very difficult, and people don't understand that. And
(33:31):
you go straight into the workforce and you're working for
somebody that's half your age, and you you're just a
guy at the job, and you're like, hey, you know
I used to be somebody. Why am I at the
bottom of the totem pole when six months ago I
had two hundred and eighty four soldiers under me? You
know what I mean? Yeah, it's it's definitely. Civilian life
(33:52):
is so much different than people realize. I mean, if
you've always been a civilian, it's not your fault any better.
Speaker 6 (34:00):
Yeah, they don't.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
It's it's definitely Transitioning is definitely a very difficult thing.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
It's like we've seen behind the curtain of the Wizard
of Oz, the civilian hasn't right. And I just want
to go back to you said you're trying. Don't try
to make the transition. Make the transition.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
You know what to do.
Speaker 6 (34:19):
You make a list, you do it. That's part of
what our program does. Because I'm trying to drink water
from this bottle. It's not gonna happen till I say
I'm going to drink from this water.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
That's true. That's a good point. Yeah, no, I so
I started. I actually I met Jay who was in
the studio with us. But he is not behind the mic,
so uh, speaking of Wizard of Oz, he's the he's
the man behind the curtain. So I met Jay actually
about a year ago. He was introduced to me by
Steven ar Deutsch. That just kind of changed everything for
(34:49):
me really, you know, he gave me a voice. I
had a town hall, talked to veterans. I told them
my story from beginning and you were there, yeah, and
you're And I really felt like that's what I needed
to do at the moment, like I had never told
people my story. And then you know, they got to
read it on the cover of the sun like the
(35:11):
next day, which that was a great surprise. But once
once you drop that armor and just become vulnerable, it
makes it a lot easier to help others when you're
able to say that I've been in the same place
that you are, and you can get through this. It
makes it a lot easier to, like I said, help
(35:32):
others once you've learn to help yourself.
Speaker 6 (35:35):
And when I went through the desert on my first walk,
the Indians gave me an eagle feather and that's a
big deal, and they invited me to their ceremony and
they have a ritual where every soldier of every warrior
comes and speaks before the whole tribe and they make
them leaders. In our country, we're spit at or well,
(36:00):
not so much now, but when I was in, and
we're discounted, discarded, and we have the training to be
leaders because we know what it's like to serve, and
we're more patriotic even though people think we're not because
we're angry. I'm angry this country because I know we
(36:22):
can do better and it hurts me to see what
I see and we don't have that because you know,
we're all scientific and we're civilized and all that. I
don't think we're really civilized, you know, I just think
that's some line of bs. But I'm going off the
rails here.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
A little bit.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
One of the things talk is cheap, right, you know,
And a lot of people say thank you for your service,
and I would get angry because I could look in
their eyes that they were afraid and they're just saying
it because they think it's the right thing to say,
and they don't even know what they're thanking me for,
and they run away, right, and I to say, well,
(37:01):
how are you going to thank me? What are you
going to do? And then it would make it worse,
and then it would really run away. And then I
talked to a buddy of mine and he says, you
know what I say to them, ron, because he says,
I say, you were worth it. And when I started
doing that, I realized that I had an expectation that
(37:22):
they were going to be grateful that I was in
and would have given my life for them. Right, So
I did it for the wrong reason, having an expectation.
But when I say thank you for your service, now
it's like I did it because I wanted to. In
my case, I didn't really want to. I got drafted.
But there's a lot of guys that go in because
they want to and they're doing it for the right reason.
(37:47):
So that really helped me. And then the people that
I've said that to have cried because they said, nobody's
ever said that to me, so but it helped shift
my perception. And that's because I looked at it different.
And that's what I work to do. Like I said,
you know, I'm going to beat this dead horse that
you know, if you don't change the way you see
(38:07):
the world, I think nothing's ever going to change. That
changes it for me, because it's easy. When I go
to the VA. The angriest guys there are the guys
from Vietnam War. They're the guys. You'll know. You hear
somebody screaming, an old guy. Yeah, that's who's screaming because
they're angry.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Do you notice that, Paul, a lot of your I
was just listening to you that you spent twenty years
in the service. I spent one year, nine months, and
fourteen days. So when I got out, I fled. We
were told to take off our uniforms as quickly as
possible and meld into civilian life. And I think that's
(38:48):
why we're so angry. It's not so much the recognition.
It was I saw it as an honor. I was
really honored to be in this surf.
Speaker 6 (39:02):
And to be treated the way we were, to be
called baby killer. When I got out, and they didn't
know me, and they're the ones that sent us there.
I'm a nineteen year old kid. It's like I decided,
you know, to declare war on some country and kill
people where you're God or your mind.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
That's that upsets me.
Speaker 6 (39:22):
And it's like that today's and in that vein of
you know, talk is cheap. We do our program. We
have our program attend Challenges to service. We're doing it
at the American Legion Post in Venice Post one point
fifty nine. That's starting the third Let's see what day is, Yeah,
(39:46):
the third of September at ten nine thirty in the morning,
and then we're doing it at the YMCA. That it's Monday.
I think it's the twenty second of September, and that'll
be at ten o'clock. It'll be on our website. Our
(40:06):
website is thelongwalkome dot org. We also work with incarcerated veterans.
We work with at the largest woman's prison in Florida
and Okalla. I'll be going there Thursday.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
What are some of the things that you do there?
Speaker 6 (40:21):
We do our program there. There's a thousand women in
that prison. The first day we worked with fifteen veterans
in that prison. After the first day, there was a
drop in violence in that prison.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
It's like a miracle.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
It's like a miracle.
Speaker 6 (40:40):
And one of the neat things, like one of the
women was saying that, and I wouldn't want to be
here for all the money in the world. She's in prison,
are fifteen years old outside talking about killing himself. She's
helpless because she's trapped in prison. So I talked with
her and I gave her some ideas that she could
(41:03):
use her to talk to him or write a letter.
The next time I saw her, she was smiling and
she said thank And you know, people look at the
people in prison is you know, as monsters because of
the way TV is. Trust me at prison is not
like any movie you're going to see.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
And it's.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
When they tell me their stories, I'm ashamed and embarrassed
because I should be in prison because they didn't have
anybody to support them or back them up, and they
continue to behavior because that's all they had. So we
work with them, and it's when I leave there I
am wiped out. And we go to death row and
work with them as well, and people say, why would
(41:44):
you do that? Because they're going to die hope is
an amazing thing.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah, So do you primarily talk to veterans when you
go there.
Speaker 6 (41:54):
Yes, And we're teaching them to teach the whole prison.
The guards have been coming into our program because they
want and know why there's such a big shift in
the prison.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
So you meet with the veterans, the veteran prisoner kind
of teach them life skills, leadership skills, and then they
kind of they go throughout the prison and spread that.
Speaker 6 (42:16):
Right because we give them the same book. We give
them the same book that we use so that they
can use it to spread it right. And that's what
Because anybody that's listening to the station, if you want
to truly help, you want to say thank you for
your service, join our program. Join our program, and then
you have more tools to have an in depth conversation.
(42:39):
Help somebody shift. If you're talking about whether and war stories,
where's the shift? There is no shift. The guy feels
good for that moment and then tomorrow night he'll kill himself.
But if you make a shift, that little shift changes
the trajectory of their life and it affects the entire family.
I'd rather work with you before you were on the
(43:00):
ledge because when you were on the ledge, you avoidage,
destroyed your family, lost your job, an alienated everybody, and
the damage is unbelievable because you think, oh, it's just
this one guy. Well he's destroyed his whole family.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Yep, exactly, and you you don't really think about how
much one conversation or one comment can make to somebody
like that can really change, like you were saying, the
trajectory of somebody's life. And I had an incident a
few years ago that I was telling you about once again.
(43:36):
If you want to know about it, you can read this.
You could read the Sun from September last year. But
I was telling you, like what triggered me? I don't
even know. It was a conversation that I was having
and it was kind of like I'll show you and
that was all that it took.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
But if.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
The same thing that I would always tell my soldiers
is that if you if you could just see the
next day, if you like, by tomorrow whatever whatever, that
horrible thing is right now, like that's not even going
to exist. Like I look back six years ago, I
could not tell you for any amount of money like
(44:20):
what triggered me. But it was just like in the
moment thing. And and that's another thing that survivors should
know too, that it it might not be your fault.
It's it's not your fault. You know, if somebody makes
that decision and a spur in a split second spur
of the moment, you can't necessarily control that, you know.
(44:43):
And so a lot of people, you know, survivor people
have survivor guilt and carry that with them, but like
that individual may not have ever thought about it until
they were in that moment.
Speaker 6 (44:58):
I'm mean, I deal with suicide a lot because of
the people I work with, and to me kind of
I mean.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Fear.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
You know.
Speaker 6 (45:06):
I used to say I'm not afraid anything. I was
afraid and I wouldn't admit it. But when I realized, yeah,
I was afraid, and now I work to be fearless.
So I said, well, what am I afraid of? What's
What's the worst that can happen? They're going to shoot me? Okay,
What's I'm going to lose everything?
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Maybe?
Speaker 6 (45:21):
So then it just gives me freedom. Because people are
so afraid of everything that they don't live. They're walking dead.
But when you become fearless and you're not afraid, Well,
so what this can happen? So what then it frees
you up to do anything. And any veteran that's out
there that wants a purpose, join us. Become a mentor.
(45:44):
Take this program and when you take the program, you know,
we'll train you to be a mentor and help the
next guy. We had one guy that I was doing
the program with who had a gun in his mouth.
Took the program and I said, oh, well, you do
a little bit more and we can make you mentory.
He says, well, I hope you're not upset with me,
but I helped my buddy. He had a gun in
(46:04):
his mouth, he was drinking a fifth a day, twenty
seven years old. Believed that he was a monster, and
I did the challenges with him, but I only did
the first challenge, And the first challenge is what are
you grateful for? It took him two days to answer that,
but when he answered it, it changed his life because
he saw something to be grateful for. He's not a monster, right,
(46:26):
And yeah, it's simple. That's what it's about, you know, And.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
There is there's all there's always something to be grateful for.
You don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. But
if you're at the bottom, you got to nowhere to
go but up.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Right, So if you're in that situation and you're at
the you feel like you've hit rock bottom, then if
you truly feel that way, you only got one way
to go.
Speaker 6 (46:48):
Yeah, And you know what, the guy was grateful for
what's up. He was grateful he wasn't Polish in a marine.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Well, I've been grateful that the marine for other reasons.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
You know, I was.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
I've said that in the last six eight months. I
don't think I ever knew a marine. A year ago,
I don't think I had ever known a marine in
my life, and I definitely didn't try to know one.
But all the marines that I've met in like the
last few months since I started doing Warrior Wellness, started
doing the radio show, it's I mean, they're all good people.
(47:28):
It's amazing. Surprised you, Yeah, surprising. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (47:35):
I find when I go to places and where there's organizations,
there's more Marines involved than any other branch and there's
fewer of us. But we know the cost of war,
right more than most these last war when my time
(47:57):
it was like ten guys behind everybody that was on
front line, and these was because all the subcontractors, that
number was a whole lot less. Most of you guys
were on the front line and saw action. But whether
you saw action or not, you had the same We
all had the same training. Yeah, and where like a parent,
(48:19):
like I was just talking with Jay, when you're behind,
or like a parent and your child or your buddies
out there on the front line, you can't do anything
to save them.
Speaker 4 (48:31):
You're helpless.
Speaker 6 (48:32):
I didn't realize how stressful that was they had kids,
because before them, I didn't care about anybody. So people
don't understand that either these people civilians that never had
a child, what they go through when they suffer. Is like,
especially with women, how anybody could send a doughter in
with some of the stuff I've seen and heard.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Well, we've had that conversation with female veterans before. People
had problems with women in combat roles and stuff like that.
But really, if you think about it, it doesn't matter.
Like the support mos is like they're they're on the
front lines, just like like stuff had to get to
the front line somehow, and so all those support moss
are are already out there on the front line. So
(49:14):
the women in infantry positions and things like that. It's
already happening, been happening for for the last the whole
time I was in, so the last twenty years at least,
you know you had females on the front line because
that's where they are, that's where they had to be.
So all right, well, I would love to talk to
you much much more and we'll definitely have you on again.
(49:36):
We're gonna have to wrap it up though, Okay, no problem,
thank you so for Paul Pleshi and our special guest,
Ron Zeleski, who If you want any more information about
Ron's program, Long Walk Home, it's the Long Walk Home
dot org. Please go on there, check it out, support him,
(49:57):
support the program that he's doing, helping veterans, helping get
awareness out there about suicide and help save a life. Really,
with everything that Ron does, it's helping to save lives.
So keep that in mind and with that, rally pointers
all out.
Speaker 8 (50:19):
Suicide is preventable and each of us has a role
to play in suicide prevention.
Speaker 9 (50:25):
Suicide is complex, There is no single cause.
Speaker 8 (50:29):
And it's not always a mental health issue. It could
be loss of a job or home, financial or relationship, issues, pain,
or leaving the military.
Speaker 9 (50:39):
Suicide does not discriminate. It affects all ages, races, and genders,
veterans or not.
Speaker 8 (50:46):
If you know a veteran who is struggling, connect with them,
let them know help is available.
Speaker 9 (50:52):
There is quick and easy access to services in times
of crisis.
Speaker 8 (50:56):
Dial nine eight eight, then press one. Talking of it
is okay.
Speaker 9 (51:01):
Don't keep it inside, don't be ashamed, don't wait.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Reach out.
Speaker 8 (51:06):
Find resources at VA dot gov slash reach.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
If you're having suicidal thoughts or problems dealing with a
loved one, there's always hope. Please reach out and contact
one of our programs that we've sponsored,
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