November 19, 2024 • 50 mins
Jeremy opens up about the role of faith in his life, offering a personal reflection on how belief systems can fortify resilience in the harshest of conditions. From early familial influences to deeply personal convictions, Jeremy's spiritual journey underscores the importance of faith not only for survival in combat but as a foundation for leadership and care. The discussion broadens into how organizations like the Mighty Oaks Foundation provide veterans and first responders with hope and purpose, especially when grappling with trauma and identity loss.
Feeling disconnected or cynical isn't uncommon for veterans, but Jeremy highlights the transformative power of peer-to-peer support networks. By sharing authentic experiences and fostering genuine relationships, veterans can combat isolation and rebuild their sense of identity and confidence. Jeremy introduces the empowering philosophy of "March or Die," encouraging individuals to move forward despite life's adversities. Through compelling stories and actionable insights, this episode offers a roadmap for overcoming challenges and finding peace through faith and community.
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hey, welcome back to the Protectors Podcast.
A couple weeks off, took acouple weeks off to enjoy the
weather.
This brisk, now brisk weather.
First guest back is JeremyStolenecker.
Um, a few different things incommon.
He was a little bit moredynamic in his career in the
military than me, absolutely.
But you know, hey, onceinfantry, you're always infantry
(00:36):
.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Right, jeremy, that's right even if you're in the
army, still infantry shots fired, shots fired.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Oh my gosh, now you know what we make sure we're all
clear on what we're doing hereexactly.
You know you were talking rightbefore we hit record button
about your deployment to iraq,and that was 2003, and you
mentioned something.
It was a very kinetic time,yeah, very kinetic yeah, yeah,
it was.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Uh, you know, we, we look back to that and know how
the war unfolded over 20 years,where it became very urban you
talk about forward operatingbases and all the language
around how we now think of thewar in Iraq particularly.
And then, on March 19th,breached the berm, pushed north,
(01:23):
hit the southern objective anddid a road march from the
southern border of Iraq toBaghdad.
The Battle of Baghdad on April10th 2003 was our infantry
battalion.
When I think of kinetic warfare, that's what we were doing.
We were moving, we wereshooting, we were dealing with
armor and all the things that wehad planned on and talked about
(01:46):
.
But when we got to Baghdad,that stopped and everything
changed and so a very differentwar after we got there.
But, yeah, really interestingtime for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Now, were you at the time?
Were you a CO?
Were you a platoon leader?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, I was a platoon commander for what we called
countermechanized platoon.
We had the anti-armor assets,so tows, javelins at the time,
all the anti-armor assets andthen the bunch of equipment, uh,
which made it, I think at thetime, probably the biggest
(02:26):
platoon in uh in in Iraq.
But, um man, it was awesome.
We trained for a long time.
Uh, I had the opportunity totrain with those guys for two
years, which is pretty unusualin the infantry world.
You're moving around a lot andI had the same Marines for, like
I said, over two years.
Uh ended up navigating for thebattalion and and, um yeah, kind
of running and gunning for uhfor a few months in.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Iraq.
Okay, now you were.
You just said, navigating forthe battalion.
Talk about it.
Responsibility Is that?
Talk about like you're movingthe battalion, you're the
forward operating unit andyou're pushing forward.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, so Marine infantry battalion, 1200,
1,200-ish Marines andattachments, our corpsmen and
all the other folks that wereattached to us, about 1,200
people.
So you think about a unitmoving over several miles.
We were mecked up.
We had amphibious tractors, soAVs that were moving all of our
(03:23):
Marines except for mine, we wereall in hardback HUMVs and so
you're navigating this column orthis battalion, this column,
and it's interesting, man, Ifeel really old when I talk
about these things.
But before we deployed to IraqI went to Target and I got a
Magellan GPS, a little yellowMagellan GPS, right, and I could
(03:47):
put my gear.
And I don't know at the time Idon't even know why I bought it.
I'm like, ah man, maybe I'llneed this.
I don't know.
Um gave me a six digit gridcoordinate and um ended up using
that.
We had onboard computers.
Our vehicles were all from theearly 90s.
They came off of pre-positionedshipping, so they were old
(04:07):
vehicles.
The alternators, the electricalsystems on those vehicles
couldn't support all the newtech.
As soon as we started moving,it all went down.
We didn't have Blue ForceTracker.
It was the predecessor to that,our onboard call it a DAC
system.
It went down immediately.
That's how I was supposed tonavigate our battalion, so I
(04:29):
ended up navigating using thatlittle Magellan that I bought.
I'd hold it out the window toget a signal, I could get the
six digit grid coordinates forwhere we were, and I had a map
book, and the map book was pageafter page after page of
photocopied maps with the gridcoordinates, and I'd take that
in, I'd look at it, I'd figureout where we were, and I'd call
that back to our CO, who wasabout two miles behind me, and,
(04:52):
yeah, navigated all the way toBaghdad that way, which was
pretty crazy.
The navigation was a thing forsure hitting checkpoints and the
rest of it.
The biggest part of that,though, was that we provided
forward security for ourbattalion, so any objective that
we hit we hit first.
Kind of those decision pointswere ours to make until the
(05:13):
battalion commander was up tospeed and we could figure out
what to do from there, and acouple of times that became
critical.
We hit some machine gun, hit amachine gun position, hit some
mortar positions along the way,and then, going into Baghdad,
that fight, we were ambushedgoing into the city, and that
became a 12-hour engagement toget to our objective.
So, yeah, crazy time, andthere's really no other way to
(05:38):
say it.
It was just a crazy time.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
You know, decision-making process is a
completely different one.
You're the forward elementcompared to the guy in the rear
who has hours and hours andhours to develop a plan.
When you're pushing north,you've got to make a decision
and, as we both know, when yougo through any leadership
training ROTC, pldc or NCOcourses or anything else you are
(06:02):
graded on your decision-making.
You absolutely have to makethat decision.
The ones who are weak will geta lower grade, which is good.
You should be able to make adecision.
You should be recognized if youcan make a decision.
You may need to refocus andlearn how to make a decision,
but when you're pushing northand you've got a Magellan in
your hand and you might comeunder troops in contact or
(06:22):
anything else and you have tomake decisions you're a junior
officer at the time reallypushing forward for a battalion
level operation you have got tomake decisions and everybody
relies on you.
That's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
That is a lot of pressure yeah, it is a lot of
pressure.
You know what.
What removes or relieves a lotof that pressure, though, is
clarity around commander'sintent.
We talk about this all the timein the military, but instead of
just understanding what I'msupposed to do right now,
understand what the end goal is.
So where are we supposed towhen the shooting stops, when
this thing's over?
(06:57):
Where are we supposed to beright?
And so that clarifies thoselanes of decision-making.
Simple example we were given thetask of securing a bridge.
I talk about this a lot, I'vewritten about this, but securing
a bridge over what was calledthe Saddam Canal.
It was a canal, right, so itwas up on a berm.
You go up on top of the berm,there's a bridge, and that was
(07:19):
deemed by the division to bestrategically important.
We needed to preserve thisbridge.
Division to be strategicallyimportant.
We needed to preserve thisbridge, so our battalion was
sent to secure it.
Middle of the day it wassupposed to be a fairly routine
operation.
The military intel communitytold us that enemy soldiers were
gone.
There was no one there, so wewouldn't even have contact.
I'm leading our battalion intothat.
(07:40):
It's the middle of the day.
We come into the straightawaytoward the bridge and we
immediately start to receiveboth mortar fire and machine gun
fire.
My job, so what I was told todo, was get to the near side of
the bridge, secure the near sideof the bridge.
We were going to hold that as abattalion and then the second
battalion I was first battalionfifth Marine, third battalion
(08:01):
fifth Marines.
That one coming up behind uswas supposed to then pass
through and continue forward.
Our job, my mission, was tostay on the near side of the
bridge.
We dealt with that machine gunposition per our SOPs and our
immediate action drills, but themortar rounds kept falling.
The mortar positions were onthe other side of the bridge, on
top of the canal, so I had toget to a place where I could
(08:21):
engage with those.
So a decision needed to be madeat that point.
But it wasn't a difficultdecision because I understood
commander's intent.
Commander's intent was dealwith whatever enemy may be there
and secure this bridge so thatfollow-on operations can happen.
Well, understanding commander'sintent, then push me on top of
(08:55):
the bridge to the other side ofthe bridge, to engage the enemy
and allow the rest of our unitto get there and allow that
process to unfold.
Where people really struggle, Ithink, with decision making is
when they don't know wherethey're going.
They don't understand whythey're going there and there
are so many questions around.
Why are we even doing this?
That muddies the water so muchwhen you know this is where I'm
supposed to be when this thing'sover.
That makes the process ofmaking decisions much simpler.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Imagine you bring that into the civilian concept.
The one thing I do want tobring into the fact is you
mentioned one word in there thatalways kind of keys off of me
and a of people don't realize it.
Most of our life we talk to alot of people that say I, but
you said we had to subscure this, we had to do this, but you had
two years to become we, rightwe as part of your team.
(09:35):
So surrounding yourself withthe right people and shifting
focus and moving people aroundto where their strengths are
developed makes you a success.
So let's talk a little bitabout that building your team
knowing you're going into war.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
The military does this so well and a lot of it is
automated.
You don't even realize it'shappening when it happens, as a
platoon commander, you show upto your unit, whether that's a
rifle platoon, maybe it's alarger platoon, maybe it's a
company commander, it's acompany.
You have who you have.
Your troops are your troops.
(10:11):
They're given to you.
But your responsibility as theleader of that unit is to begin
to understand strengths andweaknesses, who does what well,
who's not as good, and to beginto position those people in
places where they'll allow youto accomplish the mission.
We trained together for twoyears, and so what that meant
was I had two years ofunderstanding who can deal well
under pressure, who's going tomake the right decision, who's
not going to make the rightdecision?
(10:32):
I put some people in the wrongposition, and that became very
clear when we were under fire.
Man, they are not in the rightposition.
I need to move them out andmake those adjustments.
I need to move them out andmake those adjustments, but the
(10:57):
decisions that are made at thepoint of contact should simply
be an extension of the decisionsthat were made in peacetime.
In this scenario, you know whatpotentials lie in front of us
and build our team, not for whatwe're dealing with today, but
what we may be dealing with inthe future, so that when we get
to those friction points, whenwe get to those difficult
moments where decisions have tobe made, the team has already
trained, has already practiced,has already put together their
(11:19):
SOPs or their immediate actions.
They know what they're going todo.
There doesn't have to be a bigdiscussion or conversation,
maybe some limited guidance, butthen the team executes the way
they had already executed.
The best time to make a decisionis before the enemy presents
himself, and I think that's truein combat, that's true in
business, that's true inmarriage, it's true with your
(11:39):
kids.
We have such a short view ofwhat we're doing.
We're constantly trying tonavigate this moment.
Sometimes you have to, but it'sbetter to plan for what may
happen in the future.
How am I preparing for when mykids are a little bit older?
How am I preparing for when mykids are out of the house?
What are my wife and I doing toprepare for that?
(12:00):
When we look down the road interms of our business, we want
to scale to a particular point.
We have some things we need todo now.
But if we get there, what arewe going to need to do?
What?
What will we need to do?
And you see, people who areable to scale, they do really
well.
Then they hit a wall that theydidn't plan for and everything
falls apart.
Putting the right people inplace before the bullets start
(12:20):
flying is absolutely key tosuccess flying is absolutely key
to success.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Well, one thing you learn putting all these people
together and getting into combatand the bullets are flying is
faith.
You know absolute faith inyourself, but also faith in a
higher purpose and a higherbeing.
Because one thing I've learnedis like I joined the army in
1993 and the first, one of thefirst things you get, one of the
first couple weeks, there is alittle bible, little camo bible
or a little, I can't rememberwhat it is nowadays, I think it
was camo.
But when you're in certainaspects of the military and
(12:51):
everybody knows this you willfind 98 of the people fall back
on faith.
Yeah, so this must have been areally a catalyst, really, of
really understanding your faith.
Because, hey look, training istraining.
People do die in training.
Training can be life and death,yeah, but when you mentioned
bullets are flying and you werenot only having asking god and
(13:17):
and falling back on god aboutyour faith and and what's going
on, but about the people aroundyou praying for them, praying
for their safety.
So let's talk about that.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, yeah.
So you know, faith for me hasalways been a part of my life.
I was raised in a very strongChristian home and would have
said I was a person of faith.
You know, from a young age madea decision to follow Christ, to
live for God.
As a young person, grew up inthe church, grew up in youth
(13:50):
group and all of the things thata lot of Christian young people
do.
So that was a part of who I was.
I went into the military andagain, was not shy about my
faith, shy about my Christianity, went to church, had my family
in church, all of those thingsthat you're supposed to do.
But I remember the exact momentin Iraq, standing on a road
(14:12):
after a major engagement.
Surprised, I was still alive.
I remember the feeling of theawareness I don't know a better
way to say it the awareness.
It was almost a weight thatsettled in on me, the awareness
that God is and the word I woulduse now is sovereign.
(14:33):
God is bigger than all of thisthat the enemy doesn't care who
I am or where I came from, orwho my parents were, my
education.
The enemy doesn't care.
The enemy wants to kill mebecause I'm to them, the enemy,
I'm on the other side of thisfiring line and that the best I
can do is the best I can do.
I'm responsible for what I havein my hands, what I can be
(14:56):
responsible for, but God isbigger than all of this and I've
thought back on that moment,probably thousands of times
since then, as really being themoment that my faith became real
, that it wasn't something thatwas handed to me by my family,
and again, I believed it when Iwas a teenager and believed it
into my early adult years.
It wasn't like I just kind ofwent along because my parents
(15:19):
did, I believed it kind of in myhead, but it became real to me
in my heart, and real to me asan expression of who I am at
that moment, because life becamevery real.
And so this faith thing, thisfaith question, this where do
you put your confidence?
Who are you trusting in why?
Why are you trusting in God?
(15:39):
What does that mean to you?
Who is God?
All of those questions becamevery, very important when the
stakes became life or death and,as you mentioned, it then
became about more than just me.
It's now these Marines that I'mleading and serving and taking
care of these real questions ofeven the enemy that we're
(16:02):
dealing with and the lives thatthey've been living and their
deaths and our all of it.
It kind of came crashing downat that moment.
And really an understanding ofGod, my confidence in him, is
what puts all of that into focus, and since then I've had time
to think about it and understandit.
It is faith in God, not inyourself, faith in God, god who
(16:27):
is outside of space and time,God who is in and overall, that
establishes the foundation onwhich the rest of our lives can
be built.
And the struggles that I've hadsince then I've been able to
work through because I'mstanding on this, this
foundation of faith.
I don't get it.
I don't understand it.
(16:47):
I'm struggling here.
I can't see the end.
From the beginning, there is anenemy uh, real or spiritual.
I already want to frame thatthat is trying to take me out.
But my confidence is in God andthat has become the driving
force of my life.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
You know I typically with this podcast 500 plus
episodes I typically see orclear of of religion and
politics.
But you know, when I talk toyou I'm like it brings me back
to you.
You mentioned the, the timewhen you're in a youth group and
the almost like a followership,like you kind of.
You know your, your family wasbased in religion.
I had not really a similarthing cause I did not have a
(17:27):
faith-based family.
But then I had some issues whenI was a kid where I lived
outside of my family home.
I lived with a Christian familyand I really learned about
religion.
I learned about God and I didthe mission trips, I did youth
group, I was, you know, everySunday I was at church and I
remember when I became bornagain, the night I did.
(17:53):
I had some of the most lucid,surreal dreams and I've never
talked about this before themost lucid, surreal dreams about
Satan that you would never,ever imagine.
They felt so real and from thatpoint in my life I have had
issues with my faith over theyears.
I'm in my 30s, 40 years.
Now I'm 51.
So that was 16, 17 at the time.
(18:15):
So I have had issues with myfaith and God knows I'm not a
great person overall you knownone of us are but there has
been times when I've fallen backon it and there's been times
when I've fallen away from it.
But when you hit, the real lifecatalysts, the real life
heartaches, the real life pains,the real life death.
(18:35):
The real life just things arenot good.
There's always a faith behindthat brings you out of it, and
that's one thing I want to talkabout.
Next was hope.
When you're beat down, whenyou're absolutely at death's
door, you always search for hope, and it doesn't necessarily
have to be a religious hope, buta hope inside you that there is
(18:57):
something better for you andsomething that gives you the
will to live.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, yeah.
Hope is everything.
We talk about hope.
We could talk about the suicideepidemic among veterans in the
United States, which isoutrageous.
I talk about this.
What is that?
It's a loss of hope.
It's an individual coming to apoint where there is nothing
(19:24):
beyond this.
There is no hope.
We could look at relationshipsthat dissolve.
We could look at all of theseissues.
What do they all have in common?
At some point, the people orperson involved in them gets to
that place where hope is gone.
What is hope?
Hope is the belief that there'ssomething outside of my current
(19:44):
situation.
I like to describe it this wayIf your world is a circle drawn
around you, so you're standingin the middle of that circle and
everything inside of thatcircle is your world around you,
so you're standing in themiddle of that circle and
everything inside of that circleis your world, and all you do
is look into that circle.
All you do is see your world.
Your world is yourrelationships and your work and
(20:05):
your memories and who you are.
If all you can see is what's inthat circle, that's your world,
that's a very hopeless place tobe, because the very best that
you can ever be inside of thatcircle is the best that you can
be and, if we're honest, we allstruggle with the reality that
that's not great.
Hope comes into our lives whenwe look outside of that circle
(20:27):
and we realize there is someoneor something that is bigger than
my world.
There is something the word istranscendent, something that
transcends this world that I amin, that encompasses who I am,
and when God is the one in whomwe place our faith, we can have
(20:49):
confidence that, whether we cansee the end from here or not,
whether we understand how it'sall unfolding or not, that there
is a plan and that there is asovereign, a transcendent God,
god, someone who is outside ofspace and time that is
responsible for how this thingunfolds.
I just had this conversationyesterday with a friend of mine.
(21:11):
We were talking about a bookcalled the Ethics of Beauty.
It's an interesting book,really thick book, very deep
book.
The premise is this, or thethesis is this that even in
trauma and trial and difficultyhe talks a lot about
post-traumatic stress in thisbook there is beauty to be found
if we see ourselves as part ofa larger story.
(21:34):
When we think that the onlything happening in the world is
what's happening to us.
That's hopeless.
When we understand that we areone part of a much larger story,
there's always hope becausethere's always more.
We fit in and that can becomevery beautiful.
It becomes the motivation tocontinue moving forward.
(21:55):
When there are questionsunanswered, when there are
difficulties encountered, whenthere are trials and traumas in
our past, we move forward withthis understanding of beauty,
the fact that we're part of amuch larger picture and, coming
at it from a faith perspective,god is the one who writes that
story and we're a part of thestory that he's unfolding for us
(22:15):
.
When I talk to men and women whoare struggling, I try to help
them understand that if Godcreated you, then there's always
hope because there is purposeand design.
He didn't create you to fall onyour face.
He didn't create you tostruggle through life.
He has a plan for you andtherein is the hope.
If I align my life to the lifeGod created me to live, there's
(22:40):
always hope.
Now, that can seem, you know,esoteric to some.
It can seem, you know,mysterious.
It's not mysterious.
It's understanding that thebest we can be is us, but
there's a God who's bigger thanus and we can trust him.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Well, you know you're going to find people that don't
believe in God, which is, youknow that's a negative.
When you talk about the circle,when you talk about the circle
and your life circle, it's somicro, it's so micro.
When you consider the universe,you consider everything.
A lot of times when you fallinto despair and you fall into,
like you know, the suicidalideations or suicide itself, you
(23:18):
can't get out of that circle.
And you know, one thing aboutthe military is you always try
to establish a foothold andsometimes if you could just get
a foot outside of that circle,into your faith, into your
belief, into light, into somesort of positivity, just one
foothold, then you can getpulled out.
And if that means that someoneon the outside of your circle
(23:40):
could pull you out of it,whether that be your religion,
whether that be something thatyou believe in or whether it's
someone that believes in you.
But you've got to get out ofthat circle.
I remember times in my lifewhere I've been on that point,
the edge, inside that circle.
I couldn't get out.
And I had I didn't, and I hadkids at the time.
I mean, I saw kids, but at thetime my kids were really young
(24:02):
and I remember it didn't matterif I had kids, it didn't matter
if I had a job that paid thebills.
I could not get out of thatcircle.
And my circle kept closing inand in, and in, and in and in
and there was nothing that couldget me out of it until one day
I've I've had to flip the switchmyself, because one thing you
(24:23):
learn as you get older and I'mlearning this now in my 50s is
that your circle of friends andcircle of people you could rely
on is very, very limited.
Yep, so as you get older it maybe and this is all going to come
back but as get older it'sgoing to be tougher to get out
of that circle of despair, thatcircle of suicide, because your
network becomes smaller.
(24:44):
Your true, true network circleand that's where you know a lot
of the work that you do is thatand I can tell, I can, I can see
in your the way you talk aboutleadership and the way you talk
about God.
You do have a shift in yourvoice.
You can see your passion andyou can see your job.
(25:06):
Your job before was to be aleader, to be a decision maker,
and now your passion is God,your passion is faith.
Your passion is to be thatperson outside of the circle
who's lending a hand, and Ithink that's where we want to
talk about.
Next is Mighty Oaks Foundationand how they lend a hand and how
you could pull people out ofthese circles based on what your
program is doing.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah, yeah, well, I appreciate that, mighty Oaks.
We work with veterans, activeduty service members, first
responders and spouses, so weinclude our spouses in all of
our programs and we do a numberof things, but primarily we have
a program called the legacyprogram and we bring men or
(25:47):
women we have separate men's andwomen's programs men or women
to one of five locations acrossthe country.
We have ranches that we useacross the country California,
ohio, texas and Virginia and webring them to us and they spend
a week with us and over thecourse of that week we talk
(26:08):
about trauma, we talk aboutpost-traumatic stress and a lot
of these issues that veteransand service members and first
responders deal with, of course,but more than anything, we do
our best to communicate what wejust talked about, that there is
hope.
We do our best to communicatewhat we just talked about, that
there is hope.
Many on the other side oftransition lose identity and
understanding of purpose, andthat leads then to frustration,
which leads to often anger, butdefinitely hopelessness.
(26:31):
It's this idea that what I hadwas important, what I did was
important, where I was wasimportant, and I just don't have
any of those things anymore.
So there's nowhere for me to gonow.
What we do during the course ofthat five days is we point
people to an understanding ofGod and who he is, what that
(26:53):
means to you practically thefact that God the Creator has a
plan for your life, and what weneed to do is work the fact that
God the creator has a plan foryour life and what we need to do
is work on understanding how wecan live according to that plan
, how we can engage with thatplan and that purpose and that
direction.
Because outside of the military, you still have a created
purpose.
Outside of the military, thereis an identity that is valuable
(27:14):
and meaningful, not just toother people but to you and to
your future, that there issomething.
Even if you can't see it, thereis something in front of you.
Every one of the folks who'sinvolved in leadership in our
program the team leaders,instructors they've all come
through as students and that'shelpful because it's not a
clinical program.
It's not me telling you whatyou need to do.
(27:34):
It's very much someone standingin front of a class of other
veterans, first responders andactive duty military folks
saying I know where you arebecause I've been there.
I've struggled the same waythat you've struggled.
Here's my story and we'll tellthe story, or they'll tell their
story, and here are the stepsthat I began to take to move
forward and I want to help youdo the same.
(27:54):
So it's very much apeer-to-peer to move forward and
I want to help you do the same.
So it's very much apeer-to-peer.
It's similar to what weexperienced in the military,
where we're working togethertoward a common end, but the
common end is getting back onour feet and engaging with that
hope, that purpose, that meaningand that identity that's in
front of us and man, we've seenthousands of folks come through
our programs.
There are other great programsor good clinical programs.
(28:15):
I'm not down on any of those,but if you don't have the right
foundation, it's really hard tobuild a life that matters,
because the building is only asgood as the foundation it's
built upon.
And if your understanding offaith, understanding of the
place where your confidence isfound, isn't clear, then the
rest of it is always going tostruggle.
It's a five-day program.
(28:37):
Clear, then the rest of it isalways going to struggle.
It's a five-day program.
On the other side of that, fivedays, we work to resource our
graduates for as long as theywant us involved in their lives.
We'll help them get tocounseling.
We'll help them find the otherresources they need to deal with
the other issues that they'redealing with and struggling with
.
But it begins with a decisionto move forward.
Then the question of how and wetalk about that.
(28:59):
It's understanding that God hasa plan for you and moving
toward that.
We try to lay that out.
Then we bring as much communityand assistance as we can around
those folks.
They have, as you say, thepeople outside of the circle, to
help pull them forward andcontinue to infuse them with
hope.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
One thing you and I both learned is cynics cynical,
yeah, yeah, you may have hadlisten.
You know you could grow up withfaith.
You could be faithful, youcould be faithless.
The word faith is in your life.
You may believe in God, you mayhave believed in God, but you
may have lost faith in God andyou become a cynic and you
become so closed off.
(29:41):
These are the real people thatneed to be pulled out of that
cynicism.
But how do you get them frombeing so cynical and so like I
don't believe in anythinganymore, I just hate the world
and not let them go?
How do you get them to see thelight, to make that decision, to
step forward and get help?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
A lot of the folks who attend our programs.
I don't know what thepercentage would be, but it'd be
very high.
They come to our program notbecause they are people of faith
or Christians or whatever.
They come to one of ourprograms A, because there's no
cost.
We cover the cost of no cost.
We cover the cost of theprogram, we cover the cost of
travel.
We make that available to them.
So it's available, right.
But also B, because they'vetried everything else.
(30:26):
They've tried medications,they've tried clinical programs,
they've tried all the otherthings and it still hasn't given
them the foothold that you weretalking about or the ability to
move forward.
So they come to us becausethey've tried everything else
and have nowhere else to go.
In fact, many times on a Mondaywhen the program starts, we'll
have everyone stand up and theytake 30 seconds tell us your
name, what branch of the serviceyou were in and why you're here
(30:49):
Often I mean probably every.
We have 40 programs this year,so 40 weeks of programs,
probably 35 of those weeks.
Someone stood up and said I'vetried everything else and if
this doesn't work, then when Igo home on Saturday, I'm done.
Some will say I'll end my life,some will say something else,
but it's that sentiment.
I'm done.
(31:09):
I have nowhere else to go fromhere.
They may also communicate.
I don't believe in God.
I don't like the faith thing.
I'm not here because this is aChristian program.
In fact, I was raised aChristian but I now hate God
because of what he's let happenin my life, or I've lost my
faith or I don't have a faithwhatever.
So the cynics that you'retalking about are our primary
(31:33):
audience.
Right, they're there because ofthat often.
But because everyone whoinstructs and everyone who leads
teams and everyone who's a partof the leadership also came as
a student, which means many ofthem came also as cynics.
Many of them come from a combatbackground or in the first
responder community with longhistory of service.
(31:54):
In their communities there is acommonality, a common bond
right away.
So that's part of it, right,this is important.
There's common ground, and sowhen an instructor, a team
leader, is talking to a student,it's not again from a doctor to
a patient, or from a preacherto a parishioner or a teacher to
a student.
(32:14):
It's very much a peer-to-peer.
A teacher to a student, it'svery much a peer-to-peer.
Look, I get it because I'vebeen there.
That's very, very powerful.
And then, throughout the week,every time a class is taught, we
have about 12 classes overthose five days, and then
they'll break into small groupsand discuss the class.
Every class that's taught istaught from a testimonial
(32:34):
perspective, meaning the personstanding in front of the class.
Before they can get into thecontent that's on the PowerPoint
, they have to tell their ownstory, and so there's a bridge
that's built, so there's commonground.
Then there's a bridge that'sbuilt, this guy, this man, this
woman standing in front of thisclass.
They do get it because they'velived this.
So, okay, maybe I don't likethe faith thing, maybe I have a
(32:58):
problem with God or whatever,but it sounds like they did too.
And then they struggled throughthis, and then this is the path
forward that they found.
Maybe there's something herefor me.
And then we ask a question atthe beginning of the week If
what you're doing isn't workingand that's why most people are
with us why not try somethingdifferent?
Maybe it's time to just trysomething different.
We're not asking you to sign upfor anything right, or whatever
(33:20):
.
Just try something different.
What you're doing clearly hasnot had the impact you were
hoping.
So let's try somethingdifferent and then we'll say
what we want to do.
This week is simply present, acontrast to the way you're
living.
We're going to show you what alife of faith can look like and
we want to contrast that to thelife that you've been living and
then make a decision.
(33:42):
The best way that I've seen andwe've seen this happen again
thousands of times to address acynical attitude toward God or
an outright rejection of God isto present a picture of what it
looks like To have struggled, tohave had a lot of questions.
In spite of those questions, tohave put our faith—well, that's
faith right.
It's saying I don't understandall of this, but I'm putting my
(34:04):
confidence in someone who'soutside of my situation, that is
God.
What does that life look like?
And after a week of hearingstories of people say I was
where you are, but now I'm hereand the difference is I put my
faith in God.
I began to walk that out andthings started to change in my
life.
Often the most cynical people orthose who outright reject God
(34:27):
by the end of that week will saysomething like I get it.
Now I understand and I'm goingto choose a different path.
Some will say I get it, Iunderstand, I'm not convinced,
but I'm going to choose adifferent path.
Some will say I get it, Iunderstand, I'm not convinced,
but I'm open, and they fallanywhere on that spectrum.
But, man, there is something sopowerful to saying look, I know
(34:48):
where you are because I've beenexactly there.
I've struggled the same waythat you've struggled, and
here's what God did in my lifeand the decisions I made to
begin moving forward.
And here's what happened.
And now you get to make adecision for yourself.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
You know the one common catalyst I've seen I just
have to use this word catalystmy word of the day.
The one common thread I've seen.
I love it, it's like myfavorite thing.
The one thread I've seen, withso many people who are
struggling and struggling andstuck and they can't move
forward, is anger, and you doeverything you could possibly do
to get rid of anger.
Some people use drugs, somepeople use alcohol.
(35:23):
For me, I was angry for thelongest time I mean for the
longest time and I startedtaking the Lexapro Generic and I
took that for 12, 13 years.
I'm finally off it.
I finally have a clear head.
But there is something abouthaving clarity and being able to
see things outside of thatbubble of the lexapros, of the
(35:47):
drugs, the alcohol.
Anything you're doing to curbthat anger Because that's really
what you're trying to do isyou're trying to quell that
anger.
You're trying to quell thatpain.
You're trying to push it backto somewhere where it can't
affect you anymore.
Yeah, but you bring, you bringpeople together and you, you
start just planting the seeds offaith and hope or or anything
that's going to shine them apositive light.
(36:07):
And listen, jeremy, I, you andI both know that it's not.
Life isn't always about a lotof people won't really believe
in a God or a God, but they dobelieve in something.
Yes.
So getting to that point wherethey believe in something
outside of this so they couldpush them forward and get rid of
(36:31):
that anger, hold on a secondand go like releasing, letting
go hey, we have a little techissue there, but we were just
talking about like pushing backthe anger, yeah, and getting
through it and finding someoneto help you out.
How did you know?
Jeremy, I did a little researchon you before and you talk a
lot about your anger, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
So one of the very common things that we have as
veterans.
A lot of things in common, butone is anger.
And it's funny.
I'll hear someone say, man, I'mjust so angry, I've got an
anger problem.
Or a spouse say my husband hasan anger problem.
It is so common.
(37:13):
And for me that was man.
Well, I mean, I almostdestroyed my marriage over that,
lost my first job in ministryof all things because of my
anger, made it so that my youngkids didn't want to spend time
with me.
I was just so angry all of thetime.
I'm not going to say I'mcompletely over that, but I have
control now and I'm not out ofcontrol like I once was.
(37:34):
Anger really comes on the heelsof a loss of control.
We become angry because wedon't have control.
Then we become frustratedbecause I don't have control
anymore.
I can't make these people dowhat I want them to do or the
situation be what I want it tobe.
That frustration, if it lastslong enough, will become anger.
Then we start to lose control,lash out post-traumatic stress
(38:05):
or any combat trauma issues orissues of trauma related to
service as a first responder.
You throw that on top of it andit's like putting gas on a fire
.
You're already angry, you'realready starting to lose control
, and then you dump that gas onthat fire and it's over For me.
I was so frustrated with my lackof clarity around who I was
after leaving the Marine Corps.
(38:25):
I was leading Marines in combatand then 30 days later I was
completely out of the MarineCorps and working at a church
and man, you talk about feelinglost and out of control.
And that became me taking myfrustration out on my wife,
throwing things, hitting things,screaming all the time the same
(38:49):
at my kids.
My kids would do something,just the kids do.
I had a three and afour-year-old at the time and I
would just blow up on them anddestroy them with my words and
screaming at them and mycoworkers at the church.
Of all places, it was the samething.
So anger is is very much anormal thing for those who
(39:10):
served in the military and inthe first responder community,
for sure, understanding thatit's a lack of control.
I don't have control and so Iam acting out.
It's not different than a childwho throws a temper tantrum
because they don't get what theywant.
We don't see it that way, orsay it that way, when we see an
adult get upset.
But that's exactly what it is.
(39:30):
When we understand that thereare things we're not in control
of, that we're responsible forthose things that are placed in
our hands to steward over, totake care of, to be responsible
for, and we need to do a goodjob with that.
The steward over to take careof, to be responsible for, and
we need to do a good job withthat.
But realizing that I am notsupposed to be, nor can I be, in
control of every person in mylife or every situation in my
life or every circumstance in mylife.
(39:51):
That's not my job.
This is why it's so importantto understand my faith, my
confidence, my hope is in God,who's outside of this situation.
That's not my responsibility.
Standing on the road that daywhen I talked about that after
that firefight, that was a bigpart of it for me, I'm
responsible for what I canactually control and God is
responsible for everything else.
(40:13):
This is a principle thatfollows in marriage.
I'm responsible for me, jeremy.
As a husband, I'm notresponsible for the decisions
that my wife makes.
Now I'm responsible to leadwell and to do a good job.
As a husband, I'm notresponsible for the decisions
that my wife makes.
Now I'm responsible to leadwell and to do a good job as her
husband, but at the end of theday, she's going to do what she
does and that's herresponsibility before God.
My kids I'm responsible to takecare of them, to train them, to
(40:34):
bring them up, to disciplinethem when discipline is needed,
but at the end of the daythey're going to make their own
decisions.
I can only do what I can do.
Day they're going to make theirown decisions, I can only do
what I can do.
It's not a cop out, it's not away of stepping away, but it's
an actual understanding of myplace in this world.
And my place in this world isnot God.
And when I realized that I'mnot God, but that God is God man
(40:59):
, I can actually find peacebecause I'm not responsible for
everything that happens aroundme.
That has been a very longprocess for me to come to.
And, um, I get it wrongsometimes, still, no doubt.
But when you realize I can'tcontrol everything, nor should I
try, that changes a lot.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
You had your identity there.
You were, were a combat leader,you were combat effective and,
like you said, you go off andyou're a civilian like weeks
later and you don't have thatmission.
Yeah, you can, you're gonna,you could be a ministry, yes,
but maybe that's not your highercalling.
Maybe your other higher callingis working for, like the mighty
oaks foundation, maybe it'sworking for other things, maybe
(41:41):
it's working to help otherpeople.
One thing I've learned is thatwhen I retired from being a fed
and when I geez, I can go allthe way back, you know to, when
I took the uniform off for thelast time to fast forward, you
know, until I'm done withservice 30 years of my life, in
one way or the other, was givingback or trying to help.
(42:02):
I had a mission and then, whenI didn't, I had to find another
mission.
I think the biggest thing is tofind another mission, find
something that's going to changeyour.
I'm not going to say changeyour identity, I'm going to say
enhance your identity.
Your identity could still beserving, still giving back,
still doing something outside ofthe common norm.
(42:23):
You have to have a mission,something next.
I think that's.
It's so key to first respondersand and military and and
everybody's to have that nextmission.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Yeah, yeah, you had talked about having the right
people around you, and if aperson who's struggling is going
to move forward, they need tohave the right people around
them, have the right community.
100%.
That is the starting point.
Isolation destroys.
You have to get around othergood people moving the right
direction, the right people, andhave that community around you.
But I think that the nextimportant thing is to what you
(42:56):
just said find a mission, find aplace to serve.
That's the way that I wouldprobably frame it, Because when
you're in the middle of thesemoments in your life where
you're frustrated and angry,you've lost your identity.
All of those issues that wetalk about, your view becomes
very myopic.
It becomes about me what.
I'm dealing with right now, whatI'm going through.
(43:18):
Right now, I feel my feelingsin a bigger way.
I think these thoughts that arein my head are true, even if
they don't make sense becausethey're running through my head.
When you find a mission and youfind a place to serve and you
find people to serve, that givesyou the opportunity to get the
right perspective, to realizelife is not all about me.
(43:39):
There are other places that Ican serve and other people that
need to be served.
The world is bigger than thisthing that I'm feeling or this
thing that I've experienced.
If done right over time, it alsogives you the perspective to be
able to look back to your timein uniform and really understand
that was a wonderful time.
I'm proud of that.
(44:00):
I invested a lot of my lifethere, but that was a job, an
important job, but it was a job.
It was a way for me to use whatGod has given me to serve other
people.
And now I'm doing that inanother place and I have another
opportunity to continue doingwhat I've always done.
It took me about 10 years toreally get a hold of that, even
(44:21):
though I was in ministry.
But, man, when you realize myservice doesn't end when I put
the uniform in the closet.
It's just a transition to adifferent place of service.
Find that different place ofservice and, man, your identity
becomes clearer, your missionbecomes focused and you're able
(44:41):
to move forward.
So, so critical.
Those would be the two things Iwould say.
Right Is get get yourself inthe right community, the right
people, and then, as youmentioned, find the next mission
, the next place to serve.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
You know I talked about that circle a lot and you
know this brings a lot ofclarity.
The whole, the whole purpose ofbuilding a team is sometimes
you need to build a team that'sjust going to be there for you
when you need it.
And you know, and, granted,it's self-serving, but sometimes
but it's not self-servingbecause you're going to be there
for them Build a team that youcould be there for each other
(45:17):
because you need support.
You can't do this alone.
As someone who is themselves intheir mind for a long time and
only have a very small network,it's tough to trust Because a
lot of times we use social media.
A lot of times we see a lot ofthings.
Other people are trying tobuild their own ego.
But when you find an internalnetwork or people around you who
are just really authentic andwill check on you, if they don't
(45:42):
hear from you, they will textyou, they will call you.
I haven't heard, I haven't seenyou doing this for two or three
days.
You're okay.
You're okay.
Build that network because atthe end of the day, you know
there are the ones that aregoing to be there for you when
you do fall and everybody doesat one point or the other.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right, and the way that
you build that network in partis by being that person for
other people.
We see this I need the rightpeople in my life.
As being, I need those peopleto speak into my life, and then
(46:20):
we wonder why they don't or whythey fall off.
When you become that person forothers, it not only gives you a
mission and others to serve,but it helps to build that
community or that circle ofpeople who speak back into your
life.
Finding the right people andthe right community, the right
circle, is absolutely critical.
(46:40):
You have to have people in yourlife who hold you accountable.
I could go on and on about this, but isolation is something
that absolutely destroys all ofus.
I think those of us who haveserved in uniform are more prone
to this, for whatever reason.
But isolating and the thoughtsin your head that aren't
(47:03):
rational thoughts becomerational to you because you
don't have anyone calling youout on it, and then eventually
you act on those irrationalthoughts.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
You know, the last thing I want to talk about today
is March or Die, because I'vebeen looking for a new podcast.
Listen.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
I'm not going to listen to myself all day long.
That's kind of like weird.
But I'm really interested inchecking out March or Die
because I've been looking at itand there's a lot of life
lessons on here.
And, yes, it is faith-basedunless there's a lot of that.
But I believe that even if youdon't have a solid foundation in
faith, that you could learnsomething.
We could always learn somethingfrom others.
So March or Die is one of thosethings we were talking about.
(47:40):
Before we hit record was likehey look, decision making, you
got to make a decision and youmarch or die.
So let's just do an overview ofthe podcast man.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah, that's the name of the podcast.
It came from a book that Iwrote called March or Die, and
that came from a unit motto, thefirst platoon that I was a part
of when I was a rifle platooncommander.
The motto was march or die, andsimple, right, it's Marine
proof.
And so you have two choices youcan stay where you are and die.
You can do that.
That's a choice that you make,it's not something that happens
(48:11):
to you.
You make a decision.
Or you can march.
Um, I tell the story of us beingat that bridge and being on top
of that bridge.
Uh, there's a lot to that story.
One part is I made the decisionto move from the near side to
the top of the bridge.
That was a, you know, inmilitary terms, that was the X.
We were on an ambush site, themortar rounds kept falling
around us and in that moment youknow that was physical, that
(48:34):
was real, but this can become.
You know, all of us in ourlives.
We have those moments wherewe're on the X, the enemy's
bullets are coming our direction, the mortar rounds are falling,
things are exploding.
What do you do in those moments?
What do you do?
Well, some people decide to staywhere they are and die.
And again, that's a decision.
Now I'm not talking about thephysical kind, but emotionally,
(48:54):
spiritually, relationally.
There's a decision to staywhere we are and die.
You can make that decision oryou can march, put one foot in
front of the other and keepmoving forward, get to a place
where you can better impact theenemy, and that's the better
decision.
We get so bogged down with uh,there are a thousand different
things I could do here.
There's really not.
There may be a lot of nuance tothe decisions, but you have to
(49:17):
make one or the other stay whereyou are or move forward.
So the podcast and the book andall the things that I have
connected to that phrase marchor die are just that principles
for moving forward when it feelslike your world is falling
apart.
And I think back to that dayevery day and many, many lessons
(49:37):
that have come to my life as aresult of that.
But march or die, just keepmoving forward.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Excellent, excellent, excellent point, though we're
going to leave on that one.
You know something, a positivehigh note that you know what you
do need to move forward.
Yeah, always move forward,brother and Jeremy.
I appreciate you coming on theshow man.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Well, thank you, I really appreciate the time and
man, it's awesome.
Just to.
Hey, welcome back to the Protectors Podcast.
A couple weeks off, took acouple weeks off to enjoy the
weather.
This brisk, now brisk weather.
First guest back is JeremyStolenecker.
Um, a few different things incommon.
He was a little bit moredynamic in his career in the
military than me, absolutely.
But you know, hey, onceinfantry, you're always infantry
(00:36):
.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Right, jeremy, that's right even if you're in the
army, still infantry shots fired, shots fired.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Oh my gosh, now you know what we make sure we're all
clear on what we're doing hereexactly.
You know you were talking rightbefore we hit record button
about your deployment to iraq,and that was 2003, and you
mentioned something.
It was a very kinetic time,yeah, very kinetic yeah, yeah,
it was.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Uh, you know, we, we look back to that and know how
the war unfolded over 20 years,where it became very urban you
talk about forward operatingbases and all the language
around how we now think of thewar in Iraq particularly.
And then, on March 19th,breached the berm, pushed north,
(01:23):
hit the southern objective anddid a road march from the
southern border of Iraq toBaghdad.
The Battle of Baghdad on April10th 2003 was our infantry
battalion.
When I think of kinetic warfare, that's what we were doing.
We were moving, we wereshooting, we were dealing with
armor and all the things that wehad planned on and talked about
(01:46):
.
But when we got to Baghdad,that stopped and everything
changed and so a very differentwar after we got there.
But, yeah, really interestingtime for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Now, were you at the time?
Were you a CO?
Were you a platoon leader?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, I was a platoon commander for what we called
countermechanized platoon.
We had the anti-armor assets,so tows, javelins at the time,
all the anti-armor assets andthen the bunch of equipment, uh,
which made it, I think at thetime, probably the biggest
(02:26):
platoon in uh in in Iraq.
But, um man, it was awesome.
We trained for a long time.
Uh, I had the opportunity totrain with those guys for two
years, which is pretty unusualin the infantry world.
You're moving around a lot andI had the same Marines for, like
I said, over two years.
Uh ended up navigating for thebattalion and and, um yeah, kind
of running and gunning for uhfor a few months in.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Iraq.
Okay, now you were.
You just said, navigating forthe battalion.
Talk about it.
Responsibility Is that?
Talk about like you're movingthe battalion, you're the
forward operating unit andyou're pushing forward.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, so Marine infantry battalion, 1200,
1,200-ish Marines andattachments, our corpsmen and
all the other folks that wereattached to us, about 1,200
people.
So you think about a unitmoving over several miles.
We were mecked up.
We had amphibious tractors, soAVs that were moving all of our
(03:23):
Marines except for mine, we wereall in hardback HUMVs and so
you're navigating this column orthis battalion, this column,
and it's interesting, man, Ifeel really old when I talk
about these things.
But before we deployed to IraqI went to Target and I got a
Magellan GPS, a little yellowMagellan GPS, right, and I could
(03:47):
put my gear.
And I don't know at the time Idon't even know why I bought it.
I'm like, ah man, maybe I'llneed this.
I don't know.
Um gave me a six digit gridcoordinate and um ended up using
that.
We had onboard computers.
Our vehicles were all from theearly 90s.
They came off of pre-positionedshipping, so they were old
(04:07):
vehicles.
The alternators, the electricalsystems on those vehicles
couldn't support all the newtech.
As soon as we started moving,it all went down.
We didn't have Blue ForceTracker.
It was the predecessor to that,our onboard call it a DAC
system.
It went down immediately.
That's how I was supposed tonavigate our battalion, so I
(04:29):
ended up navigating using thatlittle Magellan that I bought.
I'd hold it out the window toget a signal, I could get the
six digit grid coordinates forwhere we were, and I had a map
book, and the map book was pageafter page after page of
photocopied maps with the gridcoordinates, and I'd take that
in, I'd look at it, I'd figureout where we were, and I'd call
that back to our CO, who wasabout two miles behind me, and,
(04:52):
yeah, navigated all the way toBaghdad that way, which was
pretty crazy.
The navigation was a thing forsure hitting checkpoints and the
rest of it.
The biggest part of that,though, was that we provided
forward security for ourbattalion, so any objective that
we hit we hit first.
Kind of those decision pointswere ours to make until the
(05:13):
battalion commander was up tospeed and we could figure out
what to do from there, and acouple of times that became
critical.
We hit some machine gun, hit amachine gun position, hit some
mortar positions along the way,and then, going into Baghdad,
that fight, we were ambushedgoing into the city, and that
became a 12-hour engagement toget to our objective.
So, yeah, crazy time, andthere's really no other way to
(05:38):
say it.
It was just a crazy time.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
You know, decision-making process is a
completely different one.
You're the forward elementcompared to the guy in the rear
who has hours and hours andhours to develop a plan.
When you're pushing north,you've got to make a decision
and, as we both know, when yougo through any leadership
training ROTC, pldc or NCOcourses or anything else you are
(06:02):
graded on your decision-making.
You absolutely have to makethat decision.
The ones who are weak will geta lower grade, which is good.
You should be able to make adecision.
You should be recognized if youcan make a decision.
You may need to refocus andlearn how to make a decision,
but when you're pushing northand you've got a Magellan in
your hand and you might comeunder troops in contact or
(06:22):
anything else and you have tomake decisions you're a junior
officer at the time reallypushing forward for a battalion
level operation you have got tomake decisions and everybody
relies on you.
That's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
That is a lot of pressure yeah, it is a lot of
pressure.
You know what.
What removes or relieves a lotof that pressure, though, is
clarity around commander'sintent.
We talk about this all the timein the military, but instead of
just understanding what I'msupposed to do right now,
understand what the end goal is.
So where are we supposed towhen the shooting stops, when
this thing's over?
(06:57):
Where are we supposed to beright?
And so that clarifies thoselanes of decision-making.
Simple example we were given thetask of securing a bridge.
I talk about this a lot, I'vewritten about this, but securing
a bridge over what was calledthe Saddam Canal.
It was a canal, right, so itwas up on a berm.
You go up on top of the berm,there's a bridge, and that was
(07:19):
deemed by the division to bestrategically important.
We needed to preserve thisbridge.
Division to be strategicallyimportant.
We needed to preserve thisbridge, so our battalion was
sent to secure it.
Middle of the day it wassupposed to be a fairly routine
operation.
The military intel communitytold us that enemy soldiers were
gone.
There was no one there, so wewouldn't even have contact.
I'm leading our battalion intothat.
(07:40):
It's the middle of the day.
We come into the straightawaytoward the bridge and we
immediately start to receiveboth mortar fire and machine gun
fire.
My job, so what I was told todo, was get to the near side of
the bridge, secure the near sideof the bridge.
We were going to hold that as abattalion and then the second
battalion I was first battalionfifth Marine, third battalion
(08:01):
fifth Marines.
That one coming up behind uswas supposed to then pass
through and continue forward.
Our job, my mission, was tostay on the near side of the
bridge.
We dealt with that machine gunposition per our SOPs and our
immediate action drills, but themortar rounds kept falling.
The mortar positions were onthe other side of the bridge, on
top of the canal, so I had toget to a place where I could
(08:21):
engage with those.
So a decision needed to be madeat that point.
But it wasn't a difficultdecision because I understood
commander's intent.
Commander's intent was dealwith whatever enemy may be there
and secure this bridge so thatfollow-on operations can happen.
Well, understanding commander'sintent, then push me on top of
(08:55):
the bridge to the other side ofthe bridge, to engage the enemy
and allow the rest of our unitto get there and allow that
process to unfold.
Where people really struggle, Ithink, with decision making is
when they don't know wherethey're going.
They don't understand whythey're going there and there
are so many questions around.
Why are we even doing this?
That muddies the water so muchwhen you know this is where I'm
supposed to be when this thing'sover.
That makes the process ofmaking decisions much simpler.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Imagine you bring that into the civilian concept.
The one thing I do want tobring into the fact is you
mentioned one word in there thatalways kind of keys off of me
and a of people don't realize it.
Most of our life we talk to alot of people that say I, but
you said we had to subscure this, we had to do this, but you had
two years to become we, rightwe as part of your team.
(09:35):
So surrounding yourself withthe right people and shifting
focus and moving people aroundto where their strengths are
developed makes you a success.
So let's talk a little bitabout that building your team
knowing you're going into war.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
The military does this so well and a lot of it is
automated.
You don't even realize it'shappening when it happens, as a
platoon commander, you show upto your unit, whether that's a
rifle platoon, maybe it's alarger platoon, maybe it's a
company commander, it's acompany.
You have who you have.
Your troops are your troops.
(10:11):
They're given to you.
But your responsibility as theleader of that unit is to begin
to understand strengths andweaknesses, who does what well,
who's not as good, and to beginto position those people in
places where they'll allow youto accomplish the mission.
We trained together for twoyears, and so what that meant
was I had two years ofunderstanding who can deal well
under pressure, who's going tomake the right decision, who's
not going to make the rightdecision?
(10:32):
I put some people in the wrongposition, and that became very
clear when we were under fire.
Man, they are not in the rightposition.
I need to move them out andmake those adjustments.
I need to move them out andmake those adjustments, but the
(10:57):
decisions that are made at thepoint of contact should simply
be an extension of the decisionsthat were made in peacetime.
In this scenario, you know whatpotentials lie in front of us
and build our team, not for whatwe're dealing with today, but
what we may be dealing with inthe future, so that when we get
to those friction points, whenwe get to those difficult
moments where decisions have tobe made, the team has already
trained, has already practiced,has already put together their
(11:19):
SOPs or their immediate actions.
They know what they're going todo.
There doesn't have to be a bigdiscussion or conversation,
maybe some limited guidance, butthen the team executes the way
they had already executed.
The best time to make a decisionis before the enemy presents
himself, and I think that's truein combat, that's true in
business, that's true inmarriage, it's true with your
(11:39):
kids.
We have such a short view ofwhat we're doing.
We're constantly trying tonavigate this moment.
Sometimes you have to, but it'sbetter to plan for what may
happen in the future.
How am I preparing for when mykids are a little bit older?
How am I preparing for when mykids are out of the house?
What are my wife and I doing toprepare for that?
(12:00):
When we look down the road interms of our business, we want
to scale to a particular point.
We have some things we need todo now.
But if we get there, what arewe going to need to do?
What?
What will we need to do?
And you see, people who areable to scale, they do really
well.
Then they hit a wall that theydidn't plan for and everything
falls apart.
Putting the right people inplace before the bullets start
(12:20):
flying is absolutely key tosuccess flying is absolutely key
to success.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Well, one thing you learn putting all these people
together and getting into combatand the bullets are flying is
faith.
You know absolute faith inyourself, but also faith in a
higher purpose and a higherbeing.
Because one thing I've learnedis like I joined the army in
1993 and the first, one of thefirst things you get, one of the
first couple weeks, there is alittle bible, little camo bible
or a little, I can't rememberwhat it is nowadays, I think it
was camo.
But when you're in certainaspects of the military and
(12:51):
everybody knows this you willfind 98 of the people fall back
on faith.
Yeah, so this must have been areally a catalyst, really, of
really understanding your faith.
Because, hey look, training istraining.
People do die in training.
Training can be life and death,yeah, but when you mentioned
bullets are flying and you werenot only having asking god and
(13:17):
and falling back on god aboutyour faith and and what's going
on, but about the people aroundyou praying for them, praying
for their safety.
So let's talk about that.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, yeah.
So you know, faith for me hasalways been a part of my life.
I was raised in a very strongChristian home and would have
said I was a person of faith.
You know, from a young age madea decision to follow Christ, to
live for God.
As a young person, grew up inthe church, grew up in youth
(13:50):
group and all of the things thata lot of Christian young people
do.
So that was a part of who I was.
I went into the military andagain, was not shy about my
faith, shy about my Christianity, went to church, had my family
in church, all of those thingsthat you're supposed to do.
But I remember the exact momentin Iraq, standing on a road
(14:12):
after a major engagement.
Surprised, I was still alive.
I remember the feeling of theawareness I don't know a better
way to say it the awareness.
It was almost a weight thatsettled in on me, the awareness
that God is and the word I woulduse now is sovereign.
(14:33):
God is bigger than all of thisthat the enemy doesn't care who
I am or where I came from, orwho my parents were, my
education.
The enemy doesn't care.
The enemy wants to kill mebecause I'm to them, the enemy,
I'm on the other side of thisfiring line and that the best I
can do is the best I can do.
I'm responsible for what I havein my hands, what I can be
(14:56):
responsible for, but God isbigger than all of this and I've
thought back on that moment,probably thousands of times
since then, as really being themoment that my faith became real
, that it wasn't something thatwas handed to me by my family,
and again, I believed it when Iwas a teenager and believed it
into my early adult years.
It wasn't like I just kind ofwent along because my parents
(15:19):
did, I believed it kind of in myhead, but it became real to me
in my heart, and real to me asan expression of who I am at
that moment, because life becamevery real.
And so this faith thing, thisfaith question, this where do
you put your confidence?
Who are you trusting in why?
Why are you trusting in God?
(15:39):
What does that mean to you?
Who is God?
All of those questions becamevery, very important when the
stakes became life or death and,as you mentioned, it then
became about more than just me.
It's now these Marines that I'mleading and serving and taking
care of these real questions ofeven the enemy that we're
(16:02):
dealing with and the lives thatthey've been living and their
deaths and our all of it.
It kind of came crashing downat that moment.
And really an understanding ofGod, my confidence in him, is
what puts all of that into focus, and since then I've had time
to think about it and understandit.
It is faith in God, not inyourself, faith in God, god who
(16:27):
is outside of space and time,God who is in and overall, that
establishes the foundation onwhich the rest of our lives can
be built.
And the struggles that I've hadsince then I've been able to
work through because I'mstanding on this, this
foundation of faith.
I don't get it.
I don't understand it.
(16:47):
I'm struggling here.
I can't see the end.
From the beginning, there is anenemy uh, real or spiritual.
I already want to frame thatthat is trying to take me out.
But my confidence is in God andthat has become the driving
force of my life.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
You know I typically with this podcast 500 plus
episodes I typically see orclear of of religion and
politics.
But you know, when I talk toyou I'm like it brings me back
to you.
You mentioned the, the timewhen you're in a youth group and
the almost like a followership,like you kind of.
You know your, your family wasbased in religion.
I had not really a similarthing cause I did not have a
(17:27):
faith-based family.
But then I had some issues whenI was a kid where I lived
outside of my family home.
I lived with a Christian familyand I really learned about
religion.
I learned about God and I didthe mission trips, I did youth
group, I was, you know, everySunday I was at church and I
remember when I became bornagain, the night I did.
(17:53):
I had some of the most lucid,surreal dreams and I've never
talked about this before themost lucid, surreal dreams about
Satan that you would never,ever imagine.
They felt so real and from thatpoint in my life I have had
issues with my faith over theyears.
I'm in my 30s, 40 years.
Now I'm 51.
So that was 16, 17 at the time.
(18:15):
So I have had issues with myfaith and God knows I'm not a
great person overall you knownone of us are but there has
been times when I've fallen backon it and there's been times
when I've fallen away from it.
But when you hit, the real lifecatalysts, the real life
heartaches, the real life pains,the real life death.
(18:35):
The real life just things arenot good.
There's always a faith behindthat brings you out of it, and
that's one thing I want to talkabout.
Next was hope.
When you're beat down, whenyou're absolutely at death's
door, you always search for hope, and it doesn't necessarily
have to be a religious hope, buta hope inside you that there is
(18:57):
something better for you andsomething that gives you the
will to live.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, yeah.
Hope is everything.
We talk about hope.
We could talk about the suicideepidemic among veterans in the
United States, which isoutrageous.
I talk about this.
What is that?
It's a loss of hope.
It's an individual coming to apoint where there is nothing
(19:24):
beyond this.
There is no hope.
We could look at relationshipsthat dissolve.
We could look at all of theseissues.
What do they all have in common?
At some point, the people orperson involved in them gets to
that place where hope is gone.
What is hope?
Hope is the belief that there'ssomething outside of my current
(19:44):
situation.
I like to describe it this wayIf your world is a circle drawn
around you, so you're standingin the middle of that circle and
everything inside of thatcircle is your world around you,
so you're standing in themiddle of that circle and
everything inside of that circleis your world, and all you do
is look into that circle.
All you do is see your world.
Your world is yourrelationships and your work and
(20:05):
your memories and who you are.
If all you can see is what's inthat circle, that's your world,
that's a very hopeless place tobe, because the very best that
you can ever be inside of thatcircle is the best that you can
be and, if we're honest, we allstruggle with the reality that
that's not great.
Hope comes into our lives whenwe look outside of that circle
(20:27):
and we realize there is someoneor something that is bigger than
my world.
There is something the word istranscendent, something that
transcends this world that I amin, that encompasses who I am,
and when God is the one in whomwe place our faith, we can have
(20:49):
confidence that, whether we cansee the end from here or not,
whether we understand how it'sall unfolding or not, that there
is a plan and that there is asovereign, a transcendent God,
god, someone who is outside ofspace and time that is
responsible for how this thingunfolds.
I just had this conversationyesterday with a friend of mine.
(21:11):
We were talking about a bookcalled the Ethics of Beauty.
It's an interesting book,really thick book, very deep
book.
The premise is this, or thethesis is this that even in
trauma and trial and difficultyhe talks a lot about
post-traumatic stress in thisbook there is beauty to be found
if we see ourselves as part ofa larger story.
(21:34):
When we think that the onlything happening in the world is
what's happening to us.
That's hopeless.
When we understand that we areone part of a much larger story,
there's always hope becausethere's always more.
We fit in and that can becomevery beautiful.
It becomes the motivation tocontinue moving forward.
(21:55):
When there are questionsunanswered, when there are
difficulties encountered, whenthere are trials and traumas in
our past, we move forward withthis understanding of beauty,
the fact that we're part of amuch larger picture and, coming
at it from a faith perspective,god is the one who writes that
story and we're a part of thestory that he's unfolding for us
(22:15):
.
When I talk to men and women whoare struggling, I try to help
them understand that if Godcreated you, then there's always
hope because there is purposeand design.
He didn't create you to fall onyour face.
He didn't create you tostruggle through life.
He has a plan for you andtherein is the hope.
If I align my life to the lifeGod created me to live, there's
(22:40):
always hope.
Now, that can seem, you know,esoteric to some.
It can seem, you know,mysterious.
It's not mysterious.
It's understanding that thebest we can be is us, but
there's a God who's bigger thanus and we can trust him.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Well, you know you're going to find people that don't
believe in God, which is, youknow that's a negative.
When you talk about the circle,when you talk about the circle
and your life circle, it's somicro, it's so micro.
When you consider the universe,you consider everything.
A lot of times when you fallinto despair and you fall into,
like you know, the suicidalideations or suicide itself, you
(23:18):
can't get out of that circle.
And you know, one thing aboutthe military is you always try
to establish a foothold andsometimes if you could just get
a foot outside of that circle,into your faith, into your
belief, into light, into somesort of positivity, just one
foothold, then you can getpulled out.
And if that means that someoneon the outside of your circle
(23:40):
could pull you out of it,whether that be your religion,
whether that be something thatyou believe in or whether it's
someone that believes in you.
But you've got to get out ofthat circle.
I remember times in my lifewhere I've been on that point,
the edge, inside that circle.
I couldn't get out.
And I had I didn't, and I hadkids at the time.
I mean, I saw kids, but at thetime my kids were really young
(24:02):
and I remember it didn't matterif I had kids, it didn't matter
if I had a job that paid thebills.
I could not get out of thatcircle.
And my circle kept closing inand in, and in, and in and in
and there was nothing that couldget me out of it until one day
I've I've had to flip the switchmyself, because one thing you
(24:23):
learn as you get older and I'mlearning this now in my 50s is
that your circle of friends andcircle of people you could rely
on is very, very limited.
Yep, so as you get older it maybe and this is all going to come
back but as get older it'sgoing to be tougher to get out
of that circle of despair, thatcircle of suicide, because your
network becomes smaller.
(24:44):
Your true, true network circleand that's where you know a lot
of the work that you do is thatand I can tell, I can, I can see
in your the way you talk aboutleadership and the way you talk
about God.
You do have a shift in yourvoice.
You can see your passion andyou can see your job.
(25:06):
Your job before was to be aleader, to be a decision maker,
and now your passion is God,your passion is faith.
Your passion is to be thatperson outside of the circle
who's lending a hand, and Ithink that's where we want to
talk about.
Next is Mighty Oaks Foundationand how they lend a hand and how
you could pull people out ofthese circles based on what your
program is doing.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah, yeah, well, I appreciate that, mighty Oaks.
We work with veterans, activeduty service members, first
responders and spouses, so weinclude our spouses in all of
our programs and we do a numberof things, but primarily we have
a program called the legacyprogram and we bring men or
(25:47):
women we have separate men's andwomen's programs men or women
to one of five locations acrossthe country.
We have ranches that we useacross the country California,
ohio, texas and Virginia and webring them to us and they spend
a week with us and over thecourse of that week we talk
(26:08):
about trauma, we talk aboutpost-traumatic stress and a lot
of these issues that veteransand service members and first
responders deal with, of course,but more than anything, we do
our best to communicate what wejust talked about, that there is
hope.
We do our best to communicatewhat we just talked about, that
there is hope.
Many on the other side oftransition lose identity and
understanding of purpose, andthat leads then to frustration,
which leads to often anger, butdefinitely hopelessness.
(26:31):
It's this idea that what I hadwas important, what I did was
important, where I was wasimportant, and I just don't have
any of those things anymore.
So there's nowhere for me to gonow.
What we do during the course ofthat five days is we point
people to an understanding ofGod and who he is, what that
(26:53):
means to you practically thefact that God the Creator has a
plan for your life, and what weneed to do is work the fact that
God the creator has a plan foryour life and what we need to do
is work on understanding how wecan live according to that plan
, how we can engage with thatplan and that purpose and that
direction.
Because outside of the military, you still have a created
purpose.
Outside of the military, thereis an identity that is valuable
(27:14):
and meaningful, not just toother people but to you and to
your future, that there issomething.
Even if you can't see it, thereis something in front of you.
Every one of the folks who'sinvolved in leadership in our
program the team leaders,instructors they've all come
through as students and that'shelpful because it's not a
clinical program.
It's not me telling you whatyou need to do.
(27:34):
It's very much someone standingin front of a class of other
veterans, first responders andactive duty military folks
saying I know where you arebecause I've been there.
I've struggled the same waythat you've struggled.
Here's my story and we'll tellthe story, or they'll tell their
story, and here are the stepsthat I began to take to move
forward and I want to help youdo the same.
(27:54):
So it's very much apeer-to-peer to move forward and
I want to help you do the same.
So it's very much apeer-to-peer.
It's similar to what weexperienced in the military,
where we're working togethertoward a common end, but the
common end is getting back onour feet and engaging with that
hope, that purpose, that meaningand that identity that's in
front of us and man, we've seenthousands of folks come through
our programs.
There are other great programsor good clinical programs.
(28:15):
I'm not down on any of those,but if you don't have the right
foundation, it's really hard tobuild a life that matters,
because the building is only asgood as the foundation it's
built upon.
And if your understanding offaith, understanding of the
place where your confidence isfound, isn't clear, then the
rest of it is always going tostruggle.
It's a five-day program.
(28:37):
Clear, then the rest of it isalways going to struggle.
It's a five-day program.
On the other side of that, fivedays, we work to resource our
graduates for as long as theywant us involved in their lives.
We'll help them get tocounseling.
We'll help them find the otherresources they need to deal with
the other issues that they'redealing with and struggling with
.
But it begins with a decisionto move forward.
Then the question of how and wetalk about that.
(28:59):
It's understanding that God hasa plan for you and moving
toward that.
We try to lay that out.
Then we bring as much communityand assistance as we can around
those folks.
They have, as you say, thepeople outside of the circle, to
help pull them forward andcontinue to infuse them with
hope.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
One thing you and I both learned is cynics cynical,
yeah, yeah, you may have hadlisten.
You know you could grow up withfaith.
You could be faithful, youcould be faithless.
The word faith is in your life.
You may believe in God, you mayhave believed in God, but you
may have lost faith in God andyou become a cynic and you
become so closed off.
(29:41):
These are the real people thatneed to be pulled out of that
cynicism.
But how do you get them frombeing so cynical and so like I
don't believe in anythinganymore, I just hate the world
and not let them go?
How do you get them to see thelight, to make that decision, to
step forward and get help?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
A lot of the folks who attend our programs.
I don't know what thepercentage would be, but it'd be
very high.
They come to our program notbecause they are people of faith
or Christians or whatever.
They come to one of ourprograms A, because there's no
cost.
We cover the cost of no cost.
We cover the cost of theprogram, we cover the cost of
travel.
We make that available to them.
So it's available, right.
But also B, because they'vetried everything else.
(30:26):
They've tried medications,they've tried clinical programs,
they've tried all the otherthings and it still hasn't given
them the foothold that you weretalking about or the ability to
move forward.
So they come to us becausethey've tried everything else
and have nowhere else to go.
In fact, many times on a Mondaywhen the program starts, we'll
have everyone stand up and theytake 30 seconds tell us your
name, what branch of the serviceyou were in and why you're here
(30:49):
Often I mean probably every.
We have 40 programs this year,so 40 weeks of programs,
probably 35 of those weeks.
Someone stood up and said I'vetried everything else and if
this doesn't work, then when Igo home on Saturday, I'm done.
Some will say I'll end my life,some will say something else,
but it's that sentiment.
I'm done.
(31:09):
I have nowhere else to go fromhere.
They may also communicate.
I don't believe in God.
I don't like the faith thing.
I'm not here because this is aChristian program.
In fact, I was raised aChristian but I now hate God
because of what he's let happenin my life, or I've lost my
faith or I don't have a faithwhatever.
So the cynics that you'retalking about are our primary
(31:33):
audience.
Right, they're there because ofthat often.
But because everyone whoinstructs and everyone who leads
teams and everyone who's a partof the leadership also came as
a student, which means many ofthem came also as cynics.
Many of them come from a combatbackground or in the first
responder community with longhistory of service.
(31:54):
In their communities there is acommonality, a common bond
right away.
So that's part of it, right,this is important.
There's common ground, and sowhen an instructor, a team
leader, is talking to a student,it's not again from a doctor to
a patient, or from a preacherto a parishioner or a teacher to
a student.
(32:14):
It's very much a peer-to-peer.
A teacher to a student, it'svery much a peer-to-peer.
Look, I get it because I'vebeen there.
That's very, very powerful.
And then, throughout the week,every time a class is taught, we
have about 12 classes overthose five days, and then
they'll break into small groupsand discuss the class.
Every class that's taught istaught from a testimonial
(32:34):
perspective, meaning the personstanding in front of the class.
Before they can get into thecontent that's on the PowerPoint
, they have to tell their ownstory, and so there's a bridge
that's built, so there's commonground.
Then there's a bridge that'sbuilt, this guy, this man, this
woman standing in front of thisclass.
They do get it because they'velived this.
So, okay, maybe I don't likethe faith thing, maybe I have a
(32:58):
problem with God or whatever,but it sounds like they did too.
And then they struggled throughthis, and then this is the path
forward that they found.
Maybe there's something herefor me.
And then we ask a question atthe beginning of the week If
what you're doing isn't workingand that's why most people are
with us why not try somethingdifferent?
Maybe it's time to just trysomething different.
We're not asking you to sign upfor anything right, or whatever
(33:20):
.
Just try something different.
What you're doing clearly hasnot had the impact you were
hoping.
So let's try somethingdifferent and then we'll say
what we want to do.
This week is simply present, acontrast to the way you're
living.
We're going to show you what alife of faith can look like and
we want to contrast that to thelife that you've been living and
then make a decision.
(33:42):
The best way that I've seen andwe've seen this happen again
thousands of times to address acynical attitude toward God or
an outright rejection of God isto present a picture of what it
looks like To have struggled, tohave had a lot of questions.
In spite of those questions, tohave put our faith—well, that's
faith right.
It's saying I don't understandall of this, but I'm putting my
(34:04):
confidence in someone who'soutside of my situation, that is
God.
What does that life look like?
And after a week of hearingstories of people say I was
where you are, but now I'm hereand the difference is I put my
faith in God.
I began to walk that out andthings started to change in my
life.
Often the most cynical people orthose who outright reject God
(34:27):
by the end of that week will saysomething like I get it.
Now I understand and I'm goingto choose a different path.
Some will say I get it, Iunderstand, I'm not convinced,
but I'm going to choose adifferent path.
Some will say I get it, Iunderstand, I'm not convinced,
but I'm open, and they fallanywhere on that spectrum.
But, man, there is something sopowerful to saying look, I know
(34:48):
where you are because I've beenexactly there.
I've struggled the same waythat you've struggled, and
here's what God did in my lifeand the decisions I made to
begin moving forward.
And here's what happened.
And now you get to make adecision for yourself.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
You know the one common catalyst I've seen I just
have to use this word catalystmy word of the day.
The one common thread I've seen.
I love it, it's like myfavorite thing.
The one thread I've seen, withso many people who are
struggling and struggling andstuck and they can't move
forward, is anger, and you doeverything you could possibly do
to get rid of anger.
Some people use drugs, somepeople use alcohol.
(35:23):
For me, I was angry for thelongest time I mean for the
longest time and I startedtaking the Lexapro Generic and I
took that for 12, 13 years.
I'm finally off it.
I finally have a clear head.
But there is something abouthaving clarity and being able to
see things outside of thatbubble of the lexapros, of the
(35:47):
drugs, the alcohol.
Anything you're doing to curbthat anger Because that's really
what you're trying to do isyou're trying to quell that
anger.
You're trying to quell thatpain.
You're trying to push it backto somewhere where it can't
affect you anymore.
Yeah, but you bring, you bringpeople together and you, you
start just planting the seeds offaith and hope or or anything
that's going to shine them apositive light.
(36:07):
And listen, jeremy, I, you andI both know that it's not.
Life isn't always about a lotof people won't really believe
in a God or a God, but they dobelieve in something.
Yes.
So getting to that point wherethey believe in something
outside of this so they couldpush them forward and get rid of
(36:31):
that anger, hold on a secondand go like releasing, letting
go hey, we have a little techissue there, but we were just
talking about like pushing backthe anger, yeah, and getting
through it and finding someoneto help you out.
How did you know?
Jeremy, I did a little researchon you before and you talk a
lot about your anger, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
So one of the very common things that we have as
veterans.
A lot of things in common, butone is anger.
And it's funny.
I'll hear someone say, man, I'mjust so angry, I've got an
anger problem.
Or a spouse say my husband hasan anger problem.
It is so common.
(37:13):
And for me that was man.
Well, I mean, I almostdestroyed my marriage over that,
lost my first job in ministryof all things because of my
anger, made it so that my youngkids didn't want to spend time
with me.
I was just so angry all of thetime.
I'm not going to say I'mcompletely over that, but I have
control now and I'm not out ofcontrol like I once was.
(37:34):
Anger really comes on the heelsof a loss of control.
We become angry because wedon't have control.
Then we become frustratedbecause I don't have control
anymore.
I can't make these people dowhat I want them to do or the
situation be what I want it tobe.
That frustration, if it lastslong enough, will become anger.
Then we start to lose control,lash out post-traumatic stress
(38:05):
or any combat trauma issues orissues of trauma related to
service as a first responder.
You throw that on top of it andit's like putting gas on a fire
.
You're already angry, you'realready starting to lose control
, and then you dump that gas onthat fire and it's over For me.
I was so frustrated with my lackof clarity around who I was
after leaving the Marine Corps.
(38:25):
I was leading Marines in combatand then 30 days later I was
completely out of the MarineCorps and working at a church
and man, you talk about feelinglost and out of control.
And that became me taking myfrustration out on my wife,
throwing things, hitting things,screaming all the time the same
(38:49):
at my kids.
My kids would do something,just the kids do.
I had a three and afour-year-old at the time and I
would just blow up on them anddestroy them with my words and
screaming at them and mycoworkers at the church.
Of all places, it was the samething.
So anger is is very much anormal thing for those who
(39:10):
served in the military and inthe first responder community,
for sure, understanding thatit's a lack of control.
I don't have control and so Iam acting out.
It's not different than a childwho throws a temper tantrum
because they don't get what theywant.
We don't see it that way, orsay it that way, when we see an
adult get upset.
But that's exactly what it is.
(39:30):
When we understand that thereare things we're not in control
of, that we're responsible forthose things that are placed in
our hands to steward over, totake care of, to be responsible
for, and we need to do a goodjob with that.
The steward over to take careof, to be responsible for, and
we need to do a good job withthat.
But realizing that I am notsupposed to be, nor can I be, in
control of every person in mylife or every situation in my
life or every circumstance in mylife.
(39:51):
That's not my job.
This is why it's so importantto understand my faith, my
confidence, my hope is in God,who's outside of this situation.
That's not my responsibility.
Standing on the road that daywhen I talked about that after
that firefight, that was a bigpart of it for me, I'm
responsible for what I canactually control and God is
responsible for everything else.
(40:13):
This is a principle thatfollows in marriage.
I'm responsible for me, jeremy.
As a husband, I'm notresponsible for the decisions
that my wife makes.
Now I'm responsible to leadwell and to do a good job.
As a husband, I'm notresponsible for the decisions
that my wife makes.
Now I'm responsible to leadwell and to do a good job as her
husband, but at the end of theday, she's going to do what she
does and that's herresponsibility before God.
My kids I'm responsible to takecare of them, to train them, to
(40:34):
bring them up, to disciplinethem when discipline is needed,
but at the end of the daythey're going to make their own
decisions.
I can only do what I can do.
Day they're going to make theirown decisions, I can only do
what I can do.
It's not a cop out, it's not away of stepping away, but it's
an actual understanding of myplace in this world.
And my place in this world isnot God.
And when I realized that I'mnot God, but that God is God man
(40:59):
, I can actually find peacebecause I'm not responsible for
everything that happens aroundme.
That has been a very longprocess for me to come to.
And, um, I get it wrongsometimes, still, no doubt.
But when you realize I can'tcontrol everything, nor should I
try, that changes a lot.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
You had your identity there.
You were, were a combat leader,you were combat effective and,
like you said, you go off andyou're a civilian like weeks
later and you don't have thatmission.
Yeah, you can, you're gonna,you could be a ministry, yes,
but maybe that's not your highercalling.
Maybe your other higher callingis working for, like the mighty
oaks foundation, maybe it'sworking for other things, maybe
(41:41):
it's working to help otherpeople.
One thing I've learned is thatwhen I retired from being a fed
and when I geez, I can go allthe way back, you know to, when
I took the uniform off for thelast time to fast forward, you
know, until I'm done withservice 30 years of my life, in
one way or the other, was givingback or trying to help.
(42:02):
I had a mission and then, whenI didn't, I had to find another
mission.
I think the biggest thing is tofind another mission, find
something that's going to changeyour.
I'm not going to say changeyour identity, I'm going to say
enhance your identity.
Your identity could still beserving, still giving back,
still doing something outside ofthe common norm.
(42:23):
You have to have a mission,something next.
I think that's.
It's so key to first respondersand and military and and
everybody's to have that nextmission.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Yeah, yeah, you had talked about having the right
people around you, and if aperson who's struggling is going
to move forward, they need tohave the right people around
them, have the right community.
100%.
That is the starting point.
Isolation destroys.
You have to get around othergood people moving the right
direction, the right people, andhave that community around you.
But I think that the nextimportant thing is to what you
(42:56):
just said find a mission, find aplace to serve.
That's the way that I wouldprobably frame it, Because when
you're in the middle of thesemoments in your life where
you're frustrated and angry,you've lost your identity.
All of those issues that wetalk about, your view becomes
very myopic.
It becomes about me what.
I'm dealing with right now, whatI'm going through.
(43:18):
Right now, I feel my feelingsin a bigger way.
I think these thoughts that arein my head are true, even if
they don't make sense becausethey're running through my head.
When you find a mission and youfind a place to serve and you
find people to serve, that givesyou the opportunity to get the
right perspective, to realizelife is not all about me.
(43:39):
There are other places that Ican serve and other people that
need to be served.
The world is bigger than thisthing that I'm feeling or this
thing that I've experienced.
If done right over time, it alsogives you the perspective to be
able to look back to your timein uniform and really understand
that was a wonderful time.
I'm proud of that.
(44:00):
I invested a lot of my lifethere, but that was a job, an
important job, but it was a job.
It was a way for me to use whatGod has given me to serve other
people.
And now I'm doing that inanother place and I have another
opportunity to continue doingwhat I've always done.
It took me about 10 years toreally get a hold of that, even
(44:21):
though I was in ministry.
But, man, when you realize myservice doesn't end when I put
the uniform in the closet.
It's just a transition to adifferent place of service.
Find that different place ofservice and, man, your identity
becomes clearer, your missionbecomes focused and you're able
(44:41):
to move forward.
So, so critical.
Those would be the two things Iwould say.
Right Is get get yourself inthe right community, the right
people, and then, as youmentioned, find the next mission
, the next place to serve.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
You know I talked about that circle a lot and you
know this brings a lot ofclarity.
The whole, the whole purpose ofbuilding a team is sometimes
you need to build a team that'sjust going to be there for you
when you need it.
And you know, and, granted,it's self-serving, but sometimes
but it's not self-servingbecause you're going to be there
for them Build a team that youcould be there for each other
(45:17):
because you need support.
You can't do this alone.
As someone who is themselves intheir mind for a long time and
only have a very small network,it's tough to trust Because a
lot of times we use social media.
A lot of times we see a lot ofthings.
Other people are trying tobuild their own ego.
But when you find an internalnetwork or people around you who
are just really authentic andwill check on you, if they don't
(45:42):
hear from you, they will textyou, they will call you.
I haven't heard, I haven't seenyou doing this for two or three
days.
You're okay.
You're okay.
Build that network because atthe end of the day, you know
there are the ones that aregoing to be there for you when
you do fall and everybody doesat one point or the other.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right, and the way that
you build that network in partis by being that person for
other people.
We see this I need the rightpeople in my life.
As being, I need those peopleto speak into my life, and then
(46:20):
we wonder why they don't or whythey fall off.
When you become that person forothers, it not only gives you a
mission and others to serve,but it helps to build that
community or that circle ofpeople who speak back into your
life.
Finding the right people andthe right community, the right
circle, is absolutely critical.
(46:40):
You have to have people in yourlife who hold you accountable.
I could go on and on about this, but isolation is something
that absolutely destroys all ofus.
I think those of us who haveserved in uniform are more prone
to this, for whatever reason.
But isolating and the thoughtsin your head that aren't
(47:03):
rational thoughts becomerational to you because you
don't have anyone calling youout on it, and then eventually
you act on those irrationalthoughts.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
You know, the last thing I want to talk about today
is March or Die, because I'vebeen looking for a new podcast.
Listen.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
I'm not going to listen to myself all day long.
That's kind of like weird.
But I'm really interested inchecking out March or Die
because I've been looking at itand there's a lot of life
lessons on here.
And, yes, it is faith-basedunless there's a lot of that.
But I believe that even if youdon't have a solid foundation in
faith, that you could learnsomething.
We could always learn somethingfrom others.
So March or Die is one of thosethings we were talking about.
(47:40):
Before we hit record was likehey look, decision making, you
got to make a decision and youmarch or die.
So let's just do an overview ofthe podcast man.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah, that's the name of the podcast.
It came from a book that Iwrote called March or Die, and
that came from a unit motto, thefirst platoon that I was a part
of when I was a rifle platooncommander.
The motto was march or die, andsimple, right, it's Marine
proof.
And so you have two choices youcan stay where you are and die.
You can do that.
That's a choice that you make,it's not something that happens
(48:11):
to you.
You make a decision.
Or you can march.
Um, I tell the story of us beingat that bridge and being on top
of that bridge.
Uh, there's a lot to that story.
One part is I made the decisionto move from the near side to
the top of the bridge.
That was a, you know, inmilitary terms, that was the X.
We were on an ambush site, themortar rounds kept falling
around us and in that moment youknow that was physical, that
(48:34):
was real, but this can become.
You know, all of us in ourlives.
We have those moments wherewe're on the X, the enemy's
bullets are coming our direction, the mortar rounds are falling,
things are exploding.
What do you do in those moments?
What do you do?
Well, some people decide to staywhere they are and die.
And again, that's a decision.
Now I'm not talking about thephysical kind, but emotionally,
(48:54):
spiritually, relationally.
There's a decision to staywhere we are and die.
You can make that decision oryou can march, put one foot in
front of the other and keepmoving forward, get to a place
where you can better impact theenemy, and that's the better
decision.
We get so bogged down with uh,there are a thousand different
things I could do here.
There's really not.
There may be a lot of nuance tothe decisions, but you have to
(49:17):
make one or the other stay whereyou are or move forward.
So the podcast and the book andall the things that I have
connected to that phrase marchor die are just that principles
for moving forward when it feelslike your world is falling
apart.
And I think back to that dayevery day and many, many lessons
(49:37):
that have come to my life as aresult of that.
But march or die, just keepmoving forward.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Excellent, excellent, excellent point, though we're
going to leave on that one.
You know something, a positivehigh note that you know what you
do need to move forward.
Yeah, always move forward,brother and Jeremy.
I appreciate you coming on theshow man.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Well, thank you, I really appreciate the time and
man, it's awesome.
Just to.
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