December 17, 2024 • 54 mins
Judy Isaacson Elias founded Heroes to Heroes in 2010 as a tribute to her father, Irving M. Isaacson, a World War II veteran, as a way to honor the service of all veterans, especially those with moral injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. She joins program host Dr. Chris Meek to discuss how Heroes to Heroes invites U.S. military veterans of all faiths - and even no faith - who have attempted suicide, or are on a path to self-destruction, to join their 12 month, research-based, non-denominational program. She will speak on her profound belief that healing comes from a sense of belonging, a spiritual/faith connection and finding forgiveness. You won’t want to miss out on Judy’s appearance if you are interested in engaging more with the topics of overcoming shame and guilt, connecting with a “higher power,” and what it takes to achieve forgiveness.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
There are few things that make people successful.
(00:07):
Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some
time to get there.
How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you?
Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek.
Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward.
(00:30):
Now, here is Chris Meek.
Hello.
You've tuned in this week's episode of Next Steps Forward, and I'm your host, Chris Meek.
As always, it's a pleasure and honor to have you with us.
Our focus is on personal empowerment, a commitment to well-being, and the motivation to achieve
more than you ever thought possible.
We have another outstanding guest this week.
Judy Isaacson Elias is the daughter of the late Irving M. Isaacson, a proud World War
(00:54):
II U.S. Army veteran.
Judy's father landed in France on the second day of the Normandy invasion.
She fought in the Battle of the Bulge and liberated a concentration camp as a soldier
in the Army's 80th Infantry.
As a teenager, Judy's life was changed when she was sent on a pilgrimage to Israel with
her youth group.
Reconnecting with God, her faith, and her people helped her to understand the importance
of faith and healing.
(01:16):
Years later, those lessons led to her founding of Heroes to Heroes Foundation, which helps
veterans heal from their invisible wounds by reconnecting them with their Creator to
rebuild their lives, find peace, and accept forgiveness.
Thank you for joining us.
We'll see you next week.
Bye-bye.
Chris, thank you so much for having me.
I'm honored to be here.
Thanks for your time, and I guess I should have taken more coffee.
(01:38):
I'm struggling through the beginning of the show, so I apologize for that intro.
I guess it's the holiday mayhem going on around here.
It's an exhausting time, you know.
It is, so I appreciate your grace.
Thank you.
Seeing firsthand the horrors of a concentration camp would leave scars on anyone, especially
a young soldier, and even more in particular, a young Jewish soldier like your dad.
(01:58):
bed. Did he ever talk about that experience? You know, I recall something, one moment where
he talked about hearing something from a German nurse where she was kind of dismissive of what
went on and he was furious. And I don't know if that's in my head. I don't know if he mentioned
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that once. I, you know, I think he did and it, it struck me, but I was too young and I was too,
I guess I wasn't curious enough and I didn't ask the next question. And, you know, that's,
I always tell my kids, ask me whatever you want to ask me now,
because I wish there are so many questions I wish I would have asked him.
(02:49):
I noted that your father was a proud World War II veteran. Your pride in him is very obvious
also.
Still, you had what sounds like a strange home life growing up. What caused that, at least in
part, but was that caused by, excuse me, by the invisible wounds of war that your dad carried
with him in the years after his combat service? You know, my dad often said the best years of
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his life were when he was in the army. And in many ways, I think he kept, continued to live that life
in his head. He had a tough time connecting with us. I mean, he lived in a family of women.
There were, you know, three daughters and my mother. I also think my mother, you know,
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it was a very tough relationship. My sisters have emotional challenges
and that have, that are with them still. My mother, you know, thank God she's still with us.
She's 97 years old, but she never really wanted to be a mom. She never wanted to be that wife.
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She was not, she was a,
a woman who had her master's degree in 1954. She lived six months in Paris.
She, she wasn't the right spouse for him. And I think it made it very difficult for him to
transition back to civilian life because he didn't find joy in, I think his marriage,
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um, but also with us, with the girls, you know, like with he, he and I had a special relationship.
I was a bit of a tomboy.
I love basketball. I love softball. So he built me a, a basketball court and he was proud that I
wanted to do, you know, little league and play softball. Um, but he didn't connect. And I know
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the, there was so much tension in my house that I gave up on my family, you know, at a very young
age. And I felt a lack,
um, of something, you know, I don't even, you know, I think love was part of it.
(05:01):
Understanding. I mean, at the time kids were seen and not heard. It was go outside. It's the
weekend, go outside. It's Saturday morning, get out of the house, come back dinners at six 10,
figure out what you're doing. And that was our lives. And we, you know, I remember
it was mainly me because my sisters did not have the social connections,
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but I would just go.
We would build forts in the woods. We, I don't know. We do all kinds of stuff. We were so busy.
So I found my life outside of my home. And when I was in my home, I never felt comfortable
and I never felt safe. I didn't have friends come over. I would spend time at friends homes,
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but I would never, you know, I'd go over for sleepover and sleepover parties, but I would
never do that in my own home. My home was not a safe place.
For that. And, you know, it's, I know for my dad, he couldn't connect with us.
I remember him sitting there and in the middle of like, you know, there's something going on
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at the table and he brings in a total non sequitur. He wasn't really present for us.
And I think a lot of that had to do with the military. And I think we bring into our marriages
a lot of stuff that we're looking for. He was looking not to connect. So he married someone
who wouldn't connect with him. And having a father not connected and a mother not wanting to be there,
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you know, was too much. And I developed a lot of habits and a lot of, how do I say it?
I guess a self image based around not,
having that love. I never felt like I was going to starve to death. I never felt like, you know,
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we, you know, my parents struggled. My father wasn't able to hold down jobs for long periods
of time. He had an associate's degree in engine, in heating and refrigeration. And he, that was
his thing. He liked to, to play with, you know, he'd like to build things and tinker with things.
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And, you know, my younger sister,
I was interested in that. I wasn't interested in that. So, you know, we just, we worked around it,
but, you know, things started to get worse and worse as I got older. And I think a lot of it
had to do with maybe his angst, now that I understand raising children a little bit more,
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his angst at having a teenage daughter. But it got harder and harder. And I started connecting
with him less and less. And he was, you know, he was, you know, he was, you know, he was, you know,
he was my connection to home. So by the age of 16, I was checked out. I found all of the great
characters that your parents want you to find. The people who are drinking beer in the woods at
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the age of 15 and who are smoking pot and the experimenters. And we figured out how to get IDs
because it was a drinking age was 18. I grew up in New Jersey. And so basically if you look like
you were somewhat old enough,
you were able to buy alcohol. So I was going down a very self-destructive path.
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I started smoking cigarettes, everything that was negative. And I don't know where I would be
if it hadn't been, you know, I went to stay with a friend of mine's family. Her parents took like
in all the strays, you know, they were, they were just kind of cool people who,
who just loved everybody. You know, they took care of everyone's friends. We want you to be
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happy. And to this day, I'm close with that family. But I spoke to my father and my father
at one point said, would you go to Israel on this program? And I said, well, my first reaction was,
I want nothing to do with Israel. I had, you know, I was raised, I'm Jewish. I was raised
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Jewish. For some reason, that was something that my parents, there was a stickler there. It was
always being about being Jewish. And it was kind of my way to get in their craw too, is kind of go,
okay, well, I'm going to reject that. Cause that's important to, you know, subconsciously,
you know, but that's important to them. I'm going to, this is how I do it.
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And I, first I said, I don't want to go. And he said, would you please go for me?
Now for my dad to say that when there was, I never heard him say anything about himself.
I never heard him say, it's my birthday. I want a cake. He never asked for anything for himself
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ever. And when he asked me for that, I just went, whoa, I can, I have to check this out.
And then in my stupid 16 year old brain, I'm thinking, wow, there's no drinking age.
It's all a bunch of teens. I can go, this could be like the party for six weeks. I'm in.
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So then the story starts to like, get, become more about less about the family and more about me
because I spent my whole younger life kind of protecting myself from my family.
And that hasn't changed.
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But I just, you know, and it, it taught me a lot of really cool things, which I'm, I've learned now,
you know, when I was a kid, I never bullied anyone. I never called anyone a name. I never like
got into any of that. And I think it was because my home struggle was so much that
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I could only imagine what other people were going through. And at least in my social life,
I didn't have, I felt safe.
And I felt like that's something I always had to do for other people was give them that safety and,
you know, not really thinking it through, but knowing it was just so wrong to hurt anyone,
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to call them a name or leave them out. And I, I'm still very conscious of that.
And I think it's also led me to where I am today.
So going back to that period where the next thing I know, I'm on a plane to Israel, I'm on a plane to Israel.
So going back to that period where the next thing I know, I'm on a plane to Israel, I'm on a plane to Israel.
And there's a crazy story with that too. Now, if you can picture this, okay, there are 300 teenagers on a charter flight to Israel,
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leaving from JFK airport on July 4th, 1977, I believe, or 76.
I'm not sure which, which year it was. I think it was 77.
I'm not sure which, which year it was. I think it was 77.
And there's smoking.
And there's smoking.
smoking aloud in the airplane. Okay. You can't even imagine this. Okay. And
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some ding-a-ling decides to hijack some kind of truck at JFK airport or something. There was some
big hijacking and it's, it's, I should have looked it up before I did, but like, you know,
we're on this plane. Now there's 300 kids. We're on the plane, on the tarmac at JFK,
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ready to take off. And there's some major police action going on with some hijacker who hijacked a
bus, or I don't know, remember what it was, but he's driving all around and there are all these
cops and the plane is delayed by like four hours and we can't get off the plane, but they have to
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turn out the lights on the plane. And we ought to all like be, they're telling us to be quiet,
but we're 300 kids, right? And we're,
we're lying all over the seats. Some people are on the floor. They're telling us don't go near the
windows, you know, and it's crazy. This went on for four hours. This was the, my first airplane
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flight because at the time only wealthy, wealthy people got on the airplane and we are having a
blast and they're telling us we can't smoke because they can't turn the plane on because
this ding-a-ling is hijacking some kind of bus or something. So this is our intro.
And I don't even know why I told that story, but it's just such a crazy story. It just,
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you know, and, but we don't care about this hijacker. We're not afraid of anything.
We're 16, 17, and we're having a blast. I'm sure there were kids who were terrified,
but I'm just, I've just never been that person. And I was not that person then.
So we fly and this starts this whole, and I'm going, this is the greatest time I'm ever having.
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It's.
Such a party time. This is going to be even better. Anyway, we get to the day we're going
to the Western wall. Now the Western wall for the Jewish people, it's the last surviving wall
from our holiest, our, our holy temple. There were two temples built on that site.
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They were both destroyed on the same day, you know, century, a couple of centuries later.
Okay.
And it's a very, it's our holiest site, the holy of holies. We all know about the arc,
the holy of holies. The Western wall was the closest wall to that part of the holy temple.
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And in Jewish liturgy, we pray for the rebuilding of that holy temple three times a day. It is,
we look toward, we pray toward Jerusalem. It is the site that from little children,
we are taught. This is so important. And this is 3000 years of history.
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Okay. I'm feeling it in my bones and I'm going there and I say, I can't do this
because I have done. I have really been bad. I have kind of, in so many ways, cursed God.
I can't go to this wall. This is like, you know, I don't know what's going to happen to me. I don't
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think he's going to.
strike me dead, but I was afraid. I was afraid to go. I didn't know what I would, I was afraid of
what I was going to feel when I look back at it. Friends of mine said, you got to go, you got to do
it. And, you know, we're walking there and if people who have been to Jerusalem and the old
city, you're walking and walking and walking. And, you know, we were walking through the,
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the Armenian quarter and the Christian quarter and the Jewish quarter. And, you know, finally we
get there and the way they took us, they wanted, they took us in a roundabout way. So we would be
ready. And I, the whole time I'm going, I can't do it. Friends of mine, literally holding onto me,
grabbing each arm and saying, you're going. When we get up to the wall, put my hand on that wall
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and it was, the feeling just came through me. I felt like my heart was put back together.
And I felt like everything I was doing, I was ashamed. And at the same time, I said, wait,
I can fix this. And from that moment on, you know, I thanked God for bringing me to that moment. We
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say a prayer. It's called the Shehecheyanu and it thanks God. We thank God for many moments,
bringing us to a special time.
And I said that prayer and I just cried. And it, you know, just my very soul, I was just
thinking, okay, how am I going to make my life better? And in the Jewish faith, we believe in
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atonement and we have a path to atonement and we believe it. We change what we've done and never
go back to it. We can, we get God's forgiveness. And so I said, all right, I've got to get my
act together. I've got to do something more because life is, there's a, I have a bigger
mission in this life. I don't know what it is. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing,
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but I've got to figure it out. And I've got to start acting like a decent human being,
stop acting like a child, move forward, stop blaming other people and let's get moving.
And from that moment on, I started my journey, which has been,
has taken it. I don't even think it's taken turns. It's just taken education. It's taken
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like a couple bumps in the road and maybe a smack in the face here and there and stop being a baby
kind of thing. But I, I just been on this journey and, you know, I got back from Israel. I got,
started taking school a bit more seriously. I graduated from high school,
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got into an,
okay college, went to the okay college, spent my junior year at Hebrew university in Israel,
which started, I started learning more about my people, who I am
and what's expected. And I, you know, I started going, wow, this is a beautiful faith. Like,
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wow, what's with me? You know, all the answers are in the Torah. Why, what am I looking for?
Let me just like, go back to this and start figuring this thing out.
And I finished school, go back to New York, get into advertising, do my thing. I meet my
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now ex-husband. And I realized one of the things that I didn't unlearn was I recreated my
childhood home in my new marriage. And I think that if I could, I, you know, I don't think I
can stress that enough.
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Marriage is so important. And as I've learned since then, marriage can be a very beautiful
thing, but we've got to be careful. We got to fix what was going on before
and really take a look at it before we move forward. I thought faith and finding someone
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who was interested in living a life of faith with me would solve a lot of those problems.
Um, but I brought myself into it. He brought himself into it. And though we brought God into
our relationship, we didn't know how to keep God there. You know, in the Jewish faith, we believe
that there's three people in every marriage, the husband, the wife, and God. And as long as God is
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in that marriage, that marriage stays together. We didn't know how to keep God with us in a positive
way. We did raise two amazing sons. And I will say, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't
know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't
say I am grateful for their father every single day for those two boys. And we did something right
together. We were somehow good parents somehow. I don't know. We were not good spouses. So,
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but I recreated that same situation. And, um, you know, we're taking a long time to get to
heroes to heroes, but we're getting there. Um, so in 2001, my father died as a result of a
car accident and he was on his way to a Jewish war veterans meeting. Uh, I didn't even realize
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that he was 81 years old, but at that point he had been working with wounded veterans for 20
years and he was volunteering and he would take them to medical appointments, the theater,
ball games, whatever it is they wanted to do, food shopping. Um,
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that's how he and his buddies is, would spend their time. They would have breakfast every
Wednesday and then they would go and they do their volunteer work and make sure that's like
them who actually weren't as fortunate as they are. We're taken care of. And I heard this for
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the first time at his funeral and he had, you know, full military, you know, the whole service.
And, you know, I still, I have his,
his flag and, um, I heard it for the first time. He would never talk about it. He would tell me,
oh, I went to Fort Dix for something. And I didn't know anything about the military at the time. So
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I thought, oh, they all go for, you know, once you're a vet, you go there for lunch. You know,
I didn't know. So he was doing all this and I'm, and I started talking to his friends and they all
said to me, we worried about your dad because he never talked and he would never, we,
all would talk about world war two. And he was, you know, one other guy was in battle of the bulge.
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My father would never talk to him about it. So we were always worried. And one of his friends said
to me, it's kind of weird that his life ended this way. We always thought he would choose his time
and place. And I went, what are you, that, what are you talking about? And he didn't, you know,
I didn't say it, but I just let it simmer.
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In 2009, I was invited to Walter Reed to visit our soldiers when it was in DC.
And what I saw as an American, as a mom, as a mom of two sons that did not volunteer,
we were the first generation that didn't have soldiers
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in my family since our family came here at the turn of the century.
And I just said, like, what is this?
Why are these guys so sad to be home? Why are they sad? You know, I know they're,
they're injured, but why do they need to go back? What is that need? What,
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why are they afraid to be here? And I looked into their eyes. I said, there's something going on.
I have to help them. I come from corporate America. I'm a problem solver. I like to,
I want to fix things. So I started volunteering,
start meeting,
our vets and I'm saying something's wrong here.
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A lot of what I was seeing, I wasn't happy with.
There were people going drinking for a weekend and you know,
they're going away here, going away there, but nothing's really happening.
And I said, what's going on?
Then I find out the suicide rate at the time was 22 a day. And I'm going,
what? This is a crisis. This is a national crisis.
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Why aren't we shouting this from the rooftops?
Why aren't we putting everything else?
Aside until we fix this problem.
And so I started looking into suicide because in my darkest days that never
occurred to me.
So I'm reading.
And if you'd start going through the research and you dig all the way through,
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you will find that it looks like it comes down to a few different things.
And the two that struck me were sense of belonging and faith.
And I said, whoa,
I remembered my time when I was 16,
when I had thought I cursed God and I'd walked away from everything dear.
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I said, I wonder if they're going through what I went through,
what if I gave them that same journey, whatever faith they are,
what if they got to experience their faith, where it all began,
where they could feel it, taste it, smell it, and do it in an unashamed manner.
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Would they get,
what I got out of that journey?
And the next thing I know,
a friend of mine says,
Oh,
I'll support you.
No problem.
Okay.
Famous last words,
right?
Chris.
And,
uh,
the next thing I know,
heroes to heroes is founded.
Now I've got to make this work,
but what ended up that was in September on September 11th,
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2011 at the time the program was,
let me just take them on the journey.
I took a team of 10 American veterans to Israel.
And during that time,
what I witnessed just made me believe,
wow,
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this is so important.
And I didn't even know why,
but I watched these veterans.
Many of them had suicidal ideation,
many,
many attempts prior to this journey.
I watched them go from death to life.
I watched them reconnect.
I watched them find faith.
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I watched them the most,
most importantly,
find forgiveness and find belonging.
Now fast forward to 2018.
And at that point,
over 200 veterans have gone through this program and they're asking me for
more and more.
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We need more.
We need to be better prepared.
And I reach out to a gentleman named Dr.
Joseph Currier out of university of South Alabama.
Well,
Dr.
Currier is a,
what they call a moral injury expert.
I say,
Hey,
I don't know what we're doing,
but this is really working.
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And he says to me,
he calls me back and he says,
I think you've found the solution to moral injury.
And I said,
well,
talk to me.
What is this?
And he says,
this is basically the shame and guilt.
Yeah.
It's brought home from war from an action taken or not taken during service.
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He said,
it's,
you know,
moral injury can,
you know,
explained it can be doctors can be anyone who has done something that's
either created a crisis in their lives or someone else's life.
And I'm going,
wait a minute.
I'm thinking this sounds like a lot of the guys I'm working with and the
women I'm working with where they're saying,
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I shouldn't have,
I shouldn't have done that.
I mean,
God hates me.
And Dr.
Currier said,
okay,
let me help you with this.
I want in,
I want to do some research on what you're doing.
And so based on Dr.
Courier's research,
we have developed a 12 month curriculum.
And we now take veterans through this journey,
this one year long journey where we start with values.
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We prepare them for four months.
And then we start to work on them.
And then we start to work on them.
And then we start to work on them.
Who are you?
What are you doing here?
What are your values as opposed to your family's values,
your society's values?
What is important to you?
How did that change before?
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How has that changed since your service?
Has it changed?
Has it not changed?
Are we living a life of values?
What does a day of living our values look like now?
You know,
it's a good exercise for everyone out there for listeners,
viewers,
what you need to do what you need to do.
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I'm not going to tell you what you need to do,
but one thing we can do,
take a look at your day from most to least.
How do you spend your time?
Then look at your values.
What are your top five values?
Does that day match your values?
Are we living our values?
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What does a day need to look like to live our values?
What are we putting?
Where are we putting our time?
Where are we putting our efforts?
Are those the most important things to us?
So that's the first thing we go through with our participants.
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They start to look at their lives.
How does my life look?
What is important to me?
How am,
how can I change that?
How can I give more time to church,
to Bible study,
to my family?
How can I find more?
How can I,
how can I put my family instead of number seven?
How can I put my family at number one or two?
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How do we do that?
And we have to do it consciously.
And so we help them consciously live their values.
What is it that brought them to us?
What is the incident?
We'd have them do something called movie Ola.
What does that incident look like?
If it were in a movie and you were filming it,
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how did it end?
How do we change that ending?
How do we look at that?
How can we look at that from the,
as an outsider?
Because often what happens with our veterans,
our soldiers,
they're part of being a soldier is taking responsibility.
They're taking responsibility for things that not necessarily that they
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shouldn't necessarily need to take responsibility for.
They shouldn't take responsibility for.
At the same time,
we have misunderstanding.
Most of our most of the population in the United States has about an eight year old's understanding of their faith.
What is that?
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What is it?
Where does that take us?
That takes us to basically the Ten Commandments.
OK, so we understand if we follow them, we're good.
If we don't follow them, we're bad.
OK, if we break a commandment.
Oh, what do you do?
OK, if you're not, if you if you're not taught.
A path to atonement.
How do you find that atonement?
(31:48):
How do you find that forgiveness?
It would be one thing if I said,
Chris, I forgive you.
You know, people love to forgive to forgive us for things that they have no place for giving us for,
which is kind of cool.
It's kind of nice.
It's well, it's thought it's awful at the same time when you're in war and war is about kill or be killed.
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It's not about politics or whatever.
They talk.
About in the White House or Congress or whatever.
It's about me and my buddies.
And how are we going to make it through this day?
So it's kill or be killed.
What is the most important thing to God that we're alive to worship God?
(32:30):
OK, so it's our job to stay alive.
But then you have the Ten Commandments.
OK, so it says in English, thou shalt not kill.
OK, but it's not what it really says.
If you go back to the Hebrew, it says,
that means thou shalt not murder.
(32:52):
So if you look at we all know in jurisprudence,
there's a difference between murder and killing.
OK, there's murder.
There's manslaughter.
Manslaughter is definitely it's a lesser sense because something has happened where you had to take an action.
OK, so.
What?
(33:12):
You know,
the Bible,
is telling us and what God is telling us is I know there's a difference.
And sometimes I'm going to send you to war and you're going to have to kill because I need you to be alive to worship me.
And that's going to be that's not murder.
OK, so we've taken that,
(33:37):
you know,
the you know,
we've mistranslated and we're not teaching our kids.
The difference and we're not preparing our soldiers to go to war spiritually and emotionally.
We're preparing them physically.
We're preparing them intellectually,
but they're getting on the battlefield and they're not prepared spiritually.
(34:00):
So when the inevitable killing happens.
How do they live with it?
And how do we heal that?
And that's what we do at Heroes to Heroes.
We work with healing.
That's soul.
That's a broken soul.
And people who have veterans in their lives,
(34:20):
if your veteran,
their loved one says,
I'm not worth it.
If they won't go to church,
Christmas is next week.
OK, I'm tired.
I was just on the phone with a vet who says he says December is really tough for him.
(34:41):
But he.
He's been on our journey.
And he said on Christmas,
he will go to church.
And he said once he gets there,
the tide turns.
It's that anticipation from so many years of built in.
Oh, no, I'm terrified.
I have to go to church.
Now he knows he can do it.
But he said he still gets that angst.
(35:04):
So, you know, we're talking every day and he's talking to his buddies every day.
And he's he's at least able to tell us.
So there's some days where he's like, I'm tired.
Some days where he's like, you know, I'm having a rough time, but I know what it is.
He knows what it is.
He's going to get through the holidays.
So.
It's taking a look at this and saying, you know what, I'm I'm still a good person and teaching people ways to take action to find forgiveness.
(35:33):
You know, there are veterans come home from war.
You know, ninety nine point nine nine percent are not going to kill again.
So.
There's not the atonement is there just from walking off the battlefield.
Should there be any OK, but what we know about what God is looking for, there really is no need for atonement.
(35:58):
But in our heads, we're Western, we're American.
We see, you know, there's a lot that goes on there that the American public is not aware of, you know, and it's civilians, it's children.
You know, their idea of a child is very young, but a ten year old can be a soldier.
You know, we're not fighting armies, we're fighting.
(36:21):
Terrorists, basically, and terrorists don't have any rules of war.
So strapping a bomb to a baby is not an unusual thing in that world, but our soldiers have to live with leaving that baby on the ground and then going home and loving their own baby.
So what Heroes to Heroes does is we work with that and we help them find that forgiveness and peace during that journey to Israel.
(36:50):
There's one very poignant part where we plant trees.
You know, Jewish National Fund is one of our they're a donor because they love what we do with a lot of the sites.
They've built a 9-11 memorial in Jerusalem with the name of every American killed, everyone killed on the site.
(37:10):
So our.
We call them our heroes.
They like to go in and etch the names into paper, the people they know, one of the things we do is plant trees and, you know, it's a kind of a tradition when you go to the Holy Land to plant trees because a tree is planted is the most unselfish thing you can do because you're planting it for the next generation.
(37:35):
When you plant a tree from scratch, I'm not talking about going and buying a big tree and you're going to get fruit next year.
But.
When you're planting a sapling, that tree is not going to give you anything in your lifetime.
That tree is for the next generation.
And that's what we do.
We help them plant that tree and trees when they're planted in Israel are planted in the in honor of someone or in memory of someone.
(38:02):
That is a poignant moment.
We had a like a young, young man named Stephen.
Stephen had four suicide attempts.
His father saw me on a television program and said, I need you to help my son.
I'm going to lose him.
He's not going to make it lives in Arkansas.
Father said, I'm going to drive him all the way to Newark Airport from Arkansas because if I put him in the airport, he's not going to get on the plane.
(38:31):
So Stephen met us in Newark.
Just a sweet young man and never spoke about what happened.
He used to go to his therapist.
Every week at the VA and sit there across his arms and just not say anything for an hour.
So we take we take him through, you know, he's on the journey and he's starting to open up a little.
(38:58):
And we went to the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem and it's called Yad Vashem and it's a it is probably one of the most intense museums ever.
And.
As you it really tells the story.
And at the end, there's a children's memorial.
(39:19):
There were one point four million children murdered in the Holocaust.
And in this memorial, as you're walking through it, it's totally dark in there.
There are four or five candles and with mirrors, the candles show one point four million lights.
At flames and it is heart wrenching.
(39:40):
And as you're walking through, all the names are being read off of all these children.
And when we got out of there, Stephen broke down.
And he said, when I was in Iraq, there was an insurgent and he was about to kill my buddy and I had to make I had to do something.
(40:01):
I had to take the shot.
And so Stephen takes the shot and then he realizes the child.
It was a child.
He was about ten years old.
And he said every night that child visits me in my sleep, I can't sleep a full night and then I'm up the rest of the night.
And he said, this is the first time I've been able to tell that story.
(40:25):
And then everyone gave him a hug.
And other guys were saying, you know, something like that happened to me and they started relating to him.
And.
The next day they went to Bethlehem.
With a pastor.
And for the first time, Stephen was able to pray.
(40:46):
And he and the pastor prayed together.
And the following day we were tree planting trees.
And Stephen planted his tree in memory of that.
Boy.
After he planted the tree, he said a few prayers.
We all kind of gathered around the tree.
And one thing everyone said was.
(41:09):
You know, Stephen, you showed that boy more respect.
That his family, his community, whoever touched his life for those ten years, you have just shown him more respect than anyone else.
And that night, Stephen slept the first time, the full night.
Now he's working at a vitamin store and he's helping people stay healthy, including me.
(41:35):
He has to make sure I'm doing my workout and getting my vitamins.
He has to make sure I'm doing my workout and getting my vitamins.
So it totally changed his life.
Just getting to that point and finding, realizing.
That he's a good person.
And he's not a murderer.
And it wasn't.
And he also said to us when he got out of there.
One thing I realized in that museum.
Is I'm not a murderer.
And he, you know, he saw the Nazis were murderers.
And I think a lot of our soldiers come home with that feeling.
That, you know, I've murdered.
I've killed.
(42:06):
I've killed a lot of our soldiers.
Come home with that feeling.
That, you know, I've murdered I've done all of these bad things.
How can I be forgiven.
Why should I have a family?
Why should I have.
Children.
Why should I have anything good in life.
So they start on this path of self-destruction and I was on that path for different reasons.
(42:26):
But we have a suicide rate.
That won't budge we're looking at 17.
I guess now it went up to 18.
Again,
We have thousands of organizations working on this,
but we're not talking about healing the soul.
And I think faith is so important
and it's important to our children.
Our country is in a mess socially and emotionally.
(42:51):
We've pulled everything.
And psychologically, our kids are on drugs.
At five and six years old,
there was an eight-year-old kid who committed suicide.
I mean, when we were eight,
we were just trying to get a quarter to go to 7-Eleven
and buy 25 pieces of candy.
You know, what are we doing to our kids?
(43:13):
But we've pulled out everything.
We've pulled the rug out from under them.
And I think it's affecting our soldiers.
It's affecting our schools.
We have kids protesting on schools.
They're pro-terror.
We have taken the values and what's important in life
away from our children.
And we're taking it and we're seeing it in our veterans.
(43:34):
They're not able to get healthy.
And the adults in the room
aren't able to see through the garbage
and say, this is what we've raised.
This is what we think we want.
You know, I think the population has kind of turned that corner
and people are saying, wait a minute, this isn't working.
(43:56):
But some adults in power
and our intellectuals,
aren't getting the message,
aren't understanding that this is really,
what we've done is very harmful.
And it's affecting everyone.
And especially our veterans.
Well, I will say, especially our veterans
and especially our children.
(44:19):
What can individuals do to advocate the needs
of veterans facing moral injury?
Let people know.
I mean, recognize that it's real.
I think our clergy has to,
we have to find ways to train our clergy in this.
I think the more we know as individuals
and the more we talk about,
(44:39):
you know, these soul crushing injuries,
I think the more it will get better.
People will have to look at it.
The VA won't touch a program like mine.
You know, they should, but they won't.
So, but having people,
the more people who are aware of moral injury,
(44:59):
the better it will be,
for our veterans. But I think we have to start talking about faith and the faith connection.
And what people can do is ask the tough questions. Have you been to church? How do you feel about it?
Where is God in your life? Those are the tough questions that we've got to ask. We've got to
(45:22):
ask our children, what do you think God thinks of you? That's a question I've struggled with.
And that's one of the questions that Dr. Currier asks the vets starting our program, our heroes.
About 70, 80% will say, God wishes I were dead. That's a question we've got to look at. We've got
(45:43):
to ask our children, but we've got to ask our veterans. PTSD programs aren't going to help you
if they're not healing your soul. If you're feeling this tremendous guilt, if you're feeling a lot of
shame for what you did, you could talk about it and talk about it, but you've got to get that
out of your head. You've got to find a way to atone and feel as if you atoned and feel as if you
(46:04):
can have that connection. And that's one of the reasons we take them to Israel, to the Holy Land,
because that's the way to get a physical connection. You're talking about men of the
earth. They're soldiers. You've got to bring the earth and the spirit together and the sky
together. You've got to bring heaven and earth together to help them heal and bringing them to
Israel where they can breathe that air and physically walk that land and touch that
(46:29):
water. And that's one of the reasons we take them to Israel to the Holy Land. And that's one of the
reasons we take them to Israel to the Holy Land. And that's one of the reasons we take them to Israel to
get baptized in the Jordan River, go to Bethlehem, touch the star, just be there physically so you
can be there emotionally. I think we need to start asking those questions. Right now, I guess it's
eight days until Christmas. Now's the time to say, what's going on with you for Christmas?
(46:53):
Do you have a vet in your life? What's going on? How do you feel? How's your relationship with God?
Does your relationship with God allow you to walk into church?
And when we ask those questions, I think we're going to hear some tough answers.
And if you hear the toughest answers, please have them call us. And we will get someone on the phone
with them right away to talk about the tough stuff. And, you know, I have, we have chaplains and we
(47:19):
actually use, we have rabbi who works with us. And why we use a rabbi is because the rabbi is
fine with whatever people do. And we have a rabbi who works with us. And we have a rabbi who works
there's no, you know, I'm Catholic. So I want you to be Catholic or you should be. And if a Catholic
veteran is having trouble, you know, ideally we want him to be where his family is. And usually
(47:45):
90% of the time, that's where they go. You know, if they come to us and they're struggling with
Catholicism by the end, they're back in Catholicism. So with, we have them speak to a rabbi because
there's no pretense.
And they feel more comfortable. They've actually asked us to do that. Because that way they can,
they can learn about atonement. They can learn about some of the basics. They can learn about the,
(48:10):
the Hebrew Bible, which is the basis for, that's what Jesus did. He was preaching the Hebrew Bible.
So what did Jesus do? What was he doing? What was Sabbath like to him? What was his life like
every day? And that's what they learn. And that's what they can help. They can start to emulate.
They can start to understand their faith within its con within a context. You know, the history,
(48:33):
what was, why was he saying what he was saying? Why was he, why was he going to Bethlehem?
Why was he going to Jerusalem? What was he doing there? They start to understand that
and it pulls it all together. It makes it real. And it helps bring that path to atonement and
that relationship. All of a sudden, God, isn't so distant. God, isn't too far away. We now understand
(48:57):
what's expected of us. And so when people can just, when you have someone in your life, those are
the, ask those questions. There's a child in your life who's struggling, especially a teen. What's
going on with you and God? Where are you? One of the things we, we have, one of the assignments,
we have a lot of written assignments. Heroes to Heroes is not an easy program to go through. It
(49:20):
takes a lot of commitment. There are two written assignments every month. In Israel, there were
about six written assignments. There are two written assignments every month. There are two
written assignments. One of the assignments is to write a letter to God. And they can take it any
way they want. We've actually published the book. And I know you were going to ask about that,
but it's called Letters to God. And a group of, one of our teams who went last May, they went
(49:47):
during the war in Israel. And these are their letters. And they're published, it's available
online. It's called Letters to God, and just Letters to God, Heroes to Heroes, and you'll find
it. And it, in it, our participants are talking about the real tough stuff, what they're going
(50:12):
through, why it's tough to have that relationship to God, what's going on, some of the conflicts.
And, you know, they put their letters in with a photo, with one of their favorite photos. And,
you know, it has,
helps unburden, and it helps also make things clear. And I would suggest people write that
(50:34):
letter. You know, I know I've mentioned it earlier, but write that letter. It's tough. I have a
continuous letter that I'm actually going to leave to my children. Because it, the letter talks a lot
about my early life and things that went with their, wrong with their dad, and things that went
right with their stepfather.
(50:57):
But it talks about the difference, and it talks about giving, and love, and life, and caring for
others. Yet, and also keeping yourself in the mix. Caring, because those of us who take care of other
people, we tend to forget about taking care of ourselves, and then we end up with all kinds of
stuff. But, you know, so that's something I'm learning better, and my husband is very,
(51:25):
he's very good at reminding me to take care of myself.
You know, but to write, I'm writing that letter, that letter, I think it's already like 18 or 20
pages of just, this is who I am, this is what I'm about. And if all the questions that they
didn't want to ask, or they were afraid to ask, will be answered, either by me personally,
(51:46):
or in this letter. And I, and it's also a way for me to understand where I am with God every day.
And every time I pick up that letter is usually, God is very close to me, or God is very close to
me, or far away from me. And how do I keep God close to me? So.
Judy, we've got about 90 seconds left. If people want to learn more or get involved,
(52:07):
where can they find Heroes to Heroes Foundation?
You can find it online at heroes2heroes.org. That's H-E-R-O-E-S-T-O-H-E-R-O-E-S.org.
And please reach out. You can reach out to me directly at Judy, J-U-D-Y,
at heroes2heroes.org.
(52:27):
And we want to hear from you. Veterans can apply online. If they have any questions,
just send an email to either me or to info at heroes2heroes.org.
We will be back. We will get back to you within 24 or 48 hours. And Christmas Day, we do answer.
(52:51):
So if you're having a rough day, we're there. And there's always someone around,
24 or 7. We have Israeli vets that take part in the program. So at 3 o'clock in the morning here,
there's someone online at 10 a.m. over there. So we have. Thank you. But please, during this time,
(53:11):
please, let's protect our veterans. If you have any challenges, fears, you can even
anonymously send us information and we will reach out.
Judy, Isaacson, Elias, thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate your time. And
I really, really appreciate the work that you do. So thank you. And God bless you.
Thank you so much, Chris. And Merry Christmas. Have a happy, healthy New Year.
(53:34):
Thank you. I'm Chris Meek. We're out of time. This is our last live show of 2024. I cannot
believe I'm saying that. So happy holidays to everybody. Until then, we'll see you in 2025.
Stay safe and keep taking your next steps forward.
Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward. Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show
(53:56):
next Tuesday.
at 10 a.m. Pacific Time and 1 p.m. Eastern Time on the Voice America Empowerment Channel.
This week, make things happen in your life.
There are few things that make people successful.
(00:07):
Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some
time to get there.
How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you?
Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek.
Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward.
(00:30):
Now, here is Chris Meek.
Hello.
You've tuned in this week's episode of Next Steps Forward, and I'm your host, Chris Meek.
As always, it's a pleasure and honor to have you with us.
Our focus is on personal empowerment, a commitment to well-being, and the motivation to achieve
more than you ever thought possible.
We have another outstanding guest this week.
Judy Isaacson Elias is the daughter of the late Irving M. Isaacson, a proud World War
(00:54):
II U.S. Army veteran.
Judy's father landed in France on the second day of the Normandy invasion.
She fought in the Battle of the Bulge and liberated a concentration camp as a soldier
in the Army's 80th Infantry.
As a teenager, Judy's life was changed when she was sent on a pilgrimage to Israel with
her youth group.
Reconnecting with God, her faith, and her people helped her to understand the importance
of faith and healing.
(01:16):
Years later, those lessons led to her founding of Heroes to Heroes Foundation, which helps
veterans heal from their invisible wounds by reconnecting them with their Creator to
rebuild their lives, find peace, and accept forgiveness.
Thank you for joining us.
We'll see you next week.
Bye-bye.
Chris, thank you so much for having me.
I'm honored to be here.
Thanks for your time, and I guess I should have taken more coffee.
(01:38):
I'm struggling through the beginning of the show, so I apologize for that intro.
I guess it's the holiday mayhem going on around here.
It's an exhausting time, you know.
It is, so I appreciate your grace.
Thank you.
Seeing firsthand the horrors of a concentration camp would leave scars on anyone, especially
a young soldier, and even more in particular, a young Jewish soldier like your dad.
(01:58):
bed. Did he ever talk about that experience? You know, I recall something, one moment where
he talked about hearing something from a German nurse where she was kind of dismissive of what
went on and he was furious. And I don't know if that's in my head. I don't know if he mentioned
(02:24):
that once. I, you know, I think he did and it, it struck me, but I was too young and I was too,
I guess I wasn't curious enough and I didn't ask the next question. And, you know, that's,
I always tell my kids, ask me whatever you want to ask me now,
because I wish there are so many questions I wish I would have asked him.
(02:49):
I noted that your father was a proud World War II veteran. Your pride in him is very obvious
also.
Still, you had what sounds like a strange home life growing up. What caused that, at least in
part, but was that caused by, excuse me, by the invisible wounds of war that your dad carried
with him in the years after his combat service? You know, my dad often said the best years of
(03:10):
his life were when he was in the army. And in many ways, I think he kept, continued to live that life
in his head. He had a tough time connecting with us. I mean, he lived in a family of women.
There were, you know, three daughters and my mother. I also think my mother, you know,
(03:31):
it was a very tough relationship. My sisters have emotional challenges
and that have, that are with them still. My mother, you know, thank God she's still with us.
She's 97 years old, but she never really wanted to be a mom. She never wanted to be that wife.
(03:52):
She was not, she was a,
a woman who had her master's degree in 1954. She lived six months in Paris.
She, she wasn't the right spouse for him. And I think it made it very difficult for him to
transition back to civilian life because he didn't find joy in, I think his marriage,
(04:15):
um, but also with us, with the girls, you know, like with he, he and I had a special relationship.
I was a bit of a tomboy.
I love basketball. I love softball. So he built me a, a basketball court and he was proud that I
wanted to do, you know, little league and play softball. Um, but he didn't connect. And I know
(04:40):
the, there was so much tension in my house that I gave up on my family, you know, at a very young
age. And I felt a lack,
um, of something, you know, I don't even, you know, I think love was part of it.
(05:01):
Understanding. I mean, at the time kids were seen and not heard. It was go outside. It's the
weekend, go outside. It's Saturday morning, get out of the house, come back dinners at six 10,
figure out what you're doing. And that was our lives. And we, you know, I remember
it was mainly me because my sisters did not have the social connections,
(05:22):
but I would just go.
We would build forts in the woods. We, I don't know. We do all kinds of stuff. We were so busy.
So I found my life outside of my home. And when I was in my home, I never felt comfortable
and I never felt safe. I didn't have friends come over. I would spend time at friends homes,
(05:45):
but I would never, you know, I'd go over for sleepover and sleepover parties, but I would
never do that in my own home. My home was not a safe place.
For that. And, you know, it's, I know for my dad, he couldn't connect with us.
I remember him sitting there and in the middle of like, you know, there's something going on
(06:08):
at the table and he brings in a total non sequitur. He wasn't really present for us.
And I think a lot of that had to do with the military. And I think we bring into our marriages
a lot of stuff that we're looking for. He was looking not to connect. So he married someone
who wouldn't connect with him. And having a father not connected and a mother not wanting to be there,
(06:37):
you know, was too much. And I developed a lot of habits and a lot of, how do I say it?
I guess a self image based around not,
having that love. I never felt like I was going to starve to death. I never felt like, you know,
(07:00):
we, you know, my parents struggled. My father wasn't able to hold down jobs for long periods
of time. He had an associate's degree in engine, in heating and refrigeration. And he, that was
his thing. He liked to, to play with, you know, he'd like to build things and tinker with things.
(07:21):
And, you know, my younger sister,
I was interested in that. I wasn't interested in that. So, you know, we just, we worked around it,
but, you know, things started to get worse and worse as I got older. And I think a lot of it
had to do with maybe his angst, now that I understand raising children a little bit more,
(07:45):
his angst at having a teenage daughter. But it got harder and harder. And I started connecting
with him less and less. And he was, you know, he was, you know, he was, you know, he was, you know,
he was my connection to home. So by the age of 16, I was checked out. I found all of the great
characters that your parents want you to find. The people who are drinking beer in the woods at
(08:06):
the age of 15 and who are smoking pot and the experimenters. And we figured out how to get IDs
because it was a drinking age was 18. I grew up in New Jersey. And so basically if you look like
you were somewhat old enough,
you were able to buy alcohol. So I was going down a very self-destructive path.
(08:34):
I started smoking cigarettes, everything that was negative. And I don't know where I would be
if it hadn't been, you know, I went to stay with a friend of mine's family. Her parents took like
in all the strays, you know, they were, they were just kind of cool people who,
who just loved everybody. You know, they took care of everyone's friends. We want you to be
(08:59):
happy. And to this day, I'm close with that family. But I spoke to my father and my father
at one point said, would you go to Israel on this program? And I said, well, my first reaction was,
I want nothing to do with Israel. I had, you know, I was raised, I'm Jewish. I was raised
(09:24):
Jewish. For some reason, that was something that my parents, there was a stickler there. It was
always being about being Jewish. And it was kind of my way to get in their craw too, is kind of go,
okay, well, I'm going to reject that. Cause that's important to, you know, subconsciously,
you know, but that's important to them. I'm going to, this is how I do it.
(09:48):
And I, first I said, I don't want to go. And he said, would you please go for me?
Now for my dad to say that when there was, I never heard him say anything about himself.
I never heard him say, it's my birthday. I want a cake. He never asked for anything for himself
(10:09):
ever. And when he asked me for that, I just went, whoa, I can, I have to check this out.
And then in my stupid 16 year old brain, I'm thinking, wow, there's no drinking age.
It's all a bunch of teens. I can go, this could be like the party for six weeks. I'm in.
(10:32):
So then the story starts to like, get, become more about less about the family and more about me
because I spent my whole younger life kind of protecting myself from my family.
And that hasn't changed.
(10:54):
But I just, you know, and it, it taught me a lot of really cool things, which I'm, I've learned now,
you know, when I was a kid, I never bullied anyone. I never called anyone a name. I never like
got into any of that. And I think it was because my home struggle was so much that
(11:15):
I could only imagine what other people were going through. And at least in my social life,
I didn't have, I felt safe.
And I felt like that's something I always had to do for other people was give them that safety and,
you know, not really thinking it through, but knowing it was just so wrong to hurt anyone,
(11:37):
to call them a name or leave them out. And I, I'm still very conscious of that.
And I think it's also led me to where I am today.
So going back to that period where the next thing I know, I'm on a plane to Israel, I'm on a plane to Israel.
So going back to that period where the next thing I know, I'm on a plane to Israel, I'm on a plane to Israel.
And there's a crazy story with that too. Now, if you can picture this, okay, there are 300 teenagers on a charter flight to Israel,
(12:08):
leaving from JFK airport on July 4th, 1977, I believe, or 76.
I'm not sure which, which year it was. I think it was 77.
I'm not sure which, which year it was. I think it was 77.
And there's smoking.
And there's smoking.
smoking aloud in the airplane. Okay. You can't even imagine this. Okay. And
(12:29):
some ding-a-ling decides to hijack some kind of truck at JFK airport or something. There was some
big hijacking and it's, it's, I should have looked it up before I did, but like, you know,
we're on this plane. Now there's 300 kids. We're on the plane, on the tarmac at JFK,
(12:52):
ready to take off. And there's some major police action going on with some hijacker who hijacked a
bus, or I don't know, remember what it was, but he's driving all around and there are all these
cops and the plane is delayed by like four hours and we can't get off the plane, but they have to
(13:12):
turn out the lights on the plane. And we ought to all like be, they're telling us to be quiet,
but we're 300 kids, right? And we're,
we're lying all over the seats. Some people are on the floor. They're telling us don't go near the
windows, you know, and it's crazy. This went on for four hours. This was the, my first airplane
(13:33):
flight because at the time only wealthy, wealthy people got on the airplane and we are having a
blast and they're telling us we can't smoke because they can't turn the plane on because
this ding-a-ling is hijacking some kind of bus or something. So this is our intro.
And I don't even know why I told that story, but it's just such a crazy story. It just,
(13:58):
you know, and, but we don't care about this hijacker. We're not afraid of anything.
We're 16, 17, and we're having a blast. I'm sure there were kids who were terrified,
but I'm just, I've just never been that person. And I was not that person then.
So we fly and this starts this whole, and I'm going, this is the greatest time I'm ever having.
(14:22):
It's.
Such a party time. This is going to be even better. Anyway, we get to the day we're going
to the Western wall. Now the Western wall for the Jewish people, it's the last surviving wall
from our holiest, our, our holy temple. There were two temples built on that site.
(14:43):
They were both destroyed on the same day, you know, century, a couple of centuries later.
Okay.
And it's a very, it's our holiest site, the holy of holies. We all know about the arc,
the holy of holies. The Western wall was the closest wall to that part of the holy temple.
(15:05):
And in Jewish liturgy, we pray for the rebuilding of that holy temple three times a day. It is,
we look toward, we pray toward Jerusalem. It is the site that from little children,
we are taught. This is so important. And this is 3000 years of history.
(15:28):
Okay. I'm feeling it in my bones and I'm going there and I say, I can't do this
because I have done. I have really been bad. I have kind of, in so many ways, cursed God.
I can't go to this wall. This is like, you know, I don't know what's going to happen to me. I don't
(15:50):
think he's going to.
strike me dead, but I was afraid. I was afraid to go. I didn't know what I would, I was afraid of
what I was going to feel when I look back at it. Friends of mine said, you got to go, you got to do
it. And, you know, we're walking there and if people who have been to Jerusalem and the old
city, you're walking and walking and walking. And, you know, we were walking through the,
(16:17):
the Armenian quarter and the Christian quarter and the Jewish quarter. And, you know, finally we
get there and the way they took us, they wanted, they took us in a roundabout way. So we would be
ready. And I, the whole time I'm going, I can't do it. Friends of mine, literally holding onto me,
grabbing each arm and saying, you're going. When we get up to the wall, put my hand on that wall
(16:39):
and it was, the feeling just came through me. I felt like my heart was put back together.
And I felt like everything I was doing, I was ashamed. And at the same time, I said, wait,
I can fix this. And from that moment on, you know, I thanked God for bringing me to that moment. We
(17:08):
say a prayer. It's called the Shehecheyanu and it thanks God. We thank God for many moments,
bringing us to a special time.
And I said that prayer and I just cried. And it, you know, just my very soul, I was just
thinking, okay, how am I going to make my life better? And in the Jewish faith, we believe in
(17:33):
atonement and we have a path to atonement and we believe it. We change what we've done and never
go back to it. We can, we get God's forgiveness. And so I said, all right, I've got to get my
act together. I've got to do something more because life is, there's a, I have a bigger
mission in this life. I don't know what it is. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing,
(17:58):
but I've got to figure it out. And I've got to start acting like a decent human being,
stop acting like a child, move forward, stop blaming other people and let's get moving.
And from that moment on, I started my journey, which has been,
has taken it. I don't even think it's taken turns. It's just taken education. It's taken
(18:23):
like a couple bumps in the road and maybe a smack in the face here and there and stop being a baby
kind of thing. But I, I just been on this journey and, you know, I got back from Israel. I got,
started taking school a bit more seriously. I graduated from high school,
(18:46):
got into an,
okay college, went to the okay college, spent my junior year at Hebrew university in Israel,
which started, I started learning more about my people, who I am
and what's expected. And I, you know, I started going, wow, this is a beautiful faith. Like,
(19:06):
wow, what's with me? You know, all the answers are in the Torah. Why, what am I looking for?
Let me just like, go back to this and start figuring this thing out.
And I finished school, go back to New York, get into advertising, do my thing. I meet my
(19:27):
now ex-husband. And I realized one of the things that I didn't unlearn was I recreated my
childhood home in my new marriage. And I think that if I could, I, you know, I don't think I
can stress that enough.
(19:48):
Marriage is so important. And as I've learned since then, marriage can be a very beautiful
thing, but we've got to be careful. We got to fix what was going on before
and really take a look at it before we move forward. I thought faith and finding someone
(20:12):
who was interested in living a life of faith with me would solve a lot of those problems.
Um, but I brought myself into it. He brought himself into it. And though we brought God into
our relationship, we didn't know how to keep God there. You know, in the Jewish faith, we believe
that there's three people in every marriage, the husband, the wife, and God. And as long as God is
(20:36):
in that marriage, that marriage stays together. We didn't know how to keep God with us in a positive
way. We did raise two amazing sons. And I will say, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't
know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't
say I am grateful for their father every single day for those two boys. And we did something right
together. We were somehow good parents somehow. I don't know. We were not good spouses. So,
(21:01):
but I recreated that same situation. And, um, you know, we're taking a long time to get to
heroes to heroes, but we're getting there. Um, so in 2001, my father died as a result of a
car accident and he was on his way to a Jewish war veterans meeting. Uh, I didn't even realize
(21:25):
that he was 81 years old, but at that point he had been working with wounded veterans for 20
years and he was volunteering and he would take them to medical appointments, the theater,
ball games, whatever it is they wanted to do, food shopping. Um,
(21:46):
that's how he and his buddies is, would spend their time. They would have breakfast every
Wednesday and then they would go and they do their volunteer work and make sure that's like
them who actually weren't as fortunate as they are. We're taken care of. And I heard this for
(22:07):
the first time at his funeral and he had, you know, full military, you know, the whole service.
And, you know, I still, I have his,
his flag and, um, I heard it for the first time. He would never talk about it. He would tell me,
oh, I went to Fort Dix for something. And I didn't know anything about the military at the time. So
(22:27):
I thought, oh, they all go for, you know, once you're a vet, you go there for lunch. You know,
I didn't know. So he was doing all this and I'm, and I started talking to his friends and they all
said to me, we worried about your dad because he never talked and he would never, we,
all would talk about world war two. And he was, you know, one other guy was in battle of the bulge.
(22:52):
My father would never talk to him about it. So we were always worried. And one of his friends said
to me, it's kind of weird that his life ended this way. We always thought he would choose his time
and place. And I went, what are you, that, what are you talking about? And he didn't, you know,
I didn't say it, but I just let it simmer.
(23:16):
In 2009, I was invited to Walter Reed to visit our soldiers when it was in DC.
And what I saw as an American, as a mom, as a mom of two sons that did not volunteer,
we were the first generation that didn't have soldiers
(23:36):
in my family since our family came here at the turn of the century.
And I just said, like, what is this?
Why are these guys so sad to be home? Why are they sad? You know, I know they're,
they're injured, but why do they need to go back? What is that need? What,
(23:56):
why are they afraid to be here? And I looked into their eyes. I said, there's something going on.
I have to help them. I come from corporate America. I'm a problem solver. I like to,
I want to fix things. So I started volunteering,
start meeting,
our vets and I'm saying something's wrong here.
(24:20):
A lot of what I was seeing, I wasn't happy with.
There were people going drinking for a weekend and you know,
they're going away here, going away there, but nothing's really happening.
And I said, what's going on?
Then I find out the suicide rate at the time was 22 a day. And I'm going,
what? This is a crisis. This is a national crisis.
(24:41):
Why aren't we shouting this from the rooftops?
Why aren't we putting everything else?
Aside until we fix this problem.
And so I started looking into suicide because in my darkest days that never
occurred to me.
So I'm reading.
And if you'd start going through the research and you dig all the way through,
(25:02):
you will find that it looks like it comes down to a few different things.
And the two that struck me were sense of belonging and faith.
And I said, whoa,
I remembered my time when I was 16,
when I had thought I cursed God and I'd walked away from everything dear.
(25:24):
I said, I wonder if they're going through what I went through,
what if I gave them that same journey, whatever faith they are,
what if they got to experience their faith, where it all began,
where they could feel it, taste it, smell it, and do it in an unashamed manner.
(25:45):
Would they get,
what I got out of that journey?
And the next thing I know,
a friend of mine says,
Oh,
I'll support you.
No problem.
Okay.
Famous last words,
right?
Chris.
And,
uh,
the next thing I know,
heroes to heroes is founded.
Now I've got to make this work,
but what ended up that was in September on September 11th,
(26:09):
2011 at the time the program was,
let me just take them on the journey.
I took a team of 10 American veterans to Israel.
And during that time,
what I witnessed just made me believe,
wow,
(26:29):
this is so important.
And I didn't even know why,
but I watched these veterans.
Many of them had suicidal ideation,
many,
many attempts prior to this journey.
I watched them go from death to life.
I watched them reconnect.
I watched them find faith.
(26:50):
I watched them the most,
most importantly,
find forgiveness and find belonging.
Now fast forward to 2018.
And at that point,
over 200 veterans have gone through this program and they're asking me for
more and more.
(27:10):
We need more.
We need to be better prepared.
And I reach out to a gentleman named Dr.
Joseph Currier out of university of South Alabama.
Well,
Dr.
Currier is a,
what they call a moral injury expert.
I say,
Hey,
I don't know what we're doing,
but this is really working.
(27:30):
And he says to me,
he calls me back and he says,
I think you've found the solution to moral injury.
And I said,
well,
talk to me.
What is this?
And he says,
this is basically the shame and guilt.
Yeah.
It's brought home from war from an action taken or not taken during service.
(27:51):
He said,
it's,
you know,
moral injury can,
you know,
explained it can be doctors can be anyone who has done something that's
either created a crisis in their lives or someone else's life.
And I'm going,
wait a minute.
I'm thinking this sounds like a lot of the guys I'm working with and the
women I'm working with where they're saying,
(28:14):
I shouldn't have,
I shouldn't have done that.
I mean,
God hates me.
And Dr.
Currier said,
okay,
let me help you with this.
I want in,
I want to do some research on what you're doing.
And so based on Dr.
Courier's research,
we have developed a 12 month curriculum.
And we now take veterans through this journey,
this one year long journey where we start with values.
(28:36):
We prepare them for four months.
And then we start to work on them.
And then we start to work on them.
And then we start to work on them.
Who are you?
What are you doing here?
What are your values as opposed to your family's values,
your society's values?
What is important to you?
How did that change before?
(28:57):
How has that changed since your service?
Has it changed?
Has it not changed?
Are we living a life of values?
What does a day of living our values look like now?
You know,
it's a good exercise for everyone out there for listeners,
viewers,
what you need to do what you need to do.
(29:18):
I'm not going to tell you what you need to do,
but one thing we can do,
take a look at your day from most to least.
How do you spend your time?
Then look at your values.
What are your top five values?
Does that day match your values?
Are we living our values?
(29:38):
What does a day need to look like to live our values?
What are we putting?
Where are we putting our time?
Where are we putting our efforts?
Are those the most important things to us?
So that's the first thing we go through with our participants.
(29:59):
They start to look at their lives.
How does my life look?
What is important to me?
How am,
how can I change that?
How can I give more time to church,
to Bible study,
to my family?
How can I find more?
How can I,
how can I put my family instead of number seven?
How can I put my family at number one or two?
(30:21):
How do we do that?
And we have to do it consciously.
And so we help them consciously live their values.
What is it that brought them to us?
What is the incident?
We'd have them do something called movie Ola.
What does that incident look like?
If it were in a movie and you were filming it,
(30:43):
how did it end?
How do we change that ending?
How do we look at that?
How can we look at that from the,
as an outsider?
Because often what happens with our veterans,
our soldiers,
they're part of being a soldier is taking responsibility.
They're taking responsibility for things that not necessarily that they
(31:06):
shouldn't necessarily need to take responsibility for.
They shouldn't take responsibility for.
At the same time,
we have misunderstanding.
Most of our most of the population in the United States has about an eight year old's understanding of their faith.
What is that?
(31:27):
What is it?
Where does that take us?
That takes us to basically the Ten Commandments.
OK, so we understand if we follow them, we're good.
If we don't follow them, we're bad.
OK, if we break a commandment.
Oh, what do you do?
OK, if you're not, if you if you're not taught.
A path to atonement.
How do you find that atonement?
(31:48):
How do you find that forgiveness?
It would be one thing if I said,
Chris, I forgive you.
You know, people love to forgive to forgive us for things that they have no place for giving us for,
which is kind of cool.
It's kind of nice.
It's well, it's thought it's awful at the same time when you're in war and war is about kill or be killed.
(32:10):
It's not about politics or whatever.
They talk.
About in the White House or Congress or whatever.
It's about me and my buddies.
And how are we going to make it through this day?
So it's kill or be killed.
What is the most important thing to God that we're alive to worship God?
(32:30):
OK, so it's our job to stay alive.
But then you have the Ten Commandments.
OK, so it says in English, thou shalt not kill.
OK, but it's not what it really says.
If you go back to the Hebrew, it says,
that means thou shalt not murder.
(32:52):
So if you look at we all know in jurisprudence,
there's a difference between murder and killing.
OK, there's murder.
There's manslaughter.
Manslaughter is definitely it's a lesser sense because something has happened where you had to take an action.
OK, so.
What?
(33:12):
You know,
the Bible,
is telling us and what God is telling us is I know there's a difference.
And sometimes I'm going to send you to war and you're going to have to kill because I need you to be alive to worship me.
And that's going to be that's not murder.
OK, so we've taken that,
(33:37):
you know,
the you know,
we've mistranslated and we're not teaching our kids.
The difference and we're not preparing our soldiers to go to war spiritually and emotionally.
We're preparing them physically.
We're preparing them intellectually,
but they're getting on the battlefield and they're not prepared spiritually.
(34:00):
So when the inevitable killing happens.
How do they live with it?
And how do we heal that?
And that's what we do at Heroes to Heroes.
We work with healing.
That's soul.
That's a broken soul.
And people who have veterans in their lives,
(34:20):
if your veteran,
their loved one says,
I'm not worth it.
If they won't go to church,
Christmas is next week.
OK, I'm tired.
I was just on the phone with a vet who says he says December is really tough for him.
(34:41):
But he.
He's been on our journey.
And he said on Christmas,
he will go to church.
And he said once he gets there,
the tide turns.
It's that anticipation from so many years of built in.
Oh, no, I'm terrified.
I have to go to church.
Now he knows he can do it.
But he said he still gets that angst.
(35:04):
So, you know, we're talking every day and he's talking to his buddies every day.
And he's he's at least able to tell us.
So there's some days where he's like, I'm tired.
Some days where he's like, you know, I'm having a rough time, but I know what it is.
He knows what it is.
He's going to get through the holidays.
So.
It's taking a look at this and saying, you know what, I'm I'm still a good person and teaching people ways to take action to find forgiveness.
(35:33):
You know, there are veterans come home from war.
You know, ninety nine point nine nine percent are not going to kill again.
So.
There's not the atonement is there just from walking off the battlefield.
Should there be any OK, but what we know about what God is looking for, there really is no need for atonement.
(35:58):
But in our heads, we're Western, we're American.
We see, you know, there's a lot that goes on there that the American public is not aware of, you know, and it's civilians, it's children.
You know, their idea of a child is very young, but a ten year old can be a soldier.
You know, we're not fighting armies, we're fighting.
(36:21):
Terrorists, basically, and terrorists don't have any rules of war.
So strapping a bomb to a baby is not an unusual thing in that world, but our soldiers have to live with leaving that baby on the ground and then going home and loving their own baby.
So what Heroes to Heroes does is we work with that and we help them find that forgiveness and peace during that journey to Israel.
(36:50):
There's one very poignant part where we plant trees.
You know, Jewish National Fund is one of our they're a donor because they love what we do with a lot of the sites.
They've built a 9-11 memorial in Jerusalem with the name of every American killed, everyone killed on the site.
(37:10):
So our.
We call them our heroes.
They like to go in and etch the names into paper, the people they know, one of the things we do is plant trees and, you know, it's a kind of a tradition when you go to the Holy Land to plant trees because a tree is planted is the most unselfish thing you can do because you're planting it for the next generation.
(37:35):
When you plant a tree from scratch, I'm not talking about going and buying a big tree and you're going to get fruit next year.
But.
When you're planting a sapling, that tree is not going to give you anything in your lifetime.
That tree is for the next generation.
And that's what we do.
We help them plant that tree and trees when they're planted in Israel are planted in the in honor of someone or in memory of someone.
(38:02):
That is a poignant moment.
We had a like a young, young man named Stephen.
Stephen had four suicide attempts.
His father saw me on a television program and said, I need you to help my son.
I'm going to lose him.
He's not going to make it lives in Arkansas.
Father said, I'm going to drive him all the way to Newark Airport from Arkansas because if I put him in the airport, he's not going to get on the plane.
(38:31):
So Stephen met us in Newark.
Just a sweet young man and never spoke about what happened.
He used to go to his therapist.
Every week at the VA and sit there across his arms and just not say anything for an hour.
So we take we take him through, you know, he's on the journey and he's starting to open up a little.
(38:58):
And we went to the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem and it's called Yad Vashem and it's a it is probably one of the most intense museums ever.
And.
As you it really tells the story.
And at the end, there's a children's memorial.
(39:19):
There were one point four million children murdered in the Holocaust.
And in this memorial, as you're walking through it, it's totally dark in there.
There are four or five candles and with mirrors, the candles show one point four million lights.
At flames and it is heart wrenching.
(39:40):
And as you're walking through, all the names are being read off of all these children.
And when we got out of there, Stephen broke down.
And he said, when I was in Iraq, there was an insurgent and he was about to kill my buddy and I had to make I had to do something.
(40:01):
I had to take the shot.
And so Stephen takes the shot and then he realizes the child.
It was a child.
He was about ten years old.
And he said every night that child visits me in my sleep, I can't sleep a full night and then I'm up the rest of the night.
And he said, this is the first time I've been able to tell that story.
(40:25):
And then everyone gave him a hug.
And other guys were saying, you know, something like that happened to me and they started relating to him.
And.
The next day they went to Bethlehem.
With a pastor.
And for the first time, Stephen was able to pray.
(40:46):
And he and the pastor prayed together.
And the following day we were tree planting trees.
And Stephen planted his tree in memory of that.
Boy.
After he planted the tree, he said a few prayers.
We all kind of gathered around the tree.
And one thing everyone said was.
(41:09):
You know, Stephen, you showed that boy more respect.
That his family, his community, whoever touched his life for those ten years, you have just shown him more respect than anyone else.
And that night, Stephen slept the first time, the full night.
Now he's working at a vitamin store and he's helping people stay healthy, including me.
(41:35):
He has to make sure I'm doing my workout and getting my vitamins.
He has to make sure I'm doing my workout and getting my vitamins.
So it totally changed his life.
Just getting to that point and finding, realizing.
That he's a good person.
And he's not a murderer.
And it wasn't.
And he also said to us when he got out of there.
One thing I realized in that museum.
Is I'm not a murderer.
And he, you know, he saw the Nazis were murderers.
And I think a lot of our soldiers come home with that feeling.
That, you know, I've murdered.
I've killed.
(42:06):
I've killed a lot of our soldiers.
Come home with that feeling.
That, you know, I've murdered I've done all of these bad things.
How can I be forgiven.
Why should I have a family?
Why should I have.
Children.
Why should I have anything good in life.
So they start on this path of self-destruction and I was on that path for different reasons.
(42:26):
But we have a suicide rate.
That won't budge we're looking at 17.
I guess now it went up to 18.
Again,
We have thousands of organizations working on this,
but we're not talking about healing the soul.
And I think faith is so important
and it's important to our children.
Our country is in a mess socially and emotionally.
(42:51):
We've pulled everything.
And psychologically, our kids are on drugs.
At five and six years old,
there was an eight-year-old kid who committed suicide.
I mean, when we were eight,
we were just trying to get a quarter to go to 7-Eleven
and buy 25 pieces of candy.
You know, what are we doing to our kids?
(43:13):
But we've pulled out everything.
We've pulled the rug out from under them.
And I think it's affecting our soldiers.
It's affecting our schools.
We have kids protesting on schools.
They're pro-terror.
We have taken the values and what's important in life
away from our children.
And we're taking it and we're seeing it in our veterans.
(43:34):
They're not able to get healthy.
And the adults in the room
aren't able to see through the garbage
and say, this is what we've raised.
This is what we think we want.
You know, I think the population has kind of turned that corner
and people are saying, wait a minute, this isn't working.
(43:56):
But some adults in power
and our intellectuals,
aren't getting the message,
aren't understanding that this is really,
what we've done is very harmful.
And it's affecting everyone.
And especially our veterans.
Well, I will say, especially our veterans
and especially our children.
(44:19):
What can individuals do to advocate the needs
of veterans facing moral injury?
Let people know.
I mean, recognize that it's real.
I think our clergy has to,
we have to find ways to train our clergy in this.
I think the more we know as individuals
and the more we talk about,
(44:39):
you know, these soul crushing injuries,
I think the more it will get better.
People will have to look at it.
The VA won't touch a program like mine.
You know, they should, but they won't.
So, but having people,
the more people who are aware of moral injury,
(44:59):
the better it will be,
for our veterans. But I think we have to start talking about faith and the faith connection.
And what people can do is ask the tough questions. Have you been to church? How do you feel about it?
Where is God in your life? Those are the tough questions that we've got to ask. We've got to
(45:22):
ask our children, what do you think God thinks of you? That's a question I've struggled with.
And that's one of the questions that Dr. Currier asks the vets starting our program, our heroes.
About 70, 80% will say, God wishes I were dead. That's a question we've got to look at. We've got
(45:43):
to ask our children, but we've got to ask our veterans. PTSD programs aren't going to help you
if they're not healing your soul. If you're feeling this tremendous guilt, if you're feeling a lot of
shame for what you did, you could talk about it and talk about it, but you've got to get that
out of your head. You've got to find a way to atone and feel as if you atoned and feel as if you
(46:04):
can have that connection. And that's one of the reasons we take them to Israel, to the Holy Land,
because that's the way to get a physical connection. You're talking about men of the
earth. They're soldiers. You've got to bring the earth and the spirit together and the sky
together. You've got to bring heaven and earth together to help them heal and bringing them to
Israel where they can breathe that air and physically walk that land and touch that
(46:29):
water. And that's one of the reasons we take them to Israel to the Holy Land. And that's one of the
reasons we take them to Israel to the Holy Land. And that's one of the reasons we take them to Israel to
get baptized in the Jordan River, go to Bethlehem, touch the star, just be there physically so you
can be there emotionally. I think we need to start asking those questions. Right now, I guess it's
eight days until Christmas. Now's the time to say, what's going on with you for Christmas?
(46:53):
Do you have a vet in your life? What's going on? How do you feel? How's your relationship with God?
Does your relationship with God allow you to walk into church?
And when we ask those questions, I think we're going to hear some tough answers.
And if you hear the toughest answers, please have them call us. And we will get someone on the phone
with them right away to talk about the tough stuff. And, you know, I have, we have chaplains and we
(47:19):
actually use, we have rabbi who works with us. And why we use a rabbi is because the rabbi is
fine with whatever people do. And we have a rabbi who works with us. And we have a rabbi who works
there's no, you know, I'm Catholic. So I want you to be Catholic or you should be. And if a Catholic
veteran is having trouble, you know, ideally we want him to be where his family is. And usually
(47:45):
90% of the time, that's where they go. You know, if they come to us and they're struggling with
Catholicism by the end, they're back in Catholicism. So with, we have them speak to a rabbi because
there's no pretense.
And they feel more comfortable. They've actually asked us to do that. Because that way they can,
they can learn about atonement. They can learn about some of the basics. They can learn about the,
(48:10):
the Hebrew Bible, which is the basis for, that's what Jesus did. He was preaching the Hebrew Bible.
So what did Jesus do? What was he doing? What was Sabbath like to him? What was his life like
every day? And that's what they learn. And that's what they can help. They can start to emulate.
They can start to understand their faith within its con within a context. You know, the history,
(48:33):
what was, why was he saying what he was saying? Why was he, why was he going to Bethlehem?
Why was he going to Jerusalem? What was he doing there? They start to understand that
and it pulls it all together. It makes it real. And it helps bring that path to atonement and
that relationship. All of a sudden, God, isn't so distant. God, isn't too far away. We now understand
(48:57):
what's expected of us. And so when people can just, when you have someone in your life, those are
the, ask those questions. There's a child in your life who's struggling, especially a teen. What's
going on with you and God? Where are you? One of the things we, we have, one of the assignments,
we have a lot of written assignments. Heroes to Heroes is not an easy program to go through. It
(49:20):
takes a lot of commitment. There are two written assignments every month. In Israel, there were
about six written assignments. There are two written assignments every month. There are two
written assignments. One of the assignments is to write a letter to God. And they can take it any
way they want. We've actually published the book. And I know you were going to ask about that,
but it's called Letters to God. And a group of, one of our teams who went last May, they went
(49:47):
during the war in Israel. And these are their letters. And they're published, it's available
online. It's called Letters to God, and just Letters to God, Heroes to Heroes, and you'll find
it. And it, in it, our participants are talking about the real tough stuff, what they're going
(50:12):
through, why it's tough to have that relationship to God, what's going on, some of the conflicts.
And, you know, they put their letters in with a photo, with one of their favorite photos. And,
you know, it has,
helps unburden, and it helps also make things clear. And I would suggest people write that
(50:34):
letter. You know, I know I've mentioned it earlier, but write that letter. It's tough. I have a
continuous letter that I'm actually going to leave to my children. Because it, the letter talks a lot
about my early life and things that went with their, wrong with their dad, and things that went
right with their stepfather.
(50:57):
But it talks about the difference, and it talks about giving, and love, and life, and caring for
others. Yet, and also keeping yourself in the mix. Caring, because those of us who take care of other
people, we tend to forget about taking care of ourselves, and then we end up with all kinds of
stuff. But, you know, so that's something I'm learning better, and my husband is very,
(51:25):
he's very good at reminding me to take care of myself.
You know, but to write, I'm writing that letter, that letter, I think it's already like 18 or 20
pages of just, this is who I am, this is what I'm about. And if all the questions that they
didn't want to ask, or they were afraid to ask, will be answered, either by me personally,
(51:46):
or in this letter. And I, and it's also a way for me to understand where I am with God every day.
And every time I pick up that letter is usually, God is very close to me, or God is very close to
me, or far away from me. And how do I keep God close to me? So.
Judy, we've got about 90 seconds left. If people want to learn more or get involved,
(52:07):
where can they find Heroes to Heroes Foundation?
You can find it online at heroes2heroes.org. That's H-E-R-O-E-S-T-O-H-E-R-O-E-S.org.
And please reach out. You can reach out to me directly at Judy, J-U-D-Y,
at heroes2heroes.org.
(52:27):
And we want to hear from you. Veterans can apply online. If they have any questions,
just send an email to either me or to info at heroes2heroes.org.
We will be back. We will get back to you within 24 or 48 hours. And Christmas Day, we do answer.
(52:51):
So if you're having a rough day, we're there. And there's always someone around,
24 or 7. We have Israeli vets that take part in the program. So at 3 o'clock in the morning here,
there's someone online at 10 a.m. over there. So we have. Thank you. But please, during this time,
(53:11):
please, let's protect our veterans. If you have any challenges, fears, you can even
anonymously send us information and we will reach out.
Judy, Isaacson, Elias, thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate your time. And
I really, really appreciate the work that you do. So thank you. And God bless you.
Thank you so much, Chris. And Merry Christmas. Have a happy, healthy New Year.
(53:34):
Thank you. I'm Chris Meek. We're out of time. This is our last live show of 2024. I cannot
believe I'm saying that. So happy holidays to everybody. Until then, we'll see you in 2025.
Stay safe and keep taking your next steps forward.
Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward. Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show
(53:56):
next Tuesday.
at 10 a.m. Pacific Time and 1 p.m. Eastern Time on the Voice America Empowerment Channel.
This week, make things happen in your life.
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