August 11, 2025 • 55 mins
What happens when the system fails those who've sacrificed everything to protect it? Frank Larkin, former Navy SEAL and CEO of Troops First Foundation, takes us on a heart-wrenching journey through military service, devastating loss, and his mission to transform veteran care.
After serving eight years in the Navy SEALs and decades in law enforcement, Frank watched his son Ryan follow a similar path of service. After 9/11, Ryan became a highly decorated SEAL medic who deployed four times to Iraq and Afghanistan. But something changed. Despite his outward strength, Ryan began struggling with sleep disturbances, anxiety, memory issues, and pain—symptoms attributed solely to PTSD and substance abuse. When he sought help, the system that promised to support him ultimately pushed him out.
The devastating truth emerged only after Ryan's suicide, when brain examination revealed severe microscopic damage uniquely related to blast exposure—damage that went completely undiagnosed despite extensive testing at premier military facilities. This revelation shattered the narrative around Ryan's struggles and exposed a critical gap in how we understand combat-related injuries. Contrary to common belief, research now shows that military personnel in training environments—particularly instructors repeatedly exposed to smaller blasts—may sustain more cumulative brain damage than those experiencing fewer large explosions in combat.
Through Troops First Foundation and the Warrior Call initiative, Frank now fights to prevent other families from experiencing similar tragedies. Their approach is elegantly simple yet profoundly effective: defeat isolation by encouraging veterans to connect with their "tribe." That single phone call or visit can pull someone back from the edge, reminding them they aren't alone and reconnecting them to community and hope.
Frank's advocacy extends beyond individual connections to systemic change, pushing for improved information sharing between military and VA healthcare systems, increased research funding, and a fundamental shift in how we view these invisible wounds—not as signs of being "broken," but as legitimate combat injuries deserving proper diagnosis and treatment.
Take action today. Visit warriorcall.org to learn how you can help defeat veteran isolation through the simple act of connection. As Frank reminds us, these veterans aren't damaged goods—they're hurt, and they deserve our help to heal.
Frank tells his story in this short video. Share it with a Veteran you know.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Larry Zilliox (00:00):
Good morning.
I'm your host, Larry Zilliox,Director of Culinary Services
here at the Warrior Retreat atBull Run, and this week our
guest is Frank Larkin.
He's a former Navy SEAL, aswell as sort of the words that I
hate to say a Gold Star parent,and we'll get into that a
little bit later.
He's also the CEO of TroopsFirst Foundation, which has an
(00:25):
amazing program called WarriorCall.
I really want to talk to himabout that.
When I did a little researchand was looking into the
organization and that programand it really is very similar to
a program we have here at theretreat as well.
So, frank, welcome to thepodcast.
Frank Larkin (00:45):
Hey, thank you, Larry.
I appreciate the opportunitybeing on today with your
listeners and hopefully having adiscussion that brings value to
them.
Larry Zilliox (00:57):
Absolutely Listen .
Our listeners love to hearabout tier one operators, and so
if you could just tell us alittle bit about number one, why
you joined the Navy and not theAir Force, and two, your time
in the teams.
Frank Larkin (01:15):
Well, I go back towards the tail end of the
Vietnam era and I was one ofthose that had a low draft
number.
You know, when that lotterycame about, I was in high school
and just about to graduate Idecided that I was going to try
to take my destiny in my ownhands, which I have pretty much
(01:38):
tried to do throughout my life,and I enlisted in the Navy For
whatever reason.
I had just an interest in theNavy Kind of a contradiction in,
I guess, terms, but I reallywasn't all that interested in
riding the big gray hulls, so tospeak, and floating around the
(02:02):
world as much as I was and maybedoing some other things.
I got interested in the SEALteams from a good friend of mine
that I had known for years, whohad become a SEAL.
It was not a very well-knownoption in the Navy at that time.
(02:22):
In the Navy at that time youknow we're talking, you know
1974, 75 timeframe that you knowthe teams were not something
that anybody had a lot ofinformation on and it was not an
option that was pushed by theother commands.
It was pushed by the othercommands, in fact, when I
(02:44):
initially applied my command,did everything they could to
stonewall my application to theteams, but at the time they were
looking for trainees and it wasgiven a higher priority and I
subsequently got my orders uh,you know, to go to training and
(03:08):
then, uh, once through that uh,was assigned to uh an East coast
field team.
Uh, at that time they only hadtwo team one on the West coast
and team two in the East coast,and um just had a great run uh
with them for a number of yearsuntil, quite frankly, I decided
(03:28):
to get out to pursue a collegedegree with the full intention
of coming back into the teams,but had gotten bitten in the
meantime by the law enforcementbug and vectored towards a law
enforcement career.
Larry Zilliox (03:44):
How many years were you in?
Frank Larkin (03:46):
Eight years, so it's a pretty good chunk of time
.
You know a lot of a lot oftravel, a lot of different
experiences.
It was a formative time in mylife.
You know, you know, went inwhen I was 18 years old and you
know, of course, you have allthe answers, you know when
you're 18.
Sure, and uh, I just felt Iwasn't ready for college and I
(04:09):
just needed to experience whatthe real world was like, and I
thought this was a pretty goodpath to do it.
Larry Zilliox (04:15):
Wow, and so you separated, you went into um
federal law enforcement.
Frank Larkin (04:21):
Uh, initially I, uh, I went into local law
enforcement.
I walked the beat for about ayear in the Philadelphia area
Probably another formativeexperience, as you know.
A white guy dropped into aneighborhood that wasn't exactly
(04:43):
asking for a beep cop.
They hadn't had one for aboutover 20 years.
You know, walking theneighborhood I definitely, you
know, stood out and despite, youknow, I had, you know, my SEAL
training and experience behindme, I was in no way prepared for
(05:04):
that environment and I came tounderstand pretty quickly that I
needed to figure it out or Iwas going to go home every night
pretty black and blue.
It was going to be a tough yearon the street.
It turned out to be, I would say, one of the best experiences of
(05:25):
my life to really get into acommunity, earn their trust and
really understand, you know,different sides of our society.
You know we're always quick topick up the lens that we're
familiar with to look at things,and sometimes we fail to pick
up, you know, the lens, up thelens that we're familiar with to
look at things, and sometimeswe fail to pick up, you know,
(05:47):
the lens of the folks that we'redealing with or the culture
that we're dealing with tounderstand how things really
work, you know, on the ground.
Sure, I came away from thatexperience with three things
that I often pass on to youngofficers or public servants, and
that is, you know, kind of anold piece of guidance that we
got from our grandparents, andthat is, you know, always treat
(06:11):
people the way you want to betreated.
And I've just added a littlebit to that.
And I said you also have to askthe question in reverse how do
you think they need to betreated or they want to be
treated More importantly reversehow do you think they need to
be treated or they want to betreated more importantly.
(06:32):
Second point was always treatothers with respect, no matter
where they come from, whatthey've done.
And the third is never takeanybody's dignity away, because
the end result of that isusually you're going to wind up
wrestling on the ground, Thingsaren't going to go well.
And so the three legs of thatstool have served me well
through life as I've come incontact with different people,
(06:54):
different cultures, somethingI've tried to pass on to a lot
of the younger folks that aregetting into different aspects
of public service in our society, and I think it's, you know
stage guidance that certainlyhas, as I said, not only served
me well, but those that I thinkhave listened and tried to do
(07:15):
the same.
Larry Zilliox (07:16):
Yeah, absolutely so.
There comes a time when yourson Ryan follows in his father's
footsteps and becomes a NavySEAL.
What was that like?
Frank Larkin (07:26):
Well, let me amend that statement a little bit.
I don't think that he followedin my footsteps to mirror or
walk the same path intentionally.
I really do believe that it wasa choice that he made
(07:48):
independent of you know my priorservice.
He very much was affected bywhat happened on 9-11, as many
of your listeners were.
You know it's a time and placein our history, in our memory
(08:09):
place in our history, in ourmemory that is permanently
stamped.
Everyone knows where they were,what they were doing and many
of the people in our societyfrom that time period were very
much moved by what happened.
He witnessed that event from atown where we lived just west of
New York City.
I was.
My office at that time was afederal law enforcement office
(08:32):
was located in the World TradeCenter on 9-11.
And I had gotten caught up inthat attack, probably should
have been dead about five timesthat day from different things
that happened around me, to meand initially was reported
missing.
And he was completely envelopedin all that, witnessing it, as
(08:58):
I said, from a high groundposition just west of the city,
saw the towers come down and Iwas able to get home that night
and to my family.
I knew I had to and I walkedthrough the door at midnight
that night.
I'd been cut up and banged up.
I was wearing a pair of sweatsthat were about three times
(09:20):
larger than I was.
After being decontaminated andwalked in, I just saw the, just
the, the, the looks of horrorand just emotional, just trauma
that on the faces of my family,especially my son, and he had at
(09:42):
the time, was about 14 yearsold, was in middle school and
for the next two weeks following9-11, he just completely
withdrew, became isolated,stopped talking, you know,
stayed in his room.
My wife approached me and saidyou know, something's wrong.
You know, I meanwhile was downat ground zero as my agency's
(10:03):
representative for the rescuerecovery operations that were
going on down there, and he saidsomething's wrong with him,
he's not handling this very well.
And we had had about 18 peoplearound us in the town that we
lived who did not come home thatnight and he went to school
(10:23):
with a lot of those kids, ofthose parents that were lost.
And when I confronted him hesaid you know, dad, I need to
understand what happened here.
And you know, in a way that a14-year-old expresses themselves
, and said I want you to take medown to ground zero to see what
(10:45):
happened.
And I said, well, I just don'tthink that's going to be a good
idea and I know your mom's notgoing to go for it.
And he says but I just need tounderstand what happened.
And I said, all right.
I said I'll do this.
Something tells me that youneed to do this, do this,
(11:09):
something tells me that you needto do this.
I'll see what I can do.
And got his mother to sign offon it, with a proviso that if I
sold anything that indicated hewasn't dealing with it, that we
were immediately out of there.
And, as you can imagine, twoweeks after 9-11, things were
pretty nasty down there sure um,they had finally determined
that the air to breathe that wewere breathing was not safe, and
(11:31):
so everybody was now inrespirators after a week, a week
and a half, of inhaling allthat raw material.
And I took him down there anddressed him up in a police
jacket and a respirator and ahelmet, so nobody could tell
that it was a 14-year-oldwalking around.
And we walked the debris field,which was immense, I mean
(11:57):
blocks, blocks on blocks ofsouthern Manhattan, and a scale
of destruction I think thatnobody really appreciates,
unless they were there Aboutthree and a half hours later,
basically had made our way allthe way around.
I tried to share what I wasdoing that day.
(12:17):
I had lost a memory of sometime, so I don't know if I got
knocked unconscious or whatever,but I did the best to recall
what had happened and then wherethings once were, and I said
you had enough, have you seen itall?
He said, yeah, I appreciate youbringing me down here, and that
kind of was it.
And he kind of came out of hisshell, returned to being a
(12:39):
14-year-old, and then, someyears later, he graduated from
high school.
He had been working, we hadtransferred.
He had been working, we hadtransferred.
I had been transferred back toWashington DC.
We were living in the Annapolisarea of Maryland and he was
finishing up high school.
And I said so what are yougoing to do with yourself now?
You know he had not.
I almost saw a little bit of Bin him.
(13:00):
He said I'm not ready forcollege.
Though he was a smart kid, hejust wasn't ready.
And I kind of understood thatand I said, well, you got a year
to kind of do your thing.
And then you know you're on thestreet and a little tough love.
And he says, okay, I got it.
And at the time he was divingas a salvage diver in the
(13:22):
Annapolis areas, you knowcleaning, you know, rich
people's boat bottoms andchanging their, their running
gear out and so forth andrecovering stuff that they had,
you know, dropped over the edgeof their boats.
And he was doing that yearround.
So you know he's getting alittle taste of what it was like
to be in cold water and youknow work in inclement
(13:42):
conditions.
But he came home about ninemonths after he graduated from
high school and he said I justenlisted in the Navy and oh, by
the way, I volunteer for theSEAL program.
And I said you did what?
And he says yep, that's justwhat I did.
And at that point my eyesshifted to my wife who was
(14:04):
reaching into the knife drawer.
I'm thinking, here it comes.
And I said to her hey, no, holdon.
You know, this is the decisionhe's made.
We've got to support him,whether we like it or not.
So I never really pushed him inthis direction, never really had
(14:25):
a lot of conversation with him.
I got him to talk to a numberof guys, because we live in the
Annapolis area next to the NavalAcademy.
A couple of the guys that hadbecome SEALs and had been to
theater already experienced war.
And I said to them look, youknow, don't hold back, give him
the good bad ugly, you name it,don't sugarcoat anything.
(14:48):
And so he spent nearly a daywith those folks and came out of
that even more invigorated.
So off he went.
He went into training, uh again.
I, you know he wasn't astandout athlete, uh, but he
physically was very adept.
He was an intelligent kid.
(15:10):
Not always applied it, uh, buthad a unique ability to abstract
, in other words, think second,third order effects, which made
him very valuable in planningthings.
And much to my surprise, butcertainly to a level of pride
that I had never experienced.
He made it through SEALtraining, through their advanced
(15:33):
warfare courses, and got to pinhis trident on him.
You know, just an unbelievablemoment of pride and just respect
for him and all the other youknow, men and women who had
stood up following 9-11 to go,as he said it, to be part of the
solution, so that what happenedon 9-11 never happens again.
(15:55):
And I think your listeners thatpart of that time will fully
understand that, that emotionand that that need to serve at
that time.
Larry Zilliox (16:05):
Yeah.
Frank Larkin (16:06):
And he initially went off to become a special
operations medic, went throughthat training, came out of the
top of his class and immediatelydeployed to Iraq.
Within days of that deploymenthe was in contact with the enemy
, did a six-month pump there outin the western part of Iraq,
(16:29):
fallujah Ramadi and then cameback.
You know they go through awhole reset, like many of the
units do.
And he found himself back inIraq again, this time up north,
on more of an HVI high-valueindividual pursuit mission.
(16:51):
That lasted about six months.
And then he volunteered to filla gap in Afghanistan.
They had lost a SEAL medic.
They needed a senior medic togo in to fill the gap and he
rogered up, came home for twoweeks reset and pumped out for
(17:13):
another six months inAfghanistan, which was kind of
an interesting kind ofcomparison, because everyone
immediately assumed that youknow Iraq, you know Afghanistan,
you know they're similar,they're both in the you know
that part of the world.
But they were polar oppositesof each other.
For those that had been to bothplaces, different challenges,
(17:34):
different landscape, just so itwas a real eye-opener for him.
So he came home from thatdeployment and that was the
first indication that we hadthat things were changing.
Of course he was now a frogman.
He was, you know, been to threedeployments.
He was pretty experienced.
(17:55):
But now we started to hearabout hey, I'm having trouble
sleeping, I'm having nightmares.
He stopped smiling.
He had a relationship, abreakup with his girlfriend that
he had been living with forfive years.
You know things were changing.
(18:15):
He went off to train as a SEALsniper, finished up that
training at the top of his classand then deployed again to
Afghanistan, his fourthdeployment, down to the Helmand
area.
His previous deployment hadbeen in Aruzgan.
You know both were hot areasand saw a lot of action.
Came home from his fourthdeployment and that's some more
(18:39):
changes, but nothing that reallywas ringing the bell, so to
speak.
You know the alarm bells.
You knew these deployments weretough.
You knew that they were.
You know getting their cagerattled and the fact that he was
home in one piece.
I was very grateful.
Uh, he got assigned to be thesenior enlisted, uh, what they
call the lead petty officer oftheir special operations urban
(19:01):
combat training for all theclose-in quarter battle.
You know tactics and so forth,and what I didn't realize at
that time that you know, it'sone thing you know you're in
combat and so forth and you'rebeing exposed to.
You know it's one thing.
You know you're in combat andso forth and you're being
exposed to explosive effects.
But, as he was, in this role asthis pre-deployment trainer in
(19:24):
this close quarter battlescenario.
They were constantly usingbreaching charges and flashbang
or concussion grenades and theywere using their weapon systems
that they were going to deploywith and you know they were on
the rocket ranges, the mortarranges and so forth.
So he was constantly beingexposed to the blast over
(19:44):
pressures from these weaponssystems and he spent, you know
better, you know a year in thatrole and then we started really
starting to see things kind ofcome apart in that role.
And and then we started reallystarting to see things kind of
come apart, uh, it starteddeveloping a bounce of anxiety.
Never, you know, he never hadanxiety issues.
Depression becamehyper-vigilant, uh, stopped
(20:14):
smiling, he continued to havesleep issues, they, they were
just getting worse.
He was in pain.
You know a lot of these folksare, are, I mean, they're all in
pain.
Uh, whether it's physical pain,you know, emotional pain,
spiritual pain, a combinationthereof, they're in pain and a
lot of them, you know, theirfirst choice, their first, you
know, go-to remedy is what?
Drugs and alcohol, alcohol,yeah, and then followed up by
(20:37):
yeah, you're right, the drugs.
You know, because the way oursystem dealt with those issues
is they, they, you know theyfocus on treating the symptoms,
not the root cause.
And so he started, you knowthey started putting them on all
these prescription drugs todeal with that stuff mood
stabilizers and he justcontinued to come apart.
(20:58):
He was able to get anappointment to NICO, which was
the National Intrepid Center ofExcellence in Bethesda, maryland
, to come up for extensivestudies for about a month.
They put them through everyconceivable imaging, you know
evaluation.
They did blood tests on him,you name it.
(21:20):
You know tooth to tail.
You know talk.
You know they evaluated hismental status and diagnosed that
he was suffering from, you know, severe PTSD and no mention of,
you know, any brain injury oreven though he was having issues
with his vision and hearing andbalance and memory was shot.
(21:41):
It was all focused on alcoholabuse and PTSD.
No longer safely operate or dohis job as the LPO at that
training section and they movedhim into more of an admin
(22:01):
position while they directed himtowards some of the low-hanging
fruit that they were offeringto deal with his issues mainly
focused on alcohol and you knowthat didn't go well and he just
continued to unravel.
(22:21):
They they, you know started tohang labels on him and make
judgments that you knowjustified their assessments and
their actions and and it becameclear that they were kind of
putting stuff together to gethim out.
You know they're kicking up tothe curb.
This is despite.
This is despite, you knowcontinued policy and and and
(22:43):
broadcast that hey look, ifyou're, if something's wrong, if
you're not feeling good, comeand get help.
We're here for you.
You know, um, that's, that's notwhat happened.
You know when, when he steppedforward to get help, it got
weaponized against him and I'msure you know a lot of your
listeners will and I are arenodding that, uh, they
experienced the same.
(23:03):
It's, it's what we've now cometo call or at least it's
catching traction institutionalbetrayal.
It's.
You know, when you step up onthe line and you swear to do
everything you can to protectthis nation, to do the best for
the service that you're serving,and then, all of a sudden, you
(23:24):
know when, when you need somehelp or things happen to you,
you know that that entity youknow turns on you or it stops
listening to you or it, you know, if it's too hard, it kicks you
to the curb.
It's damaged goods.
Larry Zilliox (23:38):
This is something that's really prevalent in the
tier one community, in that Ithink it's a command issue where
they want to help you and theysay they're going to help you
and they will help you to acertain extent, but then they're
going to look at you and say,look, you're no longer able to
fulfill the role that you had.
You need to get out so the VAcan help you.
(24:00):
We can't carry you anymore.
And I see that as a commandissue.
It also leads to that sense ofbetrayal which then just adds
moral injury onto the pot, andit also then keeps other tier
one operators fromself-identifying issues, because
(24:20):
they see what's going to happenand when they know it's going
to take them out of the game andthey don't want to, they don't
want to.
This is what they do, this istheir life.
And I mean we just hear thisstory over and over and over
again and I don't know what theanswer is.
I don't know what the answer isbecause I see it from the
command staffing level.
(24:41):
They're like well, you know weneed to fill that position, but
you can't do both.
You can't do both at the same.
Come forward, we will help.
And it turns out, we will helpyou get out is what they're
really saying.
Frank Larkin (24:52):
You know, larry, I couldn't have said it better
and thank you for saying whatyou said.
You outlined it perfectly.
I don't think there's anymalicious intent.
But you know, these servicesare about operations and as long
as you can contribute tooperations, you're good to go.
When you no longer cancontribute to operations, then
you become a weight, an anchor.
(25:13):
You occupy space, you take upoxygen that they need, you know,
to dedicate towards fulfillingtheir.
You know resourcing andmanpower their mission.
You name it, and that's where alot of this.
You know, as I talk to veteransand special operators,
conventional guys and gals thatyou know have been on a rocky
(25:37):
road, I mean this is pretty much.
As soon as we talk about thisissue of institutional betrayal,
they literally leap out oftheir seat.
You know, become very emotionaland so this is, to your point,
something that's a leadershipissue.
Now, okay, full agreement withyou, know the need for good
(25:58):
order and discipline andoperational priorities and so
forth, but you know, to yourpoint, you can't speak out both
sides of your mouth and say thatwe're not going to leave
anybody behind, but then youturn around and there's a whole
debris field behind us.
So I think you know part of itis that we have not effectively
equipped, you know, ouroperational leaders with the
(26:20):
information that they need to beable to deal with these
situations.
So there's a education,knowledge gap.
And then it hasn't beenbackstopped with the resources
to be able to effectively youknow, rehabilitate and recover
these folks.
Yeah, I see a great separationbetween the medical enterprise
(26:40):
and the operational medicalenterprise in the sense that,
yeah, all these units have theirmedical cadres, but how closely
are they really tied to theircommand elements?
How much are they reallyadvocating for those injured
warriors, or are they justtrying to tell the command what
they want to hear?
And that's not in all cases,but in many cases that's exactly
(27:04):
what happens.
You know the imaging that wouldhave shown, you know, brain
damage, or a blood marker thatwould have shown that his you
know testosterone levels, hiscortisol levels and other
hormones and chemicals are outof whack.
(27:24):
Then, you know most of itdefaults towards a mental health
diagnosis, because that's kindof what they've been calling it
since World War I, when we firstintroduced explosives to the
battlefield.
You know they've been callingit since World War I, when we
first introduced explosives tothe battlefield.
You know they've been calling itall types of different names
Battlefield psychosis, you knowwarrior's heart Shell shock, you
(27:45):
know PTSD shell shock.
You name it To explain, butit's the same thing.
Yes, these people look 100%Physically, they look 100%
intact.
I mean, it's one thing if youhave somebody that's missing a
leg, an arm or has been burnedor somewhat disfigured, I mean
that's very visible, yeah.
But these invisible wounds aretangible, are real to the people
(28:09):
that are living them and evenmore so to their families that
are struggling to understandwhat's going on.
Larry Zilliox (28:15):
Yeah, they're very debilitating, for sure.
I do want to direct mylisteners to something that you
said was that when his rolechanged operationally and he
went into more of an instructorrole and then was therefore
subjected to more of the blasts,we did an episode back in
(28:36):
season two it's episode six withDr James Stone, who is a
research scientist, universityof Virginia.
Yeah.
So Dr Stone came on and it wasfascinating about how they
started thinking okay, we needto study door kickers, but it
turned out that the instructorsfrom the EOD and other courses
(28:59):
that were subject to many moresmaller blasts were the ones
that were being subjected toreal health issues.
And so I want our listeners tolisten to that episode, episode
six in season two, because it'sa fascinating look at how this
issue, thank goodness, isstarting to be studied, but it
(29:22):
shows that the general thinkingwhich those operational and in
the field might be subject to,you know, a large explosion
three times during a six-monthdeployment that's not going to
have the same impact.
And please go back and listento that issue be or that episode
, because it was really, reallyfascinating and really, you know
(29:45):
, it really made me think whenyou said that's when he started
to have real problems yeah.
Frank Larkin (29:51):
So james stone is a pie in here, one of the
pioneers in this, and he's gothis teeth in this like a dog on
a bone, trying to, you know,understand and figure this out,
and I'm glad that you had hadhim on and he's right.
I mean, as we, you know, kindof dug into this, we found out,
(30:18):
at least for the GWAT veteransto assume, that 100% of this
exposure from our weaponssystems and so forth is coming
from the training environment,which is something we can
control.
So this all came to light,larry, when Ryan had to get out.
He was honorably discharged and,to your point, you know, you
(30:40):
know they, basically, you know,you said it perfectly.
You know, uh, you know, we'vedone all we can, can for you.
You know, no easy fix here, wedon't have time for this.
And then it was all aboutgetting them out.
Yeah, and so he honorablydischarged, you know, with the,
with the, you know advice, hey,the VA will do a better job,
(31:01):
they're prepared, they're betterprepared to take care of you
Cause, cause, we've doneeverything we can, yeah, and so
he is out for about a year andhe's, he's gone to the VA, which
is, you know, in itself was achallenge.
I you know, in itself was achallenge.
(31:21):
You know, I think I'm I don'tthink I'm a complete idiot, but
you know I'm trying to shepherdthem through their maze of
bureaucracy.
And here's a guy that had oncebeen, you know, on the top of
the mountain as a highly revereddecorated.
You know SEAL operator nowcan't even organize his way
through the day, let alone tryto figure out the decorated.
You know SEAL operator nowcan't even organize his way
through the day, let alone tryto figure out the VA's.
(31:43):
You know maze of Forms and apps.
Larry Zilliox (31:46):
Of that organization and everything they
throw at you.
Frank Larkin (31:49):
And people that are talking to you have no clue
about what you've been through.
Yeah, and yet are making theseassessments.
Yeah, so you know to him he waslosing, you know he was
becoming disenfranchised, he waslosing trust in them, as he had
with the defense health side ofit when he was in the military.
So we're sitting around a fireone night and something he
(32:13):
constantly was saying that cameback to haunt me and that was
you know, nobody's listening tome.
You know, they just keeptelling me I'm crazy,
something's wrong with my head.
Nobody's listening to me.
And that was reinforced by allthe drugs and so forth that they
had prescribed him over a twoyear period.
(32:34):
You know 40 different.
You know potions, lotions,creams, all the way up to
high-end psychotropics that madehim feel like he wasn't even in
his own body.
And he says to me I'm banged upinside, I don't think I'm going
to live all that long.
And of course, as a father, I'msaying to him hey, look, I'm
(32:54):
here.
I, you know, I got your back.
You know we're swim buddieshere.
I, you know, I got your back.
you know we're swim buddies, youknow we'll get through this.
He says I, I know, I know, dad,I know you're here, but I just,
if anything happens to me, Iwant you to donate my brain or
my body for traumatic braininjury breacher syndrome
research.
And you know, most of yourfolks know that breachers are
(33:15):
those that have the controlledexplosives and they blow through
doors, walls or whatever elseneeds to be popped.
And I said you know, let's,let's not even talk about that.
He says no, dad, you got topromise me.
So I said, yep, I promise, butnothing's going to happen to you
.
And sure enough, a month later,and I had asked him hey, you're
not thinking about hurtingyourself, or?
(33:37):
And he said no, I'll never gothat way.
And unfortunately, about amonth, month and a half later, I
found him in the basement ofour home and he had taken his
life.
He was dressed in a SEAL Team 7T-shirt red, white and blue
board shorts and had illuminateda shadow box I had made for him
(33:58):
with all his medals andinsignias and stuff, and it just
instantly ripped my heart inhalf.
I mean, I have had and I don'twant to sound like I'm beating
my chest or this is notsomething I'm bragging about,
but in my line of work for 35,40 plus years, you know, I've
(34:22):
you know, it's all been aboutsaving other people.
And in the end I couldn't savemy own son and I carry that
burden.
So anyway, we we satisfied hiswish to get and donate his brain
for a research effort that waslooking at blast exposure and
its relationship to traumaticbrain injury.
And two months later theycalled us in and said that you
(34:45):
know, your son Ryan, had anundiagnosed severe case of
microscopic brain injury that isuniquely and they emphasized,
uniquely related to blastexposure.
They said we only see thispattern of injury and those
individuals that have beenexposed to blasts, and it's not
the same as CTE, the chronictraumatic encephalopathy that
(35:08):
you hear from the footballplayers, and the physical impact
of playing sports.
Though it shares the samedisadvantage, you can't see this
in a living person.
Yet we just don't have thetechnology.
And, as I said, he had been toNICO and had all these extensive
tests done and they never sawanything in his brain, even
(35:31):
though he had a whole profile ofexposure to IEDs, to training
with know, training with heavyweapon systems being subjected
to explosions and so forth.
And a lot of the symptoms thathe was manifesting were, you
know, related to, you know,traumatic brain injury.
But guess what?
They're also related to PTSD.
(35:53):
So, because the mental healthcommunity had been.
You know largely, you know theguiding, you know path for a lot
of these, you know treatmentsand assessments and so forth.
Then everything kind of pointedtowards or emphasized was the
PTSD and the mental health themental illness aspect of it.
(36:13):
Sure, so that kind of brokethings open.
So that kind of broke thingsopen and with that information I
went to the SEAL command and Igot to give them great credit,
as much as I had, you know,conflicted emotions in the sense
that, hey, you dudes screwedthis up, you missed the signs,
(36:34):
you were not true to our ethosof not leaving somebody behind
and in some cases because theydidn't know what they didn't
know.
In other cases it was becausethey were trying to do the right
thing, the right way, maybe allthe wrong way.
And then you had thoseindividuals that were more
worried about their rank andcareer and not having to deal
with a broken frogman that justwanted this problem to go away
(36:58):
as fast as they could, you know,kick him to the curb.
But I will say, when I put thisinformation in front of them,
it completely shattered thestory.
Or you know the account ofRyan's death that had been
formulated and I got to givegreat credit to the SEAL Admiral
that was in charge of, and Igot to give great credit to the
(37:19):
SEAL Admiral that was in chargeof the community.
He says there's something here.
This is not what I was told andwe need to dig into this.
And sure enough, the more andmore we got into it, the more we
started to realize there wassomething here.
We need to get it on top of it,need to get it on top of it.
(37:41):
And so, as things started todevelop, you know folks like
Jane Stone got involved from UVA, Dan Pearl, you know a
world-renowned neuropathologistfrom Bethesda, Walter Root, who
discovered this injury.
You got Brian Edlow up inBoston, Mass General, Harvard,
other great researchers andfolks that started dogpiling on,
hey, what's actually going onhere.
(38:03):
So the body of evidence isbuilding and it's bringing a
greater level of attention, notonly, you know, from the outside
centers of excellence that arelooking at this, but within the
Department of Defense, andcertainly Congress has now
picked up on this.
So you know, really, I see, youknow, as far as this blast over
(38:24):
pressure and this brain trauma,the way the greatest wins will
occur in the prevention side.
But in the meantime we've gotpeople that are hurt.
Now We've got to figure out howto better treat them.
Larry Zilliox (38:36):
Yeah, clearly, based on somebody's job
description, their what they do,this needs to be a presumptive
condition.
You can't just wait for somehow, certain symptoms to
materialize.
I think you got to look atthese tier one operators and
anybody in these training roles,whether they're Marines or Air
(38:59):
Force or Navy.
If they're working in a jobthat subjects them to repeated
blast exposure, this is to be apresumptive condition, not only
throughout their medicaltreatment while they're in
service.
But the VA needs to take a lookand start to flag these people
(39:21):
by the job description thatthere's a higher risk for this.
I mean, it's just there'senough evidence out there that
this is an issue that somethinglike that can't be done.
I don't understand why it's notbeing done and, like you say,
because the symptoms parallel,they're being dealt with on a
(39:44):
mental health issue when there'sa lot more going on, and
unfortunately I don't.
I really don't see a solutionto that issue anytime soon.
But I want to.
I want to focus in on theorganization to the Troops First
Foundation and Warrior Call.
Can you tell our listeners alittle bit about what they do
(40:07):
and really what you want them toknow about the Troops First
Foundation and Warrior Call?
Frank Larkin (40:14):
And thank you for the question.
And really, troops First cameabout because of the issues
related to those coming homefrom war and initially it was
focused on taking you know a lotof personalities and so forth
overseas to meet with the troopsto kind of, you know, pump up
(40:34):
their morale and give them youknow something different to
think about, but then evolvedinto a program called Proper
Exit, where Raquel, who is theCEO of Groups, first recognized
that a lot of the folks atWalter Reed all they wanted to
do was go back to their units.
As badly as they were banged up, you know, the one thing they
(40:58):
hadn't come is they want to bereunited with their units and
they had this huge gap becausethey were medevaced off the
battlefield.
They were taken back to youknow a role facility for
treatment and probably owned alawn stool, and back to Bethesda
or down in San Antonio, andthis all happened, like in some
cases within 24 to 48 hours, andanything that was of value to
(41:22):
them, anything that representedwho they were, was cut away on
the battlefield.
They had nothing and no way tocommunicate with their folks and
their teammates had no way tocommunicate with them.
So they came up with thisproper exit, where they started
taking folks back to the wartheater, back to the units, the
areas of operation for thatclosure that they never had when
(41:43):
they were scooped off thebattlefield and that evolved
into some other programs forhousing canine sponsoring folks,
for some therapies and so forth.
And then out of that, just bythe evolution of how things were
progressing, came Warrior Call,which is simply a recognition
(42:04):
that isolation is a huge factorthat we see with veterans that
are in a tough place, lose trustas they lose hope, they slide,
(42:25):
you know, into dark places andthey close off from folks and
from family and they becomeisolated.
And you know, the further theyget into that period of
isolation, the greater thechance that something bad is
going to happen.
And as we came to understandthat our whole objective was to
defeat isolation and we said weneeded to keep this simple and
(42:47):
we needed to deputize people tohelp us, it wasn't going to be
any one organization.
So you had mentioned at thebeginning of this that you have
a similar type of outreachAmerican Leads and some others.
They call different names, butit's really the same concept and
that is hey, reach out to thosethat have served, reach out to
teammates, to first responders,make a call to them, take a call
(43:11):
from them if they're callingyou, because sometimes they just
need to talk to somebody andthen have an honest conversation
.
You know, just kind of see howthey're doing.
You know, and it's something assimple as hey, tommy, I was
just going through.
You know, I saw your name, Ijust thought I'd give you a call
.
I know we haven't talked inyears, but you know, I just
(43:32):
thought, hey, I'll call andwe'll kind of shoot.
You know, shoot the bull for awhile and and and kind of get
that conversation going.
Or you know, sally, you knowyou, you, you see the phone at
Sally calling and you know, youknow you serve together in Iraq.
You know she, she just neededto talk to somebody.
(43:53):
So you're, you know youanswered the phone and and it
just that contact or or or adrive-by visit, you know it,
just a hey, check on it, seewhat's going on.
It's unbelievable how muchfeedback we've gotten from folks
that said that they were in abad, a dark, isolated place and
that phone call, thatconversation whether it was over
(44:16):
the phone or a face-to-facevisit pulled them back from the
edge.
You know, reinforced that one.
They're not alone.
There are people out there thatcare, and that's important, and
that it connects them back totheir tribe that they've gotten
disconnected from, which isreally important to be part of a
tribe, to remain part ofsomething, to be part of a tribe
(44:37):
, to remain part of something.
And then, you know, to havehope.
Have hope and understand thatthere are people working they're
there, interested in helpingthem that are working on these
issues.
At times, you know, it doesn'tmove as fast as we want it to,
but it's moving.
(44:57):
Move as fast as we wanted to,but it's moving.
And so that's where we'retrying to generate this momentum
with all the foundations, theVSOs, just to kind of make this
like part of our culture, tomake these calls to honor those
that have served in uniform,like I said, whether it's a
military uniform or as a firstresponder, because you remember,
(45:18):
there are domestic warriors.
Our first responders are thosethat are operating inside the
wire and they deal with justsome unbelievable challenges
themselves.
So that's essentially whatWarrior Call is.
We have a National Warrior CallDay, which is just a kind of a
(45:38):
mark in the sand.
It's the first Sunday afterVeterans Day, but we really want
this to be a unity of effortwith all the VSOs, all the
foundations that kind of, pushthis out to their membership, to
their listeners, and say, hey,I'm going to be part of this.
This is too easy to pick up myphone and call a buddy.
Larry Zilliox (45:58):
Yeah, yeah for sure.
Well, listeners, the firstthing I want you to do is visit
the webpage, and it'swarriorcallorg O-R-G.
Take a look at it and thinkabout you know how you can help.
Then go over totroopsfirstfoundationorg, which
(46:18):
is basically the parentorganization of Warrior Call,
and it's there that you're goingto see that red donate button
that you see on every VSOwebpage out there.
I want you to bang on it andgive whatever you can I know
that you hear me say this forevery nonprofit that comes on,
(46:39):
but they all need money.
This isn't free and please, youknow, hit that donate button.
Check out every inch of thesewebpages, because there's some
really valuable resources thereand information.
And look, if you're part of aLegion or VFW post, share it
(46:59):
with your members.
Get the word out.
A lot of it's very similar toour program that we have here,
which is instructions on how tosave 988 plus one in an Android
(47:23):
phone or an iPhone, and what wewant our veterans to do is save
that number in their buddy'sphone and use those instructions
.
If you're not in the area here,you can download that brochure
right on our webpage.
It'll tell you how to save thatnumber.
Put it in your buddy's phoneand say look, if you're having a
bad day, call me.
If I don't answer, don't gothrough with what you're
(47:44):
thinking.
Press this button and talk to aVA counselor.
So please check out WarriorCall, share it, and they're just
doing amazing work and savingone life at a time.
It's convincing people to put apause in that thought process
(48:06):
and you can do that by reachingout and calling people you
served with.
It's that simple, really.
What's the one thing that youwant our listeners to know the
most about?
Troops First Foundation andWarrior Call.
Frank Larkin (48:21):
Well, one of the things we hadn't talked about
that is part of the calculushere is that we're trying to
influence some legislativechange and so forth.
That helps to focus more onwhat we've been talking about
Not only the blast over pressureand invisible wounds, but
really the need to not leave anymore of our veterans behind.
(48:43):
And you talked about the VA.
You know whether it's defensedepartment or the VA.
We've got to help them succeed.
And right now there's a big gapbetween the information sharing
between the defense departmentand the VA that we're trying to
work on right now with improvingtheir case management system as
(49:03):
far as health records, makingit across that canyon that
exists right now between Defense, health and the VA, because a
lot of our veterans complainabout that.
Hey, you know I have to keeptelling my story over and over
again when I go to the VA andthere's no continuity, and you
know.
So we're trying to help withthat.
(49:25):
There's some legislation comingout that is going to hopefully
direct the VA to take a moreaggressive role towards these
invisible wounds and blast overpressure considerations beyond
just the mental health, becausethey go hand in hand.
It's not one or the other, butagain, it's really our efforts
now are to get together withorganizations like Willing
(49:46):
Warriors and others.
The big idea, so, is to have aunity of effort to kind of
harmonize our voice so that wecan get the attention of
Congress, we can get theattention of the administration
and their departments, so thatwe can solve this and that you
know we are not leaving a hugedebris field behind us as a
(50:10):
consequence of all these men andwomen who stood up and raised
their right hand to serve thisnation and protect our values
and ensure our security.
So, you know, as far as troopsfirst and warrior call, that's
what we're pointed at.
We're trying to keep it simplebut yet be the voice of the
veterans, much like yourorganization and others that you
(50:30):
know, keep moving the ballforward and hopefully slap the
table one day and say you know,we have zero suicides.
We have, you know.
We figured this out and I do.
One's too many.
One suicide is too many.
The other thing I would say isour solutions have to be kind of
configured for one size fitsone, not one size fits all,
(50:54):
which means and you brought thisup and it's very, very much a
factor we have to learn how tolisten to these folks.
And they're not broken, they'renot damaged goods.
They're hurt, they're injured,so let's help them heal.
Larry Zilliox (51:09):
Yeah, it's an injury that results from combat.
There's just absolutely nodoubt about it and it's got to
be really viewed as though it'sthe same as if somebody lost an
arm or a leg.
It's an injury and it needs tobe treated.
So much more can be done and Itell you I really appreciate all
(51:31):
the work that you guys aredoing and just getting the word
out.
It's huge and listeners, youknow, call your congressperson
and they all have a veteranliaison somebody in their office
that all they do is deal withveteran issues.
Find out who that is and sendthem links.
(51:51):
Send them a link to the podcastand say, hey, you need to pay
attention to this.
Send them information about DrStone's work and email them and
get on a first name basis withthem.
Share as much information asyou can with them about what's
going on in your community whenit comes to veteran affairs.
Because it comes down to money.
(52:12):
It's all about funding and wecan talk till we're blue in the
face and we can wish that thiskind of research is done, but
unless Congress actually fundsit, unless they give money to
the VA that's earmarked forresearch about this, it's not
going to happen.
(52:33):
That money will be spentelsewhere.
So, if you're going to talk toyour congressional
representatives, focus in onfunding and say this is a
problem, it needs research andthat research needs funding.
What are you going to do tomake that happen?
(52:53):
So please reach out to yourrepresentatives and send them
information and say this is aserious problem.
It needs to be dealt with.
Frank, I can't thank you enoughfor coming on today and talking
about your story and I know Ispeak for our listeners about.
(53:16):
We're just devastated by theloss of your son and he's such a
patriot and an amazing youngman that sacrificed for his
country and we're just sorry youhad to go through that.
Frank Larkin (53:32):
Well, you know, this is all about, you know,
preventing others from having towalk this path of pain, and
it's very refreshing to talk tosomeone like you who gets it.
I want to tell you, you know,express to your listeners that
you know, larry, you get it.
You've obviously, you know,stitched this together.
(53:52):
You know the right way.
You're spot on with yourassessments.
I look forward to working withyou in the future.
I hope that, again,collectively, as I said, we can
influence the changes, so thatyou know we take care of those
who took care of us.
Larry Zilliox (54:12):
Yeah, for sure.
Well, I know I'm a commissioneron the local county veterans
commission and we'll be talkingabout this at our next meeting
for sure.
So really, I appreciate it somuch.
Thank you for coming on.
Frank Larkin (54:27):
You bet, and thank you to your listeners too.
Have a great day.
Larry Zilliox (54:30):
Yeah.
So hey, listeners, we'll haveanother episode next Monday
morning.
In fact, we're going to startup our series again on Northern
(54:50):
Virginia Military Museums with.
Our guest will be Gary PowersJr, who started the Cold War
Museum over in Vent Hill, wasshot down over Russia and maybe
most of our listeners know hisstory from the Tom Hanks movie
Bridge of Spies.
But Gary will be with us nextweek for a great episode.
So until then, you can find uson all major podcast platforms.
(55:15):
We're on YouTube and WreathsAcross America Radio.
So thanks for listening.
Good morning.
I'm your host, Larry Zilliox,Director of Culinary Services
here at the Warrior Retreat atBull Run, and this week our
guest is Frank Larkin.
He's a former Navy SEAL, aswell as sort of the words that I
hate to say a Gold Star parent,and we'll get into that a
little bit later.
He's also the CEO of TroopsFirst Foundation, which has an
(00:25):
amazing program called WarriorCall.
I really want to talk to himabout that.
When I did a little researchand was looking into the
organization and that programand it really is very similar to
a program we have here at theretreat as well.
So, frank, welcome to thepodcast.
Frank Larkin (00:45):
Hey, thank you, Larry.
I appreciate the opportunitybeing on today with your
listeners and hopefully having adiscussion that brings value to
them.
Larry Zilliox (00:57):
Absolutely Listen .
Our listeners love to hearabout tier one operators, and so
if you could just tell us alittle bit about number one, why
you joined the Navy and not theAir Force, and two, your time
in the teams.
Frank Larkin (01:15):
Well, I go back towards the tail end of the
Vietnam era and I was one ofthose that had a low draft
number.
You know, when that lotterycame about, I was in high school
and just about to graduate Idecided that I was going to try
to take my destiny in my ownhands, which I have pretty much
(01:38):
tried to do throughout my life,and I enlisted in the Navy For
whatever reason.
I had just an interest in theNavy Kind of a contradiction in,
I guess, terms, but I reallywasn't all that interested in
riding the big gray hulls, so tospeak, and floating around the
(02:02):
world as much as I was and maybedoing some other things.
I got interested in the SEALteams from a good friend of mine
that I had known for years, whohad become a SEAL.
It was not a very well-knownoption in the Navy at that time.
(02:22):
In the Navy at that time youknow we're talking, you know
1974, 75 timeframe that you knowthe teams were not something
that anybody had a lot ofinformation on and it was not an
option that was pushed by theother commands.
It was pushed by the othercommands, in fact, when I
(02:44):
initially applied my command,did everything they could to
stonewall my application to theteams, but at the time they were
looking for trainees and it wasgiven a higher priority and I
subsequently got my orders uh,you know, to go to training and
(03:08):
then, uh, once through that uh,was assigned to uh an East coast
field team.
Uh, at that time they only hadtwo team one on the West coast
and team two in the East coast,and um just had a great run uh
with them for a number of yearsuntil, quite frankly, I decided
(03:28):
to get out to pursue a collegedegree with the full intention
of coming back into the teams,but had gotten bitten in the
meantime by the law enforcementbug and vectored towards a law
enforcement career.
Larry Zilliox (03:44):
How many years were you in?
Frank Larkin (03:46):
Eight years, so it's a pretty good chunk of time
.
You know a lot of a lot oftravel, a lot of different
experiences.
It was a formative time in mylife.
You know, you know, went inwhen I was 18 years old and you
know, of course, you have allthe answers, you know when
you're 18.
Sure, and uh, I just felt Iwasn't ready for college and I
(04:09):
just needed to experience whatthe real world was like, and I
thought this was a pretty goodpath to do it.
Larry Zilliox (04:15):
Wow, and so you separated, you went into um
federal law enforcement.
Frank Larkin (04:21):
Uh, initially I, uh, I went into local law
enforcement.
I walked the beat for about ayear in the Philadelphia area
Probably another formativeexperience, as you know.
A white guy dropped into aneighborhood that wasn't exactly
(04:43):
asking for a beep cop.
They hadn't had one for aboutover 20 years.
You know, walking theneighborhood I definitely, you
know, stood out and despite, youknow, I had, you know, my SEAL
training and experience behindme, I was in no way prepared for
(05:04):
that environment and I came tounderstand pretty quickly that I
needed to figure it out or Iwas going to go home every night
pretty black and blue.
It was going to be a tough yearon the street.
It turned out to be, I would say, one of the best experiences of
(05:25):
my life to really get into acommunity, earn their trust and
really understand, you know,different sides of our society.
You know we're always quick topick up the lens that we're
familiar with to look at things,and sometimes we fail to pick
up, you know, the lens, up thelens that we're familiar with to
look at things, and sometimeswe fail to pick up, you know,
(05:47):
the lens of the folks that we'redealing with or the culture
that we're dealing with tounderstand how things really
work, you know, on the ground.
Sure, I came away from thatexperience with three things
that I often pass on to youngofficers or public servants, and
that is, you know, kind of anold piece of guidance that we
got from our grandparents, andthat is, you know, always treat
(06:11):
people the way you want to betreated.
And I've just added a littlebit to that.
And I said you also have to askthe question in reverse how do
you think they need to betreated or they want to be
treated More importantly reversehow do you think they need to
be treated or they want to betreated more importantly.
(06:32):
Second point was always treatothers with respect, no matter
where they come from, whatthey've done.
And the third is never takeanybody's dignity away, because
the end result of that isusually you're going to wind up
wrestling on the ground, Thingsaren't going to go well.
And so the three legs of thatstool have served me well
through life as I've come incontact with different people,
(06:54):
different cultures, somethingI've tried to pass on to a lot
of the younger folks that aregetting into different aspects
of public service in our society, and I think it's, you know
stage guidance that certainlyhas, as I said, not only served
me well, but those that I thinkhave listened and tried to do
(07:15):
the same.
Larry Zilliox (07:16):
Yeah, absolutely so.
There comes a time when yourson Ryan follows in his father's
footsteps and becomes a NavySEAL.
What was that like?
Frank Larkin (07:26):
Well, let me amend that statement a little bit.
I don't think that he followedin my footsteps to mirror or
walk the same path intentionally.
I really do believe that it wasa choice that he made
(07:48):
independent of you know my priorservice.
He very much was affected bywhat happened on 9-11, as many
of your listeners were.
You know it's a time and placein our history, in our memory
(08:09):
place in our history, in ourmemory that is permanently
stamped.
Everyone knows where they were,what they were doing and many
of the people in our societyfrom that time period were very
much moved by what happened.
He witnessed that event from atown where we lived just west of
New York City.
I was.
My office at that time was afederal law enforcement office
(08:32):
was located in the World TradeCenter on 9-11.
And I had gotten caught up inthat attack, probably should
have been dead about five timesthat day from different things
that happened around me, to meand initially was reported
missing.
And he was completely envelopedin all that, witnessing it, as
(08:58):
I said, from a high groundposition just west of the city,
saw the towers come down and Iwas able to get home that night
and to my family.
I knew I had to and I walkedthrough the door at midnight
that night.
I'd been cut up and banged up.
I was wearing a pair of sweatsthat were about three times
(09:20):
larger than I was.
After being decontaminated andwalked in, I just saw the, just
the, the, the looks of horrorand just emotional, just trauma
that on the faces of my family,especially my son, and he had at
(09:42):
the time, was about 14 yearsold, was in middle school and
for the next two weeks following9-11, he just completely
withdrew, became isolated,stopped talking, you know,
stayed in his room.
My wife approached me and saidyou know, something's wrong.
You know, I meanwhile was downat ground zero as my agency's
(10:03):
representative for the rescuerecovery operations that were
going on down there, and he saidsomething's wrong with him,
he's not handling this very well.
And we had had about 18 peoplearound us in the town that we
lived who did not come home thatnight and he went to school
(10:23):
with a lot of those kids, ofthose parents that were lost.
And when I confronted him hesaid you know, dad, I need to
understand what happened here.
And you know, in a way that a14-year-old expresses themselves
, and said I want you to take medown to ground zero to see what
(10:45):
happened.
And I said, well, I just don'tthink that's going to be a good
idea and I know your mom's notgoing to go for it.
And he says but I just need tounderstand what happened.
And I said, all right.
I said I'll do this.
Something tells me that youneed to do this, do this,
(11:09):
something tells me that you needto do this.
I'll see what I can do.
And got his mother to sign offon it, with a proviso that if I
sold anything that indicated hewasn't dealing with it, that we
were immediately out of there.
And, as you can imagine, twoweeks after 9-11, things were
pretty nasty down there sure um,they had finally determined
that the air to breathe that wewere breathing was not safe, and
(11:31):
so everybody was now inrespirators after a week, a week
and a half, of inhaling allthat raw material.
And I took him down there anddressed him up in a police
jacket and a respirator and ahelmet, so nobody could tell
that it was a 14-year-oldwalking around.
And we walked the debris field,which was immense, I mean
(11:57):
blocks, blocks on blocks ofsouthern Manhattan, and a scale
of destruction I think thatnobody really appreciates,
unless they were there Aboutthree and a half hours later,
basically had made our way allthe way around.
I tried to share what I wasdoing that day.
(12:17):
I had lost a memory of sometime, so I don't know if I got
knocked unconscious or whatever,but I did the best to recall
what had happened and then wherethings once were, and I said
you had enough, have you seen itall?
He said, yeah, I appreciate youbringing me down here, and that
kind of was it.
And he kind of came out of hisshell, returned to being a
(12:39):
14-year-old, and then, someyears later, he graduated from
high school.
He had been working, we hadtransferred.
He had been working, we hadtransferred.
I had been transferred back toWashington DC.
We were living in the Annapolisarea of Maryland and he was
finishing up high school.
And I said so what are yougoing to do with yourself now?
You know he had not.
I almost saw a little bit of Bin him.
(13:00):
He said I'm not ready forcollege.
Though he was a smart kid, hejust wasn't ready.
And I kind of understood thatand I said, well, you got a year
to kind of do your thing.
And then you know you're on thestreet and a little tough love.
And he says, okay, I got it.
And at the time he was divingas a salvage diver in the
(13:22):
Annapolis areas, you knowcleaning, you know, rich
people's boat bottoms andchanging their, their running
gear out and so forth andrecovering stuff that they had,
you know, dropped over the edgeof their boats.
And he was doing that yearround.
So you know he's getting alittle taste of what it was like
to be in cold water and youknow work in inclement
(13:42):
conditions.
But he came home about ninemonths after he graduated from
high school and he said I justenlisted in the Navy and oh, by
the way, I volunteer for theSEAL program.
And I said you did what?
And he says yep, that's justwhat I did.
And at that point my eyesshifted to my wife who was
(14:04):
reaching into the knife drawer.
I'm thinking, here it comes.
And I said to her hey, no, holdon.
You know, this is the decisionhe's made.
We've got to support him,whether we like it or not.
So I never really pushed him inthis direction, never really had
(14:25):
a lot of conversation with him.
I got him to talk to a numberof guys, because we live in the
Annapolis area next to the NavalAcademy.
A couple of the guys that hadbecome SEALs and had been to
theater already experienced war.
And I said to them look, youknow, don't hold back, give him
the good bad ugly, you name it,don't sugarcoat anything.
(14:48):
And so he spent nearly a daywith those folks and came out of
that even more invigorated.
So off he went.
He went into training, uh again.
I, you know he wasn't astandout athlete, uh, but he
physically was very adept.
He was an intelligent kid.
(15:10):
Not always applied it, uh, buthad a unique ability to abstract
, in other words, think second,third order effects, which made
him very valuable in planningthings.
And much to my surprise, butcertainly to a level of pride
that I had never experienced.
He made it through SEALtraining, through their advanced
(15:33):
warfare courses, and got to pinhis trident on him.
You know, just an unbelievablemoment of pride and just respect
for him and all the other youknow, men and women who had
stood up following 9-11 to go,as he said it, to be part of the
solution, so that what happenedon 9-11 never happens again.
(15:55):
And I think your listeners thatpart of that time will fully
understand that, that emotionand that that need to serve at
that time.
Larry Zilliox (16:05):
Yeah.
Frank Larkin (16:06):
And he initially went off to become a special
operations medic, went throughthat training, came out of the
top of his class and immediatelydeployed to Iraq.
Within days of that deploymenthe was in contact with the enemy
, did a six-month pump there outin the western part of Iraq,
(16:29):
fallujah Ramadi and then cameback.
You know they go through awhole reset, like many of the
units do.
And he found himself back inIraq again, this time up north,
on more of an HVI high-valueindividual pursuit mission.
(16:51):
That lasted about six months.
And then he volunteered to filla gap in Afghanistan.
They had lost a SEAL medic.
They needed a senior medic togo in to fill the gap and he
rogered up, came home for twoweeks reset and pumped out for
(17:13):
another six months inAfghanistan, which was kind of
an interesting kind ofcomparison, because everyone
immediately assumed that youknow Iraq, you know Afghanistan,
you know they're similar,they're both in the you know
that part of the world.
But they were polar oppositesof each other.
For those that had been to bothplaces, different challenges,
(17:34):
different landscape, just so itwas a real eye-opener for him.
So he came home from thatdeployment and that was the
first indication that we hadthat things were changing.
Of course he was now a frogman.
He was, you know, been to threedeployments.
He was pretty experienced.
(17:55):
But now we started to hearabout hey, I'm having trouble
sleeping, I'm having nightmares.
He stopped smiling.
He had a relationship, abreakup with his girlfriend that
he had been living with forfive years.
You know things were changing.
(18:15):
He went off to train as a SEALsniper, finished up that
training at the top of his classand then deployed again to
Afghanistan, his fourthdeployment, down to the Helmand
area.
His previous deployment hadbeen in Aruzgan.
You know both were hot areasand saw a lot of action.
Came home from his fourthdeployment and that's some more
(18:39):
changes, but nothing that reallywas ringing the bell, so to
speak.
You know the alarm bells.
You knew these deployments weretough.
You knew that they were.
You know getting their cagerattled and the fact that he was
home in one piece.
I was very grateful.
Uh, he got assigned to be thesenior enlisted, uh, what they
call the lead petty officer oftheir special operations urban
(19:01):
combat training for all theclose-in quarter battle.
You know tactics and so forth,and what I didn't realize at
that time that you know, it'sone thing you know you're in
combat and so forth and you'rebeing exposed to.
You know it's one thing.
You know you're in combat andso forth and you're being
exposed to explosive effects.
But, as he was, in this role asthis pre-deployment trainer in
(19:24):
this close quarter battlescenario.
They were constantly usingbreaching charges and flashbang
or concussion grenades and theywere using their weapon systems
that they were going to deploywith and you know they were on
the rocket ranges, the mortarranges and so forth.
So he was constantly beingexposed to the blast over
(19:44):
pressures from these weaponssystems and he spent, you know
better, you know a year in thatrole and then we started really
starting to see things kind ofcome apart in that role.
And and then we started reallystarting to see things kind of
come apart, uh, it starteddeveloping a bounce of anxiety.
Never, you know, he never hadanxiety issues.
Depression becamehyper-vigilant, uh, stopped
(20:14):
smiling, he continued to havesleep issues, they, they were
just getting worse.
He was in pain.
You know a lot of these folksare, are, I mean, they're all in
pain.
Uh, whether it's physical pain,you know, emotional pain,
spiritual pain, a combinationthereof, they're in pain and a
lot of them, you know, theirfirst choice, their first, you
know, go-to remedy is what?
Drugs and alcohol, alcohol,yeah, and then followed up by
(20:37):
yeah, you're right, the drugs.
You know, because the way oursystem dealt with those issues
is they, they, you know theyfocus on treating the symptoms,
not the root cause.
And so he started, you knowthey started putting them on all
these prescription drugs todeal with that stuff mood
stabilizers and he justcontinued to come apart.
(20:58):
He was able to get anappointment to NICO, which was
the National Intrepid Center ofExcellence in Bethesda, maryland
, to come up for extensivestudies for about a month.
They put them through everyconceivable imaging, you know
evaluation.
They did blood tests on him,you name it.
(21:20):
You know tooth to tail.
You know talk.
You know they evaluated hismental status and diagnosed that
he was suffering from, you know, severe PTSD and no mention of,
you know, any brain injury oreven though he was having issues
with his vision and hearing andbalance and memory was shot.
(21:41):
It was all focused on alcoholabuse and PTSD.
No longer safely operate or dohis job as the LPO at that
training section and they movedhim into more of an admin
(22:01):
position while they directed himtowards some of the low-hanging
fruit that they were offeringto deal with his issues mainly
focused on alcohol and you knowthat didn't go well and he just
continued to unravel.
(22:21):
They they, you know started tohang labels on him and make
judgments that you knowjustified their assessments and
their actions and and it becameclear that they were kind of
putting stuff together to gethim out.
You know they're kicking up tothe curb.
This is despite.
This is despite, you knowcontinued policy and and and
(22:43):
broadcast that hey look, ifyou're, if something's wrong, if
you're not feeling good, comeand get help.
We're here for you.
You know, um, that's, that's notwhat happened.
You know when, when he steppedforward to get help, it got
weaponized against him and I'msure you know a lot of your
listeners will and I are arenodding that, uh, they
experienced the same.
(23:03):
It's, it's what we've now cometo call or at least it's
catching traction institutionalbetrayal.
It's.
You know, when you step up onthe line and you swear to do
everything you can to protectthis nation, to do the best for
the service that you're serving,and then, all of a sudden, you
(23:24):
know when, when you need somehelp or things happen to you,
you know that that entity youknow turns on you or it stops
listening to you or it, you know, if it's too hard, it kicks you
to the curb.
It's damaged goods.
Larry Zilliox (23:38):
This is something that's really prevalent in the
tier one community, in that Ithink it's a command issue where
they want to help you and theysay they're going to help you
and they will help you to acertain extent, but then they're
going to look at you and say,look, you're no longer able to
fulfill the role that you had.
You need to get out so the VAcan help you.
(24:00):
We can't carry you anymore.
And I see that as a commandissue.
It also leads to that sense ofbetrayal which then just adds
moral injury onto the pot, andit also then keeps other tier
one operators fromself-identifying issues, because
(24:20):
they see what's going to happenand when they know it's going
to take them out of the game andthey don't want to, they don't
want to.
This is what they do, this istheir life.
And I mean we just hear thisstory over and over and over
again and I don't know what theanswer is.
I don't know what the answer isbecause I see it from the
command staffing level.
(24:41):
They're like well, you know weneed to fill that position, but
you can't do both.
You can't do both at the same.
Come forward, we will help.
And it turns out, we will helpyou get out is what they're
really saying.
Frank Larkin (24:52):
You know, larry, I couldn't have said it better
and thank you for saying whatyou said.
You outlined it perfectly.
I don't think there's anymalicious intent.
But you know, these servicesare about operations and as long
as you can contribute tooperations, you're good to go.
When you no longer cancontribute to operations, then
you become a weight, an anchor.
(25:13):
You occupy space, you take upoxygen that they need, you know,
to dedicate towards fulfillingtheir.
You know resourcing andmanpower their mission.
You name it, and that's where alot of this.
You know, as I talk to veteransand special operators,
conventional guys and gals thatyou know have been on a rocky
(25:37):
road, I mean this is pretty much.
As soon as we talk about thisissue of institutional betrayal,
they literally leap out oftheir seat.
You know, become very emotionaland so this is, to your point,
something that's a leadershipissue.
Now, okay, full agreement withyou, know the need for good
(25:58):
order and discipline andoperational priorities and so
forth, but you know, to yourpoint, you can't speak out both
sides of your mouth and say thatwe're not going to leave
anybody behind, but then youturn around and there's a whole
debris field behind us.
So I think you know part of itis that we have not effectively
equipped, you know, ouroperational leaders with the
(26:20):
information that they need to beable to deal with these
situations.
So there's a education,knowledge gap.
And then it hasn't beenbackstopped with the resources
to be able to effectively youknow, rehabilitate and recover
these folks.
Yeah, I see a great separationbetween the medical enterprise
(26:40):
and the operational medicalenterprise in the sense that,
yeah, all these units have theirmedical cadres, but how closely
are they really tied to theircommand elements?
How much are they reallyadvocating for those injured
warriors, or are they justtrying to tell the command what
they want to hear?
And that's not in all cases,but in many cases that's exactly
(27:04):
what happens.
You know the imaging that wouldhave shown, you know, brain
damage, or a blood marker thatwould have shown that his you
know testosterone levels, hiscortisol levels and other
hormones and chemicals are outof whack.
(27:24):
Then, you know most of itdefaults towards a mental health
diagnosis, because that's kindof what they've been calling it
since World War I, when we firstintroduced explosives to the
battlefield.
You know they've been callingit since World War I, when we
first introduced explosives tothe battlefield.
You know they've been calling itall types of different names
Battlefield psychosis, you knowwarrior's heart Shell shock, you
(27:45):
know PTSD shell shock.
You name it To explain, butit's the same thing.
Yes, these people look 100%Physically, they look 100%
intact.
I mean, it's one thing if youhave somebody that's missing a
leg, an arm or has been burnedor somewhat disfigured, I mean
that's very visible, yeah.
But these invisible wounds aretangible, are real to the people
(28:09):
that are living them and evenmore so to their families that
are struggling to understandwhat's going on.
Larry Zilliox (28:15):
Yeah, they're very debilitating, for sure.
I do want to direct mylisteners to something that you
said was that when his rolechanged operationally and he
went into more of an instructorrole and then was therefore
subjected to more of the blasts,we did an episode back in
(28:36):
season two it's episode six withDr James Stone, who is a
research scientist, universityof Virginia.
Yeah.
So Dr Stone came on and it wasfascinating about how they
started thinking okay, we needto study door kickers, but it
turned out that the instructorsfrom the EOD and other courses
(28:59):
that were subject to many moresmaller blasts were the ones
that were being subjected toreal health issues.
And so I want our listeners tolisten to that episode, episode
six in season two, because it'sa fascinating look at how this
issue, thank goodness, isstarting to be studied, but it
(29:22):
shows that the general thinkingwhich those operational and in
the field might be subject to,you know, a large explosion
three times during a six-monthdeployment that's not going to
have the same impact.
And please go back and listento that issue be or that episode
, because it was really, reallyfascinating and really, you know
(29:45):
, it really made me think whenyou said that's when he started
to have real problems yeah.
Frank Larkin (29:51):
So james stone is a pie in here, one of the
pioneers in this, and he's gothis teeth in this like a dog on
a bone, trying to, you know,understand and figure this out,
and I'm glad that you had hadhim on and he's right.
I mean, as we, you know, kindof dug into this, we found out,
(30:18):
at least for the GWAT veteransto assume, that 100% of this
exposure from our weaponssystems and so forth is coming
from the training environment,which is something we can
control.
So this all came to light,larry, when Ryan had to get out.
He was honorably discharged and,to your point, you know, you
(30:40):
know they, basically, you know,you said it perfectly.
You know, uh, you know, we'vedone all we can, can for you.
You know, no easy fix here, wedon't have time for this.
And then it was all aboutgetting them out.
Yeah, and so he honorablydischarged, you know, with the,
with the, you know advice, hey,the VA will do a better job,
(31:01):
they're prepared, they're betterprepared to take care of you
Cause, cause, we've doneeverything we can, yeah, and so
he is out for about a year andhe's, he's gone to the VA, which
is, you know, in itself was achallenge.
I you know, in itself was achallenge.
(31:21):
You know, I think I'm I don'tthink I'm a complete idiot, but
you know I'm trying to shepherdthem through their maze of
bureaucracy.
And here's a guy that had oncebeen, you know, on the top of
the mountain as a highly revereddecorated.
You know SEAL operator nowcan't even organize his way
through the day, let alone tryto figure out the decorated.
You know SEAL operator nowcan't even organize his way
through the day, let alone tryto figure out the VA's.
(31:43):
You know maze of Forms and apps.
Larry Zilliox (31:46):
Of that organization and everything they
throw at you.
Frank Larkin (31:49):
And people that are talking to you have no clue
about what you've been through.
Yeah, and yet are making theseassessments.
Yeah, so you know to him he waslosing, you know he was
becoming disenfranchised, he waslosing trust in them, as he had
with the defense health side ofit when he was in the military.
So we're sitting around a fireone night and something he
(32:13):
constantly was saying that cameback to haunt me and that was
you know, nobody's listening tome.
You know, they just keeptelling me I'm crazy,
something's wrong with my head.
Nobody's listening to me.
And that was reinforced by allthe drugs and so forth that they
had prescribed him over a twoyear period.
(32:34):
You know 40 different.
You know potions, lotions,creams, all the way up to
high-end psychotropics that madehim feel like he wasn't even in
his own body.
And he says to me I'm banged upinside, I don't think I'm going
to live all that long.
And of course, as a father, I'msaying to him hey, look, I'm
(32:54):
here.
I, you know, I got your back.
You know we're swim buddieshere.
I, you know, I got your back.
you know we're swim buddies, youknow we'll get through this.
He says I, I know, I know, dad,I know you're here, but I just,
if anything happens to me, Iwant you to donate my brain or
my body for traumatic braininjury breacher syndrome
research.
And you know, most of yourfolks know that breachers are
(33:15):
those that have the controlledexplosives and they blow through
doors, walls or whatever elseneeds to be popped.
And I said you know, let's,let's not even talk about that.
He says no, dad, you got topromise me.
So I said, yep, I promise, butnothing's going to happen to you
.
And sure enough, a month later,and I had asked him hey, you're
not thinking about hurtingyourself, or?
(33:37):
And he said no, I'll never gothat way.
And unfortunately, about amonth, month and a half later, I
found him in the basement ofour home and he had taken his
life.
He was dressed in a SEAL Team 7T-shirt red, white and blue
board shorts and had illuminateda shadow box I had made for him
(33:58):
with all his medals andinsignias and stuff, and it just
instantly ripped my heart inhalf.
I mean, I have had and I don'twant to sound like I'm beating
my chest or this is notsomething I'm bragging about,
but in my line of work for 35,40 plus years, you know, I've
(34:22):
you know, it's all been aboutsaving other people.
And in the end I couldn't savemy own son and I carry that
burden.
So anyway, we we satisfied hiswish to get and donate his brain
for a research effort that waslooking at blast exposure and
its relationship to traumaticbrain injury.
And two months later theycalled us in and said that you
(34:45):
know, your son Ryan, had anundiagnosed severe case of
microscopic brain injury that isuniquely and they emphasized,
uniquely related to blastexposure.
They said we only see thispattern of injury and those
individuals that have beenexposed to blasts, and it's not
the same as CTE, the chronictraumatic encephalopathy that
(35:08):
you hear from the footballplayers, and the physical impact
of playing sports.
Though it shares the samedisadvantage, you can't see this
in a living person.
Yet we just don't have thetechnology.
And, as I said, he had been toNICO and had all these extensive
tests done and they never sawanything in his brain, even
(35:31):
though he had a whole profile ofexposure to IEDs, to training
with know, training with heavyweapon systems being subjected
to explosions and so forth.
And a lot of the symptoms thathe was manifesting were, you
know, related to, you know,traumatic brain injury.
But guess what?
They're also related to PTSD.
(35:53):
So, because the mental healthcommunity had been.
You know largely, you know theguiding, you know path for a lot
of these, you know treatmentsand assessments and so forth.
Then everything kind of pointedtowards or emphasized was the
PTSD and the mental health themental illness aspect of it.
(36:13):
Sure, so that kind of brokethings open.
So that kind of broke thingsopen and with that information I
went to the SEAL command and Igot to give them great credit,
as much as I had, you know,conflicted emotions in the sense
that, hey, you dudes screwedthis up, you missed the signs,
(36:34):
you were not true to our ethosof not leaving somebody behind
and in some cases because theydidn't know what they didn't
know.
In other cases it was becausethey were trying to do the right
thing, the right way, maybe allthe wrong way.
And then you had thoseindividuals that were more
worried about their rank andcareer and not having to deal
with a broken frogman that justwanted this problem to go away
(36:58):
as fast as they could, you know,kick him to the curb.
But I will say, when I put thisinformation in front of them,
it completely shattered thestory.
Or you know the account ofRyan's death that had been
formulated and I got to givegreat credit to the SEAL Admiral
that was in charge of, and Igot to give great credit to the
(37:19):
SEAL Admiral that was in chargeof the community.
He says there's something here.
This is not what I was told andwe need to dig into this.
And sure enough, the more andmore we got into it, the more we
started to realize there wassomething here.
We need to get it on top of it,need to get it on top of it.
(37:41):
And so, as things started todevelop, you know folks like
Jane Stone got involved from UVA, Dan Pearl, you know a
world-renowned neuropathologistfrom Bethesda, Walter Root, who
discovered this injury.
You got Brian Edlow up inBoston, Mass General, Harvard,
other great researchers andfolks that started dogpiling on,
hey, what's actually going onhere.
(38:03):
So the body of evidence isbuilding and it's bringing a
greater level of attention, notonly, you know, from the outside
centers of excellence that arelooking at this, but within the
Department of Defense, andcertainly Congress has now
picked up on this.
So you know, really, I see, youknow, as far as this blast over
(38:24):
pressure and this brain trauma,the way the greatest wins will
occur in the prevention side.
But in the meantime we've gotpeople that are hurt.
Now We've got to figure out howto better treat them.
Larry Zilliox (38:36):
Yeah, clearly, based on somebody's job
description, their what they do,this needs to be a presumptive
condition.
You can't just wait for somehow, certain symptoms to
materialize.
I think you got to look atthese tier one operators and
anybody in these training roles,whether they're Marines or Air
(38:59):
Force or Navy.
If they're working in a jobthat subjects them to repeated
blast exposure, this is to be apresumptive condition, not only
throughout their medicaltreatment while they're in
service.
But the VA needs to take a lookand start to flag these people
(39:21):
by the job description thatthere's a higher risk for this.
I mean, it's just there'senough evidence out there that
this is an issue that somethinglike that can't be done.
I don't understand why it's notbeing done and, like you say,
because the symptoms parallel,they're being dealt with on a
(39:44):
mental health issue when there'sa lot more going on, and
unfortunately I don't.
I really don't see a solutionto that issue anytime soon.
But I want to.
I want to focus in on theorganization to the Troops First
Foundation and Warrior Call.
Can you tell our listeners alittle bit about what they do
(40:07):
and really what you want them toknow about the Troops First
Foundation and Warrior Call?
Frank Larkin (40:14):
And thank you for the question.
And really, troops First cameabout because of the issues
related to those coming homefrom war and initially it was
focused on taking you know a lotof personalities and so forth
overseas to meet with the troopsto kind of, you know, pump up
(40:34):
their morale and give them youknow something different to
think about, but then evolvedinto a program called Proper
Exit, where Raquel, who is theCEO of Groups, first recognized
that a lot of the folks atWalter Reed all they wanted to
do was go back to their units.
As badly as they were banged up, you know, the one thing they
(40:58):
hadn't come is they want to bereunited with their units and
they had this huge gap becausethey were medevaced off the
battlefield.
They were taken back to youknow a role facility for
treatment and probably owned alawn stool, and back to Bethesda
or down in San Antonio, andthis all happened, like in some
cases within 24 to 48 hours, andanything that was of value to
(41:22):
them, anything that representedwho they were, was cut away on
the battlefield.
They had nothing and no way tocommunicate with their folks and
their teammates had no way tocommunicate with them.
So they came up with thisproper exit, where they started
taking folks back to the wartheater, back to the units, the
areas of operation for thatclosure that they never had when
(41:43):
they were scooped off thebattlefield and that evolved
into some other programs forhousing canine sponsoring folks,
for some therapies and so forth.
And then out of that, just bythe evolution of how things were
progressing, came Warrior Call,which is simply a recognition
(42:04):
that isolation is a huge factorthat we see with veterans that
are in a tough place, lose trustas they lose hope, they slide,
(42:25):
you know, into dark places andthey close off from folks and
from family and they becomeisolated.
And you know, the further theyget into that period of
isolation, the greater thechance that something bad is
going to happen.
And as we came to understandthat our whole objective was to
defeat isolation and we said weneeded to keep this simple and
(42:47):
we needed to deputize people tohelp us, it wasn't going to be
any one organization.
So you had mentioned at thebeginning of this that you have
a similar type of outreachAmerican Leads and some others.
They call different names, butit's really the same concept and
that is hey, reach out to thosethat have served, reach out to
teammates, to first responders,make a call to them, take a call
(43:11):
from them if they're callingyou, because sometimes they just
need to talk to somebody andthen have an honest conversation
.
You know, just kind of see howthey're doing.
You know, and it's something assimple as hey, tommy, I was
just going through.
You know, I saw your name, Ijust thought I'd give you a call
.
I know we haven't talked inyears, but you know, I just
(43:32):
thought, hey, I'll call andwe'll kind of shoot.
You know, shoot the bull for awhile and and and kind of get
that conversation going.
Or you know, sally, you knowyou, you, you see the phone at
Sally calling and you know, youknow you serve together in Iraq.
You know she, she just neededto talk to somebody.
(43:53):
So you're, you know youanswered the phone and and it
just that contact or or or adrive-by visit, you know it,
just a hey, check on it, seewhat's going on.
It's unbelievable how muchfeedback we've gotten from folks
that said that they were in abad, a dark, isolated place and
that phone call, thatconversation whether it was over
(44:16):
the phone or a face-to-facevisit pulled them back from the
edge.
You know, reinforced that one.
They're not alone.
There are people out there thatcare, and that's important, and
that it connects them back totheir tribe that they've gotten
disconnected from, which isreally important to be part of a
tribe, to remain part ofsomething, to be part of a tribe
(44:37):
, to remain part of something.
And then, you know, to havehope.
Have hope and understand thatthere are people working they're
there, interested in helpingthem that are working on these
issues.
At times, you know, it doesn'tmove as fast as we want it to,
but it's moving.
(44:57):
Move as fast as we wanted to,but it's moving.
And so that's where we'retrying to generate this momentum
with all the foundations, theVSOs, just to kind of make this
like part of our culture, tomake these calls to honor those
that have served in uniform,like I said, whether it's a
military uniform or as a firstresponder, because you remember,
(45:18):
there are domestic warriors.
Our first responders are thosethat are operating inside the
wire and they deal with justsome unbelievable challenges
themselves.
So that's essentially whatWarrior Call is.
We have a National Warrior CallDay, which is just a kind of a
(45:38):
mark in the sand.
It's the first Sunday afterVeterans Day, but we really want
this to be a unity of effortwith all the VSOs, all the
foundations that kind of, pushthis out to their membership, to
their listeners, and say, hey,I'm going to be part of this.
This is too easy to pick up myphone and call a buddy.
Larry Zilliox (45:58):
Yeah, yeah for sure.
Well, listeners, the firstthing I want you to do is visit
the webpage, and it'swarriorcallorg O-R-G.
Take a look at it and thinkabout you know how you can help.
Then go over totroopsfirstfoundationorg, which
(46:18):
is basically the parentorganization of Warrior Call,
and it's there that you're goingto see that red donate button
that you see on every VSOwebpage out there.
I want you to bang on it andgive whatever you can I know
that you hear me say this forevery nonprofit that comes on,
(46:39):
but they all need money.
This isn't free and please, youknow, hit that donate button.
Check out every inch of thesewebpages, because there's some
really valuable resources thereand information.
And look, if you're part of aLegion or VFW post, share it
(46:59):
with your members.
Get the word out.
A lot of it's very similar toour program that we have here,
which is instructions on how tosave 988 plus one in an Android
(47:23):
phone or an iPhone, and what wewant our veterans to do is save
that number in their buddy'sphone and use those instructions
.
If you're not in the area here,you can download that brochure
right on our webpage.
It'll tell you how to save thatnumber.
Put it in your buddy's phoneand say look, if you're having a
bad day, call me.
If I don't answer, don't gothrough with what you're
(47:44):
thinking.
Press this button and talk to aVA counselor.
So please check out WarriorCall, share it, and they're just
doing amazing work and savingone life at a time.
It's convincing people to put apause in that thought process
(48:06):
and you can do that by reachingout and calling people you
served with.
It's that simple, really.
What's the one thing that youwant our listeners to know the
most about?
Troops First Foundation andWarrior Call.
Frank Larkin (48:21):
Well, one of the things we hadn't talked about
that is part of the calculushere is that we're trying to
influence some legislativechange and so forth.
That helps to focus more onwhat we've been talking about
Not only the blast over pressureand invisible wounds, but
really the need to not leave anymore of our veterans behind.
(48:43):
And you talked about the VA.
You know whether it's defensedepartment or the VA.
We've got to help them succeed.
And right now there's a big gapbetween the information sharing
between the defense departmentand the VA that we're trying to
work on right now with improvingtheir case management system as
(49:03):
far as health records, makingit across that canyon that
exists right now between Defense, health and the VA, because a
lot of our veterans complainabout that.
Hey, you know I have to keeptelling my story over and over
again when I go to the VA andthere's no continuity, and you
know.
So we're trying to help withthat.
(49:25):
There's some legislation comingout that is going to hopefully
direct the VA to take a moreaggressive role towards these
invisible wounds and blast overpressure considerations beyond
just the mental health, becausethey go hand in hand.
It's not one or the other, butagain, it's really our efforts
now are to get together withorganizations like Willing
(49:46):
Warriors and others.
The big idea, so, is to have aunity of effort to kind of
harmonize our voice so that wecan get the attention of
Congress, we can get theattention of the administration
and their departments, so thatwe can solve this and that you
know we are not leaving a hugedebris field behind us as a
(50:10):
consequence of all these men andwomen who stood up and raised
their right hand to serve thisnation and protect our values
and ensure our security.
So, you know, as far as troopsfirst and warrior call, that's
what we're pointed at.
We're trying to keep it simplebut yet be the voice of the
veterans, much like yourorganization and others that you
(50:30):
know, keep moving the ballforward and hopefully slap the
table one day and say you know,we have zero suicides.
We have, you know.
We figured this out and I do.
One's too many.
One suicide is too many.
The other thing I would say isour solutions have to be kind of
configured for one size fitsone, not one size fits all,
(50:54):
which means and you brought thisup and it's very, very much a
factor we have to learn how tolisten to these folks.
And they're not broken, they'renot damaged goods.
They're hurt, they're injured,so let's help them heal.
Larry Zilliox (51:09):
Yeah, it's an injury that results from combat.
There's just absolutely nodoubt about it and it's got to
be really viewed as though it'sthe same as if somebody lost an
arm or a leg.
It's an injury and it needs tobe treated.
So much more can be done and Itell you I really appreciate all
(51:31):
the work that you guys aredoing and just getting the word
out.
It's huge and listeners, youknow, call your congressperson
and they all have a veteranliaison somebody in their office
that all they do is deal withveteran issues.
Find out who that is and sendthem links.
(51:51):
Send them a link to the podcastand say, hey, you need to pay
attention to this.
Send them information about DrStone's work and email them and
get on a first name basis withthem.
Share as much information asyou can with them about what's
going on in your community whenit comes to veteran affairs.
Because it comes down to money.
(52:12):
It's all about funding and wecan talk till we're blue in the
face and we can wish that thiskind of research is done, but
unless Congress actually fundsit, unless they give money to
the VA that's earmarked forresearch about this, it's not
going to happen.
(52:33):
That money will be spentelsewhere.
So, if you're going to talk toyour congressional
representatives, focus in onfunding and say this is a
problem, it needs research andthat research needs funding.
What are you going to do tomake that happen?
(52:53):
So please reach out to yourrepresentatives and send them
information and say this is aserious problem.
It needs to be dealt with.
Frank, I can't thank you enoughfor coming on today and talking
about your story and I know Ispeak for our listeners about.
(53:16):
We're just devastated by theloss of your son and he's such a
patriot and an amazing youngman that sacrificed for his
country and we're just sorry youhad to go through that.
Frank Larkin (53:32):
Well, you know, this is all about, you know,
preventing others from having towalk this path of pain, and
it's very refreshing to talk tosomeone like you who gets it.
I want to tell you, you know,express to your listeners that
you know, larry, you get it.
You've obviously, you know,stitched this together.
(53:52):
You know the right way.
You're spot on with yourassessments.
I look forward to working withyou in the future.
I hope that, again,collectively, as I said, we can
influence the changes, so thatyou know we take care of those
who took care of us.
Larry Zilliox (54:12):
Yeah, for sure.
Well, I know I'm a commissioneron the local county veterans
commission and we'll be talkingabout this at our next meeting
for sure.
So really, I appreciate it somuch.
Thank you for coming on.
Frank Larkin (54:27):
You bet, and thank you to your listeners too.
Have a great day.
Larry Zilliox (54:30):
Yeah.
So hey, listeners, we'll haveanother episode next Monday
morning.
In fact, we're going to startup our series again on Northern
(54:50):
Virginia Military Museums with.
Our guest will be Gary PowersJr, who started the Cold War
Museum over in Vent Hill, wasshot down over Russia and maybe
most of our listeners know hisstory from the Tom Hanks movie
Bridge of Spies.
But Gary will be with us nextweek for a great episode.
So until then, you can find uson all major podcast platforms.
(55:15):
We're on YouTube and WreathsAcross America Radio.
So thanks for listening.
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