Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Advice, love for their country, just unselfishness. All that they
do for us. There are some people in this country
who take extraordinary steps to provide for the freedom and security.
We forget that those people exist.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
We know them as the Army, Navy, air Force, Marines,
and Coast Guard. They call themselves soldiers, seals, rangers, airmen, sailors.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Devil dogs, and so much more.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
We call them fathers, brothers, sons and husbands, mothers, daughters,
sisters and wives. We call them friend and neighbor. These
veterans answered the call. Now we answer theirs, and they
are the best our country has to offer, and we
(00:49):
love them. Today, we honor them and we serve them.
David Malsby is your host, and he welcomes you to
this community of veterans. As together we are building the
road to hope, and indeed we are.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Glad to have you along. On a Sunday afternoon on
the KPC the nine to five oh when the am dial,
Thank you for joining us as you, whatever you do
on Sunday, drive endlessly around sixteen the Loop or ninety
nine the Grand Parkway, drive that thing forever anyway, Thank
you for joining us, those of you listening through the
(01:31):
magic of podcasts. Wherever you listen to podcasts, just look
for Road to Hope Radio. There we are cool thing
about it. Like everything we do at the PTSD Foundation
of America, absolutely free. So wherever you listen to podcasts,
just look for Road to Hope Radio. There's I don't know,
eight and a half years a show of something like
that now, So a lot of stories and a lot
(01:52):
of hope, and we want to spread that as far
and as wide as possible. So when you hit that
subscribe button, we truly do appreciate it and share that
with your friends, enemies, neighbors, former neighbors, whoever. Everybody could
use a little bit of hope. So thank you so
very very much for sharing Road to Hope Radio. Glad
(02:12):
to have the sponsors who make this time together possible.
Very grateful for our friends Billy and Connie Stagner a
Corey Diamond Design. Now, look, it's the last couple of
days we're we're all on Christmas.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It's time and.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
You don't want to go to them all for that
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two eight one four two forty seven fifty five. They're
gonna take great care of and you're gonna be doing
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At the PTSD Foundation of American Campo oopsteam dot com.
I'm pretty sure they can still get out there and
(02:48):
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two two zero five six one. We keep them on
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(03:09):
to be yours for your dream home, Republic Grand Ranch
dot com. If you go look at it during this
month of December, just.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Going and.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Signing in, letting one of them show you around Republic
Grand Ranch dot com, you will get to be a
part of one hundred dollars donation made by Republic Grand
Ranch dot Com to PTSD Foundation of America. No money
out of your pocket. They're just going to make the
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(03:45):
first responders, law enforcement that live out there. It's just
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hundred dollars donation. All Right, we got a couple of
(04:07):
combat bits with us through today. Glad to have you back. Jeremy,
want to reintroduce yourself to the world.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Are you all right?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Well, you know everybody's you know, stay talking to the
whole Everyone on the planet's listening to me right now. Yeah,
I'm Jeremy.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
I served in the Army, retired six deployments, came down
to Camp Hope, was a mentor for a little while
at the camp, and then I stepped away for a
couple of years. And now I'm back and I'm super
blessed and happy to be here today.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
And we are glad you're back. What brought you back?
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Honestly, I was. I was sitting in my living room
and uh, I realized that all my friends and uh
and family were over at Camp Hope, and uh, you
know when when the kids are off at school and
the wifes that work and you're, you know, day trading.
(05:07):
It's pretty boring and there's nothing like Actually, I was
sitting in here with uh with Randall talking about some
of the stories that happened over there, and you can
only you can only find that kind of fellowship at
Camp Pope. I haven't been anywhere else like it. So
he brought me back and I'm super blessed to be here.
I'm I'm grateful.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
And I'm grateful you're back. Randall. You mentioned your name,
but you want to introduce yourself of the world.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
I'm Randall Cribs from the Houston area, Katie. To be exact,
I grew up here eighteen years of my life. I
was in the Air Force for six years and then
I went to the dark Side, went to the became
a officer in the Army and infantry officer, went to
(05:57):
ranger school and my life has come full circle and
has led me to Camp Hope. And I was I
was a little apprehensive when I got to camp, but
you know, I've been here for about three months now
and like like Jeremy was saying, just just super blessed
(06:19):
to have the opportunity to be around a lot of
combat vets, a lot of stories and experiences and just
to reset my life and you know, get this PTSD
thing under under control, because uh, it's it's not easy.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeah, And we're gonna talk a little bit about that journey,
what that's looked like for you. A reminder as we
go through these stories and share some of what's happening
at the PTSD Foundation America and and what's going on
with our veterans, some of these things can be triggering.
So once you make sure you have our Combat Trauma
Crisis Line number in your phone. You may never need it,
(07:05):
you may come across someone who does, and then you're
gonna wish you had it. So put it in the
phone now eight seven seven seven one seven seventy eight
seventy three. A combat veteran will answer the phone, and
that means the world to the one who's making the call.
Combat that's going to answer the phone when you call
eight seven seven seven one seven seventy eight seventy three.
(07:29):
The website's PTSDUSA dot org, PTSD USA on Facebook, Instagram,
and x formerly known as Twitter.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
We'll be right back with more of road de Hope
Radio and welcome you back to uh well.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Do a'm don this well do a Lifesaver waray Today
for those listening on radio. This won't be necessarily true
for anybody listening by podcast, but today those listening on
radio is also the on campus Christmas pro Program party
for our residents. A lot of family members in for
(08:21):
this Christmas season to see their loved one and our
awesome friends at Republic Republican Ransom sitting here reading that.
At Federal American Grill, Matt Bryce, the owner always looking
for ways to support what we're doing at Camp Hope,
and he's constantly asking how things going, and what's going on?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
What do you need?
Speaker 3 (08:40):
How can I help? So they provide the meal for
everybody today and man, Christmas presents everywhere we shipped I
forget now exactly how many toys or how many even
boxes of toys. I think we shipped to something like
fifty fans. Emilies might be more than that across the country.
(09:05):
So that's veterans who are part of our program, and
we want to make sure that their families are taken
care of for the Christmas season. So we ship gifts.
We've got bicycles everywhere. A great day on campus, but
a big, big thank you to Matt Brice and all
the great people at Federal American Grill. I mean, we
(09:25):
tell them, look, you can just you know, we can
come pick up the food. You know, whatever, no, no, no
where kind of come out and we're going to serve
the guys. We want to do our part and we
want them to know that we love and care for
them and may not know their names, but we want
to support them. So big, big thank you to our
friends at Federal American Grill. They're just fantastic people and
faithful supporters of PTSD Foundation of American Camp Hope. The
(09:49):
Freedom Burger is awesome when you order it. Dollar donations
made to PTSD Foundation. So next time you're craving a burger,
like not fast food, this is like a legit rid,
really good burger and you're gonna enjoy it. You're gonna
have some great service and a great atmosphere. Thank you,
Matt Bryce and all the folks at Federal American Grill
(10:10):
all right round. She grew up in the Houston area
high school what was high school for you?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
High school was a lot of sports, played football, baseball,
and ran track, which was your best football? That was
my passion position. I played quarterback. Oh really, yes, sir,
you any good at it? You must have been.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I've never met a quarterback, so no, it's just so
so they all think they're the best.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
We had a pretty good running back, so a lot
of times on third down and fifteen it was like
a pitch it to Jerome, you know. But I had
a pretty good arm on me. And you know my coach,
Joe Sheffey, he's Houston Katie legend. He was a great mentor.
(11:01):
And he he uh he he gave it to you
like like a mentor, should you know. He was honest
with you and and he was a great great man,
still is a great man. I think he retired from
Katie Taylor High School coaching. I went to Mad Creek. Uh.
But like when I when I went to high school,
(11:23):
there's there's probably ten or twelve high schools in Katie
Now it was it was three high schools when back
in when I graduated in ninety four, it was Mad Creek,
Taylor and Katie High School. But it was a great
I mean, I had an amazing, amazing time in high school.
It was a great area. To grow up in you
(11:45):
know a lot of good friends, and you know it
was before Facebook and the cell phone. So uh, you know,
if if you didn't if you didn't catch us at
home or at work, you didn't catch us on the phone,
we were we were running the running, running the streets.
Uh and uh getting into some not not bad trouble,
(12:11):
but you know, getting into good clean trouble. I guess
you could.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Say good clean trouble. Yeah, all right, interesting way to
put Jeremy play football.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I did play football. What position you play?
Speaker 5 (12:22):
Well, so I grew up in Iowa, so we had
to play the whole game, so it would be yeah, yeah,
typically I was I would play pointing guard and then
uh actually I played defensive tackle my senior year, which
if you could see me right now, you be surprised
at that. I'm not not that large. But uh yeah,
(12:46):
my junior year we went to state. We were the
state runners up.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah it was.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
It was a good experience for me. But it ended
at high school.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah just for most Uh yeah, well quarterback in a
major school in Houston, that says it gives us anyone
that's familiar with Texas football gets you a sense of Yeah,
it was your identity.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, we were. We were five A back then. Now
they have six A high schools in Texas. But you know,
I remember Channel eleven used to have the game of
the week and they used to fly their helicopter out
to our practice field and you know, we we played
Katie High School. We were at probably six or seven
(13:35):
and one at the time and Katie was Katie's always
eight o seven And so they flew out and they
interviewed some of the players on my team, and they
came out and shot some of the game out at
Rhodes Stadium. And Katie Now they got a big, nice
new stadium next to Rhodes. Yeah, cons about that, Yeah, yeah,
(13:58):
but yeah, it was. It was a great time. I mean,
like you know, pastor like, uh, Friday nights Katie shuts
down right, It is a definitely thing. It definitely is
Friday night lights here in the state of Texas.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Okay, So you finished high school, did you go right
into the Air Force?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I did. I went to I went in on delayed enlistment, gotcha,
and uh I went in. My dad was an MP
in the Army, and I went into the Air Force.
But choose air Force? You know, I maybe that was
kind of my thought process. But uh, funny story. I
(14:39):
do a complete basic training and uh I would complete
my tech school and I go home on leave and
the Navy recruiter calls my house and he's like, hey, crabs,
are you still interested in joining the Navy? And I'm like, man,
I'm already in the Air Force. Like I've been in
the Air Force for like six months now. So uh yeah,
I went into the Air Force, UH guaranteed job as
(15:03):
a security They called them security police back then. Now
they're called the security forces. But uh, during basic I
met a I met one of my fellow airman and
he told me he was going through uh what they
call combat control pair rescue. So I decided to give
that a try. And there was a you know PT
(15:27):
test and a swim uh that went along with that,
and I barely made the swim. I was. I was
not a swimmer in high school. I My swimming career
consisted of going to the pool on during the summer
and uh, you know, having fun with the with with
(15:48):
my friends. But I barely made the swim. So I
go in. I went into that and I became a
jay tach, a Joint Tactical Air Controller in the Air Force.
And so yeah, I did. I did, uh like almost
(16:08):
five years at at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia,
and then uh, and then I went to Korea for
a year.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
How'd you like that?
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Korea was fun? Uh. It was before nine to eleven,
so with other of the the security, uh in that
area of the world was a lot more relaxed. But
we'd make frequent trips down to Seul, Korea, which was uh,
it was you know, it was someone from that had
never been outside the outside of Texas. That was that
(16:40):
was that was fun for me, absolutely, yes, sir.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah, get to see a little bit of the world,
which is very very cool. All right, So just a
reminder you can follow us uh social media PTSD us
A Facebook, Instagram and x Instagram, YouTube, Instagram or PTSD
Foundation of America the radio show. Just look for Road
(17:03):
to Hope Radio on Facebook and again wherever you listen
to podcasts, Look, it's free and we're gonna get into
a little bit of the story here of what has
brought Randall to Camp Hope. And these stories are a
little you know, they're never fun. No one ever comes
into Camp Hope on a winning streak. So there's some
(17:25):
difficulties there. And the two guys that are in the
room with me today have gone through that, they are
going through it, and there are others out there. We
need you to be aware. We need the community to
be aware. We need the community to share that there's
a place in Houston, Texas called Camp Hope that is
absolutely a part of changing and saving some life. So
thank you for listening, thanks for sharing. We're going to
take a quick break. We'll be right back with more.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Hope.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Everybody's ready for Christmas again. Reminder if you're a one
of those procrastionaires, you're down to the last minute. The
Corey Diamond Design all kinds of great gift ideas for
that someone's special, much better idea than going to the mall.
Don't do it, just don't do it. With Corey Diamond
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of you and oopsteam dot com. Get ready for the
(18:34):
party or to clean up after everybody's gone home. Like
you know the thing, it's always good to see him
come and better to see him go.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
I don't know if that's the case for you or not,
but usually when they go, there's you know, somebody spilled
the gravy. Hopefully it wouldn't you, Jeremy, but somebody spilled
the grave. You got somebody got to get to get
that cleaned up. Oopsteain dot com. And between Christmas and
New Year, got a little extra time. Take a little
stroll out to the public grand ranch and you might
(19:02):
like what you see. And then if you say, you know,
I wish I could, but yeah, I'm just not ready
for that.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
It's all right.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
I'm just going to take a look. One hundred dollars
donation made to the PTSD Foundation of America, and you
get to be a part of it just by going
to take a look. So thanks very very much for
doing so. All right, So you're into the Air Force.
Five years in Georgia, year in Korea. Why'd you make
the switch to the Army?
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Well, my dad played basketball in San Marcos at Southwest
Texas State University, and I wanted to live the college life.
So I went up there and started school school there
and then two years there and then transferred to UTSA
in San Antonio, and I actually got into the Army
(19:57):
on a dare I I met, I met a recruiter
and he said, do you have your college degree? And
I said yes, and he said I could have you
at Officer Cannet School in a month, and I Uh,
I called him on his on his uh, on his bet,
and UH. Sure enough, I ended up in OCS and
(20:19):
graduated OCS Officer Cannet School and got my commissioned as
a second lieutenant, went to IOBC and UH at Fort Benning, Georgia.
I had already had my jump wings from the Air
Force and UH and then after IOBC is Infantry Basic
Officer Leadership course, graduated that course between became an infantry officer.
(20:44):
And then a week after that, I was at Ranger
School at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
And so what year was this when you switched the army.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
That was in two thousand and six, right, And I
was I was a little bit older. I was one
of the old there ranger students in my class. And
I had it in my mind Ranger school is sixty
one days, and I had it in my mind if
I was gonna recycle anything, I was gonna quit. Uh.
And luckily I made it through all all of the
(21:16):
you know, you start Ranger school and at Fort Benning
it's called Darby. And then you get a mountain phase
in Delanaa, Georgia, and then you go down to Eggland
Air Force Base and for swamp Phase and UH at
Eggland Air Force Base in Florida. So completed that school
and then came back, came back home to Texas and
(21:40):
and then that's when I started deploying to Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
When you signed up for the Army, you had to
assume two thousand and six you're going to get deployed,
So you had to kind of, at least in your
forefront of mind, have a pretty good idea.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I did. I had done some to two tours in
cool eight before it was right after Desert Storm, right
before nine to eleven, did due to two three month
tours in Kuwait, and then I did six months in
Saravi Bosnia, So I knew what kind of what deploying
(22:16):
was all about, you know, being I was working as
a I was working at It was basically like the
Air Traffic Control Center in Sarajevo. We would pass sorties
off to the different j TAG teams in the field
and they would control close air support for infantry or
(22:39):
ground units in Bosnia.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
When you deployed to Afghanistan.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I did in two thousand and eleven. Was my first
tour in Afghanistan. So you did more? Yeah, I just
did two. I'm into Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
How long were your deployments.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
They were nine to twelve months and we were up
an RC East uh in Kunar Province, which if you're
not familiar, they call it the Hornet's Nest and the
Hindukush mountains. Uh So pretty kinetic up there. A lot
of troops in contact, a lot of firefights. Never ran
(23:18):
into any I eds, but I was a platoon leader
at the time, and I would not go anywhere unless
we're oute clearance had gone through at least an hour before.
I was pretty you know. Some some instances, you it's
a call you you can't you can't make, you know,
you have to make to go out. But usually i'd
(23:41):
have route clearance go out before us, before any of
our convoys or anything, because my goal was to bring
all my guys home. Like I uh, yeah, I I.
I was a kind of a platoon leader where I
cared I would go to bat for any of my guys,
(24:02):
and I led from the front right. I wouldn't I
wouldn't never hear. The kind of motto I lived by
was I would never ask any of my guys to
do something that I wouldn't do myself. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, Well, when you soon to learn where you went
to high school and you were a quarterback there, I
kind of knew there's I got a pretty good idea
of the personality that's going on here. So what you
just said, is it not surprising at all? Obviously high
school football and being in the Hornets Nests is not
comparable in any way, shape or form. But you are
(24:37):
who you are.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, that's very true. And you know, there's things that
I saw in Afghanistan that I wouldn't wish on my
worst enemy, and it's something that has brought me to
Camp Hope.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Okay, And I don't want to get into any kind
of the detail on that at all, but just for
folks listening that you know, you know, we've been out
of Afghanistan for a few years now, they're not really
sure what all that. Okay, So so you hear the
(25:19):
story you just mentioned the things you saw, well, and
I don't want again, I don't want detail, but just
an idea of what that is about. Detail about what
you actually saw, but just an idea.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And and a conversation. Jeremy and I had lunch today
in a conversation that we went to Rudy's there you go, right,
And I told him that I asked him if he
knew where the first Rudies was. That was in New Bronfels, Texas.
I didn't know that used to be a gas station.
(25:53):
Oh yeah, so hey, I interrupted you, Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy
and I have had a very good conversation. Is that
when you're in that type of environment and you come
home and you get out of the military, you you
you find like you're always searching for something, right, You're
(26:14):
always searching for purpose and sometimes, uh, civilian life doesn't
give you that. So uh like myself and I don't mind,
I'm I don't wear the badge proudly, but I suffer
from addiction. Right, So when you come home and you
(26:36):
don't really have a purpose, h you know you can
get you can get caught up what the devil has
in store for you, which would me was alcohol, and
you know you could that's a very slippery slippery slope
when uh, when you're dealing with PTSD, undiagnosed like I
(26:59):
was at the time. Uh, not having a sense of
purpose and you know, dealing with an addiction like I had.
You know, that's that's a downhill slide that that can
take take take toll on you pretty quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
In Germany we talked about that a lot. It's PTSD
in ways kind of like, Uh, there's some comparisons you
could do to for instance, cancer, Uh, cancer, we always
often hear stage one, two, three, four. Uh, you could
do something similar to that with PTSD. Some people have
some mild symptoms of PTSD. Some it's on fire, it's flaming,
(27:39):
it's it's out of control. And also diagnosed and properly treated.
In many cases, with cancer, life can be saved, body
parts can be saved. Left undiagnosed, untreated, it can become deadly.
SAME's true with with PTSD. We see that around the
(28:00):
place all the time. Guys that just they let it go. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
And I know for me, like my situation is slightly different.
Randall and I actually have a lot in common. I
wasn't an officer, but the ranger experience and the deployments
and seeing those things, and I actually was diagnosed with
PTSD while I was still in the Army and we
were talking about this.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Earlier.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
I had a plan to commit suicide and I was
gonna follow through with it and involved the fifth of
jim Bean while I was at work, and you know,
I thank god he intervened. But they sent me to
treatment and I'm in treatment and the ladies like asking
me questions and I can't hold it together.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
And we'll come back to that, sir, that treatment moment.
Gotta take one more break.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
We'll come back with more of roadho Bradio.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
We got a lot of groundcovers. You're going to hop
on it real quick. But I want you to wrap
up that thought. And you were communicating you were in
that uh situation, the fifth foot gym down. You're going
to kill yourself? Ye, go into treatment.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
Yeah, they sent me to treatment and they made me
talk to a shrink and I'm sitting there talking to
him and they're asking me questions about war and uh,
I couldn't hold it together and they're like, yeah, you
have PTSD and I refuse to accept it at that point.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Well, but you bring up a point when we have
time to delve into it. I do I want to
at least mention it. And I want to get back
and talk to uh Randall about what brought him to us.
But they made you talk to a clinician or whatever
word it was a counselor or a therapist, right, yeah, yeah,
because they made you do that, right yeah, right, And
(30:03):
it's a therapists and they have a part, they have
a part of Camp Hope, right, But the DNA is
the peer to peer and that's the.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
Difference, absolutely, And that was that was the thing. Like
I was in the military, I stayed in for a
couple of years longer than that, and then I retired
and my life rapidly fell apart. I was only out
of the military, probably about six months total before I
came to Camp Hope. In and out of treatment facilities
detoc centers. Which is an unusual story, right, right, most
(30:37):
of the guys come into are there's some there's some time.
Just for instance, for you, when did you get out
of the Air Force?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
I got out of the Air Force in the year
of two thousand, I mean, I'm sorry, the Army. I
got out of the Army in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Seventeen, so that's a few years from your latest deployment.
So I'm guessing you already had some symptoms.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, And you know, like I was sharing with Jeremy,
is it took me a long time to go to
the VA because I thought that the VA was only
for guys who you know, lost limbs, and I never
I never knew about the mental aspect and of PTSD
(31:19):
and how it can affect your life.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
So which tells me again a subject we talk a
lot around here. Six months or a year, they train
you to go, and that you know when it's time
to go, you go. They know there's no here's what
you need to know, right Like, if that's not even
on your radar at all, then hey, this could happen.
This is what you need to be aware of. This
is what you need to do. Over time, it's brought
(31:45):
you to a place where now you've been at Camp
Hope the last three months.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, what happened. And Jeremy and you know this saying
that nobody comes to Camp Hope on a winning street,
right right, But.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
We want to change that. I want to change it
before you leave.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
No, and you know, I was very apprehensive to the
program when I came because of because of it being
such a intensive program. I mean it's it's six months,
six to eight months. It's no small commitment, right, And
(32:22):
but I will tell you this pastor that Camp Hope
has changed my life and I and I have been
sober from alcohol for about over a year when I
came to camp, so that was already done. Okay.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
So you say, well, yeah, it's always it's a.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Day to day thing.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
I get that, But I mean you were already in that.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Right, yeah, but you know, there was other aspects of
my life that were falling apart, and I didn't. I
couldn't see that, like I couldn't see that about me
that other people were seeing about me. And I'll I'll
let the listeners know. I came here court ordered from
(33:06):
the Bear County Veterans Court, and so I was I
was very agitated that I was sent here. But they
saw something from me that they thought that I needed
to change. And I see that what they saw. I
(33:26):
see that myself now after being at Camp Hope for
three months, and I and I still you know, I
had a a session with my counselor today and he
asked me, he said, Randall, he said, you know, what
does your life look like after camp Hope, and I said,
it doesn't. You know, the working on myself doesn't stop
(33:47):
at camp. It's something that I needed, it that I
need to continue when I leave the leave the front
gate and I and Jeremy and I were talking about
this is that you know PTSD. You might not be
able to see it and touch it right, but it's
something that's there with combat vets.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
No doubt studies cells who are losing up to forty
four veterans every single day. That's between actual suicide, overdose addiction.
It's a culmination of a few things, but all forty
four of those are preventable, and that's the part that hurts.
So we didn't have to happen. And we've got to
do everything we can as an organization to do that.
(34:33):
And part of that is just bringing the awareness. As
part of the reason for this show, we want veterans
who are struggling like you were, to hear about us
before they become a statistic. We want family members who
are watching their loved ones spiral into that darkness and
that addiction. We want them to be aware there's help.
We have family services, we have a team that's dedicated
to the family, just like we mentioned earlier, and we
(34:54):
packaged up Christmas kiss and send them all across the
country because we want to take care of the family
while we're doing what we can to serve the veterans.
So there's so many aspects to what we do and
it takes so many hands, but it is a very
comprehensive program. It's a zero cost to the veteran or family.
You don't have to write a check for anything. I
(35:15):
just have a minute. But you made a comment, and
I want you to explain what you mean by because
it can be a little different for everybody. But you
said Camp Hope has changed your life, So to you,
what does that mean? What does that look like for you?
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Right? And one thing I'd like to say a pastor
is I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the families
that support us well camp. Like I was newly married
and my wife has been there every step of the way.
So you know, it's one of the hardest jobs, probably
(35:52):
they say in the military, is to be a wife,
a girlfriend, a spouse of a vet or a husband
or because we do have a lot of females that
deal with PTSD also. But the way it's changed my
life is that you mentioned the peer to peer aspect
(36:15):
of Camp Hope. There's all so many great people that
work there. But then there's also that peer to peer
aspect that you live with ten to twelve guys in
a bay and we help each other out. We might
not always get along, but we find that conflict resolution
and we we learn how to to deal with life
(36:38):
on life's terms.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah, and I just want to congratulate you on what
you have accomplished to this point and beg you to
not stop till you finished nothing. As the saying goes
around camp, it's not a saying I use a lot
by shut an awful lot. Don't leave till the miracle happens.
(37:01):
And I get exactly what they mean by that. So
I'm not against it, but you understand that, like, don't
do it, Just don't do it.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Oh, there's been more than a couple of times where I,
you know, I've had to go to my mentor and
be like, I went out of this place, even though
in court ordered I went out, you know, but.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Completely understand it. Yeah, you have to be around there,
But anyway, thank you for what you're doing. Keep doing it,
don't give up. I know everybody wants to be home
for the holidays. Man, I get it, hollidays tugging me too.
But finish what you've begun, Jeremy. Thanks for what you
do each and every day. Super grateful that you're back
and doing what you do. You can do it a
thousand times better than I ever could possibly do it
(37:43):
as a civilian. So I'm so grateful for what you
do each and every day. Grateful for all of our sponsors,
all of our friends, our supporters. As we enter this
week of Christmas, so many thoughts come to mind, so
many cliches come to mind. I'll be home for Christmas
and all that. Just know that we at the Foundation
(38:05):
are grateful for our friends, our supporters, our volunteers, our
staff that do so so very much for so very little,
and a lot of frustration along the way. Just so
very grateful. But to each and every one of you,
I hope you know and understand the peace that comes
from knowing the real reason for Christmas, the birth of
(38:26):
our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
There is peace no matter what's going on around you,
no matter how storm tossed life may be. At the
moment there can be peace found in the person of
Jesus Christ, and we pray this Christmas season you don't
miss that for all the lights and the glitter and
(38:46):
the packages, but we do hope you have a wonderful
Christmas and a great new Year. Looking forward to twenty
twenty six and what's up in front of us. Thank
you for joining us, look forward to being with you
again next week.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
For more of Road to Hope Radio, be
Advice, love for their country, just unselfishness. All that they
do for us. There are some people in this country
who take extraordinary steps to provide for the freedom and security.
We forget that those people exist.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
We know them as the Army, Navy, air Force, Marines,
and Coast Guard. They call themselves soldiers, seals, rangers, airmen, sailors.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Devil dogs, and so much more.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
We call them fathers, brothers, sons and husbands, mothers, daughters,
sisters and wives. We call them friend and neighbor. These
veterans answered the call. Now we answer theirs, and they
are the best our country has to offer, and we
(00:49):
love them. Today, we honor them and we serve them.
David Malsby is your host, and he welcomes you to
this community of veterans. As together we are building the
road to hope, and indeed we are.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Glad to have you along. On a Sunday afternoon on
the KPC the nine to five oh when the am dial,
Thank you for joining us as you, whatever you do
on Sunday, drive endlessly around sixteen the Loop or ninety
nine the Grand Parkway, drive that thing forever anyway, Thank
you for joining us, those of you listening through the
(01:31):
magic of podcasts. Wherever you listen to podcasts, just look
for Road to Hope Radio. There we are cool thing
about it. Like everything we do at the PTSD Foundation
of America, absolutely free. So wherever you listen to podcasts,
just look for Road to Hope Radio. There's I don't know,
eight and a half years a show of something like
that now, So a lot of stories and a lot
(01:52):
of hope, and we want to spread that as far
and as wide as possible. So when you hit that
subscribe button, we truly do appreciate it and share that
with your friends, enemies, neighbors, former neighbors, whoever. Everybody could
use a little bit of hope. So thank you so
very very much for sharing Road to Hope Radio. Glad
(02:12):
to have the sponsors who make this time together possible.
Very grateful for our friends Billy and Connie Stagner a
Corey Diamond Design. Now, look, it's the last couple of
days we're we're all on Christmas.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It's time and.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
You don't want to go to them all for that
someone's special life. So a cory A c R I
two eight one four two forty seven fifty five. They're
gonna take great care of and you're gonna be doing
business with people that share your values and support our veterans.
At the PTSD Foundation of American Campo oopsteam dot com.
I'm pretty sure they can still get out there and
(02:48):
get your place ready for Christmas. Two eight one eight
two two zero five six one. We keep them on
speed dial again. Great people can invite some people into
you're a home that's our strangers. Do it with the
company you can trust, oopsteam dot com and when you're
ready to buy that that piece of Texas that's going
(03:09):
to be yours for your dream home, Republic Grand Ranch
dot com. If you go look at it during this
month of December, just.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Going and.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Signing in, letting one of them show you around Republic
Grand Ranch dot com, you will get to be a
part of one hundred dollars donation made by Republic Grand
Ranch dot Com to PTSD Foundation of America. No money
out of your pocket. They're just going to make the
donation because you went out to take a look, and
once you do, you're going to see it is absolutely beautiful,
great community, great people, law of a lot of veterans,
(03:45):
first responders, law enforcement that live out there. It's just
a great community, great people, and absolutely beautiful. So folks
that aren't familiar with the with the Sam Houston Forest
area of our great state don't realize was just how
pretty it is out there. So go take a look
the month of December, just looking and they'll make one
hundred dollars donation. All Right, we got a couple of
(04:07):
combat bits with us through today. Glad to have you back. Jeremy,
want to reintroduce yourself to the world.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Are you all right?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Well, you know everybody's you know, stay talking to the
whole Everyone on the planet's listening to me right now. Yeah,
I'm Jeremy.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
I served in the Army, retired six deployments, came down
to Camp Hope, was a mentor for a little while
at the camp, and then I stepped away for a
couple of years. And now I'm back and I'm super
blessed and happy to be here today.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
And we are glad you're back. What brought you back?
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Honestly, I was. I was sitting in my living room
and uh, I realized that all my friends and uh
and family were over at Camp Hope, and uh, you
know when when the kids are off at school and
the wifes that work and you're, you know, day trading.
(05:07):
It's pretty boring and there's nothing like Actually, I was
sitting in here with uh with Randall talking about some
of the stories that happened over there, and you can
only you can only find that kind of fellowship at
Camp Pope. I haven't been anywhere else like it. So
he brought me back and I'm super blessed to be here.
I'm I'm grateful.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
And I'm grateful you're back. Randall. You mentioned your name,
but you want to introduce yourself of the world.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
I'm Randall Cribs from the Houston area, Katie. To be exact,
I grew up here eighteen years of my life. I
was in the Air Force for six years and then
I went to the dark Side, went to the became
a officer in the Army and infantry officer, went to
(05:57):
ranger school and my life has come full circle and
has led me to Camp Hope. And I was I
was a little apprehensive when I got to camp, but
you know, I've been here for about three months now
and like like Jeremy was saying, just just super blessed
(06:19):
to have the opportunity to be around a lot of
combat vets, a lot of stories and experiences and just
to reset my life and you know, get this PTSD
thing under under control, because uh, it's it's not easy.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeah, And we're gonna talk a little bit about that journey,
what that's looked like for you. A reminder as we
go through these stories and share some of what's happening
at the PTSD Foundation America and and what's going on
with our veterans, some of these things can be triggering.
So once you make sure you have our Combat Trauma
Crisis Line number in your phone. You may never need it,
(07:05):
you may come across someone who does, and then you're
gonna wish you had it. So put it in the
phone now eight seven seven seven one seven seventy eight
seventy three. A combat veteran will answer the phone, and
that means the world to the one who's making the call.
Combat that's going to answer the phone when you call
eight seven seven seven one seven seventy eight seventy three.
(07:29):
The website's PTSDUSA dot org, PTSD USA on Facebook, Instagram,
and x formerly known as Twitter.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
We'll be right back with more of road de Hope
Radio and welcome you back to uh well.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Do a'm don this well do a Lifesaver waray Today
for those listening on radio. This won't be necessarily true
for anybody listening by podcast, but today those listening on
radio is also the on campus Christmas pro Program party
for our residents. A lot of family members in for
(08:21):
this Christmas season to see their loved one and our
awesome friends at Republic Republican Ransom sitting here reading that.
At Federal American Grill, Matt Bryce, the owner always looking
for ways to support what we're doing at Camp Hope,
and he's constantly asking how things going, and what's going on?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
What do you need?
Speaker 3 (08:40):
How can I help? So they provide the meal for
everybody today and man, Christmas presents everywhere we shipped I
forget now exactly how many toys or how many even
boxes of toys. I think we shipped to something like
fifty fans. Emilies might be more than that across the country.
(09:05):
So that's veterans who are part of our program, and
we want to make sure that their families are taken
care of for the Christmas season. So we ship gifts.
We've got bicycles everywhere. A great day on campus, but
a big, big thank you to Matt Brice and all
the great people at Federal American Grill. I mean, we
(09:25):
tell them, look, you can just you know, we can
come pick up the food. You know, whatever, no, no, no
where kind of come out and we're going to serve
the guys. We want to do our part and we
want them to know that we love and care for
them and may not know their names, but we want
to support them. So big, big thank you to our
friends at Federal American Grill. They're just fantastic people and
faithful supporters of PTSD Foundation of American Camp Hope. The
(09:49):
Freedom Burger is awesome when you order it. Dollar donations
made to PTSD Foundation. So next time you're craving a burger,
like not fast food, this is like a legit rid,
really good burger and you're gonna enjoy it. You're gonna
have some great service and a great atmosphere. Thank you,
Matt Bryce and all the folks at Federal American Grill
(10:10):
all right round. She grew up in the Houston area
high school what was high school for you?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
High school was a lot of sports, played football, baseball,
and ran track, which was your best football? That was
my passion position. I played quarterback. Oh really, yes, sir,
you any good at it? You must have been.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I've never met a quarterback, so no, it's just so
so they all think they're the best.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
We had a pretty good running back, so a lot
of times on third down and fifteen it was like
a pitch it to Jerome, you know. But I had
a pretty good arm on me. And you know my coach,
Joe Sheffey, he's Houston Katie legend. He was a great mentor.
(11:01):
And he he uh he he gave it to you
like like a mentor, should you know. He was honest
with you and and he was a great great man,
still is a great man. I think he retired from
Katie Taylor High School coaching. I went to Mad Creek. Uh.
But like when I when I went to high school,
(11:23):
there's there's probably ten or twelve high schools in Katie
Now it was it was three high schools when back
in when I graduated in ninety four, it was Mad Creek,
Taylor and Katie High School. But it was a great
I mean, I had an amazing, amazing time in high school.
It was a great area. To grow up in you
(11:45):
know a lot of good friends, and you know it
was before Facebook and the cell phone. So uh, you know,
if if you didn't if you didn't catch us at
home or at work, you didn't catch us on the phone,
we were we were running the running, running the streets.
Uh and uh getting into some not not bad trouble,
(12:11):
but you know, getting into good clean trouble. I guess
you could.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Say good clean trouble. Yeah, all right, interesting way to
put Jeremy play football.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I did play football. What position you play?
Speaker 5 (12:22):
Well, so I grew up in Iowa, so we had
to play the whole game, so it would be yeah, yeah,
typically I was I would play pointing guard and then
uh actually I played defensive tackle my senior year, which
if you could see me right now, you be surprised
at that. I'm not not that large. But uh yeah,
(12:46):
my junior year we went to state. We were the
state runners up.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah it was.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
It was a good experience for me. But it ended
at high school.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah just for most Uh yeah, well quarterback in a
major school in Houston, that says it gives us anyone
that's familiar with Texas football gets you a sense of Yeah,
it was your identity.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, we were. We were five A back then. Now
they have six A high schools in Texas. But you know,
I remember Channel eleven used to have the game of
the week and they used to fly their helicopter out
to our practice field and you know, we we played
Katie High School. We were at probably six or seven
(13:35):
and one at the time and Katie was Katie's always
eight o seven And so they flew out and they
interviewed some of the players on my team, and they
came out and shot some of the game out at
Rhodes Stadium. And Katie Now they got a big, nice
new stadium next to Rhodes. Yeah, cons about that, Yeah, yeah,
(13:58):
but yeah, it was. It was a great time. I mean,
like you know, pastor like, uh, Friday nights Katie shuts
down right, It is a definitely thing. It definitely is
Friday night lights here in the state of Texas.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Okay, So you finished high school, did you go right
into the Air Force?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I did. I went to I went in on delayed enlistment, gotcha,
and uh I went in. My dad was an MP
in the Army, and I went into the Air Force.
But choose air Force? You know, I maybe that was
kind of my thought process. But uh, funny story. I
(14:39):
do a complete basic training and uh I would complete
my tech school and I go home on leave and
the Navy recruiter calls my house and he's like, hey, crabs,
are you still interested in joining the Navy? And I'm like, man,
I'm already in the Air Force. Like I've been in
the Air Force for like six months now. So uh yeah,
I went into the Air Force, UH guaranteed job as
(15:03):
a security They called them security police back then. Now
they're called the security forces. But uh, during basic I
met a I met one of my fellow airman and
he told me he was going through uh what they
call combat control pair rescue. So I decided to give
that a try. And there was a you know PT
(15:27):
test and a swim uh that went along with that,
and I barely made the swim. I was. I was
not a swimmer in high school. I My swimming career
consisted of going to the pool on during the summer
and uh, you know, having fun with the with with
(15:48):
my friends. But I barely made the swim. So I
go in. I went into that and I became a
jay tach, a Joint Tactical Air Controller in the Air Force.
And so yeah, I did. I did, uh like almost
(16:08):
five years at at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia,
and then uh, and then I went to Korea for
a year.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
How'd you like that?
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Korea was fun? Uh. It was before nine to eleven,
so with other of the the security, uh in that
area of the world was a lot more relaxed. But
we'd make frequent trips down to Seul, Korea, which was uh,
it was you know, it was someone from that had
never been outside the outside of Texas. That was that
(16:40):
was that was fun for me, absolutely, yes, sir.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah, get to see a little bit of the world,
which is very very cool. All right, So just a
reminder you can follow us uh social media PTSD us
A Facebook, Instagram and x Instagram, YouTube, Instagram or PTSD
Foundation of America the radio show. Just look for Road
(17:03):
to Hope Radio on Facebook and again wherever you listen
to podcasts, Look, it's free and we're gonna get into
a little bit of the story here of what has
brought Randall to Camp Hope. And these stories are a
little you know, they're never fun. No one ever comes
into Camp Hope on a winning streak. So there's some
(17:25):
difficulties there. And the two guys that are in the
room with me today have gone through that, they are
going through it, and there are others out there. We
need you to be aware. We need the community to
be aware. We need the community to share that there's
a place in Houston, Texas called Camp Hope that is
absolutely a part of changing and saving some life. So
thank you for listening, thanks for sharing. We're going to
take a quick break. We'll be right back with more.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Hope.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Everybody's ready for Christmas again. Reminder if you're a one
of those procrastionaires, you're down to the last minute. The
Corey Diamond Design all kinds of great gift ideas for
that someone's special, much better idea than going to the mall.
Don't do it, just don't do it. With Corey Diamond
in design. The great people are gonna take great care
of you and oopsteam dot com. Get ready for the
(18:34):
party or to clean up after everybody's gone home. Like
you know the thing, it's always good to see him
come and better to see him go.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
I don't know if that's the case for you or not,
but usually when they go, there's you know, somebody spilled
the gravy. Hopefully it wouldn't you, Jeremy, but somebody spilled
the grave. You got somebody got to get to get
that cleaned up. Oopsteain dot com. And between Christmas and
New Year, got a little extra time. Take a little
stroll out to the public grand ranch and you might
(19:02):
like what you see. And then if you say, you know,
I wish I could, but yeah, I'm just not ready
for that.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
It's all right.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
I'm just going to take a look. One hundred dollars
donation made to the PTSD Foundation of America, and you
get to be a part of it just by going
to take a look. So thanks very very much for
doing so. All right, So you're into the Air Force.
Five years in Georgia, year in Korea. Why'd you make
the switch to the Army?
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Well, my dad played basketball in San Marcos at Southwest
Texas State University, and I wanted to live the college life.
So I went up there and started school school there
and then two years there and then transferred to UTSA
in San Antonio, and I actually got into the Army
(19:57):
on a dare I I met, I met a recruiter
and he said, do you have your college degree? And
I said yes, and he said I could have you
at Officer Cannet School in a month, and I Uh,
I called him on his on his uh, on his bet,
and UH. Sure enough, I ended up in OCS and
(20:19):
graduated OCS Officer Cannet School and got my commissioned as
a second lieutenant, went to IOBC and UH at Fort Benning, Georgia.
I had already had my jump wings from the Air
Force and UH and then after IOBC is Infantry Basic
Officer Leadership course, graduated that course between became an infantry officer.
(20:44):
And then a week after that, I was at Ranger
School at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
And so what year was this when you switched the army.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
That was in two thousand and six, right, And I
was I was a little bit older. I was one
of the old there ranger students in my class. And
I had it in my mind Ranger school is sixty
one days, and I had it in my mind if
I was gonna recycle anything, I was gonna quit. Uh.
And luckily I made it through all all of the
(21:16):
you know, you start Ranger school and at Fort Benning
it's called Darby. And then you get a mountain phase
in Delanaa, Georgia, and then you go down to Eggland
Air Force Base and for swamp Phase and UH at
Eggland Air Force Base in Florida. So completed that school
and then came back, came back home to Texas and
(21:40):
and then that's when I started deploying to Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
When you signed up for the Army, you had to
assume two thousand and six you're going to get deployed,
So you had to kind of, at least in your
forefront of mind, have a pretty good idea.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I did. I had done some to two tours in
cool eight before it was right after Desert Storm, right
before nine to eleven, did due to two three month
tours in Kuwait, and then I did six months in
Saravi Bosnia, So I knew what kind of what deploying
(22:16):
was all about, you know, being I was working as
a I was working at It was basically like the
Air Traffic Control Center in Sarajevo. We would pass sorties
off to the different j TAG teams in the field
and they would control close air support for infantry or
(22:39):
ground units in Bosnia.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
When you deployed to Afghanistan.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I did in two thousand and eleven. Was my first
tour in Afghanistan. So you did more? Yeah, I just
did two. I'm into Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
How long were your deployments.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
They were nine to twelve months and we were up
an RC East uh in Kunar Province, which if you're
not familiar, they call it the Hornet's Nest and the
Hindukush mountains. Uh So pretty kinetic up there. A lot
of troops in contact, a lot of firefights. Never ran
(23:18):
into any I eds, but I was a platoon leader
at the time, and I would not go anywhere unless
we're oute clearance had gone through at least an hour before.
I was pretty you know. Some some instances, you it's
a call you you can't you can't make, you know,
you have to make to go out. But usually i'd
(23:41):
have route clearance go out before us, before any of
our convoys or anything, because my goal was to bring
all my guys home. Like I uh, yeah, I I.
I was a kind of a platoon leader where I
cared I would go to bat for any of my guys,
(24:02):
and I led from the front right. I wouldn't I
wouldn't never hear. The kind of motto I lived by
was I would never ask any of my guys to
do something that I wouldn't do myself. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, Well, when you soon to learn where you went
to high school and you were a quarterback there, I
kind of knew there's I got a pretty good idea
of the personality that's going on here. So what you
just said, is it not surprising at all? Obviously high
school football and being in the Hornets Nests is not
comparable in any way, shape or form. But you are
(24:37):
who you are.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, that's very true. And you know, there's things that
I saw in Afghanistan that I wouldn't wish on my
worst enemy, and it's something that has brought me to
Camp Hope.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Okay, And I don't want to get into any kind
of the detail on that at all, but just for
folks listening that you know, you know, we've been out
of Afghanistan for a few years now, they're not really
sure what all that. Okay, So so you hear the
(25:19):
story you just mentioned the things you saw, well, and
I don't want again, I don't want detail, but just
an idea of what that is about. Detail about what
you actually saw, but just an idea.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And and a conversation. Jeremy and I had lunch today
in a conversation that we went to Rudy's there you go, right,
And I told him that I asked him if he
knew where the first Rudies was. That was in New Bronfels, Texas.
I didn't know that used to be a gas station.
(25:53):
Oh yeah, so hey, I interrupted you, Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy
and I have had a very good conversation. Is that
when you're in that type of environment and you come
home and you get out of the military, you you
you find like you're always searching for something, right, You're
(26:14):
always searching for purpose and sometimes, uh, civilian life doesn't
give you that. So uh like myself and I don't mind,
I'm I don't wear the badge proudly, but I suffer
from addiction. Right, So when you come home and you
(26:36):
don't really have a purpose, h you know you can
get you can get caught up what the devil has
in store for you, which would me was alcohol, and
you know you could that's a very slippery slippery slope
when uh, when you're dealing with PTSD, undiagnosed like I
(26:59):
was at the time. Uh, not having a sense of
purpose and you know, dealing with an addiction like I had.
You know, that's that's a downhill slide that that can
take take take toll on you pretty quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
In Germany we talked about that a lot. It's PTSD
in ways kind of like, Uh, there's some comparisons you
could do to for instance, cancer, Uh, cancer, we always
often hear stage one, two, three, four. Uh, you could
do something similar to that with PTSD. Some people have
some mild symptoms of PTSD. Some it's on fire, it's flaming,
(27:39):
it's it's out of control. And also diagnosed and properly treated.
In many cases, with cancer, life can be saved, body
parts can be saved. Left undiagnosed, untreated, it can become deadly.
SAME's true with with PTSD. We see that around the
(28:00):
place all the time. Guys that just they let it go. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
And I know for me, like my situation is slightly different.
Randall and I actually have a lot in common. I
wasn't an officer, but the ranger experience and the deployments
and seeing those things, and I actually was diagnosed with
PTSD while I was still in the Army and we
were talking about this.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Earlier.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
I had a plan to commit suicide and I was
gonna follow through with it and involved the fifth of
jim Bean while I was at work, and you know,
I thank god he intervened. But they sent me to
treatment and I'm in treatment and the ladies like asking
me questions and I can't hold it together.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
And we'll come back to that, sir, that treatment moment.
Gotta take one more break.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
We'll come back with more of roadho Bradio.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
We got a lot of groundcovers. You're going to hop
on it real quick. But I want you to wrap
up that thought. And you were communicating you were in
that uh situation, the fifth foot gym down. You're going
to kill yourself? Ye, go into treatment.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
Yeah, they sent me to treatment and they made me
talk to a shrink and I'm sitting there talking to
him and they're asking me questions about war and uh,
I couldn't hold it together and they're like, yeah, you
have PTSD and I refuse to accept it at that point.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Well, but you bring up a point when we have
time to delve into it. I do I want to
at least mention it. And I want to get back
and talk to uh Randall about what brought him to us.
But they made you talk to a clinician or whatever
word it was a counselor or a therapist, right, yeah, yeah,
because they made you do that, right yeah, right, And
(30:03):
it's a therapists and they have a part, they have
a part of Camp Hope, right, But the DNA is
the peer to peer and that's the.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
Difference, absolutely, And that was that was the thing. Like
I was in the military, I stayed in for a
couple of years longer than that, and then I retired
and my life rapidly fell apart. I was only out
of the military, probably about six months total before I
came to Camp Hope. In and out of treatment facilities
detoc centers. Which is an unusual story, right, right, most
(30:37):
of the guys come into are there's some there's some time.
Just for instance, for you, when did you get out
of the Air Force?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
I got out of the Air Force in the year
of two thousand, I mean, I'm sorry, the Army. I
got out of the Army in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Seventeen, so that's a few years from your latest deployment.
So I'm guessing you already had some symptoms.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, And you know, like I was sharing with Jeremy,
is it took me a long time to go to
the VA because I thought that the VA was only
for guys who you know, lost limbs, and I never
I never knew about the mental aspect and of PTSD
(31:19):
and how it can affect your life.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
So which tells me again a subject we talk a
lot around here. Six months or a year, they train
you to go, and that you know when it's time
to go, you go. They know there's no here's what
you need to know, right Like, if that's not even
on your radar at all, then hey, this could happen.
This is what you need to be aware of. This
is what you need to do. Over time, it's brought
(31:45):
you to a place where now you've been at Camp
Hope the last three months.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, what happened. And Jeremy and you know this saying
that nobody comes to Camp Hope on a winning street,
right right, But.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
We want to change that. I want to change it
before you leave.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
No, and you know, I was very apprehensive to the
program when I came because of because of it being
such a intensive program. I mean it's it's six months,
six to eight months. It's no small commitment, right, And
(32:22):
but I will tell you this pastor that Camp Hope
has changed my life and I and I have been
sober from alcohol for about over a year when I
came to camp, so that was already done. Okay.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
So you say, well, yeah, it's always it's a.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Day to day thing.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
I get that, But I mean you were already in that.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Right, yeah, but you know, there was other aspects of
my life that were falling apart, and I didn't. I
couldn't see that, like I couldn't see that about me
that other people were seeing about me. And I'll I'll
let the listeners know. I came here court ordered from
(33:06):
the Bear County Veterans Court, and so I was I
was very agitated that I was sent here. But they
saw something from me that they thought that I needed
to change. And I see that what they saw. I
(33:26):
see that myself now after being at Camp Hope for
three months, and I and I still you know, I
had a a session with my counselor today and he
asked me, he said, Randall, he said, you know, what
does your life look like after camp Hope, and I said,
it doesn't. You know, the working on myself doesn't stop
(33:47):
at camp. It's something that I needed, it that I
need to continue when I leave the leave the front
gate and I and Jeremy and I were talking about
this is that you know PTSD. You might not be
able to see it and touch it right, but it's
something that's there with combat vets.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
No doubt studies cells who are losing up to forty
four veterans every single day. That's between actual suicide, overdose addiction.
It's a culmination of a few things, but all forty
four of those are preventable, and that's the part that hurts.
So we didn't have to happen. And we've got to
do everything we can as an organization to do that.
(34:33):
And part of that is just bringing the awareness. As
part of the reason for this show, we want veterans
who are struggling like you were, to hear about us
before they become a statistic. We want family members who
are watching their loved ones spiral into that darkness and
that addiction. We want them to be aware there's help.
We have family services, we have a team that's dedicated
to the family, just like we mentioned earlier, and we
(34:54):
packaged up Christmas kiss and send them all across the
country because we want to take care of the family
while we're doing what we can to serve the veterans.
So there's so many aspects to what we do and
it takes so many hands, but it is a very
comprehensive program. It's a zero cost to the veteran or family.
You don't have to write a check for anything. I
(35:15):
just have a minute. But you made a comment, and
I want you to explain what you mean by because
it can be a little different for everybody. But you
said Camp Hope has changed your life, So to you,
what does that mean? What does that look like for you?
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Right? And one thing I'd like to say a pastor
is I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the families
that support us well camp. Like I was newly married
and my wife has been there every step of the way.
So you know, it's one of the hardest jobs, probably
(35:52):
they say in the military, is to be a wife,
a girlfriend, a spouse of a vet or a husband
or because we do have a lot of females that
deal with PTSD also. But the way it's changed my
life is that you mentioned the peer to peer aspect
(36:15):
of Camp Hope. There's all so many great people that
work there. But then there's also that peer to peer
aspect that you live with ten to twelve guys in
a bay and we help each other out. We might
not always get along, but we find that conflict resolution
and we we learn how to to deal with life
(36:38):
on life's terms.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah, and I just want to congratulate you on what
you have accomplished to this point and beg you to
not stop till you finished nothing. As the saying goes
around camp, it's not a saying I use a lot
by shut an awful lot. Don't leave till the miracle happens.
(37:01):
And I get exactly what they mean by that. So
I'm not against it, but you understand that, like, don't
do it, Just don't do it.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Oh, there's been more than a couple of times where I,
you know, I've had to go to my mentor and
be like, I went out of this place, even though
in court ordered I went out, you know, but.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Completely understand it. Yeah, you have to be around there,
But anyway, thank you for what you're doing. Keep doing it,
don't give up. I know everybody wants to be home
for the holidays. Man, I get it, hollidays tugging me too.
But finish what you've begun, Jeremy. Thanks for what you
do each and every day. Super grateful that you're back
and doing what you do. You can do it a
thousand times better than I ever could possibly do it
(37:43):
as a civilian. So I'm so grateful for what you
do each and every day. Grateful for all of our sponsors,
all of our friends, our supporters. As we enter this
week of Christmas, so many thoughts come to mind, so
many cliches come to mind. I'll be home for Christmas
and all that. Just know that we at the Foundation
(38:05):
are grateful for our friends, our supporters, our volunteers, our
staff that do so so very much for so very little,
and a lot of frustration along the way. Just so
very grateful. But to each and every one of you,
I hope you know and understand the peace that comes
from knowing the real reason for Christmas, the birth of
(38:26):
our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
There is peace no matter what's going on around you,
no matter how storm tossed life may be. At the
moment there can be peace found in the person of
Jesus Christ, and we pray this Christmas season you don't
miss that for all the lights and the glitter and
(38:46):
the packages, but we do hope you have a wonderful
Christmas and a great new Year. Looking forward to twenty
twenty six and what's up in front of us. Thank
you for joining us, look forward to being with you
again next week.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
For more of Road to Hope Radio, be
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