July 12, 2024 • 13 mins
Dwight Decker with Grappling PTSD on Saturday's 11th Annual Walk for the Fallen this July 13th 2024.
Thank you, Dwight, for sharing your passion and commitment to making a difference in the lives of our veteran and active duty service members. Registration, support, and other services: https://helpgrapplingptsd.org/
Starting Point: 378 E. 5th North Street Summerville,SC 29483 @ BORN UNITED (just before 3 a.m.)
*** Finish POINT: PATRIOTS POINT MOUNT PLEASANT, SC There will be an area which will be roped off for ALL the WALKERS/VOLUNTEERS and their FAMILIES (est. arrival 2 p.m.) ***
This addition of the show is powered by, Disaster Plus
Thank you, Dwight, for sharing your passion and commitment to making a difference in the lives of our veteran and active duty service members. Registration, support, and other services: https://helpgrapplingptsd.org/
Starting Point: 378 E. 5th North Street Summerville,SC 29483 @ BORN UNITED (just before 3 a.m.)
*** Finish POINT: PATRIOTS POINT MOUNT PLEASANT, SC There will be an area which will be roped off for ALL the WALKERS/VOLUNTEERS and their FAMILIES (est. arrival 2 p.m.) ***
This addition of the show is powered by, Disaster Plus
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Emotional. You're not the first grownman I've made cry. I just watched
this. It's the Kelly Golden Showpodcast powered by Disaster Plus on a Big
Fail Friday. In all seriousness,the big fail this Friday is more veterans
are killing themselves than we're actually losingin battle. Welcome in. There is
(00:27):
no amount of extreme heat or threatof rain this weekend that is going to
stop Dway Decker's eleventh annual Walk forthe Fallen. It starts in Summerville,
ends and Patriots Point and it's allin support of those grappling with PTSD.
So let's get into it. Tellus a little bit about the walk.
I mean eleven years, so yeah, eleven years. You know, when
I first started doing this eleven yearsago, people thought I was crazy because
(00:50):
I said, you know, Iwant to I want to do something over
the edge to bring more awareness toyou know, the events that are still
happening. You know, and youknow, even though you know we pulled
out of Afghanistan, Iraq all that, it's one of these things that you
know, the battles still come homeand a lot of these veterans are still
(01:12):
facing these battles. The financial battles, the stress battles, the drug addictions,
the alcohol addictions, the pain pilladdictions. You know, so it's
if we can bring awareness to thatand let people never forget that, Hey,
these people went out there and youknow, some paid the ultimate sacrifice
(01:33):
and gave their life, but someof them still come home. And you
know the number twenty two, youknow, twenty two veterans a day commit
suicide. It's way more than that. It's up into the thirties now,
but you know, it's it's oneof those things. It's sad because we
go do the jobs that nobody elsewants to do, and we volunteer to
(01:55):
do that because it's our patriotic obligationto do that for our cunt and keep
the freedoms that we have available tous because of these people that go and
do these things. And it's peoplehave I call it a six month memory
span of after six months of noone really discussing it, or six months
(02:16):
later, they just forget. Andit's one of these things these veterans don't
forget. I don't forget. Andit's very traumatizing for the families because a
lot of families think, oh,my husband's home, my wife is home.
They can just flip the switch andtheir feelings go away about what they
did over there or what they're whatthey did here. That's not the case.
(02:38):
A lot of trauma. A lotof people have, you know,
seventeen eighteen, nineteen, twenty yearsold. Some people have never you know,
killed somebody before or seen somebody getkilled before, and those traumatic events
are the rippling effect of trauma.There are plenty of people listening who are
family members that we don't talk aboutenough, who are affected by a veteran
(03:01):
coming home active duty military with PTSD. And I actually go around to American
legions. They invite me in vfw'sand talk about my dad's service in the
Special Forces and what a mentor ourfamily. You know what I say to
him, Dwight, I'm like,do you really want to know? I
mean, it blew up my family. My dad didn't lose his life in
Vietnam in nineteen sixty and sixty nine, but he did lose his entire family
(03:22):
and life back you're at home.This is what's driving a lot of men
and women grappling with PTSD to suicide. I call it quicksand PTSD is like
quicksands. And what I mean bythat is you're getting a mental state.
You put both feet in a thinga quicksand, and the more you fight,
(03:43):
the more you struggle. You don'tsee an out. But the crazy
thing is you keep sinking. Youkeep sinking. It gets darker, it
gets darker. And the crazy thingthat happens is you have a floaty around
your neck. So the more youfight, the more you struggle, and
it's almost like you want to die, but you can't because everything you're holding
(04:03):
on to back home, your family, your friends, you know, your
job, your bills, your financesor who's going to take care of this?
Who's going to take care of that? So that's that lifeline, life
float that you have around your neck. But the struggle is still there.
And with the VA and our government, they don't take care of the family.
(04:25):
They take care well, I usethat term loosely. They try to
take care of the that. Theythrow pills at us, and that's all
they want. They want a customerfor life. And they think if they
turn us into a zombie, willgo away. We'll stop fighting, we'll
stop doing this. Our voice won'tbe heard anymore, you know, Dwight
Decker if you're just tuning in eleventhDaniel walk to remember is that so many
(04:46):
of military veterans that I know walksthrough this addiction, the struggle with PTSD
and all of the things that you'redescribing by wrecking, by walking, by
exercising and clearing ahead. And soI'm imagining this is why you started this
annual walk, and I want toknow how many people continue to walk with
you. Now over a decade,we have over one hundred people that show
(05:12):
up every year and walk with us. It has blown me away. The
first year I did it, Ihad nine people. That's it, nine
and one escort vehicle. We havegrown into well over one hundred people that
walk with US Police escorts, nowCombat Motorcycle Veteran Group escort you guys coming
in the American Legion Motorcycle Group.We have UMP teams I think like six
(05:35):
to eight escort vehicles of civilians whoshow up. And you want to do
an escort, So if we havesomebody that falls out or needs the ride,
or they can't do the whole youknow, walk, you don't have
to. You do what you canwith what you got when you got it.
And a lot of people do theteam. It's a team of five,
(05:56):
So everybody on that team walks fivemile clips out of time and they
rotate out. So you know,when we're talking about one hundred people walking,
it's way over that because you haveteams the five, so you're looking
at two hundred plus people rotating inand out. Just to keep pushing,
keep moving forward, and that's ourwhole motto for this walk. You pointed
(06:18):
out that, you know, exercisehelps veterans. I'm one of those people.
I have PTSD, and the moreI push the envelope, but I
know I can come home and besafe, I'm going to do it.
So exercising martial arts, you know, these combative type things that I do
through my gym at Black Force MMA. It's it's I pushed the envelope,
(06:41):
you know, And but at theend of the day, I get to
come home and see my amazing familythat's been there, been my backbone for
you know, my whole military career. So that that is just something that
we try to give back to thecommunity. What is your background the military,
Dwight. I did anti terrorism,force protection. I'm one hundred percent
disabled veteran. Now I really can'tget into a lot of it. But
(07:04):
yeah, I know you've replaced twoof your hips are still walking. I
told Dwight I have a sidecar mymotorcycle. He was like, hell now
what. Yeah, it's nuts.I've had nine major surgeries. And my
thing is, I'm not a typeof person that says, go do this,
and I don't do it myself.I lead by example. I get
(07:27):
out there. You know, likeyou said, we started Born United.
We do a whole safety brief andthis is something that we've done since the
beginning, and we put out thereyou know that we have water stations every
five miles. So in your head, if you can only do five miles,
that's great. If you can doten, that's great. You can
do the whole thing great, butyou don't have to. So in my
(07:49):
head, I'm like, if Ican make it five miles, I know
I get a break and then Ican go five more miles and I know
I can get a break. Sowe just keep pushing every five miles.
So as long as I keep movingforward, this message will never stop.
So you can get more information.I know you have a Facebook page Walk
for the Fallen for more information aboutwhat you're all about it's helped GRAPPLINGPTSD dot
(08:13):
org. It's going to be onehundred and plus ten degree heat index.
You know, we're looking at athreat of rain. Have you had times
in the past you want to sharewhere you've been a little concerned, but
you've just kept going because that's whatlife does. It keeps going. Exactly
we've had in the past. Imean, it's been one hundred and fifteen
and of course, you know onRivers Avenue there's no shade. So it
(08:39):
started raining and then it rained forabout ten minutes. Everybody's like, oh
great, it's nice and cool,but then they forgot, oh, here
comes to humidity after it rains.So the next x amount of miles that
we walked, it was like,I mean, it was just a scorcher.
I mean, and a lot ofpeople don't, you know, have
never done this before. They don'tinto the safety stuff I put out of
(09:03):
Bring extra pair of shoes, bringextra stocks, bring baby powder, you
know those type of things that help. And you know, obviously they were
getting blisters and stuff, but youknow that's fine. We do have a
medical staff that comes with us.Some of them do the walk. Actually
a lot of combat medics, alot of you know, nurses doctors that
(09:24):
do this walk. So we havepeople on hand that can help, you
know, anything that comes up.How of the people who are just hearing
about this for the first time can'tmake it out to the walk a station
can make it to your website.I mean, what kind of help do
you need? And I'd like tohear about the support that you're getting,
including some of the people who walkthat you're like, wow, they just
would shock us. Young medium,old, oh man. I think the
(09:48):
oldest person that has ever completed thewalk was late sixties, early seventies.
I think the youngest was eight yearsold. And my son eleven years ago
he was three, so now he'sfourteen. But he started doing this walk
with us, and every year,like last year he did seventeen miles nice,
(10:11):
you know, with himself. Soand he was thirteen at that time.
So this year, every year hisgoal is to do a little bit
more than what he did last year, you know. So it's it's it's
awesome that my I'm most like gettingemotional. You're not the first grown man
I've made cry. I just watchedIt's just it's just amazing to have that
(10:35):
type of relationship with my son thathe wants to be involved and in something
like this that's so important to meand my wife and daughter me just at
the Ravenel Bridge and do the bridgeand we walk into Patriots Point as a
family. It's an incredible thing.Do I Decker that you're doing the eleventh
(10:56):
annual Walk for the fallen If yougo to help grappling PTSD dot org,
it's a great place to get acquaintedwith and if you can't be out to
be a part of the walk tomorrow, you certainly can do something to support
Dwight. Dwight, it sounds tome like your support continues not just with
your family inside your own four wallsof your own home. But we know
(11:16):
as military I certainly do as militaryfamily that we're all a family. But
I think we forget that because wedo get into our silos and you know,
the world is just imploding. Itfeels like, you know, for
everyone, and so yeah, youcan only imagine, you know, people
coming back home who've been programmed butnever deprogrammed, and trying to explain that
(11:39):
and not able to to people whohave no clue what you're going through absolutely,
and that's one of the biggest strugglesthat our veteran space coming back.
We try to help the family membersas well as the veterans there that after,
you know, the after effects ofwhat happened, and we try to
help the family members. We tryto put them in contact with the resources
(12:01):
that they need, the counseling thatthey need. You know, we've gone
as far as buying track chairs forveterans. Last Thanksgiving, we fed over
seven hundred homeless veterans here in theLow Country. This past Christmas, we
provided toys for over three hundred andfifty kids of homeless veterans or veterans in
need for assistance and stuff. Sothat's something that we continually do throughout the
(12:26):
year. Medical bills we've helped paidoff, we've helped eliminate, we've paid
electric bills because that's one less stressorthat that veteran and their family have to
worry about. The amount of supportthat you get from other people in the
community. I mentioned Born United,They're an apparel company that I know has
helped you guys along the way.Is there anyone else you want to mention?
(12:46):
Yeah, Macelveen, they've been donatingescort vehicles for our use. Don't
charge us at dime to do this. They give us two escort vehicles every
year for the past eight years.Is now Canine Revolution, dog Training,
Perez Welding and Fabrication, Troy BuiltBuildings. The list goes on Howiser Clothing
(13:09):
made our t shirts this year forthe Walk of the Fallen. There's been
so many people step up it blowsme away. Every years gets bigger and
bigger and bigger. This Big FailFriday edition of The Kelly Golden Show podcast
is powered by Disaster Plus buzz soCus When Yo Bus calls seven tween seven seven
Emotional. You're not the first grownman I've made cry. I just watched
this. It's the Kelly Golden Showpodcast powered by Disaster Plus on a Big
Fail Friday. In all seriousness,the big fail this Friday is more veterans
are killing themselves than we're actually losingin battle. Welcome in. There is
(00:27):
no amount of extreme heat or threatof rain this weekend that is going to
stop Dway Decker's eleventh annual Walk forthe Fallen. It starts in Summerville,
ends and Patriots Point and it's allin support of those grappling with PTSD.
So let's get into it. Tellus a little bit about the walk.
I mean eleven years, so yeah, eleven years. You know, when
I first started doing this eleven yearsago, people thought I was crazy because
(00:50):
I said, you know, Iwant to I want to do something over
the edge to bring more awareness toyou know, the events that are still
happening. You know, and youknow, even though you know we pulled
out of Afghanistan, Iraq all that, it's one of these things that you
know, the battles still come homeand a lot of these veterans are still
(01:12):
facing these battles. The financial battles, the stress battles, the drug addictions,
the alcohol addictions, the pain pilladdictions. You know, so it's
if we can bring awareness to thatand let people never forget that, Hey,
these people went out there and youknow, some paid the ultimate sacrifice
(01:33):
and gave their life, but someof them still come home. And you
know the number twenty two, youknow, twenty two veterans a day commit
suicide. It's way more than that. It's up into the thirties now,
but you know, it's it's oneof those things. It's sad because we
go do the jobs that nobody elsewants to do, and we volunteer to
(01:55):
do that because it's our patriotic obligationto do that for our cunt and keep
the freedoms that we have available tous because of these people that go and
do these things. And it's peoplehave I call it a six month memory
span of after six months of noone really discussing it, or six months
(02:16):
later, they just forget. Andit's one of these things these veterans don't
forget. I don't forget. Andit's very traumatizing for the families because a
lot of families think, oh,my husband's home, my wife is home.
They can just flip the switch andtheir feelings go away about what they
did over there or what they're whatthey did here. That's not the case.
(02:38):
A lot of trauma. A lotof people have, you know,
seventeen eighteen, nineteen, twenty yearsold. Some people have never you know,
killed somebody before or seen somebody getkilled before, and those traumatic events
are the rippling effect of trauma.There are plenty of people listening who are
family members that we don't talk aboutenough, who are affected by a veteran
(03:01):
coming home active duty military with PTSD. And I actually go around to American
legions. They invite me in vfw'sand talk about my dad's service in the
Special Forces and what a mentor ourfamily. You know what I say to
him, Dwight, I'm like,do you really want to know? I
mean, it blew up my family. My dad didn't lose his life in
Vietnam in nineteen sixty and sixty nine, but he did lose his entire family
(03:22):
and life back you're at home.This is what's driving a lot of men
and women grappling with PTSD to suicide. I call it quicksand PTSD is like
quicksands. And what I mean bythat is you're getting a mental state.
You put both feet in a thinga quicksand, and the more you fight,
(03:43):
the more you struggle. You don'tsee an out. But the crazy
thing is you keep sinking. Youkeep sinking. It gets darker, it
gets darker. And the crazy thingthat happens is you have a floaty around
your neck. So the more youfight, the more you struggle, and
it's almost like you want to die, but you can't because everything you're holding
(04:03):
on to back home, your family, your friends, you know, your
job, your bills, your financesor who's going to take care of this?
Who's going to take care of that? So that's that lifeline, life
float that you have around your neck. But the struggle is still there.
And with the VA and our government, they don't take care of the family.
(04:25):
They take care well, I usethat term loosely. They try to
take care of the that. Theythrow pills at us, and that's all
they want. They want a customerfor life. And they think if they
turn us into a zombie, willgo away. We'll stop fighting, we'll
stop doing this. Our voice won'tbe heard anymore, you know, Dwight
Decker if you're just tuning in eleventhDaniel walk to remember is that so many
(04:46):
of military veterans that I know walksthrough this addiction, the struggle with PTSD
and all of the things that you'redescribing by wrecking, by walking, by
exercising and clearing ahead. And soI'm imagining this is why you started this
annual walk, and I want toknow how many people continue to walk with
you. Now over a decade,we have over one hundred people that show
(05:12):
up every year and walk with us. It has blown me away. The
first year I did it, Ihad nine people. That's it, nine
and one escort vehicle. We havegrown into well over one hundred people that
walk with US Police escorts, nowCombat Motorcycle Veteran Group escort you guys coming
in the American Legion Motorcycle Group.We have UMP teams I think like six
(05:35):
to eight escort vehicles of civilians whoshow up. And you want to do
an escort, So if we havesomebody that falls out or needs the ride,
or they can't do the whole youknow, walk, you don't have
to. You do what you canwith what you got when you got it.
And a lot of people do theteam. It's a team of five,
(05:56):
So everybody on that team walks fivemile clips out of time and they
rotate out. So you know,when we're talking about one hundred people walking,
it's way over that because you haveteams the five, so you're looking
at two hundred plus people rotating inand out. Just to keep pushing,
keep moving forward, and that's ourwhole motto for this walk. You pointed
(06:18):
out that, you know, exercisehelps veterans. I'm one of those people.
I have PTSD, and the moreI push the envelope, but I
know I can come home and besafe, I'm going to do it.
So exercising martial arts, you know, these combative type things that I do
through my gym at Black Force MMA. It's it's I pushed the envelope,
(06:41):
you know, And but at theend of the day, I get to
come home and see my amazing familythat's been there, been my backbone for
you know, my whole military career. So that that is just something that
we try to give back to thecommunity. What is your background the military,
Dwight. I did anti terrorism,force protection. I'm one hundred percent
disabled veteran. Now I really can'tget into a lot of it. But
(07:04):
yeah, I know you've replaced twoof your hips are still walking. I
told Dwight I have a sidecar mymotorcycle. He was like, hell now
what. Yeah, it's nuts.I've had nine major surgeries. And my
thing is, I'm not a typeof person that says, go do this,
and I don't do it myself.I lead by example. I get
(07:27):
out there. You know, likeyou said, we started Born United.
We do a whole safety brief andthis is something that we've done since the
beginning, and we put out thereyou know that we have water stations every
five miles. So in your head, if you can only do five miles,
that's great. If you can doten, that's great. You can
do the whole thing great, butyou don't have to. So in my
(07:49):
head, I'm like, if Ican make it five miles, I know
I get a break and then Ican go five more miles and I know
I can get a break. Sowe just keep pushing every five miles.
So as long as I keep movingforward, this message will never stop.
So you can get more information.I know you have a Facebook page Walk
for the Fallen for more information aboutwhat you're all about it's helped GRAPPLINGPTSD dot
(08:13):
org. It's going to be onehundred and plus ten degree heat index.
You know, we're looking at athreat of rain. Have you had times
in the past you want to sharewhere you've been a little concerned, but
you've just kept going because that's whatlife does. It keeps going. Exactly
we've had in the past. Imean, it's been one hundred and fifteen
and of course, you know onRivers Avenue there's no shade. So it
(08:39):
started raining and then it rained forabout ten minutes. Everybody's like, oh
great, it's nice and cool,but then they forgot, oh, here
comes to humidity after it rains.So the next x amount of miles that
we walked, it was like,I mean, it was just a scorcher.
I mean, and a lot ofpeople don't, you know, have
never done this before. They don'tinto the safety stuff I put out of
(09:03):
Bring extra pair of shoes, bringextra stocks, bring baby powder, you
know those type of things that help. And you know, obviously they were
getting blisters and stuff, but youknow that's fine. We do have a
medical staff that comes with us.Some of them do the walk. Actually
a lot of combat medics, alot of you know, nurses doctors that
(09:24):
do this walk. So we havepeople on hand that can help, you
know, anything that comes up.How of the people who are just hearing
about this for the first time can'tmake it out to the walk a station
can make it to your website.I mean, what kind of help do
you need? And I'd like tohear about the support that you're getting,
including some of the people who walkthat you're like, wow, they just
would shock us. Young medium,old, oh man. I think the
(09:48):
oldest person that has ever completed thewalk was late sixties, early seventies.
I think the youngest was eight yearsold. And my son eleven years ago
he was three, so now he'sfourteen. But he started doing this walk
with us, and every year,like last year he did seventeen miles nice,
(10:11):
you know, with himself. Soand he was thirteen at that time.
So this year, every year hisgoal is to do a little bit
more than what he did last year, you know. So it's it's it's
awesome that my I'm most like gettingemotional. You're not the first grown man
I've made cry. I just watchedIt's just it's just amazing to have that
(10:35):
type of relationship with my son thathe wants to be involved and in something
like this that's so important to meand my wife and daughter me just at
the Ravenel Bridge and do the bridgeand we walk into Patriots Point as a
family. It's an incredible thing.Do I Decker that you're doing the eleventh
(10:56):
annual Walk for the fallen If yougo to help grappling PTSD dot org,
it's a great place to get acquaintedwith and if you can't be out to
be a part of the walk tomorrow, you certainly can do something to support
Dwight. Dwight, it sounds tome like your support continues not just with
your family inside your own four wallsof your own home. But we know
(11:16):
as military I certainly do as militaryfamily that we're all a family. But
I think we forget that because wedo get into our silos and you know,
the world is just imploding. Itfeels like, you know, for
everyone, and so yeah, youcan only imagine, you know, people
coming back home who've been programmed butnever deprogrammed, and trying to explain that
(11:39):
and not able to to people whohave no clue what you're going through absolutely,
and that's one of the biggest strugglesthat our veteran space coming back.
We try to help the family membersas well as the veterans there that after,
you know, the after effects ofwhat happened, and we try to
help the family members. We tryto put them in contact with the resources
(12:01):
that they need, the counseling thatthey need. You know, we've gone
as far as buying track chairs forveterans. Last Thanksgiving, we fed over
seven hundred homeless veterans here in theLow Country. This past Christmas, we
provided toys for over three hundred andfifty kids of homeless veterans or veterans in
need for assistance and stuff. Sothat's something that we continually do throughout the
(12:26):
year. Medical bills we've helped paidoff, we've helped eliminate, we've paid
electric bills because that's one less stressorthat that veteran and their family have to
worry about. The amount of supportthat you get from other people in the
community. I mentioned Born United,They're an apparel company that I know has
helped you guys along the way.Is there anyone else you want to mention?
(12:46):
Yeah, Macelveen, they've been donatingescort vehicles for our use. Don't
charge us at dime to do this. They give us two escort vehicles every
year for the past eight years.Is now Canine Revolution, dog Training,
Perez Welding and Fabrication, Troy BuiltBuildings. The list goes on Howiser Clothing
(13:09):
made our t shirts this year forthe Walk of the Fallen. There's been
so many people step up it blowsme away. Every years gets bigger and
bigger and bigger. This Big FailFriday edition of The Kelly Golden Show podcast
is powered by Disaster Plus buzz soCus When Yo Bus calls seven tween seven seven
The Kelly Golden Show News
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