The Weekly Show: 11/9/24

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the weekly show here on iHeartRadio Chicago. Heiats
Mick Lee, and we've got a great show lined up
for you this week as we recognize Veterans Day this
coming Monday, we'll be talking to some organizations helping veterans
and their families nationwide. We'll also have our friends from
the Field Museum on to talk about some upcoming free

(00:21):
and discounted days for Chicago residents and the other things
that are happening at the Field Museum. First up, though,
as we get into Veterans Day weekend, let's get right
into our first chat with Colonel Duncan S Milney, a
US Marine Corps veteran and president of the Dixon Center
for Military and Veteran Services. Ryan Gorman is here with

(00:41):
Colonel Duncan.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
I'm joined by Colonel Duncan s Milney, the US Marine
Corps veteran and president of the Dixon Center for Military
and Veterans Services. You can learn more about this organization
at Dixoncenter dot org. Colonel Milney, thank you so much
for taking a few minutes to come on the show.
So how did the Dixon Center first get started? And
tell us a little bit about the work you do.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Sure will, and thank you Ryan, and thank you to
your colleagues at iHeartRadio for doing this. Dick Cent for
Military and Veterans Services came about in reaction to a question,
and the question was when our chairman, Dave Suttland and
I were working on the gun Chies of Staff for
AMA Mike Moll and Dave was working directly for the
Admiral in terms of reaching out to the veterans and

(01:25):
military families and those impacted by water, and it was
a question that kept coming up. The American population that time,
we're talking about two thousand and eight nine kept asking
we want to help, but we don't know how. There's
a perception in the country that the DoD and the
VA did everything for veterans, and we all know that
while they provide a great amount of resources and backbone,

(01:47):
there's always a challenge in communities across the country where
veterans don't have vv access to the services and fault
between the gaps. So the idea was to create a center,
a center as a recent hub of influence, ideas and
actions where other organizations that are direct service providers can
come to for ideas, influence and actions can increase of

(02:11):
their impact in their communities across the world. It really
is kind of a if you want to think of
national reach and local impact, it's kind of a local
insurgency of what we're trying to create. So that's how
we started in twenty twelve. Here we are in twenty
twenty three, eleven years later and going strong, and we've
helped millions of organizations and through our work, impact the

(02:35):
veterans that they serve. Again, we provide strategic support and
people institution, organizations and communities committed to improving the lives
of their veterans and family.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Is a big part of the problem. The awareness factor
here that there are resources and organizations all across the
country who are working to help veterans, but it's connecting
those resources with the veterans, letting them know that that
help is out there for them.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
That is a big part of it. There's almost too
many organizations out there, and it becomes very challenging for
the most punch boy military service to access services and
supports in their community sometimes because they don't know that
they're welcome, and that's one of the biggest challenges.

Speaker 4 (03:15):
Mine.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
What we really try to do is there are eleven
million organizations in this country across soul sectors, society, you know, academia,
civic organizations, public, private, all that. What we really focus
on doing is working with organizations that don't include veterans
and military families into their services. So we just want

(03:36):
organizations to be inclusive and welcoming and culturally attuned to
the needs and the emergent evolving needs of veterans and
their families.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
As when we look for what has the response been
like from organizations who you've talked to about that?

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Very good, quite honestly. One of the challenges is, you know,
as the wars received from people's minds, forget about the warriors,
and we can't let that happen. So we have a
lot of organizations when we approach them, they're like, boy,
we've always wanted to do this, we just don't know how.
And part of it's just an education process. Part of
it really in a lot of cases r I am

(04:15):
quite honestly, is organizations looking inward even understand who they
serve or who do they employ. You know, most of
the organizations a lot, I don't say most, a lot
of them have a really hard difficult time making a
concerted effort to just be welcoming, put out the welcome
app for veterans in their fanims.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
What are some of the different ways that everyone listening
right now can support the work you're doing at the
Dixon Center.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
Well, of course you already mentioned our website Dixoncenter dot
org and encourage folks to take a look at what
we do. It's it's kind of a different model and
we've been very successful with it. We're not a direct
service provider, as I like to say. We don't give
out collect ticket stubs or work that we do. We
really focus on making the organizations more impactful that reach

(05:02):
out to us and trying to find the gaps that
are out there across the country that we can address
and direct resources to or be time for funds, or
just intellectual effort, expertise and mentorship to organizations. So if
an organization is looking at how they can include veterans

(05:25):
and military families for those touched by military service into
their enterprise, just contact us and we'd be happy to
have a conversation and make you that welcoming organization and
the welcoming facility that says veterans are welcome here. And
store their families.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Colonel Duncan Milney, US Marine Corps veteran and president of
the Dixon Center for Military and Veterans Services. Again. You
can learn more and support the work they're doing at
Dixoncenter dot org. That's Dixoncenter dot org. Colonel Milney, I
want to thank you so much for your service to
this country, for the work you're doing on this issue,
and for coming on the show. We appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Appreciate it too. And I just can't hang up without
saying Happy Birthday for our Nations for Marines.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
All right, thanks again, Colonel, Thank you. Ryan.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yeah, this continues the weekly show on iHeartRadio for Veterans
Day weekend. We're recognizing organizations helping veterans and their families nationwide.
Up next, Jim Whaley, US Army veteran and CEO of
Mission roll Call is back again with another interview with
Ryan Gorman.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
We're joined by the United States Army veteran and CEO
of Mission Roll Call Jim Whaling. You can learn more
about this organization at Mission Rollcall dot org. Jim, thank
you so much for joining us. So how did Mission
roll Call first get started and what is the purpose
of your organization.

Speaker 5 (06:50):
Yeah, well, thank you first time. We started a few
years ago as as a program and now we're stepping
up to be a full nonprofit and the mission is
really to become the voice of the American veterans. There's
about eighteen point five million veterans in our country, half

(07:11):
of which are not affiliated with any organization. The voices
are not being heard, and our role is to help
that voice be heard in an unfiltered, a political way
that helps veterans, helping veterans, veterans telling their story, and
us helping veterans navigate their next phase in life, which

(07:33):
is a challenge for something.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
What are some of the issues that you hear about
from veterans that they need help with.

Speaker 5 (07:40):
Well, there's a whole host of it, you know. First
of all, you know, we have such a great country
that supports their veterans. Right, Americans by a far majority
eighty five ninety percent have a favorable feeling about veterans.
Highly support veterans, value what they've done for our country.

(08:03):
So understand that the veterans community is a diverse one,
it's resilient, it's a vital demographic in our country, and
their service has helped build and sustain the American way alife,
and their sacrifice is really part of the fabric which
makes up our national character. But to answer your question,

(08:26):
I think there's a number of areas. One, and this
may be a shot to some listening, but we have
about twenty five percent of both active duty and military
that are food insecure, means they're not able to eat correctly.
They don't have the right resources money to be able

(08:46):
to buy the food that they need. We're all familiar
with the number of veterans suicides we have. That number
is commonly discussed around twenty to twenty two. It's probably
higher than that because some people are not identified as
veterans for whatever reason. Sustain sustained problem in our society

(09:10):
as veterans getting access to quality healthcare. You know, two
thirds of the American people strongly support that veterans get
access to civilian healthcare. If the VA cannot serve those
veterans in the timely fashion. Most Americans right now do
not feel that veterans get as much support from the

(09:32):
government as they should. So we have a number of
issues that face veterans. The transition to civilian life is
sometimes very difficult, and that's some of the things that
we're tackling Admission Roll Call is to give them a
forum in which they can talk about the challenges they have,

(09:54):
network with each other, and tackle some of these problems.
You give veterans a problem, you get the soldier or marine,
an airman, a Navy person a problem, they're going to
go solve it and they're going to go find a
way to work together to get that done. And that's
what we're trying to do with Mission roll Call. We're
really excited about a lot of energy behind it. A

(10:17):
lot of nonprofits to the military space are highly supportive
of it. So we're excited about the work we're doing
and have every intent to grow it and become the
nation's premier voice of the veteran.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Finally, how can veterans make their voices heard through Mission
roll Call? And how can everyone, whether they served or not,
help support the work that you're doing.

Speaker 5 (10:41):
Thank you, Ron, It's so important, first of all, for
anyone who's non active duty, has been a veteran, is
the spouse of a veteran, has a brother or sister
in the service. Please join us. Go to our website
sign up. We have a number of surveys that we
do that we see send out the folks to gauge

(11:02):
what are the issues that they have. We share that
survey data with elected officials. People are built the federal, state,
and local level to help state college policy, to help
tell the story. They can go to our website and
do that and join and they can just let all

(11:23):
the veterans know about this important endeavor that we're embarking upon.
We've had a lot of success, but we looked at
twenty twenty four is to really be the year that
we grow this and continue the good work that's been
done so far. You know, veterans are so important to

(11:43):
our country. So few people now in our populace have
served or know someone served, and so it's important for
us to be able to tell that the impact of
what veterans do and what thatasance brings to the table.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
You know, they bring.

Speaker 5 (11:59):
Highly as perable skills, they're more likely to engage in
civil organizations, they want to get back to work. They're
great role models, great coaches, great mentors, and they're very diverse.
They represent every facet of our society and they're what

(12:22):
makes our country so great.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Everyone can learn more about the work Mission Role Call
does and you can support that work as well at
Mission Role Call dot org. That's Mission Role Call dot Org.
CEO of Mission Role Call Jim Whaley with us. Jim,
I want to thank you so much for the work
you're doing with your organization and also for your service
to this country. We really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
God bless you.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
Thank you. Ryan. This is the weekly show on iHeartRadio
More Next.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
As veterans, we're no strangers to helping others.

Speaker 6 (12:54):
That's what we were taught service before self.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
But we do have one question for the veterans.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Listen, when was the last time you reached out for help?

Speaker 2 (13:04):
If you or someone you know needs resources, whether it's
for stress, finances, employment, or mental health, don't wait reach out.

Speaker 4 (13:12):
Find more information at VA dot gov slash reach. That's
VA dot go slash.

Speaker 5 (13:17):
Reach, brought to you by the United States Department of
Veterans Affairs and the AD Council.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
Welcome back to the weekly show here on iHeartRadio Chicago.
It's Mick Lee. Every week we spotlight topics and organizations
in Chicagoland that are doing great things for our city
and suburbs. If you're part of a local charity that
deserves some recognition on the radio. You can definitely reach
out to us. Email me directly Micklee at iHeartMedia dot com.

(13:41):
It is Veterans Day weekend. Veterans Day is this Monday.
So today on the show, we're spotlighting some organizations that
are helping veterans and their families nationwide and here locally.
Up next, we have Matt Parrish, green beret veteran and
executive director of Task Force Dagger. Ryan Gorman is with Matt.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Now we're joined by Green Beret veteran and executive director
of Task Force Dagger Matt Parrish. You can learn more
about this organization at Taskforce Dagger dot org. Matt, thank
you so much for coming on the show. How did
Task Force Dagger first get started? And tell us about
the mission you're on?

Speaker 7 (14:19):
Absolutely now, thanks for having me ran. You know, Task
Work Stagger's been around a little over a decade. You know,
our our bread and butter is we service all active
and former members of the Special Operations Community UH and
their families, no matter what branch they served in. So
every branch Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps has their
own kind of version of special operations, and we cover

(14:41):
all of them, uh and as I said, their families
as well, because what we found over the years is,
you know, if someone's going through a hardship, it's not
just affecting them, it's certainly affecting their family as well.
So we do that across three primary missions. The first
one is immediate needs, which is you know, everything from
you know, we're having a financial hardshed because of a

(15:02):
death in the family, or hey, we need to you know,
get airline tickets to go and visit a stick relative.
All those things, you know, are just things that unfortunately,
there's not a lot of financial margin for most folks
that are active duty, and so we want to you know,
provide kind of a safety net there to take care
of special operators in their families when that you know,

(15:22):
kind of crisis comes. And then health initiatives we stay
on the cutting edge and kind of next gen things
across behavioral and mental health, across traumatic brain injury, post
traumatic stress and things like that. And so we we
we stay at the front edge of things that aren't
covered by insurance yet but are showing a lot of

(15:43):
usefulness and utility and really saving people's lives, and so
we want to be the pathfinder to help folks get
connected to those treatments and then hopefully ultimately advocate through
Congress and through other things for those things to be
covered in the future. And then finally we do rehability
of adaptive events, which is really focused around injured or
ill or wounded you know again active reformer SOFT members

(16:07):
in their families. We do that across a couple of
different events, but our flagship event is down in Key
West every year called Dagger Dive, where we take these
families and have them learn how to scuba dive together.
And so you've got a family that's undergone a lot
of stress over the course of a career and now
they get a chance to do something as like a

(16:27):
shared a shared task, a shared learning of something. And
as you take you know, take your take your you know,
service member in there and their spouse underwater. You know,
you take away the ability to speak, you're all hand
an arm signal if you're learning a new task, all
these things. And you know, we've had a lot of
family members who have come back and said, you know, hey,

(16:48):
my my husband or my father you know, is in
a wheelchair from his service, or he's got all these
mounted or you know, different things going on, and this
is the first time we've been able to do something
with Dad similar to how he was before. You know,
he underwent all of these injuries and things like that,
so really awesome, impactful stuff that we're proud to we're

(17:10):
proud to be able to support our community with.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
And I think what's really important is the family component
to this, because it isn't just the special operators who
are dealing with something. The families. They're right in the
middle of this too, for set.

Speaker 7 (17:25):
And you know, if you're going to make positive and
proactive change and help someone's life, it needs to be
from all aspects. It needs to be holistic, and it
definitely needs to be including the family because they've been
included across all of these different deployments and training things
and injuries. You know, they oftentimes are dealing with it,
you know, just as much trying to make sure that

(17:47):
you know, again mom or dad or you know, spouse
is taken care of, but also taking care of just
the average day to day, you know, day to day
stuff for you know, whether the kids are into school
or any you know, something's going on where dad gets
injured and mom has to go somewhere for a month

(18:07):
to take care of him. You know, there's a lot
of stress on a family over the course of over
the course of a special operations career. So we're happy
to be able to provide you know, both both opportunity
to to you know, do these different things and try
to heal, but also a supportive atmosphere of other people
who understand the challenges and can help walk people through

(18:30):
with their families. You know, again, we're always pointing people
in a positive and proactive direction because it's not about
having a bunch of you know, victims as veterans, about
getting these amazing people a little bit of a help
back into showing all the amazing things they can do
is now citizens in their post military career.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
And finally, what are some of the different ways that
everyone listening can help support the work the Task Force
Dagger does.

Speaker 7 (18:56):
Absolutely you know Ryan mentioned earlier. If you go to
Task Force Dagger or you can join our email list,
get linked into all these different things that we're doing
over the course of a year. We are one hundred
percent donor funded. We are a private foundation and so
we rely on you know, patriotic Americans across the country
and across the world, some of which who have served,

(19:18):
some of which have family that have served, and some
who haven't at all but want to support. You know,
over the course of the global war terrorism, special operations
has been really used and at times overused, and so
we're trying to piece those things back together and make
sure that we take care of the folks that have served,
and that we are proactively looking for the folks that
are going to serve in the future and helping them out.

(19:40):
And so we're always looking for folks to donate, but
also looking for volunteers for some of our different events
as I mentioned, like things at Dagger Dive or other
events that we put on across the country. We're always
looking for volunteers. And so if you check out taskforth
Dagger dot org or hit us up on you know,
Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn at any of those places,
we can get to tied in and and show you

(20:01):
ways to get involved.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
For sure, Green Beret veteran and executive director of Task
Force Dagger, which again you can learn more about and
support at Taskforce Dagger dot org. Matt Parrish with US
Matt Thank you so much for your service, for the
work you're doing with Task Force Dagger, and for coming
on the show. We appreciate it.

Speaker 7 (20:18):
Thanks, I appreciate your brother.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
And Happy Veterans Day to all of our vets out there,
Thank you for your service. It's iHeartRadio Chicago and the
weekly show is on right now, as we say, from
Veterans Day to the Field Museum and some of the
great things that they have to offer for Chicago ins Here.
Robin Rock is back chatting with the Field Museum. Hey, Robin, Hi,
It's Robin Rock.

Speaker 4 (20:39):
And joining me today is Bridge Russell, the senior director
of Marketing and Communications for the Field Museum. Hi, Bridge,
and welcome.

Speaker 6 (20:46):
Thank you so much for having me. Robin. It's great
to be here.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
And so what I want to do is check in
with you, because let's find out what's going on at
the Field right now.

Speaker 6 (20:54):
What's happening.

Speaker 8 (20:54):
Oh, absolutely So for the next couple of Wednesdays, we're
really actually excited to have a program call after at
the Field where it's very discounted ticket for maybe folks
who have to work nine to five and they want
to come see us, but their weekends are busy and
they're at work during the day, so from five thirty
to eight thirty pm you can come to the Field Museum.
You can check out all of our exhibits, including Unseen Oceans,

(21:15):
which is a recent ticketed show, and Sue in the
Flesh or Fleshy Sue as we affectionately call it, which
is basically a fleshed out version of Sue the t
Rex and that's there for a limited time.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
Oh my gosh. Okay, now you've totally reeled me and
I want to come.

Speaker 6 (21:30):
Absolutely what You're totally welcome. I love that.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Okay, So what other exhibitions are happening right now, because
I'm sure there are a lot of really cool things.

Speaker 8 (21:38):
Yes, yes, absolutely, there's always something cool happening at the Field.
And one exhibition I want to point out is called
Changing Face of Science. It's a series exhibition where we
profile women and scientists of color, where we're really hoping
to challenge what you think of when you think of
a scientist and think about all the different ways someone
can study science and how that person can look very differently.

(21:58):
So right now on view, there is a young lady
named Yolanda Willhite, who's actually from Chicago who works in
our Color Science Action Center doing conservation work. Her exhibition
is fabulous, as well as a scientist named Janet Voight
who studies molluscs and cephalopods, which is very very cool,
and so she studies what goes on in the deep sea.

(22:19):
So both of those exhibitions are fantastic, they're phenomenal, and
they're about women's scientists, scientists of color to hopefully get
you to think differently about who can be a scientist.

Speaker 4 (22:28):
I love that in this day and age when kids think,
you know, being an influencer would be great to actually
get them to rethink and to see what a scientist
really does.

Speaker 8 (22:37):
Absolutely absolutely, and a scientist does influence in their own way,
right because their research influences some of the decisions that
we make, some of the ways that we take care
of the planet, the ways that we take care of ourselves.
So being a scientist is kind of the ultimate influencer
for the kiddos who are listening.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
I love that.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
That's a great way of looking at it all. Right,
So now we know what's happening inside of the the
old museum, what about outside of the music, Because you
guys are busy there.

Speaker 6 (23:01):
Too, absolutely.

Speaker 8 (23:02):
So two of our departments stay really really busy outside
of the museum include our Education and Public Programs department.
So that's the department that handles not only field trips
inside the building, but outside, going out into different communities
and hosting programs with the library joining a program called
Park Rangers where they're going to different parks and bringing
sort of literally pieces of the Field Museum and our

(23:23):
collection out to those spaces. As well as our Keller
Science Action Center. So the scientists Yolanda Willheight that I
mentioned earlier, works with the Keller Science Action Center to
go out into the different communities in Chicago to preserve
the green spaces and to talk about urban conservation and
how important that is to the city.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
You know, it's crazy as and I drive past the
field every time I come into work. It looks so
stately and so calm, but there's a lot of activity
inside and outside there is.

Speaker 8 (23:49):
The Field Museum has about one hundred and fifty scientists
on staffs are always at the forefront of research in
a variety of areas, not only to bring great new
ideas and research the forefront, but also to help fuel
those exhibitions. You see on the inside of the museum,
and then the programs that you can find on the outside, and.

Speaker 4 (24:06):
I pick your brain and maybe get it. I just
is there anything new and up and coming? Maybe can
you tell us that we should keep an eye out for.

Speaker 8 (24:18):
So I can't, we haven't quite released it yet, but
what I can say is that we are planning to
open a new exhibition toward the end of November, So
stay tuned and definitely keep an eye on our website
Field Museum dot org.

Speaker 6 (24:31):
I think it's gonna be a really really fun show.
Can't wait.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
That's a good tease.

Speaker 6 (24:37):
I'm like, oh, I can't.

Speaker 8 (24:38):
I can't reveal too much right now, but we're so excited.

Speaker 6 (24:41):
We'll be releasing that information soon. That's awesome.

Speaker 4 (24:43):
Okay, So Bridget, you have to tell me is there
Do you have a favorite exhibition one that you love.

Speaker 6 (24:48):
I'm so glad that you asked.

Speaker 8 (24:49):
One of the exhibitions I feel like it's just so underrated,
is actually our China Hall, the Cyrus Tang Hall of China.
It's a beautiful, beautiful space and it examines the ancient
cultures in China. It was redone in twenty fifteen, So
kind of you know, a kind of new ish for
a museum, and I think you should check it out
the next time you go.

Speaker 4 (25:09):
It's beautiful, that sounds amazing. So hours of the Field.

Speaker 8 (25:13):
Museum absolutely, So nine am to five pm are our
normal hours. For the extended hours on November six and
November thirteenth, you can come see us for a discount
at rate five thirty to eight thirty pm.

Speaker 6 (25:24):
That's outstanding.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
I'm so excited and I love that you're giving people
another reason to come back and see the Field Museum.

Speaker 8 (25:30):
Absolutely, and we hope you come back again and again.
We can't wait to see you. Thank you, Bridget, Thank you, Robin.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Yes, thank you Robin. It's the Weekly Show here on iHeartRadio.
Mike Lee back with you again and happy to be
here spotlighting local charities and nonprofits and keeping up to
date on various topics from education, to finance, health and more.
If you're part of a local charity or nonprofit that
deserves to have some recognition on the radio, you can

(25:56):
email me directly and maybe we'll get you on another
edition here of the weekly Show. Email me Mick Lee
at iHeartMedia dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
We'll be back again next weekend here on the Weekly
Show