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September 26, 2025 • 54 mins
Rob and Rudy talk veteran suicide prevention and signs to look for
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (01:36):
Welcome everybody to another episode of STU. In the nine,
episode three eighty, Stu has the night off. He's doing
a little bit of traveling, so you're stuck with my
ugly mug. And if you tune in on Tuesdays, you
will recognize my guest opposite me here, Rudy dank Thanky.
So introduced.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
So Rudy.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
My miname is Rudy Denky and I'm the chief executive
officer for Saturday Morning Western Enterprise Corporations with multiple sol
board and companies underneath. And by the way, thank you
very much for having me back. This is a topic
that I'm very passionate about. And here's why suicide. Veteran
suicide is never easy to deal with it. It impacts
so many more people than just the individual that passes away.

(02:17):
But it affects family members, and it affects friends, and
it affects people that you served with and people that
you choose some of the same dirt with in combat zones.
And everybody who's been on active duty either knows somebody
or knows of somebody who's been affected by this pandemic.

(02:38):
To put this into magnet, to put this into a
magnitude that people understand. We lose twenty eight veterans a
day to suicide. Most of those are older than fifty
years old. And there's some common things that we hear
from the therapists who in the cases where they did
have a therapist, there were common denominators chronic depression, hopelessness, despair.

(03:05):
Sometimes it's money problems, sometimes it's relationship problems. Sometimes and
one of the stories that I'm going to relate to
you was a result of a terminal illness, and let's
start with that one, with your permission, sir, Absolutely absolutely right.
I had a friend. He was a little bit older
than I am. In fact, he was in the middle
part of his career, middle to three quarters through his

(03:27):
career when I met the man, and I considered him
a friend, and I was at his house and I
knew his children and watched his children grow up. Unfortunately,
he was a chain smoker, and he smoked Paul Mall's
without a filter on him. He went into a hospital,
the emergency room on a Friday afternoon because he was

(03:50):
having some chest pains, and they ran a whole battery
of tests with him because his anatomical readings weren't right.
What they concluded with at the end of the night
is that he had stage four lung cancer and they
only gave him anywhere from days to months to live.

(04:13):
He made it through the weekend, and then on Monday
morning he decided that it was going to be way
too painful to go through chemotherapy and to not have
it be an effective process, and he went and sat
on the railroad trucks and it's just it's terrible, It
really is terrible. Part of me understands this particular case.

(04:39):
Why not wanting to go through chemotherapy, not wanting to
be in the hospital for months on end if he
made it that long, and having no chance, zero chance
of success because of the quick turnaround on this and
the very short nature of how much they gave him
to live, a lung transplant just wasn't feasible, right, So

(05:02):
the doctors said, you know that they and I knew this,
and I know this because I then, you know, talked
to his wife afterwards. I wasn't in the I didn't
have the conversation with the doctors, but it was relaid
through his fouse that although the doctor said, you know,
the very best Caana scenario would be six months. It
was more like thirty days when they expected him to

(05:26):
pass away. So part of me understands why it happened,
but that doesn't fill the hole that was left in
so many people's lives. And the man was married, he
had you know, adult children by this point in time,
and grandchildren, and just it affected so many more people

(05:48):
than the immediate victim. And there's just the way it
ended didn't allow anybody closure in the matter. And and
I think that it left a bigger hole because of
the way it happened and the fact that people didn't
have a chance to prepare for what was was going

(06:11):
to come to be able to.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Do this.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
And I know that his wife had to go to
you know, brief counseling and everything else to be able
to help or pass the hump, which, by the way,
is one of the things that we're doing with this process.
So I've told you now at least one story, and
we'll get to the second one in a minute. Why this,
Why this is I'm so very passionate about this issue.

(06:37):
But one of the organizations that we paired with to
be able to do this is the Mother's the Veteran
Suicide which is a global nonprofit organization. They provide five
different areas of support for people who are who are
all messed up on the inside. The first is they
provide they have a full blown operation, it's called Operation Stay.

(07:00):
What Operations Stay does is it allows people to recognize
what the warning indicators are and get help before the
crisis actually happens. So, and there's no it's a completely
confidential system. It's not broadcasts of the world. I know that,
you know, especially the guys that went to work for

(07:22):
like the defense contracting industry are back into the government.
They're worried about their clearances and the impact of having,
you know, talking to a therapist could have on the
clearances and on their job and on their job stability
and everything else. But this is a completely confidential part
of the Mothers of Veteran Suicide. And so there's a
prevention aspect of it. Recognize the warning size, talk to somebody.

(07:45):
In addition to that, we also have the National Suicide Hotline.
And I believe it's going to be a banner underneath.
I saw it there we go. I saw the banner underneath.
And this is open twenty four hours a day, seven
days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year,
And if you are feeling all messed up inside, or
you're feeling that despair, or you feel like you're suffering

(08:06):
from chronic depression, and give them call. And I don't
know how you feel, but I'd rather render help to
somebody than read about them in the in the in
an obituary.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Right, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, one of one of the biggest things.
And it's kind of it's very prominent in the veteran community, right,
And even even when we're active, is the kind of
unwillingness to reach out, right, you know, one of the
things that we all go through is veterans is you know,
once we get out, we have that kind of separation

(08:39):
anxiety for a little bit, right, so we're no longer
with our friends every day. But as time goes by,
you know, we tend to start fighting our battles by ourselves, right,
even if we're married, even if we you know, have
a spouse, even if we have brothers and sisters. You know,
you know, we tend to tend to kind of bottle
a lot of that stuff up and just fight it

(08:59):
by ourselves, thinking we're going to be able to get
through it. And the thing about these these you know,
these veteran hotlines and stuff like that, This doesn't mean
you're broken, it doesn't mean you know there's anything wrong
with you. This is just simply that you know, help
you reconnect and to speak to somebody. Sometimes even just

(09:21):
speaking to somebody helps, you know, as you just said,
I would rather, I would rather have a three o'clock
call to talk to somebody I don't even know, then
to read about it, you know, the next day in
the paper, you know, or on the news or something.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
So because of the pervasiveness of the problem, there's also
another mechanism that people can can use to get immediate help.
You can text nine to eighty eight and help. Text
help to this number, and within a matter of minutes
you're going to get a phone call from a therapeutic
counselor to be able just to have somebody to talk to.

(09:56):
So if you feel like you're at which end, and
if you feel you know, there's no hope in the situation,
as was the case with another friend of mine, who
will tell you about and I wish I knew about
this function then, because this one still hurts today. Mike
was a was a good friend of mine. Mike had

(10:19):
a wife and two little girls, and he absolutely adored
these little girls. His whole world revolved around being a
father with him and doing everything that a father would
do with two small girls. And they were they're young girls,
they're three and five years old. And Mike, for as

(10:42):
good as he was to his daughters, he had kind
of a challenging relationship with his wife. His wife decided
that there was no future with it. She took the
little girls and left, and no contact information, no forwarding address,
no way for a guy whatsoever to be able to
continue to be a part of his daughter's slots. Unfortunately,

(11:06):
he went into a spin cycle, and the spin cycle
he started drinking, and he started drinking early in the morning.
I was traveling at the time. I was in the States,
but I was traveling at the time. I got a
phone call about nine thirty in the morning, and it
was drinking and crying and a full breakdown, and no

(11:30):
matter what I could do, I couldn't. I couldn't talk
him down off the cliff. And I wish I knew
that the nine eight eight text message existed then, because
I would have done it on his behalf. I would
have called and said, hey, listen, give this guy a call.
He really needs to talk to somebody. The day didn't
get any better. No contact with his wife, no contact

(11:50):
with his daughters. Continued drinking and he continued smiling. By
about eight o'clock at night, he stuck a rifle in
his mouth and pulled the trigger. I talked to him
that day. I talked to him that day, and it's hard. Yeah,
he's a friend. This is a guy that I went

(12:11):
hunting with, a guy that I went fishing with, We
went camping together. I knew his little girls. In fact,
you know when he'd go out for or when he
was trying with his wife and you know, would try
and go out on a dinner date or anything like that.
I was the one to watch kids, so I was
a part of their lives. And that's one of those areas,

(12:32):
that's one of the wandering signs too, where relationship problems,
money problems, job satisfaction are all things that can that
can bring people to that edge. And that's why it's
so very important that you can talk to somebody to
help you bring you down off the ledge. And sometimes
a friend can't do it. No matter how my friend is.
You know, I wish I had a PhD in psychology,

(12:56):
but I don't. The best thing I can do is
be a good friend.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yea, but I was. Sometimes it's beneficial to talk to
somebody you don't know as well, right, you know, so
you can some people feel a little bit more open
to speak to somebody like you know, you and I friends.
I'm not going to tell you anything that that I
think may may embarrass me, right, but I can tell
a stranger those types of things, and so sometimes that's
very helpful to get those things out.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
So I agree again, I wish I knew that then,
and in a way to be able to get him
to talk to somebody that you know, wasn't in his
immediate circle and bring a fresh, a fresh perspective to
things and talk about, you know, the emotions that brought
him to the cliff, and how to to manage those

(13:43):
emotions so that they don't continue in that spin cycle.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Sure, well, we just we just spent as a country
two decades at war, right and and even before that,
look at you know, the Vietnam era veterans and everything
that they went through, which your good portion of those
are still alive, right, you know, we're getting down to
where there's not very many World War II veterans left,

(14:08):
if any. There's Korea, Korea, but then you get into Vietnam,
and where I'm going with this is, look how long
it has taken to get certain things like ancient orange,
you know, so that those guys can get help. And
think about the First Gulf War and all the burn
pits and the Campbell June Water and how long it takes.

(14:32):
You know, you said your friend was a smoker, but
there is a lot of other things that you know,
the military goes through that can cause these problems and
cause these medical conditions, and it also causes some of
the things that affect us mentally. Right, the human body
and the human mind is not meant to see some

(14:52):
of the things that are seen in combat, right, you know,
They just they just can't. You can't train up enough
for those types of things, and you have to have
some sort of outlet to take care of that. So
we you know, one of the things that and Troy
talks about this all the time that the military does
a fantastic job of teaching soldiers how to kill and

(15:13):
prepare them for war, but they don't do a very
good job of talking them back down off the cliff right,
so after the fact they don't. So one of the
things that I've always been engaged in and you are too,
is a lot of these veterans groups. Why I volunteer,
you know, to give my name my number. And again,
I would rather have a call at three o'clock in

(15:35):
the morning with somebody I don't know than to read
about it the next day.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
So I feel the same way, And at the end
of this presentation, I'm going to offer the same thing
if you are, if you are all fucked up on
the inside, and if you need somebody to talk to,
I'll give you my my business telephone, which is on
twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and
at the end of this I will avail that in
for me as part of this veteran support network. I

(16:03):
do think there's one other thing that really is an
exacerbating set of circumstances with this. Because we spend so
much time in combat zones, there's a large segment of
our population, of our veteran population, that also have PTSD,
and what that does is that creates a jaundice lens
to be able to try and look at at circumstances

(16:24):
and vents and take them and analyze them for what
they are without without an emotional response for it. So PTSD.
One of the most common symptoms of PTSD is anger.
That that that's spirals, It takes on a life of
its own right. And if you're that angry at the
world and then something happens, it makes it extraordinarily difficult

(16:47):
to be able to walk back off that clip because
there's no way, there's no there's no physical capability to
control the anger piece of it. And then you have
these other things and it feels like you're being attacked
by from every direction, from every side, and there's just
no relief from it. And so, you know, because we
did spend so much time in the combat zones, and

(17:09):
because there are so many combat veterans and a lot
of them, a lot of a lot of a lot
of them and a lot of us, I've seen some
pretty ugly things in the world, and that PTSD piece
of it is something The services are coming to grips
with it now, and the Veterans administration and everybody else
is becoming more proactive in in diagnosing PST PTSD and

(17:34):
giving people problems, but some of the solutions that they
offered don't help either. And I'll and I'll tell you
that there's a trend right now where you know, people
want to get a medical marijuana car to be able
to deal with PTSD. And the problem is you're introducing
a chemical into your body which is a depressant, and

(17:56):
if you're already depressed, or if you're clinically depressed and
you added depressant on top of that, that's one of
those things that can cause you to spiral as well.
If it helps you, hey, I'm happy with about that,
but if you have any any inclination of self harm aimed,
you're mixing drugs or alcohol with that, with that inclination,

(18:17):
then it becomes a double whammy and makes it really
really really really hard to come down if you get that,
if you get that spun up.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, Well, one of the things with PTS is is
the stigma. Right, So we talked briefly about you know,
how how veterans like to handle things themselves. Well, the
other part of that is the stigma that comes along
with PTSD, right, you know, post traumatic stress disorder, right,
and they hear the word disorder and they think, well,
I'm broken, right, you know, I'm mentally incapable the other thing.

(18:47):
And I've seen this countless times where those who have
PTSD don't want to get diagnosed with it because they
they're afraid that they're going to lose like their Second
Amendment rights right, right, So they're afraid that that it's
going to get taken away from them, or like it
was tried under one of the previous administrations, they tried
to if you filed for that, they tried to take

(19:08):
away and say that you weren't mentally capable of even
handling your finances, right, And so they use that as
an avenue to attack you. I'm a very analytical thinker.
I'm an IT guy by trade, and I like to
break things down into small chunks. But one of the
problems I've always had with with veteran suicide is there's

(19:28):
no one cause, right. There is multiple things that are
at work here, whether it's PTSD, whether it's TBI, whether
it's financial, whether it's you know your spouse, whether it's kids,
or whether maybe you had something that was in there before,
maybe some childhood trauma that came out later. And so

(19:48):
there's a lot of different things that can cause these results, right,
And one of the problems I see across a lot
of these organizations and across a lot of the awareness
is we tend to look at the symptom rather than
the cause. Right. So suicide is simply the results. It's

(20:11):
not the cause. You know, we need to go back
a step, and go back a step even further than
that and try to get to the root cause and
stop it from happening in the first place.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
That's why I'm an advocate of the Mothers of veteran
suicide because they do have the prevention programs in place,
and they offer at least a service where if somebody
is exhibiting dangerous warning signs where you can get them help. Now,
they do offer some other things, and I'm a big
supporter of some of their other programs as well. So

(20:43):
they offer grief counseling for the kids and for the spouses.
So when something does happen, especially that first year, so
after somebody passes away, you know, the kids don't have
a mother or father anymore. They're trying to adjust, they
are trying to make it through school and and this
is one of those and this is one of those

(21:04):
times where you know, the sphere of people who are
impacted by this is so much bigger than just the individual, right.
But mothers of veteran suicide they do the grief counseling,
they do, grief retreats, they do and they provide some
family support through their family funds where you know, the

(21:25):
first year when the kids go to school after they
lose their mom and dad, they get a book bag
full of of of school supplies and they get you know,
a birthday card or a small gift on their birthday
and something at Christmas, just to be able to help
them through the process. So that you know, when we
talk about spiraling and the and the sphere of influence,
is this second ring of influence can really be impacted

(21:48):
and and this is something that can impact them for
the rest of their lives and frankly it can mess
them up too.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
So that's one of the other the other services that
mothers of veteran suicide provide is the is the grief
counseling and the grief retreats and the family funds to
be able to to help those kids and the spouses
transition through that program. The next one and I got
to look at the brochhore for a minute because I
think I forgot one. Let me check and see. Oh.

(22:17):
So one of the things that happens with the support
network is there is some therapeutic value in meeting with
other people who are in your same circumstances. So what
mothers of veteran suicide does is when the spouses and
when the children, when this happens, they often kind of

(22:38):
lose their goals. They don't they're just kind of aimless,
they don't know what to do. And so through the
volunteering program, it gives them purpose to be able to
have a legitimate and tangible goal, to be able to
help other people who are in the same sort of
circumstances that you may be in or that you may
have lived through. And so that's another really big apple

(23:00):
respect of this is and it's a continuing part of
the therapeutic process, is to to be able to say, listen,
you know, here's something to help you in the near
term until things level out where you can where you
can help other people that that may have been in
your same set of circumstances. They are a nationwide nonprofit organization.

(23:21):
You can go directly to their website and help support
this effort. You can also contact me, you know, I
can get the the donations to the to the to
the organization, to the organization. But I think the five
stages that they represent is is really something that.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
It can help.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
There's not you know, there's so many things, and there's
so many disjointed things. But it's rare to find one
organization that has all five programs in place. And they're
all five functional programs. So it's not a it's not
a paper tiger. These are actual, real functioning programs.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah. Well, you know, even even beyond the immediate family, right,
I mean you just gave us two stories of friends
of yours. Right. One of the things that we build
bonds with, you know, our brothers and sisters because we've
gone through things that very little of the population have
gone through. Right, you know that would veterans make up

(24:20):
something like one percent of the population or less than
ten something like that. So you've got another ninety plus
percent of the of the US population that has never
been through even something as simple as boot camp, right, right,
they've never been through that. So we build these bonds
with our with our brothers and sisters, and when when
you lose them, that that helps, that can cause you know,

(24:43):
the thing to domino and cascade into into others as well.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
So I think, you know, I think most people are
equipped to deal with one situation when they're attacked by
one situation. It's when multiple situations or multiple sets of
circumstances attack you all at once. But I think cause
people to take that next step toward the edge. So
one thing can manage even you know, if you're even

(25:08):
if you have PTSD, if there's one issue that comes up,
then you can you can you can generally manage that.
It's that, you know, when three or four or five
things happen all at once and there just doesn't seem
to be any relief from it. Is I think the
things it causes people to take those additional steps towards
the cliff.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah. Well, I mean one of the great things about
you know, the text message and the one eight hundred
number is you know we've all had to deal with
the VA, right, I mean, you call the VA and
you may get an appointment six months from now, right,
And unfortunately that that has caused some suicides. Right. We've
seen in the past where where veterans have walked into

(25:49):
VA offices and committed suicide in the offices. So these
numbers are immediate, right, So that text message and that
phone number, someone's going to answer right then. So you know,
everybody needs to make sure, you know, not not just
the veteran themselves, but the family members, the other veterans.
You know, maybe you have friends with PTSD, maybe you

(26:10):
have friends with tv I, maybe you have friends who
who are going through a couple of things, you know,
whether it's you know, spouse problems, whether it's you know,
I've seen it's unfortunate. I've had friends, non veterans who
have lost a child and then later they ended up
committing suicide themselves.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
So there's there's all kinds of things that can affect
that and getting help, you know, simply by dialing the
phone number, you know. And and this is gonna sound
kind of, you know, funny, but you don't even have
to be sober when you call, right, I mean, if
you if you're if you've had a few drinks, call
it anyway. They will talk to you. They will talk

(26:49):
to you.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
They will, yeah, they will, And they'll stay on the
on the phone for as long as it takes to
be able to to talk to you and try and
help at least, you know, take a step backwards and
think about things less logically and more or less emotionally
and more logically, so they will stay on the phone
for you for as long as it takes.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Yeah, Yeah, And you know, I I kind of fear
we're gonna it's not going to get a lot better.
I almost have a fear that it's going to get
a little bit worse. You know, we we each generation
has has the room set of problems, right, And we
just came out of we just came out of a
pandemic where a large portion of our children you know,

(27:32):
were locked away, you know, at home for for months
and months at a time. It didn't have that social
outlet that they would have had other otherwise. And then
then these are going to grow up and to be adults,
and some of them are going to join the military,
and and you know, some of that's going to carry
over and may cause some problems down the line. Maybe
it won't. I hope I'm wrong, but you know that's

(27:53):
that's the unfortunate thing that I that I see coming.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yeah, I agree with you, and I think that as
these kids come to maturity, they may bring some some
issues with them into adulthood, that that they may need
to talk to somebody as well.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
Yeah, so I know that we flashed the telephone number
and the nine eight eight on the bottom of the
screen during this, But one of the things I also
would like to do is I would like to show
you this and so you can take a screenshot of
it if you're if you have the capability to do that.
But even the QR code and the the telephone number

(28:30):
and the address for contacting mothers of veteran suicide.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Okay, yeah, it's I know for some it seems like
it's it's the easier or the lesser of two evils,
but it really does cascade into a lot of other areas.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
You know.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
It's it's not just you know, your spouse, It's not
just your children, it's your friends. It's your mother, your father,
your brother, your sister, you know, even your brothers in arms.
It really can cascade into a very very bad problem.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
It can. There is a venue and I don't do
this very often, but I'm going to do it in
this case. If you want to see an illustration of
how this affects other people. There's a young man that
just published a song, and I'm going to pull up
his name right now, and what the song is. The
song talks about is somebody that has committed It's somebody

(29:32):
that's committed suicide and all the people are gathering around
to attend the funeral. And you see in this song
and in the video presentation of it, just how many
people were affected that the individual that committed suicide probably
had no idea that all of these people were going
to be affected.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
So it was.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
Mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and people that
you went to school with. So the young man that
sings a song, his name is I.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
Got to get my classes.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Hold on a minute, blame Larson. It's b l A
I N E l A R s e N. And
the song is called how do you get that Lonely?
And it talks about a little bit, you know, how
do you get to the state where you just feel
that there's no help available and no help for you,

(30:25):
specifically for you. And the artist does a pretty good
job in doing this and showing the the first tier effects,
the second tier effects, and the third tier effects through
his video I had actually used this to as a
background song for the events coming up on the fourth

(30:45):
of October, to be able to not so much to
tugget people's heart strings, but rather just this is how
many people are affected. So it's not just the individual
that you know, unfortunately decides to kill themselves. It's all
the other people in their in their social spheres. Guys

(31:07):
that you went to boot camp with, you know, guys
that you were in combat with, Guys that you were
at their house and had a barbecue with, and and
you know, there's just some of this just doesn't fade
away either, you know, especially for the ones where you
think he could have made a difference. It just doesn't

(31:30):
fade away. That pain and that emptiness is going to
be there for a while.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Right. We had a we had a guest on here.
He's actually been a repeat guest. His name is Douglas Torell.
He's an actor. Uh and uh. He does a one
man play and it kind of kind of goes through,
you know, a lot of the things that drive people
to suicide.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
He also has a Netflix series called Landing I think
it's Landing Home that's about a veteran coming back from
combat and you know, dealing without those types of things.
It's it's definitely the play. I've not seen it myself,
but I've I've read a lot of the reviews on
it and everything, and everybody comes away from that and

(32:15):
just says that is that is as accurate as it
can get. And so so I.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
Think and I would love to see the play and
I hope that he goes through the stage is of grief.
So just like people the individual conspiral level, so can
the people that are that are affected by this as well.
And there's an entire grief cycle. You may go through
your you may go through anger, a period where you're angry, lonely, heartbroken, sad,

(32:47):
and and the people who are experiencing the grief are
also going to have all of these factors that sometimes
happened all at once. And and that's why the the
ability to provide family counseling and grief counseling through this
process and understand the stages of grief and understand how
to effectively manage them where it doesn't affect you like

(33:10):
has affected other people.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Right, you know, I'm I ad mentioned before. I participate
in a lot of the different veteran crews. One of
the things that I do for my regular nine to
five job is on the Veteran Resource Group lead and
we have a lot of talks with a lot of
the other veterans. And one of the things that someone
brought up that I think is very important that a
lot of veterans don't do, is get involved in the

(33:36):
VA as soon as you can when you're leaving service.
Get into the system, because that is the longest poll
in the tent to start getting some of your the
benefits that you've earned, right and to get some of
the help that you deserve, right. So anybody who's who
hasn't contacted the VA, and as a veteran, I would

(33:58):
suggest they go ahead and get into the system. Get
that part over with, because that that's going to take
the longest, and then once you're in the system, then
things can start, you know, they can help you a
little bit more.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
So.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
There's also another venue that's available for transitioning service members,
and that's that your exit physical from the service can
be as far as far forward as six months before
your your actual eas If you do the coordination beforehand,
your exit physical can be the same physical as your

(34:31):
entrance physical for the VA. It is so before you
even leave active duty, when you're going through when you're
going through your your final physical, and when you're going
through steps and when you're going through everything else in
the TAPS program. If you have to do that, you
can do you can work the Veterans Administration at the
same time. So when I retired, my exit physical was

(34:55):
already logged with the Veterans Registration and my first month
of retirement I got a concurrent check from the VA.
It was it took some doing sure did you have
the capability to do that? And it as well within
the regulations for all the Title ten services to do
just that, and that may be be that may be

(35:16):
a helpful venue too, especially if you are one of
these people that you have PTSD or you have you know,
tv I, or any of the other issues that are
already there, and get the VAS to acknowledge that these exists,
that these exist and it can help you. It can
facilitate getting the help that you need later on.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Well. Transitioning out of the military is hard enough as
it is right because you know it's it's you're you
know again, you're leaving, You're leaving behind, especially for you
know somebody who did it as long as long as
you did, right, you did twenty three years, remember twenty
two years? Yeah, So you know when when you've spent
the good portion and and a lot of us you know,
you included and I'm we went in when we're eighteen

(36:00):
nineteen twenty, right, you know, that's the time in our
lives when our brains are still mush and they're being
molded by the military. Right, So that is the biggest
influence that will ever happen, you know, to any any
young individual, right that there's early sixteen to about twenty

(36:21):
five years of age. That's that's when you're the most impressionable.
And so when you do that and then you do
like I said, as long as you did, you're you're
kind of stepping away, and there's that little bit of uncertainty, right,
you know what am I? What am I going to do?
And so if you can go ahead and get some
things knocked out, like you just said, get that VA started,

(36:42):
get that knocked out early, that's going to help you
with that transition.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
It is. You know, that's actually one of the other
times where because there's so much strife and life and
so many unknowns at that point in time. The transition
can be something that's that's pretty tough, and if you
already have the clinic clinical depression, or or any of
the other issues, it can the transition periy can significantly
exacerbate that.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
Here.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
Let me see if I can put this into perspective.
You're on active duty. Most of us aspire to be senior.
On active duty, nobody wants to be painting the yellow
rocks outside of the first of the five or ninth
you know, Airborne Training Unit, Alpha Company Training Unit, right,
and painting both sides of the of the rocks, right.
You don't want to do that after twenty years in
the service, So we all aspire to be senior, and

(37:27):
you get to a point, whether you're on the enlisted side,
the warrant officer ranks, or the officer ranks, where you
get senior enough where you're no longer doing those things
and you have the capability to give instructions. Well, during
the transition process, you learn that not everything that you
did on active duty translates into your new role, and

(37:47):
that can cause a lot of strife. It can cause
a lot of consternation in your personal life as you
try and figure some of these things out. But the
transition period can be pretty tough as well. And for
just that reason. You go from being senior to you know,
being a new employee, and you can no longer you
can no longer bark orders and have an instantaneous response.

(38:07):
The civilian community just does not appreciate that very well.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
And whether you get out, you know close to where
you were serving, right, I mean you you're originally from Wisconsin, Minnesota.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
So born on Camp Pendleton and then grew up in
Minnesota and South.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Dakota, and then now you live in Virginia.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
Right now, I live in Virginia.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
So so when you got out of the military, you're
now not even where you grew up, right. So if
you do go back home, most of your friends aren't
there anymore. Right, the friends you grew up with, they're
not there anymore. They're all doing their own own thing.
So now you no longer have that connection. But if
you get out where you're serving, you also don't have
a connection to you know, to the friends that you
had when you're in, because within two years their PCs

(38:47):
and somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
Right.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
So that's true, And even the people that are still
around you don't have much in common with them. Sure,
when you're on active duty, you have a much wider
aperture for how you look the world. Right, there are
still guys that, you know, I went to high school
with him, that's a long time ago, forty forty years ago,
that are still doing the same silly stuff they did

(39:10):
in high school. So I went to my twenty five
year class reunion and one of the guys and he
was one of the party guys in high school and
everything else, Like, dude, just what, we're having a kager
in the cornfield. You're forty two years old. Why are
you helding a kager in the cornfield at this point
in time. You can just go right up the street
and go to the bar, and their world is you know,
this big around, right, and you just don't have much

(39:32):
in common with him when you do go back. So
that's just kind of a funny tangent to you know
what we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
But yeah, yeah, and you know, to touch on what
you said about the civilian life, right, you know, you
can't go in there, you know, kicking and screaming. They
don't they don't tend to really like that too much
on the civilian side, No.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
And then there's a transition period for you as well,
especially for those people that were coming from the combat zone,
so from for marines, and I'm gonna be blunt. You know,
the more profane and the more vulguar you are, the
more instantaneous response to the order that you're given. That's
again something else that doesn't translate into the civilian world
very well. And so that's not a part of your
personality that you can carry forward and expect to be

(40:15):
successful with it if you do try and carry that forward.
And I can tell you this is a chief executive officer.
You're not going to be around law unless you go
into construction. Well even then, even then, well.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
They kind of look at your funny. Also when you're
sitting at your desk getting crayons.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
Well you know, that's that's right, that's right. And by
the way, we can you know, we can not only
eat them, but we can tell you what flavor they
are and what vintage they work.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
Sure, yeah, yeah, that that transition to civilian life. You know,
I got out long, long before you did. But one
of the things that I remember, and I think they've
gotten much better. When I was transitioning out. Basically, I
walked into a room and they said, you have a
nice day, and I out the door. I went, I'm
like that, that's my transition. Really update my resume. I'm

(41:07):
I've never had a resume in my life. I've spent
I've spent the last eight years here. I didn't need
a resume, And now you're telling me I have to
go write one. And what am I going to put
on it? You know? I can, I can back up
that that five tone, you know.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
With the ground Yeah, with the ground guy. You also
have to wear your you know, within your flackjack.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Of what you're know, how to put my my pet
belt on, you know, properly? You know. Yeah, So there's
you know, there's those. One of the things that I
did at one of my previous employers that I thought
was fantastic, uh was as a as a civilian organization,
as a civilian company, we partnered with a veterans group

(41:49):
that did interviews and helped veterans write their resumes. And
we did it from the aspect of the company looking
at these resumes, right. And the where my role came
into this was having the the you know, being the veteran,
I could talk them into saying, okay, you know what
what is your job? What your job is as Okay,

(42:09):
well that job comes with a secret security clearance. You
need to make sure you put that on your resume
because that is very, very worthwhile in the civilian world. Okay, now,
now you you know you have combat life saver, Now
you have medical experience, Now you have you know PT,
you know, physical fitness experience, you have all of these
things that you can list that you're selling yourself short

(42:31):
on because you simply think, well, those were everyday things
that everybody did. But in the civilian world, those types
of things, especially the clearance. The clearance is one of
those that people people often forget and then it really
stands out because if a company doesn't have to do
a background check and you already have a security clearance
and it's still active, that's worth a lot of money
to you.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
So we're talking about the stress of transition and and
how you know, appropriately tailing your resume and having a
plan you come out of the service can help alleviate
some of those stresses and prevent you from ever getting
close to that cliff. Right, But there are other things
that you have to keep in mind, and just some
of the things that you did on active duty don't translate.

(43:13):
The things that do translate. You can talk about leadership.
But one of the things that I would tell you
is that even if you are stacked like a Russian
field marks or where your goal jump wings are up
on your shoulder seam right, not everything on your chest
is going to translate to the civilian world. And frankly,

(43:35):
you know, most civilians don't care if you've got a
legion of merit. They just don't care. They don't know
what that is, and they don't care. What they are
going to carry about is your your leadership capabilities and
your ability to be able to manage situations, to be
able to task orient and see an idea from conceptualization

(43:56):
through production, and even the hot water and the lessons
learned on top of that. These are things that are
going to be valuable. But I would caution people against things.
I would caution people against having false expectations when you
come into the civilian world. So I went, I retired,
and I had an immediate job as a senior program

(44:17):
manager for the Big Silver Abyss at AT and a
costume and what I didn't know. There was a transition
period for me is for me because going from an
a Chief Warrant officer to a program manager, there were
a lot of things that I had to learn, and
there's a lot of things about the civilian world that

(44:37):
I didn't know. So I'd have to put together a
p MP brief for every one of my programs. Okay,
and tell me what you're tell me what your your
underburn is. Okay, Well tell me first what underburn is.
And so my my first you know, my first six
months was a learning period. But I was already in
a leadership position, and that's a pretty unforgiving position to

(44:58):
be in because you have expectations for both the government
and the contracting company, and you've got to be able
to deal with the CORE and the KO and everybody else.
You can all be sources of stress that if you
don't manage appropriately, can you know, really mess you up
pretty quickly.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah. One of one of the things that I've always
throughout my life that helps me with stress is physical fitness. Right.
You know, I had a certain measure when I was
in the army, and he said, one of the biggest
killers of veterans. Is they stop as soon as they
get out, they stop. They no longer. You know, you're
running five miles a day, five days a week. You know, granted,

(45:34):
if you're at for Brag, you're also drinking five gallons
a day, that's right, the night before till five am,
that's right. But you're you're used to going all the time, right,
and then you get into the civilian world. It's like,
I don't have to do pet anymore, right, I don't
have to go, you know, run five miles, but you
really should.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
You really should get a stay at helps out with
a lot of things. It helps things with things like
blood pressure, and help singers with your diet, and make
sure that you don't become a food blister after you
do retire again. You know, one of those sources of
stress is you've got to make time to be able
to take care of yourself. And if you don't, then
you know, you do become a food blister, and that

(46:15):
adds another source of stress on top of your life. Right,
and so you go from being physically active to go
now going, all right, I've got to get up at
you know, four fifteen in the morning and compute commute
into Washington, d C. I've got a fourteen hour work
day and then a three hour commute on top of that.
When am I going to find time to pet? But
that's an excuse, So don't start making excuses about things.

(46:37):
Do what you have to do to take care of yourself,
because nobody else other than your family is going to
take care of you and see you through this process
and help you alleviate some of those stresses that we've
talked about.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
Yeah, yeah, I've always I've always been an advocate of
your physical help. Your physical health affects your mental health,
and your mental health affects your physical health. Right, if
you're already kind of rest and down and do it,
you're not going to want to go to the gym,
you're not going to want to go to work, you're
not going to want to talk with people. But if
you're if you're physically healthy, you you know your your

(47:10):
body is now going through and producing some of the
endorphins and things that you need that's going to help
you mentally. And and those things are tied together and
are very very important.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
Yeah, they are.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
I agree with you. And if there's any way to
help believe some of the stress so that you don't
get to that cliff. Then I'm all for physical fysness
is an important part of it. Some of your listeners
may not like this, but there's also a spiritual health
to be able to consider as well. And just whether

(47:44):
you believe or not, that's on you. I'm not an evangelist,
I'm not a preacher, but a belief in something bigger
than mankind can provide a lot of comfort and time
to stress well.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
And that physical that physical health I mean doesn't need
to be the gym either. I mean you mentioned hunting, fishing,
getting out, getting out of the you know, uh there's
a lot of organizations out there that that do you know.
I know one that that I uh know personally hunting
with heroes. It's hunting up in in uh Montana, I believe.

(48:19):
And uh so those types of things are physical. You
know you mentioned the spiritual health. There's there's churches are always.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
Open, you know, somebody else to talk to you.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Sure, and and whether whether it's your denomination, whether you
believe or whether you don't. Uh you know that those
the majority of the preachers that I've ever met. I'm
a Baptist by by from when I was born. I
grew up as a Baptist, and the preachers that I know,
you know that they're not gonna, they're not gonna, you know,

(48:53):
try to well, I need you've got to come to
the church.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Now.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
They will sit there and talk to you. They will
talk to you and talk to you through what whatever
you need to talk about.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
And it doesn't matter if you're a parishioner or not.
If you need somebody to talk to, they're available. They
don't have an agenda other than okay. So we told
a joke the last time I was on here, So
now I'm gonna tell a joke again, just to try
and lighten the mood a little bit.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
Right.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
I grew up up north, and so far up north
in fact that you know Chicago is we look down
on Chicago and call them Southerners. They're fifteen hours south
of where my mom and dad live now, fifteen hours
drive times south of where my.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Mom is.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
Very closely with. When we before, you know, when they
change the drinking age, the drinking age in Canada was
still eighteen, so you could go across the border and
drink in Canada and then come back. But southern Baptists.
They're more than happy to lay hands on you if
need be. You know, they'll they'll make you speak in tongues,
and if that's the case then that doesn't work, then

(49:54):
they'll hold your head hundred water until you capitulate. Sure, now,
they're not going to do that to you, but they
are people that will talk to you, and they are genuinely,
genuinely caring human beings.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I said, I. I grew up in a
Baptist church. You know, there's they don't mind if you
drink either. So and some of the Baptist preachers I
know cuss is as bad as I do.

Speaker 3 (50:15):
So me too. So it's just one option that's available,
even if you're even if you don't, even if you're
not somebody that is driven by faith. It's another venue
for somebody that you can talk to on those circumstances
where you are all messed up and you don't feel
like you can talk to anybody else.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Right, right, Absolutely, absolutely So.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
I told you that as we get closer to the end,
and I was just looking to make sure that we
stay on time, I told you that, and I told
your audience that I'm going to give you my work
telephone number, and I'm gonna do that, and I'm also
going to give you my work email address, and if
one of those if it's one of those days where
you don't want to talk to anybody else, you're more

(50:59):
than welcome to give me call. My name is Rudy Denk.
My business telephone number is five four zero nine zero
three five zero eight five. That's going to ring to
Saturday Morning Westerns, which is one of the companies that
I own. The business email address is Saturday Morning Westerns
LLC at gmail dot com. Either way, you can get
a hold of me if you do find yourselves in

(51:20):
one of those circumstances too and you need to talk
to somebody.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, Well, so is there anything else you
want to say?

Speaker 3 (51:31):
No, just that for those people that feel that there
is no hope, there's always hope. You just have to
find the right venue to be able to get there.
If it's a phone call to help somebody, or if
it's a text message, or if it's calling me, if
you're hurting, reach out to somebody, talk to somebody. We
started this conversation by saying that I would rather get

(51:53):
a phone call at three o'clock in the morning than
read an obituary on Monday morning.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
And I mean that.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
So if you're feeling all fuckered up on the inside,
and if you feel like you have no hope, then
reach out to somebody and talk to somebody.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
The world is a lot better place with you in
it than without you. So and everybody needs to remember
that there's there's a lot of us out there. I
would I would say look at your local organizations as well,
you know, look at your there's vfw's everywhere. You may
end up with some crotchety old old marine Viennam you know,
Aaron Marine that's in the corner, but I'm sure he'll

(52:27):
he'll sit there and listen to you. Uh yeah, probably
buy you a couple of beers, that's right. And but yeah,
please please reach out to somebody.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
You know.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
So, thank you again for having me on the show.
Do we need I know that where we were on
for about an hour and we've been on for about
fifty one minutes or anything you want to add to this.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Short No, No, I just you know this. This is
a topic that's always been you know, near and dear
to me. I don't I've had friends that commits a side,
both veterans and non veterans. But it's it's always been
something that you know, I love my brothers and sisters,
you know, they're They're all. I would rather rather see them,
I would rather talk to them. I'd rather hear their stories.

(53:13):
One of the reasons why we started that Tuesday Uh,
that Tuesday series that you were on, right, I want
to capture those stories. Uh and and I can't do
that if you're.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
Not here, So I agree.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Absolutely. Well, thank you, Rudy, Thank you for coming back on.
Thank you for sharing this information, and uh, we appreciate
you absolutely.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
I had fun, and I hope we can do something
in the future and collaborate. Collaborate again.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Yeah, absolutely, let us know when when you get you know,
some of that stuff off the ground and we'll bring
you back on.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
Sounds good to me. I appreciate your help.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Thank you, Thanks Rudy, Bye bye.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
By five pound, by the fifth time, by one Boy,
fifth time, by Front seven.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Time, by f

Speaker 4 (54:25):
Fifth stand
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