Speaker 1: Multiple people in my family clean my father, are veterans.
Speaker 2: Troops that have been to war and now they're back
Speaker 2: and think and be grateful for their service.
Speaker 3: Sacrifice, love for their country, just unselfishness, all that they
Speaker 3: do for us. There are some people in this country
Speaker 3: who take extraordinary steps to provide for the freedom and security.
Speaker 2: We forget that those people exist.
Speaker 1: We know them as the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines,
Speaker 1: and Coast Guard. They call themselves soldiers, seals, rangers, airmen, sailors, devil.
Speaker 2: Dogs, and so much more.
Speaker 1: We call them fathers, brothers, sons and husbands, mothers, daughters,
Speaker 1: sisters and wives. We call them friend and neighbor. These
Speaker 1: veterans answered the call. Now we answer Theirs are the
Speaker 1: best our country has to offer, and we love them.
Speaker 1: Today we honor them and we start this. David Malsby
Speaker 1: is your host, and he welcomes you to this community
Speaker 1: of veterans. As together we are building the road to hope.
Speaker 2: And indeed we are glad to have you along. On
Speaker 2: a Sunday afternoon on the nine to five o the
Speaker 2: AM dial in Houston, Texas, thank you for joining us
Speaker 2: wherever you are, if you're listening, to the magic and podcast.
Speaker 2: Thank you so very much for listening. Wherever you look
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Speaker 2: to Hope Radio. They were, by the way, this week
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Speaker 2: not gonna find a better spot than Republic Grand Ranch
Speaker 2: dot com. All right, we got a couple of guys
Speaker 2: in the studio with us today. Glad to have you back, sir,
Speaker 2: h other than the Yankee cap. Uh feel special, Huh?
Speaker 4: I feel specially when you acknowledge that. That's why I
Speaker 4: wear it.
Speaker 2: You spell that makes you feel special?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's why we're it.
Speaker 2: I like the special needs kids at school. So what
Speaker 2: we're talking about here.
Speaker 4: Don't mess with my handicap.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: We want to give the world the grand reintroduction.
Speaker 4: UH, good afternoon. Once again. This is our Robert McLean.
Speaker 4: I'm called Mac at the cap Hope. I'm lead leading
Speaker 4: mentor there for from Bravo Bay. I know that's a
Speaker 4: lot right there, but we'll get into more as.
Speaker 2: We go along. Indeed, we also have one of the
Speaker 2: guys that's in our program currently. Want to introduce yourself.
Speaker 2: Tell us where you're from, where you serve that counting.
Speaker 3: I am Michael Lee Walker Junior. I'm formerly part of
Speaker 3: the Army National Guard in Gainesville, Georgia, UH, part of
Speaker 3: the forty eighth Brigade Infantry UH deployed to Afghanistan. Went
Speaker 3: to Republic of Georgia for a little while in Uh yeah.
Speaker 2: What'd you do in Georgia if Republic of Georgia.
Speaker 3: Actually, somehow or another, I ended up got lucky and
Speaker 3: got volunteld to be a postal clerk.
Speaker 2: As okay, all right, not the worst job in the world. No,
Speaker 2: it's actually a pretty good yeah, absolutely nice.
Speaker 3: Very different from the infantry life.
Speaker 2: I would think. So, yeah, we'll get into a little
Speaker 2: bit that though we're not. You know, tell folks all
Speaker 2: the time, we're not the worst story show. But we
Speaker 2: will get into that just a little bit. Quick reminder
Speaker 2: as we go through the course of the show, our
Speaker 2: Combat Trauma Support Line answered twenty four to seven by
Speaker 2: a combat vet. And I cannot overstress how important that is.
Speaker 2: It's a combat vet that's going to answer the phone.
Speaker 2: It's not a psych or someone just reading answers off
Speaker 2: a screen. It's someone who's been there, experienced it, come back,
Speaker 2: dealt with it, grown from it, also gone through a
Speaker 2: great deal of training to have the responsibility of answering
Speaker 2: that phone. But I wish everyone would put this number
Speaker 2: in your phone, whether it's for you or for someone
Speaker 2: that you come across that might need our services at
Speaker 2: some point in time. Eight seven seven seven one seven
Speaker 2: seventy eight seventy three that number again eight seven seven
Speaker 2: seven one seven PTSD or seventy eight seventy three. A
Speaker 2: combat vet will answer that phone for information about Camp Hope,
Speaker 2: which Michael is a part of that program right now.
Speaker 5: Mac is.
Speaker 2: Staff at the program at Camp Hope. All that is
Speaker 2: at no charge to our veteran or their family. The
Speaker 2: information about that as well as our support groups, which
Speaker 2: I'm gonna guess. I don't know your whole story, but
Speaker 2: I'm gonna guess somehow are you. We routed to us
Speaker 2: through our Atlanta outreach chapter actually Gangzill, Yeah, there's a
Speaker 2: chapter right there in right. Yeah. All that information is
Speaker 2: available at our website PTSD so Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Speaker 2: ptsdusa dot org. Information about our support groups different cities
Speaker 2: across the country, as well as the virtual so you
Speaker 2: can jump on anywhere where you've got access to the
Speaker 2: internet ptsdusa dot org about all of our groups, all
Speaker 2: the support groups for our families, as well as the
Speaker 2: program that we run at Camp Hope, the Internet housing
Speaker 2: program designed to be six to nine months in length,
Speaker 2: sometimes a little longer. This depends on multiple factors, but
Speaker 2: again all at zero charge PTSD usa dot org and
Speaker 2: we appreciate you checking that out. You can also follow
Speaker 2: along see the things that are going on in our
Speaker 2: organization through our social media ptsd USA on the X
Speaker 2: and Facebook ptsd USA. We'll be right back. Hey, We're
Speaker 2: welcome back Road to Hope Radio. Glad to have you
Speaker 2: along on this Sunday afternoon or wherever you're listening to
Speaker 2: the podcast. Thank you for joining us. Going to dip
Speaker 2: into the mail bag. It's been a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: since we've done this. Shared a message that a veteran
Speaker 2: had written to me a couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 2: when he did that, shared it on our social media,
Speaker 2: and then we've got some other vets wanted to chime
Speaker 2: in as well. So this message actually came in. This
Speaker 2: came in this week. So this is from a veteran
Speaker 2: named Mark, and he said, been watching your videos lately.
Speaker 2: I'm going to jump in on this action. When I
Speaker 2: came into Camp Hope in twenty nineteen, I was outfitted
Speaker 2: with an ankle monitor. We've had several of those. Have
Speaker 2: we met guys coming in they're they've got the monitor there,
Speaker 2: they're on probation, they're their court ordered per se. I
Speaker 2: guess I don't know if say, yeah, this is your
Speaker 2: option other than jail. Anyway, he says, came in in
Speaker 2: Camp Hope at twenty nineteen, I was outfitted with an
Speaker 2: ankle monitor, and I was facing a life sentence thirty
Speaker 2: years in federal prison. Oh that's not that's not good.
Speaker 2: Camp Hope was my sixteenth, good Gracious, sixteenth residential treatment
Speaker 2: program and my last I like that, He goes on
Speaker 2: to say. I graduated the program December twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 2: that same month I returned to court for my sentencing.
Speaker 2: In the transcript, which I recently read again, the judge
Speaker 2: sites of my extraordinary progress that I made while at
Speaker 2: Camp Hope. Instead of thirty years, he gave me three
Speaker 2: years probation. How's that from thirty years federal prison sentence
Speaker 2: to three years probation and time served a miracle. I
Speaker 2: went on back to Ohio, where I re enrolled in college.
Speaker 2: I got off my probation a year early, only doing
Speaker 2: two of the three years. I earned my bachelor's degree
Speaker 2: in Education and Addictions Counseling. And in two weeks from now,
Speaker 2: I will walk across the stage to receive my master's
Speaker 2: degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. I will be six
Speaker 2: years sober this May thirteenth. Today I am a licensed
Speaker 2: professional counselor and a licensed chemical dependency counselor. I'm also
Speaker 2: getting married in October. God is good all the time.
Speaker 2: Camp Hope helped me to save myself from my own
Speaker 2: self destruction. Thank you, Camp Hope.
Speaker 4: About that, says stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we didn't even ask for anybody to do anything.
Speaker 2: They're just hey, I want you to know. This is
Speaker 2: what's going on, this is what I've been through, this
Speaker 2: is where I'm at today. That beautiful Yeah, and what
Speaker 2: was in the middle a little place called Camp Hope
Speaker 2: five acre campus in North Houston. It's it's a unique
Speaker 2: place in a unique program.
Speaker 4: It works. It works. I'm glad to say.
Speaker 2: You've been a part of it for how long now,
Speaker 2: I'm that four years? Four years a firmative. That's awesome.
Speaker 2: You know, Justin was in here last week and it
Speaker 2: was he's on four years too, So you guys must
Speaker 2: have come about the same time we graduated Saint John, gotcha. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's awesome. For folks who don't know or understand what
Speaker 2: Camp Hope is, I can't really appreciate just how special
Speaker 2: that is because it's well we hear stories like we
Speaker 2: just shared with you from Mark. Uh. It's not an
Speaker 2: easy job. No, it's not carry a lot of heavyweight
Speaker 2: doing that job. So someone uh In doing that for
Speaker 2: four years, that's Uh, that's quite an achievement.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that, especially where I come from. I mean,
Speaker 4: I came I came here broken, but somebody prayed for
Speaker 4: me and that's what happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, some of our guys, uh get
Speaker 2: we give tours all the time of our campus. People
Speaker 2: coming out to hear about us. They want to see
Speaker 2: what we're doing and see how they can be a
Speaker 2: part of it. We love those opportunities to get people
Speaker 2: a tour, a camp, hope and see what's going on there.
Speaker 2: And some of our guys we'll talk about what happens
Speaker 2: there in terms of miracles, and this is so many
Speaker 2: miracles walking around. And well, I don't necessarily disagree with him.
Speaker 2: I don't want to, you know, parse words with him,
Speaker 2: but yes, there's some miraculous things that do take place there,
Speaker 2: no question. But what I like when I think of you,
Speaker 2: for instance, Mac, like a true miracle God does without
Speaker 2: our participation. He doesn't need our help. Uh, He's able.
Speaker 2: He can do whatever he wants to do with or
Speaker 2: without my assistance. I think he wants our assistance, but
Speaker 2: he doesn't need it. He wants our participation. I guess
Speaker 2: you say, but the life changes to taking place in
Speaker 2: your life required an awful lot of work on your part.
Speaker 4: I would say, so, sir, you gotta be you gotta
Speaker 4: get to that point. You get tired of being tired
Speaker 4: one and it's just not gonna happen overnight. I came
Speaker 4: and kicking and screaming, didn't want it. But in the
Speaker 4: course of time, that miracle you got. Just got to
Speaker 4: wait for that, that miracle. Once you get that miracle,
Speaker 4: it's like an epiphany. It wakes you up to reality
Speaker 4: and then you're all in. It's nothing that can be
Speaker 4: taken away from you in your past. That's what it is,
Speaker 4: your past, because all you can see is guys, blue,
Speaker 4: guys ahead of you. It's beautiful and it's a story.
Speaker 4: It's a new testimony rather than the negative testimony and
Speaker 4: thousand people that cried for you. It's it's amazing. It's amazing, and.
Speaker 2: It's like anything else. I mean, it doesn't mean everything's
Speaker 2: roses after that miracle. It's it's just it's a constant work.
Speaker 4: Continue to work on something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and life still happens. We still have our
Speaker 2: wins and our losses in our personal life. There's no
Speaker 2: escaping that. We don't just walk into some kind of
Speaker 2: euphoria that uh, you know, there's no trouble or no
Speaker 2: thorns in our life. That that's still there, but we
Speaker 2: know how better to cope with it exactly and handle
Speaker 2: those things as we move.
Speaker 4: Forward exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: But not always not always pleasant to walk through those times.
Speaker 2: Some of the hardest lessons I've learned in my life.
Speaker 2: I think you can identify with this Mac. I would
Speaker 2: never ever want to have to go back through those,
Speaker 2: but I would also never change what I learned from those,
Speaker 2: and I think that's what we see at Campellot HM.
Speaker 4: That's where that's where we get our testimonies from. That's
Speaker 4: where we are able to share to next person, because
Speaker 4: if we don't go through it, then we can't be
Speaker 4: genuine what we're sharing, you know. So that means it's
Speaker 4: hope you got through. I got the way you can
Speaker 4: get through it because I've been there.
Speaker 2: It's the power of the peer to peer. Amen, Michael.
Speaker 2: So you uh, did you join the army right out
Speaker 2: of high school? Or was there an in between? What happened?
Speaker 3: There was actually in between. I didn't actually decide to join. Well,
Speaker 3: I had an epiphany at about twenty seven eight that
Speaker 3: was I was actually during that time I was going
Speaker 3: through like a personal drug rehab in a way. Gotcha
Speaker 3: and I was trying to find purpose, and it took
Speaker 3: me about a year and a half to finally bite
Speaker 3: the bullet, so to speak, at twenty nine, to take
Speaker 3: the oath.
Speaker 5: And join the army. When was that, uh, twenty nine
Speaker 5: when I was twenty nine?
Speaker 2: Was oh when you joined? You see, I was.
Speaker 5: Born in seventy seven, so.
Speaker 2: We're gonna do math. So I was six It sounds.
Speaker 3: No, that was six. Yeah, September twenty seventh, two thousand
Speaker 3: and six, is when I took my oath.
Speaker 2: Okay, actually, all right, very good. So you knew even
Speaker 2: though it was a National Guard, you still had a
Speaker 2: pretty good idea you're gonna likely get deployed.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that was already And that was that I
Speaker 3: knew I was going. I knew I was that that
Speaker 3: was going to happen. That was a possibility.
Speaker 2: All Right, We're coming up on a break. Those of
Speaker 2: you listening on the nine to five, Oh, we're gonna
Speaker 2: take a quick news break at the bottom of the goer.
Speaker 2: Those of you listen to podcasts, hang on just second.
Speaker 2: Guy has some really cool music, and then we'll be
Speaker 2: right back with more Road to Hope Radio and welcome
Speaker 2: back Road to Hope Radio. David Malsby here got Robert,
Speaker 2: who he lovingly call mac our Yankee brother. We only
Speaker 2: allow so many at a time. We got to kind of,
Speaker 2: you know, hold the fort there.
Speaker 4: Jesas is used to it four years. I think I'm
Speaker 4: the only one to allow.
Speaker 2: Uh, we've got a few Scranton guys Pennsylvania. Yeah, we've
Speaker 2: got to build a housing unit just for the guys
Speaker 2: to come from Granton.
Speaker 4: It's crazy, like.
Speaker 2: How in the world. Uh, there's a there's a judge
Speaker 2: up there that likes us, and he keeps he sees
Speaker 2: what's going on down here, and he keeps sending to
Speaker 2: the vets, which is great. That's the whole point, right,
Speaker 2: Like we want to help. But yeah, it's just odd
Speaker 2: like Scranton, Pennsylvania. Really, like we just keep getting guys
Speaker 2: from there's great. Yes, Uh so we've got Mac and here,
Speaker 2: we've got Michael. I'd say it's Army National Guard from Georgia.
Speaker 2: All right, So two deployments in Afghanistan, No, just one
Speaker 2: at one one there and one to Republican Georgiana.
Speaker 3: Republica Georgia, but don't don't say Republica Georgia in that country.
Speaker 5: I found that out while I was there.
Speaker 2: Oh it's country at Georgia, the country of Georgia, but
Speaker 2: on the map it says Republican. Well you're in Texas
Speaker 2: and they like to call it the Republic of Texas
Speaker 2: Texans kind of you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a little opposite.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, don't do it. What was your When was
Speaker 2: your deployment to Afghanistan.
Speaker 5: Two thousand and nine to twenty ten?
Speaker 2: And what were you doing?
Speaker 3: I was actually part of I've done all kinds of stuff,
Speaker 3: foot patrols, convoys.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: I actually trained, uh worked on training Afghan soldiers too,
Speaker 3: on how to properly you know dude, road clearing, building clearing,
Speaker 3: you know, like on hand hands on training on infantry skills.
Speaker 2: So that was on nine, Yes, sir, all right, so
Speaker 2: you're at Camp Hope. So clearly m PTSD's part of
Speaker 2: your life.
Speaker 3: Yes, I got. It's a little bit of complex PTSD
Speaker 3: and complex PTSD and combat TSD. It's kind of a
Speaker 3: double double edged thing.
Speaker 2: When did you become a where something was not right?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 3: Shoot, probably I would say about twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: So it was a while several years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like struggling with it and like I knew I
Speaker 3: had it, but I didn't know necessarily what to do
Speaker 3: with it. I mean, I knew I needed to get
Speaker 3: some kind of help, and I would speak to people
Speaker 3: about my problems, but as far as like actually a
Speaker 3: treatment for it.
Speaker 5: I was I was kind of lost.
Speaker 2: Did the VA diagnose you?
Speaker 5: Uh? Kind of nonchalantly?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I mean it's like, yeah, there's definitely
Speaker 3: something up with you, but you seem like you're dealing
Speaker 3: with it, okay, But that was I struggled with intellectualizing things,
Speaker 3: so I kinda I shut off the emotion aspect of it,
Speaker 3: which is pretty common, yes, and uh kind of come
Speaker 3: up put my own mental understanding of it, and then
Speaker 3: it just kind of bottles up for a while, then
Speaker 3: it comes out, bottles up for a little while, then
Speaker 3: comes out.
Speaker 2: Nothing really unusual about that, right, Mike, No, that it.
Speaker 4: Isn't there isn't.
Speaker 2: We hear that a lot. Yeah, sinks a choir shutting
Speaker 2: down the emotions, because that's what you got to do,
Speaker 2: really the function and a lot of the guys that
Speaker 2: have come through that I've had, you know, linked the
Speaker 2: conversations with like that was what they had to do
Speaker 2: to be able to fulfill their job. And I'm gonna
Speaker 2: say probably this might be a slight exaggeration, but not
Speaker 2: one hundred percent of medics and Corman would tell me
Speaker 2: that they had to shut down emotionally to deal with
Speaker 2: what they were seeing. And it wasn't so much about
Speaker 2: the carnage of war as it was about what the
Speaker 2: citizens were doing to their own children. I heard that
Speaker 2: over and over again. So the only way you can
Speaker 2: cope with that having a moral compass.
Speaker 3: Well, it's kind of like not necessarily even you know,
Speaker 3: the locals doing that, just purely a human being doing
Speaker 3: that to another human being.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the value of life, Like some of those folks
Speaker 2: that we were encountering in war had zero value for life. Right,
Speaker 2: So when you see that and you do have a
Speaker 2: value for life, that's hard to to manage that.
Speaker 3: Well, then you have other aspects of it. Two, you
Speaker 3: have to kind of shut off your own moral of
Speaker 3: life too to protect another life. It's a really complex thing.
Speaker 5: To even try to understand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, So when you come home, and this is
Speaker 2: the deal about PTSD that I in my experience, there's
Speaker 2: a lot more to it than what I know. But
Speaker 2: I'm not a doctor. I don't claim to be. But
Speaker 2: I've talked with an awful lot of awful lot of
Speaker 2: veterans deal with combat related PTSD and some folks who
Speaker 2: know their PTSD is not combat related. Uh, But the
Speaker 2: whole concept of you know, going to war, doing what
Speaker 2: you have to do day in and day out, and
Speaker 2: you know, the whole concept of it's more about it's
Speaker 2: more about those of you are serving with and deploying with,
Speaker 2: and it is even you know, for flag and country
Speaker 2: and patriotism and all that. That's just you're there doing
Speaker 2: your job. But the number one job is making sure
Speaker 2: you protect your brother, of course, guide to you left
Speaker 2: and to your right, of course. And when you're doing
Speaker 2: that all day, every day in you know, life or
Speaker 2: death circumstances, and then you come home and everything about
Speaker 2: that is gone. But the brain doesn't rewire itself to
Speaker 2: I'm home now, and that child over there is not
Speaker 2: a threat to me or to my family. A child
Speaker 2: over there might have been may or may not have been,
Speaker 2: but it may have been, child here is not, and
Speaker 2: the brain just doesn't rewire itself back to here's where
Speaker 2: I'm at, and it's different now my own.
Speaker 4: Yeah, pretty much, we can't lay all go, well, we
Speaker 4: don't lay our guard now, you know, we pick up
Speaker 4: that can't sit. You know what our back to the
Speaker 4: door is like, you know, we still wire, We still waiting.
Speaker 4: You know, Will was on the wait moment. You know
Speaker 4: it's going to something to happen.
Speaker 2: That's sound familiar to you most Yeah, too familiar?
Speaker 3: Uhse I, I don't know. I'm wired a little a
Speaker 3: little little cuckoocka too.
Speaker 5: I don't worr.
Speaker 3: I don't worry about that door over there. Let somebody
Speaker 3: come in, you know, I could put my back to it.
Speaker 3: I'll be just fine. They better be really sneaky, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. But I mean that's just that
Speaker 3: just comes from I mean, being ready at all times.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just one of them things. Is it's
Speaker 3: really hard to like shut that off sometimes, especially if
Speaker 3: you're in a new environment, you know, and you don't
Speaker 3: you don't know people a lot, so you're kind of
Speaker 3: on guarden, don't even mean to be. You could just
Speaker 3: be simply going to a gas station that you never
Speaker 3: stopped at before and being just on highlert and it's
Speaker 3: really weird and you kind of got to kind of
Speaker 3: shake it off.
Speaker 5: Like cobwebs.
Speaker 2: There are certain guys stations and you I'm a little
Speaker 2: worry of to be honest. Yeah, I'm sure I want
Speaker 2: to go in there might not be to my best
Speaker 2: interest to going to that place, right, Yeah. How long
Speaker 2: were you in Afghanistan?
Speaker 5: I was in there for a full year.
Speaker 2: A full year, okay, and when you came home.
Speaker 3: Shoot, it was really weird for me to go out
Speaker 3: in the I would go, but it was kind of
Speaker 3: I could fit. It was like really weird. I you know,
Speaker 3: even though most of the time in foot patrols, you know,
Speaker 3: I was the point man anyway, but I didn't have
Speaker 3: the guy to my six nine.
Speaker 6: And uh three number one, you know, and it was
Speaker 6: kind of because I was the sixth but what you know,
Speaker 6: So I'm I was like really like all head on
Speaker 6: a swivel when I first came back.
Speaker 2: Boy, and that's hard to maintain. Yeah, I mean that'll
Speaker 2: wear you out. That will absolutely worry Well.
Speaker 5: I really really was wearing everybody else out. You know.
Speaker 5: It's like, man, he needs calm down.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I mean I still kind of do is
Speaker 3: something I.
Speaker 2: Actually when he's your said than done? Right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Sometimes I have to catch myself.
Speaker 3: Actually when I first went into the ve court program,
Speaker 3: I walked in there and immediately I was at parade
Speaker 3: rest and didn't even realize it. And one of the
Speaker 3: guys from the Jay's Place that's actually part of the
Speaker 3: ETS foundation the outreach there, he's like head of ease soldier.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my bad, took my hands from
Speaker 3: behind my back.
Speaker 2: You know, all we're going to take a quick break.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back with more of Road to Hope
Speaker 2: radio and we're walking back. Glad to have you along.
Speaker 2: But Mac, in your United States Army vet, Michael, I
Speaker 2: state it's Army National Guard VET. Michael. You mentioned it,
Speaker 2: so I'll just touch on it and we'll move along.
Speaker 2: But you mentioned being in the veterans courts situation there, Yes,
Speaker 2: is that where you heard about the foundation PTSD Foundations.
Speaker 3: They actually have a VET group that you go to weekly,
Speaker 3: you know, so you have some time to just it's
Speaker 3: kind of like a it's a group setting with nothing
Speaker 3: but vets in there because all the other stuff that
Speaker 3: you do there is with civilians integrated with you, and
Speaker 3: that gives you that one day a week, you know,
Speaker 3: to just talk with vets and this that and the
Speaker 3: other and not be judge judged by maybe some heathen
Speaker 3: craziness that might come out of your mouth.
Speaker 2: You know well, and you know that's the great thing
Speaker 2: about our support groups and about Camp I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it's that safe haven. It's that environment where it is.
Speaker 2: It's all combat vets, so they've got that shared experience.
Speaker 2: Different locations, maybe different you know, eras of war, but
Speaker 2: combat and all that comes along with that, and just
Speaker 2: the safety I can I can be vulnerable here. I
Speaker 2: can say what's on my mind, even though it may
Speaker 2: sound a little odd to somebody. You're surrounded by people
Speaker 2: who've been there and done that. So when did the
Speaker 2: talk begin about coming to Camp Hope.
Speaker 3: I was actually having a little bit of a moment
Speaker 3: where I felt myself kind of reverting back to twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three in my I got a very aggressive again.
Speaker 3: That's what kind of caused me to be in the
Speaker 3: vech Court program. And luckily at that time, like I said,
Speaker 3: I had gotten to know the guys through the VEC
Speaker 3: Court programming and actually Camp Hope had been mentioned a
Speaker 3: few times. I was like, hey, come get me. I
Speaker 3: was like, come get me now. Okay, when did you
Speaker 3: get here January twenty seventh of this year.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you've been here for a little bit, yeap,
Speaker 2: What's what's changing, if anything? For you?
Speaker 3: I'm actually starting to, i mean, appreciate myself, if that
Speaker 3: makes sense.
Speaker 5: I love it.
Speaker 3: Although I may be a little I don't want to
Speaker 3: say broken, cracked. I'm glued back together now and I'm starting,
Speaker 3: you know, him myself back together and like, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not so bad after all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some folks term it as broken. Some don't like
Speaker 2: that term. I kind of look at it as a
Speaker 2: wounded and like say, for instance, cancer left undiagnosed and untreated,
Speaker 2: it's going to cost you. And PTSD will do that.
Speaker 2: It will cost you if it goes undealt with so
Speaker 2: diagnosis or not, however you choose to go about it,
Speaker 2: there's got to be some kind of treatment, some kind
Speaker 2: of how do we deal with this in a healthier
Speaker 2: way for you? When you were doing this on your own,
Speaker 2: was alcohol or something else involved or what was going on?
Speaker 3: Well, I just said a lot of emotional dress, okay,
Speaker 3: because I mean prior to that, you know, I was
Speaker 3: doing the the little bit of self medicating with you know,
Speaker 3: alcohol and stuff like that, but I and I knew
Speaker 3: that wasn't it. I wasn't abusing it, but I was
Speaker 3: using it kind of what you would call, I guess
Speaker 3: as a crutch anyway. And I was because I was
Speaker 3: bouncing back and forth with I was. I was going
Speaker 3: to church and stuff like that and going out and
Speaker 3: doing the street ministry and this that and the other
Speaker 3: and all that, and I was like, dang, something still
Speaker 3: is not right. I still ain't right. So then I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, I mean getting this relationship and I
Speaker 3: was like, no, I'm still ain't right and this that
Speaker 3: and the other, and yeah, long and behold twenty twenty
Speaker 3: or twenty twenty three, it was like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: I was done.
Speaker 5: That was when it was what everybody, I guess would
Speaker 5: call come to Jesus meeting.
Speaker 2: But even then, it took you over a year to
Speaker 2: make the choice to come to camp. So what did
Speaker 2: you do in that time?
Speaker 3: In that time, I was in jail for seven okay
Speaker 3: you know, and then I uh, you know, yeah, seven
Speaker 3: months of jail, and then I had about two months
Speaker 3: to get ready to go into the ve court program
Speaker 3: and stuff. So there was a whole year there, and
Speaker 3: then I'd done a whole another year of the actual
Speaker 3: the program and stuff, and I I was like, I'm okay,
Speaker 3: but I'm not okay. I just something I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's like, see, you've been in camp for roughly four
Speaker 2: months roughly. What's it been like for you?
Speaker 3: For me, I helped when I first got there, I
Speaker 3: was very standoffish, kind of like I am high alert,
Speaker 3: kind of figure out.
Speaker 2: Comes in that way. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah. But now for me, now I feel.
Speaker 3: I've found people, you know, I can be vulnerable with,
Speaker 3: you know, and them not take offense to my aggression,
Speaker 3: you know, even though I don't really get a I
Speaker 3: call it aggressive, but it's actually just kind of very passionate,
Speaker 3: uh speaking.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of that around our place.
Speaker 2: Some people very passionate about a lot of things. What
Speaker 2: are you looking forward to.
Speaker 3: Uh, Actually, I'm looking forward to keeping uh some peace
Speaker 3: actually and keeping it because I mean I kind of
Speaker 3: feel like I've been fighting for it for a long time.