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 3: And think and be grateful for their.
Speaker 4: Service, sacrifice, love for their country, just unselfishness, all that
Speaker 4: they do for us.
Speaker 2: There are some people in this country who take extraordinary
Speaker 2: steps to provide for the freedom and security.
Speaker 5: 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 3: 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 and today
Speaker 1: are the best our country has to offer. And we
Speaker 1: love them. Today, we honor them, and we serve this.
Speaker 1: David Malsby is your host, and he welcomes you to
Speaker 1: this community of veterans. As together we are building the
Speaker 1: road to hope, and.
Speaker 3: Indeed we are glad to have you along.
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Speaker 5: dot Com. All right, we've got a couple of combat
Speaker 5: vet's with us here today, one on staff, one that's
Speaker 5: in our program at Camp Hope. Want to introduce yourself
Speaker 5: to the world again. It's been a minute.
Speaker 2: Hello everybody. Linnburgh Freeman, Yellow Face Mentor PTSD Foundation of
Speaker 2: America at Camp Hope.
Speaker 3: And where are you from?
Speaker 5: Originally born and raised in New York, New York. We've
Speaker 5: got a couple of New York guys here with us today, Branch.
Speaker 5: And where you're deployed.
Speaker 2: Army deployed to Iraq two thousand eleven, Operation New don okay,
Speaker 2: your turn.
Speaker 4: Hey, my name is Mike Faglice. I'm also from New York, Buffalo,
Speaker 4: New York. Though I was in the Army. I was
Speaker 4: a combat engineer. I served in Afghanistan. Did one tour
Speaker 4: over there.
Speaker 5: Okay, and when was that?
Speaker 3: I believe it.
Speaker 6: Was six to nine. I did seventeen.
Speaker 3: Months long deployment.
Speaker 5: It was a long deployment. Yeah, gotcha. All right, So
Speaker 5: you're from Buffalo. You a Bills fan?
Speaker 4: Not really not, you know, I used to follow when
Speaker 4: I was a kid, when I lived there, but it's
Speaker 4: too many letdowns. So yeah, all the Buffalonians back home
Speaker 4: would probably want to wring my neck. But for saying that.
Speaker 4: But I mean, you know, I didn't follow sports too
Speaker 4: much growing up. Okay, so I didn't even into my adulthood,
Speaker 4: I didn't follow sports too much. I I focused on
Speaker 4: other things.
Speaker 3: What were you into as a kid, getting.
Speaker 4: In trouble, running the streets with my friends, riding bikes,
Speaker 4: doing what kids do, right, you know, just running through
Speaker 4: the neighborhood, yelling at girls, throwing rocks at cars, being
Speaker 4: boys playing baseball. Never watched it, but I played a
Speaker 4: little bit of baseball of it. Yeah, just with your friends.
Speaker 5: Nothing crazy, okay, yeah, all right, plenburg you a baseball player.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that was the typical thing in growing up
Speaker 2: in New York, you know, playing all sports, any and
Speaker 2: every sport that we can figure out, you know, getting
Speaker 2: the whole neighborhood of kids together, whether it be street
Speaker 2: basketball at the park, finding the field for football. We
Speaker 2: had a couple of baseball diamonds in our neighborhood and
Speaker 2: we'd get together and playing teams. So yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: grew up doing pretty much the same thing.
Speaker 5: We're in New York. For you Long Island, ohfer County, Yeah.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 5: We have a great fundraiser that takes place every year
Speaker 5: in New York. It wasn't purchase New York. I can't
Speaker 5: remember what town the courts the courses in now that
Speaker 5: they've played the last couple of years have moved to
Speaker 5: a different course, but absolutely stunningly beautiful, absolutely beautiful. So
Speaker 5: looking forward to getting back up there here in a
Speaker 5: couple more weeks to attend that event. It's always a
Speaker 5: lot of fun and great group of people. Why do
Speaker 5: you join the army?
Speaker 4: You know, it's funny story. I really I wanted to
Speaker 4: join the marine Corps. As a kid, the commercials you
Speaker 4: saw on the TV where he's fighting the dragon with
Speaker 4: the sword, that was what was impressive to me, and
Speaker 4: it made me a sense of pride, and I always
Speaker 4: wanted to do that. I wanted to wear the uniform.
Speaker 4: It was about pride for me and honor and country.
Speaker 4: And I joined the army instead. I don't know how
Speaker 4: that happened, but it happened, and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 4: But it was all about duty and country, and I
Speaker 4: just wanted to serve my community and my country. It
Speaker 4: was something I felt was necessary.
Speaker 5: Slay any dragons, no, no, no dragons, how about you Land.
Speaker 2: I believe it was just I joined late, so I
Speaker 2: was twenty four years old. You know, I didn't I
Speaker 2: never finished high school, so I couldn't join like right
Speaker 2: after high school.
Speaker 3: But I was a parent early. I was a parent.
Speaker 2: I've been to parent since I was eighteen. My daughter
Speaker 2: now was twenty two. But back at that time, I
Speaker 2: wanted to do other things and I thought that athletics
Speaker 2: were the way for me to do it, and so
Speaker 2: I grew up. I was involved in the boxing community,
Speaker 2: had a long amateur stint, won everything in the state
Speaker 2: of New York except for the Golden Gloves. It's a
Speaker 2: long tournament's four months. Yeah, so you know, and then
Speaker 2: I turned a professional that didn't work out, but I
Speaker 2: had a buddy who was on the Marines team. We
Speaker 2: grew up together.
Speaker 5: We'll take a quick break and we'll come back to
Speaker 5: that here in a second. This is Road to Hoope, Ri,
Speaker 5: it'll be right back.
Speaker 4: Who jes the ground and play so baby, it's their
Speaker 4: god time.
Speaker 3: Man, and welcome back to Road to Hope. Ray, You're
Speaker 3: glad to have you.
Speaker 5: Long gout, Lynnburgh, United States Army VET. Currently, what's your
Speaker 5: role at Camp Hope right now?
Speaker 3: What do you do?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 3: Right now?
Speaker 2: I'm a Yellow phase mentor.
Speaker 5: For those driving around sixteen right now? What does yellow
Speaker 5: phase mean?
Speaker 2: That is the stage before graduation for our residents. It's
Speaker 2: the final two months of the program at Camp Hope
Speaker 2: and they come into my Yellow phase block. I have
Speaker 2: them for two months and I help them complete the
Speaker 2: program and you know, do my best to set them
Speaker 2: up for success or when they leave Camp Hope.
Speaker 5: So what are the There's no such thing as a
Speaker 5: typical day. There's a Camp Hope. Every day is a
Speaker 5: new day around there. But what's what's kind of a
Speaker 5: norm for a yellow phase mentors?
Speaker 3: What are we doing in the course of the day.
Speaker 2: In the course of the day, I am there when
Speaker 2: their day starts. Uh, you know, do their checking in
Speaker 2: the morning.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: We will do a daily devotional after our check ins,
Speaker 2: and then uh we'll start the class day. Like I
Speaker 2: teach classes on my own, or we can have outside
Speaker 2: resources coming and provide them with classes, whether they depending
Speaker 2: on what the residents need. You know, they're trying to
Speaker 2: find jobs. We'll get them classes on how to complete resumes,
Speaker 2: how to build link LinkedIn profiles, UH, savings and budgeting,
Speaker 2: home owner ship, renting a home, and credit repair, things
Speaker 2: of that nature, you know, just to try to give
Speaker 2: them a basic set of tools and knowledge to take
Speaker 2: with them on the outside to know how to rebuild
Speaker 2: these things.
Speaker 5: Mike, you mentioned you deployed in six When did you
Speaker 5: join the army?
Speaker 6: It was after nine to eleven.
Speaker 5: I wanted is that kind of a prompter for you?
Speaker 4: It was I was. I was working in a palette factory,
Speaker 4: believe it or not, making palettes. I had left school early.
Speaker 4: I had a child that.
Speaker 6: Was just born.
Speaker 4: I think I was eighteen years old roughly and working
Speaker 4: at this palette factory. We had no idea what was
Speaker 4: going on. The Twin Towers had gotten hit and everyone
Speaker 4: kind of like was going crazy, and I just was
Speaker 4: at work building palettes and I just felt like that
Speaker 4: that's what I needed to do. I mean, I dropped
Speaker 4: out of high school because of my child, and I
Speaker 4: was working a day job and I've always still in Buffalo,
Speaker 4: and I just was like, I have to do something different.
Speaker 4: In the Twin Towers hit and I said, that's it,
Speaker 4: I'm going. I've always wanted to, I never had the
Speaker 4: courage to do it. I kept getting scared, and then
Speaker 4: finally I said, this, this is it. This is the
Speaker 4: reason I got to do my part and help defend
Speaker 4: our freedoms in our country and wrong the rights and
Speaker 4: be a better man.
Speaker 6: That's I joined.
Speaker 5: So you were in for a little while before you
Speaker 5: actually deployed.
Speaker 4: A little bit not It wasn't exactly at two thousand
Speaker 4: and two thousand and one when I went in.
Speaker 6: I was.
Speaker 4: It was a little bit after, but yeah, So I
Speaker 4: did my work up. I went to Fort leonard Wood, Missouri,
Speaker 4: and there did basic training there, did oh set. So
Speaker 4: I was back to back and then I did my
Speaker 4: combat engineer training there as well. But they kind of
Speaker 4: like teach you how to find landmines, identify stuff in
Speaker 4: the ground, and not anything close to what I did
Speaker 4: in the actual army, which is kind of funny. But
Speaker 4: I've worked with explosives but not land mines. I left
Speaker 4: Fort Leonardwood, I went to Fort Riley, Kansas. I was
Speaker 4: part of the seventieth Engineer Battalion. Did our work up there,
Speaker 4: went to NTC California, trained there, and then we deployed
Speaker 4: to Afghanistan, my entire battalion. Before before I got to Afghanistan,
Speaker 4: I was selected to go to a special school for
Speaker 4: route clearance. We basically learned how to identify IEDs. This
Speaker 4: is what an ID looks like, this is how you
Speaker 4: find them. These are some signs that this is what
Speaker 4: you see. Pretty crazy stuff, you know, when you learned.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's like I did never imagine that I
Speaker 4: would be doing that. I was told that I was
Speaker 4: going to build things and blow things up. That's what
Speaker 4: the recruiter told me, and I was excited for that.
Speaker 4: I did not know that I was going to be
Speaker 4: the one blowing up. Fast forward a little bit you know,
Speaker 4: we I did the school, I got certified. I had
Speaker 4: become one of the experts in my battalion on the
Speaker 4: route clearance equipment that we used, and I trained a
Speaker 4: lot of the soldiers in my battalion how to operate
Speaker 4: the equipment. I kind of took it and ran with it.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: It was something I was passionate about, and I became
Speaker 4: really good at it. I found quite a number of
Speaker 4: IED's when I was over in Afghanistan. I was blown
Speaker 4: up three times in combat. Most of them are IED's,
Speaker 4: the two two of them are I d's. One of
Speaker 4: them was a rocket propel grenade RPG. The vehicle that
Speaker 4: I was driving was a mind detection vehicle. They were
Speaker 4: targeted quite a bit. We were used to find the
Speaker 4: roadside bombs, so they tried to eliminate that as much
Speaker 4: as possible to try to get to our our guys.
Speaker 4: So I took an RPG to the front of the
Speaker 4: vehicle one time. I got blown up by some landmines
Speaker 4: one time, and then the last one that kind of
Speaker 4: halted my career at the time was three anti tank
Speaker 4: mines that were stacked on top of each other, and
Speaker 4: I ran it over and was blown up.
Speaker 6: So that was quite an experience.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that would get your attention a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 5: A quick reminder as we go through these stories and
Speaker 5: share the events of I guess really the source of
Speaker 5: the PTSD that some of you guys face, but also
Speaker 5: the returning home and the integration issues. We understand that
Speaker 5: these can cause triggers for some of those who were listening.
Speaker 5: So I'm want to give you a phone number. Please everyone,
Speaker 5: get your phone out, put your put this number in
Speaker 5: your phone. Even if you're not a vet. You don't
Speaker 5: think you'll ever need it, perhaps not, but you may
Speaker 5: come across someone that could really use the help. Eight
Speaker 5: seven seven seven one seven seventy eight seventy three is
Speaker 5: our Combat Trauma Crisis Line. It is answered twenty four
Speaker 5: to seven three sixty five by a combat veteran. And
Speaker 5: if you ever come across someone struggling, make sure you
Speaker 5: let them understand a combat veteran will answer the phone.
Speaker 5: That makes all the difference. Eight seven seven seven one
Speaker 5: seven seventy eight seventy three. UH and PTSD USA dot org.
Speaker 5: PTSD USA dot org for all things PTSD Foundation that
Speaker 5: includes Campope, where Mike is currently a resident Linberg is
Speaker 5: a graduate of the program and Yellow Phase mentor all
Speaker 5: that information. Ptsd USA dot org. Also on social media,
Speaker 5: PTSD USA, Facebook, X, and YouTube all are ptsd USA
Speaker 5: and on Instagram it is ptsd Foundation of America. Please
Speaker 5: follow us, retweet, share the stories there. You never know
Speaker 5: who may come across our organization that could use information
Speaker 5: about what we do.
Speaker 3: Costume nothing.
Speaker 5: It's absolutely free and it's easy to share, retweet whatever,
Speaker 5: So thank you for doing so. All right, So how
Speaker 5: long were you When did you get out of the army?
Speaker 5: You employed through eight?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I got back. I think it was two
Speaker 4: thousand and nine, actually that I got back. I landed
Speaker 4: in the United States on my birthday, May twenty fourth.
Speaker 4: I think two thousand and nine is when I landed
Speaker 4: in the United States, and I was so excited. I
Speaker 4: remember that because I was like, it's my birthday, I
Speaker 4: can go out, I can have fun with my friends,
Speaker 4: and let's celebrate my birthday. US coming home. We survived
Speaker 4: the deployment. I didn't get to go out at all
Speaker 4: for my bay. By the time they released US, I
Speaker 4: was so exhausted from all of the turning in of weapons,
Speaker 4: turning in all the gear. I was just rained physically
Speaker 4: and mentally, and I just wanted to go home and
Speaker 4: go to bed. Yeah, So we didn't get released until
Speaker 4: like I think the twenty fifth, at like seventeen hundred hours.
Speaker 4: So it was not a birthday. It was a good
Speaker 4: birthday present because I got home.
Speaker 5: Sure back, Yeah, glad you're back, absolutely all right. Just
Speaker 5: a reminder PTSDUSA dot org. The Combat Trauma Crisis Line
Speaker 5: eight seven seven seven to one, seven seventy eight seventy three.
Speaker 5: Eight seven seven seven to one to seven seventy eight
Speaker 5: seventy three answered twenty four to seven by a combat
Speaker 5: veteran and that will mean the world to anyone who
Speaker 5: needs to make that call. Eight seven seven seven one
Speaker 5: seven seventy eight seventy three. We're going to take a
Speaker 5: quick news break for those of you on the nine
Speaker 5: to five OH use it on the listening to the podcast.
Speaker 3: We'll just here a little music.
Speaker 5: We'll be right back with more of Road to Hope Radio.
Speaker 3: And we welcome you back Road to Hope Radio.
Speaker 5: Glad to have you along as you listen on the
Speaker 5: nine to five OH the kPr C in Houston, Texas.
Speaker 5: Thank you for joining us, those of you listening through podcasts.
Speaker 5: Thank you for doing so. And again, wherever you listen
Speaker 5: to podcasts, just look for Road to Hope Radio and
Speaker 5: if you would hit that subscribe button, we would truly,
Speaker 5: truly appreciate that and share with your friends and all
Speaker 5: folks in your network. We have heard on a number
Speaker 5: of occasions people learned about our programs through these radio
Speaker 5: programs that we do more than eight years now of
Speaker 5: stories guys that have come through our program. Occasionally we'll
Speaker 5: hit on the news. I like to share some of
Speaker 5: the stories so that our guys or messages that our
Speaker 5: guy send to us that have been through our program
Speaker 5: several years ago and updating us on how their life
Speaker 5: is going forward. So we love to do that. You'll
Speaker 5: hear a lot of those. So if you just hit
Speaker 5: that subscribe button, it will automatically download to your devices
Speaker 5: every week when the news show drops on Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 5: So thank you very very much for doing so. All right,
Speaker 5: So home in nine on your birthday mentioned blowing up
Speaker 5: a few times during your deployments. When did you get
Speaker 5: to Camp Hope.
Speaker 4: So I arrived at Camp Hope about thirty days ago.
Speaker 4: I think it's a little bit over like thirty five days.
Speaker 4: Maybe it is when I came here, so I don't
Speaker 4: even know what today is either. Yeah, I've been here
Speaker 4: for about thirty days.
Speaker 5: Okay, so sixteen year span. What happened when you got
Speaker 5: home besides a long day once on the actual day.
Speaker 4: You know, I struggled a lot. I was married at
Speaker 4: the time, and my marriage kind of like was on
Speaker 4: the fritz.
Speaker 6: I was.
Speaker 4: I was angry a lot. I was struggling. I wasn't
Speaker 4: sure how to cope with what was going on. I
Speaker 4: didn't actually know what was going on. That was the
Speaker 4: crazy part I was. I thought everything was normal, and
Speaker 4: I wasn't aware, if you will, of my actions and
Speaker 4: how I was behaving because I didn't know my wife
Speaker 4: at the time. She ended up leaving, went back home,
Speaker 4: we separated, divorced, you know, got into more trouble with myself,
Speaker 4: not knowing how to deal with things, getting in and
Speaker 4: out of trouble. I was in and out of the
Speaker 4: hospital a few times because of my anger, a lot
Speaker 4: of outbursts, a lot of not knowing how to react
Speaker 4: to things I was. I was taught to react, and
Speaker 4: that's what I did. I reacted to things, whether it
Speaker 4: was right or wrong. I just reacted and then I
Speaker 4: dealt with the consequences later. I never really faced them
Speaker 4: head on and thought rationally that kind of happened for
Speaker 4: a long time. When I first got home, I started
Speaker 4: a business building custom motorcycles.
Speaker 6: I would I built sport bikes.
Speaker 4: I would take something somebody bring me in and I
Speaker 4: would customize it for them, and I would do all
Speaker 4: kinds of crazy fun things, from spinner wheels, nitrous tanks,
Speaker 4: drag bikes, big tire kits. I did that for probably
Speaker 4: six years, and then the economy kind of went downward
Speaker 4: for a while, and then I closed up that shop
Speaker 4: and went to work back again with my family doing
Speaker 4: masonry restoration work. Complete opposite, but it was there, it
Speaker 4: was steady, it was whatever I wanted. Did that for
Speaker 4: a few years, still struggling. I kind of developed some
Speaker 4: substance abuse problems during that time as well. I found
Speaker 4: that that was an easier way for me to cope
Speaker 4: with a lot of the issues that I was having,
Speaker 4: which in retrospect now I know was the wrong way
Speaker 4: to handle things. But I spun got out of control.
Speaker 4: I didn't know how to handle and I turned to
Speaker 4: that as a way to escape.
Speaker 5: So, now having been diagnosed with PTSD and you look back,
Speaker 5: what were some of the things you talked about some
Speaker 5: of the issues, But what were those issues for you?
Speaker 5: Was it high provisions of sleep.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, both or all of them all. So I
Speaker 4: was always on edge. I was always watching where I was,
Speaker 4: what was the surrounding, what was going on. Loud noises
Speaker 4: was a big trigger for me. Crowds. I couldn't do
Speaker 4: crowds very well. Anytime there was a loud sudden noise,
Speaker 4: I would have panic attacks. My heart would start racing,
Speaker 4: I would start sweating, and then I would just get
Speaker 4: overwhelmed with emotion.
Speaker 6: It would scare me.
Speaker 4: I mean most people get scared with you can hear
Speaker 4: a loud thud or a loud noise, but it would
Speaker 4: put me into like this extra I don't know what
Speaker 4: it was it was. I was just I had to
Speaker 4: know what was going on, and it would put me
Speaker 4: on edge and then I wouldn't be able to come
Speaker 4: out of.
Speaker 6: It for a while.
Speaker 5: Did that start after coming home or did you experience
Speaker 5: some of that while you were still deployed.
Speaker 4: You know, honestly, I I experienced some of it while
Speaker 4: I was there. I didn't let it show, because you know,
Speaker 4: you got a job to do. You don't want to
Speaker 4: admit it that you're having these problems because then they
Speaker 4: people judge. And it's sad to say, but it happens.
Speaker 4: But I experienced the most significant problems were when I
Speaker 4: was home, because people don't realize that a lot of
Speaker 4: US veterans and active duty service members, we were aware
Speaker 4: and we try not to trigger other people. We're cognizant
Speaker 4: of what's happening around us so that we don't set
Speaker 4: somebody over the edge. In the regular civilian world, they
Speaker 4: don't know that that's not the issue.
Speaker 6: We don't.
Speaker 4: They don't go out of their way to make sure
Speaker 4: there's no balloons that could pop at an event, So
Speaker 4: when it happens, it's overwhelming and it's crippling.
Speaker 5: Remember what were some of the symptoms you were dealing with?
Speaker 2: Some that more similar to him. You know, One that
Speaker 2: was very uh sudden and that I didn't understand until recently,
Speaker 2: was that, you know, no crowds was a trigger for
Speaker 2: me as well. You know, I've been in a situation
Speaker 2: where in a situation where there was no crowd and
Speaker 2: nobody on the street, there was no sound, no children laughing,
Speaker 2: no no people talking, and you know, then something would happen,
Speaker 2: and you know we have to react to whatever. You know,
Speaker 2: attack was coming at us. So that was something I've
Speaker 2: recently come to understand, and you know, it really like
Speaker 2: explained a lot of my isolation and you know why
Speaker 2: I'm listening, you know, and watching everyone that's around me.
Speaker 2: You know, still can't sleep often. You know, I came
Speaker 2: back from Iraq with sarcoidosis which started my lung and
Speaker 2: then spread throughout my body and went autoimmune. So I
Speaker 2: still deal with that as well. You know, that was
Speaker 2: a career ender, just like how PTSD speaking about having
Speaker 2: symptoms of PTS while you're still in service or in
Speaker 2: civil service as a federal civilian, that could end your
Speaker 2: career as well. You know, you come home to a
Speaker 2: lot of stigma and people think that you're just ticking
Speaker 2: time bomb, when really most of us are just trying
Speaker 2: to figure out what happened. You know, what happened? Why
Speaker 2: am I thinking about things and remembering things this way?
Speaker 2: And then you know, it took some time, but once
Speaker 2: I was able to compartmentalize and put things in their
Speaker 2: proper box, you know, it's manageable.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It doesn't go away. My lifetime and my life experiences
Speaker 2: don't go away, but I can manage to move forward.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 5: And I think it was around twenty fourteen the Pentagon
Speaker 5: was trying to kind of overcome that stigma, and they
Speaker 5: were using some gunerals sharing some of their stories about
Speaker 5: PTSD symptoms and such PTSD diagnosis.
Speaker 3: But as I.
Speaker 5: Talked to guys coming home, always found there was just
Speaker 5: this great disconnect.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: It was great that these generals are talking about it,
Speaker 5: but the guys that are actually in country and needing
Speaker 5: to fulfill missions, like they didn't want to hear it
Speaker 5: because they still had to fulfill the mission. So it
Speaker 5: almost backfired. It almost probably sent guys further into the
Speaker 5: withdrawing and trying to cover up than it was trying
Speaker 5: to get.
Speaker 2: That absolutely absolutely, like the officer's side is not the
Speaker 2: enlisted side of the military, you know. And I started out,
Speaker 2: I deployed as a PFC, came back pretty much a sergeant.
Speaker 2: You know, my first stars and my commander were calling
Speaker 2: me sergeant at the end of that. And I had
Speaker 2: no interaction with an officer above a captain, you know,
Speaker 2: so like for generals to tell their story and what
Speaker 2: they experience was not going to happen down on my level,
Speaker 2: you know, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5: So it's I guess someone in a you know, a
Speaker 5: dark hallway in the Pentagon. I thought it was a
Speaker 5: good idea, and you know, you know, I guess better
Speaker 5: to try than not try it all. The stigma is
Speaker 5: continues to be a major issue there. There's I think
Speaker 5: through the years, particularly maybe the last four or five years,
Speaker 5: we've had a little bit of movement toward people understanding
Speaker 5: what PTSD actually is versus what they kind of heard
Speaker 5: on the local news when someone shut up a mall
Speaker 5: or something like. That's not PTSD. They may have PTSD,
Speaker 5: but they also wearing a brown belt and have green hair.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's just, you know, it has nothing to
Speaker 5: do with what they're doing.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 5: We're going to take a quick break and be right
Speaker 5: back with more of Road to Hope Radio with Lindbergh
Speaker 5: and Mike to help you guys both with us. A
Speaker 5: couple of army that's with us today.
Speaker 3: And were welcome you back Road to Hope Radio. A
Speaker 3: few minutes left, but.
Speaker 5: I'd like to hear from both of you guys, how
Speaker 5: whenber We'll start with you, how did you first hear
Speaker 5: about CAMPO.
Speaker 3: What was that first connection?
Speaker 2: Yeah, looking back out on it now, it's kind of
Speaker 2: weird to say, but I was actually homeless. I was
Speaker 2: homeless at that point in time, trying to figure things out.
Speaker 2: And uh so in Washington State there's this place called
Speaker 2: Catholic Community Center and they had a like a meeting,
Speaker 2: you know, for people to come by that were experiencing
Speaker 2: homelessness at the time, to come by and get resources.
Speaker 2: So I ran into a gentleman named Larry Turk who
Speaker 2: was in charge of the outreach chapter in Tacoma, and
Speaker 2: I sat down with his team and they explained to
Speaker 2: me what Camp Hope was. And this was in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: and I met Larry a former starn major named Mariah Sidwell,
Speaker 2: I believe also, and they just explained to me, you know,
Speaker 2: what it was where Camp Hope was what I could
Speaker 2: receive in terms of the time and the ability to
Speaker 2: go through, you know, some counseling for PTSD and things
Speaker 2: of that nature. And I put it in my back pocket
Speaker 2: and didn't really make a decision for a year. And
Speaker 2: when I came to Camp hope first time in twenty
Speaker 2: nineteen December twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: How long were you homeless?
Speaker 2: So from two thousand about six to eight months. You know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't like I was on the streets for years
Speaker 2: or anything. About six eight months I was.
Speaker 5: And the only reason I mentioned I think that's it
Speaker 5: comes as a surprise to a lot of people. That's
Speaker 5: so many of our post nine to eleven veterans found
Speaker 5: themselves homeless at some point in time for some length
Speaker 5: of time. You mentioned six to eight months. Justin was
Speaker 5: homeless in Houston for six and a half years, which
Speaker 5: is absolutely I don't even know how you survived that.
Speaker 5: I just don't even know how you how do you
Speaker 5: do that? But man, that's people need to understand that's
Speaker 5: what has happened. That's what is happening, and it's and
Speaker 5: I remember hitting the streets in two thousand and I
Speaker 5: was meeting guys that were twenty three and twenty four
Speaker 5: years old and they were already homeless after having been
Speaker 5: to to Iraq or Afghanistan in the very early part
Speaker 5: of the Wars. It was shocking to me. But our
Speaker 5: people have to understand. Our community needs to understand that
Speaker 5: they need to understand why there's a need for a
Speaker 5: place like Camp Hope. And I hated that it took
Speaker 5: you so long to get there, but I'm glad you did.
Speaker 5: How did you hear about Camp Mike?
Speaker 4: I was at a residential program in Salisbury, North Carolina.
Speaker 5: Are you doing in North Carolina? I ended up barbecues terrible?
Speaker 5: Why in the world in North Carolina? Felt Lake Home?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 6: I visited some family there, gotcha?
Speaker 4: And when what brought me originally was I was I
Speaker 4: was awarded a mortgage free home through a military nonprofit.
Speaker 5: Because of your injuries from because of my injuries.
Speaker 4: So I have a purple heart. And I was also
Speaker 4: given a bronze star, so they gave me a home.
Speaker 4: That's what brought me there. But I was to Camp Hope.
Speaker 4: I was at a program at the VA Hospital and
Speaker 4: one of the representatives there said that they heard of
Speaker 4: this program that they think will really much in North Carolina.
Speaker 4: They thought that this place called Camp Hope would help
Speaker 4: me tremendously because of the stuff that I struggled with.
Speaker 4: She's I think her exact words were that she's never
Speaker 4: seen somebody as decorated as me with so many problems
Speaker 4: and nowhere to go.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: I didn't know anything about Camp Hope. I got on
Speaker 4: the website and I looked at it and I said,
Speaker 4: this place looks amazing.
Speaker 6: This is they hit it on all the things.
Speaker 4: And I think it was the video of you talking
Speaker 4: about what Camp Hope was and how it can help
Speaker 4: other veterans and that this was the tough guys that
Speaker 4: struggle the most and they get the most benefit out
Speaker 4: of it. And I thought to myself, I thought it
Speaker 4: couldn't be true. I really truly did not believe it.
Speaker 4: I've been in a lot of programs that say that
Speaker 4: they're there to help veterans, and they really don't. Fortunately,
Speaker 4: they don't stand up to the bar. They they really
Speaker 4: kind of fall short. It's good intention, but they just
Speaker 4: it falls short. And it's usually because of resources aren't there.
Speaker 4: I applied on Camp Hope's website uh mill or PTSDUSA
Speaker 4: dot org and I got a phone call the next
Speaker 4: day and I could I was I was literally shocked.
Speaker 4: I was like, Wow, this is crazy. A gentleman from
Speaker 4: Outreach called me and he said that he told me
Speaker 4: who he was, where he was from, what branch he was.
Speaker 1: In.
Speaker 4: Turns out, the gentleman and I were in the same
Speaker 4: part of Afghanistan on the same task force, and he
Speaker 4: knew exactly who I was, Like he had seen my vehicle.
Speaker 4: I had my name written on the vehicle. It's called
Speaker 4: Pug's Life. They stopped that after our deployment because we
Speaker 4: were getting targeted too much. But so the gentleman remembered
Speaker 4: who I was and he knew what my mission was.
Speaker 3: There, so he.
Speaker 6: Walked me through the process.
Speaker 4: And like I think it was two weeks later, they
Speaker 4: saw the need that I had, I guess, and they
Speaker 4: flew me down within I mean within a matter of
Speaker 4: two and a half to three weeks tops, and it
Speaker 4: was fast. They got me down here to Houston, Texas,
Speaker 4: and I've I don't know, it's just an amazing opportunity
Speaker 4: to be with other veterans that are struggling with the
Speaker 4: same issues. I mean, it's every day. It's it's awakening,
Speaker 4: it's I see it. I see myself and other veterans,
Speaker 4: and it that's what helps the most. I think everyone
Speaker 4: hears a veteran. Everyone here has lived the life, has
Speaker 4: walked the walk. They know what I'm going through, they
Speaker 4: know the struggles that I feel.
Speaker 5: I was in a meeting this week, and that kept
Speaker 5: bubbling back to this top of the conversation. Through the years,
Speaker 5: we've obviously strengthened the program, added to the program, brought
Speaker 5: a lot of different things into the program, like we've
Speaker 5: had art therapy, we've had equine therapy, and you know,
Speaker 5: grateful that we're able to bring all those things in.
Speaker 5: But it always always always comes back to the peer
Speaker 5: to peer side. That's always it's huge. Yeah, So day
Speaker 5: one for you coming in from North Carolina having been
Speaker 5: in the VA for a while. I guess what was
Speaker 5: Dave one like for you? Because you've seen it on
Speaker 5: a on a website, which is one thing. But yeah,
Speaker 5: now all of a sudden, here you are. So let's
Speaker 5: put this good thing is if you've been here in
Speaker 5: thirty days, it was nice and cool when you got here.
Speaker 6: That was cool. Oh my gosh, it was hot when
Speaker 6: I got here.
Speaker 3: So our eight months of summer.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, so let's paint this picture for you. I
Speaker 4: got off the airport, off the airplane, and I was
Speaker 4: picked up by the PTSD USA Camp Hope van, red
Speaker 4: white and blue van. I mean, nothing more welcoming than
Speaker 4: Camp Hope. You know, it's this big red, white and
Speaker 4: blue van that's talking. It's PTSD USA, get help.
Speaker 6: They drive me.
Speaker 4: First of all, he gives me the biggest talk I've
Speaker 4: ever gotten in my life. I tried to shake his
Speaker 4: hand and he says, we don't do that, and he
Speaker 4: gives me a hug. And the both gentlemen that were
Speaker 4: in the van, they greeted me with smiles and hugs.
Speaker 6: And I was like, wow, this is weird.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's different, but okay, so I rode with it.
Speaker 6: They drove us back to.
Speaker 4: The camp and somebody opened the door when I got
Speaker 4: there and they said, give me a hug, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: yet now it's it's yeah. Now, if you're not hugging,
Speaker 4: something's wrong, you know. So it's there's no handshakes here
Speaker 4: most of the time. If you try to shake someone's hand,
Speaker 4: they'll slap your hand out of the way and they
Speaker 4: just bear hug you. And that's the normal now. And
Speaker 4: I told that to my daughter when I talked to her,
Speaker 4: and she said, Dad, that makes my heart so happy.
Speaker 4: She's twenty two right now. She just turned twenty two
Speaker 4: in February.
Speaker 5: Well, unfortunately, our time is done. I hate this clock.
Speaker 5: This is the fastest hour of my entire week, every
Speaker 5: single week. But glad you're here.
Speaker 6: I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 5: Keep doing the work. Yes, for your family, but mainly
Speaker 5: for you.
Speaker 3: You deserve.
Speaker 5: You deserve the very best life you can live. The
Speaker 5: same for you, lindbergh Y, So thanks for having me.
Speaker 5: Grateful for you, Grateful for what you do every single
Speaker 5: day to serve those who come into our program at
Speaker 5: Camp Hope. We want everyone that steps foot on our campus,
Speaker 5: whenever it is they step out to go live their life.
Speaker 5: We want them to live the very best life that
Speaker 5: they possibly can, whatever that looks like. We don't get
Speaker 5: to choose that, but we want to expose to as
Speaker 5: much as we can while you're here. So thank you, Linmber,
Speaker 5: appreciate it. Mike, thanks for sharing some of your story.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me join us again next week
Speaker 5: for more of Road to Hope Radio.
Speaker 3: Have great week, everybody,