Speaker 1: Multiple people in my family clean my father, are veterans.
Speaker 2: And the troops that have been to war and now
Speaker 2: they're back 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.
Speaker 2: There are some people in this country who take extraordinary
Speaker 2: steps to provide for the freedom and security.
Speaker 1: We forget that those people exist. We know them as
Speaker 1: the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. They
Speaker 1: 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. They are
Speaker 1: the best our country has to offer, and we love
Speaker 1: them well. Today we honor them, and we certainly David
Speaker 1: Malsby is your host, and he welcomes you to this
Speaker 1: community of veterans. As together we are building.
Speaker 2: The road to hope, and indeed we are glad to
Speaker 2: have you along. On a Sunday afternoon, loads of you
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Speaker 2: going to love at Republic Grand Ranch dot Com. All right,
Speaker 2: in the studio with us today, We've got a couple
Speaker 2: of combat veterans with us, one currently in our program,
Speaker 2: one that's on staff. Can you want to introduce you stuff?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Hey, how's it going, Kevin? I've been here before.
Speaker 3: I'm a program mentor at Camp Hope currently Miller Bay's mentors.
Speaker 3: I've my graduate graduated almost two years ago, so I've
Speaker 3: been working at Camp Hope ever since.
Speaker 2: And Branch where you served?
Speaker 3: Oh, Army? Yeah, I was in the Army sixteen years.
Speaker 3: I got a multiple performance. Those days are long behind me.
Speaker 2: But in the rearview mirror, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: What years did you go so I went in oh
Speaker 3: five oh six, eight oh nine, eleven, and twelve.
Speaker 2: So you guys huddled crossover on your second one at
Speaker 2: least tarrent time wise. Anyway, Uh, you want to introduce yourself, Mario,
Speaker 2: just tell the world here you are.
Speaker 4: It's Marco Marco.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I can't remoon right.
Speaker 4: From Pasadena, Texas Army deployed OIF one and OIF O
Speaker 4: eight oh nine, and I'm a resident at Camp Hope
Speaker 4: and grateful to be there.
Speaker 2: You originally from Pasadena, Yes, sir? All right, so just
Speaker 2: down the road, local boy. Yeah. Absolutely. We don't get
Speaker 2: a whole lot of those that are that close. When
Speaker 2: we have some some that eventually ended up here, but
Speaker 2: they weren't necessarily originally from here. But it takes all kinds. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we let a few Yankees in. We talked about that
Speaker 2: last week. I think we had a Yankee on the
Speaker 2: show this last week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a Houston resident. I thought i'd say that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I didn't either, Yeah, yeah, when I was Yeah,
Speaker 2: never mind, it's not pertinent to the show. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm surprised to live here, but now I wouldn't live
Speaker 2: anyplace else. It's just kind of how that's worked out.
Speaker 2: Like I don't, I don't want to go anywhere.
Speaker 3: I love it here, man. Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: I love fishing, and man, there's plenty of that here,
Speaker 3: so many little ponds and lakes everywhere. So it's I'm
Speaker 3: joining it. Community is awesome. I'm even though I'm a
Speaker 3: a Rangers fan, you know, so a lot of people
Speaker 3: don't like that here.
Speaker 2: We may have to run you through the program again
Speaker 2: to go back through there. Clearly we didn't get everything
Speaker 2: cleaned out of the closet. Yeah, there's plenty of fishing opportunities,
Speaker 2: like you said, ponds, lakes. There's a big pond out there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and get out on a boat and go for it
Speaker 2: for a while, do some deep sea fishing. So plenty
Speaker 2: of opportunity for that. Do you go fish.
Speaker 4: I'm not a big fisherman. My thing is mountain bike.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Well we got lots of mountains, not that
Speaker 2: much more cross country style mountain biking here in the
Speaker 2: Houston area.
Speaker 4: But after I got out, I did move to Colorado Springs, Colorado,
Speaker 4: So that's where I picked it up. Yeah, probably gonna
Speaker 4: move back there one day once I get everything situated.
Speaker 4: Situated with my.
Speaker 2: Kids, got an aunt and uncle who lived there, and
Speaker 2: that used to be our spring break. We would get
Speaker 2: in the car and drive.
Speaker 4: It was beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, drive at Colorado Springs for the week.
Speaker 4: It was awesome.
Speaker 2: All right, Gonna take a quick break here in just
Speaker 2: a moment, I wanna give you a phone number eight
Speaker 2: seven seven seven one seven seventy eight seventy three. That's
Speaker 2: our combat Trauma support line. Eight seven seven seven to one,
Speaker 2: seven seventy eight seventy three. Will be right back and
Speaker 2: we welcome you back Real Hope Radio. Glad to have
Speaker 2: you along. Big thank you for being a part of
Speaker 2: this show and sharing it wherever you can. Again, the
Speaker 2: crisis number. I ran out of time. I just want
Speaker 2: to mention to you, when you call our crisis line number,
Speaker 2: a combat BET's going to answer the phone. And that's
Speaker 2: absolutely critical for those who are veterans and struggling from
Speaker 2: the traumas of war. When they call our number, a
Speaker 2: combat BET's going to answer the phone. Someone who's experienced it,
Speaker 2: someone who has learned to deal with it and move
Speaker 2: forward and has received also an edition of that an
Speaker 2: awful lot of training, but pulled a lot from their
Speaker 2: own experience while you're chatting with them. But they also
Speaker 2: have all kinds of all kinds of training to be
Speaker 2: able to handle that phone. So eight seven seven seven
Speaker 2: one seven seventy eight seventy three. Uh do you do
Speaker 2: you like crawfish? That's the question of the day.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's all right, it's a lot of work.
Speaker 4: It tastes good, but it's a lot of.
Speaker 2: Work as in eating.
Speaker 4: It's a lot of work as in eating.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, well, and I agree. I agree.
Speaker 4: I'm a steak guy.
Speaker 2: There you go. I like beef, okay, but if crawfish
Speaker 2: showed up, I'd be happy to eat it. Yeah, what
Speaker 2: about you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a fellow food I understand. But I do
Speaker 3: like crawfish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like to tell folks, our quote
Speaker 2: unquote official tagline would be hope and healing for the
Speaker 2: unseen wounds of war. Our unofficial taglines we like to eat.
Speaker 2: Just keep it real.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: So, those of you in the Houston area, particularly those
Speaker 2: of you on the northwest side of Houston, this coming
Speaker 2: Saturday is a great event put on by a couple,
Speaker 2: a married couple in Cypress. So if you're anywhere around
Speaker 2: the Houston. Are you know exactly where Cypress is? But
Speaker 2: the Cypress VFW will be the eleventh annual Plumber's Crawfish
Speaker 2: Boil Saturday, May eighteenth. Chris and his wife Susy are
Speaker 2: both local school teachers, give an incredible amount of time
Speaker 2: and energy into making this a great event. Every year
Speaker 2: they've donated over one hundred thousand dollars through this crawfish
Speaker 2: event that up until this past year they did it
Speaker 2: in their front yard. It was the craziest thing in
Speaker 2: the World's just and Chris is a he's a school teacher.
Speaker 2: His wife also school teacher, so you know they're making
Speaker 2: they're bringing down the cash right there. But Chris served
Speaker 2: and like many, he's buried too many of his buddies
Speaker 2: after coming home and he finally decided he needed to
Speaker 2: do something. They found out about Camp Hope and they
Speaker 2: started just a little crawfish bull invited the frints over
Speaker 2: and they've raised one hundred thousand dollars doing that. Now
Speaker 2: it's grown to the size that they keep adding friends.
Speaker 2: They've grown to the size that they do now do
Speaker 2: it in the parking lot the VFW and Cyprus right
Speaker 2: on two ninety But that will be Saturday afternoon beginning
Speaker 2: at one o'clock and it'll run late into the night.
Speaker 2: Oh if you have a little crawfish hunger going on,
Speaker 2: come on out raising money to support Camp Hope. It's again,
Speaker 2: it's two amazing individuals that give so selflessly of their
Speaker 2: time and energy and make this thing happen. And again,
Speaker 2: over one hundred thousand dollars they've raised over the last
Speaker 2: ten years. This pretty impressive. Just a couple of school
Speaker 2: teachers that say, hey, here's something we can do. We
Speaker 2: can buil crawfish and have a good time. So I
Speaker 2: planning on being there and would love to see you
Speaker 2: there as well. All right, Marco so Pasadena, Yes, sir,
Speaker 2: what was your claim to fame in high school?
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, my high school years weren't that good. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: My mom she was actually terminally ill during my high
Speaker 4: school years, so my dad had to pass when I
Speaker 4: was twelve years old and it was just me and
Speaker 4: my little sisters. So I actually worked a lot and
Speaker 4: I didn't go to school that much, so I was
Speaker 4: actually in ninth grade three times. My third year, they
Speaker 4: told me I needed to get my ged if I
Speaker 4: wanted to continue to try to get my diploma. So
Speaker 4: I got my ged in ninety nine. I was initially
Speaker 4: scheduled to graduate in class of two thousand, went back
Speaker 4: to school, went back to school for a little bit,
Speaker 4: made it all the way through my till like my
Speaker 4: junior year. But then by that time I was a
Speaker 4: sole breadwinner of the house. We were getting some ssd
Speaker 4: I stuff for both my dad passing away and my
Speaker 4: younger sister's dad passing away. So I just decided is
Speaker 4: to work full time. And so I had one job working.
Speaker 4: It's a place in the southeast side called Magneto Distributors,
Speaker 4: Magneto and Decent Distributors. I was the warehouse guy for them,
Speaker 4: and that was the one job I had before joining
Speaker 4: the military.
Speaker 2: Who were you living with?
Speaker 4: My mom lived with me, okay, gotcha? So I had
Speaker 4: my own place at seventeen. She had a boyfriend at
Speaker 4: the time, but before they got real serious, she'd.
Speaker 2: Lived with me.
Speaker 4: I took care of her and my two sisters, and
Speaker 4: then her boyfriend became her fiance, and then her and
Speaker 4: my sisters moved in with him, and I went to
Speaker 4: the army.
Speaker 2: Gotcha? So why the army?
Speaker 4: The Army for me was number one my uncle, my
Speaker 4: mom's brother. He's the oldest out of my mom, one
Speaker 4: of seven. So he was in the army. He served
Speaker 4: in Germany. And then my high school counselor, mister Gary Hips,
Speaker 4: he was in Apache Pilot. So those two and one
Speaker 4: of the movies me and my mom saw together before
Speaker 4: she passed away was Forrest Gump actually, so believe it
Speaker 4: or not, me and my mom watching that more Sump
Speaker 4: motivator for it, you know, you know, the connection with
Speaker 4: his mom and the tragedy and all that. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: if he could do it, I mean, who who can't.
Speaker 4: But I wanted to be a teacher, so that was
Speaker 4: that was my goal, you know, pre nine to eleven.
Speaker 4: So I joined July two thousand and one, and you
Speaker 4: know in basic training when nine to eleven happened, and
Speaker 4: you know, changed everything.
Speaker 2: For me, right, and so having joined pre nine to
Speaker 2: eleven time, basically relatively speaking, peace we weren't at war
Speaker 2: with anybody. Cold war had been completed, could have been
Speaker 2: at least conceived. You could have gone and done a
Speaker 2: four or five years stamp. Yeah, that would they don't
Speaker 2: have to face war. Just this is my job right now,
Speaker 2: helps me get ready to go do school or whatever
Speaker 2: else you want to do afterwards.
Speaker 4: And that was the intent because you know, with my
Speaker 4: mom not having you know, a job or anything like that.
Speaker 4: You know, I was I needed to find a way
Speaker 4: to pay for college to be because I wanted to
Speaker 4: be a teacher. I wanted to be a basketball coach
Speaker 4: and a math teacher. So that was the goal going in.
Speaker 4: A lot of stuff changed after my deployments.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, when did you join?
Speaker 3: I joined on November ninth, two thousand and three. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so it was after nine or whatever. Yeah, which kind
Speaker 3: of that's what led me to joining. I'd always wanted
Speaker 3: to join kind of you know, I was a gung
Speaker 3: ho kid, you know, took playing war to a new
Speaker 3: level type of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's a new level. Yeah, welcome to Iraq.
Speaker 2: They rolled up red carpet. Right, glad you guys are here.
Speaker 2: Uh huh oh man. All right, So you join h
Speaker 2: pre nine to eleven by a few months, sir. You
Speaker 2: mentioned you're in basic when it.
Speaker 4: Happened, Yes, sir, we were getting issued Class a's and
Speaker 4: the ladies that worked there, they were listening on the
Speaker 4: radio and I guess they thought it was the joke,
Speaker 4: you know at first, and then we found out it
Speaker 4: was not a joke.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I just recall, you know, when the first
Speaker 2: plane hit, it got everybody's attention clearly because that's not normal.
Speaker 2: But we didn't know exactly what it was until that
Speaker 2: second plane hit. Then we knew what we were up against.
Speaker 4: People were thinking it was an accident.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, not two of them weren't too sure, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, so join the Army nine to eleven happens?
Speaker 2: Oh man, sir? That what what changed within your you
Speaker 2: know what what changed? Well? You were basic what happened?
Speaker 4: No, it was one of the fun the things I've experienced.
Speaker 4: So I was at Fort Knox, Kentucky, home of the
Speaker 4: Armored Division, and they made us pull guard of our
Speaker 4: barracks with Rubbert in sixteen. So that was one thing,
Speaker 4: you know, we were, we were, we were. We didn't
Speaker 4: really know much what was going on. I didn't have
Speaker 4: much experience with how to get on and off post,
Speaker 4: so I didn't We didn't see them, you know, because
Speaker 4: they had fifty cows and everything at the at the gate.
Speaker 4: Once that happened, I didn't really see any of that
Speaker 4: until I got to Fort Hood, which was my first
Speaker 4: duty station.
Speaker 2: When'd you make in the Hood.
Speaker 4: In January of two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: January, all right, okay, we're gonna take a break here
Speaker 2: in just a moment, those of you listening on the
Speaker 2: nine five oh, catch a few minutes of news updates,
Speaker 2: and those of you listening through the magic of podcast
Speaker 2: can hear just a little bit of music, and we'll
Speaker 2: be right back with more of Road to Hope Radio.
Speaker 2: And we welcomed back Road to Hope Prediom. Glad to
Speaker 2: have you along. David Malsby. Here, we got Kevin, a
Speaker 2: combat VET currently on staff the PTSD Foundation about two
Speaker 2: years now. You said, that's that's awesome.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: And then we've got Marco, United States Army Vet. Two
Speaker 2: deployments to Iraq, Yes, sir. Uh. How much difference was
Speaker 2: there between those two deployments for.
Speaker 4: You, night and day, Yes, sir. Because my first deployment
Speaker 4: we had to convoy from Kuwait all the way up
Speaker 4: to the crit and so that was, you know, an
Speaker 4: experience that changed my life forever and then and I
Speaker 4: didn't have any kids up until that point, so it
Speaker 4: was just leaving my my newlywed wife behind and my
Speaker 4: Terminalio Mom, which was not fun. But the second time
Speaker 4: was to Alisade and they flew us from Kuwait to Alasade,
Speaker 4: so there was no more convoy unless you absolutely had to.
Speaker 4: And besides, three months I spent out on a fob
Speaker 4: a little further out west supporting the Marines. Besides that,
Speaker 4: I don't know, it was a fobbit, So I didn't leave.
Speaker 4: I didn't leave the base at all. You know, just
Speaker 4: how we were a transportation company, so we had the Kalamars,
Speaker 4: so it's the container handlers and uh so we're just
Speaker 4: doing all that stuff. And they had some guys go
Speaker 4: out on convoy because we ran the convoy support center
Speaker 4: for Alasad and so, but it was just a lot
Speaker 4: of on base operations and a lot of nymities that
Speaker 4: we didn't have the first go around. You know, green
Speaker 4: bean coffee, burger key, all that type of stuff.
Speaker 2: Gotcha. I've heard a lot of stories regarding those convoys,
Speaker 2: some pretty tough moments. Absolutely, we're not a war story show,
Speaker 2: so we're not going to get into all that. But
Speaker 2: give us an idea of just when did you notice,
Speaker 2: first of all, what you now know to be PTSD.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you didn't even come close to think of
Speaker 2: it in those turns when you first start having whatever
Speaker 2: those symptoms were for you, What was going on?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I mine's kind of compounded with what was
Speaker 4: going on with my mom, sure also with that and yeah, plus.
Speaker 2: As you mentioned, deploying while she's with that diagnosis.
Speaker 4: And I volunteered for that deployment. Yeah, I wasn't even
Speaker 4: scheduled to go. So but uh, you know, back then
Speaker 4: when I got back, they really weren't talking about it
Speaker 4: too much yet. It wasn't until maybe about a year
Speaker 4: or so afterwards that they finally started to bring it
Speaker 4: up to get away from the whole shell shock and
Speaker 4: all that type of references. So I really didn't deal
Speaker 4: with it well at all. I didn't get diagnosed until
Speaker 4: twenty thirteen, So it took a lot of bad experiences,
Speaker 4: a lot of alcohol abuse to really feel to realize
Speaker 4: that I that I had an issue.
Speaker 2: So you were still in yes, sir, if it was thirteen?
Speaker 2: What No?
Speaker 4: I got out in September of twenty ten. Oh okay,
Speaker 4: but then I didn't get diagnosed officially until January twenty third, Yes, sir,
Speaker 4: here in Houston.
Speaker 2: What led you to go.
Speaker 4: So I had the alcoholism, you know, got bad in
Speaker 4: the military, and it got bad after and just you know,
Speaker 4: basically lost my family over it, and I had a
Speaker 4: couple of instances of showing force towards my wife that
Speaker 4: I didn't want. You know, I never I was never
Speaker 4: that type of person. I grew up, I was raised
Speaker 4: by my mom, so I was never that type of person.
Speaker 4: And it was just like a snap, instant type thing.
Speaker 4: So I knew I had a problem.
Speaker 2: Can want an war store, But what can you pinpoint
Speaker 2: as something that drove that. Whether it was the you know,
Speaker 2: the jumping to anger so quickly, the self medication, something
Speaker 2: happened I presume, or a series of something's that happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was the nightmares for me mostly so the
Speaker 4: lack of the lack of sleep, and then I didn't
Speaker 4: even to this day. You know, most of my stuff
Speaker 4: is convoy type stuff, so being on the road is
Speaker 4: when I get really agitated. But when you go to combat,
Speaker 4: you get into a mind frame that something bad is
Speaker 4: going to happen, right, so you get on that high
Speaker 4: alert status and coming back. I've never been able to
Speaker 4: get away from that. I've always maintained that and especially
Speaker 4: at a time where I wasn't getting any therapy. I
Speaker 4: wasn't you know, doing anything for my mental health, and
Speaker 4: so it was running wild at all times. And so
Speaker 4: it was just an alert status type thing where she
Speaker 4: woke me up out of my sleep, you know, and
Speaker 4: I reacted in a certain way, you know, And that
Speaker 4: was the main thing for me, besides you know, my
Speaker 4: you know, during traffic or something road rage incident that
Speaker 4: might happen.
Speaker 2: Approximately when was it, like you mentioned her waking you unexpected?
Speaker 4: That was in December of twenty twelve, twelve, So that was,
Speaker 4: you know, the last time I lived with my family,
Speaker 4: and so I had already been going to see them,
Speaker 4: right because that was the second time I had reacted
Speaker 4: in that way. The first time was after my first deployment,
Speaker 4: after my mom passed away. You know, there were some
Speaker 4: things that I had found out that happened while I
Speaker 4: was gone, and I had a bad reaction to that,
Speaker 4: and then it hadn't happened all the way until twenty twelve.
Speaker 4: So from two thousand and four it happened the first
Speaker 4: time and into twenty twelve because there was a lot
Speaker 4: of family stuff that had occurred, we didn't have kids
Speaker 4: at first, and we had kids and several separations, and
Speaker 4: then finally in twenty twelve, we separated for good.
Speaker 2: Gotcha, Kevin. One of the reasons, one of the things
Speaker 2: that makes us stand out from a lot of other
Speaker 2: nonprofits that deal with some form of PTSD in the
Speaker 2: veteran community is we also run not only support for
Speaker 2: our veterans, but also support for the families. And I
Speaker 2: think that's that's why I asked the year because early
Speaker 2: on my experience, like two thousand and nine, so just
Speaker 2: a couple of years before your instance, but I was
Speaker 2: running into a lot of guys that were homeless downtown
Speaker 2: that were twenty four, twenty five, twenty six years old,
Speaker 2: and they came home and something like that happened. They
Speaker 2: end up in front of a judge and then they
Speaker 2: end up homeless, and so we we very instantly knew
Speaker 2: we have to do something to help the family members.
Speaker 2: How do you see that working for our our guys
Speaker 2: in our program.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.
Speaker 3: Just not talked about enough, I feel like, so I
Speaker 3: have experience with it myself, but just to touch on it,
Speaker 3: you know, PTSD believe it or not, a lot of
Speaker 3: people don't understand this. You can actually pass that on
Speaker 3: to people that you're around, especially spouses.
Speaker 2: Is a real thing. Yeah, it is diagnosis.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's one man. I mean, it's amazing. How the
Speaker 3: That's probably the greatest joy I get out of working
Speaker 3: at Camp Hope and being a part of the this
Speaker 3: fellowship we have there is seeing this family support and
Speaker 3: the reconnect back with guys with their families, whether that
Speaker 3: be spouses or kids, mothers, sisters, brothers. It's amazing. And
Speaker 3: you have, you know, families, you know, families need that
Speaker 3: support just as much as you do his combat veterans,
Speaker 3: some more so.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and I think this what you just mentioned
Speaker 2: is it tells the story of what happened. Families didn't
Speaker 2: know what to do. And I always kind of put
Speaker 2: it in the terminology. And when Johnny comes marching home again,
Speaker 2: Like when Johnny comes home, he's got both his arms
Speaker 2: and his legs and his eyes and he looks okay,
Speaker 2: and he you know, for the most part, he acts okay.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh good, just so glad he's home. Right.
Speaker 2: But I talked to one guy, one of the very
Speaker 2: first guys I spoke with downtown. He was, you know,
Speaker 2: having legal issues, what's going on, and he had something
Speaker 2: and he came home and his mom was just so excited,
Speaker 2: you know, just so excited he was home and she
Speaker 2: invited all of his friends over. And that was the
Speaker 2: worst thing in the world. And it didn't she got
Speaker 2: in the way, there was a push. He's in front
Speaker 2: of a judge. None of it intentional by anybody, but
Speaker 2: it was just the lack of we'll have the friends over,
Speaker 2: but tonight's probably not the night. He was just so
Speaker 2: tired and you know, just you're bringing home war in
Speaker 2: your mind. Give me a minute, you know. So we
Speaker 2: try to help the families understand that, which can help
Speaker 2: mitigate some of the legal issues some of our guys
Speaker 2: have to end up facing. All right, So twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: you went to the VA or thirteen twenty thirteen.
Speaker 4: Twenty twelve. Yeah, I got there. I got my rating
Speaker 4: in January twenty thirteenth.
Speaker 2: Okay, what did they do besides just say you have PTSD?
Speaker 4: So really, when by the time that I went through,
Speaker 4: I was suffering from homelessness and I didn't make a
Speaker 4: lot of my appointments for my physical injuries and everything
Speaker 4: like that. But I was lucky to make that one.
Speaker 4: So I started seeing doctor Tennessee here in Houston, and
Speaker 4: he was really helpful. How often I would at first
Speaker 4: I was going at once every three months at first,
Speaker 4: and you know, starting with the medication and everything like that,
Speaker 4: and the thing that it helped me with the most
Speaker 4: antidepressants and all that is everything that I had bottled up.
Speaker 4: I could no longer bottle it up and I needed
Speaker 4: to release that. And it wasn't pretty. I was crying
Speaker 4: a lot, but it's some stuff that I had to
Speaker 4: I had to let go. Unfortunately, I didn't have my
Speaker 4: family support, right my mom had passed away and my
Speaker 4: my my wife decided she wouldn't didn't want to be
Speaker 4: a part of it no more so a lot of
Speaker 4: it I have to sufferer alone. Yeah, and that's why
Speaker 4: it's taken me so long to get to a healthy
Speaker 4: point in my life.
Speaker 2: All right, Okay, we're going to take one final break here.
Speaker 2: We'll come back. I want to dig into just a
Speaker 2: little bit more of of that recovery and how you've
Speaker 2: gotten to the place where you are today. All Right,
Speaker 2: we'll be back with more vote hope radium, just a moment.
Speaker 5: Who draws the ground in the place A loud baby.
Speaker 5: It's the gets out man, and.
Speaker 2: We welcome you back.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: With Kevin and with Marco, a couple of combat veterans
Speaker 2: multiple tours, talked a little bit about that struggle coming
Speaker 2: home and then self medicating and things like that. One
Speaker 2: of the things you have struggled with that I wanted
Speaker 2: to bring up and just kind of chat on it
Speaker 2: for just a little bit because it doesn't get talked
Speaker 2: about a lot. There's PTSD, actual something in the brain,
Speaker 2: that's an actual brain issue. But we also heavily deal
Speaker 2: with what we call the moral injury, and sometimes that
Speaker 2: can be very closely associated, if not just completely hand
Speaker 2: in hand with survivor's guilt. I don't know what your
Speaker 2: story is there, but survivor's guilt is part of what
Speaker 2: you're dealing with.
Speaker 4: Yes, they're absolutely so. For one, For one, having the
Speaker 4: feeling that because my mom passed away on my first deployment,
Speaker 4: ended up getting a Red Cross message and coming home
Speaker 4: got back the day before she passed away, was able
Speaker 4: to say my goodbyes, but she was no longer able
Speaker 4: to speak, and so that and feeling like she gave
Speaker 4: her life so I could come home safely. So that
Speaker 4: was one after the funeral and everything like that. They
Speaker 4: didn't allow me to go back. I tried to go back,
Speaker 4: but they it just wasn't in the cards for me.
Speaker 4: You know, I got you know, I was a lower enlisted.
Speaker 4: I wasn't you know, essential to what was going on. So,
Speaker 4: you know, you feel you lift the guys behind. Luckily,
Speaker 4: nobody in the unit that I deployed we've died at
Speaker 4: that moment. But I've always been a very empathetic person,
Speaker 4: and I've felt deeply for everyone we lost, not just
Speaker 4: on our side, but also you know, the innocent people
Speaker 4: that were lost over there, you know or right so,
Speaker 4: and you know, just dealing just dealing with that on
Speaker 4: a spiritual level, dealing with that, you know, in feeling
Speaker 4: like I don't deserve to be here, I don't deserve
Speaker 4: to be happy, that I should be struggling in some
Speaker 4: way at some times, and then just you know, struggling
Speaker 4: to find a way to be happy at other times.
Speaker 4: And I've had several buddies of mine, you know, that
Speaker 4: have taken their own life, you know, and I've been
Speaker 4: you know, very close to that that door as well,
Speaker 4: and once again, you know, feeling lucky to have survived
Speaker 4: my attempt, but knowing that you know, friends outside the
Speaker 4: military and inside the military, you know, have have gone
Speaker 4: all the way with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's I went back and reread a report
Speaker 2: this past week in preparation for a meeting that we
Speaker 2: were having. Twenty twenty one, a study came out of
Speaker 2: the Watson Institute from Brown University. So it's twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: so we're actually still in Afghanistan at the time. But
Speaker 2: the stat that they came up with and I don't
Speaker 2: know where they stopped counting, because the report comes out
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, so you do the research and
Speaker 2: then it takes a while to write the report. But
Speaker 2: at the time they stated we had lost just over
Speaker 2: seven thousand troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. We had already
Speaker 2: lost thirty one thousand plus Iraq and Aganistan vets to suicide.
Speaker 2: So four to one, that's a staggering, staggering number. The
Speaker 2: crazy thing is it's the exact same ratio believed to
Speaker 2: be of our Vietnam veteran era, So four to one
Speaker 2: for everyone that was killed in Vietnam four were lost
Speaker 2: to suicide. This is coming home. The difference was that
Speaker 2: took five decades to get to that number. We were
Speaker 2: still in Afghanistan, we were already there.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 2: And as you mentioned, you've lost buddies, I'm sure you have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna I was thinking about the numbers
Speaker 3: in my head. My worst appointment was my first one,
Speaker 3: which is a pretty bad one. We had four in
Speaker 3: my platoon killed in action. But then I was just
Speaker 3: kind of thinking, you know, I don't know where I
Speaker 3: would draw that line of what I'm counting, platoon, company, whatever.
Speaker 3: But I've been to Yeah, I mean, I've been at
Speaker 3: least twelve to fifteen veteran, and I was in for
Speaker 3: a while, so I have a know quite a few people,
Speaker 3: at least twelve to fifteen. It's probably much higher than
Speaker 3: that of that I served with who you know, committed suicide,
Speaker 3: and then others that I've met since then, you know,
Speaker 3: so it's it's up there, probably higher. And that's that's
Speaker 3: just what they count as suicide. Yeah, yeah, as you know,
Speaker 3: still suicide, but it's not maybe going to show up though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, drank themselves to death, you know, killing all
Speaker 2: their major organs the Hearts. Anyway, Okay, so how did
Speaker 2: you hear about Camp Hope?
Speaker 4: For me? I was actually I was at West Oaks
Speaker 4: because I had I had tried another program and I
Speaker 4: was I was doing okay. But then the therapist that
Speaker 4: I had there, wonderful lady, Miss Kelly Anne Robinson, she
Speaker 4: actually on the way to work one morning, she was
Speaker 4: struck by a garbage truck and so that just threw
Speaker 4: me for a whole nother loop.
Speaker 2: There's another on top of drawn.
Speaker 4: And was still having some family issues with my kids
Speaker 4: or you know, young adults at this time, and you know,
Speaker 4: mom's not really encouraging them to reach out to their
Speaker 4: dad in any shape or form. So I went back
Speaker 4: to the bottle and went back, you know, to other things.
Speaker 4: And so I went to West Hols to clean up.
Speaker 4: And I had some other plans and in the in line,
Speaker 4: but they didn't fall through, and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 4: And I know a lot of guys there there they
Speaker 4: were talking about Camp Hope. So that was the that
Speaker 4: was the second option only because the other option wasn't
Speaker 4: a treatment program. So I was going to be able
Speaker 4: to do what I wanted to do. But I couldn't
Speaker 4: be more happier that that first option fell, because I
Speaker 4: know I probably would have went back to drinking, and
Speaker 4: you know, who knows where I would be at this point.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: When did you get to Camp Hope.
Speaker 4: In Him March twenty eighth of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Okay, see you've been there a couple of months, Yes, sir,
Speaker 2: How you doing.
Speaker 4: I'm doing really well, you know, still struggling with some
Speaker 4: of the family stuff that I got going on, but
Speaker 4: just reconnecting with God. I'm glad that's such a big
Speaker 4: part of it. And then you know, reconnecting with buddies.
Speaker 4: You know, nobody that I served with, but we're all alike,
Speaker 4: as different as we are. We were talking about people
Speaker 4: coming from other states and stuff like that. I'm happy
Speaker 4: for that because moving back to Houston, it never felt
Speaker 4: like home again because I had served with so many
Speaker 4: other different types of people from all all walks of life.
Speaker 4: I got used to that. I got used to us
Speaker 4: bonding over similarities instead of looking for differences. And you know,
Speaker 4: having that fellowship again and being a part of AA
Speaker 4: actually something that I've I've never attempted to do, has
Speaker 4: brought me back from the brink.
Speaker 2: Thank god, thank god. Uh And you mentioned a little
Speaker 2: while ago you were homeless, so I mean your mom
Speaker 2: had passed, so you lost all your family. You and
Speaker 2: your wife had separated, so you were fighting that battle
Speaker 2: very much alone. And then you get to Camp Hope
Speaker 2: and it's like they're everywhere. Yeah, Kevin, how how important
Speaker 2: do you think that is?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: Man, that's that's you can see the smile on.
Speaker 2: My face, like even years afterwards.
Speaker 3: Right, Oh, it's yeah, it's a I mean it's it's
Speaker 3: maybe the number one thing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: You know, when we're in the military, we have all
Speaker 3: this camaraderie and all this stuff, and then when we
Speaker 3: get out, we lose that period. You just can't. You
Speaker 3: can't get that anywhere else. There's other things, fellowships you
Speaker 3: can have here and there, organizations you can be a
Speaker 3: part of, but there's nothing like a fellowship of veterans,
Speaker 3: especially of combat veterans, right, And that's what we have there.
Speaker 3: That's the wonderful thing about Camp Hope. It's the peer
Speaker 3: it's peer to peer support. And not just I'm not
Speaker 3: just talking about for most from staff that work there,
Speaker 3: I'm talking about as a whole.
Speaker 2: Right, You know guys actually in the program, absolutely all right.
Speaker 2: For more information on all the programs, not only Camp Hope,
Speaker 2: but also our support groups that do operate somewhat similar
Speaker 2: to an AA or NA type group if you're familiar
Speaker 2: with those, but for combat vets. We also do it
Speaker 2: for first responders law enforcement so PTSD post traumatic stress
Speaker 2: Disorder PTSD USA dot org is the website PTSD USA
Speaker 2: dot org and follow us on social media. It's a
Speaker 2: great way for you to share our organization with your network,
Speaker 2: both on Facebook and well what was formerly known as
Speaker 2: Twitter now X and YouTube. PTSD US a PTSD USA
Speaker 2: on Facebook X and YouTube, and a PTSD Foundation of
Speaker 2: America on the Instagram. Thank you for joining us. We
Speaker 2: look forward to being with you again next week for
Speaker 2: more of Road to Hope Radio