The Battle After Service: David West’s Fight for Veterans

When I see veterans that have gone from one to the spare, she's now thriving, a lot of times they're the communities better. They want to be places where the whole family can come together, where they can energize and do great things. They really want to help. They want to show off the best of their service and they're always thankful. We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our listeners. Because of your incredible support, we're out of time has reached number one on Apple's Mental Health Podcast chart. Number two on the Health and Fitness Chart and number 26 overall. We couldn't have done this without you. Thank you for being part of this journey with us. If someone has a problem with substance use disorder, please call one call placement. That's 888-831-1581. And if we can't help you, we'll make a referral to someone who can. Please, we're out of time. Today we're talking about something that should never be controversial. If we send Americans to war, we owe them the dignity of bringing them home whole. If we break it, we bought it. Veterans should not be living in encampments. The truth is too many of our heroes come home and find themselves lost in bureaucracy. Cut off from benefits that they've earned. And in some cases, homeless. That's unacceptable. Our veterans aren't just survivors. They're some of the best employees, the best leaders, and the strongest contributors to society once they get the right support. The challenge is making sure that support is there when they need it. David West has lived this story. Maureen Veteran, once homeless himself, now working every day to connect veterans to the benefits and the hope they deserve. Today we're going to dive into what works, what doesn't, and what has to change if we're serious about keeping our promise to the men and women who serve this country. Hey, David. Hello. Thank you for having me here. No, man, the pleasure is all mine. It's an honor and privilege, for sure. This, sir. So we're going to get right into it, OK? This, sir. All right. Ha. Can you take us back to your time in the Marines? What shaped you most about your service? Well, when I go back to thinking about the Marines, it's the kids that they took that didn't have the best upbringing, didn't have the best outlook on opportunities for having a quality life. School wasn't really something that was preached in my house. It really encouraged me to go get money to help feed my mom, take care of the bills. And that wasn't always through legal jobs, right? So during my senior year, I, school, my grandfather, was encouraged me to join all the different branches, bringing me stuff on our OTC for Army, Navy, Air Force. And after I graduated, I went in and told them I joined the Marine Corps. And I remember as he dropped the plate in the kitchen, and he said, what the hell is he going to do? So I'm stupid like that for. Why did he say that? Well, his exact words are, I told you to join the military, not the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps is going to change you. But it just, that was the branch. I don't understand that. Yeah, I think that to me. It's a lay person who, well, for him, he had served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. And the Marines had gained a reputation for being the hardest branch, the the meanest people and expecting the most out of their, out of their service members. And that was something and when they got out there, more forceful and the way they approach. And Marines kind of have this around the world for being the toughest fighting branch in the world. So he was like, oh, they're going to change you son. And they just think in the world for you. Best thing in the world for me. Yeah. It was the first time I had positive male influence in my life. Right. It was the first time where the rules were the same for everybody. Yeah. And I was in a position where I could thrive. And I got promoted fast, picked up sergeant in three years. That's four promotions. That's great. It was great. I had fun. It was a blast. Is that when you ended a sergeant? Yeah. And it is a sergeant. That's great. It was great. I had a great time. And it was one of those things. You work hard. Great things happen. You study. Good things happen. And it's not about who likes you more. Who doesn't like you? It's Kenny perform and Kenny be a big marine. I love that man. I wish I would have done that. I would have given it anything. My parents didn't preach any of that to me. What was the transition like when you came back home? And what challenges did you personally face? The transition from you was exceptionally difficult. I got out of the Marine Corps pretty quick. I made it. I got a job like on paper. I did everything right. I had a job. I enrolled in college. But I wasn't prepared. I went from being in the Marine Corps on a Friday to starting a job on a Monday. My first day of work, they had a copy machine. And in the Marine Corps, it's really simply a red button for no and a green button for make copies. This thing looked like it was ready to send something to net to the moon. You know, I'm standing there and I'm like, how do I do this? And as Lady came up to me, she asked me what I was doing. And I'm trying to use the copy. You haven't been here long enough. I was like, oh, someone sat on my desk. I was like, what? And from there, it was just not having anything to identify with the planes hit night, that the planes hit right at 9.11, 15 days after I got out. So I was feeling this, like, should I go back in? But when you're in, the guys that could get out and come back in, it's kind of look out of differently. You couldn't hack it on the outside, right? So and that's my own fault. That's one stigma. I get it. That's maybe a thing. Yeah. But it was 15 days after terrorists just flew into the building. So exactly, right? And it was on my own head. And I can do this. I'm going to be great. I got a job. Everything's going to be fine. And really quickly, it wasn't. Why? I could just not be able to fit in at work. I got a job at a tech company and they're really far advanced for where my skills were as a Marine. What do they do? What were you supposed to do there? I was supposed to be fixing radios and handheld equipment. And did you know how to do that? I did know how to do it. It wasn't the best at it. And I had gone from a spot. And also I had moved back close to my mom. I joined to get away from problems. And when I got out, I moved right back to where my problems were. Which were? Which was my mom financially taking hold of me. And dealing with that and the transition to being somebody important in the Marine Corps to the following Monday, not being so important, not being able to wrap my brain around the problems I was having like you're saying, not having anybody in my life other than, I always got tough love from growing up. And the Marine Corps further did that for me. But this was a period of my life when I needed a mentor. Right. Somebody to reach out to me and tell me, dude, this is part of life. You're going through it, calm down. But what I did was I was having so many problems trying to identify with who I am in this civilian world. Feeling I was being taken advantage of work, not understanding the hierarchy of things that I fell back into behaviors, but I was taught before I joined that just didn't start compounding all my problems again. Did you like to share with those were? Well, I went back to having fun. Growing up, I was growing up by sold pharmaceuticals. Right. That was expected in my house to bring money home. And when you get out and you're living in Las Vegas and there's a way to make myself feel important again. I know and it's be the life of a party, have fun. That's what I grew up doing. It's what made sense. Very quickly then it wasn't made sense and I was really, really myself. Right. So is your mom alive today? She is. She is. Do you guys have a relationship? No, we don't. To last time, last time I talked to my mom, she was going through some problems and she's working through some problems and she told me some things that she cannot be forgiven. And my job is to protect my family. That's exactly right. So my kids don't know the life that I had. Do they know their grandmother? They don't know on their mom's side. Yes. They never introduced her. No. She did. I love you. Yeah. I love you. You want to know why? Because it's so hard. We're so hardwired to love our parents. And it's so heartbreaking. Can I tell you something? Honestly, and it can probably make you emotional. But when your mother dies, you're going to go insane. You're going to hold on. You're going to cry. And you're going to be really heartbroken. Let me tell you in advance, okay? Why you're going to be crying? Not because you lost your mother. Because you're mourning the mother that you always wanted, the mother that you never had. So I just want you to know when it happens, okay? You don't have to feel guilty about never seeing your mom or introducing her. I don't know if you would. But... No, honestly, it's something that's in guilt that I feel every day. It is? Oh, every day. I know there's a woman that loves me but doesn't know how to love and protect. Like, she never protected me as a kid. Right. Right. So I can't trust her to protect my kids. That's right. That's exactly what I was there, father. But as a dad, knowing that I always want to have contact with my kids. I always want my kids to have contact with my kids. Hold on. And treat them the right way. And as a son, it feels bad knowing that there's a woman that's hurting but she hurt me. And I can't allow her to hurt anybody else. That's exactly right. So exactly. That's the burden I got to live with. And I do my best, right? And I to show my kids the most love is possible. Uh-huh. So you see what I'm talking about, right? You're gonna feel, you're gonna, it's all gonna come crashing down. You didn't do anything wrong. You did it all right. Your responsibility is a dad to your family. Okay, that's it. If she's unsafe, she's, yeah. Then you can't bring her into the fold, right? That's, you're, that's, so when she dies, that's what's gonna happen. Yeah, I know that's gonna be coming. That's gonna be about it. It's gonna be a bad day but not because of her but because you're mourning, you're at a loss for what you never had. And you probably see your wife and the father that you are to your kids, okay? And now you're like, wait a minute, I didn't get any of this, right? I mean, do you know how much better off you would have been if you were your own father? Oh, you, I think it'd probably be the president. You know, I've fought so hard just to have a seat at the table when I can look at my own family and see so my dad had different kids, different wives and my brothers and my sister, they all got an opportunity to go to full right, you know, full colleges, real colleges. I got, I went to university of Phoenix, which is great, right? But I still was wanting to go to real college and I will, I will one day, right? That's, that's in the goal. But just seeing the different opportunities and knowing how I grew up compared to my siblings and I made it, I'm here, right? And sometimes you can't let the bad parts be the reasons why you don't succeed. Absolutely. Absolutely. So you've been open about a period of homelessness yourself. What does that experience teach you about veterans we see struggling on the streets today? Well, my experience after about a little over here in Vegas, everything fall apart, I moved home, nobody in my family would take me in. I was, my stepmom, I was a bad influence on my younger brother. I couldn't be there. I still don't understand that logic. So I slept in my car. No, best friends, couch, his mom let me stay there. Tools in my, tools in my back seat, clothes in my trunk. For some reason I was more embarrassed about having my tools, my clothes in my car than my tools. So you put your clothes in the trunk and your tools in the back seat. Because you didn't want to even care that they might get stolen just so long as you didn't look homeless. Yeah, that's the best. Eating carne asada, one carne asada burrito a day because it was cheap, but also has a lot of protein in it. You know, enough to get through sitting there, knowing, knowing from my upbringing that I could take an easy way out and get out of my hers, but I made the choice. This isn't why I joined the Rincquard, or it's something that I got to live up to. To that, and the path from being in that to being a laborer, making $12 an hour for a construction company that didn't always pay their guys. And if they were running short, they're gonna pay the top dollar guys. And usually the laborers are gonna be the ones that are missing a paycheck because I'm easily replaceable. And therefore I'm having a hard time feeding myself. To going through that circuit of learning, just how people take advantage of low-cost labor and how it messes with your brain, right? You're trying to feed, you're trying to eat, you're putting in good work, and then somebody holds your paycheck. Before you get a paycheck and everybody's got to run to the bank because if you're the last guy, it's not gonna cash. And then you're stuck for the weekend. Learning from that experience and in while you're going through it, especially with, you know, it has some problems from the Marine Corps, but the mental health part. Like how do you get, how do you stay focused? How do you stay positive? How do you pursue a girl if you can't even take her out? Right? Like how do you do these things when you're living paycheck to paycheck to people? You can be humanizing. It is. It's dehumanizing. You're going out, you're doing the work, okay? How long ago was this? 20 years? It was about 2000, 2004, 2005 time. 2004, I had my treatment center, I just opened it. And I paid the housekeepers, I think $15 or $16 an hour, but they all had insurance, everything one of them. And at the beginning, you don't have to. I think if you're under 50 employees, you don't have to. But I just, in my mind, I was like, wait a minute, these are the people that take care of me. I got to take care of them, right? Because people are all that matters. In construction, it doesn't work that way. No, no health insurance. So you can't, you don't want to get sick. If you get sick. You miss payment. You miss payment, you got to go to a dock in a box where they charge you outrageous fees, but don't have a new insurance in your behind. That's exactly. So you don't go, so you're self-medicating, doing all the things. And understanding that my relationship now with cops is a lot different than when I was in sleeping in my car. The way they show up. It's not always respectful, right? Get out of here. Who are you? To a point where I didn't want to let them know I was a Marine. Because sometimes they say negative things about my service. Now all the great things. What do you mean? You know, you're sleeping in places and they come in and be like, what are you? And you tell them, sorry, I'm a Marine, oh, you're a Marine. Look at you and all these nations. God, I know me. They would say shit like that. Yeah, it was some negative stuff and that experience. And you take that with you. You take that with you. Sure, because you feel dehumanized. You feel like a failure in that moment. Yeah, so now when I'm helping veterans in that space and they're telling me that they've been not been treated right or do you mean, I can relate. I know that because I've been there. I know what it's like. I know what it's like the people look at you or not look at you. That's when you're helping veterans when you're helping anybody and that's low. It's not how you gotta make sure you treat them with respect. Look them in the eye. Yeah. Show them that you care. Don't pass them off. Yeah, you know, Dylan and I were in the car, right? And we're passing through the intersection. And I lock eyes with this woman holding a sign. And I pull, I'm already through the intersection. So I pull over and I look in the rear view mirror and because we lock dies, she's walking across the street. So I hand Dylan some money. And I say, get out of the car and give this to the woman and he goes, what woman? I said, Dylan, get out of the car. Make it right. You'll see the woman and he says, okay. And I'm watching this through the rear view mirror because I'm in a rush, okay? So I don't get out of the car, but she isn't leaving. Because she wants to say thank you. And so I know the drill, right? So I get out of the car and I open up my arms and I go, can I give you a hug? And she goes, see. And I whispered in her ear, I'm sorry, you're struggling. Okay? And we got in the car and I started crying. And he waited, Dylan waited a couple minutes because his boss is sitting there before I'm in the car. Right? It's freaking the 22 year old kid out. You know, and he finally says to me, I bet that makes you, I bet that makes you feel good. And I said, it does not. And he said, why? And I said, because we left her there. Now, we'll get into the leaving people there, Mark, because if you break it, you bought it. That's how I feel about it. But the point of that story is, money's not enough. These are human beings. They want to be acknowledged. They want to be seen. They want to be heard. They want you to slow down and say, hey, I matter, right? Or I mean, they don't feel like they matter. So if you can stop and just give somebody a hug, it doesn't matter. Now, I did have a bad experience in New York when I was there to do some press stuff, okay? And I tell my guy to stop. I tell my driver to stop the car. And I've got my publicist to the left of me. And I grab a bunch of money and I go out and there's this woman. She's like this tall. She's like five feet tall. And she's overweight. And she's got her, her, her. What do you call it? Shopping cart, right? Full of all her stuff. And I approach her and I say, here's sweetheart. And she started screaming and I go, no, no, baby. It's okay. I just want to give you the money. And she was so, I freaked her out so hard, which means she's been raped. She's been abused. She's been like, she's afraid of every man, okay? And I just ran and I tossed the money in her thing and I got in the car, you know? It's so not everybody can handle the love. But you're gonna go through those things if you want to be a human being and make somebody feel like, you know, they're not invisible for the day. Yes, right? No, 100%. You have to take that extra moment. And, you know, sometimes the mental illness from the trauma is you receive on the streets, right? Knowing that most of our homeless women are sleeping during the day because they're scared to sleep at night. For sure. Right? You're seeing them, right? So that they're up protecting themselves or understanding this really hard for a woman with kids to find housing in these situations, right? Especially when they're escaping domestic violence. Right? That's like, that's a hard, that's a hard, how do you help them? You see that with the veterans? Yeah, we help. Yes. Because the veterans are a perfect slice of Americana. We represent the whole US population, the good, the bad, and a lot of the great. A lot of the great. All right. If we break it, we bought it. I've always believed you can't send people to war, break them down and then let them live in an encampment. From your perspective, how well is our country living up to that responsibility? So really scary time right now. When you, when you, as a young 19 year old, David Weston was joined in the Marine Corps, joined for two guaranteed benefits. I was gonna get the GI bill and I was gonna get the VA home on. And the third was a promise. If they broke me, they would take care of me. The process of working with the VA and filing claims with the VA has always been difficult. Right? It's not adversary in the fact that the VA wants to deny claims. It's not built against the veteran. It's a claims process. It's legal, it's legal work. It's codes and regulations. You have to understand that. And as every time we've gone through wars, each war has this new problems. This one has a lot of invisible injuries. The TBI, the PTSD, traumatic brain injury. Okay. A lot of invisible injuries that they didn't have in previous wars and our medicine's gotten a lot better. We've kept people alive that we previously weren't able to do. You said you had three promises. Three points. The GI bill, the VA home loan, we already know that they didn't take care of you. Okay. Did you get the GI bill? I got the GI bill and you get the VA loan. I got the VA home. It wouldn't be living the house I live in right now. It wasn't for the VA home loan. I was able to use my GI bill. My path going to college was difficult, right? But the fact when they break you, they're going to fix you. A lot of veterans right now are, even our lower income veterans, they need help. They don't know where to go to get this help. What is your position and who do you work for for? Well, the viewers. So my regular daytime position, I'm David West, the Nevada County Veterans Services Officer. Nevada County is Northern California, about an hour northeast of Sacramento. I'm covering the trucky area for those who don't know where trucky is. Just think about the Donner party. That's where they ended up. Sure. No, the Donner party from coming back out West. Who's the Donner party? They tried to travel out West. They tried to travel out West from the from back east. Took a shortcut. They ended up being a shortcut and ended up freezing the death up in trucky and had to do some weird eating habits to stay alive during the winter. Shut up. They ate each other. Yes, they did. So yeah, the Donner party is great. And a big share. But whenever I, yeah, whenever I try to tell people where little, little Nevada County is, they don't really understand it till I bring up trucky and the Donner party, oh, that's what you look funny. I think Jeffrey Dahmer did the same thing. Yeah, look that up right now. And Jeffrey Dahmer was a lot. Jeffrey Dahmer, eat people. Yes, he did. Did he really? Yes, he did. So Donner and Donner, both of them are, are, Well, Donner was a party. He was like, and then gone to wagon trail. Yeah, but you don't see this Donner and Donner. I see it. Yeah. And Donner was an army veteran. Well, he knew how to survive clearly. Yeah. A lot of veterans don't even know what they're entitled to. Can you walk us through the key benefits? You help veterans access disability claims, healthcare housing, and how life changing they can be. Well, compensation is compensation is for veterans is in the for injuries for veterans that are hurt during during their service injuries and diseases that can be contributed to their service such as our burn pits, our current generation of veterans, the military burned to everything they could, everything. What do you mean? Human waste, metal parts, everything, everything in the camp. Robert Tiers. You burn it? They just burn it. They put Jeff Fulonet and it was about some of the larger ones or 10 football fields wide by 10 football fields long. Just stuff in their burning and they got service members running around and breathing this stuff in. They're getting cancers. They're dealing with a lot of stuff, right? So they come into our offices and a lot of, Why do they burn it? Because it was cheaper than getting it out. It was cheaper than disposing it the proper way. Well, it ain't cheaper than getting every morning cancer. Exactly. Short term thought process on that one. Oh, okay. So they come into our office and every generation. So I got a market to five to six generations of veterans, young all the way up to World War II, even though we don't have many of those still alive, but we still have surviving spouses from that generation that we got to take care of. So we helped them if they were a wartime veteran, they might be eligible for pension if they're low income. But we always try to focus on compensation, injuries and diseases, also service. They come in, we help them, we help them file their claim, build a good packet, whether it be mental health, bad back, bad knees, diabetes, whatever it is, we help them in therapy. Therapy is the most important thing because these people all have trauma. They're all suffering. Yes. So nightmares and everything else. So in Nevada County, I get just under $100,000 a year through California's Prop 63 funding. I'm gonna get some from COVID and county behaviors. I know. What? Yes. You have $100,000 a year to treat people psychologically in your whole county. In my whole, yeah. You can cost me $50,000 a year for my own therapist. Yes. So what we do, every veteran we meet, we talk about mental health. We always talk about mental health. How are you? What's going on? At our local Auburn outpatient clinic in Auburn, California, it takes the VA about three to four months to see them from mental health. Don't say Auburn. Okay, round me. I can't take it. Roll tide. Go on. Right. Sorry. But it takes them about three to four months to see a veteran from mental health. Through this program, I'm able to connect them with our local therapist, whether it be, they get at least 10 sessions, and they get 10 sessions of free mental health services where we take care of them. And the 10 sessions of free mental health services. Better than a poke in the nose. And no, no, it's not. I know. It's horseshit. But through that, the company we work with, Sierra Family Therapy Center, Sierra Burton's awesome. They're able to build medical, try west, all the other insurances that we have. So the veterans family, everybody can get in there. They'll all try west, champs VA, and try care. Try west. They can do all that too. So they can see the problem is right now, is they are on the community, VA's community care network, meaning the VA will pay for veterans to be referred to them, is just the federal referral process. It needs to be taken care of a little bit better. Well, the president's doing a lot of stuff around that, right? What's he doing that so good and beneficial right now for the veteran community? Well, the promise is that they were gonna redirect some of this money to community care. So, and he's only six months into the job. Six, seven months into the job. Not even. Okay, he has seven months. Into the job. So we're waiting to see the impact and seeing that money being shifted and seeing these referral processes. But this is some of our work we're doing is communicating up and trying to use the right channel is saying, hey, we got a therapist here on your network. We can have the records. How can we make this referral process easier, especially considering this is what you want us to be doing. So how can we make this easier to see our veterans be seen quicker and then they can be continued treatment past 10 on the care of the VA as is the promise, right? Because they're making a bunch of efforts through the compact act and which means the veterans in crisis, they can go to any. Oh, and so how's the deal doing? I mean, like, look, I know that the president shut the border. Mm-hmm. Okay. I know that the president is dealing with the f*** all issue. So the president went ahead and allocated $400 million to deal with the West LA Veterans campus, which I'm told is the biggest one. Well, it's the huge one. In the country, right? Do you know when I was there, there's a helicopter pad there. So when the president comes, or a four star general comes to have their own helicopter pad at the VA. That's cool, I guess. What do you mean it's cool? I guess, I guess. What do you mean? I think, yeah, it should be. Yeah. Dude, the president's got shit to do. It's okay. I mean, he ain't flying into the, I mean, he's not flying to the LAX. Yeah. Yeah. And if he is, he's, and he is, okay. He's taking a helicopter from there. No. To it. This one, yeah. I mean, it saves him an hour. It saves everybody. No, I think it's great. The guy's got things to do. Big, yes. Okay. Plus it's better for the community too, because when you have the motorcades and all this stuff and all the things. Yeah. Yeah. What's the moment you see most often when a veteran goes from despair to finally thriving once they get the right support? When I see some of them, when I see veterans that have gone from moment to spare to now thriving, a lot of times they're, the community's better. Always. Communities better. They're active. They want, they want to coach local high school. They want to coach. They want either be high school or kids. They get more active in your road, your, your rotary, the LAX lodge, right? Veterans don't, especially with our younger generation of veterans, they're not really flocking to the VFW and the American Legion and those traditional organizations in the way that they operate. They're looking, they're looking for more connection, right? It's raising kids as different than it was to even 20 years ago. And it takes a full family effort. So a lot of these traditional organizations, they will kind of separate the family and they want to be places where the whole family can come together, where they can, where they can energize and, and, and do great things. They really want to help. They don't, they want, they want to show off the best of their, of their service a lot of times, is, is where they come from. And they're always thankful, always thankful. They want to, and they bring, actually, they bring more veterans into my office for me to help, to tell you the truth. So the goal is to, the goal is to help every veteran, the best way I can so they can bring more into me. That's magnificent. All right. You said that once veterans stabilize, they often make phenomenal employees. Why do you think veterans are such an asset in the workforce? This is the part that I want people to understand. The part that, I mean, if I can get anybody to take anything away from this podcast, it would be, these people are so talented. They're loyal. They're hardworking. They're self-modevated. Okay? But people struggle in the transition. The struggle in the transition, and for, for the most part, I might be an outlier in how I say this, but we need to do a better job of showing ourselves off. There's somewhere along the line, veterans getting compensation, became like a badge of honor, like it's a thing of what you need to do. And we talk about it in neighborhoods. We talk about it at work. I got PTSD. I'm gonna 70% I'm getting money. And that doesn't help you with the workforce. Right. We can reach out for help. We can do what we want to do. We can, there's certain like, for me being a Marine, right? There's certain aspects that I want to live up to in my civilian life. And one of them is being able to get through. So even though when I'm struggling mentally and having problems, me and my wife have a good rule. Don't let the outside world see the real you sometimes. So come back into the house. Whatever is triggering me, use my team, my resources, right? You're on my team. So we all reach out too if I'm having a hard time. Absolutely. Help me get re-centered. So that way the world's not seeing the worst part of me. This is never going to be fixed. And this is never going to be fixed. It's not going to be fixed unless you have a program. You've got a new health program with a therapist who is, who you're therapeutic aligned with. You have a therapeutic alliance with and you dig in to the trauma. TMS works great, DBT works great. Okay. All of it. There's, there's so many modalities. But you have to be put in the bosom of professionals that know how to deal with this. And you guys are getting the short end of the stick on this, man. Well, I used it myself like, so I was in corporate industry, right? And it worked for a veteran friendly company. They're veteran friendly. However, I was required to work every veteran's day. Hahaha. Trying to get time off to go to a VA exam. You got to go to another exam and all the questions. Okay. I guess my headaches aren't that bad. I guess I'll keep going through work. The problems that you're having, companies need to realize you're taking people on that have been taught away life. You do your job, you do it to the best your capability. Great things are going to happen. They need to tap into that and give them coaching at work. That's right. A mentorship program. Somebody, somebody of success that understands how to bring this person along. When I take you by the hand and walk you through it so that they can show you the way. We have a good internship program in Nevada County where we bring service members on and during the last six months of service. And one of the things I'm, what, two things I tell them, your emails are your job interview. Always know, everybody's gonna see an email before they ever see your face. So make sure you're writing a good professional email. It doesn't have a bunch of things. There's no need for emojis. There's no things. Always just be professional. And when you're near your boss's office and they're reading a book on leadership, read that book. Your boss wants somebody that's gonna think like them and do the same, same things. Read the book, know where they're going. The books, everybody's reading the same books. Veterans, if you're not reading these books on leadership and doing these things, you're a step behind. It wasn't until Nevada County invested in me and started me teaching me different leadership traits that I had fallen away from in the Marine Corps and getting real coaching and understanding how to be an inclusive leader and all these great things that I try to be on a daily basis. Having somebody actually teach me and show me that they care and they wanna see me better and having seen one of my meltdowns at work, right? And knowing we gotta take care of this guy and over the last four years since they've invested in me, I've just grown exponentially and I can just, from my experience, it's not that the therapy is important right having somebody to talk to, but having a coach, somebody you can talk to, like how do I go into this meeting with my boss that is bothering me without it looking? Because there's issues you can talk to with bosses and having a format to go in there to let them know you're in control of the situation but you still wanna talk about it with them to let them know what's going on. Just the things that have helped me grow is a leader. Yeah, that's, you know what, man? I gotta tell you, I've treated so many veterans over the years and I gotta tell you that are the easiest people to treat. They are, dig a star because if you say soldier, it's muscle memory. Then you just give them a hug and you say, we don't do that here, man. Come on, you throw a cigar in this pie hole and you go smoke cigar and you relax for half hour and he's a new person. I mean, really, you know how the saying goes, it takes a village. Okay, I think you use that to give him, okay. It takes a village to encircle a damaged human being, it doesn't matter who it is and gently move them through that process and what happens is I've never seen and I know this isn't about drugs and alcohol even though there's a ton of abuse and self-medication because they're depressed and lonely and unseen, but I've never seen anyone get sober or get mentally right and then not be 300 to 400% better than they've ever been, so they're gonna be the most loyal employee, they're gonna be the best employee, they're gonna be the most constrianches, right? They'll take a bullet for you essentially because I see how you talk about the people that gave you that support in Nevada County and you're the best employee there and you don't say it because you can't say it, you'd never say it, okay, but I know it because of the gratitude. Yeah, they took me when I was broken. I became a veteran services officer after being in private industry in Bakersfield, a sound chemical in the oil patch, made a lot of money, it was me and my wife were close to getting divorced, really bad mentally, coming home, I almost became a statistic, VA overbrew, she's grabbing me Xanax, just turning me into a zombie, getting first time I ever got addicted to anything and that was the thing with the doctor's name on the bottle. And it's hard, it's here off, that was, and it says, and I did it, did it cold turkey, that was terrible. It was terrible, it was terrible, one of the worst things I've ever been through. That's right. You're lucky you didn't die. I mean, I don't know how much you were using, but it was not horrible. It was bad. But moving my family up to Sacramento without having a job, my wife was gonna be moving back and forth while she's a nurse and I got offered the job on my birthday. You interviewed her off for it on my birthday. Happy birthday. Started September 10th and I was hungry and I wanted to prove that they are the right person. And I just started, I just started going and steamrolling and you get, when you have positive people wanting you to do well and telling you you're important, it means a lot. And it goes back to the leadership traits you're taught in the Marine Corps. The best leaders, you know, you show up on time, show up early, be present, look good, and eat last, if you're a leader, eat last. It's the simplest things and as long as you continue to do it, you're gonna connect with the veterans and your community. At the end of the day, this isn't complicated. Veterans keep their promise to us. Now it's on us to keep our promise to them. They don't need handouts. They need the benefits that they've earned, the housing that they deserve and the chance to thrive again. When that happens, they prove over and over again that they are among the hardest working, most loyal and most valuable people in any community or company. That's a fact. We cannot accept a country where veterans live in tents while the rest of us look away. If we break it, we bought it. And until every veteran is treated with the dignity, they earned our job is not finished. The end. All right, let's go to the game. Thank you. See you next Tuesday.