HOW CAN WE REDUCE VETERAN SUICIDES- FROM 22 A DAY... TO 0? 

That is a hard question. In terms of what GallantFew is doing, my name and number is on the website, I’m available 24/7, 365 to veterans. I don’t think the government really can do a whole lot. They need to fix the VA, and they need to stop taking away veteran’s benefits.  These people that I know personally, without arms, or without legs, or with traumatic brain injury- where they can’t function because they have headaches, or dizzy spells, or nausea. They have brain damage to the point where they’re really Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And they have no control over it, because their brain is straight up damaged. There’s just nothing they can do about it. And we don’t have enough science and medical research yet to really start making an impact with it. So that’s what I think the government’s role should be.

I think it has to start at the grassroots level and the community level. When you’re a veteran and you come back, you think that you’re going to just fit right back in. You know? Because that place didn’t change, so I should be able to slide right back in. But what you don’t realize it’s like moving to another country, and learning a new language and learning a new culture- but you know how to get to every street corner. It’s like this weird Deja-vu, and you can’t associate with those people because they don’t understand you, and you’re wondering “why don’t I understand them? Why don’t they see the world like I do?” And then civilians wonder “Why don’t they see the world like I do?” “Why is he so assertive? Why is he so matter of fact?”- Well that’s what he did for X number of years. That’s how he survived. And he was very good at it, and it was efficient and it probably saved lives. And that’s if a guy came out of there and never got wounded.   And don’t get me started on the label that is placed on us because of PTSD.  I can ask 10 people what pops into their head when they hear PTSD and at least 8 of them will say Veteran or War or something like that.  You think a rape victim or someone that lost their home in a fire doesn’t have PTSD?  Yet another example of the gap between service members and society.

So it’s this huge cultural battle. And civilians have no idea how to talk the way that we talk. They have no idea what an 11 Alpha is… That means nothing to them. They don’t know what an 11 Bravo is… They don’t know what an 11 Charlie is… They don’t know what a 35 Yankee is… There is a huge disconnect between the veteran, military population and the civilian population. And bridging that gap is where the challenge lies, and how you really go about doing it- it’s hard. And why are veteran suicide numbers so high? It’s a multitude of things.

One is that people don’t know what we’re going through. You’ve got these psychologists that don’t really understand our mentality and framework, so they have no context or no real experience or connection so they don’t want to, or don’t know how to relate, so they just give you a bunch of damn pills. It’s what they’re trained to do. I’m not saying they don’t have their place but so many Veterans turn to professionals and it’s not working by and large.

And Veterans don’t know how to relate, or don’t want to communicate that to another person. Like for me, I don’t like telling people about all the things that I did, or saw, or some of the things my friends saw and did. I didn’t even see the worst of it.  I had it easy.  Because that’s my job to bear that weight. I didn’t like it, but it had to be done. Just don’t ask me about that.  Why?  It’s like talking to a wall, folks just can’t comprehend.  And to a degree- I’m right. And to another degree- I’m 100% wrong. Because you have to bridge the gap. How are you going to bridge the gap without telling that shit? It’s a cultural war, it really is. And how you start bridging that gap is where we understand how to re-assimilate back into the civilian world- at least to get half way to that mark. And then for corporations to understand, and for communities to really understand what a veteran can do. No- not all of them are rock stars. I would venture to say that most of them are far more adaptable, smart, hard-working, and morally ethical than your average joe citizen.

But if you gave a young team-leader, who was squared away, an operations supervisor position, and paid him sixty-thousand on the dot- he could do it.  Probably do it better than a guy that’s been doing it for twenty years. You give that guy twelve months to learn everything about that job, and within six, he’ll be running it better than everyone else. And he’ll continually get better. But he’s looking for that next step. Because we’re used to the mentality of “I need to do x, y and z to get to here”- and the civilian world doesn’t work that way. So translating those skills and those mindsets is a little bit better.   Also, breaking the Veteran of the “lock and step promotion mentality” is important.

So it’s going to be a long time, but it needs to start at the community level. You can’t force it from the top down, because it just doesn’t work like that. Every community is different. How that community accepts a veteran, understands and is open to a veteran is always different. Also, a veteran has got to be open and has got to be patient. So that’s where organizations like mine, GallantFew come in. And GallantFew has exploded since I got involved, and I didn’t have a whole lot to do with it. I just kind of showed up and agreed to help out wherever I could. But watching the organization grow, and the way that they work on the same principles and not getting away from those things- I think they’re going about it smartly, and I think it’s done a whole lot of good.