More Veterans Die by Suicide Than in Combat, Here's Why
00:00One legendary night in Music City.This has been a hell of a show, Nashville.Nickelback, live from Nashville.With their biggest hits.And some very special guests.Oh, yes!Featuring Josh Ross, Hardy, Bailey Zimmerman, Chris Dutrie, and more.Experience Nickelback, live from Nashville.
00:24We're going out tonight.The exclusive concert special.Now streaming, only on Crave.Melissa Jeltson, and in my new podcast what happened to her, I'm bringing you new stories andconversations every week. Stories about women whose deaths were too quickly ruled as suicide.She was starting to get worried and get scared for her safety.Stories of survival. The only difference between me and her, frankly, was a little bit of luck,because by all rights, I should be dead. Cases that everyone else called closed. They can't
01:01convict her, right? Like, she has so much evidence. These stories all start in the same place,with a woman failed by a system that didn't believe her, that didn't protect her, that didn't seeher. No child should ever experience that. And we were babies. She did all of these brave things andcame out and spoke about it and he got a year. You never know who that devil is because he's wearingin disguise. Sometimes it's a police uniform. Listen to what happened to her on theIheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.If there's a million times more digital intelligence than there is biological intelligence,it's hard to imagine humans being in control in that scenario.
01:43I'm Walter Isaacson, host of the new podcast, The Builders.Right now, we're living through an AI arms race.So I went directly to the people shaping that future.Elon Musk, Dario Amade, Alex Carr, Faye, Faye Leaphe Leap, Homer Lucky,because I wanted to understand what the most consequential builders believe,what they fear, and where they think this is all headed.Silicon Valley is always saying the cliche thing about the way to predict the future is to create it.Well, yeah, it's up to us.
02:18But when you say us, who's us?Is it 400 people that you know in Silicon Valley?Is it me down here in New Orleans?They're brilliant, controversial, and they're already shaping the future.The question is, whose imagination do we want to live in?This is going to determine the fate of nations and economies and the future of humanity.Listen to the builders on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.My name is Josie Duffy Rice.
02:51I'm a journalist who covers the criminal legal system.And over my career, I've heard account after account of prosecutorial misconduct, story after story of injustice.But I've never heard a story quite like.this.The more I kept reading that stuff, I thought, man, there's more red flags that just keptcoming up over and over.We'll hypnotize him to strengthen that memory.So he went into a good france.
03:23I really didn't believe any of it was real.And I was like, well, they're going to figure out this is not me.They're going to do their police job.Listen to examined the backfire effect on the IHeart Radio Act.Apple Podcasts for wherever you get your podcasts.They shared the same name, the same home, the same DNA, the same blood.But behind closed doors, blood isn't always thicker than water,and family loyalty can turn deadly.
03:53From shocking betrayals to carefully planned murders,the Black Effect's new original podcast series,Bloodline Crimes, hosted by me, Morgan Wood,explores the darkest and bizarre cases where family,became the most dangerous threat of all.Because sometimes the person you should fear most is not a stranger,but rather someone sitting at the dinner table with you.Real cases.
04:19Real families.Real killers.This is bloodline crimes.Listen to the Black Effects bloodline crimes every Thursday,starting October 8th from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app.Apple Podcasts or wherever.you get your podcast.William, if somebody really takes what you're going to share with us today to heart,
04:45how could their life and our country's life be different?We're here to support veterans and service members,and so if they have loved ones in their life that are struggling that might otherwise bereluctant to engage, hey, we want them to know about Soundoff.William Negley is a former CIA officer and the founder of SoundOff.The first truly anonymous mental health platform for veterans and first responders, and the anonymous part you will find is really important.William, teach us your incredible life lesson that's relevant for the personal relationships and for the service work of everyone listening to us right now.And rather than asking, why won't someone get help?
05:41You think we should reframe it to what would we have to remove to make that possible?I joined the Central Intelligence Agency 2009.I'm from San Antonio.My mother is a mental health professional, so I jokingly say I grew up on a couch, right?Like, I was in therapy from like days of it.So I come into the agency 2009.and I had been around the intelligence, special operations community, but I had certainly never been inside it.And I come into the agency, and it is just pretty clear as day, there's a lot of people already struggling here.
06:28And I say already, you know, that's eight years post 9-11.The agency had been at war certainly before that.but the people that had been in that building a while already,and a lot of my colleagues that I was starting at the agency with,because maybe they hadn't been in the CIA,but maybe they had been in the military or, you know,in war zones and other capacities.I sort of enter this world and recognize a lot of people are struggling here,
07:00but simultaneously just this fundamental flawin the system to support us,which is none of us are going to walk into CIA mental health servicesto talk about our drinking problems.Right?Like, we've worked our whole lives to get to this pinnacle professional position.We're not going to then jeopardize that by saying,hey, can I tell you about how I'm struggling?
07:31Yeah, it's a CIA.I mean, who's going to give somebody to,top secret intelligence if they don't trust that they're balanced.Or the promotion or the particular job they're looking for.Or maybe it's not even an official no, but it's like, hey, you know,no, we're not going to give him that particular or her, you know,that particular thing because this or that.And it's worth emphasizing whether any of that is actually true or not,
08:04the perception that it's true is definitely there.And perception is reality.So truly,2012-13,the idea to me was,well, wait a minute,if there's a whole bunch of people struggling,because I knew this extended,
08:23whether you're a CIA officeror an F-18 pilot or, you know,a Green Beret or a Navy SEAL,or-or, or this general concern, you know,permeated across those communities.So if the fundamental issue is,I probably know I should talk to somebody,but I'm unwilling to do that
08:45because of concern of professional or personal blowback,and I'll talk about why I say it that way,well, then why don't we just let these men and women engagewithout anybody knowing?Like, it was just truly that obvious to me.For 20 years, the way that we have tried to address that issue is essentially by convincingthem that the concern that they have is wrong.Like, it's okay to get help, right?
09:17Or only 0.000-01% of security clearances are impacted by seeking help.Well, the problem is, even if that latter point may be true, it's not representative of theentire potential risk of engaging with care. And when one person has their job pulled or,you know, doesn't get that promotion or or, or that spreads like wildfire. And so now that createsthe baseline. So now the next hundred guys aren't going to walk in the door. So unfortunately,and I would submit the data has borne this out very clearly, these like, it's aokay to seek help fight the Sigma campaigns, don't move the needle for these men and women engaging.And we're going to talk in generalities here, right? So for a meaningful portion of the population,
10:18it's not good enough. We have to change the structure of how we are providing care to them.This work is personal for you. And the best service work is often personal. How did your brother-in-law'sdeath, both break your family and prove that everything you were trying to build was literallylife or death. And I know that's a personal question.No, it's...But I think it's so germane to your journey that we have to understand it.The origin story of this organization is commonly misunderstood.And I would submit the actual origin story is way more powerful than the more simple version.
11:02So I come back from Afghanistan 2013.What did you do in Afghanistan?So I was in the CIA 2009-2016, all counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, Afghanistan, Pakistan.So you're working as a CIA agent alongside our military embedded with them?No.We have a few people to do that.But at that point in Afghanistan, we are largely, meaning we, the CIA, are largely running our own operations.Got it. Especially with the intelligence collection, you know, when, okay, we figured out, I did not work this. I'm just using an example. Hey, we think we know where bin Laden is. You know, maybe there's some CIA guys that are saying, hey, we could do that. But that's when we're going to call, you know, SEAL Team 6 and say, hey, what? I got it. Why don't you guys handle that one? Come back from Afghanistan, 2013. And this idea had sort of been rattling around in my head. I just.
12:02couldn't let it go. I was wildly naive, in hindsight, crazily naive to what it was going to take,what it was going to be involved in building this, took some leave without pay from the agencyto start sound off, whatever that meant at the time. I leave August 2013, take some leave,hey, you know, I'm starting sound off. Let me take a step back and say, why are we a non-restealth?There's a whole of a lot of for-profit telemedicine platforms.The reason that I started this, the differentiating, like, reason, I had no interest in startingtelemedicine platform.It was the anonymity, right?
12:46These men and women won't engage because they don't want anybody to know.If we can offer it anonymously, I'm confident some will be willing to engage.That fundamentally breaks the economics of how health care in this country works.I can't bill for truly anonymous mental health support.Yeah, how are you going to send a bill to something that is anonymous?I can't do 100,000 sessions of care last year.You know, go to the VA, say, at $250 a session, you owe me $25 million.Oh, but I can't tell you who they were, show you the medical records, et cetera, et cetera.
13:24Like that reasonably enough doesn't work.We say, okay, we're going to be a nonprofit.Well, we need to raise, like, a not-insundance.significant amount of money to go from zero to one. Because I've got to build this technologyinfrastructure that is actually the mechanism of how we are going to engage anonymously.There's a big story. There's a big veterans organization that signed up very early to give us$3 million over three years to build this whole thing. They collapsed, had a big scandal.It was bad. But I'm out kind of shouting into the void.
14:03at this point, not that age really matters, but I'm 29.I'm just like,you're a kid.Hey, hey, like we need to do this.This is like an obvious answer.And then June 9, 2017, my brother-in-law, Bill Mulder, dies by suicide in Bernie, Texas, 10 minutes from our family ranch.Bill had retired 127 days earlier after 20 years in the SEAL teams, the first.first or sorry the last 15 years or so at dev group seal team six is this cell team six guy yeah
14:42yeah for the last 20 years so he was he was he was in this seal teams for 20 years um Sydney andI met bill the same night um aug uh august 2002 and he went to dev group like 2000 and he went to dev group like2004, something like that.And he made it in the real world almost four and a half months.That was it.Which is the suicide rate in the first 100 days post separation for veterans spikes dramatically.That's like consistent.It breaks my heart to hear.
15:23Yeah.This man gave so much to our freedoms and our safety in our country.And he died by suicide four months after leaving.And here to your.point of making the point. At Dev Group, Bill had meaningfully unlimited access to mental health support.Right. And they're pouring millions and millions and millions of dollars on those guys.Getting a counseling appointment there is not the same thing as, you know, Texas National Guard.Like, hey, can I talk to somebody? Like, there's a lot of resources available.
15:59He was just not willing in the early we can change the trajectory of this years to engage in a way that he felt would jeopardize his reputation or his career.Sidney has told the story many times of having a conversation many times, Bill, you need to get help and him saying, I'll get your can from the command.Sidney.Sorry, Sydney, my sister.Yes.His wife.His wife, yes.Why I say I think the story is even more powerful than the more simple version,
16:35two things are happening simultaneously and the left hand doesn't know about the right hand.I'm trying to get this organization off the ground to support these men and womenthat I know are struggling and won't engage.And the problem is so insidious.It's going out of my own family, and I don't know it.He hadn't even told you.No.It's not only had he not told me.
17:04And to be fair, not for any bad reasons.You know, I was CIA.Like, we were both busy.We weren't having weekly dinners, you know.We were both busy.But it was definitely like in our family.And I'm remembering one incident in particular.Kind of an unfortunate incident happened where,
17:29Bill kind of lashed out.And my mother said, well, Bill is like clearly PTSD.Like, like, what are we, this is obvious what's happening.And the sort of, it's like, no, we can't, we can't say that.And your mother is a health, yeah, as a mental health professional.But it, but it was, I mean, we were essentially like playing into the very problem.of, no, we can't, like, that can't, we can't say that.We can't label that.
18:06We can't allow that to be, I guess, no.And that is like precisely why I was creating soundoff at the same time.For our listeners and me, what does PTSD on a personal family level look like for a guy who's served our country20 years. I mean, there's not a whole lot of SIL Team 6 guys out there.Yeah. Yeah. But in my mind, there can't be much difference in the level of PTSD for a human beingthat was Silt Team 6 or some non-commission guy who's on the front line seeing the same stuff.I mean, it's PTSD as PTSD from those guys, right?Well, no. Okay. And I just want to,
18:58I just want to be clear, if only for my family, when I have this discussion in the future,around this time, 2017, 2018, and big time over the last five years,there's been a lot of discussion, in particular in the Special Operations community,about what is PTSD or non-physical injury, and what is brain injury?And actual physical neural TBI.Yeah.And let me say for the one million time, I'm not a neuroscientist.I am not claiming, cutting edge knowledge of any of this.
19:43But understanding it somewhat, understanding the cultural inputs on this,I don't think we are at a place, like, scientifically,to fully distinguish those things at times.And what I definitely know personally,familiarly, and sort of culturally,is I think there is a cultural inclination to,well, this was a brain physical thing,not just PTSD,
20:18which in its own way is further reinforcing,like this is okay because he got it from, you know,door breaching charges 10,000 times over 20 years.This is not okay because he was, you know,had scars from 20 years of this experience,a lot of drinking, a lot of sleeplessness.There's a new sort of, not new, a few years old,coining of a term called operator syndrome,
20:53which I think is sort of another.attempt to label different things where heightened, you know, if somebody dropped a tray of glassesout there, you know, I would be charged for the rest of the day, just kind of operating at ahigher sensitivity all the time. But definitely a lot of sleeplessness, which, you know, of course,just reinforces these problems. And now a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first,Thanks for tuning in to an army of normal folks where our mission is this.Make service easier for all of us and together change our country.We're announcing something new today that I'd love to invite you to.
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22:59I'm Melissa Jeltson.And in my new podcast, what happened to her,I'm bringing you new stories and conversations every week.Stories about women whose deaths were too quickly ruled as suicide.She was starting to get worried and get scared for her safety.Stories of survival.The only difference between me and her, frankly, was a little bit of luck, because by all rights, I should be dead.Cases that everyone else called closed.
23:32They can't convict her, right?Like, she has so much evidence.These stories all start in the same placewith a woman failed by a system that didn't believe her,that didn't protect her, that didn't see her.No child should ever experience that.And we were babies.She did all of these brave things and came out and spoke about it
23:53and he got a year.You never know who that devil is because he's wearing the disguise.Sometimes it's a police uniform.Listen to what happened to her on the IHeart Radio app,Apple Podcasts, or wherever you,get your podcasts. If there's a million times more digital intelligence than there is biologicalintelligence, it's hard to imagine humans being in control in that scenario. I'm Walter Isaacson,host of the new podcast, The Builders. Right now, we're living through an AI arms race. So I went
24:23directly to the people shaping that future. Elon Musk, Dario Amade, Alex Carr, Faye, Faye,Homer Lucky, because I wanted to understand what the most consequential builders believe,what they fear, and where they think this is all headed.Silicon Valley is always saying the cliche thing about the way to predict the future is to create it.Well, yeah, it's up to us.But when you say us, who's us?Is it 400 people that you know in Silicon Valley?Is it me down here in New Orleans?
24:57They're brilliant, controversial, and they're already shaping the future.future. The question is, whose imagination do we want to live in? This is going to determine the fate ofnations and economies and the future of humanity. Listen to the builders on the IHeart Radio app,Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Josie Duffy Rice. I'm a journalist who coversthe criminal legal system. And over my career, I've heard account after account of prosecutorialmisconduct, story after story of injustice. But I've never heard a storyquite like this.The more I kept reading that stuff,
25:39I thought, man, there's more red flagsthat just kept coming up over and over.We'll hypnotize him to strengthen that memory.So he went into a good france.I really didn't believe any of it was real.And I was like, well, they're going to figure outthis is not me.They're going to do their police job.
26:01Listen to examined the backfire effecton the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,or wherever you get your podcasts.They shared the same name, the same home,the same DNA, the same blood.But behind closed doors,blood isn't always thicker than water,and family loyalty can turn deadly.
26:25From shocking betrayals to carefully planned murders,the Black of X new original podcast series,Bloodline Crimes, hosted by me, Morgan Wood,explores the darkest and bizarre,cases where family became the most dangerous threat of all. Because sometimes the person you shouldfear most is not a stranger, but rather someone sitting at the dinner table with you. Real cases,real families, real killers. This is bloodline crimes. Listen to the Black Effects bloodline crimesevery Thursday, starting October 8th from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app.
27:06or wherever you get your podcast.You've studied this problem for 15 years.What does the data say about why people don't count help?I know.Yeah.I get what you said metaphorically.Yeah.I don't get this.
27:29But what is the data set?Yeah.I didn't start this with any of the data.I just started it because it was like.That's your gut.Well, and everybody knew it.Hmm.I mean, it was not like my gut.
27:42I mean, everybody knew.When you got to the CIA, were there people in the CIA that were former military operators?Oh, yeah.And so they just transitioned to CIA, and now they're not military operators, but they're still involved in intelligence closely to military.And young and old.And old.Older.Yeah, I mean, what I mean by that is, hey, maybe I'm 30.
28:07I did four, five, six years in the Marine Corps.and now I'm entering a traditional path into the agency.Plenty of people like that.And you saw it in them?Yeah.I mean, again, I'm speaking in generality.Yeah, but yeah.Some of those folks.
28:28Absolutely.And then you have, I was a seal for 25 years.I retired.I don't want to go work for Blackwater.hey, there's opportunities within the government.Yeah.So lots of experiences inside and out of the agency proper.Okay, so the data.
28:57Yeah, so let's sort of like walk this down the logic tree.The number that I'm sure half the people listening have heard is 22 veterans die by suicide per day.That, I mean, more than like any statistic, maybe in the last 20 years, that grabbed hold of, hey, like Houston, we have a problem.That's more, we're losing more to suicide than we do in theater.By like dramatic numbers.That's incredible.Yes.And let me just, let me just expand on that for singing.
29:34So that number came out in 2011, two years after I started the agency, which was also.part of the origin, like, hey, wait, this isn't just like these guys want to help. It's theywant to help. And they're also dying at, like, a huge rate. Twenty-two per day are dying.That number has gotten very widely distributed, has become very charged. The VA now says it's 17 per day.There's big organizations out there saying that undercounts things dramatically, that there'snumbers that there's veterans who die by suicide that that doesn't reflect, like you've missedsome, but then also, hey, guys who are dying on a motorcycle or of overdose or drinking themselvesto death, maybe that's not technically suicide, but like it's happening at an outsized rate
30:24in this population.Can we maybe say, like, that is a reflection of the problem that we are trying to address?So even if you just take the 17 per day, that is about when age and gender adjusted, which I'll get into in a second, that is 50% higher than the civilian population.I don't, I mean, just to like nerd on the statistics of this for one second, I think it's kind of bogus to age and gender adjust this.So what that means is, is, okay, well, the military is, or the veterans are young and male disproportionately.So we should not compare that to the broad civilian population because the civilian population is 50% female.There's not a whole lot of 73-year-old female veterans.Yes, exactly.
31:20But you're dealing with predominantly young men.So, like, I don't like playing with the numbers to, like, well, it's not really as bad as it may seem because, you know.So that's my little rant about that.but we really quickly try and sort of move down a level.Like we see that as really symptomatic of the structural problems that we are working to address.There is 20 plus years of research on how many veterans and service members do not seek help and why they don't seek help.Depending upon which study you look at, it's, to use round numbers, half to three quarters,of those that are dying or really struggling
32:06that are in need of some mental health supportare not engaging with mental health support.Wow.And this, to me, is like,why am I still doing it 13 years later?Because it's like, what are we talking about?Like, if half to three quarters of the guysthat we need to help aren't engaging,
32:30like, okay, yeah, let's advancetalk therapy, let's look at all of the things that we can do to help people when they'resitting across from us. But to skip over the fact that half to three quarters of the men andwomen that are struggling the most aren't sitting across from us is just like ridiculous.I mean, it's not the entire problem, but in my view, it is like the biggest glaring problem.17 died by suicide per day.Half to three quarters aren't engaging.The question is, why are they not engaging?
33:10And that is where, again, we have 20 years of research on this.And to really paraphrase, it's, I don't want anybody to know.Now, what the way...Is that that different from the normal...Okay.For the normal population?Yeah, let me explain.and you're going straight to the crux of it.
33:33This part of the conversation is often muddied by talking about stigma.And I've had real serious people say totally opposite things and how we're going to define stigma.Stigma is really two separate things.There is cultural stigmatization.I don't want my friends, family, community to know that I am engaging with mental health support.That exists.I think that is changing as like civilizations, perceptions of mental health changes.But there is some level of that.
34:05The part that is different is I am concerned about the professional ramifications of engaging with care.And that is a part that is different.And especially when certainly in the military or the CIA, there's like,an outsized ability to know about that care,hey, you have to tell me about that care.That's interesting, that is interesting.If you went and started seeing a marriage therapist,do you need to tell anybody?
34:44No.No, hell no, right?But the military and CIA.And not only may you need to tell them,but they may be providing the care.You know, I will give the DoD some credit that there's been a lot,of programs and a lot of attempts to address this issue because it's not unknown.Hey, can we do these things so that they're more likely to engage?
35:07But here is just the fundamental catch-22 problem for the military.The military is never going to say, I don't need to know if my F-18 pilot is an alcoholic.Like, reasonably enough, right?No, I need to know if my F-18 pilot is an alcoholic.teen pilots are drunk getting into the cockpit.Even though we know forcing that acknowledgement suppresses them getting cared for drinking toomuch.So like it's it is hard to reconcile.
35:47And that's where we exist is just, yeah, but I'm not the military.You're for two years trying to get sound off legs.Yep.And then Bill.Bill dies, and it is such a precise example of my sister and brother-in-law of what I had been running around talking about,that Sidney starts to share her story, and it is this cosmic injection of,energy, attention, interest, and ultimately capital that let us launch in earnest.Two things are true about Soundoff and Bill's death.
36:41If this had started when Bill died, it would not be what it is.It would be the Bill Mulder Golf Tournament.We would raise half a million dollars a year and we would give it to X, Y, or Z Foundation.Tragically, ironically, if Bill Molder Golf Tournament, we would raise half a million dollars a year, and we would give it to X,If Bill hadn't died, I don't know that it ever would have happened.Because it was that grabbing hold that ultimately made people pay attention.That was very challenging for me.Because transparently, I knew the instant he died, like, this is a cosmic lightning bolt into,
37:27this work that you could never replicate.There could be absolutely no way to balance that.I,but to say that I guess Soundoff is a huge part of Bill's legacy.I flew to Virginia Beach the afternoon from Austin.Is that where they lived?Yeah, yeah.So I flew to Virginia Beach, walked into my sister's home.
37:56I'm like the whole time I called a very, very good friend of mine as soon as I found out.And I said, I don't know how to do this.I'm going to walk into, like, I'm where I said, I'm wearing two hats.I can't take them.I have been like pouring my lifeblood into this work for years trying to get this thing off the ground.And I'm going to walk into my sister's home, introduce myself to people.I'm like, what are you doing?I'm like, I run a bedroom and mental health.
38:29No, like, how am I going to do that?I walk up to my sister's room,sit down on the bed next to her.She said to me,you've been trying to do this for years.We have to do something together about this.Strong woman.And it was only that, very selfishly personally,
38:54that, like, gave mepermission to okay because I I was not prepared to like hey Sid do you want to you know like no I'm notgoing to do it but she said she saw it she knew you're simply not going to sensationalize your sisterI'm not going to I'm not going to exploit my sister yeah and and but she said she said this is it andAnd so that gave you permission.Yeah.That is really very personally touching.And it also speaks to the strength of your sister.
39:37Yeah.I mean, she was tearing herself open four months after Bill died.And telling the story.Telling the story.You know, we had worked to craft it into a narrative.and then I get up when she's done talkingand give the same PowerPoint I'd given, you know, 500 times before.But she got everybody's attention.
40:07But that room was silent.Wow.So the idea of this truly anonymous mental health care,the validity of the idea that changed, the circumstances do.And, you know, I think I would have had an easier time saying, I want to start a mental health facility.I want to buy a building.I want to hire 20 clinicians.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
40:34I mean, this wasn't just like, I want to do a thing.It's I want to do a thing that nobody had ever done before.Just to make it explicit, like, full-on anonymity.Yeah.So we've had a guest on before who actually does something similar with firefighters in New York, but still, even in there, and it's an awesome service that they have.but it's in person with the human being who sees them.Yeah.And there still must be,
40:58that's why I really appreciate diving into your stories.There's still a some level of concern with that.Yeah.That even though they're there for a noble purpose,it could still get back to other people.And the fact that you have no video,no name.I mean,
41:11it's like anonymity to the extreme.It's safe.Well,so let's,it's safe for the person wanting the help that needs the help.They actually can be safe letting go of what's,what's afflicting them.The thing that needs to be said out loud is confidentiality and anonymity are not the same.
41:32They are not.That's so true.And those words, in part because nobody has actually done anonymity, so people who are doing confidential just kind of say anonymous, it's just not the same thing.Every medical appointment, mental health appointment you've ever had was confidential.Everyone.HIPAA.Until it wasn't.That's right.
41:59And so what we said was, well, no.We're going to say, we don't know who you are.We don't know your name.We don't know your email.We don't know your phone number.And we don't hold enough what we call demographic identifiers to like reasonably, you know, identify who you are.And we don't know your face.And we don't know your face.
42:22And you're not walking in.This is why, look, I'm, you know, 13 years later looking back, I can understand why maybe some people would be skeptical about a 29-year-old wanting to build an app, right?Because it's like, okay, what, it's telemedicine, there's a lot of those.No.The app was just the mechanism by which I could allow you and me to talk over and over and over, and you don't know who I am.And you don't have to be worried about getting found out,thusly going through all the problem.There's a spectrum here, right?
43:01Let's say 30 or 40% of those that are strugglingare willing to go into DOD mental health resources,walk into the office, raise their hand,hey, I need to talk to something.And then let's say 30% in the middle,hey, I'm not going to do that,but I'll go out in the private marketor I'll go to a nonprofit and walk in
43:21and they'll pay for it and this or that.but the data is real clear.There is a tail end of that spectrum,and we can debate how big it is,but it's not small.But it's big.But it's big.And they're not willing to do this.
43:34So how do we make them feel comfortable engaging?How do we make them feel safe engaging?And it sure is shit isn't running a PSA saying,it's okay to see Co.One day I'm going to get beat up by the former commandant of the Marine Corps,because I've told this story a thousand times.I'm in Kandahar, Afghanistan,watching Armed Forces Network TV,
43:58and the commandant in the Marine Corpscomes on a little commercialand says,it's okay to get help.That, respectfully,is not going to doa goddamn thingto get this into the spectrum
44:13to actually engage.And if 70% of them are notand are thinking,great, I can go get help.Wonderful.But first of all,of all, I don't think it's that big, but more importantly, like, we're helping the people that areoutside struggling and dying are not getting helped. So we just said, you know, our like
44:38guiding star light from day one was how do we structure this to address the barriers that bothintuition and a lot of research, do you defunded research by?the way, says, are preventing these men and women from seeking health.So after Bill's death, you and Sydney go on the road show, take us through what happens?For the organization.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.We do an event in San Antonio.We do an event in Houston.
45:11We do an event in Virginia Beach.I'm not going to get these numbers exactly right, but we have something like a half million dollars in six months.And it's like, okay, that's go.I jokingly say the board fired me as chairman to hire me to execute on any of thisbecause like there was no, I mean, it's just, it's important to emphasize one thing.And I'm not taking anything away from organizations that do this.But we were not raising money and writing checks.We were raising money and building like a really complex, like, programmatic operational
45:50organization. So it was going to be 100 hours a week, William doing this, and it was and has been.So we start building the technology and we go live in Texas with like the most basic MVP,ugly, you know, app you could build right before COVID. The important part to this is,is how you and I are going to engage.Who's answering the phone?Like, who's actually helping these people?Was it total afterthought?So, yeah, I mean, like,
46:33whoops?Yeah.February 18, 2020, we go in to ask a bunch of donors for a bunch of moneyto start recruiting volunteer cliniciansand all this stuff in Texas.COVID hits two weeks later.Okay, we're not raising a whole bunch of money right.And this is when we spent two years pivoting in a way that really became a superpower for us
47:01and why I led with the discussion of institutional change.We went from, we're going to rebuild the same wheel that people have built 10,000 times before.And by the way, is also a strapped resource.clinical capacity in counseling capacity in this country, to we're going to become a reallythin technology nonprofit force multiplier for other organizations.So what does that look like?You come into my application.You download Soundup.
47:40You don't tell me who you are, but you say I'm in ABC.Why in the world would I go raise money to pay for mental health support?for SEALs, try and recruit peer supporters from within the SEAL community, try and sharethis resource with SEALs.When the Navy SEAL Foundation is doing that all day every day, but they're never going tobuild what we've built.So you download my app, you tell me you're a SEAL, you select one of our contractcounselors.
48:13I build the Navy SEAL Foundation.They pay me full pass through.We pay that counselor.At a practical level, what that means is we took the most expensive hardest part of this off of our books.I don't need to raise that and said, we're going to let others do that.And we're just going to have this technology piece that opens up all of these resources for a bunch of service members and veterans that would not engage with them.And allows you to have those resources completely anonymously.Exactly.
48:48so you had to go out and sell to organizations,hey, let us connect people to you anonymously.And then sell to service members who needed help.It really is anonymous.This is safe for you.We'll be right back.Unlegendary night in Music City.This has been a hell of a show, Nashville.
49:15Nickelback, live from Nashville.Biggest hits.And some very.Special guests.Oh yes.Featuring Josh Ross,Hardy, Bailey Zimmerman, Chris Dutry,and more.
49:32Experience Nickelback,live from Nashville.We're going out tonight.The exclusive concert special,now streaming, only on Crave.I'm Melissa Jeltson,and in my new podcast,what happened to her,
49:45I'm bringing you new storiesand conversations every week.Stories about womenwhose deaths were too quickly ruledas suicide.She was starting to,get worried and get scared for her safety.Stories of survival.
50:02The only difference between me and her, frankly, was a little bit of luck, because by allrights, I should be dead.Cases that everyone else called closed.They can't convict her, right?Like, she has so much evidence.These stories all start in the same place, with a woman failed by a system that didn'tbelieve her, that didn't protect her, that didn't see her.No child should ever experience that.
50:26And we were babies.She did all of these brave things and came out and spoke about it, and he got a year.You never know who that devil is because he's wearing in disguise.Sometimes it's a police uniform.Listen to what happened to her on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.If there's a million times more digital intelligence than there is biological intelligence, it's hard to imagine humans being in control in that scenario.I'm Walter Isaacson, host of the new podcast, The Builders.Right now, we're living through an AI arms race.
51:02So I went directly to the people shaping that future.Elon Musk, Dario Amade, Alex Carr, Faye, Faye, Faye Leap, Homer Lucky.Because I wanted to understand what the most consequential builders believe, what they fear,and where they think this is all headed.Silicon Valley is always saying the cliche thing about the way to predict the future,is to create it. Well, yeah, it's up to us. But when you say us, who's us? Is it 400 people that you knowin Silicon Valley? Is it me down here in New Orleans? They're brilliant, controversial, and they'realready shaping the future. The question is, whose imagination do we want to live in? This is going to
51:45determine the fate of nations and economies and the future of humanity. Listen to the builders on theiHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get yourpodcast. My name is Josie Duffy Rice. I'm a journalist who covers the criminal legal system. And over mycareer, I've heard account after account of prosecutorial misconduct, story after story ofinjustice. But I've never heard a story quite like this. The more I kept reading that stuff,I thought, man, there's more red flags that just kept coming up over and over.We'll hypnotize him to strengthen that memory.So he went into a good france.
52:34I really didn't believe any of it was real.And I was like, well, they're going to figure out this is not me.They're going to do their police job.Listen to Examine the Backfire Effect on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.They shared the same name, the same home, the same DNA.the same blood.But behind closed doors, blood isn't always thicker than water,and family loyalty can turn deadly.
53:04From shocking betrayals to carefully planned murders,the Black of X new original podcast series,Bloodline Crimes, hosted by me, Morgan Wood,explores the darkest and bizarre cases where family becamethe most dangerous threat of all.Because sometimes the person you should fear most is not a stranger.but rather someone sitting at the dinner table with you.Real cases, real families, real killers.
53:33This is bloodline crimes.Listen to the Black Effects bloodline crimes every Thursday,starting October 8th from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart Radio app,Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.The reason that we started within the Special Operations Committee,One, there's a outsized level of philanthropic support there, so they have the money to do thisphilanthropically.Navy Seal Foundation raises 40 million a year.
54:09It's a really successful.Wow.It's massively successful.They've got a great job.So they have the resources, but also because every single person, and more relevantly,Foundation knows this is a problem.knows there is this tail into the spectrum that's not going to engage.So it looked, it's like any other business organization.
54:36It took a lot of, we needed our first customer, you know, customer,we needed our second partner, we needed our third,and then it became easier and easier.But I wasn't having to convince anybody of this.Yeah, everybody knew the needs there.But it's just how does this work?So you started there.I mean, where are you now in terms of numbers?
54:59Yeah, yeah, yeah.So, okay, so we have supported just under about 3,000 service members, veterans seeking help.Although I say service members, veterans.We are now supporting small communities within the FBI, within the Secret Service.We are supporting our first fire station in RICO County, Virginia.So first responders.Yeah, exactly.Which deal with the same type of PTSD that a service member would.
55:27It's the same kind of...The firefighter suicide rate.Don't fact check me on these numbers, but they're not radically off.This is close.The last thing I looked at is they were higher than the veteran.Wow.It's outrageous.So they are looking for an answer.
55:47100%.You're it.Yeah.But I know some firefighters, and the way a firefighter,Firefighter's life works in a city.It's certainly different in the volunteer world, but you go live in a firehouse for three days.You're three days on, four days off, three days on.But when you live in a firehouse, you live, eat, sleep, you live there.
56:07Yeah.You develop this second family, your firefighter family.And the weird thing is it feels like it would be the same dynamic.If you want the promotion, if you want the advance.if you want to advance, if you want the guy next to you to trust you going into a fire,you can't be out there saying, I've got issues.So they're being quiet for the same types reasons, I would assume.So let me unpack a lot of things there.
56:34Something else that community has is a lot of chemical, fire, burning substance, pain, exposure.Yeah, plastic substitutes?Exactly.With form out of mercury, mercury, yeah, that you breathe?Family, and then.you know, why that first 100 days post-separation, and then separation from the family,right?Three, I think that we have to a little bit separate between, am I willing to disclose this
57:05to my brother standing next to me, and am I willing to disclose this kind of structurallyup the chain in a way that would allow me to get care?I know for a fact, a lot of Bill's brethren knew he was.struggling. Old Navy Seals and guys he served. Yeah, exactly. But that's a different thing thanI'm going to structurally engage in a way, because they're not going to wrap me out, right?Oh, I see what you're saying. He had guys he served with that knew he was struggling, and they mayhave been struggling, too. But Bill knew when he told them that was locked in a vault. He knew that it wassafe to tell them, but it would never lead to any help because they're not going to say anything.
57:54And would not allow to a professional ramification. Right. I get it. Which by the way, is...And that's normal. And you're saying the same thing probably has some firemen because they're livingwith other firemen. That makes so much sense. Yes. Yes. But that's different than I'm going to goon the record, tell my chief and like... Yeah. Get help and now this and this and this happens.So we're supporting a lot of these different kind of niche communities.And again, again, just to get into sort of like, how do you, I did not start this organization to help 2,000 special operations personnel or 500 Navy Seals.I could help every Navy SEAL I ever wanted to help through my partnership at the foundation.Now, I want to support every one of 3 million conventional service members who feels like they don't have somewhere else to turn or 20 million veterans who, for reasons, good, bad, or otherwise, don't feel like they can safely engage. We should have a path for them to engage. And I thought, hey, man, this like partnerships thing, this is a, this is a way.
59:15is working really well. Let's go find the big veteran nonprofits that can kind of Navy SEALFoundation supporting Navy SEALs. This other organizations supporting 20 million conventionalservice members or veterans. It doesn't exist. There's a ton of organizations doing amazingwork and I don't want to take anything away from it. It is absolutely the case. There's a lot oforganizations doing great work. But it is such a large number and so expensive. They just, you can'tphilanthropically raise that much money. If there's, if there's a hundred thousand specialoperations, veterans and service members, there is probably $500 million of existing funding,philanthropic funding to support that 100,000 people.
01:00:10So say 5,000 to 1.Well, there's 20 million conventional veterans.There is not $100 billion worth of existing philanthropic funding.Makes sense.The only entity that exists that can write the checks big enoughto underwrite the care for this many people is the federal government.And so about two years ago, we said, okay,if we're going to allow people at scale to engage with care truly anonymously, this now becomes
01:00:42a policy fight. And for the last two years, that's what we've been doing. And even if you're,I'd say, even if you're not into the federal government, it is their employer. So it's,well, that's what I was just about to say. After all, you know, if we just talk about it pragmatically,every one of these people worked for the federal government. They're their employees.And specifically, they also have a responsibility to do.That's what I'm saying.Yeah.Is, you know, this is not, let's turn to the federal government to save our problems.
01:01:12100%.This is, these are employees of the federal government.Yes.Yes.And by virtue of that, of the taxpayers.And by the way, they're spending a ton of money doing it.And why don't we just do it better?And the numbers, like, aren't exactly headed in the right direction.
01:01:31Why don't we just do it a little better?Yeah.Typical, typical big government.Yeah.But I get what you're saying, pragmatically, if we're going to scale with the numbers we need to.And realistically, since these are actual employees of federal government, they have a responsibility to it.They have a responsibility.Let's get some policy change so that your solution can work at scale.
01:01:58That's interesting.And, you know, we had some.exciting early success in that. The VA put out something called the, the put out a mission daybreak, a grand challenge. It was $30 million to bring outside innovation into preventingveteran suicide, 1,500 applicants. We were 1 of 30 to be awarded in that, which we were veryproud of. But look, it's the easiest thing in the world to beat up on the big agencies,Congress, et cetera. And I would submit I've got as much cause and experience to do thatas anybody. And I would give my colleagues and friends 51% of the credit in this.
01:02:54We have just fought that fight relentlessly.I've gotten a lot of bill in the last 24 hours.I went to bed watching undefeated and listen to your speech at the Faith Summit,driving to the airport this morning.You know, we have put every ounce of talent and skill that I and we have into fighting that fight.and I am pretty confident in saying that in the next six to 12 months,we will have federally paid existing DOD counselors on our platform.Anonymously.
01:03:47And you will save lives.It's a total.Game changer.For someone listening who has a veteran or first responder in their life who's struggling and won't ask for help,which is everybody your secret to talk to.Yeah.For the Sydney listening to us right now, what do you tell them?And let me, and, and, and I, I apologize, but let me pivot on that point because it's really, I believe it's, it's the secret weapon in this, the spouses.
01:04:19I am convinced, you know, there's a lot of natural discussion of like, well, how do you tell the guys about this?How do you?It's the spouses.It's Sydney 15 years ago.Bill saying, I can't seek help.How much of that is truly his perception?How much of that is excuse for, I don't want to do this hard thing?But the ability for Sydney and a lot of other spouses to push back on that is limited, right?
01:05:01I'm not the Navy SEAL.I don't know if you can seek help or not.It just came back from 20 years.I don't want to nag.Yeah.The ability to equip that spouse with, hey, I can't seek help because I'll get in trouble.This thing you can't because they don't know who you want.That is my dream scenario.
01:05:25So at a very practical level now, look, the most important thing is to engage with help, right?Whether that's within official DOD resources and there's a wide spectrum of them,if it's within the nonprofits that are out there supporting,or if we're at this tail end of the spectrum,you can download the Soundoff app.And for all the reasons we discussed,counseling capacity is admittedly limited.But peer support, which is a big part of what we do,
01:06:10is consistently and widely available.So Soundoff offers peer support,peer support as well as professional support, which you mentioned earlier as part of what's reallyimportant. So, but you see this peer support in other communities like alcoholics. What does a peerhave to earn that a clinician sometimes hasn't? I was at, it's called Warcom. It's the Navy SEALheadquarters in Coronado.And I'm briefing, I don't know, 40 or 50 seals in the room and a whole bunch online,hey, this is what we are, this what we do.
01:06:52At the end, the SEAL officer stands up and says, this is exactly what we need.And the reason the peer support is so important here is I've not been willing to talk to acounselor because they haven't earned the right to hear my suffering. Wow, that's poignant.Say, say, I haven't reached out because they haven't earned the right to hear my suffering,but of course, appear as. There's a lot of bad ass counselors that are saving a lot of people,and there's a really important role for them to play. But I share that to see, not because I, I, I, I,would submit that that is the end answer. What I would say is to the whole discussion we've hadof barriers, well, that's clearly an initial barrier. And if that person needs somebody that's not
01:07:56a professional to raise their hand, let's give them somebody that's not a professional to raisetheir hand. And then if a week, a month, six months later, they say, I probably need to talkto a professional, that's a win. Now you're in line. Now you're in line. I think how we providemental health support in this country broadly. And it's the other important part of peer support.I think there's a strong tendency to skew to the highest level literal degree when engaging.Hey, I broke up, I'm not minimizing this, but I broke up with my girlfriend.Let's go get that trauma trained, you know, psychiatrist.There's like 40 of them in the world.
01:08:52I don't know.maybe we can ratchet down and that person can engage with a peer who's gotten some kind of basictraining, which by the way is the only way like this works because there's not enough of them.Well, the other thing is a peer feels like it could be a transition to a higher modality of supportif it's required.That's exactly.That makes sense.Let's, I guess what I'm saying is there's two reasons it's good.
01:09:25One is they may not be willing to do this.And so just any entry point is good.The other is there's not enough of these.So if we enter here and there's just sort of a natural filtering of, well, 30% of the people that came on were happy with their peer support and don't need to move up a rung.Like, good enough.Great.And third, it is actually better in some cases, too.Yeah.
01:09:54To say it more broadly, and this is like the thing I've been shouting from themountaintops and somehow people still miss sometimes,any care is better than no care.That's right.And somehow that is missed because we will have people be critical of,yeah, but it's anonymous.You can't do this.You can't do that.
01:10:17Or what about this scenario?okay, but if they're home alone not engaging, but of course that, well, they'll operate under the premisethat it's this.Well, if they were sitting across from me, then I could do this.Yeah.But I'm not talking about that.I'm not talking about this into the spectrum.I'm talking about this 30, 40% into the spectrum.
01:10:41Yeah, because if they're talking about it, they're not putting a gun in their mouth.And they're talking to somebody.That's what I mean.Yeah.To somebody.Exactly.Pretty cool.You can't just pretend, in this, I would submit, is what happens.
01:10:56When you're talking structurally, institutionally, you pretend like this is the only partof the population.And you just kind of, oh, well, we're not going to think about that percentage that won't engage.No, those are the people that are disproportionately dying.How can we help them?Peer support or otherwise.Yeah.Exactly.
01:11:13And peer support or otherwise, anonymous or otherwise.We'll be right.back. The music you love.I heart radio. Your favorite radio stations.Everywhere you go. The podcasts everyone's talking about.All in one place. And it's free.I heart radio. Whatever you want to hear.Listen anytime. Anywhere.
01:11:40Music, radio. Podcasts. Unlimited audio. It's on the free.One app. No subscription.Always free. Grab the free app.I heart.I'm Melissa Jeltson. And in my new podcast, what happened to her,I'm bringing you new stories and conversations every week.Stories about women whose deaths were too quickly ruled a suicide.She was starting to get worried and get scared for her safety.
01:12:16Stories of survival.The only difference between me and her, frankly, was a little bit of luck, because by all rights, I should be dead.Cases that everyone else called closed.They can't convict her, right?Like, she has so much evidence.These stories all start in the same placewith a woman failed by a systemthat didn't believe her, that didn't protect her,
01:12:38that didn't see her.No child should ever experience that.And we were babies.She did all of these brave thingsand came out and spoke about itand he got a year.You never know who that devil isbecause he's wearing the disguise.
01:12:53Sometimes it's a police uniform.Listen to what happened to heron the IHeart Radio app,Apple Podcasts,or wherever you,get your podcasts. If there's a million times more digital intelligence than there is biologicalintelligence, it's hard to imagine humans being in control in that scenario. I'm Walter Isaacson,host of the new podcast, The Builders. Right now, we're living through an AI arms race. So I went
01:13:17directly to the people shaping that future. Elon Musk, Dario Amade, Alex Carr, Faye, Faye,Homer Lucky, because I wanted to understand what the most consequential builders believe,what they fear, and where they think this is all headed.Silicon Valley is always saying the cliche thing about the way to predict the future is to create it.Well, yeah, it's up to us.But when you say us, who's us?Is it 400 people that you know in Silicon Valley?Is it me down here in New Orleans?
01:13:51They're brilliant, controversial, and they're already shaping the future.The question is, whose imagination do we want to live in?This is going to determine the fate of nations and economies and the future of humanity.Listen to the builders on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.My name is Josie Duffy Rice. I'm a journalist who covers the criminal legal system.And over my career, I've heard account after account of prosecutorial misconduct, story after story ofinjustice. But I've never heard a story quite like this.The more I kept reading that stuff, I thought, man, there's more red flags that just kept
01:14:37coming up over and over.We'll hypnotize him to strengthen that memory. So he went into a good france.I really didn't believe any of it was real. And I was like, well, they're going to figure outthis is not me. They're going to do their police job.Listen to Examined the Backfire Effect on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.They shared the same name, the same home, the same DNA, the same blood.But behind closed doors, blood isn't always thicker than water, and family loyalty can turn deadly.From shocking betrayals to carefully planned murders, the Black of X new original podcast series, bloodline crimes, hosted by me, Morton.
01:15:28in wood explores the darkest and bizarre cases where family became the most dangerous threatof all. Because sometimes the person you should fear most is not a stranger, but rather someonesitting at the dinner table with you. Real cases, real families, real killers. This is bloodlinecrimes. Listen to the Black Effects bloodline crimes every Thursday, starting October 8th from theBlack Effect Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get yourpodcast.Switching gears a little bit.You were planning to recruit and pay for everything until you couldn't, and it turned out
01:16:17to be actually one of the greatest blessings.You touched on it.What could our listeners learn about the brick walls that feel like the end of the road,but actually force us to find a better road?I think that it was a few things.The first, and I would submit most important, is just keep going.Just persistence, right?I mean, and I have been middle of the night, awake, depressed, you know,
01:16:57as many times as anybody with a kind of a founder, you know,entrepreneur position.But a lesson I've shared with my children, hey, it's going to be better in the morning,just like keep going.So I think that's arguably the most important thing, is just keep fighting the fight.Where we have found our paths of success is,distill down what you're doing that really matters.Make the main thing, the main thing.
01:17:39Make the main thing.Like,I love that saying.Make the main thing.Anonymity.Yeah,that's it.Well,
01:17:46anonymity doesn't mean I need to raise $300 million a year to pay for counselors.Now,it's a different kind of hard to commence $300 million a yearor worth the counseling to come through this anonymous thing.But that's in the realm of the possible.It is not in the realm of possible that I'm going to start.start raising $300 million a year to pay for counselors.So really thinking which part of what I am doing is going to actually move the needle.
01:18:13And is there a bunch of hanging on stuff that I can strip away or outsource?And I don't think that's the natural way that organizations and businesses or franklynonprofits operate, right?it's, well, I'm going to go hire counselors, and I'm going to, you know,raise money to pay for those counselors.And, okay, that's good.And you're going to help a lot of people.But, like, is that actually, like, what about that is changing?
01:18:51What's different?Yeah.And maybe it doesn't need to be different, but let's also acknowledge that it's not different.And so may not meaningfully move the needle on this problem.If Soundoff works for special operators, what could this thing look like at scale for the 20 million veterans you've brought up?What could it look like for current active duty service members, which is another bunch of people?And then pile on at first responders.I mean, you could be looking at servicing 60, 70, 80 million people.
01:19:24And you want me to go to the population that's like as far from that as you can imagine, but there's been a lot written about it.commercial pilots.That's interesting, but same high stress level everything, yeah.And they can't engage with help without jeopardizing their pilot's license.Our niche is show me a community that is probably disproportionately struggling,probably disproportionately struggling because of their profession,and yet they are reluctant to engage with that care because of a, one might argue, practical, professional ramification.Like, that's our niche.
01:20:14The most obvious is the military.Veterans, it actually, people will say, well, you should, you're clearly aligned with service members, not veterans.Well, okay, first of all, if we help them when they're service members, they're less likely to be struggling when they're veterans.But setting that aside, the 20 years of cultural and grain mat of don't seek help doesn't magically disappear the day that you retire.Right.So it persists beyond that.But then law enforcement, I say the wrong thing.They take my gun away.
01:20:55I can't do my job.Right. So it definitely trickles out.Perimetics. All of it. So with the work that you're doing now that you feel confident in a year from now, you will have these connections and policies that you need. I mean, could you legitimately say this thing serving means of people here?I'll tell you exactly where sort of we're headed.God willing, we're at the tail end.of a big policy fight to support Special Operations Command.It is no secret that we have a very precise programthat supports all service members
01:21:43that we have our sights onto bring those counselors onto our system.So that would be now 3 million conventional service members.From there, going to the VA saying,we're already doing this for veterans, or I'm sorry, for service members.What's the problem?Let's do it for veterans.Now we're in a world just at a very pragmatic organizational level where the impact we're having is so great.
01:22:11We're raising the type of money that allows me to go hire our head of firefighter, you know,engagement.And head of police engagement.And he or she are going out to all the fire chiefs and saying,you don't have to pay us a dollar unless one of your men or women engage or if you have,and this is actually happening in Henrico, they have their own counselors on staff.They're made available on our system just for them.We don't get paid anything for that.
01:22:45So the path to scale is really clear.We were trying, we did it at a small level.piecemeal within the special operations just to kind of prove it out.The mistake that we made was we're going to do a piecemeal now for three million servicemembers.No.We need, and I think we are getting, like, this is such a massive endorsement and trulyunprecedented sort of structural engagement with federal counseling.
01:23:27capacity that now, because we're two Americans and like three Brazilian engineers.Like we're a very small organization.Now we have the funding to go out and really engage aggressively across all those communities.For the Army of Normal folks that's listening to you right now, what would you tell themabout service, just service that you think they need to hear?I suspect anybody listening to this podcast doesn't need convincing.There's a lot of people.Fair enough.
01:24:03I want to tell you, there's a lot of people that love the stories and are inspired by them,but still can't get over the hump of the fear, failure, or the what-ifs to engage.And they listen to us for inspiration.Yeah.Yeah.Well, let me say the first is you probably shouldn't start your own nonprofit.It's pretty hard.And we don't need a 137th
01:24:31duplicative organization doing the exact same thing,the exact same community.Couldn't agree more.And by the way, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be doing it.It means walk in their door and work.And work.But the inverse of that is, or the other side of it is,that doesn't mean don't sort of.
01:24:53Do the work. Look, I was called to service from as early as I can remember to go serve my country.That turned into serving my country in a different way. I don't think it was born of any, you know,religious view on that. I married my wife 2014, who was made clear from date one that if we were going tocontinue dating, we'd be married in the Catholic Church, and that's what occurred, and our kidsnow are at a little Catholic school, and I converted to Catholicism a couple years ago to supportmy family. And, you know, again, listening to your speech, whatever that was, a monthtwo ago, being Christ-like and service and serving, it's just so, like, fundamental, right?I mean, and again, whether it's born of Christianity or whether it's born because it's just in you,
01:26:00we owe it in our own unique ways and talents to support each other, especially in a very challenging, charged, hard period in our country.I can't help but think the numbers.it's almost impossible that there's not a big number of people listening to us right nowwho are either struggling or have someone near and dear to them children,spouses, best friends that are struggling.How does someone find Soundoff?Pull out your phone, go to the app store,assuming you have an Android and her iPhone,
01:26:48which is like 99.99% of people.and type in sound off and download her app.So if my buddy, who was a seal, is sitting there and I'm like, dude, you're drinking to excess every night.Yep.Your wife is afraid of you.Yep.Your children don't know you.Yeah.
01:27:07You're not the guy that left the United States and went and served our country valiantly.And you come back a different person, and I am worried for you.And he goes, brother, I love you.Thank you for concern.I'm honored to have served on my country and served you,but I can't engage in this because of what's going to happen.All you got to do is say, here's an app.They don't know who you are.
01:27:36It's anonymous, dude.Here's an app.Yeah.And give them that app.I mean, the truth, the true answer to is if you've got somebody in this place you wantto help, download the app and show it to them.Is that not right?Yeah.
01:27:48Yeah, it's 100% right.It's a natural thing in this discussion sort of around suicide prevention to focus on the last five yards, right?That's not why I built sound.Do we know that people are going to come on and may go into crisis?Yes.But we did not create this to be a crisis.Why?Rewind a decade.
01:28:14They're 10 years into their military career.And I know for a fact this happened with Bill.You've had your first panic attack.You've had your first nightmare.You're 10 years in.You're not done.You're sure as shit at that point not going to go in and raise your hand.You're active.
01:28:33Yeah.Like you're in the middle of it.You're still trying to build your reputation in your career.Are you going to raise your hand then?The data is real clear a lot or not.What if we can catch that person at that moment?What if they got that on their phone while they're serving?They're at that moment.
01:28:50How does that change, just that release valve, how does that change the trajectory of the next 10, 20, 30 years through?And the lives it changes along with them, i.e. the spouse, the children, the family, all of it.Yeah, 100%.William Negley, everybody. Founder and CEO, Soundoff, a guy who served our country, a former CIA officer who solved bigger problems and went to work fixing them and still is.your passion is so evident, dude. Thank you for everything that you do. Thanks for the storyand folks listening. I rarely do kind of a public service appeal, but I hold in the highestregards, those that risk their lives so that we have our freedoms and our liberties. And the wayI say it is I sleep really well at night knowing that those people are on the wall. And the fact that
01:29:45an extremely large percentage of those people come off the wall and try to reintegrate society.And within four months of trying to reintegrate or taking their own lives,and we are sitting around knowing this is happening,not exhausting every possibility to help them to me is a crime.And so what you're doing with Soundoff to eliminate the barriers to that help,I think is amazing work.Thank you.And so when I say, I appreciate what you do.
01:30:13I really appreciate what you do.and anybody listen to me now that has somebody struggling first responder.Yeah.Special operator, military,download the Sound Off app and put it in front of their face and challenge them to help themselves.And let me, and if I may, that doesn't mean that they're going to use that app that moment.And I'll give you a very precise, poignant example of this.Sidney and I years ago did a little local San Antonio news hit.
01:30:45Hey, this is who?where are, there's what we're doing. My mother, because she's, my mom, is one of the firstcounselors on the platform. Four or five, six months later, she says, hey, I got my firstsoundoff person, and like, I'm helping. They meet three or four or five times anonymouslyon sound off, develop a trusted relationship. She's now been seeing this person five yearspro bono in her private practice. And he says, without question, this saved my life.That's like the dream scenario. He didn't feel comfortable engaging. He gave him a safe,trusted path to engage. They established that relationship. He got the help that he was seeking.
01:31:37And now, five years later, children, career, marriage, doing great.download that app it saves lives and it'll save someone close to you if you know someone's struggling.William, you're the man. Thanks for being here.Thank you very much.And thank you for joining us this week.If William Negley has inspired you in general or better yet to take action by downloading his Soundoff app,sharing it with a service member or family of a service member who could benefit from it,rethinking our thought of,
01:32:14why won't someone get help to what would we have to remove to make it possible?Or something else entirely, let me know about it.I'd love to hear about it.You can write me anytime at bill at normalfolks.org, and if you write me, I'll respond.If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends, share it on social, just subscribeto the podcast, wherever you're watching or listening to it.Rate it.Review it. Join the army at normalfolks.org. Join or start a local service club. Take the 10-level
01:32:50challenge. Buy our merch and share testimonial, feedback, or content ideas at ANFvideo.org. All of thesethings will help us grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can.I'm Melissa Jeltson, host of the What Happened to Her podcast.We're kicking off the season with the Sandra Birchmore story, a case the police rode off as a suicide in a snowstorm.Her family never bought it, and the man they suspected wore a badge.You never know who that devil is because he's wearing in disguise.Sometimes it's a police uniform.And you can get access to all episodes 100% ad-free with an I-Heart True Crime Plus subscription, exclusively on Apple Podcasts.
01:33:50available only to IHeart True Crime Plus subscribers.So don't wait.Head to Apple Podcasts.Search for IHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today.How do you know that Claude won't become manipulative?This is a constant worry.And you can actually catch the model thinking I think X is actually true, but I'm going to tell the user why.I'm Walter Isaacson.
01:34:14On my new podcast, The Builders, I'm going inside the minds of the people shaping our future.to the Builders starting October 13th on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.From shocking betrayals to carefully planned murders, the Black Effects new original podcast series,Bloodline Crimes, hosted by me, Morgan Wood, explores the darkest and bizarre cases where family became the most dangerous threat of all.Listen to the Black Effects Bloodline Crimes every Thursday, starting October 8th.from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.In 1986, a man named Scott Macklam was killed in broad daylight.Police quickly found their suspect.
01:35:08Prosecutors convicted him.But now, almost 40 years later, I'm re-examining this case.I really didn't believe any of it was real.And I was like, well, they're going to figure out this is not me.They're going to do their police job.Has the wrong man been in prison this whole time?Listen to Examine the Backfire Effect on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.We've all heard the phrase all things in moderation, but that's clearly not us.
01:35:42That's why we're celebrating 300 episodes of That's Messed Up, our Law & Order SVU podcast,where we cover the real crimes behind the stories and interview actors from the show.We're doing it big for the 300th episode.We've got ICON, Heartthrob, and SVU guest star John Stamos, and we're best friends now.In waiting for Guffman, Chris...Are you serious?It's like her favorite movie.That's like my favorite movie of all the time.
01:36:02I've seen it like 150 times.Me too.Oh my God.New episodes of That's Messed Up,drop Tuesdays.Listen to That's Messed Up on the Iheart Radio app,Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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