Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 133 - Doug Collins

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Doug Collins is an American lawyer, politician, and Air Force veteran serving as the 12th United States secretary of veterans affairs since 2025. Not only does Doug want to help make America great again, he wants to help improve the lives of veterans and reduce suicide rates by giving  our veterens better tools and resources for their mental health and well being. Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Follow Doug: https://www.instagram.com/dougcollinsga/ https://x.com/RepDougCollins  Thank you to our sponsors: LMNT: Visit https://drinklmnt.com/cam for a free sample pack with any purchase Ketone IQ: https://www.ketone.com/Cam use code CAM for 30% off your first subscription MUD\WTR: https://mudwtr.com/cam use code CAM for 15% off  Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off  Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% offv Timestamps: 00:00:00  How Doug & Cam Met 00:01:45  Doug Collins’ Role in Congress 00:03:52  Working for Donald Trump 00:06:13  From a Pastor to Law School 00:10:24  Trump’s Cabinet  00:12:44  How Doug Got the Secretary of VA Position 00:16:35  Confirmation Process into Congress 00:21:41  The Media & Authenticity 00:28:50  Suicide Rates Among Veterens 00:35:27  Ad Break (Undeniable Book & Ketone) 00:37:33  Psychedelics for Medicinal Purposes 00:39:44  What Does Support Your Troops Really Mean? 00:46:28  Acknowledging Veterans & Help for the Veterans 00:51:34  Leadership Matters: “One Chance to Get it Right” 00:57:37  Addressing Specifics 00:58:56  Showing Up in Person 01:03:37  Deciding Which People to Cut 01:09:40  Hate from DEI 01:10:42  Protecting Soldiers from Brain Injuries & Mental Health Concerns 01:17:29  The Federal Cap Standard 01:19:12  Overcoming Adversity After War 01:27:57  “Don’t Treat Me as Though I’m Different” 01:29:42  Metrics in Suicide Rates & Building a Culture Change 01:36:39  What Gives Doug Collins Hope 01:38:54  Doug's Family & Making Them Proud 01:42:24  Good Stories from Old Men 01:48:03  QA: How Do We Change the Face of our Veterans to Strength? 01:55:26  QA: The Importance of Continuing to Tell Our Veterans' Stories? 01:59:49  QA: Does Our Veterans Treatment Reflect Our Character? 02:03:07  Outro: Montana Knife Company Packout Knife

Every step I take, I move my truth. Every time they tell me stop I use. Every comment hate that makes my feel, gather up my energy and boom. I hear them talking, saying the way that I move it's so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. This is a Keep Hamering Collective with Doug Collins. And let me get this right.

So it's Secretary of Veterans Affairs. That's correct. That's it. Okay. It's, well, it's an honor. It's amazing that you're sitting here with me. I mean, we've been corresponding for years, it seems like. And now to meet you today and just welcome you to your new role.

And hear what that's like is a big honor. Okay, it's great to be here. And we have been over the years watching a lot of things, connecting. You had a big impact on me. I'll just be honest with you years ago when I was in Congress and we were going through a lot of stuff. And, you know, it was a time in which when you let life get to you and then you don't, to keep you physically up, you don't, you know, get stuff to it and run across you through a friend and started watching. That's how we actually connect when I'm still in the Air Force.

I remember one Saturday, I was at the drill and I actually had message you or something. We actually started talking and then just sort of since then watched the kids grow up and got my first Boa Kill and others. So just all because of that. Oh, man. That's amazing. Yeah. I do remember going down. Tanner was at Fort Benning down there.

And I don't know. It seems like one time I was having trouble getting. I don't know if it was a security thing. Now I can't remember what it was. But we were. We did it. We got it through. Yeah.

Yeah. So it was all good. But yeah, just appreciate everything that you've, you know, just your friendship and just kind of, I don't know, corresponding. It's been amazing. But then also to see you get appointed this new role. It's, I always like, you're one of the good guys. You know, like for people like me, it's like you're the type of person we want in Congress.

Just like, can we get. somebody who just, because you see some of these guys on TV. It's just like, I'm this small town, Oregon. Yeah. You watch some of these guys on TV and you're just like, who are they representing? It's not me. Yeah. And that you are somebody who people can be proud of up there.

I appreciate that. I think it just goes back to where you come from. And I think there's a lot of times that, you know, my staff will tell me, if you hear me to speak, and I mean, this was love, but I'm a trooper's kid from North Georgia. My dad is a Georgia State Trooper for 31 years. you know, I grew up in a home and, you know, that was stable, mom and dad, and I lost my mom about eight years ago. My dad's still with me. We still have breakfast in a week. It's just that grounding. And I think when you, it doesn't matter where I am, I still want to be dug. I can have

quote, big titles and do those things, but that doesn't matter at the end of the day if you lose who you are. And I think in Congress, as a government and everything else, we start beginning to believe there's a persona we have to perform or there's something expected of us. And what really is, is why are you there? What are you doing? And then they also, here's another thing, most people don't realize in D.C., whether it's an administration, but mostly in Congress, a lot of the guys are bored. Now, that may sound funny, but they're, because they don't have purpose. And I think that's one of the things that is very important to me is you find the things in life that matter to you, things that you want to accomplish, and you put your energy toward that.

If you're putting your energy toward everything, then you get nothing. And so it's, I just try to remember where I come from. What would it feel like to me? And that I've heard you talk about this before. When I used to get off the plane in D.C., I look over at Decapto and I'm saying, well, is this the day they're going to kick me out? I'm not supposed to be here kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, no, I get that. But yeah, I'm so glad you're there. I did know about your upbringing and how you've come up. I know about your family. I'm just curious, and I want to get to all that. But what's it like working for probably the most polarity? Is it on earth right now?

Pretty close. I mean, he gets people fired up one way or another. So what's it like working with the president? It's actually great. I mean, and this is the thing. If he was sitting here, y'all would talk for hours.

I mean, it's just the way he is. And we were just talking about this as we were coming over on breakfast this morning. It's amazing to me that here's a man who said the same things for 40 plus years. And you can go back. I mean, it's documented. I mean,

he's the man that they write rap songs about. I mean, this was kind of thing. You know, I want to be like Trump. You know, this was 25, 30 years ago. And he said the same thing for so many years, but yet the minute he stepped into politics, you know, 12 years ago,

the same people who vetted and said, this is the greatest guy, always wonderful, all of a sudden turned. And that should tell everybody something. That should tell that there is very much deep buy-in and ideological weight to positions that we sometimes don't even, you know, want to think about. And he's coming questioned.

all that. And so it's interesting. I mean, you know, working for the president, you get a lot of, and I was, you know, had to defend him during the impeachment stuff. And so defend the Republican side of that, because I was the ranking member through all that impeachment on the House side. And so we had to go through all the Russia gate and all this stuff. And so I got to know him really well. But he, he truly wants to do good. And I think that's the thing that I really wish that everybody could have five minutes with him to see. He truly cares. In my case, what I'm doing now, veterans, but he surely cares about the folks who are struggling, folks who are trying to make it in this country. He really wants everybody to succeed. And it's just genuine when you

talk to him. Yeah. It's, I mean, it seems like it, but he is, if you don't like him for whatever, there's, you can find reasons to dismiss what he says or to, to be offended by it. But everything I see, it's like, he seems like he's trying to make a difference. And it's, I mean, he's, he doesn't, need the job, obviously. But I don't know, probably some people don't need to be in Congress, but they like to because they want to make some probably, probably great intentions. And then some maybe not so great intentions. That's why it's why it's refreshing to see you in this position too. But yeah, it's like that your trajectory coming from North Georgia and just, you know, your dad being a trooper. And I think that, you know, what you were raised on and that type of fabric,

That's the middle, or not middle America, but that's the type of people that built that made our country as good as it is and why we're so great. And so to come from that to where you're now, I think it gives hope to a lot of people. Well, from my perspective, I hope it does. I mean, look at what I've gone through. And, you know, I started in, you know, political. And my wife and I, we've been married, it'll be 37 years in June. When I first got married, we were going to law school because that was what I was going to do. And that didn't work out.

And so, you know, your life changed. I knew God had a calling on my life. That's why I finally, after working in sales and stuff, I answered that and got my master's. I pastor to church for 11 years and then got back. And then as God would have it, he, I believe, it was just, I knew it inside. It was time to leave that 11 year comfort zone of that church.

And he opened the door to law school again. And in law school, he said, oh, by the way, the opening for a state house seat, I ran for state house while I was in law school. And then after getting out, of getting out. Then the congressional said. Why did you do that?

It was open. It was something that was a... Did you have enough to do? No, I was bored. Getting your law degree? Well, and also three kids in which I was coaching football and everything else. So yeah. So yeah, what was the impetus of that?

Well, it was something, again, I think it's a purpose in life. When you look at... Too many people, I think, look at their life in this, I'll just handle whatever comes day to day. That's their goal in life. And that's, to me, is a very short-sighted goal to say, what can I do to do? day instead of saying okay was there other things now too many people also do the opposite they plan out the next 10 years of their life and say this is all I

got to do no it's more of I believe we're gifted in the sense of the things that we have the things the tools that we have and making yourself available and and that was an unavailability time and when you looked at it I was in this school Lisa my bride we talked about it I called her I came home from a meeting and we found out this seat was going to be open and I said and so I was going call her. You know, first year law school, getting into second year law school, three kids, three young kids. I had quit my job. I was only in the Air Force Reserve. She was teaching. So I was making my baloney sandwiches, going to school, riding the bus, and everything else. And I said, so I was going

to call her. And I said, I got something for it because knowing she was going to say, Doug, just get home and cut the grass. Okay. She keeps me exactly a proper perspective. But she said, I laid it out. And I said, you know, this seat's going to come open. And, you know, we've talked about this because we actually met when I was doing political work when I was a college kid. Okay. And she said this to me, and I'll never forget it. She was on the other end of the phone, and she said, well, it might be time. And I was like, not the answer.

I was like, yeah, yeah. Because I was expecting her to say, you know, just to get on it. But it just opened it up. And I think so to go and follow your dreams, follow your passion, but be willing to get out of your boat. I think a lot of times there's a, it's a great. great passage from my, you know, pastoral background, where Jesus calls out Peter, he says, get out of the boat.

He says, he's come to me. And everybody else is sitting in the boat. All of them were there. All of them heard him say, come to me. But only Peter jumped over. He walked over, didn't even look, got on that rough sea sea and began to walk. And he was doing fine until he did one thing.

He looked down. And the minute he looked down, he started to sink. And he reached out in course, God. But you know, it's always surprised me about that story. And I think it's sort of where I'm at now is there's 11 people who there was one person that day who experienced a miracle and there was 11 who watched one. How many times are we the 11 that watch? Right. When we could have been most of time.

And I think that's so for me, I hope it inspires people just to move forward to chase what you're good at and the doors will open. I think too many times we try to force doors open and I've done that in my life. Yeah. And it just probably didn't work out right. Right. But now that you have a chance to be at a table, and I think this is different about the cabinet. This is something I would like people to know about the Trump cabinet this time. And there's been a lot said.

And, you know, of course, the media makes fun of all of us. Yeah. But this is a very tactical, what I call tactical cabinet. Tulsi, dear friend, you know, Pete, all rest of them, we're there to do something. We're still strategic. We still think about, you know, the big picture. I have 470,000 employees. I can't, yeah, bigger than Active Beauty Army, by the way.

These guys give me enough headaches. I can imagine. It's amazing. So this is what we see. But he put together a cabinet that was designed to do something. Right. And we're all friends, basically. Most of us on that table have either worked together, serve together, or have a mutual experience.

So it's not unusual for us to pick up the phone or text each other and say, hey, can you help me out here? Sure, I'll help you out here. And I think you're going to see a big difference in government because of that. Yeah, I mean, I thought it was incredible how, you know, RFK, Tulsi, previous Democrats are now overworking with, you know, that's what people have always talked about. It's like there's no cross the aisle type work. And here's this situation where it's exactly that. And it should be celebrated. And I, you know, you mentioned Tulsi.

I love her too. She's like, just seems like a normal, regular person. We did a ruck in Hawaii, 50 for the fall and went by where she lives. and it's like the most normal house on the normal street. I was like, that's awesome. I just love to see it. Yeah, it is great. And it's good to see, again, looking at the backgrounds and knowing that, you know, we're there to do something.

And I think that's a, it's, I think for many of us, we've allowed the government to come this theoretical, ideological, however you want to look at it, the government is either in the opinion of many in Washington and some in the country, the solution, or that government is a tool for the people to live in. normal and productive life. I fall in that camp. The government is limited. Government is not supposed to be all apart. And government's not supposed to fix all your problems.

And, you know, government is not the nanny state. It's not the, oh, no, you got the boo-boo. Let's put a band-aid on it. No, it's sometimes, well, if you've had to run and, you know, you wasn't watching where you going, you wouldn't have fell off the steps. Right. You know, I love you and pick you up, but you got to figure this out. Yeah, it's a good point.

I am curious about, so getting this position, what was that like? you think you had a chance? I mean, how is that? Because I know you'd worked with Trump before. You mentioned, you know, helped out during the impeachment. So how did it, how that happened? It was really interesting because I was going through a time being out of the Congress for a few years. And when the campaign started, I would start going to campaign events and I would see him. And he and I would see him. Every time he'd see me, you know, we'd talk for a few minutes. And then a little bit later, he began to be, Doug, what do you want to do? I said, well, Mr. Brother, right now, just get you reelected. I said, that's, you know, he said, you know, he said,

He said, well, I'm going to think about it. I said, Mr. President, you do whatever you want to do. You go right at it. And it began to be. And then as the summer moved into the fall, he said, no, I want you to come with me. Did you pit yourself at all? Not really, no. He was just, he would just, he would make those comments.

So it was one of those things with, you also don't know. And you've, I'm sure you've been here before. Was he just being nice? Yeah. You know, just being nice. Oh, Doug, we love you. Oh, come on. And so, and then the campaign one, I saw him two nights before.

the election or the night before almost two nights before the election and it was sort of the same thing and so I said let's just get you done and we'll talk and then afterwards he and I communicated and he said I was happen to be down at Florida at Marlago we're doing as a group that I was working with that was having their annual meeting down there and we began to talk Dan Scavino was a dear friend who's been with the president for years and he said let's get you in let's talk about this and And so I remember I was doing an interview one morning. I get this call and it's the boss. And he said, oh, what do you want to do there?

I said, well, here's what I was thinking about. And that was the first time I sort of mentioned. He said, veteran. I like it. Oh, so you hadn't talked about that position. No, no, no, no. Just helping in this cabinet. Yeah, you know, sometimes you get this.

Well, I'm going to, here's, you know, because there was some other positions thought about, but it's like, you know, this was good. So I never really, you know, was not one of those things because that's not the way the president works. The president gets in it. He is his own. person and he begins to think about he listens to others and some other people that talked about it but then went and met with him in the and he said you're the one

and so I asked him a question I said well mr. Brett what do you what is the main thing you want me to do and I've said it many times he said take care of my veterans mm-hmm that's all that's that was a weird that was that was one of days yeah I bet I'll have to say if this is sort of funny you know behind-the-scenes kind of stuff I met the at this conference I didn't bring tie. Okay. So I'm there and Lisa's with me and Lisa said I said I didn't bring a tie. And so we're at this hotel. So we're going downstairs to get a tie for this because we're going to buy one. I didn't care what it calls. I just got to get a tie because I got to go see the president.

And Lee Zeldon, who is now in the cabinet as well. He's EPA administrator. Yeah. He was coming up. I said, leave, you have a tie. He said, yeah, I've got some ties. So we go up to his room. He brings out four ties. I picked the one that was matching the only real suit I brought. Yeah. So I put it on, go to see the brother. I get the job. You know, I'm going to be VS. I got up sitting there. So that was the decision to that was the day. Yeah, it was a day. It was a decision day. So it came in and he said, and I was leaving, not knowing, you know, I left, not know, I said, well, maybe we'll talk. No, this is it. And then I didn't announce it, you know, like 45 minutes, hour later. Guessing's done. So I came back and I said, well, Lee, you're not getting your tie back.

You're keeping it, huh? Good luck. I kept the. I kept the. I kept the tie and I told Lee, I said I sent him a gift card from Brooks Brothers for another tie. Yeah. And I actually ended up wearing in my confirmation hearing. So it was like, so, hey, you know, you have a tie. You got to keep it. I think Brooks Brothers is a good brand, right? It was.

I don't buy them there. But I've heard about it, so that's a good sign. So Lee got a new tie out of it. I got a job. Perfect. Well, then, okay, so the next step is that confirmation, which seems like just a nightmare. So when you say, you know you're going to have to. go through the whatever that's called the questioning is that did you and your wife talk about that

because they get they get dirty yeah i mean they dig up so much nonsense or like i don't even know where they get it but you have to deal with people basically trying to make you look bad yeah yeah so what was was that hard to say yeah we're ready for this it is a little bit because i guess it was good in some ways because we had been i've been a very public figure um for a while And I'd went through a very publicized Senate campaign down in Georgia, which we wasn't successful at, which I think prepared me for where I'm at now. But so it was one of those things we felt pretty good that we had been vetted in the sense of, you know, I didn't have anything.

I knew that. We don't have anything. But still. At least not been, you know, we've made good decisions. But, you know, so I'm not this. But you never know. And I think so. They can twist so much.

Oh, yeah. And then it, but then it became down to positions. It came down to war. words said. And so we, I visited almost 60 senators. All were good at the time. It was pretty interesting before the president got sworn in. Some of the Democrats were much more open to talk. As soon as he really gets sworn in, it became a little bit different. And I had my, my hearing was the day after inauguration. And so everybody was there. And so we were just one of the, you know, had been through. And we, you know, you study, you practice. It's just like

everything else. You know, I have my staff, you know, say, here's possible questions. How do you answer it? You know, what's the answer that, you know, that you are understanding to show you have understanding of the question and everything else. But you never know. And you sit there and, you know, it's like one of the senators, she's become famous now for asking, have you ever been accused of, you know, basically sexual misconduct and everything?

That's like, no. Yeah. And it gets to be rather, I'll be frankly, it gets to be rather offensive. Yeah. In the sense of, you know, no, have you? You know, they want you to pause or do or just I don't know that's so I don't know. I mean, and I was wondering so the day after, I wonder if that's worse because they're all emotional because they just lost. Yeah.

And then you're then you're the first target. I'm like, okay. Yeah. It was. And again, I had, being on the Capitol Hill, I speak heel. So I say that as if it's a foreign language. Yeah. But it is.

Probably. It is a foreign language. So I understood with the motivation. I may not always agree with it. And we have both sides to it. I mean, there's, you, you try to get the best perspective on what you're wanting to present. So we made it through it. Some of them were, again, I've got some hearings coming up that'll probably be a little more difficult.

Because one of the things I have done since, since I've been confirmed is, is the biggest issue is putting out innuendo and rumor about what's going on to VA. And so I made a decision early on to say that in my position, the VA's been a whipping post for a long time. And I said, we're going to stop that. We're either going to get better or, you know, the prophecy is going to become true. And so if anybody would lie about things that were happening, they were not telling the truth, I would go on to social media or I'd go on to the news media. And I'd say, look, this senator or this congressman went to here and they said this, this is a lie. And so, you know, and even reporters, by the way. Yeah.

We felt a couple of reporters. I had one in particular with Caitlin Collins who wanted to talk about something else. And we told her we'd answer that question one time. It was on the signal gate issue. I said, I'll answer it one time, Caitlin. And she came on beforehand and told me, oh, no, I said, but I want to talk about VA. She said, oh, I got plenty of questions to VA. I said, okay, Caitlin, you know, one question.

She asked her question. I answered her. She followed up with the same basic question. And I said, Caitlin, I've already answered that question. I said, you're not going to. And then number three. And when number three come, my staff was in the back and I just leaned back and share just about like this. And so she asked the question again. I said, well, Caitlin, undoubtedly you don't want to talk about the VA. So let's talk about why to CNN dislike a veteran so much in the fact that you just got a $5 million defamation suit against you in Florida against a veteran. Have you fired that person yet who actually said we're going to nail him? And it just, from there, it just spiraled because. Again, too many times conservatives. I'm I'm going to say on our side, we just sort of take it as if we, if we're, not to be un-nice, okay? Yeah. But I'm not just going to sit there unless you have a platform.

Free for all. Yeah, to do something that's not right. So, yeah. Yeah. So it's going to be, you know, some of those are interesting. But the great part about it is I know what I'm going to tell them is true. Right. I know what I'm going to tell them is, is honest.

And we can disagree about that. And you can waste five minutes yelling at me all you want. But my wife's going to love me. My three kids are going to love me. And my little shitsoo puppy is going to love me. And, you know, that's, That's okay. Yeah. I think it's, I can't imagine being there and being grilled like that because it feels like to me politics again, this is from the outside in. But they want that sound bite, that little clip, the viral clip. And it's all about that. It's not about really even getting the answer. It's just like, oh, I called him out or I made him look bad or I held his feet to the fire or something like that. And it's like, you know, that's why the opposite of that, is discussions like this.

Yes. Where you're having, you know, a podcast where you're able to. And as everybody knows, that's where Trump really, you made a mark on this election is like going to these new media sources. And people could really figure out, oh, what's he like? What does he think? And obviously, Kamala chose not to do that. And it's, you know, it's just, this is how it's supposed to be.

It's how you learn about people. Right. People know authenticity. And they feel it. And whether, even if they feel like it's being forced, they at least still try to understand it. When you don't do that, the one thing they can never accuse President Trump of is not being who he is.

I've known him now for, you know, known of him, you know, personally more in about 12, 10 to 11 years, known him pretty good for the last seven or eight. He's not going to pretend. And I think that's the part that when you go out and you realize that our media landscape's changing. the way people take in information is changing. It's really interesting that your podcast, other podcasts, will reach more than the big networks combined in any story that's three minutes long.

Now, think about that. They're barely getting people, you're doing it for three minutes that you may or may not see, but yet people are choosing to go to the Keep Hammer Collective to listen to you for an hour, hour and a half, or two hours. And they're choosing to do that. And so they're taking it in. And I think that's a, if you ignore that part of us and that longing for just, you know, information, you're missing people. And so for me, this has been very important to get time out because you're exactly right. I had an interesting.

And again, I say this, we all do it. I don't want to be accused of all, you're just talking about Democrats. No, Republicans and Democrats both do it. When I first went to Congress, I had three committees. and it was foreign affairs, oversight, and judiciary, which I ended up being ranking member of. And so you go to a lot of hearings, and you've watched this on TV, and you get the five-minute question. Yeah. Well, when you're new, you're always at the end of the dice.

So all the good questions are gone. You know, it's like good hunting. You know, you drew the last tag on the last day. You've got to go wherever it. You get whatever's left. Right. And so I was particularly tired one day. And I had like three hearings in the same day.

And each were different topics. And my staff were helping me with questions. And what I had gained a lot of doing was just waiting to see what the person said. And I would make my own questions because too many times the questions seemed forced. Or they were a similar question that had already been asked like six times. So one day I went in and I looked at one of my staff people who were with me to help me. And I said, why are we doing this? I said, these questions you gave me are already been answered.

I said, I've not had a chance to sit in here. I said, why are we doing it? And our communications person was there who was supposed to look at. And they said, but when, and this was so true. And I'm not, it's not a good or bad judgment. It's just an honest because it's their job. They said, but Congressman, when we put the video out, nobody knows that anybody else asks any questions.

Right. Yeah. So there's your whole thing in. Yeah. No, it's all for the show. Yeah, it just seems miserable to be out. there. And I don't know how people don't lose it. Because you talk about these crazy questions. Me, I'd be like, that's the dumbest. I would look so bad. I don't know how you guys stay so

professional. They're trying to get that reaction. Yeah, sometimes you just want to say, you know, Senator Congressman, you're chasing wisdom, but it keeps running faster. You know, something to that. I wouldn't be that well-spoken. And I've been there before. No, I'm pretty blunt about it. But I've gotten into it a little. little bit. And I've been on both sides of it. Yeah. You know, and I've been on both sides. I remember Eric Holder, who was the Attorney General under Obama. He came to committee meeting and it's been written about in books. He and I clashed. And he wanted to clash. How come? Because he didn't want to be there. And he didn't want to answer questions. And I ask a question that was something he

should have at least roughly prepared for. Wasn't a gotcha question. I mean, sometimes people will bring gotcha questions. Yeah. Like, if you ask me right now, I have 170 hospitals that, and 1,200 clinics that we sort of oversee just on the hellside, could you ask me a unique question about one of those that? Yeah, you wouldn't know. And yeah, it would make me look bad.

Yeah. But again, I don't know. Yeah, because they'd be like, aren't you in charge of that? Yeah, I'm in charge of it. So thank you. You got me. Good job. Next.

I'll find out more. So, but he, this was someone he should have known. And he just sort of blew it off. And I said, are you kidding? me? You come to this hearing? No one, because this is one of the pre, it's one of the pre kind of issues we had with. And you didn't answer it. And then we just sort of get into it for a minute. And I think that's okay. I mean, it's not, it's actually at least more real than the formatic stuff. Yeah, yeah. But so it does happen. I mean, you get to the point,

I don't let reporters put words in my mouth. Yeah. We had this the other day in a, because I always do press. I'm trying to follow what the president's talked about. We're, we do press wherever we go. We do gaggles. I go to, you know, places and take just straight off questions. And, you know, sometimes they'll start off with their narrative. And I'll say, well, no, you know, we're not, we have, because one the other day was, well, you fired 80,000 people. No, no, no, we've not done that. Let's get the narrative straight.

You're scaring people here. And the reporter just said, you know, they're sort of, okay. Yeah. But you got to, you just got to state where you're at. Too many, I think our country is longing both, you know, from, if you're a left perspective or right perspective, just be honest with me. Just be honest with where we're at. Yeah. No, it's a, there's, I like how Trump is way more available.

I mean, we know we never heard from Biden, hardly ever. I like that your guys' approach to get out with the people, right? You have to. You have to get your message out with the people. What I would, I don't, some of the, like, the show, like the Epstein filed binder thing. I was just like, I mean, okay, I know what we got to do, but, you know, and still nothing coming out from it is that gets frustrating. you know what i mean to people i've heard that a lot yeah so it's like i get the i mean i guess we'll take some hits and misses sometimes i get the i love the availability i don't that was like

a little show but whatever but uh who am i um i want to okay so this is like this has been probably the biggest question i wanted to ask you everybody talks about the suicide rates among veterans yes everybody you know i listened to you were on sean and of course he was very, you know, interested in that also. Do you, is there hope? I mean, this has been an issue for a long time. Everybody says, like President Trump said, take care of our veterans.

It's like, are these just words? Can it be done? Can you make this difference you talk about? Because sometimes it feels like it's, it's too big of an issue. So what's your point? It's like if you did, to me, if you did one thing as Secretary of Veterans Affairs

and you address the suicide, which I know you're addressing in, but that would solve a lot of the other problems because the suicide, like what's causing the suicide? Well, it's mental health, obviously. It's depression, PTSD, substance abuse. So if you're addressing that, to address the suicide, you have to address all that other stuff.

And to me, it's like when I see it, it's like these guys just want somebody to talk to. But is there, are there people? Can you do it? Yeah. I'll spend, that is one thing that wakes me up every day, wakes me up every night. You know, my background, I've been in the military for, I think, which I really believe has helped me. And as I'm the first member of Congress has been in the VA secretary role since recently became a cabinet secretary back in the 80s, early 90s. I'm also still in the Air Force, 23 years. I was in the Navy for a few years.

And I see this from a total perspective. It's the thing that gets me up at night. I'm going to give you some statistics. You know, you talk about it or even sobering. Since 2008, the number is really not changed at all. 2008. In the last few years, just in the last four to five years, we spent $58 million a year in, quote, prevention.

Okay. Getting resources, that kind of stuff. We spend $2.3 billion with, counseling, treatment, drugs associations, those kind of things that are all wrapped up. And the number's not moving. I began to come in and say, why? Instead of just, well, aren't we doing good, you know, getting this word out, why is this where it's at?

And I think it's been really interesting to me because at times I feel like I'm the only one that's ever asked the question. Are we getting a return of, on investment, so to speak? We've got to bring back the idea that you can't just keep spending money and getting no return. the situation, I need help. And it's one of the reasons why, one, you know, I'm so glad to come see you, but others as well. The best many times conversation to a veteran is another veteran.

It's somebody who's been there who's walked that path. I'm reading Slattery's book right now where he talked about, you know, he only wanted to talk to the guys from the unit. You know, and Sean talks about this. And for me, he went to Iraq as well. You know, there's some things that I can talk about with those guys. The minute somebody says, Belawd, yeah, all of a sudden, because that's where I was. So I know it. What we've got to look at, though, is are we reaching people at their critical times?

Here's some critical times out there. Transition right now is not good. Okay, for whatever reason, we put a lot of money into transitioning from active duty or even out of reserves into the civilian world. And they're not getting resources and help that started in DOD, but now is being sort of transferred to the world, so to speak, and the VA. And that transition is tough because you go from a very regimented lifestyle. You have everything, especially if active duty, you know what you're going to do, you know where you're going. And especially in the last 25 years, the pace has been much quickened than any time in our history.

Normally we would send you for a year or except in World War II. You just went either died or won't as long as that took. Yeah, as long as it took. But we've sort of changed that up. Vietnam was a year. We've done others now deployment times are different. but we also have a smaller per size military than some of those times. So the repetitiveness of going was harder.

So you see that in the last years. And so getting out all of a sudden what I do in my life. And so then they have, and many of them at that point is the first time that they've had to deal with stresses in their marriage, stresses with their kids, finances, these kind of things. Those are all things that raise that stress indicator, that PTSD indicator. It just raises it up. to where it becomes harder to cope with. We've got to do a better job of giving them resources while they're in that last six months or so.

And if it's us being able to help in that, we've already talked to Pete, the Secretary of Defense and say, and we're going to have a meeting about that. It's who really needs to own this and how can we own it better? I think it's one issue. The other issue is the three to five years after that. What we have found, Cameron, this is a concern. Death by suicide among those who serve. shorter amounts of time.

So a two, four, six-year enlistment time, those shorter enlistment times are exponentially higher risk for death by suicide. Not the 20, 25-year guys. They, because I think, in my personal opinion that is, is when you come into the military, you go through basic, you go through your training, you're broken down. Okay, you become the soldier, the Marine, the Airmen, whatever. And then you do that and you're learning to adapt. to who you are in.

And then if you, all of a sudden, you've had experiences of deployment or you've had issues, and then all of a sudden that ends before you're able to process how to get better, then all of a sudden you're out in the world three to five years later, and some may be going good, and then all of a sudden it just crashes on you. So we've got to figure out a plan that's much better in that area. Also, half of those folks that are committing or going through death by suicide are not even being, they're not in our system. The VA system doesn't have them.

So we've got to figure out how we do that. I've taken a new approach. And the new approach is this is that VA can't work at all. Okay? We can't do everything, but we can do a lot more. But we've also got to take in nonprofits. We've got to take in some of the VSO work, the Veterans Service organization,

and say, how can we spread out our wings, so to speak, to let the VA help with grants and help with funding so that these nonprofits can reach people that we're not going to reach anyway, but I don't care. As long as they're getting the help they need, then that's what we need to do. I made, just recently made some,

a little bit of a stir in headlines in the cabinet room because I was asked by the president just the other day about suicide. He asked about this specific issue. And so I again talking, I said some of the things we're doing. And I said, Mr. President, I've talked to Bobby Kennedy and I've talked to some others. And we're working to expand the use of psychedelic in this as well.

I said it's not, you know, in my thing, it's not the cure-all. It's not a legalization. But if it helps a veteran, or helps anybody, for that matter, get to a place where they're open to the counseling, that intensive counseling. And we're seeing some studies right now

that are being done like at Emory University and other places in which, and even inside the VA, in which we're seeing a one-time treatment of a psychedelic, use of a psychedelic, and then a company with intense counseling take numbers that is a scale of this. And it goes from like 46,

which is really, really high, down to 19. And then they stay at the 20, normal levels on how to cope. But for years, we've been afraid to address that. Well, we're not going to be afraid to address that anymore. I'm not one. Like I said, this is not a legalization. Let's all go out and get high.

But is it a medicinal purpose? Is there something there that can help these guys? And so we're open to that. So for all of this, as a long answer, but I want everybody to understand, we all have a part here. And if you're in the military, or if you're not in the military,

and you know somebody who has been in and they're struggling, don't let it go. Be okay to ask a hard question. Be okay to be offended. I've been a chaplain. I've been on both end of this. So for me, I've actually had the phone calls and saying,

hey, I'm ready to end it. I've said, I'm sitting across the table just like this from me and you. And it's saying the same thing. And you see the holliness in their eyes. Because they've come to the point

if they're actually reaching out, many of them are actually reaching out from a point of, I don't know what else to say. Right. And so we've got to be willing to say, are you thinking about hurting yourself? And now they may get mad.

at you. That's okay. Yeah. But we got to be willing to. Yeah. It's, I don't know. I just, I want you to be successful. I want this, but I just know everybody says, it's almost like people say, oh, support the troops. It's just like, what does that mean? Are you supporting, or are you just saying that? You know what I mean? Because I mean, Biden himself said, yeah, we need to do more for our veterans, right? Everybody kind of says this. And we know, I just remember like that there's that picture of Bush on the plane hugging the service member. Do you remember that classic one? So people like they'll say the right stuff.

They'll say like, yeah, how are our veterans doing? Let's take care of them. But it almost feels like it's just words and it's like nothing ever happens. And that's I'm not, I didn't serve. So I don't know. But when you said I have got a lot of messages just like you said you sat across from somebody. And I had to ask, what should I tell you? these guys because I don't I'm a bow hunter. I don't know if somebody's you know going to kill themselves.

I don't know what to say and it's it's what I was told is like mostly you just need to buy them time. They're at a low spot. Check back in with them in five hours or in the morning and just get them because nobody stays in that low spot forever. You come out of it. But if that low spot is where guys make these decisions that they can't undo. And so it's like do they just need somebody to talk to? thinking a million different things right now, but you know, my son just got out and they still, you can't rely on anybody from the military to do this. So they check on each other. Right. That's the best talk. He'll get calls in the middle of the night and, you know, they'll just talk. So when I was thinking, when I was thinking that, I was thinking like, these guys just want somebody to talk to generally, whether they're a low spot or whatever.

And then when I think about, well, we heard, I heard these numbers, 400 and some thousand employees of the VA and 400 or something. thousand active so it's like there's almost like one employee for each each service member's like you could be in charge of one guy and just make sure that one person obviously some are janitor janers aren't calling people to do this but point is it's like if it's just somebody to talk to i think that would solve so many this this big suicide per day problem yeah it's just who do they talk to well the best thing is is anybody listening this podcast right now 388 8 8 8 hit 1 Okay, there's going to be somebody right there to talk to immediately. Okay.

Every time? Yeah, every time. Our crisis lines are open 24-7, 365. Yeah. Okay. They've got to be a part of, that's a part that is out there for them. So if you ever have it, just, you know, and it doesn't matter. Just they'll get them, veterinarian, they'll get them to where they need to go.

Okay. That's one tool to get talking. You've hit something, though, that opens up a broader question. And that is, you mentioned our employees, you mentioned how much money because we're, and this is something. and you made the comment, we want to help our, do anything we can't help our veterans.

Well, because that is a complex issue and because that is, you know, something's not able to put on a bullet point on a PowerPoint slide. You know, how do you do that?

The answer in Washington, especially in the last 10 years, has been to throw money and people at it. Okay, that's our answer. And I was part of Congress when some of this happened. Mission Act was passed

because of the wait time scandals and stuff where people were dying because it wasn't getting their colonoscaries and other things. things. In 10 years, the budget for the VA has increased almost well over $150 billion. And we've increased over hundreds of thousand employees. What we did, though, was just like anything else, it's like throwing everything into a room and just expecting it to be organized.

So there was no real proactivity to say, well, all these people actually touch a veteran, like you said. And that's one of the things we're going through right now. I'm taking a lot of heat because we're looking at reorganization. And what I'm looking at it from a reduction in force into saying, hey, we're going to move some people out. We don't need this many people because if you're not touching a veteran, you're not touching a disability claim or those kind of things, then what are you doing here? You know, you're great folks. We love you, but you can go work for somebody else.

We're just spending money that doesn't need you. We've got doctors and others who are doing part-time work in a clinic, like one day or four or five hours a week. when the rest of the time they're just moving paper. Well, I need you in the clinic. I need you there seeing guys and they come in. I need mental health counselors. I need more. So what we're trying to do is reorganize a workforce that has become bureaucratic.

I mean, we're the epitome of what a bureaucracy looks like. Right. And say, you know, in this grouping of, you know, numbers of people, who could we, you know, move back to the front lines? Who could we get more people, as you said, to talk to? Yeah. We have vet centers, which are not dissociated. with the hospitals. They're sort of on their own vet centers. That's exactly what people do. You got a great one up here in Salem. They go around and see folks. And they plan activities

for veterans to come into. It came out of the Vietnam War, basically. That's when the Vietnam veteran came back and they had nothing. Yeah. So from our perspective, it's not always a money and people problem if the same numbers are coming along. If you can get them in to see, you know, how do you make this difference? Let's get, for those who have actually reached out to come in to get a mental health appointment, how quickly can we get them into the sea of that mental health doctor. And this is not just a VA. And I want to make sure that everybody understands. The VA is often taken as a one-off by many who want to complain about government or complain about VA. Your local hospitals here have the same issues. Okay, they have doctors who don't show up

misdeployments. It's epidemic to our endemic, I'm sorry, into our society as far as health care as a whole. Veterans just get, the VA gets more scrutiny because it's a government an agent with the largest health care system. But I want everybody to understand that that is where we have. And the community care says that if we can't do it in a fast enough time, then we'll send you to somebody in the community who can and vice versa. If we can do it quicker, or you can choose to stay here. Yeah.

So that's for me is making sure that our budgets and our personnel align with the mission. And also keeping, again, look, I go back to Sean's podcast. I sat there. One of the first things he said, he said, I haven't been to the VA in 10 years. I have no intention of going back. I don't like them. Let's talk about it. So for two and a half hours, that's what we did.

Yeah. I've got to now get people back into that situation of saying, look, we're trying different things. We're bringing down wait times. We're making sure that bad people are not tolerated. That's one thing also from my perspective. If you're going to hurt one of my veterans, you're not going to work for me. I'll sit you in a closet and just let you stand there. But you're not going to, you know, if you're hurt, like not help them.

Yeah, or hurt them. You know, like, we've had, you know, unfortunate examples where they are, they don't treat people right. You know, they do those kind of things. Over time, you see, or they just sit around, they don't schedule appointments, they don't do those things. You would be amazed. So how do you find out that, though? Well, it's a management issue. And this is where we come in and I get reports every day of things that happen across our hospital systems and our others.

And what was amazing to me is when those were brought to me, I started asking the question because they'd always have an answer. Well, we're correcting this. You know, we changed policy. I started asking the question, what happened to this person? The individual involved here that you have now said, because you investigated it supposedly, and they did something wrong. What happened to them? Right.

And they looked at me like I was crazy. Yeah. They said, well, well, we haven't. I said, no, no, no. I want to know exactly what happened in this situation. Did you get rid of counsel? Oh, by the way, we've so forgotten how to do that. When you were working in public.

That's uncomfortable. Yeah. Oh, that means you have to have to be a manager. Yeah. Senior leadership is, unfortunately sometimes we've grown in government and other places, and you see it in companies. When senior leadership believes that it doesn't affect them anymore, then you lose it. And so for me, so we've went back and I've got back a report just the other day and I said,

no, this person goes in administrative leave right now. I said, this is not, they're not even going to be around people. Yeah. Is that frustrating? Yes, very. Because that should be done already. It's like, are these people, what are they being? paid for. This is their job. I was thinking about, you know, Sean's podcast and you just mentioned that,

but I was on the plane yesterday. And I don't want to have a million stories. Again, I wasn't a veteran, but I hear a lot of other stories, right? So everybody can have a story about bad experiences, the VA. And so I, you know, I know you hear those all day. I was on the plane yesterday. And I just like, you know veterans it's like sometimes this guy was beside me and he had a service dog and you don't you're not supposed to touch the dogs sometimes those guys don't want to be bothered you know it seemed pretty quiet they don't want to bother them or whatever so two hours from austin to Denver cool dog said uh yeah so it's i just knew it was a service dog so we're going to get off the plane and i said um i said hey brother i just want to tell you thank you thank you for your service

and you know the country appreciates what you've done for us and he's like oh thank you and you know it's uh sometimes even that's hard i remember one time i years ago this guy said oh you ignored a service member and at a show and i was just like hot i i don't know i'm so stressed out at those shows i didn't mean to but i thought about that i think about that all the time this is probably 10 years ago and how somebody expected me to acknowledge or say and I didn't and it's just like anyway I feel bad about that but it's always like I don't know it's tough sometimes so point is we're sitting there and the guy that beside me said um yeah I you know just just so you know you've been a big inspiration to me to uh you know after getting out there's ups and downs and exercising and things like

that. He goes, so yeah, I followed you. I didn't want to bother you or whatever. Super nice guy. And I just mentioned, I said, well, I'm having Doug Collins on my podcast tomorrow. Do you, you know, talking about Veterans Affairs? I said, what do you think? I mean, have you had any experiences?

And he said, it's kind of like reiterated a little bit what Sean said that he well, no, one thing was crazy to me, which I wanted to bring this up to you. But he went in, when I talk about, they want somebody to talk to, He went in and he didn't say he was suicidal.

He said he just wanted somebody to talk to. They locked him up. They took him four days. He was locked in back there. And he said, I just want to talk to somebody. And if that is the experience that happens, who would go back? You got locked up for four days. And he was just wanting to get some help.

And then he said, you know, the doctor's there. if you do talk to a doctor, it's like bottom of the barrel of doctors is not the best doctors out there. There's like you said sometimes they're doing one day. He says sometimes we're wearing sweats in there. And it's like it doesn't feel like we say we care about our veterans. It doesn't feel like it sometimes to those guys. And so he buys his own health coverage just like Sean does. I think he was Kaiser is what he said. And it's just because just to get helped us what he does. And so. when I, I just feel like your job is so, it would feel almost overwhelming

because it's been this issue for so long and now you're tasked with it. And now even if the numbers stay the same, they're like, oh, Doug's not doing his job. Nothing changed. So it feels like how do you tackle that? I know you need an elephant one bite at a time, but man.

So when you talk about these cuts and being more efficient, and I heard you on Sean talk about culture and things like this. How does it not feel overwhelming? Well, I don't look behind me. I think that's the biggest thing. I say I just get up every morning literally running, but also just move ahead.

And I think I wish, and I've told my chief of staff this the other day, I said, I wish I could just set everybody down in front of me. This is the hardest part of my job. I've always been, from my perspective, when I was pasturing, had a staff, and my Congress had a staff, legal. I've always led by, here's how, we do it. Here's how you want it. Here's the motivation. I want you to do this. You can get better

in helping them to get better. I find my greatest joy right now in helping others get to levels that they didn't think they could or succeed. How do you do that for 400,000 people? That's makes, it's why I'm having to use every tool I have. Part of that is, I'll use an example yesterday. I was just recently as a hospital. And believe me, I am the one they don't want to see right now because they've heard every bad thing. He's going to slash this. slash that. Yeah. And actually I'm the opposite.

I'm saying, give me what I can do to fix things. And we found things that we can fix immediately. And so they start saying, well, maybe this guy's a little bit different. I still got to prove it every day. It's like, you know, nobody cares, work hard. You know, it's got to get up and do it every day. Still have my T-shirt from eight years ago. Still wear it.

But they don't care because it's about them. And I understand that. Yeah. And so what we've got to continue to do here is show marked improvement. Let me say an example right now. The disability backlog claims. This is folks who are looking to get their disability issues resolved, okay, from hearing to whatever that may happen service-related. After COVID, it was spiked high because of, couldn't get doctors deployment stuff like that. When I walked back in, though, it was over 260,000 in this backlog

longer than it should have been there. Under the first drop administration, they had actually got it down to under 60,000. There's going to be always a flux right there. a little bit, 260,000. We've now, in just in 80-something days, I've been there, we've got it down about 40,000 from there. But I've taken my deputy, who's my second secretary, and I put him back over there to say, and we're using resources and money that we found from contract, wherever we can do it, to put overtime, and we're going to get that backlog down as soon as possible back to

hopefully as soon as we can to that pre-COVID days. That's going to free up benefits to come down on the other side, so people get better satisfaction. Let's take it to the health care side, which. you just mentioned the guy that you talked to. I've got to get our folks back to understanding that it's a, every visit counts. Most people don't know that the VA also runs the national cemeteries.

Willamette up here. Yeah. It's a beautiful cemetery. I was just there yesterday. And they have a saying in the cemetery group. It says, we have one chance to get it right. Yeah. I'm beginning to believe that that's going to become the model for the entire VA.

Not just the cemetery guys. But every one of you have one chance to make a difference in people's life. Yeah. And it's going to be that first time that they come in or that next time they come in and say, we want you to feel welcome. We want you to come in and we want you to listen. So in addition to doing this kind of stuff, podcasts, in addition to doing media, I'm going to as many hospitals and places that I can,

talking directly to our staff, talking directly to our leadership, saying I'm holding you accountable. Every leadership table that I have, I tell them, you are senior leadership act like it. Don't tell me what's wrong. Don't tell me where's that act like leaders. Because culture, as I said before, is not, we always just think culture is this thing.

But it actually comes in the bottom of the tube. It's not the start of the tube. It's the bottom. And so what I'm trying to do is say, leadership matters, excellence matters, doing the best you can matters. If you don't want to be here, go.

And we're going to get rid of good people. And we see this all the time at the VA. We see it in everywhere else as well. good people will not stay where bad things are tolerated. Right. And so that's been my emphasis is every opportunity I have is to emphasize this, veteran is first, not the VA. Veteran is first, not the VA.

You know what's amazing now? Is it within everything? You're starting to hear this from almost every time I have somebody come talking, we're putting veterans first. Well, good, because that's what I want you to hear, but also I want you to do it. Right, yeah. And so in that meet one of the last leadership meetings I had, while I had this one of the leaders in one of the departments, I'll keep them anonymous in the sense.

When I first got there, they looked at me and it was this scow. Okay, like, oh, God, here he is. Yeah. You know, you've seen those looks before. Yeah. And so we got into the meeting, and after the meeting, and we went through, I went through a lot of what I've, some of what I just said with you and then some other things we had, went through a little bit of tour in the hospital, and came back the end, and we were getting ready to leave. and this person come up to me and they said, I thank you for coming today.

I didn't really know if I wanted you to or not because I'd give up in this. I was tired of this. I was tired of what we were doing. And she said, and this is an employee. Yeah, an employee. And they said, I'm going to,

I'm ready to just get out and retire. But what you said inspired me to stay. And I just looked at them eye to eye and I said, stick with me for a little bit. Yeah. And if I can do that, I would love to do that with 470,000 employees or whatever we have in the next little bit.

And if we can do that, then the veteran becomes first. The job becomes a bigger. And they're wanting to get up and go into work. They're not wanting to go in and simply see ideas. I've told our employees and staff that nobody in this organization will get fired for failing. In fact, I encourage you to fail. Not in a sense of malicious, but if you fail. But you're doing something.

And don't be scared. We're a society chemist scared. Yeah. I mean, if I was, I mean, if I stopped every time I was scared, I'd, I would be, you know, back in Georgia probably just doing nothing. Yeah. You know, but that's what we got. So it's, and I know, and there are going to be comments on this, and I'm just going to address it now. And we talked about this other.

There'll be comments on this. Well, he didn't give specifics. He didn't give this. I'll ask you, come to sit my office with me a day. And I'll show you the things that I'm dealing with. Yeah. And I can give you specifics. And then I can also show you the things that I'm having to tear down first.

this is a remodel in many ways to get it back into the shape that it needs to be in, if it ever was, or into a new shape in which veterans come in, they understand that we're a healthcare system that strives for excellence. We understand that there's benefits that you've earned that we're going to get you an answer quickly on.

We're going to use AI. We're going to use everything we can to do it. And then if you actually want to take part and be buried in one of our cemeteries, your family is going to be taken care of to the utmost. And that's just, And I wish I could go just like that and snap my fingers and make it happen. But I've been home twice since January 2nd, dude, gangful.

Is it, are you out like going to VA hospitals and clinics and okay? Doing that, yeah, going all over that, but also in the office in D.C. I make this very clear. D.C. is not my home. Yeah. It's a place that I get to work. And my wife and I get to, we're not sure if we're experiencing our early honeymoon again, or we're experiencing what it's like to be empty nesters. But it's pretty fun.

Well, it's, you know, I know from managing people, not to your scale at all, but I can, when you were thinking, I was asking, like, where you've been and this and that and what you've been doing, just because when I was, I was superintendent of the construction crews, but a couple times I brought the GM out, and I just was saying, hey, we're down by City Hall, and it's like something about the paving, getting the road put back together once we were done. And I said, could you come out to the job

and I could just walk it with you? Well, just having the GM there, the guys were like, holy shit, Jeff, Jeff's here? And it like meant something. And it's just like, God, he cares. Yeah. You know, he cares about what we're doing. And that one visit lasted, that impact was for years,

you know, because, oh, he cares about what we're doing. So I was just curious, you know, having you out there and just caring. I hope it makes a difference. I hope it looks at me, and I make a joke sometimes that you see me in person and realize that, you know,

I shave my horns off. I'm not this thing that you see out there. Because I want them to see in, like in our friendship and others, I want them to see that I generally care. That this is not, I'm not building something here. I'm not going to go out and,

you know, this is something that my wife and I, after praying about it, we took this because we want to make a difference. We want to, this is an opportunity. opportunity in life to do something that's very special and very unique. I don't take a day of it for granted. I walk into those rooms now, which is very interesting. And as you saw earlier, I have people with me all the time now, which I never had before, really, but we won't cancel. I downplay it because these folks are the best that I have around me and I'm trying to, you know, hire more. But I never take for a minute to forget that I am somebody who is had the opportunities

that others just maybe not have had but to make a difference and leave it. I was asked a question by one of my first interviewers they came and sat in my office and they said

and he popped a question at the end sort of one of those off the cuff and they said well, you know Mr. Secretary, what would you like

to be remembered for when you're done? And you're some of those you know, you want to come up with this yeah, oh fantastic.

What's your legacy? Yeah, and I finally just and it just popped in my head and it's what I said and I've just sort of used it ever since

because it's the best I could go. I just want him say that he made a difference. Yeah. And he made a difference. And when we discussed that, I used some terms now. And some of the hospitals I went into and some of the employees and veterans in particular,

because I do these town halls with veterans when I'm in certain cities and stuff and I'll just take any question they have, which I think goes back to the transparency, the more I can be transparent. And I'll tell them, look, yeah, we screwed that one up. You know, to the person who's always you, that they shouldn't have been probably treated that way. There was something. So I say, and you've.

heard me already say it today they're my veterans they're my employees it's that ownership issue right and and for me um you're not going to scare them and you're not going to do those things because when i get the reports every day and you mentioned suicide earlier why this digs on me and digs on me is unfortunately we have people i read this and we have people who have come to the point in their life in which no other answer sufficed and they actually drove to the VA facility and took their own life. I have my police officers who actually we have police, of course, as you do at all hospital, who are getting there just in time as this is happening. And I see the tragedy in that. I've been, I know what war looks like. I've been in there. I know what death looks like. I've seen

this. And to see this in a sense that we have a society that for whatever reason, there's somebody who feels that somebody doesn't care, I want you to know that there are people who care. They are people who are out there and to be a part of that. And it breaks my heart when we don't. But I can't go back to the fact of anymore saying, look, I'm doing this a day at a time, a week at a time, and a month at a time, and putting into real place. Like my hospitals would say, you know, we have an issue here. And I say, why is that an issue?

They said, well, we always been told we couldn't. And I said, well, let's fix it. And we fix it. We move forward. So making those real changes, when I see my, I think it's going to be fortunate this way, when my employees in these hospitals and our clinics and our veterans, our benefits side and others they see that i'm making things better so that they can get their job done they're going to be much better at doing their job which then flows into our veterans as in their

experiences they walk through the door yeah yeah no it's that all sounds great it's uh it's uh yeah i don't know that when you talk about being so i don't want to say top heavy but you talked about cutting people oh yeah talked about you know so when i think about that many people and like you we mentioned culture. It's so hard, even just managing people. I remember the guys used to, you're supposed to stretch out before the work day, right?

And there'd be people who are intentional, and I was watching out the window and see them. They're intentional. They're doing what they're supposed to do. There's guys in the back walking with coffee. Yeah. Those guys drive me crazy. And it's like, or the excuses.

Like I'd always say, don't tell me how rough the water is. Just get the boat in. or it's just like trying to get that level of excellence that to get people to care, that's impossible for some people. But so when you talk about these cuts, like how do you make those cuts? How do you decide that? The managers decide? Who said, okay, I got a thousand people.

We're letting go. How does that happen? Well, the first thing is, is take it from a total perspective. By the way, it's sort of funny as you were saying that as a saying that came by an old pastor friend told me about it. The criticism is not a spiritual gift. Yeah, that's true. It's just one you've acquired. But the president came in.

He ran, if you remember, he ran on the border. He ran on economy, but he also ran on making government more efficient and smaller. So it shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody when he said, let's look at a reduction in force across government. Yeah. And so the target was set at about 15%. And it's a goal. I mean, we may or may not get there, but it's a 15%. But for an organization, my size, think about this.

if it was 15% and we did go the whole way, that's 80,000 employees. Yeah. That's bigger than most any business in this country. Yeah. Okay. That we're just looking at. So what we have divided it up into is our career people who've been with the VA for years. They've come up in the system.

They know the system, you know, which you have to have. We have also political people who have worked in other industries or in other health care who bring expertise to the table. We've also brought in some consultants to look at this. And then we just started mapping it out. But you've also got to understand where we want. were. When I walked into the place in early February, it took us a week and a half for me to get an actual chart on how many employees I had. Right. I could not, they could not just push a button and give me the 470,000 names. Yeah. That's how our bad our systems were. So we've had to now

piece this together. They were doing an organizational chart. They were trying to put everybody, you know, to say at least where they're siloed. Cam, they told me this, and I think this should probably changed and something needed. 978 people said they directly reported to me. Yeah. It's like, no, they don't directly report to me. This shows you structural problems. So when you start trying to put people in, we had, you know, over, one of our biggest

issues is between the field work, what we'll call it, and the central office where I'm at, there was a lot of, there's a lot of different things that go on. Some are needed. Some probably not so much. What's interesting is, is the minute we started talking about it, each of the agency heads and others were coming up with five or eight or 10 percent cuts pretty quick. And it's like, okay, if you can come up with five to eight percent cuts, one, why haven't you done it already? Yeah. And they'll say, well, Congress gave us the money and we just spent it.

Well, we've got a different attitude about that. So that's how we're going about it in a very methodical way. It's not a, in fact, there was some reporter that made this stupid comment. We're going to put 15 percent of doctors, 15 percent of nurses. They're not. They're just idiots. Yeah. And they're scaring people.

That's right. Because they don't like the president. And if you notice, it's always the president and Elon, you know, whatever. And they don't listen to what we're saying. And then so that's the way we're going about this. One of the things that also just drives me nuts is people in the media and also in the Hill saying, if you cut all this, then health care is going to suffer. And I ask them, you know, and I'll probably get to here pretty soon at some of these hearings, I'm going to say, how can you say that when I, as the secretary of VA who makes the decision, decisions, I don't even have that plan in front of me. How can you tell me with your great

political certainty that we're going to hurt people when you don't even know who we're cutting? And explain to me how, you know, some of the areas that we have in, that we're duplicative of and interior design, landscaping, some of the other supply for administrative offices and stuff like it. Explain to me how they're actually putting a hand on a patient who comes in a clinic. Right. How are they talking, as you said, to somebody at our vet. vet center who's just somebody needs somebody to talk to. Right.

How are they actually taking a disability claim and making sure the person gets paid? They're not. So explain to me in small words and big color crayons how this actually affects what you're saying. Right. You sold into a system that says the only way I can help a veteran is to say I'm for them and I'll spend money on you, buddy. Yeah.

And I'm a veteran. Okay. I'm going to still in. And I appreciate the service. I appreciate people saying, hey, I'm encouraging them on the other end. come and join me. Especially young people, we need you. But at the end of the day,

would I rather have somebody as a veteran tell me we're going to help me and give me a $20 benefit? Would I rather them take that $20 and say, let's get another person in here, and I'm using a metaphorical term, another doctor in here on this shift

so that I can see them at $5.30 because I can't get off work until five. Or can we do this as our women veterans who are one of our largest growing segments, that we'll have a women's clinic here where they can get mammographies and they can get their gynecological services. They can get this stuff here instead of having to drive further to get that. That's what's going to make a difference. And like I said, for all the folks who want to comment and say,

oh, he's not doing anything, I've had 80 days. Yeah. And like I said, I'll almost take any of them and say, come sit with me. Before, you. You know, it must be nice. Well, yeah, I mean, I saw, I did see an article about it covered your accomplishments and your first. I can't remember how many days it was, but, you know, the DEI stuff. Oh, yeah.

That was, I like to see that. But talk about some of the hate. You'd get some of the hate just from that, just from the posturing, you know, just like, oh, he's anti, whatever. They'll say. No, I'm a good workers. I mean, instead of dividing us, this is bringing us together. One of the more interesting ones, we put down. the flag.

There's a flag policy, and it became just, under the previous administration in particular, it became very divisive. Yeah. So I made a simple statement that said there's going to be two flags. You have the American flag and the POW flag. And then it's the service flags and the VA flags that only be firm. And that caused issues. Yeah.

But I'm sorry. When I was in Iraq or when I look at my uniform, I only see one flag. Yeah. And that's who we are. Yeah, they make issues out of non-issues. Yeah, so we talked about a lot of issues here, but one thing I was curious about, I did read suicide rates, how much they've went up,

like since the global war and terror, basically, since 9-11, the last 20 years compared to the 20 years previous. And four times higher. Yeah, that's my numbers. It had me thinking just because I know, you know, with my son being in, all the blasts they are around and the shooting, the explosions, and the brain injuries, it seems like brain injuries, the mental health part is a big part of why these numbers are going up. And you know how the NFL, and even college here, now they're practicing with the big helmets, right?

Because they're protecting those kids' brains. you get TBI, your brain's rotting, all these issues we talked about are getting worse and worse by the day. Is because of the different, well, there was no war before 9-11, but with the different fighting tactics, some more explosions,

the mortars, different things like that, some of the fire, the weapons that we use that cause a lot of damage. And these guys are, subjected to that so they're having more brain injuries. Are we looking at different in Vietnam? There wasn't stuff like that. So it's probably less brain injury than now because of implementing different weapons. Are we looking at protecting the guys and the brains that are subjected to that?

Yeah, I think this is where DOD and VA are where the, I call us twins, but we're fraternal twins. We do do different things in the sense of DOD has, uh, uh, has had its own issues over the years. I mean, if you look at early on in the GWAT, which I call the GWAT generation, which I include Desert Storm in that as well, but GWAT in particular, 2001 forward. I can remember, if you remember back in the early 2000s,

you know, the big issue was we had MRAPs, we had the Humvees that were not armored. You know, we were, it was just, you know, we didn't go into an asymmetrical warfare with asymmetrical equipment in a sense to prevent some of it. Vietnam probably, the big difference probably in a Vietnam era and this generation is there's a lot of the folks who received injuries in Vietnam or similar imagery in the current time. The current ones are living.

Many in the Vietnam era were dying because of just the difference in medical treatments and everything else. So I think DOD has got a lot to look at as they look forward on how they deal in training, how they deal with the mental aspect of an asymmetrical warfare, people that you go into a place and the warfighter that you're, against looks like everybody else in the city, so to speak. And that plays on you. I read many books and talked to many of our guys who went out and it plays on you over. I think the pace of our deployments, especially with using smaller, more specialized forces, our special forces across the spectrum are from a rangers to green brace to everybody else, the Marine Task Force, seals, everybody, there's a different level there that of going

and coming, going and coming. You also have it with the, then the general population that came out of this. What do you say? Does that help or hurt? It hurts. I think it hurts. I think about it.

Here's probably a good way. Maybe it puts it in perspective for people watching this who may not have served it, but they're a hunter. You're September, I watch you all the time, and you know, you're September, October,

you lose weight, you're tired, by October 15th, you're spent. Yep. Now think about you get 30 to, and I'll compress it into your term, 30 days, I'm going to put you out there and do it again.

Right. And then 30 days after, we'll put you out there. We're doing 90 days or six months and then the home six months and do it again. Yeah. Most people don't realize that actual involvement in Afghanistan or Iraq, actual bodies in there, was less than 2% of our population. Less than. 2% of our entire population.

We only about a million or 2 million actually were there. Right. So when you think about that term, you're using, you know, everybody talks about it. but it was really a smaller group of people. So not to get sidetracked, but that is an issue of how, with what they were seeing, with the explosions,

with the other amputees, a lot of other things, that mental aspect. More opportunity to be injured. And so I think, you know, war is going to be war. Yeah.

And so this is where DOD and us have to work together on that transitioning piece that I talked about earlier. Giving a warm handoff is probably a one way to put this. We know that some are coming out with some issues

that we, that we may need to watch, it may not be manifest because right now the adrenaline's pumping, they're in the military, they're in there, but then when they start getting out, then how do we do that? That's where the, in fact, Secretary and I are,

Pete and I are going to be meeting within the next week or so, and that's one of the issues that we're going to talk about is how do we do this and how do we look at the differences? Vietnam veterans changed the VA in the 70s. They came home and found a VA

that basically was not functioning in any form that helped them. They had mental health crisis. They had physical crisis. They, in the, you know, the prosthetics, everything just wasn't working. They in help. That's why we have vet centers across this country that are a part of us. But it also is why the VA began to change how it does our hospitals and our mental health other issues.

I think this generation is going to be this is a similar change agent in others because for right now, many of them, you know, as we've said before, they'll buy private insurance. So they'll do other things. well, there's going to come a time when they're either not working or others that they're going to depend more on VA for this because that'll be there for them. Right. So like it evolved with the Vietnam. It did. I think you're going to see it more. But you also got to be ready for mental health.

And this is the problem. Anybody out there who wants to help, it's not just the VA. In our county, in our regular hospital systems, our private hospitals and all, they have a similar issue. Psychiatrists, counselors, mental health worker. And see, I'm also more for our clinical counselors and others and social workers all have to work together. But there's a shortage of those. And I have to also say that, especially with doctors and some of the others, I can bring them at a certain level. But out here in the private and public, they can bring them in at such a higher level.

So it makes it harder to recruit sometimes. Well, because of money or what? Money. A lot of it's money. There's several hundred thousand dollars differences in some of the specialies. Yeah. So if we talk about we have this money budgeted, maybe with cutting these people, maybe there's more money to allocate. There is that, and I also need Congress to actually look at the caps. I need them to actually look at the possibility of raising caps. There's a federal cap standard with some of this that we have to look at for some of our doctors that keep us from being able to do some of the things like that.

If members of Congress really want to be helpful there, that's something that they could help me with. It's figure out a way to do that. And I've heard this from VHA leadership. I've heard it from doctors. and so that it does help. Because we always see the doctors already. The VA is one of the largest training grounds for baby docs in this country. We see, I've heard this large percentages of all baby docs who come out have done some kind of a tour at the VA. But most of them, of course, don't come back to us.

Why is that? It's because we've not been where we need to be. And that's what I want to make it clear by, you know, if I get the privilege of staying here for the full term or whatever, I want it to be when at the end, these folks are saying, hey, I like my tour to VA. I'm going to come back and help veterans. I'm going to come back and be part of cutting edge technology and research and training. And we're going to go to an efficient system.

It has good computer systems. It has the stuff that we need. That's what I want them to be a part of. So if you have the most baby docs coming through, it's like just retaining that talent. Like let's just keep the best. Yeah, so that we can compete. A lot of them are not going to stay because, again, they're going to go to other places and that's fine. Yeah.

But at least it was sort of funny when I'm. I took the VA job, at least two of my doctors, all said that they had either worked with the VA or coming through the VA, and they said, what a mess. You know, this is what we're thinking about. Right, yeah. I know, that's what you keep hearing. I was going to say something about the deployment, because I just know, you talked about the frequency of it, you know as well as I do, those guys, you talked about the Rangers, the Green

Berets, the SEALs, they want to be deployed. You can't send them over there enough. I don't know for those guys. So I get it, but it's in some ways, I know how the training goes. So we're essentially turning them into fighting machines. You're changing somebody, especially when it's a young man that might be, you know, 18, 20 years old.

That's such a developmental time of their life. So we're turning them into this thing that we need to kill bad guys. That's what they want to do. That's all they want to do. Send us over there. We want to do our job. Then when it's over, they've been the tip of the spear. They're coming out and they're like, it's hard to get a good job at that level with that intensity.

It's like you're supposed to be at Home Depot as a security guy. You know, and you were like the baddest, one of the baddest people walking the earth and you felt like that. And you're around other men like that. And all of a sudden you're around not that. That is hard. Yep. That's what we've got to provide opportunities. This is where our nonprofit community and our nonprofit world is something that I, as a secretary, I'm embracing.

I know in the past that's not been embraced by some secretaries. And let me explain. There's two types that you have our VSOs, which are traditional veteran service organizations, and they're good folks, America Legion, VFW, PAV, all those, polite paralyzed veterans, disabled veterans of America, DAV. And they all have, they're more into their all. pattern that they have. But now we also have what I call the 9-11 nonprofits who've come up, Wounded Warrior Project. There's a lot of others out there. And I don't let anybody be offended.

I'd name them all, but they're all there. Rangers lead the way fund. Rangers lead the way fun. There you go. There's all kinds. You know, and, you know, this is a, what we've got to do is I'm encouraging all of these to be a part of this. There's one, several that do this. And one is Boulder Crest, there's, it works, but there's also many others that take, think about it and, you know, think about how many people have overcome adversity. And I remember reading your first book and we always have overburstly who have used, that adversity became the fuel to for greatness. And so many times you also take these same guys and gals who come out of this stress of being the top and then everybody wants to treat them as if they're broken.

Okay? Yes, they've got issues. Yes, they're broken in many places. But it doesn't mean that you keep them there. And we've got to develop a society that helps them see that they're not done, that there's opportunity that comes out of crisis, that there's opportunity to do great things. And you've seen that in so many of the opportunity, you know, from Jocko on down. I mean, people just take, that have been in very stressful situations, who've now turned that into, how do I help others or how to build a business?

How do I grow, you know, people? Not everybody's going to do that. But if we have opportunities for them to find a life of contentment, that's the key for all of us. And contentment is not necessarily. And some people say, well, I can't be content. You want me to sit on the couch and do nothing? No, no, no, no. Right.

Go run a marathon. Go lift weights. go do whatever, but be contenting it. Feel good about where you're at. Yeah, feel good where you are. And I think those are the kind of conversations that from a VA perspective or just a veteran talking to another veterans and others is to find their place in life that you come off this.

Find the people you got touch points on. You have them, I have them. You know, that phone number that you're going to call at some point and you know you can say anything. Yeah. And they're not going to care. And at the end, they may look at the time to you. And you may have shared something that you was just wanting, and they'll say, okay, you're an idiot. But that's that they have that right.

They've earned that right in your life. Everybody's going to have those people. But then there's also some people that it's okay to be challenged. It's okay to say, you know, yes, you know, you're having anger issues. Yes, you're having, you know, these thoughts and dream and nightmares that are keeping up. How do we take that and learn to cope those and then prepare for excellence? How do we then take those and then go out into an excellence? An excellence may be that you're getting along with your spouse,

that your kids now know who you are, and that you're not looking to harm yourself. That could be the greatest contentment they find. Yeah. But we've got to use every tool in our toolbox. And I'm not willing as VA Secretary to allow any opportunity that we can partner with anybody that is the competent in helping our veteran get there because of what you said is so true.

I can't replicate war in the sense for the adrenaline rush and everything else. Like I said, I've read a lot of the books by some of these guys, and they all talk about, you know, that's adrenaline. That's why they go out and, you know, skydive. That's why they go out and do high-risk sports because they're trying to sort of in many ways try to replicate that experience. That's not real life in the sense of you and I every day. We get it in different ways.

You get it from hunting. I get it from hunting or getting from fishing or just get it from, you know, going and riding a bike. You've got to find that way that cycles that energy back into positive. And for too many of them, they think they're on their own. And this is probably the biggest thing for the veteran. And I want you to know is you don't have to come to the VA. Would we love to, you've earned the benefit?

Come on. But when you get here, we're going to make it as easy as possible, simple as possible to get what you've already earned. And too often we've made it seem like an exclusive club, in a sense, that you've got to go through five million sets of paperwork, all these things. I've told all of our agencies so far, I said, I use this proverbial 10 sheets of paper. I said, if it takes 10 sheets of paper right now to get somebody in the system, can we do it with five?

Right. Or three. Yeah. And that just, it's just a mental thing. Yeah. It's just, I don't know. It's a pain. People aren't going to do it.

I don't want to do it. It's what I think, what I think kind of gets lost in the shuffle too is we talk about these guys who've been in the military. They've been trained at the highest level. And then they come out and then like I mentioned the Home Depot security job. But that's just like an arbitrary example. The point is they could do any job. I think those guys, the where they're trained, the teamwork, the attention to detail, the leadership, the serving a purpose greater than yourselves, they could do any fucking job out there.

Exactly. Just let's give them the chance. And it's like, or help them seek out those opportunities because I just know, you know, we talked about the stressful situation of war and things like that, but I know when my son, he works where I worked for 26 years, he got a job there on a construction crew. He just wanted a regular job. And in the interview, they were like,

could you tell us about a stressful situation you've been in? And he was just like kind of smiling to himself because they're used to like the regular stressful situation about a regular person with a regular life. Yeah. You know, you ran out of gas on the freeway type. Yeah, the dog ran away this morning. you had your kids.

And so Tanner was thinking to himself, just kind of smiling like, you'd no idea. But the point is, it's like that prepares them for regular, to excel at regular life and at a regular job. And he is excelling. He's doing amazing. And it's from the skill sets that he learned in the military. So these guys who have been deployed and they've been in for years, they're the best employee you're going to get as a private position.

or a private company. And so just reinforcing that, making sure the veterans know that, and just keeping that, you know, we give them this edge to be the tip of the spear, stay there. You deserve it.

You have these abilities, you have these skills, these talents, just getting that message out and getting them to believe that and getting people to give them opportunity, which even, you know, where I worked, we had veterans preference. So they're doing a better job

of let's reward these guys for serving our country. They're doing a better job of that. Yeah, I think, but also at the same time, and I think one of the things is very good, but also at the same time, let's make sure that we're still keeping it out in front of them. And I hear this from veterans all the time. And this says, don't treat me if I'm different.

Treat me with what I can do. And unfortunately, it gets reinforced sometimes when we say, we're going to do everything we can or do those. It's, okay, we're going to set you over here because we really don't know what to do with you, but we're going to make you feel good about it. They don't want to be feel good. They want to make a difference.

They could see tangible evidence. I got it this morning. I did this op. We accomplished this mission. I came back that night. We do it all again tomorrow. And so many times they don't feel like they're finding that place. And that's why we have career counseling.

That's why we have, you know, things that we can help with in the VA for that process. And to get their educational benefits, use those educational benefits. We're trying everything we can to make that easier for them to get that money, get it into schooling if they want to go to school, or if they want to go back home and work on construction projects. They want to, that's good money. Cam, you and I are very similar age. We've lost the ability to realize that all work is valuable.

Mm-hmm. That all work is good. Yeah. You use your hands. You use your, I'm not a plumber, but, you know, I'd pay whatever it takes when my plumbing backs up in my house. I can build wood. I can do stuff.

But I value what a carpenter can do. Yeah. And we've gotten away from that. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I love celebrating the blue collar working class. I mean, it's the same guys that join the military. Yep, sure is. Those are the guys.

That's the fabric of our country. That's what keeps cars running. That's what keeps the roads open. That keeps your plumbing flowing. It's like, those are the guys. Same people. So, yeah, let's celebrate that because they deserve it. They're the ones out there right now in the ditch, putting waterline in.

Yep. We need those guys. But it's like, I don't know, I think, you know, I think being on Trump's staff or in his administration, it's risky. He, like, cuts fires a lot of people. A lot of times like, are you feeling pretty confident that you're going to make the four years and you're going to make all these differences? I think so. I think that's it. And we've talked a lot.

Look, I will say this is everything. I keep my head down and do my job. And I think that's the only way to do this. you, sometimes, you know, there'll be plenty of people out there want to trip you up. For me, it's a pretty simple, straightforward progress. We're one of the few organizations in government, especially at that level, if we talk about agencies, that actually have day-to-day impact with citizens' lives. Because think about it.

How many others are actually transactional on a, on a micro level with, except maybe the IRS, yeah, with a person's life in that way? with 170 hospitals, with 1,200 clinics, with administration with our benefits, and then our cemeteries, and all of this going into that structure, we can move forward, and there's always going to be things that are not right

and we work forward. So the president, we're doing what he wants us to, is to fight for our veterans. He wants us to fight against the crud that we've seen out there in these agencies, and especially ours, to say, what can we do better? and for me, I just keep up getting there today.

And, you know, that's what it works. It's a, that sounds great. As we know, like people love measurables and everybody, I almost even hate when they talk about, you know, 22 suicides a day and this and that. It's like, just it's like, it's a life and now it's just a number and a stat. I know we're addicted to measurables. How many followers? How many likes?

How many suicides? It's like it gets, it's, it, we're inundated by it. I get that, but I almost hate that part of it. But it's like it feels to me like you're going to be judged on one thing that. Oh, yeah, measurable is all it is. I recognize it. If Trump is sitting in a meeting and I saw that clip you're talking about and he said, how's a suicide number.

So you're going to be judged on that, which is that fit, that's maybe not fair. It's also like pretty abrupt, like just, because I think. about men, these are men and women and mostly men, you know, that's, that's who's killing themselves. But I've seen it's like some, some stats say 40 to 44 a day. Yeah. And then some say 17 a day. It depends on what you look up. But I was just thinking like for your, we talked about legacy, for your legacy to me, it's like if you could help five people, if you think about it, five different people a day. So it's like, could they call and talk? I was thinking about could they call and get help if they needed? I hope so because I know when I owe the IRS money,

I hear about it. Right. So it's like, do we care about money more than we care about these men who sacrificed for our country? Because if we're going to call because we owe the government money, it seems like they should be calling in talking to us if we're in danger. But if you just, if you could help five, five men or women a day, it's 1,800 people saving a year and that for four years, that'd be 7,000. To me, it's like if you have any legacy, if you knock that number down, you could help five more people to feel like they have no options. And that's going to be 7,000 lives. If you survive Trump's four-year appointment here, which I believe in you. It's, I believe in you because you seem like you care and you're going to do your your job. But I mean, that would be,

would there be anything more beautiful than that? No, one list. You know, just we take it. Is it dawning? think about it. Mm-hmm. Because that number stay between, and again, the 40 number you talk about is because you have in some areas, there's some, at least some studies, studies and others that say that coroners report or fill it, they don't want to, there's still a stigma to suicide. For suicide. And so they don't put it on the death certificate, especially in rural areas and places like

that, so they could be. And so, yeah, does it keep me up at night? Yeah, because it's been between 6,500, and this is the numbers we have, 6,500 and 6,900 since 2008, every year. Mm-hmm. Half of these folks we don't even have contact with. So think about this. In some ways, this number is being judged on a measurable that I don't even have contact with.

So how do I get contact with? It'd be a lot saying, well, Cam, you've not killed a deer in Georgia. Yeah. You know, well, I haven't hunted in Georgia. Well, does that mean that, you know, you should have got on a plane and come to Georgia to kill a deer? We've got to be honest in our assessment. So, yes, it keeps me up. Yes, if this numbers aren't moving quickly.

But I think there's going to become a, if I can create a culture change that allows these folks to say there's opportunity, there's ways that we can see that it's beyond a VA problem. It's a societal problem. It is something that, you know, veterans are not the only ones committing suicide. No, they're a kind of a small percentage of every day. I looked at that too because I was like, that many people are killing themselves every day. Yeah. That's staggering. Horrific.

Yeah, it is. And so I just look at it as saying, what can we do to offer every opportunity that we can to people, to find hope, to encourage others, to reach out to each other, you know, to be that neighbor that we've forgotten, so to speak, and say, you know, I'm willing to invest in other people's lives other than my own. And that starts with us. And it's in the people that we know, are we touching them in the right way? Are we getting them the information? If they've actually came to us and won't that talk someone to talk to, are we making sure that every door? is open for them. And then use anybody else we can to reach these folks that we don't even know about.

And so that's something I really want people to take away from is that about half of these folks we do not know as far as the system. Now, DOD does. But remember, once you leave DOD, your son knows this. They've not called. Yeah. It's not their job anymore. Right.

But also then you say, well, that's the VA's job. Well, okay, we're not mandatory VA. You know, you can't. And some people say, well, everybody's got to go to the VA. No, they don't. It's probably not a good idea. So how do we then, you know, work the transition so that they realize that resources are out there, whether they're from government or not from government? So, yeah, that's a big part of what plays on my mind every day. It's a big thing that I call my chief about and I say, you know, even as a day, I said, we're not doing it quick enough.

And he'll sit back and say, here's what we got on thing, boss. You know, we're working this through. So it's methodical. It's working. We're seeing it work in some way. ways and then we'll just leave the picture as we go forward and take it. Hopefully is going where we need it to go, using the best we have. Yeah.

What gives you hope? I think there was an old saying that if you were drafting two people and they both could run to first base the same speed, one with perfect form, one with imperfect form. Which one would you draft? And the answer, what are you thinking? And if they got there at the same time, I really don't care. I'd do the imperfect. Imperfect. Because when I train them to be working, they get there faster.

There you go. So I look at the VA some ways in like that that we've had, that we over the years have endured the wrath, so to speak, of politicians, the public and veterans, sometimes deservedly. A lot of times not. We've adapted that mentality sometimes that, well, and I say this lovingly, that we're the VA. nobody's going to appreciate what we do. I want my employees, and I want the veterans out there to know that I'm looking for us to no longer are we going to be the whipping post. I want them to look out, and I see it in their eyes when they hear that we've changed something that was maybe very small to them.

It may be a credentialing issue. It may be some. It was small to the world, but it was very big to them. And they said, hey, this guy's actually listening to what we said. When I see that kind of move, that gives us. me hope that we have people willing to come in. When I made mention of the psychedelics in the cabinet room the other day, it's amazing how all of a sudden people who've been looking at that issue for years and trying to get somebody to listen have all of a sudden lit up a lot of social

media and lit it up and said, they actually hurt us. And again, it's not a solution to everybody. But if it's a solution that works, then let's at least offer it. So that's what gives me hope. It gives me hope every day that we can do something. something that makes a difference. I've seen it happen when I was in Congress. I used to work with people that we had disagree on the color of the sky, but yet we found areas that we could work on. It said it made lives differently. And I think that's what gives me hope every day is looking into the faces of people that I served with and then people that I served with now in the VA to say we can make a difference. Where does your family fit in there as far as like

making them proud, doing your best for them. Yeah. One, I think Lisa and I have taken this own as a partnership. And it's been, I'll have to say, it's probably harder on her. Because every day I get to go up and I get picked up and I go to work and I come back home 12 hours later. And she's moved to D.C. with me, which means the world to me. And she still does, she does some travel stuff.

She's a retired teacher. I mean, she's earned every bit of her retirement, 31 years in a classroom. Wow. And, what grade did she teach? She taught everything from kindergarten to fifth grade. Okay. Mainly fifth toward the end, fourth and fifth. And so I've been through that system.

So anybody wants to talk about education. I've lived that one. You know, how do you know about education? Well, I sleep with one every night. You know, I sleep with an educator every night. We've been married 36 years. She's my best friend. And she's come with me.

And when she's apart, we're apart now for about in this, we just at a time where she was doing some travel and I was doing travel. So we're about two weeks. We're going to be apart. And it's like we talk and text. And if we don't get the chance to text, your dog is like our anxiety rises a little bit. She's that person that grounds me.

And she's proud. I think she sees this as an opportunity, even though it uprooted our life again and changed a great deal. The kids, I have mine are now 26 through 33. And I think they see dad out there trying. I think they see dad out there, you know, trying to make a difference in life. I have a daughter.

I think you and I've talked about this before. My daughter has spinal bifida. She's 33. She's in a wheelchair. And that's because she can't walk. And she works every day. She gets up in the morning, five days a week, gets herself in, gets herself ready.

She calls her bus. The bus comes, takes her to the hospital where she works and brings her home in the evenings. And always has a good word. She'll text me, Daddy, I love you, doing the work. But it also gave me a sense of working with these veterans, especially those who are disabled,

those who have lost limbs, those have are struggling in a different way. And it also gave me a different perspective on people in life. I was that same sort of guy growing up. I didn't deal with people in wheelchair. I didn't, you know, these, you know, quote, different individuals. And then here comes Jordan. And, you know, it makes a difference in how you see people.

So for me, the kids, I think, are proud. I think of what they do. I try to make them proud. At the end of the day, I go home to them, you know, and my daughter-in-laws, and one-daughter-in-law now and one-dollar-to-be. And, you know, that's all we can do. And they've been very supportive in helping as we go forward because service is, about like anything, it's the family aspect to it.

And is it hard. Yeah, it is. They don't like to see Dad get criticized, you know, and made fun of. And it hurts on them, but they also know who I am. And they move forward with that. So it's been good. I miss home. occasionally because at least in Congress I used to go home most every weekend don't do that now

really and my dad's and I think my dad my dad's 86 and he lives about 100 yards when I'm at home and we used to do breakfast every Saturday and Sunday and I don't get to do that every week now and that's hard because I know I know those days are numbered right you know in a long period of life hopefully you know many years later but but he's still the old trooper oh man that yeah that I would like to sit in on that breakfast oh it's fun yeah it's fun I mean just Just anybody from Georgia tells good stories, got a good accent. I mean, I love, you know, Waddell, Luke, Luke Bryan.

Oh, yeah. You know, those Georgia guys, Al Dean, those are some of my favorite people. Yeah. We got together. Yes, Waddell and Luke, we had stuff with Wadell now. We talk, you know, and we just get talking about stuff. And somebody was who, I had my producer one day I was doing a show. And then they said, what are we all talking about?

They said, because we just started talking about being in country and being, you know, I was like, what are you talking about? Yeah. He was from New Jersey. He had no idea. Oh, of course. Yeah, that's a different world for the... Oh, yeah. Think about an old state trooper from the 60s in Georgia. I know.

That's what I say. I want to go to breakfast for you guys. Oh, you got to come. You got to come because he can tell some stories. I bet. NASCAR basically grew up and where I'm from. You know, the Elliot's and all those. You want to hear a funny one?

Yeah. Dad tells us one all the time. He got to Gainesville in this early 60s. And so it was still a little wild up in the north mountains up there. And so he knew some of the sheriff's deputy. deputies from, had been there for 20, 30 years who had been going for, you know, some of the 50s. And he said there was this one, they had the bootleggers who would get the stuff and run it to Atlanta. Well, they all knew each other.

And then one day, the sheriff deputy told the store that they knew this old boy was coming through. He was loaded up. And he comes through and they were waiting on him. They get in a chase. And that's what they wanted to do. The chase. Yeah. Well, the guy got off from in the sheriff's deputy's car, lost it.

One of the turners, couldn't stay with him. So he lost him. A few days later, they saw each other. in town. And the guy come up to the deputy and he said, couldn't hang another day, huh? And he said, and the deputy said, nah. And he pointed over to his patrol car. And he said, yeah, them tires couldn't do it.

And they were bald tires. They got slick. Yeah. And he said, well, I'll see you around. On the weekend, the whole story on a Sunday morning, the deputy gets up and walks out on front porch and there were four brand new tires that's that I love that reminded me when you're telling that it's kind of like the Wiley coyote or roadrunner or whatever how they'd kind of punch it every day yeah let's get after it I guess yeah that's that's hilarious yeah I would love to hear those

stories I mean I just love talking to old guys yeah I do too I mean wisdom wisdom and stories and seen so much and plus somebody who can tell a good story I just trust yeah I just trust it's like I don't know. If you can tell a good story, it's like, because I think somebody who's fake, they tell these kind of fake stories, kind of spice. It's like, is this, this doesn't feel right. But like an old North Georgia trooper, that story's going to be good one. Well, you know, we talked about talking.

You talk about veterans. And so, you know, and I look around, you got me back out in the woods. I mean, I had hunted some and fish someone when I was growing up, but you, you know, not only getting better shape, but also. taking of a bow, which I'd never done, and getting out in the woods and just going and sitting and being around other folks who are out there, think about that with our veterans. You know, if they're out there and they don't have a purpose, and they're sort of floundy, the job is they do the job.

But, you know, go pick up a bow and just arrows through a bow. Yeah, I know. And just that. Just that right. Or get a chance to go hunt with somebody and come back at night and sit around a campfire or sit at a table and just start talking. If we can get more of our guys to do that, it doesn't have to be a VA program, so to speak.

But I'm encouraging anybody out there. If you've got a friend and you're a hunter, take a friend. And it may be a veteran or someone that you may not even know real well, but say, hey, have you ever went fishing? You know, just something simple. Yeah. But it gets them out there. You know, I mean, how many times what you thought about it,

sitting in a boat or sitting on a dock with, you know, cold Coke or whatever you want and throwing a line out there and just sitting there talking. That's therapy. That's all, me and my buddy Roy, that's all we'd do. We'd be out there on the mountain. Yep. Talking about life.

And it's like there's, there's, you never feel more content. And we talked about being content. That's contentment. It is. It's just like you're in the mountains, in nature, and doing what humans do,

communicating. Isn't it sort of, you know, it goes to a deeper meaning of faith and from my perspective, God understands that. He never meant for us to be solitary people. We were always communal, whether it was with him or with each other.

And when people sense that and you get that real purpose, remember those that are struggling, what's the one thing that you hear from most people are struggling? Nobody understands. They feel alone. Yeah.

And this is what we got to, so there's so many ways it's not just money and people. And we come to a society that thinks that, oh, I can solve it by buying something. No. Conversation costs nothing. It's no different than parenting.

You can buy your kids a present or you can just spend time with them. Oh, yeah. You know, what do they want more? They just want to be around you. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's, it is, it's like these veterans do feel alone and then feel desperate. So yeah, somehow, and I don't know, I mean, it, you can't do it at a level of 400,000

people. But if you could get those, who have. whoever the government is paying to care about veterans, just do your job. Just care. Just do what you're supposed to do. And that'd be good. But yeah, this has been awesome.

So like these guys usually normally they're inappropriate questions. Hopefully they're not today. But let's see if sometimes they have a different perspective sometimes. So let's hear it. What do you guys got? All right. Okay. So obviously you guys talked a lot about suicide

and how, you know, the suicide and the trauma is kind of the face of how our veterans are looked at, and it obviously needs to be talked about, but how do we also go from that to changing the face of our veterans to strength, courage, and honor? I think reminding them of the oath, and I think that's what we talked about earlier, is taking, instead of somebody looking at somebody who has a disability or has a broken, we've got to get back to understanding that that's just a phase, and then part of their goal. going through that they're needing to be reminded of where they were. You know, would we have said the same thing about these folks, you know, say six years earlier,

so to speak, and reminding them that that struggle has presented opportunities in their life? We've also got as a society, and I think one of the things, you know, providing that back is something I'll go back with my daughter. And if Jordan was here, Jordan would roll in here. She'd give you a big hug. She'd smile and she would just love it to death. But yet, if I went with Jordan. to a mall or a store.

People would look at Jordan and they would want to open the door. They would want to do something for her. They'd feel sorry for her. Right. Now, if I was walking down the same mall with Jordan and I just went up to a bench and sat down and said, you know, I'm not feeling good day. Something's wrong with my mind. My mind's broken.

If anybody's on that bench, they're going to walk away. We've got to get to a society that says, let's value people for being people. They're value for just who they are. and then remind them of where they have come from because most of these veterans, think about it. All of these veterans have overcome something that a lot of people said they couldn't do. They made it through boot camp.

They made it through a war zone. They made it through others. They're back home. They have inside them the ability if we allow them to tap into that ability and remind them that this is the goodness and greatness that they have in them. So I think that's the biggest issue we have.

So your answer is to remind them? Yeah. To remind them. Think about it. Yeah. Again, Think about some of the operators who've done amazing things in the field. And then several years later, all of a sudden they're sitting at a bar,

they're sitting at a home and they're sitting somewhere, and they feel like they have accomplished nothing. Right. I can't you have, you know, hey, there's a reminder here. You do good things. You know, there's stuff that haunt you, and I understand that. Let's talk about those maybe. But we've got to remind you of the greatness that you've already shown.

And how are you going to do that? I think it's just going back, and this is where a lot of the good counselors can do it. They don't have to be a veteran. But a lot of times the veteran actually is a big issue here is to say, hey, buddy, you remember when we went, you know, that was a heck of a mess right there. But we got out of it. We can get out of this too. Yeah. And I think that's, so if I can be any other vessel is to remind everybody you play a part.

I believe God has given us the ability to not be a river, is to be a river, not a lake. a lake holds all the experiences we had and we take them for ourselves good and bad. I did this and see how good. But we're to be more of a river that just continues. What we have passes to the next person as well, that we went through things. This is actually scriptural. We went through things that we may be a help to others. Right.

And when we understand that, take our different skills, take our sets to lift people up. Yeah, I was thinking about Jordan, too. She might have skills and attributes and talents because of her. condition and that shows and that's she's able to share those with others so yeah you might see it as a disability it might be it might be an ability and greater ability in some other ways she wanted to we never said she couldn't do anything okay so so when she went through high school you know elementary school high school and everything she wanted to cheer lead i was pushing her out there on you know i had my two boys i coach football but i was pushing her on the field

you know they go out and do their cheer i pushed her on the field i pushed her back she wanted to be a manager one year I'll never forget though she wanted to be a manager for the wrestling team okay I could have killed the wrestling coach at this point I had everything going on and so what he actually got was another adult coach supervisor I never wrestled but it was like but I had to go with her because get her on the bus and everything else but they loved her the kids loved the boys loved her and so she would sit on the sidelines the mat and they were wrestling and we went to this tournament one day this talks about attitude we went to this tournament and And it's one of the all-day tournaments for wrestling, if you've ever been around it.

It's just, it's great. I love it with the kids. So one of our kids on the team that she was from the high school, we were at North Hall, he got up there. And he was new to wrestling with a big, lumbery 13-year-old, you know, just a funny kid. He gets out there, well, he's up against probably the one of the better kids in the state at that age. Yeah. So he gets out there and Jordan's saying, you know, turn this, our kid gets up there.

I mean, like, move, left, move, right. I mean, it's over. Yeah. This guy comes back over. The kid comes back over. He's demoralized. And he sits a little bit down from where Jordan's at. And he had his back turn to her.

And Jordan goes over and lays her hand on the guy and says, I am so proud of you. Well, this is a typical 13-year-old says somebody's making fun of him. Right. And he turns around like this. And he sees it's her. And he says, I just want you. And she just said, and she said, she said, I just want you to know. that you tried your best, and I am so proud of you.

You'll get it next time. And you ought to see in his face go from disappointment, embarrassment, and mad because you help someone to, okay. Yeah. I don't have that attribute. No, most people don't. Guys, we'd have said, God, you got your rear kicked on that one. But that's why we have people to lift us up.

And it goes back to your question. How do we remind him that strange? This was the same kid who actually had had some successes. he was growing, but he wasn't there yet. Yeah. Same thing is true with adults. We forget adults still have a lot of kid in us. We still want to be longing.

We still want to be accepted. We don't want to not fit in. Rare are the people who dress completely different than anybody else in them all, so to speak. Yeah. No, I think your daughter has a gift. She's been blessed with a gift. It's like, yes, a disability, but also a special gift.

But I just think that this is one reason why these podcasts are so good but your your example and um how you've been a dad to jordan and your other kids but it's like if you can't respect that if people can't listen to this and and hear your story and and respect doug collins for just being a good man and a good dad man i don't know what to tell you but that's why these discussions are so powerful because in a in a three-minute news segment it's just going to be bickering back and forth you're not going to find out anything about you right but now people will know about you. They'll know, to me, it's like, I don't know. How are we doing on time? Are we? 1.53. Okay. You guys talked about storytelling and how important stories are, you know, your dad's stories.

How important do you think it is to immortalize the stories of our veterans and continue to tell those stories decades down the road? I think it's extremely important. I tell a lot of our folks that I'm the chief storyteller the VA. I'm the only one that has the microphone, so to speak. I mean, they can talk to everybody, but there's only one focal one. I get to tell the story. I think it's so important because there's an issue of storytelling that reminds people of the greatness that we have and the people who've put on that uniform and sacrifice for this country, even if they never went to war. There's still a value in what they have done to keep us safe. We lose that. Then we lose the other end. think about it and I try to put everything in different perspectives so that if you're not a military version you don't understand it

think about it in life to go into sports or to go into hunting or going to it it was typically somebody who encouraged you to get into it or somebody that was telling us like hey I went there and talk about this guy that's the story that needs to be told because right now if we don't treat our veterans and we don't tell the story of what our veterans went through and how they did it then we're not helping our part with DOD and recruitment And right now, this is one of the concerns we have. And I think right now the Trump administration and Pete has done a great job of, in fact, right now we're breaking records of people wanting to come back into the military, which for the last few years, everybody was just getting out. And parents were telling their kids not to go in. Right. Even if they were, even if themselves were 20 year, 25 year, they're saying, no, you don't need to go do this. So that story is good because if we're telling the story of even the legacies, then the folks coming in have something to go.

for it. I was in the Navy three, about two and a half years before I went back later into the Air Force for the last 23 years. And I remember one of the first ceremonies that I went to after I had gotten out of part of our training. I was at Camp Pendleton. I went to a retirement ceremony for a one of our religious affairs officers who enlisted had been in for 25 years. And they're all dressed in their class A's. They got it. And they did the bells. They did everything. And they talked about his and they had people from his career that talked about his career. And then he talked about it. And the story that you, you know, that legacy story that you just have, he, it was what I said to myself at that moment.

I said, that's what I want. And it wasn't that I wanted, I was an officer. I didn't want to be enlisted. I didn't want to, I wanted that story. Those words associated with you. Exactly. I wanted that experience. I wanted it to mean something.

And so I think that's why we tell the story that we do on the VA side. And we've got some great programs that do that. I think we can expand those programs. I look forward to that working on. how we can tell just the general stories of what's out there. And it works well with both the DOD and with us. Yeah. It's,

yeah, I was thinking about like this transition back into society too. Because when I, Tanner, he went through Ranger School there at Fort Benning. And then there's a part of coal range. It's a really hard part. It's navigation.

And I'm thinking about him looking at a map navigating. And then now, like one of his specialties on this job and the construction job is the laser level, making sure everything the pipes in at the right, right? Right. Depth and everything in the trench. And it's like that transition from the map at Cole Range, trying to pass Ranger School to looking at the drawing for the job. It's like he would never do this, like be featured.

But to me, that's like that's showing these veterans that you have these skills you learn do translate to this important job in a regular community. Those are the stories. If we talk about legacy and stories, it's like that's what needs to be celebrated. It's like, yeah, you were a badass and a ranger. and now you're a badass on the construction site. Exactly. Also remind him that he was about 20 miles from my house.

Camp Merrill, when he was in the mountainside. That's about 20 miles from my house. That was in my congressional district when I was back in Congress. And we moved that back over to the Army. The Army now owns it. And I'm sure he'll get this reference if you talked to him about his blueberry pancakes. Yeah, I know. He never tasted any better until you go back.

And if you realize that really wasn't it. I remember hearing about that. that is in between, I think, mountain and, what is it, swamp? It goes between bedding, mountain, and then swamp. Yeah, yeah. So I did hear about those. Well, let's, do you have one more? I got one more.

Okay. Do you believe our treatment of veterans reflects our national character? And if so, what does that say about us? That's a good question. Yes, in many ways I think it does. But it also goes to reflection of how I think we've got to understand and what is a proper understanding of our character and how we fix things.

And I think that goes back to what I talked about earlier. It needs to be proper perspective. And it means how you actually honor veterans and what their service was is doing. For me, it's doing what we said we're going to do. And I tell every veteran, you've earned the benefit, use it if you want it. You don't have to.

I'm not going to force it upon you. But if you've earned it, use it. It's really there for a reason. But it's also a difference in saying that you're going to make an agency that has become bloated or inefficient at the expense of saying we're taking care of veterans. Right. I had a member of Congress one day.

There was a big bill, and this is what I mean by that question. I thank you for it, is there's a difference in thinking we're helping and a difference in politically helping. We had a bill that had nothing to the VA. It was a bill when I was in Congress. It was more of a budget DOD thing. and we were asked to vote for an amendment that was, I'm just going to be honest, was a bad amendment.

Some of the most conservative members, myself and others, about three of us, had voted against it every time. And what was really interesting was about three of the more liberal members voted against it every time. And we voted against it for the same reason. It was a bad thing.

You've done this for so long. It should be in a regular budget. And I went up to one of my friends in the Congress who was voting for it, and I said, you know this isn't right. And they looked at me and they said, I know. I said, then why are you doing it? And this was what he said.

He said, I'm not a veteran like you and I can't explain it. I said, that's not helping. No. I don't even know what that means. It means that he meant that this person, if voted against it, if somebody politically brought it up. Oh, it could be used against him. Could be used against him. I got you.

So just you wasn't helping veterans. It's optics. second ad, that mailbox piece. And so, again, I don't care if you served or not. We're Americans. Yeah. Do what's right. What's right for the veteran is right for the American. But I think that goes to the question that we're looking at here is what is character? Character is treating us honestly. Even when you disagree with me, I never questioned my dad's character when I would get my rear end in trouble. I mean, it's a six foot two, 250 pound Georgia State trooper. I was a scrawny kid. Nothing. I fought the law. the law one every time. Okay. You question his intensity. Exactly. We just back off a little bit.

Yeah. And then I don't know what happened when the kids were born, but my grandkids, but, you know, what happened to that? We couldn't have a nickel piece of candy. Now they get the whole bag, you know. So, but I think that, but it's a matter of what we're doing. Does it match, uh, what we should be doing? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Gotcha. Well, I have to go grab something real quick right up here. going to give you this gift. So this is one of my, this would be good for hunting, one of my knives from Montana Knife Company, but I like this. I work with these guys and this is a good story. Josh was a lineman, started Montana Knife Company and now just makes a great knife, but there's a good keep hammering skinner for that right there. That is amazing. I appreciate that.

But I just like that Josh was like a blue-collar laborer on the alignment doing an important job for the community. And now he started his own company and his kicking ass. That is so, yeah. Yeah, right here. I actually had a chance in looking and hearing a lot of folks meeting them. It's just amazing. The stories you're seeing. And maybe let's go back one quick thing on this.

Think about the successes that some of our veterans have had, came from high stress environments, and then they found ways to excel in similar things, but do so in a way that finds that contentment. We see it in the Montana-R-R-Fo. We see it in Black Raffa-Foeuvre for coffee. We see it in so many things that are going on right now. That's the pathway to remind them of the good and the abilities that they have. And opportunity in some ways.

It's just, yeah, it's, yeah. I mean, Doug, so much respect. I'm honored that you're here. Thank you so much for taking. the time out and coming all the way to Springfield, Oregon. Never would anticipate we'd meet here, but it's a huge honor to have you here and to talk to you about such an important topic like this. And I just, I know you're going to be successful. And I'm very proud of what you're doing. Okay. I appreciate you. And again, thank you for what you've meant to me personally and getting to

you face to face means a lot to me. There's a lot of times when you go through things and you look at it and some of what you've talked about just sitting there saying, you can do this and inspiration. There's been a lot to a lot of people, a lot of people who know this, and God put you here for a purpose and you're fulfilling that purpose. Thank you, brother. I believe in you, and I think you're going to do a great job. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.