Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 201 - Brian Gilman and Casey Woods

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

Brian grew up in Butte, Montana, and is a retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel. A Recon Marine and Intelligence Officer, Brian commanded Marines at the platoon, company, battalion, and regimental level. He led Marines in combat during multiple tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan and is proud to have completed his active duty service as the Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) Chief of Staff. He holds a B.S. degree from Montana Tech and graduate degrees from the United States Naval War College and the United States Army War College. Brian left active duty to join the WQW Team and feels blessed for the opportunity to continue serving veterans and service members back home in Montana. During his active duty service, Brian spent three years advocating for veterans and transitioning service members on behalf of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This experience nurtured Brian's passion for enabling our nation's transitioning service members and veterans to maximize their potential as the civic assets that they are. Casey Woods is the founder and Executive Director of FORGE, the only national non-profit specifically focused on working from within the firearms community on transformative, non-political efforts to prevent gun suicide and gun homicide. FORGE has two major initiatives. The Firearms Security Alliance is focused on cutting off a key source of crime guns by preventing gun theft, through a partnership-based approach that provides new tools and resources for individuals, organizations, ranges, firearms instructors, law enforcement and other community leaders. The Overwatch Project www.overwatchproject.org empowers gun owners, starting with the veteran community, to. intervene with friends and loved ones to prevent suicide through protective firearm storage measures – following the successful peer-intervention model of the "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk" campaign. https://betterhelp.com/clearedhot https://drinklmnt.com/clearedhot https://magicspoon.com/clearedhot https://helixsleep.com/clearedhot  

What's up, everybody. Today's episode of the podcast is brought to you by Helix Sleep. There are plenty, countless reasons to not be able to get a good night's sleep, whether it could be your love, life, politics, pandemic. You fill in the blank. I don't even want to talk about it. Just realize that bad mattress or one that doesn't suit your body is not a reason to add to those things. So Helix sleep is here to help you. They have a quiz that takes just two minutes to complete and it's going to match your body type and sleep preference to the perfect mattress for you. Everybody is unique. Helix knows that. So they have several. different mattress models to choose from. Soft, medium and firm, of course. Mattresses that are great for cooling you down if you sleep hot and even a Helix Plus mattress for plus size folks. I've taken this quiz. My daughter has taken this quiz. We both sleep on a Helix mattress, and we both love it.

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If there's something in your life that's interfering with your happiness or your success or just how you feel about yourself, BetterHelp is here to help assess you and your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. You can start communicating with this person in under 48 hours. Now, be very clear. This is not a crisis line. This is not self-help. This is professional counseling that you do securely online.

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very different backgrounds, but they've come together for, I was going to say a project, but I'm going to say a purpose instead. So Brian Gilman, he is the CEO, chief executive officer of warriors and quiet waters. He discusses what they are on the podcast, so I will let him do that. but he comes from a military background and he was born and raised here in Butte, Montana. Casey Woods is a former journalist, and now she is the executive director of the Overwatch Project. And she also does an excellent job of describing what she does and how these two entities came together for what it is that they are trying to do. So I'm going to go ahead and zip it and let Brian Gilman and Casey Woods explain it on their own. Episode number 201. Enjoy.

Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. I'm all one of them, I'm going to clear hot. Thank you for making the drive. Casey, Brian? Yeah, good to meet you guys. You too. I met you briefly. Casey at Chasho.

Yes. The one and only Timothy Kennedy, hardest person on earth to describe. Yes. Slightly crazy. Yep. Slightly not crazy. And that's about it. Well, y'all tackled each other.

No, no, no, no. In like five. He tackled me. He attempted to tackle me. I, of course, immediately defended properly, which isn't true at all. There just happened to be a wall there. Yes, there was. There was a lot of banging. It was a temporary structure, so I think everybody in the room was a little. That was at the 5-11 booth at shot show, right?

Yes, it was. Was Katzenberg in the room? He was in the room. Yeah. And maybe one of the last times I saw him, actually. It's been a long time. Yeah. But I also haven't been to Orange County much. Right. By choice. Right.

Good call. Yeah. People won't like this at all, but how specifically Montana, people will not like this. But how I was going to say awesome, but other people would get offended at that? How nice has it been to weather the last year and a half where we live? Comparatively

to other places, specifically Orange County. Yes. I moved here in the middle, so I moved out. I retired from the Marine Corps last June and left, you know, the East Coast, North Carolina to Montana arriving here in mid-June. Well, anything is better than North Carolina. Let's be honest. I mean, it has a lot of good things going forward to.

North Carolina? Yeah, it does. It does not. It's got a few. If you lit a dumpster on fire and moved into that, that's an improvement over North Carolina. Yeah, well, we've all been a lot of places, so we all got our own opinions. But, you know, coming home to Montana has definitely been, it's been the place to be for sure. Yeah. Well, I got to weather it in Miami, which was also.

I know you're like mountain or ocean people. I'm like ocean. Yeah. The mountain people are like, it's so hot. There's a lot of places near the ocean that aren't Miami. Right. Which is an insane town. It is an insane town.

It's actually not a town. It's wildly larger than a town. It's a massive metropolis city. It is. Yeah. It is. How'd you find your way there? I was a Miami Herald reporter.

I got recruited out of grad school to the Miami Herald. Yeah. That was my previous past professional life. How did you like that? I loved it. We just had a whole conversation at lunch about what a great job journalism was. Why did you say was? Has it changed?

It has changed a bit. Yes, we just had this conversation at lunch about how I feel like I got the last great years in the newsroom. It's just become a very different business. I was telling him that so many journalists have left journalism. I think more journalists have left journalism than coal miners have left coal. So what does that leave? Who fills those voids? because people still have a desire to be, I don't want to say, told the news.

They have a desire to work their way through it. Somebody's got to write it or say it, deliver it. Right. I think society is suffering. I mean, we were talking about how the great thing about being a journalist in a newsroom is that everyone in that room could be making more money doing something else. It's a very purpose-driven job, right? You could be doing, you're working 50, 60 hours a week for really crappy pay, let's be honest.

So you could be doing something else, right? So you were around people who are really passionate about what they do. And there was nothing like when there was a big breaking story and like the newsroom would rise to that challenge. So it was a really beautiful job. It didn't feel like a job to me. I absolutely loved it. It was always, it felt like a miracle. It was like a miraculous part that you could go out.

ask people just about anything and they would talk to you and they would share really intimate parts of their life with you. And so it always felt like a privilege. And also I really believe in the role of the press as a part of democracy. And right now we're obviously at a moment where that trust in that institution has fallen. I think there's a lot of blame that can be placed in a lot of areas for that. But without journalism, how are we informed, right? How do we know that? How do we know in Miami, there's a lot of corruption, right? How do people find out about that? How do you hold government accountable when you're busy and you're just doing your job and there's no one there to find out what's going on? So I think that we all suffer when local news organizations are not properly

resourced. Is it salvageable? Because I feel like the press, and I'm using that term broadly, whether it be written, spoken word, video. I mean, from an outsider's perspective, it seems like it's been weaponized. It seems like it has been hijacked, and I think both sides of the political aisle are very complicit in doing so. It's not like one is doing it

and the other one is not. To use a phrase that I heard recently, they're both wings of the same bird. How does it get fixed, or is it even possible to do so? You know, that's a really good question. I think that, you know, the business model for journalism, there was this, you know, all these were public companies, right? And for a long time, newspapers had these 15% profit margins, which were amazing for any other business.

And that was all on subscriber? Yeah, it was all subscribers. It was, you know, when print news was king, right? And so when that started to diminish, right, and there were investors in those public companies that wanted, thought that that that's, this was a failure, right? You've gone from 12, you know, to 11 percent profitability, and there became this cut and cut staffers, the product suffered, and then you had these newsrooms that were starved, and the product wasn't as good anymore. So, you know, I think that the model actually, there's a lot of news organizations that are nonprofits now, right? Because

you can make a, you know, pay your expenses, right? Yeah. I mean, the advertising model has changed dramatically. But I think that there is a lot of hope in some of these nonprofit outfits that are covering the news in kind of the old school way. I mean, it's the politicization of the news universe is so alien to me and to people who were just in it for the news. I mean, I did not feel any of that when you were working for the Herald. No, I did not. We were there to cover the news, right? I am a registered independent.

I never, ever wanted to be viewed as on either side of that story. There were mandates from above that you couldn't participate in political activities because they didn't want to see our reporters as biased. It was very pure in a lot of ways, right? It was very important to us that we be viewed as fair, right? And so now that it's become such a partisan thing where there are no facts, it's deeply painful for those of us who really, really believed in that mission. So, you know, it hurts my heart, right? I love that job. Never ever thought I was going to find a better job.

I have to say I love my current job even more. But yeah, it's really hard to see what's happened as somebody who used to be in it for all the right reasons. It's a relatively scary time because like you said, you know, the word facts. Right. When people can't agree on what a fact is, let alone what is factual, we're heading to a place that's not great. Yes. Yeah. I don't know.

I actually don't know how to approach conversations and I actually, to full disclosure, I avoid them as much as possible. When people cannot, when they'll express an opinion and they are unable to describe to me or explain to me where. what the facts are that they're basing that off of and where they actually come from. I have engaged in those conversations, but it's like spinning your wheels in the sand. They never go anywhere. But yeah, if we don't have an anchor in the ground as to what the truth actually is, again, not smart enough to figure that out, but it's a dangerous road, I think. It is a very dangerous road.

Well, that's the thing for an outsider like me looking in. I mean, I can read a story about an issue on one news outlet, go to another and get a completely opposite view. So where do you find the facts? do that just to look at the compare and contrast. Or you could do the same thing on TV. Just flip back and forth. Not that I have cable news anymore. But when I did, you could flip back and forth. They're talking about the same thing. But if you didn't know that, like if they stripped away the pictures and you didn't realize they're talking about the same incident, it's completely different. Yeah. That's not awesome. No. It is not awesome. And I have gotten to the point where people send

me things, you know, that I'm supposed to get outraged about. And I'm like, before. we even have a conversation about this, please send me your sources, right? Well, it's also okay not to have an opinion on certain subjects. It is okay. It is completely authorized to hold somebody will ask me about something I don't know. It's probably a good idea not to have some opinions about things. Seriously, as if any of us in this room have the bandwidth to hold an opinion that is educated on everything that might offend or fire other people up.

There are things that nobody in the world cares about and I will get pissed over them. For no reason whatsoever. And I will laugh at myself. What are some of those things? Please tell us what those things are. It hasn't happened in a long time. But I end up usually just laughing at myself. It's like my own bullshit made up issues that I will spin off into orbit about.

I don't know. The last time, it was something to do with my truck. I was like super pissed where they put a button. Or actually, I think what it was, like personally, and I don't know what this says about me, I think the people that use the dual heating zone in a car are bad people. And that was one of the last thing. I got upset about this, not super recently. But if they know how the air conditioning system works,

I don't know if it's actually possible to have a dual zone. And people who do that, when I'm driving, it's like, fuck you. You're a terrible person. And I hope that bad things happen to you. And I get pissed that that button even exists. So that's an example of something that probably nobody cares about. And I was in orbit in my own head and ended up just dying laughing. and how much of an idiot I am.

Yeah. So there you go. Well, we all have our quirks. Yes. I will never, if I'm in a car with you, hit the duel. It doesn't work anyway. It's a lie. The little red button, it's a lie, and it takes away some of my control over the dials,

which for clarity, when I'm driving, they're all mine. It's all my control. As they should be. A little bit of a control freak. Except for the temperature of the seat. I will allow people to choose because I have the heated or cooled seats. You can pick whatever you want, unless it's my teenage sons. And then it's like, when I see them looking out the window in the summer,

I turn on the heat. but that's just me. You know, they have to be forged. Yeah. Yeah. So. Well, I remember when they, I had a really old car. My dad got a new suburban.

I did not realize there was heating in the seats. And I'm driving, and it's August in Arkansas. Oh, it'll get you if you don't know what's on. And I was just like, what is going on with this seat? Breaking out of the athletic sweat. Why is my butt hurt? So yes. Yeah, you got to be careful with that.

I was not up on the new technology. So. However, up here in Montana, the wintertime, game changer. Especially if you have the remote start on the car, just get out there. The seat just like come on in. It's nice and warm. Yeah. Yeah.

But then again, of course, tempting you as that fucking dual temperature zone button. So these are things that don't have to worry about living in Miami. True. You could have cool. You should have cool seats. I have cold seats. Yeah. That's fair.

Yes. Yes. So after leaving that, how did you, I mean, probably the best way would be to allow you guys to introduce yourself and explain what it is that you do now. and then we can talk about how you guys met and what it is you're trying to accomplish. Sure. I am, well, how did I get into it? I'll say what I do, and then I'll explain how I got into it.

It went from journalism to this. I'm the executive director and the founder of an organization called Forge. We are the only national nonprofit that is specifically focused on working from within the firearms community on transformative, non-political, keyword, projects to end-conferenced. gun suicide and gun homicide. And so the centerpiece of our suicide prevention work is a veteran suicide prevention initiative called the Overwatch Project. That's what I'm working with Brian on.

And basically it's the Friends and Friends job drunk model. Instead of talking about alcohol and cars, we're talking about firearms and suicide. So a peer intervention approach, you know, Friends and Friends Drive Drunk, the most successful peer intervention campaign in history, right? Really? Well, do you know about it? Right? Friends are led, friends drive.

Yeah. Yes. I've heard there's a concept. It is strong. It is very strong. 70% of Americans have intervened to stop somebody from driving under the influence. I certainly, yeah. I mean, I certainly have.

I'm sure you, yeah, yeah. Especially given our military background. Yes. Not that alcohol consumption is a part of the military at a very, very deep level. No. Doctrinally. Mm-hmm. Doctrinally, it's like, don't drink and drive.

Hey, Kager on Friday in the courtyard. I feel like I'm getting some conflicting messages. Yeah, totally. And so Friends and Friends are drunk was successful because it empowered individual Americans with the will and the knowledge to intervene at a really critical moment to prevent someone they care about from operating a tool, right?

And that it was a vehicle. And we're doing the same thing with firearms. And that is based on something that's known in clinical circles as lethal means reduction. Have you ever heard of it? I have not. Okay. So it sounds really wonky. It's a suicide prevention tactic that everyone accepts as something that we need to be doing. It works. But it basically means if you can put time and distance between someone in crisis and what they might use to harm themselves, you can save their life. Makes sense. Yeah, a lot of research around that. And with firearms, it's

more important than with any other method. It's almost as if firearms are designed to end life. Yes, they are, almost something like that. Which is, you know what's funny? Not to derail you at all is I will have people push back on me on that. And they will say, no, it's designed to protect. I'm like, eh, you can use it to protect yourself, but guns basically work in one of two ways, their use or the threat of their use.

But it's an intellectually dishon-in, in my opinion, it's an intellectually dishonest position to hold to say, no, they're designed to protect. I'm like, no, you can use them for that. But it's okay to say what they're actually designed for. I would say, and I don't know the stats on suicide, but I bet you the success rate with a firearm is probably higher than any other modes that people could take when it comes to suicide. It's deadlier.

Firearms are deadlier than all other methods combined. Almost, it's like by design. By design. And I think if you can start with that point in the conversation, some really fruitful things can come from that. When people want to go the different direction, again, people should believe and describe things however they want to, but it doesn't weaken the argument to say these are designed to kill. I actually think it strengthens the argument because then you can treat them with the gravity that they should be treated with, as opposed to trying to round edges on something that shouldn't be rounded, in my opinion. Well, and also it's why do people support the Second Amendment?

I mean, if it's not a big deal that you're carrying a firearm versus a knife, then what's the difference, right? It's because it is a more lethal tool, right? And you feel like if you're in a self-protection situation, you want the most effective tool that you can have. Well, guess what? When it comes to trying to take your own life, it is the most lethally efficient tool, right?

If you attempt suicide with a firearm, you are 85 to 90% likely to die. If you attempt with medication, which is the most common method, you are 98% likely to live. Really? Yes. I did not know that. So the vast majority of suicide attempts in America are with medication, right? But there's only 6% of attempts that are with firearms, and that represents more than 51% of completed suicides.

Why do you think that there are so many more attempts with medication as opposed to firearms? I think that, well, it depends on like what you have at hand, right? I mean, there are more guns in circulation than human beings populating North America. 350 million farms. And that was like two years ago, right? I mean, let's talk about the last 18 months, the run on guns and more new gun owners than ever. Point being, they're out there. They're out there.

They're out there. But I do think that, you know, I don't know. the number of attempts. I can't remember the data on how many people attempt with medication. But for us, that if you're looking for ROI on suicide prevention, right, in America, that 6% of people who are using firearms to do it are where we need to be spending a lot of our time. Guns suicide represents two-thirds of gun deaths in America. Yeah. So that means...

A statistic that is not often honestly talked about, it will be just be added into the the total or overall deaths. And if you want to, not that it's not an important statistic, but I also think it's very, very important to delineate between a violent crime against somebody else. And I guess you could call suicide a violent crime against yourself, but they're very different categories in my personal, non-professional opinion. But it's an example of a statistic that people will either separate it or keep it combined, depending on what angle they want to view the issue through. Like you said, you flip back and forth on the news, and you'll get a very different same number. Well, they would add to the same number. Oftentimes, one side

will separate it and the other side will not. Yeah. Whatever aim or means that they are doing that. Well, I just, we look at the way that gun deaths are covered in America and you notice that I'm saying gun deaths and not gun violence because when we're working to prevent gun suicide, there's a lot of gun owners who don't consider suicide gun violence, right? They think gun violence is crime. I mean, I guess it's gun violence against yourself. I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I don't honestly like I just want to do what is effective for the audience that we're trying to reach. And I'm not going to call it gun violence if they don't want to call it gun violence, right? I gun deaths, it's a fact, right, that we can keep it very clear. You know, it gets very

easy to kind of slide off into like politics, debates about things that don't really matter on this issue. And so, you know, that that's why we really focus on non-political work. We don't want to get into debates about legislation. We don't touch it. I don't comment on it. I don't want to have an opinion on it. And so what we're doing with the Overwatch Project is basically that peer intervention approach where gun owners can say, like, we got this, right? Like, you know, there's the number one debate about guns and suicide and guns and veterans suicide in America, where it gets covered is when do we take people's guns away?

Yeah, usually is presented under the Red Flag Law conversation. Right. Right. It would be like if we were talking about mental health and all we talked about was Baker acting people. It's very dangerous for the only solution that's being presented to be a coercive approach. Because what happens? People don't seek care, right?

I work with dozens of veterans who don't seek care because they're concerned that they're going to get reflagged and they're going to lose their Second Amendment rights. Depending on where they live, that might be a legitimate concern. Yeah. No, it's true. Do you know anybody that's, Brian, who doesn't go get care because... I know quite a few. Yeah.

Quite a few. Yeah. That's a legitimate concern. Some of them are here in Montana. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's talk about Montana. Yeah, I mean, the statistics that she quoted, if you look at Montana, it's even bleaker.

I mean, 85% of firearm deaths in Montana are suicide by firearm. Really? Yeah. So, you know, 80% of suicides in Montana or suicides with firearms. Veteran suicides. Veteran suicides. Which is higher than the 70% the national average. Interesting.

I mean, gun culture is, I would say, more. of a modern day fare here. So it doesn't surprise me that it would be a tick higher, but those statistics are still horrendous. Yeah. Well, except it's not just modern day. Well, what do you consider modern day? Montana has been in the top five per capita suicide for the last 40 years. In 2019, number three for firearm suicide.

Yeah. I mean, the winters here can get rough. Yeah. The sun's not up. Yeah. It's dark. You know, people can get isolated. It's more rural.

You know, you got that separation aspect. There's elements of it. If you dig in, I think that it makes a little bit more sense. Or it could make a little bit more sense. I mean, I've never truly understood the decision where this is the only choice that I have. So, I mean, I can only talk about these things in generalities and my understanding of them. Right. As a whole concept, it is still largely baffling to me.

But, you know, those things, like I said, the winter times are real, you know, for sure. and like I said, the isolation and all that stuff. I could see how it could lead to that. I mean, it sucks that it would, but. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's one of the reasons why we wanted to work with Casey and Overwatch Project. You know, given those statistics, we saw this as an opportunity to get in the fight

and do what we can to help get after those numbers, get ahead of those numbers. So that's why we're excited about our partnership. Yeah. Well, I want, once you talk about what you all do, and then we can talk about how we're working together because we're partnering with our organizations on some new stuff. It's really exciting. One question for you before we hop over to Brian.

When it comes to the gun suicides nationally, what percentage of those are tied to alcohol use at the time of the suicide? I believe the latest data that I saw was about half or substances, right? Alcohol being the number one, right? When you look at a suicidal crisis, right, there's two reasons why it's important to talk about firearms in that. One is that lethality rate that they're so deadly, right? If you attempt with a firearm, you're probably going to die. I mean, that's the reality. The other one is impulsivity.

Half of people who attempt and survive say they've thought about it for 10 minutes or less. So the conditions that lead up, right? Yeah. That's a fact that most people don't know, right? 10 minutes or less? 10 minutes or less. And how that happens, right? Because there's people who say, well, you know, he wasn't doing well for a long time.

The conditions that lead up to that can take a long time to build. but that actual moment that like what a lot of veterans who we work with call that fuck it moment like I lost my job my wife left me like everything's shit I'm done fuck it is very quick very brief

and it's like boom they hit rock bottom got a gun right there boom it's over right and so so giving people a little more time to think in there that lethal means reduction which you know what we're trying to solve with the Overse Project

is you have lethal means reduction which is a scientifically proven suicide prevention strategy, but the people who are usually delivering it are clinicians who veterans may or may not trust to talk about their firearms, right? And it's also lethal means reduction sounds awful. It's like this wonky clinical term. And so that's a, we've got a solution that people aren't using because it's got a branding and a messenger problem.

So that's a problem we can solve. And so that's what we set out to do with the Overwatch Project. Call to actions? Really simple. just fucking ask. I'll get into how we got to that in a minute. It's a t-shirt that would turn heads and get people to pay attention. It has. Hence, the point. The points.

Conversation started. Yeah. Yeah. So when we developed the Overwatch Project, right, we set out to solve this challenge, right? You've got this solution that people don't use because it's got a branding and a messenger problem. And so everything we do as an organization is collaborative. We worked with over 300 veterans when we built the Overwatch Project. We did a pilot in New England. And we worked with post-traumatic stress support groups.

We worked with student veteran groups. Actually, there was a student vet group that helped us name it. That's how we got the Overwatch Project. We had a creative hackathon with five of the biggest motorcycle groups in veteran motorcycle groups in New England. Because it's all about how, you know, how do we talk about this in a different way that takes that fear and stigma out of it that usually comes when you talk about veterans and firearms and suicide? And while we were doing that, there was a population that we were really focused on, and that was veterans who had done this, right? Veterans who had intervened to say, to talk to a friend about their firearms when they were hitting rock bottom or somebody did it for them and a life was saved. And so, you know, used to be a journalist.

I would interrogate these veterans. I'd be like, what did you say? Like, what words did you use? And they would just say, well, I just fucking asked them. Dude, what's up with your guns? And so many of them said it over and over again that that kind of became the informal name for the campaign for me. I thought we were going to have a vanilla version

where we could work with more marquee organizations, maybe the VA, people like that. And then we were going to have like a guerrilla version. I actually own just fucking ass.com. I thought, you know, we'd have this, I own the URL. But while we were road testing it, we were doing these suicide prevention trainings as part of the pilot with post-traumatic stress,

support groups with the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association. Every time we would tell that story, that just fucking-ass story, people would laugh and lean forward. And it would take all the tension out of the room. People were like, okay, this is not clinical. It's not PC. You know, I can imagine a veteran saying that. And so we ultimately decided we're just going to go for it.

We're a smaller organization. We don't have this big brand we have to worry about. And we have never looked back. It is super successful. we are always memorable. And so it works. All of our stuff on the website, we have conversation guides, we have short films. All of it's very authentic, right?

You can kind of plug in as a veteran and say, okay, this is how you do it. And a lot of people have told us that that's exactly what they did. I mean, we get these cold emails from people saying, hey, I just took your conversation guide and, you know, talk to a friend this week, and we made a plan, and he's doing okay. It makes it really easy to use, right? It's very turnkey. So, yeah. And I think a lot of people relate to it.

We did a training at MSU and Bozeman last night, and that was one of the biggest questions we got is how can I get a T-shirt? Yeah. I mean, so they're connected to it. You've got a good product in your hands. Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

Yeah. Yeah. At least 10 people, you know, I'm going to get a link up, okay, and sell them. This is our first run. You're going to get one of these. Do you have any for sale? Because I'm going to tell you right now, if you don't have a landing page for people to buy these by the time this episode comes out.

I will have it up. It's going to be a problem. I'll have it up. You have three weeks. It takes three weeks. Okay, three weeks. No, I have a few in the can already. Technical term, no big deal. Yeah. No, I have next weeks and the week after you guys, there's two in front of you. So you have three weeks. Three weeks. I will get it up. I'll get our merchandising

up. That's totally doable. Or for people listening to this, it should be live today. Because not three weeks from when you were hearing this, three weeks from when we recorded this. Absolutely. Well, one thing, that takes out of September though, does it? I was going to say, yeah, it does. It does. Because September's suicide prevention month. I can maybe look at Jockey and some stuff around, but that gives you less time.

It gives me less. I'll work it out. She can make it happen. I'm a doer. Yes, he knows this. I'm a doer. We get shit done. We get shit done. He doesn't know me, though. Like, yes. We put together this big event.

I don't believe you. I'm just saying I know the making of T-shirts, and right now there's an ink shortage. Oh, you're totally right. Well, we should talk later. I could use some merchandising advice from the master. I can point you towards the guy that I use to create mine. I am an idiot when it comes to design and inventory, stocking, all that stuff. I'm not the person to ask.

Okay, I won't ask you then. I'll give you a full list of where I have made mistakes along the way, and you can just avoid them, and you will probably be exactly where I'm at right now. Okay. Well, then maybe three weeks is good. Yeah, you can take a look at it. Yeah, perfect. All right.

Brian, what the hell is your story? talking of over there in the corner. Jesus, man. Well, I'm taking it all the airtime, so yes. We got nothing but time, don't worry. Yeah. I'm here to support the Overwatch Project, so it's all good. I mean, I'm a retired Marine, grew up here in Montana, joined the Marine

Corps right after I graduated from Montana Tech and Butte. Bute. Is that the one right before Bozeman? That's the one right before Bozeman. One with a big hole. Listen, man. I don't travel around Montana too much. I really like where I live. Yeah. It's a nice place. I often get Butte and Billings confused. I apologize.

guys for either of those population groups that will probably be mad at me. But Bue was an awesome place to grow up. It really was, you know, a tough mining town. You know, it has an honor culture, which really, you know, made me a big part of who I am. But so I lived there all the way through college, joined the Marine Corps after that. You come from a military family? You know, a couple generations back, I had a couple uncles that served in World War II. One of my father's brothers was an Army veteran for a little while.

But no, not directly. But I had some friends that served that joined right after high school. They went off and fought in the Gulf War. That was a big inspiration for me. And really my football coach at Montana Tech is the one that really convinced me that's what I needed to do. Bob Green was a marine radio operator in Vietnam and really admired him and his leadership. And it's something I'd been thinking about for a long, long time. And halfway through my senior year, I decided that's what I was going to do.

And I joined in 10 and just to do four years and come back to Montana. I was going to go back to tech get a master's degree and spend the rest of my life here in Montana and ultimately ended up spending almost 27 years in the Marine Corps. So just retired last summer. Yeah. Came here to, you know, take over the role that I'm in now and I'm currently the chief executive officer

of Warriors and Quiet Waters Foundation in Bozeman. It's a veteran services organization that helps post 9-11 veterans to find peace and meaning through fly fishing. So joined that organization last year and got introduced to Casey pretty early on in my tenure, we have a mutual friend named Matt Amadon

who runs the military pillar at the Bush Institute in Texas and I was connecting with him just to catch up on what's been going on in the veteran reintegration space. I'd been out of it for quite a while. And one of the first things he told me was about the Overwatch Project said, you've got to have a look at this.

I think it's really got some legs. Casey Woods is running it and she's a superstar. So I did. I got on the website, looked at it, and I'm like, yeah, this is definitely something we've got to get behind and called Casey. and we immediately started talking about partnerships and how we could make our two organizations

to work better together. And, you know, so that not culminated, but came together yesterday in a big training we did at Montana State University. This is information on the Overwatch Project, something that we're providing to all of our participants as they come through our program. You know, I did the train their trainer course

so that I can continue to spread this message in Montana. And, you know, as a result of that, we had several folks, a couple VFW posts, the Marine Corps League Post saying, hey, we need to get this out to our members. So this is the first step to really start, you know, spreading the word about how I just fucking ask here in Montana. What did your military career start as and what did it end as?

Yeah, so I was a ground intelligence officer, which was a new MOS when I came into the Marine Corps. You'd go to the infantry officer course, then you go to Intel School. The idea was that this is how you would build your reconnaissance officers. And that's pretty much the model I follow. I was initially a sniper-platoon commander in an infantry battalion, first battalion, first Marines out of Camp Pendleton, did two Musach deployments with them, and then ultimately went to my B-Bill at next, was an instructor for a couple of years, and then I ended up in reconnaissance after that. So I deployed to OIF-1 as a company commander of first reconnaissance battalion

and kind of continued that track. I would bounce between reconnaissance jobs in the fleet and intelligence staff positions. For example, First Marine Division, did some time on the joint staff where I actually had a very unique assignment. I thought I was checking into the J3 when I checked into the joint staff. The operations officer for people. The operations director. We called them the N codes or in the joint world, the J codes. I lose them after three. Yep, it was a joint staff.

I got one, two, and three nailed though. So I thought I was going to ops because that was in my wheelhouse. And when I checked in, there was an Air Force chief warrant officer that told me, yeah, you're not going to the J3. you're going to this office called the chairman's office of reintegration. I'm like, what's that? And he's like, well, I don't know. But here's your boss. Here's your boss's name and number.

His name's Colonel Eisenhower. Give him a call and he'll tell you what it's all about. So I called Colonel Eisenhower and Army Colonel. And he explained to me that it was an office that Admiral Mullen created out of hide within his office of the chairman to help for the DOD to help create effective reintegration pathways for transitioning service members and veterans. What year was this? I checked in there on 2007.

he stood up the office in 2004 when he was the chairman. So General Dempsey was the chairman at the time. And that's really what it was all about. I mean, the reason Admiral Mullen stood this office up is because he was the chairman in 2004, you know, height of the war at that point. And he interacted with a lot of organizations that were trying to help wounded warriors, transitioning service members, things like that. So, you know, corporations, nonprofits, across the board.

And he didn't see a DOD doing much. So this is how he, you know, this is the solution. he came up with to get DoD in the fight. He stood this office up within his office of the chairman and gave them that mission to create effective reintegration pathway. So I got immersed in this space for about three years as a lieutenant colonel on the joint staff. And that's really where I found my passion for serving veterans.

It's where I learned that when I retired, I was going to work for a nonprofit in this space. And ultimately, that's why I'm here today. This opportunity came up when I was the chief of staff at Morsock. And I wasn't planning on retiring at the time. I still had three more years before I'd hit 30. but I found out about this job. I knew a former board chair of this organization,

Bores and Quadwaters, and gave him a call and said, hey, do you think I'd be a good fit for this? Because I knew that's what I wanted to do, and he said, I think it'd be a great fit. So I threw my name in the hat, went through a bunch of interviews in January of 2020. They offered me the job,

and I retired from Marine Corps four months and got out here. That's awesome, man. Yeah, so that's why I'm here. It's an amazing organization. I was out there with their fly fishing 101 yesterday, where they bring in a group of veterans for their FX and teach them how to fly fish. And today I'm missing a river. That's tomorrow.

Today they're walk waiting. They're walk waiting. I'm missing it for you to be up here. It sounds like they're going in the water. So that's something you would want to miss. Yeah. Are they, though? What are they doing today?

I mean, it's a small stream they're fishing, so they'll be in and out of the water. Waiters. But a very unique, some very unique waters. That's one of the things we're blessed with is we have a lot of supporters. around Montana that allow us to fish on private waters. Yeah. This is an in-holding in the middle of the National Forest in the Spanish Peaks and, actually, the Madison Range, and, you know, very few people get a fish on it.

Yeah, probably safe to say to call it world class. Yeah, absolutely. So what is, to explain the Warriors in Quiet Waters, what is it and how do they do what they do? Yeah, so I always tell people I like to start with the founding story. So that starts with a guy by the name Eric Kastings. He was a Bozeman kid, ultimately went on to become a Marine, was a combat fighter pilot in Vietnam, flew just under 200 combat missions in Vietnam, suffered PTSD. He didn't realize he had at a time because it was a diagnosable condition when he came back.

But to tell Eric here the story, when he came home, he went straight to the water, tied on a fly, and healed him. So, you know, he did a full career in the Marine Corps, finished up as the chief of staff of First Marine Expeditionary Force in the Gulf War, retired as a colonel, came back to Bozeman to take care of some aging parents. And in 2006, he was reading an article in National Geographic magazine about the advances in military medicine and how, you know, current era veterans are surviving wounds that they never would have survived in the past wars. And he started a conversation with his wife, Gene, about, you know, we need to do something to help these veterans. What can we do? And on a fly fishing trip in Canada, they conceived of this idea to bring wounded warriors to Montana, teach him to flyfish. And, you know,

you know, we can give them what fly fishing gave me when I was in Vietnam, you know, coming back from Vietnam. So that's how they got started. His wife, Gene gave him permission, gave him his first $10,000 donation. He harangued up all of his fly fishing buddies in Bozeman, and they threw this idea for this program together. He flew down to Balboa Naval Medical Center, linked up with a buddy of his, a retired lieutenant colonel, and they started having conversations with the medical staff down there about give us some warriors, help us fly them up to Montana, and we're going to put him through this fly fishing program. And that's exactly what happened. and the first cohort of Marines that came through our program were Marines and Corman were, you know,

some of them still have bandages on their wounds. And, you know, they built it from there. And it was a totally volunteer-run organization for the first seven years before we hired our first professional staff. And we just built off of there. That first season, we did four, we call them fishing experiences. We did four fishing experiences. We're doing 25 this year or so. And we've added a bunch of different program models on as well.

But the way that it works is this. Fly fishing is the mechanism that we use. but that's not what we do. We don't bring veterans here to fly fish. What we do is we take service members and veterans here to Montana, and we immerse them in this serene, pristine physical environment, southwest Montana. We own a ranch called Quietwater's Ranch just north of Bozeman. It's a very great place.

It feels like a home. And then combine that with the waters that we fish on, those pristine waters that I talked about that a lot of people, other people don't get an opportunity to fish. We immerse them in that physical environment. and we teach him a skill, fly fishing, which is a totally immersive skill, but it's not physically taxing.

But when you're in the moment fly fishing, you're in a state of flow. And as you know, a lot of things can happen in terms of making meaning and things like that when you're in that state of flow. So we teach them that. We emphasize teaching them how to fish. We give them all the equipment that they need to fish

and they go home with it. You know, everything's free to the veterans and their families because one of the outcomes that we want is we want them to continue fishing when they go home. And then we overlay over the top of that, this safe trusting emotional environment that makes us feel like a home, then that's provided by our volunteers. Every warrior that comes through our program is paired up with what we call a volunteer

companion. And this is a volunteer whose number one job is to just make a connection with that warrior while they're there. We hire professional guys to teach them out of fish. That's not what the companion is there for. That companions are just to make a connection, you know, to show that they can trust them, that they care about them and that they can have connections with people that aren't necessarily like them coming from that military culture. We also have a volunteer crew that we call

our moms. And this is the role that the founder's wife, Gene, originally played. You know, when we were pulling those service members out of the military medical facilities, they still had military chow-hull food in their guts, and they wanted some good home cooking. So that became a major element of our program. So our moms will stay at the ranch, and that's one of the things that they do is they do all the cook and provide those meals. And we have conversations with everybody before they come through about, you know, what they're looking for in terms of nutrition and things like that. And they really make Quiet Waters Ranch feel like a home, a place because the first thing we're trying to do is establish trust. Once we have that bond of trust, then a lot of great things

can happen from there. So that's really the magic that makes our program what it is. We don't just bring people here to flyfish. We help veterans find peace and meaning through fly fishing. How many veterans per year come through the program? This year we're doing 235. Damn. So what is it probably, somewhere between five to seven days for the program? It's five to six day program. We'll bring six warriors or six couples. We have a couples program as well. And we can handle up to three families. We also do a family program. But typically in what we call our solo fishing experience, that'll be six warriors that'll come through. And that's really limited on a couple of things. You know, the number of bedrooms we've got in our lodge, number of volunteers that we can get, the amount of, you know, the amount of water that's available, guides that are available to support us. That's really what we found to be sustainable. So, you know, we increased programming by 40% this year more than we've ever done before. We're going. from 25 weeks of programming this year to 34 next year. So we got our foot on the gas for trying to get after it and get as many service members

and their family members through the program as we can. So did you guys hear about their program or did your program hear about Overwatch? How do this symbiosis occur? Well, as Brian said, Matt Amidon from the Bush Institute, I had done a presentation training for their wounded warrior group, which is called Team 43.

really connected. It was this amazing experience. And he was like, I got somebody you need to meet. And so he connected me to Brian. And it was one of these things where, A, Brian went online and donated to the Overwatch Project before I ever met him. It was like that much, you know, which, you know, one ED executive nonprofit executive director to another. You know, we're usually donating to our own organization, you know, because it's constant raising resources. So I really admired that.

And so we got on the phone and it was one of those connections where, you know, we're just like jamming. We're all in. We really connect on the fact that we just really get shit done. Right. And so it was immediate like we're going to do this. What are we going to do? Right. And at that point, we were just starting in my organization to talk about a train the trainer program. Because what we do is we have all these resources online, but we also do these suicide prevention trainings. We work with a lot of VSOs. we launched that platform, the overwatchproject.org, at the end of 2019. And at that point, we were really in a transition from this local pilot where we had a lot of in-person stuff planned for the next six months in New England. Then COVID hit, right? And it forced a very quick pivot to more of a national perspective and also doing more virtual engagement, which, you know, there's always tradeoffs, but we are reaching more people than we were kind of in raw numbers before.

And so we started doing these virtual trainings with VSOs where they would bring together the veterans they work with and we would do things like we did with the Bush Institute. VSO means veteran service organization, right? Yes. I'm getting... That's right. You know, acronyms. Trust me.

Yes. I know plenty. I know. Well, last night he was talking about... I try to unpack them as we go along in the conversation so people can follow. Right, right. Well, you all have acronyms about acronyms in the military. You know, you have plenty...

Making plans about making plans. And we have unit specific acronyms. Yes, you do. It's not my fault. People can't keep up. But I like it. You stop me. So working with veteran service organizations, we're really big on how we empower networks.

You know, this conversation about firearms and suicide is really sensitive. And so how do we empower networks where there's already trust to have it? And so we were doing these trainings with veteran service organizations, but we're not going to change norms. with just us, right? How do we get other people to lead on this project? And so we were talking about this train the trainer. I was always talking about it like, you know, we need to teach people how to fish, which I think is funny because we ended up working with an organization that literally teaches people how to fish. And so we started talking about them being the first organization to do this train the trainer pilot with us. So we took our curriculum, this training that we do. We turned

it into a train the trainer and we did it with our staff first. And the idea is, you know, know, they would go out and use it. Where are you going to take this? Where can you take the Overwatch Project and empower people to have this conversation about firearms and suicide? And we did the train the trainer. It was amazing. And an hour after we got off that, it was a virtual event, he called me and he said, I want you to, I want you to understand the impact you had here. And he said, our director of development walked in my office about five minutes ago, and she said, I've got an idea. And she said, I think we should. to Pitch this to Montana State University and get their veteran services office involved.

A great guy named Joe Schumacher, who's an amazing leader and is really committed to preventing veteran suicide. And so in the matter, they had their biggest event of the year on Friday. But he was like, yeah, let's do it for the week after. You know, it's the week after the 9-11 anniversary. People are struggling. This was... Afghanistan.

This was just when things were starting to go south with Afghanistan, but it became even more timely after. I mean, we all know what's been going on. And so he's like, yeah, we can do this. And I don't know many people who would do that, you know, when they had their own biggest event. They had, how many people did you have? About 700. 700 people, okay, at this big taste vest, where your taste fest, which you should go to next year.

Absolutely. What are you tasting? So it's a celebration of art food, the best art food and drink in Montana. So we get a bunch of vendors around from a southwet. I have a bland palate. Is there a ranch dressing? Plenty. Plenty.

You'll have the Andy Stump booth where it's like everything with ranch dressing. Just make sure you have ranch and then I need to be able to visually identify what I'm eating. Yeah, you'll be able to do that. Yeah. I am not exploratory with my food. I almost starve to death in both Afghanistan. You find plenty to eat there. You're not a gourmand.

They have some really good show. I know some people who have a digestive system like a garbage disposal that has never been me. That's not you. I mean, we're talking OIF1 uparmored Humvees in downtown Baghdad, and they're getting shwormas from street vendors. Like, fuck right off. You're in MREs. Oh, I'm only eating the skittles out of MREs because it's all I've been eaten for 90 days.

I mean, I was just dying, but I couldn't do it. Couldn't do local food. I have never been exploratory with food. I used to really like the Afghanistan flatbread until I saw them making it one day with their feet. that hadn't been washed in a really long time and then I was out on that. I just ignored that. You know, our commander in Afghanistan was...

Congratulations, Steve. Our commander in Afghanistan was General Nicholson, and one of the things he told everybody is we're getting ready to go with us, you know, be prepared to drink a lot of tea and eat a lot of goat. And, you know, we did. And honestly, the best food I ate in Afghanistan

was in an elder's courtyard in the Sangan Valley. I mean, it was a good job. I can do the goat. I just, I can't eat bread that I watch somebody make with their feet. I get that. I get that. It was like the Tanduori thing that they laid on the...

I'm just... I wouldn't be able to do that. You know, I don't think that that's... Yeah. But so what did you just date MREs the whole time? Yeah. That's pretty brutal too, right? No, it's the worst.

Yeah. There's all those memes, son. To sit on the shelf for decades. Yes. Yeah. So what was your favorite one? Beef stew. I believe it's number seven.

Yes. Yeah. It's either seven or eight. Yeah. It's either seven or eight. Mine was spaghetti. That's not bad. That's not a bad one.

A little bit Tabasco. Throw some crackers in there. Yeah. It's pretty good. I'm pretty dated on MREs at this point, though. I am too, but I bet you remember the ecosystem and economy around trading like the jams, the peanut butters, the cheeses. Oh, yeah.

The pound cake. Yeah. Poundcake. It was good. People right now, like, what in the fuck are you guys talking about? Well, I think you need to have like an MRE taste booth. I mean, I just have one store from MRE. We were redeploying from OIF1.

You know, one of the waypoints we went through was Diallo, if you remember that place. And while we were there, I ate the, it was the chicken enchilada. MRE.R.E. So corn tortillas, enchilada. They might be corn. It's really hard to say what's in a market. That's what I ate. And then I went into this 48-hour period of being as sick as I've ever been. And to this day, I can't eat corn tortillas. So it does it for you, right? It was that bad. So you have a tasting section, which has ranch and meats and meats and things I can identify. So I'm in. Conceptually, I'm in. All right. Well, hold you to that. I just need this. Let's like send pictures.

We'll send you a ticket. I'll send you a ticket. I'll send you a ticket. I'll send you a ticket. You're in there. You're in there. Well, we're going to hold you to that. Yeah.

I mean, you invited me on your podcast, what, like a year and a half ago? Yeah, here we are. And here we are. Yes, I remember.

I'm just not a fancy eater. I like very simple food. That's okay. And spicy food, never been able to do. Me either. Me either. I'm like,

it can't be spicy at all. I can do like a one. I can do a half. Unless you're at a Thai restaurant, then I order a zero, which is still fucking spicy. Yes, It is.

Totally. There'll be plenty for you to eat there. Sweet. Yeah. All right. So they just did the biggest training ever. Okay. So we did the train of trainer, right?

Then we did this event at MSU. And Brian kicked ass. We co-presented. We co-taught it. And it was amazing. And so now we had all these people come up to us afterwards who were like, you know, we run the VFW. We want to get together a group of VFWs to this presentation. And for clarity, you're presenting on the Overwatch concept.

Overwatch project. Yeah. Yeah, so that's how passionate Brian was about it, right? That one of the things he told me when we started this was that I know people who would be alive today if somebody had had a conversation with them about their firearms. Yeah. Yeah. One of my last command.

I had the training command at Marsock, and we had a student that didn't show up for work one day. Started talking to his buddies, found out he was going through a tough time, so that the staff in CYC, that's the senior enlisted leader for the class, along with our battalion chaplain, or command chaplain went down. To where he was living, found him in his house, you know, knocked on the door, let him in. He was, you know, sleeping, he'd been drinking, started having a conversation with him, you know, talk to him about, hey, you need to get your stuff together. We're going to go back up the command.

We'll work this out. Finally, convinced him, at least in their eyes, that that's what he was going to do. Okay, well, just give me a minute. I'm going to go get in the shower, You know, the gunny and the chaplain walked outside, and he locked the door behind him and showed himself. Yeah. So they didn't ask about the guns. They didn't just fucking ask. Right.

So. Well, and there's a chance he would have lied to him as well. Yeah. You know, I mean, obviously, there's no turnkey solution to any of this. Mm-hmm. The people that I'm worried about are not the ones that will have that conversation and be honestly. The people that I worry about are the ones who are just quiet and stoic and they never say a goddamn thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know, we wanted to have Saul Martinez on here with us, who is a staffer, and he has done this multiple times. I mean, going back to 08, he was telling me stories at least 10 times that he talked to me about. And he says right now, everyone in his community in Bozeman knows that if they need a place to store a veteran's guns, his safe is available. And so what he's done in his community of veterans is he set this conversation, right? He talks about it. He puts it out there. And so people are more likely to do it, right?

The thing about friends and friends are drunk, I always come back to that metaphor because, or that comparison, because people get it, right? It used to be you'd let people just stumble the door at a party. You wouldn't really think about it. But now we have this norm that you're going to intervene, ideally. And when you do, that person is not surprised because other people have had that conversation previously. It's not a surprise to that person. And so, you know, we like to focus a lot. The narrative on veteran suicide is really grim, right?

We most often hear about it when, you know, you're posting on Facebook or someplace where we lost somebody yesterday, you know, take care of each other. Which is important to do that. But we also need stories that are about we save somebody yesterday and this is how we did it. And so we have a documentary film team that works with us, amazing. a filmmaker named Candace Barbou. And it's really about, we've got three stories up there right now. We're adding to them. Actually, on this trip, we're filming more.

That story where a veteran did this, or somebody did it for them in a life was saved. And one of the films that we played last night at the training was about a veteran named Jay. And his dad was a Vietnam vet. Jay was an Army medic, went to Iraq. And his best buddy was this guy named Vic. And when he came back, Jay was actually in suicide prevention. He's a peer counselor. And he was on the phone with Vic, got off the phone, and Vic killed himself two hours later.

And so he just hit rock bottom. He was like, if he can't make it, I don't think I can do this, right? And so his dad saw this. And he had lost his first wife to suicide. And he said, I don't think I can bury my son. So we have to come up with a plan. and so they had a deal where if Jay was struggling, his dad would come over and he would take all of his firearms. And, you know, Jay had a lot of guns.

Like he had them all under the coffee table, behind the front door, in the bathroom. It's called paranoia. And Arsenal, right? And he's quite open about this. Like, I couldn't even cover all the places that he had firearms. It was like two and a half minutes worth of him telling me were. But they had a deal, right? Either he would tell his dad, I don't think I'm doing okay, or his dad would just have

had a key to his house and he would just come and come and take him, right? And not everybody's going to have that relationship. I mean, that was his dad. Requires an exceptional amount of trust. It was his dad, right? But then what happened is that saved Jay's life. And now he does it for other veterans in his circle. So he'll go over there and he'll have a conversation with him.

And he makes it very clear. There's a couple of things he says in that film that really resonate. And I always repeat. One of them is it's going to be an awkward conversation every time you have it. It's uncomfortable, right, to go there and have that conversation with someone. But what he said about his friend, he said, you know, the first time I had the conversation with this buddy of mine, I said, you might be pissed off at me for bringing this up, but I would rather you be angry and alive than happy with me and dead. And so that's the stakes, you know. I don't want you to hit rock bottom with a gun right there.

And we also present a continuum of options, right, in this training. It's not all about like, ideally if somebody is really struggling, and the best thing to do is get the guns out of the house. And that can be really hard for a lot of people because, I don't, I mean, there's a lot of people in my family who have a lot of firearms. I'm talking like 100 or more. Not uncommon. Collectors, for sure. What do you do with all those?

And so, you know, there's people who are going to be okay with that deal that Jay had with his buddies where they get the guns out of the house temporarily, but there's some people who aren't going to be comfortable with that. They want to have a firearm in the home. And so we talk about, how you can create a barrier to access in the home, right? Maybe you change the combo to the safe, or you put a cable lock on it and you have the key,

something that will, they still have the firearm in the home, maybe somebody else in their family has access to it, but maybe not them for a little while, right? It's all temporary, right? They still have possession, but they wouldn't have access in that particular situation. I could see people being much more comfortable with something like that.

Yeah. And then, I mean, they could cut the lock off, the firearm with bowl cutters, right? I mean, is this... Well, if you're a cheap ass and get some shitty lock. Right. I mean, what are we talking about? Bring your fucking varsity game.

Right. I know, I know, I know. It's like, or we're going to have like a Pimp My Safe moment here. Like, what kind of safe do you have? An ironworks. Yeah? How big is it? It's really, really big.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, I have my... I can sleep in it if I needed to. Yes. Yes. Yes, I have safes in family members who have safes that all three of my children can fit in. Yeah.

Yes. So, you know, it's... But I also keep a lot of things in safes that are guns. Me too. Like my DD-214. Yep. Wills. I don't know.

Other documents. Yeah. Like my hunting tags. Very important. Very important. I mean, those things are in a fireproof box and a fireproof safe because I don't care if I lose all my shit, I need to go hunting. Until they go in my pack.

Yeah, correct. And then I still have considered a fireproof small case in there, too. Like inside of a cigar holder or something like that. But yeah. We both clearly know you hunting. It's like the Russian nesting dolls of like hunting license protection. Documentation. You know, you could sell that product.

You could have like this fireproof safe inside the fireproof safe. One levels of fingerprint, the other ones are wet and as you get closer to the sensitive materials. Absolutely. What would be the last? Blood prick for DNA. Obviously. Yeah. You got a plan.

See, I think there's a market for that, right? You don't spend like a lot of time thinking about this stuff? I don't. I don't either. That'd be super weird. That'd be kind of like obsessing. over like the joint controls over the AC in your vehicle. I don't obsess about it.

I just get furious. There's no obsession. Like my position on it is fucking clear. If you use the dual zone, you're a bad person. Right. That's just the way that it is. Yeah. So if you just kick people out, like in mid drive, like open the door and, you have like an ejector seat where you just punch a button.

He's thinking about it now. I mean, just reach over and unbuckle their seatbelt and kick them as hard as you can, but the door would have to be open. You know, on the safe front, I mean, I'll add something to, when it comes to somebody having possession or and then not having access, I personally feel that if you are going to own a firearm, that owning a safe should be mandatory. I don't think we need to write that down

or turn that into a law, even though I would actually support that because of what we have all agreed upon, what they're designed to do, let's treat it with that level of respect. So if you're going to purchase a firearm, and this is where people will twist off and say, well, I need it for home defense in my house.

Mike, listen, the biometrics game has actually really, gotten a lot better. We're talking within like one second. You can have your fingerprint on there and have it open. That like that argument is dead in the water with me. And people say, well, I need it on me at all times. Like really, do you carry it with you in the shower? Like what are we talking about? Like especially if you have kids or if your kids have friends and they come over to the house, I think it should be mandatory. I'm not saying it should be regulated, but I really think that when people look at buying a firearm, the next thing that they should look at, or maybe even first,

because you can put things in a safe that aren't guns should be the safe. Yeah, there's a lot of parts of gun ownership that should come with it, a holster, right? A safe for your car. Responsible gun ownership and gun ownership, though, are two very, very different things. Yeah. I support, I said responsible gun ownership first. So I support the former, not the latter. Yeah.

Yeah. If you're not going to be a responsible gun owner, I'm not saying you don't have a Second Amendment right. What I'm saying is I don't support your choices. But that's just me. So what do I know about guns? Nothing. Yeah. Absolutely nothing.

And you have none of them. I have, I'm not crazy. I know some people with a couple hundred as well. Yeah. Their ammo storage and a supply is not amazing. I feel like they're missing the forest for the trees on that one, a touch. But yeah, to me, firearms are tools. I was taught to use them in a manner that is like that.

They're not magic. They don't do anything magic. they can be used for incredible evil and incredible good. It really depends on the person that's holding it in their hands. But I also only have two hands. So having, even though I like pistols and there's nothing against people who want to have like 50, it's like, I can only hold two at the same time. These things are expensive.

They could be portrayed as an investment. I get it. Why husbands want to do that with their wives? Like, oh, no, I'm investing for our future. Like, no, you're not. Shut up. So I have a, what I would consider it to be a normal. amount. Yeah. Which gives me a bunch of space in the safe for other cool shit. There,

there is a meme going around about like a gun owner's nightmare that they would die and then their wife would sell their guns for what they told their wife they paid for them. Oh yeah. They would not be, they would hundreds of thousands of dollars under their fair market value. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I get it. Some of them are super cool. And if people are into collecting, collect away. But if you, I don't know, if you're planning for the apocalypse and you have like 75 guns, in my opinion, it's a little overkill. Yeah. I got all my dad's guns and, you know, he had four of every caliber and, you know,

I'm not going to use them. So I'm the same camp you're in. You know, I'm holding on to those that I want to pass on to my kids. Well, those are like legacy. It tells the story of your family. I don't need four or seven millimeter magnum, though. I mean, I really don't. I don't think people need 15 ARs.

And I know people have multiples of that. And again, choose to spend your money however you want to. but God damn, man. Like 30, isn't that? Don't they all kind of start functioning the same amount of firearms expert as far as how they're all put together? But God damn, man. Well, they like to trick them out.

Yeah, but you can all the customization now. You know what, though? That eats up more room and you're safe too. It does. You should definitely have like a Liberacee AR platform that's got all the bells and whistles on that thing. But if you do that with six or seven of those, you're eating up so much safe room that you'll actually, like, losing storage space for like 15 to 20 rifles.

That stuff all takes up space. It's all heavy. It's all expensive. But if you're into that stuff, go to town. So what do you hunt? What's your hunting? So I have elk hunting in two weeks in eastern Montana. Okay.

And then I got a mule deer hunt in the breaks area in November. It looks like it might be getting a cow tag in Wyoming at the end of October. So for me, like if I had to choose one animal, it would be elk for sure. I'm in the same camp. my bow. In the same camp. Oh, we're having a good, we can have, y'all can geek out on the elk bow hunting. There's nothing to geek out about. He was telling me about the, the beauty of it.

It's the thing I look forward to. Yeah. September's my favorite month. Brian and I can just agree that it's fucking awesome. And it's delicious. And yeah, people who will never understand that are just never going to understand it. Right. There's something about having a bowl screaming in your face as you're pretending your bush trying

to kill it. And the thing I love about it, archery elk kind's hard. Very. It's hard. That's why I stay in shape. That's what I'm training for a year round, and it's hard to do. And, you know, that pursuit of something challenging, that gives me something to look forward to all year long. I mean, I've been a lifelong hunter.

That's how my dad and I connected when we were young. So it's more than, you know, it's not about going out and killing an elk. It's the act of hunting and, you know, the challenge associated with it. And the fact that it immerses you in nature. and, you know, the one place I felt closest to God is a place I call Salas Park in the Greenhorn Range of Montana, you know. I get it. Well, I can understand the spiritual experience of Montana.

This is my first visit to Montana. Oh, really? Yeah. Bozeman is not a bad place to have your first experience in Montana. Yeah, and then to get to drive to Calasville. Yeah, the drive here. It's a beautiful drive. Yeah.

She's seen a lot. Yeah, I know. I'm sure he got sick. I was like, it's so beautiful. You know, all the way here. I actually still probably say it out loud every day. Yeah. I'll be driving along like, God, I'm lucky to live where I live.

Yeah. Especially growing up here, I was gone for almost 30 years. So, you know, it was honestly I felt like a huge relief off my shoulders the minute I crossed over the Missouri when we moved back here. And, you know, I knew I wasn't going east of that for a long time. So, you know, everybody has their own personal preferences and this is mine. I have to say that I have the same, some of the same experience with Miami. You know, you're in this big city, right?

It's hustle, bustle, things are crazy. But every time you cross one of those bridges, and you're like, oh, the water wasn't that color yesterday, right? It really, you can live in a big city, but be very connected to that natural element. So that's one of the reasons why I love Miami. Yeah. I lived in New York twice,

and there's people who are, like, die-hard New York people. They want to live there forever. And so it's a place to get things done, right? Right? I got all done in New York, but living there forever. I just can't imagine. Because there's no your... I could not do it. You know.

So. So, continuum of options. Or did you have another question? Veteran suicide. Yes. Do either of you have a better estimate or an accurate statistic other than the 22 a day? No. Because it's a bullshit number.

I think it might be bullshit. I've heard bullshit low or high, but when you look at how they came to that number, it was a very incomplete. selection of data. Yeah. Yeah, I was, I was, you know, I've listened to the previous podcast you've had on this, and he talked about that. And, you know, when I was on the chairman's staff, that was, you know,

that was the number was being thrown around then, 22 veterans every day killing themselves. Yeah. Like you said, when you dug into that data. Very incomplete sample. Yeah. So, you know, I was never comfortable with that with that, using that statistic. But I recently read a report that came out of a research out of Boston University

and what he found in his report and what he reported, was, you know, they estimate over 30,000 post-9-11 veterans and active duty service members have killed themselves in the post-9-11 era. So, and really the way that they put that in the context is we, you know, that's four times the number that had been killed in combat in that time. So, you know, I don't know what that translates into the number per day, but that's a pretty sobering statistic. And the other thing that the report said was, you know, for the first time ever, we're at the point

where military-related suicide rate is higher than the civilian rate. It's always lagged it until now. So, you know, I don't know what that translates into the number per day. All I know that it's gotten worse over time. And, you know, that's one of the reasons that we jumped into this. Yeah. I mean, I struggle with that number, right? Which one, 22?

Yeah, I don't know, and I don't know which direction it is. But I think that, you know, you're depending on data sources that are imperfect, as they often are. all I know is it's too many and especially now you know we we there's somebody on my board who lost someone two and a half weeks ago and you know whatever we're doing and he was somebody who was kind of in the circle right

that that had been one of the reasons why this member of my board has been doing this and he was one of the last people to see him alive and so I just I just remember you know, when I heard that, it was just like, fuck, you know? Just, and then it was like, fuck this. We are not working fast enough, right?

Like, whatever we're doing, it's not working fast enough. And so that was one of the reasons why, I mean, we were already in this train the trainer, trying to grow exponentially, how many people we can reach. And right now, I'm like, we got to move faster. So we did this big training.

We're talking about another one at other universities in Montana, and they have alumni for wars and quiet waters. How many alumni do you have around the country? Thousands. I don't know the exact number. Thousands. But a lot of them are focal in focal points, right?

In Texas or California where there's a lot of veterans. So can we set up events with them, right? It's really like how do we reach more people? A lot of what we've done up until now has been more intimate, right? We've done smaller trainings, virtually and in person, which there's, really something to be said for that. But I think that now the way things are going, we just, we need to scale quicker, faster, do more, work with more organizations, get out there and a lot faster, right? But one of the things that was so compelling for me when I got introduced to the

Overwatch Project and their approach was, you know, going back to that story I told about that student that killed himself. I was the chief of staff at that unit at the time. So, you know, I saw the whole investigation, got the brief, all that. And, you know, asking that question was never obvious to me at that time. It wasn't. It's not, it's not a question I asked in the brief. And I'm sure that it wasn't obvious either to that gunny and that chaplain. And, you know, when I tell that story, I'm very careful to, you know, make sure that there's no blame there at all, you know, that the question didn't get asked. But it wouldn't have been obvious to me until I, you know, started reading about Overwatch Project and their approach. And I'm like,

that that's what it's all about. It's about normalizing that conversation where everybody thinks about it, you know, just like if you got a friend that's a drum, you're going to say, hey, dude, what's up with your keys? Let me have them. We're going to get you home safe. But, you know, at least for me personally, in that moment, that wasn't an obvious question to ask. And I wonder how and why that's where,

that's why it was the way it was. But that was one of the things that was so compelling is it just, I'm like, I think that's an approach that has some traction. And if we can normalize this conversation, you know, we can play a part in that. Whereas in Coat Waters can play a part in that. I think that, you know, that's a responsibility that we have and partnering with the Overwatch project was a great way to do that.

When you were, in addition to that, suicide were you the chief of staff? I never had any exposure to this on the admin side of the house. But I'm curious in active duty service members, I don't know if I know of one, I think I know of two who have killed themselves while on active duty. Both were post-9-11, and I think it's safe to say that both were dealing with the, the impact of their service post-9-11. But do you have any idea of what the suicide rate is like for active-duty service members? I feel like it's substantially lower than those

after they have left service. Yeah, I think it is. I mean, we could research the number and tell us. You know, but I think in the three years I was at Morsok, there was probably four in the command at that time. You know, one of my Marines that worked with me, they're still on active duty. just killed himself last June. So, you know, it's happening. I don't know. I'm sure it's,

it's probably lower than the veteran rate, but yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's something that the services were reporting every year. Well, I would, and this is completely a wild-ass guess, but I would bet that it has increased post-9-11 at a higher rate than it did pre-9-11, or exposure to TBI blast, the post-traumatic. I mean, it's not that you're not dealing with those things when you're active duty, I think that you have, you're surrounded more by a community and peers and people that have a better ability to keep track. Yeah. And that, I mean, that's one of the things that makes, you know, the transition to becoming a veteran as hard as it is, as you know, is that those battle buddies that are with you

all the time are no longer there. You know, that community, that connection, that team that you rely on every single day to help you get through a shitty day, to help you deal with, you know, dealing with the suck of every day, that they're not. there anymore. You're going through it alone. They're still there. They're just distant. They're not right there next to you. And I think that that's one of the reasons why it's so hard for a lot of veterans is that, you know, that that camaraderie, those relationships that are probably stronger than any other relationship they've had in their life, you know, they're not right there next to them now. They're more distant. And as a result of that, you're going through a lot of

stuff alone. Yeah, it does suck that a lot of guys make the choice to go it through it alone. in my own departure from the military, it was pretty seamless as far as an occupational perspective. But in everywhere that I've landed, I've made at least an effort to connect with something or somebody. It can be replaced. But if you self-isolate and you're going through a bad time, again, I think that can trend in a bad direction.

But all of the, I mean, I look back at the SEAL community. There's no way that I'm ever going to work for a team that was that cohesive again. Ever. And it took me a while to come to grips with that, and then I had to put that away. And I had to kind of stop looking for that, but that doesn't mean you can't have the depth of a relationship that is equally as deep. I have some friends now or friends now. I would say that they have no exposure to the military whatsoever, but the depth of the friendship, it rivals the depth of the friendship that I have with the people that I worked with. Will I ever share those level of experiences? No. But you can replace those support networks. You can create relationships with people. people that care deeply about you, that can look you in the eye and be like, hey man, are you fucking okay? Yeah.

The problem is, as you know, veterans aren't very good at asking for help and they're not very good to accept and help. A couple recent participants in our program is a perfect example. We have a, he's a National Guard, sort of major that's been a volunteer in our program for a long time. And we had an unexpected opening in the program and said, hey, you should come through as a participant. And, you know, his response was, I don't want to take someone else's spot. They need it more than I do. And then he went through the program and was amazed by what he got out of it after volunteering for us for years and years and years.

That's an incredibly common response to. I didn't seek, I didn't go in and try to get help because I feel like I'd be taking resources from others. Taking someone else's spot. And you know where I hear that one more than anything is from people who were peripheral to a combat MLS, perhaps in a supporting role. And they'll say, well, it's like they judge their service and their experience in comparison to us. other people. And if there was one piece of advice I could give people, don't do that. I think that's great advice. Absolutely. I mean, I've literally heard it over and, well, I was just, you know, I was, you know, I was a support comm guy. And I'm not going to go to the VA and try

to get treatment for this because I'll be taking treatment from guys who are on the front. I'm like, dude, we were getting fucking rocketed and mortared like every other day. Like, we were all sitting there going through that together. Stop with this comparing the trash. Our motor tea operators were on patrols every day, every single day outside the. wire, you know, they were in it just as much. And, you know, even if you weren't, like you said, you know, your service was viable. Yeah. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, and you contribute to that, and without your, without your, without that contribution,

there wouldn't have been the same result. So, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Doesn't matter. Absolutely. Yeah. So, what's the hardest part of what it is you guys are doing? The hardest part is, um, um, this conversation is so politicized. the conversation around firearms and suicide. Why is that? Is it because of the firearm aspect of it? Yes. Yeah. I mean, because so much of the conversation is about when, you know, the red flag laws and all this stuff, and there's this huge battle about that, we have learned, right, over time as we go into a room, how to take that tension out of the conversation and really put it up front. Actually, you know, you were there when I met Tim Kennedy. Timothy, yes.

Timothy, Mr. Timothy. That video, you've seen his video. Did you see the video we did together? I can't believe. Listen, Timothy posts a lot of videos. Okay. All right, like fucking seven to nine a day. I'm actually not sure if that's true,

but that's what I'm going to say. Right. He is a content machine. He is. So I may have seen it. It's him. It's the first 20 seconds are him like blowing stuff up. So you've just described seven of the nine videos he posts per day.

Yes, I did. So anyway, you're not helping me with this reduction here. He did this video for us, and we worked with the team at 5-11, who introduced you and I. Yep. You know, at that meeting at Chateau, it was to talk about... Where he assaulted me. Where he assaulted you. I know your feelings are still hard.

Yes. Lucky it in press charges. Yes, absolutely. You know, the conversation was like, what can we do together? And after that, Eric Katzenberg, who was in that room, he said, I've got an idea. He's the head of, he's the creative director for 511. And it was this 80 second video that 511 produced for us with Tim on one of their film days for 511. And it's like him shooting a bunch of things in the beginning. It's like guns are great unless you might kill yourself with one of them. So it's like basically the message of the Overwatch project in 80 seconds. Right. So guns are great unless you might kill yourself with one of them. So just fucking ask. Right. Just fucking ask. To help, just asking, fucking ask for help. I actually start all of our, pretty much all of our trainings, wherever I can get away with it, with that 80-second video. Because it establishes

on the front end, we, that guns are awesome, right? If you use them safely, you want to shoot your friends like guns, it's all good. But while you're there, you need to be thinking about this if somebody in your life is struggling. And so we start off with that. It gets people's attention very quickly. And then one of the things that we close with is this slide that says this is an act of free will. Because there's always somebody that no matter how many times we say it over the course of the conversation, because of the way this conversation has been had, where it's always about these coercive approaches, is like this is like some stealth initiative to take people's guns away, which is this is the opposite, right? Oh, it's the Manchurian candidate

Yes, that we are people, this is just a way to sell taking people's guns away, which is the opposite of what we're doing. We're talking about a proactive, preemptive action between two people and no one else has to know, right? And so we've gotten good at neutralizing that concern. But in the beginning, when we were really learning how to have that conversation, I would have veterans in our trainings and presentations who were angry. There was one in particular who I thought about who was just like shaking. He was so angry about the conversation we were having. And I finally was like, okay, what are you, what's really upsetting you about this? And it turned out he had done this, right? He had intervened

and he had held on to a friend's firearms. He believed in what we were doing, but he was upset that we were having this conversation so publicly. Because he said, there's nothing that the public is more afraid of than a veteran with post-traumatic stress and a gun. And so he was really afraid of us putting that message out there. And so what I said to him and what I still say, which is, you know, so people are having this conversation in a way that you don't like, right? They're having, they're talking about red flag laws. You don't change the conversation by not participating in it. You need to go claim that conversation. So if you don't want the conversation to be about red flag laws and taking people's guns away, we need to present this other alternative where the

gun owner community, veterans and others, it's like we got this, right? And so, you know, the Overwatch project, the idea has always been that we start with the veteran community where 70% of suicides are with firearms. It's a higher per capita rate. And then eventually we're moving out into the entire 50 to 60 million gunners in America, which is already happening. If we can talk about that, we're working with gun owner groups on suicide prevention initiatives that are separate from the Overwatch project. But the idea is that, you know, you create this norm and then gunners are doing this for themselves.

And so that becomes the alternative and dominant narrative around firearms and suicide, right? That there are these peer intervention approaches that people are using effectively and you bring that number down. I think it's important, at least for me. I'll speak for myself. people need to stop believing everything that they see on TV screens when it comes to veterans and post-traumatic stress. It doesn't mean that you are a homicidal maniac. In my experience with veterans that I know that are struggling with post-traumatic stress, in the worst-case scenarios, they are an exceptional risk to themselves. but most of the people that I know who suffer from a deep level of post-traumatic stress,

it comes from extremely violent situations that they don't want to live out on other people. It comes with the own weight of those situations and then navigating their way through it. And they're much more likely to kill themselves than anybody else. So I guess I can understand, you know, where that particular veteran was coming from and being angry and upset. But there's an aspect of this that people need to grow the fuck up and realize, that it's not a always a square peg and a square hole. There are so many different expressions

of post-traumatic stress. It could just be complete and utter societal withdrawal. I talked to my dad about that from Vietnam veterans. It's just dudes who fucking moved up into the mountains and didn't want to be a part of society. They're not sitting there, you know, happy Gilmoreing it,

and fucking wearing a dress and lipstick and writing names on a mirror of people that they're going to kill. I don't know your experience, but that's the exact opposite experience that I have ever had with the veteran with post-traumatic stress. And that's the problem with the narrative. You know, we tend to go to the extremes, you know.

And this goes all the way back to the beginning of the war. I mean, the veterans were typically cast in one or two extremes. Either they're all heroes or they're all victims who have PTSD. And that's not the case at all. I mean, PTSD is a, you know, it's a, it's a diagnosable condition that leads to, in many cases, post-traumatic growth. They're going to come out stronger on the other end. It's about resilience and, you know, growing from that experience.

So that's the problem with the narrative. You know, veterans, post-9-11 veterans, Vietnam Air veterans, they're not victims. We're all, you know, at least in the current era, all volunteers. You know, we all knew what we were getting into. In a lot of cases, they just need a hand up. And, you know, that's what we seek to do at Wors and Quiet Waters is to help veterans thrive because I think thriving veterans and thriving communities means a better future for all of us. And they're all, that that's what can be ahead of every one of them, post-traumatic growth.

So I think that's the, you know, we've allowed that conversation to settle in on the, PTSD forgetting about it in many cases, in most cases, it can lead to post-traumatic growth, and they're going to come out stronger as a result of that. And that's going to make us a better country. So, you know, that's really what we're striving to do. And once again, that's why we tried to get into this conversation. Yeah, the victim mentality is a tough one to wrap your head around. It doesn't make sense to me, but I'm not saying that that means anything. That just means to me, I have a hard time dealing with that. I think, and I feel like veterans can often and be victims, but they're a victim of their own circumstances, and it's a navigatable road

out of it. And a lot of the times they're standing in front of their own way. You know, and I'll say something that's maybe unpopular, but there are some people who are more than happy to live their life with that victim card who come from the veteran community. I've experienced a few of them, where it is a never-ending quest to be the veteran that is defined by what either did or did not happen to them in some circumstances and they will navigate through programs like yours to the next one and to the next one and to the next one. That again, though, is the anomaly, not the norm that I have experienced. Yeah, I agree. I mean, we work hard to try to place those with the greatest need in our program. Yeah. Saul, who she mentioned is a wounded warrior himself. He runs up,

he runs our programs for us. That's what he does. He does all the selections and placements. And, you know, one of the requirements to come through our program has to be that you have to be able to express how you want to grow as a result of coming through the program. It's, you know, we're not looking for those that are just remaining, you know, looking to be, you know, stay victims. We're looking for those that recognize they have a challenge, recognize that that challenge can be, you know, overcome and want to come through our program to help them with it. So. Yeah.

And for clarity, like, I have extreme empathy for the people who are trapped and are a victim of their circumstances, but I cannot do anything about it. And neither can anybody else until they are willing to navigate their way out of that. And that's where I don't know what to do. There has to be a willingness to change. Yeah. And that's a requirement to come through our program. Yeah.

So they've got to be able to express that. All right, Casey. Yeah. Talk me through the conversation. Talking for the conversation. Well, I want to finish one thing, though, because we stopped it, like, getting the guns out of the house as an option. And then, you know, kind of creating a barrier to access. There's two more steps on that down that continuum that I think are important because.

Handcuff the person to their back. No? I'm just spitballing here. Put them in the trunk of your car? Tape them up. I'm sure Brian's familiar with the term happy hat. I don't know if I'm going to be adding that to my conversation guide. You know, we have.

I am just spitballing ideas here. These are the, this is a stream of consciousness. Yes, absolutely. Tim, Mr. Timothy had some interesting ideas as well. I bet they were probably similar to mine. That we could not put on the website. So, yeah, there's a multiplicity of options, and I'm sure everybody can come up with their own creative ways. But for us, what we have on our website is so you can get them out of the house, you can secure them so they don't have access but they're in the house and somebody else has access.

You can create a delay to access, right? And this one, you can disassemble the firearm, right? They can put it back together in a minute and a half. But while they're doing that, they're thinking about why they took it apart. right? The way we frame this is creating decision points between impulse and action, right? So that impulsive moment where you have that rock bottom moment, how do you give them some time to think? And so you can disassemble the firearm, they can put it in a safe. Even though they don't normally keep it there, they still have access. There are a lot of ways to do that, right? We have a veteran who we

work with who has this kind of involved multi-step program where, you know, he sleeps with a gun under his pillow. So if he's having a hard time, he'll move it into his bedside table. That doesn't seem like a big step to anybody but him, perhaps. But for him, it's a psychological choice that he's like, okay, this gun might be a danger to me right now. So then if things keep getting bad, he'll put it downstairs in the safe. He won't lock it, but he's thinking about why I put it there, right? If things keep getting bad, he hasn't slept for four days, you know, his wife will take the he's the safe. And if it keeps continuing to get worse, he has a buddy who comes and gets the firearms. So what's happened there is he has recognized that this thing that he carries for personal

protection he has on him at all times could be a risk to him at certain moments in his life. And so he's making a choice to create that plan, that course of action, that for him works, right? He's managing his access based on how he's doing. And so another possibility, there are folks who there's no way they're ever not going to have complete total access at all times to their firearm. So creating emotional reinforcements in those moments. Some people put pictures of their family in their safe. So they literally have to go over their firearm at all times, over their family to get to their firearms. There is a story on our website of a veteran named Steve who we worked with them. He's part of a combat veterans motorcycle association chapter. and they ended up after we worked with them

in developing the Overwatch Project creating a program where they'll hydrograph for free on a firearm for a veteran, a picture, usually a family picture. And so there's a picture on our website of him, his firearm, and it's his son. Alan hit the grip. And he said, you know, I wouldn't be able to kill myself

if I was looking my son in the eye. Jesus Christ. I mean, that's an extreme step. Yeah. Yeah. But it's it, you know, it's him, It is a very hard thing for a lot of people, gun owners and veterans, you know, the gun is what makes them feel safe, right? This is what I own, the number one reason surveys tell us that people own guns is for personal protection.

So coming to the conclusion and recognizing that that thing that you own to keep you safe might be a risk to you is actually a big step, right? And it leads to people making these plans. And so, so yeah, we have that continuum on there because we want their. There can't be a one-size-fit-all. If the only thing we were saying get the guns out of the house, we would lose. Oh, the idea is dead on arrival. Yeah, yeah, huge. And it would play into the narrative where people are like, well, this is like a stealth.

Like, let's take people's guns away. We want to make very clear that we're just really about how people can make a plan, you know, and make sure that they follow it. They have it. It's ready for them. Ideally, you know, and this is the long-term goal. We want to be backing this conversation out. of the crisis moment, right?

So, like this veteran that we tell that story of, he's got a plan with his buddies, right? They've already talked about it. So when somebody is at their worst moment, they're not having to think about having a conversation about this thing that's really sensitive, which is their guns. And so it's really about just coming up

with a course of action that they can follow. And so in terms of how you go there, right? It's not super complicated. I always tell people it's not rocket science. I usually say rocket surgery. It's my real. Rocket surgery. Are you a rocket surgery expert?

You got some skills? No. I would like to say that I was. I was thinking about my knowledge on both. Now, you're just so fucked if you need surgery or rocket stuff done with me. Right. You keep it simple, right? Yeah.

The number one thing, the biggest barrier to this, is getting over that awkwardness, right? That, like, I don't want to go. I'm saying, hey, are you okay? Well, both. There are a lot of people who believe that if you ask somebody if they're thinking about ending their life, that you will actually plant the idea. Oh, interesting. There are a lot of people who fear that. That is a fact that surveys have said that.

The inception model where you're actually going to. I've seen that movie too. Yeah. That one is a. That is a. I would marry Leonardo DiCaprio. Two men I would marry a Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. I'm not gay.

And there's nothing wrong with being gay, but I would marry both. I might agree with you on Leonardo DiCaprio. Which Brad Pitt? Fight Club. A river runs through it. River runs through it. Yeah, I can't blame you on that. For sure. Legends of the Fall. Legends of the Fall. Also Savage. I get just lost. Yeah, Legends of the fall. Yeah. It was the long hair look. Yeah. Yeah. I had like long hair goggles. Yeah.

Decaprio is over it now. Handsome man. Yeah. Yeah. He is. Ah. Eh, he's, you know, his, have you ever seen that? Well, I won't go there with it. Anyway. I feel like you should now. I should. Okay. Where there's this graph that was circling on social media about the average age of Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriends. I don't think it ever went, has gone above like 23 or 25. I don't know about any of that,

but I saw the movie poster for the Great Gatsby. I'm like, God damn, that's a handsome one. It's a well-proportioned features. I'm just saying. Yeah. And he's made some good movies. He's a good actor. Like Inception.

So people really think, for, well, spoiler alert, or if you haven't watched the movie Inception, It's the idea you could plant an actionable idea in somebody's mind. That's largely the premise of that movie. So people are afraid to talk about it because they think that they might plant that seed. Yeah, they're afraid that they'll suggest suicide to someone who wasn't otherwise thinking about it. Just in the act of having a conversation. Yeah, they do.

They do believe that. But that's not true. That has been a proven fact by research. So anybody who's hearing this thinking that's going to happen, it's not true. So the most important thing, a lot of times if somebody is thinking about it, you're going to take the pressure out of it by asking in a non-judgmental way. As part of our conversation guide, I have a quote in there from this veteran named John, who we worked with. And he said, he's like, try not to open with you seem really fucked up. That actually might be affected for some of the guys.

It might be a fake. But his advice was, you know your audience. You seem really fucked up. You may be a little softer. You know, the idea is to go in non-judgmental. right? It's like, no, I'm not fucked up. I would probably approach just like, hey man, you're doing okay? Yeah. I don't know if that's non-judgmental, but that would probably be that opener.

Or are really asking how are you doing? Because if you say, are you doing okay? It's like, you're not suicidal, are you? That's not what I said. I know. But are you doing okay? But are they going to say, yeah, I'm okay. But it's like how you're really doing? Like, you know, kind of digging a little deeper? Because are you doing okay?

I feel like it's kind of become trite in society. know, people... I'd open that with that because I want to judge their response. There's a variety of ways that you can respond to that that mean many different things. The number one thing is to actually ask, right? Just fucking ask, go there. And don't be afraid to ask. I mean, are you thinking about suicide?

Are you thinking about ending it? Are you thinking that you can't go on? Like, there's different ways to do that. So you recommend the direct approach, though? Absolutely. Yeah. If you're, you know, you can go in softer, right? If you, if you doesn't feel like it's a big of a crisis to you, but you should never be afraid to ask that.

But if you say it in a non-judgmental way, no shock, no judgment. It's really just like, I'm just asking you this, you know, and you can frame it as, I'm worried about you. You know, can we have a conversation about this? You know, you can kind of put it on yourself. And, you know, they might tell you they're okay. That still doesn't mean you shouldn't have a conversation about that. their firearms, right? Because people will say that, you know, say. Well, if they are okay, that would be the best time to have the conversation. Yes. They'd likely be the most receptive

because they're not in crisis. Yeah. And I've done that a couple times since I got exposed to the Overwatch Project is having those conversations where we're not in a state of crisis. You know, probably will have the most impact, actually. Yeah. I'm going to be part of your plan. You're going to be part of my plan. We agree. Okay. Yeah. We agree. And then that way when you do see him maybe in a place where they're struggling, you know, that we've already had that opening conversation. Remember the plan we made? I don't know. I'm kind of worried. Let's have a conversation about your guns. Yeah. Well, that's actually one of the things that we promote is there's this thing that we started that we have not successfully promoted just because we've been busy, but called the

advance guard, where it's essentially like a pledge, right? You're going to go have a conversation in a proactive way with a friend about your firearms. And the idea there is you may not feel like you're worried about yourself, right? It's hard for people. to accept help if it's just about them receiving help. You know, if you just went and asked, you know, in some cases, like, can I be your plan if you ever struggling, you know, I'll hold on your guns? They might be like, oh, man, like, I'm okay. You know, I'm not going to need that. But if you go to them and you say, hey, you know, if I was ever struggling, would you be my plan? Would you help me hold onto my firearms? Would you help me secure them? They're going to say yes,

right? And then what happens? Then you get an opportunity. opportunity to say, you know, would you want me to do the same thing for you? And so you have that. You've laid the groundwork. And so it's not this huge lift that they're really struggling to have that conversation, right? That's an interesting way to approach it, actually. Yeah. And so you've normalized asking, right? So getting in there and asking, that's what I tell people like, well, I don't want to offend them. What if they aren't really struggling? You know, they might, you know, be mad at me for asking. I'm like, well, if you do nothing else in that conversation, you have normalized asking. So they might ask the next person, they might be okay,

but they might be more willing to ask somebody else because you ask them. And that person could be the one who really needs to help. So it's really about creating this kind of virtuous chain where people are like, okay, my gut says something's going on here. I'm going to ask. And while I'm there, I'm going to have a conversation about their firearms because that is really critical. A lot of people, you know, they will go there and ask about somebody being okay, but they won't ask about the firearms, not because they don't care, but they just never thought about it. We have a veteran who we work with,

who Cole contacted me off the Overwatch Project website, and he said, you know, I have intervened with half a dozen people, and never once did I think while I was there to talk about their firearms. And he was like, the word he used, I was like totally gobsmacked by this. I was like, oh my God, like, you know, I should be asking about this. And he did that two weeks later just off of our conversation got on the website, and now he's done it for five or six people. Fuck, that seems like a lot.

Like I said, that's the same boat I was in. It never occurred to me. Yeah. And it was so obvious once I saw the stuff. Yeah. Yeah, he just fucking asked somebody recently. Yesterday. You know, there's at least one other member of his staff who did it after we started working together.

So it's really getting it out there in ways that people like, okay, you know, I'd be thinking about this, you know? Well, it makes sense for the non-veteran community as well. Everything that you guys are talking about, obviously the Warriors Quiet Waters is specifically directed for veterans. But the conversation, the steps in place that are not, you know, one-size-fits-all, that makes sense for anybody who is a gun owner. I'm curious how it has been received outside of the veteran community. Because you said you've branched out now outside. Yeah. Has the reception been equal or is there a difference between the two?

No, it's been great, right? We're actually in the early stages of developing a similar initiative focused on women gun owners. From the perspective of, you know, there's most, the majority of suicides, gun suicides are men. Same for veteran suicides as well. But there's about a 90-10 ratio would be my guess. Yeah. Yeah, it's about 90-10. Yeah.

Yeah, it's changing, right? but the suicide numbers as they are, yeah. And so from the perspective of women gun owners, right, that I work with a really amazing organization called the Well-armed Woman Shooting Chapters, which is a chapter-based group for women gun owners, and we've worked with them on one of our other initiatives and just spoke at their national conference a couple weeks ago,

and we're starting that process, just like we did with the Overwatch Project, We don't ever just haul off and do anything. We really want to get all that engagement. We wouldn't have gotten just fucking ask if we had just done, you know, kind of built the Overwatch Project cold. And so now we're starting that process. We're really focused on storytelling, you know,

as a former journalist, I believe that people remember, that's that saying people remember, they don't remember what you say. They remember the way you made them feel. And like last night when we gave that, that training at MSU, the highlights of it, you know, we did a survey after of the people who came, and the highlights of it were these two films that we played of Jay and this other veteran named Gabe who have done this, right? This example, like, I have done this, I am alive

today, that is more powerful than just about anything else that we can say. And so we actually suggest, you know, if you've got a veteran in your life who you're worried about, an easy way to talk to them about it would be to send them one of our films. and say, hey, I just want to talk to you about this. You know, there's a story. Here's an example. This guy's doing this. You know, what do you think?

You know, could we talk about this? So it really makes it easy to talk about, you know, we are, you know, we have a presentation that Brian and I did last night. Or, and he kicked ass. Like, he's an amazing presenter. It was a great person. It was the first time I've had to pass it back and forth. And so he was. She forgot halfway through that.

I know. There was one moment where I, you know, I was like, oh, that's not my line. You know, so. but we want to do like an easier module where it's just a film you just push play and then here's a conversation guide about how you can have a conversation about it yeah so it just makes it easier we want to make the barrier to entry very easy so that people um have an easy time using it right I think that there's a lot of things out there that we know we can do should do would be great to do but if you don't make it easy for busy people to do it then it's not going to happen but to get back

your question about, you know, how I think it applies to a lot of different cohorts. You know, one of the things that we planned for the presentation yesterday was the questions that you opened up with were trying to get a sense of who's in the room. You had a list of questions, you know, how many of you, you know, have family members that own guns, how many of you own guns? How many of you know a veteran that owns a gun? And her idea was by the time we got the third or fourth question, probably everybody in the room. I think he got through question two and everybody raised their hand. Yeah.

That's actually what I was thinking as you were listing off those questions. Yeah. How many people, A, are a veteran who own a firearm, B, know a veteran who owns a firearm, C, are a gun owner, or D, I had to think about it, know somebody who owns firearms. That's pretty much everyone in America, right? Yeah. And so, like, the population that we're trying to reach is huge. And, you know, the day that we get to that friends don't have friends who drive drunk level of awareness is the day that those numbers are. really going to come down. Do you ever encounter people who say I don't feel comfortable talking

to vets about this because I never served? Like there's this imaginary wall that can't be breached in communication. I've heard it a few times. Well, how can I say anything to them or how could I be help to them because I didn't experience what they did? And it's, I don't want to say it's a cop-out, but it's also not real. I don't think they need you to have lived through the experience that they lived through or shared it to be potentially impactful in their life in those moments. I mean, I think that's a real thing. I remember an experience I had when I was on the joint staff. You know, I went to another event where they were having a workshop with educators about how to better serve veterans. And I got in there about halfway through. I was going to be the

keynote. And they were having a conversation about how do you, how do you as a counselor or an educator have a conversation with a veteran if you think that they're struggling? And I watched struggle with that question and never really got to a great answer. And then when it was my term to speak, I mean, I said, before I, before I start, I just want to come back to that question that you were talking about on how do you approach a veteran that you think is struggling. And I walked over to somebody in the room and I just, you know, hey, my name is Brian, how you doing? And just started having a conversation with them. I'm like, that's how you do it. They're just people. They're just people. And, you know, just because you didn't have the same experiences with

them doesn't mean that you can't have a conversation with them. So I think that's a real thing. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable doing that because they think that because they didn't have that experience, they can't relate to them. And, you know, like I said, going back to our program, that's the first thing we try to establish is that level of trust and help them understand that they can. And I'm going to say that goes in the other direction, too, because I'll oftentimes hear it from vets. Well, I don't have anybody to talk to because they haven't, you know, they weren't there. It's like, yeah, they weren't there. And you are surrounded by people that would love to sit there and listen and help you to the best of their ability. So get off your fucking soapbox and stop self-isolating and reach out to people.

I mean, fuck, at the end of the day, we are human beings with our own bullshit and our own issues. I've yet to meet somebody. Well, I take that back. I've met a few people who think they're perfect. They're not. Spoiler alert. But, I mean. I'm sure you told them that.

I did definitely tell one of them that. Yeah, I definitely had that conversation with that person. But again, a victim might have. of your own circumstances. I don't have anybody to talk to. I bet you your family would listen. I bet you that your close friends would listen and hopefully you're not self-isolating and not having those things. But there are people who are out there who will listen. It's okay. Maybe they give you a better perspective. I often find when I will talk with people or listen people talk about their military experience with somebody who wasn't in the military, because the

other person listening has no experience with it, they view it from a different optic. and it actually can be very revealing conversations because you end up looking at stuff. I'm my brain on military issues. I view it through the view of the viewfinder of a service member. It's interesting to hear what people say when they're viewing it from the viewfinder of somebody who was ever proximal to the military at all.

And oftentimes it's like I said, it's a really revealing conversation. You should have them. You shouldn't avoid them. Yeah. That's borne out every week in our programs. I mean, many of our volunteers have no military experience, but, you know, that they prove that every time to that service member that you can have a conversation, you can have a connection with someone that didn't share that experience because they do care.

They're there to do whatever they can to help you get wherever you need to go. And, you know, our volunteers will tell us all the time I got as much out of it as that Warrior did going through our program. So, yeah, absolutely true. We actually, parallel to developing the Overwatch project, we developed the cultural competency training for clinicians. on how to talk to veterans and gun owners in crisis about their firearms. While they're in crisis? While they're in crisis.

Yeah. Because it is, you know, people come to the ER suicidal, like actively suicidal. You know, you want the clinicians to be able to have a conversation about their firearms. And it is, a lot of it was just the unknown, right? When you talk to clinicians about why they aren't going there. I mean, these are medical facts, right, that you should be having conversations. with somebody who is suicidal about whether they have firearms. And people, even clinicians who know this aren't having this.

And one of them said to me once, you know, I'm afraid of opening a door that I don't know how to help them walk through. And so what we did with that cultural competency training was, you know, there's people who, like the lethal means reduction, like the sort of factual stuff around it. There's trainings around that. what we were interested in, again, on that storytelling vein, was helping them understand the mentality of a veteran or a gun owner in that moment and why that conversation was complicated. And so I would bring in two veterans with me who had both been suicidal and had made decisions about their firearms in that crisis moment and who now were peer counselors who were having that conversation from the other side with veterans who were in crisis.

and that storytelling piece was actually everyone said was the most important part of that training that got to ask them all the questions and it helped do what one of our goals was was to create an empathy pathway, what I call an empathy pathway between a clinician who may have never been in a room with a firearm and has no idea like why do all these people need to own guns, right? Like I don't understand it, you know. You don't have to understand it. You don't have it. You don't understand it.

But understanding the mentality that people are coming from that it's personal protection, right? That you're talking about in somebody's moment of most crisis about separating them from the thing that makes them feel safe, right? And so it was really about, you know, you are the expert on a lot of things that have to do, you know, medical matters and medication and all these things. But they are probably the expert on guns, right? So how do you help them have that conversation in a way that's not judgmental? So one of the things was don't open with, do you have guns in the home? right? It's like, well, a lot of gun owners who are in your situation, they make plans to, you know, store their guns a little bit differently, you know, bring in some family members to help, right? Kind of create that plan and really putting them in charge of their own decisions. And it's an approach that's known in clinical circles as motivational interviewing that's been proven to be successful. But really kind of breaking it down, giving them language they can use, coming in with some humility. Right? I think that coming in with humility and recognizing that, you know, one of the veterans we work with once said, you know, that clinician may be the expert on all the medical matters, you know, around this disease, around mental illness. But I am the expert on how to live with that disease. And so empowering people to use that knowledge of their own experience to keep themselves safe is really important.

Yeah. Damn. I've never thought about it from that perspective, the expert on living with it. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So have you ever asked anyone? Yes. You just fucking asked? I'm usually pretty direct on the subject. Depending on the individual, I've gone so far as to ask people, and I based off of the advice of others. And this, my approach or the approach that I have used on this, I'm not recommending that anybody do this.

I'll be honest with the approach that I have used. But depending on the person, especially if it's a repeating theme, I was once counseled to ask them if they had thought about how they would do it. Because if they have not thought through the mechanism that they would use or their steps, it's not that it's less of a risk, but you may have a little bit more time with that person. If they're thinking about it, I mean, it's a subject that will buy you space. So what I will say is, as with just about everything, there is a small subsection of individuals that know how to use those terms appropriately to buy them space. And another way to say that is when they feel pressure, they know that everybody will back off if they use those terms.

So that was a situation that I was not super close to, but that is the tact that I took with that person. And in having that conversation, I think I got a better understanding of where they actually were. By no means at any time did I think that they were not serious, but I wanted to get an understanding of where they maybe were along in that story arc of that whole issue. I've asked people like, hey, have you thought about your kids finding you? And you thought about who's going to find you when you fucking blow your brains out because you should probably think through the consequences of what it is that you are talking about. And then at that point, I have asked, like, you know, I will just, generally I will say, listen, And this is obviously with people that I know well. Like I think it would be safer if you gave me your guns for now.

You know, I mean, obviously we have a relationship. I'm not going to keep your guns because my fucking guns are way cooler than yours anyway. But what's it going to hurt? What's the worst thing that's going to happen? Well, I need them for my safety. Well, statistically, the odds are in your favor. You know, and the hunger games of being assaulted on the street or in your home. Statistically, the odds are in your favor.

So for the next day or two, how about we gamble? on that as opposed to me getting a phone call from the sheriff's department that you blew your brains out and then or you know that your teenage son had to go and find you in the bathroom because oh i don't know if you know what it looks like when somebody shoots themselves in the head but it's not a fucking Picasso you know and uh those are pretty jarring conversations i don't have them with everybody for people listening i'm not some like insensitive ass well i have a range of conversations that i will have because much like the forced you know four uh lane approach that you guys have for over a overwatch you get, I think you have to have different tools for different people. I've worked with some absolute fucking knuckle draggers that only understand that, hey, do you have any idea what it's going to be like when your son finds you with your fucking brains all over the ceiling? And they're like, oh, and it snaps them back into reality. I'm not recommending doing that with everybody. In that instance, though, it was effective. So yeah, I have, I have had those conversations. I go, I go direct.

Well, can I ask? Because not everybody thinks about talking about the firearms while they're there. What made you think about that? I knew that they had firearms because I had worked with them with their firearms. And it's just in Montana, you know, the gun culture is the gun culture. People can get CCWs much easier. Like, good luck getting one in San Diego where I used to live. Not going to happen. Even though I've heard that's actually slightly changing. So it's a more, it's a more common thing to encounter. I mean, open carry up here is legal. And you see nothing against open carry, you know, but the idiots that are doing that walking up and down the street, I don't support your life choices because I think you're trying to make more of a statement

than anything. And yeah, I know you have your second amendment right. I just think you could have a little bit more class, perhaps. And sometimes I think they're being antagonistic with doing so with the stickers that say, come take it out of my cold dead hands. But that's a different story. It's just more common up here. Well, but even though, you know, even in places where people have a lot of guns. And I can say I've had this conversation in my own family. People don't always think about asking about the firearms, right? I come from a world where a gun was my primary tool for almost 20 years. I just probably think about guns more than the average person, would be my guess. Yeah, but I will say a lot of veterans don't, right? I mean, they, they, they, they, not all veterans

use guns that much. True. About 15% of the United States military actually engages in combat operations. So if you and are encountering, I actually am not even going to make an example of a community because I don't want to even be portrayed as talking negatively about that. But there are large population groups inside of the military where it's not their job to go and be using a weapon as their primary tool. So, you know, they may not think about it as much. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. And in Montana, you definitely need to.

Yeah, but you know what? As I'm thinking more about it, I think it's probably just because. because of my own personal background and guns were just an integral part of my life. And they have been, I think I just think about it more. They have been in mine too my entire life. I grew up here, you know, I used a weapon a lot in the Marine Corps. But like I said, that wasn't the first thing that occurred to me. And when I saw this, I'm like, man, I missed that.

Yeah. I missed that. Yeah, got to go there. And you know what? I probably ask about it now because of the friends of mine who have blown their brains out. And so the same thing. It may not have been something. that I would have asked about X time period ago,

and then it touches you close to your life. You're like, well, I don't want that to happen again, so I'm going to add that into the things that you say. Well, that is why, you know, when we were looking at this approach in the beginning, we got to the veteran community, A, because it was one of the highest risk groups for gun suicide. There's only one other group that has a higher risk of firearm suicide,

and that's cops, right? There's a lot of overlap, 80% and 90% of cops suicides, police suicides are with firearms. But one of the reasons why we chose to start there was because it was the only place where we found people who were already doing this, right? And it was almost always because they had lost somebody to a gun suicide. And so they were intuitively doing, they were doing lethal means reduction. They didn't know that that was what it was called. They just didn't want to see it happen again. They didn't want to see it happen. You know, I know what, you know, one of the veterans we work with, he said, you know, I, you know, somebody goes up on a

veteran is upset, drives up on a mountain with a bottle of jack. I know that gun in his glove box is the difference between life and death, right? If he doesn't have the gun, it's like a DUI or a headache, right? But if he's got that gun, it's a suicide, right? Yeah. Yeah, there's a story at the end of Dakota Meyer's book. Have you read his book? I have not read his book, but I know Dakota he's actually been on the podcast. Yeah, where he talks about how he was at a rock bottom moment, you know, had a gun and was going to attempt suicide actually, I think, pulled the trigger. Yeah. And somebody in his life had unloaded the firearm. He is not the only person that I know of who has that story. And fuck, Brian, can you imagine the lightning fucking strike,

listening to that firing pin go off next to your head and like I can't even imagine how jarring that would be I can't either yeah can't either well there's been people who've done it's it's not just guns right like their methods you can't take back right like there's been interviews done with people who've jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived and universally the one thing they all had in common was the minute they jumped they were like I don't want to die so they had they they had a second thought, right? Like when you attempt with medication, you have time to have second thoughts

for somebody to find you or, you know, sometimes it's painful, right? You know, they get sick, and so they call 911, right? It's with a gun that you can't unfire a bullet. This is true. This is true, yeah. So, absolutely. Damn.

Yeah. I want to, I have something, well, I don't know if I forgot to have myself, but I wanted to read something that I got from a and we work with. It's super short. It's text. All right. Will you allow me to do that? Yeah, go for it. While you're grabbing that, Brian, tell me how people can find and help what you guys have going on.

They can go to warriors and quietwaters.org, and it'll tell me everything they need to know there. Is there the and in the website address? The word is and. Warriors and Quietwaters.org. That's the best place to learn about us. And what's the most impactful way for people to help? There's lots.

I mean, we need, you know, I talked earlier about how we're increasing programming, So more programming needs more volunteers. Volunteers are the soul of our program. Fly fishing is the heart. So we always need more volunteers. Everything that we do is by private donations. So that funds all of our operations. Everything's free for the warriors and their families.

So financial supports always helps. And then help and spread awareness about our program. While we're based in Montana, we serve veterans nationally. We have every state of the union except for one, we've had warriors through our program. So which holdout state is it? I'm not going to say. So West Virginia.

Of course. God, it's because they don't have internet. We need to work harder. They don't know about it. We need to get harder, work harder, getting some of the veterans from there. Should always just definitely get harder to. Train, go to the gym, be strong. Be tough to kill.

Yeah. It's a general principle. And get some internet in West Virginia, you fucking savages. Yeah. Cool. I think they actually have it. It's just dial-up. I'm pretty sure that.

Yeah. Something like that. Something like that. All right. Well, I will say on my side, and this is what I said at this training last night. When we do these trainings, there's a call to action, right? We don't want just people to come and learn. That's great. But what are you going to do? Right? At the end of this training, we passed out postcards. And we asked everyone to write on

there something that they were going to do in the next three months. And then they put it in an envelope with their address on it and we're going to mail it to them. So it's like a letter to their future yourself a commitment to something that they're going to do in the next three months to prevent veteran suicide by firearm. And so we present, again, all these options, like we're going to be making our train-the-trainer program. We're going to be doing virtual sessions. We're, you know, doing this pilot, but eventually there's going to be a date every

month that anybody can sign up and do our train-the-trainer, right? So we can amplify that impact. We are about to start development on Overwatch 2.4. which is for veteran family members. And so we're looking for veteran family members who have a story to tell where maybe they were concerned about firearms with a veteran in their home

because we recognize even though we're working peer to peer, which is Overwatch Project right now, the spouses and their family members are often the first people to see something is going on. They could be the most important spoke in the wheel, actually. Yes, absolutely. And we have veterans we work with where, you know, the spouse sees something that's going on and they call the buddy.

Hey, can you come have a conversation with him about what's going on? They are absolutely the first line of defense, but they may not know how to have a conversation about firearms, and we have people clamoring for this all over the country. Everywhere we go, it's like, what are we going to do about the veteran family members? There is literally nothing out there for veteran family members when it comes to talking about firearms and protective storage measures. There's not much out there, period, right?

But there's nothing that really tells that story because, again, we want to tell that story of success. Like we have veterans who we work with where they and their spouse, they have a deal where, you know, they see things going wrong and, you know, they're going south and they're struggling. Well, they're going to take the keys to the safe until they feel better, right? It's not, you know, it's much easier when it becomes an open conversation. So we're doing that. So if there's veteran family members who are listening who have an experience, we're interested in talking to them. Again, as Brian noted, you know, we are funded by donations. So we welcome those, always, every nonprofit.

We are also going to be selling these t-shirts soon. So that's something that I know. Where can people go to find the t-shirt? Overwatchproject.org. There are, you know, ways to get involved or to support us, and there's a new merch link that's going to be going up. But according to you, I'm not ready. So we're going to be.

I gave you the heads up. You gave me a heads up. There's like an ink and a merchandise shortage right now. I'm not saying it's untenable. I'm just saying I would get on it quickly. I am going to get on it quickly. You know, I know it's something to do. I was one of the biggest ass from yesterday.

It was. Everybody that came up to me afterwards like, this is awesome. I'm going to do it. Where do I get a T-shirt? How many are you thinking about ordering? What do you recommend? No, no, no, no. How many are you thinking about?

I was, I don't even know what to say. I need to go do my research. Take it just 300? That's fucking hot trash. It is. I think you're in the thousands. I would say start with a thousand. Okay.

Can we do like a pre-order? I want to know how many I'm ordering. Get a pre-order link up tomorrow. I'm going to get a pre-order link up tomorrow. The podcast doesn't come out for a couple of weeks. Okay. So we will work. I'll work on that.

I'm going to be counting on you for advice. The issue you'll have with 300 is you'll sell through them very rapidly. And then you'll have people who want them right then and there and can't get one. and interest will wane. So how many do you get? But you're Andy Stumpf. Like you've got a huge platform. That actually means nothing for clarity.

So when you say, oh, you're a doesn't mean any. But you have 80. How many flyers do you have on social media? How many what? How many followers do you have on social media? I don't know.

And I don't know what they expect by following me. Because I post whatever I want to. I don't know necessarily what they're coming for. So standby. But you sell stuff there. You post a link and stuff sells out. I will sell stuff for. the podcast on social media because I don't know any other way to get the word out about it.

But it works. It can work. Yeah. Not everything sells incredibly well. I will generally do my T-shirt orders in the range of five to 600. Okay. The idea you have, though, with that shirt, we'll sell more than that. Okay.

All right. Well, I'm going to follow your advice. I was thinking 30, 35. Okay. Maybe make sure that, well, depending on your cost. But I think people would probably pay that much, Because the money, you obviously have to pay for the cost of production, but the rest of that could go directly towards having an impact. So I think people would pay more for that.

Yeah. And we can quantify for this, you know, we're a nonprofit and a small nonprofit at that, right? So everything is going straight into the programs. We basically have zero overhead. So, yeah. I mean, we've, you know, toyed with the idea. We want them to be accessible, right, too, because ultimately the more people that are walking around with this, when I go out and I walk around, with a shirt on, people were like, well, just fucking ask what, right? And so I immediately get a chance

to talk about the Overwatch Project. And so, you know, I know that's happened to you, your staff, it's happened to their staff. You know, I was walking through MSU yesterday, and I was like, there were people would be like following me as I went by and I'm like, I don't have time to have this conversation with you, but I could have, right? So it's just a way, it's like a walking billboard for the program. So it catches your eye for sure. It does. We want it, we're kind of in your face. We like to be kind of in your face. So, yeah. That might be where it needs to be for this conversation to actually have an impact.

Yeah. And I mean, clearly, you know, we've known all these things for a long time that they work, but the numbers are not improving the way we want them to. So, you know, there's got to be another way. So the other thing I wanted to mention, you know, obviously we have all this stuff on social media. Our platform, we have so few followers compared to you. We have teeny tiny followers right now, which I hope this podcast can help change. But on social media, one thing that people can do can share this message in their communities, right?

And I got this text a few months ago from somebody we work with an organization. We work with a partner. And he said, yesterday I met with a veteran who had recently been contemplating suicide and decided not to, but who is going through our program to get his program done, and we plugged him in with some resources with the VA and the vet center. How did he find us? When you guys shared out the video from the Overwatch Project a couple of weeks ago, I shared it. Someone shared it from me and one more person shared it with him.

The veteran was in the woods with his gun ready to pull the trigger and was stalling and perusing Facebook. Saw and watched the video and decided to walk out of the woods. That's probably the, I mean, that speaks to the power of social media in a positive way. There's so many countless negatives from it, but that I think speaks to the positivity of what social media can be and what it can do. Yeah. You can reach somebody. You never know. Nobody in that chain knew that they were going to be the difference between life and death for that veteran who was sitting in there in the woods with a gun in his hand.

And so you never know, right? All of us are putting this out in the universe. You know, we are in the business of preventing things. and so we often are not going to hear about the impact we have. The only reason I know that happened is because somebody sent that to us. But we do have people who are telling us that story. But it's just really important to be committed to that mission, right? Even if you may think, well, the one thing that I am committing to do in the next month, day, week, doesn't feel like much,

but these people shared a video on social media and it saved someone's life. Yeah. So, you know, everybody needs to get out. there and just fucking ask, you know, do something, you know, care, and don't be afraid to go there with people. I don't know if I could script a better ending than that, actually. Other than saying, thank you guys for making the drive. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. Yeah. And thanks for doing what you're doing on both sides of the house. For, you know, the quiet water side of the house, the overwatch side of the house, it's important. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. You guys are very welcome.

Right on. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thanks for taking the time to tune in, whether you're listening on an audio-only platform or you're watching on YouTube. I appreciate that you take the time every week to tune in. People ask me a lot, what can they do to help me spread the word? And the answer is actually embedded in the question. The biggest thing you guys can do to help me if you enjoy the podcast and you think it would be helpful to others is subscribe and share it with other people. And if you have the time, go on to Apple Podcasts and leave me a rating and a review.

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And then you can tell people what it is when they ask you. But that is it. The biggest thing I can say is thank you. I truly appreciate it. Until next time. See you.