Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Charles P. Smith On Why We Need To Stop Veteran Suicide Rates EP 37
Episode Date: June 18, 2021According to the 2020 National Veterans Suicide Prevention Annual report, suicide rates continue to increase in the U.S. adult population. There is also a growing correlation between post-traumatic st...ress disorder and suicide risk. In this episode of the Passion Struck Podcast, John R. Miles interviews Charles P. Smith on the growing suicide rate among veterans, active-duty military members, and the general population. Charles served 10 years as a Marine Corps officer. Through his TedX, viewed by over 2 million, and this podcast, he is trying to bring a voice to the voiceless. We discuss how mental illness is the same if not more important as physical health, yet it is viewed completely differently. If someone's mental health isn't there, we need to talk about it. This is a subject that we need to focus on in this growing dilemma that seems to be ignored by the highest levels of the military. Charles provides shocking information that since September 11th, there have been over 115,000 veterans who have taken their lives through suicide. This number was fact check by the TedX team. The reality is that if you include active duty members, it is over 138,000 - a 20:1 ratio of suicides in the military community compared to those who lost their lives in combat.  We also discuss these statistics on why we need to focus more on suicide rates at the highest levels of the military and government. And the growing link between post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide rates. Statistics on suicide rates It is a staggering statistic that 46,510 American adults died by suicide in 2018, compared with 31,610 in 2005. The average rose from 86.6 per day in 2005 to 124.4 in 2017 and 127.4 in 2018. That is a 47.1% increase, and the rate of suicides in veterans is 1.5x that of the general population. Across the nation, the number of suicide deaths has been rising since the turn of the millennium. Overall, from 2005 to 2018, the age- and sex-adjusted suicide rates among Veterans were higher and rose faster than those among non-Veteran U.S. adults. Reports: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/11/12/suicide-rate-among-veterans-up-again-slightly-despite-focus-on-prevention-efforts/ https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/data-sheets/2020/2020-National-Veteran-Suicide-Prevention-Annual-Report-11-2020-508.pdf Post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide rates The National Center for PTSD 2017 report found an association between post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide. And, the association between PTSD and suicide is particularly relevant to military members and Veterans. Among US Army service members from 2001–2009, those who died by suicide were almost 13x more likely to have received a diagnosis of PTSD than all Army service members in the same time period. One study examined all suicide deaths from 1994–2006 using the Danish national healthcare and social registries and found that persons with PTSD had 5.3x the death rate from suicide than persons without PTSD. A subsequent study examined death from suicide among all persons diagnosed with PTSD in Denmark from 1995–2011 and found that after adjustment for demographics and pre-existing comorbid psychiatric diagnoses, persons with PTSD had 13x the rate of suicide than persons without PTSD. Reports: https://www.ptsd.va.gov/publications/rq_docs/V28N4.pdf https://www.verywellmind.com/ptsd-and-suicide-2797540 Quotes From Charles P. Smith "These people who take that step to take their life, they are in pain we can't understand." "When they take their life, they think that they are becoming less of a burden on others when the reality is it actually hurts the people that they love." "This is a way to give a voice to the now voiceless." "And when you look at the statistics, in particular, in the veteran community, the suicide rate is one and a half times that in the general population." ENGAGE CHARLES P. SMITH LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-p-smith/ Charles is a servant leader and passionate veteran’s advocate. He recently had the honor of becoming a TED Talk speaker on the topic of veteran suicide. He felt compelled to raise awareness of this serious and important issue following the death by suicide of his own executive officer in May 2019. Charles P. Smith TedX: https://www.ted.com/talks/charles_p_smith_how_the_us_can_address_the_tragedy_of_veteran_suicide?language=en ENGAGE WITH JOHN R. MILES * Subscribe to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles * Leave a comment, 5-star rating (please!) * Support me: https://johnrmiles.com * Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Johnrmiles.c0m​. * Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles​ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles JOHN R. MILES * https://johnrmiles.com/my-story/ * Guides: https://johnrmiles.com/blog/ * Coaching: https://passionstruck.com/coaching/ * Speaking: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking-business-transformation/ * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_struck PASSION STRUCK *Subscribe to Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passion-struck-podcast/id1553279283 *Website: https://passionstruck.com/ *About: https://passionstruck.com/about-passionstruck-johnrmiles/ *Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast *LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/passionstruck *Blog: https://passionstruck.com/blog/ Â
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So on May 6th of 2019, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, clouds were that puffy white,
it was a perfect spring day.
I was walking back to my office, my phone rang, and it was one of my lieutenants.
I said, hey, John, how are you?
He said, sir, I'm good, but I've got some bad news.
He said our executive officer died that weekend.
We went back and forth, what do you mean?
What are you talking about?
I asked him what happened.
He said, sir, he killed himself.
He said, sir, he killed himself. I walked around my office for a couple hours in a complete fog, trying to understand what
had happened, why I had just communicated with him a few months earlier, and I had no idea
that this officer was in trouble, and I fought myself as a leader for not having known that. Hello Visionaries, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders of all types. Hi, my name is John
Miles and I wanted to welcome you to this episode of the Passion Start Podcast, where it is
my job to interview high achievers from all walks of life and unlock their secrets and
lessons to become a passion start. The purpose of our show is to serve you the listener.
By giving you lessons, tools, and activities that you can use to achieve a passion-driven life,
now let the journey begin.
This is episode 37 of Passion Star Podcast.
And as you can tell from the way that this video started,
you already know it's not a normal
passion-star podcast episode.
And I used today's momentum Friday episode
to invite the person from that TED Talk,
my long-term friend,
a Naval Academy classmate, Chuck Smith,
onto the show so that we could talk
not only about suicide,
but in honor of post-traumatic stress disorder month, the growing length
between PTSD and suicides.
And as I was getting ready for this show, I started to do some research after watching
Chuck's video, and I read the latest report that came out from the VA in 2020 on the National
Veterans Suicide, Great, grade and conditions.
And in this report, it showed that in 2018,
there were 46,510 suicides.
If you look at that another way,
that's nearly 128 suicides per day.
And out of those, the report indicated
that 17.6 of those was a veteran or armed forces member.
And the rates are only climbing. In fact, from the year 2005 to 2018, the rate of suicide has grown by 47%.
And then, as I dug deeper, I found a 2017 report from the National PTSD Center that indicated
that the association between PTSD and suicide is even greater for members of the Armed
Forces and veterans.
In fact, a study they did from 2001 to 2009 showed that Army members who had PTSD were 13 times more likely to have suicide.
And it's not just in the veteran population.
The study also showed that over 22%
of sexual trauma victims ended up
trying to take their life.
And over 23% of physical assault
victims had the same trend.
And it gets even worse if a person 3% of physical assault victims had the same friend in.
And it gets even worse if a person has had multiple
incidents of trauma.
In some cases, doubling and other cases,
tripling that 22 or 23% chance.
And I would encourage each and every one of you
to go to Chuck's head talk and listen to his words of wisdom, and his plea
for us to do something about this growing dilemma. Now let me tell you a little bit
more about Chuck Smith. Charles, as we know him, Chuck Smith, has created life
focused on service to others. First in the military, then as a financial advisor
and branch manager, and most recently as an advocate and phone Merrill Donor.
And it's not my accident.
He thrives on making the difference in others' lives
and is intentional about striving to achieve just that.
It's what drives him to be his best every day
for his clients and his community.
After a 10-year career in the US Marines,
Charles entered the financial industry in 2003. And all of us who know him look to Charles as a
servant leader in a very passionate veteran advocate. He has participated in the US Chamber of Commerce Foundations,
hiring a pharaoh's initiative, and as a board member, the Mission-based Semper--5 Society of St. Louis. He recently, as I discussed earlier,
had the honor of becoming a TED Talk speaker on the topic of Veteran Suicide, he felt
compelled parraise awareness of this serious and important issue, following the death
by Suicide of his executive officer in May 2019. And that talk is already making such a huge difference and has been
watched by literally millions. And today, Chuck and I are going to unpack that
even more. And we're going to talk about why we think there is this rise in
suicides. We're going to go into more about PTSD with us giving personal
examples to make sure that we really hone in this message today.
And I would encourage you, if you have the time, please listen to this entire important episode.
Now, let's get on with this important message.
I am so excited today to have my friend last week from both the Naval Academy and Naval
Academy CREPS School Chuck Smith with me today on the PassionStark podcast.
So glad to see your face again Chuck.
Hey John, how are you?
I am doing great and thank you so much for being here and for talking to all my viewers and listeners about such an important topic.
Given that it is post-traumatic stress month, I thought that having this message today was extremely important. I think for the viewers and listeners out there that the background into your TED Talk,
which went completely viral, would be a great place for us to start today's interview.
So, would you mind going into that for us?
Yeah, absolutely.
So, in theme with this month and really what my TED Talk was about was in the spring of
2019, May of 2019.
I learned that my executive officer, when I was a commanding officer, the Webman's
company had taken his life.
And so he was going to be buried at Arlington.
And although he took his life in May of 2019, Arlington is so backed up, they couldn't
bury him until September of 2019.
And so I just felt like there was something I needed to do.
He's not the first friend or person I've known from the veteran community that's taking their life.
And I just felt like we had to give a voice to these people who no
longer had one.
And so in August of 2019, my company had partnered with Ted Talk and they solicited applications.
And I think there were like 2000 applications and 13 speakers were selected. And so that was
announced in August. My executive officer was buried in September. I believe it was September 26 or 27.
And the application was due September 30th.
And so the application process is, it's about a three page, three or four page questionnaire
that you have to fill out.
And then you have to submit a one minute video.
So I filmed the video at Arlington.
We had just buried my executive officer.
And I asked one of my attendants who
was there to film the 60 seconds and when we, when we, we filled it, I asked to raise
his hand when there's 10 seconds left and literally I felt like I had just said my name and
you raised his hand, I was like, what's going on?
I said, you only have 10 seconds left.
And so I said, okay, let's do, let take. And I crammed as much in as I could
about why I wanted to do this TED Talk in 60 seconds.
And that was it.
I just did a second take and that was all we had.
I flew home to St. Louis the next day.
And when I was in St. Louis,
I reviewed that one minute video.
And it really wasn't that great.
And I was debating if I should retake it and try to polish it up a little bit and I thought, you know, it was so authentic.
If you can imagine I had the white head the date, it was due with the video.
And in November of 2019, I got a call from the curator at Ted.
And they said they want to interview me.
So I did that.
And I think probably the second week in November, I found out I was selected.
And, you know, I delivered that talk on February 5th of 2020
in Charlotte, North Carolina.
And the interesting thing was that I had never been
to a TED production before, but it is a production.
I mean, there's multiple speakers.
There's all kinds of things that happen at a TED event.
And I was backstage getting ready to deliver this talk.
And I just felt like ready to deliver this talk. And I just felt like, you know, this was my final mission.
I was, I can't explain it.
I mean, you're just so amped up to deliver this.
And I felt like this is it.
This is, this is where I'm going to deliver this,
this message that needs to be heard.
And since I did that talk and it was officially released
on the Friday before Memorial Day 2020,
it's been viewed 2.3 to 2.4 million times now on the various platforms.
This has been an incredible response.
What an honorable thing for you to do, especially not only remembering your exo, but the millions
of people, not only veterans, but otherwise we've taken their lives,
much of it due to dramatic events that they've suffered.
And as I was looking at the statistics
before the show, I saw one of the latest reports
that came out in 2019 that said,
depending on the year, they're between 17,
the 22 suicides a day within the veteran community.
So they put an average on it that goes back
almost 50 years that shows the average has been
throughout that lifespan, 20 veterans a day take their life.
So it is a very important topic.
I, two have known veterans who have committed, and I've also had a best friend commits
to a side, and probably very similar to your exo.
I had spent the Saturday before he died on that coming Monday with him, And for me, he had been that one person that,
when I was going through the divorce,
when I was going through, I had an in-home burglary
where a guy had again pointed at me.
He was like the one person I could always call two o'clock,
three o'clock in the morning.
And on that Saturday, it was as if it was any given Saturday. We just hung out. It was a great day. I found out the unfortunately, he jumped off the skyway bridge.
And for me, there was no prior indication at all.
And in fact, he was one of the most happy,
the lucky people that you will ever meet.
And I just remember that Saturday,
him dancing around just loving life.
And then as it turns out,
he had some difficulties with his ex-wife
and financial difficulties that none of us were aware of.
And it led me, and I'm sure you probably had
the same reaction with your ex-so
and we'll get into that in a second,
but it just made me fry out to him,
laying wish, lie didn't you reach out to me or anyone else
when you were in your pain?
And is that similar to how you felt
with your friend, VXO?
Yeah, John, that is such a great point.
When I got the call that he had taken
his life a couple days earlier,
I walked around and you asked yourself, why?
What was going on?
Why would somebody ever think to do this?
Because, you know, we look at the world
in a totally different light and we think,
hey, life is worth living.
It's just great thing that we have.
And the future is unbelievable.
And I might be in a tough time today,
but I know things are gonna get better.
And I know that tomorrow is gonna be a better day
than today and the day after tomorrow
is gonna be better than tomorrow.
And so, our outlook on life is totally different.
And so I don't think there's a way to explain or answer it.
These people that take that step to take their life,
they are in a pain that we can't understand. And I think that
when they do take their life, it doesn't make sense. It's kids, it's irrational. And oddly enough,
when they take their life, they think that they are becoming less of a burden on others.
calling less of a burden on others, when the reality is, it actually hurts the people that they love. But they don't steal that way. And so, you know, as I've said in the past,
this is a way to give a voice to the now voiceless. And when you look at the statistics, in
particular in the veteran community, the suicide rate in
the veteran community is one and a half times that in the general population.
And so that's a segment of the population that is highly at risk.
And we've got to talk about it.
You typically don't hear the services talking openly about it.
And the VA who has taken the lead on this,
they talk about it openly,
but I think one of the challenges they have is they can't reach everybody.
And a lot of times, these people that are in mental derest and have PTSD
or other type of mental illnesses,
they're not even in a place to go find the VA.
And so it's just a subject that I think we have
to bring awareness to.
And hopefully they hear a message like your podcast
or a TED talk and I know that there are people out there
that genuinely care and want to help.
I'm gonna take the opportunity to this podcast,
personalized this a bit.
I was in a number of combat situations, some trying to
take out a high-value target in the Bosnia conflict. And unfortunately, as we were taking him
to the aircraft, I got hit from behind by a rocket propelled grenade and was out of it for about
24 hours woke up in a hospital and then you know had
some other experiences when I was in Iraq with some special forces teams as well and I started
noticing inside myself after I'd gotten out or nearing the time I got out of the military, that changes were happening inside of me.
You know, I was losing sharpness, then I never had before concentration issues, migraines,
light sensitivity, dizziness. But I think maybe it was in the Marine Corps like it was
with some of the operators that I worked with, you just didn't
talk about these things, nor the mental things that came with it. So for me, I just sat
for decades, not even talking to my spouse at the time about it because, you know, I didn't
want anyone else to know the difficulties that I was having inside. And I know I'm putting this out there because
I think that there are, if not thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who were just like
me. And the issue is, is that over time, I wasn't depressed when I got out of the service,
but over time, when you don't deal with these things, then it leads to depression,
more anxiety. And for me, you know, what's become severe PTSD over those symptoms. And so, for me,
this month is very personal, but I also understand the darkness that people can feel because, you know, I've been there myself.
So, you know, what would you help people that you've not only served with, but who are serving today,
about that topic I just talked about, and not being afraid to let other people in and being vulnerable,
which for many years I was incapable of doing dealing and why it could be such a blessing
for you to do so.
Yeah, that's such a terrific point.
And thank you for sharing that story.
So culturally in the military, and you know this, Navy,
Marine Corps, it doesn't matter.
If you talk about if you say, hey, something's not right,
I need to go see the psychiatrist or psychologist.
You're looked at differently.
And, you know, we have to get away from that stigma, and we have to realize that mental health is the same thing as physical health.
You know, if a Marine breaks their leg, nobody has a problem with them going through the Italian aid station
to get their leg x-rayed and reset and put in a cast.
And if somebody's mental health isn't there,
we need to be able to talk about it.
Because the end result is, and for those who take time
to watch my TED talk, when you look at the global war on terror
which started in October
2001, up until when I delivered my TED talk, my estimate that I came up with based on all
the numbers that have been provided by the Department of Veteran Affairs is that there's been
115,000 suicides by veterans. That number was fact- by the Ted team because they will not allow you to talk about anything unless it's all fact checked.
So that numbers fact check. The reality is the number that I came up with in math and math like I could show was actually 138,000. Ted felt very comfortable and could defend 115,000.
So whether it's 115,000 and 138,000, it's a lot.
It's a lot of people.
In that same time frame,
and I used a report that went from October 2001,
specifically I believe is November 18th of 2019.
I took that from the Department of Defense,
but it was their killed in action numbers.
And so there's 5,440 killed in action.
So if you think about that,
we had 115,000 died by suicide,
5,440 were killed in action.
Let me see, we've got like 21 veterans taking their life
for everyone killed by an enemy combat.
And we're not talking about it.
I mean, come on, we've got to get rid of that stigma,
and we've got to realize that your mental health is just as
important, even more important than your physical health.
Because if you think about it, if somebody gets discharged
from military and they're leaving the military with a broken bone,
we know that they have the mental faculties to go to the doctor to make sure
that they healed correctly and get the gas cut off.
But if we discharge somebody who their mental health isn't where it should be, we don't
know that they have the mental faculties to go see a mental health provider or professional
to help them get through their their darkest hour.
And we don't talk about it. And that's the craziest thing ever. We've got a hundred at least
115,000. They have taken their lives for the last 20 plus years. And we're not talking about this.
You've got to be kidding me. What's going on here? And where is our leadership in the military
to say, wait a second, we need to have a training time out
and figure out what the heck is going on.
Because when we talk about combat effectiveness
and combat efficiencies, losing 115,000
by their own hand is not combat effective
or combat efficient.
We gotta figure that out.
And by the way, that 115,000, that's veterans.
It doesn't count the active duty members that have taken
their lives.
And I know a number of my friends from active duty
while on active duty had taken their lives.
In fact, while I was on active duty,
I personally responded to three school site attempts.
Two of them were very, very serious.
One was a young woman that took an entire bottle of painkiller and mixed it with alcohol.
Another one had slittish wrists lengthwise and the third one was trying to cut her wrists
with scissors.
And you know, that was three.
In my short, you know, I did 10 years in Marine Corps. It's one every three years, are you kidding me?
Like, we got to figure this out
because we're losing a lot of good people.
Well, and that doesn't even mention first responders
and then the whole medical community, especially now,
with the past year to 15, 16 months
that they've had with COVID and the repercussions
long-term that are going to come
from that as well. What do you think as you've looked at this situation? What do you think the answer
is? Is it kind of mandating? Maybe that everyone who's on active duty gets mental health checks?
And that way you could get away from the stigma of going. Because I know when I was in, I did not want to go because I had a top secret
SCI and above and I was told you would lose that clearance level.
Same thing when I got out and still was using the security clearance.
It was a definite reason for me that you couldn't seek the help that you needed.
So what do you, what in your mind do you think might help?
Yeah, so there's a whole bunch out there, right?
First off, when I got out of the military,
I went to I think two or three days of classes
and then that was it, you know,
and there was no mental health.
It was all about how do you, how to find a job,
how do you write a resume.
I think there's somebody to talk about,
maybe going into reserves,
but there's a pretty basic transition out.
Today, it's a little different where you'll get a call
from a mental health counselor.
I'll tell you, I talked to one of my Marines,
and he's explained to me how to call in. already this guy's already out of the Marine Corps. He's on terminal leave. He's
working for a company out on the West Coast. He's in traffic in LA, his phone rings. He doesn't recognize
the answer to the number but he still answers it. And it's somebody who identified themselves as a
petty officer. And the petty officer says, sir, is your so security, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
and the lieutenant's like, are you kidding me?
I'm not gonna tell you if that's my sole security number.
I have no idea who you are.
And so finally, they go back and forth,
and they figure out, okay, it's a legitimate call,
and he takes, and the petty officer says,
okay, I'm gonna patch it through to a mental health expert
that needs to have an interview with you. So it's like, okay, I'm gonna patch it through to a mental health expert that's going to need to have an interview with you.
So it's like, okay, whatever.
So he does this interview.
He's in the middle of traffic in LA trying to get home.
He spends 15 minutes on the phone and all he wants to do is just get off of it.
And so he hurries the question and answer session along and hangs up at 15 minutes and that
was it he's done.
But if you look at all the all the data out there and all the mental health experts, they'll tell you you need a one hour in-person interview to turn if you have PTSD.
And that doesn't happen. I have another friend of mine who got out and he got the call and he said,
yeah, as a matter of fact, I am struggling with some
things. They said, okay, great, we're going to set you up at the point. So he goes into
this appointment and the woman who is helping him in the middle of her session with him,
her cell phone rings and she answers it. And it was a personal phone call that she took while he was sitting in this meeting and
He's sitting there like is this like for real. I mean like
I've been outside the military now for 20 years of that quite 20 years
But if a civilian doctor ever did that to me. I just wouldn't stand for it
But yet our military members they don't know any better,
because it's all been yes or yes, ma'am, right?
And they're doing their duty
and they're doing what they're told to do.
And yet they get treated like that.
We need to do better there.
I think culturally,
the services have got to get better
at accepting the fact that mental health
is just as important as physical health.
And I think, you know, another thing too, and I touched on this in the TED Talk better at accepting the fact that mental health is just as important as physical health.
And I think, you know, another thing too, and I touched on this in the TED Talk, is that
our service members and veterans that are self-medicating, whether it be alcohol or drugs,
are at a significantly higher rate of having PTSD and of taking your lives.
And yet, and I'll speak specifically in a Marine Corps,
you know, look, we always have been,
and I'm sure always will be,
a service that works hard and plays hard,
and we've got to kind of dial that back.
And, you know, I talk about having the warrior monk mentality,
like who would want to have a warrior
that was also,
introspective in themselves themselves and understanding themselves and finding balance within themselves and yet can still go out and become that effect
I mean everybody wants somebody like that. I want people like that on my team and and yet we don't really talk about it
We don't develop it the way that we should so I think there's a lot of things that could happen
But it only can happen is if the
see if the senior leadership openly talks about it and takes action. Yeah, and I think that that
was a great story on what's happening to people coming out of the military. I can tell you what
my intake process to the VA was like and it wasn't much better. I guess I was always one of those people
and it's my father's the same way that we kind of thought
you only go to the VA under the most dire situations.
You've lost a leg, something like that.
But I'd reached a point where for me,
especially after that break-in happened,
it kind of reignited all this trauma that I had pushed aside for so long.
So I finally applied for the VA benefits. I didn't use anyone. I was just trying to get benefits because I figured if anyone could deal with PTSD, it would be them. And so I went in and I was found service connected, but unfortunately,
they connected me for depression and not PTSD. So what ended up happening is then the VA
starts treating you as a mental health patient, and it actually took me almost 18 months of advocating for myself writing the head of our VA here and St. Pete Florida, the Bay Pine system that they finally allowed me to see a psychiatrist who after 20 minutes diagnosed me with PTSD, but then it took me going through about a four and a half hour
interview for it to fully get documented and then finally start getting treated for things
that I've been suffering with for two decades. But what and someone, let me say differently,
I would think most veterans would have given up long before I did with the system.
And I think it was only because I thought it,
elevating, going to congressmen and senators,
that it finally broke through.
But you shouldn't have to do that
to get the care that you need.
And so I even think that example of the intake process
to the VA, and one of the health care providers
explained it to me very well.
She said that if that person had done you correctly
and would have put,
because when they looked at my CMP exam,
the doctor actually wrote that I had PTSD and depression,
but decided to characterize me as depression.
She said, had they categorized
me as post-traumatic stress disorder, then they would have focused on that first and then would
have dealt with the underlying things of anxiety and depression, whatever afterwards. But instead,
they couldn't even deal with the PTSD because I've been labeled with depression.
And so that's how the whole system was fooled to use their checks and balances with me in the system.
So I think that's a whole other area that probably needs to be looked at as well.
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and let's get igniting. There are other service-monger veterans that have gone to the VA and have asked for
mental health help and they've been told, well we can't do it because we gotta do all this paper,
we're gonna get a prop, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
it just goes on and on.
And there are stories of veterans
who have literally taken their lives in the VA parking lot.
How does that happen?
You know, our nation should be outraged.
You know, these are the sons and daughters of America
that are going out
getting paid very little to do a job that nobody else wants to do. And when they come
back, we need to put our full resources behind to make sure that they're successful in life
and that they live their best life.
No, I can agree more. So I think you're bringing up some of the right points that needs to start with the top. I think for me, it needs to be
Sto themic that everyone has check-ins because that would take the stigma away
They're there also needs to not be a penalty or a huge repercussion that if you do go in there and you're vulnerable that you lose
that if you do go in there and you're vulnerable, that you lose security accesses or opportunities
or what have it because of it,
or perhaps they send you to treatment first.
But just to clear a sign that not enough is being done,
is the formation of all these organizations
outside of the military and outside of the VA
that are starting to come up,
such as the home-based program in Boston, a program that I've been accepted to, is specifically
funded by the Boston Red Sox Foundation, and it helps first responders and combat veterans who
have PTSD get two weeks of, work done inpatient.
Another one is the path program,
which is now nationwide,
and they do a week long initial session,
and there's is much less about post-traumatic stress
active treatment than it is post-traumatic
kind of growth afterwards.
So they give you one week kind of of going to intensive,
I guess that I wouldn't call it counseling,
but support where you go with a group of six to eight
other veterans.
And then after that, they keep you in the program
for 18 months so that you have that constant ability to call other people,
but you go to it with or have access to the material
that they put out that they want you to discuss,
you know, at least on a weekly basis.
And I think it's that repetition in my mind
that really matters because if you just go through cognitive
process processing therapy or you go through EDMR or PET or whatever it may be, that's kind
of a one, it's kind of like getting, you know, a single dose of a shot, but what happens
after that if you have flare ups or other things or maybe another event that reignites
some of the things that you've been through. So, to me, it's got to be more of a systematic
way that you approached us. And I think although there are those organizations on the outside,
we should be taking care of our own on the inside is my point.
Yeah, and in conversation I've had with other veterans and other active duty members.
You know, one of the concepts they talk about is military for life.
So rather than have a VA, you just have a Department of Defense.
You raise your right hand and take that oath and you serve our nation.
You're part of the Department of Defense Restored Life. So all your records are housed with that one community and you think about it.
Military members take care of their own and so if we were underneath the Department of Defense still,
maybe it would be a little different outcome. In my talk, one of the things that I discuss and I
think it's the viewpoint of how do we kind of get our arms around this
and how do we bring data into it, how can we really figure
out what's going on.
There's a system, a technology system being built that's
going to house department of fence records alongside VA
records.
And one of the things I suggested is what if we could take,
when a veteran passes away the funeral home that processes the body has to fill out the death certificate.
And on those death certificates,
it asks the questions, are they a veteran?
And so if they're a veteran, it gets reported
and goes into the VA system.
But what if in addition to asking if they're veteran,
they also required, you know, how do they die?
Was it cancer, was it suicide, was it natural causes,
where are the cases?
And what if you could take those data points
and start mapping it with Department of Defense records?
So as an example, in my unit, I had 204 Marines and sailors,
and in talking with my Marines, we think that we're in excess of a dozen suicides, just out of my
unit. That's like 6%. That's a much higher, much, much higher than the civilian community. And it's
much higher than the military in general.
And when you look at the Italian level,
the numbers are staggering, they're staggering.
So what if we could just start identifying
like are there specific types of units?
Is it are they infantry units?
Are they special forces?
Are they would have fill in the blank?
But if we could build those sets of data points
and figure out who is at risk the most.
And then be proactive with regard to getting them counseling and prepping them for what
they're going to go through mentally and physically so that they know it.
So when they're going through it, they know this is what's going to happen.
And then while they're in theater, get them the help to continue with that, that building on the basis of what they're going through
so they understand it and then get them help
before they come home and then provide help and care
while they're home.
I mean, we should be doing those things.
We have the technology to do it.
We have the ability to do it.
The funding is out there.
We just need to do it.
Somebody, again, going back to leadership,
somebody's got to make this a priority
and say, hold on a second.
We owe it to those sons and daughters of America
to take care of them and to put our best foot for
and our best ability to co-lake this data
to figure out how we have the best outcome
for all of our service members when we discharge them.
I mean, it's really not that revolutionary, but when you don't talk about this openly,
because you don't want to, or because, you know, something happens over in the Department
of Defense, and then it gets transferred, you get transferred to the veteran affairs,
the Department of Veteran Affairs, and there's no continuity.
You get lost in the shuffle between the accident you
took over in this one department
and what you're dealing with
over this other department.
And we've got to do better than
what we're doing currently because
we owe it to them. We owe it to them.
I couldn't agree more with what you're
saying. And I think this
suicide issue is a whole topic.
I think all four illness is a whole
another topic that's not getting
enough support. Thanks for manic brain injuries is a whole another area where it's just wanting to
be ignored. I can tell you that firsthand and not dealt with because the issue, especially with
some of those, it's a lot easier for the VA from a financial standpoint to categorize you as a mental
patient and give you pharmaceutical drugs than it is to treat the person for all the underlying
polytrauma that is really going on within them. And I unfortunately think that that is what's
happening with many of the protocols that are being used both at the VA and in the civilian world,
because the insurance companies,
and in this case, the government don't want to have
to carry the burden.
If you look at a person with mental health,
maybe they're spending eight to 9,000 on drugs
over their life, as opposed to if you're treating them
truly for the poly trauma,
it could be hundreds of thousands of dollars
that they need to put into that person to get them back where they need to be. And in many ways,
my girlfriend's a nurse practitioner, she was an ICU nurse for about 10 years.
You know, she looks at it and she says, well, at least the military is doing something about it. She goes for us in the medical
profession, no one does anything. She goes, I get when I was an ICU nurse, like three to four
sections of therapy a year, even now she, her medical plan only pays for two to three,
you're dealing with near constant death on a daily basis.
The whole system is flawed, and I think an art generation,
I look at my parents' generation,
mental health was just taboo.
I can't imagine my dad, you know, even stepping foot
in one of those centers, and for me,
it was difficult just because, as you said,
it's viewed as a weakness. And that's
got to change because, like you brought out, self-medicating whether it be alcohol or drugs is not the
answer. Because, as everyone knows, alcohol is just a depressant and it's going to make matters worse.
make matters worse. It's actually having that belief system that if you come forward, someone's going to catch you, it's not going to get great on your career where you can go, whether
it's in the military or civilian world, because in both cases, people look at it in a negative
light. So maybe the starting point, it could be within Congress,
and they start looking at the issues similar to some of the things that they've done in other areas.
Or if it's in the military, I'm sure they've set up commissions, but it needs to be, as you said, dealt with at the highest levels and passed down so that everyone knows
whether they're still in the service or not that they are going to get the help that they need
and do this in a confidential manner. Absolutely. And you know, I think that
going back to the leadership, the military leadership has got to talk openly about it.
I'm not sure, but I never have heard leaders talk openly.
I did see a video from, I think,
the commentant that one of the previous commentants
on mental health, and I watched it,
I was like, yeah, it wasn't that great,
because they clearly weren't comfortable addressing it.
And they have to get comfortable with it.
They have to because they're losing thousands and thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands
of their soldiers, their airmen, their marines, their sailors.
They've got to.
It's a disgrace quite frankly.
It's just what the way that we have forgotten about these people is it's really sad. It really is.
Well, I'll just take a couple other personal examples to just show what I witnessed in the military
and how no support was given at all.
When I was at the Naval Academy,
we lost my company, me, Jensen Kahnum,
to a horrific, far accident, no grief counseling.
When I was on the Saratoga, I was in an aircraft
behind in F-18 and the catapult failed.
We were next in line to go off that same catapult,
launched him directly into the ocean.
He parished, there was no way he was getting out,
no grief counseling.
I was on a destroyer serving as combat information
launch officer and we had two different osos
light us up with scud missiles and we had to make a decision,
no counseling afterwards. So I think to your point, there's ways that you could categorize this
by either situations or places that you've served that would put people, maybe who you wouldn't
even think would have been in an M.O.S. that they would have experienced something like that.
would have been in an M.O.S. that they would have experienced something like that. There could still be ways that if met this criteria, they've got to immediately go to get
some type of brief counseling or something else.
Because when you don't, it just doesn't just go away.
That's what I thought I could do with myself internally, is I thought I could suppress
it enough that it would go away, and all it did was over time,
it caused me emotionally to become numb.
And I can tell you, that's living in health.
So I wouldn't wish it on anyone else.
And so my biggest words of wisdom and it just comes for me
is if you're a person who's been through any of this,
pick up the phone and call me or or call Chuck, or call someone.
Don't feel that you can't talk about it. Don't feel like someone's not there to listen.
Huns of us are, and I go back to my friend Tim, you know,
talking to his daughters, et cetera.
I mean, and all my friends who knew him, you brought out the point in a very clear
way. He thought that he was doing us a favor by not being a burden.
When, in fact, it caused more pain and suffering than he could even imagine,
because all of us were there to help them in any way that we possibly could.
I thank the same goes for anyone who's dealing with this,
because no matter what you've done and how bad you feel about it,
what I've learned by going through, you know, CPT and other therapy myself is, you know, most
people have so much self-blame for the actions that they've taken, but at the end of it, it's not your
fault. And, you know, the biggest thing you've got to learn to do again is
to start loving yourself again and to start most importantly treating yourself internally with
kindness. Because if you can't be kind to yourself, you're not going to be kind to anyone else.
And I know you're you're huge on serving others. You can't serve others if you don't serve yourself.
you're huge on serving others, you can't serve others if you don't serve yourself.
And so that, to me, is the most important aspect
about why people need to come forward
and get that help that they need
so that they can be finding in to themselves
and have a support system that will help them get through it.
Yeah, what a great point.
It's so interesting.
Like, you're absolutely right.
We've got to learn to love ourselves.
We have to.
And what's funny is that's almost at a completely opposite direction of one you serve, right?
Because when you serve, it's all about sacrificing yourself for the good of others.
And sometimes we've got to teach people,
teach our veterans to take a step back.
And it's okay to put ourselves first every now and then
to make sure that we're okay, to make sure that we're healthy,
to make sure that we're fit,
and that we're living our best life.
Because if we don't,
we're gonna constantly feel like,
I'm not worthy, you know,
you know, I should be here, I don't, we're going to constantly feel like I'm not worthy, you know, you know, I should
be here, I don't deserve this. That's that's so that's such a wrong way of thinking. And we need
to train our service members of veterans to always come from a mindset of abundance as opposed
to a mindset of scarcity. And that's just a really different shift from the way that I at least I thought when I was in the military.
And I think that's important for all of our veterans to recognize and understand.
Well, I think what they're not recognizing is they may be thinking that by internalizing this, like I was doing that they're sacrificing for others, but as I looked back upon it,
in some ways I feel like I was being very selfish about it.
And even though I thought I was serving others,
I was really serving myself and the people I was hurting
were others because as I became more emotionally numb,
you know, obviously that impacts the relationship that you have with your spouse,
your children, friends, colleagues, wherever it may be. So it's actually, I hate to say it, but I mean,
it's actually being selfish and you're not sacrificing for anyone but yourself.
I am so thankful that you were on the show today,
and I think this was a great discussion,
completely unscripted.
And I know the reason both you and I wanted to do it
was for the fact that hopefully it reaches
some of the same people that heard your TED Talk
and hopefully many more who might be sitting
in a situation today where they're in the darkness.
They have a lot of safe self hate going on and I would encourage them in addition to watching
your podcast, watch a podcast by a gentleman named or a TED Talk by a gentleman now deceased by
the name of Sean Stevenson who lived 40 years of his life at two foot,
eight inches tall in constant pain.
And one of the quotes that I love from him
is that you only have a disability if you don't adapt.
And the same thing here with PTSD or the startness,
you are your own storyteller in your life. You were the actor in that. And you can choose to either have a life positivity or one of negativity that all comes down to your personal choice.
because many people in this situation would look at it in the worst possible light. He choose to look at his disabilities as abilities in his case that helped teach millions around the world
why they can't give into their insecurities. And that's exactly to me what part of the
issue with PTSD and the suicide is,
it's people giving into their insecurities
instead of unfortunately taking the steps
to rid themselves of them.
Absolutely, log.
Appreciate you having me here.
And appreciate you getting the message out.
Well, you're welcome.
Thank you, Jack.
I wanted to dedicate today's episode
to my dear friend, Tim Arita,
on November 14, 2017, took his own life by suicide.
Tim was beloved by hundreds and hundreds, and I know if there was one thing any of us could say to him,
it was in his biggest time of need. We wish he would have reached out to any one of us,
would have been glad to have helped him through whatever darkness he was going through.
And that is the message that I thank Chuck and I wanted to get out today. Is it's never too late to
ask for help? And I don't know what you were going through. I don't know what your own background is
and the story that has led you up to this very day, because I am not you, and I have not faced
the same trauma that you have.
But I can tell you, I too was in a very deep place
of darkness, as I talked about on the show today,
and got very personal with.
And it took me a very long time to finally do it.
I'm so glad that I finally asked for help,
because it showed me that there is light out of the darkness
So if you are facing
the fresh and
Post-traumatic stress other from a going on in your life whether it's Chuck or I or someone else
Please reach out to someone for help. There are so many people who want to give it and your life is so important and
it's worth saving. And I will make sure that I put links to all the studies I covered
in the intro along with Chuck's TED Talk and links the organization that if you're basing
depression or something else in your life that you can go to for help. Thank you as always
for watching and listening to the Passion Strike Podcast. And especially this very important episode that we did today. Thank you so much for joining us.
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you