The Daily Signal - From Suicidal to Serving Others: The Story of a Veteran and His Dog

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

Cole Lyle held a gun in his hand, ready to take his own life, when a friend knocked on his door.  “I'll be honest with you, in my opinion it is divine intervention because my finger was literally on the trigger,” Lyle, a Marine veteran, says.  After six years in the military, Lyle was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. He had tried medication and was going to therapy, but none of it worked, he recalls. That’s when he began exploring the option of getting a service dog. Lyle spent $10,000 of his own money on Kaya, a loving German shepherd, because the Department of Veterans Affairs didn't provide funds for acquiring service dogs.  Kaya brought needed purpose back to his life, Lyle says, so he became an advocate of veterans getting access to service dogs.  Today, Lyle is executive director of Mission Roll Call, a nonprofit that brings the needs of veterans directly to members of Congress.  Lyle joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to share his personal story and to explain how all Americans can help veterans who are struggling after their service to America.  Also on today's show, we cover these stories:  Russian President Vladimir Putin “never imagined that the world would rally behind Ukraine so swiftly and surely” says Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. President Joe Biden’s Energy Department announces that it is banning the sale of light bulbs that produce less than 45 lumens per watt. The newest critic of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter is the European Union. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, April 27th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Virginia Allen. Veteran Cole Lyle felt like he had reached the end. In fact, he was ready to take his own life when a friend knocked on his door just in the nick of time. Lyle knew something had to change or the PTSD he was experiencing would consume him. He heard about how helpful service dogs can be, and Lyle decided he wanted to invest in Kaya, a German shepherd trained to help those struggling with PTSD.

When Lyle realized the Department of Veterans Affairs didn't provide funds for acquiring service dogs, he became an advocate for this. Lyle joins the Daily Signal podcast to share his own story and talk about the work he's doing now at Mission Roll Call to bring the needs of veterans before lawmakers in Washington, D.C. But before we get to Virginia's conversation with Cole Lyle, let's hit our top news stories of the day. Russian President Vladimir Putin never imagined that the world would rally behind Ukraine so swiftly and surely, says Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin.

On Tuesday, Austin addressed military leaders from over 40 different countries at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The leaders gathered to discuss sending more military aid to Ukraine in their ongoing conflict with Russia. Military.com reported that the talks resulted in a commitment of 50 gap-hard anti-aircraft systems from Germany, additional anti-aircraft weapons from the United Kingdom, as well as armored vehicles from Canada. Following this initial meeting, Austin said that the group, now called the Ukraine Defense Consultative Group, would continue to meet monthly to discuss ongoing military aid requirements for Ukraine. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Millie, also gave comments, saying, Time is not on Ukraine's side.

The outcome of this battle, right here, today, is dependent on the people in this room. In response, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of waging a proxy war with Russia by providing Ukraine with weapons. Lavrov said weapons donated to Ukraine could be considered a legitimate target for attacks by Russia. The government is full of bright ideas, and the latest is a new policy blocking the sale of some light bulbs. President Joe Biden's Energy Department announced Tuesday that it is banning the sale of light bulbs that produce less than 45 lumens per watt. A lumen is simply the amount of light that comes from a bulb. The more lumens, the brighter the bulb. The Biden administration says it is banning dim bulbs in an effort

to lower energy costs and curb greenhouse gas emissions. The energy department says the change will save Americans an estimated $3 billion a year in utility costs. The change is also estimated to limit carbon pollution by 222 million tons over the next 30 years. Biden's actions reverse a 2019 Trump administration policy that rolled back restrictions on light bulbs. In place of the traditional glass orbs with the glowing wire center, you're likely going to see a selection of LED light bulbs at the hardware store. The changes will take effect slowly as retailers are permitted to continue selling the traditional light bulbs until July 2023. The newest critic of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's recent acquisition of Twitter is the European Union.

The European Union Commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, warned Musk that Twitter must comply with the bloc's rules on moderating illegal and harmful content or face fines or a potential inability to operate in Europe. In a statement to the Financial Times, Breton said, we welcome everyone. We are open, but on our conditions. At least we know what to tell him, Elon. there are rules. You're welcome, but these are our rules. It's not your rules, which will apply here. Breton continued, anyone who wants to benefit from this market will have to fulfill our rules. Breton's comments come on the heels of the Digital Services Act, a set of policies governing how platforms must moderate content in Europe. The state of Tennessee has taken another step to protect women's sports.

Tennessee's Republican Governor Bill Lee has signed a bill that polls funding. from schools that allow students to participate on sports teams that differ from their biological sex. Tennessee already has a law in place preventing students from participating in sports that are different from their sex. This bill will take effect on July 1st and requires Tennessee's Education Commissioner to withhold a portion of the state education finance funds from school districts that don't confirm student athletes' gender using their birth certificate. it. Now stay tuned for my conversation with veteran Cole Lyle. Are you looking for an easy and entertaining way to keep up with the news you care about? The Daily Signal and Heritage Foundation YouTube channels offer interviews with policy experts on the most critical issues and debates America is facing today, as well as short explainer videos that break down complex issues and documentaries that dive deep into the way its policy actually impacts people.

Go ahead and subscribe to both the Daily Signal and Heritage Foundation YouTube channels today. You can search for either on your YouTube app or visit YouTube.com slash heritage foundation and YouTube.com slash daily signal. It is my privilege today to be joined by Cole Lyle. He's a Marine veteran and the executive director of mission roll call. And he's actually here today with his service dog, Kaya, who's on the ground. We can't see, but she's very comfortable. Cole, thank you so much for being here. Absolutely, Virginia. Thank you for having us.

Well, I want to get into your story, but before we do that, just give us a brief explanation of what is Mission Roll Call. What do you all do? Yeah, so Mission Roll Call was founded a few years ago to give a direct voice of veterans across America to policymakers, traditional advocacy organizations that most people are probably familiar with, the American Legion, the VFWs of the world. the individual veteran, if they have an idea or a thought on legislation, they can go to their congressmen, right? But then they have to go through layers of staff and all that business. But if they go through their advocacy organization, their idea gets filtered through the local posts, through state conventions, national conventions, before it gets presented to members of Congress every year in their lists of priorities. So we have the ability to poll veterans.

We've got about 1.4 million veterans across the country on our list. We poll them. We can get as granular as zip code or we can do national polls on legislation, not specific pieces of legislation, but just policy generally. Because we are a 501C3. We're nonpartisan. So we give them the information that veterans across the country feel about certain things. So I'll give you a quick example. The debate about toxic exposures right now is kind of raging in Congress.

Over the past 20 years, there were a lot of burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan where units would just put everything that they had into trash. And veterans were exposed to toxic fumes from various different things that people would put in the trash. So the House passed a version of the bill that would expand not only health care to people who have potentially been exposed. to these things, but also disability benefits. I think the price tag on it is something like $150 billion over 10 years, so it is very expensive. The Senate, led by Senator Tester of Montana, who chairs the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, passed a bill that was health care only, right?

So there's a battle going on between the House and the Senate on which version they should pass. So we polled our veterans and said, would you rather see health care only pass now or wait for a larger compromise package that includes disability compensation. And we gave the results of that poll to both committees of jurisdiction as they go through deliberations in this debate. Okay. And what did the veterans say?

What did they want? Well, 70% of them, because we put it in context and we said the likelihood of the House version passing in the Senate is minimal because the chair of the Senate Veterans Committee, a Democrat, Senator Tester, passed the health care only version to his committee. committee. It's unlikely that he's going to be willing for a couple of different reasons to expand disability benefits. So 70% of them said that they would prefer that Congress passed the health care only version of the legislation. Now, we didn't get reasons for that. I certainly have my own thoughts, but it's my opinion that probably veterans feel like people, veterans who are

suffering from these diseases, resultant from toxic exposures. They want health care to take care of these veterans now, and we'll worry about the disability benefits later. Yeah. So you're really bridging that divide. You're going straight to veterans. You're finding out what they want, and then you're taking that information right to members of Congress and allowing that gap to close. Right. And this is a perfect example because pretty much every other DC-based veteran service organization is in full support of the House legislation that would call for the expanded disability compensation.

which frankly is what makes it so much more expensive. So there have been some Republicans that have said, you know, we can't afford this. We're already X trillion dollars in debt. $150 billion over 10 years is a huge price tag when you consider that the VA just requested its largest ever budget at $301 billion. But there are also some arguments that the science is really just not there to prove that certain conditions are related to exposures, frankly because we don't know really what we're. went into those toxic, those burn pits and what people were breathing in. But anyway, so that's, you know, we, in this particular case, we're one of the few voices that gave information to members of Congress that was contrary to what most of the veteran service organizations were saying and

advocating for, but it's not our position. We pulled the veterans across the country, and that's what they said. Yeah, I love that. Well, and I want to get in a little bit deeper into the work that you're doing on Capitol Hill in just a few minutes. But let's take a little bit and just talk about your story. So you're a Marine veteran. You serve for six years, correct? So talk a little bit about why you decided to join the Marines and what your experience was like. Well, I grew up in Texas, and I was always service-oriented. It was an Eagle Scout in high school. But also my mom said, you know, when you turn 18, you're either going to school, getting a job, or joining the military, but you're not staying in my house. And I said, okay, well, I don't really want to do what my

sisters did, which would be to take out student loans and work two full-time jobs during school to try to pay my way through. And I was also self-aware enough to know at the time that I probably needed a little kick in the pants. I didn't have as much discipline as I thought was necessary to be successful in college. So I said, you know, I'm going to join the military. And my now brother-in-law, at the time was dating my sister. He was a Marine. And I really respect him as a person. And so he was the one that kind of helped influence the choice of service of branch, which is why I joined the Marine Corps. But I said, you know, I want to serve. If I eventually go to college, now it'll be paid for. There was a lot of reasons I joined, but certainly I got a lot out of it. Some good, some bad. But I got out in 2014. And where were you stationed over those six years? Well, so I joined actually as a reservist. Okay.

And then I got activated to go to Afghanistan in 2010, 2011. Spent some time in Helmand Province in 2011, which was, for your listeners, it was kind of the peak President Obama surge period when there were a lot of Marines in southern Afghanistan. It was a very kinetic time. I myself didn't see like a whole lot of heavy combat. but I volunteered a lot of my time towards the end of my deployment at a trauma center in Helmand for a couple of different reasons. But when I got back, I realized I was having some symptoms. A post-deployment health assessment said I needed to go seek treatment for post-traumatic stress.

So I did that. VA prescribed me some medication, went to therapy at what are called vet centers, which are kind of out-patient VFW, VA-funded VFW. VA-funded VFWs. None of that was really working. I went through a pretty nasty divorce at the same time that I got out of the Marine Corps, didn't have a job, wasn't in school. It was really lacking purpose and meaning in my own life.

And I got into the mental spiral of what am I still doing here? So one night in 2014, I was about one to two pounds of trigger pull away from becoming a suicide statistic. I'd been drinking a lot that night. If it had not been for a Marine friend of mine that intervened, I probably wouldn't be here right now. What did he do? He just showed up on my door, knocked on my door, which I'll be honest with you. In my opinion, is divine intervention because my finger was literally on the trigger, right? Wow. So you were ready to take your life.

And I was actually in hindsight, I'm very surprised that the knock at the door didn't scare me and jolt my finger. But he showed up, intervened, obviously. He knew I was having a tough day anyways, which is why I stopped by. And I can't explain it, but the next day I just woke up, as I mentioned, I was drinking pretty heavily that night. I woke up and I was just so clear. It wasn't hung over at all. And, you know, my mindset, I kind of latched on to 2 Timothy 1-7, which is for God didn't give us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. I think I might have watched that quote, but you get the idea.

So I decided, you know, instead of thinking I have nothing anymore, I switched it to, I have the opportunity to do anything because I wasn't tethered to anything anymore. So I decided to go back into public service. And I only knew one person at the time that I knew was in politics. So I asked her how to get plugged in. So I volunteered with some local political organizations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, ended up coming up to DC. to intern for a senator, interned for Heritage Action for a summer. Through all that, though, I knew that I still needed to find a way for my symptoms to mitigate my symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

And I quit the pills, quit the therapy. I had a friend who had a service dog, so I explored that option, but the VA didn't provide service dogs or any funding for them. So I went out and spent about 10 grand of my own money on Kaya, who is apparently very tired. And it worked for me. It worked really well for me. It's not a silver bullet for everybody, but it works. I think anybody who's ever owned a dog will tell you that it can be therapeutic after a stressful day,

but especially trained dog like her that's trained to wake you up from nightmares or stop anxiety attacks through animal assisted intervention can be really powerful. What changed in your life from struggling with PTSD and then to getting coyote? Did you notice a difference in yourself? immediately? Was it slow? Was it gradual? Well, I mean, to be clear, I mean, I still have my days where, you know, it's, you know, I'm certainly not a victim, but like I think one of the misperceptions that the American public has about veterans, right, because they have a skewed perception based on Hollywood and media and military service is really becoming a family business so they don't have a touchpoint.

So they either view veterans as heroes or ticking time bombs, right, that are, you know, dysfunctional and whatever. Here I am, having, not trying to be self-aggrandizing, but done some pretty special things, in my opinion. But I still struggle through this sometimes, right? But Kaya, I certainly saw an immediate difference because, you know, when veterans get to that point, that low point in their life, it's really more, in my opinion, about lack of connection and lack of meaning than anything. And dogs can provide a sense of purpose in your life that pills or therapy just won't ever do.

So they need to be walked, they need to be taken care of. And then, you know, with what she was trained to do, if I was having, you know, a nightmare or something, she would jump up at bed, lick my face, wake me up, pull the sheet off. And she would sit up with me until my heart rate kind of lowered. So it wasn't necessarily an immediate effect, but certainly a very powerful one.

I rarely have nightmares anymore, and I can't remember the last time I had an anxiety attack. So I think it's worked. I still don't take any medications or anything. Wow. Wow. And now you are trying or have and are connecting other veterans with service dogs. Talk a little bit about the work that you have done. Yeah.

So as I mentioned, I interned up in D.C. I got Kaya and I was up here interning. and I get a lot of looks typically because I'm not blind and I don't have a limb missing. So people ask, why does that guy have a dog? You know? And one day, it just so happened to be a U.S. senator and started asking me questions about it, actually about two blocks away from here. And I said, hey, man, can I ask about your dog? And I said, sure.

We started talking and I told him that the VA didn't provide any funding for this. And it was a great alternative method of treatment. And he said, well, what do you think we should do about it? And I said, well, you're the policymaker. You tell me. I don't know this world, right? But he asked me to stop by his office, so I did. Nothing came from that meeting, but the idea that if he was willing to listen, then other people would be too.

So I drafted the initial version of what became known as the Paws Act, which stands for puppies assisting wounded service members, which would have provided grant funding to organizations that already do this are vetted, have good 990s. So in an extremely heated election year in 2016, it was a very bipartisan bill. Over 200, I think, 50 co-sponsors in the House and the Senate had 12 or so senators, including Senator Kane, who was the vice presidential nominee at the time. And then Senator Rubio, who was a Republican candidate for president. So it was super bipartisan. Unfortunately, even things that are very bipartisan sometimes don't get a vote in the Senate or a vote in the Senate or a vote in the Senate. the house. And the VA, I testified in front of two house committees a couple of times about it. And the VA came up with some very lackluster, in my opinion, answers as to why they weren't going

to embrace this particular treatment for a couple of different reasons. I'm happy to go into, but I don't want to, you know, bore your listeners. So it took a couple iterations. And where does the Pazak stand right now? Oh, it passed, actually. I'm sorry. I forgot to a very important detail. It's a big deal. Yeah, it passed last August, actually as the Afghanistan thing was going on. So at the time, I was helping people evacuate, get to the gate at H.Kaya and evacuate out of Afghanistan. It was pretty rough time for me.

So it was a very welcome change of pace that the pause I passed actually August 26th of last year. Wow. It wasn't the exact version that I had originally. authored, it went through a couple of different iterations and Congress can't do anything without compromise. So, but yeah, I'm really happy it passed. So now service members can receive these dogs as groups that already are training service dogs. They can receive grants in order to provide these dogs to members who've served. Yeah, it's not exactly as I had authored it. So it's a bit different than that. One of the, going back to the reasons the VA opposed it, they said there wasn't enough

scientific evidence to prove that dogs can be therapeutic. They look at, frankly, mental health and suicide prevention from kind of a skewed perception because they view suicide is mainly a mental health problem, but it's not, right? Less than 30 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are diagnosed with a mental health condition. And at the moment of decision, you know, it can be a conglomerate of financial stress, relationship stress, it could be driven. And certainly if you have a mental health issue, you're at a higher predisposition to, you know, take your life. But they view it primarily through that lens, which I feel like is a mistake. But they said there wasn't enough scientific evidence behind it and all this other stuff. So ironically, the final version that

passed, the workaround that Congress came up with was, we're not going to just, just give them dogs and make that the form of therapy, we're going to have the veterans train the dogs. Okay. And then they get to keep them after the training, but the training is the therapy. And I, as it passed, look, arising tide lifts all boats. It ends up getting more dogs in the hands of veterans that need them,

so I didn't complain. But it was just very funny to me because there's even less science behind the fact that training dogs can be therapeutic than the dogs themselves. Yeah. Hopefully it's therapeutic and not just. frustrating at that, you know, hopefully it works well and it's helpful. Yeah, I mean, creates a bond between the dog and master. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. So as, as you speak with veterans around the country, what, what do you hear from them about what they need and the support that they want

both from government, but also just from local community? It's a great question. And honestly, probably the one I get most often when I do interviews. And just to set the scene a little bit, It's probably because, as I mentioned, military service is becoming a family business. So less than 1% of the U.S. population at any given time serves on active duty, right? 80% of veterans report having an immediate family member that served, right? So the population of people bearing the burdens of our war is getting smaller and smaller. And it's getting harder and harder for the DOD to recruit because, you know, we see stories about issues on active duty, especially after Afghanistan, people start to wonder, you know, what's the point of somebody serving, right, if the sacrifices of 20 years are just going to end like that.

But if the suicide problem persists in roughly 17 veterans a day, according to VA data, commit suicide, which makes it about 6,205 a year. And that's, the VA says that's gone down in the last couple of years. I would contest that for statistical data collection reasons, which I won't, again, bore your listeners about. So I think the main thing, I'm sorry, going back to the original point, mission roll call's main priorities are suicide prevention, access to care and benefits, and amplifying the voices of underserved veteran populations, which can be female veterans, which can be tribal veterans, rural veterans that have unique access. issues to care and suicide prevention. So as I mentioned, we poll on policy issues. We give it to members of Congress, but we also put out content to profile veterans in the United States. And part of the reason is because the public, the people that ask, how can we help, don't have a lot of frame of reference. So we highlight individual stories. You know, there's a lot of veterans in the United

States that just want to live their lives. They don't really want to use the VA. In fact, only 50% of the 2 million veterans in the United States even use VA. Right? So only half of the veterans in the United States use VA. A lot of them just want to be left alone. They want to live their lives. They're doing well for themselves. They may occasionally struggle. So my response is always, you know, if you don't have a frame of reference, if you don't know a veteran in your friend group or your family group, volunteer your time. A couple of hours, it doesn't have to be a lot, a couple hours a month at a veteran organization or not even a veteran organization, organization that may help veterans in the community. Learn about veteran stories because really the only

way to honor their service and sacrifice is to not forget their service and sacrifice. So it's a difficult question to answer because certainly you can donate to an organization that does good work on veterans' behalf, and that can be the way you help. I always see these social media campaigns where people do 22 push-ups a day or 17 push-ups a day to raise awareness of veteran suicide. But I think a much better use of your time

would be to donate 22 minutes a day to trying to contact a veteran and just, you don't have to make it weird. Don't be like, hey, just checking up on you, right? But just get to know a veteran and learn their stories and just try to understand because, as I mentioned, a lot of people just don't have any frame of reference. Yeah. Now, how can folks get involved with what you guys are doing if they're listening and they're surprised by this information that you're sharing and are thinking, okay, I want to do something.

I want to be a part of the solution. Right. How can they do that? Well, first and foremost, thank you for having me and being able to talk about all this. But you can go to mission rollcall.org and get a better idea of the work that we do. You can sign up for our text and email notifications for the content we push out. If you're a veteran, we regularly poll you, as I mentioned earlier, through emails and through text messages. But even if you're not a veteran, we put stuff out.

We're on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter. You can follow us at Mission Roll Call. we put most of our content there. Education, awareness, advocacy, super important. If you want to make a small donation, you know, I'm not going to tell you not to. The work we're doing is really important, as I mentioned, for a couple of different reasons. And at the end of the day, our number one priority is just to try to get less veterans to take their lives and realize that, you know, you have so much to offer not only the country in your community, but you have so much to offer yourself by staying here. and, you know, finding your purpose and meaning again.

Yeah. Well, I think it would be anyone's joy and honor to kind of get to act in the position that that one gentleman did for you to be the person that stands in the gap and says, wait, don't pull that trigger. So I think that's so many Americans desire to be that person that stands up and is that support for our veterans. So, Colt, thank you for your time. We really appreciate it.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having us. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the Daily Signal podcast on your podcast listening app of choice. That's Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review at a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, and please encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening, and we'll be back with you all tomorrow morning.

The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. The executive producers are Rob Blewey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Doug Blair. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, please visit DailySignal.com.