The Eric Metaxas Show - Jeremy Stalnecker

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

Eric is joined by the CEO of the Mighty Oaks Foundation, Jeremy Stalnecker to discuss PTSD and the rise in veteran suicide

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mataxis show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. It's a nutritious smoothie of creamy, fresh yogurt, vanilla, protein powder, and a mushy banana for your mind? Drink it all down. It's nummy.

I wub, vanilla. I wub, wub, I wub, wub. Here comes Eric Metaxus. Hey, folks, welcome to Monday. We all got through the weekend together and separately, both. I want to say that today we've got two special guests. Number one, Jeremy Stallnecker. He is the co-founder with Chad Robes Show of the Mighty Oaks Foundation.

These are heroes, absolute heroes, veterans who care. about veterans. We'll hear from Jeremy today. He has a new bookout, huge suicide among veterans. It's such a scandal. When you hear these statistics, it's almost like, it's unbelievable. Every time I hear them, I'm like, there's no way that's true. And it's horrifying to find out that these are accurate.

Yeah, this should be on the front page of the New York Times. If they cared about America, they would be writing about this, or if they cared about veterans. It's unbelievable. We also have David Bonson, who he's been on the program many times before. I knew of him through the King's College. He was on their board. And he is somebody that gives us a Christian view of work.

This is very important to me. So we're going to have a conversation with him. He's got a new book out called Full Time, as opposed to halftime, full time. You'll see. I'll ask him about it. But we're talking to David Bonson. Johnson today about work, talking to Jeremy Stallnecker about our veterans and suicide epidemic, horrifying and what we can do about it.

The thing I'll say about David Bonson, by the way, is he, I don't know, is Bonson a German name, like German work ethic? Is that maybe? Yeah. Yeah, he definitely fits that bill. And when you hear him talk about work, you kind of like, you sit up a little straighter, like he's got some old school energy that should that should not be missed by our listeners. He's quite, he's quite compelling.

Yes, yes. Okay, so David Bonson, Jeremy Stonlecker. Now, that's today. Now, what else am I doing today, folks? Today, I don't know how I'm going to get through it, but I am taping two sessions of Socrates in the studio. Some of you've heard about this. If you go to Socrates in the city, you can sign up for Socrates Plus.

we're doing more and more Socrates in the studio sessions. So today I'm filming two of them. If you are a member of Socrates Plus, you can watch the live stream. You can watch it live while I do these interviews. Also this week, I'm going to be in Philadelphia. And I'm going to be filming an episode, a new episode, because we've got one in the can. We've already put it out there. A gentleman's guide to New York.

That's available. if you've signed up for Socrates Plus, you can watch it. Maybe you've already watched it. We'd love to hear your opinions of what you like and don't like. But we're filming a new one. It's a gentleman's guide to Philadelphia. So this week I will be in Philadelphia. I'm going to be running up the steps to the art museum with the music from Rocky behind me, swelling behind me.

We're actually doing this. That's part of it. I can't tell you the rest of what we're doing. Are you going to try to finally fix the crack in the Liberty Bell? Because someone needs to fix that. Consider it fixed. I'm on it. I'm going to pray over it.

I'm going to pray over it and see if God wants to heal it. But actually, that's happening this week. We're filming that this week, a gentleman's guide to Philadelphia. So this is our second one. The gentleman's guides, it's very quirky and fun. and I hope when you sign up for Socrates Plus that you check it out and tell us what you think. I really, I'd love to get feedback from people. It's kind of fun for me when I hear, you know, what you like, what you don't like, whatever.

And we're going to be posting stuff on Instagram, little clips and stuff. So I also want to say that we've launched Letter to the American Church. Chris, you're a producer on Letters to the American Church. That's true. And you, have you ever produced a film before? This is my first film. I think that I've produced, actual feature-length film. A lot of what goes into producing is picking up your call that seems to be your phone

that seems to be calling all the time and then answering it and having conversations with people. And you do that a thousand times and then a movie's done. Suddenly the movie's done. Suddenly, the movie's done. Suddenly after a thousand phone calls. Well, Suzanne, my wife, is also a producer on the film. And when people watch the film, they will see in the beginning. First of all, the credits are beautiful.

Like, the whole film is beautiful. It's so beautifully done. But when you watch it, you'll see the names Boops as producers, produced by Suzanne Attacks as Chris Himes. And that's when Margaret Sanger's face pops up. And I was like, man, what a diss you into Suzanne that your name is on the screen. when Margaret Sanger's face is on the screen. Yeah. That's cold.

That's some cold. I know. I wish we had had some extra money. We could have animated her mouth to try to, you know, bite our names. But we didn't have that in the budget. That's sick, Chris. That's why I like you. So, yeah.

Letter of the American Church is out. We want to continue to exhort you to join the movement. Letter of the American Church.com. There is so much there. You can buy the DVD. you can get the book and the study guide. I want to encourage people. I mean, there's so many things you can do.

When you go to letter to the American church.com, you can actually see there's a list of things you can do. But what's not listed there is sharing the website on social media to get other people involved. Because we want to, there's so many people that don't know anything about this. So if you would just on social media, share letter to the American church.com, put it out there, number one. Number two, ask for a free screening at your church. I mean, this is amazing that we're offering free screenings at churches,

absolutely free because we want to get the word out. And I say it, and I'll keep saying it, if your church is not interested in a free screening, and you can sign up at letter to the American church.com, all the information is there to get a free screening, free. You could do it in a theater. You can do wherever, but it's got to be a church that's doing it. it, right? But if your church is not interested in this, I have to ask you, why are you interested in this

church? What is it about your church? I mean, do you realize, folks, that that's kind of the point of the film and the book letter to the American church is to wake us up to the idea that maybe we're being complicit with evil. We're not aware of it. Obviously, you know, if you're a good person, you go to church, you don't want to be complicit with evil. But what if you find out that there were many good German Christians who ended up being complicit with evil. But at the time, they didn't realize it. They actually thought, no, no, no, we're fine. That's the whole point of the book and the film is to make people understand you're not fine. You're sleepwalking. You're doing church. Meanwhile, evil is rising. And God is trying to get his people to speak out and to do something about it

and to understand that we're supposed to be part of the solution. We're not supposed to be playing church. So I want to ask you to go to letter to the American church.com and get involved. Sign your church up, spread the message. Another thing we keep talking about is, you know, if you want to do a small group study in your church, we have study guides available. You can get the study guide. And you can do a small group study.

I think if you do a small group study in your church, you're going out of that naturally is going to arise hey here's how what we want to do in our community here are the things that we can do to get involved i think you know talking in a small group oftentimes leads to action so that's why we created the study guide for letter to the american church and before we go to our guests david boston and jeremy stolnecker i should reiterate that the book letter to the american church all of my books but now letter the american church is available at my store.com. That's Mike Lindell, mystore.com.

Of course, mypillow.com as well. If you use the code Eric, you get a good discount. You get a really great discount on some of my books at my store.com if you use the code Eric. But if you go to MyPillow.com, use the code Eric. Help support the program. We need your help. But the announcement is that almost all of my books are available at MyStore.com with the discount code Eric.

Now, letter to the American Church is available at my store.com. So if you want to buy it there and help out Mike Lindell, help out this program, use the code Eric. Letter to the American Church is available at my store.com. Get involved. Be a part of being the solution. We'll be right back. God bless you. For 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider.

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Legacy pm investments.com. Check it out. Hey there, folks, welcome back. I have as my guest right now, Jeremy Stallnecker, who's been on the program before. He is the co-founder of the Mighty Oaks Foundation. They are heroes. Jeremy, welcome. Eric, thank you so much.

Always an honor to be able to speak with you. Well, listen, the work that you guys do, rather than my trying to say it, before we talk about your book and what's on your mind right now. Talk a little bit about the Mighty Oaks Foundation. I've had the privilege of hanging out with you guys, you guys, meaning you, Jeremy Stallnecker and your co-founder, Chad Robes Show, just seeing him a bunch of times. But what is, for my audience, just to understand kind of who you are and what you do at Mighty Oaks. Talk to my audience about that first. Yeah, we serve the military community, meaning veterans, active duty service members and their spouses and also serve those in the first responder community. And most of the folks that we help that we're serving are dealing

with some degree of trauma, whether it's related to their service in the military, you know, it's combat trauma, that post-traumatic stress that we hear so much about. Often it's trauma that happened in childhood. And many of the folks who attend our programs were abused as children. They carried that into the military and then had to deal with all the things that happened in the military and that, you know, made their adult life very, very difficult. We help those who are in the first responder community, dealing with the traumas that they have to deal with every single day. And our approach is a little bit different than a lot of other programs.

And I'm thankful for a lot of good programs that are out there. But we bring men and women to one of our facilities, men or women, to one of our facilities. We have men's programs and women's programs. We have five facilities across the country. We cover the cost of travel to get there. We cover the cost of the program. incredible supporters that make that happen. And when they're with us for that week, we talk about trauma. We talk about the things that happened to us. We talk about post-traumatic stress, what it is,

what it isn't. And then we talk about how to move forward in spite of what's happened to us. And we spend some time talking about it. But the reality is all of us have dealt with trauma, whether you're in the military or the first responder community or not. We know what that's about. But on the other side of that trauma, we make decisions. And a lot of people make some very damaging decisions and we could go through the whole list of things that happen. But then they find themselves in a place where they have to ask the question, how do I move forward from here? And that's really what we address. We talk about how to move forward in spite of what's happened to you. And how do you do that by aligning your life to the life that your creator, God, created you

to live. And when you do that, and we spend five days talking about that and trying to break that down and our instructors try to model that, all of our instructors come from the military community, all have been students in our program. And so they're not, speaking from a top down. This is kind of a peer-to-peer, eyeball-to-eyeball perspective. We model that. And what we understand is that when we align our lives to the life, God created us to live, the stuff in our past, the traumas, the trials, the difficulties, the obstacles, those things don't go away, but they don't have a hold on us anymore. There is hope, and we can continue to move forward with hope, purpose, meaning, and value

in spite of all of those things. And so we've had the privilege of doing that for over 12 years. we've had more than 5,000 folks come through one of those week-long programs. On the other side of that, we walk that out. So hopefully the decision is made to move forward during that week. But then we have an incredible aftercare team that helps to provide counseling and mentorship and all of the tools that are needed to carry that forward. So that's our legacy program side. We talk about legacy.

That's what we call that program. But we also do a lot of resiliency speaking to the active duty community as well, trying to prevent the problem. So we kind of have two things going on. We have resiliency, which is let's not get there. Let's build the right things into your life right now. And then we have recovery, which is our program. So we try to work on both ends.

And how did you, Jeremy, get involved in this? Because I remember, I know Chad's story, which is amazing. He's been in this program. But what was your way into this, into this work that you're doing with Mighty Oaks? So I was in the Marine Corps. I served as an infantry officer, did several things. my last deployment was to Iraq in 2003, First Battalion, Fifth Marines, my battalion was part of the initial push. We breached the berm on the center axis of advance and made our

way to Baghdad. So that was my military life. That was my last deployment. I came home from that deployment, left the Marine Corps and went into full-time ministry. So kind of like, again, two ends of the spectrum from combat operations. A month later, I was working on a church staff. God used that in my life, but in the course of being in ministry, I met Chad Robeshoe, who you've spoken to often. He had struggled with post-traumatic stress, had someone in his wife's church actually mentor him to a place of understanding what it was to have a relationship with God. And he would say he felt like he found the cure for this post-traumatic stress thing and wanted to tell as many people as he could. We met as him and his family had just started Mighty Oaks,

and Chad, you know, he's super charismatic and he's a go-getter and he can get people to follow. What he didn't have at the time was a ministry background, you know, meaning putting curriculum together and, you know, structuring programs and those kind of things. And so we met when that was happening. He said, hey, I'd love to have you come on board and help with this. And it's funny, Eric, I've talked about this in the past, but at that moment in my life, when I met Chad, I would say if you asked me that post-traumatic stress and those things were not real, people struggled we all struggle but it's not a real thing and i remember when i met chad there was a group

of marines there as well um marines that i had served with kind of a weird circumstance marines i had served with in iraq and i started to hear stories of brokenness suicide divorce loss all on the other side of their combat experience and um i mean god really laid it on my heart man you said you were going to take care of these guys and you tried to take care of them in combat, but then you came home and really abandoned them. And it was all of those things happening at the same time. And I knew that that's what I needed to be a part of. And it was funny. I went home and told my wife that she said, look, you've got the same problems all of them if you're just better at hiding them. And so it's been a long process, even personally, working through some of that. Well, it's interesting because

our wives often, like, say, we'll say the harsh thing or the tough thing. And to some extent it's not true in the sense that, I mean, when you're close to somebody, they can say something like that. But the reality is because you're a Christian, because you knew Jesus, you really were better at dealing with what you had been through. You had some tools, even if you hadn't used them totally. But people like Chad, people who go into war zones experience hell and they're not equipped to deal with it. The human person basically is made in God's image. And when we see evil and we see these things, it just like rapes us in our psyche. We're violated.

And what do you do about that? Where do you go with that? Alcohol, drugs, abuse, violent, whatever it is, you've got to do something to deal with it. And one of the things, and this leads us to your book, one of the things a lot of people do, ultimately is say, I can't handle it and I'm out and they want to commit suicide. And I got to say, I know Chad's story, how he wanted to kill himself. And it's so dark. And there are so many people that have served this nation who come home.

They don't get the help they need. And to put it bluntly, God, only God can heal some of the stuff that. people go through. And if you don't know God or you don't know somebody who can point you to God's healing, where do you go? There's no place to go. It's hopeless. And so you try to take your life. And so I know the numbers of people that have served this nation that are taking their lives every day. It is such a scandal, Jeremy, that when I hear about it, it's unbearable to me. So you have written a book. I want to talk about it. Brand new book, folks. It's called Not the solution winning the battle against suicide. So Jeremy Stonlecker, you're big on this subject because

you're seeing it up close. What led you to say, I've got to write a book about this, not the solution, about suicide, not being the solution? We have been addressing this just in the course of the programs that we have since the very beginning. Obviously, this has been an issue that the veteran community has addressed and is trying to address, we have kind of camped on that 22 suicides a day in our veteran community. We camped on that number, 22 a day. And that's what we're told. We have been told for a long time. I can't take that in. I mean, every time I hear you say that, I just say, this, this is such a scandal. This is such a scandal. 22 suicides is, is, what is this, 600 a month, 600 people are killing themselves, 650 people are killing themselves every month,

killing themselves? Every hour, every hour of every day, because even that number I think skews to the low side, every hour of every day, someone who served our country in the military takes their life, every hour of every day, this hour, next hour, and every hour after that for the rest of the day, and that continues. So this problem is huge. And again, to put some of that in context, because it's hard to get your mind around those numbers, in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were just over 7,000 service members that died.

There were a lot of reasons for that. Some were accidents. Some were actual combat deaths. But just over 7,000 that died in the wars and Iraq and Afghanistan over 20 years. Suicide deaths among those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan is over 30,000. So you have just over 7,000 and then 30,000 come home and take their lives. Honestly, we've got much more. This is a vitally important subject. The book is not the solution, winning the battle against suicide. Jeremy Stallnecker is my guest will be right back.

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go to Neutrametics. That's N-U-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-X.com. Neutrametics.com, use the code Eric for 15% off. Again, Neutrametics, N-U-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-X. Dot com. Use the code Eric for 15% off. Welcome back talking to my friend, Jeremy Stallnecker, who is the co-founder of the Mighty Oaks Foundation. Check it out, Mighty Oaks Foundation with Chad Robes Show.

We're talking about a tough subject, but you've really, written a book, Jeremy, addressing it. The new book is called Not the Solution, Winning the Battle Against Suicide. You were just saying before we went to the break that every hour, someone who has served in our military takes his life. You said that that's whatever, 22 plus a day. So, you know, you do the math, folks. It's like 600 plus a month.

that is mind blowing to me in this country, that that many people are killing themselves. So this is a, to me, it's a scandal against the U.S. government, frankly, that somehow we're not dealing with this, that it takes you and Chad and the Mighty Oaks Foundation to step up to deal with this. But so you wrote the book, not the solution. And what do you say in this book? Because again, this is, for me, the headline is that the whole world should know, or at least every American should know what is happening. You just said 7,000 people died in, was it in Iraq or Iraq and Afghanistan?

Iraq and Afghanistan. Okay. So 30,000 have taken their own lives. So way, way, way more. So you really could say that, the death toll is 37,000 because they wouldn't have taken their lives if they hadn't been over there serving their country, seeing what they saw, and then coming back here. And I mean, everybody should at least know about this, should know the price that is paid because it's not enough just to say, oh, yeah, they gave their lives. No, no, no, beyond that, there's a price.

And the price that these men and women pay often results in them taking their own lives, which again, it's incredible. But so why did you write this book, not the solution? So we had talked about writing a book like this, and we have a couple of other books, one on resiliency, one on post-traumatic stress, and we had talked about writing this one for a long time. And my pushback has always been, there are a lot of great books written on this subject, there are organizations that are specifically dedicated to this. And as the wars have tapered off, the wars specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we're bringing service members home, hopefully the issue will begin to taper off and go away as well.

but recent data, research, statistics have demonstrated to us that the problem has not only not gone away. It's gotten much worse. And much worse culturally, 2023, 50,000 Americans. I mean, this is outside of the military. 50,000 Americans took their lives. Second leading cause of death in most demographics is suicide in the United States. So in the military, it's a problem, continues to be, it's getting worse, it's getting worse culturally. and we have been addressing this through our programs for, you know, over 12 years.

And so we wanted to put that down. And really, this book is us talking about the problem. Just again, as you mentioned, so people understand the scope of the problem. But then talking about the course or the path that we have used as an organization to address this and to deal with a loss of identity and a loss of purpose, which really are the root issues that lead to. to this hopelessness that leads to suicide and how it is possible outside of, you know, a lot of therapies and a lot of drugs and a lot of other things that are being used. It is possible when aligning your life to your creator to find hope and purpose and identity

and move forward in a meaningful way. We've seen this happen thousands of times through our programs. And it was just time for us to go, all right, someone needs to look at this differently. Let us do it because we've been doing it and we'll make it available to as many people as we possibly can. Well, I mean, it's fascinating because, you know, Pope John Paul the second spoke of the culture of death. Yeah. We are now living, I mean, 50,000 suicides a year in America. Yeah. That's the culture of death because there are these messages that are going out in the culture. And folks, it's the voice of the devil. This is the

opposite of what God says. God says you are infinitely valuable. Right. I would die for you. And I did die for you, for you alone, not for humanity, for you alone. You are precious to me. That's what God says. The culture says, you're nothing. Your life is what you make of it. It has no intrinsic meaning. In fact, you're just an animal. You're an intelligent animal, but you're no different than any other animal. And whether you live or die is not consequential. There is no eternity. Those messages, have been pumped out for decades and decades and decades. People take that in. It's all around us.

And when you do take in those messages, suicide seems like a logical option. And obviously your book, not the solution, says it's not a logical option. This is not the solution for you. Whatever you have believed to take it to that place is a lie. And people need to know there's such a thing as truth. And there's such a thing as lies. And the stuff that tells you that's the way to go is a lie. And by the way, folks, it's a lie from the pit of hell.

It's a lie from your enemy, the devil who hates you and who hates the God who loves you. And that's what we're dealing within this culture. So this is a national scandal. And what you just said, the second leading cause of death, I want to say that should be a newspaper headline. People should be talking about this. Why is this? What kind of a culture are we living in where we're in a place where that many people are choosing to kill themselves. It's mind-blowing. It's absolutely mind-blowing. And, you know, it's interesting as we

talk through this issue of suicide is all of us can relate to dark moments in our lives, and yet not all of us come to the conclusion that the solution is ending our life. Going back to what you said earlier, there is a framework for people of faith, you know, for myself. I came home. I made a lot of bad decisions. I was in ministry, treating my family terribly. My wife probably should have left me the way I was treating her, but I had a framework around me of faith. So when I got off track, I had people come into my life that got me back on to track. And I could tell that whole story. Actually, when we come back, I want you to tell that story.

The book is not the solution. Jeremy Stallnecker, we'll be right back. Mike Lindell and My Pillow employees want to thank my listeners for all your continued support. To thank you, they're having an overstock clearance sale right now for the best prices ever when you use promo code, Eric, and you get free shipping for the. the entire order. Get 50% off the MyPillow 2.0 and the brand new flannel sheets that just arrived and won't last long. Get six-pack towel sets for only 2998 and take advantage of the free shipping on larger items like mattresses and mattress toppers 100% made in the USA on sale for as low as

9999. Everything is on sale from the brand new kitchen towels that have the same technology as the bath towels that actually absorb. Dog beds, blankets, couch pillows and so much more to get the best specials ever go to mypillow.com. Use promo code Eric. Again, mypillow.com. Use promo code Eric. Remember, you get free shipping on your entire order. You can call 800-9783057. 8-3057. 800-9783057. Use promo code Eric. Welcome back talking to Jeremy Stormnecker, who is the co-founder of the Mighty Oaks Foundation. New book is not the solution winning the battle against suicide. So talk about your story. And again, what led you to write this book, not the solution?

You made the point earlier that, you know, it's different for someone of faith going through traumatic situations than it is for someone not. And when I came home, so I was a Christian, I had been raised in a Christian home. I went to Iraq. We were the first Marines into Iraq. We made our way to Baghdad, April 10th. The Battle of Baghdad was our fight, an incredible fight. That was my final combat engagement.

came home and literally 30 days later I was working on a church staff. I was out of the military, again, the purpose, the identity, all of those issues that we talk about. I had lost all of those things. And now I was working in a place with a lot of volunteers that didn't seem to care with church staff members that didn't seem to take life very seriously. And I became frustrated, which led to anger. And I took that out on my family.

I was very angry. and I never never hit my wife or my kids, but I did everything just short of that. I knew that was the line, right? And so our home was a very unhappy place. My church staff that I was a part of was a very unhappy place. I would cause as much chaos as I possibly could. And so much of that was my hurt and my brokenness, but I had this framework of faith. I had a pastor who, after several months, called me in his office and said,

hey, man, this is not working. we've got to figure this thing out. I had a wife who, in spite of everything that I was doing to her and the way that I was treating her stood up and fought for me and fought for our family. I had a dad who loved me and had been my mentor throughout my life that spoke harsh truths to me. And it took me a lot of years to get my, you know,

kind of my path figured out. But I was confronted in my bad behavior by the people that were already present in my life. That's the difference between, you know, you know, a person of faith and someone who has those faith structures and a church home and a church family and Christian people around them and someone who doesn't, someone who doesn't, who experiences the same things that I experienced and have the same, you know, issues that I had, but doesn't have that framework will begin to self-medicate, will begin to make very bad decisions that lead to

more hopelessness, more loss, more frustration, more anger, and ultimately can, if not stopped, lead to this decision to end your life because, and you said this, and it's so important to go back to this, for those who decide to take their lives, I used to say things like it's a coward's way out and all those things. Really what it is, and I've talked to hundreds of people who've been at this point, it's a rational decision to deal with what seems like absolute hopelessness in their lives. Now, I can look at it from the outside and say, well, it's not rational because of X, Y, and Z, and that's what the book is about. Let's give you, a rational path forward.

But in that moment of brokenness, hopelessness, despair, and darkness, it seems very rational. And so what the book does, seeks to do is to confront that with truth. And the truth is, God, your creator, has a plan for you in spite of what happened in your past, in spite of how you may be feeling right now. Let's confront how you're feeling with real truth and understand that your identity is not in that stuff. Your identity can be in God. the Creator in Jesus, your Savior, and you can find in that a new life, the new creation that

comes from aligning to him. And we spend time in this book addressing three groups. We address those who are struggling right now, hope, purpose, direction, it can be found. We spend time addressing families who have family members that are struggling. I put a whole section in there on what can you do if you have a family member who's struggling. And then pastors or ministry leaders who have people in their congregation or in their churches that are struggling. A lot of pastors come to me and say, we don't know how to help these folks. You do. You have the Bible.

You have the tools. And we outlined some of that for them as well. But addressing the hopelessness, the brokenness, the despair, the trauma, whatever it is that got you to this point, addressing that, confronting that with truth. You know, it's interesting that when you talk about coming back from Iraq, okay, you've been through living hell. You've seen stuff. And you come back to this like happy,

clapy church situation where people, now to me that's part of the problem. To be living in a culture where there are people who are fundamentally unsurious, they don't know that there is evil in the world, that Jesus didn't die on the cross to make our lives 10% happier. He came to defeat evil. Yes. And I think there are a lot of people that they're living.

fundamentally unsurious lives. They, they're not living as though, uh, your life is a sacred gift that you're chosen by God to be a warrior, uh, in the battle between good and evil. They kind of act like, I'm just kind of, you know, just having a, it's about having a fun time. It's about, you know, whatever, following my bliss or whatever, whatever cliche that it's sort of self-centered and it's fundamentally unsurious. And I think when you've stared at evil and death and violence and seen buddies killed, you just think, wow, it's painful to be around people who are living a lie. Because that's ultimately what's going on is that people who are living fundamentally unsurious lives who aren't dealing with evil. And again, this doesn't mean you're supposed to walk around,

you know, dour and miserable and angry. But the point is that to understand that we live in a world where people sacrifice their lives, people sacrifice everything so that we can be free so that we can have, you know, I can work in a nice church and we can, you know, worship the God we want that on some level, we've drifted in this culture from respecting that idea and understanding that we're all supposed to be a part of that to kind of like, well, we farmed it out to some professionals and, you know, and I think that, you know, if I came back from a war zone to people who clearly didn't understand what I had gone through or what. millions of Americans have gone through to serve their country. It's sort of offensive. It's upsetting.

It's confusing. And so that's part of it. In other words, we talk about the culture of death. So you're getting people who really avoid it in one way by escaping into nonsense. And then you get other people that have seen it, but they don't know God's solution to it. And so they want to escape through suicide, I guess. It's it man so I had been on a church staff for six months and I'm in a great church and those were great people but again they just had no concept of of any of this and so I'd been there for about six months. The unit that I deployed to Iraq with came home of course we all came home and six or seven months later they deployed back to Iraq. I wasn't there. I was out of the Marine Corps but my unit was there and the first battle Fallujah happened a lot of loss a lot of death terrible battle of course and my folks were there. My Marines were there. And I remember hearing there was a certain day that I heard that some of the Marines that I had served with that were in my platoon had been killed in Fallujah, this battle's happening. All this is happening. I remember sitting in a church staff

meeting and people were coming in and were kind of gathering. And I mentioned to some of the folks there that this had happened and some of the folks I had lost or served with had been lost. And I was broken for a lot of reasons. One, I felt like I should be there instead of at home. And I felt like I should be serving. And there's so many things wrapped up in that. Forgive me. We're going to a hard break. We'll be right back. This is an important story. Don't go away. Talking to Jeremy Stallnecker, the book is not the solution winning the battle against suicide. You were just talking about hearing that your buddies had been killed in the Battle of Fallujah. And you're in a church staff meeting. I cannot imagine the dissonance of thinking about your buddies who lost their lives.

And then the people, you know, who ostensibly your buddies were fighting for in a staff meeting, obviously having no real clue of what you're going through or what's going on on their behalf on the other side of the world. And it was, you know, it was pretty raw in me at that time just because of the time. I hadn't been home and I was still trying to process things and understand things. Again, I was very angry at home. I was not fun to be around on that church staff. And then I sat there and tried to explain like, man, these guys I served with, they just been killed and I should probably be there. I'm trying to, I'm trying to process this. And everyone in the room listened. They were very courteous. They listened.

And when I got done talking, it was one of those moments where there was, you know, a second or two of silence. And it was like, all right, let's get on with our meeting. And there was, you know, at least from my perspective, no acknowledgement of anything that I said or what I was trying to communicate. Thankfully, a lot of that has changed. That was 2003. A lot has changed, particularly in the ministry world. But to your point, if the place that we go for hope, the place that we go for truth, the place that we go to. understand and contextualize this stuff that we've been through. If that place cannot point us to Christ

in that moment, then we're in a very, very bad place, a very difficult day. And that's where a lot of people find themselves. They go to the place, to the source of hope. And the folks there are not qualified or unwilling or, as you mentioned, unsurious in their approach to that. And they don't find it. And so they move on. Well, it seems to me, the sequel to my book, Letter to the American Church, which is coming on April, it's called religionless Christianity. But I talk about this a little bit, this idea that there are people that are merely religious. And they don't have the deep answers that Jesus wants us to have. And so they're kind of going through the church emotions, this churchianity.

But they don't have the real answers. And so if you're part of a church like that, at some point, especially men, you know, who kind of have more of a warrior mentality, they get kind of fed up. like this is just kind of bubble gum. This is not, it doesn't feel right for me. But then I think there are a lot of pagans out there, a lot of good people that they look at churches and they go, whatever that is, it's not what I'm looking for.

I'm hungry for something deep and real and true and healing. And I don't know if it exists, but if it exists, it's not in that church. And so I kind of think that that's part of, you know, what you guys at Mighty Oaks bring is you bring the real healing of Jesus, which is just a monumental concept,

that there is healing for our deepest pains and wounds in God, but we have to access it truly, not just, you know, on some surface level. So not the solution is the book winning the battle against suicide. Just got a minute left. Final thoughts, Jeremy, if you would. My final thought is very simple. We want as many people to get this book as possible. So there is a free digital download.

So free. That's the word digital download at notthysolution.com, not the solution.com. please go and check that out. You can also share that with people in your life that need it. This was written from our heart and watching a lot of broken people try to figure out how to move forward and we want to help you. So please go, not the solution.com. I just love that that you guys are able to do that and that you're doing it. NotTheSolution.com winning the battle against suicide, not the solution.com, a free download available. To my audience, folks, this is real. And it's an honor that I get to know,

people like Jeremy Stalnecker and Chad Robeshoe who have really put it on the line, have been through hell and have found God's healing and are now bringing the Lord's genuine healing to people. He is the only solution for what ails us. And, you know, we don't have a Biden administration. It's not exactly pointing people in that direction. That's another conversation. But I want to do that on this program. So check out NotTheSolution.com.

Check out the Mighty Oaks Foundation. Jeremy Stalnecker. Joy to have you. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Really appreciate it.