The Ricochet Podcast - CPAC #20: Jason Beardsley & Jay Redman

Episode Date: February 28, 2015

Jay Nordlinger and Jim Geraghty interview Jason Beardsley of The Underground Movement and Jay Redman of Wounded Wear, both distinguished combat veterans, working with Concerned Veterans for America. Source

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Visita Ikea för alla dina bedroomstorage-nedsättningar. Ikea, det vackra varje dag. Avgörande online och i stor för Ikea-familjer bara från 14 februari till 2 mars. IKEA the wonderful every day available online and in store for IKEA family members only from 14 of February to 2nd of March subject to availability well I'm Jay Nordlinger here at CPAC for National Review and Ricochet and I'm with Jim Garrity and some other comrades, two very special guests, a pair of hombres. I call him Jay. I'm sort of partial to Jay. He's Jason or Jay Redman,

and Jason Beardsley, and they have military service. They havevery, honor, entrepreneurship, organizations, endeavors. Jason, you start. Talk a little about yourself and your life and what you're up to. Great, thank you. Yeah, I spent my time in the Army and the Navy doing special operations, special forces as a Green Beret. I was honored to serve under this flag overseas in Iraq and the Horn of Africa. Did a lot of work behind enemy lines and some of the pressing the fight up against the enemy. I was fortunate in the service. I was proud to do it. Came out in 2013.

Run a small business now doing some things to support the American enterprise system. And I'm a spokesperson for the Concerned Veterans for America. We advocate for policy, and we want to make sure we're holding not just our government of bureaucracy accountable, but those who are in the Veterans Health Care, Veterans Health Administration. And it has an effect on guys like Jason here, so I'm proud to do that. Jason Beardsley, do you have a book? I don't have a book.

Not yet? No. Would you like to see one? We have found the only speaker at CPAC who is not hawking a book. So I want to commend you for your modesty. Listen, I probably couldn't write half of it, so I'm just happy to be here and support the causes for veterans. That's the real heart here. Let's get the money for veterans' health care targeted down at the vets. Jason Redman has a book.

Tell us about it. So throw me under the bus. Yeah, thank you. I do have a book. Tell us about it. So throw me under the bus. Yeah, thank you. So I do have a book. It's a humble account of my life growing up within the SEAL teams and learning what it is to be a leader. It's called The Trident, the Forging and Reforging of a Navy SEAL Leader. And it just talks a lot about being a young kid that came into the military, 17 years old, and grew up in a special operations community, a lot of bravado. And I think sometimes it's easy to get caught up in that energy. And I did as a young man. But as I moved up in the chain of command, I realized that it's hard to be a leader. And it takes difficult decision. It takes times to humble yourself. And

I stumbled a few times, so much so it almost put me out of the military. And the book follows that journey. And right about the time I figured it out, then I was severely wounded. And I came to understand that there's actually a higher level of leadership. I think as Americans, we have this idea that, you know, we envision this person, the leader, the person that's standing in front saying, hey, follow me. But, you know, leadership by example sometimes can occur by just staying the course, by trying to stay positive in the most adverse situations, by not backing down, by not quitting, by staying behind what you believe in. And I learned that over four years of surgeries in the hospital. And that is the essence of that work. Jason Redman, you've been through a lot

of hell, physical and otherwise. I must say you look to me like you could take out ten guys with your bare hands. I want to know how you feel today. Well, listen, I mean, maybe five. Jason Beards, do you have an opinion on that? Yeah, I'd give you six. I notice that nobody's lining up as volunteers, so I think that no one's doubting that assessment. No, you know, I'm very blessed. I've had the doctors that put me together.

You know, with Concerned Veterans for America, there's a lot of focus on the VA, and there's a lot of things that need to be fixed with the VA. But as a guy that went through all the medical treatments that I went through, I do want to give a shout-out to the doctors and the staff that are there because those guys truly are there for the reason. They want to serve our veterans. The problem lies at the higher level with the bureaucracy, with the red tape, and that's what's really stopping this. The Concerned Veterans for America just finished their Veterans Independence Act study, and that's what it's all about. It's about giving veterans like myself who had critical wounds from war,

required all this medical treatment, and still will have ongoing treatment for the rest of our lives, the ability of choice. And really, as Americans, that's what freedom is. It's our ability to choose. You know, we figured out one of the things that was talked about is if the VA was a private institution, all of us here believe in free enterprise. Free enterprise, thank you, which will drive competition, which will drive efficiency,

and we think that really is the solution. And the second thing, 90% of the veterans that were pulled through this study, they said that's what they wanted. They wanted choice. They wanted the ability to choose the doctors they needed. And maybe they'd choose TRICARE, maybe they'd elect to go to the VA because some of the VAs are good. But at the end of the day, they wanted that choice. Well, Jason Redman, I want to talk with you in a minute about your company. But Jason Beardsley mentioned that he has a

company. Sure. Tell us about that. We do. It's called the Underground Movement. And basically, we love America and we don't want to see our culture lost. So we see that people are slipping, they're forgetting what our past is, or the great legacy of the heroes that made this country who we are. We think that we got here on purpose, it was deliberate, and if we let the next generation forget what that is, they're going to miss that. So we wanted to capture the stories and the legacies of American heroes and figures, and put them in a consumable form. So we make t-shirts, graphic apparel.

It's called the Underground Movement because we feel like our stories usually come from kind of outside the mainstream, you know, the Great Underground Railroad or even the Sons of Liberty, these clandestine movements that grow up and then speak to the heart of liberty against the heart of tyranny.

And the way we do that is we inspire people to remember how did the Republic get built? It wasn't just a few men coincidentally doing it. It was a long, deliberate course throughout the millenniums of history, and it captures that knowledge. We try to do that with a fun product. What's the web address for that business? It's www.tumshirts, like theundergroundmovementshirts.com. Speaking of something to wear, Jason Redman, Wounded Wear. I'm reading the tagline here, Helping Warriors Rediscover the Hero Within.

What's that about? So I started Wounded Wear from the hospital bed in 2009, and it really just started out with the physical wounds of war. I had a facial injury, attracted a lot of attention, and at that point, 2007, we had been at war for six years, but the average American wrongly assumed most of the time auto accident, motorcycle accident. They didn't connect it with battlefield injury, and I felt like that was a real problem. I wanted to raise awareness that hundreds of thousands of Americans are fighting this war, fighting for your freedom, sacrificing for you. And this is the cost of that sacrifice. And that

led to the creation of Wounded Wear. It started with just t-shirts. It grew into an entire bag of clothing. From there, it grew into empowering events. And now our mission is expanding even further. And it's built on four pillars, four programs, and that's pride, power, purpose, and peace. And I think those are the things that every warrior, every veteran needs to be successful. And it's pride through the clothing, it's power through the empowering events, showing the veterans and the wounded warriors that they can get out there despite that injury, despite loss, purpose through connecting them to other organizations for housing, education, and employment, and peace, and that is addressing

the invisible wounds of war, PTSD and TBI. We're really trying to identify the non-pharmacological approaches. Some great treatment centers out there, Carrick Brain Center, the Brain Treatment Center in California, and hyperbaric treatment is really showing some amazing signs of helping guys with PTSD and TBI. And it's www.woundedwear.org. Well, I have just one or maybe two things to say. Maybe Jim Garrity has something to add. But just about the tritest phrase in the language is thank you for your service. It's so trite.

I feel it sounds so cheap, but I do mean it. And thank you for your service. And beyond that, thank you for what you're doing now. This current kind of service. Jim? This is a marvel event. I'll get back to the news venue just for a second. I remember one of the things I remember during the height of the

VA scandal. People saying that they felt kind of doubly outraged or doubly bothered. One being the experience of obviously what was happening in places like Arizona and hearing about guys who were literally dying online. But then the flip side, they also had really good experiences with the VA and hated the thought of their doctors being kind of tainted with that scandal or the idea of the VA's reputation suffering because of that.

You kind of alluded to that. Any kind of thoughts on, like, is there kind of anger within the rank and file of the VA that these bad apples have really given it a black eye to mix a bunch of metaphors? Sure. I think we talk about it as a sacred trust, caring for our veterans. And it's sort of a, you don't want to get into the VA and sort of spin the wheel and see what comes up. You know, I've got great service or, you know, I had to nine months, or, you know, I lost a turn, so to speak. So there are great people that may feel like there's a tainting of it.

But keep in mind, we're not so worried about the doctor's feelings or the administration, the bureaucracy. I'm worried about guys like Jason. We're worried about the veterans who are losing 22 a day because they have a despondency. So if we're not getting in front of that, if we're not putting them as the focus of this, I think all of the bets are off. And just exactly what Jason's saying, I think that's one

of the big problems. I think this administration solution is we need to focus on the entities themselves. And in this case, it is the VA. It's the big government view, hey, apply more resources and pressure, apply more bureaucratic red tape and we can fix this. And that's not the reality. It shouldn't be the focus on the VA. It should be focused on the veterans. And their voice should be driving what they're doing, and that should open the door to other options besides, hey, let's just fix the VA. That may not be the best solution.

I was just going to say, Jay had said it was a trite phrase, but I'm still going to say it anyway. I thank you for your service. And I also want to thank you for what you're doing now. It's a different kind of fight, but it's extremely valuable and needed. I like to think, you know, as some other TV talk show host says, you're great Americans. So thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. It was an honor for us to serve.

And I think we want to just say that, hey, look, service doesn't end over there. Service belongs here at the Republic it let's get guys activated come to cva or cv4a the number 4a.org and check out what we're doing there to support veterans what does your pin say yeah that's a special forces uh pin it's a kind of like the trident here we compete on two sides of the same fraternity uh special forces are the Army's Green Berets, and to try it in here, you see the Navy SEAL with the eagle and the pistol there represents our Navy Special Operations. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you so much. Ricochet. Join the conversation.