The VetsConnection Podcast
Join host Scott McLean, a veteran and also a passionate advocate for veterans' well-being. Each week Scott will bring you an episode that will feature insightful conversations with representatives from non-profit organizations dedicated to supporting veterans, as well as experts discussing programs within the Veterans Affairs (V.A.) aimed at assisting veterans with their needs. From discussing innovative therapies to highlighting community resources, this podcast sheds light on the myriad of ways veterans can find support and healing thru nonprofit organizations and also to connect nonprofits with each other in hopes of creating a network that will be beneficial to all.
The VetsConnection Podcast
Ep. 31 - Special Edition: The One Man One Mic Foundation's Story Lab: A Night Of Veteran's Stories
These nine stories were recorded in front of a live audience for the One Man One Mic Foundations Fundraiser, Story Lab: A Night Of Veterans Stories.
Have you ever faced a challenge so daunting it felt insurmountable? Meet Ms. Williams, a beacon of resilience, who turned a grim prognosis into a story of triumph and hope. Her journey from a life-altering accident and a rare cancer diagnosis to becoming a leader for veteran support is nothing short of inspiring. Through innovative medical treatments and sheer determination, she stands strong today, leading the charge in healing methods for veterans across the country.
Then we shift gears to hear from Staff Sergeant Rivera, whose path in the Marine Corps was as unexpected as it was transformative. As his son steps onto the same path, Rivera reflects on his own beginnings, influenced by a colorblind friend and a persuasive recruiter. His tale takes us through the intricacies of military operations and the invaluable lessons of leadership and adaptability learned in the high-pressure environments of the Anglico and JRTC. These stories highlight the profound impact of mentorship and the complexities of strategic military roles.
Finally, travel back to 1968 with a retired Navy Master Chief who, with humor and resourcefulness, provided for his family through fishing adventures filled with lessons of love and resilience. This episode is a testament to the power of community and the bonds formed through shared hardships and triumphs. From acts of compassion to stories of survival and recovery, we explore how veterans continue to support one another, fostering a network of strength and healing. Through their narratives, we celebrate the enduring spirit of those who serve and the powerful impact of shared experiences.
The following is a special edition of the Vets Connection podcast. This was recorded at the Boca Black Box on November 12, 2024. It's the One man, one Mic Foundation Story Lab a night of veterans' stories. So sit back, relax and enjoy some amazing stories.
Speaker 2:So there I was, at the doctor's office again. I was waiting for my third opinion because I did not like the first opinion or the second opinion. So on this day I found myself driving up to Gainesville, to Shands Hospital, to meet with Dr Gibbs. I was sitting in the room when he walked in, he introduced himself and he sat down with a long, labored sigh. His eyes were on the floor and he did one of those very slow, dramatic gazes up, and when he met my eyes he said to me Ms Williams, I fear the best option for you is amputation. There was that word again, that word that I was trying to avoid, that I was trying to escape, that word that came up in opinion one, in opinion two and that I was hoping wouldn't be in opinion three. But there it was Now. How did I get here?
Speaker 2:Seven years before this doctor's appointment I was at another appointment in a room much like that one at Mercy Hospital. I had been in a car accident a couple months before and my leg was still swollen and hurting and stiff, and so I thought let me just go in and see if there's something wrong. Dr Temple, he walks in, he introduces himself, he sits down with a long, labored sigh. It must be a doctor thing, because his eyes were on the floor and he does that dramatic look up until he meets my eyes and he says Miss Williams, it's cancer. I'm sorry, what Cancer? I'm here from a car accident. Car accidents don't cause cancer. I think you have the wrong person. Maybe you should go back and look at the scans again.
Speaker 2:But the biopsy results did not lie. It was correct. And on Veterans Day, november 11th of 2015, I was diagnosed with a very rare, very incurable aggressive sarcoma in my left leg. Now, over the next seven years would be a whirlwind of treatments. I have tried everything that you could imagine. I have done IV chemo, oral chemo, nsaid therapy, cryoablation. I've done radiation. I've done chiropractic. I've done anything you name it. I have done it In over a seven-year period. Nothing worked. My tumor still continued to grow.
Speaker 2:But that seventh year in 2022, I finally got the response from my doctor that radiation had stabilized my tumor. This is the answer that I was looking for. It felt like the door that opened to normalcy, and I had been waiting for almost a decade to hear that my tumor would be stabilized. But, as many of us know, life is constantly a moving target, and so, even though I had met my goal, the target had shifted. And what had happened over the last seven years is my tumor had grown so big that it was pulling up on my Achilles tendon and it was causing my heel to lift. So I was walking around pretty much like a little pirate for a couple of years, where my left foot was in a perfect ballerina point while my right foot was flat footed. So imagine the gut punch in Dr Gibbs's office when he told me I know you just went through seven years of every treatment that you could imagine, but it was for nothing. It didn't work. The leg has got to go. I felt like such a failure, so I decided I don't like feeling like a failure, so I'm going to go for a fourth opinion. That's what I'm going to'm gonna do.
Speaker 2:So a couple months later, instead of meeting with oncology, I decided to meet with a sports medicine doctor. I went into the University of Miami to meet with dr Steinloff. As I was waiting for him, he walked in the door, he introduces himself and he sat down with a big smile on his face and he said miss Williams, amputation is likely the best option for you. But if you are willing to go through extreme amounts of pain and be my guinea pig, there is a procedure I would like to try on you. It has never been done on a human before. You would be the first. But, using my clinical experience and my expertise, after looking at your scans, I think I can give you a 10% chance of salvaging your leg. So I said sign me up, I'll be your guinea pig. That sounds great.
Speaker 2:So on December 29th 2022, I went in for surgery and when I woke up, I had 19 pins screwed into to correct a deformity where my foot was pointed at 180 degrees and move it up to 90 degrees. It was like braces for my bones. When I tell you that this was the most painful experience of my life, it was the most painful experience of my life. I wanted to give up every single day, but after 90 days, I went in for that surgery to get that fixator removed and when I woke up, my foot was cast at a perfect 90 degrees for the first time in seven years. Thank you, thank you very much. I can attribute the fact that I'm standing here in front of you today on two feet, sharing this story, to one doctor who decided to think outside of the box and decided to take a risk and try something that had never been done before to help me heal. I am very honored to be here today as the only civilian that is gracing this stage, amongst several veterans who will be sharing wonderful and powerful stories.
Speaker 2:I did not serve, but every day I work with veterans.
Speaker 2:In my day job as the executive director of the 22 Project, we provide hyperbaric oxygen therapy for veterans with traumatic brain injuries another outside-of-the-box way of helping veterans heal from their experiences.
Speaker 2:But today I am grateful to also be sharing in my newest role as the president of the board of the One man, one Mic Foundation. Thank you, another organization that thinks outside of the box in providing ways to help veterans heal from their emotional and moral wounds that they've experienced from their time in service. As a therapist, I know well that storytelling is one of the first steps to be able to heal from the trauma that we've been through, and many trauma researchers tell us that to convey our story fully is the opposite of traumatization, and so I am very thankful to Scott. I'm very thankful to the One man, one Life Foundation for the opportunity to be a part of an organization that provides that platform for veterans to be able to tell their stories as an outside of the box way of being able to heal from the wounds that they've experienced. Thank you so much for being here tonight. Thank you for listening to my story.
Speaker 4:All right, I'm going to have to walk around here. So I am Staff Sergeant Rivera, united States Marine Corps and seven days just from tonight my son stepped foot on the yellow footprints of Parris Island and he's joining the infantry. So for the last month he's been at home with me training. I've been preparing him for the Marine Corps and visiting the recruiter's office a lot in Margate. And as I go and visit that recruiter's office I can only think of when I was in the recruiter's office in Miami and Bird Road with my best friend, mario, and we were going to enlist in the Marine Corps. We were going to go infantry and we were going to travel the world and have adventures. But as it turns out with every Marine Corps story you know, turns out he was colorblind so he didn't enlist.
Speaker 4:I ended up being the only sucker that enlisted by myself and he talked when he got out. He talked me out of joining the infantry. He was like Andre, you know, you have a two year to college degree, you should go to the reserves and you should get a job that will ensure that you have a good skill set when you leave the Marine Corps. So I was like, ok, that makes sense. So I did that. So I asked my recruiter what should I do? And he said embarkation. And that sounded sexy to me. I had no idea what that was and he was like I was like what's embarkation? He's like embark, man. You know, you're going to embark on aircraft, you're going to debark off of boats, man, you're going to be a jump master. He made it sound so freaking cool.
Speaker 4:Well, a year later I found myself in West Palm Beach, 4th Anglico, right here, and it was not cool or sexy, it was the worst job ever and I hated it because I was basically just in charge of bullets, band-aids and bandages. Wait, bullets, beans and band-aids, that's what it was. It was boring and I hated it. But our unit I was in this high-speed unit. So let's talk about what 4th Anglican is. So Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company is a special operations capable and airborne unit right here in West Palm Beach, and I know folks think that you know you do two weeks a year, one week in a month, unless you're in a special operations capable unit where you can maybe end up doing years of active duty time, at least months at a time. I've done six months one year, whatever down the road. But in this particular instance, I found myself hating my job.
Speaker 4:So I started volunteering to go to the field for this training operation called JRTC Joint Readiness Training Center and it's an army training school. So let's talk about what Anglico does. Anglico is a force multiplier the most oversimplified it is. We save the day. So basically, in every combat operation, at the end, when things are going bad for the grunts on the ground, you see the explosions coming down. Airstrikes, naval gunfire, artillery, that's what we do. We call that and they attach us to foreign forces and they attach us to army units. And that's that training center, jrtc. That's where we would go to train this.
Speaker 4:So I started volunteering for this and I volunteered for my first operation with Staff Sergeant Villamonte. I found myself in the field and this training evolution lasts for about two to three weeks and most people don't like going to it, but I was so tired of my job. I volunteered for this operation. I go out there, we're two weeks in and I'm with Staff Sergeant Villamonte, who was very different than any leader that I knew because he wasn't screaming and yelling at me. He was really cool and he was very different than the leaders that I was used to. When he wanted us to do something, he would change his tone, but he never raised his voice or yelled at us, and I found that to be a very refreshing way of leadership. So I learned a lot from him.
Speaker 4:But what I really learned was this lesson so we're snooping and pooping in the field, we're in a swamp for two to three weeks at a time, and snooping and pooping means something different. And well, back then we were trained to fight the Russians, so we did a lot of like field operations and stuff like that. But anyway, so we go to JRTC and there's hind helicopters. So there's Russian helicopters, there's thousands of troops out there and there are OPFOR, the opposing force. So while we're patrolling, we're staying out for weeks at a time and we call back in to give our sit reps. We constantly give situation reports so we can give the Tactical Operations Center our position so they can de-conflict fires, de-conflict fires, making sure that they know where the good guys are and they know where the bad guys are, so we make sure they don't drop bombs where the good guys are.
Speaker 4:All notional, all training exercise. So I noticed that Staff Sergeant Villamante starts giving the wrong grid coordinates constantly. And I'm like, hey, staff Sergeant, and he's on the radio giving a sit rep. I'm like, hey, staff Sergeant, that's the wrong grid coordinate and he's on the radio giving a sit rep. I'm like, hey, staff Sergeant, that's the wrong grid coordinate. And he goes shh, I go okay, so that's the wrong grid coordinate. So I wait About an hour passes and then he goes hey, rivera, get over here. So I crawl over to him, he throws up some binos and we see some Russian patrols at the position that we gave in our grid coordinate.
Speaker 4:So it turns out this training exercise is really for the leadership, not so much for the troops. It's to train the brigade commanders on how to effectively employ the units under pressure and stress of being in a combat environment. So what they do is they basically, in essence, put us into a Kobayashi Maru environment where they plan for us to lose. And in so doing, what they do is they give. When we report our grid coordinates to the tactical command center, the tactical operation center, as I was, they will give and compromise our grid coordinate and give it to the enemy, and this is simulating a security breach and, in essence, they would find us so we would be giving away our grid coordinates to the enemy.
Speaker 4:Well, sasson and Viamonte didn't like that. And he's like hey, we didn't get all trained, we didn't get all dressed up for nothing to come out here and my Marines are going to get no training if we just give away our position and we get compromised every time. So instead he basically gave them the wrong grid coordinates the entire operation until we got to the end, the last phase line of the operation. And we got to the last phase line, he called in airstrikes, naval gunfire and artillery on the entire Russian column right in the beginning, at the last phase, when they're supposed to just wipe us all out. And of course you know, we jumped in the air like we just destroyed the Death Star. We were so excited that we defeated, we basically ended everything. But of course it didn't count because they said we cheated. Now the irony is we didn't cheat. We knew that they were going to cheat, so we cheated ahead of time. Staff Sergeant Villamante basically pulled a Captain Kirk for those nerds out there that know what I'm talking about and we gave him the wrong grids and we destroyed the entire column.
Speaker 4:So what I learned from Staff Sergeant Villamante was one. You don't have to yell at your Marines to leave effectively. Two do what's right for your brothers. And three Anglico's badass man. We were force multiplier. A few men can make a big difference in a battle or any war. Just a few men can make a big difference in life, and I apply that to everything I do. And those are the lessons I took to Iraq later, after that training exercise. Being in the reserves, I kept volunteering for JRTCs, so much so that eventually I did become a forward observer and I did change my MOS and I also became a firearms instructor, jump master, load planner, martial arts instructor, and I did so much more because I was so motivated from that exercise and with my staff sergeant Ten years later deployed to Iraq.
Speaker 4:My team did so well. We saved over 87 people, killed over 180, 200 insurgents that were about to be overrun, and I disobeyed direct orders to do so. And I went back to my lesson that I learned from Staff Sergeant Viamonte do the right thing for your brothers, you don't need to yell at your brothers to make them to be an effective leader. And that we're a force multiplier and that a few men can make a big difference and change the outcome of any battle and I think that is my story. I am with that said and I was looking at time.
Speaker 4:With that said, I am the founder of the Veterans Resource Network, which is a 501c3 dedicated to veteran businesses empowering our community, and the Warfighter Sanctuary podcast, where my dream is to create a warfighter sanctuary for veterans transitioning from the military to the civilian sector, because this is how you mitigate suicide while empowering our community for veterans where they can go to basically a business center slash morale, wellness and recreation, like we had downrange when we were in combat zones, but here in our local cities. And that's how we empower our neighborhood, our community. And also, like I said, my son right now is in Paris Island, so my jarhead's here Can we get. I believe in prayer and I believe in positive energy. Can we get an oorah for my son At the count of three? At the count of three? Jeremy, I know you're in Paris Island suffering with those drill instructors, but we've got some prayer and positive energy coming your way. One, two, three, thank you very much.
Speaker 5:Thank you very much. Thank you very much, and Scott's right, we are brothers but I'm a month older, so I'm the older brother. My name is Mark Flynn. I was a United States Air Force security policeman and canine handler. Thank you very much. Just yeah, there's a lot of marine energy up here and unfortunately I'm going to have to contribute to it because my story has a little bit to do with that as well. But I also wanted to do a shout-out to my Philippine brothers who are all here. They came from all over the country to support one of our heroes, which is Scott McClain. Let's give him a hand. The work that Scott's doing with One man, one Mic and the foundation, and just the fact that all the money that he raises goes right back to help veterans, is an amazing thing. It's awesome and we really appreciate everybody coming here and your support.
Speaker 5:So in 1968, and that's a long time ago they were trying to send the US Navy was trying to send my dad back to Vietnam for the third time. So and the Marines will appreciate this in the room my dad was a combat medic and in the Marine Corps they know the combat medics are the guys that come in into battle. They don't go into battle with a rifle, they go into battle with a medic kit. And they find their Marines and they pull them out of there and they bring them to the rear and they fix them up and they send them home. And my dad was so good at it that he had two sorry Andre two Bronze Stars. He was an amazing man. He did a lot of good things. But when they were trying to send him back for that third tour, he was in for 22 years he was a Master Chief and he said now I'm gonna have to take the no-show on this one. And he retired from the United States Navy. He grabbed his entire brood of children and when I mean a big brood, I'm talking on Sunday mornings when we went into mass, the priest pulled my dad up and he said Martin, I think it's time you found yourself another hobby. And he took the entire brood and he moved us cross country from San Diego back to Salem, massachusetts, which was his hometown. When we got to Salem he dropped it on my mother that not only did he not have a job, but he also had no place to live. So my mother was a Navy wife 22 years. She knew all about it. We ended up living with my grandparents in Salem, about 150 yards from the railroad, which is where my grandfather and a lot of Irish people in that area did worked on the railroad, and it was a small cottage and we lived there for many months.
Speaker 5:And, being the fact that my dad had just retired, and being the fact that we were on a very limited income, my dad because I have five brothers and sisters that are exactly my size he needs to find some way to feed these kids, right. So one of the things he wanted to do was take us to his favorite hobby place when he was a kid, which was a fishing place, and so he would take us all up, he would give us our gear, we would get in the family truckster, which was a big, beat up old Chevy station wagon you guys remember station wagons it even had the rear seat, the face backwards, and we would go down to the Salem power plant and it was exactly what you think. It was stacked, sticking up, ugly buildings, Chaining fence, smoke coming out of it, and I'm thinking to myself how long could there be fish here? Well, behind the facility was a pier, because back in the day they used to bring coal in, and the coal is what the power Plant ran on, and my dad loved this place because the water near the power plant was warm and attracted all the fish. Yeah, I can, I can't imagine what these fish were eating, but that was another story. And there was a pier behind there and it was a little rickety, but my dad would bring us down. We would have to go under a fence, though, and we would have to go over a chain, and, although I was too young to read, my brothers brought it up to my dad that, in fact, the sign said no trespassing, and my dad, without missing a beat, told my brothers oh, that doesn't apply to Navy chiefs. Matter of fact, a lot of things didn't apply to Navy chiefs, according to my dad, including speed limits and stop signs as well, but that was another story. So we would get out to this pier, and the pier was rickety, it was old, it wasn't used, they didn't want us on it, and when you look down 20 feet, you can see rocks and water.
Speaker 5:And I'm six years old, I'm taking my time. My dad's like come on, mark, hurry up, hurry up. And he said what's the problem? I said, dad, I'm worried about falling. He goes, mark, that's why I taught you how to swim.
Speaker 5:So we get to the end of the pier, we throw our gear in, we start pulling up fish and all my brothers all five of them are hitting fish. They're all picking up fish and they were picking up flounder. If you know what flounder is, it's a good fish, it's an easy fish, but it's an ugly fish. They're about the size of dinner plates. They've got two eyes on one side of their head. They're easy to clean and easy to eat and when you have five kids like that, that's of thing you know. Very supportive.
Speaker 5:But eventually, finally, near the end of the day, I hit a fish. You put the little thing on your thing and I felt it tug and I pulled it up. And I pulled it up and it must have been the size round of a trash can lid. It was that big, it was huge, and I was so happy I put it in the cooler with all the other fish and we took it and we put it in the car and I'm thinking we're going to go home and I'm able to brag to my mother that I finally caught a fish and beat my brothers.
Speaker 5:So, but on the way home we stopped at someplace else, three streets over. My dad pulled up to this triple deca which, in Boston, is the three different levels, and on the first level was Mrs Martinez. And we knew Mrs Martinez because she had enough kids that her whole kids fielded another football team for us to play against. Okay, that's how it was. In those whole every neighborhood had at least five to ten kids.
Speaker 5:But, mrs Martinez, we pulled up in front of the house and my dad brought me to the rear of the car and I said what's going on? And he said he opened the cooler up and he had some paper and he said Mark, mrs Martinez lost her husband and we're going to give her some of our fish. And you know I'm thinking, well, that's great, that's great. So he opens up the cooler and he says, hey, mark, he looks at the thing and my big fish is sitting on top and he goes Mark, what fish do you think we should give to Mrs Martinez? And I said Brian's fish, kevin's fish, maybe the other, marty's fish? And he said sure, and he wraps them up and he puts them in a pile and he goes Mark, what do you think we should do with your fish. And he looked at me and I realized right then that there was no chance that fish was going home with me that day. So I said, daddy, why don't we give her my fish? And my tears are running down my eyes. And he says that's a great choice, mark. And he wraps up the fish and he puts it on and he helps and he takes me and we go up to Mrs Martinez's door and he knocks on the door and the door opens up and Mrs Martinez and her 4,000 children behind her all come to the door and they are so happy that we are there.
Speaker 5:And it was at that moment that I knew that that was not the first time my dad had been at that house with food. And see, the thing is, is my dad never stopped being that Navy corpsman who pulled people out of danger? I'm sorry, give me a second. You know it's been 55 years, it's like yesterday. But my dad was an amazing guy and I knew that he was given to this family like he gave to every other family. And we went home and my mother cooked me a hot dog because I didn't like fish anyway.
Speaker 5:You know, the next time I would see the Martinez family was two years later, at my dad's funeral. My dad's heart just gave out. We didn't know, it know, but he had heart disease and I and I still believe to this day that it was because his heart was just so big. People lined up literally 100 deep to talk to my mother at the funeral, and every one of them shared a story of how my father had served them in some way. It was amazing, just one after another. I was just a little kid standing at my mother's feet and I listened to the stories and every single one of them, whether small or big, my father had helped them in some way. So, although my father's life was tragically short, it had great impact. Impact Because he taught me the secret. And here's the secret Love expressed as service to our fellow humans has the power to change the world and, as a matter of fact, it's the only thing that ever has. Thank you, it's ironic.
Speaker 3:I'm a public speaking teacher and I'm very nervous. I would like for everybody to just close your eyes as I begin my story. Okay, just close your eyes and listen. You are worthless. You are nothing without me. November 16, 2010.
Speaker 3:That was the last time I heard those ugly words when I finally escaped my abusive ex. I had nowhere to go. I was homeless. I was breastfeeding our two-month-old and was scared out of my mind. I was ashamed, I was embarrassed, I was desperate, but who in the hell was going to believe me? I was almost six foot tall and I was Army strong.
Speaker 3:I didn't want to tell anyone, let alone my commander, that my life was falling apart. I was 42 years old and was too old to be in such a mess. Right, but no one trained me to deal with the enemy at home. You know, that's when I realized how my veteran friends were really the family I needed. I love my blood family, my parents, my brothers, my sisters, but they did not know how to prop me up when life was just tearing me down.
Speaker 3:I had a friend who was serving as an undercover informant in Afghanistan called me on the phone out of the blue to see how I was doing. I was just so happy to hear that she was alive. I told her I shouldn't complain, since she was the one deployed. But she insisted on knowing why my voice was quivering, so I bursted into tears and told her what was happening in my life. At the time I was in the National Guard. Somehow they found out that I was sleeping on sofas and on the run with my baby girl. So instead of offering any help, they forced me to take a leave of absence, which back then meant the IRR. I don't know if you know what the IRR is. Thank you, yes.
Speaker 4:What it meant was no money.
Speaker 3:No income, no health care for me and my baby girl. My unit would not help, since my husband was not in the military. Family court did not help, since I did not have enough proof to fight for a restraining order. My family across the country could not help, since they were clueless. But my fellow veterans, my fellow veterans they had my six Little did I know. My sister veteran, jennifer Kimme, who was still in Afghanistan, still in Afghanistan, had me move into her place. Plus, she set up job interviews and babysitting at South Comp for me and, thanks God, thanks to God, for my comrades and bosses over there at Southern Command.
Speaker 3:At Southern Command, I worked at US Southern Command Headquarters in Doral from 2012 to 2016,. Thanks to my veteran friend and that's unheard of to work there as a reservist for more than two years. I was there for almost five years. Great experiences. There were briefings. I was there for almost five years. Great experiences. There were briefings. I had to have ready at six in the morning. Give them to the SCIF director, who would brief Marine General John Kelly.
Speaker 3:At the time, I was involved in top-secret research projects that I couldn't talk about at the time. I was involved in top-secret research projects that I couldn't talk about at the time, and most of them were about South American terrorists. We had last-minute flights to Gitmo, guantanamo Bay, and I saw the ugly side. The work I did made a difference, but all through that time at Southcom, the financial abuse from the real enemy continued and I was going bankrupt, trying to justify my rights to be a mother in the never-ending family court hearings, which were obviously disrupting my ability to work at Southcom. I was an emotional wreck half the weight that I am and my finances were even worse. I was devastated, I was angry and I was still going through a nightmare divorce with a man that I spent 14 months with and the divorce was still going on four years. It literally cost my promotion and my retirement. I was so overwhelmed At Southcom, I got caught hyperventilating in the woman's restroom on the second floor at Southcom, hyperventilating in the woman's restroom on the second floor at Salcom. I got caught wondering how I got myself into this mess and wishing I would disappear. I got caught hiding from everybody. It was November 2016, and the Army didn't want me anymore. By then, I was getting treatments at the VA from migraines and chronic pain in places I never even imagined. However, thanks to my fellow veterans they had my six One veteran, lisa Poppy, invited me to a network luncheon.
Speaker 3:There I met another really old veteran. He was like a walking zombie but he was totally friendly and funny. He had been teaching for years at Florida Atlantic University. His name was Chuck Suits. He said I would make a good professor. I laughed and laughed till my stomach hurt and told him I didn't have any experience teaching. But he stared at me and he said with this crooked finger don't you ever cheat your military experience like that. So on my resume he helped me put 20 valid years of teaching and training experience directly linked to the military and before I knew it he got me hired as a part-time professor. Unfortunately, I could not live on that tiny salary so I ran up my credit cards as I looked for more work, but no luck.
Speaker 3:However, a fellow veteran had my back again, thank you God, at FAU, mike Gialombardo I hope I said his name right. He's now a state representative. He was the director of the University Military Student Center. Back then at FAU he told me to go get my graduate degree while I was teaching part-time. He said my GI Bill would cover education and housing. Who knew I felt so stupid? I only thought the GI Bill was for bachelor's degrees. So he set me up for success and off I went to get my master's in education at FAU. I would hang out at the FAU Military Veterans Center and I met so many amazing fellow veterans of all kinds, of all sizes, of all ages, all backgrounds, all ranks, all roles, all reputations, and some of them actually had dealt with enemies at home, just like me. More veterans, more family, thanks, be to God. So enter into my life another angel veteran, louis Torres, who, at FAU, convinced me to get additional benefits by doing a work study there. Louis is now over at Palm Beach State College and helping other veterans over there.
Speaker 3:Through all this, though, I was still getting attacked with custody issues and drowning financially. And drowning financially At that time if it wasn't for the VA, there were days I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror. So one time at the VA, I asked for financial help and was referred to yet another veteran, another angel veteran, angela Choice, the Veterans Service Officer, the VSO. Another ANGEL veteran, angela Choice, the Veterans Service Officer, the VSO. So she took me on this very painful five-year journey to get me disability benefits, and I want to just remind everybody never, ever give up. And you can talk to me after about trying to get disability benefits. It was now the year 2021. Disability benefits it was now the year 2021.
Speaker 3:I tried to apply for the VA loan, va mortgage loan, but still my finances were upside down, and through other veteran events, I met some fellow veterans, like Andre and others, who continued to encourage me never to give up on getting my own home. My debt kept climbing, though, as I kept shoveling money out to a lawyer to fend off my ex and his never-ending false accusations. But the past three years, through friends like Andre and others, their encouragement, their resource, others, their encouragement, their resourcefulness, their tips, I was able to get my finances lined up, and I can proudly say today that this year I was able to use the VA mortgage loan and buy my own little casita, and I really feel like I got my life back. So that's why I'm calling it taking back what the enemy stole, because if it wasn't for all of my fellow veterans and the VA mortgage loan, I wouldn't be here, thank you so it was 1984.
Speaker 6:I'm on my way home from high school driving my $400 car and I come to a red light and I stop and while there, I look to the left and I saw the military recruiting station. I look to the right and I saw a dead end. So that dead end was more significant than what I knew at the time. You see, I was growing up in a drug-infested trailer park. I really didn't have any direction in life. I was a single child with growing up. My mother was raising me and I didn't have any goals in life. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was two months away from graduating high school and for some reason I turned left and I pulled into that recruiting station and I walked in and the first door I came to said United States Air Force. Now, I wasn't a drug user, I didn't drink alcohol, but all of my friends did right, they were all like drug addicts. It was a run down, infested trader park. That wasn't me, but everybody thought it was me because I was. That's who I hung out with. Right, I was a skateboard kid. I had hair halfway down my back. I know hard to believe now. I know hard to believe now, right, hey, don't be laughing. Okay, so I didn't go anywhere without my skateboard. I was the local skateboard kid that walked around the neighborhood skateboarded everywhere. I had my skateboard with me all of the time. So when I spoke to the recruiter, I said, hey, I'm interested in joining the Air Force. He explained to me what I have to do take the ASVAB test and everything. And so I did all that.
Speaker 6:Two months later, when I graduated high school, I went away to the United States Air Force. So we land in Texas. I get on a bus to go to Lackland Air Force Base, right and the kid sitting next to me. We're young, I mean, I'm barely 18 years old. The kid sitting next to me. I still remember his name to this day. His name is Brent Yoder. Never met him before in my life, never saw him again. After that bus ride he said to me do you think they're going to yell at us when we first get there? Let me tell you something. Let me tell you how naive and how uneducated I was. I looked at him and I go why would they yell at us? That's what I said. I swear to God. He looked at me as if I had two heads, like he couldn't believe I was that naive, I didn't know. I didn't know they were going to yell at us. Okay, flash ahead.
Speaker 6:I graduate from basic training. I don't think anybody knew I was even in their basic training class, right, the drill instructors. I was the kid that went through their training totally unnoticed, totally unknown. I had previously signed up with a guaranteed job to be a policeman, a security policeman in the Air Force, and here's why I did that. Looking at the picture, I thought that beret would look cool. So again, again in my life, I gave no forethought whatsoever. I don't even know why I chose that. Honestly, I thought nothing through. Again, just like all of my life has been in the past no direction, no goals, just leave everything to chance. So I get through the security police academy and they say because of your assignment, I was gonna go work with nuclear missiles. I was gonna be, you know, basically a security guard at a nuclear base that I had to go through what they call air base ground defense.
Speaker 6:It's a combat school run by the army at a place called Camp Bullis, which was about 20 miles down the street. So again, I'm stuck in Texas for another couple of months. Right Now I'm looking forward to going home on leave and they just keep keeping me in Texas. I go to Camp Bullis. But I started thinking and I started using the things I was learning from initially basic training and then the police academy, and I started growing and I started really putting an effort forward to be a good policeman and I thought to myself I'm going to do everything I can to conquer this combat school and not just be the kid in the background, right, because that's who I've always been.
Speaker 6:So the day that we graduated from combat school, I mean, I worked hard, I tried to be a good troop, I tried to do everything right. And the day that we graduated, they would call people up and give you your certificate and then excuse you. So people would walk up, get their certificate, shake the hand of the commander and then walk away. Well, I did that too, but then they said stop. And then they said you're the number one student in the class and you're the honor graduate of this class. You graduated number one in every field, every aspect, above your fellow students, and that day changed my life. It's something that I hold dear to me to this day. I know it's probably insignificant to most, but to me, the skateboard kid living in the drug-infested trade park, it meant a lot.
Speaker 6:So I went off to my first assignment, which is in Wyoming, and I really, really hated it there. Here's what they said. They said when you get to Wyoming, don't worry, there's going to be a girl behind every tree. And that plane landed and I said where are the trees? There's tumbleweed. There's not a freaking tree anywhere, right? So anyway, I did my time there.
Speaker 6:I volunteered to go on a worldwide remote tour. I ended up in Kunsan, korea, joined a hostage rescue team while I was there, became a good troop, became a leader. Because I did a remote tour there, I got to choose where I wanted to go next. Now, I had been TDY, which is like temporary duty assignment for anybody who isn't aware of what that means to the Philippines previously. So I knew what it was like in the Philippines and I said I've got to go and live there for a while.
Speaker 6:Right, it was an awesome place, but with that came a lot of danger. It was a dangerous place, but with that came a lot of danger. It was a dangerous place and we lived through terrorist attacks, and my fellow friends from the Philippines here will. Some of our friends got killed while we were there. We lived in a very highly volatile, dangerous area. We lived in a very highly volatile, dangerous area. I did my just over two years there and, separated from the military, I became a police officer in the state of Ohio when I went home and for the last eight years I've worked as the director of security for the Youngstown area Ohio Jewish Federation. So my job right now for the last eight years has been very busy, but since the war started in Israel it's been off of the charts. I do a lot of liaising with FBI, cia, mossad and different agencies around the world to identify threats to not only our host state but all over the United States. And I often wonder, often wonder when I'm at that streetlight, that stoplight what if I had went right?
Speaker 7:Thanks, so 2008, around September 2008, I was with a unit 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, fox Company, 3rd Platoon. We were patrolling up Awadi. Awadi is a dry riverbed over in Afghanistan, Helmand Province. Our forward operating base was a town called Nowzad, and daily we would make these missions and we were just coming off the loss of my best friend, tovez, a couple weeks earlier, called Nowzad, and daily we would make these missions, and we were just coming off the loss of my best friend, tovez a couple weeks earlier. He had been in another AO, another area of operation, so we hadn't really had the chance to grieve or even know he was gone, because we hadn't seen him in like five or six months, but it was in the back of my head. And so, as we were patrolling up the Wadi, we got to a position where we were taking enemy fire and we had to, you know, hold at that position. We had air on station, that being the Air Force, thanks guys. And so, as we waited we had a couple minutes and we were waiting for them to come on station, maybe 15 minutes we got a call over the mic. First platoon had been coming up our flank, on the right, on the left side, about a couple hundred meters away and they had struck an IED. We knew that because you could hear the boom in the distance. An IED is an implemented explosive device, homemade mine, roadside bomb, whatever you want to call it and so we waited to hear what had transpired and the mic lit up and one of the worst terms you ever want to hear is urgent surgical, and that's what we heard. We had an urgent surgical and they needed a polis litter, which is a retractable litter or gurney that we had with our platoon, and they needed an engineer up, me being a 1371 combat engineer, that meant me. So we took off. It was again about 200 meters away and we began sweeping. We were in a hurry, obviously, because an urgent surgical means that someone is about to lose their life. So, as we swept over, usually as an engineer I have five to ten meter dispersion, meaning that I want to keep everybody within five to ten meters from me. So if by chance, I miss an IED with my metal detector and something happens to me, they're safe.
Speaker 7:Being that we didn't have time, I told everybody to kind of grab the back of each other's flak jacket and as I would move, they were going to move with me. They understood the objective. There were five of us. There was myself, a corpsman, my security and then the rear security. Four of us, five of us. So as we came around the vehicle, we got up to the casualty, or to the vehicle that hit an IED, and they had got out to provide security while they tried to pull the vehicle out.
Speaker 7:And when a young Marine named Wilson decided to kneel down on a wall, where he kneeled down on an IED on a pressure plate, as we came around the vehicle again the mission being stay directly behind me as I pivot, you pivot the corpsman saw the casualty and did what he had been trained to do in training and in the months prior, which is beeline for the casualty. So as Doc Amin kind of left the sweep, even though he was told not to doing what he thought he was supposed to do, he ran next to us and stepped on his own pressure plate as he went up, so did myself and my security, and we were blown a couple meters away. I was not harmed. I had a little cut on my ear and when I came to all hell had broke loose. We had to continue to get over to Wilson while Doc Amin was being tended to and as we got up on Wilson, he was no longer in one piece. As we grabbed Wilson and brought him back to the vehicle, all we had we didn't have any CASVAC or medevac vehicles, so we had to go ahead and load him up onto a seven ton, which is about yea high. As I loaded him up his upper half, as someone gathered the rest of his limbs, he looked me dead in my eyes. He was still alive from the morphine and some of the meds that they had given him.
Speaker 7:We knew it wasn't going to be long, but we had to get him back. We knew he wasn't going to make it, but we had to get him intact and back to the rear. In that moment, unbeknownst to me, all humanity left me. All sense of emotion, all sense of life or death, or the concept of life or death left me. At that moment, when he was gone and the 7-ton backed out, the mission had to continue. See, the mission always has to continue, no matter what happened. And what happened at that point is that switch, that emotional switch that I needed so desperately when I came home was no longer working. But I'll back up.
Speaker 7:So as we continued on the mission we encountered the two. So the 500-pound JDAM from the Air Force dropped down and blew the little Taliban to smithereens. And as we came up to do a BDA battle damage assessment, we saw the bodies there. And knowing that, wilson, what had just happened to Wilson, we, you know, we were all excited. We kind of picked, you know, take a picture, you know, with these dead Taliban the mission had to continue. We continued the mission and as we were coming back we got the word fallen angel. Fallen angel was the code for you know, we lost one. We already knew it was coming. You know, obviously, as I said, he wasn't going to make it, but those words just kind of ring in your head.
Speaker 7:Less than a month later, op Tempo continued for the rest of that month and less than a month later we got the word you're going home. And so we went from that kinetic environment going home. And so we went from that kinetic environment, that life or death situation, to, within three days, I was hugging my mother and I was given a brief that said don't fuck up, don't be the one to get in trouble, and I was handed a handle of liquor and I was sent on my way and I couldn't have been happier. That's the end of this story. There's no happy ending to that story and I share that because for a long time, instead of sharing that story, I decided to do drugs and smoke, crack and shoot heroin and live homeless and disregard my wife and my child all so I wouldn't have to feel or have to process stories like this and what I do now.
Speaker 7:I see it time and time again. I see guys like me, men and women like me who refuse to process these things and for a long time. I would rather live homeless than sit here in front of civilians or other men and women, other Marines, and tell these stories. Because who the fuck are you to get to Excuse me, young lady? Who are you to get to hear my story about Wilson? Who are you to know about Tovez? You weren't there and you don't deserve it, and that's a bunch of bullshit. And I think that's a bunch of bullshit and I think that's why what's so important about what we're doing with One man, one Mic and I'm so blessed to be on the board and here with you guys is we're going to teach men and women to process these stories so that they can help others, because I was willing to give up a little baby girl when it was all said and done.
Speaker 7:I was willing to give up an amazing mother, an amazing father and even, most importantly, an amazing wife. Because I refused, I refused to face this thing head on. Now I got my mom here, I guess, to bring it back to the recovery part of this Coming up on six years sober. I got my mom here, I guess, to bring it back to the recovery part of this Coming up on six years sober. I got my wife back. But it all starts with facing the fears and being able to go ahead and address these things head on, because it's that important. It's life or death, thanks.
Speaker 8:You know, a funny fact about me is I actually learned how to crack cocaine before I knew my times tables. You know, I remember I'd say Dad, stop hating her. Dad, stop hating her. Dad, shut up, sit down. You stole all my money, stole it all. You love them, do n't you? So I used to watch my dad physically abuse my mom beyond points of recognition broken eye sockets, eyes won't open, blood dripping down her mouth, teeth missing. So my dad was a tyrant, psychopath, extreme jealousy. But the funny thing is my mom was no angel either. See, my mother and my father were both addicted to crack cocaine severely long before I was ever born. See my earliest memories being kicked out of my home no clothes on in my mother's arms. It was snowing. I'm from Philadelphia, pennsylvania. Winters get cold and I remember that's really where the journey began. That's where we moved from house to house, place to place, homeless shelter to homeless shelter, domestic abuse, shelters for women. Only they don't accept children Four, five, six years old. I remember my mom. She would have a stay down underneath the fire escape. My mom would get her room and then she'd go up to her room and we'd climb up the fire escape at night and we'd sleep for the night and then in the morning, 6 o'clock, we'd climb down the fire, escape, wait for her to come down. And that went on day after day, week after week. See my mom I got to give her a lot of credit. She taught me how to do one really important thing. She taught me how to be a survivor. What does it mean to survive? See, we had nothing. Even the idea of having a $400 car was just not going to happen. We had nothing. I mean to the point where some days we wouldn't even have plumbing. I mean, we were in America, no indoor plumbing. We used to defecate and urinate in buckets and throw it out the window. Disgusting, disgusting people, disgusting life. I mean this is the type of thing you'd see in third world countries. Right here, I'd open the cabinets up at home. I mean this is the type of thing you'd see in third world countries. Right here, I'd open the cabinets up at home, I'm so hungry. And there'd be nothing there but crack pipes. I mean you reach up there every single spoon. You ever taste a spoon where the back of it is just burnt? It's black from soot, from cooking, heroin or whatever else inside that spoon. And remember I used to go to school. I mean, I grew up in Philadelphia. It was a poor neighborhood, so I was like the poorest kid out of the poor kids. It was weird to be the poorest kid out of poor people. I mean, you know, it's a strange thing to be made fun of by poor people for being poor, right, it's like what do you mean? You know like, but it was bad. It was really bad, and I used to ask myself this question. I used to say why, why me, why me? And see, as we would get evicted from place to place, I learned how to survive. I learned how to not care about people, about anything. I mean, long before the Marine Corps, long before service, I learned how to just survive. See, we lived in one location and then, after three months of not paying rent, there was something that was really funny that would happen We'd get evicted, right, and I'd go home and then the sheriff's office would be there and just throw all of our stuff straight out in the street. I remember I'd get off the bus from school and first it started off with the yellow school bus and I'd get off the yellow school bus and I'd walk down to my things and my mom would be there and I are all my toys on the street here. Take this black, take this black bag and just put everything you can in it and just you know, grab what you can and let's go. And we'd move and we'd stay on the couch and sleep on the couch and maybe we'd go to a friend of hers and that guy just happened to be one of her sexual partners or something like that and he would abuse her, use her, and I'd be there watching, hearing and listening, listening. We'd move on to the next place and the next place and the next place. Drug busts, swat teams kicking in doors, all types of crazy things. Growing up and you get numb to life, you get numb to people, you get used to just resetting. And so that school bus turned into a city bus because as we would move we'd get deeper and deeper into the ghetto. And you know, when I was a seven years old, eight years old, I remember I used to have to get on a city bus and I would take that to another city bus and I would transfer onto a trolley and then I'd be back at the same school. So every day, at seven years old, two buses and a trolley, unaccompanied, every morning and I'd use $2 and 50 cents in pennies to put into this little machine, because I don't know if you remember, but city buses they used to have these little machines with a little lip and you'd have to put each coin in individually. And I'm sitting there, seven years old, barely tall enough to put the money in the machine, just feeling embarrassed. Man, just, my life was just a shame. And when you're seven years old, like you shouldn't feel that type of pain. And I'll tell you, I was just embarrassed. Even to this day I have a hard time. My mom's doing better now, my dad's still a mess, but even to this day I have a hard time just being around her. There's these visceral reactions that come to me. I can't control it, but I guess that's just part of the scarring right. And I remember I used to ask myself that question. It would come back back. Why, why, why, you know, see, I'm the second youngest out of seven, but my mom and dad only have me and my little brother together. My dad has some kids. My mom has some kids. I'm the second youngest. When I was 10 years old, my dad decides to do this little special visit to come hang out with his kid. For the first time in God knows how long Him and my mom they get together and they hook up in the same bed as me. By the way, I thought I was sleeping. I'm like literally right here. Listen, it was a one-bedroom apartment. Right, it was the craziest, nastiest thing I've ever heard. But that's my life. I was exposed to that and out came my little brother. From that experience I remember the night he was conceived. Nine months later I have this little guy. This little guy. He looks just like me. I mean just this. I'm telling you, matthew is just this beautiful soul. And then, all of a sudden, I realized something. I said you know, he needs somebody who's going to be there for him. Like okay, so I've realized I'm going to take the role, see my mom with her issues. At the time, if I wanted to go out and hang out with my friends and play with my friends, I had to bring him with me. I mean, I'm 10 years old. I got an infant in a carriage. I'm carrying around with me all day long, feeding him bottles as I'm playing video games you know, nintendo 64 or whatever it was at the time and that's just how it was. And I raised this kid all the way up until I was 18 years old Sergeant Robertson, united States Marines, 610-353-3366. I said, okay, I'm going to call this guy one day, but that's not today. So I put that in my pocket and I go back to doing my thing and I'm living life and I'm doing my stuff and I had this job at True Value Hardware. And so six months passes by, they got these black jeans on, they got holes all in, and I'm working at the hardware store and I remember one day it was a Saturday morning and I, you know, get ready for work and I always took pride in everything I did. So I took my shirt in, just like this, and I had a shirt that said true value. And you know, I had my little flashlight and I was just ready to go to work. I thought, man, I won big big dog, it's a $10 bill and I pull it out and it's just that business card. So I say, you know what, let me give this guy a call. So I give him a call and in a big southern draw it was an African-American guy from Georgia and he says you know, staff, sergeant Robson, united States Marines. How can I help you, sir ma'am". I said, hey, you know, my buddy gave me a business card. I wanted to just kind of have a conversation with you. His office was right there on 69th Street, so I took the time right after work and I walked down there and I go into the office. Now, if you've never been to Philadelphia, philadelphia is an absolute shithole. I mean it is really just a nasty city Like I mean there's nothing, look like. If you tell me, oh, I love Philadelphia, it's because you're not really from Philly. That's the problem. I'm from Philly. I'll tell you ain't nothing nice about that place. And so when I walk into this recruiting station, I remember it was like the world changed. It was an oasis. It was like everything just shifted because it was just streets and dirt and just bottles and piss and it was just nasty, homeless guy over here. And I remember I walk into the recruiting station. It was like man, like this is beautiful lights, just like this that they're shined up on a wall that said Marines, right, I'm like man, this must be. And I remember staff sergeant Robson comes out from one of the small offices and immediately when I saw him I was sold. That was it. I mean, I've never seen creases that sharp in my life. Blue pants this guy's about six foot one. At the time I'm probably about five, nine, five, 10. I was a younger guy and I remember just saying, man, like I don't know what this guy's got, I don't know where this guy's been, I don't know what this guy's done. He looks like a war hero. But I want to be just like him. Turns out he was just an admin guy. So, like you don't know this guy when you see it all, man, you know. And so I just knew that I just wanted to be just like him, like whatever he had. I wanted to have whatever he did. I wanted to do it like I knew that he had what I didn't have. He had freedom, man, he had money, he was secure, he didn't need anybody or anything like no, no demons could get him. His path was his own and that's what I craved. And so I remember this as recruiters, I take recruiting super seriously. So if you end up following me on social media after this, you'll see I'm like the recruiter guy. Man, I love it. And so there's this exercise that we do, and it's with something called benefit tags. Right, and there's 11 traits that's made people just like yourself extremely successful in life, and we put them on what we call benefit tags. What I'd like you to do is go through these tags and put them on order of priority, from your first choice down to your last choice, and we'll talk about your top three choices. So I'm looking at these tags and I'm saying to myself man, financial security, advancement of benefits, technical skills, I mean travel and adventure I need to get away from I mean you name it every single thing. I remember I'd sit down, okay, so what are your top three, big dog? And I'd put them all together in a pile and I'd push them all towards me and say I need everything. I need everything, I need it all. And just like that, I joined the United States Marine Corps. I mean there's a long story that goes with it. You know, I had these big gauges. My recruiter paid $500 to get him sewn up. I mean this guy took care of me. He needed the contract, I needed a new life. Let's fast forward. I leave to go to recruit training. I'm 18 years old, I'm off the door and I met presidents and kings and queens and prime ministers and I was a pogue. I never did any crazy combat stuff. And I'll tell you what. I had just such a crazy experience in the Marine Corps in terms of the contrast of my life. And my little brother, that same kid, when I was learning how to play drums, he wanted to play drums. When I was skateboarding and BMXing and doing it, he was skateboarding and BMXing, he did everything that I was doing. But 10 years later. And so I joined the marine corps. He watches me, he sees me and oh man, max has got a car. Man like max has got a car. Max, he's got a life. Max, he's got a this, he's got that. And I'm telling you he wanted to be just like me. And so now the time has passed, I've been in the marine corps now eight years and I get moved down to South Florida to become a recruiter down here. Why did I end up in South Florida? Because I heard it was sunny and these guys were winning and I'm like I want to win and I wanted the sun, right. So I ended up in South Florida because you know, whatever. And my little brother, he wanted to be just like me, but something happened during the COVID years. He put on about 150 pounds. My brother's six foot two, six foot three, 330 pounds, just gigantic. And I remember looking at this guy I'm like, man, like you're looking pretty, pretty rough man. So I'm like, look, this is what you got to do. You got to go to the recruiting station. You got to sit down and talk. He's finishing up his senior year. You got to get started, man, because this entire time that I've been gone he's still been dealing with the drugs, said, listen, you got to get started on this stuff, but I knew he was too far gone. Goes to the recruiting station. Who's ever heard of the ASVAB right Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Battery Test? Minimum scores are 31. My little brother was just like me. No one ever cared about education. Takes the test for the first time, gets a. So here's the thing he tells me. He says, max, I'm so stupid, I'm so dumb, I can't do it. I'm like, buddy, you gotta study. Here's the study material. Buddy, you gotta get out to the field, go run. There's a field behind your mom's house. Go run, buddy, you gotta do something. Nobody was holding him accountable and I realized. What did I realize when he was born, when I was 10 and he was 1, I realized what did I say? I said it's my job. I bought him a plane ticket. I told my mom. I said here is a plane ticket for that little kid. Put a couple of shirts, a couple pairs of pants and a pair of running shoes and a backpack. Nothing else, nothing more, nothing less. Put it in there, get him on the plane, flies him down here. I live in a one bedroom apartment. He's sleeping on my couch now. At 320 pounds, can't do a single I mean he couldn't do a single equation if his life depended on it Couldn't read, couldn't do anything. Over the next six months it was my job to train this individual to become a United States Marine. Over the next six months this young man went through a transformation that you wouldn't believe. I remember, day after day, I would take him on a 1.5 to two mile run every single day. The first couple of runs he almost died, literally on the concrete, can't breathe. I mean he's 320 pounds, but I never let up on him and I would scream at him in the streets and he used to cry. We'd be running and he's 18 years old and he's crying. I can't do it. And we're on Broward Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, like in the city, and I'm screaming at him and say you can do it because you have to do it. It's not a matter of do you want to, buddy, you have to. I moved you here, you, this is your final stop. I'm going to raise you to be able to do this and once we're done, you're on your own, bro. That's all there is. You're a grown man and day after day after day, he went from running that 1.5 mile entrance test in 21 minutes, got that down to eight minutes. He went from taking that ASVAB test and scoring a six to scoring a 76. He went from 320 pounds to 185 pounds, all in six months, to the thing I'm telling you. You know what happens to the human body when you have nothing to eat but tuna, fish and green beans. A lot of things. Right, he smelled horrible, but he got ripped. Man, I'll tell you that kid got ripped. Horrible, but he got ripped. Man, I tell you that kid got ripped. To this day. I've traveled the world, I've been a paid musician, I've been an author of a book. I have a son. My greatest accomplishment is providing that young man an opportunity to win to this day. Right now he lives in California with his wife, beautiful little car, beautiful little house, 23 years old, just living life. And finally, for the first time, the Dutton name means something new the generation has broken. For some people, the Marine Corps is the worst thing that ever happened to them, but for me and my family, the United States Marine Corps broke a generational curse that would have lasted for a hundred years. Everything I have is the United States Marine Corps. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 9:Gentlemen, I'm going to talk to you about the power of yes and what I'd like you to do for me. Just for a brief moment, just a brief moment, I'd like everyone to close their eyes and listen to these three words yes, yes, yes. Could you go ahead and open your eyes? I said the same word three times and it could mean completely different things based on the context of which I'm saying them. All very important. Also extremely important, and may be even more important, is what you're saying yes to.
Speaker 9:I've said yes a bunch of times in my life and they've led me on this incredible adventure while I'm on this planet, and I want to share some very powerful yeses that I've said in my life that have led me to this stage today. The first yes that was really impactful and powerful was in 1996, when I said yes and swore an oath to defend our Constitution. It's something that obviously I share with all of our veterans today and that landed me at Parris Island, south Carolina, where I was molded and shaped and voluntold and forced into a United States Marine Hoorah. The Marine Corps did a lot of different things for me. It took me around the world, it led me to some amazing friendships with men and women who I'm still extremely close with and just celebrated our 249th birthday the other day. A lot of text messages, a lot of phone calls, friendships that will last a lifetime. There's some other big takeaways from going to the United States Marine Corps, and that is learning extreme discipline not just discipline, but extreme discipline, also resiliency. And then I think probably the most powerful one that I left the Marine Corps with is self-confidence, something that we don't talk about enough that you learn in the military.
Speaker 9:That self-confidence was super powerful and impactful on my next big yes, which, from 1996 all the way to 2009, where I was working at a small little fitness boot camp, turns out it's not a great business model when people work all day at work and then come to a gym to exercise and you have 23-year-old kids yelling and screaming at them, throwing their water bottles across the parking lot or the gym, and so that gym was spiraling out of control. It was going out of business and the rest of the personal trainers, like myself, did not know where we were going to work. They looked at me, they knew I was a Marine, they saw me as a leader and they said what are we going to do next? Our days are numbered. We're not going to have a place to work. So I tapped into that self-confidence and I bet the farm on myself. I borrowed $10,000 from my little brother, I maxed out two credit cards and, in 2009, opened Evolution Fitness.
Speaker 9:Now this little gym has transformed thousands of bodies, which I'm very, very grateful and thankful and proud of. Something that you know, I know has made an impact in people's lives, as fitness does, and I think that's amazing. But I think I'm even more proud of the fact that that gym has become a staple in our community and it's built tremendous relationships. Every single weekend I go to social media. I see our members together playing pickleball, or they go on cruises, or they go to Italy. They traveled all around the world, and it would never have happened had they not met at a gym, all because I said yes. I said yes and opened this gym. I transformed bodies, I forged friendships. I met my beautiful wife at my gym, all because I said yes. There's a lot of power in that Saying yes. It opens you and exposes you to new opportunities, and that yes led me to my next great endeavor that Scott just touched on, in 2015,. I maybe say yes a little too often.
Speaker 9:At that time I had three facilities. We were three facilities and the two other gym owner operators came to me and said we want to put on a 5K. So of course I said yes and the Devil Dog 5K was born. We had no idea what we were doing. We put together some sponsorship packages, we hired a timing company and we were off and running with our first little 5K. We had 200, 300 people out there and we raised $10,000 for the Wounded Warrior Project, just like Scott mentioned. Just this year alone we raised $104,000 for the Wounded Veterans Relief Fund, thank you, and in totality we're just under a half a million dollars. All because I said yes, not knowing the outcome, not knowing where I was going to lead, but I said yes. I tapped into that self-confidence and said yes. The beauty of that race is I get to see the impact on a regular basis. About a month and a half before that race, I had a friend request me on Facebook, so of course I said yes and I immediately get a message saying the Wounded Veterans Relief Fund basically helped save my life and I want to help be a part of the race in any way I can to get the biggest turnout you ever had.
Speaker 9:You heard a little bit of this story earlier on Johnny Schray, but he shared with me. When he was down and out and almost completely broken, not knowing if he had the will to live, he reached out to the VA and they referred him to the Wounded Veterans Relief Fund and they provided him a place to stay through the holidays and it gave him that little bit of hope to stay alive and keep fighting. And you heard his story earlier. He changed his life, he turned it all around. He's thriving. He's not surviving, he's thriving right now.
Speaker 9:All because in 1996, I said yes. In 2009, I said yes In 2015,. For the devil dog, I said yes In 2009,. I said yes In 2015. For the Devil Dog, I said yes. It's so simple and it's so little and minute, but it's transformative. The ripple effect is unbelievable. Because I said yes, my stepson is shipping out to Norway tomorrow and he is a United States Marine and he lives from Norway I'm sorry, did I say Normandy, norway tomorrow for his second deployment. All because I chose to say yes. So Johnny introduced me to Scott. Scott kind of told half of my story and that's great. Scott, I'm still mad at you about Max, but prior years ago I had a podcast as well my podcast, the other. The other co-host was a marine and we used to have guests on and we used to conclude our show the same way.
Speaker 9:I want to conclude my little speech, and that was by offering our guests an opportunity to institute a little mission of the day to our listeners, something small. It could be something as simple as making your bed in the morning, winning that little mission or saying something nice to a complete stranger. Something small, free and something that you could do. So my mini mission to you when you leave here today is tomorrow morning when you wake up, say yes to that. One thing that you know is you've been staying away from.
Speaker 9:Say yes to starting your fitness journey tomorrow, not waiting until January 1st. The holidays are brutal, right, I'm going to start back in January. Start tomorrow If you've been putting it off. Say yes to going to the gym tomorrow. Maybe there's someone in your life that you need to pick up the phone and swallow your pride a little bit and say yes to giving them a call and apologizing for something you did or a disagreement or something you said. Say and apologizing for something you did or a disagreement or something you said. Say yes to that. Or maybe there's something in your life you need to cut out. Say yes to cutting that out. There's a lot of power in yes. You don't know how it's not only going to impact your life, but impact others. So tomorrow morning, when you get up, find that little thing that you've been afraid of and say yes to it. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 10:So now it's my turn. Thank you, wade, by the way. So this story is not a military-based story. It's something that I realized later on in life was just something that was going to be in me and how I did things for the rest of my life. I'm the youngest of three boys, single mother welfare back when food stamps looked like monopoly money and you would have to wait outside because your friends are in there and you've got to buy a gallon of milk, some bread, but you've got to pay with this monopoly money, which is a dead giveaway that you're on welfare. Now that was okay. My two older brothers were legitimate tough guys. No joke, straight street tough guys. I was mommy's boy, but they made me have to. I became that way because that's how we grew up. But there was a different side of me than them. There was something I always wanted to accomplish, something. I always wanted to do something. I was quiet about it because when you live in that environment, that violent, drinking, irish, catholic, boston kind of world, that's what it is and you live it and I lived it. Trust me, I liked it too, but I decided I want to go to college. No one in my family ever gone to college. So I went to college and I accomplished everything I ever wanted to accomplish, everything I've put my mind to. I've accomplished it. And this story that I'm about to tell you is a great how can I put it? It's a great way to show you how I it started at this something, at this point.
Speaker 10:June 27th 1983 was the night I became a concert legend. Yeah, you two touring their war album. You know, new Year's Day, sunday, buddy Sunday. I can sing it if you want me to, right, okay, okay, all right, all right, they're coming to Boston. I was a U2 fan before anybody else was. I had their first album. I knew about them. It was a big deal to me, but they got. I had their first album. I knew about them. It was a big deal to me, but they got popular and everyone jumped on the bandwagon. So when me and my friends from Boston, when we went to a concert, we didn't go in fours or pairs, we went like a gang of marauding Vikings through an English village. There'd be 30 of us and we would walk down the middle of the street and you just got out of the way. We made Irish soccer hooligans look like hootenannies. We make our way into the concert venue and then we split up. There was 10 of us sitting about way back there like row 22 on the floor center for U2. That ticket cost $12.50.
Speaker 10:Right Now, I was a different kind of concert goer. I always had that drive where I'm going to accomplish something, whatever my seat was, no matter how good it was. I wanted a better seat and I was going to get that better seat because I would end up right there. I had Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top slap five. I had David Lee Roth hand me a joint from the stage. I was that guy. I was on a mission when I went to a concert. Now we're center 22 back. U2 comes on Now. That night they had just found out that the U2 War album had gone gold Now, gold in the 80s was a big deal and they were going to tear it up that night and they did so.
Speaker 10:Song three kicks in and I'm like time to make my move Now. I can't go to the left. I can't go to the right because they got ushers. You get to row 10, you can't get past that. They're going to let me see a ticket stubbed up. So there's only one other way to do this Right down the middle, and so my journey begins.
Speaker 10:I'm in row 22. I start climbing. I'm in row 21, 20, 19. And that's when it starts. The shirt pulling 18, 17. Shirt pulling Hair pulling 16, 15. Shirt pulling Hair pulling the first punch in the back comes 14, 13, 12,. That's when the spit comes 11, 10, 9,. Punch kick, hair pull, scratch. Shirt pull spit. But I'm a Viking, it's right there. I'm determined to accomplish what I want to do.
Speaker 10:Seven, six, five spit. Punch grab, scratch kicked. I got kicked in the back. Scratch kicked, I got kicked in the back. Four, three. All of a sudden it's like all right, I broke the gauntlet Because two and one are right there. Now three, that row right there. They're not really conscious. They got great seats. They don't care what's going on behind them, because everybody up here has tried to move up here. They get all the room in the world. Two wasn't good enough. I'm coming to the stage Now. Everyone's up against the stage Now. Back in those days there was no three-yard barrier between the seats and it was just like this If you were in the first row, you were touching the stage. Now I'm going to wedge my way through this and I make it to the stage.
Speaker 10:Now we're in like song number seven in the set, but I still heard them after the kicking and the punching and the spitting, and I'm there, I made it. I made it to the stage where I wanted to be, where my determination brought me I don't know about song 12, I decide I got to go one step beyond. I'm up there, I'm going, I'm going to do it, I'm going to get on the stage. So they sing and now my adrenaline is just pumping Because you know, when you get that energy in you and you want to do something and it gets you all worked up and I'm like my mind is racing. How am I going to do this? How am I going to do this? And so they go, they finish the set and they take their break Because there's going to be an encore. Okay, that gives me time to ground. Now. I grounded then before I knew Herd Foundation would teach me how to ground Right, I grounded. I got my game plan together. I'm determined, I'm going up.
Speaker 10:So they come out and I tell the kid next to me I go hey, I'm going up. He goes going up. So they come out and I tell the kid next to me. I go hey, I'm going up. He was going up where I'm going up on the stage. You gotta be kidding me, I'm going. When I tap you, I want you to give me a boost up remember the ten finger boost now, because the stage is up here and you got people all around you so you can't get leverage to really push yourself up. So I tell this kid, when I tap you Up, I go Alright, dude, alright.
Speaker 10:They come out and they start with this song, I Will Follow, which was their first hit when they came to America. You know, walk away, walk away, walk away, walk away, I will follow. See that song? Right, I can sing that too if you want me to. You get the point, you get the point. That's my song, that's the song everybody was waiting for. I'm going tap boost, I'm up, I'm right there. But that's not good enough. I stopped moving in.
Speaker 10:Bono does this to me. He's in front of the, he sees me there and he goes stop, like stop, stop. So I stop and I just alright, I'm going to drop to one knee. I bend the knee. I just wanted to shake his hand. So I have my back to the audience. I'm on one knee, I got my hand out and Bono starts walking toward me walk away, walk away. I have my back to the audience. I'm on one knee, I got my hand out, bono starts walking toward me. Walk away, walk away, walk away, I will follow. And he's right in front of me and I'm looking up at him. I'm like what the fuck? And he walks right by me and I don't know what to do. I'm still Bono.
Speaker 10:Bono, walk away, walk away, I will follow. Next thing, you know, I feel a hand on my head from behind and I'm like what the All right, bono, sure? Then a leg comes over my shoulder. I'm like is he? Is he? He's not humping me, is he? Another leg comes over my shoulder. I'm like, oh shit, he taps me. All right, I'll pick this little Irish dude up. So I pick him up Now, when I picked him up, I got my back to the audience.
Speaker 10:He's got his back to the audience. So naturally, he taps me again like turn around, idiot. So I turn around and there's 18,000 kids losing their minds and I got Bono on my shoulders, on my shoulders. Walk away, walk away, walk away, walk away. He sang on my shoulders for about 30 seconds, which is a lifetime up there. Then he taps me again. I know what that means. Don't wear out your welcome. I got you, little Irish guy, I got you. I bend down, he gets off. He unstraddles me. So I turn around In the edge. The guitar player gives me a thumbs up Like good job, kid. I look over at Adam Clayton, the bass player. He says yeah, yeah, I don't look at the drummer because he's doing this, I'm not going to see anything from him.
Speaker 10:Bono walks me to the front of the stage his arm around, like this, like I'm his buddy. All right, bono, cool. Then he leaves me there. So I'm standing on the edge of the stage and boom, spotlight. And what would you do? No, I don't have a microphone. I do the first thing that pops into my head Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. I do my best, rocky, at the top of the steps and the place is going nuts, but I don't wear out my welcome Now.
Speaker 10:Mind you, when I was on my knees, I was fully expecting to get totally devastated by a security guard tackling me, because back then they weren't nicey-nicey like they have to be today, they'll get sued. No, back then you're getting hit by Jack Lambert like a linebacker from the Pittsburgh Steelers. You're getting wiped out. Not a hair on my head was touched. I did have hair, like Rob. It wasn't down to my back, but you know. So boof Rocky standing there and I just okay, I'm done.
Speaker 10:And I jump into the audience and all of a sudden, all these motherfuckers that were spitting on me and kicking me and scratching me and pulling my hair and ripping my shirt adore me. You're the man. You're the man, you're the dude, oh, dude. And they're rubbing my head and they're patting me. Everyone wants to touch me Because I had Bono on my shoulders. So the enemy turned into my army. Now I'm the man.
Speaker 10:Concert ends, I'm walking out. I'm the man Right. Concert ends, I'm walking out. I'm the man, you're the dude, you're the dude, dude, bono Dude, everybody, my friends find me and they attack me, like the 1980 US Olympic hockey team when they beat the Russians. I was the man and we leave, and that's great. I get popular and I'll have. You know, I did not wash my neck for two weeks, by the way, but that was my determination. And then I realized, oddly enough, you know, you break these things down right. I came to a conclusion that I am one of a minuscule, minuscule percentage of people on the entire planet that can say that they had Bono's testicles on the back of their neck. Legend, legend, thank you.
