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. 54 - Evan Graver, Disabled Navy Veteran, Author and Veteran Nonprofit Advocate
When Navy veteran Evan Graver's motorcycle collided with a semi-truck in 2001, his life changed forever. The accident left him a T10 paraplegic, abruptly ending his military career just months before 9/11 and forcing him to rebuild his identity from the ground up. Yet two decades later, Evan has transformed this devastating injury into a launchpad for an extraordinary life of purpose and service.
In this raw, honest conversation, Evan takes us through his journey from enlistment in 1997 to his current role as a prolific thriller author with 24 published books. He recounts the darkest moments of his recovery with surprising humor – from his memorable five-day odyssey to reach the Cleveland VA ("hospital purgatory") to the pivotal moment when he found himself on his bedroom floor, unable to get back into bed. These seemingly small victories became the building blocks of his remarkable resilience.
What makes Evan's story so powerful isn't just his personal triumph, but how he's channeled his experiences into helping fellow veterans. As a board member for two impactful nonprofits – Dive for Vets and Fishing with America's Finest – he helps disabled veterans discover healing through underwater adventures and fishing expeditions in the Florida Everglades. These organizations embody what Evan calls the essential elements of recovery: "purpose, belonging, and connection."
The conversation also explores Evan's writing process, his supportive marriage to Becky (whom he's known since before birth), and the unexpected ways his injury prepared him to embrace life's challenges. Now exactly half his life has been spent in a wheelchair – 24 years walking, 24 years rolling – giving him a unique perspective on adaptation and finding joy regardless of circumstances.
Whether you're a veteran seeking inspiration, someone facing your own life-changing challenge, or simply looking for an uplifting story of human resilience, Evan's journey demonstrates how tragedy can become transformation when viewed through the lens of possibility rather than limitation. Learn more about his nonprofit work at diveforvets.org and fwaf.net.
Welcome to the podcast. I'm Scott McLean. My guest today is Evan Graver. Evan is a Navy veteran, he's an author and he is part of two veteran nonprofits. How you doing, evan? I'm doing great. Glad to be here. Yeah, thanks for coming on. Thanks for coming on. So give us a little background, as it usually goes. Why did you go in the Navy?
Evan Graver:background, as it usually goes. Why did you go in the Navy so? Right out of high school I knew I wasn't going to go to college and I ended up going to Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Phoenix, arizona, to learn how to fix motorcycles. I did that for a couple of years and I decided it wasn't the career path I wanted to go down. I was searching around for something and I was like, well, I don't really have the money for college. I just broke up with my fiance. I called the Coast Guard recruiter. He said I was living in Knoxville, tennessee. He said you drive, drive to Atlanta to see me. And I said no. I called the army recruiter. He said I can come. You can come see me in two weeks. Let's make an appointment. I called the Navy recruiter and he said how soon can you get here? And I joined the Navy.
Scott:What year was that?
Evan Graver:It was 97. I walked into his office lunchtime from work and took the ASVAB. I think I went to MEPS a week later and I shipped two weeks later and went to bootcamp December 13th of 97. Throws my ass off in great mistakes, snowed.
Scott:And we're let the listeners know that that I'm familiar with that term. I've heard it. I have Navy friends, I've heard it.
Evan Graver:Great mistake. Great lakes Naval Station in Chicago, Illinois, yeah.
Scott:And you were there in December.
Evan Graver:Yeah, I was there in December, december through February, so you know Christmas, new Year's, all that stuff and I don't know. It didn't bother me, we froze our ass off. But I left in the middle of February, a day before a major snowstorm hit there and it dumped like two or three feet, and was sitting on the beach in Pensacola, florida, at my a school, so I was happy about that all right, and where did that?
Scott:where did? Where did the navy take you? What different places great mistakes, obviously.
Evan Graver:And then, uh, pensacola for a school for six months, and then I did most of my time and was spent in norfolk, virginia. Of course, we hopped around quite a bit with our squadron throughout the united states. We had a continuous debt to bahrain, so we rotated out there for six months and then it was just all over the place. Basically, yeah, yeah, it was. It was a lot of fun.
Scott:And you were in for how long again?
Evan Graver:I was in from 97 to 01. I got hurt in March of 01. I just made E5 on the test and I think we took it in January. So I was supposed to get paid for E5 in September and they put me out on August 28th of 2001. So if I, if, if I had put me out on September 1st, I would've got paid for E5 and, um, I would've been part of the post 9-11. So yeah it is what it is, so it's the government.
Scott:You want to talk about the accident.
Evan Graver:Uh, got ran over by a semi, yeah, but yeah. So we we got off work on a friday afternoon and uh, I roused my buddy out of bed and we went riding motorcycles and I got got hit by a semi. So I mean, I was doing 25 around the corner. It was a blind corner and the semi was on my side of the road and I couldn't see it. So I hit the back of the trailer and ended up on my stomach. The bike ended up on top of me and he drug me about 25 feet back the way I came. So I had a one-piece leather racing suit on that, never worn before. That was the first day.
Evan Graver:The old superstition is that when you buy a racing suit or you buy new pucks for the racing suit, you should take the pucks out and scrub them and get them, you know, scuffed up before you ride. And I didn't do that. So maybe, what are the pucks? The pucks go on your knees to, so when you're leaning in the corner the puck will scrape the ground. That's it. So the old superstition is to scrape the pucks before you go out riding.
Evan Graver:Um, yeah, whether that's true or not I don't know, but I could tell you that it didn't help me because I didn't scrape the pucks, so but uh, anyways we were, I, we were out in the middle of nowhere and all um and uh, what they call pongo, which is south of virginia beach, right on that north carolina border. We're out there in the middle of nowhere. I guess they talked about bringing a life flight for me and then they couldn't figure out where to land it and then 45 minutes later the ambulance showed up and um the accident. The ambulance report says that I woke up in the ambulance um and asked how my motorcycle was doing.
Scott:Right, so yeah, what did uh?
Evan Graver:what was the outcome of the accident? Uh, I became a t10 paraplegic, which is right around the belly button area. When I hit the truck, I bent over backwards and t10 and t11, 11 just basically folded back on themselves and exploded. So they, I did, uh, I stopped at uh in Virginia beach, at the hospital there, and they kind of stabilized me with some steroids and then they sent me to Norfolk Sentara and, uh, we did all the paperwork for the surgery. I talked to the chaplain, I talked to all these people, signed all the paperwork. I don, I talked to the chaplain, I talked to all these people, signed all the paperwork.
Evan Graver:I don't remember any of it, which is fine because I don't want to remember it. Because, yeah, I remember waking up in the uh intensive care after every after the accident and, uh, after the surgery and everything. And the first thing I remember remember is spitting onions out, because we had hamburgers for lunch and you know you're not supposed to eat before surgery. So I was spitting the giant pieces of onion out and the nurse comes running in and jams this tube down my throat Stop spitting, you know so. And then the doctor came in and he said uh, he uh asked me to wiggle my toes and I'm like, asked me to wiggle my toes and I'm like, okay, looking at my toes, they're not doing anything. And he runs one of those Q-tips up and down, asked me if I feel it, he stabs him with a you know safety pin. And then he comes over and stands right beside my head, right here on the right side of the bed, and he looks at me and says, son, you're never going to walk again. And I was like, what do you mean by that? I don't remember the rest of the conversation because I blacked back out again.
Evan Graver:My parents came in. I told them that we had to stop meeting like this because the last time I saw them was in January the previous January, when I broke both bones in my lower leg Doing wheelies on my motorcycle. You know I was sitting on the gas tank with my feet over the windscreen doing wheelies, yeah, rode it into a ditch, jumped up, started running back to the bike and I looked down and you know my legs been off the wrong way. So that was an ambulance ride, yeah, but uh, it was a, I know. After the act, after my parents came in, I don't know we, I don't remember a whole lot. They moved me into a step down room. Eventually um what's that?
Scott:what's a step down?
Evan Graver:it's a room between intensive care and when you're going to go to a regular room just like a holding room, okay, like we don't have a place to put you, but we're going to stick you in this corner. It's kind of like hospital purgatory, yeah, kind of you're waving, it was just. Uh, you know, I was there. I think I was in the hospital in norfolk for two weeks and then they put me on an airplane to cleveland to do all my rehab at the va.
Evan Graver:And if you've ever seen the movie deer slayer about vietnam, deer hunter, deer hunter yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah oh yeah, yeah, so all that was shot, the, the movie was shot in the cleveland va. Okay, so we're, we're the I forget which character is john savage, the actor john savage he's paralyzed.
Evan Graver:So all that was shot in the ward at the cleveland va. So that's what I knew about the Cleveland VA. When they said you're going there Interesting, and I was like you gotta be kidding me. So, but it was closer to home. I was still three hours from my mom and dad. I wasn't 10 and a half Um, so that's um. Air force gladly gave me a ride that took five days. So that was a fun, five days, five days. So we left Norfolk and my girlfriend was with me my girlfriend at the time she was with me and we got on the plane and we left Norfolk and they're supposed to drop me off in Cleveland. And the pilot came on the radio and says on the speaker and says we are now descending into St Louis. And I was like what the fuck are you talking about? So we spent the night in St Louis. They put me back on another plane supposed to drop me off in Cleveland.
Scott:Where did they put you In another hospital? They just brought you to a hospital and then you stayed in a hospital room for the night. Yeah, right here on base yeah, and they're there, and then like you're literally there for like maybe eight to ten hours, and then back to the airport, Yep.
Evan Graver:So they put me back on the plane and it's like, I don't know, I'm supposed to divert to Cleveland and get off. And the pilot comes on and says we're now descending into Washington DC. And I spent a night, two nights, in Walter Reed. And they're like, okay, we're going to fly you to Cleveland again, but you're going to. And I was like, oh, oh boy, okay, my girlfriend says I gotta get back to work. You know. So if, if we stop in Norfolk, I'm gonna get off. And I was like we're not stopping in Norfolk, you can just put that out of your mind. Yeah, um, so we got on the plane again. The first stop was Norfolk and she got off. I went to, uh, charleston, south Carolina, biloxi, mississippi, san Antonio, texas, and back to St Louis, all in one day. Don't ask me why.
Scott:Yeah, okay, he saw it. He saw the look on my face, he knew it was coming. Don't ask me why. We'll skip over the why's then.
Evan Graver:We're getting into St Louis. The guy that took me off the plane in St Louis the second time was the same guy that took me off the first time. And he looks at me and goes dude, what are you doing back here? And I go, bro, I wish I fucking knew, because I don't know. And so the next day they finally took pity on me and dropped me off in cleveland. So five days after I left norfolk we were in cleveland. They put me in an ambulance civilian run ambulance to go to the va. And the guy says do you want to go lights and sirens? And I said I don't give a fuck, just get me there. So we went lights and sirens from the airport to the va. And we get to the va and the ambulance driver hits a parked car and knocks the mirror off the car.
Evan Graver:So we pull up to the, to the entrance and the. The Cleveland VA is undergoing a major renovation at the time. It just keeps getting better huh.
Evan Graver:So they unload me out of the ambulance and I'm laying there on the stretcher looking up and we're going up this entry ramp, through this makeshift plywood and two-by-fours entry, and I'm thinking in my mind what the fuck is going on. This looks, you know, I it's just like the movie. Why am I, you know? So we get into the to the VA, take me up to the sixth floor, which has been completely renovated for spinal cord patients and at the time Cleveland was the top spinal cord rehab in the VA system and they had just renovated the sixth floor. So I got my own room and it was. You know, I wasn't in the ward, but I had a bunch of nurses who were actually in that movie and who had been in the ward and all said that the ward was better because patients weren't isolated in their rooms. So you either had a single room or you were in a room with another patient, whereas in the ward you were all together and everybody was just.
Evan Graver:You know how veterans are you just roast each other and you try to push each other forward. And here I am, stuck in this little room by myself. My world's just ticking a giant shit. I can't walk. Before I left the hospital in Norfolk, the chief came in and did all the paperwork to retire me. So you know, even though I was like, come on, bro, there's parking, handicapped parking on the base, Let me do something, he was like no, we can't. You can't deploy to a ship, so you're not technically functional to stay in the Navy. So we're giving you full retirement. Be glad about that. And I was like, yeah, I guess three and a half years beats 20.
Scott:So yeah, you're laughing and the people listening. I'm not laughing. I'm laughing because of the faces. That he's just it's it.
Evan Graver:I guess you have to look at it that way, right, you just have to look at it that way, so I mean, I last, actually just march of this year um, I had 24 years in a wheelchair, so that's like the dividing point in my life. Half my life was walking because I was 24 and I got hurt, and now I spent 24 years in a chair. So, I mean, there was a lot of times when I first got hurt, you know, I was at the hospital and people would come in and and say your life is going to be great. I specifically remember this guy named Jake. We were in rehab and Jake was a very low injury like L1, down to tailbone area, and he got, you know, regained the ability to walk with one leg, so basically, he could stand with the help of a walker. He could, you know, it was very difficult for him to do, though, but, uh, so he stands up in the walker, he gets out of his jewelry chair, he stands up and he just looks at me and he's telling me how great my life is. And I'm just thinking in my mind you dude, you need to sit down and shut the up, because you don't know what you're talking about.
Evan Graver:Um, you know, and and I saw Jake intermittently in the next couple of years and I started going out to the VA has what they call the Winter Games, which is a winter sports clinic basically. So you go out to Snowmass, colorado, and they put on this big thing for disabled veterans where you learn to ski, snowboard. They got a whole bunch of activities and so I started going out there and skiing because I used to love this snow ski. So I got back into it sitting down. You know we have a special skis and all that stuff. And a couple of years into that Jake would come every year too, because he was lived in Buffalo and he skied a lot in New York, cause you know that's like the snow capital of the world right there in the United States would come every year too because he he was lived in buffalo and he skied a lot in new york, because you know that that's like the snow capital of the world right there in the united states. But so I said to jake, I saw him one day and I go, bro, I got to tell you this story. So I said do you remember coming into rehab and telling me how great my life is going to be? And he says, yeah, I remember that. And I said I said honestly, you know, I said at the time I wanted you to just sit down and shut up and leave me alone. I said but you're right, life is great. I mean, this is, I said I.
Evan Graver:I do more stuff in a wheelchair than I ever did, um walking around, because there's just not only the VA gives you the opportunities to do stuff, like they put on summer games and winter games and you know they. They have activities throughout the year and we used to have this guy who would come into the spinal cord unit and he would take us out to do stuff. And my doctor was Dr Ho and I used to call him Dr no because he never liked patients to have fun. So towards the end of my stay, the guy, the recreational therapist, came in and he says we're going to six flags or whatever it is right there by cleveland. And I was like well, sign me up for this. I want to get out of the hospital, right. So we go to the six flags and they're like come on, evan, let's go do this stuff.
Evan Graver:And I'm like my first mission is a cold beer.
Evan Graver:I haven't had one in like four months.
Evan Graver:So I go get a beer, I drink a beer, I ride the roller coasters, I do all the fun shit at Six Flags I can do because guys in wheelchairs get headline privileges. Back then we could go ride the roller coasters and look in these kids' faces when you pull up and be like I'm getting in this car, and they'd start to cry because they were right there getting ready to get in the car and they're like, oh sorry, kid, putting this guy in a wheelchair in there. So we get back to the hospital and the doctor's just furious that I drank beer and rode roller coasters and I was only three months post injury and I'm like, dude, what am I supposed to do? Go there and do nothing? So I think that was in. I got hurt in March and then, like June, they finally sent me home and I think that was one of the things that was. The doctor was like well, you don't need to be here anymore Because obviously if you're going to go out and drink beer and ride roller coasters, you can go home.
Scott:You're good.
Evan Graver:So I went home and I don't know how much. What do you want to hear?
Scott:I mean, oh no, this is fascinating to me, Absolutely. I mean, you're really giving a really insider thing thing. A lot of people don't. They don't think of these things, right, they don't, for whatever human nature is, yeah, people maybe don't want to think about it, or they just don't ask you because they think you might get offended. People are funny, so you and and I appreciate this immensely uh, you telling this story, somebody's gonna hear it and it gives them an idea, and you could be there jake was his name, yeah, yeah. So this is why I like to hear these things. This is why I like to hear these things.
Evan Graver:Um, so this is a funny. I don't know if it's funny, but so there's times in your life when you look back and go. Was that coincidence or was that preparing me for the future? Because I remember as a young kid being outside playing and, for whatever reason, it popped in my mind like, what do paraplegics go through? I mean, how do you drag your legs?
Evan Graver:So I was laying in the grass like to as a kid right, and then I I was in the you know, like the months leading up to my accident, I would uh, get off work and as I'm coming home, I would always listen to the oldies country station on the am radio and I would come home and almost every night, like the lead week leading up to my accident, they would play don't take your love to town. And that's about um, a paralyzed soldier coming home from Vietnam, and his girlfriend doesn't want anything to do with him and keeps going into town. And I'm like what's it? Why is he playing a song every night, you know? And like, then my accident happened and I'm like I, just I'm like it was telling me something bad was going to happen there. Or is it just you know this coincidence?
Scott:It's interesting that you, that those things flash back to you and you start piecing those little things out of everything that you did as a kid, out of everything that you picked, those two specific things, and you're like is there a correlation there? It was, like you said, a sign of things to come right.
Evan Graver:Well, and the third thing was that I was in my room one day you know about that time, right before I got hurt For some reason, I was in my room and then it hit me again. It's like what did paraplegics do? And I was like trying to get off the floor onto my bed. And you know, of course, you know I can use my legs and you know, of course you know I can use my legs. And then I get home after the hospital, after the rehab supposed to rehab, I get home and I fall out of the bed Exact same bed I was trying to get back into, you know, a couple months earlier, trying to figure out how a paraplegic does this. I could not get back in into bed to save my life and I'm laying on the floor just bawling my eyes out because I can't do it. And you know it's, it's two feet, two and a half feet, whatever it is just trying to get back into bed and I'm like I can't, I can't do it, I'm not strong enough, or I can't, you know.
Evan Graver:So my bed was also also had drawers under it, you know. So my dad, years ago, had built this bed for me, so it had drawers you could pull out and all the clothes would go underneath it. So I had this sliding board that the VA gave me so that when you transfer you can slide across the board from the bed onto the wheelchair or into the car. So I put the sliding board on the drawer, the clothing drawer, and I made like little steps for me to get up into the bed and I could take the little steps. I just couldn't do the big hurdle and I guess that was just, you know, one of those things that had, you know, had to click in your mind that just how great it felt to get back in bed after laying on the ground crying, going I'm never gonna get this, I'm gonna be here till somebody comes to rescue me, to actually figuring it out. Just the deletion of being able to do that was, yeah, so, and then I think about that time it really triggered in my mind that, all right, dude, you got to get off your ass and and stop feeling sorry for yourself and figure out what life is and, um, what you're going to do next. And and I and it still took me a long time to figure out that um, you know, life was worth living and having fun and yeah.
Evan Graver:So I had some buddies in the Navy that I used to ride motorcycles with and shortly after I got out of the hospital they came and, uh, they drove from Norfolk up to my house and picked me up. It's like a 10 and a half 11 hour drive. And my buddy Richie he, he says he called me and said we're going to come pick you up and we're going to take you to my mom and dad's house in West Virginia. And I was like sweet, and this is like labor day and um, so him and my buddy Daryl show up at the house and I'm like I got my bags packed and I'm like waiting at the door like a little puppy, like where's my buddy showing up when they come in?
Evan Graver:So they pull into the drive and I'm like I don't care that, you just drove 12 hours, I'm getting in the truck and we're fucking leaving this place. I can't, I don't want to be here anymore. And they just wanted to pass out and take a nap and go back, go to his house in the morning. But we ended up. I convinced him to drive back to West Virginia and we did a lot of fun things. They ended up throwing me on a motor, on a four wheeler, and we rode all over the place and so that you know, and Richie was like dude, you're the same guy.
Evan Graver:I don't care if you're in a wheelchair, you're the same dude. We're going to keep doing things, and we have, and I go to visit him in North Carolina all the time.
Scott:Dude people, that's a good friend right there. That's more than a friend. That's yeah, he's a good friend right there. That's more than a friend. That's he, yeah, he was, he was meant to be. You talk about these things like he was meant to be a friend in life.
Evan Graver:Man, yeah, that's amazing an amazing thing is that he was there with me on that ride, so he was there the day that I got hurt yeah and um, I've asked him you know what happened? And uh, all he says is that you screamed a lot, yeah, and that, and he doesn't want to talk about it, which is fine. Yeah, I understand, I can't remember any of it, so, and I don't remember there you go and I don't want to be the one to bring it up or dredge it up.
Scott:So so okay, fast forward. You're married now, right?
Evan Graver:Yeah, we've been married. We got to hear about her.
Scott:Yeah, we got to hear about her, because that's a good woman.
Evan Graver:She is. And so we actually knew our moms were pregnant together. Our parents went to the same church. We actually knew our moms were pregnant together. Our mom, our parents, went to the same church and, um, I was born in August of 76 and she was born in November of 76. So we're fairly the same age and she calls me her older man. So, hey, so I was like, yeah, I got me younger woman. But so after I got hurt, I um, I don't know, I moved back home.
Evan Graver:Uh, my girlfriend at the time, I, I thought things were pretty serious with her, and then it just changed and you know, she didn't want to deal with the injury and she didn't want to deal with the distance between us, whatever it was. It worked out, um, becky, um, my wife's name is becky, so my, my cousin julie, had a new year's eve party and she invited everybody and becky and I were only two single people there. Um, at the time she had a nine month old son named named Patrick, and he sat on my lap without crying, which flat-out amazed everybody, because I nicknamed him PT Screamer. His name is Patrick Thomas and I nicknamed him PT Screamer because he screamed about everything. You put him in the car. He screamed. He would scream the whole time in the car. It wasn't until he turned his car seat around and he could see out the window that he was. He was all right, but uh, so we, we ended up. We started dating and ended up getting married in 2005, and so 20 some years later.
Scott:Yeah, you're coming up on up on 20 years, right? Have you already hit the 20th?
Evan Graver:20 years in March. Yeah, yeah, congratulations. I got a lot of things going on in March. We got married in March, my son's birthday is in March, so I adopted Patrick.
Scott:So Jake was right.
Evan Graver:Yeah.
Scott:Life is great.
Evan Graver:Yeah, life is great, excellent.
Scott:When did you start getting into writing? How did you get into writing? How many books do you have out right?
Evan Graver:now. Uh, I have like 24 books out right now um what's the genre?
Evan Graver:it's really a genre. They're all thrillers. They they're all set in the Caribbean, florida, caribbean area, central America. I have one series that's set basically in LA, because the guy's a stuntman, so he lives there. But I got into it.
Evan Graver:I started writing, you know, really young. I wrote a lot of short stories in high school. I always kind of wrote short stories on and off just for my own personal satisfaction, to keep my brain active, I guess. And then when I got hurt in 2001, I was in a hospital and I started writing a story about militia that got their hands on some missiles and kept them in old grain silos because the grain silos in the midwest are prolific and like what better place to hide missiles. So the whole premise of the book was that the militia takes over the government and I couldn't figure out how to tie it all together and I put it on the shelf. And then in 2016, when Obama was coming to his end of his term and I wrote it like I pulled it out and finished it because it was like I hate what the government is doing, I hate where it's going and I hope Hillary doesn't win.
Evan Graver:Right right and so, long story short, the militia takes over the government, because they don't. But I started writing that book in 2016 and I didn't publish it right away. I kind of put it on the shelf and started writing my Ryan Wilder Thriller series, which takes place in the Caribbean. He's a former Navy EOD diver, gets into commercial work and it's just like a private military contractor around the Caribbean and he just lives on a sailboat, got hot girlfriends.
Scott:Lots of guys, yeah, and so how is your writing process? What is the? Is it typing like? You know what I mean. Like, what are the? What's the mechanics of it? Technology today, right as we talked about earlier, kind of dictates that you can do things a little easier than back in the day everything from how you transcribe it, how you put it down on paper or now onto your laptop, and how it gets edited and how. So what's the process? And was there a lot of bumps along the way?
Evan Graver:when you said I am going to just now be a writer like this is shit I want to do, I don't know if there were well, first of all, I had to learn how to write and how to use the english language effectively, and my, my big area is punctuation, and where does that damn comma go?
Evan Graver:and colon, semicolons but I still sit down on the keyboard every morning. My daily goal was always 2 000 words words a day. One of my favorite authors is John D McDonald and he wrote a 22-book series about Travis McGee and he lived on a houseboat at Slip F-18, b-h-m-r in Fort Lauderdale and it takes place in the 60s 70s and he was one of the first great series noir guys. Yeah, and John Dee would sit there. He treated it like a job. This guy published like 66 books in his lifetime, uh-huh, and a lot of short stories and he said this is my job and he would sit down and write for eight hours a day and I was like, well, if I'm going to be a writer, I have to at least match that right. You know I have to treat it as a job. So my goal was 2,000 words a day.
Evan Graver:Sometimes I get 500 in because the scene is really tough and I don't know where I'm going with the story or I got the right dreaded writer's block and sometimes it just falls out and I can write five, six, 7,000 words in a day. It's all typed because I still haven't figured. I hate talking into the phone and going a voice to text quotation mark. Blah, blah, blah. I mean I can type it faster than I can and then I don't like going back and you know you can do a voice to text, but then you got to go back and put all the punctuation in and do all this stuff and it's like I could just do that from the beginning and save myself time. And maybe I don't, I don't know, but I like to type it out. And then you know you got an editor that looks at it and a proofreader and AI that can tell you where all the commas go. Right.
Scott:Right, exactly, exactly, exactly. So you also are involved with two veteran nonprofits. Yes, let's talk about them and how you got involved with each one of them.
Evan Graver:The first one I got involved with was called Die for Vets, and I met the founder. His name is Kerry McNeil. He was a Marine Corps recruiter living in Toledo at the time and after I got hurt, I just had a bucket list of stuff I wanted to do, cause, you never know, life's too short, you know. I don't know if I can. You know, in my older years am I going to be able to physically do all this stuff that I could do? Right then. So I'm going to do it all right then.
Evan Graver:And one of the key bucket things was learning how to dive. So I went to the, you know, learn how to dive. And then in Ohio you dive in quarries. So the quarry fills, you know. They stop using the quarry and it fills up with water and it's like taking a bath in an ice bucket. So we would all get together at this quarry in Portage, ohio, which is just south of Bowling Green, and it was just like a big party scene. They had a beach and all the college kids from Bowling Green University would come and party and we would dive and drink beer.
Evan Graver:in the afternoon they had campers for people. So I met Kerry there and then we went on and did other stuff and he ended up moving to Florida and buying a dive shop called Aquatic Ventures. Ended up moving to florida and buying a dive shop called aquatic ventures and he he blames me for this non-profit because he was like I got to help veterans because I saw you dive and and uh so.
Evan Graver:So if you're a disabled veteran or you're a veteran that wanted, wants to dive, dive for vets, you can go to diveforvetsorg. You can apply to send us your dd214 and your va disability letter. We'll teach you to dive for free. That will help you get discounted dive gear and just to help you stay in a community that cares. And the thing about diving is that you know it is a community. So you know you got the dive shop and then you got the dive boats and you got the diving. You know so. And there's a lot of veterans that like to dive and there's a, you know, because Carrie is a veteran owner. There's a lot of veterans that come into our shop. So we get that veteran camaraderie. You get that. You know no bullshit, no quarter given kind of thing there.
Evan Graver:And diving is great because it's I equate it to motorcycle riding where you're in the present moment every time. You know you get that's. What I loved about motorcycle riding was that you were always in the moment. Every time you got on the bike, there was nothing but me and the bike. There was no other extemporaneous stuff. There was no other extemporaneous stuff, and that's what diving is, because you're underwater breathing off a tank and if you fuck up you're going to die. So you have to concentrate and be in the moment. And being in that moment and being underwater is the studies have shown that it helps tremendously to reduce ptsd. It the pressure on your body, the extra oxygen being pressured into you helps reduce the cortisol in the brain, helps you to recover injuries faster and reduces that ptsd reduces, reduces the barriers that you have to getting back into society or getting interpersonal barriers or whatever.
Evan Graver:We have a girl named Melissa and she'll probably hate me for telling this story, but she is an Army veteran and she came into the shop through the Die for Vets program shop through the die for vets program and she, after she got out of the army she had she was on drugs and she got off drugs and she's phenomenal girl because just to just to be hooked on drugs and to be able to have the dedication to get yourself off of them is, to me, is a phenomenal thing and she has that single-minded focus to do that and she would come into the shop and she'd be very withdrawn and if you pick on her or talk to her she would bury herself in the phone, she would kind of giggle and bury, but now she's an instructor for us. Now, over the years she's and you could watch her grow and bloom and now she's an instructor. Watch her grow and bloom and now she's an instructor. And just the change we've seen in her is the whole reason for having a foundation, because you draw people out. You brought them from being that withdrawn or being that fearful of doing things to now.
Evan Graver:We're introducing you to something new and the brain responds not only by reduction of cortisol, reduction of stress, reduction of all this stuff, but also your frontal lobe starts to grow because you're stressed and your body loves being stressed. Your brain grows when you're stressed. So all these things you know, putting people in a new situation, learning new skills, and then you're in the camaraderie of other veterans, other divers, and you're part of the. You learn to be part of the community. You go on a dive boat. You're part of the community, you know it's. So we try to bring as many veterans in as we can and we try to keep them active in the diving community by giving them free trips we have a lot of shore dives, so those are always free Just bringing people back into the society and back into the fold. So it's great to see people blossom.
Scott:Like I say, in the One man, one Mike Foundation purpose, belonging and connection. It's really all about that great to see people blossom, like I say in the one man, one mike foundation, purpose, belonging and connection yeah, it's really exactly all about that all of these non-profits should be, and they mostly are about that. I just coined the phrase pbc. It's not palm beach county it's purpose, belonging and connection.
Scott:So that's it's my line for you people out there. You can use it, though I'll let you. It's a good one. It's the truth too. Yeah, and the other veteran nonprofit.
Evan Graver:The second one I'm involved with is Fishing with America's Finest. It's F-W-A-F, dot O-R-G or dot net. I can never remember. Even though I run the website, I can never remember the website name.
Scott:Welcome to my world or I'm in your world. One or the other I got you.
Evan Graver:You'll get to it either way. Org or net, fwaf. Fishing with America's Finest. Neil Stark is the founder. His uncle was in the military. Retired from the military, neil wanted to give back. Um, neil is a professional angler. He spent years fishing offshore and inshore. He's won the king of the glades tournament. I've been on the professional bass fishing circuit and he wanted to give something back to veterans and he knew how he felt being out in nature, the stress, reduced stress, skill learning, just the enjoyment of catching fish. So he wanted to give back and he started fishing with America's Finest about 19 years ago. We have two pontoon boats so we can take handicapped, disabled people out. Obviously he takes me out. So whether both the both those pontoon boats are parked at everglades holiday park off griffin road that's out there.
Scott:Yeah, I've been there a couple times, so yeah.
Evan Graver:So it's a foundation that we take veterans fishing for free. So we'll take take you for free. We provide the boats, the lunch, the drinks, the tackle, the bait. All you do is show up and come fishing. We'll take you and your family fishing for free. And if you go to the website and you want to sign up, you can shoot me a message on there, because I'll be the one answering the messages. We can get you on the schedule. We'll take you out in the Everglades and put you on some great fish. We've had 100 fish days out there where your thumb is just raw from hooking them and throwing them off. But it again, it's about camaraderie, it's about being in nature, the reduction of the stress, building new skills, and I got involved with it because Neil took me fishing. I wanted to catch a peacock bass and that was always on my bucket list and I never knew that they had them in South Florida until I moved down here. I always thought I had to go to Brazil. Why a peacock bass? I don down here.
Scott:I always thought I had to go to Brazil.
Evan Graver:Why a peacock bass? I don't know. I just they're fat, they're just beautiful fish and down in the Amazon they get to, you know, 30, 40 pounds. They're just amazing fish. And so the FWC released them here in Florida and the canals in South Florida to combat the invasive species the Mayan cichlids and the Oscars and some of those other invasive species that people were releasing from our canals.
Evan Graver:So the peacock bass are here because we released them. It's the only place in the United States where they can live, because if it gets below 60 degrees and the water gets below 60, they'll die. So I wanted to catch a peacock bass and so I got in touch with neil and he took me out and we just had an amazing day. We smacked him, I caught like six different species of fish. It was did you get your peacock bass?
Evan Graver:I did there you go, happy ending so, one of the things you know, I started fishing again, cause that's one of the things I love. You know I ride. I rode motorcycles with one set of friends and I fished with another. So getting back into into fishing was great, because down here you can, I can, walk the canal. You know, roll the canal.
Scott:You roll. I'm not, I wasn't going to touch that. But okay, don't pick on me. I can't stand up for myself. I can't stand up. I got you, you got, you got them all. I know you got them all.
Evan Graver:So so I got, I got back into fishing. I started going along the canals because it's flat, you can cast down in there and you can. You can just smack fish all day and it's great. It's like catching them in an aquarium. So I got. Neil kept pestering me. He's like get involved in my nonprofit. So now I'm on the board of the nonprofit, so we're we do a lot of fundraisers, we do a lot of events. Palm beach, p we do a lot of events. Palm Beach, pompano city of Miami, lakes, and then, of course, we're always taking people out fishing in the Everglades. Yeah, yeah.
Scott:Well, my friend, let's give those two nonprofits again. And, if you don't mind, my uh, the website for the vets connection podcast has become over 55 episodes. It's become its own resource page, because what I do is I'm going to take this interview, I'm going to publish it, I publish them all. It goes right to my website and then what I have is a whole resource page of everyone I've interviewed, every nonprofit or for-profit that works in the veteran space and it's their logo and it's a link right to their website. So if people go on there, you're going to be on there for both of those. Well, the both nonprofits will be on there, if that's okay, that's great. I would love that.
Evan Graver:Yeah.
Scott:The more we can put on there, the more there is out there for veterans to see. I know there's a hundred, you know there's 500 resource pages. You just can't have enough. It shouldn't be just one. But the unique part of mine is there's actually an episode of the podcast so you can look at it and go to the page and you can listen to what it's really all about in there.
Scott:So I'm not trying to top all the other nonprofits, it's just what I do, and the Vets Connection podcast is not a nonprofit. So there you go, I'm helping just what I do. It's just just. And the Vets Connection podcast is not a nonprofit. So there you go, I'm helping all the nonprofits. Yeah, let's give those websites one more time.
Evan Graver:Diveforvetsorg and fwafnet.
Scott:You know what? We're going to straighten this out. I'm, I'm. I've never done this before, but this is what it'snet. Okay, good Cause, I was going to run it on my phone and see which one it is Okay.
Evan Graver:Fishing with America's finest. If you Google it, you'll get it to our webpage.
Scott:You're the web.
Evan Graver:You're the web guy, if you hit the chat you'll talk to me and you can go. Hey, dumbass.
Scott:You're going to start getting screenshots.
Scott:Yeah, just in case you forgot. Well, evan, my friend, and I just want to let the audience know I met Evan. He is one of the veterans that reached out to the One man, one Mic Foundation and wanted to learn about podcasting, and he's a great student. I can tell you that they all are. They all are that I really can't put some on top of the other, but he's one of those guys that I and and then there's women too. You go down the course and you're like this, this is in like the second week. He's like okay, I got this. I guess I believe during our first class, you created your thumbnail and you came up with a catch line. I was like are you kidding me?
Evan Graver:I had it ready for you because I've been thinking about this for months. I love it.
Scott:And you're going to have a podcast, right, and what's it going to be called?
Evan Graver:Plot Recon, where thrillers get tactical, and it'll be me talking to other authors about writing.
Scott:There you go. He did that while we were in class Like he's that student. So I couldn't have been prouder. I was like I guess this really does work. So we're going to keep working on that and the way you're moving, this is going to be up and running sooner than you think.
Evan Graver:I'm ready. Yes.
Scott:Yeah, he is. Okay, my friend will listen. I'm going to do my outro and then you know you're going to stick around because we're recording this at my house. So he came up for a class on how to edit on garage band on the Mac and so I said, well, why don't I interview? I didn't have an interview lined up and uh, and I'm going to actually interview you for your first episode when we're ready to do all that and I get my roadcast squared away. We're going to get that all done, and you're.
Scott:It's also going to be a video podcast also. Right, that's the hope it will happen. It will happen, my friend, so stick around. Let me do the outro. Well, we built another bridge today. This is a great bridge.
Scott:I hope you liked it. If you like it, share it. If you didn't, well, thanks for listening, for I don't have my time wrong, but I don't know about an hour. It's a good. This was a great interview. Do me a favor and stick around for the public service announcement at the end of the podcast. It's quick, it's like 30 seconds, but talks about 988-211 and a couple of other things. For veterans and family members of veterans and friends of veterans. It's an informative 30 second public service announcement, and I think that's it, and I want to thank you guys for listening. This podcast has done really well it's. It's exceeded my expectations and it's because of you. You are the engine that runs this machine. Uh, without you, it would just be me talking into a microphone, and I do that anyways. So, but I'm glad you're listening and I will try to bring you more and more. Uh, this isn't going to end. There's a lot out there that I'm going to bring you. So, with all that said, you will hear me next week.
