Security Halt!
Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
Join us as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder, proving that even after the mission changes, the call to serve and thrive never ends.
Security Halt!
#242 Shields and Stripes: How Physical Fitness is Saving Veterans' Lives
In this inspiring episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero sits down with Steven Nisbet, founder of the nonprofit Shields and Stripes, to discuss the transformative power of physical fitness, mental health care, and community service for veterans and first responders.
Steven opens up about the personal challenges that led him to start Shields and Stripes, a comprehensive care program designed to address the mental health and identity struggles veterans face after service. From navigating the nonprofit world to overcoming naysayers, Steven shares how perseverance, mentorship, and accountability have helped build a life-changing organization.
This episode highlights the critical role of community support, resilience, and physical wellness in addressing mental health and suicide prevention for those who have sacrificed so much. Steven’s journey is a powerful reminder that healing comes through service, support, and action.
Tune in now on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts. Don’t forget to follow, share, like, and subscribe to support this important conversation!
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Chapters
00:00 Navigating Podcast Pressures
01:14 The Importance of Physical Fitness for Mental Wellbeing
04:33 The Genesis of Shields and Stripes
10:11 Facing Accountability and Mental Health Challenges
12:33 Creating a Comprehensive Care Program
17:28 The Journey of Healing and Community Service
20:56 Building a Nonprofit: Challenges and Perseverance
22:41 Pursuing Education vs. Practical Experience
24:05 Navigating the Nonprofit Landscape
25:56 Overcoming Naysayers and Finding Support
28:57 The Importance of Community and Mentorship
30:15 The Challenges of Nonprofit Marketing
32:20 Addressing the Ongoing Need for Support
34:58 The Identity Crisis of Veterans
37:19 Transformative Impact of the Program
42:14 The Mission Continues: Call to Action
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LinkedIn: Steven Nisbet
https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-nisbet-89b5891a9/
Website:shieldsandstripes.org
https://shieldsandstripes.org/
Produced by Security Halt Media
I remember no shit. One day, same scenario fucking fourth quarter, like I gotta connect. I'm sitting there, camera's not working. I'm like what the fuck's going on? I'm sweating. I'm like dude, it's gonna be five minutes past our start time and I look over and the camera is not plugged in.
Speaker 1:I was like fuck man, seriously that's right, that's exactly it, and at least, at least the circumstances now are a lot less lethal you know, yeah, you know, the thing is like it's funny, this it's the same, like pressure of like making the hit time and it's like, and you know it, you know exactly, it's like fuck man, I gotta be on time, that I can't have this fuck up.
Speaker 2:And it's like dude, it's a fucking podcast, dude yeah, I try to remind myself of that all the time. Like this is fake stress. I, I remember what real stress is. This is fake stress. Uh, so nobody's you know nobody's taking rounds right now. We're all good, everything's good, yeah.
Speaker 1:And if somebody ever gets to the point where they're like you're right by five minutes, like, hey guy, at the end of the day I'm you. Yeah, I'm working at 75% of brain capacity. You got to give me a little bit of leeway, my man. I didn't know you were so perfect Must be amazing. Steven nisbet welcome man. Thank you for being on the show today. Yeah, happy to be here, dude.
Speaker 1:Um, so one thing that, uh, we, we as a society should be talking about more is how important our physical fitness truly is to our mental well-being. We often rely more on pharmaceuticals and other interventions when, in reality, what we should be prescribing on that doctor's note is to get outside, get a workout in, connect with individuals that are like-minded and learn how functional movement can really impact your well-being. And what you guys are doing with Shields and Stripes is amazing. A longtime Northwest Florida community member and I've seen firsthand what you guys are able to do for our veterans, for our soft professionals, so I am absolutely over the moon to be able to have you here to share with us what your program's doing today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate. You appreciate those kind words and you couldn't be more right. You know, like I do, the old adage of you know you can't, money never bought you more time. Well, I mean, if you go to the gym and you work out, it can. If you eat and live a healthy, healthy lifestyle, it'll buy you more time.
Speaker 2:You know you're not going to have these health conditions that you know can can be preventable. And, just like you said, the pharmaceuticals are through the roof and in the age of immediate gratification and and needing the immediate results right away, you see these ozempic commercials and whatnot. Like everyone wants the classic erotic holman, everyone will be a bodybuilder. Nobody wants to live that heavy weight. So you know, like putting in the work and getting and doing the hard things is actually going to last longer than the pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 2:And then you know our, our doctors are great within the community, but the, I would say, downside is is they're incentivized by diagnosed or, I'm sorry, by prescribing medications. And you know we have a lot of folks that go through a program that are on medications and they're told, hey, you can't do that, the doctor said. The doctor said I can't pick this thing up and the doctor said I'm not able to do these things Like well. I bet you can if you just try, and then when you start loading your body and you start building your muscle mass around the things that are hurting, you don't need those pain meds anymore. So you know, it's just a little snippet of what we like, or how our modality is done, or at least our multidisciplinary care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's take it back from the beginning. How did this program begin? Where did we get the nexus point for Shields and Stripes?
Speaker 2:That's a great, great question. Hopefully we got some time for it. So I started the program, or started the nonprofit, three years ago with my co-founder, dr Jennifer Byrne, met her right before, as I was getting out of the military. I'd spent 16 years in Air Force Special Operations as a PJ repair rescue man, so went through different units, deployed 10 times total, 10 times all the different combat zones, and over those 10 deployments I had to, you know, lost some teammates and lost some friends, whether it was in combat, whether it was back home to the mental health crisis, and ultimately I started feeling a lot of the symptoms that I just couldn't define or describe, where I didn't even really know that they were taking place. It took an outsider, it took my family, my wife, to point some of these things out to me, and I couldn't remember a lot of things that I should be remembering.
Speaker 2:Like people, and I couldn't sleep very well, my anxiety was always through the roof, especially around my kids when they're out being either rambunctious or even just playing outside in the front yard. I could not help but think that all that was going to happen to them was getting hit by a car, just being around death. So much the only thing I could ever think about was when is death coming for my family, the people that I care for? So that was always my anxiety levels. I was just shooting through the roof thinking about if I'm away, I can't control what happens and that's a problem. So that, and then you know, I just really didn't enjoy my job anymore. You know I'm getting, I was getting paid to jump out of planes and do really cool things shoot guns and whatnot. I was just waking up in the morning and go, oh, I gotta go jump again today, like this sucks, yeah, and I just people pay to do that, yeah, man.
Speaker 2:So I started to within the unit, you know, through the Preservation of the Force and Family Initiative we have, you know, our strength conditioning coaches, our physiotherapists, dieticians, psychologists, neuropsychologists. So I went and asked like, hey, what do people come talk to you about as a psychologist? Like I don't even know what it is. And uh, so we took a cognitive test after a brief conversation and they're like, yeah, you actually perform really well, except for like this particular area which is really indicative of some ptsd. And I was like, well, I don't know, I don't think I have that, but sure, let's couldn't possibly be something like that. Um, like sure, let's dig into the brain a little bit and then really discovered some symptoms. That couldn't possibly be something like that. I was like I'm normal. I was like sure, let's dig into the brain a little bit and then really discovered some symptoms that I wasn't really acknowledging. So you know one of those being, you know my recurring dreams that they thought were nightmares and whatnot. I was like, oh, they're not scary, it's just the same dream, over and over and over again every night. The same dream, over and over and over again every night. Um, so, as we started to dive into my brain and figure out what's going on, I started to enjoy my job again, started to to um, you know, address some of those symptoms.
Speaker 2:And I was the team leader of a group of guys. Um, at this particular unit, part of our job is to do rescue in all forms. So, whether it's water rescues, snow and ice, land combat or even simulant SAR, we're prepared to rescue anybody in any environment. So, one of those being mountain rescue environment. So, part of that, we have to learn how to mountain climb. So, as we went out to Boiseaho to do a mountain climbing, um iteration.
Speaker 2:On the second day of climbing last climb of the day, one of our guys sets up a rappel line. First guy got down safe. Second guy gets down. The rappel got about halfway down at the anchor fail and as that anchor failed, as a 70 foot face he fell about 30 feet. You know one of the other guys. They got to place the anchor, pj, at the top. He um was tied into the anchor doing what he was trained to do. He was trained to tie into the anchor to make himself safe. Well, in this particular case, because the anchor failed and the guy was still rappelling down, the weight of the guy falling on the rappel line pulled him off the very top. So he fell the full 70 feet and impacted the ground below and I rappelled down with my know, got down to the bottom. The whole team treated him as best we could for about 25, 30 minutes. So the fire department got there but ultimately declared him dead on the scene there, and so that really impacted me significantly.
Speaker 2:As you know, as I described, I lost a lot of teammates in my career, but this one was very different. We training stateside. It was supposed to be a morale boosting trip um is. He had a one-year-old, his wife was pregnant at the time and so, you know, after that, all I could think about was the what was going to come of this. You know the future, the memorial, the funeral, all of those things. And then, even just going back to the unit of, I'm going to have to face the entire squadron and I wanted everybody to hate me. So I lost confidence in myself as a team leader, as a medic, and all the progress that I made just went way back to worse. So I pulled myself off a team for a couple of months, focused on myself, leveraging those resources that I described before, and started to feel good again, good enough to come back on the team and I took back over the team as team leader.
Speaker 2:We deployed on a contingency launch to do a high value target operation, ended up taking care of that guy and returned back home really successful mission preparing you know those. In March of 2020 that we got back and this is April. Now we're about to deploy again in May for our actual deployment cycle. So, as we're getting ready to deploy, to talk about the different aos we're going to and the investigation for the accident closed out in April and so they decided, hey, that there's nothing we could have done to prevent what happened or to change the outcome. Even if he landed right on an OR table, he couldn't have done it or saved his life. However, the military needed to hold somebody accountable, and they held me accountable as the team leader. So this unit that I was at was a Tier 1 unit and I'd spent a lot of time getting there.
Speaker 2:I deployed several times just for this particular unit doing some very challenging mission sets, and you know, I was given essentially 30 days to PCS. I was removed out of my position and told hey, you know, you're not allowed to come back into the building, and so that really threw me even worse back into a depression, even further than I was. And now I have a piece of paper I could take to a psychologist that said hey, see, it is my fault, I've been telling you this all the time, and it was just like the validation that I needed in my own, the devil on my shoulder saying, hey, everything's your fault, you're a piece of crap, that kind of stuff. So, um, I was given 30 days of PCS and they said they gave me orders to go to Las Vegas. So the rescue squad in there and I had been stationed there before and it wasn't a very good outcome for my family and I um, you know we had some significant challenges there with all the destructive behaviors that are readily available. So that was something that, just in my mindset and where I was headed, that is not an option.
Speaker 2:So ultimately pursued a medical retirement with a diagnosis of PTSD and spent the last year of my career pretty much focusing on what I'm going to do next and myself to make sure that I'm a good steward to my family and my community. And you know, figure out who I even am, because of my entire adult life I've spent as an operator. So who am I? And and as I started to process these symptoms and dip my toes into the VA, I started to realize, man, this standard of care, this quality of care that I've been so blessed and gracious to have, and it's been at my fingertips I'm going to lose that. And the other recognition and realization is that not everybody has that. Everybody else goes to multiple different buildings and different appointments, seeing different specialists that don't have a clue who you are, appointments seeing different specialists that don't have a clue who you are, and you know that was a frustrating experience going through the VA process for just disability ratings and I couldn't imagine it for healthcare. So I wanted to change that.
Speaker 2:Had an internship with a just by happenstance got an internship with Exos. Exos is a pro facility, um. Typically it works with professional athletes, formerly known as Athlete Performance Institute, um. They also have a contract with SOCOM to bring special operators there. After an injury I had a shoulder injury developed a relationship there when I, when I went through the program and just kept it and then once I was getting out, um asked hey, can we bring veterans and first responders to your facility and replicate what we have within POTUS, inside of that facility, and treat them you know, the full multidisciplinary care with strength conditioning, physical therapy, a dietician and then the mental health therapy in the afternoons and really bring it all together for these folks? And they agreed to that.
Speaker 2:And so really, like what I didn't say in between, there was figuring out like that this was even in need, right, my dad, my dad spent 30 years in law enforcement and he had very similar symptoms to me and I started going, man, like what do they even have within the first responder community, which is 10 years behind what we're doing in the military world. So that's why it was important for me to address or at least offer these opportunities or these treatment care to first responders right. So I looked up to see if anybody was doing this already, because I didn't want to reinvent the wheel. Um, googled, you know different organizations came across one called five by five performance therapy, which was run by dr jennifer burn didn't know who she was messaged her, I connected with her on linkedin and she messaged me some silly, some silly comments about me, or 500 uh friend connection, whatever. And I was like, well, I wasn't going to talk to you, but since you messaged me, I would like to learn about 5x5 and how you run that and then go from there. And so, as she tried to coach me along this process of figuring out what I want to do for Second Life, I said, hey, I don't need a coach right now. I need somebody to join me in this initiative, to start a nonprofit to help these people in a way that they haven't been helped before. She jumped in and found my closest pals around me and said, hey, you guys all in.
Speaker 2:And then we developed it and then again reached out to EXOS Can we bring these folks in? They agreed and the first one was was a lesson learning lessons, which is great. And now, after doing multiple iterations of our program, we've settled on a three-month total program, three weeks of its inside of exos, where they get the strengthening, strength conditioning, they get a physical therapist, a dietician, consult, foods all made for them on site. They receive a blood labs we can check to see what's happening inside their body, and then we have yoga, cold therapy, hot therapy, all those things. And then in the afternoons they get occupational therapy for psychoeducation, like sleep hygiene, anger management, all that stuff. And then individual therapy for you know, through emdr, whatever preferred method, that they, that they have um or that they would like Um, and so it's an individual group.
Speaker 2:So once they're done with that three weeks, then they enter into a nine week telehealth, because it's really easy to take somebody out of their environment, of where a lot of like their, their bad habits were you know what was taking place at home and reset them and you know mentally, physically, and then put them back there and it's like okay, good luck with your problems, like hopefully you learned everything. So like that's, that's not what we want, so we stick with them for another nine weeks. We may still have a strength coach or they still have a physiotherapist, a dietician and a psychologist, and now we really incorporate the family and we're able to peer into their pantry, see what kind of food they eat, see what's you know what is their life like at home and really make sure that there's a solid off ramp. And you know I'll finish with, once they're done with that, the full three-month program. Then they enter into our alumni network. Or now everybody that's gone through our programs before is in this signal channel. They're all able to communicate with each other, either set up trips with each other, be good peer-to-peer resources, or we provide resources that they may not know about Because we know we don't do everything.
Speaker 2:But there's a lot of other opportunities out there. So there's hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which a great result for for tbis, and you have ketamine therapy, yeah, equine therapy. So a lot of different other other modalities of treatment that we encourage them to go out and do. So we know it's not it's never a one a push button fix. It's always hey, we're going to reset you, we're going to really give you the tools and the foundation to to reset and then go out and find other opportunities to keep that healing journey going.
Speaker 1:I'll stop talking no, it was great man. No, it's um, it's a journey. It's not a one-time thing where you go to one treatment center, you go to one thing and then you're 100% cured. You have to continue on that path and realize okay, this helped me in this sphere, in this domain. Now I need to continue pulling this thread.
Speaker 1:What else, where else, can I improve? How can I manage my anger better? How can I be a better husband? How can I be a better father? Well, when we came into this profession as young men, a lot of us, and ultimately we thought this was the greatest and highest calling, and that couldn't be further from the truth. The greatest thing that we need to devote ourselves to in this second chapter is how to be a better member of our community, but, more importantly, how can I be a better member of my family team? How can I be a better husband, father? I'm going to be a better member of my family team. I'm going to be a better husband, father, provider, mentor, and oftentimes, the first step that we need to take in order to be able to fulfill all these roles is to take a knee and get help Right.
Speaker 2:To start addressing our issues. Yeah, absolutely. You know I do a lot of I don't want to say I do a lot of um, I've done a few like transitionary briefs and talking to different individuals that are transitioning out of the military and a lot of great programs. They're they're all awesome. Um, the one thing that I see as a common denominator is there's they're so focused on leaving one career and then going literally day one, like when you're retired, like punching their retirement card, and then they're going right into another job and I'm like, what did you do for yourself? You literally did zero things to figure out who you even wanted, who you even were, who you wanted to be. And so that year of me not developing, like I didn't go into work, I spent time focusing on me and what I wanted to do, and it was very apparent about who was around me. Like I like I don't get paid from this job Um, it's, it's truly it's a wealth of joy to be able to see these, these lives being changed.
Speaker 2:Joy to be able to see these, these lives being changed. So that's that's what it's. That's like you said. That's what it's about is being a good, a good member to your community and those in need, you know, and whatever that might be. Maybe it's not veterans groups, maybe it's youth sports, maybe it's, you know, the homeless, but but whatever it is that suits you, be a big steward to other people.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I think there's something that you're a person of service. When you enlist and we have to understand at our core, whether you're a commission officer, a warrant officer enlisted at some point you were helping, mentor and coach somebody. You were of service to people and for a vast majority of us, that was something that's significant in our journey being able to pour into somebody else's cup. And I see it too with a lot of guys. They get out and they go into a profession where it's just very me-centric, where I go into sales or go into something where it's just me, I'm doing remote work and it's just me, by myself, and of course, I get burnt out. Yeah, of course. Six, seven months in they're like fuck, I hate this and the money's good, but I fucking hate this, right. Right, you can do a lot of things for money, yeah, but you got to make sure you're doing something that fills your cup and your purpose, like that's a big issue that I'm seeing right yeah, and the other thing is okay, you got, you made a lot of money.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Like how are you even taking the time to spend it? Right? Like you're not. Like how are you gonna spend all that money if you have literally zero time to do it? Or energy, like maybe you do have energy and you take a week-long vacation but you're still not present because you're spending the whole time like just recovering and recouping from what the weeks, or you know however long you've been working. So I get it, you got to make a job, you got to make money. But if that's your sole focus is to make as much money as possible I can assure you it's not. It ain't going to solve the problems that you're looking to solve, unless you're looking through other avenues where it does afford you the freedom to then have the time to do those things, whether it's a passive income, real estate, whatever that is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the other thing that a lot of people wonder and are often asking is what does it take to build a nonprofit? I know a lot of guys are getting out and they see the space. Maybe they already identified they want to be of service. What were some of the sticking points or some of the difficult challenges of starting a nonprofit from the ground up?
Speaker 2:It's a really good question. What it takes is perseverance and never listening to not listening to the naysayers and really taking every opportunity you can. You got to have a message that aligns with what people believe in, and you have to have a belief in yourself and a lived experience. So there is I I. I was gonna go to school. The plan was was for me to get out, use the gi bill, go to school, work a job after the internship with exos, work with exos, figure out the the ins and outs. Go to school, work a job after the internship with Exos, work with Exos, figure out the ins and outs of how to run a sports facility and whatnot, and then eventually, in 2025, open up a gym like that and run it. That catered towards veterans and first responders. And part of the going to school was to get an MBA and focus on nonprofit and sports management and stuff like that. And as I ran through some mentors, they're like well, I, why? Like they didn't want to discourage me from going to school, but they wanted to learn about why I was pursuing a degree and I said, well, that's, that was always just the right answer. That's always kind of thrown at you. And they're like well, what are you going to learn in pursuing a degree that you're not going to learn by just doing? I couldn't answer that question, I don't know. I guess it's a safer route and so you probably learn a lot more just starting out than pursuing a, than, uh, pursuing a degree and learning everything there is to know about all the business aspects of it. But if you, but then you're going to be five years behind. So with that, with that knowledge and that confidence in somebody else who's been doing it a lot longer than I had, I was like all right, well, how do you start a business? Cause I didn't know how to do it. So, like, is there a building you go to, like, who do I go to to? Like, say, I want to start a business like that foreign to me, because it just I just came from a world where I carried a gun and a med bag. That was it needed.
Speaker 2:So I had somebody walking through the process and made a lot of mistakes through. You know, I started an llc and thought you had to convert it to a 501c. And they're like no, that's not how it works, and so ate some money that way, and then started the 501c3 and hired a tax attorney and the tax attorney was like well, I need your bylaws. I said, what are those? He said, well, I've governed your board of directors. And I said, what's that? You know all of these questions of questions of what are those things? That's why I looked around at my best pals around me and said, hey, this is what I'm wanting to do. We joined the board of directors, helped me start this up and then just go through the wickets of filing the paperwork, articles of incorporation, got our federal approval for 501c3.
Speaker 2:Then I was really hammering home the messaging of why that was the easy part. It was like the messaging I didn't go and stand in front of somebody and tell them why this is so important and I can show them the statistics of suicide rates and, even more so, the statistics of failed marriages and destroyed families. That's more alarming than the suicide rates out there is how many families and the divorce rates. So that message was easy and being able to say I have a solution. And there's also 40,000 other nonprofits out there that service veterans, and that's awesome. I'm sure they're all really great ones. However, ours is a little bit different and it's a proven model.
Speaker 2:So you know, as I started doing that again, there was a theme throughout my career of being told I couldn't do something, and it didn't end. When I got out, you know, I asked for a lot of help, and part of that was calling up other nonprofits to say how did you raise the money? How did you start? What are your lessons learned? And nine out of 10 of them said, yeah, we're not going to help you. Or yeah, you should just quit. Or you should do that, but do it for something somebody else, or focus on just mental health care, don't do the other things. That's too hard. And so it's just a lot of naysaying and I added fuel to the fire for me, like, yeah, I get to prove you wrong. And then there was one particular non-profit that did help out and josh mccain from big scam bravery was like, hey, I'll, I'll donate some money to you. And wow, here's my lessons learned yeah, that is amazing.
Speaker 1:that's that's uh learned and that's another nonprofit from another soft guy, right His brother-in-law was a soft guy.
Speaker 2:Josh spent most of his time in Wall Street, stock Exchange, stuff like that. He went out to Montana, started his nonprofit really to just do outdoor retreats for our tier one operated types and knows what it did for him and his family, what he did for his brother-in-law and his family and wanted to give that to other people. I had the opportunity to go through that program before I got out, which was fantastic. Just a really great vacation, really great retreat to kind of just decompress from everything that I've done.
Speaker 2:Um, a very different than what we do. Um, where I try to call, I try to highlight ours as a treatment program, um, and and so that's very different where there are medical records, there are doctors here, but nonetheless, josh really helps. That gives myself and Jen the confidence, confidence to that. Hey, we, it is possible to do it, learning a lot of his lessons learned and what was, what were his challenges? Um, those were the things that I needed to hear to be like okay, we are on the track to to being as successful as he is now, if not more successful. So, um, because we just have a larger population.
Speaker 1:That is so amazing having that ability to connect with somebody that finally gives you the lay of the land like a PDSS. That's the one thing that I realized. We tend to think that maybe everybody has good intentions. I've even heard it from some of my friends that had great aspirations to do something. They started reaching out to people and all they were met with were cold shoulders or disinformation. Don't do that, it's horrible. Don't do it. You won't be able to succeed. All it takes is being able to find somebody from the community that has done something similar, and then they finally get that warm hand over. I'm like, oh yeah, here's a continuity book. I had to do it and here's my lessons learned.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, you know, like I don't, I would never. After experiencing the, the, the cold shoulders you described that as I did. I would never do that to anybody. And you know I've had a lot of people reach out to me like, hey, what's our interest? Is starting this non-profit? What are your lessons learned? And I, I do exactly that here's. Here's my lessons learned. Here's I first got my our first checks. Here's how we sustain things now, um, and you're going to continue to grow, and that's our, what our current strategies are. I don't know. A lot of it's trial and error. What works now, what works doesn't, or what doesn't work. That's a lot of what we're doing now is trial and error. That was not as successful as we thought.
Speaker 2:Let's go back to the drawing boards, like you said, your buddies who have reached out to other organizations. There's actually it's a very cutthroat community and there's very, there's very few that are willing to give you the keys of the kingdom because they see you as a threat. And then there's other officers out there that, uh, they, they use the crisis of veteran suicide and first responder suicide as an opportunity for not only making money but marketing. I'm not going to throw out these big names, but there are a lot of very big names out there that do it as a marketing ploy.
Speaker 2:When I go to these events and it's like hey, we've solved the suicide crisis, come over here and sit in this booth and you can listen to words of affirmation, I'm like that is not the solution. That is not it. But the amount of money that's being forked out and pulled in because of a marketing campaign that's developed. Or hey, come out to this race or this particular event that's free. Or hey, come out to this uh, to this uh race, or this, this particular event that's free for veterans like cool, but like you're also claiming that you're saving lives doing that and that's not the same. Stop, yeah, that's frustrating. So, and I'm not alone.
Speaker 1:Once we finish this episode, I'll share something with you. Uh, it's not ready to be public, but I'll share something with you that's similar along the same lines the, the events and the charlatans. If the ad comes across my instagram of one more time, of, uh, this bracelet or this t-shirt that all the proceeds is like and they don't you do the research and it don't, yeah, the money doesn't go towards saving a single person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look at Fox News or any news agency and it's like, oh, all the proceeds go to help veterans. Okay, let's dive a step deeper. How? How does it help a veteran? What is it exactly doing? Or is the CEO being paid $880,000 a year? And really it's like these people, who are much less than that, are for the pill, yeah, and it's if I, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's one of those things where, with our unique weaponized autism, you pull the string long enough, you find the end result of it and it's like there it is. But people are going to get fooled, they're going to follow the ad, they're going to donate money when in reality there are nonprofits such as yours. They're doing real great work that need the support. That's it. And the beauty of it like it's, it's right there in our backyard. It's right there, it's prominent. And when you see somebody change, that's part of your community because of the program it, it is immediately like attached to an emotions like fuck, okay, we, another guy is saved, another guy on the brink is frigging saved. And that's what we need more of. And and people tend to think that because the the conflicts in afghanistan and iraq are are over, there isn't a need. How does chills and stripes continue to advocate and continue to raise awareness for the fact that we still have people that need help?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question and you know, I just showcase our demand. Our demand right now is very high. We have an application process to go through the program and it's not like a hard application. What we're looking for is to make sure you're a right fit and that being like, if you're having an acute episode of suicidal ideation like you're talking about, I'm, you know, ending it tonight kind of thing. That's not us, because we're a program that's planned out, you know, months in advance.
Speaker 2:But we do have partners and we we do help individuals who are going down that pathway through other avenues. And likewise, same with substance abuse. We're not a detox center, but we do recognize there's a lot of great detox centers out there will help facilitate getting them there, whether it's first responders or veterans. So right now our applicant pool is in the hundreds. So being able to see all of them at the pace we're going, so being able to see all of them at the pace we're going, if we were to not increase the amount of courses, if we didn't get any um more funding, it would take probably about 10 years to see all of the shit. And so ultimately our goal is to, you know, either partner with, with exos and they're going to create the level or independently operate our own facility, because this Exos is awesome, they're fantastic. However, we're not their primary client and and that's fine, that's there. They have to generate revenue, um, and we're a guest inside of their facility, but we have a primary client that is in a need and the suicide crisis, the, the, the rate is only going up and and it's and it's widely, widely known that it's not accurately reported.
Speaker 2:Um, so with the, you know the, the, the counter arguments are also saying the war is dying down, the conflicts are dying down. Well, now you have these warriors who have gone through all this training and they're a souped up Ferrari sitting in a garage with nothing to do, looking for an adrenaline rush, and they're training really hard and they're going to find that adrenaline rush and likely it's going to destroy their family and then take them down that bad path. Or you have the GWAT generation that's a bit older now and now going down that bad path and they're getting out and figuring out hey, all this time I devoted to this career field, that's just kind of left me in the dust, because it's a train that's still going to move. And now here I am no clue who I am. That will never change. The veteran community will always have a challenge in a lot of its identity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. Every single one of us is going to at some point go through the transition process, and that's when a lot of this stuff finally comes to light. I've seen it time and time again since starting this program, since starting this, this endeavor One day, guys wearing the mask, fooling everybody, his family, and as soon as that definitive line gets crossed and he's no longer a pj, cct, green beret, ranger, seal, the armor and the masks start to fall apart. That's when resources are needed, that's when people need to start rallying around. And it's no wonder guys are feeling abandoned by their unit, feeling abandoned by everything that they, you know, swore to defend and take care of for the last 20 plus years.
Speaker 1:But programs like yours and it immediately gives them a way to combat that, to go against that narrative, because there's a lot of people that champion the narrative of feeling like you're. You're the disgruntled veteran. You're you. There's a, there's a reason why you're angry. Go ahead and lean into that. It's like no man like that part of our life was important.
Speaker 1:It was a great chapter. What the second chapter is going to be infinitely better once you realize and open your eyes to the possibilities. You could be running a non-profit. You could be going back to school, or you can be focused on your family and providing vital support in your community, doing a million different things, but we just have to be able to open our eyes and see that next chapter yeah, as you've been able to start this program and start seeing people. What's it been like to see that, that glimmer of hope in your brothers are like in their eyes, cause you have a lot of um. I would imagine that the program has now grown to the fact, to the point where you're able to see people from your own community come through and be able to see that spark lit back up in them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it was a transitionary period. Um, you know, one thing I want to highlight before I forget also is um, a lot of the folks, you know, not all traumas are caused by combat. Also, we do have a lot of female veterans or first responders that come through and a lot of their traumas are MST or sexual assault, which you know, arguably can be even more traumatic than those who have traumas from combat. Um, so, you know, we want to make sure that that messaging gets across and that you know they are just as deserving as as everybody else. So, but to see the change, you know, I, I really I'm an observer.
Speaker 2:I like to sit back and observe people and and see how they, in different ways and one of those was Exos, their coaches inside their facility are phenomenal, and just to see that they're so used to working with these high-performing elite athletes. And then you get some of our folks that come through the program, which is a little bit of a different demographic than they're used to. But to see, by the end of the first week, do they have a change in their eyes? And they come, and they come and tell me this in private and they say man, so and so like it is just incredible to see this change of it's like. It's like they showed up and there was, the lights were off, everything was was dim and gloomy and they were staring off into space and now, like they have color in their face and their lights are on and they're paying attention, they're smiling and laughing.
Speaker 2:You know, this logo that I drew in my truck, pretty much sitting there waiting at an airport, and then hired a few different renditions, is now tattooed on several of their bodies. No way that tells me that something occurred just in that three-week process that was so important and so life-changing for them that they needed to, or they felt compelled to, forever imprint that onto their body. Um, and that's, that's a, you know, a pretty, truly amazing feeling that I've never, I would have never guessed that, that somebody would have tattooed this thing on their body. That, uh, that showcases the growth that they had and they'll always remember the experience that they had going through our program. So it is, it is truly. I always like to take a step and just like, acknowledge and see their, their recovery and then, you know, get back to work and go find the other ones, you know, reach back into the fire and see who else is ready to pull out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's a. That's a remarkable thing to know you've had that much of an impact on somebody's life positively. For us that have served and have been part of the gwatt, like, we often have a very negative impact on on people's lives, enemy meets us on the battlefield Like they're not going to have a good day and you know that you're. You have, like that's the opposite understanding of. Like I am a weapon system. I'm utilized to nuts for every combat arms. You're you're being utilized to impact the negative our adversaries in a very, very, very negative way. But when you transition to your next chapter, when you're able to finally do good for others and impact their lives to the point where something you created is now a symbol that they want to carry on themselves for the rest of their lives, that is a powerful testament to the amazing things that you're bringing to this world. Man.
Speaker 2:That is amazing, dude. Yeah, and you know I try to remind them it's not me, I'm just a nug that you know, had a good idea and it wasn't even my idea to begin with. It was the preservation of the foursome family and it was just. You know the, the willpower, you know you can do anything you want in the world, that you yeah, you got the will to succeed, you got the time and you have the discipline to do it. So that's what I tell my kids all the time is, you can do anything you want as long as you have these three things the time, the will to succeed and the discipline to get it done.
Speaker 2:So I take that same mentality of me going into become a PJ and I apply it similarly to here there is nothing that somebody can do. And I apply it similarly to here there is nothing that somebody can do If, for some reason God forbid all of our money just got wiped away somehow. That's not going to stop me. It's not like, oh shoot, I better give up now. Okay, well, we'll start back over and just get back after it. The need is there, absolutely. The mission continues.
Speaker 2:Done it before, I'll do it again know, just get back after it, because the need is there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, the mission continues. Done it before, I'll do it again. Yeah, steven, I can't thank you enough for uh coming on the show today and sharing this amazing prop non-profit that you created. Uh, this is an amazing program again. Uh, if people want to get involved, if they want to donate or they want to participate, where do they go to find out more?
Speaker 2:yeah, just go into our website wwwshieldsandstripesorg. Um. We've also got our social media channels, so instagram, linkedin, uh, facebook. So if you're a user of those, find us on there. If you are looking to apply, there's an apply button. Um, if you, if you know somebody that wants to help family member usually it's a family member that's looking and then sees and then applies on behalf of their significant other and then, if you don't, or maybe you want to contribute in some way, whether it's $1 or $5, $100, those are extremely helpful. They do add up and they do go a long way, um. So so hitting the donate button um really adds to truly saving some people's lives and and I don't say that lightly, that's not, that's not my words, that's their words I wouldn't say if they didn't say that to me yeah, man, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Again, thank you guys for tuning in, thank you for being here. Don't forget to share the show, send it to a friend, send it to an enemy, send it to somebody you care about. These resources are vital and they're saving lives. So thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you all next time. Until then, take care, if you like what we're doing and you're the show, don't forget to share us, like us, subscribe, thank you.
