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!
Justin Roberts: Chaplaincy, Combat, and the Healing Power of Storytelling
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In this emotionally charged episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero welcomes filmmaker, author, and former Army Chaplain Justin Roberts for a conversation that bridges war, faith, trauma, and the power of healing through story.
Together, they explore the critical role chaplains play in addressing mental health in military settings—often serving as the first line of support for soldiers battling addiction, guilt, and spiritual crises. Justin recounts his frontline experiences in places like Ukraine, where moral conflict and the weight of caregiving push even the strongest toward emotional collapse.
The discussion dives deep into the burden of invisible wounds, the isolation caregivers feel, and how storytelling helps veterans and families process grief, identity loss, and the lingering effects of trauma. From spiritual warfare to recovery, this episode is a call to transparency, brotherhood, and the sacred responsibility of serving others while preserving your own soul.
If you’ve served, supported, or struggled with invisible battles—this episode is for you.
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Chapters
00:00 The Role of Chaplains in Mental Health
02:57 Understanding Trauma and Spirituality
05:57 Experiences in Ukraine: A Filmmaker's Perspective
09:00 The Importance of Brotherhood and Love
11:54 Identity and Transition After Service
14:51 Storytelling as a Healing Tool
17:59 The Impact of Love in Valor
21:02 Advocating for Mental Health in the Military
27:01 Brotherhood and Support in Recovery
28:44 The Struggles of Addiction
30:52 The Burden of Guilt in Caregiving
33:30 Finding Peace in Acceptance
35:36 The Role of Storytelling in Healing
39:47 The Call to Action in Conflict
42:45 The Fight Against Evil and the Importance of Family
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LinkedIn: Deny Caballero
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinroberts/
Website: https://echobravoproductions.com/
Produced by Security Halt Media
Security Hall podcast. Let's go the only podcast that's purpose-built from the ground up to support you Not just you, but the wider audience, everybody. Authentic, impactful and insightful conversations that serve a purpose to help you. And the quality has gone up. It's decent and it's hosted by me, danny.
Speaker 2:Caballero, justin Roberts, welcome to Security Hall. How you doing, man? Good man, yeah, look anxious to dive into your story. It's, I think, you're the first chaplain we've had on the show and your mission is something that is, by and large, one of the main focal points of what we do over here. So today, man, like, let's dive into it. How do we, how do we save lives? How do we keep people from falling deeper and deeper into the pit of despair and then reach in and bring them out, roger, that yeah the.
Speaker 3:It's interesting because, like I think that the chaplains are often offset, they're thought of as just religion is over there, psych is over here, and then the two don't coincide and that's often an outside perspective, inside chaplains. We're constantly working with psych people. We're working with counselors, we're working a large bulk of the counselings is pastoral counselings by chaplains. And you're not supposed to know about it, you're not supposed to see it. You know, because it's a ministry of confession, it's a ministry that is happening behind closed doors. You're not supposed to know about it, you're not supposed to see it.
Speaker 3:So that's often the perception that people have. They're just like they don't have a whole lot of knowledge on it because they're not seeing it out in front and uh. But you know, I was doing about six to seven counselings per day when I was a chaplain, on average, and so that you do have to have sort of a field craft of knowledge on how to set that stuff up. Though it's relationships and that's one of the unique aspects that chaplains fulfill is you're there, you know a good chaplain is going to be present, a bad chaplain you never see them because they're never there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've, uh, I've been lucky. I've had a few good chaplains in the soft world. I never world, I I never. I don't even remember my chaplains in 82nd because they weren't around at all whatsoever. Um, but uh, we had, we had one amazing chaplain that was always in the team rooms, always coming by. Uh, you know, never made it feel awkward, always made it feel like he was just there to hang out with the guys and provided a quick prayer and or a word of wisdom and like dude, vital aspect of recovery and healing, and just daily asthma check Come to find out.
Speaker 2:For a lot of us, faith becomes this thing that is relegated to the backside of our journey, because we go through some pretty hellacious trials and then we realize the importance of not just cultivating the mind and body but the spirit as well, because it's tied in, as much as we want to say that it's not or we want to push it away like it's very much, very much part of your, uh, well-being the mind, body and spirit, those three pillars.
Speaker 2:I'm really good at cultivating the mind and the body while we're in. You go through a lot. You go to the gym all the time, but a lot of us don't go to the spiritual gym, a lot of us don't go to church. And like for myself and my journey, that was like the last thing that I had to realize, like you got to go back, you got to figure out that aspect for you and for me. It just kind of clicked one day. It just became that thing that I was like, okay, this is what I'm missing and that's a common thread that I'm finding amongst a lot of guys.
Speaker 3:It's interesting Like there's different kinds of trauma and I've noticed, like your tier guys, your kinetic guys, they'll often be very good at the bombs and the bullets and then, when it gets into the consequences of that, those guys that have denied that spiritual dimension often are trying to push away death. They don't want to think about it, they want to face it. So when I was in Ukraine recently, we went to the front lines Donbass, mikhailov, kharkiv, up and down the front and his bloody, his roof brutal. I was with a Marine and he was like lockstep, just squared away, dude, afghan, iraq, the bombs and bullets. I didn't mess with him.
Speaker 3:Went over to Karmator's hospital and it was a chop shop, I mean, like I was sleeping in a Bay of just nothing. But you know, broken dudes, bloodied up, bandages, all that kind of stuff. The room's completely filled with it, cause it's just mass caliber there, you know. And so we're filming the amputationsputation, amputation, amputation, amputation and uh, we get to this one part where this guy had like shrapnel in his guts and the you know, the doctor, you know, just showed him the intestines because he was pulling out tests, dropping on the ground that broke the dude. He was like, no, I'm done, he's like I'm going back handed in his body armor. And I was like, okay, no, I'm done, he's like I'm going backhanded in his body armor. And I was like, okay, that's a different aspect of trauma because he never he never made peace with the fact that we were going to a place, that there's a lot of casualties and we you know it's a roll of the dice, that's going to be us and making peace with death.
Speaker 3:Sometimes people are pushing that away. The strongest point to be at is acceptance of it, making peace with it and then pushing forward anyway, and that, I think, is a spiritual journey. The guys that are denying that spiritual dimension are often trying to get numb, trying to push that aside, trying to find different ways of getting numb to avoid it. Getting addicted to work, getting addicted to drugs, alcohol, whatever, getting addicted to something, and that's just a escapism. Uh, to not have to face down these harder dimensions of reality. You know, all cognitive issues, all psychosis comes from an inability to accept reality and the spiritual dimension that is a part of our reality because we are going to die. So what's next? And how you make peace with that answer and being at peace with death with that answer and being at peace with death. That makes you better I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't fault that individual that's, uh, that's, that's something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, it's fun.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's okay you can monday quarterback somebody, but to be faced with that much physical in your face, uh trauma, like watching somebody just flayed open in the worst day of their life, like yeah, that's, that's going to affect you differently and I would imagine you're not in, you're not there, it's part of the U? S forces. It's not Afghanistan, it's not Iraq. You're there as an individual free will. You can choose to's a little different.
Speaker 3:That's a little bit different, and you're also not there with your brothers. You draw strength and bravado from those around you.
Speaker 2:It's easy to stay there and it gonna, and it's easy, yeah, yeah. So what took you to ukraine?
Speaker 3:uh, so that I'm a filmmaker now and the? Uh. When the war kicked off, I had a buddy he was an sf dude, uh who kicked over there to start rescuing kids out of orphanages. And I was laying in bed after talking to him and I had my daughter in my arms and I was like she's safe, she's good? Uh, there's all these kids out there that aren't and the best thing that I can offer up is storytelling film, what I do. So kicked out there about two months after the start of the war and started got plugged in with the Ukraine military Uh it was different, you know, but really good dudes, you know.
Speaker 3:They had really good hearts behind them and some of them were really squared away. And uh, so we kicked out to the front and gray zone and Harkivve um up and down the trenches and don bass make a life just filming and trying to capture some of the stories. And like, there's two different projects I was working on. One was the frontline fighters. You know the heart behind it and trying to capture, like, what's really driving them, what's really motivating them to do what they do. And then the second was humanitarian heroes. It was like a tv series. So the first was, and then the second was Humanitarian Heroes. It was like a TV series. So the first was a film, the second is a TV series focused on the people who are making a difference on the humanitarian side. And so we got a guy who's like prior service SF engineer and Ryan and he kicks out there and he's removing landmines, ryan.
Speaker 3:Henriksen yeah, rock star engineer, and ryan, and he kicks out there and he's removing landmines, henriksen, yeah yeah, rockstar great guy yeah, so, um, yeah, there's all these heroes that people don't know about but should know about. You could tell me all day about the kardashians you know and like you might not be able to, but you know, almost everybody can name them. But who are the human beings who are feeding people, doing the most good on food, doing the best work when it comes to medicine, saving lives? Who are the people who are moving landmines? And how can we make them famous? Absolutely. So that's what the TV series is about. It's called Do Good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy to think that you know a. I had a friend I didn't even know was there and I remember seeing a magazine and he was on the cover of it. Uh, and I'm like holy shit, like the the community is is very small and to see the amount of people from the soft community that have.
Speaker 2:You know, just a little bit ago he was a college student. Now he's fully kitted out and using all the skill sets that he learned in sf and throughout the rest of his military career to lead recon missions. And that, to me, is is both. You have to look at it from the perspective of like fuck I'm. I'm proud that you're over there doing your thing, but at the same time, it's like fuck man, like you deserve to take a knee, you deserve all the great things in life and and yeah, I certainly want you to to have a family, have kids, be a father. That chapter, yeah, have that chapter, but it feels like we have a lot of warriors are picking back up and and answering that call Um, which is difficult. It's difficult to to sit there and see your friends want to go back in there and you have to ask yourself, like, is this because you haven't fully let go of the idea, or you process something? And there's, there's some guys.
Speaker 3:It's like I think you have to have a why. I mean you. You raised your right hand for a reason, so you have to have a wife for that. And then there has to be that still small voice that says, okay, you need to do this. And then you listen to that. Whatever that is that guides your life. Um, I have a series of objectives that I'm trying to achieve and like so for do good. The concept is wherever it is the darkest, who is bringing a light and you bring a camera to tell their story? That's it. It doesn't matter where it is. Um, but that was my objective I do.
Speaker 3:When I was over there, I did see there was the good and the bad, because you get a lot of crazy actors over there and it was funny. It's like it's is I'd play the game. Is it a seal or is it as an sf dude? Uh, because, like, you see them walking and like, okay, that's a seal, yeah, and then, like you see this other guy, it's like it just looks different, like sf, you know?
Speaker 3:Uh, so there's a lot of americans who are hanging out there and it's kind of cowboy. You know, it's wild west. You know there's not rules, regulations. You're kind of just doing your thing and making your own connections, kind of working your way into stuff. And then you know, doing your stuff and I'm an outlier, I'm a weirdo, but it's like a lot of americans will sit and talk and kind of connect about what's going on, what's the latest? Um, sometimes guys are getting like press tags on their heads, you know from the wagner groups, and then the intel kind of funnels stuff out and so it's weird land. But uh, for some of those dudes they can't put down the rifle, they don't know what else to do. They haven't done an identity shift. They never figured out how to become something else and so this is all they have and so they're repeating it. But that's, I think the most dangerous issue that we have is that identity shift when we get out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100% the purpose and the mission. After and it's not easy, everybody has to take their turn going through that. Everybody, absolutely everyone, whether you're a private or lieutenant colonel, general, everybody has to go through that. Well, maybe not general um those guys are especially, they just continue general, they just go out and become, you know, work for deloitte and yeah, they, I do meetings with those and I love those dudes.
Speaker 3:They're still general. Yeah, they're still operating with that concept.
Speaker 2:What about you? How did you come out of being a chaplain and going into filmmaking?
Speaker 3:I always kind of was yeah, my second master's is in writing, and so storytelling is always a passion, and so I grew up doing that. But I came from small town Texas, didn't know that I could become a filmmaker. I mean, we could go into working with cows all day, um, you know I can tell you all about cow stuff, but, uh, I didn't know any film directors, people working in film. But I love movies. That was a sanctuary for me. The theater, I would say uh, just as much as the church, and cause, that was a place where I would get lost into stories and I loved stories. So I was, I would say, even more religious about going to the theater than I was to the church. I was, I would say, even more religious about going to the theater than I was to the church. And so Cinemark, cinema 6, going there as often as I could, with people or without, I didn't care, I loved movies, and so for me, that was that place for me to figure stuff out. I grew up kind of rough life that was drug dealer, all that kind of stuff. So these sanctuaries for me, um, I got lost in stories and so I continued working and writing, fell in love with writing in college, did that, but also loved photography and put those two things together, photography and writing. And then you get film in the middle.
Speaker 3:So when I was in Afghanistan, kunar province, um, at that time very suicidal unit, a lot of problems and issues and, uh, looking to connect as a chaplain. You know, cause like that can be the difference between life and death for some people. So but I had to earn the right, you know, to be spoken to. So I had a good first sergeant, randy, the right you know to be spoken to. So I had a good first sergeant, randy Wright. He's later became a command sergeant major.
Speaker 3:He's a legend in the 101st, just an incredible dude. I learned more about being a minister from him than I ever did from any pastor or in seminary. And he was rough, he was foul. You know he would fish, hook dudes if he was wrestling with him. He was a tough dude but you knew he would die for you. You knew he would do whatever it took to take care of his dudes.
Speaker 3:I'm tearing up, but even while I'm talking about it, it's that love that he had. You know, like he would go to whatever length for his guys. That is the heart of God. I have never seen anything more powerful than that. And there's a scripture that says no greater love has any man than this, that he's willing to lay down his life for his friend. No greater love. And another scripture says God is love. So if we want to understand the substance of God, it is that love, that is the singular, distilled form of God, that love, and you find it with the dudes who are willing to die for each other.
Speaker 3:That is the heart of God and it's preached more powerfully than any sermon in any seminary anywhere else are, yeah, they're foul. You might not trust them with your sister. Uh, you know, you got to be careful. If there's like we do this um reunion every year in the 101st, and it's like at this reunion there's there's like they bring out the cakes, you know there's something's going to get lit on fire, some sort of fight's going to break out. You know, uh, there's going to be partial nudity, but it's the greatest dudes I've ever met in my life because of that love.
Speaker 3:And so for with Randy, he became my mentor and he said you know, if you really want to connect with the dudes, go out with each platoon at least once on a combat patrol and be near the front during major operations. So I was like, ok, yeah, that makes sense and that earns the right to, you know, to chat with them about the other stuff. And that did work. The second I would go on a patrol. My counseling load with that group would go up and it was the heavy stuff, the real stuff. And then my chaplains can't carry weapons, so I was given permission to carry a camera. So when I wasn't doing chaplain stuff, carrying a litter or whatever it was, then I was filming, capturing the stories, and the whole goal was to not get in the way, just let the dudes tell their stories and then try to craft that into the best story I could. Yeah, yeah. So that was the first film.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Who better to capture than the chaplain I could?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so that was the first film. Yeah, yeah, who better to capture than the chaplain? Yeah, that's powerful man.
Speaker 3:Thanks, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't. I, uh, not a thought of that Cause, like I said when I was um, and there's something to be said about our, our, our infantryman, our grunts. Shout out to all of you that's our. I always say my time in 82nd. That was my undergraduate degree in warfare. That's some of the best leaders, some of the best friends I had Moving on into the SF world. We all had that same lineage.
Speaker 2:Shout out to Flo, another paratrooper from 1st Brigade 2504. There's something to be said about paying your dues. There's anything wrong with being an 18x or, you know, serving in any other capacity, but I always felt more sure than who I was and my skill set, knowing that I I paid, paid heavily in blood, sweat and tears in the 82nd first, and learned the importance of like what it means to get your ass chewed out when you, when you fuck up. Uh, what it means to build trust and cohesion within a platoon, within a squad and your team. It's important, and being able to capture that from behind the lens, that must've been remarkable. What, what happened to that footage? What'd you do with it?
Speaker 3:So that became a movie called no Greater Love, and the singular point about it is behind every act of valor is love, like valor, love leads to valor, that brotherhood. So the more that brotherhood is enhanced, the more that brotherhood is built up, the more courageous that unit is going to be. And when trying to help civilians understand what's beyond the uniform, the heart behind it that's driving it, so that way they could understand you know these people as human beings, you know not just uh, automatons. And so put that film together. It won 11 awards at festivals, uh, screened before white house, before congress, went out theatrically and then that kind of set up.
Speaker 3:Everything else I've been doing. You know we, with this last film I did about chaplains, but it was like those medal of honor chaplains, those guys that went beyond the call. Um, I had one guy who's like up for sainthood and he got a medal of honor and made me feel like I was a shammer. You know like I got. Okay, he's a, he's a good dude. I can't compare to that guy. But you can't compare against the saint.
Speaker 3:Yeah, literally it's like I'm, like, I'm just hanging. He was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he was like he. It's like Father Capone, freaking rock star, and it's like that kind of love. It's like how can you not be this? Okay, yeah, he deserves any award, accolade that guy can get, and those are the guys that I really loved and aspired to become a chaplain.
Speaker 3:So I wanted those stories told. So that film Chris Pratt executive produced that one and then it premiered at the Vatican wanted those stories told. So that that film chris pratt executive produced that one and then, uh, it premiered at the vatican and it's part of that case. I'm not catholic, so the sainthood doesn't have the same significance to me, but I know that it's a recognition of his love and I want that to go to the moon, you know. And so, uh, he's. This film was part to help advocate on that behalf, and so that went out to theaters. It's going to be out on digital pretty soon.
Speaker 2:And then we're going to watch it.
Speaker 2:We're, we're Catholics, and my wife uh does a great job of always, uh, giving me the latest info on who's becoming a saint or who's in the process. The latest info on who's becoming a saint or who's in the process. We just had a young man who was the first millennial that was, that became a saint, and I remember my wife's always, constantly like quizzing me and bringing stuff up when it comes to the canonization of our saints, and I'm just blown away by how much knowledge she has about our faith.
Speaker 3:Father first U S military chaplain to become a saint and it's like, rightfully, rightfully deserved, yeah you know, yeah, you don't do these big things, uh, just because it's duty.
Speaker 2:Like you, there's a there is a bond in your teams and your platoon, and when shit hits the fan, when you have to do something big, you're right, it's love. You don't go to look. When you get down to the meat and potatoes of policy and and and foreign uh situations, we don't deploy with this grandiose idea that we're there to make afghanistan great again and iraq great again. Like, we have a calling as a warrior and we're there in very you know it's tough situations. Wherever you align yourself politically, it's difficult, but the guys in the rank and file, the guys there boots on the ground, they are there for each other.
Speaker 2:End of the day, that's the mission. Get the boys home. Yeah, everybody comes home. And you have to sell that and you have to mean that with all your heart, we're all coming home. And you have to sell that and you have to mean that with all your heart, we're all coming home. Unfortunately, we know that that's not always certain, but damn it if we're not going to try no, then I think that is the strongest force in the us military.
Speaker 3:It's like that, that brotherhood, sisterhood, um, and kind of going back onto the mental health side is like if we want to fix the problems that we're facing, we have to give that more space and attention, like that is our, our path, that is our most singular strength and it is also our path to healing. But there has to be that type of transparency in the unit that you can talk about your problems and issues and it has to be an intentional conversation, you know know, because, like most dudes, would rather die than look weak, literally, oh yeah I know, I know from experience that's the the hardest thing to admit.
Speaker 2:The hardest thing you can do that's also the most freeing and most powerful thing is to be vulnerable. But how do you do that when you're living amongst legends, where you, when you're serving amongst men that are, you know, at the, the highest echelon, they're the strongest, the fittest, the best, the best of the best, and they're, you know, you're sitting there wondering to yourself like how, the how do I ever admit that I am dealing with something that I'm ashamed of, that I can't explain, that I have no ability to verbally explain to anybody or want to. How do I continue walking amongst them? Yeah, that's what a lot of us men deal with, and it's so hard to advocate for vulnerability, for taking a knee. It's difficult because guys just want to keep going.
Speaker 2:But sooner or later and this is what I say for the GWAT era veterans you're going to meet this obstacle. We all have to address this issue. We all have to sit down and do the work. It's going to come to us. Everybody, everybody that sees warfare from a first-person view in life. Well, nowadays, with the advent of the internet, we can all get a view of it from what's going on in a ukraine, and that does leave a mark. But for our veterans, for everything that you've done and everything that you've gone through, at some point you got to talk about it and that's difficult and it's.
Speaker 3:This is uh, if you look at like the degrees of emotional growth or individuation it's. And so we're talking about optimizing, like how to become the ultimate person, the ultimate version of ourselves, right, and you got the different dimensions physical, spiritual, emotional, all this stuff. As you know, war fighters, they often master the physical to a far degree. They're extreme and they're professional field craft. They become excellent warriors. But to become that full person, full leader, fully connected as a unit, there has to be that transparency, you know, because it's not like it's not there and it's not like every single individual has these different struggles and issues. They're all different, they're all like personally crafted for you. You know, your fuck ups are your fuck ups, you know, and that has to be dealt with. Um, but it is best dealt with as a team, just like everything else. Like you have to have these other people who are looking at you saying, okay, I see this side, I see that. Okay, you know, it takes that other person to help you extract those things, find solutions that you don't have, and sometimes you have solutions they don't have, and vice versa.
Speaker 3:I never, I was never just the minister and it was always like pouring down in this way. That don't function with that ego. It was always this it's like I'm coming to you as a friend and that's it. I get to be the Ferris Bueller, like you know. Just, I'm here to fix your problems and I don't have a gun, but I'm going to carry something, right.
Speaker 3:And so it's that type of teamwork to to take each other to that next level, whatever that is. And so if you're dealing with an addiction, it's because you're covering something up, and so it's going to have to take a brother to say hey, man, what are you covering up? What are you trying to hide from? You're going too deep into the bottle and it's time to come out, and a real brother will do that. So with that unit, that's what we focused on. The one that was suicidal was focusing on the brotherhood. It was mostly dudes, and how do we have those intentional conversations without judgment? And it worked, it was really effective, and it wasn't me who fixed stuff, it was the brotherhood that fixed it, and I was amazed by that.
Speaker 2:But yeah yeah, it's, addiction is a tough one, right as much as we don't want to uh admit it, that individual still ultimately in charge of getting himself out of that prison, and we we've lost a lot of friends on the show that uh didn't want to get help.
Speaker 2:And it's the individual has to make that choice, to be vulnerable and be willing, be willing participant in that recovery process. And that's the part that sucks, because you can walk, you can walk through. I mean, we've had some good friends that you know. We got the treatment centers, we got them to a good place and then they relapse and then it you'll be amazed at what people can hide and they can get really good at wearing that mask again. And that's the. Out of all the things that I have, uh, I've seen and lost friends for addiction is the hardest one to accept that you sometimes you can't have a say yeah, a lot of times that the alcohol or the, the pill addiction is something that can easily come right back and that's a. That's a tough fight, that's a tough loss. It's like there's no, go ahead.
Speaker 3:No, I was just thinking it's like the uh, that um, I that's like I've never tried alcohol, never tried cigarettes, because my dad was a drug dealer and because of all that stuff that I saw, I was like whoa, I can't. I can't because, like I, I was like so afraid, like deathly afraid. It wasn't out of righteousness or like trying to be anything. It's like deathly afraid, it wasn't out of righteousness or like trying to be anything. It's like deathly afraid of that road. Yeah, because I saw and the same thing, like I've had too many friends went down that road and got lost and um, didn't come back, and that one of the things I had to deal with. It was was like a Messiah complex when I first became a chaplain, thinking I could save people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, I, honestly, I and that's for you. I was like you're the chosen one no, I think, anybody that's an advocate or a peer-to-peer support or somebody that's championing a cause. After they've gotten better, I know I felt like I could just bring everybody along this recovery and sometimes the last thing somebody wants to hear is that you have a resource for them, and they won't always be polite about it.
Speaker 3:No, some people aren't ready and that's hard no, it's like the, you just figure out where a person's at and then just like love them there, and and then it's like you, just that that's the only thing I could do. You know, like, um, I kind of hit my wall because, um, I had this one dude who's like'm going to talk to you. It was like on a Friday and I already had a counseling session booked and I didn't want to drop off that other dude. So I was like, oh man, that's like can I hit you up on Monday? Are you going to be okay? And he's like yeah, I'm going to be okay. So, of course, he tries to kill himself on Saturday.
Speaker 3:And I was like suicide, suicide, suicide, like all these problems, and I wasn't good enough to fix it. I wasn't enough. And so I was like, at Fort Campbell, pulled into this car wash area and I'm heaving. You know, like that's like snot and tears, like everything coming out of me, like God, why won't you fix this, why won't you let me fix this? Why can't I be on top of this?
Speaker 3:And, um, it was a couple of days later that I had a dude, another chaplain, buddy you called me out on that and he's like you think you're Jesus. You think you're God, are not. It's like you can only love them where they're at, nothing more, and it's going to be their choice, and you also have to still love them when they make the wrong one. I was like, oh, that's hard. I was like a punch in the gut because, like I know, if you're doing something self-destructive like want to choke you, you know. But I was like, oh, it's like, but how jacked up am I? You know, and God still loves me. And so I just kind of had to become at peace with that. And that made it so that took a huge, like 50 pounds out of my rucksack and I was like, okay, we're just people.
Speaker 2:That's a painful lesson. I think our caregivers, our support networks are out there A lot of people if you're listening, and that's an aha moment for you. Trust me, you feel guilty when you don't answer that 2 am call because you just went to bed after getting somebody else plugged into a resource. Like you can't save everybody, you can't, you can't be everything for everyone all the time, all at once. It's impossible. You gotta sleep, you gotta eat, you gotta take care of yourself or you're going to fall down.
Speaker 2:That seems that downward spiral and, just like you said, like you're not Jesus, You're not, you're not the most powerful being. You can't, you're not going to make them not do something. As much as it hurts to accept that you cannot change somebody's mind, you can be there, you can love them, you can support them, you can give them the best advice, you can connect them to resources, you can do the Googling for them, you can literally drive them to that treatment center. But at the end of the day, they have autonomy. They have a choice to make for themselves. And that's the hardest thing. When your friend doesn't make that choice that you want them to make, and you still gotta love them and you gotta mourn them now because they're not here. That's what sucks, that's when, that's then it's hard to accept and you gotta go back and you gotta, you gotta, pray about it. You gotta understand that you, you don't have control.
Speaker 3:You don't have control that's painful, and just loving the broken, even if they might not ever change yeah, that gets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that, that, that, uh, that hits close to that, hits so damn close to home. We lost another friend and uh, three of us all going through our own process of trying to understand, like fuck, like what more could you do? Like, you know that you were always there, you know that you, you provide a peer to peer support. You, you listened every single time, connected them with jobs, you got them out of bad situations, but ultimately they made a choice. Yeah, in this part of your life sitting here, how do you continue fighting and advocating? Not being part of the organization, not having that seat within the organization as the chaplain? How do you go about it now?
Speaker 3:That's a good question. It's still pretty much the same because my circles are always filled with people. I still have people reaching out to me, so my job hasn't changed as much. The battle rhythm has changed. I'm spending more time working on films, writing storytelling.
Speaker 3:But the ministry of Jesus was pretty simple in its design. He walked around doing miracles, helping people. He was always focused on meeting the need, helping somebody with their problem. Then he would share a story and it's so funny because, like they would, even the apostles confronted him like why do you speak so much? In parables? It got to the point that the guy was always speaking in so many stories. They're like dude, like why all the stories?
Speaker 3:But that is how people get stuff, that is how people. You could give them a PowerPoint presentation. It means nothing. You know, if you tell them a story, it's going to. It has a possibility of sinking in on multiple levels and changing their whole paradigm.
Speaker 3:So not, this wasn't intentional. I had this aha moment later, but I was like the way he went about it is somewhat how I've tried to structure. You know the way I'm going about it, just because I'm a storyteller anyways, and um, so that is, I can reach more people that way. Now it's not if I could still be a battalion chaplain. I loved it, like that. That was amazing. You know, nine to five, not actually it was all hours, but having that, I loved that, that job, you know, cause you're just hanging with the dudes fixing problems and you got to see those. You know a lot of those things fixed and people growing and people growing, and that was incredible.
Speaker 3:But now just the way that my life has gone, it's now storytelling. It's uh trying to reach a broader audience and like the whole vision of like no greater love was that one dude who was out in the back 40, he's not going to talk to his friends, he's not going to talk to his wife or anybody else and he's been through too much stuff and he's, he's at the end and I wanted to reach him. I wanted the whole film to be designed for him, that he would watch it, he would see dudes like himself who went through that same journey, and then here is how they found hope. So that's, I designed the whole story for that one dude and, um, so that's the way I'm going forward. It's like using film storytelling to reach people, uh, reach wide audiences, but also that one person that we might not be able to reach, and with the hope of giving them hope.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's perfect. That's a. That's the way to go about it. Just speak to that one person that's in need. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So, but I'm also lucky too. It's like I'm still getting to hang out with a lot of combat veterans in the military. It's just the way life has gone. So still, you know, still finding myself sleeping next to a javelin ever so often, you know, like listening to the dudes having snoring contests, you know, in a smelly, smelly place and, um, yeah, it's, it's, uh. It's been an interesting journey. So it still still feels like I'm in but I'm out, but I'm in, and it's interesting to see what this life might take me next too, because we've got future conflicts going on. So if I keep on telling stories about conflicts, then I might find myself out there. Yeah, I hope not.
Speaker 2:I hope. Yeah, man, I was foolish to think that we would be able to take a knee. No, our generation of guys would finally be able to listen to shows like this, to promote the idea that your greatest, greatest calling is to be a father, to be a husband, to help coach and mentor the next generation. That's what arguably made us great as a nation. We have fathers that were present. We had people that were involved in their community. We're so against that these days, we think that these spaces are not for us, that somebody else will figure it out, somebody else will take care of it. No, the person that needs to take care of it is you. You, the veteran that's been missing for 20-plus years. That's why I'm constantly advocating, but I'm seeing the world continue to become a more complex hotbed of conflict, and more men and women are going to find themselves needed in these spaces Are you going?
Speaker 2:to find yourself in Ukraine anytime soon, or are you done with that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll go back. I still have stuff I've got to finish over there. I was going to say a saying popped in my head that I came up with a long time ago. But the two most consistent sounds in human history are the beat of the heart and the drums of war, and it would be weird if we didn't have another war. Just looking at human history.
Speaker 2:I'm all about weird man.
Speaker 3:I'm all about weird. That would be a phenomenon that's not likely. I'm all about weird man, I'm all about weird. That would be a phenomenon that's not likely and it's tragic that we're that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it just needs to end it really, truly does. The conflict in Ukraine needs to end.
Speaker 3:Guys right now out in burma, you know, fighting beside that revolution, doing good stuff. There's actually a chaplain out there that put together the free burma rangers, sf.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, I'm trying to try to contact with those guys that story's amazing. That story's amazing yeah.
Speaker 3:So I think, like all around the world this, there's a lot of good dudes who are fighting for freedom, who are fighting, uh, against evil. They just took the skills and traits that they had and they started applying it against the enemy and, um, so that's where my heart's at like now. But you know what, balancing family as well, that's hard, it's no joke. And the whole point of the first film is explain to my daughter why this was important, and I even recorded her. And not a whole lot, not like an interview or anything like that, it's a letter. The whole film is structured as a letter from a father to a daughter, uh, from the front lines, in the trench, and I'm literally talking, wow, in the trench.
Speaker 3:Why is this important? And it's not just important, like, for ukraine and me being out in ukraine, but every soldier who serves, every father who's a soldier, you know. You know why is this important? And it comes down to we have to fight against these forces that are trying to craft an evil world. It's not a better time, we're not living in safer times. The struggle is very real and it's insidious and everywhere, creeping into our democracy, creeping into every nation, this fight for dictatorships and control versus empowerment and justice and democracy, and so I see that conflict going on and good men have to rise up and they have to fight. And it's needed Because the second that they stop, that's when evil starts to win. And so I'm interested to see how these future conflicts come up, because I see that the drum beats of war are starting to escalate. Yeah, oh yeah yeah, crescendo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anytime you see defense tech companies popping up every four to five minutes, yeah, shout out to andreal, because those, those ads are like a marvel movie they're about to. That might be stock worth buying here soon oh yeah, if you're not investing in uh andreal, uh palantir um a few others um you, they're gonna be fine. Yeah, you need to.
Speaker 3:That's job security right there. Yeah, I might kick out the soft week too. I went there a couple of years ago and I got asked to come back. But yeah, it's interesting what's around the corner, and then kind of deciding like how do we want to weather this tempo? I think the calling to go out is a calling and the calling to not go out is a calling. It's this.
Speaker 3:The worst thing that we face is false guilt, yeah, and so it's like there's a I call it the totem pole of guilt. And you have a civilian. I've had plumbers and doctors and lawyers explain to me why they didn't become a soldier, but I've never explained to a plumber, doctor or lawyer why I didn't become a plumber, doctor or lawyer, never did. And it's like I never went to a plumber. Oh, I was thinking about doing that in college. You know I was maybe one plumber, yeah, so you know it's. It's, I was maybe one word. Yeah, so it's, it's never happened and so but then on the next level you have guys who like serve, like in cold war or stuff like that. They never went over, never had anything going on, and they say like, hey, yeah, I, I didn't experience that. You have the guys who deploy, but they never sure heard shots fired in anger. They tell you that you hear those guys shot, fired an egg, but they just see the intense stuff, the regular stuff, like you did, you know. They'll tell you that.
Speaker 3:And then you have up that totem pole of guilt. You go and you've got guys who never got wounded but they had a buddy did. Maybe they should have been there for them, maybe they should have done more. Why didn't they do more? Ooh, guilt.
Speaker 3:And then I even have a buddy Linscog. He was a medic. He charged out, was fixing a dude and then took a bullet above his side plate, bounced around his body. He knew he was dying and even as he was dying he was telling guys how to fix themselves. And then his last words were I'm sorry, I couldn't do more. Like he was at every single Bible study Amazing, amazing dude. But his last words were I'm sorry, I couldn't do more.
Speaker 3:And so you on that totem pole, every level, you have this guilt. Even if you're dying, you still feel like you wish you could have done more. Even if you're dying, you still feel like you wish you could have done more. And so none of us are free from it. We just have to accept that it's false guilt. We don't have to own it, it doesn't have to sit in our rucksack, we have to let it go, to be free. And I even had a buddy who wrote a suicide note to his wife and two daughters because he felt so guilty. He wasn't there and there's no way he would have been there for one of his guys, one of his friends. But his friend died and he wasn't there and like his friend would be, like man can't believe you weren't freaking there for me.
Speaker 3:You know, like you would have, like that that angst. The dead don't want us to like stop living our life. No, they want us to move forward and let go of the guilt. So that's the totem pole of guilt and it's like we find everybody on it, but we have to let it go, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's, um, one of the most important things that we can take away from this episode. You gotta let go of it. Yeah, they want you to live. They want you to thrive. They don't want you sitting here surviving. They want you to live. They want you to thrive. They don't want you sitting here surviving. It's just, you want to really make it up to them. Have an amazing life. You really want them to look down and be happy, live a fucking epic life.
Speaker 2:You owe it to them Live great. You have to do it, Even when you don't want to, because they need you to. They're looking down.
Speaker 3:Justin, I can't take you. They would want you to raise your kids, live your life, enjoy it, you know cherish every moment yeah, justin, thank you for being here today, brother, I really appreciate this.
Speaker 2:People want to connect with you or look at your films or see your past work. Where can they go?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's echobraboproductionscom, that's Echo Bravo Productions and that's where most of my projects are at right now, and I'm on Instagram, social media, all that kind of stuff, linkedin, so I'm easy enough to find. But I'm not like a social media influencer or anything like that, I'm just a filmmaker just a filmmaker, no big deal you're too humble, sir I think there's some people online like socially, uh, social media extroverted, yeah, like a social media introvert.
Speaker 3:You know, I do a movie and I I get away yeah, well, for guys listening, go ahead and pause right now.
Speaker 2:Go to the episode description, click all those links and send this man a LinkedIn friend request or Instagram friend request and make him be social on there and be active so you can promote his work and his films. Justin, I can't wait to have you back on so we can dive more and go deeper into faith and the spirit and tap into your journey. So I think we need to have I need to have more talks with chaplains. I think it's important to really elevate that last pillar that, for all of us, just seems to have fallen by the wayside. I don't know if it's culture, I don't know if it's the way we're raised. We push away the faith. But I'm living proof that you can find your way back to God, back to your religion. You don't have to be a Catholic like me. I certainly do wish you would. But, yeah, find your own path, find your own religion. I'm Danny Caballero, thank you for tuning in and we'll see you all next time. Till then, take care.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to like, follow, share, subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to support us, head on over to buymeacoffeecom forward slash SecHawk podcast and buy us a coffee. Connect with us on Instagram, x or TikTok and share your thoughts or questions about today's episode. You can also visit securityhawkcom for exclusive content, resources and updates and remember we get through this together. If you're still listening, the episode's over. Yeah, there's no more Tune in tomorrow or next week. Thank you.
