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Battle Buddy: Joshua Parish on Building Veteran Support That Works

• Deny Caballero • Season 7 • Episode 373

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SPONSORED BY: TITAN SARMS, PRECISION WELLNESS GROUP, and THE SPECIAL FORCES FOUNDATION 

In this episode of Security Halt!, Deny Caballero sits down with Joshua Parish, founder of VetLife and the Battle Buddy app, to explore the raw realities of veteran transition. From navigating the broken VA system to finding strength through community and ownership, this episode offers powerful insight into resilience, innovation, and what it really takes to heal after service. Parish shares personal stories, hard truths, and actionable resources for veterans seeking connection and purpose.

 

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SPEAKER_02:

Secured Hub Podcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head up the episode description and check out Titan SARM's today. I love the idea that I can manage my life when in reality, I can't. Absolutely cannot. I need somebody to do it. If you're a remote worker from the Philippines, come on board. Come on board. Manage my skin, my calendarly and my calendar because clearly I can't. And all over the place. Josh, welcome to Security Hot Podcast. How's it going, man?

SPEAKER_03:

You know, when you reached out to me on LinkedIn, I I I love doing these things. So A, I wanted to say thanks for having me on. I love telling my story, but I think what I love most is the stuff we just talked about offline. I mean, it brings back memories. I mean, I was in Iraq 0304. So what is that? You know, 20 something years ago, and it seems like just yesterday. I can still smell the diesel. Uh I mean, it when we talk about this kind of stuff. So, no, honor. Honor to be on your show.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. We might need to do some exposure therapy with diesel because I was right there for the longest time. I uh I used to have a big old Dirty Max diesel truck, and every time I would get fuel, I would just get nostalgia, just huffing fumes. I'm like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That's my happy space, man.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't think people understand it.

SPEAKER_02:

Just pulling up to a gas station and overstaying your welcome in the lane for like 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, my wife's like, what in the fuck are you doing? Get back in the truck.

SPEAKER_00:

Don't worry about me, woman. I'm feeling don't worry about me. Pretending you got your fucking kid on. You fucking fucking nipple just getting flock hard.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I hear you.

SPEAKER_00:

What condition is that weapon system in?

SPEAKER_03:

As I'm sitting here sipping tea.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, green tea's got a lot of free radicals. It's really good for you.

SPEAKER_03:

Lemon ginger, but dude, it does ground MRE coffee. Yeah. Rubing that fucking hot sauce in your way.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, everybody's wondering like what the toxic exposure was. I'm like, I'll tell you what it is. It's fucking the meals in the brown fucking bags that did did eventually expire. We everybody everybody I talked to is like, yeah, those are meals, those are shelf stable. They'll never go bad. False. They will go bad.

SPEAKER_03:

And uh on TikTok, people actually pay for those things. I'm like, I I had cases, you could have them because I sure as fuck ain't eating them anymore.

SPEAKER_02:

So oh, dude, we we we got set out in the middle of nowhere, Iraq. I mean, everywhere is middle nowhere in Iraq to like start this little fob and just fucking pallets and pallets of expired MREs. Everybody for like two weeks is shitting themselves, and our poor doc is like, I I think it's the food. Everybody stop eating MREs. And then the moment everybody stopped eating MREs, everybody stopped shitting themselves. So and and in pure love airborne infantry paratrooper logic, everybody's like, All right, we just won't eat.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's just like a bunch of fucking mansiated fucking paratroopers.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh fucking, let's go trade some fucking boots in the local economy for some food. Yeah. So we all just rap fucking MREs and selling the candy and uh all the skills and stuff for fucking eggs and falafels. It worked. We we we figured out how to care for ourselves.

SPEAKER_03:

We were up near Baghdad, we're building a bridge up there, and at night uh we would go on these raid missions with the Marines we were attached to. But during the day, when we weren't building the bridge and not what now with the sea bees, uh, we would allow people to come in and sell us food, you know, the vendors and stuff. And I'm telling you, some of the best vegetables, some of the best chicken I've ever had, until I realized that I walked behind their little station, and that little Haji was cooking the bread on a piece of camel shit. I cannot make this up. And I got so violently ill. Uh, but I'll tell you, I'd probably eat it again. It was probably the best food I've ever had.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. The till this day, one of the greatest Thanksgivings that we ever had uh was at that same shithole little camp that we built, and uh we scraped together like$25 US and the interpreters went out. It's just like like every stereotypical movie you see, like when they're like, How much money you have in US? Like, we've got two nickels, that's enough for a luxury.

SPEAKER_00:

And a broken flashlight, yeah. Dude came back with like 75 chickens, oh yeah, fucking stacks of bread. Here's a nickel pack. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Tons of tons of their uh their soda and uh yeah, and and it was amazing. It was amazing. That's um a fond memory that I will never forget. Um shitting your pants in the middle of nowhere, Iraq, and and having a happy Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, yeah, like in between so we drove Hemets, you know, and shitting in between those two big tires like that. Well, you know, your badabuddies keeping watch as fucking Hajis or you know, Iraqi kids are coming out of the sand like it's a you know, episode of like Star Wars or something like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, but it's remarkable, man. We have this lived experience that takes us to these far-off places. How did Josh come back and find his way into becoming uh a successful businessman? How did you uh how was that journey like?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so this is a crazy story. So when I get out of the military, uh, you know, you go through that program called the Tap or Tabs. Yeah, taps. Um, and I'll be honest with you, God, it sucked. It was horrible. And every time you'd ask a question, they'd be like, oh, just wait till you get back home. They'll take care of you. I think knowing full well that they were full of shit. And so I came back and I started asking for help, and people were like, go to the VA. And back then I didn't really know the all-encompassing turn. What is it? Is it your post-American Legion VA? Is it your hospital? Is it your state, your county agency? And so I didn't find out until later on in life that there was about a million other of me's out there just kind of wandering aimlessly. And then, you know, you you only ask for the help so many times. And then trying to go on Facebook and ask a question with a bunch of other vets is about as useless as you could get because you get 999 answers, and 998 of them are wrong, or political, or you know, they start teasing you because you were in the army and not the navy and the marine corps and this and that. So, long story short, so I just I just stopped looking and start struggling a little bit. I mean, you I'm a 22-year-old kid, I think, 23-year-old kid over in Iraq. Uh you know, you don't process things until later on in life, and then all of a sudden it just comes at you. And and I think I was just sitting on my couch one day, and I'm like, holy shit, that really happened. And so by that time, I'd been out for a little bit, and you know, like I said, asked for the help and nobody'd give it to me. So I just stopped looking. And my wife and I moved from the upper peninsula of Michigan to uh down near Detroit. And I started working for a county office, and this is kind of my origin story of the path that I'm on now. And so I'm working for a county VA office, and I realized that we were we were misleading our veterans. I don't think it was intentionally, but we would expect the veteran to come to the government to search out their benefits, but we weren't telling those veterans or educating them on where to go to get the benefits, who to speak to. Um, so it's almost like a perfect storm. So I started creating uh programs built around empowering veterans in their families uh to be their own best advocate. Little did I know, and and I've tried to get out of this space for years, uh, went to law school. I mean, just it's a very thankless job working in the veteran space. And so I just kept getting pulled back into it and finally said, fuck it. Um, I'm gonna go all in. And if I'm gonna go all in, I'm gonna change the system from the outside in because I worked for 15 years for the government and I wasn't changing shit. I mean, I it just roadblock after roadblock. So, you know, that that's my origin story. I just I didn't want to do it. I, you know, I I didn't think I was built for it. I went to law school after the military GI Bill paid for my law school, was gonna be an attorney, and just kept getting sucked back into this space. So like the military, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

The reluctant hero. Dude, you're you're um you you're right. Um, the VA is not a friend for and it never every time they change mouthpieces. I'm sorry. I I haven't met the current guy. But to be to be fair and to be honest, like, how many times are you gonna promise things? How many times are you gonna say that there's gonna be change only to continue pushing the same thing? Yeah. Like it to me, it's frustrating that we have some VA hospitals and some VA centers that are ran really well, and others that are a fucking nightmare. I've seen, I've seen and been able to witness in my own eyes, like, holy shit, this is great quality care, and like all of you should be in jail. Absolutely all of you should be in jail. Like, there's no reason why somebody walks in needing a neurolog, a neurological appointment, needing to see somebody about their brain, and you give them like, well, you know, seven, eight months out, that's the best we can do. What the fuck? What the fuck? Um, because it it's well, you know this well. When the moment you walk into this space and you start working with other veterans and trying to help them, the stories start pouring out, the issues start coming out, and people keep receipts. People aren't just it's not word of mouth. People are willing to record and and bring out the evidence, and it's like, holy shit. Like, how do we remain optimistic? That's the million-dollar question.

SPEAKER_03:

And I think it's a great question, and I'll tell you why I think that we can do it collectively, you know, people like me, people like you, like-minded people. I met with Dennis McDonough, the previous uh secretary. I met with Doug Collins a couple months ago. Uh, I'm optimistic about Doug uh more than I was optimistic about Dennis because I think Dennis was more of an institutional guy. Um I I think that Doug's ready to make those hard decisions that a good leader should make instead of just rolling the can down, you know, the can down the hill. But I'll say this if you think that the VA is gonna fix you, you're just completely wrong. I think that you have to fix yourself before anybody else can fix you. And my wife, quite honestly, she gave me the biggest dose of medicine one time. She looked me in the eyes. This woman is five, she says she's five seven, but I think she's really five five and about 105 pounds. And she said, quit being a bitch. And I I'm 6'2, like I'm on and I tower over this woman, and I was like, Holy shit, you are just completely right. Because I was I was working for the state of Michigan at that time, they had gone through five agency directors in 10 years they could not figure their shit out. And I got so frustrated because my boss was a dumbass, and his boss was a dumbass, and it just it it was like reverse reagonomics, you know, that trickle down effect. And she goes, Josh, if you're gonna do it, you know, you have to do it yourself, and that's why I embrace that extreme ownership that that Jocko Willink talks about, where yeah, there's factors in why things don't work, but at the end of the day, as a veteran, you have to take extreme ownership. And if you want to do something about it, do it. Don't just I tell my brothers this all the time don't go on Facebook and bitch about shit. Go out and try to change it. And if you fail, you fail. But at the end of the day, nobody else can tell you that you failed because you didn't try.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely, man. I gotta imagine going to law school is incredibly difficult. A lot of sleepless nights, a lot of work, a lot of grinding. It's years. Yeah. But why the fuck would you pivot from that?

SPEAKER_03:

Tried to go to law school. After all that time and effort, tried to go to law school at 36 years old with three kids, uh, going to school at night, working during the day, and I am an absolute glutton for punishment. And I'll tell you why. I grew up, I couldn't rub two fucking nickels together. I mean, I grew up dirt ass poor on an eating reservation, didn't have running water. Yeah, didn't have running water for the first four years of my life. And so I had this weird chip on my shoulder where I am so I can remember in fourth grade, my fourth grade teacher looked at me, and Mr. Spence, if you're watching this, you can go fuck yourself. Yeah, I'm gonna find him. I'll send it directly. I'm gonna find you, Mr. Spence. I don't know if you're still alive, but yeah, he said you're gonna be nothing but another drunk Indian like your dad.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh fuck.

SPEAKER_03:

Fourth grade. And I still never forget that when he said that. Um, and so I just use that as as ammo because I don't ever want I don't want anybody to ever be able to say that I'm a loser. Um, and I think you know, I maybe I take it to the extreme a little bit, but at the end of the day, I'm not gonna I'm gonna be the one that you know shapes my own path. So I think that's that's why I do what I do.

SPEAKER_02:

So this episode is brought to you by Titan SARMs. Head on over to Titansarms.com and buy a stack today. Use my code CD10 to get your first stack. I recommend the Lean Stack 2. Start living your best life. Titan SARMs. No junk, no bullshit, just results. Dude, you were you were in a fight before you even got to fucking Iraq, man. Yeah, yeah. There are very few reservations that could be considered well off. Very few. Very, very few. Vast majority, the honest truth is living on the res is a straight ticket to a life of extreme adversity. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Domestic violence. I mean, my dad was very physically abusive to my mom, to me, uh, to the point where the tribal police were afraid of them. They wouldn't even come, they wouldn't even answer the calls anymore. So my mom and I had to take it into our own hands. But I mean, I honestly thought for the first 12 years of my life that everybody in the world, once a month, just went up to this large building and got your food. And I later found out that that was the federal government. It was called commodities. Um, and you would just go and you would get all your canned meat and your canned milk or your powdered milk and your powdered eggs and whatnot. Um, so actually I had a I I actually had a leg up on most other military men because I've been eating canned mystery meat since I was, you know, I their version of MRE is on the reservation.

SPEAKER_02:

So Yeah, dude. Yeah. It's um it's funny because when we when we get in the military, we quickly find other people that have lived the same type of life and and we use humor. Like I know uh my uh shout out to my buddy Greg and and Paul, uh all three of us, and we we grew up pretty rough, and and Greg and I would always make jokes about like the poor people meals that we grew up on. Like Greg has had such a like the the extreme Hispanic culture that Greg is steeped in, but he's white from Arizona. It's just like, man, like you really know about the struggle meals of like open-faced tortilla sandwiches, like, bro, yes. Oh yeah. But it's it's part of like the the culture, I think. Like a lot of us flock to the military and as a as a gateway out, as a ticket out of the uh the lived experience that we had as kids, man.

SPEAKER_03:

Like oh yeah, it was either work at the casino or work at the prison, and I just did not want to do either of those. Um and I I didn't even know back then. I the the the military to me was the best thing I ever did in my life. And it it it it because I didn't have a male role model growing up, my dad wasn't around, so nobody nobody taught me how to you know change brakes or change your own oil or you know, honestly, how to be a man. And so you go to basic training and you're either gonna make it or you're gonna you're gonna fail out pretty quickly. Um, but you get a hard dose of reality that nobody fucking cares. Either make it or don't. And nobody showed me that my entire life, uh, leading up to that. And so I'm yeah, I mean, basic training of the military changed my life for the better. I I don't know where I would be if I if I hadn't joined the military.

SPEAKER_02:

It gives us that um it's dude, it it individuals like us that go through something extremely challenging from the get-go have that post-traumatic growth arc of like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be sadistic, I'm not gonna fall by the wayside, I'm gonna keep pushing going forward. And even if our friends don't have that experience, they can still learn resilience, they can still develop grit. But we have a great skill set that we can share with others. Like, when you are able to share your story and connect with other human beings, you give them insight to what it truly means, oh shit, like this is a whole different world. There's a vast majority of our of our American populace that don't understand the difficulties that go on in the res, like the the problem sets that they face. But when you are able to transcend that, build something, work through it, you give that kid that role model. Like you're able to look back and like share with everybody else that back in that in in that reservation and show them like, dude, you don't have to be a product of this environment. You can push them through it, man.

SPEAKER_03:

That's it, too. That product of your environment, you know, to me, that's just a cop out. You know, especially uh if you I I'm a pretty firm believer that there's never not a way to succeed to succeed in life. It's just uh if you give up or if you have that defeatist mentality, I mean that's on you. At the end of the day, I I love I love that YouTube video with Jocko Willink where he's like, good, your wife left you, good, you're gonna find somebody better. That bitch probably wasn't for you anyway. Lost her job. Oh, your boss is a dick. Good. There's something better for you. And so, yeah, I mean, I don't buy into that mentality of, you know, oh, woe was me. And I got four kids, and most of them, three out of the four, you know, embrace my mentality, but you can tell, you know, the one that needs a little more guiding light, maybe the military, quite honestly.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah. It's important to understand too, like you you prayer, you pray for all these great things to happen in life. Um, you know, we write out what we're grateful for, and it's always the good things. We're we're grateful for having a roof over our heads. You gotta be grateful for the bad. You gotta take it all in. You gotta take it all in because without it, it would your journey would change. You would change. And that's something that's hard to explain to people. Like, you want me to be grateful for the bad things in my life? My car broke down, I've got negative$2 in my fucking bank account.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, dog. You're in the fight, dog. That's the best place to be.

SPEAKER_02:

You're gonna hustle, you're gonna grind, you're gonna fucking work hard to get out of it. Like, build that hunger. And I think a lot of us in the that came up to the military, we take that for granted. Like, especially when we move into the you know, entrepreneurial endeavors, going to business, go to law school, you know, a lot of people will turn their nose up at having to stay up, or they'll complain about having to submit on time and all this stuff. Where for us, okay, that's what that's a standard, that's what we gotta do, then then so be it. I sacrifice and I'll get it done. Have you noticed that you maintain that ability and and and that sort of work ethic throughout the entirety of your your adult life after you left the military?

SPEAKER_03:

I I did. And I I mean, I'll give you a real world example. I mean, I I get up, um, I get up probably six o'clock every morning. I I have a routine. If I get out of my routine, I don't I don't like it. Um and I I take my four-year-old to uh daycare, I go to the gym, and then I just grind out. I mean, I what what my wife and I have built for me, I look at it on paper sometimes. I'm like, Jesus, you're some podunk hillbilly that, you know, had nothing. And like, you know, we we got the nonprofit, we got the radio show, we got the the app that we've nationally scaled, um, and then starting our own other, you know, side hustle of the business and whatnot, the consulting, the the the public speaking and whatnot. And that's just some random guy that didn't have any guidance growing up. And so I'm I hate when like 501 hits because I can't, I'm not the type of guy that just stops doing stuff. I always gotta be thinking about what's my next three steps, and yeah, it's a blessing and a curse sometimes, but I I don't think I would have it any other way.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's true, man. It's to some, and especially when I'm I'm trying to talk about like sleep hygiene and taking care of yourself, like yes, that you gotta figure it out. You gotta figure it out. You know, is it is it smart to burn yourself out seven days out of the week? No. But motherfucker, if I got shit that's due staying up to get it done, I will I will constantly sacrifice that rest and recovery. And no, I like I said, I gotta change it, I gotta find a better way to do it. But it's it's it's something that it was turned on when we were young, and it's hard to back away, man. It's hard to say, hey, I'll just I'll turn it in late, or hey, it won't just get done today. I'll just it's like fuck no, man. Like that mentality, that that uh that that dog in you, as they say. Like it's hard to fucking bring it back into the yard and say, hey, just relax for a day. It's like, no, because great things don't get built off taking a day off.

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly. I I'll say this if Elon Musk can manage 11 companies, and if Donald Trump can, you know, be 198 years old and still, you know, do the shit that he does, I I think I can uh multitask a few different things. I yeah, yeah, those are the people that I want to look up to.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and Elon's got like 17 kids, so I I gotta get busy and uh come on.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, how does he do it? I got I have to stop at four, or my my wife's like, nope, no more. I'm like, a baker's dozen, it doesn't sound like a bad deal for us. And they can be assistants, yes, we call them grunts, yeah. They can be our grunts. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I need you to manage the calendar and you are checking emails every 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I'm seven.

SPEAKER_02:

Roll down that hill. How'd you get to the how did vet life become a thing?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and crazy. So I was working for the state of Michigan, and the state was giving me thousands of dollars every year to do these town hall style meetings. So they said, all right, get go out and flourish, do good things with with no guidance. Of course, the government, you know, they're real great at giving people guidance. So I would do these town halls, spend like three or four grand at each one. And what I realized is I'd get 30 or 40 resource providers at the town hall, same people over and over and over, but I'd only get three or four veterans. And so that brought me back to that whole tax mentality where if you're pretty much making people go to a designated spot to get access to the resources and benefits on your time, we have to start thinking about helping these veterans on their own time when they're ready to gain access to the benefits. And so we sat down, uh, my wife and I, and my wife has a master's degree in uh business and marketing. So, you know, she's the brains of the operation. And so I said, I want to start a nonprofit, I just don't know how or what to do. So we started mapping out there's 45,000 veteran nonprofits in this country. How does vet life stand out from those other 45,000 nonprofits? So we had a pretty cool idea of doing this free event for not just veterans but their families called VetFest. Oh shit. Yeah, so we we created that event called VetFest. It's live bands, it's bounce houses, it's free food, it's prizes, it's and then on the side, we bring all of the vetted resource providers. So these veterans go there and they're not thinking like I'm some broken toy, you know, and the government needs to fix me. They go there, they have a good time, they have a couple drinks if they want, they listen to some cool bass. And then if they choose to do so, they can go get access to their military benefits. So it empowers them. But also, if if you're anything like if your wife's anything like my wife, who's you know, gently kicking my ass to go get the things that I deserve at the end of the day, you got the family members that are saying, All right, you know, Josh, all right, uh, Denny, here's those benefits. You gotta use them. VA will pay for your law school, disability compensation, there's VA home loans. I mean, you're stupid not to use them. So my wife and I just started that event not thinking it would ever take off. And the first year we had about 2,000 people attend. Holy shit. Yeah, yeah. And that's just us hauling picnic tables and stages and stuff like that. And so now the the VA has nationally replicated the event. And so we're helping, we were helping like five, six, seven thousand people a year through these events. And I said, okay, now let's let's go bigger, let's create an app. So I started working to put the pieces of the puzzle together uh to create this app. So every all if you go on this app, it's called Battle Buddy, it's on the app store. It's all the years of my frustration with the government that I put into that app because I said, all right, we just got to make it really simple to get access to your VA home loan. Here's what disability compensation is, here's your education benefits, and then also here's your vetted resource providers. So we started that app. Uh we finished that app in I think February this year, and it has about 250,000 downloads on it.

SPEAKER_02:

So that's good. That's freaking solid.

SPEAKER_03:

I want to, I wanna, I wanna recreate the TAP program to where when veterans are leaving the military, we just preload that app into their smart device, and then wherever they, you know, ETS, wherever they leave from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and come back to Maryland or Alaska, that app is gonna be there for you 24 7, and you don't have to call the VA. If you're like me, I try to get television. Health a couple years ago. Somebody called me within 24 hours. And then what is it? The 22nd of October. So I'm hoping they'll call. It's been about two and a half years. I think they'll call back and try to schedule that appointment for me. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

This episode is also brought to you by Precision Wellness Group. Getting your hormones optimized shouldn't be a difficult task. And Dr. Taylor Bosley has changed the game. Head on over to Precision Wellness Group.com, enroll, and become a patient today.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, imagine the frustration that these men and women go through.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Oh, I know personally. I was I uh I got put on hold during crisis.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And uh that was that was uh the the first and last time I called. And um yeah, I I have a really hard time dealing with the VA, but I also have a really hard time dealing with dishonest brokers. There's a there's a there's a huge market for wanting to solve the veteran crisis. Yes. There's a lot of shady people out there that are coming out with all sorts of gadgets, all sorts of things, saying, like, oh, we can react, we can respond nationwide. No, you fucking can't. No, you fucking can't. You don't have the licensure, you don't have the trained professionals in every state, in every city. So for you to get on a platform and tell people that they can pick up the phone through your app and get connected with somebody that will be there physically, you're fucking liars and you're pieces of shit, and you're selling sm you're you're blowing smoke up people's ass. It's snake oil. It is. That's the thing that I'm really pissed off about. Um, there's there, I'm not gonna say their name. They're out there. Um, they will get outed, they will, they, everything will come to the light. Everything eventually does. But to say that you are gonna pick up a phone and connect somebody to a real provider that will come to their house or the QRF team that will come to their house, you are complicit in a fucking crime. If somebody gets on that phone and they think that they're getting a real person coming to their aid, you're fucking, you are, I don't, I don't know how you're not already in hot water and aren't already being sued out of your fucking offices. Um, but you will be. You will be. More people are getting um spun up on your fucking smoke, uh, on the all the bullshit. And the thing that we need to be careful with apps is there are resources out there. They and and uh uh the thing that I like about Battle Buddy is it's an ex it's connective tissue to an existing system that's out there. Yeah, it's not bullshitting people with fucking snake oil. Yeah. And that's a thing. Like there's millions of dollars have been put in for the structure. Whether you like it or not, 998 has helped and saved lives. Yep. It works, it fucking works, it's there. That's why everybody promotes it, that's why everybody puts it on their shit because they know that if somebody's in crisis, they can get a hold of somebody. And I I just I cannot I cannot tolerate when people are out, and there's so many of them now. I just saw another one that are saying, like, yeah, our Apple connected to a real no dog. No, no. I know, I know what it takes. If you're gonna work with somebody like Charlie Health or BetterHelp and be a provider, you have to get license in every single state that that online service provider is working in. So you're telling me you're covering the bill for all those different providers, and you have somebody can respond in every city and every county? No, you don't.

SPEAKER_03:

I I take a holistic approach, and I'll tell you what. Uh, when I worked for a county VA office, I started something called the Veterans Treatment Court. So VA treatment court says, okay, uh, let's say you get popped with a DUI or you know, drugs or something. And we can tie that back to your military service as kind of like a uh we call it a negative coping mechanism.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Let's say you can't process shit you saw overseas or deployed or wherever in training, whatever it is. And then you ask for help, you don't get that help. What do you turn to naturally? Drugs, alcohol to numb pain. You go out, you drive, you get a DUI. So instead of just putting you on that regular court track, the VA, the treatment court would pair you up with a veteran mentor, and then that mentor would keep you on track, and then you would go if you successfully completed the core or the treatment court, they would do called a delayed sentence, where it would wipe your report record clean. And so I said, I'm just sitting there and listening to the judge speak, and she was a great judge. Her husband was a Vietnam veteran sniper, and so she she got it. I mean, she she lived, she you talked about lived experiences. That man was waking up at night and still thinking he was deployed and this and that. And I it hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm like, 99 times out of a hundred, a veteran doesn't just wake up one day and say, you know what, I'd really like to kill myself today. I mean, it is a succession of steps that need to happen where that veteran gets to such a low point in their life where they feel like suicide is just a viable option. What vet life does, what the Battle Buddy app does, is we're trying to empower you to the point where you never feel alone or desperate. Because if you're gonna go out and look for your benefits and nobody calls you back, somebody puts you on hold, somebody says they're gonna email you, after a while, you're just like, fuck it. And then these veterans that are committing suicide, you know, I don't really buy into this whole, you know, a lot of these men and women are non-VHA connected. I bet you if you really strip back the layers of that onion, you'd find a veteran that tried to become VHA connected, get the services that they wanted and deserved, and were just turned away. And so I'm not saying I'm gonna save every single veteran in the world, but at the very least, if I can just provide a tool for them to be able to be their own best advocates, that's gonna reduce the veteran suicide rate.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. Yeah. And in my opinion, one of the biggest things is connection. We we have a false sense of disconnected from everybody. When in reality, when you when you open up the aperture and actually look and start paying attention, you got a whole list of people that love you. They're just waiting to for you to reach out or for you guys to reconnect. Everybody that I've met, everybody that I've talked to in crisis, all share the same thing. No one gives a fuck about me. I'm so alone. Like I have nobody in my corner. I'm like, dude, trust me. I I mean it's hard. It is hard to break through that and let people know, like, no, man, you're not alone. It's just right now it feels like it. But that's that's just one of the things that I've been able to pick up, pick out and understand myself uh from just reflecting on my own journey. Like, we we like to think that our suffering encompasses everything, and we're so alone and isolated when reality is it's like you got brothers right there. Like, and there's so many ways for us to connect now. Um, is there any any thought process in in maybe developing some way to create a small community, whether it's through Discord or adding a feature in the app?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and so that's a great question. Um, and yes, so the problem is, and you hit the nail on the head, when you when you create something, every single shady human being in this world is gonna come out and try to make money off of your idea. And so I want to be very aware that it and I'm gonna say something, and it's probably gonna piss some people off, but I mean, again, it's just my opinion. I feel like sometimes veterans are our own worst enemies. Like we go, we eat each other. I mean, what we don't uh we do uplift each other to a certain degree, but I mean, we shouldn't be we shouldn't be dogging on each other the way that I see on social media, the way that I see honestly in the communities as well. I mean, to me, if you served, you served, you know, at the end of the day, I don't give a shit if you were a Navy SEAL or if you were a cook in the military. At the end of the day, we should be supporting each other and lifting each other up. So I want to answer your question. It's it's really difficult to create a community in a sense. What I found is the most successful uh way that a uh a community was started was through a gaming community, and it was through this regiment gaming, this Chris Earl. Yeah, yeah, and Chris, Chris is a Marine Corps veteran, and those those men and women pick each other up. I mean, they don't say shit negative about each other whatsoever. So I've been talking with Chris. Chris just blew up recently, um, with you know his his business and whatnot. But if I could replicate something like that or just put regiment on the app, I mean that is to me the way that I I would like to go.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's one of the things that I'm I'm working on building out uh because with gaming, um, Discord and gaming, just like Twitch, they go hand in hand. Um shit. This whole podcast, this whole thing started with Discord. Uh that's how we used to record and and do our podcast was through Discord. Uh, shout out to you, Craig, my AI bot. Love you, dog. Yeah, it's it's such a great tool and resource. And what I realized, like people gather around their computers, whether you like it or not, whether you fucking think it's dumb or not. I could easily, if I haven't been able to get a hold of certain friends, there's a couple. Eric, you're one. I gotta reconnect with you. Um fuck, Eric.

SPEAKER_00:

Come on, dog. Come on, man.

SPEAKER_02:

Who the fuck, man? I know I can get, I know I can get on Discord right now and see what video game he's played. Um, it's probably um Ancient Vampires. Uh we're we're I gotta get back on that. That's neither here nor there. I'm just saying the the technology has advanced, gaming has become a very uh important thing for all of us. I just talking to a lot of one of my friend Greg the other day, and it's like I'm 41 years old, and I'm still chasing the high of playing Halo Reach with four of my friends. Yeah, like that's just that's just one of the things. And Discord is a great tool that I want to try to plug in, uh, bring it back to my podcast audience, bring it back to people because it's the community thing. Like we can tune in, we can talk, we we can have these great conversations, but I want to dive deep. If I want to be able to engage with the audience and be able to say, hey, who wants to connect with Josh? Who wants to bring him in and do a uh you know 15, 25 minutes of just ask Josh questions? Yeah. We can't do that on uh, you know, we can go YouTube live, but a lot of people aren't gonna tune in. But if we do a Discord thing, uh that's one of the things that I realize. A lot of people are online, they're they live in these spaces, and we need to stop shitting on it. We need to also do a better job of ripping each other down, man. Because that's that's right. Building a community with veterans comes with a lot of risk.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Christ, I mean, yeah, don't get me started. And I some of the best memories I have is with those people, but after you leave, I don't know, life happens. I'll just say life happens, and you know, but yeah, we we can't we gotta stop tearing each other down. That's just getting ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, man, I I gotta ask you, man. You know, one of the big things that we always cover is is mental health, taking care of ourselves. You know, when we're chasing big dreams, it can become a distraction in itself. You grew up in an environment that a lot of people don't understand, the hardships, the struggles. How have you navigated going through and dealing with all the things that you carry in that uh, you know, rucksack?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Um, not well at times. Uh I'll I'll say that. Um, I I tend to have uh something called imposter syndrome sometimes, where I don't believe that I deserve to be. Welcome to the club. Yeah. I don't believe I deserve to be where I'm at today. And I was spreading myself so thin. And I mean it's it's back here. I remember the time, but I hope it never comes back here. Um, I was fishing with my friend um on the Manistee River. We were catching a steelhead or salmon or something, and all of a sudden, I don't know what it was. I just it was like a a light switch flipped on and off, and I just said, I don't want to be here anymore. I I don't want to, I don't know what happened, and I still to this day, but I I got in my truck and I drove two hours home and I didn't get out of my bed for about seven days. And that was when my nine-year-old daughter, she was just a baby, and my wife picked up the slack. I mean, she was an absolute rock star. And I'm fortunate. I actually so I went to the I called the VA, they said, can't get you in for about three, four months. I called a local provider, and I think she's I think she heard the desperation in my voice. Like, I if you don't get me in here, I'm probably not gonna be here tomorrow. And she said, Honey, why don't you come in right now? And I I went in there and like my blood pressure was like 190 over 110 or whatever it was. She's like, baby, you gotta you gotta calm down. And so they diagnosed me, um, got me on the right medication, and I still to this day, I don't know why I snapped. My wife thinks it's because, like I said, I put so much on my plate. And every time you help another person, you take a little bit of that person with you, and it was to the point where I mean, we were losing people left and right to suicide. A guy that I knew just had a he had a daughter, uh, and he took her to a monster truck in Detroit, uh, a monster truck show. The very next day he jumped in his truck and he drove out to I think Holly, Michigan, sat on a park bench and he shot himself. And those are just like things and things and things, and they compounded. And I'm like, I I just tell myself now, I know that I'm not here to save anybody. I'm just hoping that we can help provide tools. So, no, to answer your question, I mean people I laugh internally sometimes. They're like, man, you really got your shit together. And I'm like, not really, you know, there's some times where I don't think I got my shit together. But anyway, you know, that's like it's brutal honesty, man. Yeah, that's the only way I want to live my life any anyway moving forward.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, brother, and that's part of the that's part of the discussion, being vulnerable enough to share and let people know, like, hey man, like you never know what someone's going through. Yeah. I I'm on this other side of the camera where I can say, like, yeah, I'm I'm struggling with my sleep again. I'm I'm struggling with all these things. But my prayer life is good. I don't drink, I don't smoke. I I'm fortunate enough to have real life tools that now help me understand stress, anxiety, breathing. Like I have all these things and resources that I actively get to teach and coach and promote with other people because guess what? Just like in the military, you don't the best way to learn something and the best way to stay proficient in a task is to teach it. Yeah. And that doesn't mean that tomorrow I won't struggle. That doesn't mean that in a couple more weeks or something will happen and then I'll I'll be back to a place where I'll have to go back in and check in with a a professional and start walking that path again. Life is a journey. Mental health is a journey. You gotta take care of yourself. You gotta carve out a little bit of time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Meditation, I'll tell you, meditation for me um has changed my life. I mean, my doing those breathing techniques, breathe in, hold it for four seconds, breathe out, hold it for four seconds. I mean, it just calms right down. So I anybody listening to your podcast, that stuff really does work.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah. It's out there for a reason, man. It's been successful. And here's it, here's the thing. If you're and I always love it because it's always, it's always my grunts, it's always my combat guys. It's always my our community of like the dudes that have done the worst. Now fucking seal, fucking sniper, ranger, fucking dude, all this shit. I'm like, guess what? You've done breath work. No, I haven't. You're a dive guy? Yeah, yeah, I'm a fucking dive guy. Or you're a sniper? Fuck yeah, I'm a sniper. Okay, well, somebody taught you box breathing before. Somebody taught you how to pause, inhale, come up off the gun, come up off glass, and just breathe. If you're struggling today, just fucking box breathe, man. Same thing as bobbing. Stop panicking, reach out for help. You're not alone. You're not. We tell ourselves we are. I did it for a really long time, and I I know, Josh, you told yourself the same thing. But take a knee, relax, face out, drink water, pull the security halt. Oh, the name of the show. Understand you're not alone. There are real tools out there, and here's one right now, I'll give it to you for free. Check out the Battle Buddy app. Link to it will be in the episode description. I'd really appreciate it if you download it, check it out. Because the truth is, no matter how much I advocate for it, no matter how much I talk about it, it's your fight. I'm gonna be there. Josh is gonna be there, but at the end of the day, I can't get your gun up. You've got to do that yourself. You gotta do remedial action, gotta do immediate action. You gotta get your gun back up. Get back in the fight. And one of the best ways to do it is take a little step, download that app, and if you need to, reach out, down 998, text, talk, connect with somebody, get whatever you're carrying off your chest and just breathe for five minutes, and then do it again, and then do it again. I'm telling you, today it might be your roughest day. It might be the toughest thing today, but tomorrow it's gonna be better. Just take it one day at a time. Josh, I can't thank you enough for being here and for building something that is helping so many people.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh, and I I'm telling you, I I want you on the radio show as well. I mean, it is men. Yeah, yeah, 100%. And I I'll tell you, this is one of the best podcasts I've done in a very, very long time. Uh, and it I I love being I'm not even sure the right term for it. You know, I did I love being open about things that are a little taboo with people.

SPEAKER_02:

So it's the only way we're gonna freaking help, man. It's the only way that you know, I'll tell you, man, none of this knowledge was just given to me by the ether. I went out there and I read. I read Brene Brown, all these books that to us, the warrior culture, the warrior tribe says is lame, stupid, retarded. The greatest healers out there aren't from our community. Right. You gotta open up your horizon, be willing to read some books by Kristen Neff, an amazing author and a person that talks about radical self-compassion. Because pride fleeing, man. You you fail at school, where does your pride go? Right down the drain. You fail at work, or you're, or worse, your team sergeant fucking just tells you and rips you a new one that you suck. Been there. That oh, that sucks. But what happens when you don't have that that pride, that self-pride? You gotta have self-compassion. You gotta be able to tell yourself, it's gonna get better. You're still a good human being, you're still a great individual. Tomorrow's a new day. That's just a freebie. You can take that one today. Go check it out. You know what? I'll put the link to Chris and Neff's book in there. And also check out Chris um uh Brene Brown. Great author, great social worker. And 90% of the things that I learned that helped me get better came from her works. Um, and I know it's not sexy, it's not cool, it's not jocko, it wasn't, it wasn't uh, it wasn't Goggins that got me out of my pit. It was a little blonde lady talking about taking, you know, a moment to reflect on what I was going through, my suffering, and understand that, dude, you're not alone. You're not alone. Call, reach out, do it again, 850-376-8101. If you're really suffering and you need somebody to talk to, hit me up. I will pick up. I have a little one now, so maybe it's gonna be on vibrate late at night, but I will try to pick it up. If you just want to email me, setcallpodcast at gmail.com. Please don't send me nudes to the phone or the email.

SPEAKER_00:

Please just reach out if you need support. You know, people are gonna start sending nudes now, though.

SPEAKER_02:

It already happened. Yeah. Guys, thank you all for tuning in. Josh, thank you for being here. But most importantly, please continue to take care of yourself and each other, and we'll see y'all next time. Until then, take care. SecureDob Podcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head up the episode description and check out Titan's Arms today.

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Deny Caballero

Host