Greg Grogan - Episode 886

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And if you wanna hear more about 511, who they stand for and who works with them, listen to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with 511 regional director, Will Ayers. Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name's James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show Marine veteran, law enforcement officer and co-founder of the Overwatch Collective, Greg Grogan.

Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from his journey into the military, entering the world of policing, identifying the need for mental health help amongst his own professions, the creation of the Overwatch Collective, finding culturally competent clinicians, addressing the financial needs and so much more.

Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find. And this is a free library of almost 900 episodes now.

So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them. So with that being said, I introduce to you, Greg Grogan. Enjoy. Well Greg, I want to start by saying, thank you to really multiple people that reached out and suggested that you and I finally come together and do an interview. So I want to thank everyone from DDF, from Team and all of you who are out there.

everyone from DD Finder to Sam, to all the other people that have kind of reminded me of your project and your work. And I also wanna welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today. I appreciate it James. I'm super excited to be here. I know it's been a long time coming and I appreciate the opportunity to come on and talk a little bit. So where on planet earth we finding you today? So on planet earth, I am about 30 minutes south of San Francisco. Beautiful.

I would love to start at the very beginning of your timeline. So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings. Yeah, so I was born in Millbury, California, which is about 10 minutes south of San Francisco. I was born into a military and law enforcement family. Mom, dad still together. Dad's been a police officer for over 40 years, did over 20 years in the military.

Mom worked at a school and then was fortunate enough to be able to retire early. So she had more time to go shoe shopping and go to home goods and go to the store. And then I have one brother who's four years older than me. His name's Jeff and he's a firefighter down in Southern California. Whereabouts in Southern California, roughly. So he's, it's near Pasadena. So he's a fire captain down there. So he's been a firefighter for about 10 years now, just hit his 10 year mark.

He's married to his wife and then they just had a beautiful little girl. So I'm an uncle now officially. Congratulations. Yeah, I used to live up in Burbank, which wasn't too far from Pasadena. So as the son of not only a veteran, but a police officer, having this mental health lens that you have now at your age, when you look back, did your father have any struggles of his own between those two careers? Not that I saw at a younger age.

I think now as I've transitioned to what we're doing at the Overwatch Collective and learning more about it, he's done multiple deployments overseas when my brother and I were younger. So I know that took a toll on not only just him, but my mom, my brother and myself. And then also as a police officer, he obviously saw everything that we see as first responders and missed family events and had to deal with some unfortunate suicide amongst his friends within his community.

What about career calls? I mean, 40 years is a long time. What are some of the big responses that he had in those four decades? So he actually wrote a book. So it's all in his book. So it's called The Grogan Store. And he talks all about, he talks about his time as a police officer. And he shares some of the funny stories and then he shares some of the serious ones in addition to his time in the military. But no major calls stick out to me. All right. Well, then what about athletics and sports?

What were you playing when you were young? So my brother and I grew up riding dirt bikes. So you throw me on two wheels and I'm on the dirt bike. So you throw me on two wheels and I'm a happy man. Anything from a Harley to a BMX bike to a dirt bike. I'm fortunate to be one of the motorcycle officers at my police department now. And you can't pay me enough money to be on a Harley and be working. I absolutely love it. So started riding dirt bikes at a young age. I still currently do ride.

And then I ran track and field. So I always make the joke, it's kind of like NASCAR. I just ran left the entire time, no right turns. And I feel like my neck just is like constantly to the left a little bit because I was just running in circles. What about the discipline within track and field? Were you a short distance athlete or a long distance? Right in between. So it was the 800 meter run. So I am not a good sprinter at all. That's why I like at work. I don't chase after people.

I'll use the radio and set up a perimeter. I'm not fast at sprinting whatsoever. I prefer the longer distances runs where I specialized in the 800 meter, just the two laps around the track. And it was like one of those ones where it starts and it's done quick, but also there's a lot going on in that short little like two minutes. It's been funny. My son is a miler and he's kind of finding himself being brought more into the 800 as well.

And the way that the long distance athletes and the sprinters talk to each other in his track team reminds me so much of like police and fire or structural fire and wildland fire. Like, oh, I could never do what you do. So that the sprinters don't want to run a mile. And as you said, the milers know that they're going to be somewhat humiliated if they do 100 meter hurdle with some of their colleagues. Yeah, you're just getting smoked.

I know I do not miss the days of doing like the long runs though, where it was like, all right, today we're going to run five miles and then do abs. And you're like, nope, I'm good. Anything after two miles, I'm checked out. Now, what about career aspirations? You had a mother in education, a father in law enforcement. What were your career goals when you were in the school age?

I pretty much, I always say, I think I came out of the womb knowing I was going to be in the military and a first responder. I wasn't the brightest in school at all. I was always one of the ones where the teachers had to tell me like, either you pass this or you're going to fail the class. Or my progress reports were always on the fridge at the house and my grades and getting a C on my science test was great because I passed the damn thing. Like that was me. I was not that great of a student.

And I knew at the age of 18, I wanted to join the military. And then fourth generation law enforcement in my family. So I think I always knew I was going to be a police officer. So how did you find yourself choosing the Marine Reserves? So, you know, like whenever you get young individuals that are like, okay, I want to join the military, you originally start off thinking infantry, right? Where you're like, okay, you're going to join the Marine Corps to go infantry.

And where you have a gun, you're going to go shoot, you're going to get deployed. You never know, but that's the exciting stuff. And I really wish I could have done four years active duty at least to get that active duty experience time. But I also knew I wanted to be in the police academy around 20 and a half to 21 years of age.

So I decided to do a six year contract in the Marine Corps Reserve with the hopes of potentially doing a deployment before I became a cop, even though it didn't really work out that way. So I should have asked you this before. A lot of us wearing uniform in this generation, you know, were somewhat inspired by the events of 9-11. How old were you when that happened? And what was the impact of that? Well, how did that day unfold for you?

Yeah, so I was, I think I was in third grade and it was in the morning. And I remember I was in class and I was at like a point in my life where I didn't really realize like the the drastic impact that 9-11 had on our country until my dad started to get activated and was deployed for it. But I think it made a lot of us like frustrated, obviously.

And then when I did become older and I watched movies and documentaries about 9-11 and really seeing the impact that it had on our country, it was like, okay, Marine Corps infantry it is. So going back to your dad for a second, I think this is an important part of the mental health conversation is that people that are able to process the trauma in their careers, you know, in a healthy way. And I've talked about this quite a bit.

I had, I mean, I guess a normal amount of trauma growing up from parents' divorce, almost dying in a house fire when I was four, but then I also had, I would argue, equal amounts of the very things that you need to process trauma from growing up around my dad healing animals to being in nature on a farm and all the things that we identify are now helping our people that are struggling.

When you look back now, or even in conversations with your father, what were the elements of his life that allowed him to have such a fruitful career and process the things that he saw and did? I think it was our vacations and our time on the dirt bikes. I know we would try to go on as many vacations as possible. My family really liked going on cruises and spending time with our family and friends.

And then whenever we got the opportunity, my brother, my dad and I would go ride dirt bikes for a day or two. And that was kind of his like outlet. And now I see how important that was for his career to have an outlet because nowadays where everybody's so short staffed, you get that opportunity to go mountain biking, go hiking with your dog. You don't get those healthy outcomes, those healthy coping mechanisms.

And so I think that's one of the things that I see that benefited him throughout his career. Beautiful. And what about during that time? Was it a time where there was a lot of extra work forced over time, et cetera, or was he able to do the hours that were allocated to him? And then that allowed him to spend more time with you guys at home. Yeah, I think, yeah, that's right. There was not much mandated overtime.

I know the politics have changed a lot where it was the whole unfortunate defunding where we lost a lot of personnel. And now there's still a lot of departments that are very short staffed and doing a minimum of 24 hours of overtime of paycheck where back then during his time, I don't remember him ever having to work forced overtime unless it was your normal sick call, we need someone to come in. And when I was growing up, he was a sergeant, probably when I was like 10 years old.

So he wasn't really doing much of like the special details or the mandated overtime. And you mentioned cruises as well. It's funny, like I said, I'm a farm boy from England originally, but one of the best things that I do is go on a cruise. We live in Florida, so the ports are everywhere on our doorstep and there's a discount because you live here. But from the outside looking in, it looks like an old person's thing, go on there and gamble, but you can literally not pay any of the internet fees.

Your phone will be completely unusable by that point. People cook for you, people clean for you, and you can truly, truly just decompress and be present with your family. So through your kind of younger perspective, what was your experience with cruising specifically? Yeah, I loved it. And back then I think I was like, I think we did like eight cruises total as a family and my parents would go on some cruises by themselves.

But yeah, I mean, I still look back on it now and it was some of the best vacations and like my cousins would come, my aunt and uncles and my grandma was always there. And I think like that, and then also like being in the mountains somewhere where you don't have service, it's so beneficial now because our community, especially our younger generation, they're all on like TikTok, everybody's on their phones, right?

Like, and it's just good to have a break from your phone and not be able to use it whatsoever. And then, but yeah, I just like cruises are my favorite vacation because you're eating really good food, you're drinking. Some people do work out and exercise. I have not really found that skill yet on a cruise, but I thoroughly enjoy it. Absolutely, yeah.

I just, I literally play with the weights on a cruise because it's hard to have your normal routine because there's not bumper plates and all kinds of stuff lying around because they would be rolling everywhere. So you gotta be a little bit more imaginative. So I just kind of go in there and just lift some random things, get the blood pumping a little bit and the treadmills and stuff are usually looking over the back of the ship too.

So you're literally watching the ocean as you're running, walking, climbing stairs, whatever it is. Yeah, it's very peaceful. I love it. And it's clinically proven like being by the ocean is beneficial for you. 100%, yeah. We normally get the balcony rooms so that you have that little space and you're just watching the ocean go by. Well, I digress as far as cruises are back onto the career journey.

When you entered the Marines and you started doing the bootcamp, how much did the motocross and the track factor into your success at that point? I don't really know about the motocross part of it.

Maybe the track more than anything because obviously it's a very physical, like you join any branch of the United States Armed Forces and when you go to your basic training or bootcamp, you're expected to be in pretty decent shape going into it, but it's still always a kick in the ass because there are other variables in addition to just going for a run or just doing burpees, pushups and sit-ups where you're also screaming nonsense at the top of your lungs while you're getting yelled at.

So there's not really much preparation that you can do for it, but there were some pretty intense physical training, individual training with a rifle or just holding up a water bottle for three, four, five minutes with your arm parallel to the deck and you have people that are like crying. It was pretty remarkable to see. Now you mentioned not deploying. Where did you find yourself assigned then in those six years?

Yeah, so we did a unit deployment program through my unit and I actually extended my contract from six years to seven years just so I can attend because there was no way I was gonna spend six years in the Marine Corps or my entire time in the Marine Corps and not deploy anywhere, whether it was combat or just a training deployment and actually use those skills that I've learned.

So when I found out that we had a unit deployment program going to Okinawa, Japan, I was like, okay, I'm extending my contract and it wasn't anything crazy. It was no combat. I've never been in combat before, disclaimer. I'm not one of those guys that pretends that I was in combat and saw a bunch of stuff. I did not get to do any of that, but yeah. So I was in Okinawa, Japan.

We were at Camp Fuji, so the base of Mount Fuji for a little while doing joint training with the Japanese Defense Force and it was good.

When Okinawa comes up, I lived in Japan for 15 months doing stunts years ago, but when I think of Okinawa, I think of what they refer to as one of the blue zones and whether people think that's a legitimate philosophy or not, there seems to be a lot of truth that removing the military bases, of course, that the native Okinawans seem to be extremely healthy and I think it's the highest dense, most densely populated, the centenarians, I think 100 year old people per capita.

And you look at the documentary footage, it's not just the way they're eating. They're literally childlike. They still have that sense of play. Did you get any sort of kind of perspective on that while you were assigned there? Yeah, and we were very fortunate because we did get quite a bit of time off. I was over there for Christmas and New Year's and we got a 96, so we got four days off.

So hopped on a train really quick and took a two hour ride out to Tokyo and got to spend both weekends there. And it was really cool to see the difference in the culture over there than in America, where I've kind of just been born and raised in this little like bubble near San Francisco. And it was so clean over there. That's one of the things that comes to mind. Like there was no trash whatsoever.

Everybody, like if you had trash, you essentially put it in your pocket until you go to the next store or next restaurant to throw it away. But everybody was nice. It was busy, like going to Shibuya, Tokyo. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had a great time and I'd love to go back. So during this time, as you mentioned, you're not deployed certainly into combat. Were you aware of the mental health element at all during that period of your life within the Marine specifically?

Not really, no. And that's kind of the common theme. And I think maybe it is starting to get better now. I know I've been out of the Marine Corps for a little bit and currently now I'm in the Coast Guard where we do discuss mental health a little bit more than especially my time in the Marine Corps.

Where no, I didn't really think about, hey, this is my first time away from my family as a young adult, missing Christmas, missing New Year's, missing family events, and then like relationship problems with my friends that I was in in the platoon. And there's a lot that goes on. And it being my first deployment, I didn't really have any resources available to me. I didn't like actively look at them and take any proactive steps. I didn't even really think about my mental health whatsoever.

So at what point did you join the civilian law enforcement then? That was 21. So I started the academy when I was 20 and a half. And in the state of California, you have to be 21 to be able to carry a firearm. So I was one of the youngest ones in my police academy. And that was the ultimate goal was to become a police officer as soon as possible because that's what I knew I was gonna do. And at the front door of that department, firstly, was there a mental health conversation?

No. And what year was this? That was 2015 or 2014. End of 2014, early 2015 is when I graduated the academy. And we didn't have mental health training. There was no learning domain in our books in regards to mental health like they do now. And each state in the country is different in regards to their training and how many hours they have to hit for a certain topic. So now I believe it's eight hours in the state of California during the academy that you have to do in regards to mental health.

I feel like it was around 2015 that that conversation really came to the forefront here in Florida. And I think it was a chief danger field, he was a local, he was Italian chief, and he took his own life and he made a Facebook post right before. And that particular thing seemed to take off. I think obviously that was the platform a lot of people were using at the time. I started the podcast in 2016.

So it seems like when you came on, it was right just before the beginning of this wave that we're seeing has kind of grown exponentially today. Yeah, and it's great to see that there is growth in regards to the mental health and mental wellness for not only our first responder community, but our military community as well. And especially now the last three years being involved in a nonprofit organization that's focusing on mental health.

And it's a lot of people say it's starting to get better, which it is, but we're still way behind. And the times I think. What about fitness standards, combatives and the weapons side? When you first joined the department, were you compared to the nation more progressive? Were you a median or were you behind? In regards to the, you said the weapons? Yeah, the fitness standards, combatives, weapons, the kind of proactive conversations that we're talking also a lot more now.

Yeah, I think we were above standard in that aspect in regards to everything, the firearms training, the defensive tactics, the domestic violence training, everything like the state of California does really good training through our peace officer standard and training. And it's tough. And the same thing goes for our firefighters and our dispatchers. Like we have pretty good training here, which I'm happy about.

Yeah, I gotta say, I was trained in Orlando, worked in Hialeah just north of Miami, which is a great department, but woefully under supported and woefully underfunded. Then I went to Anaheim for a few years and was blown away because I agree. In my fire journey that I've had, Anaheim, California, was the pinnacle of my career.

And no disrespect to the men and women that were phenomenal in other departments I worked for, but collectively as an entire department, it was head and shoulders above the other ones. So I can understand that California lens you're talking about. Yeah, and I hear it from a lot of people too.

And you see the body worn cam videos now, which I think is a general thing across the entire country now where every single police officer is carrying a body worn camera and you have to activate it for every single call for service.

And a lot of those on social media that you see that are in the state of California, you really do start to see, in my opinion, the difference of the training, the comfort level, the staying calm under pressure, but then also the use of force side of things as well in California kind of differs from other states. So in that aspect, I'm fortunate to be a police officer in California. Now, why do you think that is?

I mean, obviously the learning curve, for example, of LAPD, with the violence that that city has endured for several decades now, has definitely pushed the standard. And obviously you have the other side, rampart scandals and that kind of thing that's also moving the needle. Why do you think the state of California has been able to kind of accelerate that side a little bit more than some of the other states? That's a good question. That is a good question.

Yeah, I think maybe because the Rodney King definitely with LAPD kind of set the standard for that, where it was like, okay, we are never doing this again, because that was bad. But I don't really have a solid answer for you on that one. I don't know the whole, the politics behind it or whoever runs things where they're like, hey, I want super high standards, but ultimately I'm pretty happy with where we're at.

Now, I wanna walk through obviously to the point where you decided to become part of the solution when it came to the mental health side, but in your career, just in general, we talk about your dad, what about some of the career calls that you've had so far? One that comes to mind is a call for service at a KFC. And it's kind of in like a little bit of a ghetto area where it's a lot of narcotics are being used, a lot of firearms, stolen vehicles.

And you kind of see like the crime rate in that area is pretty high. And it was a pretty busy night and my buddy and I got a call for service and we're on the complete opposite side of town where it was a gentleman inside of the KFC waving a sword around with a bunch of patrons inside of the business. And I was pretty young in addition to my partner, we were young, we were both on probation and we just got released to the weekend graveyard team.

And of course we hear this call come out and after doing the job for a few years, you're like, okay, like I don't need to drive like Mach 3 with my hair on fire, like I'm in a blue angel, you know, like I can get there safely, make sure I stop at all the red lights. Well, that did not apply for me and my buddy. We did not learn that part of being a police officer yet. So you think you turn on the lights and siren and you are just good to go, right?

So lights and siren come on, we dispatch ourselves and while we're in route to the call, we're going through like the heavily populated areas within the city, not stopping for red lights whatsoever and just literally just going right through them. I'll touch on that part later because we got kind of in trouble for that.

So end up pulling up to the call, get into the parking lot and seeing the individual walking towards us, appear to be having some sort of psychiatric episode and or under the influence of narcotics. And he literally had a samurai sword in his hand and was walking towards us. The sword was in his right hand and he had it over his shoulder. So it looked like it was wound up a little bit and immediately get out of the car, get behind some cover and we're drawing our firearms.

So it's just me and my buddy at this point and we're giving him commands to get on the ground and this is where our training kind of kicked in, where my buddy gave him commands and then I was just like super focused on where he was, if he attacked us, how many times I would have to shoot, our backdrop and where the patrons were inside of the business. And ultimately he kind of kept walking towards us, kept walking towards us and not listened to any of our commands whatsoever.

And it got to the point where I had my finger on the trigger and I started taking out the slack in my trigger, where I hit the wall in the trigger where I was ready to break off a shot if I needed to. And in my head and my buddy told me this at the same time or at a later time, but he had the same thought in his head where he was like, if this person makes another three steps, we're using deadly force. This is kind of where it comes into.

And he took two steps and then he dropped the knife and we were able to take him into custody. So that was one of my crazy calls as a younger officer that when someone asked me like, what's your like kind of career call, that's pretty much it, but it was close. And then we're winding back to driving lights and siren thinking that you're the greatest thing in the world and yet you can do no wrong.

My buddy and I were playing follow the leader where I went through the stoplight first in this heavily populated area, probably at like 50 miles an hour. And my sergeant at the time was stopped at that light ready to clear that intersection to go to the call. And he said, he just like saw us drive by and was like whoosh, whoosh, like it was NASCAR. So he pulls up to the call and he's like, hey, good job guys, good job. But if you ever drive that fast again or I see you, I will have your ass.

And we're like, copy that sergeant, like copy that. So one of the career calls. That is something that, obviously I think is misunderstood by young first responders. And as you do the training, I mean, in the fire service, we have the, oh my God, I've forgotten the acronym now. But anyway, we do the ambulance training. We do, when I was in Hialeah, we actually did the skid pan and the cruiser and all that stuff too.

And then later in my career, they'd have an SUV that had these little kind of wheel racks on each of the wheels and it would kind of pick up the car and therefore simulate sliding. So you did a lot of driver training and then you had engine and you had the tiller truck and all these other things. But first see that understanding that you're asking permission to go through that red light that you are coming to a stop, no matter what you're responding to.

But secondly, when we're not responding, and I find this in law enforcement, and I wanna get to this topic in a second, using your blinker, not riding the ass of the car in front, because I'd locally, I will call out local police here, they drive like fucking asshole sometimes. I'm like, you are supposed to be the example for especially these young drivers.

And if you're not using your blinker and you're not, I'm talking not going cold, I'm talking normal, then how the hell can you tell anyone else that they shouldn't be doing this? And until we fix the standards of driving in this country, we're gonna continue having all these deaths on the road. Yeah, I agree. And that's where a lot of our complaints come into play, where it's like, hey, I just saw a cruiser 46 drive by me and then cut me off.

And it's a simple phone call to the department and make a complaint with a supervisor where, I mean, you're literally, you're in a black and white police car sometimes, all black, whatever, but it says, New York Police Department on the side, there's no getting away from it. But there are definitely a lot of officers who are injured responding to calls or just driving normally.

And I will say to all my ambulance drivers out there, you are the best code three drivers ever because I've never really responded to an ambulance traffic collision while driving code three. You don't really hear about it that much. And they come to complete stops at every single intersection and they clear left and right each lane.

And then they proceed where cops, you kind of think that you're the greatest thing in the world and that you're untouchable, which is kind of correlates to mental health here. And I can discuss that later, but where you think you're untouchable, where you're like, oh, no, whatever, I'm good. I got blue and red lights on the top of the siren and you start to see some bad accidents. Absolutely, well, what was really interesting about your resume is you are also in major accident investigation.

I wrote a book three years ago and one of the chapters was basically deaths on the road. And every chapter was like a story of my career. And then it would go into kind of lessons learned takeaways and what I've learned from the real experts in the world. But when you start exploring the accidents in America, I forget, I always forget, I need to look it up. But it's either five or six million accidents a year, 40,000 people die on our roads every single year.

And then obviously you don't have to be an expert to figure out that must mean hundreds of thousands of people left with life altering injuries per year. Yet I've been here over 20 years now. I have never seen a governing agency, a politician or anyone talk about changing the way that we educate our drivers so we can make our roads safer.

We just put up more speed bumps, more signs, more, oh, so-and-so died here with some flowers, but we don't seem to get the proactive element of why, why do we have, I think it's something like a 10th of the deaths in the UK, something like that. It's a fraction and that's again per capita. So that's apples to apples.

So with you having this kind of background of investigating specifically the roads themselves, what's your take of the overall death toll and have you had any thoughts about how we change that? Yeah, and it is crazy to see how many collisions are out there. Now we see a lot of vehicles with dash cam videos.

So in additions to video surveillance footage, which are on the buildings or the red light cameras that you have at major intersections and you see some of these collisions and it's crazy the amount of people that are on their cell phones.

I think that's one of the big things and I'm guilty of it, trust me, guilty of being on my phone while I'm driving, even in a patrol car, there are times where we're allowed to use our phones while we're driving if it's for work purposes, but I still feel bad when someone pulls up next to me and I'm in a patrol car and I'm on my cell phone and they look at me, I just feel like, I just wanna like crumble up in a ball and be like, I promise it's work related, you know?

And then also you're on the computer and you're driving with your left knee and you're leaning over and using the computer to read a call or type something, it's not good. But yeah, I would honestly say like my two big things are, we have to figure out some way that when you turn your vehicle on, your cell phone shuts off. That's my big thing because I could easily go work a traffic detail and I can get 25 cell phone citations in one 10 hour shift.

Like it's easy to the point where you cannot, you can't even finish out writing a ticket and then there's already two other vehicles that passed you that are on their cell phone. So in my opinion, there needs to be something that shuts off your cell phone the moment your vehicle starts. You know, with Apple and all these iPhone 25s that they're at, with all this technology that we have, there has to be some sort of solution to that. And that's my number one.

And then number two, I think there should be a governor on some of the vehicles in my opinion, where we can't see vehicles on the freeway going over 90, you know, like there's gotta be something in regards to that. So those are my two. Well, those are both asking technology to fix the problem though. What I observed in the UK, the driving test is so hard that usually people have to do it two or three times before they pass it.

You know, there's this huge written test, but then the skills test, if you have to do it near perfectly because you have been practicing this, you should be amazing at it. So, you know, roundabouts and reversing around corners and hill starts and all the things, and you know, usually in a stick shift as well in a manual car. And so they just set the bar extremely high because we have narrow little roads, no medians, you know, country lanes, you know, it's very, very hilly in that country.

So they're teaching us to be able to drive, you know, safely enough to be on a road, you know, and it's 17 is when we get our license as well. So then I compare what I witnessed when I took my Florida driving test, where I genuinely hand on my heart, thought it was the warmup, and then we were about to do the real test and they say, congratulations, you passed. Around, you know, literally a parking lot, few suburban neighborhoods, and then came back. And I'm like, what in the fuck was that?

You know, and again, it's just simply, you know, you've been held, it's like the fire service, like Anaheim, when you've been held at a high standard, you never wanna go backwards. And this was like way backwards. Then fast forward, I become a firefighter and see death after death, after death, after death. And you're like, this is, you know, they say insanity is doing the same thing, you know, expecting different results.

In 22 years in America, I've never seen any even discussion about making our tests harder, or maybe even raising the age a little bit. So from the human perspective, from the test standard perspective, what are your thoughts on, you know, changing the way that we teach, actually teaching, because I mean, we seem to be reactive. Here's how to operate this machine, but we don't seem to teach why use a blinker, why you actually, you know, hold distance, how the weather changes the way you do.

You know, in sharing the road rather than trying to win the race on the road, all those seem to kind of be lost on a lot of people. Yeah, and I think it's a generational thing, honestly, where we're such in a rush. Everybody is in a rush where you're coming up to a four-way lighted intersection and you see it turn yellow and you're like, nope, hard on the accelerator, and you're trying to go through and like taking the risks.

But I think something that I experienced in high school where the local California Highway Patrol did avoid the 23 in regards to driving under the influence investigations, and they came out to our high school and put on an education block where they set up two vehicles with moderate damage to them, and they actually did like the radio dispatch of what a collision would sound like, and then it was, hey, now this is the process of what the first responder community has to go through

to notify your family and your friends that it was a fatality traffic collision or a serious injury where now you find yourself in the hospital. So, and I really, that hit home with a lot of us because you know it, right when you're starting to get your license, you know, you start drinking in high school and you start to combine the two or you're doing risky stuff and you're always on your phone.

Like, I think we need more of that going on and like throughout the process of getting your permit and your license, you need to be taking some more classes. You need to hear, like read some police reports of some fatality traffic collisions or see some videos and be like, it is not worth it. That's it. I would say more education for going out to the high schools and still like every few years, like going out to a college maybe and putting on a demonstration. Yeah, we did it.

I think I did one in California and one in Orange County if my memory serves me right. But yeah, we were basically extricating what ended up being one of their student friends that was dead, fake dead, you know, and putting the sheet over them. And, you know, some of the people watching would be in tears. So obviously, you know, it hit home. But the other thing that I think is lost is kindness and compassion.

If you think about kindness while you're driving, I'm gonna use my blinker, my indicator, because I just wanna let the person behind me know at some point, I'm gonna be putting on my brakes and turning into this road. I'm gonna be kind and I don't ride the ass of the person because God forbid a kid walks out in front of them and they wouldn't be able to stop. And then I rammed in the back of them and then they crushed that kid.

Like when you actually put that thought into people, I think that would then explain a lot of the whys. But if you just like, oh, left, right, forward, you know, stop, that's all you have to do, off you go. Here's your keys to your death machine. We're missing the reason why, for example, our freeways are a complete cluster because people will sit in the outside lane side by side with another car and everyone gets frustrated now they're having to cut around the wrong side.

It's just think about, rather than you, think about other people. You know, my actions gonna help or hinder everyone else. But in this divisive society that we found ourselves at the moment, we're getting further and further from, oh, I'm worried about other people. You know, we're told, fuck everyone else. There are different political, you know, party or whatever it is.

And this division I think is even hurting us on the roads where it's kind of me first, fuck everyone else in some people's eyes. Yeah. And especially over here, and I don't know how it is where you are, other parts of the country where we're seeing a lot of road rage incidents as well. So something super minor turns in from, hey, this person cut me off in the freeway. And now we're in the in and out parking lot. And he just pulled a firearm on me.

Or there are a lot of shootings as a result of road rage incidents. So I couldn't agree with you more. So what about before we get into some other topics, you said you should switch from Marine Corps to Coast Guard. And I know you're in the kind of law enforcement role in that too. And you said, is it maritime law enforcement? Is that right? Yeah, so it's maritime, why am I drawing a blank on it right now? It's essentially like being a law enforcement for the military. Enforcement specialist.

Yeah, there we go. I'm like, why did I just draw the biggest blank? Yeah, so when I got out of the Marine Corps, I didn't know what I was gonna do. So I kind of took a year off and I was either gonna go Air Force Security Forces. And it's kind of similar to being a police officer there as well or Coast Guard maritime enforcement specialist. I got it right that time. And my father was actually in the Coast Guard for a few years before transitioning to the United States Army.

And I've always heard good things about the Coast Guard. And even though some people like, they don't really know what the Coast Guard does or anything, when I did more research into it and met some of the people, I was like, wow, like the people generally care about you. Like you actually do get really good training and like their mission type, like for me, it seemed pretty cool. So I decided to join the Reserve Unit in San Francisco where I'm currently stationed at.

And so I'm a part of the Shoreside Security Emblem and Emeline element. Now I can't talk anymore. Where we do a lot of like the ID checks to come on base, vehicle and personnel searches. You do point defense missions. So you'll have a 50 caliber machine gun or a 240 machine gun on a post. And essentially you have your area of responsibility that you're working on and trying to protect a high value asset. And then our water side division is out in the water.

So they'll intercept a vessel or any sort of threat before we actually do have to engage. So when I learned about like the mission set and everything with the Coast Guard, I was like, okay, this is my choice. I saw, cause I got a lot of friends now that are SEALs that the SEAL community just lost to, I believe at least they were still looking for them that were doing some sort of kind of ship boarding out in the Middle East somewhere. And that's absolutely heartbreaking. Yeah, it's sad.

I know, so one of my cousins, a Navy SEAL, he just kind of got into his team. And so I was talking to him a little bit and it's sad but it really shows the like the brotherhood when you hear the story a little bit. So essentially one falls into the water and the other one was like, I'm going with you. Like I'll try to do whatever I can to save you. So yeah, it's very sad, very sad. Absolutely. When it comes to the Coast Guard, it's interesting.

You know, it seems to be the kind of redheaded stepchild of the military, but when you dive in, I mean, that's who the rescue swimmers are in the Coast Guard. And I had one of my guests was Coast Guard during 9-11 circling around what we talked about earlier. And unbeknownst to most people, there was an absolutely huge mass evacuation off the island primarily orchestrated by the Coast Guard. And they got them all off through the water, through the Hudson.

So if people haven't kind of dived into their part in 9-11, look that up, because it's incredible. And it was not only their ships, but a whole bunch of other boats just kind of all went to the shore and got all the people off. It was incredible. Yeah. And I, so one of my friends now that's at my unit was actually there for 9-11 working. He was active duty Coast Guard at the time. So hearing his stories of that, it's wild.

But that was cool to see though, them in addition to civilian boat, everything, tourist boats going there to help and everything. That was the type of compassion that we like to see. Yeah. And you saw that, I think the beginning of COVID, with some of the George Floyd stuff, a lot of people were saying, I miss 9-12. And I think we need to refine that. We all still miss that. And obviously, not the devastation that happened the day before.

And obviously the horrendous effects of years and years later and all the people we're losing in New York now because of their rescue operations. But that sense of community, that sense of coming together. And I think that by remembering not only that tragedy, but the day after how there was so much community when we're listening, I mean, I would argue the last eight years, two administrations of prying this country apart from each other, we need to refine that where we were Americans first.

Yeah. And it was granted for, yes, such a terrible incident and disaster. It was really cool to see, to look back and see the videos and the photographs of first responders, civilians wanting to help out. And it didn't matter what color your skin was, what nationality you were, if you were straight or not. Like it did not matter. They were literally just there to help each other because you were an American. And we had so many American flags out, everybody was supportive.

And then that kind of like went away and now we're back to, you know. Yeah, I think we can find our way back. But that shared suffering, I mean, to me, the shared suffering now is just the need for a real leader. And I think there's finally a realization that the system is just broken. You're gonna get the same person every four years. They'll have a blue tie, they'll have a red tie, same, you know, they're not looking out for the good of the nation.

They're not altruistic, they're not kind and compassionate. They may say they attend the Holy Building, but they don't seem to learn any of the lessons, you know. So I think that I'm hoping that we'll come together and demand, you know, firstly, community with ourselves, but also demand people that'll be at the helm that are actually worthy of that title finally. Yeah, I would love to see that. I think it would benefit everybody involved. 100%.

Well, speaking of compassion and humanity, before we get to the Overwatch specifically, were there any events, any losses that you had personally that drove you to become part of the solution when it comes to the mental health and uniform?

Yeah, and I actually just did a podcast with Brooke and shared this story, and so one of my friends, Ben, we were at the same police department together, and this is one of the shitty things with our community is that we always have to wear the mask that we're doing okay or that we're strong because we're supposed to be the big, bad, tough dudes going to all these calls, you know, and every single first responder academy and every single bootcamp or basic training,

you're taught to not show weakness. You're taught to be a hard charger where weakness, pain is weakness leaving the body. You don't wanna be weak. You don't wanna be weak. Well, if you reach out for assistance saying, hey, I'm going through a tough time, the stigma and the culture now is, hey, you're weak, or I don't wanna work with you anymore or anything of that nature. So, my friend Ben, he died by suicide jumping out of a vehicle on a freeway.

And it was completely out of the blue, just like we hear a lot about our suicides, not only within just our first responder military community, but everybody. It's always, in my opinion, like, hey, this is the last person that we ever would have thought. This was completely out of nowhere. I didn't see any signs or symptoms or anything that he or she was struggling. So, that's what I saw with Ben.

And I saw how it affected not only our police department, but our entire community, and our fire departments that worked with him, and some of our hospital staff. And he was married and portrayed, like everything was going well. And then all of a sudden, one day you wake up and you're like, okay. And then you go through the questions. You're like, why, what did I miss? Could I have done anything to help? So, that was a little while ago. And that wasn't like the main reason for starting this.

That was just one of the stories where I was like, hey, you know what? I have a direct involvement with this and lost friends of suicide in the military as well. Like, my dad's lost friends to suicide in the police department world. And unfortunately, you ask a lot of first responders and service members, like, do you know someone who's died by suicide in your community? And they'll raise their hand and say, yeah.

And you're like, you start to see the numbers of the suicide rate just by police officers across the country. And it was like more than officers shot and killed in line of duty or anything. And you're like, why do we have so many good people out there that wanna do good, that are taking their own lives? Well, there's a couple of statistics that are really scary to me. And I'm sure law enforcement is the same as fire. The moment we retire, we cease to be on any of those stats anymore.

And so arguably once a firefighter, a police officer, a paramedic, a dispatcher has left their tribe, they've transitioned out whether they left, whether they got fired, whether they retired, that's when you're more likely to see everything from suicide overdose through to cancer, heart disease, et cetera.

So I would argue that the stats that we're seeing are literally the tip of the iceberg because we've disregarded anyone, you know, anyone that kind of gets past 50 is now not on the spreadsheet anymore. So, you know, that's an absolute huge one. I remember, I think police and fire, if I'm not mistaken, just the ones that were known, we doubled our line of duty deaths with suicide alone. And then now ironically, I mean, I'm just getting inundated with firefighters that are dying of cancer again.

But then the other kind of the elephant in the room now, because you and I spoke on the phone a few days ago, I think the stigma has been addressed somewhat, just putting it into the conversation where I think there's still a huge stigma is the overdose side, the addiction side. So we're not even factoring in, you know, overdoses or even quote unquote accidents that were actually suicides as well. So again, there's even more numbers of basically the same underlying mental health challenge.

Yeah, and there's definitely some that are not reported, the numbers, and unfortunately, it kind of is what it is at this point and I hate it, but you see the numbers of suicides, right? So if we say the number of suicides for firefighters in the year of 2023 in the country was 20, right? Like it's probably 40, realistically. Unfortunately, those numbers are, they're not accurate.

They're, because the only time that they published the number and make it known is if the family and the department agrees on that, right? So how many times are there death by suicides in our community and it's not getting reported? Yeah, I mean, I literally last year, I mean, here where I live, the fire department, they had two and they were both young guys too within 12 weeks of each other. It's not a big, it's a county department, it's not huge.

So I can, you know, in my actual area here and then California where I used to work, I can think of 10, 15, so there's no way in hell that nationally it was 20, no fucking way. So, but again, like you said, the press release will go, oh, so-and-so died suddenly. And you're like, okay, well, I know what that means, but no statistic is gonna reflect what actually happened.

And it's sad because you understand, especially if there's a religious element to, you know, an opposition to acknowledging suicide, but we're also shooting ourselves in the foot by not showing the real numbers that actually shows the magnitude of this problem. Yeah, because maybe if it was the real numbers, maybe that would trigger something to be like, wow, look, like we do really have a problem or something needs to be done.

Granted, the numbers that we're already seeing now are astronomical and like that's what we're trying to do is reduce that by one and just try to help. But it's crazy to see and you, like you see all these numbers and you see on social media and you're like, hey, we just had this happen. And then there's not really many changes that come from that, right? Like a majority of our profession is all reactionary, right?

Like you're at the firehouse and you're working out and you're lifting some weights around, like you're on a cruise ship and the tones come out and you go to a call, you're reacting to that. You have someone that comes in and says like, hey, that call is affecting me, you're reacting to that. But we're not really good at doing like the proactive stuff in regards to mental health in my opinion.

Well, I've been talking about this now for quite a while and I'm by no means an expert, but obviously accumulated not only my own perspectives, but all the people including Brooke Barlow that you just mentioned earlier. But I don't wanna kind of front load the question. Through your eyes, what are the contributing factors that are creating this epidemic in our professions? Yeah, I think it's the process of actually getting help. Whatever that may look like, whatever help may look like.

If you're gonna go to therapy or you need to go to a 30 day retreat for substance and addiction, the whole process and where it starts is having the, the confidentiality and the trust to be able to raise your hand and say, hey, I need help. Or who to go to without the repercussion of it affecting your job and your current position. The mask that we wear is like, nope, I'm good, I'm good. That call did not affect me. And then you go home and you're crying.

Or I've talked to several dispatchers where sometimes after work, they'll cry on their way home or they'll sit in a parking lot and cry. And you're like, okay, like why don't we have resources for you? So I think the number one big thing is the, obviously the stigma and culture, that's it, right? Everybody's talking about that.

And it is a problem, but why don't we have a smooth and confidential process to get anybody in our community connected to a therapist that is trained in working with us because our first responder military community is different than the normal civilian. We're hypervigilant, we're worried about our profession because we love it so much and we don't wanna lose it. We don't want our identity to change. But then again, we also don't want anybody at our department to know what we're going through.

Where a lot of the time you say like, oh, if you go through peer support team or you go through the employment assistant program, it's confidential where all it takes is one time for you to break that confidentiality. And then nobody else in your department's gonna trust that process. I saw it personally with my son a few years ago in middle school. He was going through a tough time mentally. There was some stuff going on in his mother's house we were divorced that was causing trauma at home.

And he was upset in school and was crying in a classroom. And the only way to describe it is it was towards the end of basically the end of the day. And the SRO and the principal at the time clearly just wanted to go home. So they sent him off on a 72 hour hold and basically kidnapped my child for three days. And by the time he was actually seen by the people in the facility and they were fantastic. They were like, I don't know why he sent.

And they had clearly written protocols and these two individuals, these two women completely disregarded any of the protocols. And he didn't fit any of the criteria. And then even if he was kind of in a gray area then they're supposed to call a counselor from that facility to come down, assess the child. And then he would have been like, no. And then also I didn't mention this. They didn't communicate with me at all. Cause he was supposed to check in with me and I hadn't got a call from him.

And he's like, oh, they're here. And they said that, oh, that's right. The principal got on the phone and she said, I'll call you back and let you know. And I never got a call back. And then she said, oh, he's at the facility now. You know what I mean? So, and I fought and luckily there was already a movement going on, but this was happening to children in Florida all the time. And while my son was there, multiple kids from this middle school came in.

And we're talking three days, multiple other kids. And it was finally put in law that you couldn't do it anymore. These two women would now be serving jail time for that. And this SRO is still working as fucking school to this day. And the principal is still the principal cause they got in before this law changed. However, the reason for this monologue is this. Do you think those kids are gonna fucking reach out now? Never, never.

So you just fucking destroyed that door, that open door policy that you probably give lip service to. And it's the same thing. I'm using that story to illustrate what you're talking about in a fire service and law enforcement especially. The moment we betray that trust, you have just slammed the door on anyone who was hurting because they're not gonna risk reaching out now. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the same thing for the military side of things too.

And it's also difficult too, because a lot of first responders, no matter if you're a police officer or not, we all like firearms for the most part. Everybody likes going shooting with your friends and spending time together and you're big into collecting firearms or nice guns and everything. And if you don't know where to go for help or what you can say without getting placed on a hold or what you can't say, like nobody's gonna risk it because you get your guns taken away.

And then like if you're a police officer and you raise that red flag or your hand and you say, hey, you know what, Sergeant, you're on the peer support team, I need some help. If for whatever reason that peer support team like tells the rest of the department, that's a problem. And people start finding out, cause it's like high school where you like find out everything about each other's lives.

But more importantly, like if you don't get the help that you need and it's not confidential and you get placed on a psychiatric hold or they take your firearm from you and you find yourself in a suit at the front desk taking walk-in reports and you're still on the schedule for patrol that day but you don't show up to briefing. Everybody in briefing is gonna know. And then they're gonna be like, why is Greg at the front desk taking walk-in reports in a suit with no gun?

That's not like nobody in our community is willing to risk that. The last two interviews I did, the first one, Jeremy Sharlo, police officer shot in the line of duty. They took his gun, but they didn't give him another one. Now, obviously for ballistics and everything, of course he's gonna give them the gun. But as he said nationally, there's supposed to be a replacement gun. He wasn't in trouble at all. It was just an officer involved shooting.

But to have someone in uniform that isn't an issued a weapon, now you've taken, especially in modern times, someone who's a big target and you've neutered them basically. Another guy interviewed, Harry, was a British veteran and he had mental health challenges. He had his struggles when he came back from combat. And in the training after that, they took away his rifle, even though it was the blank firing rifle with the yellow piece on the end of the barrel.

And they gave him a wooden cutout of a gun. And he had to be alongside all the soldiers that were using the actual weapon. So you talk about stigma, you talk about humiliation. These men and women are already struggling with guilt and shame and you've just fucking compounded it. So now, this is what's so good about these conversations. You talked about where we've come from, where we were. Now we're looking back going, what the fuck were you thinking?

It's so clear now, but until we had this conversation, we've always done it that way. And now I wonder how many times that humiliation was kind of the final nail in the coffin for some of these people that we lost. Yeah, and we'll never know, unfortunately, right? And that's the shitty part about it is, we'll never be able to know, unfortunately, because that person's not with us anymore.

But if that continues and it doesn't get better and we're not taking any proactive steps, like really sitting down and having hard conversations and taking proactive steps on like, how can we create a safe and confidential place for our community to get help or just get some resources, even if it's not like, hey, I need to go to therapy, because a lot of people hear that word therapy and they wanna do an about facing movement and turn around and walk the other way.

Nobody wants to talk about therapy. And that word alone is very triggering. You hear the word therapy and you're like, oh, really, you're going to therapy for what? And then you start having a lot of questions.

But yeah, I think things do need to change and it's frustrating to kind of see, like being involved in the Overwatch Collective now and kind of having a connection across the country and hearing people say, this is what my peer support team looks like and this is an incident that just happened. And you're like, guys, what are we doing? Come on, like we cannot do that anymore because we may have just lost that person.

Well, speaking of loss, and I've touched on this a few times in the podcast, EAP, the number of horror stories that I've heard, and there are a handful of departments where they've vetted people in their EAP system. And if their men and women go to them, then they're going to find a culturally competent clinician who is going to do the right thing. But more often than not, it's a kind of box checking mental health thing that applies to all the civilian staff as well as people out of uniform.

And so, you hear it over and over again, police officers, firefighters that find themselves in an office with a person and the counselor burst into tears or the counselor tells them to get out, I can't help you. And I've always said, kind of underlining what we spoke about a minute ago, I'm hearing those stories, but how many people aren't here to tell that story anymore because they finally mustered up the courage to seek help. And then they were told, I can't help you.

Well, they burst into tears, go, well, I must be a piece of shit then, I must be crazy. And then they go and finish the job. So I think the EAP conversation, the finding a culturally competent clinician, someone who has worked with our profession, that can sit down and also offer a toolbox rather than, oh, this is the thing that will help you is the next step. Stigma, we get it, most of us. It's like, how do we get person struggling A to person with solution B?

That seems to be the real stumbling block for us now. Yeah, and I think there are some good stories that I've heard with EAP and that's great. I do feel like it's a check in the box for a lot of departments, yes. But I still see so many challenges with that where you could get therapists in the area if you do reach out and it'll be like, hey, here's a list of the therapists that we have in the area that our EAP works with, or just one resource, whatever.

And it's up to that first responder to make the phone calls, to try to contact the therapist, to try to schedule an appointment. And some of them we find that they're not practicing anymore so they haven't updated their website. You go to make a phone call and you're like, I don't know what to say if you're even able to get connected to them. Sometimes you get a voicemail and you leave a voicemail and you don't get a call back for a few days. What if you need help quickly?

And then also it's like, why are we creating more work for that first responder that may be stressful work when he or she is already at a point where it's like, hey, this person has finally reached out for help. So in my opinion, and what I've seen, what we need to do is create a place where the moment that someone says, hey, I need help, I need resources, I'll take anything, they need to be, it needs to be the least amount of work for that person at all.

And the least amount is stress because the stress is already built up. I mean, I've found even when I've been in a very low place and I've never, I've talked about this a lot, I've never been suicidal, but I mean, I've been at a huge, huge depth between being a single dad, newly divorced, working a busy rescue for a department and going through paramedic school all at the same time and trying to juggle finances and everything else.

When you are in that low place, something as simple as doing the dishes seems like an absolutely mammoth task. And so you think about how am I gonna orchestrate finding the counselor and then setting up appointments, someone who's not struggling can breeze in there, put their arm around them and say, look, I'm gonna help you, I'm gonna walk you through this, we'll get this done. But you can also look down your nose and be like, well, just fucking call them, what's wrong with you?

Well, they are in crisis, that's what's wrong with them. They don't have the capacity to think the way that we do and we're well rested and we're not struggling. Yeah, and it's crazy when you think about this whole process and I love having a conversation with you about it where, and like I do with so many other people on our podcast where it's like, you have all these ideas and all these ideas and what needs to be done and you're like, okay, so let's finally do something.

Let's make something known about it where you talk about just doing the dishes and that could be a hard task. Sometimes it's hard for people to even get out of bed, where it's like, and obviously throughout that time, you're probably gonna have your phone with you. So you need resources right away at your fingertips. Absolutely, so let's talk about the Overwatch Collective then what made you decide to do that even in the first place? How did you stand it up?

And then what are the resources that you're offering to our first responders in military? Yeah, so that's a lot, good questions, I'll get into it, but I can answer that in like an hour and a half or I can answer it in five minutes. So my buddy, Jesse, he was also in the Marine Corps and then we met in the Coast Guard. We were at the same unit and since we were both in the Marine Corps, we kind of had a special little bond and so we did everything together.

We were in the field together doing our training. He ended up living at my house for a little bit and he brought up the idea of starting a podcast and I was like, I don't know what goes into starting a podcast, I don't know technology, I'm not the smartest individual out there and he was like, let's talk about life in the military and you could talk about being a first responder and I was like, okay, and I was like, why don't we talk about mental health and we've both lost friends to suicide.

We just had a mental health debrief and everybody was like, all right, next, onto the next one, let's fill this gap, let's work on this problem.

So then we ordered some basic equipment, set up in his apartment garage and put up a bunch of flags the first episode to hide the boxes that were stacked up and ultimately we were just like, hey, this is what our idea is and this is what we wanna work on and talk about mental health and the resources and we cover the basis being in the military, me being a police officer and knowing a lot of first responders and like, hey, let's start talking about this

and then we started to have people on the podcast and we had a brand new officer, we had three dispatchers, an officer who was involved and an officer involved shooting with a diagnosis of PTSD and a suicide attempt and a combat veteran and we were like, let's get everybody within this community on the podcast to start and kind of see where it goes and then after about 15 episodes, we started to receive some donations and they were like, hey, we love what you're doing

about talking about this and normalizing and having people share their stories of essentially their traumas and discussing suicide attempts and their ideations at the time and we were like, okay, great, good feedback, now we want more.

So then we applied for a 501c3 nonprofit through LegalZoom, which I got tasked with that, which was an absolute headache of a process but ultimately started to get, once we got approved, we got our first therapist onboarded with us in the state of California and we were like, hey, we have donations somehow, we wanna connect people to you and not have their department find out or anybody find out just the four of us and then we'll pay for them to go, how do we do that?

We were just like, what does that process look like? And then that's kind of where it started and then we started paying for therapy. So expand on that. I mean, what are the barriers to entry that you were seeing through your eyes and what are you able to bring? I mean, we touched on Brooke, she's an incredible resource, amazing counselor in California, she also has a license here in Florida now to do virtually as well.

So what were the challenges that you were seeing and what have you been able to bring to these men and women? Yeah, so obviously like what we just talked about, the challenges of when you have someone in our community that's struggling, that can't get out of bed, that can't do the dishes, that doesn't trust the EAP, doesn't trust the peer support team, is worried about the stigma and the culture and everything that goes along with mental health and reaching out for help.

And if you're listening to this and you're a first responder in the military, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a struggle to reach out and you don't see it that much. So then we started to figure out like, okay, where's the gap? Like what do we need to do to get our own contracted therapists? Number one, we need a contract.

So we went on Microsoft Word, filled out a contract and then we had to go through a vetting process for each of our therapists because I didn't wanna start something that was like kind of like the EAP where you might get connected to a therapist that doesn't know anything about first responders and knowing the importance of working with a culturally competent therapist, that's what we need.

So we ensured that the people that we had on were all culturally competent, got their first responder training certifications, their EMDR training certifications, had a phone call with them and vetted that therapist to ensure that he or she can work well with our community.

And then it was, okay, let's try to get therapists in every single state across the country, do a podcast with every single therapist talking about their personal life, like what they like to do for fun, what therapy would look like with him or her and some of the trainings and certifications so that when a first responder service member or family member comes to us or to our website, they can be like, okay, I'm in the state of Florida, I wanna see what therapists are contracted.

So you already know that they're vetted and then you can take a few days to listen to a podcast, read their bio, go to their website. So that first therapy session is as much of a success as possible. So what about financial barriers?

From what I'm seeing, even if mental health counseling is covered, more often than not, it's a very small amount of sessions and to think that you're gonna unpack 20 years, that's just in the profession, but arguably 30, 40 years, if you're going all the way back to the beginning of childhood where many problems may actually have their nucleus, it's not gonna happen in three or four sessions.

So what are you seeing as far as the true availability to mental health counseling and how are you guys bridging the gap? Yeah, so outside of us, I think the common theme is through the Employment Assistant Program, from everything that I've heard over the past few years, it ranges from somewhere to five to 15 therapy sessions, if you reach out for help. Sometimes it'll be 10 per incident.

So like if you wanna go to therapy because of a domestic violence call that really messed with you, you get 10 therapy sessions for that, but it could be, you don't have to talk about that incident for all 10. So then if you need more, you just say, oh, I wanna talk about another incident. So there's a workaround with that.

But yeah, so through some of the insurance through the departments, they'll pay for five to 10 therapy sessions and you don't really get to choose your therapist and that therapist. And sometimes it takes five therapy sessions to feel comfortable with your therapist is what we've heard as well, or maybe you don't get along with your therapist after the second or third one. And then you're like, okay, I just used up half of my therapy sessions and now I need to find another one.

So there's a lot of challenges with that, that I think deter people in our community from actually seeking those resources and getting assistance where you come to us and I think we have figured it out. So you come to us and we'll connect you to the therapist in a matter of three to five days is what I say.

Sometimes we've done it in eight hours, sometimes 16 hours, sometimes it does take five days for us to get a first responder service member, family member, spouse, significant other connected to one of our therapists. And it's an easy submission that you do on our website. You see if you do have a preferred therapist, like after listening to a few podcasts and be like, hey, I really wanna work with James, then we'll connect you with James.

And we just ask for like a two to three paragraph explanation of who you are, what your profession is, or if you're a spouse or significant other of a dispatcher and why you're seeking therapy through the Overwatch Collective, do you need financial assistance? And then that submission goes to our secretary and then our secretary reaches out to that individual via email and sends him or her a message saying, hey, we appreciate you reaching out. This is sometimes the biggest step.

And then we say, hey, here's the next step of the process. We need you to fill out this waiver that's basically saying our nonprofit's not liable, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then once we get the waiver, you get connected to the therapist right away. So it's a very confidential process. There's like four people that will ever know and you can pick your therapist who's vetted. You can listen to a podcast. And then from there, it's off to the races with you and the therapist.

Like we don't have to hear from that first responder or anybody who's going to therapy after that. It's all between our secretary and the therapist. And what about wait times? I know especially the VA, the horror stories I've heard of members of the military that are in crisis and the next available appointment is five months, six months away. How are you able to keep a network that has appointments that are actually somewhat recent so people can get help soon?

Yeah, so when we do have someone reach out, we do our secretary does this as well where she'll kind of be like, hey, this would be a really good fit for Jill, for example. She deals a lot with service members and then also has specific training to alcohol addiction and all of that. So we actually had a veteran reach out to us for that exact reason. And we got him connected to this therapist and it's a perfect match. And that was only in a few days.

So when we were in the process of getting our therapists in every single state, it did take a little while when people would reach out for therapy in like Oklahoma, for example. And we didn't have a contracted therapist in Oklahoma yet. And then we had to go actively look and see like, okay, we need to find culturally competent therapists but then we also need to have a phone call or email chain back and forth and be like, this is the services that we provide.

We pay for therapy, blah, blah, blah. Are you interested in this or not? And through that process, we really see how challenging it is to find a culturally competent therapist. And if it's frustrating for us, you sure as shit, it's frustrating for that person that is finally reaching out for help.

What can we do on our side and obviously the world of psychology to increase the amount to encourage the mental health professionals to start kind of learning or getting the training so they are actually able to be effective when it comes to counseling people in uniform? Yeah, and that's a great question. And I personally don't think everybody is gonna be able to have specific training to work with our community. I don't really see that happening.

I think it takes a very special person to wanna work with our community. And a lot of the time we do see prior service members, prior first responders who get out of the profession, whether early or after retirement, and they're like, okay, something needs to change and I can be this change. And so we do have a few of those as well where they're prior first responder, prior service member. And it's like, hey, yeah, I did 10 years and now I just wanna come back and help.

But I think there's also a lot of trauma that goes into working with someone in our community because you're hearing the worst of the worst. So then you're getting secondary post-traumatic stress from that incident where a lot of our therapists, I'd say a majority of them also have their own therapists that they work with, where they'll do weekly check-ins and be like, hey, I had this really tough therapy session with this firefighter who saw this.

And because there's no way you could be a therapist and go a year or two and you're seeing first responders and service members and you're hearing about murder, suicides and fatality, traffic collisions. And when you do EMDR, the eye movement desensitization reprocessing therapy, you're hearing that first responder talk about all the six senses that they have, the smell, the sight, which also you're thinking about and you're trying to imagine, which is also traumatic. Absolutely.

I don't know if you've had this, but even just doing this, I've realized now that if I have a series of guests that all really get deep into their story, which I encourage and invite and I think is the most incredibly courageous vulnerability, you have to be careful even doing conversations with this.

If you're someone that is kind of the go-to in your department, you're kind of like the peer support ear as it were, again, being mindful of your own mental health and realizing there's times where you need to kind of hit the pause button and go offload, go on a cruise or whatever it is. Cause it does, I always think of the green mile. It's like that, you're trying to take everyone's pain, but it's a certain point where you've got to let it out yourself.

Otherwise it will start to bring you down too. Yeah, and I completely agree with you and I've been there as well. And so our podcast that we have is not, it's nothing crazy. I do the podcast out of the garage and it's a flag that's held up behind us. And we don't spend too much money on it because we want a majority of our funds to go to therapy, but all we care about is the content.

And just like you mentioned where you have these people come on and you're sitting across the table from them and they're talking about the cold barrel of their pistol and how that felt when he put it in his mouth and considered dying by suicide.

And just doing the podcast alone, I've done a few where it's like emotionally draining and you're just physically and emotionally drained after it where you're like, okay, like I need a bit of a break or I need to go take a nap or go for a walk or something because they are very draining. And it's similar to that therapist with the secondary post-traumatic stress because you're getting deep into that story. Absolutely.

Well, for people listening, where can they find the Overwatch Collective whether they wanna use your resources or even donate? Yeah, so we made it super simple for our community, just like finding therapy. So you type in the Overwatch Collective on anything and you'll find it. The Overwatch Collective.com, Instagram, the Overwatch Collective, TikTok, the Overwatch Collective. We do have our own mental health app as well.

So you go to the app store on your Apple phone or Android, even the green text users that ruin all the group text messages. You download the Overwatch Collective app and we have our wellness program on there. We have other podcasts that we vet and they're good for our community and beneficial. We have audio rooms where you can essentially do your own podcasts and they save. And we have all these resources that do audio rooms and you have a social media aspect as well.

And then the next update is gonna be our buddy program that we have on there and then all of our therapists as well. And with the app, you can use it as Greg Grogan or you can hit one button and go into incognito mode where you can be completely anonymous while still using the entire app and getting the benefits and resources. Beautiful. Well, Greg, I wanna say thank you so much.

Firstly, I mean, obviously your time in uniform in itself, but so often guests that have come on here are members of the military, first responders and either during service like in your case or after service, they still wanna continue to serve. They still wanna help. They adore the community that they were in and it's those incredible men and women that are really at the helm of all the things that are helping our people.

I mean, arguably we pay a lot of taxes and there's some very large organizations and unions, et cetera that should be taking care of our people, but there are many, many gaps and I have so much admiration for people that stand up and try and be proactive in that area. So I wanna thank you not only for your service but also for being so generous and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today. Now, I appreciate it. Thank you. It's really quick, just a little bit more into donating.

If you do wanna donate, we're a 501C3 non-profit organization. So we'll send you a donor letter. As of now, our statistics, we've connected 124 people to our therapists. We're almost at a thousand therapy sessions, either fully covered or financially assisted. And then we're almost at a hundred thousand dollars total spent in therapy over like a 16 month period. So all of the donations, the merchandise sale, everything all goes back to our non-profit. So thank you for your support. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.