National Suicide Prevention Month Special

can learn more about and support at thefund dot org. Cose, thank you so much for your service to this country and for taking a few minutes to come on this show. And I want to go back to twenty eleven. What was it that led you to join the Army?

in many different ways. So I decided to actually sign up and do the biggest selfless act that I felt like I've ever done for the world.

down there. They don't know if they were digging, they don't know anything, but they told us that just to be careful. We kind of knew the area already. We've been patrolling this area for a while. There was a law in front of that area that would always have enemy contact right towards us, so we kind of knew that we were going to go into the midst of some stuff. You know, we didn't know to what extreme

we ended up going out on patrol. We ended up having our point men, and that actually it was me and I had a mind hound guy with me in front of me. So any step that we would take, we would make sure that we were sweeping, making sure that we didn't trigger something that we didn't want to trigger. You know, all of us at the time knew that there's many many ideas all around. We've had already encountered them. Anytime we were on foot patrol. We try to be

as careful as possible. We ended up clearing out the first Wady line and ended up going on to the second Wody line. On the second Wady line, we were on like a higher ground, but with nothing around us to actually protect us. So we started kind of looking around and seeing what would be our best option. That my mind hume guy was still kind of sweeping around just to clear the area to make sure that everybody

could get on there. And as I had taken a knee, I'm a machine gunner, so I carried a thousand rounds on me, a thousand rounds on my pack, and I was weighing probably about one hundred pounds over everybody else. So at that time, I took a knee. I had put my pack down. As I was about to get up, there's an explosion that goes off behind me, and there's dust everywhere. It's starting to settle down, and all of a sudden, I hear a scream and when I turned around,

I realized that was my mindheld guy. I need to get him as as possible. So I looked back. I remember my squad leaders were a bit behind me, and I remember kind of looking at them. They gave me a nod, like, you know what to do, take care of it. So I grabbed my pack and I remember actually looking down and I saw his bootsteps. Okay, I can see he's about twenty five thirty feet in front of me, and I could see his bootsteps pretty clearly. So I'm like, okay, like, let's at least I know

this path is cleared. You know that's at least stay on it. So I took the first step and I'm like, all right, forgot to go, you know, And I got a little bit more confident to the third step, fourth step. When I took the sixth step, I remember it was my right leg and it it set off the primary ID. I remember flying up in the air, landing head first onto the dirt, and that's when I remember everybody instantly jumping up on top of me starting to close me up.

I remember the guys kind of digging around my head just because there was kind of a blood bath, but they were more worried about closing me up, so they were closing me up as soon as possible. And after they closed me up, I started telling him to pull me off. When they pulled me out of the hole that I was in, I remember just seeing my body and realizing that I was completely like not here. You know.

My right arm above my elbow was a text but broken, if that makes any sense, and my left leg below the knee was the same thing, like my arm attached but broken, and my right leg was just completely obliterated. I don't remember seeing any of it, to be honest with you. Yeah, and I the guys closed me up instantly. I mean they jumped on top of me within seconds, it felt like, and I was out there fighting them.

I was telling them to let me die. I didn't think I was worthy enough at that time, even by looking at myself like I didn't think there was any life left for me, you know. And I remember my buddy power slapping me, telling me to shut up, and he goes, we're gonna be drinking beers in two weeks. Just shut up for this moment. And I told him, I'm like, all right, man, just just save me then, you know, fix me up. And I told him I was like, can I get drugs? Like I you know,

I'm hurting bad. A couple hours before we actually went out, we had gone through another ied on the patrol that we were on, but this was the mindheld. Actually the m RAP had hit the ied and it was my platoon leader, ur medic and the driver. So we had used all our medical supplies on them. When they opened up the bag, it was the same bag we had already used, so they couldn't then give me some of the things that I needed, besides having the Turner kids,

because all of us carried Turner kids. I mean, you could have checked my pockets. I'm sure I would have had some on me, you know. So that was the biggest play for them. I don't know if you've ever watched Black Hawk Down. If you have, there's a scene in there where they're trying to close up one of their buddies and arteries just blowing out a bunch of blood. So after they closed me up, we started realizing that

I was still bleeding out. One of my buddies actually looked on my ribcage and realized that my whole ripcage was opened from my arm pit pretty much all the way down to my leg and he saw something bleeding out and when he grabbed it, I screamed for your life and ar Medic said, hold on to that, I need that real quick. Armetic twisted it, closed it off, and that's when we started realizing another problem. I realized

that I wasn't able to actually breathe properly. So I had my lungs had collapsed and I was able to take in a breath, but I wasn't able to let go of that breath, and it was very weird. I don't know why I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't let go of that breath. Everything was just taking it in and I felt like a balloon and getting ready to blow up, and I was just losing it. I told sturdivn Armetic, I'm not Sturdivan. I can't breathe and he goes, what do you mean you can't breathe? I was like, dude,

I can't let goll of this breath. It's it's it's hurting me, like I'm losing it, you know. And he started seeing like me really not being able to breathe, and that's when he hit me with the nasal fair and Jael, it's this tube that you put down your nose and it opens up an airway just to see if you're able to breathe. Since I wasn't able to, that didn't help me. He actually had a hit me

on the collarbone. There's an another airway that we know if you look on your third collarboding down, if you actually press right into it, it's actually located into your lungs. And the minute he hit me right on the collarbone and open up that airway, I was actually able to breathe properly. And I remember hearing driving him back to fall passob fol Passov was a very long way for us. Not only that, every single time it would towards that area,

we would get ambushed, we would get hit. I remember my squad leader screaming on on the mics, like on the airways saying, there's no way you guys need to send someone asap gracefully. I like to call them the angels in disguise. There are special forces up doing a mission. They heard all the chatter and they said to Pop Smoke that they're going to pick us up. I feel like that's one of the main reasons I actually survived. Besides the fact that all my boys jumped on top

of me. It's literally the fact that there is enough people to get me to where I need to close me out properly. You know, I ended up flying into facade. They grabbed me. My friend that was on the mind found had just snapped his ankle and he was on the helicopter with me. He told me that I thought the helicopter three times on that wow, just wake up at nowhere. He literally said, they said you were done, and then out of nowhere you would just come back to life. He says that I did that three times.

I do recall landing and follo pasod. I remember I had told you that my platoon sergeant had gotten hit a couple hours before. Well, he had heard chatter of what was going on. Basfully, he still had his whole body. They were just doing evaluation on him to see if he could come back. When he was hearing what was going on, he didn't know exactly who it was, but he knew it was our team. I remember that pushing me through the doors, and the first person that was

there was Sergeant Harris. Starry. Harris pulled the sheet off of me, and I remember him telling me, I'm sorry, Marty, I should have been there with you. And the last thing I felt his tears rolling down onto my cheeks. I felt this bliss. I can't explain it. I don't know if my adrenaline was just done what, but I just felt very comfortable with Sorry Harris. There welcome ten days later's data. Well, it's really goodesta.

struggle with depression, you have suicidal thoughts. Talk to us a little bit about that and how you overcame all of that.

I had a tube stuck in my throat. I couldn't even talk clutch your full bit, so that just maybe even more scared. I remember threatening my little brother with my eyes because I told him, I mean, we're so close that he knows me very well. I told him with my eyes pretty much like you tell this doctor that he has one hour to take this tube out before I start doing it myself. It's a pretty big boy, so he could hold me down, and doctors are like,

all right, just hold him down for an hour. I was patiently waiting there the hour came and one minute passed it, and I was already pushing my brother off, trying to fight him. My brother's a like a right, doctor, he's still my older brother. He goes, either you're gonna do something about it, or I'm gonna let go because he's still my older brother. And Doctor's like, all right, all right, hold on, hold on, He goes, how do you know you're gonna be oko Braids. I was like,

I'm stuck, and I remember screaming that. He goes, okay, So took out. The two ended up screaming, and instantly just had that dog in me all over again. It's like I never left, you know, as bad as wounded as I was, I felt like that a little bit of me never left, and I carried that on through this whole recovery system. Like I felt like, in the sense as much it was as much as it was painful to go through all of it, as much as it's a burden to see myself sometimes this way, I

felt like I got a second chance at life. At least. If I had a second chance at life, I'm gonna try at least to do the best. Yeah, I've I've felt I've struggled. I've had suicidal thoughts. I mean there's times to this day that sometimes I think about, like, what would happen if I just drive off this cliff right now, you know. But now I instantly be like, no, no, no, no no, I got more to live for, you know.

And I've always kind of had that thought, even though I felt like leaving this earth would be a lot easier, it would be a lot better, it would be less painful, you know. But then I really think about it. My brother saved me for a reason. My family stuck by me for a reason, my friends stuck by me for a reason. The community, the fund, everybody has believed in me for a reason, because they see more. Slowly, I started seeing that more of myself, you know, started really

seeing what really mattered. And it was acceptance. It was love. It was allowing others to help me and things that I thought I needed to take care of myself. You know. I remember waking up and the fun being there for me. They take care of my family, they take care of me more importantly, they just made me feel human again, you know, because for a very long time, anytime I would go outside in public, I mean, to this day, I still get the looks. You know, I feel sometimes

like a caged animal, like zoo animal. But then I get reminded a lot of the reasons why I'm still alive. You know, the fund has helped me with a lot of those reasons. It's helped me with all the resources that they have given me. It's to the point now where we have breath work every week, we have yoga classes.

They're not just helping us by helping us financially in certain ways when we get in a little bit of trouble and when we need a little bit of help, but making sure that we're staying alive every single day.

Like I remember them coming around in ICU, which a lot of people don't get the chance to do. I see you is very very reserved, very special, and they would go in there after surgeries and just come and talk to us, give us a little bit of gifts, ask us how we're feeling, you know, little things like that, and all those little things mattered because at that time I felt worthless, but like I shouldn't even be alive.

But I had people coming up to me and asking me how I was feeling, you know, telling me that things were going to get better, coming with other veterans to show us that things were going to get better. You know. There there wasn't a lot of people that did that for us, and the fund was there every step.

Sunshine State. It's the best, you know. And I ended up coming over here and there is a therapist named Betty, and at the time, I had a cost to me bag, and I knew the answer that I was giving her it was a lie. She came up to me one day and she goes, hey, Jose, she says, I think swimming will be a good thing for you. It'd be great for recovery. It'll start helping your core out. And I remember telling her. I told her, I was like, you know what, once I reversed this colostomy, Bag, I'll

jump in there. She goes, why, Like, you can jump in there right now. I was like, you know what, Betty, I was like, if I have an accident there, like I don't know if I can mentally come back from that. And that was just me being real and she's like, Okay, Okay, I totally get that. But what she didn't know was that I kind of knew that I was told already

that a reversal was probably impossible. To be honest with you, and towards the end of my recovery, I remember going up to the doctor and saying, Hey, doctor, it's like, is there any way we can reverse this? I told him. It was like, look, I'm twenty three years old, I have a girlfriend, Like I feel like I can use the bathroom regularly if you just give me a chance, you know, and they're they're like, Jose to be quite honest with you, I mean, we told you from the

beginning that ninety percent chance of non reversible. It started eating me away, to be honest with you, I couldn't believe that I was a triple mputee. I was only twenty three years old, that I had to use the bathroom for my slomach. You know that there's no way that I did this selfless act and this is the way it was going to turn out for me. You know.

I just couldn't believe in myself and I started going into very depressive negative thoughts and I eventually got to the doctor for the second time, and I told him it was no doctor. It's like, if you don't try anything, I'm just going to take my life. I was like, I'm not even going to make it past tomorrow if you don't even give me an answer right now. Doctors like Jose you can't talk to me, though. I was like, Sir, with all due respect, I'm the one in this situation

right now. I'm the one in this chair. I'm the one missing my lips. You can't tell me how I feel. I'm just telling you how I feel. The doctor instant is like, okay, Ose, let's at least try to do some testing. Let's try to get things things done, and let's square you away. They did the reversal. The reversal went wrong. I couldn't eat for about three months, if I'm correct. My girlfriend, which is my wife now, was

taught to feed me through too. She was taught to feed me water and some nutrients just to keep me alive for three months. It's probably the hardest three months of our lives. I remember she would cry anytime she would be eating, because anytime I would get a smell, I would just start crying because I couldn't eat, you know, Eventually, after those three months, the reversal perfectly fine. I started going to the bathroom allone over again, and the very

next day I got cleared by the doctor. Betty was at my doorsteps say hey, jose are you ready to go swimming? And I'm like, oh, no, I told you, you know, and I'm a man of my word. That's the only thing I've ever had. That's something that my uncle taught me. I wasn't. I didn't have a dad growing up, so my uncle told me, your word is everything, so make sure anytime you say you're gonna do something, you do it. I told Betty, I was like, okay, tell me what time I got to be there tomorrow.

She goes, five am, bring a swimsuit. I'm like what five am. I was like, I haven't had a wake up calling that a long time. Five am. I'm like, all right. Well, was there the next day and I remember going fifty meters took me about two hours, and I was so upset with myself. I'm like, I could call faster than this. So I went back the next day and the next day and the next day, and she had me working with the swim coach. The swim coach had taken guys to the Olympics, like through different

meats and stuff like that. So he was a great coach with me and he had me swimming laps within two weeks. I think if I was correct and gave Betty a great report and he's like those he's doing great. Betty came up to me right after then she goes, hey, you ready to go surfing? Like what I was like, dude, I look like wounded seal, Like you're gonna put me in a wet suit? Like there's no way. And she goes, hey, there's bigger fish in the water. I'm like, and there's

people that have more limbs than you. I think the shark will go off the bigger limbs, don't you And started laughing. I'm like, you're right, Like I wouldn't want the little guy either. So I ended up going with her. I ended up meeting two incredible people that to this day are still in the water with me, and that was Amanda and Aarren Klassen. They were both the first people to ever push me into a wave. I felt like I was like on the ten foot way, but

it was all white water. And that was two thousand and fourteen times. About six years ago, I hit rock bottom again mental struggling. I was helping out a bunch of veterans and those veterans turned their back on me and just kind of like kick me to the curb and made me deal with a bunch of stuff that they had going on that now was my problem. I was just so lost because I thought helping others was my form of a vettering this world, my form of bettering myself, and I just got kicking as a curb,

you know. So instead of me being upset and just doing what the normal human body does and just self exploding. I remember about surfing and calling Betty and Darren. I'm like, hey, you guys still surfing every Thursday, like absolutely, And went back to that next Thursday, started circling with him again, and Betty came up to me and she goes, hey, do you know that there's actual guys like you that are competing against each other and try and figure out

how good they are? And that's why I was like, no way. She's like yep, and we signed up for a competition. Within two months of that conversation, I ended up breaking two boards that I borrowed they weren't even mine. I remember crying because me being who I've always been, I thought, I'm a natural athlete. I anything with sports I'm really good at. And I thought, because you know, I was pretty good an army dude, I was pretty good at sports that just showing up I was gonna win.

I didn't even make the podium, but I remember that feeling, and I remember telling myself that I'm a clap for these guys, and I'm a cheer for them because next year they're going to be there cheering for me. I'm gonna be up in that podium. Within a couple of weeks from that loss, they started going to the gym. I ended up losing about thirty pounds I think now ended up gaining about ten pounds of muscle as we speak.

Now started motivating myself, the world, everybody around me, and just instead of giving them this you're gonna be okay type deal, I'd rather show the world that they're gonna be okay because you're not in the situation as bad as you think you really are. Once you truly see, once you take yourself out of that box. So instead of me screaming at you and saying you can do it. You're gonna be okay. Let me just show you. Let me smile through all of this struggle that I've gone through.

Let me just continue to show you. Even though the doctors told me that I'll never walk again, how I've flown through all of it. Instead, they were right. I wasn't going to have the life that I had before. I have a way better one now. You know, I have an understanding of who I am, not this crazy person that feels like there needs to be a reaction

every single time someone makes a mistake. You know. More than anything, I've been able to help a lot of veterans out that have lost their buddies, that have felt like they needed to go instead of their friends. You know, basfully, I've been able to remind them they're living through us. The best thing we can do is live the greatest life we possibly can because we pay the ultimate sacrifice. They pay the ultimate sacrifice so we can enjoy this

life time. So let's enjoy it, you know, stop worrying about the little things, even stop worrying about the pain. Eventually it's going to go away, especially if you're doing something fun.

can donate. Jose Martinez, Army veteran and triple ampute pro surfer with US for National Suicide Prevention Month and to talk about Simplify and America's Fund. Jose can't thank you enough for your service to this country and for sharing your incredible story. We really appreciate it.