Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on the biggest issues impacting you. This week. Here's Ryan Gorman. Thanks so much for joining us here on iHeartRadio Communities. I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have a very special show for you as we honor our veterans this weekend. We'll be joined by a number of tremendous organizations doing crucial work in communities all across the country for veterans in need.
We ask that you not only listen to how they're helping veterans and their families, but that you also take action and support their mission by checking them out online and offering whatever help you can so they can continue to provide resources and care to those who served and sacrificed. And right now, to get things started, I'm joined by Colonel Duncan S. Milney, the US Marine Corps veteran and president of the Dixon Center for Military and Veterans Services.
You can learn more about this organization at Dixon's Center dot org. Colonel Milney, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to come on the show. So how did the Dixon Center first get started? And tell us a little bit about the work you.
Do sure will, and thank you Ryan, and thank you to your colleagues at iHeartRadio for doing this. Dickon Center for Military and Veterans Services came about in reaction to a question, and the question was when our chairman, Dave Sutherland and I were working on the Gunches of Staff for AMA Mike Moll and Dave was working directly for the Admiral in terms of reaching out to the veterans and military families and those impacted by warfare, and it
was a question that kept coming up. The American population that time, we're talking about two thousand and eight nine, kept asking we want to help, but we don't know how. There's a perception in the country that the DoD and the VA did everything for veterans, and we all know that while they provide a great amount of resources and backbone, there's always a challenge in communities across the country where veterans don't have vv access to the services and fault
between the gaps. So the idea was to create a center a center as a resource hub of influence, ideas and actions where other organizations that are direct service providers can come to for ideas, influence, and actions can increase of their impact in their communities across the world. It really is kind of a if you want to think of national reach and local impact, it's kind of a local insurgency of what we're trying to create. So that's
how we started in twenty twelve. Here we are in twenty twenty three, eleven years later and going strong, and we've felt millions of organizations and through our work impact the veterans that they serve. Again, we provide strategic support and people institution, organizations, and communities committed to improving the lives of their veterans and family.
Is a big part of the problem. The awareness factor here that there are resources and organizations all across the country who are working to help veterans, but it's connecting those resources with the veterans, letting them know that that help is out there for them.
I think that is a big part of it. There's almost too many organizations out there, and it becomes very challenging for the most punch point military service to access services and supports in their communities. Sometimes they don't know that they're welcome, and that's one of the biggest challenges mine what we really try to do is there are eleven million organizations in this country across soul sectors, society,
you know, academia, civic organizations, public, private, all that. What we really focus on doing is working with organizations that don't include veterans and military families into their services. So we just want organizations to be inclusive and welcoming and culturally attuned to the needs and the emergent evolving needs of veterans and their families.
As when we look for what has the response been like from organizations who you've talked to about that?
Very good, quite honestly. One of the challenges is, you know, as the wars received from people's minds, they forget about the warriors, and we can't let that happen. So we have a lot of organizations when we approach them, they're like, boy, we've always wanted to do this, we just don't know how. And part of it's just an education process. Part of it really in a lot of cases that I am quite honestly, is organizations looking inward even understand who they
serve or who do they employ. You know, most of the organizations a lot, I don't say most, a lot of them have a really hard difficult time making a concerted effort to just be welcoming, put out the welcome app for veterans in their animals.
What are some of the different ways that everyone listening right now can support the work you're doing at the Dixon Center.
Well, of course you already mentioned our website Dixoncenter dot org and encourage folks to take a look at what we do. It's kind of a different model and we've been very successful with it. We're not a direct service provider, as I like to say. We don't give OUTTI. It
subs for real work that we do. We really focus on making the organizations more impactful that reach out to us and trying to find the gaps that are out there across the country that we can address and direct resources to or be time or funds or just intellectual effort,
expertise and mentorship to organizations. So if an organization is looking at how they can include veterans and military families for those touched by military service into their enterprise, just contact us and we'd be happy to have a conversation and make you that welcoming organization and the welcoming facility that says veterans are welcome here and store their families.
Colonel Duncan Milney, US Marine Corps veteran and president of the Dixon Center for Military and Veterans Services Again. You can learn more and support the work they're doing Ascenter dot org. That's Dixoncenter dot org. Colonel Milney, I want to thank you so much for your service to this country, for the work you're doing on this issue, and for coming on the show. We appreciate it.
I appreciate it too, and I just can't hang up without saying Happy Birthday to our nation's for marines.
All right, thanks again, Colonel. I'm Ryan Gorman, and now on this Veterans Day Weekend special, I want to bring in our next guest. We're joined by US Marine and Air Force veteran and chief Communications and Outreach Officer at Disabled American Veterans, Dan Claire. You can learn more about this organization at dav dot org.
Dan.
Thank you for coming on the show. So how did Disabled American Veterans get started? And explain the work you do.
Your dad was founded in nineteen twenty by World War One veterans, and our focus now is helping ensure we keep promises to veterans, and we do that by helping them with their benefits, We get them to and from their medical appointments, we connect them with jobs and help them as entrepreneurs.
And let's start with caregiver support in that specific program. Can you explain how that works.
Yeah, Around Veterans Day, everyone thinks about veterans, but we're thinking this time of year about the people who support veterans are caregivers. DV Caregivers is a program that provides concierge services. Veterans. Caregivers can visit this website. It starts with the website, it ends up with one on one help. They're able to connect with resources, find out things that
are in their community to help them out. And you know, these caregivers they share in the sacrifices of military service and when we get them, we see they give up their careers. It affects their own health. They're putting the health of the veteran first. So we're trying to provide them with everything that they need so that they don't face burnout, so that they don't deal with all the anxiety, so they get a little rested. So we're connecting with
stuff in their community, nationwide. That's going to help them, and we develop a plan for them so that it's sustainable, their lifestyle sustainable, It helps with their relationships, it helps them keep the veteran in their home longer, and that saves the taxpayers money as well.
And when it comes to navigating VA benefits, which can be difficult for a variety of reasons, how does DAV play a role in assisting veterans with that.
You know, a lot of people think that when a veteran is getting out, when they're when they're leaving the military and entering the skilling world, their benefits are granted to them and they walk away and they're happy. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. Veterans have to go and prove that what conditions they might have are service connected. So DAV has a nationwide staff, nationwide core team of
veterans who have been through that VA process. They helped cut the red tape and they walk vetteran through the process, their advocates for them. They look through their medical records, they talk to them, they find out where the vetter and hurting, what's going on with them, and then they go and fight with the VA. Sometimes fights sometimes work together to make sure that that gets what they earn.
And that's key, and that's the bare minimum promise we have is to try and make someone whole if they're changed.
And finally, how can those listening support the work DAV does, whether it's through volunteer opportunities or donations things like that. What are some of the different ways that they can support your work.
Supporting DAV during this time here or any other time is so important. There's so many ways to help. You can volunteer as a driver with the AV, you can volunteer in hospitals VA hospitals with DAV, and you can volunteer through one of our twelve hundred chapters throughout the country. Volunteering is so important, but you know a lot of people don't have time. Necessarily, we have recurring donations. You can be a monthly donor to DAV. You can donate your car if you want to, or a vehicle. You
can donate property to DAV if you want to. There's a lot of different ways to support DAV through as a donor, through philanthropy. And then finally, a big thing that we would like people to do is refer people to DAV for help. We almost everyone who's listening knows a veteran, knows someone who's connected to a veteran, and we know that a lot of people are facing challenges there.
So if you refer someone to DAV, you could make a life changing You can make a life changing moment for them, and we'll make sure that promises are kept to them and help them on a path to a better life.
US Marine Corps and Air Force veteran and DAV Chief Communications and Outreach Officer Dan Clare Again. You can learn more and find all the different ways to help support disabled American veterans at DAV dot org. Dan, I want to thank you so much for the work you're doing for DAV, for your service to this country, and for taking a few minutes to come on the show. We appreciate it.
iHeart is a huge supporter of veterans and we're grateful as well. So I hope everyone has a great Veterans Day weekend.
All right, thanks again, Dan. I'm Ryan Gorman here on this Veterans Day Weekend special and now let's bring in our next guest. We're joined by a United States Army veteran and CEO of Mission Role Call Jim Whaling. You can learn more about this organization at Missionrolecall dot org. Jim, thank you so much for joining us. So how did Mission Role Call First get started and what is the purpose of your organization?
Yeah, well, thank you first, Trime. We started a few years ago as a program and now we're stepping up to be a full nonprofit and the mission is really to become the voice of the American veterans. There's about eighteen point five million veterans in our country, half of
which are not affiliated with any organization. The voices are not being heard, and our role is to help that voice be heard in an unfiltered, a political way that help veterans, helping veterans, veterans telling their story, and us helping veterans navigate their next phase in life, which is a challenge for some.
What are some of the issues that you hear about from veterans that they need help with.
Well, there's a whole host of it, you know. First of all, you know, we have such a great country that supports their veterans. Right, Americans, by a far majority eighty five ninety percent have a favorable feeling about veterans, highly support veterans value what they've done for our country.
They understand that the veterans community is a diverse one, it's resilient, it's it's a vital demographic in our country, and their service has helped build and sustain the American way of life, and their sacrifice is really part of the fabric which makes up our national character. But to answer your question, I think there's a number of areas.
One and this may be a shock to some listening, but we have about twenty five percent of both active duty and military that are food insecure, means they're not able to eat correctly. They don't have the right resources money to be able to buy the food that they need. We're all familiar with the number of veterans suicides we have. That number is commonly discussed around twenty to twenty two. It's probably higher than that because some people are not
identified as veterans for whatever reason. Sustained problem in our society as veterans getting access to quality healthcare, you know, two thirds of the American people strongly support that veterans get access to civilian healthcare. If the VA cannot serve the veterans in the timely fashion, most Americans right now do not feel that veterans get as much supports from the government as they search. So we have a number
of issues that face veterans. The transitions to surveying life is sometimes very difficult, and that's some of the things that we're tackling at Mission roll Call is to give them a forum in switch they can talk about the challenges they have, network with each other and tackle some of these problems. You give veterans a problem, you give a soldier or marine or an airman a Navy person a problem, they're going to go solve it and they're going to go find a way to work together to
get that done. And that's what we're trying to do with Mission roll Call. We're really excited about a lot of energy behind it, a lot of nonprofits to the military space. You're highly supportive of it. So we're excited about work we're doing and have every intent to grow it and become the nation's premier voice of the veteran.
Finally, how can veterans make their voices heard through Mission roll Call? And how can everyone whether they served or not, help support the work that you're doing.
Thank you, Ron, It's so important, first of all for anyone who's non active duty, has been a veteran, is the spouse of a veteran, has a brother or sister in the service. Please join us. Go to our website sign up. We have a number of surveys that we do that we send out the folks to gauge what are the issues that they have. We share that survey data with elected officials, people at built the federal, state, and local level that helped state college policy to help
tell the story. They can go to our website and do that and join, and they can just let's all the veterans know about this important endeavor that we're embarking upon. We've had a lot of success, but we looked at twenty twenty four is to really be the year that we grow this and continue the good work that's been done so far. You know, veterans are so important to
our country. So few people now and our populace have served or know someone that served, and so it's important for us to be able to tell that the impact of what veterans do and what that'sance brings to the table. You know, they bring highly transferable skills, they're more likely to engage in civil organizations, they want to get back to work. They're great role models, great coaches, great mentors,
and they're very diverse. They represent every facet of our society and what makes our I'm so great.
Everyone can learn more about the work Mission Role Call does and you can support that work as well at Mission Role Call dot org. That's Mission Role Call dot org. CEO of Mission Role Call Jim Whaley with us. Jim, I want to thank you so much for the work you're doing with your organization and also for your service to this country. We really appreciate it, and God bless you really appreciate it. Jim. I'm Ryan Gorman here on this Veterans' Day Weekend special and now let's bring in
our next guest. We're joined by retired Brigadier General Jack Hammond, executive director of home Base. You can learn more about this organization at home Base dot org. General Hammond, thank you so much for coming on the show and tell us the backstory to home Base and the work that you do.
Brian, and thanks for having us and helping raise awareness for what we do and celebrate and honor and support our veterans. So home Base is a very interesting concept and initiative and it began with the Boston Red Sox visiting Walter Reed on two separate occasions after World Series victories. And as some folks know, that's either lovers or haters.
The Red Sox broke their eighty six year curse with no World Series victories in two thousand and four, and as we all know, after the World Series wins, you go to the White House and meet with the President. What they did that was kind of unique was they went directly from the White House to Walter Reed Army Medical Center before returning home and spent some time with
our wounded and injured warriors. After the first visit in two thousand and four, they brought the They brought a group of wounded veterans up from Walter Reed to Fenway Park for the rings ceremony on opening Day when they returned after the two thousand and seven World Series in the spring of two thousand and eight. By then we were in the height of the surge in Iraq and the highest number of catastrophically injured young men and women were at Walter Reed and they were really moved to
action at that point. A one hour visit ended up lasting Amost four and a half hours. They were they were completely taken back by what they saw, and they committed to actually do something about it. The Red Sox chairman Tom Warner was it was his vision to move forward.
He reached back here in Boston to the president of the Massachusetts General Hospital, which is Harvard's teaching hospital, and doctor Peter Slevin Slaven agreed to partner with the Red Sox in a joint effort to help develop innovative solutions and care for our veterans. Since that time, we've cared for more than thirty thousand US veterans, military family members, and active duty service members, all at no costs one
through fundraising. We've developed several initiatives where we've we've reimagined what's possible in that treatment, and fortunately, by by leveraging the faculty of Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the mass General breakup system, we've been able to reimagine what's possible and develop these press programs like a two week intensive political program for post traumatic stress that compresses two years of treatment into two weeks, enabling us to
fly veterans from anywhere in the world to home base. And to date we've cared for and treated veterans from all fifty states, and flown US veterans in from thirteen different countries, again at all no costs. And I'll give you the last two programs very quickly. Around twenty nineteen, the Naval Special Warfare leadership approached us about developing a
polytrauma traumatic brain injury program for our Navy Seals. We expanded that to all Special Operations Team members and to date we've had almost a thousand Special Operations Team members sign up for programs. With home Base, we treat the most injured Special Operations Team members, the most injured veterans, and about five operators come to home Base every single week. And then finally to take care of our most injured
military family members, the surviving family members of suicide. We're extremely high risk for suicide themselves, and too often these military spouses of parents were in the room when the veterans took their life. About as tragic as it gets
traumatic as you can imagine. So in a partnership with a national organization called Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, they tried the great organization right they tris the most at risk military family members that need our care, and we developed a fourteen day intensive clinical program very similar to the one from the Warriors, and we dedicate that once every quarter to our Tafts families. And the last thing
we do is we build local capacity. We work with local hospital systems and clinical programs to build up their clinical programs, and to date, we've worked with programs across Florida, starting in Arizona a little bit, beginning with the tribal Lands of Navajo Nation, and soon to be in Montana again, just working with local organizations, trying to share some of the expertise we've developed, learn what they're doing, and then connect the Warriors in those states to our program.
And then finally, for those listening who want to support all of this tremendous and vital work for our veterans and their families, how can they go about doing that?
Ways to go to.
Homebase dot org. If you know a veteran that needs help, there's a button that says connect Care. If you want to support our veterans, there's another one that says donate here anything helped. If they can give five ten dollars, that'd be great. If they can give a million, that's even better. But every dollar goes to help support our wounded and injured warriors, active duty service members and families. So thank you in advance for anyone that does take me up.
On that retired Brigady Your General Jack Hammond, executive director of home Base again. You can learn more and offer your support at home Base dot org. That's home Base dot org. General Hammond, thank you so much for your service to this country, for the work you're doing with home Base, and for taking a few minutes to come on the show. We really appreciate it.
Well, I appreciate you, and thank you to I Out Radio for the support they get us.
It's our pleasure. General, thanks so much. And now our final guest here on this Veterans Day weekend special, we're joined by green beret veteran and executive director of Task Force Dagger Matt Parrish. You can learn more about this organization at Taskforce Dagger dot org. Matt, thank you so much for coming on the show. How did Task Force Dagger first get started? And tell us about the mission you're on?
Absolutely no, thanks for having me ran. You know, Task Work Stagger's been around a little over a decade. You know, our bread and butter is we service all active and former members of the Special Operations community and their families,
no matter what branch they served in. So every branch Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps has their own kind of version of Special Operations, and we cover all of them and as I said, their families as well, because what we found over the years is, you know, if someone's going through a hardship, it's not just affecting them, it's certainly affecting their family as well. So we do that across
three primary missions. First one is immediate needs, which is you know, everything from hey, you know, we're having a financial hardshed because of a death in the family, or hey we need to you know, get airline tickets to
go and visit a stick relative. All those things, you know, are just things that unfortunately, there's not a lot of financial margin for most folks that are active duty, and so we want to you know, provide kind of a safety net there to take care of special operators and their families when that you know, kind of crisis comes.
And then Health and initiatives, we stay on the cutting edge and kind of next gen things across behavioral and mental health, across traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress, and things like that. And so we we we stand at the front edge of things that aren't covered by insurance yet but are showing a lot of usefulness and utility
and really saving people's lives. And so we want to be the pathfinder to help folks get connected to those treatments and then hopefully ultimately advocate through Congress and through other things for those things to be covered in the future. And then finally we do rehability of adaptive events, which is really focused around injured or ill or wounded you
know again, active reformer SOFT members in their families. We did ad across a couple of different events, but our flagship event is down in Key West every year called Dagger Dive, where we take these families and have them learn how to scuba dive together. And so you've got a family that's undergone a lot of stress over the course of a career and now they get a chance to do something as like a shared a shared task,
a shared learning of something. And as you take you know, take your take your you know service member in there and their spouse underwater, you know, you take away the ability to speak. You're all hand an arm signal if you're learning a new task, all these things, and you know, we've had a lot of family members who have come back and said, you know, hey, my my husband or my father, you know, is in a wheelchair from his servi or he's got all these lutator you know, different
things going on. And this is the first time we've been able to do something with Dad similar to how he was before. You know, he underwent all of these injuries and things like that. So really awesome, impactful stuff that we're proud to we're proud to be able to support our community with.
And I think what's really important is the family component to this, because it isn't just the special operators who are dealing with something the families. They're right in the middle of this too, for set.
And you know, if you're going to make positive and proactive change and help someone's life, it needs to be from all aspects. It needs to be holistic, and it definitely needs to be including the family because they've been included across all of these different deployments and training things and injuries. You know, they oftentimes are dealing with it, you know, just as much trying to make sure that you know.
Again, mom or dad or you know, spouse.
Is is taken care of, but also taking care of just the average day to day you know, day to day stuff for you know, whether the kids are getting to school or any you know, something's going on where dad gets injured and mom has to go somewhere for a month to take care of him. You know, there's a lot of stress on a family over the course
of over the course of a special operations career. So we're happy to be able to provide you know, both both opportunity to to you know, do these different things and try to heal, but also also a supportive atmosphere of other people who understand the challenges and can help
walk people through with their families. You know again, We're always pointing people in a positive and proactive direction because it's not about having a bunch of you know, victims as veterans, about getting these amazing people a little bit of a help back into showing all the amazing things they can do is now citizens in their post military career.
And finally, what are some of the different ways that everyone listening can help support the work the Task Force Dagger does.
Absolutely you know Ryan mentioned earlier If you go to task Force Dagger dot org, you can join our email list, get linked into all these different things that we're doing over the course of a year. We are one hundred percent donor funded. We are a private foundation, and so we rely on you know, patriotic Americans across the country and across the world, some of which who have served, some of which have family that have served, and some
who haven't at all but want to support. You know, over the course of the global war and terrorism, special operations has been really used and at times overused, and so we're trying to piece those things back together and make sure that we take care of the folks that have served, and that we are proactively looking for the folks that are going to serve in the future and
helping them out. And so we're always looking for folks to donate, but also looking for volunteers for some of our different events as I mentioned, like things at Dagger Dive or other events that we put on across the country. Always looking for volunteers. And so if you check out that forth Dagger dot org or hit us up on your Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn in any of those places, we can get tied in and show you ways to get involved.
For sure, Green Beret veteran and executive director of task Force Dagger, which again you can learn more about and support at Taskforce Dagger dot org. Matt Parish with us. Matt, thank you so much for your service, for the work you're doing with task Force Dagger, and for coming on the show. We appreciate it, right, appreciate you, brother. All Right, that's going to do it for this Veterans Day weekend
edition of iHeartRadio Communities. As we wrap things up, I want to offer a big thanks to all of our guests, and of course to all of you for listening and especially all of you support these veterans organizations and so many others across the country. I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. We'll talk to you again real soon.