Take Time to Reflect

Multiple people in my family, clean my father, are veterans.

The troops that have been to war and now they're back.

And think and be grateful for their service.

Sacrifice, love for their country, just unselfishness, all that.

They do for us.

There are some people in this country who take extraordinary steps to provide for the freedom and security.

We forget that those people exist.

We know them as the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. They call themselves soldiers, seals, rangers, airmen, sailors, devil.

Dogs, and so much more.

We call them fathers, brothers, sons and husbands, mothers, daughters, sisters and wives. We call them friend and neighbor. These veterans answered the call, now we answer theirs. They are the best our country has to offer, and we love them. Today, we honor them and we serve them. David Maulsby is your host, and he welcomes you to this community of veterans, as together we are building the road to hope.

And indeed we are glad to have you along on this Well. It's Memorial Day weekend, Sunday afternoon on the KPRC the nine to five oh when the AM dial those of you listening through radio, thank you for joining us as you're on your way to do your things for Memorial Day weekend. Those of you listening through the Magic podcast, we sure do thank you for doing so. Wherever you listen to podcasts, just look for Road to Hope Radio. I would love it if you hit that

Hello, Hello, Hello, So Adrian Jones are Colls me jonesy so mentor alphabet being a mentor there in the year now, served mostly in Iraq. I did two back to back fourteen month tours and then I came home.

Where are you from?

I am from Brady, Texas. Brady small town out west central.

Texas branch Marine Corps. Marine Corps. I'm surprised you didn't say that Marines usually say that right off the bat, like they're quick to say that. All right. Also in the studio with us, we have guy that's in our program right now. Jeremy, want to introduce yourself.

Yeah, I'm Jeremy Burgers.

I'm originally from Lexington, North Carolina, but I live over in Atlanta, Georgia. Now, I did ten years in the Air Force as a combat search and rescue loadmaster.

Okay, and you deployed.

I deployed twice, once to Afghanistan in twenty eleven and once the Dabooty Africa in twenty twelve.

Okay, So we'll get into your story here in just a moment. Just quick reminder, get your phone out. Put the phone number in. You never know. It may not be for you, but you may need to share it with somebody who could really use our services. So please put the number in your phone. Eight seven seven seven one seven seventy eight seventy three. A combat veteran will answer the phone. If you find someone struggling and on the phone, hit that number and tell them a combat

Ten either of you guys like crawlfish.

Huh do you really?

I've had one my whole life.

One.

I don't like crawl fish. Like wait a minute, I don't understand either.

Uh. Maybe the one you had was not properly probably.

I think that was it.

If you like shrimp, I don't.

I love frimp, Yeah I don't.

Yeah. Oh, well more for me. Uh, lots of crawfish this weekend. I had a great, great day on Saturday. We have we have two sci fair school teachers, husband wife, the husband United States Army vet. And eleven years ago, I believe it was, they held their first crawfish boil in the front yard with some friends and donated from that to Camp Hope for the very first time. And now they've donated over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars from just having crawfish boil and inviting some friends over

Gonna be interesting.

Oh yeah, and I think they've got a couple of surprises in addition to crawfish. So well, I don't know exactly how that's working out. I know I talked to him about a couple of months ago and he was going to try to pull off a little something extra. So I won't say it so nobody gets disappointed, but it should be a whole lot of fun with big, big things. You know, a lot of people throughout the course of a year. Well, there's some like a Memorial

Lexington?

Lexington? Okay, all right? Do they still make a lot of furniture over there?

They do.

It's a big furniture Lexington and Salisbury.

They're a big furniture.

I know it was at one time. I didn't know if it was still going on, still going on? All right, very cool. You went to high schooler?

I did. I went to Davidson County.

What was your claim to fame in high school?

Uh?

Well, my freshman and sophomore years, I was pretty much the all star basketball and football player. Tore my rotator cuff and that end of that. So then I was pretty much banned the whole time.

Okay, Adrian, did you do sports in high school?

Oh? Yeah, a lot of sports, so everything except for baseball.

I just seen baseball as my sport.

But that was my dad's sport, baseball.

So what were you best at?

My opinion? Track?

Really?

All four years I went to regionals. I qualified high jump, long jump, and the quarter.

Really, so I believe running is a sin. That's my problem. That's my problem.

Tracking.

I got a couple of screwis in money because I wanted to play football, and I thought that was the greatest thing ever.

Yeah, that was pretty good at football.

Yeah, I don't run. I don't run anymore.

The chance to look it up. Nineteen ninety eight, I was the number one quarterback cornerback in Texas?

Are you serious?

Three A?

What year?

Nineteen ninety eight?

Really?

My defense that year allowed nineteen points the whole season.

We're worthy of what's school?

Brady?

Texas?

Okay?

We were the number one defense in the state three A And that's awesome.

You didn't want to do that in college?

No, I want to run?

Oh me? Nope, running is a sin?

All right.

So obviously at some point in time you joined the military. Why'd you decide to join the military?

Well, I grew up in a military family, so like all the males to my entire immediate family, they were all part of the military. And I was actually working for NASCAR out of high school, and I got to the point where like, if I'm going to join I need to go ahead and join now. So it was in two thousand and nine when I decided to join because I was like, if I get too old, I want to not be able to enjoy it as much.

So how old were you when you join?

I was twenty three.

Okay, it's not too long now. But you were the old guy when you went into.

Actually I wasn't. There was one that was forty five in my boots.

Oh are you serious?

Yes?

Wow, all right, But other than that, I was the old guy. Okay, nice? What why the Air Force?

I always wanted to fly, and I was like, I can knock out two birds in one stone. I can join the military and fly at the same time.

But you didn't fly.

I did. I was.

I flew on the back of the plane. Like I wasn't a pilot, but I was on the back of the plane.

Yeah, so you're in the plane.

Yeah the plane? Was?

It a perfectly good airplane? Is air Force? So maybe what I was, you know, airborne and all that stuff, jumping out of planes. I used to say, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. They'd all shake their head. No, it was not a perfectly good airplane.

Yeah. No, it started off like some of the ones I started off flying. They were sixty years old, so they were like barely being held held on duct tape. Yeah, super glue, duck tape and slue.

Scary, yeah, I know. Like, Okay, so we're sending our young men and women to war on sixty year old airplanes. Hmmm, but I think, yeah, I forget what the number was. They just, you know, this big to do about the seven forty seven that was being gifted to the United States, and they were talking about how old the current Air Force one is and it's it's old. I forget how old they said it was, but it was. It shocked me when I heard that's now I'm sure you know,

So for me, I guess Memorial Day weekend, it's roughly twenty some years ago now, a long time actually lost the marine under my charge, and so it means to me it's just what it means to be free, you know, the Ultimate Sacrifice parade and what we did over there and to value what we have here. It's just remind nder of, you know, what to be grateful for, you know, coming home and what it was all about and those that do do give ultimate sacrifice. So very it was

Before you worked through some of that, you can kind of recall maybe first or second, first few Memorial Days, how did you cope with those?

So I would usually be with myself. I didn't want to talk about it, you know, I didn't want to be reminded of it, because you know, you get you get people that want to know why you feel this way that wasn't there. I just want to talk about it. So I usually haunted by myself. You know, I'd go either go fishing with some moves, or I would just go to some random you know, holding the wall somewhere where no one knew me and just kind of you know, my have my day. That's how I used to deal with it.

And this year you'd be doing what on Memorial Day?

This year, believe it or not, I'll be working, but me too, but you know, I'll be with some fellow brothers in arms, you know, enjoy the day festivities if they're around, and things of that nature, some totally different something I don't think I'll be able to do. Well, I wouldn't be able to do, you know, some fifteen twenty years ago.

How important is it, though that the ones you're going to be around have that shared experience of both combat and of loss.

Well, I mean it helps with the you know, some of those way in questions, you know, am I alone in this?

You know?

Will I get through this? Will it ever change? You know, does it get better? Things like that. It just helps to be with that familiar, familiar state of mind and know that there's a there is a light in the tunnelness.

Jeremy, what does Memorial Day mean to you personally today? Uh?

Well, I've always remembered Memorial Day as is a time to remember those that paid the ultimate sacrifice. So it's one of those humbling moments to know that, yes, we had all the people that went into the military, but not everybody came home. So it's one of those like somber moments just to remember friends and families that passed.

Well?

Being in a military family like I was raised on how Memorial meant to remember, so it was already there, so it really didn't change any throughout my entire life, pre military or post military.

Okay, So six years from the time you got out of their time you got to Camp Hope. PTSD's part of your life. Yes, when did you begin to notice something's not right?

Actually I wasn't the one to notice it.

Normal my wife was. She kept going, She's like, you have PTSD, and I'm like, no, I don't have that. I'm not one of those people. She's like, yes, you have it. And then as my depression and anxiety started getting really worse than the suicidal aviations and everything, She's like, you need to go get help. And so I went to a couple of different rehab facilities and didn't really

When did you kind of begin that journey of looking for help those first couple of rehabs you mentioned.

So that started in August of last year.

Okay, so it still took a while. Yeah, so it took five.

Is years five is years to actually decide I needed help. But the PTSD started while I was.

Still in the military too, so it had they took almost what that look for you what was going on. It was a lot of isolation and then not really caring about the job that I did back home. It was more or less I wanted to get back out deployed to help those that we need it, because being search and rescue, I felt like if I wasn't there, who's going to save the people?

Gotcha?

How did you cope with that while we were Did you talk to anybody about it?

No?

I never talked to anybody.

I was always told if you go talk to somebody, that's going to be the end of your military career. And I wanted to make a twenty year career out of it. So it's one of those things I just bottled inside. And the longer you bottle it inside, the harder it gets.

Which was an interesting thing that I think happened in you know, the post nine to eleven Wars. I think it was about twenty fourteen, twenty fifth Team the Pentagon was really trying to push to change some of that, and so they even had some remember vividly there's a couple of generals that spoke openly about their PTSD and the thought was we can kind of you know, guys

Out of that. So, of course I was deployed over there from two thousand and two to two thousand and four, so I was in the initial push and all that good stuff. So in about two thousand and late two thousand and three, of course, after a few visits from General you know, Maddis and all those guys coming over there. Because I was a general driver, Uh, you saw a

So it was, it was, it was, it was, it was there.

It was noticeable.

Okay, all right, we're gonna take our final break here. PTSDUSA dot org eight seven seven seven one seven seventy eight, seventy three, eight seven seven seven one seven seventy eight seventy three. I should mention everything we do. Everything we do for our combat veterans and their family is at no charge to the vet or to the family. The interim housing program that we call Camp Hope here in Houston, Texas, we bring veterans in from every part of the country,

A Girl, the Friend Scene, find say have a thing.

We've mentioned Campo, but also want to mention to you. We have other support systems as well. We run what we call warrior groups and family groups across the city of Houston, a few places across Texas, and a few places across the country, including the virtual one that you can jump on anywhere where you have internet access. Those are not as strictly limited to combat related PTSD. There'd

All the other ones I went to didn't really deal with any of the PTSD. It was mostly all depression, anxiety or substance abuse. And I needed something a little bit more to deal with my PTSD and the nightmares and everything. And so that's when me and my accounselor found Can't Hope and they're like, this may be a good fit for you, and disgusted with my wife and.

She was like, yeah, go were you self medicating?

I was not self medicating because being Air Force, we were always taught you can't take any medic medication unless it's prescribed to you. So I've just been living on that mindset and then luckily I didn't have any substance abuse problems.

So were you Were you diagnosed by the VA?

I was?

I was actually didn't get I got diagnosed at my last rehib facility and then got diagnosed by the VA.

Here of Camp Hope.

All right, when you first when you first mentioned Camp Hope, what do you recall about the conversation, your reaction to it.

Uh, When I first heard about it, it was it was almost like a weight was going to get lifted off, Like I felt like there was actually.

The name Hope. I felt like there was.

Something I could look forward to to like get the help I needed, and I wouldn't have to rely on everybody else. I could go and get the help myself and then let the family kind of do you other thing while I'm getting myself worked out.

That's to me, that's the beauty of the peer to peer. And there's two aspects of the period of peer. There's the period of peer amongst the guys who were actually in the program at the time, and that can be powerful as well. But all your mentors are graduates of the program, and even just that in and of itself should inspire some hope. Right. It may take it a minute because you know, in the depths of the darkness and sometimes you can't really process it to understand that.

It took a little while from me to realize it, but now it's full circle. You know, after going through the program, graduating then you know, being there being like a secutive with two years now and it's like I see the full spectrum of it, and it is like, I'm a lot more comfortable with opening up, being transparent about things. I'm less likely to shut down and shut them out, even with you know, still you know, program

In this, you know.

So that's one of the best feelings to have to support.

So yeah, it can get very lonely, sir. How long have you been to camp?

I'm coming up on month five?

Okay, so are you into yelliot?

I go to the yellow boards next week?

All right?

So then straight the yellow phase and then hopefully green phase after that and until I get everything worked out and feel safe going home.

What's what's changed.

It's one of the like I feel like I can be more open about my emotions other than bottling them in. I feel like there's like people that would actually listen and care, and people that have gone through similar things as me, so they can relate to it.

So lets me open up more.

And then just getting some of the education on some of the depression and PTSD opens opens my eyes to like how things actually can be beneficial.

If you know what's going on, you can start to work on it.

It sounds like your family's been supportive. Yes, that's gotta be a big plus because you've been there five months, so you've seen plenty come through that don't have the family support.

Yeah, having that family support is kind of what's keeping me here because knowing that I have somewhere safe to come home to is something that keeps me there to keep working on myself, being like, hey, I know you're there, but I need a couple more months. Just just keep it going while I'm working on myself, And they're like, hey, the most important thing is take care of yourself.

Now. You mentioned stand for green yes, which for folks listening that doesn't mean much as anything, but it means you've completed the program and now you're staying to work on some additional things, working on your go forward plan. What are you looking forward to?

Uh, Honestly, one of the things I'm most looking forward to is seeing my kids again, because I have not seen or spoke to my kids in eight months, So that's one of the things I'm looking forward to.

Yeah, how old are they?

Uh my daughter is seven and my son's fourteen.

Awesome, good, well, I know that'll be a great day when that day comes around.

Yes, sir.

But in the meantime, keep doing the work, finish up strong, complete what needs to be completed. Don't leave anything unchecked. There's a lot of time guys end up coming back because they wouldn't open up about one thing because they were too embarrassed or too whatever and just wouldn't do it. Get it all out there, man, while you're here, get it all out Thanks for joining us. Thanks for sharing a little bit of your story. I know that's the favorite thing in the world to do, is here some

Well.

Look forward to being with you again next week for more of Road to Hope Radio

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