Before we get into what this week's episode is about. This is airing on Memorial Day. If anyone is listening who lost a loved one in the line of duty, I just want you to know that our hearts are with you, our prayers are with you. I'm so sorry for your loss. We honor your loved one and their sacrifices for this country. If anyone who's listening who is served or is currently serving, I just want to thank
you for what you're doing for this country. I know it's probably a frustrating time with all this wokee nonsense that the Biden administration is doing, but we appreciate you and we thank you for your service in.
Honor of all that.
The conversation we're going to have today is with a man named Chief Michael Carmichael. He is the founder of an organization called Chekovet. He retired as an Army Chief Warrant Officer for He served ten combat deployments to countries like Iraq. He was in Special Forces for twenty two years, which is a long time. He has served multiple depployments. As I pointed out, what is the whole of a
twenty year war under military men and women. Have we even comprehended what we have done to so many young people, to so many people to have served multiple deployments in these different arenas. We often hear the number of twenty two vets a day, but it has been reported recently that it might even be double, that it's significantly higher than twenty two vets a day. So don't we have a duty to the people who gave so much to our country to the point where they've come home and
thinking about perhaps ending their lives. We have a duty to try to understand what they've been through, what they're going through, and try to find a way to help them. Now Chief Michael Carmichael is doing just that with Check a Vet. So what we're going to do today is just talk to him about his services, his experience being in the Special Forces for twenty two years, what those multiple combat deployments have done to him, perhaps his mental health.
Talk to him about what he's experienced, and then also why he decided to found Check a Vet and what he's doing with that. So stay tuned for Chief Michael Carmichael. Chief Carmichael, first of all, thank you for your servicer. We just appreciate what you've done for the country. You joined the Montana National Guard at seventeen years old with consent for your parents. What led seventeen year old Michael at the time to join the National Guard?
All my best friends, who were twin brothers joined. They literally came up to me and they're like, hey, I guess what we did well? They had joined the National Guard. So I teased them for weeks until the realization that I was going to spend my last summer without my best friends. So eventually I ate Crow and ask him where to sign up and the rest is history.
Before we get into what you're doing with trying to help veterans with suicide, we're seeing a major recruiting problem in the military right now. Why do you think more and more young people are deciding against joining?
If I could be honest and use the caveat in my opinion, I would say they're not Younger people aren't used to hard work.
You know.
And after the National Guard, you went on to join the Special Forces. I think it was in nineteen ninety four. You attended Special Forces selected an assessment.
Is that correct?
Yes? Man, it's selection and assessment.
Okay, there you go.
And then you went on to spend twenty two years in the US Special Forces with ten combat deployments Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria. I mean, that's a long time. You know, that's a lot of service to the country. That's a lot of combat that you saw. What kind of toll does that take on your body, on your mind, and on your life.
Pleasa, I think we're all put on this earth to do something, and I think God put me on this earth to do that. Surprisingly, I'm still relatively fit, at least I like to think so, still have my faculties. As I retired from the service and the VA had to assume responsibility of me, they kept having me do the psyche vals over and over and over again, and I come to find out it's because they couldn't find any signs of PTSD, which was pretty unique. I guess I'm a unicorn, but no, I mean, I don't have
any complaints. It was a blink of an eye, and I only wished I could do more.
How frequent is PTSD among our veterans.
As I look across the landscape of my friends and fellow operators and just other guys that I had served with, it's it's got to be in the ninety percent percentile and to talk to that. And this is something that I completely don't understand is.
Some of the worst people that struggle with PTSD the most are from MOSS that are like cooks and truck drivers and equipment operators who never even actually you know, left the fob and got to you know, employ their weapon and people Americas save for democracy.
They never left.
So why do you think that is.
That's a great question and it's got a simple answer. Being a ranger in Special Forces, even an infantryman, there's so much that you go through to make sure that you're of the right cloth. So we're tested to make sure that we're more prepared, whereas the cooks and the truck drivers they're just thrown in.
So maybe there's some strong correlation with that.
No, I've talked to a lot of Special Forces guys who talk about sort of the difficulty when you come home and just feeling like life's kind of passed you by here and or you know, or you know, life is you've been out you know, wherever, in the mountains of Afghanistan or whatever, and it feels like it's been you know, like one hundred years for you because you've seen so much, You've gone through so much, you've grown so much as a person, and seeing all that and
then you know, you come home and it feels like a lot of the folks in your life are still up and you know, things that sort of don't matter as much, or you know, sort of insignificant things, or the same girlfriend they were hung up on, or whatever it is. You know, how how hard is that coming home when obviously you've just been through something that the people in your life just aren't going to really be able to understand.
That leads me to an experience that I had. I just came home from one of our toughest tours in Iraq, and I remember standing in the Walmart line and the lady who was in front of me was completely stressed out, you know, being being a pain and being ugly to the clerk. And I remember thinking in my mind, I'm glad that this American thinks that that's what stress is, because that's not stress. So coming home, it's it's always
a transition. Some some people do it better than others, And I would say from my experience, the more you do it, the easier it gets. But you have to read that when you do come home, your family unit has completely adapted to life without you. So a big mistake that type A personalities have when they come home, It's like, Okay, Daddy's home and I'm in charge again. So everybody back up. So you can't do that.
You can't.
You have to be more sensitive to what everybody's been doing and making the households about.
You had mentioned coming back from one of the toughest tours in Iraq. What made that specific tour so difficult?
I very sensitively used toughest.
I would say that was one of my most enjoyable and productive tours. That was I think two thousand and seven, when General Petraeus had started doing the blockade around Beg Dad in order to lock down the city and keep the bombs and the bad guys out. It was just that tour was you know, glory. They say pain heels. You know, chicks dig scars, but glory lasts forever. That trip was nothing but glory. So that's how I look
at it. It was a it was a great experience for me, but it was a it was a huge grind for all of us, but a good deal for me.
Is it frustrating to have spent time in Afghanistan and Iraq and then see what's been happening in Afghanistan and to see it fall so quickly.
I love that you're.
Asking me that question, because I think my perspective is pretty unique. It broke my heart when we came home from Iraq. I did eight tours in Iraq, and really I was in Iraq before the war started. I infilled a team of an agency and Delta operators and I had so much invested in Iraq that when we pulled out and the way that we pulled out, it broke my heart. But I knew at the end of the day, I had the maturity to understand, this is not our country. It is not fair for us to impose our presence
and values on the world. So I think I got a little calloused by that in a good way. And when they shut down Afghanistan, sure there was there was lots of issues with that, and I'm not going to defend any of that at all. All I can say is from my perspective, when you boil all the meat off of the bone, we had to leave somehow. We didn't do it gracefully, but we left.
I think that. You know, look, I agree with you know what you just said. You know, obviously you've lived this, you know I haven't, So I respect what you're saying. Do you feel in those experiences and spending time in these countries where you know, obviously the objective turned into two nation building more or less? Is that sort of a fruitless exercise? I mean, you'd talked about how, you know, we can't really impose our will and or values on
some of these other countries. You know, they are these countries are what they are.
You know, that's great.
So I was actually there when I think his name was Brenner, and so the State Department sent this guy and he was really in charge of the nation building. And the first thing that this guy wanted to do was anybody that was in the bath party was bad, okay. And what I was screaming back then was, hey, everybody's in the bath party. It's not like you got Republicans, Democrats, and independents. There's only one show in town. So with regard to nation building, that was a huge mistake.
That took a couple of.
Years for us to write and go out and find those people who could run the systems of government that we needed ran.
But then two even at the end of the.
Day, as we as we closed Iraq, and you know, even in like four h five, I really saw the writing on the wall that by doing one man, one vote in the non representative type of government like Lebanon has, they have a representative democracy. So if we do one man, one vote and look over the country of Iraq, well, guess what, you just handed the country to Iran and the Shia, which is something the Iran Iraq Wars couldn't do.
But by us doing what we did and not being sensitive to a comprehensive nation building strategy really alienated the Sunnis and alienated the Kurds in the north.
You know, obviously, having spent time in you know, Afghanistan, let's say, you know, you saw you know, terrorists, you know up close, you know, what should people know about you know, the Taliban and and sort of what did you see?
At least a full disclosure. I never step foot in Afghanistan. I was I was in the invasion and I was actually on the first Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha that was chosen to do a MIC force. We hadn't done a MIC force since Vietnam, and what that is is we're going to put American troops in an adjacent country to interdict the bad guys as they come and go
from what they perceived to be a safe area. So that said, while I was in Pakistan, I'm very comfortable saying that the terrorists and the bad guys, the talib and the al Qaeda operators that we saw there was there were so many of them, and there they're demeanors were different because they thought that they were in a safe zone.
But that said, you get down to.
The ideology of the people, and like some of the hardest fighters and some of the most ruthless terrorists are those that really believe that their mission and purpose is grounded in Allah, is grounded in God.
So how do you fight that. The only thing you can do is eliminate it.
But to answer your question, it's really unique to see I consider myself a very godly person, but it's unique to see a group of people justify the worst the word at least, I'm talking the worst behavior you can imagine with God wants me to do this, So that's.
It, Okay, So this is why I saw that on the bio said the initial invasion into Afghanistan. So that's where the disconnect came from where you were just laying out, we're going to take a quick commercial break more with Chief Michael Carmichael. Let's sit sears into check a VET. So you had talked about how you know you're one of the lucky ones who haven't suffered from PTSD. So why didn't take on the mantle of check a Vet.
You know what sort of spurred that decision to want to be a part of that or to start it.
The bottom line is I don't want to complain about something without offering a solution. I was a founder and a national secretary for a different nonprofit whose mission was the same. They wanted to prevent veteran suicide, but their approach was completely different. And it's an approach that you see across the nonprofit landscape, and that's, hey, we're going to prevent veteran suicide by taking them hunting or fishing or to a concert.
And as a founding member, having been in the.
Room as the idea took shape, I was like, guys, this is not it. There's eighteen million veterans. You can't take them all hunting and fishing, even if you could. Even if you could, suicide is a struggle that lasts period of time, maybe the rest of their lives. So going hunting or fishing it just doesn't match. It doesn't accomplish our mission. So what we have to do is three things, and we have to do those three things. Well, the first thing, Lisa, is what you're doing right now.
You're helping check of raise awareness to veteran suicide. You know your reputation of putting what matters out in the news cycle. You're doing it right now. So raise awareness of veteran suicide. What are the numbers? What are the problems? Then two, we need to get Americans involved in veterans' lives. Everybody's too busy. You know, veterans are their own worst enemy. Where grumpy or whatever. Get past all that. These are
our nation's heroes. They deserve our effort and time. And then three, once we get those people involved in veterans' lives, we really need to provide some education on what the protective and risk factors are to suicide. So as you observe somebody's behavior, you can kind of take notes and refer back, like, hey, you know this is what he's doing or she's doing here is not good.
It's risky behavior. So those are the three.
Things, and that's really the approach and where I came from and what led me to start checking out.
Well, I'm grumpy sometimes, but I have no excuse, so I haven't earned the ability to be to be grumpy. You know, you had mentioned some of the risk factors. You know, surely there are a lot of people listening who have a loved one who has served and they might be wondering, you know, what are some of the risk factors. You know, what should they look for if they might be concerned that, you know, maybe they're a loved one who has returned having some challenges with that.
I tell you A big one and it's easy to spot is isolation. My brothers and sisters, something will happen. And I did it myself. I mean, my transition out of the military was very difficult, so I isolated. I had gone from having the confidence of my commanders and my men to literally putting a dent in my bed. So that isolation is a terrible risk factor. But other more subtle things that you can look for are like needless risk taking, like driving fast or being what other
people would consider crazy. And then you get into some of the bedrock ones, which is untreated mental illness, untreated alcohol or substance abuse. These as we talk about these risk factors, really these are the problems that is suicide. Suicide is a symptom, it's not the problem. If you treat these risk factors in a responsible way, you'll never have the suicide. So that's how I look at the risk factors.
Do we have an idea?
I know that you know the twenty two a day number has been put out there of you know, veteran suicides per day.
Is that accurate?
My understanding is there's recently been some question that it might be substantially higher, perhaps even double.
Do we have an accurate number?
You know?
Do we know have they tried to get to the bottom of that of just how prevalent this is in society?
Yeah, the twenty two a day has really been in the in the narrative since I think about twenty seventeen or eighteen when according to the VA, that was the number.
So but this year as their numbers report for back in twenty twenty, if you look at the VA's numbers, it's sixteen point eight veteran suicides per day, so called that seventeen but AWP, the American Warrior Partnership received a grant from Bristol Myers Squib that was like three point five million, and they partnered with Duke and then they partnered with the University of Alabama and they really got after looking and trying to define the problem, and it
was it was really thoughtful because they started in the small towns and then the cities and the counties, and then across the states. And one of the states that they did was Montana, who at the time was the worst state in the nation for suicide. But what they came up with was the VA is under reporting the suicides by a factor of two point four times.
So yeah, it is more than double.
But if you look into the methodology of Operation Deep Dive, which is what I'm talking about, they had a lot of struggles trying to get inform and in fact they had to exclude some of the worst groups for suicide because the information simply wasn't there. So I would say it's worse than two point four times the reported numbers.
Well, that's a sad reflection of the VA. If they're intentionally under reporting that. I assume it's because it maybe implicates them and perhaps not giving the services that we should be giving to veterans. What is the sort of the collective experience in dealing with the VA.
I have a good relationship with the VA.
That said, I think that if you do an amazing job for ten people, maybe one of them will tell some of their friends that you did an amazing job. But if you do a crappy job for one person, they're going to tell everybody they know that you did a crappy job. So in the context of the VA, I wouldn't want that job. And I know that they do good, but the times where they're not doing good, it's amplified so loud that you can't hear the good
past that. Yeah, I really cringe when I get into the subject of the manipulation of data.
I've become a nerd.
I went from a barrel chested freedom fighter who was taking care of business overseas to burying my nose in appendixes and data spreadsheets and all that stuff. You just there's no other way to look at it other than intentional data manipulation. And I throw my hands up and think I wouldn't want to be in charge of this mission. But if I was, my God, I'm going to do accurate reporting so that the people who are holding me
accountable at least know how bad the problem is. Don't twist it, report it own it.
Well.
Unfortunately, we've seen, especially in the age of COVID, a lot of government manipulation when it comes to data. You know, it's if you're looking for truth, you're you're not going to get it from from government, that's for sure.
Do we know you know?
I mean, obviously a twenty year war is substantial. I mean, you've got a lot of people having done multiple deployments, such as yourself, you know, in various arenas. You talked about your experience in Iraq. Do we have data? I mean, do we have information about the toll that that takes on one's body? I mean, have there been other points in history where we have sent people, you know, back that many times to these different arenas in such a you know, period of time.
Absolutely not. This was unique.
I mean, look look back to the years World War One, World War two, Korea, I think Korea to a lesser extent, but the Great Wars, it was Hey, go over there and win. You know, I think that there was a cutoff of a year, maybe a couple of years. But go over there, win and then you can come home. The idea of this slow grind campaign and then the toll that that takes one because think about putting yourself on the airplane going home like whoo, we made it.
But then as soon as you land they're talking about getting ready for the next trip. That's a pretty tough psychological bag to carry around. So, yeah, there's never been anything like it, and I hope that we never do that again to our soldiers.
Yeah, mean, it's almost like you never get your footing right because if you're going home and then immediately being sent back, you just you never have time to reconnect with loved ones. I can't imagine how hard that would be just to be, you know, continuously away from the people you love that many times.
Yeah, the footing it at home is terrible. If commanders are thoughtful about deployments and they send the same troops back to the same locations over and over again, which pretty much nobody he did. But in second Battalion, fists, special Forces groups, you know, commanders like Colonel Chris Miller.
He did this, and because we kept going back to the same place, there was nobody in the country who was smarter on our areas than we were, because we had to established institutional knowledge on the bad guys, the good guys, the terrain and the situation.
So it's really a double edged sword.
But to get to the point, yeah, it's the most difficult on the families.
And you know, it's a terrible thing.
I mean, you know, those of us who haven't served have no idea what that's like to be away from family, you know that much, right, and to be that far away from family in the sense of, you know, you're at a totally different part of the world. You're isolated. You know, the ability to communicate communicates probably lacking. You know how how challenging is that for our men and women and and for you to to you know, to be gone that many times from the people you love.
It's tough.
But I mean not only being gone. I think of the culture shock of this. You know, when desert storm broke out the ground war started. I was a college student at Montana State University living in Montana, Altito, Tigh.
It's cold.
Hardly anybody there, So think about the culture shock to go from there to be uprooted and land in Saudi Arabia where it's just so hot you can't do anything.
There's all the you know.
The the feeling of war and all of that stuff. The culture shock was tremendous, It really was. So to try to get your footing anywhere would be tough with that scenario.
But to keep going and keep going. I think that as soon as they decide to.
Send this person back, they're already off balance before they get there.
You know.
I try to put my you know, in these conversations I have with you know, folks like you.
I try to.
It's just it's hard to even imagine being, you know, so young with that kind of responsibility in front of you.
I just I can't. You know, I was an idiot when I was young.
I mean I'm still an idiot sometimes, but you know, I definitely didn't have, you know, just the level of responsibility that you had in your life at a young age.
It just can't.
You know, it's hard to wrap your head around, to be honest, if for someone that's not been in your shoes.
I don't think somebody who wasn't in those shoes, can even fathom it. Think about standing in front of a crowd of people who were, you know, maybe throwing rocks or screaming at you, and you're standing there as an American soldier with your gear on and a loaded gun in your hand, and to have the maturity to not defend yourself up until the very last moment. That's not a natural thing, and the responsibility of that is ginormous.
So yeah, it's very tough and hard to understand, very.
Much so, but I appreciate you sharing that with us, you know, because it does help us get a better insight into some of the things that you know, you guys go through quick break stay with us, what at all that time in the military just teach you about life, Like what if you kind of have to reflect back on twenty two years and the Special Forces, what are your takeaways from that?
As I talk.
About or consider my deployments, I think it's a fair caveat to say I wasn't sent to a lot of nice places. I was send to the armpits of the world that you know, had tremendous conflict. But even that said, I love the people. I mean, you think about the Muslim brothers that I have to this day because I fought alongside of them in their land. It's really given me a whole different level of open mindedness. Like I
talked about Afghanistan, Hey, we got to get out. It's not fair for us to impose our morals and something on a land that's not ours. But that maturity or you know, the idea if somebody's racist, if you wanted to give them a prescription to not be racist, send them around the world so that they can walk a mile in other people's shoes and that insight that they'll get that that worldly view is.
It's truly amazing.
What's been your experience.
And working with other vets with check a vet, you know sort of kind of what's that been like for you to be able to obviously meet a ton of people who also have similar experiences you and just to try to help them going through you know, a tough time, right?
What's that been like?
Lisa?
I say that I adopt veterans all the time who were in distress, and I do all I can for them from the other end of the phone. But these are men and women who really don't communicate with anybody else I might be like the straw of the outside world that they look through, but veterans, so many veterans are just so broken. I say, we're our own worst enemy. We need to be open to receiving help when somebody offers it.
Difficult people. So mostly the engagement that Chekov has with veterans is people who are struggling seem to, you know, migrate to us, and that's perfect. You know.
I want those people to have hope. I want those people to have an understanding, but I also want those men and women to be more open to people wanting to be involved in their lives and to be less of a knucklehead, or to be less stubborn, or to be more you know, patient, you know, with with other people. So that I don't have to tell anybody who's dealt with veterans, you know, combat veterans, that you really have to be patient and be understanding because they deserve it.
You know, they deserve it. And yeah, they are difficult, but let's deal with it because they do deserve it.
Now, I imagine part of the challenge for people who are are struggling with even just wanting to live is you know, obviously this is going to air a Memorial Day. I can't imagine how hard it has to be to be so closely tight with you know, your brothers and sisters in the uniform, and to lose them, you know, to know that you're going home to your family, but
your friend is not. You know how big of a challenge is that for our military men and women to come home and knowing that a lot of your friends didn't have that same opportunity.
That's called survivor's remorse, and really that is one of the scariest forms or you know, negative motivations for a veteran to end their life by suicide. In fact, if you go to our YouTube channel Chekov at three sixty five and watch one of twenty two, that's exactly what's going after and that's that's a veteran who lost his battle buddy overseas. So that I don't think that that's
something you could ever rationalize. But if I could say one thing to the people that struggle with that, it would be don't you think your friend would want you to be happy? Don't you think your friend would want you to do well and be a good person. Look beyond their sacrifice, it's a volunteer service. They volunteered for it. I'm not saying that they deserved it, but gosh, I
would want all of my comrades, my brothers and sisters. Sure, keep a memory of me, but move on, live your life, be happy, could be a productive member of society.
You deserve it.
Before we go, what do you think makes check a VETTE different than you know, maybe some other veterans organizations LEASA.
Our message is suicide is preventable.
Don't treat suicide like it's the problem, because really it's not.
Suicide is a symptom of the problem.
Find out what is stressing your veteran out, you know, be it. Is it a financial problem, is it a struggle with something, whatever it is, find that stressor that could lead somebody down the path of wanting to hurt themselves and treat that and then guess what, there won't be a suicide.
So that's one and then two.
Be meaningfully and routinely involved in your veterans' lives.
They deserve it, they need it.
You know, they spent their whole careers as a member of a team. But as they get out now the anow they're just an isolated individual.
Get them back on a team, Get them back on your team.
Where can people go to learn more about checkovet or to help out.
Please go to check a ed dot org and learn. You know, come with open mind.
And from the very beginning my vernacular was I don't really care about anything other than people wanting to be involved in their veterans' lives. But my learned one of my hardest lessons is you can't raise awareness if you don't have the resources to do it. Guess what, Facebook ain't going to let you boost a post for nothing, even no matter how good your causes. So I think last month we hit over ten thousand people across their social media.
But we need help.
Let's take ten thousand and turn it into one hundred, then a million, and then one hundred million. We need resources to do that, and at checkovet dot org there's a contribute button, And I really hope that if people believe in what we're trying to do and how we're trying to do it, give us a hand because it's only going to make us better, stronger, and faster.
Well, Chief Carmarcle, I appreciate you taking the time to just share your story and to be so honest and open about you know your experiences, and you know thank you for helping your fellow vets, and most importantly, thank you for your service.
Sir Lisa, thank you for paying your taxes. I appreciate your.
Thanks to me, but I'm sure I spent all of your tax money on bombs and bullets.
But I appreciate you.
Thank you for being a hero in my mind and getting this message out there. And anytime you want me back, if I'm welcome, I'll be there with Belze.
Thank you, sir. I appreciate your time.
Yes, ma'am, thank you.
That was Chief Michael Carmichael, founder and president of check a Vet. Appreciate his service and just taking the time to join the show. It's always interesting and I think important to talk to people about their experiences because obviously for those of us who did not serve, it's hard to really know what these folks have been through unless
you take the time to have these conversations. And so that's always my intent and my purpose in talking to people who have served, is just to really try to get the best understanding I can of what they've been through, so that we just have a better understanding. So I appreciate you at home for listening every Monday and Thursday, but of course you can listen throughout the week. I want to thank John Cassio and my producer for putting the show together. Apologies for my voice. I'm still a
little bit sick, so that's what I sound like. Please leave us a review, give us a rating on Apple Podcast. Until next time,