Speaker 1: Welcome to the Good Stuff. I'm Jacob Shick and I'm
Speaker 1: joined by my co host and wife, Ashley Shik.
Speaker 2: Welcome everyone, and thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 2: on this journey as we get to tell stories of
Speaker 2: inspiration and perseverance. Everyone's got a story and we're excited
Speaker 2: to share them with you.
Speaker 1: We believe that everybody's got a story. We're telling from
Speaker 1: the valleys to the peaks, and we're really interested in
Speaker 1: what fed their soul to get them through their trying
Speaker 1: times to be able to come and tell these inspirational
Speaker 1: stories to provide a little bit of light in a
Speaker 1: world that seems to be full of a lot of darkness.
Speaker 2: Again, Welcome to the Good Stuff. Our guest today is
Speaker 2: bj Gannham, who is the founder of Sierra Delta, which
Speaker 2: is a national nonprofit that works to help all veterans
Speaker 2: with various types of dog training to help guide veterans
Speaker 2: to better overall wellness and health through the love of dogs.
Speaker 1: Bj is a fellow Marine. He's also a fellow amputee.
Speaker 3: Yeah, y'all are both blessed by fire.
Speaker 1: But he only has the one amputation, so really it
Speaker 1: wasn't that bad bad, No, we're comparing in comparison.
Speaker 3: I feel like y'all are brothers separated at birth.
Speaker 1: The two of you, quite possible. We have a lot
Speaker 1: in common. Really, it's strange. We knew that the day
Speaker 1: we met. We have all these things in common. I
Speaker 1: was immediately drawn to Bj. It's just the type of
Speaker 1: human that he is. We both played for the Wounded
Speaker 1: Warrior ampute football team, just a bunch of veterans, some wounded,
Speaker 1: some not to play against NFL alumni, and we have
Speaker 1: those games one or two times a year. We both
Speaker 1: have gotten DUIs, so you know, not something that we
Speaker 1: like to brag about.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: We both have dealt with some really dark time, right.
Speaker 1: We both have dealt with suicidal idiation, and we've battled
Speaker 1: a lot of the same demons post war. And he
Speaker 1: has one up on me being also a cancer survivor.
Speaker 1: And he is just the he epitomizes the word warrior.
Speaker 1: That's who BJ is. And as you well know, I
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly love him anymore.
Speaker 2: He's definitely a warrior, he's definitely a survivor. And we
Speaker 2: are so excited to share this conversation with you. We
Speaker 2: are so thrilled today to be joined by one of
Speaker 2: our dear friends, Marine Sergent, veteran founder and CEO of
Speaker 2: Sierra Delta, which is a national nonprofit working to help
Speaker 2: all veterans with various types of dog training to help
Speaker 2: guide veterans to better overall wellness through the love of dogs. BJ.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us here on the
Speaker 3: good stuff.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. Absolutely proud of you guys.
Speaker 2: You two have known each other for a long time,
Speaker 2: and you earned your spot on the amputee flag football
Speaker 2: team because you also have lost a leg.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we didn't. Just for the record, we didn't lose
Speaker 1: them like I know where mine went.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's anything like it just makes it sound irresponsible,
Speaker 1: it really does. I just didn't have the ability to reta.
Speaker 4: That bomb tried to take way more than just my leg,
Speaker 4: and all it got was a few toes.
Speaker 3: There you go. Fact, I love it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, y'all established such an incredible friendship and brotherhood.
Speaker 4: Yeah, being blessed by fire is only a few of us, right,
Speaker 4: There's a lot of people that served. There's only a
Speaker 4: few of us, and it's always a lottery. People can
Speaker 4: always say that they were in whatever unit, but who
Speaker 4: gets called and who gets the action is that's something
Speaker 4: you can't really predict.
Speaker 1: No, that's a fact, like it's luck of the draw.
Speaker 1: It is so.
Speaker 3: Are y'all any good at football?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're undefeated against NFL legends for a decade now.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I've scored a lot of touchdowns. I
Speaker 4: don't really keep track. I've seen Jake do some pretty
Speaker 4: amazing things with the Ninja turtle hand, and.
Speaker 1: It's amazing what some athletics tape can do.
Speaker 4: You know what's really amazing is I think they filmed
Speaker 4: this in slow motion because I swear I'm going way faster,
Speaker 4: and now watch it on video, I'm not as fast
Speaker 4: as I feel, which is it's physics. It is physics.
Speaker 3: Y'all aren't as young as y'all once were.
Speaker 1: I do remember picking offense younget go in the same.
Speaker 2: Game, the greatest of all time. I'm a Texas long horner,
Speaker 2: a diehard Texas longhorned football fan. National Championships. Yeah, any
Speaker 2: highlights for you, BJ that you can think of.
Speaker 4: One of the greatest things is we did an off
Speaker 4: Super Bowl game in Dallas. Here in Dallas, and Roger
Speaker 4: Stablach was there and his Achilles was bothering him.
Speaker 3: And you took full advantage of that.
Speaker 4: So he's a nat Academy graduate, so he's definitely on
Speaker 4: our team. But a couple of times you have me
Speaker 4: wide open and it went high and he got picked off.
Speaker 1: And I remember, dude, he was down. He was he
Speaker 1: is still a straight up competitor.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so he was. He was mad at himself.
Speaker 4: It was a year and a half later that I
Speaker 4: saw him at the San Francisco super Bowl at the
Speaker 4: Hall of Fame breakfast and he comes up to me.
Speaker 4: He goes, I want you to know, like, my Achilles
Speaker 4: is better. If you guys need me, just call me.
Speaker 4: I want to play again. And I was like, sir,
Speaker 4: you're Roger freaking Stall Like, if you want to go
Speaker 4: have a catch in the street right now, let's go,
Speaker 4: Like you can, don't You're all time quarterback. I don't
Speaker 4: care if you threw four hundred picks, Like that's it, right.
Speaker 4: So those are one of the it's the relationships with
Speaker 4: those guys and the similarities between the NFL and the military,
Speaker 4: because once you're done at the NFL, you drop off
Speaker 4: to the Players Association, and once you're done with the military,
Speaker 4: you drop off to the VA and they're both woefully
Speaker 4: underprepared and under There's not enough leadership to care for
Speaker 4: these things, and that's a huge void to fill being
Speaker 4: either in the military or a pro athlete, especially at
Speaker 4: the NFL, Like we have to think about two. Often
Speaker 4: people criticize pro athletes for saying that they're warriors and stuff,
Speaker 4: and I don't agree. The hardest thing you've ever been
Speaker 4: doing in your life is the hardest thing. If you're
Speaker 4: fighting cancer, you're a warrior. If you're agreed fighting against dyslexia,
Speaker 4: you're a warrior. Like if you're fighting to be the
Speaker 4: best at something, you are warring with yourself and you
Speaker 4: are a warrior. Nobody owns warrior, and I encourage everybody
Speaker 4: to find a war to fight within your own life
Speaker 4: so that you can come out the other side better.
Speaker 4: Or it is technology, it just acknowledge it that there's
Speaker 4: effort in life. No matter the creature comforts we have,
Speaker 4: this is still a jungle. So it's it's the relationships
Speaker 4: of how these men use the termmine. Even though we
Speaker 4: have Jen Welter on the team, the first female coach
Speaker 4: in the NFL, by the way.
Speaker 1: One of those picks. I tossed it to Jen. There
Speaker 1: you go, and she took it for six.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she can fly.
Speaker 4: She can fly, you can play and a lot of
Speaker 4: the And that's what we're learning. I mean through this
Speaker 4: flag football team. We've made a partnership with Snoop Doggs
Speaker 4: Special Stars, which is a flag football league created for
Speaker 4: kids with special needs. Right, so many other people can
Speaker 4: play football and get something. Alyssa Milano and Jen Welter
Speaker 4: have a day in the life where they're trying to
Speaker 4: help women understand all the different opportunities within the sporting world.
Speaker 4: That doesn't really necessarily mean that you're playing on the field.
Speaker 4: But hey, you're a longtime Texas Longhorns fan, right, you
Speaker 4: have bad taste in football teams, but you probably have
Speaker 4: really great taste in clothes. And you want Texas los
Speaker 4: shots fired, just kicking.
Speaker 3: Find shots received. We're Texas, we're at the.
Speaker 4: University and Nate boy is a good friend and plays
Speaker 4: on the team too, and then he's a big Texas guy.
Speaker 4: So but hey, I love all these is a small Texas.
Speaker 2: It's all for the love of the game, and I
Speaker 2: love to hear what you said about warriors, and it
Speaker 2: is so true the similarities between the field and the
Speaker 2: battlefield depending on which one you fought on. You're there
Speaker 2: next to your brothers and that you're willing to sacrifice
Speaker 2: your body, your pain, your everything to make sure that
Speaker 2: person next to you on either side is protected. And
Speaker 2: what a great thing y'all created in this Flag Football
Speaker 2: League and just bigger and better things coming up.
Speaker 4: That trends Bowl one this year and it's going to
Speaker 4: be aired on Fox. So it be Thursday night before
Speaker 4: the Super Bowl in prime time. You guys get to
Speaker 4: see me and Jake. We got to get in shape
Speaker 4: of a we can't.
Speaker 3: Keep working on.
Speaker 1: I'm in the process.
Speaker 4: I'm in the process too. I haven't lifted anything heavy
Speaker 4: or ran accelerated my heart beat in three years. We're
Speaker 4: about to change that.
Speaker 2: Awesome. Let's do it well, Bja. It is an honor
Speaker 2: to have you on our show. We are so privileged
Speaker 2: to hear your story and have you open up about
Speaker 2: how a wrinkly English bulldog from a trailer park in
Speaker 2: Wisconsin with zero special training actually saved your life.
Speaker 4: I had joined the Marines in nineteen ninety six, served
Speaker 4: on active duty for four years, got off the State
Speaker 4: and ready reserves, took a job in Corporate America because
Speaker 4: you know, I was going to climb that corporate ladder
Speaker 4: and be a bad marine on the side. So it
Speaker 4: life was good, that's right. So I got out December
Speaker 4: of two thousand and obviously nine months later the whole
Speaker 4: world changed, but nine to eleven. We got activated in
Speaker 4: two thousand and four, and I had been operating in
Speaker 4: country as an infantry unit that I was assigned to
Speaker 4: as a platoon sergeant, third Platoon, Golf Company, second Battalion,
Speaker 4: twenty fourth Marines Baby and been operating for three months.
Speaker 4: We lived underneath the bridge. We always had a squad
Speaker 4: on rest, a squad on patrol, and a squad on security.
Speaker 4: I drove every single patrol. It helped to keep continuity.
Speaker 4: The terrorists were good at what they did. They would
Speaker 4: pattern us, and it's easy to fall into patterns, and
Speaker 4: so by maintaining the lead vehicle, I was able to
Speaker 4: keep us from falling into those patterns, and it helped
Speaker 4: me to stay productive. On Thanksgiving night of two thousand
Speaker 4: and four, our regular patrol and lo and behold, the
Speaker 4: terrorists got one in on me. They killed my gunner
Speaker 4: Ryan Catafia. With that attack. It was three one five
Speaker 4: five Russian made artillery shells tied to a tripwire, so
Speaker 4: as soon as my vehicle went through, it went off
Speaker 4: right on my door. So I had three shards of
Speaker 4: glass in my left eye, a huge piece of shrapnel
Speaker 4: in the sappy plate, which is the metal plate within
Speaker 4: your flack jacket, a bunch of other shrapnel, and the
Speaker 4: right leg and my left foot was just demolished by
Speaker 4: the shrapnel that came in, so I knew it wasn't good.
Speaker 4: There was a small ambush, small arms fire that came
Speaker 4: in the guys on the patrol and the Quick Reaction
Speaker 4: Force got there. The QRF Quick Reaction Force showed up
Speaker 4: quelled it. I remember listening to the black Hawk flying above,
Speaker 4: but they weren't going to land the helicopter in a
Speaker 4: hot LZ, so they trucked me out And it was
Speaker 4: at Saint Michael and Mama that it started to dawn
Speaker 4: on me that I ain't coming back to the bridge
Speaker 4: and that everything that I just spent nine years working
Speaker 4: for and training for and being ready for is over,
Speaker 4: and that was a hard pill to swallow. I remember
Speaker 4: being on the helicopter and I was bandaged up. My
Speaker 4: one eye was still open. It was a clear night
Speaker 4: with a full moon. It's almost like it's daylight. How
Speaker 4: bright it was when with the stars are out and
Speaker 4: the moon's out, And so I remember watching the moon
Speaker 4: through those blades as they're rotating and just thinking, damn,
Speaker 4: I wish I was dead to say that now, after
Speaker 4: all the growth that they're all the work that we've
Speaker 4: put into, it's still embarrassing, but it's no less true.
Speaker 4: It's the worst feeling in the world. Anxiety, panic, fear, failure.
Speaker 4: It's the fifty guys that were under that bridge. I mean,
Speaker 4: we were closer than most families, no matter where you're from.
Speaker 4: That was a hard thing to get pulled from. And
Speaker 4: it made me feel like this isn't the way it's
Speaker 4: supposed to happen.
Speaker 2: Right, Because what's supposed to happen is you protect your
Speaker 2: fellow marines, you complete your mission, and you get yourself
Speaker 2: back alive in one piece.
Speaker 3: And you have to be convicted in that mindset.
Speaker 4: In order to take on this role as a United
Speaker 4: States Marine, you have to assume an arrogance. I am
Speaker 4: the Arnold Schwarzenegger of this movie, and yes, the other
Speaker 4: people are the extress right. This is why I think
Speaker 4: people have this negative connotation about military people, especially if
Speaker 4: you're a fighter, pilot, infantry or ranger, your whatever. You
Speaker 4: have to adopt this arrogance or else that environment is
Speaker 4: going to eat you alive.
Speaker 1: I can obviously, yeah, absolutely, And I know what three one,
Speaker 1: five us feel like. I mean the same same size mom.
Speaker 1: I guarantee you even beginning to tell this, you haven't
Speaker 1: even thought about the physical pain.
Speaker 4: No, and I still don't even remember the physical pain.
Speaker 4: What PTSD for me has nothing to do with nightmares
Speaker 4: or having trouble with fireworks or I miss being there.
Speaker 4: I was in my place as a platoon's argent. Like,
Speaker 4: unless you're there and you've done that job, when other people,
Speaker 4: once you dead, want the people that you're there to
Speaker 4: care for dead. When you have to meet with people's families, mothers, wives,
Speaker 4: grandparents a lot of times and know that these people
Speaker 4: are in your care, it's all consuming. It's really hard
Speaker 4: to explain to people that haven't been there and haven't
Speaker 4: experienced the First time we got shot at, I thought
Speaker 4: we ran over a bunch of rocks. And then when
Speaker 4: I get to the bridge. My vehicle is leaking from everywhere,
Speaker 4: and I realized, oh, that's what it sounds like to
Speaker 4: get shot at. Before that, I was just thinking about movies.
Speaker 4: Right when it pans back to the bad guys and
Speaker 4: you hear the report and the guy I always know
Speaker 4: what to duck because there goes that it doesn't work
Speaker 4: that all of a sudden, shit just starts blowing up
Speaker 4: around you, or like dust starts flying, or things start
Speaker 4: getting knocked over, and you realize, oh, craps, or you
Speaker 4: hear like snaps happening around you.
Speaker 1: And that's the distinct sound that they make is way
Speaker 1: different than.
Speaker 4: The higher Yeah, one hundred percent. So it's really hard
Speaker 4: to explain why you would want to be in that.
Speaker 2: So you're there, You're on the helicopter. You're the Schwarzenegger
Speaker 2: of your own movie. This isn't like any movie you've
Speaker 2: ever seen before. Talk to me about when the pain's
Speaker 2: set in.
Speaker 4: The pain I remember most and the pain that I
Speaker 4: still carry with me is the pain from I only
Speaker 4: have a half a combat deployment. But there was other pains.
Speaker 4: Right My first amputation is at the ankle, only took
Speaker 4: the foot. I remember the doctor's asking me on the
Speaker 4: table should we take it at the ankle or the knee?
Speaker 4: And I'm looking at them, going, are you serious? Like
Speaker 4: you guys went to medical school. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm whip a coin.
Speaker 4: I don't know. Doctor. I'm like, save as much as
Speaker 4: you can. That's all I really understood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, could you just clip the tonehels exactly?
Speaker 4: Can you patch it up and send me back out?
Speaker 4: Is that an option? And I remember what sold me
Speaker 4: on keeping it at the ankle was a guy one
Speaker 4: of the teams of doctors at Bethesda, because that's where
Speaker 4: they finalized the surgery. He was like, Hey, if you
Speaker 4: have to get up in the middle night to pee,
Speaker 4: you kind of have a human peg leg to bounce
Speaker 4: off of and you don't have to put on a prosthetic.
Speaker 4: That made enough sense to me, so I kept it there.
Speaker 1: How did you do in the hospital?
Speaker 4: I only was in Walter Reed and Bethesda for about
Speaker 4: ten months. Most people with an amputation were there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean to put it in perspective, I was
Speaker 1: eighteen months. Yeah, ten months is crazy fast.
Speaker 2: So you were on a fast track to get out
Speaker 2: of that hospital and figure out what does life look
Speaker 2: like now?
Speaker 4: But as a twenty eight year old man with an
Speaker 4: amputation at the ankle where prosthetics have to build underneath,
Speaker 4: I was constantly off balance. I was gaining weight. I
Speaker 4: couldn't really be as active as I wanted to be,
Speaker 4: and you can't be the person that you want to
Speaker 4: be at this time. Dylan and Mackenzie are my only
Speaker 4: two kids, but they're nine and seven. I'm not able
Speaker 4: to play with them in that way, so that forces
Speaker 4: me to dive into work more. I'm working for craft Foods.
Speaker 4: I'm driving myself up that corporate ladder. I'm going to
Speaker 4: school at the same time, like I am diving full
Speaker 4: force in to find a different identity. I had already
Speaker 4: gotten a convalescent leave to be home around Christmas in
Speaker 4: New Year's and you feel like an alien in your
Speaker 4: own community. In your own community, I got a wound
Speaker 4: back on. I don't even have, like my stuff's not
Speaker 4: even all the way sewn up, which is fine because
Speaker 4: they have to do that. And I was the one
Speaker 4: forcing to be home, Like How'm I gonna get my
Speaker 4: whole family? Both Jake, you and I would come from
Speaker 4: big families, right, and they would come and crash well
Speaker 4: to read them, but does.
Speaker 1: The absolutely I mean, my family descended upon Bethesda with
Speaker 1: vengeance from Louisiana and Texas, and we're like, hey, we're here,
Speaker 1: still supporting. We're not real sure it looks the same,
Speaker 1: and we don't know how to behave or act or
Speaker 1: what we're supposed to do. And you know, our only
Speaker 1: biggest complaints could we get some better food. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wasn't. I never ate because I was just high
Speaker 1: all the time and I just wanted cappuccinos and gatorades.
Speaker 1: But it was an adjustment for everybody because how do
Speaker 1: we support in this new support role? How do we behave?
Speaker 1: Is it the same as before or is it different now?
Speaker 1: What does our new normal look like? And it was
Speaker 1: just a constant pivot on the fly, trying to establish
Speaker 1: what our new normal looks like. And then a big
Speaker 1: frustration was they were treating me like this delicate little
Speaker 1: flower who was also this hero, right, and it's like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, I just had a bad day. I mean
Speaker 1: this is I was just doing my job. And that's
Speaker 1: a very frustrating thing because you expect them to understand
Speaker 1: when they don't have the ability to understand, right, And.
Speaker 4: Where I was even more angry is at Walter Reed.
Speaker 4: This is two thousand and four, so this is the
Speaker 4: height of it. But this is when I first meet
Speaker 4: President bush Is in Bethesda, and that was okay, but
Speaker 4: I had a real problem with it. There's all these
Speaker 4: people want to come in and take pictures for me,
Speaker 4: and they're all saying and all the letters, and I
Speaker 4: appreciate all the support. The reason I tell the story
Speaker 4: and the struggles with it is that was part of
Speaker 4: the problem. We were all of a sudden being treated
Speaker 4: as celebrities. A lot of these guys are really young guys,
Speaker 4: and you've got a lot of support systems that are
Speaker 4: really young, like a lot of people that got married
Speaker 4: just before he goes away. You're seeing a lot of
Speaker 4: that stuff unravel. It unsettled me because I wasn't ready.
Speaker 4: I was already displaced, and I already had anger issues.
Speaker 4: That's why I needed to get out, because I was
Speaker 4: going to lash out, and I knew that wasn't a
Speaker 4: smart thing to do. But you were seeing it. You
Speaker 4: were seeing the men trying to stay there longer because
Speaker 4: they were a celebrity and they knew when they went
Speaker 4: home it was going to be quiet. That's what it is.
Speaker 4: So I go back to what I know. I'm coming
Speaker 4: home and I'm trying to find a new purpose in
Speaker 4: life because the one I had, the one I put
Speaker 4: all my chips on, gone gone, and I didn't have
Speaker 4: the mindset to be prepared for that. So that first
Speaker 4: convalescent leave, it's surreal being home because you still don't
Speaker 4: feel right being there, but you're also at the same
Speaker 4: time happy to be there.
Speaker 1: I remember with me, I was consistently uncomfortable, but content
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 4: All the same time. It's hard to put into words.
Speaker 4: This is around Christmas time and all that stuff. Right,
Speaker 4: I'm a kid from Georgia. I grew up in Savannah, Georgia,
Speaker 4: a huge Georgia Bulldogs fan, like the National Championship Georgia Bulldogs,
Speaker 4: not like Texas Longhorns. It you did, didn't you?
Speaker 1: Dang it?
Speaker 4: She got it back.
Speaker 1: If I remember correctly, Bevo almost killed the dog.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly so. And I was also the United States
Speaker 4: Marines and the English bulldog is the mascot, so of
Speaker 4: course I want an English bulldog. Now you look for
Speaker 4: true English bulldo and they are very expensive. Right, that's
Speaker 4: not happening I didn't know of the shelters and stuff
Speaker 4: that I know of. Now you know, I'm in the industry.
Speaker 4: So I go onto Craigslist and I find this guy
Speaker 4: is selling old English bulldog puppies for like eight hundred
Speaker 4: bucks something like that. Still super cheap, is still expensive.
Speaker 4: But I go to this trailer park in Wisconsin that
Speaker 4: has like a pole shed in the back where these
Speaker 4: puppies are, and I'm not using a wheelchair, but I'm
Speaker 4: using crutches. I've got my pants leg tied off and
Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff. There is only three left,
Speaker 4: and the one that ends up being Dozer has this
Speaker 4: white stripe down his face and he just speaks to me.
Speaker 4: Nothing special, a bottom. So I pay the guy. I
Speaker 4: come back in two weeks and pick him up, and
Speaker 4: he literally just sleeps on my neck, you know, just
Speaker 4: a good dog, but no special training, no special talent
Speaker 4: or breeding or anything like that. In the beginning, the
Speaker 4: phantom pains were the worst.
Speaker 1: Yeah, phantom pins sucks.
Speaker 3: What's a pantom pain? Explain it to that.
Speaker 4: So when you have phantom pains, it's when you lose
Speaker 4: a limb. Your nerves are basically firing off and trying
Speaker 4: to communicate with the nerves that used to be there
Speaker 4: in your limbs. They're not getting a response and so
Speaker 4: they're signaling pain. So like pain isn't something that actually exists,
Speaker 4: your mind creates it in order to gets your attention.
Speaker 4: So for me, it was always like I just stubbed
Speaker 4: my toe. My bottom of my foot was itching. It
Speaker 4: felt like I was standing in fire. I'm standing on
Speaker 4: a nail foot cramp and there's no foot there, And.
Speaker 1: You have to literally retrain your brain right that your
Speaker 1: leg stops before that point. Every time you feel them
Speaker 1: tap on your thigh, tap on your thigh, what you're doing,
Speaker 1: you just train in your brain, Okay, wherever you fill
Speaker 1: that tap end, that's where it stops. So you don't
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge that below there anymore. And it takes forever,
Speaker 1: it does.
Speaker 4: But Dozer picked up really quick when I was having
Speaker 4: these pains, and a lot of times I'd be on
Speaker 4: the couch or in a chair with the recliner chair,
Speaker 4: or even on the bed, and literally as the pain
Speaker 4: is happening, he jumped wherever he's at. He comes from
Speaker 4: wherever he's at and lays on my leg. And him
Speaker 4: doing that redirecting my attention helped more so than anything else.
Speaker 4: But he did it on his own, and it was amazing. Right,
Speaker 4: anybody has owned a dog, no matter what, that's your
Speaker 4: spirit animal. You got that connection, You got that connection.
Speaker 2: How much deeper was your connection with Dozer when he
Speaker 2: immediately went to your pain point?
Speaker 4: Oh it's huge, right, because you're like, how do you
Speaker 4: even know that this is happening? For this right? Literally,
Speaker 4: the dog's talents where that he could get slobbery in
Speaker 4: places he thought was physically impossible to get slobber into.
Speaker 4: He could clear a room with his farts and literally
Speaker 4: he ate a whole pizza, piping hot pizza fresh out
Speaker 4: of the oven one time and one bite literally turned
Speaker 4: around to grab like my cup and came back and
Speaker 4: there was the pizza was gone. He was licking his lips.
Speaker 4: It was like drool coming out. I'm like, I hope
Speaker 4: you burned your mouth. That was my dinner. And I
Speaker 4: was like, but I'm also amazed because it's not a
Speaker 4: crumb anywhere. Wow On and other people were afraid of him.
Speaker 4: He could be a little gruff, but he was my
Speaker 4: gruff slobbery dog, and that was the dog version of you.
Speaker 4: He really was right.
Speaker 2: So you're rushing headfirst into this transition from the core.
Speaker 2: You pushed for the convalescence leave around Christmas after having
Speaker 2: just been hit by the bomb on Thanksgiving. You've got
Speaker 2: a good job lined up, You've got this new puppy.
Speaker 2: How's the rest of your life at this point?
Speaker 4: To say that my marriage was rocky, my first marriage,
Speaker 4: and it's an understatement. Somebody that got pregnant, and I
Speaker 4: didn't have my biological dad growing up, so I didn't
Speaker 4: want to have my kids out there without their biological dad.
Speaker 4: It's not a good foundation to base a forever relationship one.
Speaker 4: But you don't know what you don't But you don't
Speaker 4: know what you don't know, and you're young and dumb
Speaker 4: and you can fix it on the fly. So now
Speaker 4: I have this near death exp experience, and now you
Speaker 4: want to double down on it, and you're going to
Speaker 4: buy the big house for the family because everybody's throwing
Speaker 4: all this money at you. You're getting the new cars,
Speaker 4: and I just dove into it and just really trying
Speaker 4: to do what I thought was the right thing, based
Speaker 4: off of what everybody else's feedback was, based off the
Speaker 4: American dream like that prototype, the stereotypes, they are out there,
Speaker 4: and just I need to climb that corporate ladder. I
Speaker 4: need to get the bigger house, to cars all that stuff.
Speaker 4: But the whole was just getting bigger and bigger, and
Speaker 4: there's only so much that you can fake before everything
Speaker 4: rises to the top. You know, when I went through divorce,
Speaker 4: I remember saying, you can have all the stuff. I
Speaker 4: just want the kids to dog and my jeep, and
Speaker 4: I've got a file bankruptcy. I'm short selling the house
Speaker 4: that was it. I moved into that dank apartment with Dozer,
Speaker 4: and I had my kids like every other night and
Speaker 4: every other weekend and all that stuff. When I don't
Speaker 4: have the kids, I am out tearing it up like
Speaker 4: we're about to go to combat again, and drinking too
Speaker 4: much but still performing right, still doing my work, still
Speaker 4: turning in stuff for school, but doing too much, and
Speaker 4: I get fi functioning mess, high functioning mess, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And when do things completely unravel.
Speaker 4: I want to say, it's like a Wednesday, if I
Speaker 4: remember correctly, it was in the middle of the week,
Speaker 4: and there's a bar in downtown Dell's. It's a sports bar,
Speaker 4: nothing major. There was a guy who's an acquaintance. It
Speaker 4: was like, Hey, I'm in town having a drink. Why
Speaker 4: don't you come meet me out? And so it was yeah,
Speaker 4: all right, let me finish this up. I don't have
Speaker 4: the kids tonight. Those probably back a couple hours. Quick drink, slap,
Speaker 4: some fives, all that stuff. It ends up being far time,
Speaker 4: definitely too drunk. I knew I shouldn't have been driving.
Speaker 4: You close the bar down, close the bar down, not stumbling,
Speaker 4: not bumbling, And I kept it like it was no
Speaker 4: erratic driving. What got me was I was doing about
Speaker 4: fourteen miles over. It's one of the rural road. They
Speaker 4: have it at thirty five. It can be forty five,
Speaker 4: so I'm doing like forty nine. But again it's probably
Speaker 4: jamming out the sound garden, pearl jam something, so you're
Speaker 4: going a little faster there. It's a good night. Things
Speaker 4: are good there. You got a good buzz going. And
Speaker 4: then I see the lights and literally I'm pulling in
Speaker 4: and I stopped just short of the parking lot, and
Speaker 4: I'm just going to talk to law enforcement like we
Speaker 4: always do. Hopefully it's a bro, it's a military guy,
Speaker 4: and we can work this out, and you know, they
Speaker 4: asked me to do the walk the line stuff, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, I got a prosthetic leg. And I remember
Speaker 4: the officer she's I don't care that you lost your
Speaker 4: leg in Irack, and I was like, then you should
Speaker 4: just go ahead and arrest me. I remember all the
Speaker 4: officers telling me that if I didn't blow, like you're
Speaker 4: definitely going to jail, and I was like, I'll take
Speaker 4: my chances. So when she tells me like, I don't
Speaker 4: care that you were hurting the war and all this
Speaker 4: other stuff, I think you've been drinking. I think you've
Speaker 4: had too much, and so I unders and I'm in
Speaker 4: a losing thing. So I just basically surrender and I
Speaker 4: went and got processed and they actually took my leg.
Speaker 4: I don't know if they did it.
Speaker 1: To you that way, but no, yeah, because you just no.
Speaker 4: And I think they were mostly mad that I wouldn't
Speaker 4: blow or wouldn't give blood or any of that stuff.
Speaker 4: So they took my leg, made me sleep in the
Speaker 4: cell until I was deemed sober enough the next morning,
Speaker 4: and didn't let me go, and so I walked home.
Speaker 4: I didn't call a cab, I didn't do anything. I
Speaker 4: just walked to seven miles. I had a company car.
Speaker 4: I worked for craft Foods. So that means if I
Speaker 4: get charged with a DUI, job is over, healthcare is
Speaker 4: over for the kids, because at this point in time,
Speaker 4: I'm not one hundred percent the whole time walking going
Speaker 4: through scenarios in your head. But what we would call
Speaker 4: immediate action drills in the military, Right, what are my options?
Speaker 4: What am I going to do? You know, when you
Speaker 4: get into serious trouble, life altering trouble, not only for you,
Speaker 4: I mean my kids. This is going to change their
Speaker 4: lives drastically. That anxiety that can run away, those negative
Speaker 4: thoughts that you haven't really addressed. You just put somewhere
Speaker 4: else for the time being while you focused on something else.
Speaker 4: That's when all that comes back in full force. And
Speaker 4: I was all the way down into that muck, right
Speaker 4: into that quicksand that is the harder you fight, the
Speaker 4: faster it's bringing you down. And that's all the things
Speaker 4: that I just said earlier, like you should have died
Speaker 4: that night, that thought of death before dishonor just ended
Speaker 4: just be done with it. You should have died that
Speaker 4: night Thanksgiving night in two thousand and four. It shouldn't
Speaker 4: have been cantaphia. It should have been you. All that
Speaker 4: stuff plays in your head, guilt, shame, and you screwed
Speaker 4: up everything since being back. Don't deserve to be here,
Speaker 4: all this other stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm a burden.
Speaker 4: I'm a burden. I suck. Yeah, I'm not the rams
Speaker 4: fortune nigger. I thought it was all that stuff. And
Speaker 4: then you start rationalizing everything away. The kids will be fine.
Speaker 4: They got their mother, they got all the family, They'll
Speaker 4: find other people. I didn't. I grew up without a dad,
Speaker 4: never knew. So that you'll be fine. There's a big family,
Speaker 4: they'll memorialize me. Everybody will be fine. That'll be fine,
Speaker 4: That'll be fine. And so I'm rationalizing everything away. I understand.
Speaker 4: Go get the pistol under the chin, the whole thing,
Speaker 4: soldier's death, if you will. Instead of putting the sword
Speaker 4: through the spine, it's the bullet under the chin, right
Speaker 4: through the brain. Blow it out. But the one thing
Speaker 4: I couldn't rationalize away was the fact that if I'm gone,
Speaker 4: nobody's going to want that gruff old bulldog, that slobbery, stinky,
Speaker 4: kind of a pain in the butt bulldog. It'll end
Speaker 4: up in the shelter and because of the breed is
Speaker 4: most likely will get euthanized very quickly. That was enough
Speaker 4: for me to find some footing, find something that I
Speaker 4: couldn't rationalize away. Wasn't going to be any better with
Speaker 4: me being gone. And it's a dog. And that's when
Speaker 4: I'm looking at this dog. It's looking at me, and
Speaker 4: I realized that I'm the team leader of me and him,
Speaker 4: and I've got to figure out the plan because if
Speaker 4: I go, he goes, and he ain't choosing this way
Speaker 4: as far as he knows, there's another pizza coming eventually.
Speaker 4: So it was there with that dog that you just
Speaker 4: break down and you start putting together a plan. Start
Speaker 4: looking into what resources do I have? The IA drills
Speaker 4: are different. Now what can I do? I have a
Speaker 4: huge network. I have a lot of people that believe
Speaker 4: in me and we've done a lot of good together.
Speaker 4: Start by being open and honest with them. Writing letters.
Speaker 4: I need help, writing letters to the judge, to the
Speaker 4: Chief of police, taking full responsibility for what I did.
Speaker 4: And it's not saying that I did anything, and I
Speaker 4: wasn't using the PTSD as an excuse. What I said
Speaker 4: was I was in a bad place. This has been
Speaker 4: a help, and I guarantee you I'm going to put
Speaker 4: this together and you guys will never see me again
Speaker 4: if I get this chance. They heard me. They read
Speaker 4: the letters of all the other things that I accomplished,
Speaker 4: and I kept it to my accomplishments, not to my
Speaker 4: disabilities or anything, and then asked for forgiveness and received it.
Speaker 4: It got knocked down to a reckless driving. I had
Speaker 4: to do a ton of community service, which I was
Speaker 4: fine with, pay a bunch of fines and all that
Speaker 4: other stuff. But it did and they never saw me again, like,
Speaker 4: never got in trouble with the law again after that,
Speaker 4: because that was your tipping point. That was the tipping point.
Speaker 4: And it was in those moments that I realized I
Speaker 4: was having trouble with the amount of charity being given
Speaker 4: to us. And know me and you have talked about this, Jake,
Speaker 4: but it was in that moment in time that I
Speaker 4: realized that was in charity, that was an investment, and
Speaker 4: I had a responsibility to show a return on that investment.
Speaker 4: And then that's when I started looking at the job
Speaker 4: I was doing. What am I chasing? Why am I
Speaker 4: chasing the corporate letter? Do I believe in selling cookies
Speaker 4: and crackers, or am I just trying to put food
Speaker 4: on the table. It was one of those I'm just
Speaker 4: trying to put food on the table. I was three
Speaker 4: semesters away from graduating with a bachelor's in business and
Speaker 4: going I switched and got a bachelor's in psychology and
Speaker 4: then got a master's in social work with emphasis on
Speaker 4: military life, so that I could focus on figuring out
Speaker 4: not only how to fix me or how to get
Speaker 4: me right with not being a marine anymore, not being
Speaker 4: a platoon sergeant, but how I was going to do
Speaker 4: this for the other vests. I knew they were struggling too,
Speaker 4: because that's all we had was each other. A lot
Speaker 4: of times it was in these bars, and it was
Speaker 4: around campfires and drinking and stuff, so that was all
Speaker 4: we had. But I had to figure out a new way.
Speaker 1: So at what point in your relationship with those or
Speaker 1: did you realize this is a service animal to me?
Speaker 1: And then at what point did you have the epiphany
Speaker 1: of Sierra Delta.
Speaker 4: I think everybody else realized Dozer was a service animal
Speaker 4: to me before I did, because everybody would always ask
Speaker 4: how Dozer was, and everybody knew it was a special relationship. Right.
Speaker 4: He went a lot of places with me, not to
Speaker 4: like restaurants and stuff like that, but people's houses and
Speaker 4: other things. So he always had a special relationship. And
Speaker 4: Dozer dies a month before I get the diagnosis for cancer,
Speaker 4: which part of me is relieved. I did six months
Speaker 4: of chemo and six months of radiation. I remember being
Speaker 4: in my room because at this time, when you go
Speaker 4: through chemo, your white blood cell count almost gets obliterated,
Speaker 4: so you have to isolate yourself from your family and
Speaker 4: everybody else because if you catch the common cold, you're
Speaker 4: having a hard time recovering from it. And I remember
Speaker 4: sitting in that room missing Dozer like crazy. He had
Speaker 4: just died before I got this diagnosis. And like I said,
Speaker 4: he was he's thirteen years old as a bulldog. That's
Speaker 4: a hundred years old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a lot longer than the average ten eleven
Speaker 1: years for those guys.
Speaker 4: And so the one solaces I got was I was
Speaker 4: grateful to God that he took them before I got
Speaker 4: the diagnosis, because if I would have known, he would
Speaker 4: have known, and then I think he would have hung
Speaker 4: on more because I was hurting, and that would have
Speaker 4: just not been a good thing, but.
Speaker 1: A weird way. I think that's beautifully rad.
Speaker 4: Even if it's just to help me not cry about them. Right,
Speaker 4: it was in this moment, like in my room by myself.
Speaker 4: Luckily it was lymphoma stage two, very treatable. There's no
Speaker 4: fear of death. It's almost kind of like being in
Speaker 4: the hospital again with the amputation, like you know you're
Speaker 4: not going to die, but life's going to suck. It
Speaker 4: was a lot like in the military, right we call
Speaker 4: it embracing the suck, or whether it's twenty nine palms,
Speaker 4: whether it's combat, there's moments some times when it couldn't
Speaker 4: suck any worse, and yet we all find a way
Speaker 4: to laugh and nobody says anything. It's just the chuckle
Speaker 4: starts and then it just gets contagious.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: Dozer had that same power. It's a bulldog. I mean,
Speaker 4: I've got a picture of him right here and you
Speaker 4: can see when he's really old, but he just has
Speaker 4: that way. It could have drool just hanging and you
Speaker 4: would laugh like all, I just ain't so bad after all.
Speaker 4: And so it was in those moments that I realized
Speaker 4: how important Dozer was to me, what I was missing
Speaker 4: from Dozer wasn't any service that he provides, it was
Speaker 4: just being there. It was in Chemo that all that
Speaker 4: came full circle and I understood what I needed to
Speaker 4: do with Shia Delta and I called it the Life
Speaker 4: Buddy Program because everybody was getting confused with service dogs
Speaker 4: and still are. There's service dogs, there's emotional support dogs,
Speaker 4: there's companion dogs, there's there dogs, there's facility dogs, there's
Speaker 4: working dogs.
Speaker 3: But there's so many vets that don't need a highly specialized.
Speaker 4: They just need a do Ninety eight percent of us don't, right,
Speaker 4: Like even the dog I have now is Loki okay,
Speaker 4: and so he's a mutt out of the shelter. I mean,
Speaker 4: we kill in this country eight hundred thousand healthy, trainable
Speaker 4: and adubtable dogs every year. So there's plenty of resources
Speaker 4: out there. There's thousands and thousands of dog trainers. And
Speaker 4: we have a partnership with a Department of Labor and
Speaker 4: it's called the Sierra Delta Life Buddy Apprenticeship Program. And
Speaker 4: it only takes two years to become a proficient dog trainer.
Speaker 4: That's it, So we can create more of these dog trainers.
Speaker 4: Is what do you think half the veterans want to
Speaker 4: do when they go through our program becomes we call
Speaker 4: them dog trainers, right, So this is a great way
Speaker 4: to get them there and they can do it as
Speaker 4: a side hustle or go on as a career because
Speaker 4: we're giving out grants for that. Absolutely how humans and
Speaker 4: dogs have been working together for thirty five thousand years.
Speaker 4: This is a relationship set in stone. We've got scientific
Speaker 4: data coming out the Wazoo showing that if a person
Speaker 4: is highly stressed and is in the dogs and pets
Speaker 4: of dogs, their stress levels go down. And the great
Speaker 4: things by empowering the veterans to tell us what kind
Speaker 4: of dog do you want in your life and what
Speaker 4: do you want it to do for you? Most of
Speaker 4: them are just like, I want this type of dog,
Speaker 4: and I just don't want it to run away. I
Speaker 4: wanted to be able to go camping with the family.
Speaker 4: I want it to walk nice on lead, all that
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. Have a good teammate, have the good
Speaker 4: left and right ladder limit know what you're going to do.
Speaker 4: And the most common thing I hear from veterans is
Speaker 4: that I knew you were going to train my dog.
Speaker 4: I didn't know you're going to train me too, but
Speaker 4: I like it, and so we have a YouTube channel
Speaker 4: out there sunder Sierra Delta. We've got these veteran vignettes
Speaker 4: and they're one to three minutes long. You can see
Speaker 4: all the diverse types of vets and what they say
Speaker 4: their dogs do for them and how Sierra Delta helped
Speaker 4: them get there.
Speaker 1: Beach tell us about a few of these vets and
Speaker 1: their dogs.
Speaker 4: So if you watched the Drew Barrymore interview that I
Speaker 4: did on her show back in December, I brought Stephanie
Speaker 4: Marvin Miller with me and she works for US now.
Speaker 4: But she was raped in the army by your NCO.
Speaker 4: He was charged, sent to jail, and she was turned
Speaker 4: down by thirteen service dog providers saying that they don't
Speaker 4: deal with military sexual trauma. I just I don't even.
Speaker 1: I can't even.
Speaker 4: So the last one that was turning her down, I
Speaker 4: had a friend that worked there. He called me. He's like, listen,
Speaker 4: we're gonna have to turn her down. Can you help her?
Speaker 4: I was like absolutely, And so I talked to her.
Speaker 4: She's in a place that she would think that she
Speaker 4: would be in, very dark, unsure. She can't understand why
Speaker 4: no one's willing to help her and that these dogs
Speaker 4: have been proven, and I was like, don't worry about that.
Speaker 4: We got her tied end with Southeastern Guy Dogs down
Speaker 4: in Florida. She had a dog within six month, Leland.
Speaker 4: That was back. That's three years ago now, and like
Speaker 4: I said, she's working for us, she's working on a
Speaker 4: book talking about her experience. She's married, she's got and
Speaker 4: she talks about Leeland and having this process is what
Speaker 4: helped her get through that. And it's very simple, right.
Speaker 4: We've got le Otto, he's one of our best ambassadors
Speaker 4: right now and his dog Sage, and they've been together
Speaker 4: for three years. He's got four purple hearts. This guy
Speaker 4: you're talking about overachiever, but he's not missing any limbs
Speaker 4: or anything. But he's got you still believably bad luck.
Speaker 1: So he.
Speaker 4: Was a typical angry event and we were just an
Speaker 4: event with his parents and they talk about how Sage,
Speaker 4: his dog, totally changed him and this whole process that
Speaker 4: he's in has made him a different person. And he
Speaker 4: talks about the purpose, the empowerment having a job again,
Speaker 4: having a role to play in the community is just
Speaker 4: asking them to utilize their network utilize that relationship with
Speaker 4: your dog in a way that achieves wellness for you
Speaker 4: and the dog. However, you guys define that and it's simple.
Speaker 4: It's walking your dog, which is good for you, your dog,
Speaker 4: playing with your dog, teaching it new tricks, getting a
Speaker 4: new routine. All that stuff is all beneficial. Aaron Hale
Speaker 4: is one of the vets. He's both deaf and blind
Speaker 4: human right, awesome human being. We worked with Foot Delco
Speaker 4: Guide Dogs to get that because he also wanted a
Speaker 4: German shepherd, right, So we take those things into consideration too.
Speaker 4: Is what's in their mind's eye is what do they
Speaker 4: want their spirit animal to be.
Speaker 2: It's clear what an impact does are made on your
Speaker 2: life at a time where you needed him the most,
Speaker 2: and your passion to do this for other veterans is
Speaker 2: just incredible, and we can't say enough to say thank
Speaker 2: you for what you've done.
Speaker 3: The service.
Speaker 4: After the service, that's the important part. That's actually how
Speaker 4: you're going to get better, and that's what we try
Speaker 4: to tell people. You don't have to wear a uniform
Speaker 4: and grab a weapon to serve your country.
Speaker 2: So we have a couple of questions that we ask
Speaker 2: all of our guests and we'll start with what do
Speaker 2: you do to relax and recharge?
Speaker 4: Wow, it seems for the past couple of years I
Speaker 4: have not relaxed and recharged as much as I should.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I do love to do
Speaker 4: is just to get out into nature and hike, either
Speaker 4: with the kids and the dog or just the dog.
Speaker 4: That's my jam. Like we live in Wisconsin, so we
Speaker 4: have wilderness around us, so I'll just sneak away with
Speaker 4: the dog and just get back into nature for a
Speaker 4: little bit. But my youngest boys, Knocks and Roads, are
Speaker 4: nine and seven, and so this year we did an
Speaker 4: RV trip through Utah and I'll hit five national parks
Speaker 4: and we've done some other trips. So we do this
Speaker 4: thing on social media called Daddy School. We started it
Speaker 4: during the pandemic when the kids had to stay home,
Speaker 4: and it started outill teach them how to poop in
Speaker 4: the woods and all that other stuff. And what we've
Speaker 4: done is really just try to capture life lessons right
Speaker 4: and share them. And it's so fun to watch the
Speaker 4: kids like, oh, Dad, this will be good for Daddy School.
Speaker 4: All this stuff right, get into it. So like I
Speaker 4: love my family, like my wife Sarah. She's just a fan,
Speaker 4: a huge fan. She works for Meta. She's doing great
Speaker 4: things too. And I love the life that we're building
Speaker 4: and I do love the work I'm in.
Speaker 1: Is there a specific person or organization or entity that
Speaker 1: you can think of that has had a major impact
Speaker 1: on you.
Speaker 4: That's a long list too. People My godfather, ed Linton,
Speaker 4: who passed just recently last year, huge impact. Like you
Speaker 4: talking about a person that didn't have a father. He
Speaker 4: grew up in an orphanage too. So family is the
Speaker 4: keystone of everything about me. Brine Corps obviously, like that brotherhood,
Speaker 4: the Boston Marathon survivors, we flew out there to help
Speaker 4: when all that happened and just be there and just
Speaker 4: be like, hey, your life isn't over, even though you're
Speaker 4: missing pieces, and the relationships that are built through them,
Speaker 4: and seeing how it would be different if I wasn't
Speaker 4: in the military. Like to have insurance companies look at
Speaker 4: a human being and say, oh, you want a running leg.
Speaker 4: That's a privilege, right, You're gonna you only get like
Speaker 4: the basic and it's well, running a privilege, and it's
Speaker 4: just it opened my eyes to a lot more and
Speaker 4: their relationship that's endured. So that happened in twenty thirteen
Speaker 4: and we're still fast friends. We keep track and we
Speaker 4: keep up. It's been people like you, Jake. It's been
Speaker 4: people that we've met along the way, and even people
Speaker 4: I don't know their names. I know you're a lot
Speaker 4: like me that you have random conversations with somebody on
Speaker 4: a plane, but it impacts you, it changes you, and
Speaker 4: you have to get to a point to where you're
Speaker 4: open to that to be able to learn something every day.
Speaker 4: Stay humble. It's all the cliche stuff that is at
Speaker 4: Walmart on every type of wood or paper.
Speaker 3: Right, graphic, teas, graphic, but it is true.
Speaker 4: But it's just accepting it.
Speaker 3: What feeds your soul.
Speaker 4: People, I have too many people in my life that
Speaker 4: I care about, and that's a good problem to have, absolutely,
Speaker 4: and I'm looking for more because I do think we
Speaker 4: can do whatever we want in this life and that
Speaker 4: there's never been a better time to be alive than
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 3: Well said b J.
Speaker 2: Cannam.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: That is the good stuff, and we truly appreciate you
Speaker 2: and your friendship and all that you've given to this
Speaker 2: country and all that you're continuing to do.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, thanks for being on the team, and proud of
Speaker 4: you guys for putting on this good stuff. More people
Speaker 4: need to hear the good stuff that's out there, and
Speaker 4: you guys are leading the way.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you what, brother, you preach it well
Speaker 1: and often, and it really is an honored privilege. And
Speaker 1: I love you, brother, and I appreciate you, and we
Speaker 1: are we're seriously honored, humbled and privileged to have you
Speaker 1: not even on this show, but in our lives.
Speaker 4: So thank you, Dito man.
Speaker 2: Such an incredible story and I cannot imagine a world
Speaker 2: without BJ in it.
Speaker 1: Nope, it's definitely a better planet with him on it.
Speaker 1: So thank God to Dose and.
Speaker 2: His perseverance and his tenacity to keep going through all
Speaker 2: of the highs and all of the lows and everything
Speaker 2: that he went through. And it took him staying the
Speaker 2: course and figuring out, hey, I've got more to live for,
Speaker 2: I've got more to do for this world. And he
Speaker 2: could have just moved forward and lived his life, but
Speaker 2: he didn't. He decided to go back and contribute and
Speaker 2: now he's changing other people's lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's like I said in the intro, BJ
Speaker 1: epitomizes what it means to be a warrior post war.
Speaker 1: He's a shining example of the fact that you can
Speaker 1: be a benefit to society and your nation without wearing
Speaker 1: a uniform. And that's why I love the guy, because
Speaker 1: he's one of the most selfless humans I know. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't surprise me at all that he's been able
Speaker 1: to do all these things and achieve all these things,
Speaker 1: and develop all these relationships and literally leave a footprint
Speaker 1: that will be I mean, there will never be another
Speaker 1: beach again. Right, He's the one and the only, and
Speaker 1: he's just an inspiration just by drawing breath.
Speaker 2: Agreed. And if this story inspired you and touched you,
Speaker 2: please feel free to share it. If you've got a
Speaker 2: story you'd like for us to share, please reach out
Speaker 2: to us, connect with us, because this is the whole
Speaker 2: purpose of the Good Stuff.
Speaker 3: It's to share these.
Speaker 2: Stories to provide that inspiration that we all need on
Speaker 2: a daily basis.
Speaker 1: Go be great, lean in, love hard, live well. You
Speaker 1: can't do the last one without fully doing the first two.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Good Stuff.
Speaker 2: The Good Stuff is executive produced by Ashley Shick, Jacob Schick,
Speaker 2: Leah Pictures and q Code Media, hosted by Ashley Shick
Speaker 2: and Jacob Shick, Produced by Nick Casselini and Ryan Kant's
Speaker 2: house post production supervisor Will Tindy. Music by Will haywood Smith,
Speaker 2: edited by Mike Robinson, sound effects by Eric Aaron, mixed
Speaker 2: by Ryan Sanchez