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with Joel Totoro and Wes Barnett. Welcome to
the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my
name is James Gearing, and this week it is my
absolute honor to welcome back onto the show
former Navy SEAL and the director of the Florida
Chamber Health Council, John Doolittle. Now,
in this second conversation, we discuss a host
of topics, from responding to hurricanes with
the Florida State Guard Special Missions Group,
the mental health crisis, Firefighter Work Week,
the free access first responders in Florida and
other states have to ETMS, the EEG -guided transcranial
magnetic stimulation, and so much more. Now,
before we get to this incredible conversation,
as I say every week, please just take a moment,
go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe
to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five -star rating truly does elevate
this podcast, therefore making it easier for
others to find. And this is a free library of
well over 1 ,100 episodes now. So all I ask in
return is that you help share these incredible
men and women's stories so I can get them to
every single person on planet Earth who needs
to hear them. So with that being said, I welcome
back onto the show... John Dolittle. Enjoy. Well,
John, I want to start by saying this time, welcome
to my home and welcome to the Behind the Shield
podcast for the second time. Yeah, James, thanks,
man. It's so good to be here. And thank you for
opening your home, letting me hang out with Ember,
the German Shepherd sleeping over in the corner
now. And yeah, I love it. Love your home. And
it's good to finally meet you in person. We've
been talking about it for over three years, I
think. Now, you're based in the Tampa area. I
think a good icebreaker would be between the
last time we spoke and now, there have been several
hurricanes that have hit your area. We've been
very lucky. I'm touching wood now. In my area,
we really didn't have a huge amount, but the
West Coast got battered. So talk to me about
the role you held in the Florida State Guard,
and then let's talk about those responses as
a kind of opener. okay yeah it's uh well about
a year and a half ago uh i went to an assessment
and selection for the florida state guard they
have a group called the special mission unit
that um is primarily made up of former special
operations guys um There's about, I think we're
at about 55 people now. And so you have the FSG,
the regular Florida State Guard, and then you
have the special missions side. And, yeah, I
don't know. When I was growing up, my dad was
a ski patrol. He did a bunch of stuff. He was
a retired Air Force guy, worked for a phone company,
and he was a volunteer ski patrol. Did that for
over 30 years in Lake Tahoe. And if you ask him
today what of all the, you know, quote, profession,
you know, type things he did, what is he most
proud of, and he'll tell you without batting
an eye what he did in the ski patrol, just helping
people. And, you know, that was something I wanted
in my life. So I went to the selection process,
went through that whole thing, and I'm on the
team. And, yeah, we had eight, nine months ago.
We had Hurricane Helene, highest storm surge
in over 100 years in this part of Florida. And
then right on the tail end of Helene, we had
Hurricane Milton. So, yeah, being part of the
state guard for that's been good. We have an
emergency response capability, but we also have
the ability to do just about whatever the governor
needs us to do to support the state. But I'd
say the majority of what we do is kind of emergency
response. Why is it that those roles are filled
with the Special Operations community, and what
is it that you guys bring specifically to that
role? Well, I think what's unique about the SOCOM
community, Special Operations Command community,
is with a small group of guys you can really
get a lot. of good stuff done. And when you take
people who lived, lived and worked in that world
for, for a career, and now they're doing other
things on the outside, because it's essentially
a volunteer, the FSGs, you know, it's, there's,
there's a little stipend, a little bit of pay,
but it's basically a volunteer gig. And when
you're, when you're tied in with other guys that
worked, in small teams overseas doing a bunch
of different stuff, there's really nothing that
you can't get done. And, yeah, it's just a natural
fallout from being a team guy and rolling into
being a different kind of team guy. I think I'm
the most junior guy on the force. Oh, really?
I'm a frock master sergeant, yeah. That's interesting,
though, because that parallels what I've heard.
so often in the transition stories is especially
in police and fire we i don't know why this is
the case but a lot of my profession they're like
well all i know is fire so i'll go and teach
at a fire academy or the cops will go and become
security somewhere but that's not all we are
you know we've worked in high stress situations
we work well in teams we're problem solvers you
know so see what you're talking about obviously
you're not hunting bin laden or whatever else
was going on you know in the middle east but
now you're taking that same skill set and applying
in a different way and i think that's such an
important takeaway for transition is it doesn't
have to be apples to apples it's a broader scope
but where i see a lot of healing and a lot of
value is when people find a way to still use
that same skill set in a way to make the world
a little bit better. And that's exactly, it sounds
like exactly what you guys are doing. Yeah, when
a hurricane hits, man, people need all kinds
of help. And, you know, we were talking about
Sebastian Younger's book over lunch, Tribe. And
I think when you serve, whether we're talking
first responders or we're talking military, or
whatever, you're with a lot of like -minded type
guys, usually have the same kind of worldview,
and it's kind of a brotherhood, your group, your
tribe, right? And when you leave that, it's very
hard to find that on the outside. This is just
one more way to do that. So with those hurricanes
specifically, What were stories of heroism that
you heard? And then what were the kind of lesson
learned takeaways of maybe being better prepared
or the residents being better prepared in the
future? Well, I think law enforcement, firefighters,
the sheriff's department, all the existing first
responders across that part of the state. I mean,
the stories of hero is, you know, when you have
a massive surge like that and you have a lot
of people breaking out through their roofs or
stuck on their second or third story homes and
you have these law enforcement officers and firefighters
and the state guard guys running around in boats
and large vehicles and just helping people. They
might not be stories of heroism, but they're
just stories of helping people, helping the community,
helping the county, the city, the districts and
stuff. I think... Anyway, you'll have to edit
that part. No, no, no. Not at all, not at all.
I forgot what the second question was. No, but
the second problem is I threw two questions at
you simultaneously, which I shouldn't do. So
the other part was takeaways. Are there any lessons
learned as far as preparation? Because it's not
blaming at all, but obviously after an incident,
there's always value in, okay, if we could do
this again, what would we do differently? Well,
I think one of the takeaways for me personally
was all these homes that were built, in our state
before uh 1970 before the you know when you look
at these homes that have built in the 50s and
60s and they're on a concrete slab and they're
above the high water mark but they're not necessarily
above the hundred hundred year flood mark so
they're inside a flood zone i never really thought
of that as being a major issue when we are looking
for places to live in florida but having responded
to these people and worked in those houses now
where And it's not just saltwater that comes
in. You have sewage overflow and all the drama
that comes with that. And you walk into a place
after the search has gone down and the water's
four, five, six feet up the drywall, the entire
home is ruined. And so I will never buy another
house in Florida that's not up to code. Up to
code meaning especially for the elevation piece.
Because, you know, you run from the flood and
you hide from the wind, right? So the storm surge
is like major drama, man. It's all these homes
in Shore Acres. Half the homes in Shore Acres
still haven't been rebuilt. And it's nine months
after Helene. That was one takeaway. Another
takeaway that I saw in my local community and
anybody you talk to that lives in Clearwater,
St. Pete, all the way down to Sarasota where
I hit after Milton, you had fallen trees everywhere.
And we've been through a bunch of hurricanes.
I've never seen so many trees down as Milton.
I mean, that's the one where the roof got torn
off, the trop in downtown St. Pete and all that.
But seeing all the neighbors come out, and I
saw this right where I live. I mean, three of
the neighbors I've never even spoken with. And
after Milton, I know them all. We're all tight
now because we're sharing chainsaws and we're
going around the neighborhood helping each other
out. That was really cool to see. You know, it's
unfortunate sometimes it takes a disaster to
see the best in people. But that absolutely took
place during that back -to -back hurricane. I
literally had a conversation with someone the
other day, and we were talking about that very
thing. There's always that comment, like, you
know, we seem to come together after a 9 -11.
And do we have to wait for a 9 -11? So with this
kind of unique lens that you have through your
military career and some of the altruistic things
you're doing outside, If you were king for a
day, how do we bring back that community so we're
not waiting for a worst -case scenario to actually
get neighborhoods back together again? If I were
king for a day, I would mandate that every 18,
19, 20 -year -old kid would have to do a year
of service. And it could be community service,
you know, city level, district, county level,
state level, federal level. To me, it wouldn't
matter. But you'd have to do some kind of service
because I firmly believe, and this is after spending
a fair amount of time in Israel, but, you know,
you don't become an adult in Israel without having
served your at least community. But you don't
necessarily have to get in the military. Service
in some capacity, I think, is really important.
And I don't think we have enough of that. And
I would consider first respond being in first
responder world. I would consider being in the
military, you know, houses for habitat for humanity,
all that kind of stuff. If we mandated that,
I think our nation would be in a much different
place. It's interesting. Sebastian Junger said
the same thing in one of the interviews. I remember
clearly he was like, the problem is with military
service is not everyone is supposed to be a military
member. And I agree with him. I think that's
right. Whether you kind of disagree with the
principle or whether maybe you're just not cut
from that cloth, your ability to plant trees
for a year or be an adjunct teacher or whatever
it is. I think understanding that this is a shared
experience as a nation, I think it's so powerful,
and I think there is a disconnect. At least from
where I'm sitting, this last at least 20 years,
that message of I'm the most important person
in the world has been reinforced, whether it's
in the business world, whether it's in the sporting
world. We were talking before we hit record about
our youth sports. If your child doesn't win the
national championships, then they're worthless.
So I think that would be invaluable to make people
realize that it's we. Like I always said, there's
no I in USA, but there is an us. I like that.
Yeah, I think it would really improve things.
When you're all in it for yourself and you don't
see the bigger picture, you miss out on a lot.
And we're all missing out from a lot of the stuff
that our parents and our grandparents grew up
with. And now with all the smart devices and
all this kind of stuff, the kids are missing
on a lot of that. Absolutely. Well, you were
talking, I've forgotten the name of it now, but
the program trying to address childhood obesity.
So let's talk about that for a moment and the
success that they've seen in the areas that they're
working. Yeah, a little while ago I was exposed
to this program in the Panhandle in Florida called
the Champions Program. And they've done some
really cool stuff. They've been around for like
20 years. And there's people that have been through
the program as parents whose kids are now going
through the program. And I don't know a whole
lot about it, but what I've learned is that they
basically go into the... public school system
and they augment the PE classes, the physical
education classes. And it's like less emphasis
on sports and how to play a sport and the rules
associated with the sport and more emphasis on
moving and exercise and healthy lifestyle. And
when you're doing aerobic activity, understanding
what that's doing for your brain. And much more
of a focus on that. And as a result, the data
that's come out of the six counties that it's
been in for a while now is phenomenal compared
to the rest of the state and the rest of the
nation. Yeah, something like that being expanded
and scaled across America would be pretty incredible.
But yeah, champions. uh program out of panhandle
in florida pretty pretty amazing i had a guy
on the show a while ago now doug orchard who
made a documentary called the motivation factor
and it was a school in i think it was central
california and the coach had basically kind of
studied a russian model and brought it over to
his high school last year at high school um and
it was a kind of a version of the belt system
in martial arts but it was shorts different colored
shorts okay and the kids worked as a group and
i'm sure they did an initial testing to put you
know kind of similar ability kids together but
they worked as a team and you're doing pt every
single day and the goal is you know when you
get to a benchmark you you test for that benchmark
and then you get a different color pair of shorts
love it and the the video footage of these kids
I'm assuming they were probably the top -tier
kids. Any one of them could have been a men's
health cover model. Really? And the whole philosophy
was, firstly, the grades improved. The bullying
basically went away. And even in the sports,
whatever sport these kids wanted to do, they
were already conditioned. So all they had to
worry about was the skill training. They didn't
have to do conditioning because these kids were
already fit and strong. The top -tier one, there
was a partner carry. And I think it was something
crazy, like three miles. It was seven times up
and down a pegboard. They had all the parallel
bars that, you know, meters and meters of them.
And it was all calisthenics. It wasn't even using
weights. But, you know, it was militant in a
positive way, like a communal way. But yeah,
so these kids are all sharing YouTube videos.
The Russian approach. Yeah. So and then you compare
that to exactly what you know, the ethos was
you're just talking about. What we have in schools
now, if there's even any, you know, you have
the PE program, if it's even there, but then
the sports, it's the opposite. It's the, you
know, if you're not first, you're last, you know,
participation trophies and all this kind of conversation.
So less emphasis on that piece. On moving. Yes.
Simply moving as a group because no one's winning
that. You know, you're elevating as a group.
But if everyone's that top tier shorts, then
brilliant. But the point with that is even if
you're the, you know, the clarinet player. otherwise
has no interest in sport, you're still going
to be one of the fittest kids in the country
compared to the other system. Well, the thing
that is really cool about this program is you're
measured and graded on effort. So if you're that
clarinet player and your heart rate gets up to
175, 180 on whatever it is that you're doing,
yet you come in near last, you're still going
to get an A because it's all about the effort.
Yeah, exactly. You may be the worst runner in
the class, but they're measuring all kinds of
outcome measures. And it's not just the speed
that they run, but how hard are you working,
which equates to how hard are you trying. And
when a kid tries really hard and they don't do
well and they get a bad grade, de -incentivize
that kid to do anything with sports and athletics
or just functional movement and taking care of
themselves ever again. And when that happens
over and over and over, I mean, we're building
it into those kids. Whereas in this program,
that clarinet player just got an A plus because
her heart rate was at 185 for 15 minutes. boom,
she's on cloud nine and she's going to embrace
that type of approach to her lifestyle. You know,
she's going to embrace it going forward. And,
um, and I firmly believe that, that, that physical
resilience drives emotional resilience. And when
you look at what's going on with our kids in
the state of Florida, 40 % of the kids have mental
health issues. And the majority of that 40 %
that are unmet needs. So I had one of the people
that runs NAMI Florida, National Alliance for
Mental Illness here in Florida, and she said
there's not enough behavioral health providers
in all of America to meet the behavioral health
needs just in the state of Florida. There's not
enough nationwide to deal with what we're dealing
with for behavioral health here in the state
of Florida. So if that's the case, something
has to change. We've got to do some stuff differently.
And I think what this program is doing may be
a way to do that because I don't think it would
be that hard to fold in some behavioral health,
mental wellness. self -confidence type stuff.
I mean, all that stuff's going to improve when
you start doing these things with these kids.
And you got me on a little bit of a soapbox because
when I was at SOCOM, my last job there, we were
dealing with a lot of behavioral health challenges
for the families, the dependents, the members,
the military members. It's frustrating because
there's only so much you can do once they are
an adult and they're set in their ways. But if
you can get to them when they're kids, before
they completely set themselves up for a life
of misery, if you can get to them early, you
can really make an impact. And so, yeah, I think
that's... That's a direction we should try and
go. Yeah. Well, it's an interesting statistic.
I'm going to remember that. So if there is a
greater need in the state of Florida for counselors
than we can provide in the entire 50 states,
that does highlight that there are groups within
that state. that absolutely need mental health
counseling specifically but then there's these
kind of you know larger circles where i think
other holistic things will make a huge dent in
that and maybe that child doesn't need mental
health professionals specifically and it's the
same as we were talking and most people are not
going to be surprised that i start talking about
24 72 but you know in the fire service you better
go there because if you don't i am The focus
is, well, we need counselors and peer support
and all this stuff. And it's like, well, yeah,
but sleep is the first pillar. If you are not
sleeping, you can't counsel or EMDR your way
out of it. That's not the case. So going back
to these children, now you put in PE. Now you
serve real food in schools and you remove the
soda machines and stop the Cisco trucks from
showing up anymore. And then now these kids have
got more energy. They're burning off calories.
They're having that sense of community. They're
enjoying sports because they're not told they
have to win or they're a piece of shit. How many
of that demand in the state of Florida now goes
down? And now you start getting a smaller number
than maybe the southeast would be enough to cover
the kids in Florida. And then you start addressing
the issues with social media. So I think it's
an interesting conversation, and people keep
talking about that. Oh, we need more counselors,
and we do. But you're also missing the point,
people are, and we're talking about this, if
you're not addressing the exercise, nutrition,
the ability to simply put a child on a Headspace
app, you know, meditation at home, going out
of their house and playing without taking a cell
phone with them, all these things, there's no
question in my mind that a large percentage of
those kids that are struggling on paper will
now stop. And Johan Hari has a great quote, the
opposite of addiction isn't sobriety. It's connection.
Oh, yeah. So, you know, you get these kids off
their devices, eating well, sleeping well, and
forging friendships in and outside of school.
How much of that massive mental health, 40%,
is going to shrink down to a manageable amount
of those children that still then need actual
counseling? Yeah, the social connectedness, that's
the most important thing that we're collectively
after. That Harvard study was like 80 years,
longest study in all of academia in America.
And the number one thing for longevity, et cetera,
et cetera, was social connectedness. The value
of deep relationships. And building that in our
kids early on, which is the exact opposite of
what's happening with social media and smartphones
and all this crap. yep absolutely yeah well staying
on the health model the last time we spoke you're
working for katsu So talk to me about that product.
One of my friends, Jesse Salas, who's one of
the right -hand man of the foundation training
world, he's been using that in so many really
interesting ways. So talk to me about that and
then kind of what made you transition into the
role that you're doing now. Jesse's brought it
into mixed martial arts. He's brought it into
UFC, big wave surfing. That guy is all. over
the place he and chris morgan who's the chief
performance officer there but yeah i was with
katsu for eight years uh absolutely love the
product love the company i use it every single
day um they are are doing a lot of phenomenal
work for wounded warriors And for TBI, it's not
just an orthopedic rehab device. And for listeners
that have no idea what we're talking about, think
of them as therapeutic air bands, elastic air
bands that you wear high on your arms or high
on your legs. And the computer will pressurize
with pneumatic, with air pressure for 30 seconds.
and then release it for five. And then the next
pressure will be a little bit more, like 10 millimeters
mercury, higher in pressure. And it does that
repeatedly, automatically in the background while
you do some functional movement. And great for
orthopedic rehab. Or great for guys like you
and me. I'm getting ready to turn 56. I'm all
beat up. I've had 13 orthopedic surgeries. I
can't go heavy anymore. But it's a way to get
good metabolic outcomes with doing little to
no weight during functional movement. So love
it. Did it for eight years. I'm very appreciative
of all the time I had with Katsu. The things
they have coming are really exciting. But I did
a public speaking gig out in the Disney world
for the Florida Chamber of Commerce two years
ago, like a year and a half ago. And one of the
things I talked about... During that leadership
conference, it was right after Michael Phelps
spoke. He spoke the day before. And he talked
about his mental health journey. First of all,
I had no idea that Michael Phelps had had this
big of a challenge. He had three major, major
suicide ideations. Like he really, really had
thought through and planned for killing himself.
Thankfully, he seeked treatment on his own with
some help with some close friends. And anyway,
he told that story. And his life goal now is
his foundation, the Michael Phelps Foundation,
help people with behavioral health and mental
wellness and mental health and all that. But
it was a phenomenal talk. And so after hearing
him speak, I tweaked my talk because I wanted
to. be sure and share the story of a good friend
of mine that I went to the Air Force Academy
with. And I honestly can't remember if we talked
about this last time we were on. I'll tell it
again just in case. Please. And we both graduated
from Air Force Academy. We both did an inter
-service transfer into the Navy. We both went
into the SEAL teams. We were both at SEAL Team
2. We both became commanding officers. I was
doing my second CO tour in Germany, and he was
the commanding officer of SEAL Team 4 down in
Afghanistan. And we would talk just like this,
face -to -face, but over a video thing once a
week because I had guys working for him. He had
guys working for me. We would swap guys out,
get guys combat experience and all that kind
of stuff. And one day they had a tragedy and
lost one of their guys. So the next week, we
missed our call for obvious reasons. And then
the next time I saw him, he didn't look good.
And I asked him, are you sleeping? Are you taking
care of yourself? Not really. He was kind of
blaming himself for a lot of what happened. And
then a few weeks later, they had another tragedy
and lost two more guys. And the next time I looked
at Joe, he just looked like complete, you know,
he did not look good. And then I'll never forget
Saturday morning. I'm bringing December 22nd,
2012. I'm bringing Sean, our oldest, to a birthday
party in Germany. And I get a phone call and
I see the area code 757, Virginia Beach. So it's
Saturday morning. In the middle of the night
in Virginia, you know it's not good. I pick up
the phone. It's a friend of mine. And I could
just tell right away, you know, John, I got some
really bad news. And I said, who was it? And
he said it was Job. Job Price. And I remember
thinking, okay, SEAL, Afghanistan, combat operations.
You know, it's dangerous. We've all been to a
lot of memorial ceremonies. But it was the next
thing the guy said, my buddy, that took the wind
out of my sails. He said, hey, what you need
to know, John, is that it appears that Job died
by a self -inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
It appears to be suicide. And I just remember
being like, holy crap, how can this? How can
this be? This guy's a commanding officer, pinnacle
of his career as an officer in the teams, leading
troops in combat. We all thought a very, very
resilient guy. It was his 14th deployment. But
it hit me like a ton of rocks that night when
I was talking to Katie about it. And it was that
realization that no matter how tough you are,
no matter how resilient you are, no matter how
tough you think your buddy, everybody's got a
breaking point. A hundred percent. And Job is
the perfect example of that. You know, the permanent
decision to a temporary problem. Everybody's
got breaking point. And it totally changed kind
of my worldview on a lot of things after. From
that point on, that was in 2012. Jump forward
to 2014, Admiral McRaven asked me, he knew I
was very tight with Job. He asked if I would
take on the Preservation of the Force and Family,
the PODIF program at SOCOM, to help eliminate
that from happening again. And I said, yeah.
So anyway, full circle. We'll come back to Poetiff.
But I changed my talk to insert that piece with
Job after hearing Michael Phelps. And a few months
after that, the chamber reached out to me and
said, hey, we have a health council. This is
the Florida Chamber of Commerce in Tallahassee,
so in the state capital. He said, hey, would
you consider interviewing for the job of, you
know, director of health council? And I'm like,
well, I have zero experience as a provider. I'm
not a provider. I'm not, you know, whatever.
And he said, that's okay. We still want to hear
what you, how you would approach the problem
of a lot of things in Florida, but primarily
the behavioral health crisis. take kids that
we were just talking about as an example. We
just want to hear how you would approach it.
And I love Katsu, man. I was all in on that for
a long time. And I went home and I talked with
Katie and I said, hey, I feel like I'm doing
a lot of good at Katsu, but I feel like I could
do even more good with this. And she said, well,
there's your answer. So when Tallahassee interviewed,
talked for a long time, you know, I know there's
a lot of rules in the HR world, in the private
sector, that just because we did something in
the military and it was very effective, it doesn't
necessarily mean you can do it in the private
sector, right? But that was the... That was what
the conversation was about. I told them everything
that we did and how beneficial it was to the
force and the families. And long story longer,
here I am. I work at Florida Chamber. I'm the
director for the health council. And we're doing
some good stuff, man. Going back to Michael Phelps,
it's interesting that you had that experience
in person because I think it was, I think maybe
three years ago now, maybe a little bit longer,
there was a documentary called The Weight of
Gold. And it was so good. And I want to still
get some of the athletes from there, including
Michael Phelps one day. I think that would be
a great conversation. But it was the same exact
issue amongst these professional athletes, especially
these Olympians, as you and I have in our professions.
The loss of tribe, loss of purpose, loss of identity.
Because some of these kids... We're literally
groomed. Like we were talking before we hit record.
Groomed. Bad word. Yeah, these days it is. You
know, if you have children and you just allow
them to play, the Michael Phelpses will rise
regardless. You're going to realize that kid
needs to be, you know, on a program of, you know,
exceptionalism in that particular sport. Yeah.
But so you take that child now and that's all
they've known in the pool, you know, five, six,
seven days a week. And they win and they win
and they win. And one day, that's the last time
they're going to stand on a podium. And then
they're like, well, then who the hell am I? And
you heard it from all these different, you know,
Lolo Jones and all these other people that were
on there. And it was tragic because I think one
of them was a wrestler, if I'm remembering rightly.
And during the duration of filming the documentary.
He went from talking about his mental health
struggles to they said that he took his own life.
So, you know, we were seeing this mirror. So
it's amazing how, again, we're human beings in
the uniform, you know, and then our early struggles
are a big part. And we were talking when we were
having lunch. What I've realized over and over
and over again in these stories from our population
is that when our men and women went to get help,
whether it was a great psychologist, whether
it was ayahuasca, whatever it was, More often
than not, it wasn't Fallujah or 9 -11 or the
Vegas shooting. It was when I was four years
old, when I was six years old, and that was never
addressed. Repressing all that stuff. Exactly.
Now, working through that, I truly believe that's
the hope of post -traumatic growth. That becomes
an asset. That becomes a strength. You can't
turn back time, but you can work through it and
now be stronger, be more resilient, be more compassionate.
crammed down there that usually is the over and
over again the common denominator especially
with the person that was there like the suicide
attempt was imminent or even some of the guests
they went through with it they just survived
versus the people that seem to do okay in their
career still had highs and lows but there was
an element of that early life either not being
super traumatic or they just found ways of working
through it myself included by pure chance so
that when they entered the profession they weren't
on a fractured foundation already so you look
at whether it's you know the childhoods that
some of these elite athletes have and there's
loss of identity in that space or war fighters
and firefighters that that's what drove us to
want to be a protector but if left unaddressed
Someone who survived 14 deployments ends up dying
by their own hand. Yeah. Yeah. And so much of
it comes back to recovery time. Right? Yeah.
You know, in the military, after 9 -11, our recovery
time was significantly decreased. And it wasn't
like this for everybody, but for a lot of people.
Basically, at least in special operations, a
lot of people went from a 24 -month cycle, 18
months of training, leave, workup training, all
that kind of stuff, professional development,
and then a six -month deployment that was usually
a joint combined training type thing, running
around, having fun, doing good stuff. Then 9
-11 happens. And again, I got to be clear, it
was not for everybody, but I'll use our Special
Forces brothers as an example, the Green Berets,
5th Group specifically. They absolutely went
from an 18 -month, you know, a 24 -month total
to a 6 -6. So home for six months, deployed kinetic
deployment for six months. But the six months
they're home, they're not really home. They're
not doing leave. They're not doing professional
development. They're doing the bare essential
training they need to do to get back out the
door and do A, B, or C in a kinetic environment,
which means during those six months, they're
gone for a lot of that time because you can't
do a lot of that training back at home station.
You've got to travel. And that was happening
kind of across. Special operations. And, you
know, as you can imagine, the wheels start coming
off the proverbial bus pretty quickly. Check
fire. No, no, no. No, I'm saying check fire because
I forgot what the hell we were talking about
right when we went into the SF stuff. Right when
I went into the SF stuff. Yeah, so I was talking
about the prevalence of... our childhood on our
mental health later. But then you were talking
about recovery. And recovery time. And then I
folded into that. No, but that makes sense because
you talked about the compression of that time.
And it's the same with my profession. What should
have been... That was going to be my way to fold
into the 24 -72, you bastard. Well, you just
did. It worked. Yeah, but there is a parallel,
whether you're in the military at war or whether
you're a mismanaged fire service. And I say that
because we are in the middle of a woeful recruitment
crisis because of poor decisions in the past.
Well, let's talk about that. Yeah. Let's talk
about that for a second. Because part of this
chamber job, it's kind of like three buckets.
There's the workforce, of course, private sector.
There's the youth, and we can come back to that.
Veterans and first responders. And what you're
doing in the fire service space or what you have
done with a lot of other people that have really
worked hard on this is you have started to convince
that community how important a recovery piece
is. And a 24 -72, so one full 24 hours on. and
a full 72, quote unquote, off, that is still,
for a firefighter, 42 hours of work per week.
That's still more than a full -time W -2, five
-day -a -week job. And when you and I first met,
and I realized when fire stations were on a 24
and 48, that that was a 56. hour work week and
that's not even taking into account the overtime
that especially if you're a new guy you're almost
like expected to accept um you know the expectation
that if you're directed to do some overtime that
you'll take it on especially if you're a new
guy well now you're not talking about 56 hours
you're talking about 65 70 80 hour weeks and
these guys are being exposed to trauma all the
time and all the emotional triggers that come
with that. And we expect them to be driving around
these giant red trucks for our neighborhoods
at high rate of speed with little to no sleep.
It's just, I'm really happy to hear that there's
counties around our state and not even outside
the state now that are adopting the 24 72 model.
Is that a true statement that it is getting adopted?
Absolutely, yeah. How many counties would you
say so far? So as far as counties, it's two,
Pasco and now Palm Beach, which I believe is
our biggest county, if I'm not mistaken. Palm
Beach, okay. And then numerous cities. I think
we're up to 11 or 12. Kissimmee was another one
that just went a few weeks ago. And then, like
I said, even I keep getting messages from other
parts of the country that are almost there now.
And then Governor DeSantis just signed in a bill
that was initiated by Danny Alvarez that was
a wellness initiative. And there's some other
things on there. And we're going to get to one
of them, obviously, the TMS. But, you know, one
of them was. Initially, he wanted, I think, a
mandate, but then it became a recommendation
for a 42 -hour workweek for the fire service.
It was interesting, and I'll never stop saying
this because it needs to be poured out into the
spotlight. The Florida Firefighter Chiefs Association
put out an email amongst their members saying
that they opposed the 42 -hour workweek. Why
do you think? Well, here's the issue. I mean,
firstly, these are people that work 40 hours
a week saying that they don't think their firefighters
deserve to work less than 56. So, you know, take
a step back and just think about that statement
for a moment as a leader. Secondly, honestly,
and it's not, you know, they're not representing
every chief in Florida. There are some great
chiefs in Florida. But sadly, these are the people
that they elected and they're speaking for them.
And that was their stance. But what I'm seeing.
And I won't go the massive monologue on this
because people listen to this podcast know the
things. But what's crazy is if you look financially
at the way that fire service is at the moment,
we're woefully understaffed. So a lot of our
firefighters are working overtime to fill in
these vacancies, as you alluded to, which is
time and a half, which is also breaking our people.
So now you've got increased sick days to workman's
comp injuries and all the things. And then we've
got a lack of retention. So you've got these
departments that are spending tens of thousands
of dollars to train and equip these recruits
who then, you know, a year, two, three years
later, walk out the back door. And you've got
people that would have stayed 25 years that are
now leaving a lot sooner. When you look at it,
there is no downside. You're going to improve
the workforce. You're going to improve their
families and relationships and health, the mental
health, the physical health. But also fiscally,
you're going to save these cities and counties
money. So the question is, well, then why is
there so much resistance? And the reality is
because it takes courage. And I say this from
every rank. The firefighters that push back and
beat their chest saying, you know, I'll sleep
when I'm dead, basically lack the courage to
fight for time with their family. And time for
their own mental health and physical health and
performance. If we're talking about the chiefs
and city and county managers, you know, and the
board, then it's lacking the courage to say what
we've done doesn't work. Up front, we're going
to need a little bit more money to add these
extra personnel. But that then in turn is going
to save us money hand over fist from here on
in. So really, it's a courage question. Are you
actually willing to do the very thing? that you
collect a salary for, and you have all these
stripes on your shoulder, are you willing to
actually finally do what you're paid to do, which
is advocate for the health of your people and
maximize our ability to respond to the community
that you serve? So what that all makes me think
of is there's a reason in the SEAL teams we were
at a 3 -in -1 for a long time. 3 -in -1 meaning?
The one is a deployment for six months, and the
three is the 18 months that you're home, rest,
recovery, refit, leave, professional development,
unilateral training, joint training. All that
stuff takes time, but the recovery piece takes
time. You've got to have the recovery time. For
what it's worth, for decision makers out there,
especially those that work in the fire service,
if you're on a 56 -hour work week and you're
doing a 24 -hour cycle of work where you're exposed
to trauma and then you come back from that and
you're expecting that same person to come back
48 hours later, It's a recipe for disaster because,
you know, when we would go on these combat deployments,
and I've been out for a while now, but I've been
out, God, for eight years. But we'd go on these
deployments and we'd get exposed to trauma, of
course. And with trauma, as you well know, we've
talked about before, there's emotional triggers
associated with the trauma. And we would come
back and we leave those triggers for the most
part overseas. I know we've had this conversation
before. But for a law enforcement officer. For
a firefighter, for EMT, for somebody that's exposed
to trauma at the 7 -Eleven around the corner
from where they live. And a cop, a firefighter,
somebody has a six -year -old kid die in their
arms. Every time they go by that emotional trigger,
there's going to be cognitive and behavioral
health fallout from that trigger. And guys got
to have... time and if you're not having the
time in weeks and months you got to at least
give them two full solid sleep cycles to get
into stage three stage four sleep we can talk
about the sleep with the TMS stuff but if you're
not giving them that it's just a matter of time
before you have another Joe Price situation on
your hands it's it's it's almost criminal in
my my opinion well what's sad is I mean Every
day on social media, you'll see Florian Kress
with a black shroud. And, you know, a lot of
times they will say died suddenly. And we all
know what that means. You know, died, you know,
not line of duty or whatever, however they phrase
it. And sometimes it's this bizarre physical
issue. You know, the guy we just had, I think
he was 25, young firefighter. uh became sepsis
septic and just died i forget which department
it was but one of you know one of the u .s departments
but then you have so many that it's you know
suicide or god forbid an overdose you probably
won't hear about that either but yeah you know
our profession is riddled with them and again
these are young men and women that trained in
an academy how not to die in a fire you know,
that do save training where we work alongside
PD and trying to, you know, rescue people in
a mass casualty situation shooting and try not
to die there too. And then again, the combat
veteran, the firefighter, the cop, then they
go die by their own hand. So when you're not
addressing sleep deprivation, and as I've pointed
out many times on here, bear it in mind, we use
sleep deprivation for interrogation. for special
forces selection, for torture. You've had Doc
Parsley on here, right? Yes. Kirk Parsley. Yeah,
exactly, numerous times. So we know the negative
side, chronic and acute. And again, you were
talking about driving that million -dollar engine
through. Well, imagine the mental acuity of that
person if they're on the second of those two
24 -hour shifts because they got forced, or even
worse, their department thought 48 hours would
be a better schedule, which has happened all
over the country. And now they're driving past
you and your family and your SUV or your minivan.
And that person's seeing cross -eyed and they
blast through an intersection. Now, all of a
sudden, you guys are on the news. These are real
things. So the science shows that a 24 -hour,
72 hours is the minimum to try and get as close
to baseline as you can. But you start doing a
24 -hour. You know, it's another cool conversation
on this. Very close friends of our family, their
son. is in the Marine Corps. And he's going to,
after one enlistment, he's getting out. And he
wants to be a firefighter. And he said, the one
thing that I'm not sure about is it just seems
like a lot of work and little downtime. And I
said, where are you getting that information
from? He goes, well, you know, it's a 2448. And
I said, oh, it's actually not 2448 everywhere.
I think you're talking about a recruiting tool.
I think you're talking about a retention tool,
especially retention. How much does it cost to
get a guy through Firefighting Academy and everything?
Is that in the hundreds of thousands of dollars?
No, not so much that, but the locally here, because
I sat down with, did a thing with the IHMC. So
it was like a blue sky project and the local
agency was there and they said, At that time,
it cost them $18 ,000 per recruit. So you lose
100 recruits, which happens frequently. You're
right there at $2 million. Just walked out the
door. You just gave away $2 million of your taxpayers'
money. Now you take a larger agency because Marion
isn't a very big county. Now you think about
L .A. you're probably in the tens of millions
of dollars, if not more. And then the overtime.
Because you work in Anaheim. LA City, LAFD, their
overtime budget for three years was a billion
dollars. That's a B, a billion dollars. So you're
telling me that you can't hire another shift.
with a billion dollars all that overtime yeah
exactly so so this is the thing yeah i mean you
know and you're absolutely right the pasco counties
and gainesvilles when they announced they were
going to this new schedule what happened well
danny alvarez no it wasn't danny it was uh doug
um collins no um why i'm blank on his last name
he's gonna kill me now if he hears this but he
was saying that one of his friends works in um
uh pasco and kind of like receiving on the recruitment
side he said i literally need to have another
person hired the phone is ringing off the hook
the firefighter is wanting to work for pasco
now so there is not even like a hypothesis this
is a known thing anytime a department has made
this this you know shift they are getting people
coming quality of life is so is so important
And, you know, I had it backwards in the teams.
And we talked about this at lunch, too. But I
always thought it was work first, then family,
then self. But we have to allow people in the
first responder community to approach it what
I feel is the more appropriate way, which is
self, family, work. Self meaning, you know, mind,
body, spirit. The three -legged stool. If you
can take care of yourself like that, then you
can be more present for your family. And if your
family situation is solid because you're solid,
now you're all in on work. When you do it the
reverse, and I did it reverse for a long time.
Thank God Katie's still with me. I'm amazed.
yeah katie we got three kids and they're all
doing good you know we're empty nesters now yeah
you said because i i almost was and then my son
we had some changes and now he's going to community
college here but yeah we were talking over lunch
like i had that's right ty's living here now
that's awesome so two weeks two years from now
but by that point he'll be 20 so it probably
won't sting as much but awesome yeah i was seeing
seeing how challenging that was and that's another
part of the mental health conversation for the
kids when they go away and they're leaving that
safe platform that they've had their whole life
but then for the parents that was our purpose
that was our you know point of pride was those
children and now you know if you're a good parent
you set them off let them forge their own path
but then you realize well shit who am i now i
was a parent for all this time and i still am
but that was kind of my mission set for 18 20
25 years your primary mission and now when that's
gone yeah we have we have three kids and i uh
i dropped meg off at school A few weeks ago,
starting summer session at Auburn University.
War Eagle. But that was tough. That was tough.
Very different than dropping the boys off at
school. When I dropped Meg off, you know, she
has daddy wrapped around her little finger. And
then she was like, okay, dad, I'm good. You can
go. I'm like, what? You don't need me? Yeah,
for a lot of us, that's our identity for a long
time. So, yeah. Absolutely. Well, we kind of
dropped the TMS thing just briefly and earlier.
So we're talking, obviously, about the importance
of rest and recovery and schedules. But Danny
Alvarez was on here. I had Dr. Eric Wan on the
show. So let's talk about TMS, EEGs, and... the
states that are helping their first responders
and military with these things. All right, so
full disclosure, I am not a TMS expert, okay?
And I also am in no way, shape, or form associated
or affiliated with any TMS folks. But I think
a good starting point is that TMS, transcranial
magnetic stimulation, hasn't been around for
a long, long time. And it's FDA approved for
treatment resistant depression. But what this
stuff is, is not traditional TMS. Traditional
TMS is a standardized power and a standardized
wavelength, 10 hertz. What Dr. Eric Wan and those
folks have navigated through is the fact that
every brain, like a fingerprint, every brain
is uniquely different. And every brain's alpha
wave frequency is uniquely different. And what
they have done is they figured out a way to look
at your EEG, look at your EKG, and determine
what your intrinsic alpha wave frequency should
be. Now, when you take somebody that's been exposed
to trauma, when you take a kid that's dealing
with autism, when you take somebody that's been
exposed to repetitive subconcussive events, CTE,
TBI, blasted overexplosure, when you take somebody
that's been exposed to just about any of that,
you can actually see it in the EEG. And you can
actually... You see it because that the alpha
waves are out of sync in parts of the head and
parts of the brain. They have the ability to
dial in whatever you're in. I'm a nine point
five guy and I've been through treatment. Right.
So they found a place in my brain that was it
like 18 hertz. You know, probably why I was so
ADD anyway. So they find this place that's 18
hertz in my brain. They said, okay, we're going
to slow this down to what your intrinsic actual
wavelength should be. It's done with very, very
light magnetic pulse energy. They get all those
wavelengths synchronized. I had two peaks in
my EEG. When you looked at the graph. There were
two alpha wave peaks, which you absolutely don't
want. You want everything to be symmetrical and
nice steep curves and a very tall peak. And you
want it to all look the same everywhere throughout
your head. And I had an area that was too fast.
So they slowed it down. And then what happened
is my peak, the alpha wave peak started to coincide
over the course of treatment. I went from a three
to five hours of sleep guy. to seven to eight
hours of sleep guy. I got eight freaking hours
of sleep last night. And that's a normal thing
for me now. Now there's a ton of sleep hygiene
stuff you can do and it's all good. I'm not saying
anything bad about all that and all the stuff
that Kirk partially talks about. This stuff's
all awesome. But when you look at the objective
measure, you can't fake an EEG. And when you
look at the objective measurements of what happens
during this treatment, which is non -invasive,
it doesn't hurt, there's no drugs, and you see
people's sleep actually improve. You actually
can see the latency period shift in the stage
three, stage four sleep study graphs shift left,
meaning they're getting into that recovery level
sleep. which is the most important level of sleep,
they're getting into that much faster. And when
you're in recovery sleep, Kirk talks about all
the time, that's the only time that your brain
shrinks enough to get that what they call glymphatic,
not lymphatic, but the glymphatic flush. They
get all the metabolic, all that waste, all that
waste that arguably is where a lot of dementia
and Alzheimer's comes from. You shrink the brain
during stage three and four sleep, and that's
when all that crap gets flushed out. Well, what
happens, at least in the teams, I was living
on Ambien for a long time. And what I've learned
from guys like Kirk is when you're on Ambien,
you never get into recovery sleep. You're tranquilized,
you're sleeping, you're getting some rest, but
you're never... fully recovering. And over time,
it's a form of torture, like you were mentioning
earlier. So what's happened now is you have states,
I believe it's five now, Missouri, Ohio, Florida,
Virginia, Massachusetts, they've all created
legislative grants to get this treatment for
first responders, former first responders. Military
veterans, and I think they're working on getting
family members as well because there's a whole
other conversation we can have with dependence
and stress and all that stuff. But they're large
grants, and here in Florida, we're treating a
lot of guys. And I say we because I see this
as a society, community, city, state, district,
county, state, national. level effort that these
guys are doing. And I'm excited to be in the
role I'm in, in the chamber now, because one
of those buckets that we're focused on is veterans
and first responders. And this treatment is absolutely
changing and saving lives. So, uh, you know,
I, when I was at SOCOM, when we were exposed
to this stuff for the first time, like, um, let's
see, I've been out for ages. So about 11 years
ago, I got exposed to this stuff. And it was,
you know, coming across as kind of like snake
oil, black magic type stuff. But since then,
they've done a lot of evidence -based studies,
a lot of double blind placebo type trials. And
it works. It works. And it's really valuable.
So the more guys we can get doing, you know,
and Representative Alvarez, he had a good point.
He's like, hey, you know, it's a multimillion
dollar grant. And if we use it all in the state
of Florida, next year we'll get more. We'll get
a bigger grant. And that's happening in five
states now. I hope it ends up happening in 50
states. And I hope it expands to the family members.
And I'm passionate about it because I've seen
what it did to my life, my marriage, my relationship
with my kids. I have a very close friend. I'm
not going to mention his name. He wouldn't mind
if I mentioned his name, but I'm not going to
say it just because. But he was a former EOD
tech, became a SEAL, spent 30 years in the military.
Maybe it wasn't full 30. But anyway, his last
job, he was a staff tour at one of our groups
in Virginia Beach. And on his way home, so you
can imagine, this guy's been exposed to a ton
of over... blast over pressurization a lot of
tbis and what was happening a couple times a
week on his way home and this is a home he lived
in for over 20 years uh he was getting lost yeah
there was on a 20 minute drive home over the
course of 20 years and towards the end of this
guy's career uh he was getting lost on the way
home To the point where he had to put a little
app, you know, and this was a little while ago,
so it wasn't as easy as it is now. But he had
to put an app in his phone and, you know, and
then follow the map. Oh, yeah, yeah, I know where
I am now. When he went through this treatment,
he flew home for a weekend. after the first two
weeks of treatment the treatment usually is about
20 sessions it takes about a month or you you
can spread it out longer if you want but he flew
home and then he went back to finish the treatment
and in the headquarters was in california newport
beach and i got a call from his wife she was
sobbing and brother i thought something horrible
had just happened And she's like, no, no, no,
John. I have my husband back. There were tears
of joy. And it was because he was sleeping better.
And yes, it helps with TBI and PTSD and anxiety
and all this stuff. But I think when you're talking
about the type of people that are first responders,
the type of people in law enforcement, the type
of people that are military, a lot of them don't
want to hear that this is a treatment for PTSD.
They don't want anything to do with anything
that's going to label them as a TBI or a concussive
issue or any of that stuff, especially in the
behavioral health world. And we saw this with
the study we did at SOCOM. It was primarily for
TBI and PTSD for this methodology. And then after
the study was all done, we had guys come and
tell us, hey, man, if you just told us that was
a sleep, you know, a way to make our sleep better,
which would have improved performance. you would
have had three times as many people enter the
study. Well, they've learned now. So these states
that are doing it, it's all about sleep. It's
all about, because you can go into the team room
and not mention anything about behavioral health
or counseling or any of that stuff, right? And
just say, hey man, how many guys show hands got
less than six hours sleep last night? Three quarters
of the hands are going to go up. And it's like,
hey man, this is a way to make that better. And
if sleep gets better, performance gets better.
and that's an easy conversation to have with
people. Yeah. It's funny because that literally
mirrors what I started doing. It's probably been
a few years now, but early in this mental health
conversation, you had the alphas, and I'm using
air quotes because it's not actually a real thing,
but that mental health stuff is just being a
pussy and all that kind of thing. And I was like,
all right, well then... As I'm learning what
are the tools, I'm realizing, well, it's the
same exact thing for performance. And I always
credit him as a baseball player, Logan Gelbrich,
who came on the show. And the real aha moment
for me is he was talking about a moment where
he was in the flow state playing baseball. And
he broke it down because he's a coach as well.
And he said, so to get in a flow state, you need
to have, you know. thousands of repetitions of
that skill you need to have high stress well
again if you're in the fire service especially
if you've been there for a while you got those
two yeah and you need to have a clear mind and
that was the missing piece so all these guys
that were saying oh you know it's just pussy
stuff and all that stuff it's like okay so you're
actually deliberately not wanting to be a good
firefighter is that what i'm getting oh you do
want to be a good firefighter okay well then
we need to talk about performance then in which
case you know a The meditation and the sleep
and all these things are going to help you actually
perform at the highest level. Because as I mentioned,
100 pounds of gear, climbing 30 stories, and
then you go to work. Now you've got to map out
a smoked out apartment and try and find that
child that's hiding under the bed. You honestly
think you're going to be able to do that when
your mind is like a hurricane? No, you're not.
So this is the beautiful thing, exactly underlining
what you said. Reframing it as a performance
tool, which it is. It's not smoke and mirrors.
Right. The beautiful side effect is you're also
positively affecting mental health. And I love,
and I'm going to do the TMS when, you know, the
geography is not an issue because it makes perfect
sense to me. I mean, I've had, you know, I've
been a firefighter. So there's all that sleep
deprivation. Tons of conclusive events, lots
of trauma. Exactly. Stunt work, martial arts,
all the things. Yeah, that does. And so I know
that's the case. And I do a lot of the sleep
hygiene. I took Kirk's word as gospel. I still
have his sleep remedy on my fridge there. I do
the blue blocking lenses. I have the house at
67, all the things. But I can't control how well
I sleep at night. I sleep, but I still have that
waking up with my jaw clenching and everything.
And I think there's a part of that that there's
probably a physiological element too. So, you
know, it's a win -win again. You know, if you
do CrossFit, you end up with a good physique,
but you're not doing CrossFit to get a good physique.
You do TMS, you end up with good mental health,
but you can make the main focus performance,
which is what we need to do in the fire service.
Because as one of my first t -shirts I ever made
for this podcast said, lives depend on you. There's
almost no profession that needs more, a higher
level of mental acuity than a firefighter paramedic.
Because we have such a broad skill set and there
is no workup. You're lying in a bunk room. The
tones go off. Now you've got to drag a kid from
a fire and do a cardiac algorithm on the front
lawn. And there's no VA for you guys. No. We're
discarded the moment we walk out the back door.
And that sounds dramatic, but it's true. You
cease to be a statistic. I mean, the Department
of Veterans Affairs, the medical side of the
house. And I know there's a lot of people out
there that disagree with me, but I think that
stuff is amazing. Amazing. Now, I know there's
a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse that goes on
just like any large government organization.
But I have a lot of friends that are walking
around today because of the VA care they got.
So I will never bad talk them. I know it's not
perfect. The point I'm making is all of our military,
that's accessible for every military veteran
in America. And back to the emotional triggers
that our first responders are exposed to, I feel
that every time a firefighter walks out the front
door and says goodbye to their spouse and their
kids, every time a law enforcement officer puts
on body armor and slings a gun, deployment meaning
you may or may not get exposed to trauma you
may or may not get hurt or worse but you're walking
out that door to go deal with it and the big
difference in the veteran space is that was episodic
months at a time then you come home and for the
most part you leave it over there you guys don't
have the ability to do that so there's even more
of a requirement for you than a lot of military
guys for something like the VA. Now, I've said
that in the past and I've been jumped on because,
you know, well, they have this, this, this and
that. And I'm like, OK, I don't know what any
of that means. What I do know is that there is
not a Department of Veterans Affairs for our
first responders. And this thing that Representative
Alvarez and his team have gotten approved in
Florida and is now in five states is one valuable
way. I think there's a lot of other ways to get
after it and help, but this is one way to help
our first responders. And I think we need to
do everything we can to make sure it stays in
place. And more is added onto it. They call it
ETMS, EEG Guide TMS. That's great, but there's
other stuff too. Anyway, a little bit of a soapbox
moment there, sorry. No, but it's absolutely
true, and this is what I've said, and it hurts
us in so many ways. It hurts us statistically,
because if you're taking, for example, the mental
health conversation, we supposedly had only 74
line -of -duty deaths. in America of firefighters
in 2023. That's it. Yeah. I mean, it's still
bad, but nationwide, that's... But that's completely
wrong. No, it doesn't. Because here's the thing.
Firstly, I think it was that... That was suicide,
I think. I can't remember now. I'm blanking on
the exact statistic, but I think it was either
full line of duty deaths or suicides. But anyway,
so... that's the ones that qualify for line of
duty deaths. It's the ones that reported. So
we all know, for example, that they were active.
They were active. Yeah. Yeah. So they were firefighters.
Yeah. Yeah. So I know I can tell you right now
in the state of Florida, there's more than that.
Just in the one state, one of 50 states. So you
have the underreporting of, you know, whatever
the thing is. And they've got to fit the criteria
of being line of duty. Meaning if you were on
your second day off or something and you have
a heart attack, it's not attributed to your job.
Even though, of course, your job contributed
to that. But then, as you alluded to, now take
the retirees. You have most of these firefighters
that are going to transition out around their
50s. When does most disease manifest? after that
i mean the veteran suicide epidemic's not with
that duty guys i mean it's still bad but it's
after exactly so get out so it's you know the
statistic is such a woeful tip of the iceberg
of what it is so then people look at the numbers
and go oh well it's not that bad there's a million
firefighters i'm only lost 74 and that's okay
but that's wrong and then like you said if if
you think about you don't have any skin in the
game if they walk out the door and that's it
you've washed your hands of them where's the
the draw to make the fire service healthier.
Whereas if you have a V a version of the VA,
we're like, well, God, it's costing us a fortune.
These firefighters are just wrecked when they
come out. And it's, is there any kind of medical
plan that you're eligible for when you retire?
It's one year of Cobra, which anyone gets when
they leave a job, which is like, you know, thousands
a month for the premiums. And then after that,
you're on your own. So you think about all the
physical and mental health injuries that you've
accumulated over 10, 20, 25 years. Wow. And then
you just literally slam the door behind you.
So the generation that was kind of on when I
first got hired 22 years ago. That was a tail
end where they still had got health insurance,
but my generation, nothing. And again, the whole
point is to make people healthier. I've always
said this about the British NHS. If you have
a tax -based healthcare system, your whole push
is to make the nation healthy so you don't use
very much tax money. So that benefits the nation.
Now, it's not the case now because privatization
happened. They sliced and diced the NHS. And
now the Brits look like Americans almost. We
have an obesity crisis that's crushing our medical
system. But if you truly leave it as it is, as
a tax -based health care system, then you want
to make people healthy. Well, if we had a version
of the VA, it doesn't have to be a national organization,
but if departments or states were bound to take
care of their first responders after they transition
out. How would that shift the work week, fitness
standards, the mental health conversation? Even
if it's just some help at the state level or
federal level to help with insurance premiums
and that kind of stuff. I mean, you would think
there'd be something. Yeah, not that I'm aware
of. I mean, the pension is the carrot on the
stick that's dangled in front of everyone. What
about at the city level? Anything you've heard
of with some cities being better than others?
Well, there are. There's a handful of cities,
I think, that still have managed to keep that.
health insurance, but that's an anomaly in the
fire service. So again, it's the same thing I've
talked about. If we have a profit -based healthcare
system, which we do, where's the resistance to
obesity? There isn't. Companies are making trillions
of dollars off. you know, dying Americans. If
you have a military -industrial complex that's
making all this money when we go to war, where's
the resistance to war? So, you know, this is
the issue. We've got such a broken system that
there's nothing that incentivizes making our
first responders healthy. So much of it, I think,
comes back to getting Adam and their kids. To
help make things, whether we're talking obesity,
behavioral health, or just the understanding
of the value of sleep. I mean, when I grew up,
I'll get all the sleep I need when I'm dead.
Like when I went to Bud's, that's what everybody
said. I'll get all the sleep I need when I'm
dead. And now, thanks to a lot of people working
in that sleep science world, that's been helpful.
It's been helpful. Absolutely. So the people
listening, if they want to access, I know Wave
Neuro is the main organization that's providing
it here. Where? ETMS is what it's called when
it's run through the states. Okay. And there's
a reason for that. Don't ask me. I don't know
why. But ETMS, I think the website's ETMS Florida.
for those in Florida. And it's easy enough to
find it if you live in Massachusetts, Virginia,
Ohio, and Missouri. And again, I'm not affiliated
in any way with these guys. I just firmly believe
and know that it helps because it improves sleep.
And if there's anything I learned when I was
in that POTIF job at SOCOM, if you make sleep
better, everything gets better. I had this inpatient
program. It was called the PrEP program at James
Haley VA Hospital. And it's inpatient, but you
get to go home on the weekends type thing. And,
you know, we had the pain meds, had the PTS,
PTSD. We had the orthopedic issues. And they
take this whole holistic picture of you, and
they do MRIs. They scan everything. They look
at all this stuff. And over time, the vestibular
issues get a little bit better. The vision issues
get a little bit better. The sleep gets a little
bit better. The headaches get a little bit better.
The short -term memory, all these things start
getting incrementally a little bit better. So
when you show up to these programs, think of
it as a plate overflowing with little problems,
right? And if those problems are all shrink,
then you can... hold them on the plate. The most
important thing on that plate that I learned
in this program, thank you, Steven Scott and
the whole TBI crew there, and Doc Merritt and
all of them, Doc Corey, the most important thing
is sleep. Because when sleep gets better, and
I'm talking recovery sleep, when recovery sleep
improves every single thing, that you're dealing
with gets better. And if it doesn't get better,
your ability to deal with it gets better. And
it's, it's, it's amazing, man. It's amazing.
And my, my wife's the biggest fan of the prep
program that there is. Cause I came back a different,
a different person, you know? Yeah. I, I, I was
one of those guys that kind of poo pooed, you
know, I'm good, man. I don't need any of that
weird stuff. But having gone through it now,
yeah, I think I'm one of their biggest fans.
I'm a huge proponent of what the VA is doing
to help guys lead healthy, sustainable lives.
And I worry about the first responder space.
And, you know, the stuff that, at least in the
state of Florida, that they're talking about
at the legislative level, I think it's great
because I think it is going to help. a lot of
people, but I think there's a lot more that can
be done. Yeah. Well, I mean, what you were talking
about with that program that you were part of,
if you think of the Green Berets, the Thor 3
program, you know, these are all completely enveloping,
holistic programs to, you know, get people back
to work, get people on the battlefield, or, you
know, a healthy transition out if you have a
career -ending injury. But whatever it is, you're,
you know, you have these tools, and I think that's
what we need. And we were talking at lunch today,
And what's really exciting is that, you know,
the work week is the, like I always call it,
the herd of elephants in the room. And there
hasn't been an expert on the show yet that hasn't
said anything other than if you are not addressing
your sleep, then your nutrition, your fitness,
all these other things that people harp on about
is almost pointless. Yeah. So now you take care
of that, or at least the ability to sleep, the
rest and recovery, fully staffed apartment. You
know, now your relationships are getting better,
the shame and the guilt of not spending time
with your kids. I mean, all those compounding
elements. But then we shift to performance because
when you have strength and conditioning and sports
psychologists and all these people in your community,
you're trying to forge performance on the battlefield.
When I have nutritionists and strength and conditionings
in my community, they're just saying, let's try
and get them to die less. So we're not even in
the performance space. We're not even close to
it. We're using the GPS that your friend did
to get home to find out what does the performance
even look like. So this is what's exciting is
the next phase is actual performance. How can
we look at breath work, the cardiorespiratory
fitness, all these things. Because one of the
most mind -blowing things that I had a realization
of is we have a finite amount of air on our back
in an IDLH environment, in a fire, for example.
Yet we never talk about breath and we don't have
fitness standards in our community. It's insanity.
For your world, if you weren't fit and you, you
know, you could basically be a couch potato and
like, all right, now you've got to do your one
mile underwater swim. What are you going to do,
come up in the middle of the Iraqi sea and, oh,
dear, I got shot? No, it's unacceptable. So now
forging performance and using the same things
that we talked about in the mental health tools
to now be calm under pressure, to now have the
ability to get into a flow state in a primary
search in a burning building. So I find it super
exciting because it's only going to get better
and better and better, but the biggest hurdle.
was the work week and reversing this recruitment
crisis. And I think that boulder is moving now.
So now behind that, we can put in fitness standards.
We can put in addressing mental health at the
front door. And all that calming stuff, super
important. Like the yoga and the breath work.
I used to make fun of that stuff. And then when
I was in the prep program, they teach you how
to get your heart rate variability, how to change
it. like a live feed on a screen and learning
how to increase your HRV. I mean, it's amazing.
And with that, with the breath work and yoga
and all that stuff, meditation, mindfulness,
whatever you want to call it. Um, it actually,
it actually works. You know, they have these
objective tools and you can see it in front of
you. working with all your sensors on stuff so
all all that stuff really valuable but i i agree
with you man you get you get that going to a
24 72 and a lot of other things are going to
get better just like when you improve the sleep
100 one story you told me over lunch and i want
to make sure that we talk about this firstly
because i think this sadly is part of uh this
whole conversation where we do have um issues
in in our reproductive ability whether it's sterility
whether it's you know stillbirths whether it's
you know autism and down syndrome and our children
passing on pediatric cancers you know when you
break down a human being and then on top of that
expose us to carcinogens you know there's that
multi -generational physiological issue too you
were talking about um a story with a young boy
with autism and again this um the etms so Talk
to me about what you witnessed in the world of
autism with this treatment. So again, I am in
no way, shape, or form an expert on autistic
stuff. But when we were first exposed about 11
years ago to what these guys were doing with
this intrinsic alpha wave, this type of TMS,
some of us from SOCOM traveled out to Newport
Beach to see these guys. And, um, I remember
the command surgeon was with us, uh, Captain
Scott Coda. He's actually now the, uh, he's the
medical officer in, uh, in, uh, Biloxi, Mississippi
for the VA hospital. Yeah. He's continuing to
serve in a cool way. Um, but anyway, there were
a couple of us and, uh, so we're sitting in the
waiting room of this place. Um, and it's, uh,
in the corner, there's a bunch of kids. And there's
some parents, mostly moms. And one of them comes
over to us because we're kind of out of place,
you know, through military guys. She's like,
hey, how are you guys doing? What are you doing
here? And I'm like, oh, we're here to learn and
we're going to listen to a presentation and see
what it is that's going on here. Why are you
here? And she goes, oh, well, little Johnny,
our kid has or had. she used the word had had
autism. And I was like, really? And, um, and
she showed a video. And the kid's playing over
in the corner. I wasn't even paying attention.
There's a couple of kids over there. And she
shows this video of a kid. I don't know what
it's called, but you know when you see a kid
walking and the elbows are pinned and the wrists
are kind of bent and the knees are sort of pinned
and they can't. There's a name for it. I don't
know what it's called. I know when it's a head
injury, we call it decorticate. But yeah, that
kind of flexing of everything. Kind of flex,
yeah. Turns out, and you could tell just looking
at her, she was well off. They were not hurting
for money. She said, you know, we've tried everything
for little Johnny. I'm just saying little Johnny.
I can't remember the guy's name. But we've tried
everything with little Johnny, and we've tried
all the insurance stuff. We've tried all the
cash pay stuff. This was like kind of a last
-ditch effort for us. And I said, well, how's
it going? She goes, I don't know. You tell me.
And she calls him over, and he comes jogging
over. She's like, show this man what you're working
on. Okay, so James, elbows out, wrists relaxed,
knees, just looked like a kid playing. And he
was working on this thing where his thumb and
his pointer finger, his thumb and his middle
finger, and he couldn't quite get it to the ring
finger or the pinky finger. And she said, yeah,
that's where he is now. And I said, oh my God,
how long have you been here? And she said, well,
this is our third week. And then the kid said
a few things and then he walked away and she
said, oh, and the other thing I didn't mention
is he was nonverbal. Okay, so we're just sitting
there. We're three SOCOM guys. We're just sitting
there going, what the hell did we just walk into?
And then we went in and we took the brief and
the presentation and I just kind of sat there
with my jaw open. But we had a PhD guy and a
physician and they were just asking a ton of
questions. Then we went back to SOCOM, told General
Votel about it, because part of the presentation
they gave us was what the benefits they were
seeing in the veteran space as well, primarily
with sleep, but a lot of stuff with anxiety and
those kind of things. And to General Votel's,
Joe Votel's credit, he said, hey, let's work
with the pros up in... Bethesda and the uniformed
services university of health sciences. Um, let's
get a study going. Let's see if we can bring
this out to be more available to, to our force.
And, uh, that's what we did. And, uh, you know,
two years later, I retired and went to work at
Katsu and I kind of lost track of it. Um, but
now I see. It's just so good to see that now
after all the evidence -based studies and all
the stuff, it's just good to see that it's now
being used as a force of good. They're still
treating autistic kids, but what's happening
with the program now is all about veterans first
responders. It kind of blew me away. There's
other stories I could bore you with on this stuff.
But yeah, it's amazing. It's so important to
hear, though. I had, oh my goodness, Charlotte
Page Figge. So Charlotte Figge, if you ever heard
Charlotte's web as reference to CBD, Page was
Charlotte's mom. And Charlotte was born, she
was a twin. And she was born... With this issue,
I think she was nonverbal as well, but when she
was infant slash toddler, she was basically dying.
And again, they'd thrown all the things at her,
all the latest, greatest drugs that were being
studied, and all these things, and nothing was
working. And she had kind of found her way into
the literature of CBD, and that was very, very
early. And she got this one company to kind of
put together this CBD mixture and they put it
in her feeding tube. And she was literally in
palliative care at this point. They were just
waiting for her to die. And she did a complete
180. Really? But again, who would have thought?
Modern medicine said, well, if this clinical
trial and these drugs are the best, if it doesn't
work, then, you know, shoulder shrug. And who
would have thought that a magnet by the head
or... part of the hemp plant would actually be
the thing that would save a child or turn a child's
ability around. So, you know, it's so powerful
to hear these stories because the film, I mean,
the show that I was telling you about that I'm
going to make, one of the parts of the other
part, which will be the documentary part, is
just going to showcase, amongst other things,
all of these different treatments. So the person
watching isn't told, well, this is the thing.
Because if the thing doesn't work for you, well,
then where's the hope? You're like, well, I'm
broken then. Well, my child's broken and we're
never going to be able to fix it. But when you're
exposed to all these different things, maybe
ETMS, maybe CBD, whatever the thing is on that
particular example, maybe that's the missing
link. Maybe that's the piece that you didn't
realize was there. So whether it's a first responder
or a veteran and their mental health or hopefully
healing from a TBI, whether it's an autistic
child. What a beautiful story to hear. So I think
it's important for people listening. I know there's
a lot of first responders out there that do have
children with autism. Yeah, well, thanks for
bringing that up. Yeah, I just, you know, if
we could do nothing else, you know, and I'm just
thinking in my current role at the Florida Chamber,
if we did nothing else other than getting kids
moving and sleeping better, you're making, you
know, we'd be making. huge leaps and bounds improvements
in the future workforce and, you know, quality
of life and all that kind of stuff. I will say
it's a little overwhelming, you know, the, the,
this director of the health council, cause there's
so much that falls under the term health. And,
um, my, my approach to it so far has been, Hey,
let, let's prioritize. what, what we want to
do as a team and, uh, and let's get after one
or two really, really valuable things. And I
think movement and sleep for, for the youth is
hugely important. I think, um, helping, um, in
the veteran first responder space, whether it's
sleep or otherwise is hugely important. Even
if it's just sharing. current resources that
are out there. There's so much good stuff out
there. It's just hard to navigate through some
of it. So maybe one of the things we'll do is
help people navigate through that space. Have
you heard of that 988 versus 911 to 988? Yeah,
the suicide number. Is that right? Yeah, you
know, I didn't really know anything about it.
I went out to lunch with somebody the other day,
and I parked, and there's a placard right in
front of me, you know, 988. And I was like, huh.
So I dialed it. Just curious, you know. It was
like, oh, this will be part of the workday. And
I dialed in. You go through this quick phone
tree. Are you a veteran or no? Yeah, I'm a veteran.
Dude, in 20 seconds, I had a live person, a veteran,
speaking with me on the phone, asking what service
I was. And if he wasn't the right guy, they'd
find somebody. I was like, hey, man, I'm good.
This is non -emergency. I'm just testing it out.
I work at the Florida Chamber of Commerce. And
he wasn't even in the state. He was in another
state. But that program, I haven't tested it
if you're a non -veteran, but I was pretty impressed,
man. It's pretty cool. And they have resources
at the ready to drive you in towards via the
phone calls. That's good to hear. I've never
had anyone talk about Ashley. I didn't even know
what it was. I guess it used to be a different
number, and they changed it to kind of have a
rebranding, a nationwide rebranding of it. Yeah,
pretty cool, pretty cool stuff. Well, one more
thing before we close out. You just kind of reminded
me, if you're talking about a statewide initiative
to make a huge difference in our children's health,
did you ever see that show Jamie Oliver, the
British chef, trying to, overhaul what we serve
in our schools. I definitely know who Jamie Oliver,
you know, I, I've definitely seen some of his
stuff, but I don't know the status of the overhaul,
the food and schools and all that. How did it
go? So I got a, I got a followup cause I know
it was initially in the UK and at least initially
it was a success because I think again, we're
talking about false economy and we were talking
earlier, you know, a lot of the way we don't
need more taxpayers money. We need to, You know,
be proactive. And so, for example, you want to
free up money in the U .S. to address the obesity
crisis. There's trillions of dollars available
there. And then, you know, maybe stop starting
wars all over the place is another one. You're
so subtle. But from what I understand, there
was also... You know, it was cost effective because,
you know, real food was served in schools for
the longest time till these big corporations
kind of muscled their way in. And all of a sudden
now we're serving processed food and these shiny,
you know, Cisco trucks roll into every school
that I've ever seen. You know, so that's a monopoly
basically on our school food. So it would be
interesting because I know he did it here in
America, had success. The kids loved the food.
The people, you know, working in the dining hall
after, again, the jarring transition started
to enjoy it because they weren't just serving
slop. You know, they were actually creative.
And it was a success in this American school.
But then shortly after. People dismantled it,
and I don't know why. But that would be another
conversation. Do you have a contact with... I
don't. There's someone I want to get on the show,
but he's... Tough to get. Yeah, well -known in
the UK. But I'll see if I can... My sister does
a lot of work with the BBC, so maybe there's
a possibility to get hold of someone there. But
I think that would be phenomenal because that's
the next conversation. Because a lot of these
kids, if they're in certain demographics... aren't
even exposed to what food is, where it's grown,
what it looks like, how to cook. So putting that
back in. One of the things that Chamber's really
good at in Florida is if a pilot program is used
as a proof of concept, and it's successful, and
it's backed up by data, The Chamber's really
good at getting that information to the right
people so that maybe not bringing in more money,
but reallocating of resources towards something
that's been proven or is being shown through
a pilot program to be very, very effective. Something
like that could definitely fall in that category.
That could be pretty cool. Maybe if somebody's
listening, they'll reach out. Absolutely. Well,
I think this is what, you know, we talked about
the Venn diagram. over 1100 episodes now and
so congratulations man that's amazing thank you
so where that overlap is is the truth you know
in all these conversations yeah all these people
of all walks of life even different countries
and they're all saying some things the same that's
where we know you know there's a real true north
there and it seems like a lot of the problems
that we have You don't need to innovate. You
need to actually dismantle and go back to how
we moved 100 years ago, how we ate 100 years
ago, how we communed 100 years ago. So it's not
hacks and all this stuff and latest innovation
and more money. It's like the reverse. And I
think this is the thing with the schools. You
know, if you went back to serving real food,
if you went back to recesses and PE programs
and things that were an integral part of our
education, you know, 50 years ago. You would
reverse a lot of these issues. The schools and
states that are brave enough to say no phones
in schools. That just takes guts. If you implement
it, you implement it. Movement, food, sleep.
Connection. Connection, social connectedness.
Exactly. That's not a big price tag on any of
those. It's really, like you said, it's a reallocation
of funds and the same in the fire service. I
like what you said. It's deconstructing some
things. Yeah. Yeah, which turns into a unique
fight sometimes if you're talking about pharmaceutical
or big food. Exactly. But that's the problem.
We're talking about the nation's health. What's
more important, their profit margin or our children's
health? So like we said earlier, when you put
the company ahead of your own family, then there's
a disconnection. Yeah. All right. Well, before
we wrap up, is there anything else that you want
to discuss? What were we just talking about with
Palm Beach County? Because we were just down
there last week. Yeah, well, they have just announced.
Oh, they're one of the 2472? Yeah, so they officially
announced it. Is that countywide? Yes, all the
fire service. You know, we were just down there
with Health Care District, Palm Beach County.
And I think all the public school nurses there
are employees of HCD Palm Beach County. And they're
doing some pretty innovative stuff. We went to
one of their clinics and it's whole person health
or integrative health, integrative medicine.
So you could go for dental and. 15 minutes later,
be getting a mammogram and then have a counselor
talking with you and get, um, uh, go to their
food pharmacy to have some good, clean, wholesome
food. If you're a type two diabetic, like they
have all of this stuff in one location. It's
very, very cool and innovative for the state
of Florida. Um, so anyway, kind of shout out,
I guess, to Palm beach County and the healthcare
district, Palm beach County for all their. And
now to hear that the fire service in that county
is going to a 24 -72, I just think that is so
important and valuable for the behavioral health
and emotional wellness of our first responders
and their families. It's so cool to hear. And
I think a lot of that comes from the platform
that you have created. with this and uh i think
that i'm just really appreciative of it and uh
grateful for you doing all this man appreciate
you letting me be on yeah well thank you i mean
the Like I said, the feeling is mutual. I always
tell people this podcast would be nothing. It
would be an Englishman just yapping on his own
in the microphone if it wasn't for all the guests.
So this is an accumulation of all this knowledge
and all these stories. And so I want to thank
you as well. I mean, every single person that
comes on adds another layer to someone to have
the hope. of making their life a little bit better.
And then, um, you know, the, the tools, you know,
the ability in this conversation with all the
things you've talked about, including ETMS, it's
invaluable. So I want to thank you so much, not
only from driving all the way from Tampa to here
in Ocala, but also for being so generous with
your time and come on the behind the shield podcast.
And we must be done because my coffee is empty
and Ember just woke up a beautiful golden retriever.
So I guess we're done. not going retriever you're
you're a gentleman thinking of my dog bug thanks
brother