All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
And welcome to Veterans Radio.
I am Jim Fossone with veteransradio.net.
We are recording today from the Legal Help for Veterans Studio in Northville, Michigan.
Legal Help for Veterans is a Veterans Disability Law Firm.
You can reach us at 800-693-4800.
We want to welcome to Veterans Radio today Ryan Pitts, an Army veteran.
After six years, he was a Staff Sergeant when he got out.
He's now working in the defense contractor industry and is talking to us from Southern
New Hampshire.
Ryan, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Jim, thanks for having me on.
Well, it's a real pleasure to have you on.
You have quite a distinguished military career, which we will get to.
But we always like to start with when you got into the Army and why you got into the
Army.
Give us the basics there.
Yeah, I joined in 2003 when I was 17 and listed in my senior year.
Came into that year not knowing what I wanted to do with myself, do I want to go to college,
but wasn't ready at that point.
And thought the military, the Army would be, it wouldn't be a waste of my time.
I'd get some valuable life experience, get some money for college, and get to serve my
country.
And did you have a family history that drove you in that direction, Ryan, or was this just
sort of after some soul searching and looking around the next step for you?
Yeah, so no family history.
Some of my friends in high school were looking and a couple of them signed up and I thought,
you know, that's a pretty good idea.
They told me about it, went and saw the recruiter, and they obviously did a good job selling
it because I ended up doing it six years.
Well, it probably was a good six years mostly for you.
And you attended basic training and moved on to some individual training in Fort Sill,
Oklahoma, which is a long way from your native New Hampshire.
Tell us about your training in the military.
Yeah, it was good.
I mean, you're right.
I'd never been on a plane before going to basic training.
So ended up in basic training in Oklahoma, did my individual training there.
I went on to Airborne School in Georgia at Fort Benning and found my way over to the 173rd
Airborne Brigade in Italy and as anybody that served, that's when the real training started.
I spent a little over a year training up with those guys before shipping off to Afghanistan.
And you actually deployed off to Afghanistan twice.
In what capacity were you over there, Ryan?
What was your MOS?
Yeah, I was a forward observer and I served in an infantry battalion.
I was assigned to an infantry company.
So now everything they did, everywhere they went, I was right there with them.
And tell us a little bit about your first deployment.
Yeah, so our first deployment, we were down south, close to Kanahar in the Zabo province,
the town of Kalat.
At that point, the focus was on Iraq, so me being a young, naive, 19-year-old, I'm thinking
we weren't going to see much action.
And just in the first few months, we were in several major firefights and this is when
I guess the insurgency there started kind of ticking back up.
So it wasn't the hand-in-out blankets and beads like I thought it was going to be granted.
We did a lot of humanitarian aid-type missions, but there was a fair amount of fighting on
that deployment.
And then you rotated back to the states.
Tell us a little bit about that time before you end up back in Afghanistan.
So after that deployment from 05 to 06, I rotated back to Italy with the unit, stayed
there for about a year.
We had our R&R time go home after that, you know, pull off some steam and then head back
and get ready and get training again.
I mean, at that point, it was everybody in the military, I think regardless of kind of
ranch, you're either deployed or you're getting ready to go again.
And that's exactly what we did.
And we were actually told we were going to Iraq.
We spent most of that year training for that.
And when we were actually in Germany doing our kind of our last field exercises, our
war games, getting ready to go, we got the change of orders to go to Afghanistan.
And this second tour into Afghanistan for you lasted about 15 months, I believe.
And again, tell us a little bit about what the mission was and what your experiences
were.
Yeah, I mean, the mission again there was to find and fix the enemy and, you know, help
transition for the Afghans to be able to govern and protect themselves.
We did a lot of missions with the Afghan National Army.
It was a different area of Afghanistan for me that time.
We were up north in Kunar province, so northeast of Baghram Airfield.
It was just incredibly rugged terrain, just the foothills kind of didn't look like the
foothills, but it was the foothills of the Hindu Kush there.
And you know, the fighting was fierce.
Our sister company, Battle Company, was in the Corungal Valley that became known from
Sebastian Younger's war on the documentary Restrepo.
And it was, I thought we'd seen combat on my first deployment, but the second one was
just kind of a different fight altogether.
And I wanted to talk a little bit about that, Ryan, because the first time through your,
you know, as you mentioned, a young, naive, 19-year-old kid, you've been through it a
little bit more.
The second time through, how in your own mind did you sort of look at that difference in
whether it was experience or now you were one of the more seasoned guys?
Or talk to us a little bit about how that maybe changed your approach.
Yeah, I mean, by that point when I deployed, I was a leader, so I had some soldiers that
I was responsible for.
You know, having been there, had a little bit to know what to expect in terms of the
monotony of the day-to-day that happens when you're deployed, but also kind of the dynamic
events that pop up.
You know, another unit gets in contact and you have to be ready to go, you know, knowing
a little bit about, you know, what goes through your mind and how to react, you know, when
you do get in contact at first with the enemy.
And so I think, you know, the first deployment, you know, being an individual contributor and
almost, you know, I'm a junior soldier of, you know, okay, focus on your job, do what
you're told, look out for the people around you to, you know, when the second deployment,
you're in that leadership position that, you know, your job's not just to look out for
yourself, you're looking out for the guys around you, but also your support that's,
so that changed things, something.
You know, you're just learning more.
I mean, you're still, again, learning new things.
It's a different area, it's a different fight, learning the terrain, learning the local
population.
You know, there were a lot of things that changed that I saw from my first deployment.
We had done missions with the Afghan National Army on our first deployment, but a lot of
what they would do is come in after a battle and do a lot of battle damage assessment to
where on our second deployment, you know, there were times where they were the main
effort and we were in support and trying to, you know, make sure that they were capable
and had the competency and the confidence to be able to execute missions on their own.
And you mentioned that you didn't really come from a military family, but you had some buddies
from high school who joined up about the same time.
As you move from deployment to deployment, what sort of feedback were you getting from
back home?
How was the family handling this and how did they look at you in terms of the role you
were undertaking?
Yeah, I think, you know, from the get go, my family was obviously proud that I had chosen
to serve, but I think like any parent, they didn't want me to go to combat.
My next family and friends were unbelievably supportive, you know, sending me care packages,
you know, talking to, you know, writing letters, emails.
We talked, you know, periodically, but at the same time, I mean, it's one of those experiences
that you can't understand unless you've gone through it.
You know, I really noticed that I think after my second deployment, after I was wounded in
particular and coming home and could kind of, you know, felt an uneasiness that I felt,
you know, that I perceived from my friends and family of, you know, not really knowing,
I guess in a way of looking at me as like, is this guy broken?
You know, is he, does he have PTSD?
Because, you know, that was all over the news.
And I think this uncertainty, I almost felt like they looked at me and, you know, is he
going to be bald all, you know, and I, it was very noticeable to me.
And it was kind of strange to be around these people that I had been around for so long
and known to kind of feel this discomfort.
And I think a lot of veterans have that, you mentioned it as discomfort in the transition
phase.
And a lot of that's because so much of the country, our friends, our family can't relate
to what folks are going to, because so few people are actually in the active military
these days.
So it's interesting that you've comment on that.
But let me get on to what you allude to, which is some sort of the battle, if you will, that
you were involved in in Afghanistan on July 13th, 2008, and for which you were ultimately
awarded and a recipient of the Medal of Honor.
Ryan, can you walk us through what happened that day?
Yeah, I mean, we're in the 14th month of our 15-month deployment.
We're a few weeks from going home.
The unit that was going to be coming in to replace us had, was going to have lower manpower
than us, and they had less experience.
And we had shut down some bases to the north of where our battalion headquarters had been.
We had occupied them previously.
The enemy was, they were remote.
They had to be resupplied by helicopter.
They couldn't be resupplied by the ground.
They just was decided, we should really shut these down and move back to the population
areas to really stay more effectively, execute our core mission.
And so we had moved into the village of Winnat.
We've been talking about moving up there for about a year, and our role was to establish
security for the construction of a new base to hand over to the new unit.
We wanted to position them for success, just as the units before us had.
Our mission's not over until we're done.
So we moved out on the evening of July 8th, under cover of darkness, got up there, started
establishing our fighting positions, and started digging in to, to secure the area.
And on the morning of July 13th, approximately 150 to 200-plus enemy fighters moved into
the surrounding hills and, you know, into the village.
And that morning, shortly after stand two, they initiated a large-scale complex assault.
And, you know, it was, you know, it was terrible.
We ended up losing nine guys.
Sergio Abad, Jonathan Ayers, Jason Bogar, Jonathan Brostrom, Israel Garcia, Jason Hovator,
Matthew Phillips, Prueut Rainey, and Gunners Willing.
And, you know, those guys are the reason, you know, the rest of us came home.
But I may have been, you know, awarded for that day, but Valor was really everywhere.
It was a team effort.
I know one person gave more than anybody else.
There were guys like Jacob Sones and Dylan Meyer that were jumping up on the hoods of
trucks completely exposed to enemy fire to reload our heavy weapons systems.
Guys like Jason Hovator and Jonathan Brostrom, you know, made a mad dash over 100 yards open
ground, you know, right by enemy fighting positions that reinforced the observation post
where I was at.
You know, it was just, there were incredible acts everywhere.
In this start and off, really with sort of overwhelming numbers, I think there were about
49 Americans at that, well, not patrol base at the start, and as you say, maybe as many
as 200 anti-Afghan forces that stormed the location.
I think those are the numbers I've seen.
Yeah, yeah, that's correct.
I mean, they moved in.
They had the high ground.
They had the element of surprise.
They had us completely surrounded, you know, from the onset.
I mean, they obviously had a plan.
They targeted our heavy weapons systems.
We had a tow missile truck.
They targeted that from the outset with RPGs until they were able to destroy that.
It was a large fight.
And I think at times the public doesn't hear about what you've just described as a well-organized
plan, that the enemy knew exactly what they were doing and how they were approaching this
fight, and were utilizing the element of surprise.
And that first wave of rocket propelled the grenades really caught the observation post
you were at, I would say, by surprise, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, the opening volley, it started, you know, it initiated with the machine gun burst,
and that was the signal to commence it.
You know, the observation post was immediately rocked with rocket-repelled and agrenades.
You know, there was four of us, three or four of us right off the bat that were wounded
within the first few opening minutes.
Matthew Phillips and Gunners Willing had been killed.
And you know, right there, there's four or five guys that are immediately, you know,
seemingly out of the fight, and the rest of the junior guys stepped up like Pruitt Rainey
and Jonathan Ayers, Jason Bogart, and immediately took control.
And just, you know, it was kind of amazing to me that this is, you know, in the near
term this vacuum of leadership, and these guys just stepped up and did their jobs in
this completely, you know, not normal situation, unnatural situation.
And, you know, that's just always been something that has impressed me.
Well, you were a knock down in that initial wave.
You were heavily wounded and bleeding from shrapnel in arms and legs.
And really at that point, if I understand it right, a bit alone waiting for some assistance
to get to your position.
That was a little bit further on in the fight.
Yeah, I was knocked down in the initial volley.
I had never been in a fight where anybody had to fight wounded, but this one was unlike
any other.
You know, nobody was going to be able to sit out if you could contribute.
You know, all the wounded guys, anybody that could was.
It was probably, I think about 30 or 45 minutes into the fight where everybody at the observation
post, you know, I was the only one left alive.
Everybody else was either casualties or had to fall back.
And that was Israel Garcia, Mike Denton, Sean Samaroo, and Jacob Sones that made a push
to the OP and those guys saved my life.
And it cost Israel Garcia his.
He traded his life for mine.
You find yourself in a situation where due to the injuries, you had some limited ability
to fight, certainly you were able to utilize some grenades to hold your position.
Can you tell us a little bit about how you were able to contribute through this hellish
fight as others came forward to help in your rescue?
And like I said in that initial volley, I was wounded and I was pretty severely wounded.
I took shrapnel to both my legs, my left arm, a little bit of my hip and I couldn't move
my legs and I felt like I was, I took me a minute to just gain my bearings because I
was kind of shell shocked by the concussions that had come in.
And I crawled through our southern fighting position and Jason Bogar put a tourniquet on
my right leg to prevent any catastrophic loss of blood.
And I was sitting there thinking I was done and I'm looking around at all these guys fighting
and hearing the amount of fire coming in and Stafford had crawled in and told me that they
were throwing hand grenades and that Phillips had been killed and Zwilling had been killed.
I just, you know, with everything, what everybody was doing around me, I just felt compelled
to do my part.
So I crawled back to that northern fighting position and, you know, if the enemy is within
hand grenade, they're throwing hand grenades to us, they're within hand grenade range for
us as well.
So I started throwing hand grenades at them and just kind of falling back on all the amazing
training that we had received.
It was kind of, you know, lack of a better term, like a capstone experience of just,
you know, you just start drawing on and these are all the resources I have.
Okay, I got a machine gun.
I've been trained on that.
It wasn't my primary weapon system, but, you know, everybody was cross trained.
Everybody knew how to do the jobs of the people around them.
And so, you know, I got on that trying to contribute there.
And John Brochram and Ovator initially showed up, you know, John Brochram was our lieutenant,
so he was able to take control.
I handed off the machine gun to him, you know, was transitioned.
Okay, try and make a difference on the radio, call him in fire mission.
And it was really just, you know, everything I was doing was just trying to keep up with
the guys around me.
And you were trained as a radio operator and took over the radio to call in to the command
post to call in fire positions.
But the enemy was so close.
Tell us a little bit about how that was able to be structured in that instance.
We were right in the middle of the village.
And so they had moved into buildings close to where our main vehicle patrol base was
set up down in the middle of the village.
They had moved into the mosque and there was a, you know, hotel structure there.
They moved into buildings, you know, within as close as, you know, 20 to 50 meters of
our positions up at the OP.
There was some dead space to the north.
They had moved down through a riverbed.
You know, and they were so close, you know, at the point in time where I was by myself
when I was relaying my situation to our company commander.
I mean, everybody with a radio could hear the enemy talking over my radio.
You could hear them as I was relaying the situation.
How long did this firefight last, Ryan?
I was on the ground for about 90 minutes and before really our first platoon was able
to convoy up from our main battalion headquarters to the south and Medevac's Apache started
coming in, but it really, it went on, you know, all day.
And really the days after is, you know, they continued to pursue them as the enemy was
ex-filling.
There were other units that came in.
Some of our sister companies came in to help secure the area.
There were other units that engaged, you know, enemy encampments that were further, I believe,
east down the valley.
So it, you know, the majority of the fighting took place probably through the first half
of that day on July 13th, but, you know, the actions continued on for a couple of days.
So in the Medal of Honor citation, and we're talking to Ryan Pitts, who was awarded the
Medal of Honor by President Obama in July of 2014.
What recognizes that with incredible toughness and resolve, he subsequently took control
of the observation post and returned fire on the enemy.
As the enemy drew nearer, Sergeant Pitts threw grenades, holding them all, holding them after
the pin was pulled and the safety lever was released to allow a nearly immediate detonation
on the hostile forces.
Unable to stand on his own and near death because of the severity of his wounds and blood
loss, Sergeant Pitts continued to lay suppressive fire until a two-man reinforcement team arrived.
There's no book for this, Ryan.
There's no manual for this.
As you're going to tell us sort of what brings you through this in that situation.
I think, you know, we harp on training and it's almost to the point where it becomes
cliche, but it's not.
Everything every day, every minute you spend training counts.
For instance, the cooking off of the grenades, pulling the pin and throwing them.
I did that once in basic training with a dummy grenade when we're going through our grenade
qualification.
Pull the pin, let the fuse burn down, cook it off, and then clear a bunker.
There were other things, using the machine gun.
That was just cross-training that we did with other guys in our platoon.
In those times, no, you can't train for that, but you can train for the things that you're
going to do there.
Just as Bogart put the tourniquet on my leg.
He wasn't a medic, but we were all trained on sticking IVs, applying tourniquets, doing
needle chest decompression, treating suck and chest wounds.
But no, you can't train realistically for that type of situation, but you learn the
little pieces, the fundamentals, operating the machine gun, throwing grenades, treating
casualties that enable you to put it all together in those situations.
The other part is our leadership made this training, all of our training as stressful
as it could.
We went through sleep deprivation, pushing ourselves physically to what we thought our
limits.
That is our leadership showing us, look, whatever you think you're capable of, you're capable
of more.
We're going to push you and we're going to show you that you can do it.
I think that's what a lot of all of it comes back to.
The other part that, I guess, comes from training and the bonds you make is just, when you're
with those people and you develop those bonds, you kind of pick each other up.
You're looking around and everybody's trying to push each other and they're doing everything
they can, risking their lives for their brothers that, when they're doing that, you have to
reciprocate.
That's your obligation.
I think our greatest duty is we're our brother's keepers.
Our job, it doesn't matter whether you're a machine gunner, a medic, or a forward observer,
your job is to do everything within your ability to help bring your brother's home.
That's what everybody did that day.
Well, I know the Army and your company and your regiment and brigade are all very proud
of what you accomplished.
Certainly the Medal of Honor that was bestowed upon you is recognition to all the efforts
of all the guys that day.
We're really glad that you can share with us some of your thoughts, Ryan Pitts.
Let me turn now, if we can, to sort of the post situation where you have to.
It's time to go through the healing process and the recovery process and ultimately the
integration back into civilian life process.
As you discharged from the Army in 2009 after about six years, give us a little sense of
that recovery period.
I immediately was evacuated about 90 minutes after the fight and made my way back to Walter
Reed.
I spent 30 days inpatient and then about a year at Walter Reed in D.C., doing various
physical therapy and going through my med board process to go out.
I think there were benefits to being there at Walter Reed.
It was more relaxed than being in the infantry unit that I was accustomed to.
There was a pre-transition there to mellow it out to civilian life.
After I left Walter Reed and was ultimately discharged, I went back to college, returned
home and went to college.
Everything is kind of its own transition.
It's a different phase of the operation.
That wasn't without its challenges.
I came from a different culture where if you're not 10 minutes early, you're late.
Whoever is talking at the front of a room doesn't matter whether it's a private or
a captain.
If they're given a presentation, you're supposed to pay attention.
Going to college had its challenges when sitting there and kids are rolling in 10, 15, 30 minutes
later, skipping class.
They're talking while a professor is talking and cruising Facebook.
It was hard to let go of that military structure and that mindset of getting frustrated with
that and just accepting it.
Even after leaving college, I felt that I had navigated that transition and then it
was going into the civilian workforce.
That had its own challenges.
Everything in the military is about training.
Everybody's training the people below to move on up.
A lot of the civilian workforce, it's OJT.
You've got to be motivated to learn as much as you can on your own.
Everybody's tapped doing everything they can to catch up.
It's a family.
You become a family.
Everybody looks out for each other.
My buddies let me know when I was messing up.
I think that was one of the great things.
They were there to pick you up when you were down but also tell you, hey, you're making
some mistakes here and this is how you can get better to go to what felt like the civilian
world and be ripped out of that family and just feel isolated on your own that they have
their challenges.
People will ask, how is your transition?
I'll say, I'm still transitioning.
I think everybody is through different phases of their life.
I don't think there'll probably be a point where I'm fully transitioned and fully processed
everything that I've been through.
It's kind of a journey in just doing what I need to along the way to successfully reintegrate.
I think that's a good piece of advice for our veteran radio listeners.
We're talking to former Army Staff Sergeant Ryan Pitts who has also been awarded the Medal
of Honor for his acts in Afghanistan.
One of the roles you've taken on, Ryan, because of your status is as an ambassador for the
Cone Veterans Network, it is a setup by Stephen A. Cone.
He's set up a number of private Cone Military Family Clinics around the country.
There are 10 of them now.
Tell us a little bit about the Cone Veterans Network.
Yeah, I mean, it's made possible through the very generous philanthropy of Stephen Cone,
but they're locating these clinics in communities that they've identified a significant need
where there's gaps with services that exist that maybe can't fulfill that need.
They're locating themselves close to the population to make it as accessible as possible.
It's low to no cost to people.
They're treating the entire family.
Their status doesn't matter.
They're really finding incredible partners.
I do this along with a friend of mine, Kyle White, who's a fellow Medal of Honor recipient.
We served in the same company.
We've gotten the opportunity to go to these clinic openings, meet these staffs.
The Cone organization, the CVN organization has done an incredible job of, when they identify
a community in need, they identify community partners that have experience there and the
abilities needed to treat, to provide treatment that our veterans and families deserve.
So watching it over the past couple of years as they've grown from one clinic to ten really
has been pretty incredible.
Kyle and I had an opportunity this year to go out for their annual CVN meeting where
they brought a bunch of the staff from all the clinics together to get to know each other,
share best practices.
That was incredible just to see these people have not lost their passion.
They're incredibly passionate from day one.
A lot of these clinics are staffed by veterans or family members of veterans, but also civilians
that are very passionate about treating our veterans and families for the invisible wounds
of war.
Well, and I think back in 2000, maybe it was mid or late 2016 when I first spoke to representatives
from Cone Veterans Network, the fact that they were trying to get out there and provide
outpatient mental health care not only to veterans, but to military families.
The VA doesn't treat family members.
So this idea that they were going to get out there and fill this need and fill it through
philanthropic efforts was really quite impressive to me, but at the time it was one clinic.
Now they've got 10 and they range all over the country from Dallas, San Antonio, El Paso,
Fayetteville, North Carolina, D.C., Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Clarkson, Tennessee.
It's really a robust network at this point.
Ryan, tell us what your sense of that robustness is going to be as it goes forward.
Well, I mean, they've got 10, the goals to get to 25, they've got five more planned,
they've identified where those are going to be.
I mean, they had ambitious goals starting and I think they're meeting those.
They've served since 2016 over 6,000 clients.
One of their goals was to treat families.
They've got a split of about 40, 60 between families and veterans.
Even among the veterans, about 25% of the veteran population that they've served as
clients has been female veterans, which is about twice the ratio of female veterans represented
in the United States.
And being in the clinics, I mean, they've got incredible rooms set up to make it accommodating
for families with kids to make these kids feel like they're in a safe place.
They do a lot of training to make sure that their staff are prepared for that.
They've done a lot to break down barriers to accessibility.
I mean, beyond just providing low to no cost treatment, they're aggressively exploring
and leveraging telehealth where they can.
Because sometimes even if you live in a city, it could take an hour or so to get across
and take a time out of work or getting there can be a challenge.
And they've, you know, they're rolling out telehealth to the best of their ability to
make sure that, you know, veterans and families are getting the treatment that they deserve.
And while I certainly think this is a great program and a great example of philanthropy
here in the United States, this is not without critics.
This is not a program or a set of clinics that at least some folks are critical of because
it's taking patients, I suppose, away from the VA or maybe it's paving away towards the
boogeyman of privatization of VA.
Have you run into those kinds of concerns by people about, yeah, it's kind of good
but and they want to talk mostly about the critical aspects?
You know, I haven't personally, you know, but as you said, you know, it's out there.
And I think it's also just a lack of information or awareness about how CVN approaches it.
I mean, they're partnering with the VA.
You know, they do training back and forth.
The VA and a lot of these cities, they're invited to training with at the Cohen clinics
and the Cohen clinics, their staff go and participate in that training.
The VA is made available, their composite mental health treatment data that helps CVN
determine these communities where there's a lack of resources.
You know, some of these people, Cohen treats people that have, it doesn't matter what
your discharge status is.
So there are some people that wouldn't be eligible for treatment in the VA that are
able to get it with the Cohen clinics.
So you know, while I understand that there are those concerns, they're not concerns of
mine.
And I guess I'd sort of ask you to maybe give, you know, what would you say to a veteran
out there or a veteran's family member who's maybe knows they've got to deal with something
but has been reluctant to do it?
Maybe there's a word of encouragement that you can pass along from your experiences and
from your experiences with the Cohen's Veterans Network that would make a difference.
What are your thoughts there?
You know, when I think of it, I think of whether it's PTS or whatever other sort of transition
challenges people are going through, you know, we've had some, I think their natural reactions
to some very unnatural situations, some very unnatural experiences.
And I think for a long time there's been, you know, this stigma around mental health
that it's not, the invisible wounds aren't viewed the same way as the physical ones.
You know, physical wounds tend to be revered, right?
You know, that you've spilled blood for your country and I think it's been a mistake to
look at the invisible wounds as being any different.
You know, if I have a broken leg, I'm going to go see a doctor.
I'm not going to try and walk around on that leg.
The invisible wounds aren't any different.
You know, I think it's about do what you have to to get healthy again, right?
These families and veterans have sacrificed a lot and they deserve to lead, you know,
healthy, happy lives and Cohen is helping them get back to that.
And Ryan, do you, off the top of your head, remember the website if people want more information
on the network?
Yeah, Cohen's Veteran Network.org and of course there's always Google so you can always Google
it and they have resources there.
And you know, I encourage people to reach out, right?
I mean, I'll say myself, there's times where I've had my struggles and I've reached out
for help.
There are Cohen's Network up here but I certainly would have reached out, you know, had that
been an option, that just do what you have to to get back to the life that you've earned.
And I mean, they're doing an incredible job of seeing people.
You know, they get, if you call today, you book an appointment today and you know, almost
all their clients are getting an appointment within a week of making that first call.
So it's there, it's an incredible resource and people should take advantage of it.
Well we want to thank you for taking some time, talking to the Veterans Radio today,
Ryan Pitts and updating us on the status of the Cohen Veterans Network and telling us
about your military career and inspiring us all.
Thank you for your time today.
Jim, thanks for having me.
And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.
I am Jim Fawson.
It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans Disability Lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans and you can reach us at
800-6934800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.
You can follow Veterans Radio on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and internet radio
shows by going to veteransradio.net.
And until next time, you are dismissed.
If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans Appeals, contact Legal Help for
Veterans at 1-800-6934800.
They're experts in handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
Their number again, 1-800-6934800.
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