All across America and around the world, this
is Veterans Radio. This is Veterans Radio. Good
day. I'm Jim Fausone. I'm the officer of the
deck today here on Veterans Radio, and thanks
for joining us. We've got some interesting stories
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.com. First up, we're going to hear a little
bit about Folds of Honor, a national organization.
You may have heard a little bit about it, but
this is going to tell you about what they do
and how you can help locally and nationally.
We want to welcome to Veterans Radio today a
couple of board members of Folds of Honor Motor
City Chapter. This is going to be a discussion
about what Folds of Honor is and does and what
they're doing in the state of Michigan in particular
with these board members in an upcoming event
that they've got. But let me start with get some
introductions here. John Peltier is a member
of the board. He served in the Air Force for,
oh, it looks like seven, eight years. John, welcome
to Veterans Radio. Thank you very much, Jim.
I appreciate it, and thank you for having us
on. Oh, we're glad to. And Bill Flohr, he's got
the fancy title. He's the Regional Impact Officer,
and we'll have him explain what all that means
later. But, Bill, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Yeah, thank you very much for having me. Appreciate
it. Well, I'll let either one of you take this
first thing. I think most people who are listening
to Veterans Radio are veterans and friends and
probably have heard of Folds of Honor because
it's a big national organization. But why don't
you tell us a little bit about it? Yeah, so,
again, thanks a lot. So it was started right
here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2007, when our
founder, Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney, was coming
back from his second tour duty and and uh was
on a flight with uh unfortunately a fallen soldier
and decided that he wanted to do something had
a small golf event um up in grand haven called
the grand haven golf club uh raised a little
bit of money but for the family and then decided
that uh to create folds of honor and what folds
of honor does is provide educational scholarships
to families of wounded and fallen veterans as
well as first responders so and then you know
look uh about you know 15 years later or so we
now have the american dunes golf course up in
grand haven which all the proceeds and profit
from that golf course go right into our scholarship
program and in this just after this year We have
donated over 62 ,000 scholarships totaling over
about $296 million. Well, and Folds of Honor
is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Tell me about
the – well, let's do this because I made fun
of you to begin with, Bill. What is the regional
impact officer? Are you the guys who go around
and punch people if they don't contribute? Yeah,
yeah. If they don't support our mission, we go
around slashing tires. Strong arm. Yeah. No,
so I handle the state of Michigan for the Folds
of Honor, and I work closely with – the Motor
City chapter, as well as the Michigan chapter,
and American Dunes up at Grand Haven. So I'm
just support for all of them, and I'm really
a conduit between them and the contacts with
a lot of our corporate partners and fundraising
efforts all over the state. It's really an amazing
number. You said it. I want to slow down and
say it again because it's so amazing. 62 ,000
scholarships. Yes. Over $290 million in all 50
states. Yep. Talk to us about the students who
get these scholarships. That's a whole lot of
kids. It is an amazing amount of kids, and we
continue to grow. Really every year, you know,
so we handed out in 2024, like just the end of
this past year, 11000 scholarships. So we still
had 8000 applicants that we could not fill. I
mean, that's how much we're growing. And so these
students are all, you know, they can be. the
children they can also be the spouses of a fallen
or wounded vet or first responders so it's really
you know there's no better way than to help a
family than just to provide an educational experience
and that's exactly what what we do and and uh
tell us a little bit uh maybe about the this
is uh scholarship educational support In a whole
lot of directions. We're not just talking, hey,
if you go to an Ivy League college, we'll help
fund it, is it? No, definitely not. No, it's
trade schools. It's private education for elementary,
all the way down. It's Michigan, Michigan State.
It's Lawrence Tech. It's really any school that
the child or spouse chooses. One of the other
things that I was sort of surprised at is the
makeup of the scholarship recipients, which I
think is something to brag a little bit about.
So can you talk about that some? Yeah, so like
you said, there's 45 % of our recipients are
minority -based. So we're very diverse, just
like the country we live in, right? And, you
know, out of every dollar, 91 cents goes into
that scholarship program. So we're very high
rated as far as the charity is concerned. But
we're incredibly diverse. You know, when you
look at, you know, the military, the first responders,
there's not a single person that that talk about,
you know, race or anything like that. But we're
so diverse inside. Of all those units, that's
exactly the way our country is, and that's exactly
the way our organization is as well. Exactly.
It mirrors what the society is and what our base
is with the military. But explain to us, why
did you get involved? Sure. As I mentioned to
you prior to the call, I had worked at a company
in Canton, and we have a gentleman who is our
president, Russ Bruner. who is he's a great patriot
and he just felt there was a need to do something
around here there really wasn't that much presence
for this type of organization so he had rounded
up a few friends and uh kind of was kicking around
the idea made a few calls to folds of honor they
had said well here just uh have a golf outing
for us which is which is a very common thing
um and maybe you'll raise five thousand dollars
or such well we ended up raising about thirty
five thousand dollars that first year And my
boss was a former Marine, and he had mentioned
to Russ that I would probably be a good candidate
with the number of contacts I have as well as
my military experience. So he'd asked me to join
the board, too. So that all started in 2017 from
the very get -go. And since then, we have raised
multi -millions of dollars with our board. So
we've really progressed. through the tough times.
It's kind of tight right now. We're really struggling
for sponsorships, which is one of the reasons
we're really trying to hit the pavement this
time of year while budgets are being created.
So in a nutshell, that's what I had done. I'm
a huge fan of the military. My dad was a loadmaster,
a 24 -year Air Force veteran, a retired E -9.
I followed in his footsteps. You know, here we
are today, still supporting our military men
and women and first responders now. Well, let's
face it, your dad is a loadmaster. He knew how
to pack the station wagon for vacations, didn't
he? You would not believe. Absolutely. Absolutely,
he did. And so John was voluntold to get involved
in this organization and dove deep into it and
is doing a great job. Bill, how did you get involved?
Well, John actually got me involved. So I was
a baseball coach for a long time at Northville
High School. We would do armed forces days there.
where we would just teach our players and stuff
about the sacrifices of so many that allow them
to play high school baseball and be free. We
started raising some pretty good money. We had
a concert in downtown Northville that raised
about $40 ,000 for homes for our troops. John
got wind of it because I was working at Staples
at the time, and John was a customer. They brought
me in and started talking about Folds of Honor.
And what I did on the side, and John's like,
hey, would you consider picking Folds of Honor?
And I'm like, sure. So we had another event downtown
Northville with the Killer Flamingos, raised
about another 45 grand, I think, for Folds of
Honor. And then all of a sudden, they were asking
me to join their board. And I've always had a
great passion for the military. You know, being
in baseball, we went out to San Diego and saw
how much the Padres were part of the, you know,
the naval community out there. And we wanted
to do that here. So we did. And it's been a huge
part of my life. That's for sure. He's a little
bit humble, Jim. If you see his basement, he
is a World War II aficionado. And that's kind
of what one of the events he put on in Northville
High School. He had displays out front of Northville
High School, and it was humbling. It was very
humbling. And he is a true patriot, and he does
a ton for pretty much for everybody. One of the
things that has expanded over time is the families
that are eligible for these scholarships goes
beyond just military members nowadays, doesn't
it? Yeah, it definitely does. Again, in 2022,
on September 11th, our CEO, Lieutenant Colonel
Rooney, had made the announcement that we were
going to start supporting first responders, including
the police, the fire, and EMS, just for the simple
fact that they do the same type of mission only
internally in the U .S., providing that blanket
of safety. And support for medical situations
and fire whenever called upon 24 -7, you know,
365. So that need was great. There's, you know,
they have fallen officers. We've unfortunately
seen that grow at certain times. So the support
there is needed. We're trying to get that message
out too. many of the different units, and we've
had a lot of good luck with the folks up in the
Linden area. They've got the fire department
very involved, and we've got a few of the honor
guards here that we have at all of our events,
our golf event in September, and then our gala
again in March, which is kind of the repetition
that we've been using each year. So yeah, they
definitely need the support. There is that need,
and we are here to help fulfill it. One of the
things that I guess I wanted to get across, because
this interview will be heard all across the country,
is talk to us, and Bill, maybe you're the best
spot to do it, is Folds of Honor is a national
charity, isn't it? 100%, yes, sir. Yeah, so we're
in 35 states right now, so we have 35 chapters.
We've got five more that's... Should be up and
running in a couple months here, so we'll be
at 40. So we have multiple, obviously, in the
state of Michigan. So Lieutenant Caroni is based
out of Tulsa, so that's where our national is
located. But, yeah, basically every state, pretty
close, you should be able to find a Folds of
Honor chapter. Well, let's talk about how folks
can go online and learn more about. Folds of
Honor and see if there's something in their state
or see if there's a way for them to be in touch.
So where would they go to do that, John? Well,
we've got regional, each different Folds of Honor
chapter has their own website and contact points
and information regarding what their events are,
as well as the national Folds of Honor webpage.
So you can each, even the Folds of Honor is foldsofhonormotorcity
.org. And they can reach out and take a look
on our website. And we try to keep that updated
with our events. We've got swag that we try to
sell. We go to different events that support
our cause, like the golf show. and different
car events. And just wherever we see a kind of
a good fit, we try to attend those events. So
mainly we are on all social medias. We've got
a big presence on Facebook. We've got a presence
on Instagram as well. So we can also be found
just by using the search engine and going on
there and looking for Folds of Honor Motor City
or Folds of Honor Org. And Folds of Honor National
lists all of the chapter locations. So that's
a good place to see if they're represented. There's
one in Toledo. So if your bandwidth spreads down
Toledo, those people will know about it. the
Motor City, and then again in Grand Rapids. So
that's three within this region that are available
for the people to focus their attention on and
look for opportunities for scholarship applications.
You'll also see our logo on so many products
out there. Budweiser is obviously our biggest
supporter. They've donated over $23 million since
we've started. So you'll see our logo every summer
on Budweiser and on their trucks all over the
United States. But Budweiser and pretzels, ketchup,
red gold ketchup, and Coca -Cola. I mean, you'll
see. Our folded fly with the Folds of Honor written
right underneath it on so many products across
the nation. Yeah, I want to direct people to
thefoldsofhonor .org of the National. There's
up on the banner, there's the chapters, and there's
three in Texas, for example. There's three in
Florida, a couple in California. So they're really
spread from what looks like Boston. to Southern
California, really all across the state. You
brought it up. I want to expand on this a little
bit because you can't do this kind of work without
significant support. You have a lot of corporate
sponsors at the national level. And again, those
are listed on the national site. Who are your
sponsors? Who are on the corporate side is helping
Folds of Honor Motor City? Yeah, so you're so
right. We could not do this without. any partner
corporate or you know personal private partner
but so like locally motor city lineage logistics
is a very huge partner uh mcdermott uh coppercraft
we're coming out with a new uh uh folds of honor
whiskey that's uh uh i probably should have said
that because i'm spilling the beans but it's
coming out this summer uh where's your bat yeah
we'll advance yeah okay in michigan but like
jacob matthew jewelers allied insurance um panasonic
automotive is huge um eotech Kendra Scott, Vet
Tech. And then, you know, coming on board soon
is Meijer. I mean, I think people in Michigan
know Meijer a little bit. Absolutely. As well
as Spartan Nash Grocery Stores. You're going
to see a lot of stuff in 2025 in both of those
retail outlets. They're just unbelievably patriotic,
but community oriented as well. You've got to
have corporate support, but you also have individual
support because that's where volunteers come
from. That's funny you say that because we don't
have a ton of paid employees like John here and
Russ and all of our board members. They're all
volunteers. They're all volunteers. And, you
know, being in Motor City, you know. You know
how Detroit is, man. Everybody wants to give
and help. And, you know, we're looking for those
motor partners, the Fords and GMs and all those
tier ones to hop on board with all of our volunteers
with corporate sponsorship as well as, you know,
their veteran giving and cause marketing that
they have. But so many volunteers and that's
why we're so good at the Gold Star, you know,
91 cents. is our rating. It's just unbelievable.
The overhead. Just minimal overhead. Where I'm
trying to go is you've got to get the individuals
out, and one way to get individuals out is their
participation in a couple of your signature events.
You have a signature event coming up in March
of 2025. One of you want to tell us about it?
Our gala that we do is right at St. John's, which
is absolutely just one of the most beautiful
resorts in Plymouth, Michigan. It's great. They're
really great partners. It's our Red, White, and
Blue Gala. It's March 15th, right at St. John's.
We'll have probably about 350 people in there.
And it's just great to learn about our mission.
You'll hear stories of our recipients. There's
a ton of military and veterans that attend. You
know, Rich Luterman is our emcee. He's been from
day one. And this will be our fifth one this
year. I mean, our fifth one so far. And Rich,
all I do is I call Rich and he's like, yep, I'm
in. Because, you know, he's an Air Force veteran
himself. But he's our emcee. And it's just a...
unbelievable, patriotic night. People are interested
in attending or supporting Folds of Honor, Motor
City. John, what's the best way for them to do
that? Go to our website, our Motor City website,
and there is a link on there to One Cause. And
One Cause is basically our platform that we use
for ticket sales and merchandise, any type of
financial functions that we try to route them
through that One Cause. Or you could reach out
to Bill Flohr. Bill's email address is bflohr,
F -L -O -H -R, at foldsofhonor .org. And Bill,
he fields a lot of those calls, especially from
some of the higher level sponsorships. But go
to that location. You'll see that information
on there. We try to keep it on our Facebook page
as well, and it will take you right to ticket
sales. It will also provide opportunities for
sponsorships on there as well. So that's one
of the main things that we're looking for. We
generally get a decent number of individuals,
but we're always, always pounding the pavement
looking for additional sponsors. And I think
that's a repetitive theme you've heard here today.
Well, I want to thank both John Peltier and Bill
Flohr with Folds of Honor Motor City and Folds
of Honor Michigan for educating us a little bit
about the great work that they're doing in providing
scholarships. We greatly appreciate it, and we
greatly appreciate your time, Jim. This has been
a fantastic opportunity for us. Absolutely. Thank
you so much, man. Thanks, gentlemen. Right after
some words from our sponsors, and I hope you
learned something about Folds of Honor, but as
we were talking, sponsorship is so important
to keep these nonprofit endeavors going on, like
veteransradio .org. So you're going to hear from
our sponsors, and then we're going to probably
bend your mind a little bit about at what age
is it appropriate or not appropriate to be in
military service, and what are the consequences
of age in military service. fascinating discussion
military veterans touch everyone's life I'm guessing
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move into our next interview, which I say may
bend your mind a little bit. We want to welcome
to Veterans Radio today, Lieutenant Colonel U
.S. Army Retired Lanny Snodgrass, who more importantly,
I should say, is Dr. Lanny Snodgrass, a respected
psychiatrist. Lanny, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Thank you. Well, this is a real pleasure to talk
to somebody with your experience and your expertise
in the field of psychiatry and your time in the
Army. So let's start with this. You earned your
Ph .D. in psychology from the University of Oregon.
You went on and got your M .D. degree. And then
you went off and did residency and training and
all of that and then worked for... Almost 20
years, I think, with the Veterans Affairs, doing
psychiatry. And with the Department, well, let's
see. Yeah, well, it'd be also with the Department
of Defense, because I volunteered to leave the
Veterans Service and go into the Gulf War and
be assigned to the 98th General Hospital in Germany,
in Nuremberg. You developed through all of that
experience and expertise, if you will, in PTSD
and military psychiatry. Is that fair to say?
Yes. And somewhere along the line, later in your
life, in years, you said, hey, I want to get
off the sidelines. I actually want to join up
and serve. Talk to us about that process at what
some might say is an advanced age. Well, for
decades, you know, I had witnessed the profound
impact of war upon veterans in active duty, visible
and invisible scars, only I was dealing primarily
with the invisible scars. Although we know that
certainly psychiatric problems can lead to also
somatic problems or, you know, other disorders,
medical disorders. It's all integrated, the mind
and body. But after listening to these soldiers,
these service members, soldiers, airmen, all
of the different branches of the service, and
hearing the problems of depression, anxiety,
post -traumatic stress that they were dealing
with. I felt like there was something that I
had to do to fill this void that I had. Not having
ever joined that group of people known as the
Battle Buddy, I felt that fraternity was something
that I had to become a part of. I just had to
become a part of it before I got here. And so
this just gnawed at me like a discomfort. It
chased me through most of my career. Until at
age 63, I dove in. And in spite of the fact that,
you know, having waited three years after my
physical examination for the military to give
me a pass for my age. I had developed a heart
condition. I had a base rate of 43, and I was
skipping beats about three and a half seconds
between beats. I was very marginal to go into
any kind of basic exercise or training. But I
said, you know, if this kills me, okay, but I'm
going to do it and build my life. Well, I mean,
this is an amazing part of the story is a guy
who's 60 years old. professional, accomplished,
has done so much, still has this burning desire
of saying, hey, I want to serve. And really the
name of your book that we're talking about is
The Ageless Call to Serve, Rethinking Military
Service for a Changing World. And you go in,
as you say, it takes them three years. You're
63 when you go into basic training. You know,
the average age is probably down in the 20s.
Talk to us about the physicalness of this. Yeah,
I was a bunch of other grandchildren. They were
like, I mean, I was like another planet. So green
in so many ways. It was, I had no real pre -orientation.
Getting down there, I remember meeting one of
the enlisted coming in, and she said, well, where
were you having our meetup? I said, I don't know.
I'm trying to find it myself, the building. And
she said, well, I said, what do you do in the
military? And she says, well, I pass gas. And
I'm thinking, whoa, they've got some new nomenclature.
I'm going to have to really bone up here to find
out what this culture is all about. Well, it
is an interesting culture to be in the military,
and certainly most of us do it at a younger age.
But you got yourself through basic, and this
is... 2003, the Iraq War started. There's a huge
shortage of military doctors. That's probably
why the standards on age got relaxed in your
instance. And I know some other doctors who went
in around that time, again, at a more advanced
age because they have the specialty and the services
that are needed. But I found your book interesting
because you tell us a lot about some history
I wasn't paying any attention to, I guess. On
the age of those who fight or those who get drafted,
in the Civil War, the draft was up to 45 in age.
In World War II, it was up to 35 in age. In Britain,
in World War II, they had our Home Guard. If
you were between 40 and 70 years, you can serve.
And even today, apparently, in the Russian Army
and the Ukraine War, if you're up to 70, they
still may pull you in. The American model, which
is just focused on youth, is not necessarily
used all around the world, is it? Not at all.
It isn't at all. It's been very inflexible. Essentially,
we have not changed the limits or the age restrictions
in the military, the upper or lower. Okay, the
last two years, I think the Navy changed the
upper limits of enlistment for those that were
39 to move that to 41. But other than that, I
mean, there has been virtually nothing done.
And I don't think that there's any mandate out
there by the upper echelon to even Give serious
thought to this. Well, let's admit young recruits
have to be a whole lot more malleable than an
old crusty guy like you who's been around the
world before and said, I don't know if this makes
sense. But the reason this is important, this
age issue is important, is what you write about
in the book too on how, and I'd like to expand
on this, how younger recruits, younger enlisted
folks, are more likely to find themselves exposed
to and suffering from PTSD in the long term.
I found this discussion on age really interesting.
Could you talk about that? Yeah, well, recent
studies have come out by people like the researcher
Dolan and his associates have discovered that
if you send a person into a war zone, into combat,
under age 25, that person has way more than twice
the risk of developing post -traumatic stress
disorder, as those are 25 and older. The prefrontal
cortex of young people is not mature until around
age 25. The recruitment objectives are to go
and recruit these young men or women and to have
them be the bulwark for the grunt work in the
line of fire. Now, why are they so attractive?
Well, because they're... They believe they have
this virtual vitality, which they have a lot
of. They also have naivety. And the other element
is fearlessness. They have fearlessness. So they
will take an order, even though they know that
this order by the commander is going to result
in total annihilation. They will still follow
that order. Well, and our young folks don't have
the same level of responsibility at home, maybe.
Maybe they don't have a family yet or a wife
or a mortgage or a spouse and kids. I mean, it's
a different, whole different way of thinking
when you're unburdened by all of that than somebody
who's 60 years old and says, okay, I've paid
off the house, I've paid off the bills, but I
got these other responsibilities. It's very interesting
to think about Should you do something different
on the age of combatants? Because this is a long
-term implication. If I'm sending young folks
in less than 25 years of age and I'm increasing
their likelihood of PTSD, on the back end, the
nation has to... pay for those folks for their
health care, their treatment, their disability
when they get out over on the VA side. Not on
the DOD side. I'm taking those young guys in.
But if you're looking at the total cost of this,
and this is probably what you saw when you worked
at the VA, is, hey, these guys come out and they've
got this problem for a long time. Absolutely.
The chronicity is what you really worry about.
It's the one -third. that never get really much
better. And I dealt with so much of this over
the years and of how this leaves such scars that
cannot be healed and they suffer, you know, the
rest of their life. And then what we've seen
is that the children of those with PTSD of how
this affects them. There was some program here
not long ago that was addressing this and had
several fathers and children together and talking
about the impact that PTSD has left on the lives
and how the children tried to in some way, be
a healing force, but not knowing how to do it,
but wanting to care for the father that dealt
this horrible disease. And it created lots of
anxiety, even some suicidal thoughts. There's
a good point I want to jump off from, because
Again, there's this long -term, you know, you
want, the book talks about we really should rethink
this strategy a little bit. And an area where
you make some interesting observations is the
recruitment or enlistment screening that is or
isn't done for things like suicide and generational
trauma. Can you talk a little bit about that
so people can get a thought of what your ideas
are here? Well, I've been on the other end of
this course dealing with those that probably
should have never come into the military in the
beginning. And the front loading, I call it the
front loading, where you have a history of trauma,
you have a history of abuse. And I mean, some
people are able to overcome that, but not all,
not all. I think there should be a psychological
test. We have a pretty good arsenal of psychological
tests that can be given to detect those that
are really on the marginal line of survival as
far as psychological survival in the military
and those that aren't. I just don't think enough
attention is given to that. The pressures are
really pretty heavy on the recruiter. He's obligated
in order to keep his promotion moving forward
and his pension to get that quota met every month
he has mandates. I think that there have been
a lot of misgivings about not wanting to to delve
into the history further, not willing to want
to get good screening techniques in order to
not allow some of these that really don't have
the resilience, they don't have the capabilities
to adapt to this kind of stress. Now, there are
some of these young people that go in the military
that they could be salvaged. If there was a mentor
that they could identify with, a sergeant perhaps,
that they could identify with, that would give
attention to help reinforce the right positive
attitude and emotions towards stress and dealing
with stress. But they don't have time for this.
They really don't. And it's very rare you find
some exceptional. sergeant or supervised position
of a person that's going to take that kind of
care and responsibility and time. So I think
screening is very valuable, very important. It
would certainly spare a great number of these
young people from disappointment, from failure.
and inability to adapt and continue to fulfill
their obligation in the military. The burdensome
problems of this are great when you consider
the resource that has to be mustered in order
to take care of those that now have decompensated,
and their psychiatric condition is such that
they require a great deal amount of it. of care
and intense work you can really see that stabilized
yeah you can see that tension right the retention
the tension between the recruiting needs but
in the long -term tension then of there's going
to be a problem here that's going to take you
know years and years of treatment because this
person was maybe a little more susceptible maybe
they had generational trauma their age There
really is sort of that tension. Well, if we know
about susceptibility, that increases the chances
of PTSD. We know that, especially those that
are abused. Studies bring out this in terms of
that age group that is most susceptible to PTSD
when they are in a war zone, when they're in
combat, that given those facts, of their maldevelopment
and not having the resilience, the percentage
for PTSD goes up to 97 % for those individuals.
It's really amazing, and it gets you back to
where you have to really think about this. better
psychological screening tools would be so important
but but you also talk about a concept that i
want to get some of your thoughts on and and
that is resiliency talk to us about what resiliency
is and how the military could be a do a better
job at helping it exist in its service members
Well, I think resiliency, if the military has
some preparatory program before basic training,
before basic training ever starts, and let's
say it's two weeks, I would say at least two
weeks minimum of how to adapt to stress and how
to approach stressful events, issues in your
life that you're going to, be confronted with
in your service, in your duty assignments for
the military. Techniques. I mean, you know, in
this orientation, what you need is role models.
You need some good, resilient role models to
give them the kind of approach, a mental approach
to dealing with stresses. And perceiving those
not as problems, but as challenges. And that's
a whole different mental shift when you look
at a stress point and an issue that you have
to confront as a challenge rather than as a problem.
But the people that really have resilience, that's
exactly what they do. They perceive those. They
say, bring it on. You know, I'm here to resolve.
these things. I'm here to grow from this. The
approach has to be for all, I think, going into
the military, for all of these young people,
we're talking about 18, 19 -year -olds. I'm not
opposing for the military to not take 18, 19
-year -olds into service. It's just I don't think
that I think it's a flawed concept. Well, we
ought to prepare them. We ought to prepare them
right, right? To put them into the line of fire
at that age. Now, you know, 21, older, I don't
know what the magic age is. That would be the
really prime age, the appropriate age to go into
a war zone in combat. I don't know if we, I'm
not, I'm not. capable of prophetically saying
what that is, except that I think that that age
group, I mean, just based on the history, you
look at Vietnam, you look at what was the average
age of a combat soldier in Vietnam? 18, 19. That's
what it was. They come back, there's 30 % of
them all with PTSD. 20 years later, you're 15
% of that group. That's half of them. They'll
have still PTSD and they'll have it the rest
of their life. I think that we really have to
look at that clearly and say, what can we do
to make any kind of adjustments here for mental
health of our precious service members? We're
talking to Dr. Lenny Snodgrass, who is a retired
Army lieutenant colonel, served in the early
2000s. And it's his observations, his experiences,
his expertise that's rolled into this book called
The Ageless Call to Serve, Rethinking a Military
Service for a Changing World. This is put out
by Casemate Publishers. It's really a fascinating
book. talking about some issues you don't normally
think about. What I liked about it is you offered
up fixes. We've talked about a number of them.
But in those fixes is the recognition that in
today's environment where there is telehealth
and computers do so much, our professionals can...
There certainly is a role for older professionals,
those with experience and mastery, to join and
serve. They don't have to be the frontline combat
troops, but you offer up a number of fixes that
I think are very interesting. Well, the comparative
model for that is the VA. When you look at the
60 -year -olds that come in and work at the VA,
they've retired from their practice. They've
been in practice for at least 30 years. They
have all these skills and everything to offer.
Military won't take them, but the VA will take
them, and they've proven to be some excellent,
excellent resource for the medical needs of the
veterans. The military could use them on an active
duty basis. I mean, just like you mentioned,
telemedicine, oh my goodness, we've had an explosion
of telemedicine during the pandemic, and it now
has been accepted. in many areas and disciplines
and in industry and medicine to continue onward
because it's been very effective. You take a
radiologist, he can read these films anywhere
in the world and be as effective as if he were
there in person reading them and sending the
data and results and so forth. Well, as your
subtitle says, it's a changing world. We're talking
to, and we appreciate the time that Dr. Lanny
Snodgrass, Lieutenant Colonel, retired out of
the U .S. Army, gave to us today to talk about
his book, The Ageless Call to Serve. Lanny, first
off, I'm glad you got a sense, you got the opportunity
to quench that thirst that you had to serve,
even if you had to wait until you were 63 to
do it. but I think it also gave you some unique
perspective and insights, and they're certainly
captured in the book. Well, thank you, and I'm
going to say that I would do it all over again.
If this opportunity ever occurred, it's not something
that I regret in any sense. I regret never. It
was a wonderful opportunity for me, and I grew
from it. And I feel that I have been of help,
and it's been a life -changing experience for
me. Much of what I've written in the book is
about what came out of that experience. Well,
we really appreciate your time today. Thanks,
Lenny. Well, thank you. Appreciate the opportunity
here. It's been an honor. I want to sneak in
a little bit of an interview that you can find
on Veterans Radio's podcast. I did this with
the U .S. Chamber President, Eric Eversol. Interesting
what they're doing, and we've only got time to
give you a little bit of it, but I think it's
worth whetting your appetite. So you go to our
podcast at veteransradio .org or any of your
normal podcast programs from YouTube to iTunes
to anything out there. We feed it through rss
.com. That's our feed. So listen in. We want
to welcome to Veterans Radio today Eric Eversall,
who is president of Hiring Our Heroes, part of
the U .S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. Eric
is also a Navy vet. Eric, welcome to Veterans
Radio. Well, thank you. I'm so glad to be on
your show. Well, we're going to come back and
talk a little bit about how a kid who started
in the Indiana Air National Guard ended up as
a captain in the Navy's Judge Advocate General
Corps when he retired. But we'll come back to
that. There's an interesting story there, I suspect.
But let's start out with... What is the U .S.
Chamber of Commerce? What is the U .S. Chamber
of Commerce Foundation? And that'll get us to
the program Hiring Our Heroes. Well, that's great,
Jim. You know, the U .S. Chamber of Commerce
is the world's largest business association.
Each and every day, the U .S. Chamber of Commerce
fights for business interests, both at the national
level as well as the state level, and they're
quite awesome. fighting the hard fights when
it comes to legal reform, when it comes to legislation
that helps propel businesses across the country.
And within the U .S. Chamber of Commerce, there
is its foundation, which does a lot of the charitable
work for businesses. They're very active in doing
things like relief after disasters. So they're
very active in North Carolina right now. But
they also have Hiring Our Heroes, which is this
veteran employment program. And when did the
foundation start Hiring Our Heroes? Well, it
was created back in 2011 when there was a national
crisis in veteran unemployment at the time. As
you may recall, back after the Great Recession
in the 2011 timeframe, we had a lot of young
men coming back from war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and they were facing a tough job market for veterans
under the age of 25 back in 2011. And this is
really hard to believe, but... 2011, just a little
over 14 years ago, 13 years ago, 30 % unemployment
for veterans under the age of 25. And so the
chamber, the U .S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation
created Hiring Our Heroes as a national grassroots
organization to raise awareness of the challenges
that our veterans were facing and to importantly
leverage all the state and local chambers. to
do hiring events in local communities where unemployed
veterans were trying to find employment and connect
them with companies that would give them a chance.
And so that's really how we were created. It
was back in 2011, March of 2011, and it was really
in response to that crisis. Well, part of this
is transitioning for active duty members back
into civilian world is difficult. Because in
part, they don't have that network. If they've
spent four years or eight or 12 out in military
service, during that same period of time, their
peers were developing employer -employee networks,
moving around from job to job, and that just
doesn't exist, making it very difficult for transitioning
members to get... on their first try at the job
they want, and they often end up underemployed
or underutilizing their skills. Yeah, you know,
Jim, it's a great point, and it's a complicated
challenge that our service members face. And
for us, once we tackled what was at the time
veteran unemployment, we really made a strategic
shift to attack. the source of the problem that
veterans were facing. And that was that transition.
How do we, to your point, build the networks
that service members can connect with companies
while they're still on active duty? Because what
we saw was transitioning service members didn't
necessarily have the right networks, but they
also didn't have the right skill sets, nor did
they have the kind of the broader job market
landscape to understand what economic opportunity
looked like. So back in 2014, we really shifted
our focus to the active duty military community.
So both transitioning service members and military
spouses. And we really focused on how do we help
them understand the opportunities that exist
for them? How do we connect them with companies?
How do we help give them the skill sets and the
resources to be successful? As I said, that's
just a snippet of this interview. You might want
to go listen to it entirely on whatever your
podcast platform is or go to U .S. Chamber of
Commerce Foundation and search for Hiring Our
Heroes. They'll give you some more information.
One of the things we try to do here, and I think
we're pretty successful, is bringing you information
about the veteran space that you might not hear
about anywhere else. And I think these are good
examples of interviews where we've been able
to do that. We hope you've enjoyed it. We know
it's a unique kind of topic, but it's an important
topic. That 1 % who serve protect all of us.
And we on Veterans Radio want to honor that service
and tell those stories and provide information
that will be helpful to veterans as they go about
their life and transition. Or for even friends
and family who maybe have kids who are thinking
about going into service and, hey, what can I
expect afterwards and what kind of support exists?
What things should I know about? So, again, thanks
to all of our sponsors. We really appreciate
NVBDC .org, Puro Clean, and Legal Help for Veterans
to bring us on the air. And next week, Dale will
be back with some interesting stories. And until
then, you are dismissed.