All across America and around the world, this
is Veterans Radio. All right. Hello, everybody.
I'm Dr. Eric Fretz, one of your part -time hosts
on Veterans Radio America. And we're here this
morning for a fantastic episode with a local
notable veteran helper and old -time friend of
mine, Josh Parrish. We're going to be talking
about a variety of things I think you're going
to find very interesting. And then we will talk
about a really cool initiative he has now that's
going nationwide and is an app that will really
help solve a number of problems the veterans
and veteran community are facing. So without
further ado, welcome, Josh. How you doing today?
I'm doing well. I'm doing well. You know, Eric,
it's always a pleasure to just do anything with
you. You and I have a pretty long and fruitful
storied friendship, and I'm excited to have people
understand a little bit better about the dynamic
of our friendship. But also a lot of people don't
know this. You know, I I never really, truly
wanted to get into the veterans space. I left
the military and I was just kind of over it.
And you really, I would call you a mentor. And
so I'm sure I'm not the only one in this community
that calls you a mentor, but I don't know if
I'm thanking you or blaming you for having me.
get so ingrained in this space, but I guess I
will say thank you. All right. Well, I appreciate
you joining the cult. So yeah, so that's great.
And so for those of you who aren't familiar with
Josh, you know, he is a Marine Corps veteran
and army. Oh, sorry. Army veteran. Very, that
was a terrible mistake. Sorry. Oh, that's okay.
No, listen, man. Mixing up soldiers and Marines
is a quick way to go. Don't worry, man. I'm just
saying I could care less. I mean, I think if
you serve, you serve, but Those Marine Corps,
those Marine Corps people, man, they... They've
been drinking that Kool -Aid. Oh yeah, they're
a unique bunch. They're a unique bunch, yeah.
Came back, had a story that's common to a lot
of us with some struggles coming back and I think
you, similar to me, have a really fantastic woman
in your life that you give a lot of credit to
and so we have a lot of similarities there. In
our early days we were, I think in the earliest,
was probably the veteran courts. One of my first
things was to get involved in the veteran treatment
courts and I know you were involved in one of
those as well. I think some of our earliest discussions
were around those. Yeah, I think I just ended
up cold calling you or cold emailing you one
day when I was working for Livingston County
Veterans Services. And it's a story that is a
little too common for me. And there's so many
things throughout the veteran space that are
common, but should be uncommon. And this is one
of them. I was their program director for their
emergency relief fund. And I was getting these
veterans that would come in and they would ask
for, you know, help with assistance for various
things. And one time a veteran had come in and
he had just gotten out of jail. And I said, well,
you know, I wonder why our office wasn't notified.
You know, there should have been some type of
warm handoff. And so I went over to the sheriff's
department and I said, can I see your intake
form? and on their intake form there was no I
think about veteran status that could be checked
hey have you ever served in the military and
so once we started cross -referencing checking
those boxes what I found was was alarmingly I
was taken aback a lot of the people that I'd
been seeing in my office had been previously
incarcerated and then if you know the way my
mind works, you know, I'm either like a little
bit of a rain man or, you know, I, my, my wife
jokes all the time that the way my brain works,
it's just kind of like a spider web of, um, you
know, just hodgepodge stuff. And so I started
thinking, okay, all right, is there correlations
between, you know, the negative interactions
with law enforcement tying back to military service?
And so what we found is you know, a lot of these
veterans that had negative interactions with
law enforcement, you could tie it back to their
military service, you know, mental health related.
And really, if you want to go one step deeper,
it's because a lot of these veterans that I found
in this subset had reached out for help to the
VA and had never received it. So essentially,
then I start going down a larger rabbit hole
and I find that on average, And this is before
chat GPT, mind you. So, you know, I actually
had to do some field work myself. Yeah. And so
I found veterans will ask for help on average
three times. And if they don't get that help,
meaning they ask the VA, they ask, you know,
these local counterparts that are supposed to
guide them. Essentially, they just blend back
into society. And then when these veterans don't
get the help, what do they turn to? negative
coping mechanisms, alcohol, prescription drugs
of the sort. Acting out, yeah. Acting out, yeah.
And then inevitably what happens is they get
arrested. And then these veterans treatment courts
are so phenomenal if they're run correctly. That's
the caveat here. If they're run correctly, if
they have a great team behind them. Because these
veterans will be able to, in lieu of jail sometimes,
they'll get a delayed sentence and you know we'll
actually it's sad that we catch these veterans
after they've fallen through the cracks and so
I think that Those conversations with you even
back then were set the groundwork for what I've
been trying My wife and I've been trying to build
today. So sure man. That's a great start to the
story Yeah, and the points are very well taken
and you know it ever after starting in Buffalo
in like 2008 the veteran courts are really spread
all over the nation now So there's hundreds and
hundreds of them and there's over 50 in Michigan
alone So there's a great nationwide nonprofit
called justice for veterans that does a lot of
training and standardization across all those
courts and neither of us are involved in the
the courts anymore, but yeah, there's a great
start. So I appreciate that. And then of course,
you know, we led both you and I wandered into
a new state level organization that was years
ago that was called the VCAD, the veteran community
action team that was paralleling something the
VA does called a CVEB or Community Veteran Engagement
Board to build local coalitions. And I know,
you know, I have very fond memories for a number
of years you were assigned As a contractor you
were assigned as my regional coordinator and
we were just kind of sidekicks building this
coalition across six counties and 50 ,000 veterans
and You know, I think one of the great things
was your vision for something bigger and you
know, you suggested this Why don't we you know
instead of having these tiny little events like
oh a veteran info session at the VFW and you
end up with 20 veteran helping charities and
20 people or 30 people all there to help veterans
and you serve food and you you do whatever sometimes
you don't serve food and they're all sitting
there with their table and their keychains and
their little pens and they're ready to talk with
their brochures and you might get 12 veterans
through there in four hours, while 20 people
sat there. And you said, you know, we got to
flip this on its head. And we got to create something
that creates so much of a gravity well that it
just pulls in the veterans and their families.
And we got to create entertainment and a really
compelling environment. And then we arrange all
these information sources and service sources,
all of these veterans serving organizations,
we arrange them on the periphery. and they can't
help but come in contact with all these resources.
And you know, it seemed so enormous. And I remember
when we did that first one, I think it was in
like a parking lot at Mount Brighton or something.
You know, I was just like, oh, that's right.
Yes, I was the first one. Yeah. And I just thought,
how are we going to get this plane off the ground?
And but it worked and it got bigger each year,
you know, and two or three years of that with
this. But this vet fest that really sort of sets
a standard really got a lot of attention because
there wasn't anybody else in Michigan doing anything
like it. And then, you know, when your time on
the team ended and you went and started vet life,
you know, you then just took vet fest as this
marquee event in Livingston and just launched
it. And it's really into the stratosphere now.
So I think maybe just a minute or two left in
this segment. But, you know, talk a little bit
about the success of that fest over the years.
Yeah, I think I need to tell you why we even.
talked about vet fest is you hit the nail on
the head that the state was giving me money as
part of the budget to go out and do these town
halls. You know essentially you'd get the resource
providers and hopefully the veterans would attend
but you know they'd give me thousands of dollars
to do this and I'd get 30 to 40 resource providers
but I'd only get a handful of veterans and understandably
so this is the real issue. If you get 30 or 40
resource providers and only 10 veterans, the
bandwidth of these veterans, once they get from
resource provider one to resource provider 20,
you know, I mean, it's very limited. And so we're
actually doing these veterans a disservice by
not giving them what they want, you know, and
that's the real problem is we think we know as
the government what these veterans want, but
we never asked the veteran. Is this what you
want? And so we flipped the script. We went and
asked these veterans, what do you want? And we
did that survey. And overwhelmingly, what we
found is that veterans want their spouses involved
in the process. And nobody was doing that, and
it all boiled down to money. And I know we're
wrapping up this segment, but I think it's worth
mentioning, Eric, that we did so well that the
state tried to fire me. because I was making
them look, our region was so over producing that
we were making the other regions look bad. In
the sense of what we were delivering in terms
of that. In the sense of what we were delivering,
yeah. And so I got called into the director's
office and I believe back then it was the buddy
to buddy program. They had reached out and they
had said, made a complaint about me because I
was bypassing that archaic system and going straight
to the veteran and their family. And you would
think that people would embrace that concept.
But as you can tell, I mean, it in the veteran
space, they're one of my favorite sort of frets
phrases is in the veteran space, there are two
kinds of individuals, people. who want to help
veterans and people who want to be seen helping
veterans. Those are two very different animals.
And when you mix them, you get interesting results.
VetFest is really, really successful with VCAT,
and it's become even more successful now. And
you're still running that annually. Eventually,
I think it's probably going to wear you out.
But I know there's probably another one coming
up this year. So people can look for that. And
of course, you know, VCAT. obviously following
that lead we did great stuff like partnerships
with USA hockey where we have the big hockey
event and that's actually coming up next weekend
on the 21st if any veterans are hearing this
in the Michigan area around Plymouth and Ann
Arbor that's going to be a fantastic event with
free food and great hockey game and of course
all the service providers. All right well let's
take a quick break and we'll be back at another
moment with our friend Josh Parrish. The Congressional
Medal of Honor Society Convention will be held
in Detroit from September 29th to October 3rd
of 2026, featuring the largest gathering of living
Medal of Honor recipients. It brings together
as many as 60 living Medal of Honor recipients
for a series of public and private events aimed
at sharing their heroic stories and promoting
the values of the Medal of Honor, such as commitment,
integrity, courage, sacrifice, citizenship, and
patriotism. This event will also include community
engagement activities along with recipients to
connect with the local Metro Detroit students,
veterans, and active military members. This convention
represents a unique opportunity for the city
of Detroit and surrounding area to honor its
military heroes and foster a spirit of patriotism
and community engagement. You can learn more
about this upcoming convention at medalofhonoredetroit
.com. You can go there to support it with financial
resources and volunteer support. Let me tell
you about one of these men, Sammy Lee Davis.
He describes himself as just a regular kid growing
up in the Dayton, Ohio area. The family had a
long history of military service, and early on
he learned as the big brother when his dad told
him, son, don't ever leave your little brother
behind. He joked that he went to Vietnam on his
senior trip and it was in November 1967 when
his unit became ferociously attacked by the Viet
Cong that Sammy had to climb onto a burning howitzer
operating it alone, firing round after round
to support his beleaguered colleagues. When he
realized there were wounded soldiers across the
river filled with hostile fire, he inflated an
air mattress, paddled across, despite his broken
back, and pulled the injured men to safety. And
he received the Medal of Honor in 1968. He really
said, I went to war and found out about love.
What real love is, I didn't go war to kill people.
I went to war because I loved my daddy and I
wanted him to be proud of me. I went to war because
I loved my grandpa and I loved my country. And
when I got over there, the reason we fought so
hard was because we discovered that we loved
each other. We were all we had and we became
brothers. There in Vietnam, I learned about what
real love is. Post service, Sammy Lee Davis has
been speaking to schools and kids and citizens
about civics and duty in America. Actually a
part of his story was used in the film Forrest
Gump. You can learn more by going to Congressional
Medal of Honor Society site cmohs .org and remember
to visit medalofhonoredetroit .com. Hello everybody,
we're back. This is Dr. Eric Fretz on Veterans
Radio America with our good friend Josh Parrish
and we're going to talk a little bit more about
some interesting stuff he's doing in the veteran
space now on a larger scale because over time
I mean, we spent a little time talking about
some of the early days and now you're much broader
impact in your position now is with a charity
that basically spans Michigan and actually reaches
out and touches veterans now in almost probably
every state through some different initiatives.
So I'd like to hear a little bit from you about
the start of vet life. You know, it's it's one
of a number of of charities. But unlike I think
a lot of veteran charities, they sort of start
small and stay small. And in your case, this
is like a growing entity. So a little bit about
sort of the start, the growth. kind of where
it's headed and then maybe segue into Battle
Buddy. But I'd like to hear more about all the
things that VetLife is doing to start. Yeah.
Yeah. So I've been working for the state of Michigan.
And I wouldn't say he was a close friend, but
he was a friend. And him and I had served around
the same time. Iraq, initial invasion. came home
he struggled and I had just kept in contact with
him but he had taken his daughter his wife had
left him he had been drinking pretty heavily
and his wife ended up leaving him and he had
somewhat custody of his daughter and there's
this online program called vet ticks where veterans
get free tickets so he took his daughter to one
of those monster truck rallies in Detroit dropped
his daughter off, immediately went home, went
out into a park in the Flint Fenton area and
committed suicide. But it's not uncommon to hear
that. And I was just getting so frustrated with
the system because I didn't think that I was
getting I thought if I worked for the state of
Michigan, I would be able to make a meaningful
impact in the veteran space. And I realized that
I wasn't going to be able to change the structure
from the inside. And so I had just graduated
law school. I took the bar exam. And for all
intents and purposes, I was going to be an attorney.
If you would have asked me, hey, Josh, Would
you like to get into the nonprofit space and
be, you know, wholly underappreciated for everything
that you do? I would have said, no, sir, probably
not. I think I'll stay away from that. But, you
know, I like to take challenges on and if something's
personal to me, I'm going to do it. And so my
wife and I were sitting down one day and we said,
OK, hey, let's start a nonprofit. She's got a
marketing background and So she came up with
the name, the logo, everything. And when we first
started, I said, if we're going to do this, we
got to do a big, you know, I said, if we don't
hit a five year growth Mark, uh, you know, from
startup to scalability, our skillset is too unique.
We got to go do something else. And so we started,
you know, we had done the events and whatnot,
and we started doing more outreach events to
get the communities involved. And then we were
helping a lot of people at these events, but.
You know, Michigan is home to 475 ,000 veterans.
In 2019, less than 18 % had ever been connected
to any federal benefit that they earn through
their service. So we sat down again and we said,
all right, what can we do? We know that 99 .99
% of people in this country have a smartphone.
Why are we not digitally touching people with
incremental bits? of micro learning, the basics
of what benefits they're entitled to. So we started
out with a text -based app, and we were texting
veterans, hey, about their benefits. And then
that blew up into a full -scale app called Battle
Buddy. And it's very simplistic in its concept.
And here's where VetLife doesn't compete in anybody's
space. We're more of a complimentary service.
In Michigan alone, and these are staggering statistics,
in Michigan alone, the preferred method for a
veteran to gain access to their benefits is through
an accredited veteran service officer. Pretty
common nationwide. In Michigan, for every 1 ,812
veterans, there's only one accredited VSO. In
this country, for every 7 ,000 veterans, there's
only one accredited VSO. And so, you know, I
was listening to the VFW testifying in Washington
last week, and the fact that they're still trying
to embrace this whole, let's get an accredited
VSO in the active duty military installations
through the transitionary process, the TAPS program,
it's just, it's dead on arrival. You know, even
if you get one or two people in there, A, you
gotta wonder, is this person just checking boxes?
Or is this person actually motivated to make
sure that these men and women get the benefits
that they deserve? And I just, it baffles me
sometimes that really, really intelligent people
can't grasp the concept that We have to go to
the veteran. We can't wait for the veteran to
come to us. And there's a scale problem there
too. Yeah. So even if you had most of them, obviously
these VSOs are volunteers, right? Yeah. And you're
asking them to go onto this base and interact
with this TAP class that could have 10, 20, 30,
40 people. And of course, all of them might possibly
have a VA claim involvement. And so now they're
taking on like 40 new cases instantaneously.
You know, it's a scale issue for sure. Even if
you could make it happen. you get a look at the
scale issue for sure yeah so yeah scale issue
and you know i'll give you a real world example
my uh intro to constitutional law class had like
200 students in it do you think that that professor
at the end of the day knew my name? No, I was
student number 000176. But that's the same way
with these VSOs. A lot of them are very well
intentioned, but at the end of the day, it's
just a bandwidth problem. And then if this is
the generally accepted practice on a federal
level, I mean, where we, we're almost, guaranteeing
that these veterans aren't going to get the services
that they need. And then the TAPS program, you
know, there was a guy on LinkedIn that I follow
and he said, you know, a lot of people criticize
TAPS. And I responded, I said, yeah, because
it's a broken system. You know, we pump hundreds
of millions of dollars into this for a lot of
people to just check boxes. And I was talking
to a Sergeant Major a couple of weeks ago and
he goes, you know, Josh, TAPS program's great.
It was great for me. I said, yeah, but what was
your rank in the military? You know, is that
E9 Sergeant Major? I think is it E9? I said,
I think TAPS is a little bit different for you
than it is for that E4 or E5 that's going to
be getting out. I had the same conversation with
a two -star general one time and it's just like
it goes way over their head that These aren't
standardized services. When that two star retired,
they had a personal assistant handling all of
their paperwork for them, I'm sure. But yeah,
I mean, probably instead of saying like broken,
I would say it's sub optimized. Right. I mean,
it's like any bureaucratic thing. It's it's done
by mandate. Right. It's done everywhere. It's
a, people see it as a, I've got to do this as
part of my, you know, as a part of my retirement
and leaving the base, I've got to do TAPS. And
so a number of them just go in there with that
sort of, oh, it's just my final thing I've got
to do as opposed to this opportunity to really
pull some knowledge. And, and it really, of course
it always varies on the quality instructor too.
Yeah. So, I mean, I would say TAPS is definitely
sub optimized. Interesting. I'm, I'm currently,
uh, I'm a coach and mentor for a really interesting
group called the Honor Foundation. And they do
essentially real taps for special operators who
are retiring. So it's limited in scope. Somebody
in the special operator community said, we got
to do taps right. And that's really, I'll send
you some of the information. It's a, it's really
fascinating because they do really intense coaching
and counseling, talking about all sorts of interpersonal
skills and resume and Simon Sinek's why process
and all of this. really would be wonderful to
have something like this, you know, for every
service member, but I digress. So, but speaking
of reaching every service member, your idea was,
okay, how do we scale this? Right? Yeah. Well,
and I just want to go back because, you know,
people, when you say broken, there's such a negative
connotation attached to that. But I think people
can, in this space can have conversations with
each other and even vehemently disagree whether
it's suboptimized or broken. And at the end of
the day, they want the same thing. They want
a system in place that's going to help rather
than hinder people. And so I think people like
me and you even exist because of the system being
suboptimized. For sake of argument, we'll say
suboptimized. Because I was with Senator Gary
Peters last week in Washington. And it was funny
because we were talking about kind of similar
stuff and I said something and he chuckled and
he goes, I love the way you put it. He goes,
man, I wish I could I wish I could be more, you
know, politically incorrect. He goes, but I have
to, you know, I have to make sure that I, you
know, because everything's a soundbite. He's
got to parse your words more carefully. No, I
totally get it. I have I have the same issue
sometimes at the university because I'm alarmingly
direct. You know, sometimes I'll look my students
in the face and I'll say, I need you to understand
that if I was your boss and you did this, I don't
use the nice hand, but I look them in the eye
and I say, if I was your boss and you were my
employee and you did what you just did, I would
fire you on the spot. And sometimes these students
jaws just kind of, you know, hit the table like
what and I'm like, I'm not saying this to hurt
your feelings. And what's interesting is that,
you know, years later, I've gotten multiple emails,
right? Some students five, 10 years later saying,
you know, Dr. I never forgot that moment, we
had that really tough conversation. And you changed
my whole life with that. And I was like, okay,
so somebody, I mean, you know, the bluntness
isn't acquired days, as you mentioned at the
start, you know, we both kind of share that characteristic.
And you know, people vary. And you know, it's
It varies, but there's a certain value in sort
of being honest and straightforward about things
that need to be fixed, because if you put what's
wrong behind like a smoke screen or whatever.
I mean, don't do anything about it. It never
gets better. Yeah. So tell us more about, you
know, how BattleBuddy is kind of addressing this.
I think what's really cool is I see these occasional
reports about, you know, these new hundreds of
thousands of users and this sort of, you know,
this, that fact that it can just be downloaded
by anybody. You could be a veteran over in like
Germany and wondering about what do I do? Cause
I'm about to get out and come back to Des Moines,
Iowa and, uh, and BattleBuddy can be having a
positive impact in Germany. Yeah, and not to
get off topic but on LinkedIn a woman from the
UK retired military officer reached out and said
hey we'd love to have a conversation about how
to replicate your battle buddy system overseas
to really make it an international model. Because
I think veterans in France and throughout the
world, Canada, they all go through the same things
when they leave the military. There's a lot of
commonalities. But if you were to boil Battle
Buddy down just into kind of one sentence or
a few terms, it's a single source touch point
for every single benefit you're entitled to.
And I hope I articulate this efficiently when
I say this. When you leave the military and you're
provided with a myriad of documents, a lot of
the times you're not going to pay attention or
ingest that. A big folder, a packet, a hundred
flyers, yeah. Yep. And so I tell people, you
know, every single veteran that leaves the military
needs time to decompress, whether that be three
months, six months, nine months a year. But at
some point that veteran may not have needed a
VA home loan or educational benefits or disability
compensation when they leave the military, but
at some point they're going to want to access
that benefit. But by the time that they do, either
they've lost all that paperwork or they don't
have those primary points of contact or they
still don't have access to the online systems
they had when they were active duty, this app
is there for you 24 -7 -365. Now here's another
issue too. There's similar, there were apps out
there before I created BattleBuddy that were
literally just information dumps. I mean, it
was like, we're not vetting any of this information
or resources. Here it is. Here's 27 things that
help address veterans and financial crisis. And
I know exactly what you're talking about because
we tried to create, we actually did create a
list like this with VCAT, which I think serves
its purpose, but it wasn't. I specifically said,
I don't want the volume dump. We basically just
said, give it, let's, let's agree on the top
five resources for homelessness, top five resources
for financial crisis. And then we've distributed
that and people have been very appreciative,
but that's very limited because it's like, okay,
here's your top five things over your top eight
issues. But like, as you mentioned, there's a
hundred things. And so what's great for BattleBuddy
is it's this sort of computer helper on top of
the pile that says, you're interested in what?
Oh, let me go, let me go get that for you. Right.
Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just use one example, but
I mean, This one example attaches itself to every
single other benefit. So let's say you want to
file a disability compensation with the VA. You
have to do an intent to file. And when I worked
for the county, Half the problem was the veteran
would come in and everybody knows that the intent
to file takes about three minutes. It's just
saying, effectively, I'm starting a contract
and take a flag and say that I was. Yeah. And
you have 365 days to gather a bunch of documents.
So what would happen is these veterans would
come in. We do the intent to file and then I
would never see them again until about, you know,
18. months, two years later, then they'd have
the documents like, Oh, sorry, I was waiting
on this document from the government. And so
no, you lost your effective date. So we have
to start all over again, which functionally means
that if it is approved, they've lost two years
of back pay benefits. Correct. Correct. Yeah.
Oh, it is a shame. So what this app does, we
will help you with the intent to file. Then we
give you a checklist. And what we have built
in is we know that one calendar year from the
intent to file, you have to do the FDC, the fully
developed claim. And so, uh, we will set in,
you know, kind of biomarkers where, you know,
Hey, Eric, you got six months left. You got four
months left. You got three months left. Then
the beauty of the app is if you get down to like
30 or 45 days and you still haven't, you know,
checked off all the documents that you have,
it will prompt the system the agentic AI system
will prompt to reach out to the veteran and say,
Hey, I can geo fence the closest accredited veteran
service officer to help you cross that next step.
Yeah. Make that next step. Yeah. What documents
are you missing? And so again, you know, I mean,
I'm, I'm acting like, or I'm cutting down that
ratio from 7 ,000 to one to pretty much one to
one, because a lot of these benefits that these
veterans are entitled to, they can do it themselves.
They just need to be educated in a way that they're
going to understand. I'm sorry to say this. I
was just saying, they're capable of walking 10
steps, but they don't know where the door is.
And if you give them the direction to the door
and you give them the key, they'll walk over
there and they'll do it. But absent that, you
know there's a lack of certainty. Yeah and it
sounds like you're answering some of those questions
so they can find it and get into it. Yeah well
and think about it this way you know a lot of
the information being pushed out for veterans
is either made by non -veterans or made by veterans
that have never really went through some of the
things that junior enlisted or even senior enlisted
have went through and so what I've done is I've
just Created bite -sized chunks because we all
know the attention span of people these days
is you know slower pretty much Non -existent
and if you don't get them in the first 15 seconds,
you're gonna lose them So yeah, just think about
the battle buddy app as a 365 or 24 7 365 digital
touchpoint you know if you want to get up at
4 in the morning and Learn more about your VA
home loan. You don't have to call ex, you know,
County Department of Veterans Affairs and hopefully
get in contact with somebody just to ask a question.
You can go right on the app and it'll walk you
through every single step. But we go one step
further. We work with a limited amount of very
vetted providers. Again, I don't want to work
with 40 different home loan people. when I can
work with a handful that I know that are going
to return that phone call or return that email
or follow up. And so that's that's what separates
us from from other, you know, apps in this space.
So if somebody is interested, as they should
be, if a veteran citizen checking out Battle
Buddy, it seems like it would probably be as
simple as go to the Google app stores or the
Apple app stores and just search for Battle Buddy.
Simple as that. Yep, and then you download it
and is a you know, is there like a process there
once you download it Do you need to set up an
account or is it just kind of open -ended or
how does that right now? It's open then it's
open -ended because we want ease of access You
know, we're gathering the data and here's the
nuts and bolts of what I'm trying to do where
nobody else is doing so you have these gdx reports
by the government it's called geographical distribution
of expenditures it tells how much federal money
through the benefits process trickles back down
into these economies what the problem is is we
don't know really what the unmet needs in the
veteran community are until about 18 to 24 months
later when these reports come out and they say
hey you know we had a x amount of VA home loans,
X amount of disability, education benefits. So
we're doing a pilot project with the Michigan
Army National Guard right now, where we're going
into, we're inserting Battle Buddy into all 38
National Guard Armories throughout the state
of Michigan. And I can tell you real time what
these veterans are searching for. Yeah, I'll
give you an example. We went into the Howell
Armory and we identified two veterans that were
homeless. Okay. Here's the conundrum. And those
are people who are in the Guard? Actively drilling,
yeah. So here's the conundrum that I face when
I think about things like this. So I reached
out to these two veterans and I said, you know,
I'm so -and -so and I'm here to help. I'm not
part of the National Guard. So, you know, I'm
just here solely to help you. And both of those
veterans said that they felt ashamed to go to
their leadership. that they felt like they were
a failure, that they were going to get kicked
out of the military if they went and said, hey,
I'm homeless. I'm living on my mom's couch. But
here's the crazy part. The VA definition for
chronically homeless says that you have to be
actually homeless. Literally on the street. You
can't be living in your car. You have to be sleeping
under a bypass two times in one calendar year.
And it's like, how can these veterans get this
help? And again, these National Guard veterans
that have been deployed, some of these people
don't think they're real veterans because they
didn't serve active duty. And so I say, did you
sign up for VA healthcare? Well, no, no, I'm
still actively drilling. I can't do that. And
I go, you have a discharge paper. You can enroll
in VA healthcare. So long story short, I was
able to get both of those veterans linked up
with the Ann Arbor VA homeless uh program i believe
it's ran by gay para and so you know the resources
are out there there's just a lot of misconceptions
lack of education and you know i'm able to give
the state of michigan real -time information
on what these veterans unmet needs are you know
food insecurity you know where to focus the resources
yeah refocus the resources instead of just blindly
saying, you know, we think this is the problem.
I'm literally telling you what the problem is.
I get to the get to the smoldering embers before
it's a fire. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that analogy.
So I think might be helpful to just have you
for a moment. Walk us through the sort of the
menu because, you know, you've given some specific
examples, you know, like homeless resources and.
you know of all of these and we know if you really
tried to count them all including like say you
know some small equine therapy for PTSD out of
saline michigan or something right i mean some
small charity of there's there's literally thousands
but in terms of like the benefits that that they
need that veterans need to be aware of give us
a give us a sense of the length of the menu of
everything that battle buddy can put people in
touch with So you get on the app and what I love
most about the app too, and this is my wife's
brainchild It's not just specifically designated
for the veteran but there are also benefits that
Dependents are entitled to that are even Little,
you know even less well -known. Yeah spouses
and caregivers and all that. Yeah Yeah, so the
way my mind works is I want to work with nationally
scaled programs So, you know you mentioned caregivers
So Elizabeth Dole Foundation, Blue Star Families,
are nationally recognized organizations with
footprints throughout the entire country. And
yes, there's nothing against... Bob's Equine
Therapy and Random Town Michigan, but that's
not what I want this app to do. I want this app
to empower veterans to be their own best advocates.
And I think by doing that, by offering that,
it's going to reduce the veteran suicide rate.
So examples of what the app can do, we already
touched on, you know, disability compensation,
dependent, indemnity, DIC, which is known as
widow's pension. That's on their education benefits,
VA home loan benefits. We've just created, and
we actually utilize a veteran that's in a master's
program at University of Michigan to build out
an AI companion called SAM. So think about it
this way. I don't have the numbers. Normally
I do, but this is kind of a, A, it's a taboo
topic, but the numbers are, I think are skewed
so low. which is the veteran suicide rate. And
I think veterans aren't just waking up one day
and they say, hey, I don't wanna be here anymore.
I think it's a systematic failure of the system
as they perceive it. And so what if we could
just talk to somebody in a non adversarial way,
they're not gonna judge you for being weak or
at a vulnerable moment. That's what this AI companion,
Sam, does. I'm beta testing it right now. I talk
to it every single day. You know, it'll tell
me a joke and it'll just be, you know, empathetic.
But also it has built in parameters in it where
if it notices that you're speaking more in terms
of, you know, darker and darker. Apocalyptically,
yeah. More apocalyptic, yeah. You know, our dark
veteran humor. that it's going to get you to
the right services. And so I know that I'm not
going to, I'm not gonna be able to save every
single veteran, but at the end of the day, if
I can just offer somebody hope that's in a very
dark time. And if Battle Buddy is widely adapted
and lots of veterans have Battle Buddy, then
you're increasing the chance that you'll. it'll
be with a veteran who's struggling, and then
you have this easily accessible source of support.
I mean, I think that's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah.
So yeah, I'm really excited about that. If you
were to ask me about one thing about the app
that nobody else is doing, I would say this AI
companion right now is cutting edge. But at the
end of the day, I mean, you literally can go
on there and access any of your benefits. You
know, we're not physically like tied in with
the VA's infrastructure, you know, the API portion,
but we've embedded it into the app where I don't
know if you know this or not, but the VA has
like 57 apps and 56 of them suck. Or I will say,
as you would say, sub -optimized. Yeah, they're
sub -optimized. So, you know, Gary, Gary Peters,
if you're listening to this, I'm trying to be
more politically correct now. Yeah. So yeah,
I would say that the best app the VA has is just
that app. It's just the blue VA. Yeah, I use
that all the time to manage my health care appointments
and I've been very impressed with it, right?
Access to the - Yeah. If you're the app builder
that built this, reach out to me because you
are a unicorn, my friend. But they just added
the certificate of eligibility for VA home loans.
Ask any veteran back in the day trying to get
one of those COEs. God, I mean, you have to ask
for a congressional hearing back in the day.
And so we've embedded that into the app now.
So like I said, the beauty of the app is you
don't have to go to 40 different resources to
get all of the benefits you're entitled to. And
you don't have to go to some random Facebook
page of some Iraq, Afghanistan, GWAT veterans,
ask a question. And then all of a sudden, You're
going to get 20 different answers. And not all
of them are helpful. Yeah, exactly. And all of
them are helpful. And then all of a sudden, they're
like, it turns political. And you're like, I
just asked where the nearest certified official
for my voc rehab or VR &E was. and somebody wants
to tell a story about how they didn't get what
they wanted or whatever, yeah. So it sounds like
it's really doing what we used to say in VCAT
was this idea of a warm handoff, right? Veteran
has problem X. You literally walk them over to
the provider for X and you put one hand in the
other and say, here, this is Joe who helps with
X. Joe, this is Bob. Bob needs help with X. And
it sounds like in an app you're just leveraging
at a really high level. that same concept. So
just to be, I'm pushing for specifics, because
I think a lot of times people just aren't that
clear. So we've got things like, you know, connecting
people to the VA home loan. There's a bunch of
other VA programs, such as educational benefits,
chapter 31, 33, 35. So there's a whole bunch
of educational benefits. There's the entire disability
or what's known as comp and pen process. I'm
assuming you probably have there's a whole section
of the VA. A lot of people don't understand the
VA kind of has the three sort of subunits basically,
and there's one that does just, you know, funerals
and cemeteries, right. So there's a bunch of
stuff there that people should probably be aware
of what and then you mentioned some other national
level charities that they you're connected to
to also or Yeah, I want to be careful when I
say this too, you know, I think the largest problem
in the veteran space is over saturation. It's
not that all of these NGOs, these nonprofits
and foundations aren't well -intentioned, but
I think everybody that left the military is trying
to start a nonprofit and they're very well -intentioned,
but you're saturating the space. Yeah, but you
mentioned there's over a hundred thousand, right?
All I want to do with this app for the most part
is just educate you and get you connected. So
think about when we were at the VCAT together,
that's exactly what we did. Instead of us trying
to be subject matter experts, why not just connect
you to the subject matter expert? Be the connectors,
yeah. Be the connector, as you always said. So
I won't go into the more nuanced benefits, like
the tribal veteran guaranteed loan program or
the, you know, you know, specially optimized
arthritic tinnitus, you know, this and that.
All I want to do is just educate you on what
the main benefits are. The large high level national
level kind of things. Yeah. And so, and then
I want to work with national partners. So think
about it this way. One of the things that I'm
really excited about right now is in the gaming
world. you know, veterans are big in the gaming
world. So we want to work with like -minded organizations.
So there's this gentleman out of Texas named
Chris Earl, and he's a Marine Corps veteran,
not an Army vet, he's a Marine Corps vet. And
so Chris created this organization called Regiment
Gaming. And so why are we not all working together?
Because think about it this way, a veteran goes
to Regiment Gaming for something probably more
mental health related. but they're not getting
disability, VA home loan, this or that. That's
where we come in. You know, we can be that connector
for them. And it's the same thing with Blue Star
families. They deal with caregivers, but what
about all of the other benefits that these veterans
or dependents are entitled to? Let us be the
connector for that. But as you would say back
in the day, let's be the force multipliers for
this. And let's have some accountability in place
where with right now, if a veteran reaches out
to somebody at the VA, nine times out of 10,
there's no accountability if the ball is dropped.
And so now there's a level of accountability
in place with us where if these resource providers
don't answer the phone or if we get complaints
on the app, we're going to do an escalation process.
So everything from disability compensation, quite
honestly to emergency services. You know, we're,
we're working with national partners right now
that have a national imprint. And, you know,
I love Lynn Phillips to death. She's one of my
great friends here in Michigan. Yeah. She's amazing,
but you know, honestly, she has a specialty subset
of a niche that she serves and you know, God
bless her heart. She goes outside of that anytime
somebody asks her to, but you know, I can't have
somebody that only serves three counties in Michigan
on the app. When I have veterans from all over
the country that come on this app, so they need
to have nationalized services. So a lot of people
don't a lot of people don't know about the fact
that like the VFW right has this policy that
it's applicable nationwide right for like emergency
relief and help with things. So yeah, that's
that's in a nutshell. Outstanding. Well, OK,
I think we're getting pretty close to wrap up.
I'd say before we wrap things up, do you have
any sort of final thought or anything you'd like
to share? Again, we're going to emphasize folks
just go search for Battle Buddy on any of the
major app stores. And if you're in Michigan,
take a look at VetLife because they're really
good and really strong in Livingston County.
And you can see other things sort of statewide.
You've got a really every summer, so probably
coming in I'd assume July is the date set for
VetFest 2026. August 8th at Cleary University
from 12 to 3 in Howell, Michigan. And then we'll
be doing a Vet Fest in November in Oakland County
as well. Outstanding, Oakland County. Okay, yeah,
and I know there's been some talk of doing one
in Detroit and whatnot, so I'm sure you'll keep
building the Vet Fest empire. And then I also
recommend if you're a veteran in the Southeast
Michigan area that we do have the coming up on
the 21st and that weekend with USA Hockey and
Plymouth, a really great event that's free to
veterans and their families. But any final, like
anything you really just want people to think
closing words, a message to the veterans out
there, something you want folks to know about?
Yeah, you know, I would say this. A lot of us
struggle when we leave the military and we lose
a sense of purpose. and we lose a sense of identity.
And a lot of us feel that we were taught in the
military not to ask for help, that we have to
have this persona that we're these strong men
or strong -willed women. But there's a lot of
us out there that are here for you. And so if
you're ever in your darkest moment, just know
that there's somebody that wants to see you be
the best version of yourself. and that's Eric,
that's myself, and that's pretty much anybody
in the veteran space. So if you're struggling,
don't feel that you're weak. You can reach out
and you will not be judged. You will not be judged
by me. I can say that with substantial certainty.
But you know what the app can be such a game
changer for you as well So yeah, I mean those
would be my parting thoughts for anybody listening
today wise words wise words pushing back against
the stigma and whatnot and there's a lot of a
lot of people who care about vets and most a
lot of them are vets and You know, it's I think
as wise words So thanks very much for wrapping
up with that So this will conclude our episode
here on battle buddy and I'd like to thank my
army veteran friend Josh Parrish and I've been
dr. Eric Fretz your for this episode of Veterans
Radio and we'll see you next time. We're back
here on Veterans Radio and I want to thank Eric
Fretz and Josh Parris for a really interesting
interview. I hope you really enjoyed that and
I appreciate Eric giving me a week off. A couple
of events that are coming up especially the big
one that Eric mentioned. during the program is
the USA Hockey Salute to Service Nights and that's
coming up this coming weekend actually it's Friday
March 20th and Saturday March 21st and it's going
to be at the USA Hockey Arena on Beck Road in
Plymouth, Michigan and this is kind of cool because
What they do is they honor the brave men and
women who serve our communities and our country,
including members of the armed forces and dedicated
first responders. Across two special nights of
hockey, they will recognize active duty service
members, veterans, law enforcement, firefighters,
EMS personnel, and their families. Each evening
will feature patriotic pregame ceremonies, special
recognitions, and tributes throughout the game.
There will be representatives from the U .S.
There will be representatives from the VA of
Ann Arbor Health Care on site to help veterans
and their families apply for, understand, and
use their VA health care benefits. They'll also
share information about a wide range of health
care services that are available, the PACT Act
and other valuable VA benefits and resource.
So we encourage you to come on out. Not only
will the VA be there, but there'll be all kinds
of veteran service organizations and everything
that's associated with veterans here in Southeast
Michigan. So again, that's coming up. on Friday
and Saturday March 20th and 21st at USA Hockey
on Beck Road in Plymouth, Michigan. So make sure
you do that if you can. I think it's a it's a
worthwhile fundraiser and it's really fun. It's
really loud. If you like hockey it's kind of
cool too and it's nice and chilly. So please
do that. As we finish up today's program I just
wanted to remind everybody that Here on Veterans
Radio, we cannot do this program without your
help and your support. So we always want to thank
our sponsors. So first of all, we've got Legal
Help for Veterans, Specializes in Veterans Disability
Claims. Call Legal Help for Veterans at 800 -693
-4800 or go to their website LegalHelpForVeterans
.com. The National Veterans Business Development
Council, better known as NVBDC, is the nation's
leading third -party authority for certification
of veteran -owned businesses. For more information,
you can go to their website nvbdc .org or give
them a call at 888 -237 -8433. We also want to
make sure that we thank our local veteran service
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46 and the Charles S. Kettles Vietnam Veterans
of America Chapter 310 both of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
If you'd like to support Veterans Radio as I
said please go to our website veteransradio .org
and click on the donate button. Okay. So I got
that done. So I'm gonna wrap up today's program
with our traditional God bless America and I
think I am sure you're going to enjoy this version.
So I want to thank you all for listening to Veterans
Radio today. We will be back next week and until
then you are dismissed. God bless America Land
that I love Stand beside her and guide her Through
the night with the light from above From the
mountain to the grave To the oceans white with
foam God bless America, my home sweet Home, God
bless America, my home sweet for spacious skies,
for amber waves of green, for purple mountains'
majesty above the fruited plains. America, America,
God His grace on thee, and crown thy good with
brotherhood from sea to shining sea. To the prairies,
to the oceans White with foam God bless Pomp
and Circumstance