Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
Empty Chairs, Full Hearts
The profound impact of policy decisions on veteran lives takes center stage in this urgent discussion about the challenges facing the military community. What began as an Empty Seat Town Hall event has revealed the depth and breadth of concerns affecting veterans across Colorado Springs and beyond.
When over 100 people stand up to share their stories, and each one brings a different concern to the table, it signals something extraordinary is happening. From the PFAS water contamination affecting military families near Fort Carson to the looming economic recession that threatens veterans who purchased homes based on the stability of government positions, the problems are diverse yet universally devastating.
Perhaps most heartbreaking is the discussion around veteran suicide and the VA's "misconduct clause" which can deny benefits to surviving family members when a veteran dies by suicide. This policy creates a cruel double trauma—families lose their loved one and then face financial ruin as benefits are stripped away. As one participant pointedly remarks, "We're pulling the cracks open with forklifts," highlighting how current policies aren't merely allowing veterans to fall through cracks but actively creating dangerous situations.
The conversation takes several unexpected turns, including a candid discussion about political engagement across the spectrum. When an independent voter speaks up at the predominantly progressive event, he's met with respect—a reminder that the issues facing veterans transcend political identity. Whether discussing Steve Bannon's influence or the critical importance of local elections, the hosts emphasize that veterans must engage at every level of governance to protect their hard-earned benefits.
For anyone concerned about veteran welfare or wondering how policy decisions affect real lives, this episode offers a sobering yet motivating look at what's at stake. If you're a veteran with "gas left in the tank," consider running for office or supporting candidates who understand the unique challenges of military life. The time for action is now.
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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Left Face. This is the Pikes Peak Regional Podcast, where we talk about veterans issues and politics. I am your co-host, dick Wilkinson, and I'm joined again today with Adam Gillard. Good morning, adam. Morning Dick. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing great, as usual. I'm happy to be here and happy to talk about the. You know, I think early on in the show when I started working with you about a year ago, a lot of our topics were national level news things, election things and how it's going to relate to veterans. Sometimes we had to draw that connection. But in the last few weeks we've had nothing but topics where it's just 100% direct impact to veterans. So you participated in an event. I know Progressive Veterans here was part of the sponsorship of the event on Monday. We talked about it last week on the episode. It was an empty seat town hall.
Speaker 2:And that drew an interest from the veteran community, from the workers' unions, labor unions that are here and just general community support. Right, yeah, there was definitely a heavy veteran presence online and in person. Just overall, the response was overwhelming. Yeah, you said you maxed out the seats. Yeah, we maxed out the RSVPs. All the seats were filled and people were standing there, so it was a great showing up there. We streamed it on YouTube and Facebook and that had around 500 streams each. The last time I looked there.
Speaker 1:And it's still on YouTube for anybody that wants to go and watch it. Post-event I watched it post-event on YouTube.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I tried to cut out the noise at the beginning. So it's still over two hours, but we had like 100 people stand up and voice their opinion and speak.
Speaker 1:And it was moving too, Like it just tick, tick, tick. It wasn't. As these events can be, Someone gets up there, gets on a ramp and just goes sideways and they're like, you know, you're like hey time, you're out of time. And they're like they just won't shut up. You can't play them off the stage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was none of that, like the whole vibe of the place was there was a strong energy of just people wanting to one be heard and do something. You know, it was just a platform for people to to be able to stand up and voice their opinions and listen to folks too, because that goes a long way too. Even if you just show up and listen, you educate yourself, and then you can take those conversations back out into your community and keep spreading the message firsthand account, righthand account, right, I mean everything.
Speaker 1:There is somebody's first-hand account of how some policy change that's happening is impacting them. Right, that's what everything there was, and so the value of sitting and hearing the first-hand account of other people that are either impacted by the same thing as you you know, a VA reduction, you're worried about that and you hear somebody stand up and say you know, this VA thing has really got me worried, right, you go, all right then. I'm not crazy, I should be concerned, right?
Speaker 2:I'm not making this up, you know, yeah, because I mean so many times. We get all of our information from headlines but, like most of us, don't even have the attention span to read the whole article. That's how I am we literally educate ourselves off of headlines. We literally educate ourselves off of headlines. But when you hear that first-person account and you can actually just sit there and listen to them and they dig in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they have your attention. It means something. I'm hoping it pays pretty immediate dividends for us, because one of the folks that spoke was Liz Rosenbaum. She was on our podcast when she was running. Yes, as a candidate, the money that she talked about on that show, on that podcast when she was running as a candidate? Yeah, um, the money that she talked about on that show, on that podcast for the PFAS cleanup and then investigation into the different kind of contamination with the Trump administration restrictions, that money's been pulled.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's terrible yeah.
Speaker 1:That community down there is going to keep getting. It's just that the rug got pulled out from underneath of that whole thing. Yeah, is going to keep getting poison water. The rug got pulled out from underneath of that whole thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so, uh, but fortunately, um, I was able to uh have a town or a non-town, uh a round table with a Senator Hickenlooper the next day and I brought it up to him and his staff was very interested in trying to help out and get a solution down there. Um, because, that's a heavy, heavy veteran community. That's Carson's backyard right there, so it's a heavy veteran community, and just people in general shouldn't be drinking poisoned water. It's a bad idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've got some historical knowledge of why it's not a good idea. You know, I think so many times in politics we see things that are almost always like one layer removed, right, and you say, okay, well, that's impacting these people. I would I have to kind of empathize with them because that problem is not necessarily impacting me, right, and that's how a lot of political news, for the most part, that's how we experience it, but this is. I find that the event that you had highlights that what is happening in America right now is different than that right there. I can't tell, I can't imagine a category of people that are not impacted by the every change that's going on right now, like because it's so far, reaching so deep, reaching into government in the government services, right. So so these political stories, if you had 20 different people get up, all of them might tell you 20 different things that are going on.
Speaker 2:That's what was really wild when I sat there and listened to all those stories. There wasn't a whole lot of repeats, there wasn't, I know, yeah, the overlap wasn't?
Speaker 1:it wasn't just people standing up going VA.
Speaker 2:VA, va, that wasn't it.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. I don't know what word to use to observe that, but and we're still in the infancy of this whole chaos that's going to be started, just getting started, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so you know, that was the other thing that I really brought up to Senator Hickenlooper was that with this, you know, with our community being, you know, 15% veterans that's not counting spouses and dependents and things like that these you know huge cuts to not just the GS government positions. It's going to bring down government contracts, things like that, like everything's going to shrink. Yep, this community is going to be absolutely decimated and it's going to have like people are living high Localized recession.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and they're living high on the hog right now and there's it's going to drive up suicide rates here. Yeah, like it's not, it's not. I mean, again, we have data on these things where you know, people lose jobs, lose relationships, get into high crushing debt that they've already, these $700,000 houses that are all around there's going to be, why are you talking about?
Speaker 1:my house.
Speaker 2:There's going to be a lot of pain coming towards our community and we need to get some guardrails on, because people are really starting to wake up to what's coming, you know it's a little bit of a departure, but it's worth mentioning.
Speaker 1:And I guess it's my own observation, maybe anecdotal, but I feel like these types of situations that we're talking about, where it's a financial outcome or just the instability piece of like, I thought everything was all good, I thought I had everything kind of locked into place. I'm a veteran, I'm retired, I'm you know, and I've got my job and I'm paying my mortgage and like, insurance is right, everything's on on the right page, and then that rug gets pulled out. I feel, like the veteran population and that you know this is anecdotal, but we're at higher risk for self-harm. But we're at higher risk for self-harm, we already know that. But there's the like, honor and pride aspect that I think we put veterans. A veteran that's facing foreclosure harms himself is significantly higher than the chances of what we call, you know, a non-veteran citizen faces that same challenge. The chances of them causing, you know that, causing self-harm, I feel like, are just almost an order of magnitude less, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know I can't speak to all branches um, like basic training, but like day one of Air Force basic training, you learn that you are an American airman, you will not falter, you will not fail. Right On day two you learn that you're a failure and like it's every day. Like every day, like you're not good enough. You're, you're trying to do things.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, breaking down to rebuild you, right, right, but like, when you start having that water level, like that, it leaves a stain, that stress level, yes, and that stress level never goes away. You know, once you leave work and once you retire, like it's still there. It is, you just don't know why it's there anymore. You know so and yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:That's a different way of referring to the same thing I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:And that's what drives people Like, once they get to that spot where you know I will not fail, but I'm clearly a failure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is an unacceptable level of what I call failure.
Speaker 2:Right. So, yeah, they make the ultimate decision. Yeah, and uh, you know, for us to be be stripping these benefits that are earned by people that, like we were at war for a long time, yes, people did a lot of things that they've they've earned their benefits For sure.
Speaker 1:Um, and we get caught up to in retiree versus a five year service member? Right yeah. And like who earns and who deserves what member? Right yeah. And like who earns and who deserves what? Right yeah, man, one tour in a war zone is a tour in a war zone period right, it doesn't matter is uh one, uh one lady that spoke at the town hall.
Speaker 2:She mentioned that how active duty is kind of left beside. You know, when we talk veterans, sure and like, I understand that, but in my mind's eye I see like active duty members as like veterans in their pupa stage. They're just waiting to grow out of their shell. They'll get here.
Speaker 1:But policy gets talked about with the VA and the money on the veteran side of the house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they'll talk about active duty policy stuff because that happens inside the DOD not so much on the public stage, more on the private, like internal side of the dod, yeah, but when it comes to like when, when we, these organizations out there, like no veteran organization turns away active duty members um generally no, there's, that's not the case unless there's some legal requirement that's like, hey, we can't do this for you, you have to go to, you know, yeah, the medical clinic on base.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but like you know, vf American Legion progressive vets Support groups. Like all these places. When we fight for vets, we're fighting for active duty, oh for sure. So I just want to make sure people understand when I say vets, that's military writ large my little active duty. Pupa is there, I'm counting them?
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure, oh absolutely. Pupa is there. Yeah, I'm counting them. Yeah for sure, oh, absolutely. Um, I mean just the the concept around, if we're making policy changes that affect veterans. Yes, you're right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:All of those people will eventually benefit from whatever policy change is happening now yeah and if we can fold in their experience as an active duty member, then you know we'll. We'll try to do that. That reminds me of the legislation stuff that I worked on down in New Mexico, where it's exactly that it was. Some of the initiatives were purely post service, you know benefits and some of them were actually focused only on active duty military families that were rotating in and out of the state. Cause, from a state level perspective, you want and now with a federal funding stuff, the way it's going you can't jockey for funds and make yourself shiny and pretty the way you used to at a state level. But what used to happen is that the military is always putting out information about, like base realignment and closure. There's always these analysis going on of what's the school system like in this area, what's the cost of living in this area? What's the cost of living in this area? What's the availability of suitable housing for the right pay grades? Right, like those things are all getting analyzed all the time, those levers are pulled at the state and local government level. Right, if you want to improve your attractiveness so that you can keep space command here and not in Alabama, well then, you need to have better schools and an appropriate cost of living and more access to active duty programs. You make yourself attractive by saying we help active duty family members, the spouses that transition into our state, we license them immediately. We don't make them go through a year worth of relicensing. We say you've got a year of grace period, please come to work and we'll get you licensed in our state over the next year. That is very attractive, right.
Speaker 1:And now, if you're trying to decide, as a like we were talking last week, if you're the three-star, four-star looking at your command, moving around somewhere, that quality of life stuff, the recruitment piece is important, and so that's the way that a local community or a state can make themselves more attractive in these decisions, right. So active duty, lifestyle and quality of life is critical for the people that understand it. It's a way to compete, to keep that DOD money in the door and keep those resources flowing, and that only happens, you know, in these kind of special interest lobbying movements, right, where you go. Just a very small percentage of our population are active duty people on basis, but their families have really unique experiences that we need to. We want to support them, right, and that's important. And so, yes, you're absolutely right. The messaging of political movement around veterans is, as often as possible, includes active duty people. Yeah, yeah, absolutely Yep.
Speaker 2:Um, another thing, uh, from the town hall uh, that came up with was there was one independent guy that came up and talked, okay, and uh, yeah, I was. I mean he, he knew what he was getting into, you know, cause he came up and he said and he said and he tried to say you know, we need somebody in the middle that can bring independence and Republicans. You know, republicans are good people and they're just being lied to and like, like, and I understand that argument to a point. But you know, like, for a lie to be successful it takes two people.
Speaker 1:It does the liar and the person and the believer and the believer.
Speaker 2:at some point you have to hold people accountable for still believing the bullshit.
Speaker 1:And so, like we are, we are crossing some of those lines now where hopefulness of like, well, I think he's going to do this and and then the bad thing is not going to happen yeah, it's happening.
Speaker 2:He's doing exactly everything that, yeah, he said he was going to do, but so so the guy still and he knew he was going to kind of get a little harassed for that, but he stood up there and said it. I was like man, good on you. For that's the point of these town halls is not just to be an echo chamber for far left Democrats to holler and scream Get these people up there that have a little bit different opinion and people in the crowd give them their time, Be respectful.
Speaker 1:So I thought that was really cool to actually see a wider net than yeah, even if it's just one, and of course, there were other people in the room that didn't speak that would fall into that category. There were other people that were definitely more independent or were not affiliated voters. There had to be. So that's good. I mean, again, like you said, that person as we talked about in the past, they're going to go and they're going to talk about their experience. Right, they're going to go tell other people that are not maybe very politically active. That independent person is going to say I went to this place and this is what happened.
Speaker 1:That could lead to more interest and activity from that middle, flexible voter base, the more we can talk the future I see on the news all the time. Well, what's the future of the democratic party? How are they going to re-establish a path forward? And like they don't have any power right now so they can't chalk up any wins, and there's all this, you know, talk about. What's the consternation about the future? Right, if it was, it should have always been and it will continue to be that the, the middle, has to be courted, right, I mean, the. The proof in the last election was that.
Speaker 2:You know, the middle was, was lost, you know but, like in our area, the middle didn't even show up like 60 voted. Well, there you go.
Speaker 1:They weren't courted right, the and the last presidential level, they weren't courted well, they were courted with the basically, you don't want that evil thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's always the evil.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was, and that's not courting right. That's like convincing you that which foot do you need to shoot off?
Speaker 2:Yes, chamber electric chair. You're not courting anyone with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so there wasn't any. The message of hope was exclusively for Democrats as far as, like the presidential level campaign, the message for hope was spoke to the Democratic base, and I don't think there was much there that independent for independence. It was like hey, you know, don't worry about how good or bad us as Democrats will be, you just need to worry about how bad Donald Trump will be. Need to worry about how bad Donald Trump will be. That was kind of the democratic message. To court the middle ground was to scare people away from Trump, and it wasn't. You know, flies are attracted to honey, so let's pour honey all over our platform, right, and let's make these middle people believe that the left or that the democratic agenda serves them as well. We said, actually, we kind of don't serve you, you're doing your own thing, and we're over here fighting for these minority groups or these special interest groups or these other groups that you don't fall into, and that's still what we're going to keep doing, but we would love your help.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, it's like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, a lot of labor folks that they just felt like they were been forgotten for 10, 15 years.
Speaker 1:So the courting didn't happen in my mind, right, and so the way to move forward is to court, and having one independent voter show up to an event like that is great. I don't know how you. I mean, it comes down to the language of describing the event you know and and where you hold it, right. I mean, yeah, those kind of things, right?
Speaker 2:I don't know I don't have a solution. Well, and trying to market. You know like all my networks are gonna obviously lean one way, sure you know. So trying to get the word out and market to people. That you know just kind of because a lot of people are upset that we don't have a representative. That's gonna that's having in-person town halls. You know, like it's part of the gig. Man, like, yeah, you know whether you're he's trying to fight to install a monarchy or trying to fight for democracy. This is part of the gig.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like people stand up and get their ass chewed well, and I and I sent you that one thing and it's in between these last two episodes, but I sent it was a video of a guy, um, a representative, that was getting getting raked over the coals. He said now you see why people don't want to come and have these town halls, right, and it was like you, dude like what, what you know yeah.
Speaker 1:And talking about being it was the, it's the like I don't know man. That mentality is basically I'm the school principal. You all are just a bunch of misbehaving little kids in a classroom and I'm here to tell you how to act and if you don't listen to me, you're going to get whooped. Right Like that's what he said to them. Right Like you grown-up voters that really do matter in my future of my work. You guys need to shut up and color right.
Speaker 2:And what frustrates me is you never get good, clean answers from them on anything. No, you know and I learned in my leadership trainings and the ethical training classes that we go through that if you can't tell your kids, if you can't tell your grandparents what you're doing, it's not ethical. You're in the wrong lane. You should not be fucking doing that.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely and you're absolutely right. Yes, absolutely and you're absolutely right. I mean, in the uh, just when, when there are times and I'll say this there in not the current era, but in the past there's always somebody who's going to show up to something. They're going to put out some type of topic. It's usually a very weird, um fringe topic. They'll bring it to that politician and they'll say you know, um, just, you know, kind of, like I say, weird fringe topic thing.
Speaker 1:But it's a small group of people and they're in some place and they're like hey, if we don't get um new stripes painted on this road out here, we're going to have three traffic fatalities next year. And they get in there and they just want to own the you know the whole topic with some special little thing like that Um, own the. You know the whole topic with some special little thing like that Um, that's not what's going on in any of these places right now. It's not weird fringe people coming and making a point and putting on a stunt, right, it's not that at all. It's genuine people talking about very broad reaching issues. And the the Republican politicians, are just 100 percent empty handed right now. Right, they're just saying listen. If you don't lick Trump's boot, you won't understand.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And I hear a person who has never licked this boot before. So you're just not going to get it. You're welcome to leave the room now, right, and I'm like damn, I just can't believe the. It's so in your face. It is so blatant of like there is no answer. We're just in lockstep with whatever this dude thinks he's doing. We as a co-equal branch of government are not going to do anything and stop asking.
Speaker 2:That's what they're saying. That basically means you're giving away your power. They are, you know, they are the power of the purse, the power to you know actually legislate.
Speaker 1:And to complain about hearing your constituents tell you about real problems, right, that's its own form of giving up your power, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that's always the two biggest things when they talk about what we do as legislators. You know what we do as legislators. The biggest thing that we do is constituent services and we answer phone calls and we take care of you guys.
Speaker 2:Horseshit, here we are. People are now not getting responses. It's just sad. The event itself was phenomenal. Luce got a hold of me a week before that whole thing went. I took about 10 days and that thing was set up, um and uh, yeah uh. Deanna is another big helper. Colleen, like the other four of us, just kind of did that in a week. So thank you to all of them that helped out. That's excellent. Everybody that showed up, set up chairs Awesome, Appreciate everybody Uh you.
Speaker 1:I did hear that MSNBC gave a little shout-out a little run.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they really appreciated it was the Rachel Maddow show. She really appreciated the mini crank head on the Folgers can. Oh, yeah, yeah, she made a comment about that, but yeah, it was just like a segment where they go around the country and show different protests around. Yeah, yeah, and we made that. So that was pretty cool, definitely more coverage than we're used to getting around this area, for sure. One person even talked about the whole Steve Bannon thing. Have you been following that at all?
Speaker 1:Oh, that he was going to be at Antlers, yeah, and then it got canceled, okay. But see, they did a Trump rally late last year and we're all about it, right. They were like come on and get your Trump on down here at Adler's. Trump's a little different than Steve Bannon.
Speaker 2:Steve Bannon's a little bit further right, because the whole Z-Hail that CPAC, Well yeah. So when you sign Steve Bannon, you're making a deliberate statement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't think they cared. No, they don't they don't?
Speaker 2:So Phil Long Music Hall is now hosting it. The old Boot Barn, yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'll definitely not be going to any shows at.
Speaker 2:Boot Barn or to that music hall. Yeah, I don't buy new cars anyway, so I can't boycott his cars Sure sure. But yeah, if you're a company that brings in somebody that just spews hate like that, it's going to bring a lot of the white supremacists out in this area.
Speaker 1:We have some up in the North. It will be that kind of rally.
Speaker 2:So it's good, it's going to be gross up there, yeah. So I hope folks just stay away from it and just don't give it attention, because if you go there to protest you're going to A counter protestprotest type situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there will be somebody out there who does that. Oh, there sure will be, because anywhere Steve Bannon goes, somebody sets up a counter-protest right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is good, because dude shouldn't be? I mean, everyone has a right to free speech, but the people who don't agree with them have the right to come and say they don't agree with them. Right, we need to do that, yeah, yeah, you know, just real quick, side, little side, jaunt Steve Bannon. Right, we've always known that he's a puppet master to some degree, right, yeah, and he's maintained somehow. That's the strange thing. How many people in Trump's orbit have that kind of staying power? Bannon's been around the whole time, man, since day one. Yeah, he's like the only one.
Speaker 2:Even.
Speaker 1:Giuliani has been gone for years. At this point you would have thought giuliani would have been that like stick of thieves kind of guy. But bannon, is that guy, right? Yeah, and so I think is he still useful? That's he is, and um, but you know he can survive talking. Uh, smack about elon, right, like he's out here throwing rocks at elon like this dude's dumb. He's not an american. I don't know why everybody thinks he's so cool. Well, steve doesn't like that, because Elon's taking his job.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean he's the number one ear bender.
Speaker 2:That was.
Speaker 1:Steve's job was to ear bend Donald Trump.
Speaker 2:And now he's on the other shoulder Both devils.
Speaker 1:yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Bannon had an office in the West Wing that he called his own little war room, and then when he left the White House he went and set it up down in Texas, wherever the hell he is now, but yeah.
Speaker 1:He doesn't like the competition for the number one earbender, so here's but I mean my little jaunt is, steve Bannon has been kind of like Project 2025. He's always had this sort of over long reaching agenda of certain things he wanted to achieve. Right, european control and the dissolution of like power in Europe that could be replaced with right wing ideology in Europe. Right, because Europe as we know Americans, we see Europe as generally further to the left overall from a social perspective. That's been the movement in Europe since World War II really is a lot of social effort Even before that no-transcript it was based on european influence and they had it for like 20 years, sure, sure.
Speaker 1:So there you go right, there's, there's always been a uh, it's the, you know, the birth of a lot of liberal ideas and liberalism is is out of europe, right? Well, steve bannon apparently, you know, has had a fairly long and detailed plan of how to deconstruct liberalism in Europe and, just like, instead of Project 2025 is the American extension of that. But the plan to destabilize Europe and replace all the leaders there with people like Orban and the labor, remove the labor parties and instill the right wing, you know, conservative parties in Germany and in the UK and those kinds of places. That's been a overt, not a conspiracy. It's been an overt kind of campaign, secret, little back campaign thing that's been going on in Bannon's world the whole time. I did not realize that.
Speaker 2:And what blows me away is that this, like deliberate attack on liberalism, is a deliberate attack on, like, the founding principles of our nation.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But he sells it as patriotic to hate liberalism, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:There's one brand and flavor of liberal you know of of patriotism that counts right. There's one brand and flavor of you know of of patriotism that counts right. There's one brand and flavor of of american flag waving that counts. And if you do it in any other way, yeah, even if you are, are truly a patriot and really do care, if you don't do it in in the way that he thinks it should be done, you're, you're just, you're an outsider, you're the enemy, you're a terrorist. I just didn't realize how much kind of finger in the pie Steve Bannon has had as far as, like deconstructing NATO and convincing Trump that NATO is just the worst thing in the world. Right, like that. Is that? That is purely Bannon's like brainchild to do that and to keep that kind of focus? Well, steve Bannon may have his you know druthers over Europe, but we're going to shift topics. What?
Speaker 2:is druthers.
Speaker 1:Druthers, you know he has these ideas and choices and you know he wants to. He has these certain ways. He wants things to be when does that? Word come from. I've never heard that.
Speaker 2:You've never heard that, druthers. I'm a fairly well-educated person.
Speaker 1:I have my druthers about that Interesting. Yeah, it's like thoughts, maybe reservations, maybe you know, I have my own ideas you know Interesting?
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, I'll have to slip that in. Well, there you go. Now you have a new word.
Speaker 1:Um, he has that about Europe but we have a much more, uh, much more serious topic. That unfortunately is. It comes close to home. Um, I've known people that have, that have been impacted by this same set of circumstances. Um, we're going to talk about veteran suicide for a moment, and not just veteran suicide, but the what's left behind for families and people that are connected to this tragic event to have to deal with Um and the prevailing understanding that, you know, there's some misunderstandings about what happens when these things happen.
Speaker 1:On the active duty side of the house, it almost doesn't matter how you perish. If you're a service member, the benefits of life insurance and a death financial disbursement are issued to your family with very little question or scrutiny. It just kind of doesn't matter what happened. Right, whether you die in combat, whether you die by suicide or you just slip off a ladder, it doesn't matter. For veterans and for people under the VA side of the house, the VA healthcare system, and that are relying on benefits that are from the VA and government perspective, versus the active duty and DOD perspective, the conversation is a lot different and there's been a news article this week in CNN some news coverage, I should say about the follow-on effects of when veterans take their lives and they're on the VA system, there's a lot of complications for their family to pursue those benefits that they're owed. So, adam, do you have? You know? I know we've both got some experiences with this, but what's the? What's the kind of recent movement on this topic that you're aware of? Um?
Speaker 2:so the uh, the benefit that you're talking about is the dependency and indemnity compensation DIC. Um, that that's the one that uh gives money to your dependents after you pass, so that, if you're a disabled veteran, that if you're a disabled veteran, if you're a disabled veteran and, like you know, the soul winner, the breadwinner and things like that they lose, that it gives them a little something to get back on their, you know, get life started again.
Speaker 2:Right To. Maybe you know, if you're, say, a child whose parent committed suicide, you get to go to therapy in high school versus having to get a job. You know, if you're, say, a child whose parent committed suicide, you get to go to therapy in high school versus having to get a job.
Speaker 1:You know things like that.
Speaker 2:They're not living high on the hog.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're not handing people keys to a new fight and prove things, because this benefit if it's a death or just or. I'm gonna read just how it says um, if a veteran's death or disability is determined to be the result of their own willful misconduct, their surviving family or veteran themselves may not be eligible for dic or other va benefits. So this misconduct clause that's inside of our VA structure here says that if you're suicide is obviously veteran misconduct. If you're speeding in traffic, if you're A DUI, yeah, drunk rock climbing, that's on you, yeah, like that's on you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're taking a really high risk situation, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you pass. They cut your benefits off and now your spouse that was relying on you for everything. Not only do they lose their spouse or their mother, or father now they have to worry about bills and it just compounds on each other A lot of these vets that make this ultimate decision. They have the thought process that people are better off and this is easier, and these are the long-term ramifications that you know.
Speaker 2:One, I don't think it weighs into their factors at all yeah, that's what we agreed on, that yeah but these are those secondary third effects that people don't understand and like it's going to have a ripple effect in this community because this community is going to get really hit hard with this. Um, you know, yeah, we made the statement earlier. I hate to beat the dead horse here, but the dod is like pulling the Um, you know?
Speaker 1:yeah, we made the statement earlier. I hate to beat the dead horse here, but the DOD is like pulling the cracks open. You know we worry about veterans slipping through the cracks and that's usually the story you hear. When someone you know takes their life outside of the VA, they go oh, this guy slipped through the cracks, this guy or gal, we're pulling the cracks open with forklifts right now.
Speaker 2:You know people Sparta, kicking them down into the gap going.
Speaker 1:We don't care about you, Right, and? And there's, there's, you know, just right, here in El Paso County there's a hundred people that have lost their jobs, that don't know the way forward. They are hearing headlines about how the VA is going to turn off certain benefits. They're getting emails from the VA in their own inbox saying this thing we were going to do, we're not doing it anymore. Right, and that's scary, right.
Speaker 1:You know the resource that you, as an active duty person, you know you've got this safety net underneath of you and you've got layers and layers and layers of like things that are going to fall out of the sky to help you deal with problems. Right, Then, once you get on the other side of that and you're a veteran, a lot of those layers disappear and you may. Maybe the VA is the only safety net you feel like you have. And now you're getting headlines and emails and text messages and phone calls saying we at the VA care about you, but we're not going to do this program anymore. Right, and you're saying that's the only safety net I have. And now I just lost my job and I don't have health care benefits that I had for my job. I don't have those anymore, and now I'm concerned that the VA is not going to do their part for me and my family. Yeah, people are going to suffer from that and there's going to be people that hurt themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so the family members that are left behind suffer, and this is actually something that the progressive vets have been working for a long time. The previous chair, kent Jarnag he actually worked with Senator Bennett and Senator Hickenlooper's offices and got them to sign letters kind of explain this. This was a few years ago and they sent it to the VA secretary at the time and the VA's response was yeah, we don't support suicide.
Speaker 1:No, kidding, nobody is Nobody supports suicide, yeah.
Speaker 2:But they did not address the issue. And here we're now again, and this guy that did the article Kent's been working with him for a few years now, and so Kent tipped me off to the article being dropped. So I could tell Senator Hickenlooper. But you know this guy, jeff Winters. His article's on CNN right now. It might have been picked up by Jake Tapper and things like that, but it's out there and it's starting to get traction and people need to be aware that these types of laws are. Not only are we having things pulled away from us, but we still need to fight for things that we should have had. In the beginning. We weren't done fighting for all the benefits that we've earned to begin with, and now things are pulling back.
Speaker 2:We can't forget about these other fights. Sure, we need to keep, yeah.
Speaker 1:Don't, don't. The shiny ball right, which is distraction, is part of the plan right For our, for the current administration distraction and too many moving parts, so you never know what's doing what. That's part of the plan, right, you know. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. If we lose visibility on things like this that have been in our lives and in our communities for years, because we get distracted by some headline about Pete Hegseth, Well, that's disservice to all of us. Right? We need to know what's going on and not lose sight of these issues, Because what we're talking about here is a spouse, male or female, doesn't matter the family that's left behind when a service member hurts themselves and, as Adam and I mentioned earlier, you know the idea that policy that government leaders believe policy impacts the decision of a service member to take their own life or not.
Speaker 1:Right, that's almost certainly not the case. Right, Just the same. As you know, I don't want to compare them, but when someone's out committing a crime, in often cases they're not thinking about the consequence, right? They don't think. Man, I sure hope I don't go to jail for 10 years right, that's just not in their mind.
Speaker 2:you know I haven't checked the updated statutes yet. Yeah, let me see Is the death penalty worthy or not.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure, right, but I'll take it just to this line and then I'll stop before I get to the death penalty line, right? No, and so that same. You know, we can't afford the clear-headed mentality to anybody who's in a position of mental health concern to say well, you knew the rules right.
Speaker 2:You read all the VA regulations before you took all that. You signed this piece of paper. Yeah, yeah, it's ridiculous. I mean I think most people that are probably listening to this have had those dark clouds. Well, if you hurt yourself, your family won't get anything.
Speaker 1:That's not having the effect that we hope it has at all, right, and so it's not helping anyone, right? So if we're looking at policies that don't help people, maybe we need to either change the policy or just get rid of that whole line in the book, right? Just delete that line, you know. Get rid of the misconduct clause, because it's not very realistic to the outcomes of what service members and veterans are experiencing and that's what I recommended to Senator Hickenlooper.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it bounced off the wall on that one. But because, even if you know, we talked a little bit too about the if the service member was just a dirtbag and just doesn't like, the service member himself doesn't deserve benefits. You know, if they do some violent crime, some horrific crime against children maybe they don't, but then in the process they kill themselves you're going to take the money away from the victims of his crimes.
Speaker 1:Right. That person didn't ask for this penalty, right.
Speaker 2:You're punishing the victims of this horrific situation and if there's some crazy CSI SVU episode that comes out of something and it's just some weird twists and turns, cool, we'll look into it. We'll figure out that fraud Right. But we can't assume that everybody out there is trying to defraud the government, especially victims of suicide.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the blanket approach is the problem right now, and the blanket should basically just be turned in the total opposite direction. Right, you know, of like, let's assume this is real and valid and you need this help, and then if there's some just something totally fishy and obviously wrong, we'll investigate. But we're going to start with the assumption that this is a real claim, you really need this help, and that there's not. There's nothing fishy going on here, right, People don't show up asking for you know, it's not the same as buying a life insurance policy and then murdering your spouse that CSI episode and that's a real thing, and you know we understand why that happens. This is not that, you know this is just not that.
Speaker 1:And so putting it into that category, treating it like any other type of life insurance situation, is really a misjudgment of the whole situation from a government policymaker or from someone who's trying to impact the problem to go well. Just just like life insurance, you don't want to give people the incentive to die. That's just not what we're dealing with here, you know.
Speaker 2:So yeah, oh man, yeah, yeah, it's just crazy and, like we said, in the veteran community we have a higher risk of suicide. So, you know, if you're listening and us talking about, this made you think about somebody reach out to them.
Speaker 1:You're aware that the government does not always have your back, your family, you know. If you have the clear head to hear this message now and understand what impacts it could have on your family, you know, ask for help now. Don't wait and don't let these types of things if anything, they should motivate us to go out and do even more to protect each other Right. Like. It's time to close ranks and help each other out.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, if you think of somebody who's at risk, you call them, you reach out to them. There's a funny I can't remember if it was somebody I talked to, if it was a cartoon, but but if somebody like talking to a therapist, and the therapist asked if they had any suicidal ideations and it was a veteran on the couch and he responds you know, normal amount, yeah. And the therapist is like, well, zero is the normal amount, right.
Speaker 1:Oh, not the normal amount then. Yes, yeah, yeah, and I've definitely had that conversation. I'm like it's about the same. Yeah, okay, yeah, I've had that for sure. Yeah, I think a lot of us have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we all have For sure, you know, on this side of the coin, have. Well, I think that this is again. I always want to have a call to action for people to get involved with politics and we talked, you know, in the last few episodes about if demonstrations and protests are your best avenue for action. Please do that. But I would like to, you know, we've got the potential. You know we talked about red wave and blue wave and these political movements over the past few election cycles.
Speaker 1:Man, if there was ever a reason to motivate somebody to get up off the couch and run for office at any level direct impact to you, your neighbors, your brothers and sisters, your, your friends and comrades in arms like that that should be the thing that if you ever thought well, it's not going to impact me, so I don't have to run for office. It's not going to impact me, so I don't need to lobby. It's not going to impact me, so I don't have to go talk to my Congressman. It's impacting all of us now. And so I want the call to action to be if you're a veteran and you have some gas left in the tank, please run for office, please help protect these benefits.
Speaker 1:Please be the voice in the room that can tell somebody that comparing regular life insurance of a 50-year-old man to the life insurance policies of a veteran is just not the same, and we need to be in the room to have that conversation so that we can affect these policies. Otherwise, it's me and Adam talking into a podcast we got to talk to. You know that's helpful, but we have to be saying these things to our elected officials as well, or we need to be the elected officials that are saying these things. So that's my big call to action here is don't let somebody else suffer. If you have the chance to do something about it, please do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and don't take any election off either.
Speaker 1:Correct. We have an April 1st election.
Speaker 2:There's never yeah, Ballots are out. Make sure you get your ballots. In April, 1st November school board elections. That's going to be huge. That was how MAGA really infiltrated a lot of places. It was starting at school board and city council levels. So like we need to get back into these races and actually start having tough conversations in our communities. I agree, and that's where RET's come in handy, because we've done it our whole career.
Speaker 1:We don't mind standing up to a little bit of heat, right, right yeah.
Speaker 2:In the most diverse workforce ever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, so like we can speak from experience, yeah, you run into everybody.
Speaker 2:So, yep, all right, man. Well, let's wrap this one up. Thanks for joining us again in this episode of Left Face.
