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Boom, bop, pow. Welcome back to the Point Taken Podcast, guys. We have a really, really awesome episode for you. We had three special guests on today. We had Mr. Cody, Evan, and Jake. We're talking about some sensitive topics today.
We did get into some of the nitty gritty, the details, some graphic content. So here's just a little heads up. If PTSD is something that you struggle with or you're very easily triggered, come into this knowing that and gently.
Let's get into the episode. Can you give us a little background on why do we have the three of you guys here with us today? What's your testimony within this?
So I got 15 years of EMS, have an EMT license, been working for the fire department for going on a decade, been on ambulance off and on the whole time. So that's why we're here, I guess I've seen a lot of things, seen one or two things.
What about you, brother?
So I did a stint with the Marine Corps Infantry. I was with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines when they were in Sangin in 2010 and 2011. I don't want to say those details because people can go look it up in the news.
It was the most kinetic deployment that Marines have had since Vietnam, and that bore out in the casualty rate. So that would be the background. I have never had PTSD, however, a lot of my guys have, and justifiably so, I think.
And I've helped a lot of people through it, so after I left the Marine Corps, came back here, I kind of started a self-defense ministry. Didn't mean for it to be a ministry, turned into a ministry. Was going to be a business, and it turned into this thing where I'd get weird people come to self-defense classes, it might sound weird, but there's a certain kind of person that goes to a self-defense class, and a lot of people that need self-defense classes don't go to self-defense classes, or it's a class that's not actually going to be helpful to them.
So I was trying to bridge that gap, and what it turned into is a lot of people needed to talk about some stuff, or work through some stuff in order to even do that kind of stuff.
Jake, I feel like you're the most qualified. Can you explain PTSD? Like define it? Can I define it? Yeah. I feel like, of all of us, you've probably...
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. So it'd be a disorder...
No. If you hook it on phonics, I'm sure I'll pick it up eventually. I wasn't Marine, but...
So it's uncontrolled stress as a result of a traumatic event, or prolonged exposure to traumatic events, is how I guess. Just making stuff up.
Something up right now. Again, like I said, I felt like you would be the best one to spitball a ballpark definition, whereas... I don't know about you. I wasn't going to speak for you, Cody. I was going to drop the ball on that.
Let me at least try to be honest. Yeah.
So what's your experience with that, Cody? Mine's similar to Evan. I've been with the fire department for, I think, going on nine years now. I've had my EMS license since 2014, so I've had that for 10 years.
Grew up with a dad who suffered from PTSD from his combat tours. He was in the 82nd Airborne, so October of 1983, Operation Urgent Fury, down in Grenada, when they rescued hostages with the Marine Corps down there.
And then some other stuff over in Africa that he couldn't talk about. What was the time period? Time period of... This stuff in Africa. Jake knows it. Between 79 and 83? So, yeah. And then just seeing things that I've seen around, being in the job, it's never...
Not always easy, especially when you start dealing with kids and other stuff. The kids are always some of the worst, but that's about where I stand with that.
Is that something that you feel like you have had to struggle with yourself? About 100%. Okay.
100%. Not to go off on a tangent, but for a little rabbit trail, there was a period of time that we had quite a few bad calls come out. My dad passed away in August of 2017, and then we made a three-car accident right after New Year's, so January 2018.
Had two people burn up in a car. There was one that had her head split open, and then the other guy had three second and tib fracture, and then a couple months later, had another one that was another bad wreck that we ended up having to extricate somebody or cut them out of the car.
And then going down to that following Christmas, we made a head-on collision on 14 when they were doing all that construction work. It was down two lanes, and it was a head-on collision between a Mercedes and a little RAV4.
And we were working the wreck, getting mom taken care of, because she was completely unresponsive. And they had a little two-year-old that was in the back that was in a car seat. And then as we were taking care of her and got the kid out, I looked down, and I said, what is that?
And I picked it up, and it was a kid that was folded up in the floor. And unfortunately, that was, I think it was the 23rd of December, so days before Christmas. And unfortunately, he didn't end up making it.
I think he was five. But going along those lines of those things and how it all just transpired, going back to what Jake said about a prolonged stressor or being involved in a prolonged stressor. And it's subjective, because everybody handles it differently.
What may be traumatic to me may not be traumatic to Evan. Right. And vice versa. So this one in particular, I woke up one night in the bed all hearing that little boy call my name. And about 1 .30 in the morning, I was like, what?
What is that? And I sat there, and I started again. I was like chills, shivered down your back. I went, yanked up the curtain in the bed hall, and I was looking. I was like, where is this? Did a little kid just get into the fire station and run around that happens to know my name?
And then just certain sounds and stuff. Smells. Like after that burnt car wreck. I mean, I don't know how graphic we need to...
As honest and graphic as you feel comfortable. Oh, well. Buckle up.
Cowboy up, boys. When you've got someone who gets fatally burnt, it's actually at a point where they're unrecognizable of what sex they are, if they're male or female, or how old they are. It smells like burnt barbecue.
Take a pork shoulder and throw it in the fire and just let it rip, let it burn. That's what it smells like. So after that one car wreck where we had those two people burn up. I didn't eat barbecue for like probably a month and a half.
It just wasn't appetizing. You can smell it. I was like, ugh. It just wasn't super great. And then, of course, just random. When we were on that wreck, the car caught on fire before we got there. We got there, and it started burning the power lines above us.
So I was like, hey, y 'all got to move them out of the way because you're about to be... Yeah. Riding the lightning, per se. We were pulling it back. I grabbed the sheriff's deputy, and this guy's just screaming the whole time.
Because obviously, he's got some major injuries. But for probably two months, I'd just randomly hear that dude screaming. Not cool, man. It'll eat you away if you don't go speak to somebody who's been in that type of situation, or go see a therapist or a psychologist, which I did.
Ended up getting all that squirted away. Took a little bit, but...
Yeah. Do you see somebody independently, or is that provided through your work?
You can choose to go independently. We have an EAP, or Employee Assistance Program, that they use. Now, I will say that she was not geared towards military or first responders. She was just a basic life counselor, therapist, or whatever.
There was a little bit of a disconnect on certain things. She's like, I might go sit here and act like I do understand, because I don't, because I've never been in that situation. Now, we've got peer support teams and stuff on the fire department, at least with our department.
A group of guys went to a counseling slash de-escalation class up in Bollinger in Kentucky. They went through and got everything they needed to help the guys in our department. They do that on their own.
They don't think they get paid for it or anything. Something happens, a bad incident happens, they'll do a debriefing. Those guys will show up and help everybody work through it, be an asset for them.
Do you guys have a stigma among paramedics and firefighters about talking about something that sits heavy on you? Because under the military, until very recently, between the stigma and having good in-house support and the military recognizing, hey, this is important and we need to push guys to do this, until very recently, those two things just kept
You're not a Marine if you're talking about stuff. You have to deal with your own crap. Oh yeah, no, 100%. I know they contest. A lot of the old heads were like, man, these guys, I don't know what you're
Okay, it's part of it, it's a job. Suck it up. Yeah, suck it up, move on, get your stuff back on the scale. We got another run to go on.
It was usually funny. The old guy would find something that would really catch you off guard. Like, hey, go pick that helmet up. Some dude's head's rolling around in it. You get some guy that didn't expect it.
He's in the corner, distraught, puking his guts up. Four dudes are laughing at him. That's kind of more the generation of fire department I came up on. Yeah, same.
And now it's really, like you said here, till recently. I think there's been, over the past four to five years, there's been a big move on being more conscious Conscious. Conscious, thank you. Of the repercussions and the issues that come with PTSD.
Because there's been big movements with the 22 22 veterans a day commit suicide as a result. So there's all kinds of stuff out there for that. I know Reverend Moyers does it. And they have quite a few other ones.
Fire departments are all getting into it. Because it's notably really starting to affect people. And now it's more open. Because you used to not talk about it. You used to just tuck it away. I remember my dad telling me growing up.
He's like, you don't talk about that. He's like, you just figure it out. You get over it and you go home. You just kind of push it back and compartmentalize it in a little box.
And go on about your life. Because I can understand the idea behind introducing the new guy to something terrible. So how do we bridge that and ease people into that type of line of work? Where you can deal with those things in a better way?
Rather than the forced shock value and stuff.
A little bit of it is training. And quality training. But I think the reality is unless you're a sociopath That's going to affect you. More than training. Fundamentally, if you are spiritually not squared away.
It'll get you at some point. It'll get to you at some point. I'm 100 positive. That's the only reason I never ended up with PTSD. I didn't know a whole lot at 22. But I knew God was sovereign. And really internalizing that.
And I was solid in my identity as a Christian.
That's 100 consistent when you think high stress, bad decisions, things that happen. Knowing what defines you and it being Christ first. Because the thing that gets a lot of guys is the job defines them.
He is an awesome firefighter.
I am a firefighter. He's an awesome Marine.
He's an awesome firefighter. And then you look at their personal life and it's absolute trash. The world's burning around them but they're good at their jobs. That's great that for the next 25 years you'll be really good at what you do.
But when you leave here no one will care anything about what you did or what you're doing now.
You've got 16 broken marriages. Four kids that don't talk to you. And that's not a little thing. In my opinion, the vast majority of dudes that have trouble coming out of the military. It's not PTSD. Because most of them haven't seen anything.
Or not justifiably. The guys getting diagnosed with PTSD who their buddy they went to boot camp with in another unit on another deployment was blown up and they have PTSD. Or were you there? No. Did you see it?
No. So you knew this person who went through something bad. The reality was if you dig through that they got out of the military. Them being 18 coming out of high school. They don't have an identity yet.
They go into the Marine Corps. They latch onto that because it's the first really hard substantive thing they've done in their life. That's what they are now.
I'm a man because of this. If you're identifying as I'm a believer first. That's where it starts. I got one of the guys I work with. He made the comment. I was like what's the trick to make sure you don't end up really messed up.
Because he's coming up on 25 years. He's like have something more than just the job. Take care of your family. Be more than just your job. He goes when I transition out of this job I'm going to struggle.
Because I work every other day. I'm like hmm. For me with the paramedics. I don't save people. I give you the best statistical chance. The rest is between you and God. I'm not going to take the responsibility of saving you.
If I take the responsibility of saving you. That means I take the responsibility of you dying.
Like it's a lot of people.
Having laid out I'm a believer. God is sovereign. For me. I just expect to see something bad every time I go to work. On my drive I go. I'm going to see a dead baby today. I start there. To me that's the starting point of a terrible day.
Or a day that's happened that was terrible. Whichever way that should be said. I always start there. Every day that you don't see that. It's a better day. I've found the times that things have really bothered me.
After the fact. It has more to do with. I didn't know what to do in the situation. If I had just thought this through. What I would do in the situation. It's making a decision in a panic. Well I've had more facts.
I wish I had a better idea of what to do. But a lot of times when you think about. When this happens I'll make these steps. Even if you struggle through those steps. Kind of mentally walking through that process beforehand.
I feel like drastically dictates. How things unfold.
Yeah being prepped. Yeah. Let's talk about the difference between. Post-traumatic stress disorder. And general post-traumatic stress. Would you say. Evan that you have dealt with. The post-traumatic stress disorder at all.
Probably not.
Yeah. Actually me and Jake actually talked about this. I've had things that have bothered me. After the fact. But it hasn't created. Like I still. So like instead of being stuck in the moment. And not being able to move past it.
I've ran into situations where it put me in a bond. And I had to chew on it longer. And process it out. Yeah.
I think we would struggle to. Like I think the official. Defining parameters for a lot of that stuff. Aren't as hard. Where they are clearly defined. Are not clearly played out in real people. You know.
Like I could say that I have. Post-traumatic stress. Things you know. The smell of ammonia. Stuff right. The Taliban would make IEDs out of. High ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Right. That's in the smell of one of those going off.
Right. And I've been blown up probably three dozen times. It was just the last one that was. They got it. They were trying for a while. Yeah. Weird thing like some. Farmer burning a big old pile of whatever.
Out where I live in Somerville. Well that's some weird feelings. Yeah. That can take you back there. But. You know I think. Pushing those things to a disorder. I think we'd struggle to try to. You know.
Whatever we want to call it here in this discussion. You know. But I think. I think you'd struggle to like turn that into a disorder. As far as just defining it. Yeah. Maybe if. Outside of those circumstances.
Like it's random. You know it's happening all the time as opposed to. Without need without a trigger. Yeah. Yeah. So you've got like post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic stress disorder. Are the same thing.
So initially back. You said are or not. They are. So in. Around the Civil War time it was. They called it a soldier's heart. I believe. World War One it was shell shock. And that traveled all the way through Vietnam.
And in the early 80s is when the post-traumatic stress disorder. First came around. And then now you know you can't say disorder because it's offensive. So the post-traumatic. It's not post-traumatic stress.
It's no longer post-traumatic stress disorder. But some people it can be a disorder. For those who don't get the help and stuff. It can 100 percent be something that is just constantly eating away at them.
So you're saying it's the same thing in the letter. And just like that. It's called the same thing now. But do you feel like it is literally the same thing. Post-traumatic stress. And post-traumatic stress disorder.
Split hairs I guess. Yeah. I mean it's it. I think that comes down to a personal.
Situational basis. It may be for somebody like I said maybe bad enough to where it's a constant thing. They're having to deal with. And then other things. Like you know. Smell of burnt rubber. Ammonia or barbecue or whatever.
That makes you take you back to those places. It's kind of like a. I don't want to think about that. And then you know you go on because you've already addressed that. It's been put in a compartmentalizing manner.
Really bad about. Compartmentalizing things and not one. Myself included obviously. So yeah. I would consider them mostly the same thing. It's just how more prevalent.
It is. Like I always think of the disorder. Like when you get tied up and you can't move past. Like you know we got talking about. A while back like. There's a big difference between you freeze up and you're stuck.
In that moment. You can't get past it versus. Oh that's weird. All right. Let's take a deep breath. All right. Let's deal with this and you move forward like the. OK we're going to process that out versus.
I'm stuck on this and I can't move. I'm frozen here in this time. This space. That's what I always think of when I think of like. The weird things that show up afterwards. Versus like a disorder or PTSD.
Like I always think PTSD is like something. You're unable to resolve. Or unwilling to face and resolve. Like psych ward worthy. Yeah. But like I mean there's. I've seen some guys like I don't need that.
No. You're like. Like one of the guys he's like I don't eat gravy. Why is that. Like hmm. You see the inside of your skull.
I don't need gravy. All right. Fair enough. But unresolved trauma. Right. Lots of people have unresolved trauma. It's you know when it builds up. And now it's affecting you even without those triggers.
Right. Yes.
You know. Like it's always kind of this lingering.
Like you have in order to think something happens. It causes you to feel this way. Boom. But disorder means without order. So without need of something to trigger it. That's just the way I always thought of it.
I'm not saying that's right or wrong. Yeah. Somewhere I've always fallen on it.
Well regardless my question would be. And Jake you mentioned that you have helped people through some of this. These things that they've had to deal with. What are some practical tips. Or how. How is it.
How is it that you helped guide them through that to help overcome. Well it's processing. You have to be able to. The thing is with trauma.
Right. I think everyone. The guys at this table. You know. It's easy to point to a mutilated human body. Right. Whatever means car crash explosion bullet. That that's. That's good. It's hard. You can't fabricate that image.
You know you can go to the worst movies. And it can be a whole lot worse. You can't. Hollywood can't reproduce. You know what can. What happens to the human body in various circumstances every day. That's.
That's an that's an easy one. But it can be. Emotional abuse. Prolonged emotional abuse. A really. Rough. Situation that happened one time. There. There's a lot of things that can. Induce that. It could be something that almost happened.
You know it's not even necessarily something that did.
But. Your brain just realizes the reality of. So.
So either right. Dudes who do it as a profession and you compartmentalize it. You put it in the compartment. And that's processing. Right. It's in the compartment. Quote unquote. Yeah. Yeah. As long as the compartment don't fill up for OK.
And as long as the structural integrity of the compartment doesn't. Right. Here's three inches of rope. Six inches of rope. Now you have three feet. Now stand on the chair. I'm going to go to the hardware store.
Grab a hammer. But. Whether it's that. Like I'm intentionally not processing because I don't have time right now. I'll do that when I retire or I'll do that tomorrow. You know what tomorrow. I don't know how to process.
How do I begin to process. What do I even do with this. Either way it's unprocessed. It's unprocessed trauma. And. What I've noticed is. People carrying on over time. That almost becomes. It becomes stronger.
The more. It isn't dealt with. But the inverse is true. If you can start. To figure out how to process it. Like. What some military guys will do. Is. They will record themselves. Stepping through. Whatever incident that was.
Maybe multiple incidents. Right. They'll record themselves. And it'll be like in a. Very. As if they were reporting it to a superior officer. Right. On this date. I. Corporal Jake Romo. Was on a foot patrol in.
Saying. Right. Whatever as many details as they can. This is what. And then this stuff happened. This is what it smelled like. This is what I looked to my left and saw. Right. There's no. And. They'll listen to it.
Every once in a while. And the point. The intention is to put yourself back there in that space. OK. Until this is at least. This is part of this. This is part of this. Something that happened. It happened.
Something that happened. And OK. Now. Now it's normal that this happened. Right. It's not compartmentalized. And I'm fabricating a normal. Right. That's what compartmentalizing is. Put that aside because normal is over here.
Right.
And this is outside of that. And it doesn't fit within my parameters of what should be. Yeah.
Beyond that. Your. Your body holds trauma to. You know. There was. A woman I worked with. Who ended up. Coming to the church here later. Barb. And in the early days. You know, she was older. But like, you know, she could.
She could tango with the. With the self-defense crew. And she would be fine. Until. And that could be as simple as somebody. Touched her. Not even in like a martial sense. Right. Just touched her wrist.
And it was the right one, not the left one. Right. Whatever. Right. And instantly. Oh, yeah, everything's fine. To condition black. Can't talk, can't. You know, not hearing like. A puddle mess of a human being.
Right. Empty shell. You know, it takes an hour to recover. Right. That that level of just from. You know, the rest. Or whatever. You know, because this. That that is associated with a particular traumatic event.
That. From extreme compartmentalizing. And just the sheer trauma of it. She blocked it off. She didn't even she's forgotten about it. Until that happened. In one of our classes. And it took her a good long while.
To be able to begin.
Processing that and walking. She had forgotten that any of that had ever happened. Because it was so compartmentalized. It was so.
Yeah. Wow. It was. Yeah. People take core horrible things and they forget. Yeah. My short term memory is atrocious. If you're like, well, what did you do two weeks ago? Or I couldn't tell you. Right. I'm not going to tell you what to have for breakfast.
Yeah. But then. But then we'll pull up and we'll walk to a house. It's like, this is familiar. There's that there that there that there. There's someone here and I'll walk in. I'm like, oh, OK, I recognize him.
And we'll come back. So it's like you take. I will put this in the box. I will set it over here. And when I need it, I pull it out. But till then, I don't need it now. Do you think we do that consciously?
Yes and no. Kind of. Because it just it kind of shows up of. But I don't want to know anything that happens after the fact. Yeah. Like. If I have a stroke right now. And you'll carry me down and throw me in the car.
I would not want. Like, I wouldn't like, hey, make sure you tell them. You know, I'm laying in bed. I'm like, hey, can you call and tell the paramedic? Thank you so much for what he did. Like, I wouldn't want to give the back story.
Because like for me, it goes from you go from being a patient to like a person that I like. I'm familiar with. Like the best advice I ever got was I had an uncle that was in the Marine Corps. And he told me, goes, you don't look dead people in the face.
So. He's like, just trust me. The line of work you're going in. Don't look dead people in the face. And find a routine. OK. But here we are, 15 years later, and I think I can recall. Maybe 10 faces of people that have passed.
But like the whole thing was, he's like, you will remember a face. So it goes from being a situation that you remember what you did to remembering the person. And people always talk, well, I saw the face of the dead person.
He's like, well, you know, if you're going to see the face, look at it upside down. Your brain doesn't process a face the same way. So like for me, massive difference. I end up having conversations with guys that are rookie.
Come on. It's usually the first thing you tell them. We don't look dead people in the face. You have to look at them. You look upside down, find yourself a routine. When you get off work, go shower, go change clothes, change shoes, whatever you have to do.
There's something that helps you change hats because you want to be able to compartmentalize it. And when it's time to pull that out, you should be able to pull it out quickly and effectively and make it useful.
But when you don't need it, like I hate this story, but it's so I came out and told a guy that his daughter had passed. And she had two small kids, but she passed on the toilet. I was like three, four years in the fire department.
My girls hadn't been born yet. And so this guy's like, yeah, we're just worried about her. We haven't seen her since yesterday. Okay. So I literally walk out the front door and go, hey, man, she's gone.
I walk back in the house. That's how I told the man his 30 year old daughter died. And I didn't understand what the problem was. I told him she's not here. She's passed. She's dead. And one of the guys that worked with me, he was a believer.
He tore me a new one. But after having my girls like realizing that is not. But it's almost like you just pick up the shield of hate that like, okay, well, this keeps me here and you over there. And I don't want any overlap.
So it's like finding the weird. There's a time and a place for everything. But being that hard and not being able to let that down. I feel like that's the thing that Christ calls us to do is there's a time for humanity.
And there is a time that I'm sorry, this is going to hurt. This is going to suck. I hate it for you. But this is what we're going to have to do. Like, if you're resetting a bone or splitting somebody or pulling somebody out of a car.
Yeah, I know it hurts. I'm sorry. It's going to get worse.
Take a deep breath. This is going to suck. And it cleans the asses. It tells us there's a time for everything. A time for mourning, a time for sorrow, a time for joy. And then first Peter tells us when we teach, it even speaks about what the spirit is that when we correct, we need to be able to do it in gentleness.
And when we teach.
And like speaking, speaking truth and love. Like Jesus was kind.
He wasn't nice. Oh, I'm so sorry. This is going to hurt just a little bit. Just take it. It's hey, this is going to hurt.
I'm so sorry, but this is going to hurt. And like, like my daughters by far have taught me how to process that more than anything else. Like we went to my oldest. I'm like, hey, we're in. Am I going to get shot?
Yeah, baby, you're going to get shot. So then it gets time for the shot. And she looks at me and she goes, is it going to hurt? I said, yeah, baby, it's going to hurt. Take a deep breath, but it's going to be OK.
Because like as we grow up and like as we process life, like the hard times are what makes the challenges. It's like there's so many times things absolutely suck, but they make some of the best stories.
Yeah. Like I got lost, almost froze to death. I walked four miles.
So cold. I feel both ways. Yeah, but it was awesome.
It was such a, you know, I had this experience. It made me, you know, my favorite thing is we used to go backpacking all the time and we went and backpacked like 50 miles in four days. So I was like, well, what was the best part?
I was like, the best part was coming back and using a toilet. Horsing in the gold. But it's but it makes you so much more thankful for the simple things. So having having that thought out and just acknowledging that sometimes things are just not going to be fun.
And having the same spirit of when you said Jesus is kind, but not nice. The first thing I thought of was the woman at the well. And when he says, you know, go and tell your husband, she said, oh, I don't have a husband.
And he says, yeah, you're right. You've had five. You know, and the one you're with now isn't your husband. He wasn't saying whore. You know, he was saying this is the truth. And he also didn't say, yeah, honey, I'm sure you've made some mistakes.
He said, this is the reality of your life. You've had five and you're with somebody who isn't. And then in through that whole experience and interaction, that woman was brought and that entire town was brought.
It was such patience. But when he spoke to the Pharisees, it was a level of harshness that exactly needed to be there.
I mean, like I said, I just. Woe to you. You made them twice as fit for hell as he was before you came.
There's a time for everything. And that was a big driver of my mentality before we went to Afghanistan. And I was also blessed with the specific people that were around me and above me when we went. Because they were experienced guys.
And they were experienced guys who knew how to process stuff and not end up on the wrong side of things emotionally, psychologically, mentally. And so, you know, if you think about it from. Cognitive dissonance is definitely a contributor to.
Well, I know I'm going to see some people chewed up. Not that chewed up, right? There's a disconnect between what you thought as bad as it could get. But the combat side of it, right? Well, you know, young guys get amped up, right?
Either through themselves because of, you know, the movies that we have in this country or around each other. Or the command amps you up, right?
Started with one really smart guy, four dudes later, you don't even have one brain between the four of them.
But, you know, they get all amped up in different ways. Like, oh, we need to hate the enemy, right? Because if they're evil, then.
All this is a little bit more justified.
Or, you know, at least those Marines will pull the trigger. And that was not my mentality going in, right? So I do not need to hate these people, right? Because I don't, right? I read about Afghanistan and the gorgeous place that it used to be.
I knew that there were some people that were oppressing other people, right? And that, okay, if these people that are being oppressed want us there. Then it is justifiable for me to protect them, right?
So there's a justification. There's a true justification to be had there. That some of us could not come back, right? We had peace in that, relative peace within our platoon. And the specific trauma that some people had was specific disconnects, right?
There was one pair of dudes, absolute best friends in the weirdest kind of way. One was a goody two-shoes kid. His best friend in the whole world. And I mean, like, attached at the hip. Their wives joked that they were more married to each other.
But the other dude was actually straight up, like, out of the movies. Okay, you can go back to prison or you can join the Marine Corps kind of a thing. Like, you know, tatted down both arms. He'd done hard time for fighting cops, like, you know.
And the, we'll call him the rough around the edges guy. He was convinced that if one of them wasn't coming back, it was him. What was the other guy? And, you know, that's what jacked with him, right? Like, I could get, I could die.
I could get messed up, but not this guy. Because he had become the anchor in that guy's life, right? Like, he's the anchor of goodness in an otherwise, you know, self-jacked up life. And, I mean, we can see that as Christians, what went wrong there, right?
It was the wrong cornerstone to put under, you know, your emotional well-being.
Cognitive dissonance. Yeah, every, like, any job that puts these high-level stresses, essentially the core value you have to say is, everyone else matters more than me. Like, you're not willing to do the job unless you're willing to say, I don't matter.
The focus of what's going on will matter more than me. And if you can't say that when you're doing that job, you probably shouldn't be doing that job. Like, there's no way around that. Because, you know, there's a running joke in the fire department is, firemen don't die by themselves.
You always die in twos because there's always the other guy trying to save the other guy. So, if one goes down, there's always one trying to help him. So, usually both of them get taken out. So, it kind of snowballs that way.
But, like, if you don't, like I said, it still comes down to, where is your identity found? If you're standing in sand and that's what you build your entire existence on, it's just a matter of time until it comes falling down.
And you can't, and if there's nothing to cling to, like, that's how people end up climbing inside of a bottle. And they just can't get past, I didn't deserve this. I wasn't worthy of this. It's like, hey man, guess what?
No, you aren't. You're not worthy of the breath that you expel every moment. And that's the gift of God. If you don't realize that or recognize that, you'll always be drowning.
So, in the lens of helping and ministering to people who have PTSD and even those who may have that and are listening right now, when we try to answer somebody who has PTSD or just post-traumatic stress and they say, you know, or even in your example, like, why him?
There's like the bitterness that might come with, how do I help somebody cling to God and trust to God and trust God and love God when there's that bitterness of why did this happen to me? You know, that little wall there between them and God.
Start with honesty. Oh, well, it's not supposed to be that way. Yeah, it is. That's how God designed it. It is that way. I'm sorry. That sucks. But the truth of the matter is you still have to stand in truth.
You know, truth can stand on its own. And if we don't lean into that, like, you're always drowning if you have nothing to cling to. So, it's like, for me, sometimes it's, hey, man, I'm sorry. That sucks.
But regardless of if you feel like it should have been you, it wasn't. So, you should live that to the fullest. And God loved you enough to give you another breath. I mean, sometimes that's all there is to be had.
And people don't really take the ramifications of God's sovereignty in relation to the hard jobs, you know? They don't really think that through. Well, God is sovereign of all things. Okay. And we can kind of deal with self-sacrifice, you know?
Right. Okay. I will die for this cause. Or I will put myself where I could lose an arm for this cause. Whatever that is.
Oh, heaven forbid. Right.
But am I really willing to let everything go? Everything for trust in the sovereignty of God and His plan? Am I really, in my own head, am I willing to relinquish my own children to the plan of God? Right?
Because that's a reality, right? Lightning strikes happen, you know what I mean? That, how much do I really, have you really accepted that and are willing to put yourself, you know, really everything out there for that, as a foundation, right, in your thinking?
Right. Because it's not just about you. Like you think the ultimate thing is my self-sacrifice. No, it's not. It's not. And then going back to what you said about the sovereignty, I like using this example with a lot of the newer guys, and there's probably some people that are going to listen to this and have no idea what I'm talking about.
But, you know, punching your card, time clock, you know, you just walk in, punch your card, stick your little in the little slot, right? Going back to what he said, you know, like there's people that, we call them paragods, jokingly, that they have a god complex of like, I did this and I did that.
I'm like, dude, it's ultimately up to the guy upstairs. Like when he decides to punch your card, that's it. Like we have no control. We are here for whatever finite amount of time that we are, when he sees fit, and then, you know, go through that.
And a lot of the guys that come in with the mentality and the faith, seem to do a lot better in the fields and don't have as many, like we said before, don't have as many issues.
The result, we lost somebody last year, and like, Was your lieutenant, right? Yeah. It was like a 90 difference between, like everybody was on the struggle bus for a good long while, but like, you know, basically, being a believer doesn't mean you don't suffer.
It just means, you know, that's the, the steak is, steak is delicious, and everyone gets to enjoy the steak. Because I'm a believer, I get to go, how good is steak? And then how good is the God that gave me steak and allowed me to eat it and be able to enjoy it?
So being able to take it down another level, like watching guys just suffer and not be able to climb out and like, I'm like half the time, I'm looking around like, why is everybody still just stuck? But it's the, the entire time, your faith dictates everything.
I was telling, telling young guys like, you have to have a reason why. Your reason why dictates the entire direction that you take your life. I'm a believer, so therefore I will do this, I will do this, I will pray to God, I will be faithful to my wife, I will raise my children in the Lord because that's what God has called me to do.
Well, how come we don't do cocaine? It's because God called me to be more than that. And whether it happened before, but now, well, you screwed up yesterday, you cussed somebody out. Yeah, I did. But you know what?
God loves us, and even though I'm a hypocrite, there's still grace for me the same way it was the moment I was born to the moment that I exhaled my last breath that he gave me.
Today's a new day. I can be more like him today. And I think a piece of advice that I feel like I would give is that I wouldn't want to see somebody use bitterness or anger towards God for allowing something traumatic to happen to keep them from processing as an excuse to say, well, if God is so good, if God is so loving, you know, then why is it that he died and I lived?
Why is it that, you know, I was in this situation or saw this or felt this or whatever? I think it's really important to remember that the God of the New Testament, Jesus, who a lot of unbelievers to me have called the Kumbaya God.
But Jesus, that same Jesus is the God of the Old Testament agreed. The same Jesus of the Old of the New Testament is the same God of the Old Testament who sent a flood to wipe out every single living person and creature minus one family and two of each on a boat and wiped them all out.
And if you really want to know what your attitude towards God should be for allowing things to happen that you don't want to happen, I recommend reading Job chapters 39 through 43. That's my favorite passage of the Bible where God says, this is who I am versus this is who you are.
Were you there when I laid the foundation? Yes. Yes. Like, were you there because I didn't see you? It's like who is? And then Romans nine, you know, who is the clay to say to the potter? Why did you make me this way?
Or why did you use me in this way? You know, and that's the that's kind of a heartless answer to, you know, a heartless question. Like, here's your straight up answer. You know, who are we to say to God?
Hey, why? Why are you using me this way?
Or why did you put me in that position? And for Christians that that can be that can be a struggle. It's like, oh, you know what? In my head, I accept this, that God has a purpose for everything, including this trauma, including this current struggle, whatever, including my struggle with the trauma.
Right. God has purpose in this that, you know, OK, but it's hard for it to work its way down.
Oh, it's pride that I have, too, because when I read Romans nine, you know, that's what my first sinful thought is. What a cop out. That's my first sinful thought is like, what a cop out. Like, who am I to question?
Like, I can't get an answer. You don't deserve an answer. Right. And so it's just like you have to let go of that pride and understanding. Like in Jeremiah, it says that the heart is a desperately evil and wicked thing, and it seeks and seeks and seeks to deceive you and to keep you from peace with God.
And, you know, God is a God who we call a dispensational theology, but he he dispenses knowledge at the time that it needs to be known. You know, so just because you don't have every answer right here right now is not an excuse for you not to process these awful things that have happened, no matter how scary it is.
You know, sometimes it's a lot easier to say, well, you know, I shouldn't have. Man, when when I went through something terrible, the only thing in my head that I thought, I shouldn't have to deal with this, I shouldn't have to cope.
Like people said, you need to learn how to cope with this and this emotion and this emotion. It pissed me off. I was like, I shouldn't have to like this, like this. I shouldn't have to be in this situation.
Like, I shouldn't have to learn how to handle this and do that because, you know, it just made me upset. And there's just that pride of what you said. Like, this is outside of the normal. You compartmentalize it over here and your reality is still over here and say, this is what's real.
And anything that happened in this box doesn't belong, which isn't the case. You know, what happens has happened and blaming somebody else or blaming God or, you know, having that bitterness or anger will not help you process and will not bring you any closer to peace or reconciliation with that.
I wonder how much you've ever seen the acclamation about like the process of grief, like process and grief. You go through denial. Then you're angry. Then you're bargaining with God. And then you're like, well, I can't believe this happened.
And it's like this entire process. My bargaining tends to come before the anger. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm ashamed to say, I'm always angry first. The most humbling thing ever was here. Oh, you realize that being angry is just a secondary emotion. You're probably more hurt. I'm like, no, I'm not.
How dare you say something like that to me? That's why your mother didn't look. But like, it's, it's again, you're, you have to, when bad things happen, you have to realize there's going to be stages of grief and you have to walk through those.
Like I tease young guys all the time on the fire program. Like you're going to go through the stage where then like everything's fun and it's exciting. He's like, Oh, this is going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay.
And then you're like, Hey, you really don't need to go to the hospital. This isn't important. And they still want to go. And then they're angry with the people that want to go. And then eventually you just get to acceptance.
You're like, all right, get your shoes. Let's go. That's fine. That's no problem at all. But like, you have to remember it can be two things at the same time. In Revelation five,.
It talks about who will open the scrolls and John sees the lamb, whereas the throne room sees the line. So in just depending on where you're at is what you're seeing. I think the important part of what you're getting at is that you have to grieve.
Yes. A lot of people don't, you know, that grieving is a process, but it's also something you have to do. By the way, awesome, super short resource on grieving from a Christian perspective. James R. White.
Actually, I think it's just called grieving, starting with the sovereignty of God. And like my wife and I went through it together just for well, I'm not going to share that on here, but I realized through the process of that that I hadn't actually grieved the loss of my legs from the and the things that come with that.
Right. Like, oh, I know what I'm going to do after I get back from Afghanistan. That's so multifaceted, man. Yeah. Yeah. You don't think you don't realize you hold on to that. Right. Because because as Americans, right?
Like you have American dream.
Exactly. And you plan that out and you have like, oh, OK, we'll make an adjustment here and they're not upside down. Yeah. No, you're going in a completely different direction. Yeah. No, you're not going to be a career Marine.
You're going to be a children's minister. Yeah. Whose idea is this? Still taking children either way. Is that more? Yeah, that's a little. Well, go and edit. Like coping mechanisms. Yeah. You're talking about dealing with grief and everything.
Like, you know, some people have come back. Sometimes it's booze. Sometimes it's drugs. Sometimes it's, you know, erratic behavior is constantly doing stuff. It's dangerous just to relive that. But some of the things that you can do to stop that, you.
And within a couple days, he was ripping up the five, say, lane highway between San Diego and Los Angeles, doing wheelies at a hundred miles an hour, you know, at three o 'clock in the morning. Just the three, just, yeah.
That's prime time, yeah, three a .m.
You know, and not physically capable of doing that, but he needs to, it's the need to feel.
Eventually, like, there's a guy I work with, he said, like, he'd been through some real bad calls, and his wife finally convinced him to go talk to somebody, and he said, like, eventually, you take so much trauma that you can't process it, so it's literally like, you just reach over, and you're like, click, all the emotions are off.
Yeah. But then you get to a point where you need to feel something, so, you know, it's either drink it, like, they say the most addictive thing is falling in love, like, there's a reason why everyone, you know, there's a lot of police, fire, like, there's always the next relationship.
Like, toughening it out through a relationship to have depth and quality takes work. No, it's tough. Yeah, finding someone to fall in love with for three months, trash them, end up with more emotional trauma, move on, people can do that all day long.
Obviously, most of society's kind of on that boat now, but it's the, you have to process and deal with that, but if you don't, there's a desire to feel, so you're gonna do whatever it takes to feel something, because, what's the Pirates of the Caribbean, we feel nothing?
And eventually, you get to the point where, like. You were referring to David Jones' locker? Yeah. Yeah. They just wanna feel something, and like.
Well, I think you're touching on something, too, is that for the guys who are going through that post-traumatic stress, and who are married, there's a whole other side to that coin in our wives. I didn't realize the depth and scope of the stress that my wife felt for me being in a combat zone for years, that she would, how much she was still carrying that, and then she's gotta deal with my crap on top of that.
Mm-hmm. You know, if the dude's married, and he's trying to make it work, there's a whole other side to that. When I say that, because that should motivate somebody to, this isn't just you, it's not just your own head.
Mm-hmm. You know, and if it's affecting your wife, it's definitely affecting your kids. Yeah. And if it's affecting your wife, you think it's not affecting you, but it's affecting your wife and kids,.
And you're just unaware of it. Yeah. Because there's a lot of times, I mean, your family's affected. Like, I joke all the time, the goal is just for my girls to grow up and not end up with my problems.
Right. Like, I gotta protect them from me. You know, every dude's like, oh, well, you know, I got 100 ARs, and this and that. It's like, okay, well, if the world ends up, that might be great, but what about when you came home and ripped your kid a new one, because you weren't feeling up to playing?
Yeah. Or they made too much noise, and you needed a nap. Like, you were the turd there, not them. So it's like, you have to stumble through the fact that you have to accept the fact that you are dishing it out.
Everyone's suffering from what you're going through, regardless, and if you don't talk about that, like you said, your wife will end up carrying tons of it. And, you know, whether you understand each other's feelings or not, still speaking about it matters.
Like, processing that out. And that's the thing, is if you don't process it out, whether it's with your spouse, or, you know, one of the guys you work with that was on the call with you, or go and see, talk to somebody, you have to process these things out.
Otherwise, you just drown. I just realized you're wearing West Tennessee skydiving shirt.
That is a part. Well, you're drowning, but you're also drowning them before you're drowning yourself. As you stand on their necks.
To try to get your head out of the water, that's about what it comes down to.
Yeah. So, Cody, you said that you had been, you had, at the beginning of the podcast, you said that you had dealt with it, and you'd spoken to a psychiatrist, or a therapist, or a counselor, or whoever that was.
Is that something that you were able to work through? And if so, what are some techniques, or anything that, in your experience?
Yeah, so the first big step is just talking about it. You know, it's not always easy to bring that stuff back up. And once you get that going, it kind of just, the rest of it's just downhill. It's kind of just rolls, and you just kind of roll with the punches.
But, and not everybody likes to go see a therapist. I tried talking to guys that I worked with, and everything else, and it just wasn't enough. It wasn't what I needed. They couldn't help me get back into that compartment to really pull the stuff out.
Like, hey, why are you having these issues? Why are you dealing with this? I remember saying something in the session. She's like, oh, stop, that's absolutely BS. And I was like, what did you say to me?
She's like, no, I'm calling it. Like, that's bull crap. And I was like, no, you're right. Oh, okay, fair enough, I'll give you that one. And sometimes your friends aren't gonna be the ones to tell you that.
The good friends would 100 be like, hey, I'm not gonna get into the exact details. I had a bad night just from a whole bunch of just compiled crap, and ended up, some come to me afterwards, and they're like, hey, you're being stupid.
Like, you've got to get this under control, because if you don't, it's just, you're about to lose your job, lose your family, like, you know, whatever. And sometimes you don't realize that all that's happening.
It's just, you get in that attitude,.
Like, oh, it woes me, like, it sucks, and so. Yeah, because you can be rolling downhill,.
And you just need somebody, even if they don't push you all the way back up, just to stop you. Like, hey, what you're doing is more detrimental, and is not helping or solving your problem at all, yeah.
And when I said going downhill, like, once you get the ball rolling,.
I guess would have been a better analogy. Well, I'm using a separate analogy with the same thing.
Yes, yes, that's what I'm saying. I want to clarify and restructure that, but it does, I mean, having someone kind of snap you out of that does make a difference. And I grew up, like I said, my dad had bad PTSD from being a combat vet, and also a very jacked-up childhood from what I've gathered after he passed away.
And choosing not to address those issues, coming into it now, like, looking back on it, like, how much that affected me and my sister and my mom, and then his family, and then how it all just kind of like, just started running off little fingers of just all kinds of issues and stuff that, because he chose not to deal with it, because he's part of that generation, just suck it up and go on.
Yeah.
So. Man. The cold reality is nobody's lied to you more than you have. Right, right. And if anyone argues that, if you're 21 years old, I guarantee at one point you said, you know what, I'm okay, I can have one more.
Yeah. And I mean, that's just, you know, you screwed up, pal, you probably should have done that. But, I mean, so often it's like, well, I don't, it's like what Pastor Jeff was saying this morning, it's like, I don't feel like it.
Like, you know what, sometimes I don't feel like doing, I want to lay in bed all day. You know what, I was up all night, I should be able to just lay here and sleep all day. And like, that was the turning point for me, I had to realize, like, just because I had a hard night at work, doesn't mean I get to come home and be a turd.
Like, well, I was up last night, I was helping other people. Why should I have to help you, you know, get the kids up? Maybe you should just be able to do it. I'm like, you know what, you know, maybe you should just cowboy up and love your family more than you love yourself.
Isn't that what sacrificial love is? It's what God called us to be.
And it's not always about being a tough guy. No, like, you obviously, you got tough guys galore in those fields, you know, suck it up, keep going. But also, there can be a mentality of, well, I don't have time to deal with this.
I got a family to take care of, I got a job to do, you know, and talking about lying to yourself, right? You know, but it's not from an egotistical point of view, just like, well, I don't matter. Right.
I need to do the job and I need to take care of my family. Not realizing, not dealing with that stuff, you know, is in a way, you know, completely counterproductive to what you say, your priorities.
Definitely. And I would say, even if you are open to that stuff being dealt with and being healed, I think my least favorite, my least favorite terminology or phrase I think I've ever heard is time heals all wounds.
Oh my gosh. And here's why. Because time can help alleviate the immediate pain of all wounds. Time does not heal all wounds. Time is helpful and can distance, and because it can give you clarity, but if you've gone through terrible things and you're open to being better, but you're just waiting for it to happen, you can wait and wait and wait and wait and wait, and everybody who you love, you can drag along with you, but it's not going to heal you or fix you.
I'm a huge fan and proponent of intentional healing, of intentionality behind what are you doing in order to make yourself better.
Well, that analogy of a wound can be taken pretty far. Yeah. Like, oh, the wound healed. No, it became a big old mass of scar tissue, and now your arm doesn't work really good.
Or it's infected, and now you're gonna chop it off. Like, oh, good job. I'm so glad you took care of that one.
Now you're 45, and you got this big mass of scar tissue in your shoulder, and now it's causing a bunch of other trouble and nerve pain and a bunch of other, it does not heal the wound. It becomes an exacerbated problem without dealing with it.
Yeah, and something I've talked to, you know, Anna from this podcast, her husband, I talked to him. He doesn't like his name being shared. But I talked to him, and something that he said that he does, he and Anna does, is he says, yeah, so my pain is at a seven.
And Anna says, okay, you have X amount of days where during that time you process, you can take a step back in certain areas, and you let yourself feel all of that. And then on, let's say this four days, and then on day five, you're back at it.
And so that's a small, minimized version of taking legitimate time to process and to grieve when something happens instead of just ponying up. You know, it's so important, and I think it's a theme that we've kept throughout this whole thing with all of you guys is saying, you know, Evan said, and they flipped this emotion switch.
You know, Jake said, we compartmentalize. You know, like, we feel afraid to turn those emotions back on because when we do, we're gonna feel the ones that we don't wanna feel. But we were designed very intentionally by God.
And you have to remember that the way that we were designed, every aspect of it, including our emotions and how that works, was intentionally done by God. We have these emotions, and we feel these ways from these traumas because that's what helps us process and get through it.
So when we try to take it into our own hands as this knee-jerk reaction to throw it in a box or flip that switch and put it away, we're doing ourselves and those around us a major disservice. And while it's terrifying sometimes, I mean, it can be terrifying to try and bring yourself back to that moment that, you know, had all of those emotions that we don't wanna feel or, you know, around those smells or around those things that make us feel that terrible thing, that is what will eventually help move you forward.
And so having a specific time and saying, I am going to, and I like what you said, you were talking about dictating verbally. The advice I always got was writing it down. You know, just like journaling or, yeah, it's similar.
But dictating that and bringing yourself intentionally to heal that and open that up. And then what Cody was saying, having somebody there who is going to help prod and help open and knowing the right buttons to push to help you, because a lot of the time you don't even know what you need to open.
Like you can be illy and trying and you can just, you don't even know what. What?
So are you about to be a hater? No, no. Yeah, it sounds like you were about to be a hater. You started snoring and I just. No, it was not a snore. It was the. I got so insecure. It was, it was ugh.
Cause, so like it's not just. It was empathetic. Yeah, it was, I could feel that you were saying it was just heavy. So like a non PT, you know, a non stressful thing. Like my marriage the first time. Like I showed up with so much baggage that I was like, I totally, I took plenty of time.
I processed this. Everything's fine. In the first couple of years of my marriage, I mean, Hannah paid the price for a crazy person before him. But it was like, you don't realize how bad your baggage is.
You know, it's like you turn the light switch off, but it's the fart fan. Well, guess what? If you turn that fan off, it just piles up. It doesn't get processed out. So, you know, finding someone that can help you push through and ask them the questions and kind of piece through what's really going on.
Why do you really feel that way? But you also have to feel safe enough to do that.
And I'll say the way we talked about physical triggers before, there's you, and just from a practical standpoint, if people are trying to get advice from a podcast, you gotta be careful with that. Like writing stuff down, recording your voice.
Yeah, I think that's legitimate advice we can give. But physically, doing those physical, emotional things, you definitely want help. And you want someone with you. An example, a girl I went to school with, went to high school with, she contacted me years ago because she was in a horrible car wreck.
Really, really, really bad. And she'd been, she'd had bad, she'd been suffering emotionally and psychologically from other stuff before that happened. And she, and it was like on I -40, so it's like you can't get a lot of places without getting on I -40 without taking an hour, right?
So it got, she first realized there was a problem when they were driving down 40, and they got within a half mile of that spot. And she just started flipping out. Like kicking, screaming, trying to get out of the car.
Like she couldn't control herself. And so she called, and I was like, this was years and years ago. And I was like, I don't know. I didn't say that. But I'm like, okay.
The panic inside of your mind, like, well, yes, tell me more so I can sort some thoughts out.
Okay, my friend, I'm gonna give you a suggestion. I don't know if this'll work, but you know, and what I suggested, she have someone deliberately, they do it on purpose, they're gonna drive and stop on the side of the highway to that spot.
And that she just stops, and she sits and feels and processes, right? And then, you know, that's it. And then they come back another time, right? Figure out how to do that, right? And, you know, inching, physically inching your way to that spot, right?
The physical triggers from some of the people in my self-defense class, right? We had to be real gentle and take a lot of time with it, depending on what it was, you know? People moving around the room and just, you know, hey, you're in a safe place, and depending on how bad it was.
But that was just because they wanted to keep doing the class, you know? If we hadn't had that level of, that deep level of understanding and patience, and hey, it gets as far as it gets, you know, and being prepared to catch somebody when they fell emotionally, they wouldn't have gotten through it, you know?
So, I struggle to say, like, hey, this is a solution for that. Like, you need help with it, and patience and grace and, you know, a community, but you need to work on it. You gotta do something about it.
A community, like the Bible says, oh my gosh. Is there spiritual?
Almost like it was meant to be or something. Almost like there was. Do not neglect your weekly meeting, you know?
If there had only been a creator that could have pieced this together,.
There's what to do. Confess your faults one to another so that you may be healed.
Dude, I have an idea. We should get guys together and hold each other accountable, you know? Like a group? Yeah. Dude, it could work. I heard about that one time. In the book. The book, you might even say.
That's sarcasm.
If you're in Whitten, not an accountability group, get in one. That's right. You need someone to reach up and smack you every once in a while. Your community matters because there's always a blind spot.
Like, have you ever stood shoulder to shoulder in a circle? Like, if you stand shoulder to shoulder in a circle, so, like, four or five guys, whatever the guy in front of you, he can't see what's behind you, but the two guys beside him can.
There's always a blind spot. That's why a community matters. And even if you have two, well, you know, just me and my wife, we're good. Okay, well, when you stand back to back, there's still a blind spot for both of you.
There's no way around it. There's always a blind spot. Without that community to give you truth, it has to come from truth.
So we've mentioned seeking professional help and guiding and helping you to process. We've talked about trying to remove those compartments and reconcile your compartmentalized trauma with the reality that you have forced upon yourself.
We've talked about building a community and engaging in that and not neglecting that community. And then I wanna say, don't forget your friendship with God. Remember, you know, I talked earlier about don't be bitter against God and don't say, you know, who are you to, you know, question God.
But just remember that God is a very personal God and he wants us as friends. He calls us friend. I mean, that's not a claim that every God can make. And that's when I say God, you know, lowercase g, but that's not a claim that a lot of religions have.
Jesus is a friend to us. And what a good friend he is. In Hebrews it says, for we do not have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has tested in every way that we were yet is without sin, therefore approach boldly the throne of grace.
This God is not a God who doesn't understand the things that we go through. He's not a God who doesn't care about the little things because we can take the biggest thing in the world and compartmentalize it and think it's a little thing.
And even if it is a legitimate little thing, God still cares. He is still a personal friend to you. So just don't forget, you know, like what Jake was talking about, his advice to her of stopping on the side of the road near that place where something terrible happened and thinking and processing and feeling, also be praying and be with God and say, I'm going into this with you, not by myself.
Knowing and having faith that God cares about this, God wants to see you through this. And God very likely placed you there.
For a very specific reason. I was about to say, God has purpose in it.
Yeah, exactly.
And there's nothing like that peace that he gives us either going through that stuff. I mean, it is just truly something else. Sometimes hard to see in the midst of it, but nothing has just completely melted me and broken me down when God has allowed me to see the purpose in something that happened.
When you finally see that. That's a rare gift, too. I am undone. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Do we have time for a story? Yeah. So when I got hurt, well, the last time, I've been blown up a lot, but I, so I was in the hospital in Afghanistan.
I don't remember how many days I was there. Then they moved me to Germany. They had me so drugged up. I thought I was there for five hours. I was apparently there for five days. It's a long hour, buddy.
Well, it's a lot of surgeries for cleaning stuff out. So he's in, he's out, he's in, he's out, he's in, he's out. Taste, color, see sounds. Dude, ketamine is a big no-no. No, no. Yes, there are purple elephants.
They are not your friend. Stole my milkshake. But there was some point when I got, when I was brought to Bethesda, Walter Reed, the military hospital outside Washington, DC. And I was, I think that's where it was.
And I was thinking to myself, I'm okay. Like, I'm okay, I'm okay. I really am okay. God, why am I okay? Right, right. Because, you know, like, there's other guys next to me and they're like struggling to hold it together.
And like, I was really okay. I was at a breathing tube in and I was like trying to hand motion. This was going back to Afghanistan. Like, just got me stabilized, had a breathing tube in. And I'm trying to, like, gesture with my hands.
And someone had the bright idea to bring a keyboard over so I could, you know, point to the letters and spell out my questions. You know, and I was like, how bad is it? Oh, crap, I can't tell the joke I made.
Is it still there? I was like, I have three questions, right? Like, am I okay, right? I don't remember the second one and the last one was kind of a crude joke. But it was a joke. And they all started laughing.
Yeah, yeah. Was it the one about your boots? No, but they all started laughing and they were like, oh, this guy's gonna be fine or whatever. But anyway, I get back to the States and I'm like, God, why am I okay?
And that honestly wasn't like a hard prayer, right? But it was a prayer. It was just so lighthearted. Like, God, why am I okay? Yeah, exactly. I shouldn't be okay. Why am I okay? And I'm loathe to call it a vision.
I'm loathe to say that. But God hit me. Like, it was something. God hit me with something. And it was every, like, it wasn't like my whole life flashed before my eyes. It was like 500 snapshots of my life all at one time to show that He designed me to take that hit.
So, and specifically, so it wasn't this other guy. And without telling the story of what happened that day, basically within our squad, within a squad, my three-man team, I was always the last guy in that team.
And for every single time, every single movement, it was Nick, Diego, me. Nick, Diego, me. That's just how we moved thousands of times. Get up from a knee, move to another spot, sit back down, get, always in that order.
And two minutes before I got hit, the machine gun team leader, Diego, he's like, he's like, hey, Jake, you go first. I was like, hey, Romo, you go first. Like, it was so weird. I looked at it. Like before Nick.
Me and Nick both looked at him like, why? He's like, I don't know, change it up. Okay. Okay. And yeah, two minutes later, I stepped in. Obviously, I've had to talk with him because he had some. Oh, yeah.
And I was like, bro, it would have been Nick. He's like, I know, but it was still my decision. Bro, it would have been Nick. He's like, and he thought about that for a while because we'll just say Nick was not designed for that.
He struggled after, and what happened to me had happened to him. I can't, you know, reverse engineer God's creation in some alternate universe, but things might've been very different. And that's whatever.
I don't need to second guess. God hit me with that. Like, see this that happened when you were eight and this that happened when you were 12 and like put all that together. I'm like, you were designed for this.
And so it wasn't Nick, among other things. And since then, like so much has happened that would never have happened in a million years that all stemmed from me being in a wheelchair. Almost like he disciplines the ones he loves.
Discipline's not always bad. Sometimes it's instilling something in you.
Yeah, preparing. If you're not putting it in the frame of I was being disobedient in a particular frame and so he blew me up. As long as you're not framing it.
But like in the sense of I knew I should not have gone first. What was I thinking?
That's more Zeus's forte. In the sense of going through hard things so that it turns you into something for a particular purpose, yes.
Because like, I'm sure me, I guess three of us are still being like, you're trying to teach your kids something but you're having to discipline them in a direction. Like, I can't even tell you how many times I'm like, I don't pick you up when you fall.
You will get yourself up because, not because it's heartless, it's because I have to love you enough that you have to know you have to make the first step. You're not a victim.
You have to make steps for yourself. And that works not just for I fell down. You know, daddy's not mean because he doesn't pick you up. You know, he's trying to teach you that but it's not just for the small instances of I fell down.
It's also for the large instances of I blew up. Or it's, you know, this, that, or the other. Whatever that big trauma is, you know, we can't say that God, that God is just doing that for small things.
When you have a big traumatic thing, a lot of the time we forget.
It's so hard to see in the moment. Yeah. But like, if you can look back at something that happened when you were eight and you're like, this design may be able. That's awesome. This, this, this, God had the foresight.
Like, he had a plan and he was solid. A hundred percent.
The creator of the universe. I would never have remembered that. You know, that, that was, that was a miraculous blessing on my part. And it probably stopped a whole lot of, you know, why me, oh God, you know, on the, on the back end, way down the road, you know.
And I've held onto that. And obviously it's part of my testimony. So there's purpose in that.
I mean, you think, I mean, he loves us. You know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna jag it. Matt Chandler made a comment. He says, God doesn't stomp his feet every time you fall. When you watch a child learn to walk every step, the parents are ecstatic.
And that's God's love. They don't say, why did you fall? You should have this figured out. Get up. It's, oh, it's okay, baby, get up. You can do it again. And every time it's a little bit farther and we get, you know, I don't know.
Well, some people go a little bit farther. Some of us just, you know, run the first step every time and have to have head trauma, but. Some of us can't run. I can't stand up to that. Me neither.
Oh, all right. Well, I think that was awesome, guys. If you guys liked what you heard today, if you have any thoughts or things that we didn't cover, things that we did that you'd like to tell us about, go ahead and drop a comment on the video.
If you have any questions, if you have any concerns, if you need somebody to talk to and you don't really want to talk to, or you don't really know that first step, or you need somebody to help you, kick you in the butt to get that first step, you can always give us an email at listenpointtaken at gmail .com.
That's also a really good way to send in some questions as well as dropping them in the comments. But until next time, deuces.
I have one question. Do you know where my feet are?
