What if distressed buildings could become permanent homes and a foundation for a second chance?

Noble Woods III, MBA, founder, Chairman and Executive Director of Elysian Shores Supportive Housing, joins Combat Vet Vision to discuss a mission centered on converting distressed hotels, motels and commercial properties into permanent supportive housing for veterans and families.

Elysian Shores is a veteran-founded 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in San Diego, California. Its approach combines housing with supportive services that can include mental-health counseling, crisis intervention, recovery support, workforce development, healthcare coordination and community operations.

In this conversation, we explore:

Why permanent supportive housing goes beyond simply providing a roof.

How adaptive reuse can turn distressed properties into places of stability.

The role entrepreneurship, real estate and capital formation play in addressing veteran homelessness.

Why supportive services are an essential part of the Elysian Shores model.

How partnerships across real estate, healthcare, behavioral health and the community can move the mission forward.

What "second chances" mean when applied to buildings, communities and lives.

Today, Woods leads Elysian Shores while bringing experience from entrepreneurship, investing, digital strategy and AI-driven business automation to the challenge of creating sustainable veteran housing.

Guest Links

Elysian Shores Supportive Housing

https://elysianshores.com/

Noble Woods III on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/noblew

Co-Host

Aaron Q. Seibert

Linktree - https://linktr.ee/aqseibert

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/aqseibert

Email - [email protected]

Co-Host

Chef James L. “JB” Brown, AAC

Veterans Transition Resource Center

https://vtrc.us

PRODUCER

Brian Colburn

Linktree - https://linktr.ee/Bcolburn

Hey, welcome to Combat Med Vision.

Great platform, Chef.

Morning.

How are you this morning or afternoon, I should say downtown sunny Las Vegas at 108 degrees today.

Yeah, it's a nice hot one.

It's been hot for a couple of days and everything in between.

It's great to have you next to me.

Hey, we're doing this.

We're co hosting this show, making it happen.

There's always some incredible things with our veterans, our combat veterans, our sponsor, supporters, volunteers, everything in between.

Brian Colburn in the background, pushing buttons, making things happen.

He's a coach now and doing all kinds of coaching for podcasts, and he coaches me all the time.

And.

And I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Hey, this week I got Noble woods on deck.

Noble woods, thanks to coming to the show.

He may have some technical difficulties, but we're going to try to bear with it and bring him on deck, hear his story and, and do a whole bunch of stuff.

Noble, how you doing?

I am outstanding.

Thank you very much for inviting me today, Chief.

And it's good to have United States Marine Corps and, you know, a veteran that had a lot of struggles coming up to where he is today.

So I'm looking forward to hearing your story, brother.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just here to share my experience, strength, and hope.

I know a lot.

My story isn't unique.

I know a lot of other service members that have gone through what I've gone through and persevered, and then others that need a little hope, and I hope I can give that to them today.

Yep.

Hey, talk, talk about, talk about growing up and what, what inspired you to join the Marine Corps and, you know, going through that process and then we'll get into your transition and.

Okay, that all worked out all right.

I came for pretty austere beginnings on the south side of Chicago, but I don't want to make it sound like I was just dirt poor and didn't have anything.

I lived between two households.

Multi generational.

Right.

And my mother and I left my, my, my father when I was about four.

I was born in Iowa, and then we migrated to Chicago to be with my grandmother, my uncle, and my aunt.

As you can tell, everybody was much older than me.

I was a product of my father's last relationship, but I was my mother's only child, So I had three half brothers that were 16, 17, and 18 years older than me.

They didn't grow up in the same Household.

But all three of them served during Vietnam from the beginning to the end.

My father, he was in the AAF during World War II.

Before it was the Air Force, the Army Air Force.

And back then, black folks could only, like, serve in the day room and be cooks.

So he worked at Chanute Field during World War II.

And so it was a great history of service in my family.

As I was saying earlier, when I was growing up, didn't have much, but my mother always instilled in me, God bless the child that has his own.

So I had the privilege of going to a high school on the south side.

Percy Julian.

That was a signature football program.

The kids there came from many different social, economic backgrounds.

So it was a lot of middle class, you know, African American kids there also.

There were poor kids like me that fit somewhere in there.

But it was almost an expectation that you would do the best that you could academically and you were expected to graduate.

And.

And for the most part, it even at least further your education, whether it be in a trade or somebody like me, was expected to go to college.

I had good grades.

It wasn't luck.

I just had a good memory.

And I graduated at the age of 16.

Right.

So.

I was very immature, even though I. I hope you can still hear me.

Yeah, we can now.

Go ahead.

I was very immature, and I had been in a year before I was old enough to even have my mother sign me in.

So they kept me in a file.

And it wasn't that I didn't want to go to college, but I just knew that I didn't want to waste anybody's money.

I just ready to go.

So I had disappointed a recruiter once and taken a mock as BAB and when he looked at my scores and it was like, oh, this is great.

And he was like, where can I sign you up?

And this is my junior year.

He said, is your birthday at 68?

He's like, you're 15?

I was like, yeah.

He was very upset, but he kept me in a tickler file.

And so how I ended up joining the Marine Corps was I made it to graduation.

I didn't apply for schools.

And back then in Chicago, you only had one cable channel, and it was on tv, and it was a Sunday, and I was sitting around and drinking beer, and I watched First Blood followed by Red Dawn.

And it was about 6pm in the evening, and I'm just sitting around the house and I get a phone call from this successor recruiter.

He's like, I just came across your file.

And you are too young to join.

What are you doing with yourself?

And I'm just like, nothing.

What do you got going on?

And he came and picked me up.

I was just such a lay down.

It was horrible.

He drove me out to South Chicago the next day and gave me that practice test again.

And oh my God.

And within a week he had me going down to MEPs.

And the only thing that I came away with, because I was supposed to go into, what was it, aeronautics or I wanted to do something with computers.

But he said, if not, you can always be a cook.

And that was a joke, right?

So I get down there and I want to be an MP.

That was another thing.

Well, I got to MEPs and they, they told me, you're too young.

You have to be 19 to be an MP.

And these other things that you want, they, they won't get you out of here when you wanted to.

Because I wanted to get out in February.

I wanted to stay, you know, party the whole summer and then leave.

Before that Chicago winter hit, it was like, well, none of that stuff is available, but you have anything else?

And I was like, oh yeah, I've been cooking for myself, you know, since I was little.

And yeah, I'll be a cook.

And when I got back to that recruiter station, it wasn't any other puies there.

But I just remember the laughter from those three recruiters when I told them that I signed up to be a six year guaranteed cook in the Marine Corps.

I didn't know that.

Might as well have been a grunt.

But I learned when I got to boot camp and things got assigned, I was like, this is going to be a mess.

But the thing about it was I, I always anesthesized I had been drinking.

I was born to two alcoholics, one functional, one violent.

I always drank regularly.

By the time, you know, I reached my senior year.

And it was the only time that I felt like I could do something better than other people.

I just felt the warm and fuzzies from it.

I was at main side and I had got there with six other people that I went to, five other people that I went to cook school with.

And the reason why they sent us in such a big pack was that the, the S4 officer had been locked up because he was snorting cocaine with two female lance corporals.

Suicide, which was actually a murder for SGLI and chess.

The place I went was a mess.

A mess.

The.

The gunny had six DUIs.

It was just, it was bad times.

But us six were going to replenish the people that had been, you know, removed.

So the thing I, I just want to point out was my barracks.

And our mess hall was right less than a hundred steps away from my front door.

They had us right where we needed to be.

And even with the funky hours, it, you know, we were supposed to be there on time.

But I unfortunately discovered that there was an E club less than a quarter of a mile away and a package store less than a half a mile away.

And so I just had problems being on time.

I had problems with discipline, but I was just always fortunate enough that people liked me a lot.

I never got office hours.

I always self reported myself to Sacco, but I never actually went to treatment.

And so for me, I, I, I just was breezing through the Marine Corps.

I got promoted on time, even though other people didn't believe that I should have.

I learned a lot about leadership, but most of all, the best thing that happened to me personally, I had tricked a woman into marrying me.

She was a young Marine from Florida, and we ended up having two kids together.

And when everybody else was gearing up to go to Okinawa, I got sent to Adak, Alaska for a year.

And that's where I was, at the Marine Corps Security Force at Nas Adap.

And I'm supposed to be there supporting as a cook, but everybody else there was on, on nuke duty down at the compound.

And my, my drinking continued, but I learned more about being a leader.

I learned more about being a Marine Corps leader there because these kids, they went from boot camp to ocs.

I'm sorry, not ocs, to oh my God, Infantry School of Infantry, soi.

And then they went to Mare island for special training.

And then they came straight up there and they wouldn't get any type of liberty until they passed all their security tests.

And it was just like, oh my God, these kids knew more about being Marines than Marines.

And they taught me to be a better leader.

And, and even though I drank, I didn't get in much trouble.

I just felt like I really had made my mark.

And by the time I came back to the lower 48, I got a DUI, I had my second kid, and then it was time to go to the first Gulf War and I'll tell you this.

I bought two cheap diffs of gin and got on a C130 and flew for a day and a half.

I took a shower in Rhine mine, Germany and.

And then I woke up on airstrip in Saudi Arabia and it I went to Camp 5 Al Jabel.

It was 15 cooks, we only had a gunny and a staff sergeant and we were just there with two guards.

On the gate that were marine.

But I was there from.

I don't know how the clock turns back and forth when we got over there, but I stayed there.

Desert Shield, Desert Storm, got to meet Storm and Norman, General Gray.

I was in the rear with the gear with the meth.

I was the first cook ever assigned to them.

So long story short is I made it through there.

I got back to stateside, I had amnesty and they gave me my driver's license back.

And I never really got in any trouble with the Marine Corps but with the state of California this time and not just doing picking up trash.

I had to do a 18 month multiple conviction program and do tons of litter pickup and whatever Caltrans had for me.

But to tell you how hard hit of alcoholic I was, it took me three years to complete an 18 month program.

And by that time I finally got done.

It was time my marriage had disintegrated.

I was getting ready to get out the Marine corps in January 95 and that's when I had had gotten into methamphetamines which was very prevalent.

It was the, the world capital for production at that time.

I,.

I don't know.

Everything I tell you now is, is with through the lens of, of rehab, right?

So I was, they told me I was like an elephant selling peanuts, you know, I than I was a dealer or manufacturer or distributor.

They finally cut me a check and I had my extra interview with the CEO which I had never met at first FSSG and I had to go and, and cash that check because my driver's license, well, my ID card was going to expire the very next day and I didn't have driver's license, right.

So I cashed that check and I was like oh, here's the freedom that I needed.

I'm going to hustle and make tons of money.

And that was the end of eight years, 11 months and 25 days of a safety net because.

Wow.

Well, before we, before we go any further, I just want to say for one, thanks for sharing because, you know, there's, there's so many amazing, like, situations where we don't really talk about ourselves in a way that really kind of sets us in kind of a downward spiral of events and, and the looking glass.

Right.

But like you said, you're looking through it from being sober and obviously now you're going to go into the transition and how it looked and that freedom and that good, that last paycheck and shoot, my ID's expired.

And you know, I, I just want to say thanks a lot because a lot of our veterans listening, maybe, you know, you may be at that point and, and that support and there's, there's so much support and help and you're going to get into this whole, you know, housing for the veterans you're helping, doing a whole bunch of stuff in San Diego and the elation shores.

That's going to be a great story too.

So go ahead, brother.

I just wanted to say thanks a lot for sharing because that's such an impactful story and well, well said.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

I can share this honestly because I, I have been in recovery for a long time and the only problem I have with being anonymous is if I don't let anybody know and blow my anonymity, how are they going to know who to look to for help if they need it?

So, yeah, got out the 25th of January, and by April 15th, my house was raided by NIS, the task force, the whole nine yards.

Got a good lawyer.

I was a mess.

And then I ended up having to go to a county sheriff's mandated program.

I did six months, 20 days cleaning up San Diego County.

I had to stay at a work camp.

It kind of helped me get straightened out for a little while.

I was couch surfing.

And this is what I want to pass on to people.

You know, you speak of homeless veterans, it doesn't mean you have to be unhoused.

You can just not have an address.

You're living out of a P.O.

Box or a general delivery box.

And that's who I was at that time, living on Sepulveda and Sherman, way up in Van Nuys, working in Pacoima in a scrubbing metal as a temp worker.

On.

I worked on a street Called Sniper Alley in Pacoima.

The cops wouldn't come up there because it was one way in and one way out.

And I was just temping there for remedy.

And I stayed in LA for about nine months and I, I live my life between part time, you know, temp employment and the Liquid Zoo is where I, I found myself at this bar that they were my family and I was there with a bunch of Korean War era vets.

They were, they had good jobs, you know, they worked at Codex Boxes, putting together com boxes and ST stuff like that.

And I was sitting here doing these odd jobs, trying to figure my life out.

And then my mother got sick and I moved back to Chicago.

And my ex wife had gotten married in the whole nine yards and I didn't have anybody supporting me to support kids.

So I did what I thought was best so they could have a clean break because I didn't think much of myself at the time.

And so my back door into to not going straight to Hades was my mother got sick and I was going to go take care of her back in Chicago.

But I got there, I was still drinking and using, but I, I was employable.

And when she passed away, I really went downhill because it was just me.

I had an aunt that was 13 years older than my mother.

She was in her late 70s.

And I, I had no real relationships with anyone.

I had a background that, that could only, you know, give me a list logistics job, you know.

And I was working for Mack Trucks in a warehouse.

We could build everything except we had so many parts we could build a truck, everything but the tires.

It was a good job, a good paying job, but I was wasting my money trying to bury my feelings, right?

Feeling that I'm behind, feeling that I'm a failure.

I've served my country and all I had for it was two DUIs and you know, no children to raise.

And so I went on until the wheels fell off, until I, I didn't have the guts to take my own life.

But I just didn't have the will to go on as I was going on.

And one day I, I, I ended up in a cardiac denture ward which later I found out I was having panic attacks.

I thought I was dying, but I was having withdrawals and stuff like that.

And my boss was like, you're too young and you are a marine and you, you should not be having these issues.

He's like, but be honest.

Are you having problems with drugs or alcohol?

And I told him yes.

And he was like, I can't let you come back to work here until you get help, but I'm going to support you and that guy I, I owe my life to.

But later on, I found out that Mack Trucks had sent him to rehab about 15 years earlier.

And so he was paying it forward, but I told him, I was like, look, I'm going to be, be gone.

And I, but I want to go be around vets and recover.

And that's when I went to Heinz VA Hospital out on the west side and the western suburbs of Chicago.

Huge campus.

They got a Ronald McDonald's house on board.

They, they have over 200 buildings on that property, and they, they, they even have facilities for disabled veterans that, you know, have nowhere else to go there.

And I owe my life to that hospital.

And since then I've moved around, I've done a lot of things, especially.

I.

I'll speed run it for you.

And they introduced me to Operation Stand Down San Diego Veterans Village out here once, once a year gives respite to veterans, and I got to go and set up and work dishes out there.

But first year that I went, but I ran into people that I knew from the time that I was in and there before the grace of God, I would have been on the other side of that line getting chow and seeing an attorney and, you know, trying to get social services.

Right.

So I, I, I stayed involved with them.

I, I did some, you know, going to feed people down at Father Joe's, but I, I stayed in touch with that homeless community.

I did everything with Stand down, even when a VFW put one on up in North County.

San Diego, which this county is so big, is segregated.

Right.

We got Navy down here in San Diego, Marines up in North County.

Yeah, so that's right.

But then I got really involved with a church out here, First United Methodist.

And after George Floyd died, they wanted to start a racial justice committee, and I chaired that.

So I've been doing a lot of community work and then got, my wife worked for the small investment bank and one of the partners started inviting us to philanthropic Events, right?

And I went to this reality changers event about a year and a half ago and I'm sitting there with, you know, you know, money managers and, and stuff like that.

And this one guy says, did you hear that this building downtown San Diego sold for $45 million or whatever, right?

And he was like, the market is crashing.

And another guy pipes up and he's like, yeah, I went to my office downtown yesterday and my secretary couldn't get in until 7:30.

Caused some homeless guy was sitting in front of the door.

And I'm just, I'm, I'm just struck by, you know, the inhumanity that was at this table.

I'm just like that person was standing in front of that door because he's unhoused.

And, and, and all the money in this room right now could make this happen.

Well, anyway, not being enraged, not opening my mouth, the one big beautiful bill passed a year later and it gives 100 bonus depreciation, which means that if you take a existing building and you turn it into housing, everything that goes in to that building that's new, that can be moved, say furniture, carpets, whatever, you donated that money, you can write that off as a tax, write off a hundred percent of it right now and not depreciate it, you know, over time.

Yeah, yeah.

So me, I'm saying empty buildings and east of downtown, along with 372 of the hardest cases of veterans on the ground.

It's, it's about a thousand people in, in these, these tents east of downtown.

And I'm just like, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna start a non profit and we're gonna put those people in those buildings.

And I started out with a hundred and thirty million dollar proposal that I was shopping around.

And let me just say I didn't know what I was doing, but my vision was big enough to get me in rooms with people that could make it happen if it was feasible.

I learned what wasn't feasible and what was.

I sat with the city councilman's office, Steve Whitburn's office, with his planning team.

They were like, we just handle legislation.

And I found out that a lot of these buildings that were, and, and I, I digress.

The vacancy rate in class B and C buildings in San Diego downtown office buildings right now is between 25 and 30%.

Yeah, these buildings are sitting down there and they're going at such a discount that it just makes sense, right?

But they're older buildings and we've had this debacle with the city about a decade ago.

Bought a building and they drilled into the walls and then all the people got sick from asbestos.

Right.

And they lost so much money on this project that people don't like to hear you talk about adaptive reuse, which is crazy because since COVID nobody's going back to these buildings.

You know what I mean?

They're not going to work back there.

We work different now.

Right?

Everybody's, everybody's working from home.

The, the, you know, and where it used to not be very looked at as like something you can do, now everybody's like, hey, I'm gonna work at home.

Even though it's not rated for work, people are doing that, right.

They tell me, come into the office.

But these buildings downtown that you're talking about, they're rated for work, but they're also now building them in Denver, like rapid.

They're just turning them into housing.

I mean, they're joined, they're zoned now as by right.

And that was a term that I, I learned that, that local legislation has made it easier.

If you're going to buy this and turn it into housing, then you don't have to go in front of the city council and beg and then fight a historical society, whatever.

If they're in this buy right zone, you just buy, you can buy it and you won't have.

As long as you're, you have proposed to turn it into housing, then it's good to go.

You don't have to go through all the, the approvals.

So, yeah, long story short, I'm a developer now and I'm begging for money for people that have it and telling them they can get a tax break for it.

And a lot of people shake their heads.

Some people are coming around, but soon these class A buildings are going to be falling into this, this, this category.

This category as well.

So that's where I'm at right now.

No, but every time I get ready to buy a building, I don't have the money.

And then they buy it for not affordable housing, but they transition into condos that nobody can buy here.

Yeah.

And you're working hard at getting these guys into, into, into sober living, into some sort of, you know, treatment availability as well as how.

Yes.

You know, this, this elation Shores is, is, it's kind of your baby.

You, you've, you've groomed it to where it is today.

And you're, you're constantly trying to make things happen for the homeless in the San Diego area, which is super important.

We got about five more minutes.

I want you to take that time.

And you know, when we finish up, I'll, I'll ask you to give any final statements and anything you want to do.

Since 19.

Standing.

We always know the dates.

That's it, right?

I know when I joined the Marine.

Corps, when I got out and when I got sober.

I'm in that boat too.

Okay?

Okay.

So.

So, you know, once you get, you know, once you get your act together, it's time to put your, your ore in the water and, and help row this lifeboat.

Right?

And that's all I'm trying to do.

And so at least the insurance.

This is what we're trying to do.

We're not only trying to build housing and get people off, off of the street, we're building permanent supportive housing.

That's where the rub comes, right?

It's very difficult to get people to 1 ensure a total permanent supportive housing project.

It's just hard because these are trauma and inflicted individuals.

Right.

And putting them all together is like a powder keg.

So the thing that also comes in as an obstacle outside of security is the actual people that provide the services.

They get burned out and they're hard to find these people at, at any rate.

Right.

So my, my job is to design affordable mixed housing with a permanent supportive housing component.

So by building anywhere from six stories to 14 stories, that bottom floor is going to be, you know, the front side is a lobby, the back side is a permanent supportive house.

You got security, you got therapists, you got the support that is needed.

Right.

And the actual.

Yeah, the actual.

Will be trauma informed, you know.

Pastor, I just want to say that the project that I want to put together is going to threefold.

It's gonna house the unhoused.

It's going to create affordable housing for these millennials and Gen Z's they can't find anywhere.

But also it's going to support families that are homeless as well, unhoused.

So that is what we're striving for.

I mean, yeah, you have to have the multi generational burden because kids can see that there is hope and our traumatized veterans can see there is hope.

You know, you are not meant to be alone.

This is what you're supposed to be taking part in.

So that's what we are striving to do and I really look for any support.

We're@elysian shores.com you can look at the full layout of the plan and donate.

There are links to donate or even just come become involved because we're always looking for architects, we're looking for social workers, we're looking for connections in the community that support our veterans.

Community, the unhoused.

That's, that's who we are.

That's what we're here to do.

It's a heavy lift, but it is well worth it.

You know what, what else do I have to do with my life other than help somebody else, you know, because I would not be here.

Yeah, that's a huge tasker and you know, that's super important that you have gone through so much to finally come to this place where you are today.

And you know, so often there's veterans that have, you know, gone down the deep end and we've lost them to suicide, to, you know, just the, just the substance itself, whatever it is that they're taking that just puts them down and then, you know, it's cool when you have veterans that are thriving and have passion and purpose to serve our community in some way that, that service heart that that chef always talks about to me all the time.

It's good to see you on that, brother.

Yep, that's a fact.

Thank you.

You know, is this, is this building, Are you looking for sustainability in the long run too?

Like, you know, we got to be self supporting through our own contribution.

You know, we do that in the program.

Correct.

And yeah.

So I mean, are they gonna, they might move in and it might be, you know, affordable housing or free housing, but they are going to give them themselves like to keep it clean or to, to work inside the community to make it even better or long term sustainability is what I'm asking.

Do you have goals for that or.

Exactly.

Okay.

Yes.

So along along with those recovery programs, they're also going to have workforce retraining.

Right.

Like you get.

Yeah.

Workforce development kind of training and taps.

Yeah, workforce development also they're going to have opportunities to join and get retrained and other skills such as security and they can actually work within the communities that we build.

Right.

Because that security first, but.

Yeah, but housing first, then sobriety.

Yeah.

So once they get settled, just remember because these, these floors have deep floor spaces.

The center of those, those buildings are going to have meeting rooms and things of that nature too.

So it's going to be support at every level.

Yeah, that's.

But the sustainability, that's, that's what the key, that's why it's mixed housing as well.

Because these programs can't fund themselves.

Right, right.

Hud Vash vouchers don't pay for, you know, a 40 million dollar project that just not works.

And also they give them free housing but they don't teach them anything or show them, you know, to be part of their own recovery or to be responsible or self supporting or how to, how to go out and get a job.

You know that all that stuff's all inclusive, you know, and if you can do that, you've got a winning combination.

You know, I, Yeah, a lot.

Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry.

I've been clean and sober for 35 years.

So I got long term sobriety and, and I, I give back in the community and, and, but it, it's not for me.

It's, you know, we work in the community that we live in and we give back because we have some servant heart and we realized that if we don't then it's not going to happen.

Right.

And one thing that I always tell, tell people like you that, that work in the community.

Listen, you can't out give God.

Just try doing it.

Never ever, ever.

Right?

Never.

Yeah.

Because it always comes back to you tenfold.

So.

And most of the people I work with understand that and you know, you, you're in the same boat.

You, you know, that's, that's the thing that you got on your side that you can entice people with also not so much entice them, but show them that they'll get rewarded beyond their largest imagination of where they want to be.

In life, you know, and attraction, not promotion.

Yeah, there you go.

That's it.

A noble.

If somebody wants to get a hold of you, please put that information out there and you know, if you ever want to come back here on my 10 minute segments usually, you know, have a guest and then I have a 10 minute segment available for anybody, anybody, you know, if you got an event coming up, a fundraiser that you're doing something that you just need to get the word out to, you know, this is really important and obviously you're in the Southern California, you know, obviously all the way down in San Diego area.

So keep that in mind.

But feel free to put out any information you want to.

Yeah, well I'm just trying to drop the link here in the chat and.

You can find these links too.

Yeah, these links are in the show notes as well.

Just so everybody knows.

But you can always find noble through me in the show, so.

Yep.

It's always a good place to look.

Okay, well, you need from me.

Okay, yeah, that's good.

That's good.

But thanks.

Thanks a lot.

You got anything else you want to put out there?

Feel free, brother.

Well, gentlemen, I just want to say,.

You do a podcast.

I wanted.

I wanted to put that out there.

Check out his podcast.

Got a lot of information about, you know, the buildings, what he's doing.

He's got three parts to just that part alone.

It's kind of cool, you know, check.

Check Noble out.

He's all over YouTube and, you know, you know, so go ahead, Phil.

Yeah.

Add anything else there, Noble?

Yeah.

At least you're sure.

Supportive housing.

Come and check out, you know, what it takes to help others, and maybe you might decide to join us on this journey again.

As.

As Chef is saying, you know, what you have, you know, wasn't all through work.

It was by grace, right?

And just.

Just give what you have freely, and it will always come back to you tenfold.

We have to live in a mindset of abundance, not scarcity.

Right.

Because there's enough to go around.

And.

And we were built like this, right?

We're supposed to be able to be part of a community.

And.

And when one of us falls, somebody picks them up or a couple of them pick them up and drag them across the field, the finish line.

So we are here, hands open.

Great point.

Thank you so much for bringing me on board here today.

I appreciate.

Yeah, I appreciate you, brother.

Thanks for coming on.

I look forward to meeting you Sunday.

Hey, good stuff, Chef.

Yeah.

A lot of good work going on in San Diego.

You know, I.

Everybody was walking around.

There was palm trees, sunshine.

I came from Oregon with rain all the time.

Hardly any sunshine.

Everybody's tan.

The girls are in bikinis.

I mean, it's 71, right?

Right.

70S.

The beach was packed.

The ocean breeze was coming through.

I'm thinking, where have I been all my life?

You know, this is.

This is the land of milk and honey.

I'm gonna move here someday when I get out of the Coast Guard, I'm gonna move here.

My uncle and my aunt, and they lived in.

Out outside of Lemon, California, there in San Diego area and everybody.

I mean, when I was there in 71, it was like maybe 500,000 people, maybe.

Yeah, 350.

It looked it Looked a lot like Camp Pendleton does today.

Yeah.

Four million.

Four million people living there.

It was like, thank goodness they all come from.

Thank goodness for Camp Pendleton because that would be just totally overrun by city after city after city.

It's still wilderness.

It's still got training areas and great, you know, hikes.

I mean, it's not really the kind of hike that you go on, but, you know, there are.

There are a lot of hiking events going on on Camp Pendleton.

Yeah.

Hey, and I just want to.

You know what.

Yeah.

And all that stuff.

And, you know, my.

My life on the.

The beach was a little bit different than what you're talking about.

It was close to the beach, but, yeah, you know, there was a lot of standing and attention and parade rest and hiking all over the.

The place, too, at mcrd.

But hey, I just.

I just want to say, you know, a shout out to, you know, Noble for being on.

It's great.

You know, and he had to go up to Alaska, and Brian Colburn, who, you know, is the manager of the show.

He.

He, you know, producer of the show.

He.

He was up in ADAC as well.

So it's really cool to know that these things are happening.

Yeah.

You know, I think.

I think Chef.

Chef, you could have been up in ADAC on the.

The, you know, one of your.

One of your cruises up there, but you didn't make it that far.

You were up in Oregon, but you didn't have to go to.

To ADAC, huh?

Well, I was stationed out of Pier 91 in Seattle, but, you know, I never did any of the.

The Coast Guard bases up there.

In fact, when they transferred me was to a base in Oregon, they tried to keep you pretty.

Pretty.

Pretty localized.

Yeah.

Localized where you were from.

So, you know, it seemed to work pretty well.

Right.

Right.

Yeah, it's great because, you know, I didn't think there was that many Coast Guard guys really.

But, you know, today I'm walking out of the building, and this guy's like, hey, did you just come out of the.

The vtrc?

And.

And he's like.

And he just happened to be another Coast Guard guy, but I had a great conversation with him.

You know, he was like, hey, what kind of stuff is available?

And, you know, these kind of things.

You know, I was like, have you.

You know, he, he doesn't have his VA ID card and some other things.

He's like, I'm not really looking for that.

You know, it's a constant thing and it's really cool.

You know, not every veteran needs to take advantage of every benefit out there, but you have the va and he, he got his house, home.

Home loan through it.

You know, he served.

Yeah.

And I would say, you know, for you to check into the VA, wherever you're at and register whether you're a 0% or not is.

Is a really good step to moving forward in some directions that you're.

You have benefits to.

And.

Yeah.

And with the cost of, of health care today.

Oh, yeah.

If you need how astronomical it's become, and if you're on Social Security and Medicare, why not have VA medical?

If you've got it correct, it'll be a lot cheaper for you in the long run.

And I, you know, and, and I understand there's a lot of veterans out there looking at things, and I would say there's a train with a seat on it for you, and it's driving by for every veteran that's out there in so many different ways.

And all those seats are empty because you guys are looking at them and saying, oh, that seat's not for me.

It's for the guy that's missing an eye or leg or two legs, because I'm missing one.

But I don't deserve that seat.

But I would say get in those seats and figure out what it is that you're going to be able to do to help the community that you are part of.

That's right.

You know, you can still take and get.

There's a lot of veterans getting benefits and they're not doing anything good with them.

They're drinking themselves to death.

They're causing a lot of problems.

They're doing this, this and that.

I'm not saying that's every vet, but I'm saying that those, those things exist.

But why not be involved with yourself, with the community, serving somewhere, doing something that's bigger and better than yourself?

Because in that process, you're going to get help and support along the way.

And just like Chef was talking about noble giving more, it comes back to you tenfold.

And you may not believe that, and sometimes it doesn't feel like that, but, you know, I've seen it happen time and time again.

There's a bunch of people given and there's a lot of Things coming back to him in ways that you would never know, events that you're going to see, you know, because living life is living life and life not living you.

And.

And it's not.

You know, we serve this country.

We don't want to be doing anything else.

We kind of served it, you know, and there's plenty of times that we look at our government and say, hey, we wish we could make a difference, and we can, but we get.

We get so ticked off that we make a difference by just complaining about it.

And that's not necessarily the way it's.

It's like, get off your butt, you know, Sign up to be a politician.

Do something that's incredible.

And I know it sounds like the worst thing you could possibly do.

I don't want to be a politician.

I get it.

I'm happy to have served my country, you know, and I'm happy to serve where I serve today.

Yeah.

But see, these guys, they say, you know, well, that's not for me, but just one little thing like the Million Vet program.

There's a program out there, if you're a veteran, you can sign up for a Million Vet program.

Takes a few minutes.

You can do it at any of the hospitals or medical centers, and they send out great programs.

And if you think you're not helping anybody, answer the questionnaire, because that's how they deem what needs to be done.

And you're helping another veteran, believe it or not, because you're talking about your issues, they're talking about their issues, and all of a sudden becomes more issues that the VA needs to help with.

Then that's what's going to happen.

You know, the worst thing for a veteran today is they get lonely.

So they start, you know, just staying lonely, and don't go near anybody, don't talk to anybody.

Then the depression sets in, and the loneliness and the depression, and that's why the suicide rate is so high.

I mean, it's just, you know it.

I know it.

It's like they start, you know, just moving back from people staying at home.

Pretty soon they're drinking too much or taking too many drugs, and, you know, then all of a sudden, it's the depression sets in, and they can't.

They can't deal with it.

Instead of knowing who to call or what to do, if you.

If you get on that train and you take that seat and you need help, we'll help you.

I mean, that's what we're here for.

Yeah.

And it's.

It's.

It's it's hard to get used to, like, sitting in that seat, though.

It's hard to, you know, it's hard.

To get on board.

It's hard to get on board.

And, and really, it's hard because, you know, you've put barriers up in your mind to kind of say, hey, that's not for me.

But really, even, even me as a saying, I'm not, I don't want to be a politician, and I don't, but I, I mean, I would take a look at it, you know, and it's, it's willing to take a chance to go, hey, what.

What can I do to make a difference in my life in a direction that you want to go?

And a lot of times sometimes when you sit down with a few veterans that are on the same boat and they're.

And they're moving forward in some, some direction that, that you kind of wanted to go, you find better direction, and that's right.

I'm just saying try.

You know, it's not for everybody.

There's going to be plenty of you out there isolating, doing your thing.

But I hope when you find these podcasts, I hope when you find them, there's some resources in there and there might be somebody that you want to talk to, reach out to them, reach out to me, say, hey, you know what?

You had this guy on your show.

I want to talk to him.

You know, I'm not, I'm not inaccessible.

I'm very accessible, and I try to be.

So, you know, I don't have all the answers, but I do have a lot of people on my side that, that, that tend to have more, more of those answers that are needed in Chef, too.

Yeah.

And this is what we do.

We can achieve more, you know, if you, like you said, if you find that group that's going in the same direction you are, you know, with numbers, it's easier.

Any job that we have to do, more hands make it easier.

And that's what we got to realize, is that you can make a difference.

We all can make a big difference if we just try.

So if we're involved, then we can try and we can make a difference.

And that's where the most important part is.

It's when you say, well, and, and the biggest thing for older vets, man, you got to realize older vets, when they first came to the va, it wasn't like it is today.

You know, today if you have an appointment, they see you within the first 15 minutes, or you go up and tell Them, and they'll put you right up.

I mean, they are quick and accurate.

In the old days, you used to go, well, better pack for lunch.

I'm going to the VA today.

Because it was unbelievable.

Sometimes eight, ten hours, and then they were closing.

Right.

I mean, I was always seen, but, you know, it was unbelievable.

And how bad is it to sit around, around a VA hospital for eight or nine hours or even four hours and listen to some of the horrors and stuff and see everybody disgruntled because they're not happy?

You know, why would you want to go there?

Well, you wouldn't.

No, you wouldn't.

Hey, and I, I just, you know, I'm gonna hand it over to Chef real quick because he's gonna have a whole bunch of things to bring up.

I'm gonna have a lot of things.

Shout out to Mike deleon, Recon Chief Incorporated, llc.

Hey, thanks for giving us a shout out on, on the, on the screen here.

And anybody else who watches the show, thanks a lot.

You know, press the like and share.

You know, one of the things that doesn't happen enough is the share button.

And, you know, whether you believe in everything that's going on here or anything like that, you know, if you share this, you're going to probably help a veteran somewhere along the line.

That's all I'm saying.

And, and you know, this, this is strictly because I love doing what I do, helping veterans.

I do a lot with the PTSD foundation of America, Warrior Built Foundation.

This is coming live to you from the Veterans Transition Resource Centers.

Here in.

Las Vegas in, in, in the studio right here.

And you know, and the podcast is Combat Vet Vision, and there's so many cool things about it.

So Chef, I'm going to turn it over to you and let you add anything.

You got events coming up.

You got all kinds of stuff to bring up.

Yeah.

The first event is the gala up north at the BTRC North.

It's in Reno also area.

And at Carson City at the museum, they're having Gala for Heroes.

It's going to be a poker tournament, Texas hold them.

You can buy a seat.

There'll be hors d' oeuvres and food and drinks and just a good time.

And it helps support, support our northern office, Denise Davies up there.

It's going to be a good time.

I'll be up there.

So if you stop in, stop and say hello and how you heard us or if you heard us on the, on the radio or I mean on the podcast and love to talk with you but we have that going on.

We have October 11, Saturday from, I think it's, what is it, 11 to 5 or it's a chili cook off and you can come and cook your chili there or, and then have samples and there'll be some awards afterwards.

It's a fundraiser for the VTRC and that'll be a great event for us.

It'll be, I think our seventh or eighth annual this time.

So that's a good thing.

Besides that, that's about what we got going on right now.

You know, Thanksgiving's around the corner, believe it or not, and Halloween's even closer, so we're working away.

September 12th is the VTR poker tournament.

So I'll be up there that month.

And then I have some things going.

A lot of things going in October and November.

But you know, if, if you get on the train, you'll talk to people.

I mean, if you go on a train, do you just take a long ride and not talk to anybody?

Usually not somebody.

Always timestamp to you.

And same thing if you go to the VA hospital and it's easy to get qualified.

You just take your DD214 form.

They'll get you a picture ID sent out to you every time you go.

I learn a lot of things when I sit in the waiting rooms of the VA hospital about benefits or, or other things that I didn't even have a clue was going on, so.

Right on.

It's good to be involved, you know, and it is, it's, it's what we do to give back, so.

And you have a servant heart?

I have a servant heart, yeah.

I have three warrior groups every week.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for the PTSD foundation of America.

You know, Mondays, 2:30, 7:30 on Tuesday and 2:30 again on, on Wednesday.

So many, so many things going on out there all the time.

Many veteran, you know, organizations are doing things.

If you're a non profit org or if you're a business that supports veterans and you want, you want to be on the show and talk about it.

Let's get you on.

Let's talk about it.

Let's, let's make sure that that gets put out there because I believe our transitions as veterans become very difficult.

But with this as a resource, it may make it a little bit easier.

Yeah.

And you know what?

It's always better for your family if you've got places that you can go to for, for resources.

Families, families, families.

Yeah, it's all about the families, you know?

Yeah.

Next generation, hey, we're gonna bring Brian on.

You got anything?

Yeah, no.

Well, we're gonna bring Brian on because you know Brian, he's, he's the producer of the show and he is, he, he's a coach for podcasts.

And Brian, come on, come on deck and give us the, the download, brother.

You know, first of all, we've only got a little bit of time, but it's weird to talk to somebody that spent time in ADAC and here.

Yeah, you guys were texting away over there.

I see that.

Yeah, yeah, we are.

And noble I'm reach out and give you a holler.

Hope hopefully you'll stay on after man.

Dude, great story.

And what a humble guy to share the not so shiny stuff of life.

But it's those trials and tribulations that led him to do the good work that he's doing now.

And it's, it's easy to say, oh, look at the shiny stars on the wall.

Look at the good work I'm doing.

But the road that got you there, people sharing that is going to encourage, hopefully more people to do their part and, and continue the work.

And guys, great, great show.

Great conversation.

You guys are knocking it out of the park.

I'm gonna shut it off there because we've got 20 seconds.

We'll see you next week.

Appreciate you.

See you next week.

And everybody have wonderful meals and bon appetit.

Great stuff.

Jeff.

Hey, until next time.

Hey, be involved in yourself.

Be involved in service.

Help, help the community, but help yourself first and put that mask on and let's, let's carry on.

I look forward to, to the guests that come on the show and I, I love having the ones that have been on here and if you want to get back on here, if you have something to say, if you got, if you got a, you know, some sort of flyer you need to put out there or 10 minute segment for you to brief some cool things that are going on.

Let's do it.

Till next time.

Strength and honor out.

Yeah.

The only way.

And we need nothing more.

The only way.

Together forever.

That's for sure.