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Last Updated: September 2, 2024

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098: Healing the invisible wounds for your trauma with Dr. David Tharp

A clinical psychologist who is both a combat veteran and a former first responder himself, Dr. David Tharp founded Project Healing Heroes in 2016 to facilitate resiliency and reintegration for other combat veterans, service members, first responders, and their family members as they serve our nation both at home and abroad. He reflects on an unforgettable deployment that gave him a deep appreciation of our service members and a striking reminder of how short life is, how his impressive educational background and work in the VA justified why he "didn't need help," post-traumatic growth, and much more.

Connect with David Tharp and learn more about Project Healing Heroes

Website https://www.projecthealingheroes.org/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/project-healing-heroes/

Facebook / Instagram @projecthealingheroes

Twitter @PHH_Resilience

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_BfboaF4QiIin5x1bYqa_Q

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Jen Amos 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the award winning podcast show holding down the fort. I am your co host, Jen emos, also goldstar daughter and veteran spouse and as always, I have my amazing co host with me, Jenny Lynn Stroup, who is an active duty military spouse of 12 years now, mom of two mental health advocate, we always talk about mental health, and I think today is not going to be any different. So jennylyn Welcome back.

Speaker 1 0:23

Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here. Looking forward to this conversation.

Jen Amos 0:27

Yeah, we already spent like 10 minutes offline. 15 minutes going on now, before we actually started. So I was like, oh, man, I should have secretly started recording. But anyway, that would be so rude if I did that. But let me go ahead and bring on our incredible guest today. Oh my gosh, he is just, he's just been a part of our military community forever. He was military, spouse, military, family member, dual military and veteran. We have David Tharp, also the CEO of project healing heroes, his website is project healing heroes.org. David, welcome to the show.

Unknown Speaker 0:57

Thank you all so much for having me on.

Jen Amos 0:59

Speaker 2 1:08

It's exciting, because we got to go to row 10. And my wife and I, and kids and take a little bit of a break, which was nice, because I'm ready for this pandemic to be over with. Yeah, I

Jen Amos 1:16

think we all are. We all are tired of this pandemic life. And as much as I love podcasting, and using this as a way to socialize and stay connected, it'd be nice to connect with people in person as well, without this anxiety of having a mask all the time and not being able to breathe and just this weirdness or being outside but being like six feet apart. It's just interesting. And, you know, we're talking a little bit about this offline, but I'm probably gonna be one of the last people who wants to get vaccinated after everyone else has got vaccinated, it's been tested, that it's okay, and it's safe. But anyway, that's probably a political conversation we should not have on the show. So anyway, I don't know if we're gonna edit that out. But I'm gonna keep that there for now. David, as I mentioned, I'm really excited to speak with you, as I mentioned, the beginning that you have been part of this military life for so long. So any opening thoughts on that? Like, could you believe like, when you look back at your life and where you're at today, could you believe like, how much you've been part of this military life?

Speaker 2 2:13

Unknown Speaker 3:29

I'm Jalen, I

Speaker 1 3:29

just saw you slightly nodding. So I thought I'd check in with you see if you had any initial thoughts. My husband did tour in Afghanistan, too. It was the western portion. He was in Ferrara, 12, and 13. And so just as you were talking, it just reminded me of all the things I have heard him say, one his gratitude for his Afghan interpreter because he would not He is my husband is a communicator for the Navy. And so his whole job there was to communicate. And then I just think about like all the other thing that we don't necessarily always have in the forefront here is the intermix of the good and the bad guys. Like we have, you know, westerns where it's very clear, like, this is the good guy. This is the bad guy. And I think we hear in this country chemists still hold on to that. And over there, it's like, somebody's uncle is not such a great guy, but also has a lot of money. So does some good in the community. And it's very weird. So when you start talking about comms, like, not only are you looking at the language barrier and the cultural barrier, like you're also looking at, like, Who does this go to? And what am I saying and how do I and it just reminded me a lot of the many conversations by husband I've had since that deployment and with his, his Afghan interpreter actually got an Siv and lives about two hours north of us. And so we see he and his family quite a bit and it's really fascinating to me, every time we get together with he and his wife and like hear about what it was like Growing up there, man, just all that very mix of communications and things.

Speaker 2 5:06

You know, when you said that it that, you know, there are so many stories that I think people experienced both in the military in their family members, which is, you know, I ended up writing four books, post military, we could talk about any of that stuff that you want, but it isn't about me. And I want it to be very clear. It's about speaking to the audience and what they've experienced and what they're hearing and maybe find some hope and encouragement in the process. I ended up writing a book and one of the first ones was entitled was going to be entitled, you can't make this blank stuff up. What that word was given by get edited by whomever, but I ended up having to change the name we were in Vegas at the time. And in my for my wife said, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, I got a laugh. I said, Yeah, well, what happens in Ward and stay at war either. And that was it. So it ended up being a title of one of my books. And it's just literally I wrote two to three page chapters about just every possible thing that happened from pre deployment to deployment to post deployment. And I wrote it for folks who either don't know what it's like in the military, and would like to get an idea or for family members, and even professionals, some folks just really don't know, I ended up doing the two hour PowerPoint slide talk for the top VA officials in the US. And literally, what happened was half the audience was just in tears. And the other half, were just stunned. I never knew I dropped the mic at that time. I literally dropped it walked off, and people were just staring. And so it's one of those things. It's, you know, for the people that have deployed, they would probably understand and get that because there's so many stories of things that happen. You just can't even fathom what goes on. I'll just share with you one quick one to so that it might kind of lead us into some things if y'all are okay with that.

Unknown Speaker 6:43

Yeah, please. Okay.

Speaker 2 6:44

So when I was deciding where to deploy, I was working for the VA at the time, and I wanted to deploy to a war zone because I wanted to know what it was like for the people that I work with. Period unconditional. And of course, I'm, well, I one of my MIT, I have a few degrees, but one of them, I have a master of divinity. Also, I wanted to really ask God to give me wisdom and really pray about if I'm going to do this, I want to do it completely, wholeheartedly. Gamal. So I had a choice between Kabul and Kandahar. So I picked Kandahar because everybody in Kabul was, Well, a lot more higher rank than I was, and I figured they were a whole lot more protected in the green zone. What ended up happening though, was when I made that decision, there's this thing called the J dock joint defense Operations Center. And I'll be careful what I disclose because I don't want to get in trouble. But I will say that, inside the J dock, it's pretty much the Holy of Holies, if you've ever heard of them, I mean, it is so well protected. It's unbelievable. One of my good friends who is a lawyer, and I were looking at Well, let's say some columns that I can't discuss, and what came across, just put me on my knees, what it was was, and this has been documented one of the Afghan pilots inside that j dock where you cannot get in, and we trusted literally took out his weapon and killed all nine Air Force officers. Awful, I could not believe it. Now, I was trained. Also, in another life, I was at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glencoe, Georgia. And that means I trained with a lot of high level people that are very, very good. And they have this thing where you can be in the top 2%, well, I got that I know how to shoot really well. And I'm pretty smart. And so things worked out really well. And so I'm really good with weapons, I don't even think I could have stopped this guy from doing that. But what it meant to me was, every time I give this talk, I list out the names of those nine individuals. And the reality is had I made the choice to go to COBOL, instead of came to heart, it would have been my name that would have been listed. And so that makes you step back. And really, number one, appreciate the service and the sacrifice that people make. But even more so is it just reminds you how short life is. And you want to take and use every moment that you can to make a difference in the lives of people. And so that's what project healing Heroes is all about. When I came back, I knew that I could make some changes in the VA. But I really knew that there was no way I was going to be able to make the magnitude of changes that I wanted to make. So in the end, I ended up creating project healing heroes to do just that.

Jen Amos 9:16

Yeah, you know, maybe this is just my husband, but he just doesn't like the VA in general. Like he just doesn't want to go there. I mean, he, he tried going to getting a therapist at one time and they immediately wanted to give him antidepressants. He's like, No, I'm going to go to a shaman in Mexico instead, which he did, by the way. And that literally changed his life. That's why we're married long story for another time. But thank you first and foremost for sharing your background and just talking about that experience and you're more than welcome to mention the nine names if you want as a dedication to this episode later if that's something you want to do, just someone remind me in case I forget because I think that's worth mentioning since you do that so often when you have the opportunity and so yeah, and then here we are, you are today, you know kind of being the change that you want to see because in Va, like you mentioned, you could only go as far as you could. And I think that's the beauty of like nonprofits is being able to be the additional service to something that's already in existence that maybe doesn't have the funding, maybe doesn't have enough bandwidth to handle, let's say, our veterans in this case. And so that's why nonprofits exist. I even know what Jenny Lynn, and what she does at the mental health clinic. It's like, it's so great that you know what she does there. And that mental health clinic exists because again, the VA can only do so much the government can only provide so much. Awesome. So David, with Project healing heroes, I really like so what you do is you help heal the invisible wounds of your trauma. And I'm wondering if it comes from that time, when after your redeployment, you quickly learned that you suffered from many of the same invisible wounds of war that others struggled with? What are you?

What are you saying here? Yeah, no, no, you're you're a good start. You know what it's true. And the fact that I think the more that folks come forward, and just be honest about it, like I have a doctorate, I have three master's degrees, I'm trained at the highest level, you know, it's not about the degrees and stuff like that. But I worked in a trauma level one center for years and years, I worked in hospice for eight years, I worked in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for nine. So I had this whole history, and I actually had the audacity to think that I was normal. Now, that's really brilliant. You know, it's like, oh, he thinks he's normal. But that that's totally a joke. But the truth was, is that when I came back, I didn't think I had any problems. Now, my wife, who is of all things, a psychiatrist, which I begged her to pick anything in medical school other than psychiatry, I said, Nope, nope, nope, you're not gonna manipulate me, I'm gonna go ahead and do whatever I have to do to make sure of it. And I just laughed, I'm like, okay, I would never do that. And she's like, Yeah, whatever. And so the thing was, is that when I came back, it was one specific night that I remember. And she woke me up, and I'm like, why are you waking me up? But she's like, Well, number one, you just punch the headboard? And I'm like, Oh, I did. And I'm like, why wonder why my hand hurt. She goes, that wasn't really why I woke you up. It was when I was flying through the air that I decided that maybe I should wake you up. Because when I hit the ground, that's when I woke up, oh, my goodness, serious. And she's like, yeah, you pushed me out of bed. And I'm like, I'm so sorry. And so we kind of started talking about it, of course, I go to the VA, because that's where you're supposed to go, you know, to get help. It's often difficult, because when you're the guy who's so I was the program manager of the third largest PTSD program in the VA. I know the research, I know what works and what doesn't. And that's another reason why I needed to start the nonprofit. For those that are technical. If you want to take a look at steam camps article in 2015 and 2020, in the JAMA, Journal of American Medical Association, you will see that two thirds of the people who actually do the treatment protocols for PTSD in the VA do not get better, they still have the diagnosis, thirds, and that doesn't even account for all the people who won't go to the VA, like your husband and things of that nature. So here I am trained at the highest level just been from Afghanistan. My wife is telling me I'm having issues. What do you do? Okay, so I go to the VA. And after two sessions, the therapist is like, what, you're all good. I'm like, I'm cured. And they're like, Nope, not even close. And I'm like, Well, what do you mean? What's going on? They're like, well, there are three reasons why I can't help you. And I'm like, okay, what's that? And the first one is, well, you're in the military. And I'm not, I don't even know, half the things that you talk about, or the acronyms you use. I just don't even what you're saying. Wow, Mike, okay, why can't really fix that? Yeah, like, what's number two? And they're like, well, you disagree with the treatment? And I'm like, Well, that's because the research shows is not really effective. And they're like, you know, too much. Well, that takes us to number three. I'm like, Oh, great. Can't wait to hear this. And they're like, yeah, you disagree with everything I say. And I'm like, Well, that's because if you've been through all the hell I've been through, and you know what we go through, you wouldn't be doing the things that you're doing or saying what you're saying. And they're like, and that's why I can't help you. And at that point in time, I went to my wife, and I said, Hey, good news. I'm done. And she's like, what? And I'm like, yeah, didn't go well. Now. So that's how the journey started. We ended up going on vacation in Hawaii, and I was really down, because you don't want to do anything that's gonna hurt your wife or your loved one. And you know, and I was very short, I didn't know how my temper had really gotten away from me. And what here's what happens. I realized what it is as a psychologist is that when you go to war, you start comparing everything to life and death. So you know what things that happen. People make things to be a big deal on social media, and you're like, Look, dude, shut up. You know, what is wrong with you? You think that you know, that's a big deal. When people are over there serving our country and they're getting killed and you have the audacity. So when I flew back, besides the medevac flight that I was on, I ended up on a commercial plane. There was a guy in first class Who's berating the flight attendant. And even though I'm ordained, I wanted to kill him, because I was like, Dude, what is your problem? And I'm like, Yeah, oh, and all I could think about was, my anger has gotten out of control. And I'm to the point now I want to take people out. And I'm like that, that doesn't sound good. And so in the end, what happened was, I couldn't get help from the VA didn't know where to turn probably felt very much like your husband. You know, like, this is a joke.

Yeah. So

when we went on vacation, and my wife finally said, I think I have an answer for you. And I said, Great, what is it? And she goes, I think you need to write down your thoughts and work through it yourself. And I'm like, you graduated in the top 1% of all psychiatrists in the country, that's the best you have laughed about it. And I'm like, Are you being serious right now? And she's like, yeah, I'm like, Don't talk to me. And so, but you know, what, if you're a good husband, and you're smart, you listen to you listen to

let's say,

You do? Know I did. And so I just what I did was I started writing down, if I were going to treat myself, what would I do. And so in the end, what happened was, I started writing things that I thought, so what I did, and I'll make it short is I took a military training and concepts, and apply those to psychological principles, including spiritual issues. And I package them all together in a way that people can understand it, and relate to it. Because the fact is, is that if you've been there, you get an idea of what it's like. And so when you use military training and concepts to apply those same principles to the things that you're struggling with, it makes it so much easier to tolerate it. And so that's what I did. And in the end, I started sharing it with a few of my friends. And they're like, Man, you need to write this in a book. And I'm like, No, I don't I just need to do it myself. Well, in the end, we ended up putting it in a book form. And that's what happened.

Yeah. And here you are four books later.

Oh, yeah. That's just good enough to stop.

Well, first of all, David, just thank you for sharing all of that. And the story. You know, I think it's always important to know why you do what you do. And I think it helps people understand, like, they can hear themselves and your story and be like, Oh, I think David can help me, I think project healing heroes can help me, you have a very interesting treatment strategy called the resiliency formation training series. Tell us about that.

So the thing about it is, is I just actually started writing for something that we do called make the connection.org Weekly Webinar every Thursday night for people to get on and be able to just kind of hear some really good training, and then be able to get into small groups and talk to each other about things that we go through. In writing this week. One of the questions that I posed to our audience into myself is, are we broken? And the question really is, you know, you hear the things like, you know, bend, but don't break, right. The question is, why did somebody have to write that? Because probably some people were breaking. So the issue is, is that we've got to try to figure out how to help people. And so in that process, you know, we want to write things and help people in a way that they can hear it. And anything that we can do that's going to make a difference in their lives, that they can go finally somebody gets it, somebody actually understands what's going on. That was my whole intent all along to deploy to a warzone so that I could be able to to relate to people as they go through everything.

Yeah. Oh, that's incredible.

That a couple of things jumped out at me. And I realized what it was about the first thing he said about giving the presentation and having half the room and tears and half the room just like open mouth wide eyed, that has been my experience as a military spouse, my husband's in an MLS that, I mean, he's not a marine. He's not an infantryman, like he's in the Navy. And so to go to Afghanistan was not, you know, most people are like, so what ship? Is he going to be on? Really, it's landlocked. He's not going to be on a boat, like he's actually you know, he put on an army uniform and deployed with an army unit because he was an IAA. And then on top of that, in the job he does is not one that sends a ton of people over the air. And so we have this very odd Green Blue experience. In the 14 years he's been in the Navy, that quite frankly, not a lot of people understand and he struggled with quite a bit coming back because he wasn't like he wasn't Special Warfare. So to come back and start to go through is very similar process that you described, you know, your wife waking you up in the middle of the night because she's she's on the floor. That has not quite been my experience. But we have had some similar evenings where I wake up because you know, things are happening. And I'm like, Hello, hello, like, wake up. This is weird. He had a hard time coming to terms that because he was in a job that shouldn't right, like, this wasn't something that and so sharing that story with our Navy counterpart has been really interesting because not a ton of people have that experience. And so, you know, I tried to put myself in the position of listening to you speak and I was like, I'd probably be in the crime sector, not the shock sector. You know, and I just, I also would be curious on your thoughts on like the term invisible wounds. I've actually wrote a piece last year, about my real hate of that term, because for me, in my family, those wounds have been anything but invisible. Sure, like we can't see inside his brain. But like, the anger, the not sleeping, the shortness, like, there's literally nothing that's been invisible for us about the manifestation of a mild traumatic brain injury and PTSD. Hmm.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting that you'd say that you've used the word hate. I mean, it is pretty strong, right? It's, it's just like, I hate this. We haven't published it yet. But there's a commercial that I wrote, it talks specifically about the invisible wounds of war. And what happens is, I like to make movies, short ones, and we're going to try to see if we can do that. And if Lord willing, we can find a sponsor, that'd be better. But I have two forks. But we have two 4k cameras, and it's set up like this. When I deployed, my kids were five, no, four, and three. And so they were pretty young. And so what I wanted to do was set up the scenario where the kids are off playing with bottle rockets, and they're having a picnic, and everybody's having a great time. Except, guess what happens, you know, when you put those things that are in the bottle rockets take off, the guy literally, like flashes back, you know, to seeing the rockets and everything going on. And everybody else is oblivious to what's going on, except his wife who reaches over and just touches his hand and looks at him, you know, and sorry, I get kind of teary eyed. And so it's kind of like one of those really incredible moving moments, where it says, you know, basically that not everybody sees the invisible ones of war. But those of us that have been through it do. And so it's one of those things where people who live through it, get it. And sometimes all it takes is a glance, to just say, I love you. I care, you know, and that's what makes all the difference in the world. So I don't know what your experience is like, but I will tell you that for those of us that have been through it and get it, they are very visible. All you have to do is look for him.

I was gonna take a minute for jennylyn

No, I, yeah, we need that we could take a break for sure. Denise, and Jenny, seriously, I'm so sorry. It can be so powerful. There's so much stuff that goes on. And by the way, at any point in time for you or Jen, if you guys want to get a hold of me or if you know if there's anything I can do. I want to be able to do it. But the aspect is if we can shift the narrative into healing heroes, instead of focusing on the Wounded Warrior, I think it can do a tremendous good for our country and our society. And literally our community. I just really believe that wholeheartedly.

Oh, yeah, my husband is a huge pts g as in post traumatic growth that was a big was that I love that phrase. Yeah. I've also written articles about that, because Matthew's like, Can we please stop referring to it as PTSD? Like, not? Because he is now and come around to? Oh, yeah, that's a thing. And yes, I have that. And also, he's done all the treat. I mean, we are sure we are on the other side of the healing, like we have done the work. And so yeah, he's like, Can we talk about the growth? Like, can we stop talking about like, all the right, not just us in general, but that same, you're not the first person I've heard of talked about the Wounded Warrior Project like that, and quite honestly, at my own opinions, but in a military nonprofit, we have to play nice. So

if you look at the title of my book, The D is in parentheses, it's actually pts. And we put the D on there, just because I'm a clinical psychologist. But but we are missing, you know, there's so much more about post traumatic stress, and not to minimize it, because some people really do struggle with a lot of that. But I am a strong believer in the growth aspects as well. And, you know, you asked about resiliency formation training, you know, in the very beginning. So I wanted to come up with something that actually showed that aspect of resilience and growth that we can go through. Yeah, you know, when I came back, my wife said, David, you have more issues than Time Magazine. And I was like, what, like, come on, you got to be kidding me. And she's like, No, I'm serious. How do you take that? You know, I realized very quickly, you know, that I was struggling. I was having the nightmares. I was having the flashbacks. I was having a lot of those things. I didn't really want to admit it. I didn't want to deal with it. I didn't want to do any of that stuff. Because you know what, I'm fine. I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me. And smart and right. Oh, the other thing I finally realized was, there is something that happens inside of us and and maybe it's just me, but what it was, is I asked myself, I'm on already struggling with these issues? Why do I want to then turn around and tell my wife what I'm struggling with? and have her have those thoughts in her head? Yeah, to go to war to pay the price, so that the people I love didn't have to, they didn't have to think about those things or deal with them. So why would I do that? It just in my mind, it didn't make any sense. Now, since that time, what I found out are two things. One, all it does is create anxiety and fear in the loved one, because they have no idea what it is that so bad that you don't want to tell them. And then their mind just races. And that can be a really traumatic thing in and of itself, because you're just like, Oh, my God, what happened over there? What did you do? Well, you know, all that, and then the mind just starts racing. And that's just a normal thing for people to have. And then the other thing is, is that you miss out on the intimacy of a person who so cares about you and deeply loves you that they're willing to do whatever it takes to help you through it. And so I finally realized that, for me, sharing things with my wife, and not everything, but most of the things that I went through, was incredibly therapeutic and helpful. And so I know not everybody has a wife, who's a psychiatrist, and who's trained and empathetic, but for the fact, but the reality is, most people who have somebody who loves them and cares about them, all they need is for somebody to listen and just be there. I ended up suffering before I left a spinal cord lesion inside my C two c three, I lost almost everything from my chest down. And I ended up being medivac out after I actually completed my tour of duty because I wanted to finish what I started. And I was able to convince the general to let me stay, which was an amazing feat. It was a challenge. But I was able to successfully navigate that. I basically handed him I saw I was being treated by the neurologist, the Navy neurologists, they're in theater. And so the good news was, I didn't have to go anywhere for treatment, I was already there. But the problem is, is that when you're in theater, it takes time to get from Kandahar, to cool to Landstuhl, to San Antonio, whatever. And if you do that, you may end up not being treated in that process. So my argument was, at least I'm being treated here in theater. And if I do that, you're going to stop my treatment. And he's like, well, I still don't think this is a good idea. Then I just handed them my phone, the phone that we use for comms and he said, What's this? And I said, Well, you have to call my wife. He's like what I like, yeah. I said, if you're going to stop my treatment, you have to tell her I'm not gonna tell her. And he turns and looks at me goes. So you want to stay? And I said, Yes, I want to say, and I want to finish what I started. And there is something very intense and passionate, I think about military members who want to finish what we started. And that, by the way, is part of the reason why people want to end up going back, because they want to finish what they started. And when things are left unfinished. We don't like that very well.

I loved how Jamie pointed out and he's smart. I know you saw me chuckle like, yeah, there's the one thing that I would love to have a short conversation on, because I that for my family has honestly been one of the biggest barriers to care. Because we're both very intelligent, we both, you know, have master's degrees. We've both been in recovery for 13 years. Like we have all the tools. And so when this thing this, quote unquote, invisible thing, like it starts happening, you know, we should be better than that. Because we have read all the books, and we have done all the things and we've talked to all the people and so why, you know, I think normalizing it for anyone listening to this, then maybe struggling with it and going yeah, I read that book. Yeah, I've read that article. Yeah, like, yes. And you were very intelligent to do so. And also, that is very different than having someone that specializes in this help you work through it.

Amen. I could not have said that any better. fantastic job. I'm serious. And so you know, the impetus of all of this, I'm sitting at the VA, I'm treating people. And honestly, it's an integrity issue, because I literally sat there and I asked myself, how can I treat folks, if I haven't been there? Now, I know that you don't want to have your oncologist having cancer, okay, I get that argument. Right, you know, because you're just like, no, not everybody has to experience everything that they're treating. But for me, I wanted to know exactly what it was like what people go through. And it's still limited because the fact is, I can't speak to everybody's right History Background, what their trauma experience, whatever they've gone through, like, everybody's different. And so I'm ego syntonic. With that, I understand that you can't just, you know, speak on every topic. I don't even try. As a matter of fact, I minimize as much as I can. I'm like, Look, I had one deployment. It was six months long. I did what I could do to make a difference. And I felt like I did some helpful, good and now it's time to move on in regards to being able to take information that I have In my brain, and be able to share it with people and because being a psychologist, sure you can use groups, you know, maybe 1012. at max, I'm not interested in that I want to be able to reach 1000s of people, I want to be able to go through the process and help people to know that there are certain things that we go through that make perfect sense, when you look at it, for example, in the military on time is late, right? If you are on time, you are late. But when I come home, and I'm, you know, in my reserve world, and now my wife says, Hey, we have a party to go to at seven o'clock. Well, as a guy on time late means we got to be there at no later than 645. And she's like, Oh, no, no, no, we're gonna be there at 715 or 730. And I'm like, No, on time is late. No, she's like, no, we're doing fashionably late. And I mean, even the simplest things like that, you know, because Do not be late, you will not, under any circumstances, cause the general or anybody else to have to wait on you. And so even the simplest things that even when you're going to show up to a party can become a conflict, even though it isn't even stated. And there are hundreds of those things. You know, we are trained in so many different things. And maybe I can just share with your listeners, this one small thing that I've learned, you know, God tells us there's a season for everything, a season for war, and a season for peace. You can't do both at the same time, it doesn't work. And so all of this training sometimes that we received, that we think is good training, we somehow think it's like the Boy Scouts. Oh, it's good for life. No, no, no, some training is specific only for the military. If you try to use that kind of logic in your spouse, or your family, you're gonna find out really quick. That's not gonna work. Right? Well, it worked for my troops. Why does it work for you? Oh,

my God, don't even right. Oh, boy, you're asking for it.

Exactly. But the thing is, is that we somehow get it in our head, that all that training is good for us. And it should carry over? No, it's specific. They train us in the military, so that we can go to war and come home. It's not a manual on how to treat your family, and how to win friends in life. That's not what it's for. But somehow we think that we carry it over. And it's, you know, it's all good. Well, it's not all good. Yeah. And so that's why I think we end up having conflicts, because we simply apply principles that we shouldn't be applying. And you won't talk about reframe. That's the other part of it, we have to reframe, and figure out what it is the concepts were designed for. And then I'm in a different capacity. So there's a guy named john Boyd, he actually was a colonel at age 30. He was a pilot, and he died, B. And he created this really amazing concept called the ooda, loop, observe, orient, decide and act. And so that principle really does well. And they've crossed that over into sports into business and all kinds of stuff. So what do you do you observe, you take a look at what's going on, right? You observe, you orient yourself to the situation, you make a decision on what it is based on the best available information you have, and then you act on it. So that's something that you can use in life, it actually works very well. However, things like pain is weakness leaving the body. No, it's not. It's a nerve, where you are pushing on that nerve, and it hurts like heck, okay. Yeah, sure, you can say pain is weakness leaving the body really is, it's a heck of a lot of pain that's trying to tell your body something that if you keep doing this, you're probably going to cause some damage, right? But we buy into all this stuff, all of this training and everything. And again, you know, it's there for a reason, the military does an outstanding job of training us to win war and stay alive. But it doesn't necessarily mean that translates over into our personal life.

Yeah. David, on that note, I feel like I can listen to you forever. But I know your time is valuable. And there's a lot of good work to be done. So let us know. What can we do to help like, let us know some call to actions get some call to action, some takeaways in regards to project healing heroes.

If I could say anything to your audience, this is what it would be. There are people out here in the world that have been through some of the same things we have been through that care very much and care very deeply. And there are answers. And there are people who are willing to do whatever it takes to help you to be successful. Period, and you need to find those people now we can help you at Project healing heroes to the best of our ability. There's only me and the fact is we do have my wife, Catherine, who's a psychiatrist, we have what was it eight PhDs, three MDS. So we have a ton of resources and people, but the best thing to do is you can log on to project healing heroes.org and you can get free access to almost all of our stuff. And literally, there's a free video series that follows the workbook. If you can't afford the workbook, tell us and we'll send it to you for free. I'm sure we've already given 3500 of them, we ended up putting them on Amazon just because we wanted a wider audience to be able to get access to them. And that's worked out really well for us. But we also have this thing called make the connection.org that I spoke about. And it is our weekly meeting where we literally all get together, and one of us will train, well, this is a peer to peer LEAD program, but I will do some training. And the idea is about 10 to 15 minutes. And that's it, Max, because people can't really handle much more than that. And you just say, look, here's the topic, this is what we're talking about. And then we break into small groups. And we have a facilitator and a shepherd that kind of lead that. And people seem to find that incredibly helpful and supportive. So if at any point you'd like to, you know, tell share any of the books with you, I'm more than happy to do it. But the four books world quickly, the one is the workbook that helps you to work through some of the issues and challenges that many of us face when we come out of theater. The one I already spoke of what happens in war doesn't stay in war. The third one is entitled on God and trauma, hope for moral injury and survivor guilt. And the reason why I wrote that one is because I wanted to write it from a spiritual perspective, as well as a military perspective, because so many people deal with a lot of moral injuries and survivor guilt. And they really, they don't even feel like they want to bring it up. Like my service wasn't that big of a deal. My brother was very much like that way in Vietnam. And he said, Look, I came back alive. That's all he needed to know. And I was like, but But Joe, there's a lot of issues and challenges that people face. He's like, Look, as long as I came back, it didn't matter. And so they really didn't want to have to deal with all that kind of stuff. But for folks who actually are having symptoms and challenges and they're like, Man, I'm interested in doing something to make a difference. Pick up that workbook. And I tell you, it's something that I think might help you in the process, or the one about ongoing trauma. So those are just a few resources that people might be interested in.

I mean, I'm sure they're going to be into one of them. I mean, that's a ton of free resources. And if not even to just reach out to you so that you can mail them a copy. I just think, you know, David, you have such a big heart and passion for what you do. And when sharing your story today, I understand why. And I just wanna thank you. Thank you so much for being on our show. And, you know, having this conversation with us today. You bet. Thank

you guys so much for having me on.

Thank you guys so much. I appreciate your stories and sharing your experience with us.

Oh, you bet. You bet. I love your white coat by the way. That's cool.

All right. And with that said, we hope that today's episode give you one more piece of knowledge resource, a relevant story, so you can continue to make confident and informed decisions for you and your family. We look forward to speaking with you in the next episode. Tune in next time.