A Lighthouse in the Storm: Warrior Healing Center's Mission to Save Lives

In this powerful episode of M.M.R.E.S., we sit down with Cathie from the Warrior Healing Center to uncover the grassroots mission transforming veteran support in Cochise County. From battling veteran self-harm to creating a vibrant hub of community, purpose, and healing, this raw and heartfelt conversation dives into how WHC became a lifeline for thousands. We explore the Center’s origin, its innovative approach to care, and how you can help carry the mission forward. Whether you’re a veteran, a spouse, or a supporter, this is a must-listen.

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📍 Recorded at the Warrior Healing Center in Sierra Vista, AZ
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Transcript

Hey, happy Thursday. Welcome back to another episode of M.M.R.E.S We have a special guest today, Cathie from the Warrior Healing Center.

Hello.

Hello.

And I'm Beattrize, Cross country mortgage. I'm here just to have a good conversation and learn more about the Warrior Healing Center.

Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much. This is so cool that you're doing this. We love it.

We're trying. It's a lot of work trying to figure that out, but we got it right. I like our setup that we got over there. So we can see. It looks good. We're all talking to each other. It's a work in progress and it looks good.

I'm gonna kick it off. What can you tell me a little bit about the Warrior Healing center and what your role is here? Which, let's be honest, it's everything but what. What is the essence of the Warrior Healing center and what is the purpose and what is your role in trying to keep it moving along?

If you can try.

My goodness. You want me to keep that same? Because I could talk for three days.

However.

Yeah. Excuse me. I am the director of the Warrior Healing Center. We are a grassroots non profit organization, 501c3. This has been an evolution for the last seven years. We just. Last month was seven year anniversary of purchasing the building, which is what the start was. Yeah, seven years.

And it has just. Everything has been an experiment. We did not go into this expecting what we've got today by any stretch of the imagination.

So to get back to your question specifically here. We exist in order to do something about the. I'm going to use the term self harm instead of the more terminal term which may cause some algorithm issues with social media. So we have seen in this nation way too many veterans self harm.

We have lost way too many of them to the tune of somewhere between 60,000. Sorry, over 60,000. Right. To the tune somewhere of 6 to 12,000 a year. The VA tracks these numbers. They put out an annual report on prevention of veteran self harm and their numbers are showing since 2001.

Every year, 6,005. And then that was the lowest number and it is pretty much Steadily increasing, but still staying within the 6 to 7,000 range every year. But we know that that's a low number. And so why is that a low number? Because they are only counting what is.

No questions asked, no doubt whatsoever. So either a firearm was used or something else that was obvious. It was an immediate attempt to end.

Well, I think when, you know, when it comes to categorizing things, it's easy to be like, oh, okay, something else. It's. I don't think it can ever be accurate. So I, too, agree that those numbers are low.

There's. Yeah, there's a whole category called accidental for cod and that within those numbers, when you look at that and you see how many veterans lose their lives to things like drug overdoses, falls from heights, things like that. So they are. I believe that that category of accident is very highly masking.

It's like a scapegoat.

Right? So. And there's a lot of reasons for that. We could, again, we could talk for days about it, but. But basically, the reason that we exist is because there are so many veterans in our nation that have lost hope. Why have they lost hope? Well, we have done this work for seven years of helping veterans.

So what we're doing here is

we are operating as a place where veterans who are in crisis can come and get help. So instead of facing things in isolation, facing things without a team, they can come here, they can find a team, they can find people that have been through what they're going through before, maybe, and so there's some answers that can be offered.

That way they can find other veterans who have walked the path and know what some of the connections are and know what some of the pathways are to getting, you know, navigating the challenges that they're fac. Also, we are kind of a hub here for any challenge that veterans have.

And so we know what the local resources are. So now it's not up to a veteran on their own to have to figure out what all the answers are. They can come here and say, I'm struggling with this. Do you know anybody that can help me with this? Do you know anybody that knows how to do that?

Well, we do, because we've been here for seven years, pulling all the resources together, building relationships in the community.

So what are the things that the veterans come in and ask for? Like, what are some of the services that we got?

We. Well, okay, we are tracking and publishing our statistics of what people are coming in the door asking for help with online. So if anybody wants to see that's updated on a daily basis. It's at www.warriorhealing.vet

WHC stats. And that is great because you can see exactly what's going on with veterans in Cochise county who are facing different challenges. By far and away, the number issue that they face is needing help with getting their benefits. So from the VA disability claims,

I, you know, find it. I get really frustrated with all this, you know, communication. The VA puts out this report annually. Why are we having struggle with so many veterans self harming? Well, one of the easiest things we should be able to do as a country is give veterans what they've earned, right?

Correct.

But there's so many veterans that are struggling with it because it's bureaucratic and it is all kinds of hoops to jump through and it is. You have to dot your T, dot your I's and cross your T's and in exactly the right way to be able to get things to happen the way that it needs to happen for you to gain.

It's all about phrasing.

I was gonna touch on that from my point of view.

Yeah.

Everyone here is volunteer based, right? Versus some of the bigger places. We won't call them out by name. Our paid staff, whether they're veteran staff, you know, whatever it might be, they're there getting paid. So as you guys know, when we are on the clock, we don't necessarily want to be there.

But everybody who's here is choosing to.

Choose to be here. Exactly.

Choosing to want to help people because they've either been through the shit themselves or they were frustrated with some of the bigger institutions and they weren't given an answer. And so sometimes, unfortunately for the public who don't know about this place is a last resort and they come here.

But what I wish people would understand is if people are willingly wanting to support a place like this and wanting to be here and volunteer here, then you can bet your ass you, you're gonna come here and you're gonna get an answer. Probably quicker than going somewhere else where you're being told, hurry up and wait.

I mean, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that is one of the things that we work on really hard here is, as I said, nobody's getting paid to be here. We're 100% volunteer in grassroots, right. But we have put together, you know, we prioritize people first, processes second, and then cool ideas and technology third.

And we use all of those things in that order to help because when there is a veteran that's in crisis and they come through the door. I don't want to be like, oh, no, I'm sorry, I'm in a meeting, I can't meet with you. No, like, right. We will drop everything to try and de escalate the situation and help bring that person back to a level of stability so that they can do what they need to do to be stable moving forward.

And we treat our volunteers the same way. Right. We want all of our volunteers to be able to be here giving joyfully. And how do you do that? Well, you know, if you're a mom and you've got a sick kid at home or challenges going on or, you know, a sick pet or whatever, I want you to take care of that first because I don't want you here trying to help somebody in crisis when you've got these other things on your mind.

So we've done a really good job, I think, here of setting the framework up so that we can have volunteers come in. We're working right now to try and get kind of a more standardized training process for all of our volunteers. So everybody's marching to the same tune, working off the same sheet of music, understanding what the mission is, understanding what our priorities are and how to execute the mission appropriately.

So question on the mission. What was the original mission and how has it evolved since then? Like, because seven years, I know the original, like, we took. You took so many organizations and groups, kind of brought them in and had them combine forces, got past that. Now where are we at?

Where, what's the next step? Yeah, what's our next mission?

This has totally been an evolution. Like I said, when we started, none of this was planned. Right. It's just been a response very reactive to what we're seeing is the need. When we first came on the scene, we, you know, this building was purchased. We were going to do an indoor dog training center.

Tim actually purchased this building while we were dating, but we were kind of on the out. So I didn't even know even know this had happened. And when we got back together, I was like, what?

You did what?

Okay, cool. So. But he did that because he had been a client of Soldier's best friend. So that's a whole nother story. But we started out when he bought the building. It's a 60,000, 16,000 square foot building. So full of office space. Right. So, all right, our scope has become what it's become, but it's not just dog training.

Right. We're going to figure out something more. At the time, Sierra Vista was number three in the country, excuse me, number three in the country for veterans per capita. So a ton of veterans down here. We are highly saturated. More than a quarter of adults in Sierra Vista are veterans.

So if you're not a veteran, you're either married to a veteran, kid of a veteran, your neighbors, your co workers. I mean, the whole reason Sierra Vista is on the map really is because of Fort Huachuca. So very military oriented down here.

So there's a lot of veterans. There were also a lot of. Of veteran groups, veteran clubs, veteran service organizations in town trying to help veterans. Right. But the immediate thing that both Tim and I noticed is there's no command and control. These organizations are not doing a great job of collaborating, communicating, working together.

I always saw it as like, they kind of did like my vet. Like they would grab someone once a vet came in and they wouldn't share. It was like, you're sticking with me. I'm going to be able to solve all your problems. Don't go talk to those other groups.

It kind of seemed on some of these groups as well.

Do you think that stems from the military? Because I haven't figured out.

Oh, God.

Because I just, I don't understand because I'm coming in as a civilian.

You keep it in it because you always try to keep things behind closed doors, you know, so you don't want to sit there and bring everyone and start sharing problems here. We've kind of changed that a little bit. Like, no, we communicate with all the other groups and, you know, collaborate to figure out what is the best response for that vet.

And, you know, that's an awesome thing.

Yeah.

Look how they used to be.

When we started, the goal was, let's bring. We met a lot of organizations that were working out of their kitchens. Right?

Yeah.

So if you were a veteran that needed help, a lot of times you'd get ping ponged all over town. Go see them. Well, yeah, we can't help you with this, but maybe so and so can. And it was just a lot of ridiculousness. And veterans don't last long in that environment when they need.

When they're in crisis. Right. They need help. So if they're not gonna get.

So can't help me, I'm done. Right.

I tried.

That's it. You're just gonna, I gave it my own.

Right. Or try to fix it yourself. And if you can't, then you're in trouble.

So exactly what happens.

The goal initially was this would be a hub where we have all these different organizations under one roof that will help veterans in crisis. That has evolved over time because we have learned that some organizations are being run with people with different motivations. Right. There's a lot of people that are, oh my gosh.

I still struggle with this because I understand that in the military they have to incentivize good behavior. They have to incentivize following orders. Right. So there's this whole culture of like challenge coins and medals that you receive and ribbons and all this stuff to recognize, you know, the effort and stuff.

And it's, there's so much

needing pats on the back for things. I, I don't know, I come from a.

So you got to think of it the other way though is when you're in to look at it. I did a lot of pretty cool stuff and I got a couple nice awards. Should I have gotten maybe a few nicer awards compared to maybe the other higher ranked individuals I know didn't do nearly as many cool things.

But it's real life, you know, like so like it comes into that, that mentality of, of awards though. Like you sit there and you do all these things you. And all you're gonna do is get a COA at the end of the day. And a COA is just promotion points.

Right?

Is what it comes down to. Meanwhile, your platoon sergeant, your platoon leader, whoever it is, is now getting some bronze star and you're like bro, you didn't leave the chew the whole point, you know, and stuff like that. So when you're talking about awards,

it is a motivation because then you. But also it demotivates people when you don't do the work well and get the praise. And here we get a lot of praise.

Yeah. What we're seeing in the veteran community is, you know, there's a hall of fame for local veterans and there's, you can get your picture on the wall at the hospital and you know, on the one hand I get it like it's good, good to promote good actions and good models and stuff, but that's not, not what's happening.

Like to some degree there probably is. I, I don't look at this really hard because what I look at is there are some, there's somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 veterans each year terminally self harming themselves. Why are we looking to say, hey, good job veteran organizations, you're the veteran of the year.

Good job. No, like there is work to be done. There is serious work to be done. And until we get that problem fixed, I don't think anybody should be patting themselves on the back because right now we're at war. Basically it is a psychological war and veterans are very vulnerable for a lot of reasons.

The last seven years here at the center, working day in and day out with veterans and listening to their challenges and understanding what's going on. We call it veteranology. We have learned why veterans are susceptible and, and what to do about it. And so very cool. Like our third priority is cool ideas and technology.

Right. We are looking at self harm prevention. Right. So we have a Whole curriculum that has been developed and we are looking forward to in the very near future putting on some classes so that we are teaching veterans and family members, the community at large. This is what is going on.

And we haven't, we've looked, we haven't seen this anywhere. What people are doing, you've got like different. Everybody knows that this veteran self harm thing is, is a problem. Everybody knows that. Oh my gosh, 22 a day. Right. But they don't understand, right. They don't understand what to do about it.

And we know what to do about it. The answer, yeah, the answer is we need to treat veterans as individuals. We need to figure out how to help them through what's going on. We need to give them hope. We need to build up identity and purpose because really it's not a mental health issue.

That's how it's being treated. That's how it's being treated. So there's the Columbia suicide. I didn't mean to say that word. Columbia Self Harm Scale. Right. So cool. Let's teach that. But you're utilizing that and you're tracking that and you're scoring them and if they score a certain way every time you talk to them, you're going to run through that again.

But what are the actions that you're taking to help them heal? That's where the gap is. And people don't want to talk about it. It's a taboo subject. People don't want to do the things that are really needed. They don't understand what to do is really the problem. We know because we have seen it.

We have been experimenting here. We have been working with individuals and it's not, when I say experimenting is, it's not psychedelics, dudes, it's not, hey, the new brand of SSRIs. It's not more medication and chemicals. That's not what it is because it's not brain problems. There's nothing wrong with the veterans who are struggling with these challenges.

Do you know, I can't remember what the number is, but I remember we used to, I used to know it off the top of my head how many veterans that we had come in that were orange or red, that came in as self labeled as that and are still with us to the day.

Like, like it was like 30 something. Like the fact that 30 something something.

Vets don't mind my light growth here.

Have come in and sell said that they are in, you know, danger to themselves or danger to someone else and they're still with us.

So Yeah, I mean there's, there's no way officially to say with any evidence. You know, it makes me crazy when like I have prevented so many self harm episodes. Right? You don't know that. You don't know what you've prevented. You can't prove that. Don't even start the conversation. Don't say that.

Right. But yeah, but yes, what we are doing is tracking the information that's coming into.

Come on now.

We have everybody that's asking assistance fill out an intake form for us. It asks us on the series of questions. The number one question is what level of stress are you experiencing right now?

Yeah.

Are you agreeing? Everything's cool. You just need some help with your benefits. We can help you as soon as possible. We're not going to have to drop everything, right? Are you Amber, you're feeling a little bit of stress with your relationships. Things aren't great. You're feeling a little rocky.

You're a little on the edge sometimes and you know, you need some help. Are you orange? I am a threat to myself or others. I really need some help. Red. I am in immediate danger. Help now. So that's how we score it. And then I just pulled up our daily update.

Yep.

Our statistics page.

Pretty cool.

So since we started tracking this effectively, that's January of 2022. So just over three years.

Okay, three years.

We've got 1034 intakes that have been submitted that show veterans are green status.

A thousand green veterans.

Just over a thousand green. 727 that are, Amber, a little bit stressed. 164 oranges and 52 reds.

52, yep.

That's, that's what we're looking at from those stats. Now we started with our intake forms at the end of 2019. So there's data that is not in, you know, captured here, but it's a total of 1977 intake forms that we've. We're tracking here. And again, so the top issue that you said was benefits assistance.

The next three, just so you're aware, are financial assistance, mental health, housing assistance and, and legal assistance. So the next four. So people are coming, coming in with all kinds of challenges that they're dealing with on a daily basis. And what we give them is a team and like a team to help them plug into the resources.

We have a huge care team and they, it ranges from all sorts of different things. Getting housing, you know, different PTSD groups that we can get tapped into. The spiritual garden club. Gardening is great. So we even like, hey, you may just need to go and get your hands in some dirt, you know, and that can calm you down and get you into a good state of mind.

Flutes, drums. You have so many.

Well, it's not a one size fits all plan. Right.

Every individual needs something.

Something different.

Yeah.

And some, you know, they're gonna like different things or different things are gonna speak to them. So the arts is huge because you start creating things, and guess what that does. That flips a switch in your brain and gets you out of whatever dark spiral you. You're captured in.

So if you're alone, if you're isolating, which a lot of veterans find themselves doing. Right. Because. And there's again, we understand this from the seven years that we've been doing this, there's a lot of reasons why veterans are vulnerable to isolation. And what we say is isolation is the pathology of self harm.

Because somebody who is engaged and has relationships and knows that there's resources out there and is looking at the world as though they're not alone is going to be much less likely to harm themselves than somebody who is trying to get through whatever it is on their own and can't have a conversation to regulate their emotions.

Right. So, yes, getting your hands in the dirt is awesome. Doing art projects, music, dance, flutes, flutes, all of that drums, Right. Yeah. The drum circle once a month as well, is starting back up again. So all of these things are opportunities to not only turn on your creative side.

But also be doing it with other people that are veterans, you know.

So one thing I want to say is if you're listening and you yourself happen to feel maybe a little orange or into the red sometimes, or you find yourself being alone and you just want to be around sort to say a brotherhood that you used to be in when you were in the military duty.

This place has a ton of activities. So many stuff be surrounded by literally like your own people. And so.

Oh yeah.

Whether you're lonely or are a threat to yourself or you know somebody who might be that. That's why I love the Warrior Healing Centers. Because it's not one size fits all.

Absolutely not.

Literally. You can come here and you're gonna find something that you didn't even know was an option. And you're like, oh, holy. When is that, Flutes Tuesdays or whatever day, you know, like, oh, that's cool. I'll give it a shot. Yeah, I just, I don't know, I just love it here.

But I'm gonna tap into you a little here. What does a typical day look like for you?

I know I'm hitting you with the questions today.

Let's see how quick you can keep it on that one.

This one. It's a tough question to answer honestly. Well, it's. Yeah.

So one of the secrets to our success is we have thrown conventional wisdom out the window. Early on we realized, look, this problem of veteran self harm has been consistent. It's been rising. You know, we talked about the numbers that the, you know, the annual report for this from the VA, it tracks since 2001 and it shows, it's kind of steady, the numbers of the self harm.

But what it's not saying is that in that last, you know, from 2001 to 2020, those 20 year period, the number of veterans has shrunk by like 25%.

Why is that?

So the number, you know, your denominator has gotten smaller. Meanwhile, the numbers are climbing slowly, steadily. So the rate of self harm is not getting better, it's getting much worse. And now it's more and more younger veterans that are falling for that.

So do we have, do we know why or.

Well, there's all kinds of reasons and that's what I mean. Like, but the answer is like people come in and tell us all the time, you have the offices and we donate the office space to organizations that help veterans. Right. So early on, every conversation started with, why aren't you charging rent?

And we're like, no. They're like, if you don't charge rent, you're going to fail, you're not going to survive. Okay, fine. But if we charge rent, we're not gonna have the right organizations here. The organizations we need are the ones that are busting their butts trying to make stuff work out of their kitchens, in their houses because they care.

They want to be doing this, and they don't have the money to spend on rent. That is the whole reason why we're doing this the way that we're doing it. So we're pulling in organizations that are helping veterans for the right reasons, and they're doing it bare bones. I mean, it is lean.

It is so lean here because nobody's getting paid. We've got kind of an expensive overhead with, you know, the building and stuff, but in the big scheme of things, it's really cheap to do what we are doing. And the number of veterans that we are helping, if you take the cost per veteran, it is tiny.

It is the effect, the impact that we have is like a really good bang for your buck. So I'm off track here with the question asked, but we are very much. We have thrown conventional wisdom out the door. We are doing things the way that we see things need to be done.

We are doing it without a lot of red tape because we're grassroots and we don't have anybody over us telling us how to do stuff. And, you know, Tim and I both have a lot of real world experience that has allowed us to use logic and reasoning and apply common sense.

And you don't find that a lot of times when you're a veteran going to a bureaucracy trying to get help that you need, a lot of times you feel like they're just trying to check boxes and get you through. You're seen as a liability or a number. You're not seen as Josh with all the experience that you bring to the table.

So we.

For your social. That's the number.

That's all you are.

Yeah, Right, Right. So here we are doing what we can. We are pulling in volunteers. The most successful volunteers that help other veterans are the ones that have been through the shit. Been through the shit. Right. So they are not the ones that necessarily look great on paper. They're not the ones that have all their ducks in a row because they're able to relate to veterans in crisis because they've been through it and they're still.

A lot of them are still going through it. So that makes my job really hard in a lot of ways and fun and challenging. And there's A lot of good, too. But as with any nonprofit, it's usually a few people that are doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

Right. And so that is true part of what we're going through right now. So my regular normal day is how do we build this out so that it's going to be sustained, sustainable. So we've put an org chart together. We are putting together plans for bringing people in and keeping them inspired and figuring out how to keep doing things that are making the difference.

Helping veterans it has been. I would love for my job to be a lot more proactive and structured and have all these meetings and have all these outreach and me being able to connect with other people that are running other organizations so that. And people that can do funding fundraising for us.

And, you know, I would love to be able to focus more on that stuff because it's always a challenge. Right. We got to figure out how we're paying the mortgage next month. Right. But we are very responsive and reactive. And again, we keep those priorities straight, right? People, then processes, then ideas and technology.

And because of that, I'm interrupted a thousand times a day because people need things. Right. So it's a. Veterans that are needing help are in cris. We have a team that manages that. So for the most part, that's not in my lap. But on occasion, I get pulled into that.

And I'm an RN too, so from the civilian world, so I've got.

I did not know that.

No. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. So sometimes, you know, I have to put that hat on. But,

yeah, helping the veterans is always number one. Helping the volunteers is a big part of my time, too, because we are dealing with a lot of volunteers that want to help, that don't fully understand the picture yet, that need a little guidance to know how to do it effectively, efficiently.

We have communication tools that we have put together that allow us to be helping the number of people that we're helping.

So how many channels are we up to on Telegram now?

I never kept count, but

there were at one point recently when Tim had some issues with his account, I happened to look at how many channels that we shared, and it was almost 500. And he's not on a lot of the channels that I'm on, so. So I have a lot of channels, but it's channels of communication that we've got.

So we've got a good communication plan for keeping volunteers informed of what's needed, where and when we're meeting and what's going on. We also have a database that allows Us to track what's going on with each veteran that needs help, where, what their intake looks like. So this is.

Okay. So I did nursing at the bedside for several years and learned how to. How to take care of people, how to help people heal. And once I wanted to move on from that, I jumped over to it. And my job was helping hospitals create electronic medical record systems.

So one of the first things I recognized immediately when we were doing this is how do we keep all this information managed and at our fingertips? Right. Because a filing cabinet in somebody's office with veteran John X's intake in it is not going to be helpful when John comes in and I'm out of the office.

Right. Or we can share information with different organizations in the community too, potentially. So, you know, we get the permission from the veteran to allow coordination of care and sharing their information in order to do that. Um, so we have created a database where we keep that information handy.

And then if somebody needs it to be able to assist them, I'm able to share that information immediately. And that makes all the difference in the world. And it helps us kind of measure the numbers, too, so that we can see, data wise, what's going on in Cochise county, what are veterans struggling with.

Here, what's not working?

Right. We're in rural Arizona. We don't have a ton of great resources. Mental health resources are really hard to come by. What else do we need? What is. Where are the gaps? And these numbers that we're collecting are great because then we can share that with, you know, the political leadership, people that are making decisions.

How do we get more resources that are needed to be able to cover the need?

So speaking of resources, since this is 100% nonprofit, what are some of the things that you guys are always looking for to be donated? Or how can essentially the community help, whether it be volunteering or getting food? I know you guys have, was it bagels and brews third Wednesdays of the month so people can come and hang out and enjoy a good breakfast together?

I mean, obviously the garden stuff is donated. Like, what. What are some other things that you find that are commonly needed that may be scarce?

Sometimes there is so much and it's hard for me to even keep track. But we have a quartermaster team and they help me put lists together. So every so often we'll post, like, what does the pantry need right now? So, like, every couple of months we'll post kind of a grocery list.

If anybody's out there and can contribute these items, we always need coffee, right? It's a vet center. We've always got coffee brewing. People are always drinking coffee. Coffee is lie, right? And sodas. So we have a relationship with Swire Coca Cola in Huachuca City which is phenomenal. So she'll call up and say hey I've got some extra sodas, can you pick them up tomorrow?

And I'll be like let's jump on our communication system and see if anybody can go pick them up. You know what I mean? So yes we have a food pantry. Putting food on the table has been hard because the economy sucks. So so for a lot of people they've been struggling with housing, food and you know just being able to pay for basic things to take care of their families.

So the food pantry is always looking for non perishable items. We also have several refrigerators and freezers that have been donated in this building so we can take perishable items as well. So we have a panel. Pantry team, we have a quartermaster team, we have a gardening team, which ideally, you know, the stuff is starting to sprout out there.

So ideally that'll support the food pantry and supplement that. Yep. And then we've got a cooks club. So if we've got a lot of perishable items, they will go convert them, take them into, make them into meals and bring them in for like potluck style stuff here or for meals that are donated that we can stick in the freezer so that veterans can come in and, you know, get a bite to eat if they're, if they're hungry, you know, and that's, it's just low key, easy, easy stuff.

So specifically, what do we need? Well, I'm actually

one of my other hats is let's manage our social media and put the word out to the public. So one of the things I'm starting to do is every week, how can you help? How can you get involved? So it'll be like grocery lists or it'll be, hey, support our social media stuff.

Like follow our page. Like our stuff. Do that for all the veteran, all the small businesses really, not just veteran owned, but, you know, we're pushing veteran stuff. So also the veteran owned stuff,

bring in coats. We do a coat drive with Real wishes foundation. They do coats for kids. So if they get adult size coats, they'll donate them here. And so we've got a rack here that we keep now for coats for vets. Anybody can donate those blankets. Quilts, baskets. We put food baskets together regularly for veterans who are sick or have, you know, recently had a loss in the family or something like that.

So there's. We try to stay away from clothes, we try to stay away from household items because it gets a little bit much.

Drop off their broken lamps.

Yeah, it gets a little bit much.

It takes a lot. And we don't have the, I mean, the 16,000 square foot building. I wish we had a second level because it's just not enough space for everything that we're doing. But also we're trying to not duplicate efforts that other people are doing well already. So, you know, we utilize Sahara, the thrift shop in Huachuca City.

It's run by Rick and Dredia and they're phenomenal. Like, if we have a veteran that is having tough times and needs something, they will hook them up with no problem. You know, St. Vincent and the organizations in town will also help with some of those things too. So we try to stay away from, you know, some of that.

The Clothing and stuff like, that's just more than we would ever want to manage. But at the same time, we also have a fundraising effort every month. That's a yard sale. So if you are spring cleaning and you want to drop some stuff off, we'll put you in touch with Buddy because he might be able to sell that at the yard sale to raise funding to help keep this place going.

Yeah.

So I love how connected you are. Anytime I ask you a question, you're like, we have a group for that.

Oh, there's.

You know, we don't necessarily take clothes ourselves, but we have thrift shops or other places. Not even just in Sierra Vista. You mentioned Huachuca City and Stafford. Anyways. Another place not here in Sierra Vista. And I just. I love that. I'm like, I'm trying to hit you with the hard questions, but you've already thought of all the things on how to help people, so.

Well, we're just trying to be efficient and trying to get through the day, and it's. It's a juggling act. Like, there's so much coming at us, so we had to. I don't know. It's just the way my brain organizes stuff. Let's figure out and track who the people are for this, who the people are for that, and then try to utilize, you know, utilize them and get people in touch with the right places so that it doesn't all have to go through me, you know?

So I'm gonna hit you with another question, see if I can't get you on a hard one. Can you share a moment that has really stuck with you to this day over the last seven years that maybe has helped you shape your opinions on how to handle something or something that you just reference back to?

And it helps maybe to drive you on a certain direction. Like, what is something that has made an impression on you and has really stuck with you? Whether it was somebody or, I don't know, something awesome that happened within the center itself. Like, there's. There's got to be something besides.

I always say, like, there's always more than one motivator. Right. And for me, certain experiences in my life have helped me change my opinion about something, and I. It drives me to. To face challenges a little bit differently. And you're doing great work here. Everybody here who's volunteering is doing great work.

But, like, I mean, you are the head of that, you know, like, you. For you to keep going and not be weighed down by all the stress and everything. I want to know, like, what is maybe one thing that just helps you to wake up and just be like, let's hit it again, Tim.

Let's go help more veterans. That's. I'm gonna pick your brain a little bit. Like, I want to hear it. There's got to be something. Something good over the last seven years that has just, like, lit a little fire under your ass.

You know, I would say the immediate, obvious answer to that for me is faith, because I am a recovering Catholic. I went to Catholic school for 13 years of my life, and my faith was never. I mean, I always believed in a higher power, but I was not. You know, I grew up every.

My parents were very involved in the church, right. So they would read at church every Sunday. We were at church dressed in our best. Every Sunday. But as an adult, I was not so into that. I was more. You know, I find my spirituality out in the mountains, out in nature, on the water.

That's what I love. I feel connected there. Here. There is no doubt in my mind that all of the good things happening here are not because Kathy and Tim know what the hell they're doing. We bring some good ideas and some good strategy to the table, for sure, but it is so much bigger.

It is so much bigger than us. And there is no doubt, not a doubt in my mind that Tim and I ended up together because of some extra help.

There's a reason, right? Everything happens for a reason.

Absolutely.

Time. And we just have to go along for the ride and just kind of ride through it.

Yeah. And we. We talk about this regularly because I can't tell you how many times no good deed goes unpunished either. Right. So how many days have I had where I'm just like, I'm done. Why are we doing this?

Done. I'm not going back in tomorrow. I'm disappearing to Costa Rica.

Let's shut the door and. Sure, go to Mexico, go wherever.

We have had that discussion several times, but I kid you not, every time we get into a fight or get serious about quitting, somebody just happens to come through the door. That is a case that their life is totally turned around and uplifted because of what connections they made here, you know?

And it's not even always something that I'm immediately. You know, I may not have directly been involved in the case. Right. But they come in and just say, hey, I just want to say thank you. Or I just want to say, hey, I'm looking at doing this, this, and.

And xyz, whatever. And I'm like, all right. What we're doing is clearly a channel for good things to be happening. I think this is kind of a lighthouse in a sea of darkness. I think, way to describe it. Yeah. And I think there's like. How do you argue that?

You know what I mean? Like, it's just. It's working and it's helping a lot of people. And, you know, I. The last thing I want to do is push religion or faith on anybody because that's. It's here. If you guys need it, ready. If you want it, we can have all kinds of talks.

Yeah.

That's not why we're. I mean, maybe kind of under the. Under the COVID which is why we're here. But. But because we want to be able to help people. I believe that that's how you find healing. That's how you find. You know, it's. It's all about truth. It's all about fighting evil and human nature.

Yeah. Human. Right. We are dealing with a lot of bad things in the world. Veterans have been face to face with a lot of bad, scary, evil, ugly shit in the world.

They've seen some shit and they carry that shit with them sometimes.

Right.

They don't know how to handle it, you know.

Right. So, yeah, absolutely.

I described it as a lighthouse. That's actually a great way to describe it. Within little old Sierra Vista. Who's highly saturated with veterans or people who are associated with veterans, like follow the little lighthouse right here. And it's.

Yeah.

You know, ran by people who want to help.

So people are finding us when they need to find us. So there may be people out there that don't know about us, but tomorrow someone brings them in and it's meant to be. You know what I mean? Like, it's on some. Some other powers schedule, you know, but it happens the way that it needs to happen, and we see that repeatedly.

So it's just. How do you. How do you argue that?

You know, it's always funny when you get new people in here. They always. They always say the same three things. It's always like, I didn't know this place existed, you know, or I didn't know this was here. It's bigger on the inside because as soon as they come in, they don't realize how vast this building is.

Like, it's not big.

When you say 16,000 square feet, it feels like it's a lot bigger.

Right.

And then the other one is, I cannot wait to bring my dad, my mom, my sister, my aunt, my brother. It's literally like that's how it goes when someone finds this place. I used to work the front desk for a year or two, I think, and that was always anytime someone new came in.

I didn't know this place was here. Oh, I can't wait to bring my sister here. Yeah, bring them on back. And then, then they come in and then they say the same thing and it keeps on going. It's just there's so many things here. So actually, I got a question for you.

We're gonna have some fun here. Real quick,

can we get a timer going by chance?

Oh, can you set now? I'm feeling pressure.

Can you get us a 30 seconds timer?

Okay.

All right. When we say go, I want you to name as many organizations as you can.

Oh, my God.

That are in the center. No, we're going to do 30. All right.

All right, so. So, okay, let me.

As many organizations.

I thought it was the hard stuff.

But you just gotta have some fun.

Well, I just, I want to. Because this place has definitely evolved over the years, right? So prior to Covid, our goal was let's fill all the offices with different organizations. As we worked through Covid and coming out of COVID people changed. People were not. They didn't come back, meetings as much, whatever.

So it's changed a little bit. But also we have created this ability. The CARE team, for example, right. We will pair up a volunteer with every intake, every veteran that fills out intelligence. And intake so that we can get you through whatever the crisis is and move on. So we've got a lot of office space now that's actually being used for counseling type work.

We've got, you know, two organizations that are in here that are state level sort of organizations that are helping specifically with two really important things. I'll name them when I do the listing of places.

She's stalling to remember all the names, right?

No, it's just, it's. It looks different but we're still very involved with all of the work. We will work and we want to be working with all of the veteran serving organizations in the county because the only way to overcome this self harm problem with veterans is to work together, is to get us all working together.

It blows my mind. I mean that's one of the biggest struggles I've had coming in as a civilian is being like why, why is.

No one communicating with, why is this so hard?

Like we all should be working together. But what you mentioned earlier is right, there's a lot of people that are like, well we've been doing it this way for years and this is how we should do it. And who the heck are you and why are you telling us what we should be doing?

And it's like no, no, no, it's not that we're telling you what to do. It's that we're trying to simplify to get rid of redundancy, rid of duplication and get us working together so that we're all able to do stuff, communicate.

So you can collaborate towards the common goal which is helping with the problem.

Right, right, absolutely.

Communication is the key. But I can't tell you how many times that we'd be deployed and you know, we couldn't talk to the truck that was right outside or the FOB that was right down the street or right there. But yet all these other units are like, oh we can, like communication.

Fails, but it shouldn't. In this day and age here in Cochise county with the tools that we've created and the processes that we've got here, what we should all be doing is working together. We've got one organization that I swear it is. There's a sign up over our front door, especially for them which is check your ego at the door.

Because we're helping veterans and we don't have time for this nonsense. Like there's no reason to try and compete. What you were saying earlier, we're going to help you and we're going to be the only One that helps you. We. Why? Yeah, why? We should be sharing. There are 20,000, about 18,000 veterans in Cochise County.

Right. There's a lot that are suffering, a lot that need help.

Yep.

Why would you even approach it as let's fight over it? No, why would you approach it as let's compete? What? You're not even in our league. Why are you trying to compete? You would be doing so much better if you would come work with us. Because we've got the processes figured out.

We've got the ability to share information. We've got the volunteers. We've got the plan and share resources. Absolutely, absolutely. So that is kind of the focus that I've got and what I. What I want to do. And we will work with any organization that wants to work. And if you have a problem with what we're doing, we are open to that too, because I don't think we know all the answers, and I know we don't know all the answers.

Come in together.

Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about it. We want to hear the different. We want to hear where we're screwing up because we want to make it better. We want to hear what's wrong, what we could be doing better. So. So, Yeah, I don't know.

So back to my question. So, okay, how about instead of. Because. Yeah. We have changed from just a lot of organizations in here to now. Not as many organizations, but a lot more groups.

Yeah, there's a lot like more groups.

So how about we can just combine the two organizations that hang the hat here and some of our groups that help vets.

Absolutely.

So like, I. E. Example, Garden club would count as one. Those groups, kind of count.

Them together.

Just throw. Throw them all. All right. 30 second timer. All right.

Okay. Ready? Hit it.

All right, well, we're gonna start with soldier's best friend in Hero paws, of course. Because that's the. The reason that we're here. I know. I gotta go fast. We've got Primavera. That helps with housing. We've got Arizona at Work. That helps with employment. We've got a food pantry team.

We've got the Gardening club. We've got the Flutes for Vets. We've got the Drum circle. We've got Healing with Art. We've got

the Marine Corps League. We've got AM Vets. We've got Vietnam Vet Veterans of America. We've got time already. Air Force Association. Sorry. And Velo Vets. Velovets. Oh, my. I'm gonna get in trouble because I'm not naming people.

30 seconds again.

You can't keep me.

That. That's. That's what I wanted to see. Like, how quick you gotta get. Quick. You kept going. And they do this.

All of them. But I think you have like a woman's ptsd.

There's a women's PTSD specific heart to heart. Yep. And there's two other PTSD support groups. Those are not run by clinic clinicians at all. That's just support with instruction to them. You know, if you're ever feeling like your people are getting more anxious or frustrated or you're opening wounds in that.

We don't want to be sending people out from those meetings more upset than what they were when they came in. So there's a, you know, a course of action for them to take if that were to evolve. But in the last seven years, that still has not happened.

Yeah.

Who else did you miss? I'm sure there's a bunch.

So Heroes Healing Heroes does outdoor hunting and fishing and stuff.

Cvma, Veterans Motorcycle Association.

Wonderful producer in the back.

I said cva. I did that one. I did catch them. I'm trying to think of who were in all the different offices, but while we do have a lot of offices, we definitely don't have enough. Right. We recently lost combat wounded veterans

crews. So combat. Is that what they changed to? It used to be Purple Heart.

Used to be the Purple Heart crews.

There's an issue.

They changed the legality of Purple Heart attack wounded crews.

But now they have. The people that have been running that for the last, I don't know, eight years are stepping aside and they've handed it off to somebody that's running it out of Texas now. So they were not sure where it's at. They will free up that office for us, which is good because we're needing more office space right now.

Yeah. We have a. Like a spirituality team. We have a chapter library. We have the library. We have a librarian. Gosh.

We have a computer office with Linux and a Linux club.

Yeah. We have a fundraising team, marketing team that's coming together now.

We have the live Stream studio across the way. We actually have this studio as well, the podcast studio. So any vets can come.

Team Rubicon.

Yep. Definitely red, white and blue. They continue to meet over at the library. I. They're welcome to come here if they'd like. I think there's a lot of potential and good opportunity for us to be working together. If they want to do that, they're welcome. We would love to have them.

Did we say Vietnam vets. Bill did we. Okay, so I make sure we give good shout out to Bill over there. I was like, wait a minute. Yeah, we even have a recruiter in here, right?

Yeah, the National Guard.

National Guard recruiter.

Yep. They use office space in here too.

We have legal, you know, we have a legal team.

Yeah.

That get offer Warrior education program. Yes.

Yep. They have an office in here and.

I've used them a couple times just for, just for advice, you know. Never, never like full on legal services. Just like, hey, let me run something by you. And they are amazing.

We have a lot of our legal assistants.

They do all those things.

They'll take husband and wife. Right. That put on classes.

But there's. Yeah. So yeah, Joe and Lori have done classes for us in the past. Hopefully we will get that going again. They've got some other stuff that's taken up a lot of their energies right now. But we do have a team of volunteers that we're trying to grow for survivor assistance.

So if you have been through that in the past and want to help others, we've got about six volunteers working that right now.

And then you also mentioned like that you have the fundraising and marketing and stuff like that. So you have not just all these other clubs that help vets like, you know, deal with their problems, but you also have clubs that help the center itself, like grow. So now you can find a purpose.

So like myself, like I volunteer with the fundraising group, the marketing group and stuff like that. So I don't really. I'm not jumping into cook's club and doing the flutes. But that's, that's where I'm volunteering and my helping. I come over here, I'm a good cook.

You've got a cards and games, you know.

Yeah.

A crochet. There's a crochet group now.

Tai chi.

Yeah, yeah. Tai and qigong.

How'd you forget that? Reiki. There's just so many different things here that like we've keep repeating. It's not a one size fits all thing here. It's. You find something here.

We're willing to test all kinds of things too.

I started off front desk. Yeah, I started off in the front desk for a couple years and then from there I kind of took a step back when we had the kids because, you know, it was hard to be here every day or all in my days. And then I've now started helping doing events.

So the, you know, the parades were the trunk or treats. Stand up for freedom. Like there's always something Here for someone, you just start volunteering and we'll find something for you here. We'll find your place, wherever that may be. We will find a spot for you. Absolutely.

And I think that is huge for a lot of the veterans.

Gives you purpose.

Trying to heal too, right? Yeah, it gives me purpose through helping others.

Like a lot of those other groups, they're awesome. But they just never spoke to me because I'm like, I got my business side so like this kind of matches up with some of my other ideas. It works together and it gives me out here doing things gives me purpose.

I'm throwing on my warrior healing shirt, getting people in here to talk with people and stuff like that. It's awesome. It gives me purpose here to spread the word on the center and get out there. That's how I do it too.

I didn't mention. And they have an office that they use to help folks with benefits. So that's the total win win because

we schedule appointments for veterans to be able to sit and get their benefits looked at as opposed to if they go to the DAV office they're gonna do it on a walk in basis and not, you know, not get to pick who they see and all that kind of stuff.

So yeah it's. But it's a win win because it totally helps drive their numbers.

I've sent a lot of veterans here, friends as well and actual clients here that have came here, got their benefits and then eventually got their benefits increased to 100% and then went on to buy a house with me. Like, like imagine that like in a two year period you went from having zero benefits to getting 100% disabled and then buying a house just because we.

They just sent came over here to the center.

That's amazing.

Like in a two year period went from an apartment to a huge house, dream home.

It turns life's around. Lives around, right? Like it's, it's.

Imagine that like that's what, that's some. That's small portion of what we do here. So small. Like just.

My tidbit, I wanted to add to all of the things that you guys just named because I'm not familiar with all of them yet. I mean, I'm still learning.

There's so many.

I love it here. I just don't have time to be here as much as I want. But it's similar to, like, when we got married and I got to meet all of his buddies, battle buddies, the different companies, different, you know, whatever it might be. Different wives. They all had different backgrounds.

They all called soda different pop or whatever it might be. I mean, this place is similar because you come here and it's not just one thing. It's multiple different things, different hobbies from whoever might have been from the east coast. And they brought something because they were stationed here.

And this is my hobby. I came here. Well, how do we know that a veteran that came in through this door grow up with that same hobby? And it's. It's available here?

Absolutely. Yeah.

This place is kind of cool because it's like its own community and its own little battle hub, if you will, because you can come here and there's so much to learn. Because I. I mean, I grew up here, and this was before Sierra Vista started growing. And so when I left, I, like, eyes open to a whole new world of shit that I didn't even know.

Hobbies, the way people name different things or describe things differently. This place is like home to me because we had this conversation. Some of our best friends, they're all out of state, all of. But when we get together, I mean, we do shit that isn't even available in this town.

Right, Right.

But if you come here. Oh, do you guys happen to have. No. But if you want to bring it, I'm sure there's other veterans who want to do the same thing, because at some point, and we all know this, our husbands, they played stupid shit to keep themselves entertained while they were in the military or deployed or what is Tim say?

Different hobbies or they learn different things from each other. Like the Velo vets.

Mm.

I mean, come on. Like, you got beautiful weather outside and people who want a bicycle, but maybe not necessarily alone, or maybe they used to do bicycle races wherever they were stationed. And Stu Carter.

Yeah, in each, he calls himself Cairo Joe. That was what he did. Yeah.

Well, the cool thing with Velovets, too, to give them a little shout out, is for the vets that may have won a bike ride, but they can't because they may be physically limited. He will custom make a bike for that person to meet their physical needs so that they can get out there and ride in our beautiful weather down here.

That is a big part of their mission. And it's just getting people out of the house and physical and camaraderie all together. Right? For sure. Frisbee golf. We would love to have a frisbee golf team if, you know, veterans that want to take that on and start that. How fun would that be?

Right?

I mean, we do have that one over there on seventh, right?

Right.

Yeah, there's that one spot over on seventh. There's just so many things here. And like, it's, it's funny because like, you know, and you get the telegram and all of a sudden you get like new channel and stuff like that. You're like, oh, what's the new group that I'm getting added to?

And you're like, oh, okay, I guess I'm doing that now.

Josh, I trust in your savviness with telegram to be able to remove yourself from any group. You can't.

Oh, I know, but it's just, it's just funny because it's always like, there's always, you know, like, so I'm in. I'm still in the front desk when. So I still. Because I'm a ringer anytime it's. They need it. Like last year. Yeah, I think she still knows. It's just I am like the last, last, last resort, I think is what it comes down to.

But there's those groups and then you have the front. Just the volunteer one, which is all the volunteers. And I can't even think of how many other telegram channels there are.

But that's okay. We don't need to talk about it.

I have two last questions from my point. Do you have any more fun things? Okay, so you've been here 7. And the intent obviously is to keep this place going forever, right?

The intent is for it to be able to run without Timurai in the state.

Keep it going forever.

I want, I want people to be able to run with it. Yep.

Okay, so that, that's leading into my next question.

Okay.

Where would you like to see the warrior healing center in five years?

Well, what I started to talk about earlier with the self harm prevention, like, I can't even tell you. We were on a platform last night talking with some bigwigs in the veteran arena and they did not like what we had to say. They don't like it because they're trying to get behind putting a bill through Congress to try and make it legal for Things like, you know, shrooms, to be able to help veterans with their PTSD and stuff.

And we look at it very differently as we were talking earlier. Right. It's. It's not a problem with your brain. It's not something that chemicals are necessarily needed. Now, medicine has its place, definitely. I'm not gonna say.

But it's not healing or fixing.

Right.

What's the.

What's the stem damage?

The root stem?

The stem of the problem.

Yeah. What is that?

We need to understand what is the pathology,

Self harm, what is causing it, what happens. It's like prior, you know, now you can have somebody have a heart attack in the parking lot. And there are people around that know how to give CPR, that understand how to use the AEDs, that know where they're at, can find them immediately, know how to call 911 and get this patient from the ground in the parking lot into a hospital, into the cath lab where they can put a cap, you know, a stent in.

When it happened to Tim, it was less than three hours from the time he was first experiencing chest pain until we had a cath, got him out of the cath lab with the stent in. Amazing, right? Like, we can do that. Why can we do that? Because we started to figure out what is a heart attack, what does it mean?

How do you fix it? You've taken the heart out and dissected it and figured out what's going on with the arteries and what causes the problems. How do we prevent the plaque buildup, all of this stuff. Right. We can't do that with the emotional challenges of the injuries to the soul.

You can't cut out your soul and dissect it and figure out what's happening. So we have to take a whole different approach. And what we've learned in the seven years we've been doing this is that it is an injury to the soul. It is a problem with your identity and purpose as a military active service person.

Your identity and your purpose is bulletproof when you are active duty. Oh, yeah, right.

Oh, I was. We got back, we were invincible. Like Miami day. We were all were.

You don't have to think about what you're gonna wear, what you're gonna eat. You know what your mission is from day to day. You know what your task is. You are full of purpose and you are going strong and you're doing it with your buddies, with the people that get it, that are there living and breathing it with you.

Yeah.

Your best friends, your brothers, your sisters.

From the Military, it's all gone. That implodes for a lot of people because you lose that whole part of yourself that is your mission, your purpose, your identity. Right.

That's all they've known, in some cases, straight out of high school.

Absolutely. There's a lot of people that go into the. Everybody that goes into the military goes in for a lot of different reasons. Right. So some are coming from broken homes, some are coming from difficult. Whatever they. They. There's a whole subset of veterans that we deal with that.

I'm like, we need an Adulting 101 class at Cochise College. Like a whole track. Like, let's. Because one of the things that people need help with you. So I think our number two after benefits was financial assistance. How do you create a budget so that we make sure that you've got more money coming in than you're spending so that you can pay your bills?

There's a lot of veterans that are struggling.

Well, you join, you know, like, I joined right out. 18 by the time I got out. I was a young man, but I hadn't. I went from high school to then getting told what to do, and I didn't have to think again. Like you said, I just be here, wear this, eat this, be here.

Be where? You know that that's all it was.

Right.

And then I got out and I'm like, oh, wait, I have to feed myself. I got to pay for my own housing and electricity and water.

So to touch on that, I didn't even know, like, oh, I have to get health insurance.

Yeah, like, exactly, like health insurance. Like dental, vision. What? Those aren't in the same health insurance.

Right.

You know, like, those are separate. What the heck?

So there it, like, I think there's a huge market and a huge need. All the community colleges should be offering something, but, like, mostly aimed at veterans. But there's a lot of people that probably didn't serve that would benefit as well.

But to go back to what you're saying, like, you get out, and now all of a sudden those things have. You have to do. You don't know what to do. You don't have money because you probably don't have a job that you had that standard paycheck every month, you got two paychecks.

Your food was paid for, all this stuff. Now you got to start paying for this. And if you're married now, you have wife, kids.

Josh, what was your transition plan? What does the military consider transitioning out of the military? What do they prep you for?

Yeah. So I. I was a little unique. So when I got out, I had 89 days of terminal. So I signed out on leave in September, and I was already overseas contracting by November. My ETS date wasn't until December 1st.

So they considered that you had transitioned because you had a job basically. Right. You were stuck to go. You.

I don't think it was that. They just. We, you know, went through a couple classes. Yeah, it's. It's. You went through some classes, you signed some, you know, learn how to write a resume, you know, go here to these job fairs, which I went to a job fair, thought I had landed the coolest job to do.

Space UAVs. Like, Lily space UAVs. How cool would have been, go from flying a little UAV to flying some space UAVs. I don't know if that's a satellite, but they said space UAVs. Well, and I found out this is why the class is important. They said, yeah, we'll give you a call back.

We'll give you a call back. Week goes by, no call. Two weeks go by, no call. B looks at me, she's like, did you put your contact information on your resume? I'm like, yeah, of course I did it. I put on the top, the printer cut off the top, had no contact information, no name, nothing.

Just resume. So, like, stuff like that. Like, obviously, the ACAP class failed me that day.

But the problem really is, I mean, and that's a, you know, that's.

That's what they.

That's an outlier potentially. Right? But. But the challenge is that's all. They indoctrinate the heck out of you to you in as part of the green machine. Right? But then when you leave, they give you, I don't know, a 76 slide presentation that talks about all these different things when you leave.

I had a conversation with somebody from the TAP program here on post and was like, so what do you guys cover? Veteran suicide? Because, you know, when I was working as a nurse in Phoenix, one of my co workers was a cna and he had started. Served several tours in Iraq and he has experienced the loss of several battle buddies after they've come back here.

Right. So in the last five years, he's lost like four of them. What the heck? Like do they prepare you for that? Because ideally you need to start thinking that when you're in active duty, how do you recognize. Because they have this problem with active duty folks too, right?

There's a lot of people that are losing hope. How do we address that? How do we fix that? How do we get people trained with basic aid, training with CPR for the soul? How do we get them to recognize first, what is the problem? When is somebody in crisis?

What do you do immediately when you see somebody in crisis? And then more. What the Warrior Healing center is all about is how do we prevent them from ever getting to that level of crisis?

Right.

If we give veterans the benefits they've earned and if we as a community, because community is so important, if we as a community know who our veterans are and know what their struggles are, which we intake online daily now so that everybody can see what are the struggles that a quarter of our adult population perhaps is dealing with, then we can start addressing those needs before they lose hope, before they are feeling like they need to isolate and take extreme measures.

Let's build community, let's build relationships, let's provide the resources that are needed. That is what is going to change the game. That is what is so important. And so I don't care about the different organizations that are doing the things that they've done the same way for the last 20, 30, 40 years.

Great.

Come talk to us and we will figure out how we can help you adjust to encompass this and embrace this. It's not just be the one, it's not call your buddy when they're in crisis and be the one that saves them because they have, you know, something pointed at their head right now.

No, the answer is be a community. Let's figure out how to help each other along the way. Let's raise the tide because we will all do better. You know, it lifts a rising tide, lifts all boats. Right? Let's, let's help veteran owned businesses, but also ideally all businesses in town.

Let's figure out how do we do things better in Cochise county so that we're all on the win win atmosphere. So Warrior Healing center in five years. I'm hoping that what we are developing right now is shared across the country. I look at it, I'm a type 1 diabetic and Banting and best Discovered insulin and they sold the.

Excuse me, too much coffee. They sold the patent for insulin for a dollar because they saw a lot of people. They were dying. Right. Insulin is the only way to manage the blood sugars of somebody whose pancreas does not create insulin. Right.

It's not about the money. It's not about the notoriety. I don't give a crap who is helping a veteran. We just need to make sure that the veteran is getting the help that they need and that we have the resources available they need. So what we are putting together as this curriculum, I think by far and away, is unique.

It is different. It is pissing off people that don't want to hear it and deal with it. It is. It is not the big pharma answer. You know, it is not the clinician answer. It is not. Let's load them up with SSRIs and therapy sessions because that'll keep us in business for decades to come.

It is. No. Let's build up your identity and your purpose, get you doing things that connect you to the community and make you whole. You are always going to be the person that went through whatever traumatic event you went through. And what we need to do is work as a community with you so that you can manage that.

That becomes part of you. That becomes who you are moving forward. But how do we get you so that you can cope with things? You know, like, it's. It's not about avoiding triggers and not having any triggers in your life that are gonna.

Right.

It's about being able to live life in this world where there are a bunch of triggers and making sure that you're okay. And whether that's with the help of a service animal or with the help of a flutes class or a dance class or whatever it is, there's all kinds of opportunities.

We just need to get you plugged in and get you doing what Builds relationships. Does that.

Beautifully said. I love that.

Yeah. I mean, the only other way I can think to end this is how can our community, or even communities are outside of here, help to donate to the Warrior Healing center so that the Warrior Healing center can keep helping soldiers, you know, veterans, active duty, whatever it might be.

What is some of the easiest ways, whether it be donate taxes or funds or food, or give a call and say, hey, there's this organization out of so and so, but they're willing to help. Like, what are some of the best and easiest ways to keep this place moving forward and in the right direction?

All of the above that you just mentioned. But the number one easy is become a guardian for us. That's $22 a month to end. 22 a day is the, the campaign that we're running.

There is a website, www.22t o e n d22.com and if you go there, you can put in, you know, your information so that you set up a monthly automatic $22 donation or however much you can give. It doesn't have to be $22, it can be less. Ideally it would be more.

That would be great. But the goal is that we are community owned, we are grassroots, we don't want to expand. I don't want to froze franchise out. I think our country would be doing a lot better if we had a bunch of places like Warrior Healing center throughout the nation.

But I don't. I'm not about to tell veterans in Texas what they need to be better. You know, I'm not going to tell you in Baltimore, hey, this is what we see here in Sierra Vista. So this will work for you. No, you need to figure that out, right?

Yeah, I want to. I want us to prove the concept here in Sierra Vista where currently I think we're number five in the nation for veterans per capita. If we can prove it here, ideally it can be replicated and different communities can take responsibility for their own veterans. And so that is the goal.

So we want to be community owned and the 22 to N22 campaign sets us up to be able to do that. So if you can contribute $22 a month, which is about, you know, the cost of a cup of coffee at Dutch Brothers a week, maybe buy a cup of coffee a week for a veteran.

Right. That will help us tremendously because that gives us the ability to keep the lights on and the doors open, pay the overhead that we've got each month for the building, but also to help with direct veteran support issues. When we've got veterans that their roof is leaking at their house and they've got kids and it's monsoon season and they can't cover the cost, how do we fix that?

Or my car broke down, I can't get to work and I can't pay to fix the car. Whatever the issue happens to be, it gives us some flexibility so that we can work within the team to figure out, okay, how do we do this as a win win for the veteran, for the organization, how do we keep people surviving and thriving in our community?

And that's what we want to do.

22 to end 22.

Yeah, that's the Easiest way. But also any other donations. The food pantry is always needing stuff. The gardening club is always needing stuff. The dog training area. If you happen to be a carpenter that wants to turn that back skiff room into what looks like the inside of an airplane.

That would be so cool. That would be so cool. We can always do cool projects. We want to build a deck out back.

Speaking of that, like, all the projects that happen here are all, like, donated and volunteer. Like this podcast room, all the technology here that we have has been donated. The pond in the back donated. The fencing that goes around the center to make it more private. That was done by the Boy Scouts.

Donated. Like, everything here, the library, all the books, all the computer, everything is donated. Nothing that comes into the center gets used. You know, we're very transparent on everything. We're not going off and like you said, technology's third right on it. So we're not going off and buying technology.

Everything's staying here.

I happen to be married to a veteran who is very tech savvy and into tech, so that's. It's a lot of stuff that he's pieced together, but it works. We make it work.

Yeah, but, like, everything comes in, stays here and everything else donated now.

Well, I'm gonna wrap it up if you're good. Yeah, yeah. So I just want to say thank you to one the heavens above, not trying to get spiritual, but for placing you two here and for allowing the umbrella of good people being underneath to lift this place up and the community as well.

I love that good old little Sierra Vista gets to set the tone for a lot of the things that you guys are pushing forward that are pissing off other people. I think it's good thing to go against the grain and make change. And so I am here for it, and I hope that anybody listening and watching is here for it.

And if you want to contribute or help or throw out ideas, we are all open ears. And I just thank you for having us and thank you for your time today here on the show with us. And, yeah, we just. We love you guys, and we love it here at Warrior Healing Center.

And we love all. Everybody, you know, all veterans, everybody who's.

She's so full of love. I do.

This is like home to me. I know I'm just the veteran spouse.

But, man, I mean, there's no just in that science.

I don't know. Some of the best people I've ever known in my life served and so.

Well, absolutely. I think the, you know, the people that have been through it are the people that are gonna turn around and be good stewards and be loving and offering the helping hands. Right. Because they've been through it. So it's the, you know, the balancing act of, you know, managing the challenges with the baggage that's brought, but also knowing that those are the people that we want in the front lines here.

So thanks again for having us.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time today as well. So absolutely everybody listening. You know where to go. We're setting the tone.

1838 Paseo San Luis. Get your butts down here. Right.

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