Let’s Eat This MRE and Kick Things Off

Welcome to the first episode of M.M.R.E.S. — Mortgages, Military, Real Estate & Stuff! Meet your hosts: Army veteran and Realtor® Joshua Mayer, and his wife Beattriz Villalobos, a loan officer and military spouse who held down the fort through two deployments.

In this laid-back kickoff episode, Josh and B crack open an MRE and talk about what this podcast is all about — from navigating VA loans and post-military life to highlighting real stories from veterans and the people who support them. It’s real talk, a little funny, a little messy, and 100% from the heart.

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📍 Recorded at the Warrior Healing Center in Sierra Vista, AZ
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Warfighter Tested. Warfighter Approved. Warfighter Recommended.

Transcript

Hey, everyone, this is Josh Mayer with Haymore Real Estate in the Warrior Healing Center.

And I'm Beattrize Villalobos with Cross Country Mortgage. And we are podcasting out of the Warrior Healing center, hoping to bring you guys some good stuff. I, uh, just happen to be here with my husband, and we hope to bring a little bit of our military experiences and backgrounds and provide the community with some more information and be educational.

And today's our first day. We're actually launching a new podcast. It's called Maurice M. Mares.

I've never had one and I'm about to find out.

So, MMRES. M M, M, M R E s, Mortgages, military, real estate and stuff.

Stuff or shit. How you want to go about it?

Every couple episodes, I'm gonna bust out an mre. I'm gonna introduce B to it. She's gonna try it. Give her take on it. Yeah, I got a special surprise for her later. Um, and then on other episodes, we're gonna have special guests come in, talk about veteran affairs, veteran disabilities, veteran homes.

Past military members, current military members, military owned, veteran owned businesses, uh, just veteran provided services.

Anything that we can think of to help the veterans, we're gonna start introducing it. So in the comments, if you want to see some topics discussed, go ahead and feel free to let them drop them right there. Also subscribe, obviously.

Yeah. If you have any questions, if you have any ideas of who you would like us to talk with and interview to help provide services or information to the community, we are open to it.

All right, and on that note, I think we should just dive right in, so. Okay, are you ready?

Yeah.

All right, so today's mre, we are.

Going to be eating Mexican style rice and bean bowl.

Yep. Mexican style rice and beans. It's a classic. Everyone's had this before. All right, so I already opened yours up, so let's go ahead and go through everything. So go ahead and pull out the first thing and I'll tell you what it is.

Thanks. Thanks for opening this up for me. Shit's like Fort Knox.

Okay, so grab that one first. What you got?

Beverage base powder, Lemon lime.

Oh, you got lemon lime. I got chocolate protein. Yuck.

Uh, I'm glad you got that.

You want to try it first?

Sure.

All right, so the best thing about these is the new ones. These are cups.

This is a cup.

Uh, yep, these are cups. So you're able to pour them in, shake it up, it'll zip up. Problem is just trying to get them open. That's why you're supposed to have your knife. Which I do have. Yep. See,

take your water and just dump on. Pour some of it on in,

zip it up.

So looking forward to this.

Give it a shake.

Okay.

Uh, and you got the lemonade. I got protein, which works because I've been going to the gym lately.

Yeah, you have. So anyways, did you ever think we'd be doing this?

No. Uh, so I used to eat MREs all the time when I was in. Cuz we would always be out on the field doing uav, uh, business. Uh, so we would have two of these probably a day. And then I was telling you before.

I have to fill it all the way up.

No, I feel it to the line. Usually give it a couple shakes.

Yeah, I didn't.

Yeah, I got protein. It's a little. Mine gets a little chalky, so I'm trying to at least make it not as bad.

All right, so let's get into some topics here while we make our drinks. Hit me.

So what made you get into lending?

Ah. Uh, okay. Well, you know, my background, obviously, but I'd hope so I've been lying to you for 18 years.

Like, uh, 18 years married. Coming up on.

Yeah, so I was born in California, came here, I think, second grade. Ooh, that looks delicious.

I forgot how chalky they are.

They don't mix.

Oh, that's flashbacks.

Yeah, I've been living in services since, what, second grade? I used to go to Carmichael School, and we lived right across the street over off of 7th area by our church. And, um, yeah, grew up here. Graduated from Buena, and I went to college. And I said I would never marry a dumb gi.

That's when I came along.

Grew up saying that here, like, man, those GI guys, like, they're, you know, immature and they drive around fast and they're overpriced cars. You know, all that stuff.

Hey, the recruiters promise you Camaros.

I know. And then you came along. I met you at the Tucson Mall through my buddy Frank, who I happen to have in my English senior class. And that's how we began. Yeah, I went to college. And then shortly after I graduated college, the first time you asked me to marry you.

And I did.

We'll cover that one on maybe another topic. That's a fun story.

Long story short is I've gone to college twice, and I eventually just hurt my body enough to where healthcare wasn't for me anymore. And my good friend Tracy, uh, was like, hey, I think you would be a good mortgage lender. And I was like, what the hell is that?

That's not up my realm. It's not related to health care. I'm really avoiding drinking this.

Take a drink. Come on. It's just lemonade. It's like a Gatorade. It's essentially what it is.

Oh, that's not bad, right? I might finish that. How many calories?

So look at. I was to say look at the other side. If you look at your nutrition value.

I'm not doing that.

So my protein shake, right? Uh, has 260 milligrams of sodium, 50 grams of carbs, M4 grams of fiber, 35 grams of sugar, 14 grams of protein.

This did not taste as bad as I thought. Like, this. I would drink this, like, on a hot day when I'm out gardening.

I mean, it has a lot of electrolytes. I could tell you that.

I'm gonna save this one for once we get into the nastier stuff.

Yeah. All right.

Uh, yeah. So my friend Tracy's. I think you'd be good at this. And so I prayed on it. Took a leap of faith. I jumped into it, did not know what the hell I was doing because, let's face it, like, my mind was very healthcare focused, healthcare oriented. I was just extremely good at what I used to do.

And then I jumped into a field where I did not know what the hell I was doing. And I. And if you know me, I like to excel in what I'm doing. I love to be the best at what I do. And when I feel incompetent, it drives me nuts.

And I get that from my dad. So that's true. Yeah. So over the years, I've been learning more and more, and I think I finally just found my jam, my bread and butter, which is I want to serve the service member community. I understand you guys a little bit better, obviously, from being married to you and just being around the guys.

Um, but, yeah, I hurt myself enough to leave the healthcare system. And now I am still able to help people just in a different way. And I think I'm able to help more of my people, my style, my. You know, all these soldiers who like me and you. When we first bought our house, we didn't know anything Any freaking clue what we were getting into.

And I wish we would have worked with a little me who would be honest with us. And, oh, my God, you know, that would have been so cool.

Even the second time we bought a house, we still didn't know what we were doing. Yeah. Or the third. No, we bought out any of the times. Yeah.

So I like to, you know, my goal is to be known as, like, hey, you have a VA Question, Go to this girl. She'll be honest with you. And that's kind of what I'm aiming for, is even if you're not my client or my customer or you're a realtor and you haven't worked with me, you can expect honesty from me.

That veteran or active duty, or if your sister is getting a loan in a different state and things are kind of fishy, I'm happy to take a look and answer questions because, you, uh, know, it's just. It's all about helping people. And so that's kind of, you know, I feel like it was God's way of saying, you know, you hurt yourself, you're unhappy in this career.

Now you're a mother. Let's put you in a different field where you can still help people, but you can also be more present with your family and emotionally. And, uh. And I wasn't. So I'm not so stressed out anymore.

That's for sure. Yeah, that's for sure.

Yep.

And so, um, happy wife, happy life.

And definitely something like that.

Your stress levels, I will say, has gone down. I mean, I think that's one of the big reasons why we were able to have the boy. It's less stress.

Ah, right. That's a whole different story.

Yeah. Uh, but. All right, let's move on, uh, to the meal a little bit.

I was gonna take another sip of my dinner.

Go ahead, help yourself. You going to need those electrolytes?

Well, while we're doing that, how did you end up in real estate? Where did you start?

Well, I'm originally from California. Uh, Apple Valley, California to be precise. Before that it was Norwalk and LA. I joined up back in 2005 when I got out

I got out of high school. Sorry. Joined straight in the army, came here. My, uh, grandparents, long, long, long time ago were stationed here and they met here, which obviously, you know. So when they found out I was coming here to Fort Huachuca, they were like, oh, you're gonna meet the love of your life there and you're gonna get married and you're gonna have kids and da, da, da, da, da, da, da, all that stuff.

And I told him, hell no. I'm gonna do what every 18 year old male does. Buy a fast car and hopefully pick up lots of women.

It didn't happen.

Yeah.

Met you and well, 18 years later, uh, we did.

Yeah.

Yeah, 18 years. Let's see, after Huachuca, we went or I went to Fort Hood. Uh, we were there for three years, did

Mosul from there, went to Carson, did Carson for three, Afghanistan for 12. We got out, you know, I, uh, went to school to be pta. Things didn't work out as well, so then eventually I ended up on post, uh, doing the drones again, teaching Gray Eagle and the Shadow, and I love that.

Again, back to messing around with soldiers and teaching them and, you know, you really liked that? Yeah, I like teaching. Like, I like making sure whoever I'm talking to understands like what is. If they're trying, if they're trying to learn something, I'll give them everything they can to learn.

Yeah. Ah.

Um, and the other thing you possess.

Is like, you like to be thorough about things and make sure people understand.

It, everything about it, you know. Um, and the other thing I, I'll say is, like, I always had treated all my soldiers with respect, like they were soldiers. I would tell them, like, you joined the military for a reason. You know, I'm gonna treat you like an adult if you, uh, like I used to be a soldier, things slip and I will cuss and I will call you out if you make a mistake.

You wouldn't be in the military if you didn't hear a few curse words.

Exactly. Um, so I got a lot of respect for my classes that way. And by doing that, I know I had a pretty good record, um, teaching like all my students usually were top of the class, honor grads and stuff like that. Um, but I just taught them as much as I could.

I would always volunteer for the classroom. I would take the Whole. All. Every single classroom portion. You can find me up in front of the classroom yelling and talking and jumping on tables. Things that contractors should definitely not do.

But I remember you used to tell me I threw candy at my students.

Yeah, I would always get in trouble for that.

Yeah, that's.

I'd always get in trouble. But then. Well, uh, I was doing that. I loved it. And then I had surgery on my neck. You know, lots of nerve damage over the years from military life. So I got out and started doing real estate and love it. You know, it lets me.

It lets me be a dad, but also have a career. Like, if my kids are sick, which today, of course they are. And we have our mother or my mother in law, your mom, obviously at the house watching them. But normally one of us would be home watching the kids, having, you know, watching TV and hanging out with them.

And provides a lot of flexibility that.

We wouldn't have in our old careers. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to do that at all. You know, we would have been reprimanded, would have had to take PTO and all this one for us.

Again, different. Different backstory. But because we did IVF for so many years, uh, and we finally were able to have kids and then surprise, natural kid as well. I think it's extra special.

Yeah.

That we can be a little bit more present for our kids and still provide and.

Yeah, exactly. And then we don't feel bad about, you know, like, because you're the same. Like, when you would take off from work, you always felt bad because, I mean, someone else would have to pick up that slack. Especially if you knew you had a bunch of clients or.

For myself, I knew I had classroom that day. Now someone else is at the last minute, gonna have to do that. You know, I know the level I give. I know the level you give. Uh, you know, you feel if you're not there, you're letting people down.

Well, and for me, so there was prior, uh, to patience and, like, people take off time from work or they're sick and they want to be seen. And so, you know this. I would go into work sick as a dog, and I'm like, no, like, my schedule's full. I have to do.

I have to do this. And you still mad at me some days I'm not as bad as it now, because I can work from home some days. But, um. Yeah.

All right, so next we're gonna.

What is this?

This is the MRE heater right here. Everyone knows that's done one of these before, um.

What the hell is this?

Sorry to cover my face, but everyone can see it real quick. So on the top is what you did. You're going to peel off the top.

Well, there's two cuts.

Yep. The very, very top.

Okay.

The very, very top. Not the bottom one. Okay.

Okay.

All right.

I'm a little scared. It's fine.

Grab. Find your Mexican rice and beans. The one that's really thick and dense.

This?

Nope.

This? No, not that one.

It's really, really heavy.

This one.

What's it say?

Not that one. How many freaking things are in here? Okay. This bad? This is like a brick.

Yes.

This is not my mother's beans and rice.

That is definitely not. We should have your mom. We should make these for your mom and see if she likes them. So you're going to take your mre, I don't know.

Taste it first.

Okay, slide it in.

Does it matter which end?

No.

Okay, slide it in. Slide it in. He says. Okay.

All right.

Excuse me. Did I push it all the way down?

Just slide it all the way down.

Okay.

Make sure that the heating element, which is this piece.

Mhm.

Is flat so it's not bunched up.

Okay. Et voila.

Okay, now you see on here, if you look at the pictures, it says do not overfill.

Oh. So I just do to this.

Just to the lines.

The first line.

Yes. Make sure when you pour it though, pour it along the back. So you put the water on the heating element.

Okay. But my water is ice cold.

It ain't going to matter. All right, all right. Just enough.

It's fine.

If you overfill it, you overfill it, but it's not a big deal.

Okay.

You just overfill these all the time to make bombs.

Okay.

Once you have that. All right, take it.

I don't know. I think I did it.

Yep, yep.

Oh, it's smoking. Okay, now what?

Bend it close. All right. And just put it off to the side for now.

I wonder if there's enough water in there. Then you put more water in there, you'll be fine. Okay.

If it gets hot, it gets hot. If it gets cold, it gets cold.

You'll know food is cooking.

So yes, now the food is cooking now. So again, those are the MRE heaters. And, um, the heating element, it gets warm. It's just basically like a.

My food is cooking.

So I used to take those out. Uh, and, uh, you know, they're like.

Just like me at my time of the month. I'm bloating.

Sorry.

Just take Those out, and you can use them as a. Put them in water bottles, Tabasco sauce, chili powder. Put in a. Put a little bit of water, close it off, throw it in MRE when people are sleeping. You got some fun makeshift.

That stinks. Huh? Huh?

Yeah.

Okay.

We used to get in trouble all the time as kids as well as kids. Yeah, Definitely making these and making little big old bombs out of just exploding bottles.

Sweet.

Yep.

Sweet. Sweet. Okay, so I got my drink. I'm cooking my dinner.

Yep.

Uh, well, I tell you what, if we get to, like, the Jetsons time where, like, our food could taste fabulous, you just put water in it, my house would be so much cleaner because I wouldn't have to spend time cooking. I just put some water on shit, and it'll cook.

Let's get your crackers.

Let's get your cracker.

This is peanut dry roasted. I don't think I have crackers.

You should have a cracker.

I have tortillas and I have. Oh, baked snack crackers. Okay.

You got peanut butter or cheese? Look for peanut butter or cheese. You're gonna. You should have one of them.

I have

dry roasted peanuts.

Okay. I got honey mustard and onion pretzel.

Nuggets and tortillas, chipotle and baked egg snack crackers.

Damn. Um, you got some good stuff up in there.

Yeah. So anyways, how many years tell? Um, me.

All right, well, go to your crackers then. You didn't get any peanut butter?

No.

Not even cheese with jalapeno to me.

How many Ms. Here? 27 grams of carbs. Okay.

For your crackers. So there's actually a challenge.

A challenge.

Eat both crackers without drinking any water. It's impossible.

Challenge accepted.

Go ahead.

All right. That's a lot of grams of carbs. I mean, I'm not, like a carb Nazi, but I think mine's like. Smashed.

Eh, uh, that happens.

Okay. Oh, you actually Cheez Its?

Yes. No, no. See, you need to find the one that just says crackers.

I don't have one that says crackers.

Man, she's getting missing out on.

I don't know if these taste like Cheez Its. So if you know me, I always have Cheez Its at work and they.

Taste like Cheez Its.

One of my co workers, she's like, is that your diet? And I was like, I drink or I eat Cheez Its because it makes me drink water because I get thirsty. So I unaccept my challenge because I can't eat Cheez Its and not drink my water.

I can hear the crunch from over here. That's how dry those things were.

It's pretty good.

So these are the actual crackers that I'm talking about.

How thick is that? Are there two crackers?

It's just a. Basically like a large saltine. Um, but they are dense, like, you know.

Sweet.

Oh, my God.

Little memories for you.

You can have the other one.

M. I'm good. I got Cheez Its.

Aww. So if you look at your heater, you should be expanding and feeling warm, right?

It was pretty hot. Yeah.

Yep. So that's all it's doing, is just heating up your food.

Interesting.

Alrighty.

So eat your crackers.

Well, I'm. I'm gonna eat them, um, while I talk to you, sir. What's your. Your time doing real estate now? Is it three or four years? You should be four.

This may will be the end of my fourth year. So I'm actually right now, uh, in my re up period, essentially. You know, most realtors don't make it out after two. It's the kind of. Seems to be the cutoff make it. You know, I think it's kind of same thing in your field.

Right. We are two different fields, which is crazy. As much as we work together. Two different things. It's. She has her own set of bylaws and regulations that don't let her do stuff and that I can do that stuff and then vice versa. It's crazy. Um, yeah. Ending up on my fourth year here soon.

So, um, I gotta do all my ces, which luckily, continuing education. Yay. Luckily, I've been very good for the last two.

And, uh, you don't have as many to do as you do.

No, I only had two classes. I only have six credits left. Or no, nine credits left. Nine out of 24. So I signed up yesterday for a VA contract issue class. Uh, HOA. Legal class. And then the other one was nature laser.

They're like, good for some stuff, but, man, I remember. Oh, that is yummy. I remember in Colorado, we used to get ticketed. Oh, man, 50 bucks. Every time we left our car parked on the road in front of our house.

Oh, I just got chocolate all over me.

Uh, and I would always write back in the ticket, and that's not my car.

Yeah, I remember that well because we used to have all the guys and soldiers.

Yeah.

We used to have the whole platoon over at the house doing well.

And then, um, when we bought that house, I didn't know what an HOA was. I just knew, like, hey, we just. We can build a brand new house with view of the mountains. Like, I'm in. And then, oh, you have to pay this. This fee every three months. I was like, okay.

And then I started getting ticketed for parking the car overnight. But then you would deploy, you know, or go out in the field and train. And I would leave the trash can on the street because we both know I'm great at doing the trash. And I would get ticketed and I'm like, what the heck is going on here?

So for you guys who have hoa, I'm sorry, but also, at least your guards are clean.

So, like, I didn't. I kind of understood our hoa. The whole parking thing is weird, but there's some good things I liked about it. Like, because our subdivision at that time was, like, brand new, there was no landscaping or trees or vegetation in the area. So one of the requirements they made us do is we had to put a shade tree within, like, three feet of the part the, uh.

Which I did not follow, but it's fine.

Yeah, of course you didn't follow, but I kind of like that because, like, you know, in 20 years from now, it should create a tree tunnel, is the thought. So it's like sometimes HOAs, you know.

They'Re not always bad. Like I said, they're good. They're just. Some people go in not knowing. Was that peanut butter just now?

Heck, yeah. Peanut butter's amazing.

You like their peanut butter?

Yeah.

Your face says you love it.

It's stuck to the top of my mouth. And it won't go away now because of crackers. Sorry, everyone. This is what happens when you do an eating podcast. You get funny sounds always.

Yeah, I can't. So lets hit on the first m. Mortgages.

I thought we just kind of covered that.

Mortgages.

Yeah. Uh, which you and I do mortgages.

Military. Did we hit on Military life a little bit.

I remember a couple of things I know I wanted to talk about.

Sorry, I want more, but I gotta.

My. My, uh, my stuff so far in my MRE is very nice compared to that crap all the time. I m. Don't know about that.

It's all the time.

Eat it, get it done with.

Um.

So while I was deployed, um, first deployment, second.

Which one are we talking here?

Yeah, um, few or contractor was.

I'm saying there's been a few.

This thing's breaking everywhere. Um, let's go. First deployment. So I remember, like, you know, lots of fond memories of those deployments and days. But, uh, I remember the day that I was leaving and, uh, I see the story.

Let's do a little backstory that you had a first. Okay. So we met in 2005. Six.

Six.

2006. You were here doing your AIT for the shadow M. And I met you through my buddy Frank, who I happen to go to high school with.

He.

He asked me to go to the Tucson Mall with him and his buddies. Um, and I was like, sure, whatever. I met you, you were wearing this awful Aerosmith shirt with a red bandana. And I remember, I was like, this guy is an asshole.

Yeah, you threw away the Aerodysmith like, as soon as I was deployed.

I'm Jew people. He's Jewish. So, um, that's how you first introduced yourself to me. And I was like, wow, this guy. Um, long, you know, few hanging out later, lots of drinking back in the day. College student, AIT Students. You know how it goes.

I didn't drink in AIT oh, never. What are you talking about? I never got caught.

Um, I graduated. You were stationed in, uh, Fort Hood, and then you used to drive out some weekends to come and see me with your buddy.

So if we're going that route from Fort Hood to Sierra Vista. Actually, not Sierra Vista, Tucson, because she lived in Tucson at the time, uh, was like 14.

It was almost 15 hours. 14 to 15 hours, depending how fast you went. Yeah.

And since I was a UAV operator, we were out in the field all year long, flying. So we would go out Monday morning sp, nice and early at 5. We'd roll on site at 6. If we didn't have a bird up in the air within one hour, we had to take everything apart and do it all over again.

And we did that for months. And then Friday night, we pack everything up and head home and do it all again on Monday every now and then. Military. Uh, you're supposed to get your three days and your four day weekends. But because we were UAVs and we were needed in Iraq and this and that, they kept taking them all away until like the last second.

So it always came down like, you're not getting a four day weekend. This weekend, you're not getting a four day. You're not getting a four day. Or don't go anywhere because we're doing drug testing. Oh my God, we did so many drug testing.

You peed in a lot of cups.

It was every Saturday for like four months. Really, really messed up our drinking games at that point.

Um, beard eye champ.

Beard eye champ. Undefeated still. Um, so like, I would always, at the last second, they would always, like as soon as we got back, like, hey, enjoy your three day. You don't come back until Monday. And we'd be like, we have, we wanted to do plans. And so I'd always look at one of my buddies, Gilsaw, um, Fields, Bob, you know, I'd be like, hey, um, I'll pay for the nicotine, I'll pay for your food, I'll pay for your booze.

Because on the way back we would stop at El Paso, at Fort Bliss. And Fort Bliss at the time, drinking age was 18, so you could buy anything you wanted as long as you were 18. Which I always found was funny because I would get carded for the beer and the alcohol, but I never got carded for cigarettes.

Never understood that.

So you would sneak out a few times to come and see me.

We would, yeah, so we would always, you know, try to. Once a month, I said, I bribed someone. We'd drive to Tucson, you know, we'd leave Friday night, get in Saturday morning. You'd probably be at work most days, but you get off around noon. So we'd get our nap in.

I think I was still doing clinicals.

Yep, you were still doing clinicals. And then we'd uh, go and run around Saturday day, maybe Sunday day a little bit, then leave like Sunday night real late or maybe Monday morning.

Well, I would fly out to see you two sometimes. Lake Belton was my favorite lake. So warm and beautiful.

The worst one was, um, the Easter trip with Bob.

Ah.

And Fields. And that's when we were picking up Fields car, uh, in El Paso. And me and Bob were uh, coming to see you. And unfortunately One of my NCOs passed that weekend. And uh, they did a recall. And of course in a recall, like you're only supposed to be what, 150 miles away from base at any given time, Unless you have a pass.

Yeah, it was like 15 hours. A little bit more than 150 miles.

Um, you were pretty bf about that.

So my squad leader, of course, like, he knew where I was at. I let him know what was going on, he was tracking, he knew I was doing these trips every month. He's like, just, I can't cover for you. If you get caught, you get caught. I'll do my best.

But, you know. So of course when that happened, I um, was like, you gotta, you gotta give me some time. Like so and so passed. There's, there isn't. Like, fortunately for that incident, no, uh, one can get ahold of a lot of the company because everyone had just. We were tired and everyone just disappeared.

So the company had like all collectively like turned off our phones that we could. It was weird.

So you made it back in time?

Yeah, we got in trouble for everyone having their phones off, but it bought us everyone's time because I, I wasn't the only one that was gone. I know there are other people that had taken off to Houston and further and stuff like that. Um, but yeah, we made it back in time.

And after that I don't think we did any more drives.

Well, you did make one special trip.

Which one was that one?

Mhm. Where you took me to Olive Garden and freaked out when you asked me to marry you.

Okay, well, in my defense, you are like the world's worst surprise person.

I'm just a really good guesser.

No, you're. You ruin m like everything I've ever tried to do for you.

Intuition, whatever you want to call it. So you asked me to marry you. I said yes.

Something like that.

How did you ask me to marry you again? How did it go?

Well, so we're sitting at Olive Garden, you know, remember?

So romantic.

I think we were so romantic. 19, 20. 20.

We were 19.

19, 20. Somewhere in there. I don't think I was 20 yet.

Somewhere we were 19.

No, we're 20. Cuz we were in Fort Hood. We were 21.

Shortly after I turned 20. Yeah, we were 19.

Oh, geez. Okay. Um, and so we're at Olive Garden. Cause, you know. Oh, man, I forgot how those were.

Soldiers budget, you know.

Yeah, soldier budget. Nice and fancy. And of course I had the bubbles.

What rank were you then? Like an E3.

E3? Yeah, E3. PFC. Um,

and I had the bubble guts. Like bad. Like bad bad. My stomach was rumbling.

What did you.

I had like the worst gas. I was just. It was bad. It wasn't pretty.

Is that beef jerky?

This is the sports chocolate nutrition bar.

Oh, okay. So back to bubble guts. You're probably gonna get some in a minute. So you had the bubble guts.

Your turn to try this.

And how did you ask me to marry you?

Um, well, so as I'm sitting there just like, stressed out, losing my mind and freaking out, uh, how I'm gonna ask her to marry me, she looks at me, she goes, I think I'm gonna know when you're gonna ask me to marry me. And I just was like, what the?

Like, I have the ring in my pocket. I've showed my entire platoon. Half my company has seen it. Moissanite. This thing was baller. And, um,

she calls me out like that, and I'm just immediately like,

fuck it, B. Will you marry me?

That's what it was so romantic. And I said, okay.

Uh, and we will be married 19 years in July. I don't know what day, because we can't remember our day we got married. But it's at the end of July.

It's not 19.

Yeah.

Maka's turning 18.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 18 years.

Maka turns 18 together.

19.

Been the other 19. Sure, we married 18. Because Maka.

See, so the beautiful part is we can't argue about, oh, you forgot the anniversary. Because neither of us can remember what exact day it is. We just know it's towards the end of July and that's good enough for us.

I just remember it's the day before her sister's birthday, and I have it on my Calendar.

But then I also have two days before her birthday.

But then on my calendar, it's also the day. Day before M. Mhm. So I have like three days on my calendar where it says my birthday.

Yeah.

Or our anniversary.

So we got married. Well, backtrack. You did not ask my dad or had even met my family?

Of course not. The only person I'd ever talked to.

Is Rita before we got married. And so you did all that.

Oh, that was awesome. You know what that was? That wasn't the trip. No, no, that was Gilsol Street.

We got married on a little chapel. Sorry. We got married at the chapel on Fort Huachuca in a little room within the chapel. And I remember asking the chaplain, you know, how do we get married? You know, this and that. You were about to deploy and he was like, well, you guys need to take classes, counseling, blah, blah.

And I was just like, is there any way. Because it was, it was a rush. And he, he was really nice. I wish I remember his name. He's like, well, you guys are going to end up getting married anyways, right? And I was like, well, yeah, that's. That's the hope.

And he's like, okay, well, I'll do it. But, you know, giving us some advice. But he was like, you guys are going to do it anyways. And it was really important to me to get married in a church. And so he was really kind and I'm glad he married us.

Yeah. Because we. That was my leave before heading to Iraq. Um, and that's why we kept changing the dates is because, you know, we just got back from ntc.

Yeah.

Um, only had our two week leave before we were heading overseas. Yada yadas and all those things. So it was like.

And I never changed my last name to mayor just yet because you still haven't given me my big wedding.

Well, yeah. And also, I mean, m. I think at this point, work wise, it makes sense for us.

Yeah. You know, I think my last name's way cooler than his.

Um, I have castles in Germany and Ireland, which is.

I'm a wolf village. Pretty cool. Anyways.

Village of the wolves.

Yeah. So then you come back. No. Now get into the story about you were getting ready to deploy and I drove.

Yeah. So, yeah, we're getting first deployment.

I lose track.

Yeah. So, you know, younger, uh, soldiers are all around. And I was weird.

You were getting ready to play too.

Yep.

Iraq.

Yep. Got into Iraq. And we, uh. I was one of the senior soldiers on that grip, that group. And they're all Looking at me and all the wives are all there crying, the girlfriends are crying, the parents are crying. This and that, this and that.

I had all the shit packed up in the car.

Yeah. Cause you actually, I was ready to go.

Uh, you had places to be.

We ended our lease that day. Like that. That day was the end of my lease.

Mhm. Remember we rented like this, the trailer. Yeah. Like a manufactured home.

And did like every other soldier have four roommates.

I had no idea what tricare was. I had no idea how to pay bills. I didn't like rent. I didn't know you had to give a 30 day notice to leave.

Trash, trash.

All the things I did not know. All I knew is packed up our puppy Chewy. Packed up my Jeep Cherokee to the top. Drove from here. First time I've driven out of Arizona by myself. Driving into El Paso, it changed into like five lanes. Do you remember this story?

And Chewy in the back of the car hits the window and the starts rolling down. And I thought he was gonna fly out of the car. Luckily he didn't.

Well, that was after you. The bus.

No, that was, that was before I moved, uh, to Texas.

That's when you were on your way back. That was when you were coming out to see me.

Yes, because that was my first move. And so. Okay, and we're getting off course here a little bit. But. So that was my first experience ever moving when it was military related.

Grab your food and uh, massage it. Massage it. The back of it. Try to get the. If not you're going to get pockets of cold. Massage it down.

Driving into El Paso, I freaked out because I had never experienced five lanes in my life. And then I get a little bit further into Texas and mind you, I'm calling, I'm calling him the whole time, like freaking out because Texas is never ending. I think the speed limit then was like 85 and I was going 100 and I still wasn't getting anywhere.

Um, and then all of a sudden I hit a rainstorm. And now we get monsoons here. Pretty good ones especially growing up we used to get them really good. But I had never experienced rain like a Texas raid.

Texas is.

I had to. Pull over. And I would. Called you crying. And I did not understand where I was. I mean, it was. It was.

You were taking the back ways too. You weren't even.

You should have came and picked me up, bro. Come pick up your bride. You didn't.

That's probably drinking.

Ah. Uh, probably. And so.

So we did a lot on the weekends.

We lived there in her little trailer with three of your soldier buddies and.

Paul Bob and intermittently, Gilsa.

Yes.

Dryland coach.

And we had lots and lots of fun. And then it came. Time for you to deploy.

Yeah.

Packed up our. And it was time to get on the buses.

Yes. The story. We started like an hour ago.

I know. Let's get back to it. Getting ready to get on the bus.

So. Yeah, back to that. So we go. And again, all the wives and parents and girlfriends crying. Uh, uh, you know, the. You know, the image. Everyone gets on the bus and everyone's hanging out the bus. Oh, and this and that.

Yeah.

So I get on and I'm working my way down and everyone's hanging out the bus. This and that. And I look over and I see her red, uh, Jeep Grand Cherokee. Yeah. Driving away like I wasn't even sitting down yet. And she's driving away. And I remember looking at all the younger soldiers like, you got to get your wives like that.

But the reason why I wanted to bring that up is that was how all my deployments were. Anytime I was overseas. Like you didn't, you'd never ever put anything on me because you knew where I was over there. Like you understood that as a UAV guy, my job was 0 to 100.

Like I'd be flying around all day not doing anything. And then all of a sudden, I got a tick troops in contact. And I got to. All of a sudden I'm coordinating airstrikes and this and people on the ground and people up there and artillery and all these things.

So you never ever, like, let me know of any of the things back home. The drama, the sadness. I think of all the deployments that we did, there was only one day. I recall of all of them. Only once did you call me having a bad day. And I'm pretty sure that was because of Pickles, our Westie who destroyed our brand new house.

Um, I think that was the second deployment.

Yeah. And that was in the second. That was during second deployment. But other than that, like, you didn't tell me if we were struggling at home for money.

Yeah, some people.

Or this. Um, meanwhile, I knew a lot of buddies that Their girlfriends were wives. I want you home. I miss you. You need to come home. Figure out how to come home, you know, go. Go do this. Go do something stupid. Some people did, you know, um, just to get sent home and stuff.

And, like, you never, ever put me in that position. Um, every time we were on the phone or trying to Skype back then, good old days, um, you always made sure that, like, my headspace was clear and that I didn't have. There wasn't anything there except why I was there for.

Yeah. So I think not just because you were a UAV pilot, because you're a soldier. And at the end of the day, I didn't know what you were seeing or experiencing day to day. And in my mind, things that you might have seen that day or that night or that week could have been 10 times worse than my little piddly.

Oh, the clinicals.

Yeah. You know, like, your daily life situation, in my mind could be so much worse than anything that made me had a bad day. And so I always just went into the head space of I knew what I signed up for when I married you. Maybe not fully, but I learned to understand it.

Um, and I made sure to hardly ever tell you that I miss you. And I know that sounds.

Well, you would say, miss me, but.

It wasn't like I wasn't, like, whining like, I miss you. Please come home.

It was like, hey, miss you. Have a good day. Love you.

Right.

That's what it was.

I always wanted to hear about your day, knowing that you weren't gonna fully tell me all the details. And that's okay.

There's a couple days.

Um, obviously I could tell when something was bothering you, but I didn't dig too much because it 1. It wasn't really my business. Right. Like, you're out there with your buddies and you guys are in it together, and me as a wife, I didn't find it suitable for me to dig and poke at you and say, tell me about your day.

Like, what did you see? Did you see somebody get blown up today? Or, you know, whatever it might be. That's not.

I think the only.

And as, uh, as a soldier's wife, my job was, I'll hold down the house. You know, I can take care of myself. And if ever something really serious came up, I was going to tell you.

Yeah.

And I just. Some people might be like, wow, you're. You're not very sympathetic or empathetic or.

No, it was.

That was my way of taking support.

It was support. Yeah.

Of you.

I needed it.

Supporting you. I think a lot of your buddies actually respected that about me because they knew, like, okay, B. Like. And I think I'm still kind of that way where some days I'll ask you, like, hey, are you okay? And you're just like, yeah, I'm good. And I, uh, know like to leave you alone.

Well, it depends on what's going on, if it's pain or other, uh, things. But no, like, I remember a lot of. A lot of my buddies getting those calls and them just sitting there, like.

Which is. Puts added stress, like, doing this whole thing.

Uh, and I'd be like. And I. And it was just the kids and this. And I put all the stress on it. Like, what are. Like, what is he going to be able to do while he's overseas? Nothing. Instead, now you got him. And the next that. Then we go to fly, and he's here stressed out over that is.

So he's actually not paying attention to what we're doing. Flying.

In my mind. I want your mind to be clear and not worry about me and just come home safe.

You know, I think the. The longest time. I don't think I talked to you in between, like, when we were moving fobs and getting set up and stuff like.

That was your second deployment with Scotty. No, I didn't talk to you for a few days, and I was worried it was. You were between Mosul and, you know, you're.

You're getting them mixed up. You're close. Second deployment, not. God, A. It was, uh, Gwyn, was it? Yeah, it was mining. Gwyn's. It was mine and Gwyn's. A, uh, bad mission that we had. Um, I didn't call you for, like, a week. It, uh, was like, literally a full week.

I didn't call you. And finally you got a hold of Gwen, and Gwen is like, yeah, he's going through some stuff, and, you know, we'll probably. We'll probably just. Yeah, we'll probably discuss that. Um, some of my experiences and stories in other future episodes. I have no problem talking about them, but I think it was the longest time.

Other than that, it was in between moving fobs, jumping here, jumping there, because.

Yeah. So, you know, I said deuces when you were getting on the bus, I knew you had to go. There was no point in me staying crying and being sad about it. Instead, I put on good old Schneia Twain on the radio and drove 15 hours back to Arizona from Texas.

All right. I think it's Time to start having this meal.

I'm so excited. Okay, man.

We didn't. I didn't get like a dessert. I guess the chocolate bar and the chocolate shake.

Do I use this spoon?

Yeah.

Okay.

So the chocolate shake. I'll say they give you just the.

One spoon for a drink and.

Yeah, okay. You just rinse it.

Less trash that way.

Yeah. Sorry for the noise. You know what the funny thing is? I will. I want to. I believe I remember reading somewhere and I will confirm it for next episode. There is one confirmed

kill with an MRE spoon. I want to say I heard. I don't know if it's the same heavy duty spoon, the rumor or not, but I remember reading somewhere there that someone got a confirmed kill with an MRE spoon. It was. I forgot where. May maybe a just a story to make people feel better about things.

That brand. Hot hands.

We should take these.

These things are hot.

So the middle tear line now, huh? Tear it off.

Middle tear.

Only reason you're doing this. Makes it easier to pull this out without having to spill that hot water on your lap.

Mine doesn't have water anymore.

That means you put just enough water. I still have a little water. Cuz I overfilled mine.

Typical dude. Okay.

All right. So take it on out. And now your food should be nice and warm, right? Massage it around.

The one side is.

Yeah, massage it around. Put your heater off to the side.

Put that in my pocket.

Man, that smell brings back some memories. Flashbacks. Uh, the one. The longest time we ever had to eat MREs was second deployment and we're at Wilson.

Well, you mean like massage it like.

Yeah, yeah, you got.

I was being all sweet about it. Okay.

Why? It's rice and beans.

The fact that you're massaging rice and beans and a thing.

Yeah, uh, Mexican style rice and beans.

It's not your mother's rice and beans.

Oh, no. All right, so then you see the tear lines, right?

Yes.

All right, so the tailines go across the top like this.

I figured.

Okay.

Funny thing is, I feel like that's a newer thing. Uh, towards the end of my military career, they started putting the tears. There, because we used to just tear it on the top like this.

It looks like it's the right color.

So the funny thing about these MREs is that they test these. They get experimental MREs all the time. And I actually mean experimental MREs. I'm not talking about lost, um, sensitive items.

I'm actually talking about experimented, uh, MREs. They send these out to soldiers and get their feedback. And these are voted on by soldiers.

They weren't voted on by Mexican soldiers. We didn't put a little sasson up in here.

That's good. I remember.

Oh, a little bit of.

I forgot about that flav.

I mean, I haven't tasted it yet, but heck yeah.

Oh, that's flashbacks. That's delicious.

All right. Are we doing this?

I'm already on my second bite. What are you talking about? I'm hungry. I'm going to the gym. What are you doing over there? Come on.

I'm scared. Okay.

It's delicious. Or as Bash says, delicious.

You get me to do. Okay.

This was your idea, by the way. I just ran with it.

I regret my distance. So. Okay.

Okay, so wait on back to that Mars our defect. Take a bite. Before I finish my story, I was.

Just gonna say I Woke up at 3am One day with all these ideas. I couldn't sleep. This was one of my ideas.

And she told us.

What m. Am I telling you people? Don't follow through with your 3am ideas. Or I'll tell you if it's a good idea in a minute.

It's gonna be a great idea. Just wait for the.

Wait till you get the one with Skittles, because that's always a blessing. Oh, you know, it tastes good. Stop complaining.

What is this?

Oh.

It has some flavor. It has some spice. For those of you. I don't know if it's.

You're white.

We didn't. But I mean, like, I'm holding the spoon.

I didn't know rice and beans were supposed to like, really stick like that, you know, they're not even moving. There's like. I could probably hang this here, and by tomorrow the food will still be hanging on the stove. Delicious idea.

We're good.

That's, like, stuck in my m. Throat.

That's what she said. Couldn't resist it.

The burps. Okay.

Yeah. So again, like, the whole concept of the MREs is this whole thing is supposed to give you, um, all your calories.

On my hungriest day. Mhm.

So they actually, I think this insert now tells you what it all is.

Um.

So the MRE food sources, uh, carbohydrates. It explains it all. Uh, three grams of carbs per pound of body weight. What you're supposed to do when you're a 165 pound war fighter. 500 grams of carbs a day. I'm saying when I was 165, I mean I got to uh, I made it to Iraq at 140, came back 165 because I was doing a lot of lifting and all sorts of fun stuff.

But um, no, these would have definitely helped. The nutrition values on these. Let's see. Nine, uh, hundred and fifty milligrams of sodium, 58 grams of carbs. Not only nine grams of protein, which you would think would be a little bit higher. But this one makes sense because in mine or I don't think you can't.

Finish your whole bag of rice and beans.

Um, I probably could, but I. I still have a protein shake I gotta get through. I have a protein bar that I gotta get through. I got.

You got the good stuff.

I got honey mustard and onion pretzel nuggets, which sounds delicious. Um, I guess my dessert happens to be the chocolate bar and the chocolate shake. That's my dessert. Which the chocolate shakes. To be fair.

You know what this looks like? Uh, if you imagine like tomato paste.

Yes.

Being thrown in like a texture of. Of oatmeal kind of rolled in with play. D'oh. And just like a sprinkle of like pieces of corn and beans.

Some adobo.

Here's your. Your m. What the hell is it? Mexican rice.

Mexican style rice and beans.

This was not cooked by a Mexican.

This was Mexican style.

That.

Whoa. Dial. That's the key word. Mexican.

The military can hire me and I can make you better tasting.

Just wait till you try some of these other ones. Like uh, come on. Nacho cheese. Cheese with jalapenos. Everyone knows what I'm talking about. That's the best cheese there is. You trade for that. People, ah, will trade their skittles for nacho cheese.

You do have a thing for skittles. So talked a little bit about the military.

Yeah.

Little bit touch a little bit on mortgages. How I got into it.

We'll cover those a little more.

Real estate.

Yeah. Um, the mortgage and real estate though. Educational stuff and then just stuff.

So we're educated on MREs. M and how delicious they are.

So for those of you that aren't tracking like this is the warrior healing center we're working out of.

Mhm. It is a great place to be.

yeah, I think, I think for this first episode is kind of messy. It's kind of, you know, we're getting used to it. Sort of introducing ourselves, a little bit of our background, what our goal is. Uh, but we don't want to take away from the fact of we're doing this partially to be educational to the public mostly actually, but to also incorporate a lot of the awesome services that the Warrior Healing center offers.

Yep.

And so the more and more we do these, we're going to have some guest on uh, guest speakers on here. Some that operate out of the Warrior Healing center which is completely volunteer based, which all volunteer.

Amazing grassroots. 100%.

Yeah.

Every single person here isn't paid, um.

Local veteran owned businesses.

Just hoping to get some politicians, you.

Know, um, the more education we can provide and even if, even if we can help just better one life. Right. Or save one life from suicide or just get somebody off the streets from being homeless for a week and get them situated into a better spot or.

Those services are here at the center.

We mhm.

Have services here that will help homeless vets get into a place fairly quick.

Um, so it's not just all about real estate and mortgages. The education and stuff part. That's where I really want to just dig into on the next few episodes is uh,

how can we help you? Do you know a soldier or a veteran or even just a regular person on the street who's in hard times? Can we help point them in the right direction? Not just oh, here's a hotel room for a night. Okay, good luck tomorrow versus oh you know you're experiencing this.

Oh uh, we actually know somebody that can help with that. Come on into the Warrior Healing center or if they don't have a service, that's what networking is about. Right. They probably know somebody on the outside that can help point them.

And that's one of the good things about the center. So I'll say like the way the center came around, um, and one of the reasons why I love here so much is, um, the heads, the upper people. They took it upon themselves to buy this amazing building. This building is huge.

It is.

And from there, they looked at it as a way to bring in organizations to help veterans. We knew, we all know there's hundreds of organizations out there to help veterans. I could. We probably just do an episode of naming, um, and we won't even get through all of them.

Um, which I think is awesome, by the way.

There's. Yeah, there's so many. It's awesome.

But it's just people don't know how to use. Contact them and use them. Or sometimes those businesses or those places are so overwhelmed that they turn away soldiers.

That. And the other side of it is a lot of those, uh, groups were kind of redundant. They all kind of did the same thing, but they were just a little different. And then, um, some of them were like, play like, this is my vet. I'm not going to share my vet with anyone else.

And there wasn't a lot of, like, cohesion, uh, amongst them. So again, the powers that be bought this building, brought in all these organizations, figured out which ones were doing the same thing. Thing figured out how to consolidate them into just one thing. So combining powers and other things and like, you know, been working it.

Uh, I think we're coming up on six years now. Um, and since then you can go on and uh, I'll get for the. One of the next numbers we'll do or podcast we do. I'll make sure to have our numbers because we keep track of every veteran that comes in here, why they come in here, why they come in.

And it's not just disability benefits that they're coming in for. They're coming in for. Of course, disability. That's one of the biggest things veterans come in for. But they're coming in for spiritual help, which is why we're working on building a little chapel.

They come in for education.

For education. So we get them with AZ works to get them into the schools, to.

Get them paid to use their GI Bill.

To get the GI Bill. We have a Linux group in here.

Mhm.

To teach people how to use computers and Linux. We have flute groups, drum groups, board.

Game groups going on right now.

Free tax prep for everybody. You don't have to be a veteran.

One I want to talk about eventually is the dogs, the training dogs we have.

Oh, Hero paws is amazing. We're definitely gonna get hero paws in here one day. Hero Paws, they, you might not hear.

Me talking much because I'll be playing with the dog.

So Hero paws is doing an amazing job because she's actually right now um, having the prison systems do like the, the way I thought of it is like the gen eds, you know, the sits, the lay downs, the basic commands is what the prisoners are doing. And by doing that the prisoners are getting their therapy and work release and stuff like that.

The dogs are getting their pre training and that way she can go and then pick up those uh, those dogs and she doesn't have to worry about spending the time with those ones to get the initial training. Then she can start working with that vet on how this dog is going to help that vet.

Is it a mobility issue? Is it a PTSD issue? Is it all these other issues that some sort of other health issue? She's able to like start working on it then. Um, I think last I heard she had like 11 students. Something right now that might be wrong.

I learned this recently is not all service dogs are the same.

Oh nowadays. So I really wanted, and we're talking legit service dogs, not the bought on Amazon, um, service dogs. But like we have those. We also have different PTSD groups here because not All PTSD is the same, and everyone doesn't relate the same. So we have female PTSD groups.

We have male PTSD groups. We have PTSD groups for different conflicts because obviously, a Vietnam vet and a oif. Oef Iraq or Afghanistan. Uh, vet. Way different. So. Different.

Well, and. And I can speak directly to that, and so can you. Ptsd. Uh, I have it.

Yep.

Is it affects us all differently, and we each have our own triggers, and we each learn to handle it differently. And some of us didn't talk about it, and some of us did. Some of us try to. And it just didn't feel right. And so I think the fact that there's different options to help with PTSD is huge, because it's not just, oh, go in here, and it's the same shit every time.

Yeah.

That's how I think of a regular counselor. They. They're there to just, like, on. On record. On repeat. On repeat.

Yeah.

For. Excuse me. For those rice and beans, man.

Drink a drink. Wash it down.

Um, to help specifically, or how to cater to a woman. PTSD versus a man or a veteran. Ptsd, or that's what I'm calling them, versus an OIF is completely different. Mine came from a car wreck. Like, it's completely different. And so I think that's huge. And, um, if you're listening and you know somebody who has PTSD and has tried counseling and it just didn't sit well with them.

You never know.

Mention the Warrior Healing Center. I knew I was one of those where I was like, I'm not crazy. Like, you're a piece of shit counselor telling me what's wrong with me. Like, fuck's wrong with you? Like, I just wasn't. You weren't.

It was a different headspace.

Yeah. Counseling for me didn't work because I think they were trying to treat something that wasn't my problem. And so for some, um, place like this place, who has seen a whole.

Rainbow spectrum of everything.

Yeah. Of, uh, different PTSD and causes and whatever.

And, um, the other thing is, like, ptsd, everyone always thinks, especially being military, it's something to do with war. It's not the case. Um, there is a very large number of sexual assault PTSDs, and when I. We have classes that help address that and stuff like that as well, because that is a whole different.

Yeah. Well, the support that the Warrior Healing center offers is almost endless.

You know, one of the cool things they're working on right now, and it's supposed to be launching here, is they're actually Doing a anti suicide prevention class.

So everyone here.

Yep. All the volunteers, all the case workers.

Used that back in the day too. I was only 17, but, man.

Yeah, no, it wasn't even just 17. I remember a couple other times.

Well, and it's like, you, you know, you, you do pretty good, but when you came home from deployment, it took a while. I, I forced your ass to go to counseling.

Yeah.

You were detached. I was like, who the are you? Like, where did you go?

I mean.

And that was your second.

Well, okay, I don't remember. Second one is. Yeah, yeah, we'll cover those.

But you still. Some days I just firmly believe. Right. And then I. And just from observing with our military buddies and with you and myself, which isn't war related at all, you guys all come home different. You never, you never come home the same. And each deployment you come home a little bit different.

But I think it's that first deployment where a boy or a girl becomes a woman or a man. Because they saw some shit.

Like, saw some shit, did some shit.

Yeah. And, um, I think in general, if you're a veteran who's deployed and you've never actually talked about what you saw, because I think that happens a lot in the older generation.

Right.

Where the veterans, the World War II ers, they were children when they left and they had no fucking choice. They grew up real quick. And back in the day, it wasn't like it is nowadays. Like, oh, talk about it. Talk about it was like, you didn't talk. You didn't talk about it.

It was how it was on it when I first joined, I think, you.

Know, services have gotten a lot better, um, and more available, but people, especially soldiers, are still in the headspace of, like, no, I'm good, like, I'm good, but you're not good. Because when you're alone, things come up.

It's changed a lot. The mindset's changed. I know that I talked to a lot of young soldiers even when I was teaching. Like, they understand now it's different. And I'll say, like the younger generations, um, they are much more about mental health. We see that. Everyone sees that. They're more.

It's getting better.

It's getting better. So, like, the younger soldiers, I feel like they, they understand it. The stigma is still there. But I do feel like when I was in, it was, it was lessening. Like, I know I had senior leaders, they would push to go for therapy. Even if you never saw anything or did anything, when he came back, he's like, go and talk to someone like, so it is going away.

It just depends on leadership.

Um, you know, we're going down a rabbit hole here. I can talk about PTSD and suicide all day long.

Because I was trying to say before.

You directly relate to that. Sorry. Go back on track, babe.

Yeah, well, I was trying to say is one of. They're doing a suicide prevention class here, so all the caseworkers, all the volunteers, and everyone's going to have training on how, if a vet comes in and they are in that position or in that mind frame, how to react to it.

And I can say that last year, um, our numbers as of last year, we had diving into the peanuts, I believe it was around 30 veterans came in, uh, to the center last year, and 30 of those veterans said that they were harmed to themself or harm to someone else.

And as of my last count of numbers, unless something has changed just recently, which I haven't heard, all 30 of those veterans are still with us today.

Oh, good.

So, like, we're obviously doing something good here. Granted, we see hundreds and almost a couple thousand a year. Um, again, we'll get some numbers to start covering those another time. But 30 veterans came in here saying that they were gonna hurt themselves or someone else, and they're still here today because of this place, because of the work that people do here.

Our volunteers, our classes, our groups. There's just so many things here.

Yeah.

Um, I definitely look forward to bringing our guests in here and highlighting different activities from the garden club.

Well, and that's the whole point of this.

Flutes, drums. I know I keep saying them, but they're. You can't miss the flutes. They're loud and they're awesome.

They were jamming out, and it was a jam out.

This is. This room in here is, quote, unquote, a quiet room. And now we can hear them.

While you were talking, I. I dug into the peanuts. Pretty delicious.

I mean, they're peanuts. If you notice, everything in here is, like, super salty.

Uh, I like salt.

Well, the reason is because it's gonna make you drink your water and stay hydrated and all that. That's why, like, you. When you eat the rice and beans, you have to watch.

It was awful.

You got to eat it and you got to wash it down because it's get. Like you said, it gets stuck in your throat. Right. So that's the whole purpose of it.

So I know we're talking Murray's mortgages, military, real estate, education, and I'm gonna switch it from stuff to services.

Okay?

And the whole point of. Of us doing this is I want to highlight the Warrior Healing center and its services. And so if you're listening,

who. How do you guys live off of this?

You ain't got a choice. You don't have a choice when this is the only thing you have to eat. You know, you suck it up.

I don't know what kind of magic powder they put in there, but it gets stuck to your throat.

Yeah, wait till you try the peanuts and all these other ones. This is your first. This is only your first day.

Oh, tortillas. Was I supposed to eat my thing?

You got tortillas?

Yeah, I didn't get tortillas Beach Ellie. But she's not my mama's tortillas.

Yeah, because we have. Let's go ahead and, um, start working on wrapping this up a little bit.

Okay? Yeah.

Okay.

Why is it orange? Hold on.

While you do that, I'm gonna have my, uh, honey mustard and onion pretzel nuggets.

Oh, I do like pretzels.

I mean honey mustard and onion, though.

Kind of all over the place, babe. I kind of like it. It's just like at home getting it done, but.

Oh, man, these things look good.

Actually, I don't know about this. Let's see. What is this? Tortillas Chipotle.

I promise we'll clean up afterwards.

390 milligrams of sodium.

Yep.

Okay.

Gotta get your sodium intake.

Oh, man, these are delicious. I'm finishing these later.

I would rather eat these than whatever that was.

Of course you would want to eat a tortilla.

I need to get a.

You want one? You want to catch one?

I will say the tortillas were always a pretty good thing. Not bad and tastes about right.

Good. Literally a good wrap up to the episode.

Well, almost. We do have that weird thing right there that I made for you. I gotta bust out.

If it's pictures of us when we're younger.

No, I wouldn't do that.

Stab you.

I wouldn't do that.

I'm gonna stab you.

I would take pictures and put it on there of you, but not like that of me. Younger? God, no. No. So because this episode and every now and then, just let our viewers know we're not gonna eat an mre. Um, every episode?

Hell, no. I was on a diet after this.

Every couple episodes, we'll bust one out. We'll have a discussion over what's. I don't know yet. We'll figure it out. Or maybe we might have a guest in and have MRE with them every now and then. But the whole goal is to have B try some MREs and tell us what she thinks of them.

And then at the end of them, well, we got to get figure out how she grades them. Right. How she likes it.

Well, what is that.

Tim? I don't know how we're going to get this one.

Can you zoom out?

I am intrigued. Not in a great way.

Yep.

So with the burps.

We are doing what the is. We can do this to the hammer. Oh, I'll get it over here. The mre. Oh, man, this thing's big. It's the only thing I can find if I bring it this way. Here we go. The MRE tasting board. Oh, that light.

We have to raise it higher, baby. The MRE tasting board.

So, um, those are Bea's yummy face and her disgusting face on there. So where are we going to rank the chick? The Mexican, uh, style Rice and beans. Big shout out to Michelle at clusterfunk. You're awesome.

Oh, she created that.

Oh, I had her make all this for me. I made the board, but she did the pictures.

Um, I'm gonna give this one. Well, let's see here. The lemonade was pretty legit.

Alright, so lemonade was good.

The cheez its were cheez its. They were extra crunchy.

Cheez its.

The peanuts. I mean, come on. But they did try to choke me and kill me. So that negative point there. Tortilla was tortilla. So if that's what you want to call it. And then the rice and beans. So am I. Overall.

Overall, what's, what's your grade on it?

I'm gonna give it a negative 7.

Negative 7.

Wow. M.

This, this shit right here is pretty bad.

So you're saying we're going to a negative 7.

Okay, but to be fair, to be fair, it's a quote unquote Mexican style dish and so I'm already naturally harder on that because I mean, my mom's cooking. All right, so what, what do you grade it?

Um, I'm putting this like a five or six.

Oh. Oh, you went up.

Yeah, there's not. There's only a few honestly bad MREs. Egg omelette.

They have egg omelette as a choice. Oh, I'm calling in sick that day.

No, you're not, because that's the one. I can honestly say I have eaten egg omelette like Once.

That is a great scale there, sir.

Thank, uh, you very much. I told you when you had this idea, I told you I need you to trust me because we needed a visual representation of how you like the MREs and Gradum.

Um, so, so let me. I won't give it a negative six because I'm sure there's worse.

Oh, there's.

I graded it on a Mexican to Mexican scale here. I'm gonna give it a negative three.

Negative three. All right. Negative three. This is my final, final, final grading. Alright, so we'll get that put on the board for the next one.

Okay.

And uh, I'll make sure to get it on there.

Yeah. So this episode, again, little messy, more our style. We don't really. We just kind of go for things and do it, you know, just a little. This next one, if we get to bring in our special guest.

Yep.

Uh, he is full of nothing but good stuff and information. And if you have questions, this guy knows it. I mean, yeah, he's a good friend of ours. He's. He's just genuinely a nice guy who wants to help out, just like us. Uh, and so he falls right in the realm of.

And he's one military, mortgages, some real estate, education for sure. And services.

He's prior. He's prior. All right, well, I think that was a wonderful episode, and I can't wait to continue this with you. This is gonna be fun.

I had a fun time trying new shit with you. Literally shit. Because those drinks beans were awful.

Just wait.

Um, but, yeah. So in the meantime, uh, you guys have questions or want to give us a few feedback, you're open to it.

Make sure you, like, follow, subscribe, share.

The more we get into it, the more education you're gonna find.

If you have any questions, please throw them on the comments. Hey, if you think that BE would like a different mre, throw it on the comments. All right.

Uh.

Trying to find some MREs. Uh, I know there's all sorts of new flavors, but go to that comments. Which ones would you think she likes or vote for?

No more MREs.

All right, well, we love you guys. Thank you guys for your service. Everyone listening. Thank you, babe, for going along with my crazy 3:00am um, idea. And I look forward to informing people with you and talking and just, you know, making a mess out there. Yeah, and making a mess.

Uh, but we'll clean it up.

We'll clean it up.

Yeah. All right. Thank you, guys. We're out.