hi i'm gene murphy this account to people thanks for watching friends and community television today a special guest is jeff mullins and he is the vice president of operations for rebuilding warriors he's a vat and he's got a story to tell us about his  business his organization that supports other vets with their service dogs including and introducing zoe here who's actually got a service dog thank you for being a lookout welcome welcome to the show all right so welcome jeff thank you for having us oh we'd love to have you we want to learn all about your organization and so we and how she helps you and how you help every all the other service on people not just that right and all th because we are hundreds and volunteer we look for private corporate donations to help us fulfill our goal by saving warriors one dog at a time and so for one i'm sure our people out there are watching and they're going to figure out how they can help you to feel let's talk about a little bit about how does your organization start and tell us about your south the organization started jeff anderson out in california i grew up with and we were elementary school high school students friends together when we graduated he went to the army i joined the navy and then we hadn't seen each other again until two thousand and thirteen and then finally he told me what he was doing and i said hey if you need any help i'm all and i'm already doing he was started the organization he was putting out like three or four dogs a year and it he started it because a friend of his who taught combatives to as a civilian  asked them can you do a service dog for me and he said yeah no problem so that started the whole ball rolling and then he found out that you need veterans out there just in his area and his friends a them from a breeder or somebody who has a purebred is there a lab german shepherd golden retriever standard poodle for those who have allergies  dogs or animals and they get socialized then after they're socialized place we start the obedience process and then after the obedience they're typically probably around nine or ten months old and then we have already i figured what the veterans needs are whether it's stability whether it's the fets things and pick things up and hold them and then the dog is taught until they're very proficient at doing both those otherwise that are serving the country that you kind of go through a process where you evaluate them through to qualify and then once they do it could cost fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars for a puppy right and then you get them trained and so give us an puppy we have a veteran who has come to us we don't go out seeking veterans so if a veteran comes us basically it shows us that they're actually showing us that they have a need right they don't do anymore because of the p t s d and what we try to do is i mean it's our goal because there's one thing about the human body is that the brain was never taught trauma and you can break a leg will heal i can break a finger it will heal you can cut it will heal but the brain doesn't something about it it just doesn't forget yeah so it's a constant wakening every day p t s d and you were saying about how you would explain to someone about what do you think is going on and i had to tell a pretty about that th ere's there's things that for for p t s d i just refer to them as the invisible scars you know they remind us where we've then but not where we're going and some of the things whether it's nightmares or just consonant where it is looking over your shoulder see if somebody is watching you i get very anxious when i'm around a lot of people and i'm going to stop that just say that as far as people i don't want to point pinpoint finger and say that specific into city but i have had encounters with people from the middle east and i just look at them said my head and i had a kid come up to me and asked me to go so why do you do that and i and saw everything firsthand and so now you're here and you're still traumatized and that's the post traumatic stress syndrome so how does so we help you just her being with me i take her everywhere and i could be driving down the road and i could say a choice word of my displeasure of other drivers and she will reach over with her left leg and put it on my right arm and pull it under her so that i have to be touching her to distract me from what actually was happening so now i'm concentrating more of touching her l am right tell us about how someone can go about to back support for you what do you need and then we'll also there's a glee what we need is  directly back to that and the dogs to help that's today we're here to talk about that and upcoming event on september eighth two thousand and eighteen in flemington new jersey called the rock and blues festival and it's going to be held at the crow gun club so rebuild warriors five zero and c three hundred percent volunteer we provide service dogs to min and women of all branches of the service including first responders at no cost to them and we are like i said  two thousand and thirteen and it was sort of my classmate of mine from west point is a major general gay and york recently retired and at that point in time the army in its infinite wisdom which had a great idea for once actually they were sending out e mails to all of the general officers whenever a a soldier committed suicide or took their own life and it really need a huge impact because they were starting to get twenty to twenty five a day and it really started pounding up their emails and it really started making oppressions so they decided to stop that initiative when they dan was sitting at his desk and he had received several e mails and he just decided he had enough so we called on a few classmates of ours they put together some additional funding put together the five o c three and came up with our mission statement and what we do with that rest is as we provide coaches and counselors to veterans their family members i also like to include our or our police officers firemen anyone who's talking to the effect and we try to help them find solace find peace work through their issues and to help them get back to a new normal is so important to you know it often what we find is that so many of us have p t s d a bad car accident a bad d and looking at suicide as a way out which is just horrifying twenty twenty veterans a day twenty two whatever the number is one veteran a day to many real life is hard far and we're not do enough about it you know there's forty five thousand charities in our key for all as a help yeah purchasing or finding the right dogs we know right research getting the word out about who we are what we do is so important so we still lobby for funding but we still operate as volunteers and hope to be helping each and every day that tell us that you know what about that rath sure about me is probably the boring side of it as you say but i'll just give you an introduction west point graduate i was recruited for football played for four years and didn't get to broken up really enjoyed my tour of duty giving back spent thirty thirty two years in the military most of the time is in the national guard in new jersey national guard i was a battalion commander in iraq in two thousand and five actually just upon arrival in iraq i became the division g three  pretty dark place so it brings me to an area where i can i can look at p t s d i can look at the effects of it i can look at what i lived through during my combat tours in iraq i was mobilized for twenty six months i spent eighteen months away from my family at the time and  can have the effects of p t s d so so after after this life changing event happened for me two kids right out of college so bills to pay i struggled a bit and i met with a really wise wise gentleman friend of mine who told me that you know it's so important volunteer and give back and do other things for other people while you're going through this struggle so whether you find yourself in the arms of christ or you find yourself wherever you find peace and solace is very important to do that is very important to divide those those  and help other folks so i started volunteering with some some groups and i wanted to do more so mostly what i found myself there were helping veterans and their families there was good jobs and it's been a great parlay from from two thousand and general dan york received to the army was was sending out e mails every day for every veteran suicide that was occurring in our battle space and they were receiving the numbers wherever they are you know fourteen to twenty a day or fourteen and twenty two or whatever the number is one is unacceptable think that so the army shut that pipeline off relatively quickly after they discovered that the effects of the the active duty in the veterans side the guard reserve we're becoming too dramatic so they stay shut the pipeline off dan dan is a very spiritual man and he decided to do something about it as have many other charities that are out there dan said he mobilized some of our some more classmates from from west point some other folks who've been in the service some other wealthy individuals and we started that rest in two thousand and thirteen our basic premise is to work with veterans who are struggling with the effects of p t s d where we find a direct link from p t s d to veterans suicide and from working in this space for about the past two and a half years directly it's been very enlightening to me a very eye opening to me you know that i think among all suicides in the country one in five are veterans and one is unacceptable side and we see that now in our in our hollywood space which they don't really like to advertise either when you have folks of of wealth and fame and they're taking their lives you know now look at a veteran that may not have that same privilege or that same most r anywhere near as yeah exactly so it's just as much a crisis in their space as it is ours so what we do is we have chapters in colorado oregon new york new jersey d c and atlanta and probably run by volunteers today we do send them funding resources when they're available to us we're always fund raising always working on that end because with money we can employ deploy more resources and hire more coaches and do more advertising and get the word out more and then help other charities like like rebuilding warriors and project help of some of those folks that are out there in our space so i predominate one on finding errors if you have a story stable home life but a a or a doctor and now you cripple that with maybe a traumatic brain injury maybe assiduous and depression you have the perfect cocktail for someone to take their own life and that's where we try to insert ourselves wow and we provide peer to peer coaches and counselor so i have i have several women counselors to hold women or female concert as well they're there both of those they have been they have been raped they've been molested they have been bombed shot at blown up they have traumatic situation but i have a coach or a counselor or a mentor who will we're helping folks in california in texas in colorado where we're ever we get a phone call from we answer the call right away if someone was watching and they thing or it's a georgia thing so with that said on down the eddy has a d c think will push that to raylan but we will always one of us will respond and say thank you for reaching out right we're we're so we're you know we're praying for your for your help and for your solace we're here to help we're connecting you with with this coach or counselor and let's see what we can do to help you are there costs to that none it's just one hundred percent very and that's what you're working to get more and more support wet so is there any type of  h have you seen how long someone may be going through your service as if it odd going it's all relative it's all relative we have a last easter i was out to dinner with my family we lost my mom a few years ago so now we decide we go to we go to my father's club and we just we just all sit together the families are the eighteen of us so when my phone rings you know god bless my wife and that she she understands she's been with dragging her around to a lot of events and she i met my my third wife go through with veterans go through she's met a lot of my friends she really understands now more clearly what one of the helicopter pilots go through or the one of the fix we imposed go through was if you guys go through one of those marines go through talent and it's all very different and it's all the same so so each person is is a different case so i get a call on easter sunday i'm out with the family the phone rings my wife she just knows i'm going to answer it and i had a veteran who was in florida he was a five tour combat veteran his his job was to train foreign military officials foreign government officials how not to become hostage then with their children so this is a how there's a pretty sharp guy and he was hyperventilating on his kitchen floor so i it down and we had a nice you know just a couple of the conversation ninety nine percent of the folks who call me apologize for calling me like don't apologize and why not here are he has most of the cases they just the veterans or their family members just need someone else to talk to someone else to understand what they're going through so much having a bad day and not on many of our holidays or when a lot of our vets have a bad day or so i told told me right it's one of my family time is what i have a couple of marines in new jersey one in new york that were that were severely underemployed and i have a resume writing team nice consists of myself and someone else i have a wonderful madonna ways to work with she helps i have a classmate ok so i know what you did yeah i was in for trade and how you know i did this that well you're a project manager you you work with a team of eight people you're responsible for their health and welfare their legal issues and family issues so you can work as a team you're said when you're out there ok and that rest is out and you're having fundraisers people give they do fundraisers for you all the time so tell everybody out there how they can go about helping you and that side with donations and i also just want to ask a little bit about how more right they don't believe in lavish parties or spending our money foolishly or advertising during the super bowl which cost how many millions of dollars a minute there are some organizations that have done that in the past and hopefully they've learned the errors of their ways from a finance side you know we have money that goes to our county team we have an attorney who doesn't charge us and so there are those operating funds that we that we need to expend search all our other resources go to coaches and counselors because that's the boots the ground activity that we need so how do folks help they can help in a number of ways one a five dollar donation a ten dollar donation one hundred dollars or one thousand dollars a four hundred thousand dollar donation could be a chapter sponsor well for one year and when we sponsor a chapter what we do is we have a two year plan that we're pretty much getting into an eighteen month plan one of the first people we retain is a professional fundraiser great ok so so that because i don't want to keep coming to you genie and saying can you give again this year  environment and we don't want to keep hitting up the same resources that are so important to us we have a farming initiative that we've launched in colorado and florida we're trying to bring it up to new jersey we're working with some hydroponic gardening folks that with with small acres of land we c get the word out to help us find more volunteers help us find those funding resources support our events you know push out the you know the gun clubs having the event coming up though i'm sure we're going to talk about for a moment the rock of loose festival here on september eighth i think we are that's correct and these are great folks that are doing whatever they can to help us they're helping fund various activities it keeps us alive the keeps our hipaa compliant computers on line it keeps the resources flowing so that that i could pay the volunteers enough to ease their pain and they have volunteers volunteer sure they have bills to pay like everyone else so right kind of set of eyes them a little bit more we can send those folks out deploy them out to meet with our vets absolutely volunteers their heart is in it but sometimes they need to have a little bit of support and there shouldn't be anything wrong with that i mean oh my god volunteers give forever and ever and ever you know it's a good thing yeah i ran the codes and ran pop warner football in clark for a new jersey for seven years and