Best Of The Bay 10/26/18 - Stop Soldier Suicide — iHeartRadio Communities

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From our iHeartRadio studios here in Tampa, this is Best of the Bay, highlighting the people and organizations that represent the best of the Tampa Bay area. I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. In this episode, we're joined by Stop Soldier Suicide. With us in studio, we have Rachel Landon, advocate for Stop Soldier Suicide, and on the phone, we have Keith Hodel, the chief Program Officer. How are both of you?

I'm doing great, thank you so much.

Keith, how are you?

I'm doing great as well, Ryan, thank you.

Thanks so much for, for being here. This is an important topic. Rachel, you were here last year. We talked about the organization and the race that you have coming up. Before we get to the event itself, which we'll spend some time on, let me start with Stop Soldier Suicide and the great work that this organization does. Recently, just a couple of weeks ago, we had on the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. So this is a topic we've covered quite a bit lately because it's been in the news so much lately, unfortunately. Let me start with the basic overview. It's pretty much self-explanatory based on the title, but a little bit more about what Stop Soldier Suicide is all about.

Sure. Well, for starters, Stop Soldier Suicide is the first veteran-founded and led nationally organization that aims to preventing military-related suicides. Keith, do you want to take this one?

Yeah, Keith, tell us a little bit about how it got started and how you got to where you are today.

Sure. Well, it was started by 3 military folks who were friends, and they saw, you know, after they mustered out from active duty and back to the states, they saw, you know, an alarming and unacceptable number of their friends and colleagues that, you know, were in the military and losing their lives to suicide and decided that it was something that they felt passionate enough about to form this organization and work on that problem and try to— our mission is to save lives. See a day when our military brothers and sisters are at no greater risk for suicide than the average civilian.

Yeah, because veterans are at greater risk, correct? And active duty members as well.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, our veterans are at significantly higher, you know, risk than, you know, the average American, you know, at least 50% higher and maybe even more than that depending on what stats you look at. So it's, you know, suicide's a public health epidemic in the United States, and when you look at the rates of military suicide, it's just something that, you know, really needs to be addressed and needs to be addressed, you know, at a national level.

Keith, how did you wind up getting involved with the organization personally?

Well, I actually came out from Wyoming. I have been doing doing suicide prevention for roughly 15 years and led the state of Wyoming suicide prevention efforts at Department of Health before I transitioned to a nonprofit that was doing all the prevention in the state of Wyoming. And when we lost our funding earlier this year, was looking to see, you know, what made sense for me and got hooked up with Nick and Brian, who are two of the founders and was absolutely committed and sold on this program and moved out to North Carolina and, um, loving every minute of it.

So, you know, you've been dealing with this issue for quite a while, like you just mentioned. Uh, is it worse now than when you first started 15 years ago?

Well, I mean, I, I think what we have seen is a steady increase of, of rates across the country. So for You know, it's gotten incrementally worse from year to year despite the efforts and the funding that have been, you know, put toward the effort. So, you know, there's that piece of it, which is, you know, kind of a national-level issue, but then when you look at the growing number of veteran suicides and military suicides, you know, that's even more disturbing and problematic, I think.

And let me ask you how the organization is set up. Obviously, we're doing, doing a run here, which we're gonna get to in just a bit, to benefit the organization. But how does the organization work? Is this a national organization with local chapters? Tell us a little bit about the structure.

Sure. So there's a couple of components of the work that we do at Stop Soldier Suicide. One of them, and the piece that's been in place you know, for since the founding of the organization 8 years ago is a what we call a resource center, which essentially, you know, takes any veteran, any active military or family member who has a need and we hook them up with an individualized case plan or case management plan and provide them with, you know, access to whatever resources they may need. A homeless veteran, you know, we try to work on that problem with them. If it's a veteran that needs a connection because of a mental health condition or a substance abuse problem, we work with them to try to find a provider that is in their area that would be, you know, suitable, a good match for them. So it doesn't matter what the problem is, we work on it and we do it in a way that, at least to our knowledge, no other organization does, which is to provide those folks with individualized one-on-one case management for up to 2 years and with numerous follow-ups and callbacks to make sure they're doing okay during that period of time.

And how critical is that, both the personalized care and the follow-ups?

Well, we think it's absolutely critical. One of the One of the things we see is that veterans and active military are coming to us from other providers or systems where they're not getting any personalized attention or there's, you know, huge waiting lines. That doesn't exist with us. We get back to folks right away and begin to provide them with the resources they need, you know, tailored to whatever their needs are immediately. And so in that way, I think we're different. And it's also important because, you know, as we get veterans who are at greater risk than even the average veteran because of whatever circumstance they may be in, that follow-up, that connection, you know, really kind of provides them with a safety net over that period of time to make sure that somebody is watching out for them, somebody cares, somebody is there if they need them. And, you know, that kind of personal involvement and personal touch is we think really critical to empowering vets and improving whatever their circumstances may be over the long run.

This is Best of the Bay. With us, we have Stop Soldier Suicide in studio, Rachel Landon, an advocate for the organization, and on the phone with us, Keith Hodel, Chief Program Officer. The Stop Soldier Suicide Veterans Day 5K honoring Sergeant Eric Landon is coming up. It's gonna be on November 11th. And the website if you want to find out more about the run itself is the hollandgrp.com. Rachel, I want to bring you in here before we get to the details about the run.

Sure.

Go ahead and obviously give us the backstory to how you became involved and came up with this event.

Sure, well, I can say that Stop Soldier Suicide for the past 3 years have been has been a very big part of my life. When my husband, Sergeant Eric Landon, he passed away, he took his own life on July 30th, 2015. And when I, a couple months after and everything, everything kind of settled down, I really tried to understand why. And I would look at all these statistics of 22 veterans a day commit suicide, and I would just kind of beat myself up about it of how did I not know? How did I not know the signs? And I think awareness is really key. And I can say that when I do talk to people, almost every time I say 22 veterans a day take their own lives, they say, wow, I didn't know. It is a subject that is rarely spoke about, and it's a huge epidemic we need to find a solution to.

So tell us a little bit about Sergeant Landon's story and where he served and and kind of bring us up to the point that obviously changed your life and started your work with this organization.

Sure. He was in the Army as an infantryman for 10 years. He did 2 combat tours, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. He came home and, you know, he went to school. He was Army Reserves, so he would go once a month when he came back, and one month out of the year he would be gone doing training as well. So he lived the civilian life as well as the military life.

Okay.

And he was fine for a while, and then—

So initially it wasn't a difficult adjustment?

You know, I think it was an adjustment, but he may have kept quiet about it.

Okay.

Because there's such a culture in any male-driven organization, military or what have you, is that you're strong mentally, physically. You don't talk about your emotions.

We're not good about feelings and things like that.

Man up, buddy. You'll be fine. So I think he had a lot of internal issues and he just kept it quiet. And when he came home, things were good. And then months later, years later, that's when things started to really get difficult for Eric. And we went to We tried numerous therapists, we tried the VA, and don't get me started about the VA. But it was, we just couldn't find a good fit. And I wish I knew about Stop Soldier Suicide back then because it is veterans helping veterans, people that could relate to him and could understand the struggle that he was going through. And we just didn't have that.

Was that the biggest issue, that you couldn't find somebody who could really understand what he was going through? Because look, you know, We've talked about this time and time again when I've had organizations on helping veterans or even active duty members of the military. And, and look, if you haven't been there and seen what they've seen and done what they've done, you really can't relate to it.

No. And he just felt very misunderstood. I mean, yeah, he, he was diagnosed with PTSD, but it was how he was diagnosed was the issue, which was his issue. So we went to the VA and the lady sat with him for maybe less than 10 minutes and she said, you have PTSD. It's like, well, how do you know it couldn't be something else? Like, how do you know it's not like my mood today or this or that? Like, he was just, okay, you're military, PTSD, that's it. They just nothing really we could do for you. And you know, oh, you'll be deploying soon. Okay. We can't— he didn't want to take meds and risk his deployability rate. Or, um, so he, uh, he kept quiet. And we, we actually went out of, um, out of like the network. And so we saw like a personal therapist, and they just didn't know how to relate to what he saw, what he'd been through, the issues that he was having. Rather than just saying like, you know, this is common, it's like, okay, it's common, thank you, I understand it could be common, but How do we fix it? How do I get better? And those were questions that people just who haven't been through it, haven't seen the things that could relate to seeing the things that he saw, they just didn't have answers for him. And so he lost hope and he didn't wanna go to therapy after so many times of trying. He just kind of washed his hands with it.

And I think that's— Yeah, well, you figure this isn't gonna help me, Abby. I mean, how many times you gotta go through it where it doesn't work or they're not listening to you or they're not relating to you and you say, clearly it's not working, it's not for me.

Exactly.

Keith, this kind of goes to that personalized care that we were talking about a little while ago, doesn't it? In terms of having people, again, who can relate to what a veteran has been through and is currently going through.

Well, that's absolutely right, and, you know, kind of speaking to the issue of, you know, getting treatment or getting treatment that's not effective. You know, the system we have, we follow up to make sure that our clients actually receive the care that we help them, link them up with. And, you know, if they didn't, we explore the reasons why. If they did and it's not working, then we work with them to find a provider that will meet their needs. And so I think that's where we differ from some other providers, whether it's at a national scale or locally, is that our client is who we invest in. And their needs are what our priority is. And being a nonprofit, we don't have any other competing interests or quotas or anything like that. It's all client-focused to make sure they get the care they need.

We're doing Best of the Bay, and with us in studio from Stop Soldier Suicide, we have Rachel Landon and Keith Hodel over the phone. Thehollandgrp.com is the website where you can find out more about the 5K coming up honoring Sergeant Eric Landon and benefiting Stop Soldier Suicide. It says, Keith, that on your website, when you talk about the impact that this organization makes, that that 68% of clients are service members or veterans, 32% are military family members. Talk a little bit about that aspect of the work you do.

Sure. I mean, obviously they're, they're a part of our overall mission, but the importance of that is oftentimes, and I'm sure that Rachel can relate to this, is it's a family member who may be concerned for and may be willing to reach out where their loved one, for whatever reason, just isn't willing or able to do that. And so even though the loved one they're calling about may technically be our client, oftentimes we work through and with the family members to try to provide that their military spouse or son or even father or mother, depending, gets the help that they need.

Rachel, talk a little bit about the family aspect of all of this. You know, obviously as a spouse, and then, you know, the family and how they're affected by both the PTSD issue and then obviously after a suicide takes place.

Of course. Well, of course, without saying much, is that there's a lot of grief.

Yeah.

There's a lot of grief also before suicide, whereas with PTSD, it kind of makes you withdrawn. You're in with yourself. Some things that you've done before that you absolutely love just aren't appealing anymore. It's like a depression. And I think people are more aware and more, they can recognize depression a little bit easier than PTSD. So you can kind of relate it to that. So sometimes you kind of feel like you've lost that person before you've even lost them.

[Speaker] Yeah, I was gonna follow up and ask about that in terms of the dynamic there. You know, again, that must be hard for you to relate to what they're going through, just like anybody else who hasn't been through what a veteran has, has been through. So that's got to be— I'm sure you want to help and you want to understand, but it could be difficult.

Very, very. And I think that's why Stop Soldier Suicide is a great outlet, because it's an organization that, you know, you can speak to another military wife that is going through the same thing. They can connect you with these resources that's worked for them or their husband or their father or one of their loved ones. What works for them, it's just like a community and you're helping each other out, which is really, really special.

And when did you really discover Stop Soldier Suicide? How long was it after the suicide of Sergeant Landon took place that you discovered this organization and the work that they were doing?

I discovered it probably about 3 or 4 months after.

Oh, okay.

Yep.

And tell us a little bit about that initial interaction and how you started to get involved.

Well, for my grieving techniques is always kind of to focus on other things and whether that may be right or wrong, that's what I do. So I wanted to pour my heart into helping other people that was going through the same struggle that I was going through. And also help people that have children because I have two— Eric and I have two beautiful daughters who are now 7 and 4. So they were 3 and 15 months when he passed. So the questions and the confusion and the sadness, I wanted to make sure that no other family would have to go through what I went through on a daily— and I still go through on a daily basis with my daughters. So I was researching and I came across Stop Soldier Suicide's website and I contacted them and I said, "How can I get involved?" And I saw that they were doing a program called Run for Life and I ended up participating in different 5Ks and then just handing out cards to people that say, "Hey, you know what? Stop Soldier Suicide is doing this. Let's collect donations." I ended up getting like a team together and we would run races together and it got to a point where we kind of stopped and we said, why don't we do our own race? Like, this is crazy. Why are we paying people to go do this thing that we should be doing? So in 2016, that's when I really started focusing on doing this Sergeant Eric Landon 5K. And I wanted to do it in a place where he really loved and we always loved to go out in downtown Dunedin and have drinks and eat. And that was a big family area for us as well as when we were just dating. So we, um, I decided to have the race in Dunedin and that's when it kind of started from there.

So when was the first race honoring Sergeant Landon?

It was actually on his 1-year anniversary on July 30th, 2016.

Well, can I just say, and first of all, thank you so much for sharing all the personal details of what you went through. I'm sure it's not easy, but that, that's incredible. Just not even a year later, you're putting together a race honoring him. I mean, that really, that's, that's really commendable.

Thank you.

So let's talk about the race this year and what you have planned and kind of, you know, tell us how it's grown over the past couple of years.

It has grown and it's becoming, it's becoming really something. I like to have it focused not so much just on the race, but also as a family get-together. We have a bounce house for the kids, we have face painting, we have balloon animals. It's a great event where it's kind of like a festival afterwards. We're celebrating his life. We're celebrating the great man that Eric was, and we're doing it in a place that he loved and with people that loved him.

And again, it's gonna be November 11th, correct, at 8:30 AM on Veterans Day? On Veterans Day. And it's gonna be at the, the Hale Activity Center on Pinellas Trail.

Yes.

And people can find out more at thehollandgrp.com. Again, this is Best of the Bay. I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. In studio with me, Rachel Landon, and on the phone we have Keith Hodel, the Chief Program Officer for Stop Soldier Suicide. Keith, talk a little bit about the runs. Obviously, this isn't the only one that you guys do. This is the one that we do here in the Tampa Bay area, but tell us a little bit about how these runs take place across the country and just the community that you're building each time you do one.

Right. So, you know, first off, you know, from the bottom of all of our hearts, we are profoundly grateful for, you know, folks like Rachel and the work that they do. And you're right in noting that, you know, the fact that Rachel put this together within a year is remarkable. You know, these folks are part of our community, they're part of our family, you know, and, you know, they are the grassroots effort that, you know, it's not only about, you know, raising money to support the work that we do or the work that's being done in communities, it's about getting the message out there and making sure that everybody knows not only that, you know, this is a terrible problem but there are ways to deal with it, and there are ways to solve the problem, but it takes, you know, it takes a community. So, you know, these races and other events that go on all over the country are really essential in building that community and in, you know, really moving us forward to a day where, you know, hopefully we won't see this as such a critical public health problem.

And Rachel, at the run itself, the people who attend, have you noticed that there are more veterans and their families coming out? Does it consist of individuals who have lost somebody in their family to suicide, like yourself? Talk a little bit about who comes out to these events and, again, the growth that you've seen and what you're hoping for this year.

I would say it's a dynamic population of people. So you have a lot of people that have served. They come out and just to support us. We have people that are just locals in Dunedin, in the Tampa Bay area, that say, hey, this is a great cause. I love the military. I love my freedom. I love that I'm safe. I need to come out and support them. And we— I also, which is very nice and surprising, is that sometimes I'll get a handful of people that will come up and introduce themselves and say, hey, I served with your husband.

Oh, wow.

And that, that's when it gets really Heartfelt, for sure.

And how many people did you guys have last year? We had you on last year before the run. Do you have an idea of what the total was?

We had close to 300.

Close to 300.

So of course we're trying to aim for a little higher this year too.

Yeah, every year you want to grow.

Each year a little higher, of course.

Right. And then it's not just the race itself. You guys have a post-race kind of gathering.

Yes.

And I'm sure some of the stories and some of the moments that take place during the gathering after the race is over are pretty incredible.

It is. I have a lot of people coming up to me wanting to share their stories, say how, you know, the race is healing for them. You know, they run in honor of the person that they lost, and I encourage it and I love it. And I think that it's really, really special when I get to know other people's stories and their struggles and how Stop Soldier Suicide can help them and that they didn't know about our organization.

Again, if you want to participate in the race, it's November 11th. It's gonna be at the Hale Activity Center on Pinellas Trail. The time is gonna be 8:30, and then there's gonna be festivities afterwards including a free pancake breakfast and all that kind of good stuff. TheHollandGRP.com is the website where you can find out more, and of course when you go there, you'll, you'll see all the information on Stop Soldier Suicide as well. Keith, let me talk to you a little bit about the resources and partner organizations that you've teamed up with to help veterans and their families. Talk a little bit about that.

Sure. So we have a database that has more than 3,000 individual resources, whether at a national level or locally. And so, you know, our case managers are proficient in how to manage that database and then how to, you know, do independent research to make sure that we're providing our clients with what they need. So we may have a client that that we can't serve through resources in our database, that we don't end there. We'll get on the internet, call locally, figure out what may be in that veteran's community that we can hook them up with, and then we actually individually vet each of the resources, even if they're in our database, before we provide them to the client. In other words, we wanna make sure that that if it's a local provider that they still have the financial ability or the individual resources to be able to help our client. So we want to make sure that we're providing them with a useful link. And then after we go through that process and make sure that we've provided them with a high-quality resource, we call back within the week to make sure that that's actually proved to be useful for them. And then if not, We go back to the drawing board until we get whatever it is that that client needs.

And we talked a lot about obviously PTSD therapy, suicide prevention, but you guys do even more than that. I mean, everything from, you know, emergency financial aid, housing assistance, things like that. So, so you really try to meet whatever need is out there.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, this is driven by the needs of the client, not what, you know, we think the client needs. You know, that said, out of the, you know, 1,356 clients that we've had, about 450 are that mental health and substance abuse treatment. So for us, I mean, obviously, you know, folks that are struggling with those issues are at a higher risk than, than many other veterans for suicide. And so obviously that's a, you know, base, client base that we want to be able to tap into and help. But we also get a number of calls for people who lack the basic, you know, resources, vets that may be homeless or don't have clothing or, you know, their family doesn't have food. And so, you know, that's a high-risk group too. And so, you know, it's really whatever that client needs, we will work with them to make sure they And you also look into some of the alternative therapies that we've actually talked about on this show, equine therapy, things like that.

Are there any that really stand out these days that are showing real promise?

Well, yeah, they're, they're, you know, the equine therapy. We've also begun to work with a group in South Carolina that provides surfing therapy for veterans at no cost to them.

Yeah, I thought that's really cool.

Yeah, come out, take a break from what, you know, whatever it is they're going through. Stay for a few days or a week, you know, work with the folks down there and hopefully, you know, return refreshed and healed up and in a better place than they were when they went down there.

So a couple of things here. We have about, about 2 minutes left. Let me start with you, Keith. If for some reason people can't make it out to the event here in the Tampa Bay area, if they want to either help the organization Stop Soldier Suicide or they want to get help from you, how can they go about doing that?

Well, the easiest way for both of those would be to go to our website, which is StopSoldierSuicide.org. They can also connect with us or donate on our Facebook page, which is Stop Soldier Suicide as well.

And in terms of getting help, there's a phone number too, correct?

There is.

It's 844-889-5610, I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong. 844-889-5610.

Yep, that is our number, and folks can call if for whatever reason it's after hours or, you know, our staff isn't able to answer, we will call them back immediately and, and try to begin to connect them with what they need.

And Rachel, uh, the event, the race coming up, tell us, uh, one more time all the details on that and how people can get involved.

Sure. Um, you can register for the race at the Holland GRP, uh, that's the hollandgrp.com. Our sponsors, the Holland Group Retirement Wealth Advisors, uh, partners with Stop Soldier Suicide each year. To put on an amazing event. We do the 5K off of the Pinellas Trail in downtown Dunedin, and we do the post-race party. This year it will be at the Hale Center. We have a DJ, we have a free pancake breakfast, bounce house for the kids, face painting, balloon animals, and a lot of really neat fun things. We also are doing a raffle as well.

Thehollandgrp.com is where you can find out more again about the Stop Soldier Suicide race happening here in the Tampa Bay area. Rachel Landon, Keith Hodel, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

Yes, thank you.

And that wraps up this edition of Best of the Bay. I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. Join us next weekend, same time, same place, for a brand new episode.

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