Ralph (DSO) & Coach Jason - Let's Talk About Veterans and Their Struggles

No audio. There we go. Probably help if I unmute myself. You know, I did this last time I was on here too. Anyway, hey, welcome everyone. Welcome, welcome. It's your boy Raffalito here with a special guest today. Probably most of you don't know this guy. If you're a loyal follower of mine on the Facebook feed and all those other social media, you may have seen his face and his name mentioned and articles posted that this guy here has written. This is Coach Jason, or as he calls himself, Coach J for short. Coach J here has been with myself and the Dad Starting Over world and now the Help 4men.com world as a first a member of our private group and then became a coach. You could say also a mentor, counselor of our membership. Uh, since you're— you were the number one dude that I reached out to to say we need to expand my efforts into the coaching realm. And I went to Mr. Jason here and said, what do you think about that? Because you have experience doing that. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you? What do you do?

Yeah, Ralph, thank you for having me on, and, uh, definitely a privilege to, uh, be a part of Help for Men and, uh, Dads Starting Over prior to that. So yeah, uh, back then, um, I was active duty Army, um, and, uh, I'm tooling around the garage. I'd been a member of, uh, the DSO Facebook page for, I don't know, maybe 3 months, and got really active in it. And I found that I was able to leverage my experience as a military coach and counselor. Any of you guys that served in the military know that your noncommissioned officers are highly educated in coaching and counseling. It is part of your job to do that. For your soldiers. If they're not ready to deploy and their, you know, personal life is in shambles, they can't deploy and go do what we need to do. So they're ineffective as a warrior in the unit, or less effective perhaps. So I just used those tools and really changed gears into the world of relationships. And, you know, men's self-improvement. Simple as that. There really wasn't a whole lot of difference to what I would do day to day in the Army and what I was doing with a bunch of, at the time, random guys online, you know? So my background—

Yeah, go ahead. I was just gonna ask, tell us your background, like how many years in the service and all that good stuff.

Yep. So I did 22 years in the United States Army. I retired in March of 2024. And now I am the coaching director for help4men.com full-time.

And we have how many gentlemen other than yourself? Let's see, can we count them? You got Austin, Scott, Gus, Vance, yourself. So there's like 6 of us total.

I mean, Gus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I work with those gentlemen to make sure we're all running in the same direction. We've got a unified message and maybe different ways of getting to the same end goal, uh, because we've got a lot of different members and different people we need to connect with, uh, but we all end up at the same place. And that, that's what's, uh, most important to me, uh, being effective.

And you each have your own specialties. You know, Austin is good with the former nice guy stuff, which is another term for like a codependent type of dude, and he He has a structured program for guys, and we'll get into your own structured programs. But, um, and we have Gus is getting more and more into the world of, uh, uh, being married to a gal who's going through menopause. That's, uh, his, uh, kind of his wheelhouse now. There's a lot of demand for that right now. Vance is our fitness guy. He's a PhD in the world of health and fitness. And then we have Scott, who also went through a major life transformation and lost Was hundreds of pounds. He is not the same dude.

Yeah. Somewhere in between 100 and 200 pounds. Yeah. You know, his story is absolutely inspirational, you know, to fight back from living on the street as a homeless guy in New Orleans.

Yeah.

You know, 100 to 200, you know, morbidly obese. And to where he is at now is truly remarkable.

And he's very open and honest about talking about his, um, he falls under the category of neurodivergent. He was at an early age diagnosed to be on the autism spectrum as well as the ADHD. So he knows that world well. So given all those obstacles and what he's overcome, we have a really, we have a really good team. That's all I got to say. We have a really good bunch of guys that are just in all of us with the exception of you here recently and myself have day jobs. Like, this is what they do in their quote-unquote spare time is helping out all these gentlemen from around the world. Oh, we forgot Steve. Steve in Australia, duh. So even our guys in Australia, you know, they have somebody to turn to that can help them out locally, if you will, a fellow mate. And yeah, our Australian group, and I say group because we're talking about we have a private group for men only called the HFM Brotherhood. And if you, if this interests any of you, you can go to help4men.com, help4men.com, and check it out. And learn more. But we have within that site a section, private support group just for men. We have approximately 700 guys from around the world in it. Number one group is in the United States. Number two, Australia, of all places. So we have a pretty big contingent in Australia, so much so that they get together annually, and they're getting ready to have their third annual gathering here. They call it Mate Fest, and in the US we call it Bro Fest, and we're getting ready to have our fifth Excuse me, we're getting ready to have our 5th gathering in the US here in Charleston, South Carolina, and now we only have 3 spots left. We just sold one yesterday. Yay, rah! So at this rate, you know, next few months we should have them all sold out, but we're gonna meet in Charleston, have a house on the beach, hang out for a few nights. It's gonna be awesome. So we're looking forward to that. So guys, check it out. Hey, look at— look who's— I don't know if you can see on your end, Jason, yet. Comments, but we have Mr. Ryan from YouTube who is a longtime member of ours. I'm assuming it's the same Ryan. I don't want to say your name for the recording here. Um, Ryan B from South Africa, welcome, welcome, welcome. Ryan's been a longtime brother and friend of ours, so welcome. Um, for all of you, um, if you could, if you were watching this whether it's on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter or X or whatever it's called. Let us know where you are joining us from. We always love to see. So far we got one guy in South Africa. Where are the rest of you from? And if you have a question for myself or Mr. Jason here, Coach Jason, please let us know. It doesn't have to be in regards to military. Ryan says, yep, that's him. So welcome, Ryan. It doesn't have to be military focused or involve military and all that good stuff, veterans. But if, uh, if you are a veteran and you have some veteran-related issues, we got the dude here. So let her rip. And whatever, you've seen my stuff, you know the material in the Dad Starting Over world and what that involves. Uh, we talk about everything kind of relationship-oriented as a dude, like marriage, divorce, uh, you know, post-divorce dating, career stuff, parenting stuff, all kinds of stuff that men deal with on a day-to-day basis. And for, you know, the 700-some lucky dudes that belong to our private group, they have a bunch of like-minded guys to talk to on a regular basis. We have our forum— forums, plural— which are very, very active 24/7 with guys talking about all kinds of stuff. We have live Zoom meetings that myself and Jason here host, along with Austin, along with Scott, along with Vance, along with Gus. Along with Steve, and we all host meetings and, uh, we talk about a variety of issues and we communicate face to face in these meetings. And guys ask questions live back and forth and talking and getting through problems, and it's a great thing. And for our guys that miss meetings, we record them and you can listen to them from your phone on your podcast app. Along with the podcast, like a kind of monologues by our team members and members, we have that as well, uh, HFM Brotherhood Podcast. All my books as well as Austin's book no extra charge, get those for free PDF format. My book, you also— my books, plural, you also get in audiobook format. What else do you get? Get to access, um, meet us in person in these conferences that we have that we just mentioned, as well as discounts on coaching with myself, Jason, and other guys on the team. It's roughly half off compared to what the general public pays. So it's all this, and I'm telling you, all these benefits, guys, it's a whopping— like, it comes to less than a dollar a day if you pay month to month. It could like 70-some cents a day or something like that. And then it comes to— when you do the math— and then if you pay on an annual basis, it comes to even ridiculous number like 40-some cents a day or something. I don't know what it is, but it's a bargain for everything that you get and a lot of resources. And we will continue to add as time goes on. And, um, and one of the benefits that we have for our members is, uh, structured programs for our guys that you can go to a guy like Jason or Austin, for example, and they have structured programs just for a specific subject matter. So for example, Austin has a program for nice guys, very structured, going through the process of overcoming your quote-unquote nice guy behavior. Again, another term for codependent, pushover kind of people pleaser behavior. He's been through that process and he's created his own process for getting through that. And he has a special program for guys that's very regimented and time-based and you You go through step by step, and it's worked out very well for him, and guys love it. And then we have Jason here who's come up with two of his own programs for our members. Jason, you want to talk about those?

Yeah, I've got the Be Her Lover program, which kind of spurred out of the chapter of your book, The Dead Bedroom Fix. I noticed over my time as a coach here in HFM and DSO that a, a lot of guys fundamentally did not understand the, that lover-provider dynamic, the, the split, and how to put that into action in their life. So they may have conceptually under— under, uh, had a conceptual level of understanding but didn't know how to actually apply it. So, you know, you, you fall into kind of one of two categories. Either you were once the lover, or you have lover attributes, uh, that now you're, you know, a couple decades into a marriage and they've sat on the mantle and collected dust, and we need to get those things off and put that back in the rotation of what we do on a regular. Or you were never that guy, and we have to build the knowledge, uh, skills, and attributes within you to be a good lover, um, and then apply that to your marriage or future relationships, uh, whatever applies. So the Be Her Lover program, uh, the number one thing is I want guys to fall in love with the journey of seduction, not just the end game of getting her in in bed, you know, fall in love with that part.

Be—

I tell guys all the time, I'm a lifelong hunter. I'm a big deer hunter. I love the process as much as I love the few seconds before I release the arrow, before I drop the hammer on Bambi, whatever it is, you know. And I love the whole part of it, being out there, being alone in my thoughts. Analyzing everything and bringing it all together. Um, it's really no different on the, uh, seduction journey. You're— I want guys to really want and, uh, fall in love with connecting with their woman again. And, um, I'm a big believer that you're— both of you, you and your wife, are going to make decisions to stay connected, or by default you will become Disconnected. That's more true than untrue. I think, you know, everybody should be able to get behind that. That's pretty— I know, broad, broad stroke there, but come on, I think that's pretty— calling it pretty fair there. Second program is the Weather the Storm program. Unfortunately, if you're on the other side of things, Uh, you know, and, and I, I'm talking about a little polarity here, but I, I coach anything, you know, from one extreme to the next, uh, and everything in between. But, uh, the Weather the Storm program is designed for men that are either in the process of divorce or are going through it, uh, or about, about to go through it. Uh, I, I went through an absolute nightmare of a divorce. And it was— it took a long time. It wore on me physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, every, every way you could possibly measure. Um, you know, it was, it was really, really tough. I learned a lot, uh, from that. I learned a lot from the hundreds of men that I've coached, um, you know, in HFM and DSO prior to that. And, uh, all— I've packaged all their stories. Uh, you know, I've got two family law attorneys that I converse with and pick their brain on different things, and, uh, we're going to continue to feed into, uh, the program. But it's called Weather the Storm. I care about you as the man. I care about, uh, providing you guidance, uh, from a non-legal perspective on how to conduct yourself during a divorce, to keep your nose out of the shit, uh, one way to put it. And, uh, about where you're going and taking care of you during this process so you don't end up, you know, after the end of the divorce and all the, the dust settles and the smoke clears, you're, you know, sitting there with a bottle of bourbon down and shot after shot with your TV on a, you know, a box in the living room and sleeping on a mattress in, you know, another room, a bare mattress, you know. And sometimes that may be just what happens, but I want to show you, hey, there's another way, and we can get ahead of a lot of these problems, and you can work on yourself. You can go to therapy, you can work on yourself physically, you can get your diet right. You can plan with what you're going to do with all this extra time as you're sharing custody of your children and things like that and get better. And I want to teach guys how to do that. And, you know, so they don't fall into a lot of the pitfalls that men fall into. And I want to prevent men taking their own lives. To be perfectly honest. You know, something that a lot of people don't like to talk about, but yeah, I'm sure I'm not the only one that knows a man that— in fact, I lost a veteran friend of mine that was going through a divorce in June. He was a high-level special operations guy. I hadn't seen him in probably 7, 8 years and took his own life, um, during the course of a divorce. And there are a lot of factors and contexts that I don't need to air out here, uh, right now. But, um, you know, it will push you, uh, to think that you have no hope. And I, I have an answer to that, that there is hope.

And do you see, uh, I think we know the answer to this, is that, uh there seems to be a disproportionate number of men ending their own life that are veterans, that especially had active service, that they saw— they were in the, you know, what's the proper term? They saw— they were in the period of war. What's the proper military term for a guy?

Combat veterans.

Combat veteran. Thank you. So if you're a combat veteran, we see a disproportionately large number of men ending their life after they in their military career and come back into civilian life. And we could go on and on about why that is, but with knowing that, we have that foundation of some not so good dysfunctional thought patterns and so forth. But put on top of that divorce, put on top of that, you know, wife cheated, whatever it may be, which is also, as you know, relatively common in the military world. Um, for those that don't know, I'm have a special affinity for the military world simply because I grew up as a military brat. I was— my father was Air Force. I was born overseas. He met my mom when he was overseas. We moved around a little bit, and I knew the military world my whole life. My dad passed away shortly after retirement at the age of 50. He retired at 51 or 52, and he died at 53. He was a Chief Master Sergeant, another NCO in the Air Force, so I know that world well. And he had to get deployed. Vietnam was his one combat deployment, but the rest were, you know, after we went to, we did our thing in Iraq, and then he was gone for 3, 6 months at a time. He'd go to Bahrain and Turkey and all these other bases that were supporting those efforts. So it's a pretty stressful career to get into. Let alone if you're in the front lines in the combat side of things. So it's a special and unique set of circumstances and stressors that the rest of the general public may not necessarily appreciate, which is why— good lead into— we are trying to recruit more and more military guys, veterans, to our private group, the HFM Brotherhood. And in fact, if you go to help4men.com and go up to the menu, you'll see veterans in the menu, and go to that and you will learn more about— we have some content, we're starting to create content just for the military guys. You'll see an introduction video there by Jason, and then you'll see we have an offer for you guys. If you want to join our private group, we can give it to you for 40% off, so it's a very, very low monthly rate. We just want to help you guys out. We want to bring as many of you guys in, not only to help you because we see there's, there's a huge need for this for a lot of our veteran brothers out there, but you veteran dudes make really good members. You're active, you're disciplined. Once you set your mind to something, you do it. It's very similar to if you're a— if you got a company and you're trying to— who do we hire for this role that we have, you know, open for our company? I've worked for big companies that say, oh, he's a veteran? Yeah, put him at the top of the pile. Yeah, I want to talk to him. Because they know this is going to be a good one, more than likely. It's a guy who's always, you know, fresh out of deployment. He's ready to get back into things. He's very structured. He's disciplined. We're gonna know this guy's gonna show up first thing in the morning, he's gonna be the last one to leave, he's gonna be a hard worker. Get the guy to the top of the pile. And we've seen the same thing in our, on our HFM Brotherhood group. Oh wow, those guys are active and they're disciplined and they really go after it. And when they have a goal, they try and hit it. But they also have their own little set of issues that we help them, help them address.

So I think I want to kind of talk about why it's important to me, and I'll start out with a few numbers. 6.8% of the American population are veterans today. That number will continue to decrease according to Pew Research and, uh, the U.S. Census Bureau. Everything I'm giving you comes from those two sources. Um, 90% of that 6.8% are men. 90%. Uh, depending on the service, there's a little So Army versus Navy versus Air Force, that there's a little bit of variance, but it averages out to about 90% male. Of the service members, about 1 in 3 to 1 in 4 of GWOT, Global War on Terror, so my era, post-9/11 era veterans, have PTSD. And I, I have a, a history with that as well. And, uh, you know, I, I deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, uh, numerous times, uh, through my 20s and 30s, and, you know, know that very, very well. So what I noticed from my, my 22-year career and then being in HFM and DSO, what, what a lot of civilians, they're, they're very ignorant to how the military actually works. They think you like march around with rifles and do drill and ceremony and sing fucking songs all day. I don't know. I've heard people like tell me, you have weekends off? And I'm like, what do you think, this is fucking prison, dude? Like, it, you know, you have, you know, time off and like you're allowed to have a family, and like they even give you a little bit of water, you know, and food sometimes. You know, it's, uh, funny to me, uh, just how ignorant— and it's just the fact is that the military-civilian divide is growing greater and greater and greater. The people that serve generally, uh, is handed down— I shouldn't say generally, but oftentimes It's handed down like a family heirloom. The probability that one of my 3 children will serve in the military is very high. Uh, they, they know the life. They have a direct mentor, me. Uh, they, they have, you know, my friends that they consider uncles, you know, we're, we're that close, uh, to help guide them through it as well. Um, they, they know they grew up in it, you know. Uh, but you, a random guy or gal, you know, may not— that may not be attractive to you. And that's fine. The military is not for everyone. They're not looking for everybody. Uh, they're looking for the right fit. Um, kind of like any job, they're looking for the right candidate. So that what I noticed from my career, uh, you know, within the Army and then coming in and coaching, counseling civilian men and some women is that the problems are the exact same, but in the military, it's like pouring jet fuel on those problems. Here's a very alarming stat. The number one highest career for divorce rate, number one according to the US Census Bureau, According to Pew Research, the military, number one undisputed by double. Wow. That shouldn't be that shocking. So let's look at some of the injects. If I'm a junior enlisted, brand new enlisted member of the military or a junior officer, I'm getting paid entry-level pay and taking an ultra-high level of stress in a career— physical, mental, emotional, super long work hours, frequent deployments where you're gone for up to, you know, 15 months at a time. You know, literally, you could— your spouse could give birth and you could miss the first birthday. And I know plenty of men that have, you know, been in that exact scenario. You know, it is— and you have all the normal problems that you would have in a relationship. So I sit in a unique position where I already have reps from coaching men in the military on these relationship problems and giving them plans of action and resources to go better their marriage, or, hey, here's what you need to do to divorce her or survive the divorce, and I'll help you through it and everything and build you back up. So that is what I really want to help men do. Additionally, it's not just about marriage. We've got probably the toughest thing I ever have been through other than my divorce, to include combat, was transitioning out of a career in the Army to the civilian world. While you gave a great plug towards, hey, put veterans at the top of the pile, that was not at all my experience. They don't care about veterans. They care about the right candidate. And a lot of these recruiters have no idea how to translate your military experience into something that can benefit their company. And when you try to define it for them, they kind of look at you like deer in the headlights. And they, I found a very, I had a very different experience. And most of the, my peers are entrepreneurs for a lot of reasons. A lot of the guys that joined the Army, did a full career in the Army and retired. Now you're mid-careers and you're junior, they a lot of times can go out and get jobs or they're younger and things like that. But you're, you know, I'm 40 years old and it's not like I didn't take care of myself, but it was a, you know, I'm college educated. I've got various certifications in different disciplines and things like that. And it counted for not. And, you know, so, and I know a lot of guys that that's more true than untrue for them too. I also got out in a very tough job market with inflation ultra high. And I don't know, every hiring, manager was on like Quaaludes or some shit for like 8 months while I was looking for a job. Um, it was pretty, pretty, uh, uh, tough.

Yeah, my experience in that, to be honest, is 20-plus years ago, one big company— um, should I name the company or not? I'm not saying anything bad, I'm saying good things about them. Caterpillar was a big American company, big yellow machines, you know, they relatively conservative company in that way, and they made a concerted effort to— veterans, good, let's find more of them. That's at least what I saw in my little circle within that big giant company. And then I saw it all as well when I went and, um, I would do consulting work for people in the marketing realm. So I got to with some medium-sized businesses, and I also saw the same thing there with, with some of the military guys being propped up. But overall, in the general society, I mean we have a track record in our country, at least, unfortunately, for shitting on our poor veterans. And we saw some of the extreme examples of that back in my father's era with the Vietnam guys coming back. And there's these horror stories of these guys coming back and they're sitting on a plane, on a TWA flight with a bunch of other civilian types in his uniform, and a guy says, "Miss, can I move my seats please?" He's like, why is that? Because I don't want to sit next to this jackass, this baby killer, or whatever, you know, the vernacular was at the time. So they had to deal with that. And there's been some semblance of that since then for a lot of people, unfortunately.

Well, and I, in my view of it, Ralph, you know, one comment on the Vietnam veterans, Vietnam-era veterans, it's one of the biggest black eyes on the United States America other than slavery of African Americans. And it's on that level of egregious acts, in my personal opinion. For the GWAT era, we were not treated like that. And I would view a certain segment of veterans as very entitled. It was like we overcorrected in a way, is my view. And now a lot of the younger veterans are very entitled and feel like they're owed something that they're not. And I wrote an article about this, and it's up for anyone who's watching here or will watch. If you go to the HFM veterans link there, the article is entitled Choose What Type of Veteran You Want to Be. And I directly talk about what I'm kind of getting at here. Do you want to be— you, when you exit the military, you have a choice to make, kind of like we all have a choice to make. I could have broadened that article, choose what type of person you want to be. Do you want to be the guy that bitches, whines, and complains, and, you know, their way through life and grumbles about everything? Or do you want to be positive and go kick ass and work hard and be driven and Go somewhere, you know, make a freaking choice. Do you want to live a healthy lifestyle or not? Well, veterans have a certain flavor of that to where, okay, hey, no one held a gun to your head in an all-volunteer military and told you, you will join the military for X amount of years. Didn't happen for anybody of the GWAT era. Vietnam veterans, very different story. That was the last draft. Some men were drafted, and especially in the earlier part of the war, African Americans were drafted at a vastly disproportionate rate than any other race. It's 100% fact. And whether it was by design or not, I don't know. But I, I think that's kind of telling. You know, you would draft a higher number of a racial minority in a country. I think that's probably by at least eyebrow raising. But yeah, I'm going to say probably by design, you know, and definitely not right. But we have an opposite problem where now you've got these young, younger guys that, you know, think everyone owes them something. And there are plenty of resources out there. What I'm— what we're trying to do with HFM and the veterans program is fuse what we have and what's out there already into one place and have that coaching where I can kind of play both roles. I can be on one foot here and one foot there and help guys out, whether they're active duty, uh, from a mentorship perspective or a relationship perspective, and understand where they're coming from and the challenges from having had them myself, being a married man the majority of my career, um, and literally cradle to the grave going through a version of what they're going through. Group, or on the civilian side, plugging, taking all that in. Me going back into my, you know, pre-DSO and HFM days, you know, back 6+ years ago, I was very into my career. And you know what's funny? That is not unique to the military. That is, uh, unique to, I think, a very male thing, uh, more so than anything. And it transcends, uh, every walk of life we have, really. Uh, men tend to go all in their career and, uh, super provider and everything, but it presents itself in a different way, uh, in the military than in civilian life because of how intrusive, I'll say, that serving is. Your leadership is involved in your personal life because that is what the Army— I can speak directly for— they want that from their leaders. They want you to know your people at an intimate level. One example I always give If you get a DUI, driving under the influence charge, in civilian life, your employer doesn't give a shit. You know, as long as it doesn't impact your ability to do your job, you know, and you can get to work reliably and do what you need to do, there's, you know, unless you're the public face of the company or something, you know,. But generally I'm more right than wrong there. In the military, oh, it's a huge deal. If I, for a lot of men and women, if you got a DUI, you're, you're going to at a minimum be admonished by the senior commander of your post and it will have career implications for a retirement or senior officer, noncommissioned officer. Career ender. Uh, you're, you're done. Uh, that, that's the level, uh, of kind of deep dive that's done because of the level of trust in the nature of what, what you do in the military. Furthermore, they get into your family life and things like that. Uh, again, to kind of circle back to a point that I made earlier, if your personal life is in shambles, you're not ready to deploy. If you can't deploy, you're only so effective as a service member. It would be no different than having a firearms charge against you. You know, a Lautenberg Amendment type charge, domestic violence, whatever. If you can't be in possession of a firearm, even if you're an HR person in the military, You can't do the base level requirement of a soldier, which is defend yourself and your unit with a firearm, uh, pull security, things like that. Uh, you're, you're at the most basic level ineffective. Um, so, and you talk about really get into that.

Yeah, some of the personal things, um, infidelity is frowned upon, especially if you're fraternizing with a fellow soldier, you know, male soldier, female soldier, they're both married and they're goofing around with each other. No, that doesn't go over well. Case could be made that really doesn't go over well in a company either, in a civilian company. But in the military, oh yeah, see ya.

Which can be punitive. Yeah, take you to Uniform Code of Military Justice. It is very hard to prove. Basically, you have to have a porno to, to prove it. So, you know, and I've definitely been privy to some of those investigations and things like that and watched the ones that were successfully prosecuted and the ones that weren't. And the ones that were, they had very graphic, undeniable audiovisual evidence of such conduct.

Here's a—

but yeah, it's a major problem in the military. I mean, is it a shock? You know, if I were to go to a civilian spouse and say, hey, your traveling businessman husband is going away for a year to Bangkok on a business trip, you better act right. And if you get lonely, just be lonely. And you know what? You get with the other wives in the company and sing kumbaya together and all that. Is it that much of a shock that— and I'm not picking on the ladies here, but again, the vast majority of service members are men, not women. It's a statistical fact. So therefore, the majority of the spouses are women. Also fact. So the majority of the, uh, I, I guess that I, I know plenty of, uh, plenty of my, uh, peers that cheated on their wives. Um, is it a— the knife kind, I, I guess, cuts both ways there. Um, I can't really give an edge to one or the other. I think it's all really awful. Stuff, to be honest with you.

I mean, so this begs the question—

very common—

this begs the question of why, um, why is that so damn common? Why do we see fill-in-the-blank kind of behavior amongst our veteran brothers out there? Um, the, the big picture question is, is this a result of their military service and everything that they endure and they see as military, or does the military attract a certain type of individual especially in today's day and age, that is more impulsive in behavior, prone to making poor, you know, decisions. One thing that kind of, uh, fleshes that out a little bit more— and I know growing up as a kid, military bases and stuff, you don't— you travel just outside of the military base, what do you see? Pawn shop, liquor store, pawn shop, liquor store, strip club. A lot of impulsive— hey, hey, dude with poor decision-making skills, here's some stuff for you. Here's some alcohol. Here's Here's, you know, pawn your guitar, get some cash so you can get a tattoo. You see tattoo parlors and all that kind of stuff. So the question is, yeah, so does it attract— does it attract a certain type of dude, or is the dude morphing into that military lifestyle, or is it a combination of both?

Or what do you think? The answer is, uh, yes, yes, everything, everything you said.

Um, Yeah.

So I, I'm a career infantry guy. So, uh, to give a very low-level explanation of what my job was, um, I did what most people think everyone in the Army does— run around with a rifle and shoot bad guys and blow shit up. Um, that's what I did, uh, for the majority of my career. Um, You know, again, that was a very, very low-level explanation just to give a, a, uh, frame of reference.

Yeah, because it may pause you there, because a lot of people don't know is the military is not just guy with rifle on the front line shooting at the enemy, which is infantry, but it is all— whatever you can think of, the military has 85 per—

85% of the Army, uh, supports the 15% that does the actual war fighting. Yeah, that's also a fact.

You have people that sit at a desk and do paperwork all day.

The majority of your casualties in war, any war that's ever been fought, comes from the infantry. Yeah, by a, like, 9 out of 10, uh, margin. Uh, you know, and again, it's not to disparage anyone's service or anything. I'm giving absolute factual numbers here. You know, that's Army and strength numbers that I'm giving. So to get back to it, the answer is yes for all that, especially in your combat arms. You've got combat arms and your supporting elements is kind of the divide in the Army. Those are two very distinct camps. I would put it as, take yourself back to the Jurassic Park movie. You've got the T-Rex enclosure with these 50-foot-high electric fences, right? With the big-ass cables, you know, and Timmy or whatever became a crispy critter when they threw the electric fence back on in the T-Rex enclosure, right? Well, you've got the T-Rex enclosure. Those are your combat arms special operations people. They think a certain kind of way. They're risk takers. They're, they're very bro-y. They're A-type men generally, more often than not. And then you've got your support elements in the military that think a very different way. And the reasons that these two types of people joined, me from having ran basic combat training in a non-combat arms format as a company first sergeant, I would take polls of why people joined and the disparity shocked me. You know, and I'm really just talking about the mentality of these two different people, personality differences. There's also demographic differences. You know, your combat arms folks, generally are from the Midwest and the South. Generally, the vast majority of them, you know, and then California gets a nod and Texas gets a nod for population, really. Just there's more people. So, you know, it's a higher population area. So when we get into why, why things are the way they are, there's definitely validity in the, you know, you've got a large group of young, predominantly men, you know, with a lot of freedom, disposable income, and they are in their— imagine, you know, where they would be. We'll say they would be in a frat house if they weren't in the Army, if they went to a college, right? Well, all those frat house activities minus the drug use, uh, that, that's not okay or condoned in the Army, uh, or in the military, uh, for that matter. Um, those types of activities are happening just in, in the military. Uh, you've got guys that are, uh, you know, physically fit, uh, take care of themselves, uh, have a certain kind of swagger about them, you know, and they've got a cool job. They have a job that a lot of women have fantasies about sleeping with those types of men in a short-term manner, you know. But there are downsides to it. There are plenty of women out there that will have nothing to do with a service member just because they are serving for all the reasons we talked about. They know that they're going to leave. They know that, you know, hey, there's a stigma. I would say there's probably a little bit higher rate of womanizer type, playboy type stuff going on in some elements of the military than your civilian counterparts. You know, Bob from accounting, you know, no one's getting wet over that, you know. Sorry, bud.

No offense, Bob.

No offense, Bob from accounting. But, you know, they're not making movies about you. You know, they're— you're a great dude, man. But I'm— Everyone knows that. I'm just the one calling it right now. So, hey, send your hate mail, Bob, whatever, man. But it's more true than not.

And so by virtue of their personality traits, which leads to doing certain things, it attracts them, let's put in very general terms, to a certain type of woman that may not necessarily be the best for a long-term monogamous relationship. And so we see a lot of infidelity, we see a lot of divorce, we see a lot of very quick marriages ending in annulment. I know of the phenomenon of guys and gals getting together simply because the benefits with the military are such that if he marries, he gets much more money and she gets a little bit of money, and yeah, so why don't we just get married even though we don't really love each other, we're not really a traditional couple, let's just do it just on paper. I know of somebody who did that. So it lends itself to a lot of nonsense. Kind of a—

I think there's another thing too, and we need to— I want to ensure that I'm being fair here. There are— I have met a countless amount of women that are truly patriotic, and they view this as their contribution to their country in some way, shape, or form. Maybe they were a soldier's daughter, you know, and they know that life. Or maybe, you know what, they're the type of person that they want to embrace the adventure of moving every 3 to 4 years. And, you know, they're kind of like a leaf in the wind, and that's how they want to live their life. I've seen that too. So I don't want to sit here and say that, you know, disparage military spouses. We're right with this. Everything that you said, without a doubt, there are women that are like that, that are attracted to, you know, that risk-taking, that— a bad boy, you know, the bad boy persona and all that. And there are also deeply patriotic, wonderful women that I have an unbelievable amount of respect for. That have been awesome spouses to my peers and they're, they're personal friends of mine. Hat off because damn ladies, you, you, it is life on hard mode in a way that very few people understand. And when your husband goes to war, all the finances, everything falls on you. And for them to incorporate their husband back into the family and be able to get back into the honeymoon phase and pick up. And it's a tough drill. And then to do that for supporting your husband through a career, man, just incredible. You know, I think there, there are definitely women out there that, you know, feel that too. You know, that they feel led to, you know, contribute in that way. And then there are some that, hey, they don't care what their husband does. They fell in love with the man that was in front of them. And, you know, hey, he happened to be a service member and she went with it and, you know, fell into that lifestyle and things like that. I think it's a little bit of everything. Uh, and, and we can't really say it. You can't really say, hey, all these spouses are damaged individuals.

I think it's unique as, uh, the, the situation, but there's definitely pockets of, you know, I would say overall the, the, if you were to like percentage-wise, what percentage of, you know, just take Group A, which are a bunch of civilians and say, what's the rate of infidelity over here? And then compare it to Group B, which is active military. Of family. I would think the military probably has a higher rate of something like infidelity, of divorce. So it's just the nature of the beast.

I've never seen any stats on it, but it wouldn't— I think, uh, uh, yeah, it would be, uh, higher and, uh, higher by quite a bit if I had to place a bet on it.

Yeah, well, we know culturally within the military we have, uh, just little things like names for the man who your wife is sleeping with.

Jody.

Jody. Yeah, we all know.

And, uh, take care of your car while you're deployed and your wife.

So you can see it's so much part of the culture and whatever that we start having little code words for things and stuff. And yeah, I heard that one all through my childhood. Freaking Jody, Jody this, Jody that. Um, but Irv here mentions— Irv from Facebook says it seems like the idea of open relationships It's, uh, are going on in the military community. Um, oh yeah, that's, that's a general— in a regular life, we're seeing the open marriage thing becoming more and more, uh, popular. Just go do a search on Google and you'll see article after article about, is this the new thing? And it seems to be a lot of women are driving that, which is a surprise to everyone, including myself. Um, so obviously if it's— that thing is going up in regular society, we're going to see it in the military. Maybe even more so.

Well, it's been going on for a long time. I remember being a young, a young guy married in the Army and being propositioned for different types of parties, or you would hear about these different swinger and kinky kink things. And, and, you know, I'm not a I wouldn't consider myself a vanilla dude, and I'm definitely very sex positive, but I, you know, being sex positive doesn't mean, you know, that you're going to engage in, you know, you've got your boundaries, but you're just saying, hey, hey, do your thing. I'm, you know, cool, man, whatever. What's that like? You know, and, but that's not my thing. But I remember you know, hearing stories. And then I, you know, these people are into these things and then it makes it a little bit awkward when you see them at the grocery store or whatever, you know, being on a cruise with your spouse and there's that one couple at the other end of the, you know, bar and they're looking at you and you're just waiting for one of them to come over. And normally it's the wife that comes over and, uh, you know, starts chatting up, uh, your wife. And then that, that's how the whole thing goes. And, you know, gassing her up, you know, the right out of the pineapple playbook, upside down pineapple playbook.

Yeah, I've been made aware of that. I have a pair of swim trunks that has pineapples on it, and it's all over the pineapples, just a pattern. And a lot of them are upside down, and I was told like, oh, watch it, buddy, You're giving off vibes there. You're telling— yeah, I had no idea. All right, good to know. Uh, but we have, um, joining us in the comments, Ryan and Irv. Both are from the HFM Brotherhood, so welcome guys. Thank you for joining us. Not a lot of activity in the comments here today. If there's anybody that's watching and keeping quiet, if you could do me a favor and give this a like, that helps out a lot. That helps— that tells the Facebooks and the YouTubes of the world that this is something that people are watching. So click like on that or share. Give me a subscribe or follow wherever you're watching this. But if you have a question, guys, you know, I want to wrap it up here soon. We're coming up to the hour, but now's the time to ask myself or Jason in the world of relationships, veteran affairs, whatever it may be. Let's hear it, ladies and germs. But in the meantime, check out help4men.com and our private group, the HFM Brotherhood. Erv says, you crack me up, Jay. So Yes, me too.

Irv, you're a good guy, man. Irv and I chat quite a bit offline. I think that's another cool thing about the HFM brotherhood. You get to know these guys really well online and then you meet them in BroFest and there's not one guy I can think of that I've known really well from DSO or HFM, then went to BroFest and not been wowed by them even more in person. Just how funny, professional, you know, and you, you're like, you're even better than the online person, you know, that I met. And you get to know them better than a lot of your real in-the-flesh IRL, in real life friends. Will say, you know, and your non-online friends. And you think about it, it makes perfect sense. You have in the forums that we have this safe area to put all of your really deep, dark things that you're going through. And the men there understand. And what's funny is that you can't do that with a lot of your friends.

No, exactly.

Either you're afraid it's going to get awkward or there's going to be some type of conflict of interest or whatever, or they're too close to the problem perhaps, you know, or they're not going to understand. But what I know about people is everyone has some bullshit that they're going through. If you walk out on the sidewalk today, everyone you pass, you know, while they're kind of looking in front of them, that's right here. Whatever problem they're going through, everybody has one. Oh yeah. You know, that weighs heavily on their, their mind and their shoulders. Well, we've got a forum where 24/7 you can vomit in that safe area. And I've lost count of the amount of men that say men have no one to talk to and nowhere, you know, you can't talk to your wife because she'll lose respect for you. Okay. There's definitely validity to a version of that. I would say, you know, making your wife your therapist. Very, very inappropriate. You know, you— I can't talk to my mom and dad because I'm so-and-so, right? They just can't relate or they can't help me. And you're—

and your male friends are pretty casual usually. It's, you know, it's the dad of my kid's friend and we get together and we'll, you know, drink coffee while watching the high school football game. We'll talk about work. Talk about, you know, some kind of sporting thing or something on the news. It never gets deep. I'm not going to turn to that guy and go, so, um, erectile dysfunction, yet he got any experience with that, Bob? And he'd be like, okay.

Or, yeah, I don't want to have any more combos with you, boner guy.

Exactly. Or even, you know, get into the less funny stuff about like, so, caught my wife cheating on me. That guy's going to be like, oh shit, I don't know how to deal with this. I have no experience with this. You go to our group, for example, either of those topics, and you're going to get 100 replies, you know, pretty quickly about, oh yeah, I've dealt with this, here's how I dealt with it, here, I'm here for your brother, you can chat with me offline if you want, and all this other stuff. That's unusual for a lot of guys. Probably 99% of guys are like, I don't have that in my life at all. That's sad.

I want to, I want to shift gears real quick and highlight from the veteran perspective why your military background and training will make you successful as a member of HFM. I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk about two guys that are on my shortlist of dozens of veterans that we've had in the DSO fraternity and now the HFM Brotherhood. I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk about two guys. I won't mention them by name, but the members will know, and if I hope they listen because This is a tribute to YouTube, Magnus, a magnificent gentleman. Guy number 1 served a career in the Army, found DSO, now HFM, kind of at the beginning of his retirement path, which is about a 2-year glide path. Most people think it's like getting out of the military is like that. For the retirement age folks, it's about a 2-year, 18-month-long ordeal. Very, very difficult. You're literally, you know, retooling the factory floor of every facet of your life. And for me, I joined at 18 years old, you know, so here I am, 40. It's like a midlife career change on whatever the most, the biggest steroids you could possibly take. It's a very, very difficult process. So this gentleman joins the fraternity and, you know, starts his self-improvement path with DSO and now HFM. And it really helped him better himself. And he found that his time in the military, he could draw from that, from the discipline, from working inside of a structural framework, a program, and accomplishing what he set out to do. He transitions out of the military and everything, and now he's on his way to becoming an attorney. Well on his way to doing that. He updates us every few months and everything, and he's still a member. His oldest son is now a member of the Army. You know, joined the Army and everything. He went from being, you know, kind of a skinny fat type of guy, you know, and all that, to being very, very fit and a great example of, you know, for his family and all that. He is more fit now than he was in the latter years of being in the military. Fact. And he, he, he, if he came on right now, He would tell you that 100% fact. Another guy, he and I happened to be stationed together at my final duty station. I met him prior to that, towards the latter end of my duty, the duty station before that. And I was coaching him and I had the privilege of being stationed with him while being a, a coach within the program. And he and I would go out to lunch. He, uh, used our program and the knowledge and confidence that he got along with his military training, fused those two disciplines together. And now he was able to complete warrant officer training where I could make an effective argument that he wouldn't have been able to do that or wouldn't have been motivated to do that. Had he not joined our fraternity, had the DSO fraternity at the time and HFM Brotherhood now. What does this mean to you, the veteran? You have, you've been shown the knowledge, skills, and attributes, the baseline things that will make you successful in pretty much anything you ever endeavor to accomplish, right? If you were to put that stuff into self-improvement like we're giving you here within the HFM Brotherhood, I won't guarantee anything other than if you apply that and execute, you're gonna have everything you need, buddy. If you do what's required, you'll have everything you need and you'll be just fine. But it really takes, you know, what brought me to the program, reading The Dead Bedroom Fix and having that very— it's very attractive to your veteran community because they hear that very decisive, no bullshit tone that the book is written in. And it's very attractive. They're like, oh, that kind of sounds, you know, like my leadership. In the military and, you know, oh, they were right. Or, hey, it's a very fatherly, no bullshit, or like any good friend you would have, you know, a mentor, they're going to shoot you straight there. And I realized very quickly that I have all the tools I need. I just need to execute. And I'd open my eyes up to a larger problem, you know, self-made problem. And you know, I would just tell you guys, read The Dead Bedroom Fix, explore, uh, the Help for Men, uh, brotherhood and, and helpformen.com and especially our veterans page. You are, have the privilege of getting through your service the largest discount that is offered, period. 40% off, 40% off. Of membership, and that goes, uh, monthly, annually, or if you buy a lifetime membership, it's 40% off across the board, whatever level of membership you would want to choose there. I'm, I'm fusing both, uh, the traditional help4men.com type of, uh, relationship and self-improvement stuff and military-specific content. I've written multiple articles. I'm doing a monthly Veterans and Friends, which I want to be inclusive in involving other people that want to either learn more about veteran-type issues or, you know, maybe connect with— better connect with veterans or a family member that's a veteran, or they're just patriotic people and want to be there. Or they like kind of the gloves-off, dark humor type stuff, and it's wildly entertaining. A lot of people like me for that. Hey, if that's you, man, come on, join the party. But veteran-specific content, I really want to help men out and kind of fuse those two worlds into a one-stop shop. And with me as the pivot point, Coach Austin is also a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, so I'll definitely be pulling him in. And I look forward to pulling in a lot of different people I know that have served and gotten out, and all of them are very, very funny, very low bullshit, and wildly successful at whatever they've done. And it'll definitely be a good time. So, uh, from an entertainment perspective, uh, there's a baked-in, uh, uh, flavor that we're gonna give you that'll be a lot of fun as well.

And I put the link on the website in the comments there. So for YouTube and Facebook, look at the comment— YouTube you'll see in the chat, and Facebook you'll see in the comments to this post, uh, help4men.com/veterans. You can just click on that link and we have a page that we are continually adding content too for our veterans. And if you scroll down, you'll see the link to the, uh, the Brotherhood, which is our private group for men only. That's what you get the 40% off of that Jason mentioned there. So we would love to have you. So do check it out, folks, if you are a veteran. And if you're not a veteran, please check it out, help4men.com, the HFM Brotherhood. We would love to have you. And we have Irv and Ryan here on the, on the chat with us today. Both are members, so welcome, guys. And, uh, Jason, I think that about wraps it up. It's been about an hour. Thank you, brother. Thank you for—

and I'll just say, if anyone has any questions about anything, you can email me at jason.h@helpformen.com, and I'd be happy to entertain your question. I'd love to get you in the program and bring you into the fold. It does not matter what your component is. Active, Guard, Reserve, what your branch is, I want to help you out. I want to bring you into something that I have found value in and that I've stayed with for a reason. It's a quality program we're running here, and we definitely want you.

You know, this one last point to make is that a lot of men— I don't know if the military guys are more prone to this than the general public, but we see in the general public a tendency for men who go through some kind of traumatic event— divorce, post-war, whatever it may be— to go into this lone wolf. I'll just go to— yeah, I'll just go to my cave and I'll lick my wounds and I'll emerge a better man eventually. And what a lot of them find is that, you know, I ain't getting any better, or this is taking far too long. That—

well, I wrote an article about that too called Coming to Terms with the War. And you know, me being on the front lines of, you know, Iraq and Afghanistan, I had an epiphany back in March where for the first time in my adult life, from 18 years, 18 years old, now I'm 40, I'm moved away from a combatant military command. And I did not realize how much of a bubble that I was in. I never lived on a military installation other than when I was an unmarried, you know, single guy living in the Army barracks at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, you know, and in a duty station prior to that when I was overseas in Korea. But even off-post, most of the people in the surrounding areas of a military installation, they're all heavily involved and influenced by what goes on at that military installation. For example, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, right on the border, literally the border passes through Kentucky and the Kentucky-Tennessee border passes through the post. That post, brings the state of Tennessee $1 billion of revenue annually. $1 billion. I could make an effective argument that the two major communities outside of Fort Campbell, that's the home of the 101st Airborne Division. Yep. Love my 101 for sure. But if that post went away, Those two communities would be deeply impacted. It would— a lot of the businesses would dry up. It would be awful. I say all that to say, me moving about 3 hours away from that installation, I live pretty close to another military installation, but it is mainly DOD contractors. There's only about 1,000 green suitors, so active duty service members there that are stationed there. But I had a hard time connecting because I didn't realize how radically different my life that I— my chosen profession, my life was from the next guy, you know, and down here. You know, there aren't a whole lot of guys like me, you know, that not only if we were to drill down by the numbers, 6.8% of the American population are veterans. Only 15% of that 6.8% is actually probably lower than that are a combat type position. Right. So there's a certain mentality, a certain grit, that killer instinct, you know, you're talking about a very, very low number. And for me to try to connect with someone, for example, if we were to talk about a subject like, I get asked all the time, what was combat like? Well, if you ask me a question like that, I've learned that Civilians oftentimes can't, can't handle the answer that I give them. So I'm just like, you know, kind of shrug it off now because they can't even handle a freaking story. It's sad, you know, and they watch violent movies all the time. It blew my mind. But they have no worldly frame of reference to connect with what I'm talking about because it is such a rare occurrence. Half of 1% of the American population served in a 21-year conflict. Half of 1%. But I mean, it's shocking. And, you know, and that number will continue to go down and is the projection. So it can be a very lonely space. I want to tell guys that I get it. I understand you. I want to work with you. I want to build this brotherhood with you. You can be a plank holder of an organization, a charter member, and help us build something that matters and brings value to the veterans community.

Perfectly said. Well put. Yeah, guys, you're not alone. A lot of dudes out there, and we have learned over the years that any kind of health, mental health professional will tell you the same. Same thing. Do you want to expedite your healing? Do you want to get better quicker? Do you want to go through this process in a— at a good pace and not just be stagnant and, you know, whatever, and depressed? Then you need help from others. And a lot of men are like, yeah, but no one can relate to what it is I'm going through. I could— like I talked about the guy at the football game, I'm not going to tell him about my divorce and the infidelity, and he's not gonna— he's not gonna be able to relate.

Late.

Well, good news, we have hundreds of men from around the world that can relate to exactly what it is you're going through. And we're trying to build the community for our veterans so they have other guys to talk to, like Coach Jason here, um, to talk about their specific things that they are dealing with on a daily basis.

I'd like to make one, one last very macro point here, right? Your friends that you have, a lot of them you wouldn't tell them your inner workings. You have within our program, within the HFM brotherhood, quite a few degrees of separation. And, you know, you're talking to men online that have no idea who you are, that live across the country, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But they're going through what you're going through, right? In what I know about military training is the, the reason why we get so close to each other, uh, is the shared hardship and struggles that you go through. We have created a forum where that same effect happens. That is why the phenomena that I talked about earlier where you strike up a friendship with men that you meet online and then go to an event like BroFest, and it, it's like you've known that guy for 20 years because you've shared the most intimate, deeply personal— your baggage, the things that you haven't told your best friend, your wife, your, your parents, whatever. You've spilled it, you know, in this forum, and those guys showed up for you more than anybody else did. And then you meet him in person. That's the brotherhood. And it's no different than you crawling through the mud under Constantina Wire with, you know, this random dude from across the country. You know, maybe you were a, you know, a farm kid, and that kid's from the inner city, but you guys are both equally worthless in that moment according to your drill instructor, drill sergeant, you know, spraying you with the hose and crawling under the Constantino wire in the mud. We're not doing those things here, but that shared hardship is what I'm kind of commenting on right now. That is how you build a brotherhood. That is exactly what we're doing.

Very good. So guys, check it out, help4men.com and the HFM Brotherhood, our private group for men only. Can't stress that enough— men only. Not nothing against you ladies out there, but us men need our own little private quote-unquote safe space to talk about this kind of stuff. And didn't think I'd use that term today, but you know what I mean. Um, place where, um, we can talk about this stuff with no judgment from those outside of our little group. That's very, very important. Hugely important for us guys. Coach Jason, thank you once again. Appreciate you. Appreciate everything you do.

Thank you very much for having me on, Ralph Brewer.

Yeah, we'll do this again for sure. So everyone, farewell. Thank you all so very much.