 Hello everyone. If you've never seen a word with Tom Merritt, well, you're not alone. We've never done it in video before. We only have done audio versions of these, but because Amos, I know, is up for a live stream at the drop of a hat. Right before we started recording, I said, Hey, Amos, you want to do this live and you didn't even hesitate. You're like, Sure, let's do it. Yeah. Well, I was also making a room for the call and was sitting there thinking, man, why don't we live stream these? Uh-huh. You know, at least some segment of our audience. Yeah. Yeah. So if you've never heard of a word with Tom Merritt, go check out awordpodcast.com. You can get all the audio versions there. This will come out as a edited audio version. Oddly enough by Amos. And and and being your feed, I don't know, at the earliest next week, probably. Yeah. Well, as I said, I did, I did take the rest of the week off. So I might just knock it off. I might come up this Thursday. All right. Cool. Well, let's get going. I'm going to start rolling the audio recording. I wasn't doing that. I am not recording locally because. Uh, what would you call it? Audio hijack needed an update. And it needs an ace. And that would require me to reboot and do all that. OK. Yeah. All right. Um, you'll start to put the music in. Hi, Clinton. All right. Here we go in three, two. Welcome to a word with Tom Merritt. I'm Tom Merritt. On this show, I have the pleasure and privilege of sitting down with some of the smartest, most interesting people in the world and talking about how we think because we all think differently. And that's good because we can't know everything. So it's good that there's other people that have insights on things that we don't know about. These are the kinds of conversations that I had growing up with my grandpa, Carl, in his front room, my grandma, Roxy and her front room. I got lots of different ways of looking at the world. Great conversations. And it all led me to this moment right now. Welcome into the front room. Anthony Lemos. Oh, hello, Dr. Merritt. It's, uh, I'm a doctor. Well, you know, Brian Cooley used to call me Dr. Merritt, too. That's where I got it. Yeah. Is that where you took it? OK. From that makes me feel a little better. Yeah. B-O-L. Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Amos is what people who are familiar with you will think you are called mostly. But I introduced you by your government name, Anthony Lemos. That's just it's just a squishing of that, right? It is. It's a portmanteau of the two caused by by a ninth grade substitute teacher who asked me what my name was as I was walking out of the room to run an errand for him. And I said, Anthony Robo Lemos. And he was like, what was that kid's name? Was it Amos? And when I got back to class, everybody was like Amos. And it just it stuck. That's that's interesting. Could it could have been something that drove you crazy, but you embraced it. I mean, it's better than Tony. Yeah. You don't like Tony? I do not. I'm not going to call you that, Joe. I'm just curious, like, is that what were you called before you were called Amos? Tony. You were Tony. You were a Tony, not an Anthony. No, in fact, in third grade, I went and walked into class and they had all of our names on the thing. I was like, huh, that's interesting. That that kid's got the same last name I have. I haven't seen that before. I wonder who this Anthony kid is. Uh huh. Where's my seat? Tony at. Oh, that's funny. Do you? Does anyone still call you Tony? My mom, my Aunt Paula and Uncle Bob, basically the family that I grew up around still call me Tony. Yeah, pre Amos crowd. They've had it. It helps that I don't have any friends from previous to ninth grade and all the ninth grade kids are still my friends. And, you know, that's where it came out and and and became a thing. So they just they've stuck to that. And it's just just been Amos since high school. There's a class. There's a class of naming like that that my dad had, and he was one of the few people beside yourself that that I know that had that he grew up being called Dwayne because that was his middle name and his first name was William, which was the same as his dad. So to differentiate, they said Dwayne. But then when he went into college, everyone called him William. Or, you know, they would say like, William, or do you prefer Bill? And he, I guess, just said, you know, Bill sounds great. Call me Bill. So he was Bill to everybody who didn't know him in high school or earlier and Dwayne to everybody else. Well, I will add to it a little bit in that my mom's second husband was also named Anthony. So I was little Tony and he was. Oh, because there were two. Yeah, for her for about a five, five or six years to name right there. A little Tony, little Tony, especially as tall as you are. Hey, it's little Tony. He's called little Tony because he's so big. Yeah. I don't know why that accent was where I went, except maybe Sopranos. I blame Sopranos. It's a soprano accent. Well, go. We are not here to talk about your name, though. We are here to talk about the word veteran. You chose veteran as your word and you are one. You are a veteran of the US Armed Forces, correct? I am. I spent 24 years, two weeks and one day in the United States Air Force. And so now you enlisted, you decided to go in and then you retired. It was honestly, it was a lesser of evils because a group in a really small town where, you know, 350 people, there was exactly three jobs in the entire town. And if you weren't related to somebody important, you didn't get one of those jobs. So it was a way to get out and see the world, get an education, which I never really did and have, you know, gainful employment for at least the near term. And that near term turned into 24 years. So when did you enlist? 1995, August 17th of 1995. So that worked out really well. I was I was 18. Oh, OK, so right right at the beginning. Yeah, I took summer vacation off. Things were a little more liberal back then where you could choose when you wanted to come in. Now they kind of schedule it out a ways. But then you could basically choose and I was like, well, how about the end of summer? Like, that sounds great. I didn't realize that I'd be in Texas in the middle of August doing drill. That sounds lovely and sweaty. It was it was it was it was one of those. Yeah, yeah. And probably the second one more than the first. Oh, definitely. Yeah. You I know you we we work together. Obviously, you edit the show and we work together on DTS and other things. You seem to have. I want to say a love hate relationship with the military, but maybe that's too strong on both ends. What how do you feel about being a veteran? Being a veteran is different than how how I feel about being a veteran is different than how I feel about the military service. OK, yeah, let's start with the first thing. How did you feel about the military service? I hated it. Uh-huh. OK, so maybe not too strong on that. It's well, it's a matter of the job I had, the assignments I had in my personality type didn't jive. What was your job? I think that's important to tell. I was I was an aircraft electrician, so electrical environmental specialist. Basically, I worked on any type of aircraft that we had up into the the newest generation of twenty two twenty three. We don't there's my job doesn't exist for those aircraft. But previous to that, the electrical systems, which obviously, you know, there's a lot of wires in airplanes that can go from flight control surfaces. It can talk about the lights, the landing gear, all that kind of stuff. And then it also goes into the environmental systems. So the cabin pressurization, the air conditioning, and the heating and things of that nature that, you know, they kind of slammed them all together a few years before I joined the two career fields, the electrical career field and the environmental career field were slammed together and we had the duties of both. So that's that's what I did. And was that something you were interested in or something they just put you in and you're like, OK, I guess this is what I do now. I originally wanted to come in and be a copy of security forces personnel or security police at the time so that I could do my four years and then go to the academy and become a police officer in my local area and become sheriff and become mayor, become governor and become president. That was OK. That was your plan. Wow. Nice. And that's that's the other plan besides becoming a lawyer, which is what all the other people who become president have to be. Yeah. Yeah. The the problem came in that they couldn't guarantee a certain job. So I was like, OK, well, I like computers and electronics, things like that. So they put me in the electrical career field, which I later found out was not where the computers were. Oh, yeah. Uh huh. And then of the jobs in the electrical career field that popped up, electrical and E&E, working on aircraft, things like that, seemed the most interesting. I did. I had nothing. No idea about the culture of the career field or where you could be stationed, things like that. So I just it was, you know, one of like five jobs they gave me and I was like, that one sounds cool. So that's how you think. You think enlistees now have a better chance of avoiding those kinds of things because you can research so much better with the Internet. Then you could in 95. It's not just that. But you actually have your job picked out for you before you even go to basic training now, because they're they're so specific on who they're recruiting and when those jobs, they've really streamlined that process. So you know exactly what your job is before you even step foot in basic training. And OK, your job, so it might might might affect when you get to go to basic training, in fact. And it sounds like, you know, job selection might be a little out of your hands, too. It certainly was in my day. We use kind of a crapshoot. It's kind of like you put in what you wanted and hope for the best. And now it's a matter of, well, if you want to leave it this time, these are the jobs open to you, according to your ASVAB scores, which is a generalized test. Yeah, it's a generalized test that you take to it's an aptitude test. See where you might, you know, where you might fit best in the military. I took the one. I took the ASVAB to to possibly join the Navy, which I did not do. And did great on it and not so great on the flight part. Fair, fair. The the the area that I wanted to go into computers was actually part of the general or no, not the general, the the admin portion of it, which is where I scored the lowest on the ASVAB. So might might have been a great idea to to listen. But I don't know. Silver. Okay, so I sidetracked you from where you were going originally because I wanted to set the stage of what you did. But you were talking about why you did not like the military service. And it sounds like maybe there's a bit of the root of that story in the fact that you were into computers, but you got put into electricity. Well, a large part of it is different career fields in the military, at least in the Air Force. I'm sure it's the similar situations in other branches of the of the military. Different career fields are grouped together and you work a lot with them. And there's a culture in each of those different subsets. And in the aircraft maintenance culture, it just wasn't something that I particularly flowed well with. The certain jobs have preference over certain duties. And there's a lot of there's a lot of subjectivity and and and, you know, you have to know the right people and be the right person and make the right jokes, that kind of stuff. I did like the fact that most of the maintainers talk like sailors and have really crude jokes and, you know, that kind of stuff. That's right up my alley, as you know. And that that really flowed well. But working, you know, you work a 12 hour shift for 20 days in a row where the 12 hour shift doesn't include showing up an hour early to make sure you get tools and turnover. And then staying an hour late to turn in your tools and give the next crew turnover. And, you know, you're getting paid the same as the guy that's working eight hours pushing paper over in the office over there. There's not a lot of. We have names for people that don't make airplanes go in the air. We call them nonners. And that non are versus versus. Generator idea that that philosophy, it permeates. And there's a lot of animosity that's built up. And now that I'm out of the military, I'm married to an admin person who we have conversations regularly about her job. There's a lot of perspective there that I never got when I was serving that would have really helped me understand, at least somewhat where they were coming from in the struggles that they had and how they're not too different from just slaving away for 12 hours a day on the flat line in the weather. Yeah, it's a married and honor. I did. That's that's love right there. OK, so so let's go from there to the idea of veteran, because, you know, we're 14 minutes in and we really haven't got to the idea of veteran because the idea of veteran is you are no longer in the service. You are a veteran of the service. So why did you pick that word? There are so many issues revolving veterans that people think they understand and some people might. But there are so many layers to being a veteran, whether you're a full retiree like me, if you've got 100 percent permanent total disability, the way that I do, I kind of I have the like the the the mega soup idea of retirement. I retired as an E7 24 years. I've got a decent pension paycheck. I've got a good disability paycheck from the troubles that I had in the military and in the physical, you know, ailments that bother me still. But yet I'm not incapacitated in a way that affects me on my family life. You know, I'm not I'm not in a hospital. I'm not missing a leg, that kind of stuff. So I kind of won the lottery and all that. But beyond just that, there are so many issues that involve veterans that that people I don't think people are really aware of. And until you hear it from someone who's been in the situation and seen some of the minor struggles, I don't think you can really understand the major ones. So I imagine most people who aren't ex-military or current military think, OK, you're talking about fighting. Are you talking about seeing action? What are you talking about? Well, there's there's that. And again, this is one of the one of the areas where I won the lottery. I was never I was I served in combat zones, but I never saw combat directly. I supported combat aircraft, put, you know, put pilots in the air that risked their lives and came back and I fixed the jet and they went back in the air. But there are there as a veteran, there are different aspects to to life that that are different forever. The way you see the civilian population and even like a Veterans Day parade, some veterans might think, oh, my gosh, this is great, you know, thank you for putting this on. And then people like me, like, well, you're putting this on, but it's just a show. You're not actually supporting anyone. You're just, you know, you're you're you're you're waving a flag, but you don't know what what stands behind the flag kind of thing. Yeah, you know, I was just at a hockey game and let's see the L.A. Kings over the holiday break. And they do what many, many sports teams do. This is not specific to the Kings. They will recognize a military service member, right? And during one of the breaks in the action, they asked them to stand up and everybody who plods, thanks them for their service, et cetera. I always wonder what kind of person does that? And what do all the other veterans in the audience who, you know, you know, just by statistics, there's a lot more than just that one person. What do they think of that? What do you think of that? I think it's really individual to the veteran. Some some veterans are really proud of their military service. They enjoy talking about it. They like telling the tales. They like talking to the younger generation and inspiring them to join the military. I am not that person. I'm the person that gets really uncomfortable when you say thank you for military service. Like, what do I say to that? Like, my my go to answer is thank you for your appreciation. I'm I'm just naturally a bit of a cynical person. And when people do grand shows like that, it always makes me uncomfortable because it's it's a way of saying I support the veterans. I'm I'm here for them. But when's the last time you talk to one that's experiencing troubles, you know, do you know that like something like 22 veterans every day commit suicide and it's not just mental health issues. It's not just being destitute and not having a way to merge back into civilian society. It's a combination of all these factors and how much of that are, you know, how much of that problem are you willing to look into? Or are you just willing to stand up and clap when the flag is raised? Yeah, you feel good about yourself. I was just driving on Veterans Parkway on my way back to the house. And and that's the kind of thing you're talking about. It's a sign. It has a flag on it says veterans. It's near the reserve headquarters in Los Angeles. So that that's why it's called that. Not saying it shouldn't be called that. But, you know, how much does that actually do? I would argue that that those kinds of things do remind us that veterans exist, make us think about them. So they they probably aren't worthless. But I know what you I know what you're saying, which is. But if that's the end of it, that certainly isn't enough. Is it do I have that right? Yeah. And again, there are some veterans that are really proud of it to see, you know, and you don't begrudge them their moment. No, no, no, of course. You know, if you had good service and you got out and whether it was after a two year tour in Vietnam or, you know, 30 years and you came out as an E9 or, you know, an O8 or whatever. And you really enjoyed your service. You built up a lot of camaraderie with your your fellow troops. And you see a sign on the on a bridge that says, you know, the William J. Smith veterans Memorial Bridge or something like that. And that warms your heart, reminds you of the good years. And and and all the the the brethren and sisters that you made a long way and things like that. Like, I'm not going to begrudge that. That's awesome. That is great for you. It's when that's the only thing that's being done and everyone, I don't say everyone, I don't want to generalize when people have a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. When when people think that that is doing something for all veterans, it's not. It's so it's not you you touched a little on what you think some of the challenges that the veterans face. And again, we're we're not trying to paint every veteran with the same brush, but but many veterans face. You touched on some of those. Go into that a little more for me. Like, what what do you think are or sort of the the main things that they not just you, but but people, you know, who have been veterans face when they come out. So I will start with the one that I don't know if we want to say this on the show or not, but we're live streaming this and Reverb Mike is bringing up employment, post-military employment is hard. Not only can it be hard to get jobs because you have a very specific skill set, a very specific work history that oftentimes has nothing to do with military with civilian life. Yeah. But also just as I've learned recently, as you know, when I started working at Lowe's this summer, military values and employment values don't match with civilian ones at all. Like like what? What's an example? In the Air Force, we documented everything. There's maintenance done. It got documented. If something was broken, it got documented. We had safety briefings. We had we knew trends, things to look out for. Things that were they were designed to make the mission easier to to accomplish by keeping people safe, keeping people knowledgeable and giving people the the information they needed in order to find better ways of doing things. Not leaving things to chance is what it sounds like. Right. I was recently on a balimore, a lift at Lowe's, pulling a door off the top shelf and it froze up halfway up. There's no maintenance records on here. I don't know if that's a recurrent problem with this machine and I don't have any word to write down. Hey, this is happening. I get to the top and the panel, the control panel is like not securely fastened. It's coming off. That's concerning. And then I get the door and I go to come down. And again, it freezes up and I'm stuck 20 feet in the air with, you know, 500 pounds of doors leaning on me as I'm like I got. There's nothing, you know, there's no way. But nothing, nothing. There was no way to document that I was having those problems with the machine. Right. In other words, in the military, there would be no question of what you would do. There would be a procedure with you and you would follow it. But in civilian life, not just in the situation you're in, but I can back you up on this. There's lots of situations where you're like, well, I don't know. What should I tell somebody? I guess I should tell somebody. But there's not a clear path of like, I know exactly what to do. Yeah, another situation. I'm going to I'm going to focus these on Lowe's because that's my most recent experience is my most civilian experience. We had a shortage of forklifts. OK, well, when are the when are we going to get them fixed? Oh, we don't know. OK. Yeah. Well, how do I know that they're broken? Well, we just know. So it's not written down anywhere. There's like, we have a lockout tagout system as any industrial OSHA compliant place should. We're not using that. Well, I guess we can use that. Well, well, like, you know, and if one breaks, who fix it? Oh, we contracted out. Oh, well, how would we know the status on those? No, that's for someone else to know. Well, but it's affecting my ability to do my job. And I have no knowledge or, you know, I have no agency in this process that is affecting my paycheck. So that makes sense to me. And those are great examples. It does make me think, well, then surely he says, knowing that it's not true. Surely, you know, that would mean that military ex-military people would be highly valued as people who are better at precision and safety and and making sure things get done right. That's what the commercials say, you know, enlist now and get trained. And those skills will pay off throughout the rest of your life, even when you leave the military. And they will, they will benefit you personally. If you go into workplace and there are, as a person with a lot of experience with equipment in industrial situations, with handling orders and distributing parts, you know, things like that, like I did aircraft maintenance for, actively did aircraft maintenance for about 12 years before I started going into managerial roles and programs, roles and things like that. None of that experience matters. The only thing that Lowe's cares about is the fact that if they hand me a sheet of jobs to do, those jobs are going to be done before I go home, which is valuable for you and the civilian company you're working for. But if if you're not, if you're not in the in the right market, if you're not looking at the right jobs, things like that, then you won't have those skills translated over and they won't be valued as much as they should be. So so getting getting the job is difficult because the experience mismatch is that it's an expectation mismatch, I think. Because you when you get out of the military, you expect to have these experiences apply to your job. Not maybe not all of them. I'm not going to go to Lowe's and start replacing emergency generators on F-16s, like, you know, obviously, that's not going to get things as far as we know, has no F-16s. No, no, I can't talk about contracts. But if, you know, if you don't if you don't find the proper the proper job that's going to take the values that you're bringing and lean into those and find ways to value those internally, you're going to feel a mismatch like me and several of the other veterans that work at Lowe's feel. And from what I've understood, talking to several of them, that's no different than any of the other companies they've worked at since they left military service. But you got the jobs, there's several of you there. So it's not impossible. You're just saying it's it's it's not it's not the clear like, well, I'm in the military, so it's going to be easier for me to get X, Y, Z jobs. It's maybe not not an advantage or even a disadvantage. How is it a disadvantage? It's a disadvantage in your personal value, at least for me. I would think a hiring manager would say, oh, you're in the military. That's a plus. Is that not the case? It can be some some companies actually have have policies to say we prefer veterans. We prefer disabled veterans. If we can find a job for you, you'll be at the top of the list or you'll at least have preferential treatment as far as being picked up for jobs, things like that. And to that extent, I don't know, because when I applied to Lowe's, they were really hurting for people. So they gave me a call like two days later. They were like, hey, can you start tomorrow? So it is it is a matter of how you get hired and what you get hired for and what you're looking for and what you want to do. And I think there's that's something that really needs to be be watched for. If you're in the civilian workplace and you have hired veterans, maybe ask them what satisfies you about this job and how can we enhance your satisfaction with this job? Because that will improve their performance. You know, and and what are the limitations that you have? Like I I have several physical ailments, but none of those limit me. However, dealing with with dealing with people that think their management is one of my biggest problems. That's one thing that's not that's not specific to veterans. Well, no, that's a universal complaint that, you know, it's well, it's more specific to me actually, because I've got I've got some some mental issues revolving toxic leadership and misplaced trust in things like that that occurred to me during deployments that have changed how I view management and what management should do. And that's one of one of the battles that I personally have. Gotcha. So not all PTSD comes from battle. That that's an interesting that's an interesting thing to discuss too, because I think that is also what a lot of people assume is like, oh, well, first of all, there's there's some discussion of whether PTSD is the right word and whether PTSD is being used as kind of a catchall for things that some of which are some of which aren't. But, you know, using it in the more in the less clinical sense to just mean, you know, having been affected by something in a way that that lasts and and you need to get counseling in order to resolve it. I think there's more acceptance of the idea, and that's actually causing the problem with using PTSD too widely, where it's like, oh, I have PTSD from this, this traumatic experience, even though I wasn't in the military. But when it comes to the military, people assume, oh, a grenade went off next to you, right, or something like that. And yours, I think it's great to bring up examples of why, yes, obviously, that could be a cause, but there are more causes than just that. Yeah. And I want to clarify that I don't I don't use PTSD as a like, like necessarily a catchall. That is a clinical diagnosis that I've been given that was a surprise to me based on years of counseling and a few psychiatric, you know, panels of going through some stuff. And it took years to kind of deconstruct that and figure out why I have heightened anxiety and, you know, lowered ability to think clearly and have other issues during certain situations, especially ones that relate to those events that happened during that particular deployment. Yeah, you know, and it took years to get to understand that. So that is not something I ever wanted to use. I never wanted to use that term myself. But that was the term given to me by the doctors who supposedly know. So And and that I wanted to and you helped me make that point clear is that there's there's a real thing. And then there's, you know, I've tried to think of good examples, depression is another one where there is a clinical definition that I have been diagnosed with personally, and people use that more widely. But we're talking about the actual clinical Yep. Yep. diagnosis of it. And, and, you know, I don't want to make you uncomfortable or get, you know, get you to talk about anything that you don't want to talk about. But in general terms, as general as you want, you know, what are those kinds of things that people might not be aware can cause stress disorder? It doesn't have to be about yourself. So the biggest one, of course, is combat related. That that is, you know, very stressful, even if you're not injured in the event, just being around it and being a medic as people are coming back from battle can be highly stressful and can induce PTSD for years. And medics aren't always doctors. No, well, most, most medics are not usually in a situation like that, I believe you'd have like one or two actual medical doctors and then several nurse practitioners, but most of the people that you're going to see on, if you go into a clinic, you're going to see maybe a doctor or a nurse practitioner and everyone else is going to be just a medic. No, I'll say just a medic. They're the ones that do all the work. Yeah, trained trained in the basics. They're actually, especially like in the army, they're trained in really advanced stuff. They train them up as far as they can go without the government coming in and saying, you need a license for that. I got you. OK, yeah, but for me, the opposite end of the spectrum is my case where I wasn't in a single traumatic incident. I wasn't in a couple traumatic incidents. I was in a prolonged series of heightened stress for about seven months with really no, no time to decompress between that and that continued elevated stress level due to, again, poor leadership and toxic leadership. Led me it being stressed for that long at that height of that high level changes your brain chemistry and makes it to where your brain now responds differently because it's been in a stress mode, the survival mode for so long that that's just how it thinks it is now, and it takes years to decompress that and possibly never fully recover to be a normal functioning brain after that. So it can be a single event. It can be prolonged stress. It can be anything in between and all of that can lead to a diagnosis of PTSD and all of it can have different effects on people. You know, I still I still once in a while allowed bang will happen at work and I'll flinch really hard and people will ask me, well, you know, where did you see combat? Well, I didn't. It's not it's not that that wasn't a shell shock. Yeah, it was a instant stressor that my brain just didn't quite process in a way that is normal for people who hear a tumble of lumber, you know, so it manifests very differently depending on the person and your situation and everything else. So so we talked about jobs and we talked about one particular kind of very common fallout. What else? What else are the challenges and we'll get to positives to and whenever you want. But but what else are the things you want people to know? Hey, you may not realize this about what veterans are facing out there. I want to stress that post military life beyond transitioning back to civilian life and beyond transitioning back into a home life that is stable because it never is quite stable when you're in the military. There are so many programs out there to help veterans and there is so little resource for people to reach out and get information for. There's the the VA has tons of programs and if you call one number, they'll give you a long list of stuff that may apply to you, but they can't tell you which ones do. You call on a different day. You get a different person and you get an entirely different list and now they will tell you all about the programs. There's no consistency in essentially what amounts to veteran aftercare. If you want to bring the precision that you were talking about in your military work life to that is what it sounds like to me. Just some clarity. Yeah, because the way the way Congress and has handled veterans over years, and I'm not going to get into politics here, but the way that the Congress has handled programs for veterans has been so patchwork for so long. They try to address a single thing at a time or address a wide swath of things with a single solution and what happens is you have all these different programs and there's no real good way to find out, well, do I still qualify for TriCare, which is the military healthcare system? Do I qualify for VA care, which for the VA giving me health care? Do I need to go get my own private insurance? How about my education benefits? Will the VA pay for this? They'll give me this program, but only if I do this. And how do I find out exactly how to get that? Well, there's one office to call. Well, can that office also tell me about using my GA bill? No, they cannot. I have to call this other office over here. And, you know, it's a, it's just, it's spaghetti thrown against the wall and you're hoping you picked the right noodle for the problem that you're having. Wow, yeah. It's completely cumbersome. So, yes, we have programs to help veterans get educated, get reacclimated to civilian life to get employed. And then you see a homeless veteran on the side of the road and you ask, well, why didn't they just use the programs that Congress gave them? They may not have known that any of those programs existed. They may not have been able to take advantage of them because of specific criteria those programs may have had. And what you're saying is there isn't just one place where they could have gone to be like, what's available to me? Right. Which seems inconceivable in this age of information organization at a higher level than we've ever had before. And there's two problems to that, too, because all the information is there. But there's like six websites I go to right now to learn about education benefits. Oh, and by the way, all six of those require me to log in with an ID.me account, which if you're homeless and you're a veteran, you don't have the internet. Well, you probably have, you probably have access to it, but not consistently. If you know about it and can go ask about it. Right. Right. But like, we still have Vietnam veterans that are living under bridges because they don't know what programs are available. And we have the programs available that are underfunded because nobody's using them because nobody's doing the outreach necessarily. Another there. Yeah, it's a circle. You know, and Congress, those money at it and says, well, we have the programs and then the veterans are out there and there's just a huge disconnect. And it's one of the things that I wish I had the time. If I had, you know, the classic question, right, like if you had unlimited money and you didn't have to work for a living, what would you do? I would do veteran outreach. That's all, that is my biggest thing. Kids with cancer, I'd help them, you know, we do extra life every year, things like that. But what would I actually spend my time doing veteran outreach? And I don't really like talking to veterans about old war stories, stuff like that. Like that'd be very cumbersome, but it is so important to me that that is the thing that I would do. And it seems like an easily solvable problem, this particular one. Obviously, there's lots of problems that we're talking about, but the one of like having someone able to match themselves. We have so many matching algorithms in the world. Like you couldn't have one that just, can you put GPD on this and be like, hey, help me. I'll tell you who I am, tell me what programs they are. I'm tempted to say there's got to be a startup idea there, but that's the problem is there's no money in that, right? Right. And if there's no money, there's little innovation. And there's, you know, other than people like me that really want the government to put money in the right places, there's no benefit to anybody. And it just makes it really hard. But yeah, those are some of the things that veterans are facing that I don't know that the average civilian really understands. And I think this is clear, but they are, there's certainly PTSD from non-military sources. There's certainly lots of experience mismatch and job issues and job culture clashes in non-military situations. I think you did a good job of explaining, you know, what is what is different about what a veteran faces in those cases. The veteran care thing, I mean, there's analogs to that, I suppose too, but but that's very specifically a veteran case. Is there anything else that you're like, this is something that veterans face that most other people don't? That covers most of it, but there is a, there's a level of mistrust within the veteran community when it comes to civilians just in general because there is a difference in perspective. Veterans have seen things and done things and committed to something, most of them anyway, some of them were just there for the paycheck. Committed to something that they felt deeply for and whether or not that feeling still exists, spoiler for me it doesn't, there is a level of commitment that was given to an entity that the average civilian has not experienced. And when, I feel that when when civilians think of veterans, and I know those veterans are technically going back to civilian life, all that, but for this, for this example, when civilians think of veterans, they think of people that have gone off and done something and maybe seen some stuff come back and everything's good to go, or maybe they didn't come back and they need, you know, their family needs a little help. But oftentimes what they just need, it isn't a thank you or you know, a quick high or a little fake salute or a bridge near after them. What they need is just to be asked if they're doing okay. Because a lot of times they're not, but they're not going to say it to the people they love because we don't, in general, we're not trying to bring war back. You know, we put a lot of that away and sometimes just being asked, hey, how are you doing today? Like, how are you doing? And being genuine about it and wanting, you know, willing to sit and listen and know that you may not understand all of it, but just being willing to listen is cathartic, at least on a small skill. And sometimes that's all you need. And I know that applies to, you know, just people in general, but specifically to veterans, don't ask them about where they served, because a lot of people don't want to talk about that. Don't ask them if they saw combat. Geez, do not ask people if they saw combat. That is, like, nobody wants, if they want to tell you about that, they're going to tell you about that. You don't have to ask. Just ask if they're doing okay. Like if they, you know, that's it. I like that phrasing. Are you doing okay? Not how are you doing? Because in English, anyway, how are you doing? The answer is great. It doesn't matter what's true. It's just a protocol, right? It's like XSINAC. How are you doing? Oh, I'm great. How are you? Great. Are you doing okay? Provokes a different response. Right. It's just something a little different. It can still be a yes or no if they just want to blow you off and, you know, sometimes that's, sometimes that's what they're going to do. Yeah. But it also, it phrases it in a way that makes them think, oh, they're actually asking. Yeah, yeah. And mean it. Don't say, are you doing okay? And then when they start to, gosh, I'm really busy. I'd love to Yeah. That would have the exact opposite of that. That would just resecure their insecurities. Yeah, nobody wants that. I will say, however, a little change of beat here, there are certain things about my military service and about being a veteran that I really do enjoy. That was going to be my next question. So go ahead, shoot. Oh, there we go. There are certain things about being a veteran in my military service that I really do enjoy. I have built some camaraderie with people. I have a friend by the name of junior. It's actually Greg, but whatever. We all call him junior. Like, he's a writer died. We served together in Korea. We worked the bar together, like a literal squadron bar. We worked the flight line together. We had other issues. We were in a band together like that. We were only stationed together for about seven, eight months. But that's a friend. That's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. He's a friend for life. There's no issues there. Also served with my best friend from high school, Kent. We never served in the same unit, but we served alongside each other a few times. And it only strengthened our friendship. I was able to see parts of the world. I was able to get drunk in parts of the world that I never thought possible. You know, my high school self wouldn't imagine walking home after leaving a dry country on my 21st birthday. Arm in arm with my supervisor, one of us on each side of the line in the middle of the road. So we didn't get lost. Wow. You know, there are a lot of memories. There's a lot of great things. I learned, man, I learned so much electrical theory. I learned about how airplanes fly. I got to work in F-15s, F-16s, work around F-22s. You know, I've been completely encapsulated in the wing of a C-5. It wasn't fun. It wasn't great. But I did it. I was up there for about four and a half hours until finally I got a cramp and I had to climb back down because I just couldn't uncramp it. Yeah. Not while it was flying, I'm guessing. No. Because you're here. Yeah. Yeah, no. It was firmly on the ground and broken. Yeah, yeah. Thus the need to be in the wing. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of stories. I got most of an education. I never got my bachelor's degree, but I was by my choice because I just didn't enjoy school that much. Whereas I did get my associate's degree. I took some fun classes and all that was paid for by the military. My children are currently going to school based on my service. So there are schools being paid for right now because I was because I served for as long as I did. I met my first and second wife through the military. The first one was a civilian. The second one was a fellow military member and her and I are still married. It's been next month will make 16 years. Hey, congrats. That's awesome, man. So there are a lot of things about the military. I love the fact that I have two coworkers at Lowe's. One's a Marine and one is a former army. And yes, you never say former Marine. I don't know who came up that term, but it doesn't apply. Once a Marine, always Marine. That is they go into battle wearing shiny things on their uniform. Like I'm not I'm not I'm not disparaging them at all. But I can just immediately by based on knowing that they served, there are certain things, certain jokes you can have and certain conversations you can have right off the cuff that I don't know. I mean, I don't know how you feel about people who used to work at CNET. If there's certain conversation immediately have. Oh, yeah, you know. But just finding out they worked at CNET, you know, at a certain time, they're like, oh, OK, here we go. Well, I have that with about one million people that served while I served at this place is where I served, you know. So I can talk about, you know, one guy is a crown eater, and every time he writes something down, I'm like, oh, you lost your crown because you had to use a pen and, you know, the little things like that, like, well, if we if we can't lift it into the truck and get it in there, can you just yell at it in order to do it itself? You know, there's little things like that, you know, and you don't you don't get those particular aspects of life in most places. I don't. It's a culture. It's it. That's what you're describing. It's it's a culture that, you know, I can appreciate, but I don't experience. Right. So there are there are great things about it. I love the fact that. That I am a retired 100 percent disabled veteran at this moment right now with the aptitude that I have and the lifestyle I live that allowed allows me to be in a fairly affluent area of Alaska so that I have access to and the ability to find the resources necessary for the, you know, for the for the care that I need to be a better husband, better, better person and better father because all those things are things that I need to work on every day. And I have those resources available to me. And I've been able to find them on my own because I'm not because I'm technically savvy and because I'm curious and because I won't take no for an answer when it comes to certain things. My current veteran experience, my current experience, my current life as a veteran is probably not any different than most civilians that have never served. But there's always that that extra little bit. It can be an anchor that drags you down a little bit and keeps you from from fully expressing yourself or it can be wings that give you just a little bit of an edge to understand how things should be and how things can be more efficient and how they can be better for the other people depending on the situation. And it's it's really dynamic way of living, I think. Yeah. Well, thank you first of all for anticipating my question and finishing with the positives. And thank you for sharing all of this. I do have a specific question that is selfish to me. But I want to make sure that we've touched on everything you want to touch on before I get to it. I will say one thing that just came to mind because my wife just texted me. When I left military service, I did so with a program called Skill Bridge that allowed me to work in the civilian world while still getting a military paycheck as a way to train me for future jobs. And Tom, I worked for you and Jenny Josephson as an intern, which was great because it gave me six months of Jenny telling me how everything I was doing was wrong and you telling me that I will get better. And I'm a better editor and producer. And I have a great relationship with you and with Jenny. And that has taken so many different levels and areas of life. And I'm very thankful for that. My wife is trying to retire right now and they're looking at cutting back on the Skill Bridge program because certain people decided that they were going to intern at the golf course for six months with officer pay is my understanding of it. So even the programs that we have are fragile and we need to take advantage of them while we can because someone is bound to abuse them. And that's so that's my way of saying thank you for the opportunity and a way to show that even the programs that we think are really awesome can be stripped away at just the typing of a letter from a three star general sitting in an office in the Pentagon going, I don't like that. Well, maybe maybe just tighten it up so people can't intern at a golf course. Don't get rid of the whole thing. I mean, come on. Right. Anyway, you fix it. You don't take it away. Like, yeah, exactly. Well, I benefited from that program by having you, you know, do do some things for us and get involved with what we do. And so it's it's a it's a special program. I'm appreciative of that program myself. My last little thing I wanted to ask about was because and two episodes ago, we talked about K-pop with Gale Carragher because BTS went into the Korean military. There's all this interest out there of like, you know, all the military service, the mandatory military service. Everyone in the country, if you're not aware in South Korea, who is a male, has to serve at least 18 months depending on the service. It might be longer. There's alternative services and things like that. When you were stationed in Korea, did you did you interface with the Korean military in any way? And did you interface with that mandatory military service culture? I'm just curious. Not in an official sense. My job was separated from from the Koreans that were on the same because we were on their base. Like it's not an American base. It's a Korean base that they're letting us use 99% of. But I did get a chance to talk to some people in the civilian world who are also serving or off duty kind of things. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And my understanding is similar to when I was in Turkey, who they also have a mandatory two-year conscription service for males that not all of them like it. Not many of them are going to continue the service, but they all understand it. And it was never, I never felt that it was a point of contention. Like they're like, oh, I've got to do this thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess I was curious too if you noticed either in Turkey or South Korea because I didn't realize you were stationed there too. Did you notice a difference in how their militaries worked because of that? Or was it just something that seemed like any other? In Korea, it was basically indistinguishable. You wouldn't know unless you asked them, hey, are you on conscription service or have you made it a career? In Turkey, it was very clear you were given a choice. You could either enlist or if you had the right people, you could get commissioned and go to college, all that kind of stuff. But that was your life choice. Like that was your career from that point until whenever you decided to retire or whatever. Or you could enter the conscription service, in which case you were there for I think two years. And the conscripts were very easily identifiable. They had slightly different uniforms and they served tea, picked up trash, swept floors. It was not your tip. They weren't working on airplanes. They were the service personnel. It was very easy to distinguish. Yeah, that is not the case in South Korea, from my understanding. They learn how to throw grenades and do all the rest of the stuff that everybody does in basic. Maybe get put on guard duty more often, but yeah. Yeah, but they also didn't, I don't think they gave them weapons either in Turkey. Interesting. So guard duty would have been like, I'm checking the IDs that guy over there will shoot you. Hey, could you shoot him? Yeah. That being said, and this is probably the most contentious part about this whole conversation right here, but I would support a conscription service in the United States of two years. Really? I would. No kidding. Now, is that because you had to do it? So a conscription service feels like not a problem or? No, I feel, and this is something a previous guest of yours, Brian Hoffman and I have discussions about. I feel that your country owes you the benefits of living in the country and you owe the country your taxes and your service. So that my idea there would be, you graduate high school, you spend two years in a conscription, well, it wouldn't even be two years, it'd be basically three semesters in a conscription service where you are learning the basics of things that they don't teach you in school, actual service, like how to, you know, how an office runs and things like that. You're kind of like the turkey folks, but not you're not saying conscription service of learning to shoot a rifle necessarily, although it could be, you're saying conscription service of a wide variety of things, not just military. Yeah, of all, yeah, yeah. And in return for that, you would go to a trade school for free. You know, because that's essentially what you're doing with the GI Bill anyways. You're learning a skill, you're going to school, learning a skill to do something after military. And I think that whole program would be really beneficial. I mean, I'm up to, I can be persuaded either way on it, but I don't regret to the countries that do it. I may not like the way, like say Turkey was treating their conscripts. I think that was a little lowly, but I could see something like that really working, but I would make it gender-neutral. I wouldn't make it men only. Yeah, and widen things beyond just military. Yep, yeah, it'd be all types of government service in a variety of different aspects. It could be something that you're more interested in or not interested in. Well, that's a whole show right there. Just talking about the ins and outs of that. Yeah. We could dive into that. So we'll have to bring you back at some point and maybe bring you back. I mean, you edit the show, but we'd love to do this again. Let's put it that way. Let's do this again and dig into that. This is a fascinating idea, and I think there's a lot of merit to it. No pun intended. Well, you know that we ended the show with this or that. You promised you wouldn't look at my this or that for you. I have not seen you in the doc since I made them, so are you ready? I was last in the doc this morning at five o'clock my time when I was publishing the episode that went live today. Yeah, the Matt Donnelly episode, the improv episode. Great episode, by the way. All right. Here we go. You did mention that you live in Alaska, so our first one is related to that. Polar night or polar day? Now, I know you don't actually live above the pole, but you get the long, you get the long-ish nights, you get the long-ish days. Which one do you prefer? I am a night person by, you know, in general, but I really do love those long summer days. Yeah. And being a person was on night shift for so long, I don't have a problem sleeping during the day. So I would actually go as much as I'm a night person, I would go with the long days. Okay, polar day. If you ever moved to Svalbard, that'll be your favorite time of the year. Soju or beer? Soju. See, I knew you were going to go that. That was when I knew you'd have an easy time answering, but the audience is like, wait, what? Yeah. Soju is so versatile, it's so crisp. You can take it by itself, you can have a flavor, you can put it in drinks, you can add it to food. You can add it to beer and get the best of both. You could, and that's a whole another drink. Yeah. Yeah, a soju all day. Soju is so good. It's so great. What's your favorite soju? The one that's in front of you is an acceptable answer. Camisole has a strawberry, that slightly chilled, not ice cold, but slightly chilled, maybe over some ice. You could just sip on all day. And that's perfect. Now I am told, and maybe any Korean listeners in the audience can confirm or deny this, I am told that within the country of Korea, the flavored things are no longer popular. When you see a flavored soju, they're like, oh, that's for export. They used to be, but they have no longer, they're no longer popular. They have fallen out of vogue. Which is great, because that was starting to happen right as I was leaving Korea, so I bought a lot of the flavored stuff, fairly cheap. Oh yeah, everything must go. Nobody's drinking the doggies in soju anymore. Faster, slow zombies. This is one I have thought about every time we've recorded the show, every time I've edited the show, I've thought about this question in particular, and how I would answer it where I ever guessed on the show. And I think I'm going to go fast zombies. Not for the entertainment purpose. Yeah, usually it's for like, oh, they're more exciting. Yeah. Right. But why? I'm there for a quick death. I think if we have zombies going, I don't know that we stand a chance. I'm just like, let me out. I want to join them quick. Yeah, I'm not trying to be terrified for the next three to five years only to die to a zombie dog or something like that. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it does. You know, they'll be more entertaining to watch, and then it'll just be over, and I don't want to worry about and then I'll be breaking open four-year-old cans of a 40-year-old cans of pork and beans to try this one. Got you. I got you. No, that's fair. And I mean, you have an unfair advantage in hearing every answer, but yes, definitely an answer we have not had before. Savory or dessert crepes? Dessert. I have the biggest sweet tooth, especially when it comes to first thing I'm going to eat in the morning. I don't know that I've ever had a very savory crepe, though. So there could be some bias there, just an experiential bias, but I'm going to go with the sweet. With the sweet? That's an unusual answer, but it's also my answer. I actually like savory crepes just fine, but I just assume they're going to be sweet. And you can have strawberry crepes with your strawberry soju. See, that's just a breakfast champions right there. Mobile or desktop video games? I would have said desktop until the summer when I got a steam deck and it really blurs the lines. It really does. I'm going to say desktop video games in a mobile platform. That is an interesting answer because desktop has become mobile thanks to the steam deck and even the switch and the ally and the others. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I really prefer desktop games over mobile specific games, but now that you can take desktop games on the go, there's no. So your answer is desktop, but you really like having the mobile. Yes. All right. Dogs or cats? For so many reasons, dogs. One, I'm allergic to cats. Two, I have enough teenage and young adult daughters in my life that I don't need anyone else. Acknowledging my existence but not caring if I'm here. I've always had dogs. I really love having dogs and dogs are just, if you're looking for a companion, there's nothing better than dog. Yeah, I like that. And it's true. I mean, there's good arguments for cats and we've heard them on this show, but and I grew up with cats. So I was raised by cats, so to speak. The first time my eyes wanted to pop out of my head, I was an anti-cat guy. Like the allergies rule all. There's no getting around it. Fast prime or kit zoom. These are photography terms for those who don't recognize them and I know Amos is a big photographer. So I'm going to go with fast prime. There's something there's something you can do with the prime lens that you lose your versatility. But there's something about the way a prime lens not only changes your photograph but also changes how you have to photograph that really speaks to me and really makes it makes the it makes photography a visceral experience that you have to experience each individual part separately to combine into what you want to take the picture of, like to to create the photo where with a zoom you can it takes away certain aspects of it. Like you can try to frame it in 43 different ways. Maybe it's maybe there's too much choice in that aspect. Fast front blocks you down is what yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I really I really love I've only I only own one prime but I really love primal lenses. But so you've only ever had one but you but you're well I've used several. Yeah. Because I've rented and I've borrowed and things like that I only own one because it's a 50 mil 1.4 that are yeah 50 mil 1.4 that is really amazing on my on my Canon camera and it's fairly cheap so it's like it hits that the area of really great quality while also not costing an arm and a leg. I guess we should do you mind explaining the difference because probably a lot of people listening are like I get that he likes fast prime but I don't understand what it is. So so a prime lens is not going to it's it's going to only only going to have one focal length. So like my 50 millimeter isn't going to be a 24 to 70 it's a 50 millimeter if you want to zoom in you have to zoom in with the sneaker zoom like you have to walk closer to it. Whereas a zoom lens is going to have a variety of focal lengths that it can get to so you can go from really wide to really you know really wide of image with lots of background and lots of extra stuff on the sides to really focused in on a specific you can focus in on the nose of a person from a hundred yards away if you have the right zoom lens. It gives you the versatility that you can change the framing of your photograph really easily with a zoom lens because you can just you can just tighten it up you know if you want to typically they're not as fast as prime lenses almost always they're not as fast as prime lenses meaning you can't take pictures at they don't allow as much light in as a prime lens does because with the prime lens you're using fewer actual pieces of glass you know actual lenses more light yes there's fewer things for it to get through to get right right so they both have their benefits like I would never try a prime lens on a soccer field that would be horrendous but I would I would much prefer using a prime lens for street photography where I'm walking around and moving around anyway or for event photography it's really great because you you already have it in your mind how far away you have to be for something to frame it the way it is if you have enough experience with your prime lens so once you hit that point you can just pick up like for me it's my secondary camera you just pick it up you take the picture you drop it and you keep moving and then you can zoom in and get the different faces in different environments you want with your other camera or your other lens prime lens they're just there's something magical about a great prime lens though all right last one hot or cold you're in Alaska cold yeah I hate working in the cold especially when it's in the military doing the like being on the flight line in 30 degree temperature with a 20 mile an hour wind under under a B-52 in Louisiana with the rain coming at you sideways God that sucked but as for like life goes I don't like to sweat I didn't sweat when I was little when I was growing up in Palmdale, California and now I sweat a lot because I'm you know 60 pounds heavier but yeah I'd rather much rather be cold I can always put more clothes on I can cuddle with somebody or whatever but when you're hot you just there's only so much you can take off before they drag you away yeah I uh there's a guest bathroom in our house that is always the coolest place if the air conditioning is on it's the warmest place in the winter when the heater is on just just the way it works and I still think of you sometimes going into that room during the summer when you were visiting and being like ah yes this is this is the room I want to be in because it was the coolest room in the house by far yeah and then coming in from your garage doing during the video shoot coming in from your garage which is the hottest room in the house by far all I could think about was going to that bathroom and lying down on the floor yeah yeah yeah well Amos thank you so much for chatting with us and for sharing your story like I said before and and you know getting people to think about some things from perspective that they don't have that's what the show is all about I really appreciate that man yeah thanks thanks for for having this conversation with me you know it's it's weird being the being a producer and being the editor of a show and having all these things to say and never knowing where you would fit in and when the idea for the word veteran came up it was just like it clicked it clicked yeah and uh thanks for having me on thanks for doing the show as your as your producer and your editor I don't say it often enough man this show is awesome and I'm really proud to be part of it and very really happy that you came up with the idea to to do it and I'm glad I could help you flesh out the idea and uh the show is great and all the guests have been amazing and I'm glad to I'm proud to call myself amongst them now thanks man appreciate that too if folks want to find out what else you do besides this what should they do honestly if you want to get a hold of me in any meaningful manner the best way to do so is either on TikTok at Ethan Kane or in the DTNS discord okay like that's those are the things I'm the discord I check more often than anything but brilliant that's that's where I've got my own channel in there just go in there and put look for Ask Amos and uh I'll be there fantastic well I want to thank our producer Anthony Lemos as well thank you for listening to this show and telling your friends about it you can get an ad-free version of this show and special bonus outtakes from this episode with Acast Plus click on access exclusive content at awordpodcast.com and we'll have a word with you next time sorry we kept you up Zoe Zoe right right before just a few minutes ago Zoe was like hey I was trying to go to bed stop this it does happen it does happen yeah CPOTS 50 was was apparently watching some uh some replay of the DC streamathon with me on it when uh this popped up on the screen very nice so well fantastic thank you all for for hanging out and watching the live stream it was good to see see you folks this was very impromptu as I said at the beginning so I hope you enjoyed it or even if you're not watching it live if you're watching it later on demand I hope you enjoyed it as well we're gonna end the stream here say goodbye Amos bye Amos oh wait that's me