 Wendy Lowe. We are coming to you from our studios the think tech Hawaii in downtown Honolulu and my home office in Makiki. Today I'd like to introduce a United States Army veteran who served our country and is now retired to serve our veterans even further. Let me introduce you to Donovan A. Lazarus who is the ambit Department of Hawaii State Commander. Aloha and welcome Donovan A. Lazarus. Aloha Wendy so great to be here with you. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share some of what we do at the AmVets Center here in Hawaii and all the support that we do have from organizations that we collaborate with and people like you who helped to get the word out especially on a day like today a national PTSD day. Yes before we get started yes I want to acknowledge that today is June 27th the National PTSD Awareness Day so let us honor those who are suffering from PTSD and let's bring more light and awareness to the subject so that more out there can learn about it and understand it and help others deal with it. Donovan please tell us firstly about the AmVets membership and how it got started here in Hawaii or no in general. Tell us how it got started. You know the AmVets organization and I don't know if you have the slide to show there were three different names and that we've had you know so the original name was American Veterans World War II so in 1943 veterans from World War II started to make it back home and they were on 12 different college campuses and they wanted to have their own organization so eventually in 1944 they got together in Missouri and started the AmVets or American Veterans World War II. Later in 1947 President Truman signed proclamation or correction of public law 17 making it a congressional chartered organization. The AmVets organization was only open to World War II veterans at the time so later the name was changed again to allow Korean and Vietnam veterans to join which for the third time it was changed in 1984 to American Veterans or AmVets and you know that has caught some people by surprise while we keep changing the name things like that but with the congressional charter we need to have a certain or maintain a certain number of membership meaning service members veterans that have served since World War II. It opened up in 1984 to allow just anyone to serve the AmVets in the AmVets organization whether you're a National Guardsman or reservist Coast Guard then whether you've been deployed to war or not you can join so it's the most inclusive veterans service organization in the United States. Here in Hawaii I was a recovery team leader doing the missing in action mission going to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia mainly Southeast Asia was mine. It's a global mission but it really started from after Vietnam trying to recover a lot of for POWs in missing in action. So in 2005 I was a recovery team leader. 2006 it was my turn to take our team to the AmVets National Convention to provide update on our recovery operations and all there at the National Convention which was in Las Vegas at the time. The National Commander asked if I would with my team to start the AmVets here in Hawaii mainly because of the USS Arizona Memorial. So superintendent at the time superintendent Linz needed to resurface the wall so sometimes it's just to resurface you know the marble shrine wall that all the names are on for 1177 service members that were in tune there and just needed someone on the ground. So the JPEC then joined POW and my accounting command which I was a recovery team leader for like I said the name is now changed to DPAA defense POW accounting agency. So we got back and we decided to do it. So we started the AmVets here to help raise the funds to resurface the wall. In 2014 though we had to rebuild the whole wall and that was $350,000 we had to raise but that was a national effort. That's a lot of work that you have. That's a lot of work. A lot of work. Well and so you know it's not been about how many AmVet members reside here in Hawaii. We just have over 500 so we're pretty small here in Hawaii because you know we're all volunteer organization before we were just active duty service members from all branch of service and you know some of us were law enforcement officers and we just wanted to keep it that way. So we weren't looking for numbers. We just wanted guys that wanted to give back from the heart so to speak and like-minded. So the Arizona was the main reason and the junior ROTC program and ROTC program at UH Manoa was the other thing being that we had a charter. We could have present these metals that the cadets would wear on their uniform and certificates, branch, sometimes scholarships, things like that. And here in Hawaii the junior ROTC program is pretty large. It's 24 high schools in the program and University of Hawaii now have three detachment at the time. They had only two Army and Air Force. Now they have a Navy detachment. They stood up just over two years ago. Wow. That's a lot of activities and serving a lot of young and existing veterans serving. So we're very grateful for all that Mbats does for the veterans and the soldiers and the soldiers to be. So thank you for that. I know that there are many active veterans here in Hawaii. I know of one personally and it's John Henry Felix. So please share with us a little bit about what John Henry's involvement is with the Mbats. Oh, sure. You know, so John Henry, I always call Dr. Felix, you know, for respect, because he's done so many things in our country and around the world. He's truly a national treasure and global leader for sure. He mentors us. He's the reason why I probably still do what I do as a volunteer with the Mbats. So John Henry joined the Mbats back in 1985. Just after the Mbats had rebuilt the entire Marbus Shrine wall the first time they rebuilt it after building the wall in 1962. In 1984, he had a rededicated wall after raising $250,000 in rebuilding and he was part of the ceremony. Well, during the building of the Arizona Memorial itself, he was the chief of staff and that overseed the architecture, the building of the Arizona. So he had great ties there. So then later in 1986, a huge ceremony still, you know, unveiled the wall and at Punchball as well with the Memorial Clarion, which is a living memorial there. It's the bells that chimes in the evenings at 1600 to remind everyone of the sacrifice that service members laid to rest there. So he's always been involved, being that we're doing so much sheer in Hawaii, the Mbats, although you didn't have a Mbats post, but the National Air Quarters was leading these efforts. And John Henry was part of putting these events together in all. So he was very involved from then. I met him in mainly around about five years after we started the Mbats here, I would see him at the ceremonies and met him briefly for photos and things like that. In 2012, he invited me to come to the signing of a proclamation from Governor Abercumbie for John and her Felix Day. He donated 35 acres of land there at the Veteran's State Cemetery in Kaniwi. A few years ago, about four years ago, Dr. Felix asked if I would take over the biomodulator program, which treats veterans with chronic pain, which is a huge deal because John Henry, Dr. Felix, is the chair or co-chair with General David Bramlett for the State Task Force for homeless veterans. He knows why veterans tend to become homeless when they try to alleviate the pain and suffering. And, you know, with the pharmaceuticals, they do become dependent, whether it's on pharmaceuticals or alcohol, I should say. And so the biomodulator, it's non-abrasive, non-pharmaceutical in the treats for chronic pain. It also helps renews the cells in the body, which was introduced to him by Robin Rohr and Uyzer Admin, person for the biomodulator committee. And former or late General Hank Stackpole, who was Marine Force's specific commander back in the 90s, an incredible man. And since then, we have the Felix Stackpole Legacy project. And so he asked us to maintain that and try and continue to study on the biomodulator, which is currently going on right now. You know, it's just an incredible opportunity. And really, we have biomodulators on the 9th floor at Triple Army Medical Center that are treating our service members. We have Dr. Shinsani, who is treating our veterans with those. Last year around October, we got the VA to start providing the biomodulator store veterans. So we have veterans here, part of the AmVets, two of them that received the biomodulators from the VA. So we don't have to raise money for that. The VA will provide it. It's also recommended by the FDA. And so it's, you know, it's a huge deal. It is. He's doing a lot. He's done a lot and he's doing a lot. And a great shout out for the donation of the acreage for the Veterans Memorial Park in Kaneohe. Many people don't know that, but his plaque stands there. And yes, we need to really remember him every time we go and visit our loved ones there at that park. It's truly beautiful. So being that today is National PTSD Awareness Day. I wanted to share this photo of our late United States Senator Daniel K Akaka, Ed Kubo, Ron Young, and yourself as you guys celebrated National PTSD Awareness Day. Where was this celebrated at? Oh, yes. That was at K-Bade out Chapel, the Arizona Kaneohe Marine Corps base in Kaneohe. And, you know, we had active duty service members and veterans alike there. Senator Akaka is just incredible, like Dr. Felix and our late Senator Noy. Those are our mentors. They have led the way. And Senator Akaka always, always come out to our National PTSD Awareness Day. And that was actually like eight years ago, 2015. And their Judge Kubo, an incredible man that led the specialty corps for veterans. And on the right, if you're looking at the photo, that's Ron Lamb. Ron Lamb is my number two guy. He's the Vice President for Service Foundation, or the Ambiance Department. He's our first vice commander. It's just an incredible experience being there with service members and veterans there sharing their stories. And it's just really impactful and come up with different things or tools that we could help to cope with some of the experiences that some of us have. Wow. So, so much influence in that one photo. It's incredible of all the things that you all accomplished there. And so, really, thank you. Thank you very much. So, I would like you to share with us. What is the mission of the Ambiance? Well, the Ambiance really were advocates, you know, for veterans, actually, for active duty service members as well, is the active duty military really can't go and advocate for or lobby for or pay raises or things like that. So, I was really ignorant to what the Ambiance does when I was at their National Convention and their share what they do and, you know, mainly we cannot forget or war two veterans because we'll be forgotten if we do. And it's very important too. So, really, we provide advocacy represented for the different areas across the country. So, that goes to the capital and we used to call it storm the capital. We don't do that anymore since January 11. But we go and we visit representatives and really help to share some of the things we're doing in the community and need to pass legislation, besides providing services and assistance for veterans family alike. Really, that's in a nutshell. I know I get tend to get pretty long winded here. And I've been doing this since 2006. And it's just, you know, one of those things, a lot of passion. A lot of passion. I can hear it. I can feel it. And that's what drives, you know, the success of carrying out your mission. And it is a great mission to serve veteran, the veterans and the active military and procuring their earn entitlements. I think that is outstanding. And I know that you all still do it. And that's kind of what leads us into the the topic of today. Let's talk a little bit about PTSD. So I want to just ask you, what is PTSD? Well, PTSD is really a mental health problem. For some people develop after experiencing like, or witnessing a life threatening event. You know, it's experienced in a lot of sometimes, like the Institute of violence, abuse and trauma IVAT conference that we just had here. Yeah, your experience violence, abuse, trauma, you know, we, we sometimes just think it's only service members that experience PTSD, or I like to say post traumatic stress, because really, we want to drop the D and, and so much a disorder because veterans tend to not want to get in a program or even, you know, they just don't want to consider themselves as having a disorder. So that's really why is we really trying to, you know, in a sense, do away with that stigma, right? Because that's will help service members and veterans alike to seek help, right? So the experiences that women also experience in children from like sexual abuse, child abuse, you know, they develop PTSD as well, you know, and first responders, firefighters, folks out in the health care, especially if they work in the ER room, emergency room, they experience PTSD. But yeah, for service members, mostly those of us that's been to war and seen a lot in that to deal with horrific condition. Sometimes it's, you know, as if a first responder would have experienced something right here on US soil, you know, sometimes we have accidents, vehicles roll over, explosions, and lots of life through training incidents. So you don't have to have been to war to experience or some of these violence and incredible life threatening experiences. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, we, we all know that with all the horrific occurrences at schools or even at homes, you're going to see something you shouldn't see and already you're traumatized. And that's what we are being labeled as having PTSD. And so yes, you do not have to go away and to war to experience that. But, you know, now that we understand a little bit about it, how can we combat this illness? Well, it really is like we're doing right now more public awareness, removing the stigma up in folks to come forward and talk just to be there. You know, we actually be there a lot because we like a day like today, what we do, we try to be there for each other. We know some of our bodies that just have to call it today. Yes, you have to make that call. Right. So just being with them, loving them and just one of the things we, you know, we do, we try to do it on a daily basis, especially here at our Veteran Center, through peer and peer support, you know, peer to peer support. One on one, just being there, listening, hearing, sometimes it's just working on a project together. It could be like what the VA was teaching here yesterday, you know, campus painting, you know, those recreational therapies and different adaptive sports program that the VA offered really do help. We have them here. This is on a proof site here at our Ambedz location for, you know, recreation therapy and adaptive sports for the VA. It helps, being active helps. And one of the things why we try to encourage folks to join the different groups, Veterans Group, because they, you know, your Veteran, you tend to understand what another Veteran is experiencing or service members. We have many bikes clubs that meet here at our center. Pretty much every one of them meets here. If they're a member of Street Bikers United, and if they want to be able to ride in a group, they need a permit that they need to meet here. Every first Sunday of the month at zero nine at our Ambedz Center, the presidents and the treasurer of each club. Now, they ride for camaraderie. It's therapy as well, you know, they pay for their membership. They actually pay to be part of the club. People see your bikers riding and they think, well, they're not really, they're just making a lot of noise and they're racing. And I don't ride myself, but I do know there's no camaraderie like in the bikers clubs. And I encourage guys to join if they ride the bikers club, consider it. And they're there for each other or active duty guys, lots of active duty guys are in these groups. And of course, the other Veterans Service organizations like VFW, DAV, Disabled American Veterans and American Legions. I'm a life member of all of them. And I encourage folks to do that. To be there, share your story. And don't hesitate to seek help. The VA has a mental health line and a crisis line, 988 if you a veteran or a service member having some issues can call that number. You don't have to be a veteran. You could be still on active duty, call that number. And of course, for a national PTSD center and provide services as well. So it seems that you offer quite a bit of different programs. So someone just has to reach out to, I guess, the Ambed Center, which is on 5001 Erocoys Avenue. And if they go and visit the center there, I'm sure that someone can direct them to the services that suits their needs and their interests. So that first of all, they want to come out and enjoy what they're doing with like-minded people and the support that you all offer there. Is that correct? Oh, absolutely. You know, we have a beekeeping program that is like Colonel Gatz and Gregory D. Gatz and some knowing from the movie Battleship. We served together in the command group at USERPAC in 2000 before 9-11 and after 9-11. And later he was reassigned to Schofield and Barracks here in Hawaii and then from there to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where he deployed to Iraq. And then the IED took both legs. You know, when he comes here, we have to take him to the beekeeping bee farm, right? And beekeeping is a huge deal. He's fascinated by it. It's like horses for equine therapy or having a dog. It's a huge deal. We had a Marine that came home and he just wouldn't leave his home for months. He said, he learned about our beekeeping program, gave me a call and we got him to the bee farm and he's been volunteering there ever since. So sometimes it's just to get them to come out to an event to help participating, setting up, right, for whatever it may be. We have a lot of youth-related forums here. Veterans tend to love to come and support the softball teams that we have here and the scout program. We have six scout troops that meet here at our center, three of which we sponsor, so they have their charter. We have seven Little League teams or girl softball teams that place here at our facility. And besides the array of programs that the actual VA has here for wounded warriors, the fitness program, workout program, arts and crafts, now karaoke, you know, the actually thing karaoke here. And, you know, now we're getting ready to start up pickleball here and basketball skills that be, you know, taught to or work with some of our service members. It's our goal to have two horses out here for equine therapy because it's huge. It's an unbelievable when we come back from war, more deployment, whether it's Iraq or Afghanistan and we're at Fort Campbell, for example, it's mandatory that we go to the stable there for equine therapy. It's just an incredible thing that horses are able to do with these. I'll just say that, you know, Jasmine, who is one of the person that helps us with her beef farms. And really, she actually runs it. She is upper veterans there and all. She explains really in such a great way. We tend from the trauma that occurred in the past. So it's like we're always in the past. When we're working with bees, we're here in the present. Because we have to be very calm. And that's a key word right there. You have to be in the present. The bees can do you and if you're not in the calm, they go back. And so, yes, that's so critical. I think that the therapy is so crucial to your programs as well as the equine therapy. And I know that we're trying to implement the horticulture therapy as well. And so there's so many positive things that they can all come to your center and get introduced to something of their interest. And so I'm so grateful that you have all of these events and opportunities for them. So please, if someone is listening to this show, call the embed center and their number is 808-888-0410. And they are located at five thousand and one Iroquois Avenue right there down at the end of Eba Beach. So please get in touch with them. I know that they can help in some way. But real quickly, Donovan, I just want to ask. So say I know someone that has symptoms of PTSD and they are in denial. How could I get them help or how can I get them to you? You know, the PTSD center, right, has a self-test online. You can't take it for them, but they can take it, you know, the National Center of PTSD, right? And it's only five questions and they can, you know, maybe you can encourage them to take it. But if they're not willing to do that, they can just give us a call, Coin Veterans Network. They have a clinic in Milani. We have partnered with them. They provide counseling group sessions to anyone we sent there. Even if they're not a veteran, they'll see them. Janet Covington is the director there. And we've sent folks there that are not veterans and they saw them. They will not hesitate to do that. Whether you're on active duty because they provide the services for active duty service members, but they also do it for veterans as well. And you know, it's just to get them to share their stories if they can. If they don't want to, that's okay. But maybe you invite them to take the test just to, you know, maybe give them the information and they decide later they may want to do that. When they're ready. That helps as well. Right. Just like anything else, when they're ready and they want help. But the main thing is that you go alongside with them, love them, let them feel the trust in you. And then they become ready to be quicker because they have someone right there by their sides. So you know, your mission is to serve veterans and the active military and procuring their earned entitlements. So I'm sure that many veterans appreciate what the ambents have been doing and will do and all that you stand for. So continue to service. Yes, the veterans and the ones affected with PTS and we will just continue to promote what you're doing out there. But for now, Donovan, our show has come to a close. But first of all, let me thank the United States Army veteran Donovan A. Lazarus for serving our country and currently serving the underserved and our veterans. I am Wendy Lowell and will return in two weeks with another edition of taking your health back. Aloha and Mahalo, Donovan. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Check out our website thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.