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Feb. 12, 2023 - Stew Peters Show
59:24
The Richard Leonard Show: The State Of The Union And How It Affects Veterans
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*Music* Just some days ago, our lovely president gave the State of the Union address.
It was interesting.
I would like to take some time today, well, the show today, to kind of reflect on the things that the president talked about as it relates to our military and veterans, which wasn't a whole lot.
So I've kind of taken some notes on the things that he did mention.
And I want to give my opinion on them and see if the audience agrees or how you feel about it.
But stick with us.
We're going to talk about it here.
Don't go away.
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Okay, so...
A few days ago, our fearless leader, Mr.
Sleepy Joe Biden, gave the State of the Union address.
And I felt like, at the end of it, that it was kind of a waste of my time.
You know, I understand, folks, that there's a lot of issues that are necessary for us to talk about.
When we talk about...
How this country is going and what's going to happen moving forward.
The things that have been done to hopefully improve the lives of everybody in this country.
There was a lot of talk about Social Security and Medicaid and our police and those types of things.
Which are important topics.
I don't want anybody to think that I don't think that those things need to be regulated and governed and done so fairly, because I do.
But I also think that one of the most important topics in our country's government should be the defense of it.
Maybe some of you would say that that is something I focus on because I'm a veteran of the United States military.
And maybe some of that is true.
But none of these things that were talked about at the State of the Union, although important, amount to a hill of beans if we can't defend the place.
He talked a little bit about securing the border.
And what kind of things they've captured and the amount of people they captured trafficking other humans across the border into America.
But we didn't talk a whole lot about defending the place.
And so that was a concern to me because, as I said, none of it really matters if we can't keep our borders safe.
If we can't keep tyranny and terrorism and things like that out of our country.
And that's the job of the United States military.
But a couple things I wanted to outline.
First of all, I want you all to know that if you're watching this and you see like this thing here, it's a gray hair.
I don't have like lunch.
On my face.
I just noticed that as we started today's show.
So that's a gray hair, folks.
I got a couple and there's just more coming.
So that piece of housekeeping is out of the way.
But let's talk about a couple of the gaffes that stuck out at me.
One of them was the parents of Tyree Nichols.
We all know what happened to Tyree Nichols.
He was beat up and ultimately died from his injuries from the police in his hometown.
And it's a travesty.
It's a travesty.
And so when our president highlighted that his parents were in the room to witness the speech, I think that was a great thing.
There's a lot of things that our president does and says that I disagree with, but I agree with Havanning there.
It's a kind gesture to show that, you know, the government supports safe policing and it supports integrity in our law enforcement community all around the country.
And so, as he spent four or five minutes talking about the parents having to bury their son and that police need to be held accountable for their actions when and if they make mistakes or just blatantly do the wrong thing, he then talked about Tyree again, but he named him Tyler.
What a slap in the face.
If it was me, if it was my son that was killed by the police and I was there to witness him speak about them and he mispronounces the name of my son, I would be offended.
Now, there was a whole lot of bumbling and mumbling through this whole speech.
And at times, I've got to be honest, he kind of looked like a puppet or a cyborg or something.
And at times, I think he spoke well.
But let's go to the next one.
At one point in the speech, he outlined that the ambassador to the Ukraine was in the room witnessing the The State of the Union address.
And couldn't pronounce her name.
Her name is Oksana.
She's on the screen.
He's highlighting that she was there joining them again.
She was there last year.
And then attempted for a split second to pronounce her name.
Got the O out.
And then couldn't pronounce it, or the words just couldn't come out of his mouth.
And then just said, yes, our ambassador is here tonight.
Let's stand up so we can all get a look at you, is what he said.
What?
It would seem to me that our president should take the time to prepare, right?
You're getting up in front of the whole world.
I would imagine that multiple people around the world, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, all around the world, are watching our president speak about the State of the Union.
And you can't pronounce the name Oksana, and you can't remember the name Tyree, and instead you spit out Tyler.
Now, for some people that might be just, you know, little tiny mistakes.
But when I watch this, what it makes me think is a couple of things that are possible.
One, maybe he didn't really care all that much that Tyree's name is his name.
And, well, Tyler just came out.
Number two, maybe he just doesn't have the ability to speak eloquently as a president, which I think if you watched it, you may agree that there was a whole lot of mumbling, and at times it seemed like he was trying to talk so fast that he couldn't get the words out.
Whatever the case may be.
But then also, you are trying to recognize a foreign dignitary that's in the room And the name just escapes you.
Now, it's right there on your teleprompter.
It's right there in your book where your speech is written.
And mind you, folks, that at times when the cameras changed and it changed to a view from behind him or to the side of him where you could see the paper, did you see that the font was like this big?
So...
The name Oksana is half an inch tall, in bold letters, right in front of your face.
It's on your teleprompter.
And I would imagine that he practiced this speech.
I don't know that Joe Biden is an eloquent enough speaker to be able to maybe read over it once and then, hey man, I got it.
And so one thing that kind of came to my mind as I was watching this, because I try to watch all of them just so that I'm knowledgeable of the things that are happening.
But it reminded me of when President Trump was speaking at the State of the Union or speaking just in general.
And it seemed like he had no problem.
It also seemed like he would speak off the cuff.
And sometimes maybe he said some things where it wasn't relevant or it was a little off in left field.
But he wasn't tied to a speech, which I appreciate because it makes it seem like these issues you're talking about are important to you.
And I just didn't get that feeling from our current president.
I didn't feel it.
The other thing I want to highlight real quick is, let me know if you saw this.
So when the First Lady came in and was being ushered to her seat, check out this picture.
I'd really like to know what the hell's going on here.
She gets to her seat where the second gentleman, the husband of Kamala Harris, is standing.
And leans in and kisses him on the lips.
Look at this.
Eyes closed.
Eyes closed and clearly, clearly engaged in this lip lock.
Now, the other thing, did you notice just in front of them, the gentleman in the hat?
The gentleman in the hat is Paul Pelosi, who we all know The video footage was released a couple, two, three weeks ago of the body cam footage from the police that showed up when he was hit in the head with a hammer with no pants on and a cocktail in his hand.
All these people are just watching this.
This seemingly romantic kiss between these two people who are married to the other people on the stage.
The president and the first, not the first lady, but the president and the vice president.
This is their spouses engaged in a lip lock.
So I wonder, is there like...
I'm sorry, maybe this is very immature of me, but is there like some kind of swingers thing going on in the White House or wherever these people live?
It's been said that they don't even stay at the White House in the residence.
They go somewhere else for the safety of the president.
Who knows what the truth is?
But these guys are kissing each other on the lips in front of the whole world.
It's just really awkward to me.
And so I promise I won't spend any more time on that.
But when we come back for the next segment, we'll talk about a few of the things, because there only is a few of the things that Joe Biden outlined as it relates to veterans and military coming forward and what happened last year.
If you ask me, there is a lot of things to talk about.
You know, he didn't mention the PACT Act, but there's a whole lot of things to talk about as it relates to veterans in our communities.
So stick with us.
Don't go away.
We'll be right back.
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Hey folks, welcome back here.
And I want to just apologize for my laughter and making fun of the First Lady and the Second Gentleman and Paul Pelosi.
But it's like, you know, some of these things are so comical.
And some of the stuff that goes on in our government is just...
It's like blatant, in my opinion...
And maybe I'm wrong, but in my opinion, some of this stuff is kind of just a slap in the face to the American people.
There are a lot of people suffering, and there are a lot of people that are hungry and cold and homeless.
And here we are with all this other malarkey going on.
And you know what?
Maybe it was a mistake by those two and they were meaning to kiss each other on the cheeks and just went opposite ways and met lips, whatever it was.
But let's continue.
Let's talk about a few of the things that the President did talk about as it relates to our nation's military and the veteran population.
And as I said before, there wasn't much Which is alarming to me because, again, Social Security, Medicaid, policing with integrity, all this stuff, the price of insulin, teachers should get a raise, all these things, they don't mean nothing if we can't defend our borders.
And so the first one that he brought up, and mind you that none of these things really came up until Towards the end, like an hour and 22 minutes in.
But the first one he brought up was the support for the Ukraine.
Now, in a certain respect, this really doesn't have a whole lot to do with our military at this point.
At least not how he spoke of it.
He just was talking about the government's support of the Ukraine and As we know, the federal government is giving millions and millions and millions, billions of dollars to the Ukraine.
They're also giving them weaponry and equipment and just all kinds of support.
Now, I'm not one to disagree with supporting people in need.
But for many, many years, especially as we were fighting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was said by many, many people that the U.S. does not need to be the world police.
And now...
When Vladimir Putin decides that he wants to invade the Ukraine and take back the land that used to belong to the USSR, it's theirs by right, or whatever the case may be, whatever his reasoning for it is, to be quite honest, I'm not a thousand percent up on it because I don't agree that we have as much involvement in it as we do.
Now, I think that it's It's everybody's God-given right in this world, no matter what country you belong to and where you live and where you're from, to be able to live out your days in peace, if that's what you choose.
And so those things aren't happening for the people of the Ukraine.
But in a certain sense, I believe that we should be in a position to watch our own bobber first.
There's a lot of issues in the United States that need attention.
There's a lot of issues and programs and initiatives and things that need money.
And I find it hard to believe that we have a surplus of money that we can just be funding another country's war against Russia.
But it all kind of comes down to, in my opinion, is resources.
The Ukraine, for example, provides a lot of grain as something they export to the United States.
So, again, we find ourselves in this position to follow the money.
There's a whole lot of other things, probably, that the Ukraine does for the world to keep themselves in the global market and making money and all those things.
But I fail to see how that takes precedence over what happens inside of our borders.
How does it further the initiative...
To defend our country.
I don't know.
I find it hard to come up with a reason that that should be a priority of ours.
Now, if we're in a position where we can add help and aid And everything in our backyard is clean, all the dog crap's picked up, there's no holes in the fence, the lawn is mowed, all that stuff, then sure, let's help out the Ukraine the best that we can.
But we have a lot of issues that we need to sort out first.
So, here's his comments, and I got some notes, so please forgive me if you notice me looking away.
But here's some comments from the President.
The issue in the Ukraine is, quote, a test for the ages, a test for America, and a test for the world, end quote.
Biden said that the test was whether the nations of the world would stand by basic principles.
Would we stand for sovereignty?
Would we stand for the right of people to live free from tyranny?
And would we stand for the defense of democracy?
And I think the answer to that is, yes, we will.
But what about our sovereignty?
What about protecting our people from tyranny?
And what about defending our democracy?
Isn't that more important?
You know, again, I don't know how many times on this show I've said it But the men and women who have sacrificed everything to do these things, to stand for our sovereignty and defend our people from tyranny and defend our democracy, some of them are homeless.
They're killing themselves at alarming rates.
There's mental health issues.
There's addiction and chemical dependency issues.
There's all kinds of issues.
I mean, how long did we talk this last summer about the VA caregiver program and how it's lacking taking care of the loved ones that care for our veterans, our veterans that did these things.
Well, he went on to say that this matters because it keeps the peace and prevents open season from would-be aggressors to threaten our security and prosperity.
And one year later, we know the answer.
Yes, we would do all these things.
And yes, we did.
Okay.
And we'll continue to do them.
I, for one...
Would be proud to stand in defense of somebody who is being attacked, who's being bullied, who's being picked on.
I would love to stand for anybody who is at the disadvantage, who is the underdog, and didn't even ask to be there, like the people of the Ukraine if it came down to it, but not before we take care of our own.
Not before we clean up our own backyard.
And so then he went on to try to acknowledge the ambassador, the Ukrainian ambassador by name.
Tried.
Gave it an effort.
She was sitting up in the gallery right in front of the first lady who was making out with the second gentleman, like we spoke about in the last segment.
And he went on to talk about Oksana and say that she doesn't just represent her nation, but the courage of her people.
And he went on to say, Ambassador, America is united in our support for your country.
We will stand with you as long as it takes.
And so, although I feel like it's a valiant effort...
To keep a strong, fruitful relationship with the people of the Ukraine, I just don't know that we all can get behind it.
I mean, it's a tough one because I get really frustrated about it.
Because we have a crazy economy right now, right?
Like our national debt is off the charts.
And he talked about that.
He talked about the national debt and how he inherited from President Trump a ridiculous amount of debt.
And how it went up by trillions of dollars and he was ultimately put at a disadvantage.
I think that every president in history blames the national debt on the administration before theirs.
Trump blamed Obama for the debt.
Biden's now blaming Trump.
Obama blamed George W. Bush.
So the national debt crisis...
It's something that's been around for years and none of them have solved, by the way.
But here we are again, raising our foreign spending to support other countries.
I wonder what our national debt would look like if we cut foreign spending by 30% even.
Give all these people a little something to show that we're still willing to help out and keep those relationships strong.
Or maybe not if you cut their aid.
But what would our country look like if we kept 30% of what we send to other countries for aid?
And to be quite honest with you guys, I don't know exactly what we give out to everybody for aid.
I'm sure it's easy to look up.
But the fact of the matter is, and it doesn't matter, what matters is that we are printing money.
As fast as the machines will print it, it seems.
And we're just sending it away.
Meanwhile, we're being gouged at the gas pumps.
And, you know, tax season is coming.
People can't afford to buy houses because the interest rates are reduced.
Inflation is nuts.
Have you seen the price of grapes?
I mean, I went to the grocery store the other day to buy some pork chops to make family dinner last weekend on Sunday.
And I couldn't believe what I was paying for six pork chops.
You know, I guess it's one of those things where you go and get like onesie-twosies and stuff and you have a small basket and you realize the difference.
You don't really notice it as much when your grocery bill is $300 or $400 anyway.
At least we don't.
But we got a lot of people, we got teenagers in this house that will eat their socks if the fridge is empty.
So, I don't know, man.
Sending all this money to the Ukraine, I don't understand it.
I think that there are a lot of people or a lot of countries in this world that could offer assistance to the Ukraine.
Why do we have to do it all?
And maybe there are a lot of other countries, but we have a lot of problems here that need our attention, in my opinion, before the Ukraine needs our attention.
We run out of time in this segment.
Come back with us.
We'll be right back.
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Thank you.
Hey folks, welcome here to the next segment of the show.
In the last segment we talked about how the president was acknowledging support for the Ukraine and what that meant for us.
Not a whole lot about our military in general as it relates to the Ukraine, but we all know that that is something that shouldn't be possible, but is possible.
And we send them a lot of money, but also A lot of equipment, a lot of ammunition, a lot of weapons, and a lot of supplies to support their military effort against Russia.
The next thing that he spoke about was China.
And it's really interesting to me that the State of the Union was given in the wake of the infamous Chinese balloon incident.
It always seems like these types of things, these mysterious spy tactics or these mysterious events happened right before major political events.
And maybe that's just me and like conspiracy theory Richard on the hook here, but it seems like these things happen right as these big political events are finished or they're coming at us in just days.
Much like this happened.
When speaking of China, the president said this, our nation is working for more freedom, more dignity, and more peace, not just in Europe, but everywhere.
Before I came to office, the story was about the People's Republic of China was increasing its power.
I don't think that's a secret.
I think they've been increasing their power for a long time.
And America was falling in the world, but not anymore.
Hmm.
And then he went on to say, later on, as it relates to China, Folks, make no mistake.
As we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country, and we did.
Now, I'm assuming he's talking of the balloon, but let's reflect on that for just a second.
This balloon was shot down just off the coast of South Carolina.
And, folks, I don't claim to be...
I don't claim to be a very smart person, a very smart man, but I think I know my geography well enough to know that South Carolina is on our eastern border.
This balloon was first spotted over American airspace in Montana, which is just about to our western border.
And so it came across Montana.
All the way through the country and finally got shot down in South Carolina.
And are we being led to believe that we didn't know that this thing was coming into our airspace before it was seen in Montana?
Hmm.
In a country where we can...
Pick up our cell phones and call all the way around the world.
In a country where we have the technology to monitor weather from space and we can do all these great innovative technologically advanced things.
You mean to tell me that we weren't able to see Some kind of floating aircraft moving into our airspace before it was seen in Montana?
Do you think that maybe it was spotted by the Canadian government?
And are we also supposed to believe that if the Canadian government noticed it and noticed it was floating southeast, That they didn't alert somebody in the United States government?
I didn't see the map of this flight path.
But it's probably safe to say that it got pretty damn close to Alaska.
Which, if I'm also not mistaken, is a state of the United States of America.
Not to mention, folks, we live in a day and age, as Stu Peters said on his show last week, we live in a day and age where we can track Santa Claus all the way around the world.
We know where the hell Santa is, but we didn't see a huge balloon that they report was taller than the Statue of Liberty Floating in to American airspace.
We also have arguably one of the greatest air forces in the world.
Naval aviators are among the best in the world.
So you mean to tell me also that once we saw this thing In Montana.
We weren't able to scramble jets.
To at least see what the hell it was.
Or to shoot it down.
We let this thing.
We let this balloon.
With all kinds of equipment hanging off of it.
Float all the way through our country.
And the best we could do was shoot it down.
Off the coast of South Carolina?
It would lead me to believe that we're all being taken for a bunch of fools.
The men and women that fly our fighter jets are among the best.
The best in the world.
Our technology, our military...
Government technology is some of the best in the world.
I'm sure there's better than what we got.
Maybe not.
But I know it's certainly good enough to see a balloon that's taller than the Statue of Liberty flying into our airspace.
And one excuse I heard, I don't know if this is valid or not, but one excuse I heard was, well, they let it get through the country because they didn't want it to fall on somebody and damage or kill, damage property or kill people or livestock or whatever.
We didn't know if it was a nuclear warhead on that thing or whatever.
Bullshit.
I don't buy that.
You want to know what I think?
I think that they knew exactly what it was.
Not that they necessarily asked for it or allowed it without any kind of apprehension.
But I find it hard to believe that they shot it down just off the coast of South Carolina for America's safety.
There's a lot of building and Advancement in this country, but I'm quite certain that the technology we have is also good enough to be able to tell when that thing will land in a forest or land in a field or land in a lake and not over a heavily populated area.
It's asinine to me.
There has been reports of the Chinese government having Hundreds and maybe even thousands of soldiers in Canada as China buys up land in Canada and puts their soldiers there for training.
So, if we know all that, we know about some balloon coming into our airspace.
I don't know, I don't want to beat that one up, but that one was kind of like, you know, when it was all said and done and it was over, I was thinking to myself, are these people serious?
Like, this is what we're meant to believe?
We're supposed to believe this garbage?
I don't buy any of it.
And so it brings me back to this idea that The people in this country that sacrificed everything are now once again being put to the side.
They weren't utilized when our airspace was invaded.
And also let me ask you this, if there was a nuclear warhead, I just thought of this, if there was a nuclear warhead attached to that balloon and they shot it down just off the coast Of South Carolina, wouldn't that also have killed a whole plethora of people if it went off even in the ocean?
What's the fallout radius of a nuclear warhead?
Who really knows?
But it's pretty quite far and wide, I would imagine.
Oh man, just all these things are just like, man, I'd love to sit down with Joe Biden and go, man, are you serious?
Like, you really want us to believe all these things?
Anyway, he went on to say about China that he has stressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping that the United States seeks competition with China, not conflict.
Not that one.
I will make no apologies that we are investing to make America strong.
Investing in American innovation in industries that will define the future and that China's government is intent on dominating.
So there was a lot of talk about innovation.
So like this is what came to my mind was V-signals, right?
V-signals is something that the VA apparently uses to spy on veterans and workers when you're in a VA facility.
Apparently this system that nobody knows about, they look like smoke detectors or whatever on the ceiling, I think people have said in the past that people, employees or whatever, of the VA claim that they're like network hubs or whatever to advance the wireless internet through the facility.
But these things are apparently, allegedly, able to pick up on your inflection in your voice.
And if you are upset or you're sad or you're pissed off and you're talking about it within range of these things, it picks up on you.
Your voice has been coded to your file some way, somehow.
And then you get entered into this database or put on this list of the angry veteran that we need to watch closer.
We've talked about it on this show before, but it seems like it's becoming stronger.
This whole initiative is just advancing, and now it has been said that they are going to start documenting Children who come into VA facilities.
I haven't seen a lot of kids at the VA when I go for care, but I'm sure that there are folks that have to bring their kids to appointments because of childcare issues or whatever.
So is this what he's talking about?
Like, we're going to do these things for innovation before China can, and we want to work with China to do this stuff.
But then he turns around and talks about how construction projects and road construction projects and innovation projects in the United States, by federal law, will only be able to use materials made and manufactured in the United States of America.
I don't know, some contradictory stuff going on there.
So, balloons, innovation projects.
All that stuff threatens our sovereignty, if you ask me.
Important stuff.
But again, the point is, not a whole lot about the military.
Those were just mentioned as he talked about these topics.
Stick with us.
Don't go away.
We'll be right back.
Hey folks, welcome back here for the last segment of the show.
We were talking about China and the balloon and all that stuff in the last segment.
I wanna get to the two things I picked out that were actually veteran-centric in the President's speech.
Now, there were three, because he did mention the PACT Act, but he didn't give any information, just that it was passed, and that it addresses open-air burn pit exposure and toxic exposure.
But one here was taking care of our nation's veterans.
The President called for internal unity, so bipartisan unity, asking for bipartisan cooperation to do more to keep our nation's one truly sacred obligation.
The one obligation that our nation should hold, should hold truly sacred.
Is to equip those we send into harm's way and care for them and their families when they return home.
When they are being reintroduced back to civilian life.
Congress and my administration can unite to provide job training and job placement for veterans and their spouses As they return to civilian life, he also called for programs that help veterans afford their rent.
And he went on to say this, quote, Because no one should be homeless in this country, especially those who served this country, end quote.
And that's it.
That's all he talked about as it relates to taking care of veterans.
This is the one thing, the one obligation that That our country should hold most sacred, but yet you have no other comments about it?
You have nothing else to say about taking care of veterans when they come home?
You're asking for bipartisan cooperation.
To further this initiative, but you give no information on what that looks like?
My question to you, Mr.
President, is how?
How are you going to do more to keep our nation's one truly sacred obligation?
How are you going to do more, or how is Congress and the Senate and you going to do more to equip veterans with care, And tools to further their lives when they return home from service.
Now, you mentioned job training and job placement and programs to help veterans afford their rent.
Great.
What does that look like?
Let's keep in mind, folks, that we already have Programs that are specifically set aside in every state for veterans to seek employment and job training.
Here in Minnesota, we have the Minnesota Workforce Centers, where every workforce center has a veteran employment counselor.
I mean, the title is long.
The title is a DVOP, a Disabled Veterans Outreach Program Representative.
And their job is to work with veterans to get them in the workforce, help them find jobs, help them find training to be more marketable in the civilian workforce.
It's a good job.
It's a rewarding job.
I did that job for four years here in Minnesota.
So that program already exists.
Now I'll tell you from my experience working in that program to help veterans find jobs and training It's severely underfunded.
When I was working in that capacity, the incentives for employers to hire ex-convicts were better than for employers to hire veterans.
Now I'm not trying to say that folks who are coming out of prison don't deserve the ability to earn a wage.
And get back to contributing to society, being a contributing member.
But are you telling me that it's more important to offer incentives to hire convicts than it is veterans?
And maybe it's more complicated than that, but I'm telling you folks that the veterans that were in my office or that came to my networking job club every week didn't feel that way.
Because on the surface, it is just that.
We're giving more money to businesses to hire ex-convicts than we are to hire us.
And so, part of the job is to keep them focused.
Yeah, well, maybe that's true, but you know what?
We're here to get you a job, so let's work on that.
Forget about what the businesses are going to get to hire you.
Let's make sure that you're marketable.
Let's make sure that you're qualified.
Let's make sure that when you walk in there, you're presenting somebody that they should hire.
And forget about the convicts.
Let's get you in a position to where if the employer is deciding between you and Jack Brown, who just got out of prison six months ago, Let's get you in a position for them not to have to care.
I don't care about the incentive.
I want to hire this guy because he's better.
Not about your past, not about his past, but about what you can offer my company now.
That program exists.
So are we going to make the program better?
Or are we going to come up with more programs to duplicate services?
Part of the problem with the Veterans Employment Initiative throughout the country is that the workers, these job counselors, are extremely underpaid and there's no upward mobility.
So you get people that stay in the job for a long time because they get comfortable and it's a rewarding job.
It's rewarding when at the end of the month you can report that, you know, I had 32 clients come in this month and I got 18 of them employed.
And then you keep following up 30, 60, 90, 120 days down the road.
And now they're buying homes.
They have stable housing.
They can afford to buy a car that's reliable.
They can feed their kids.
Whatever the case may be, it's a rewarding job.
But it's broken.
So we don't need a new program.
Let's fix the one we have because the groundwork is already laid.
And the idea that we need extra programs to help veterans afford their rent, part of that can be solved with fixing the employment program.
But is all that really needed when we have things like, yes, yes, it is needed.
The answer to that question is yes, it's needed.
But we also have to address the re-institution of getting veterans back, reintroducing them back into civilian life.
Getting them gainful employment doesn't mean nothing.
If they're still stuck in that military mindset.
Now, there are plenty of employers and there's plenty of jobs that kind of mimic a military setting, which is great, but not enough.
And a lot of those jobs don't really pay well.
I mean, if you're coming out of the military, let's say you were an E6 and you're making about $3,000 to $6,000 a month, whatever that is, depending on where you are stationed and where you live and if you have dependents and if you're married, all this other stuff.
Now you're getting into a situation where you're qualified to be a security guard and work for $12 an hour or $15 an hour or whatever it is.
That's not sustainable.
Something like a program where we can offer, here's just my idea real quickly, we can offer employers a tax benefit for hiring veterans, and instead of them saving that money, require employers to maybe give veterans a little bit more in the wage.
Providing that they're qualified and that they are able to show that they're going to stay in the job and be effective.
I think a lot of veterans are not the best civilian employees because they don't...
Listen, a lot of guys and gals, they don't feel like they're being...
I want to say recognized properly.
But I don't know that I agree with that mentality when I don't agree with that mindset.
At the end of the day, when your service is over, you have to find a way to carry on.
And part of being a soldier is learning to survive.
But learning to survive on something that's not going to do you any good isn't going to help either.
So it's a complicated topic, it's a complicated problem to solve, but it's doable.
He went on to talk about veteran suicide prevention.
And all he said was this.
The president asked for funding for programs to combat the scourge of veteran suicide.
He called for money to fund expanding mental health screenings and a proven program that recruits veterans to help other veterans That are in need.
I like that.
So let's use that model.
Let's use that model to employ veterans to talk to other veterans about what's going on and give them some brother to brother or sister to brother help or whatever it is.
Let's do that.
Let's train them how to be peer mentors.
Let's train them to give their peers some support.
Because the truth of the matter is, nobody, in my opinion, nobody is going to take care of veterans better than other veterans.
Because we already know.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
So let's put these people to work.
Let's get them off the street so they can afford their rent.
Let's train them.
If there's one thing we know about veterans, it's that we're trainable.
I mean, hell, a lot of us were tore down to the studs at basic training for whatever branch we went to and built back up in the image of the United States Army or the Marine Corps or the Air Force, whatever it was.
So let's do that.
In closing, I just want to say that the whole thing, in my opinion, was a complete mess.
I really hope that there are some other initiatives that are going to come forward that are going to make a difference in veterans' lives.
But what I will say to you is that there are other veterans out there that are going to try to do the work to the best of our ability.
Myself and Jason and Ben, the other two fellows you see on this show quite often, We're starting here in Minnesota with UVLC. We have some other things in the works.
So stay tuned, folks.
We're going to keep you up on it.
There may be some new media channels coming out.
A lot of stuff.
There's a lot of stuff that we are hoping to bring out.
To just help further the cause.
So again, I want to thank you for joining us this evening.
I really appreciate you being here.
Stick with us, man.
There's big things coming.
And there's some good content coming.
Some things that are going to make people go, yikes, that's really going on.
So stay tuned for that as well.
And we'll see you next week.
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