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April 30, 2023 - Stew Peters Show
59:42
The Richard Leonard Show: Promises Made, Never Kept
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*music* Over the last few months, we've had many guests on the show.
We've talked about a lot of different topics.
We had Steve London talk to us about the Major Richard Starr Act.
We had Tori Seals come out and talk to us about survivor benefits and what the family members of deceased veterans and military personnel may be entitled to, as well as how to go about getting those things if you are so entitled.
She also shared with us the story of her husband's journey through the United States Army and his extremely unfortunate, untimely death, which to me seems like was a cause of medical malpractice.
But nor I am a doctor, nor am I a lawyer.
That's just what it seems like to me.
And then, of course, we had many shows with Robin Stitt.
Robin came on, we talked about the VA caregiver program, what it was, what it is now, and hopefully what it'll be in the future if there is a VA caregiver program in the future.
We talked about the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, its shadiness and unethical behavior, and also about the Federal Advisory Committee.
So a lot of information.
And to be quite honest, folks, I have feelings about it.
I wonder if any of you feel the same way.
So we're going to dig into that today, as well as a couple other topics, probably.
So stick with us.
Don't go away.
We start now.
Hey everybody and welcome here to the next installment of the Richard Leonard Show and As always, I want to thank you very much for joining us.
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Okay.
The intro took a little bit longer than expected, but as I was saying in the intro, we've had a lot of people But a lot of things that haven't been extremely positive.
I feel like there's been a lot of talk of negative stuff.
And I think that's because there is a lot of negative stuff happening in the community for veterans.
And it's unfortunate.
It really has kind of started to shift my opinion about how we as a community have been and are being taken care of by the people that have promised that they would do that.
You see, when you join the military, and this is just my take on it, When you join the military, you make the commitment, right?
You raise your hand, you swear an oath, you go to training, and then you get shoved out into a unit to do your job.
And all the while, throughout however long you're in, whether it's two years or 32 years, you do so under this assumption that if anything happens to me, I'll be taken care of.
And for many veterans, the story doesn't seem to be true.
That whole storyline doesn't seem to be true for them.
Now, I will say that there are veterans out there that say they had a great career, they had a great time in the military, and the government has taken great care of them.
And I can say that there has been many times in my military career that things worked the way they should have.
I can say that I feel like I got what I was promised and owed as it relates to the Department of Defense and the United States Army.
But you hear a lot of Stories of people that have not lived the same promise.
They haven't received the same treatment.
But they were promised the same thing.
And I understand that there's two sides to every story.
But sometimes these claims of mistreatment and just blatant disregard...
For the well-being of veterans that are to be served by programs, they seem to be set aside for other purposes.
There's other things going on that are more important or something like that.
And so, like the caregiver program, for example, we spent seven weeks talking about it.
There are so many things in that seven hours of video that Robin and I talked about that just make you wonder, well, how is this possible?
How is it possible that a woman, a social worker, that goes by the name of Meg Cabot can Take part in this program and be at the top of the food chain in said program and just cause so much destruction.
And then decide to leave because she wasn't performing, was called out, decides to leave and wait for Sleepy Joe to get into office a few years later.
And then gets put back in the position, but a higher level.
The buck stops with this person.
And now, her job is not...
She doesn't...
There's nowhere...
I don't think there's anywhere higher to go.
But the conditions for her to keep her job are not performance-based...
She kind of just has free reign to do whatever she wants with that program.
And in the meantime, this program that spends $1.9 billion a year and the people that are supposed to be getting the support from said program are...
Losing hope.
They're losing hope and they're losing stamina, I think, in many cases.
They're losing the will to fight.
And I agree with them.
They shouldn't have to fight.
You know, I asked Robin on the show, you know, what...
What is it that you're going to do when and if the caregiver program goes away?
I don't know.
What's her response?
We'll have to figure it out.
But where I applaud Robin is that the next sentence out of her mouth was, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I do know that I'm not going to stop taking care of my husband.
I'm not going to stop seeing to his needs.
So whatever it takes, I'll be there for him because I have promised him that I would do that.
Much like the VA had promised to take care of her husband.
And there's many spouses out there.
There's many children of veterans that act as caregivers that are doing the same thing and say the same thing.
This government has promised.
They've promised to take care of the men and women that fought for this country in their time of need.
And they're just not.
They're taking things away.
Without answers, mind you.
And so, here's the other side of this, folks, is that I get it, right?
I get that there's two sides of the story.
I get that when you start taking things away from people that they've been promised in this instance, right?
Because they were promised these benefits when they were put in the program.
But when you start taking things away from people...
Is when they really turn into a different person and they're like a caged animal and they're going to fight and they're going to bitch and they're going to scream and they're going to call names and they're going to do this and they're going to do that.
I understand that.
But my question is if people like Robin or any of the other caregivers or me even if we're overreacting And there's no basis for our anger and our acting out, if that's what you want to call it, then why is there no answers?
Is it because people like Meg Cabot and the VA in general and the Elizabeth Dole Foundation and the Federal Advisory Committee, they, well, who are you?
Why should I have to answer to you?
Maybe we're just not important enough or it's above our pay grade for us to get answers to the questions that are being asked.
But I would also then go on a limb and say, well, maybe you're right.
Maybe I don't have a part of the decision-making process.
But I know one thing.
We all pay taxes here.
And if none of us paid taxes, taxes, taxes, none of these people would get a paycheck.
And folks would be out here running amok.
No governance, no rule of law, none of that.
But yet we're not entitled to...
To the answers.
And not even me as much as Robin and the caregivers and her husband and all these veterans who are just waiting to see if they're going to get kicked out of this program and lose the benefits that they've been promised.
If you ask me, that's not very fair.
And so it's things like this that Just lead me to have this opinion that the government isn't...
And maybe it used to be.
Maybe the government used to be all about living up to its word and taking care of the people and doing what they said they were going to do.
And I think it's clear that a lot of things have changed in the last few years.
But why are the men and women who volunteered, did what they said they were going to do, for the most part, most of us did, why did they have to suffer?
Why did they have to lose out?
And why is it unreasonable for the Stitt family to ask questions and expect answers?
Just why?
I think their main question is, why is this happening?
And they can't get an answer.
We'll dig back into this when we come back, folks.
Stick with us.
We'll be right back.
Hey guys, welcome back here.
When we ended the last segment, we were talking about getting some answers.
Why are these simple answers so difficult to get?
And I think that part of the reaction by people such as the caregivers comes because there's just silence or they're dismissed.
I mean, let me ask you this.
Let's just say you're an insurance company, right?
Let's say you're a diabetic.
And your insurance company, for whatever reason, doesn't cover the new insulin medication or whatever medication you need for treating diabetes.
And you call them or you write them or you show up there at a meeting and you ask these people, hey, why isn't this covered?
And they silence you and they shove you aside.
No answer.
No explanation.
Just shove you aside.
And then, and then, kick you out of the insurance policy.
Cancel your insurance policy on you.
No explanation.
Other than some blanket letter that says, well, qualification standards for this particular policy or policies like this have changed.
That's it.
Would you not be pissed off?
I think that most everybody would, and rightfully so.
So if you ask me, these caregivers and these veterans that are taking part in this program, they should be pissed off.
Because it seems to, in some instances, that They haven't even gotten past the why to really have a conversation about their particular issue.
When you hear, well, qualification standards have changed.
That's it.
Case closed.
Conversation over.
It's maddening.
And they should be mad.
And I support their anger.
I don't, however, think that nobody should be doing anything rash and assaulting people or doing anything that will put them in jail or anything like that.
But they should be pissed off.
And I believe that they have a right to be.
And so, like I was saying, it's these types of things that just make me wonder...
Who in our government is really looking to take care of veterans?
You know, there's this story of Daniel Perry from Austin, Texas.
I'm sure most of you know about the story and know of him.
He's the guy that was driving an Uber, dropped a lady off somewhere in Austin, Texas.
I don't know if he was going home or going to pick up his next rider or whatever, but allegedly turned the street and found himself in the middle of a BLM protest.
He was then confronted with a man at his driver window.
That was lawfully carrying an AK-47.
No problem with that.
Acting within the law, it is Texas.
And then as the story goes, this man, I believe his name was Garrett Foster.
Garrett Foster allegedly raised his rifle to Daniel Perry once.
Daniel then reacted and shot Garrett Foster, killing him.
It's tragic.
It really is tragic.
Now, Daniel Perry is a veteran of the United States Army.
And also, we should mention, of course, that Garrett Foster was a veteran of the United States Air Force, both of them United States military veterans.
This happened July 25th, I believe it was, of 2020.
And the trial just ended a couple weeks ago where they found Daniel Perry guilty of murder.
In Austin, Texas, in a state that has, in my opinion, one of, if not the most, Strong, stand-your-ground laws.
It's Texas, right?
Everybody has a gun.
It's okay, right?
Carry your guns, carry them openly.
Everyone has the right to defend themselves.
And so, what I will say is that I didn't really get super into the trial.
I read a couple of the articles.
I watched a couple of news videos.
But here's why I mention this.
Here's why I believe that this is important to talk about is because Daniel Perry, it seems to me, just based on the couple pictures they showed of him in uniform, he was wearing a cavalry scout hat.
So it makes me believe he was a Cav Scout.
A combat soldier.
That was trained by the United States of America.
To destroy enemies with extreme prejudice.
Stood up for himself.
Stood his ground, as he puts it.
And they found him guilty of murder.
Now...
I promise I'm getting somewhere with this.
The United States government took Daniel Perry in, allowed him to enlist in the United States Army, allowed him to pick the job of cavalry scout, which is a combat job, trained him, trained him some more, and then trained him again.
To destroy enemies with extreme prejudice with all the tools of war that the United States of America has to offer.
In the Army, one of the most common sayings during training is, hey, we train as we fight.
So you move like you would in a real-life situation.
You act like you would.
You do all the things...
That you should or would do when the bullets are real in training.
You do all that stuff.
Daniel Perry serves his time.
Gets out of the United States Army.
He's driving Uber.
Now, here's what I don't know about Daniel Perry before we continue.
I don't know how long he was in.
I didn't dig into it.
I don't know if he has mental health issues, if he's being treated for those.
I believe I heard that he never deployed, so maybe he didn't see combat.
But even that part is irrelevant because you're trained to do it.
And so now he gets out, finds himself in a situation that's extremely tense, There's a lot of agitation going on.
There's a lot of things happening.
He was surrounded by what I would call unreasonable children and assholes that were pissed off because he made a wrong turn.
Kicking his car and punching his windows.
And then he looks over to see a guy carrying a rifle and And as Daniel Perry put it, I put my window down because I thought he wanted to talk to me.
Then he claims the guy raised his rifle.
That's when Daniel Perry defended himself, he says.
Shot right out of his driver window, hitting Garrett Foster four times and killing him.
Again, very tragic.
Nobody needs to die.
It's an absolute travesty that this man is dead.
So then they now, two, almost three years later, they put him on trial, and a jury of his peers finds him guilty of murder.
They say that he drove there on purpose to go and shoot and kill and hurt protesters.
And I will say he did have some pretty outlandish stuff on his Facebook and some text messages he sent apparently about protesters and what he'd like to do to them and stuff like that.
Now, mind you that this is right in the midst of COVID, we all know, but it was very shortly after George Floyd overdosed on fentanyl on the streets of Minneapolis, which was also labeled a murder.
So tensions in the country were high.
People were on guard.
Even though this dude was carrying an AK-47 legally, I don't know that I'd be carrying it like that.
Knowing that everybody has a very heightened sense of awareness, so to speak.
Everybody's on edge.
Everybody's pissed off.
Whether you supported it or didn't support it, both sides, everyone was pissed.
But we're taking this man who chose to serve his country, be trained to be a soldier, and do a job at a high level.
And then we're going to put him in prison for the rest of his life for doing that.
The things that you're taught in training as it relates to combat don't ever leave you.
Situational awareness doesn't leave you.
Positive control on your sensitive items, such as your weapons.
It doesn't leave you.
And they also say when you find yourself in these tense situations in combat, don't worry about it.
Don't worry.
Let your training take over.
Don't think.
Let your training take over, and it will.
Muscle memory.
You don't have to think about it.
You don't have to be scared.
You don't have to be nervous.
Just act.
Your training will take over.
Well, from what it sounds like...
Again, I didn't watch the trial.
I'm not super uber knowledgeable about what happened.
But just from what I've heard and what I've read...
Daniel Perry let his training take over.
Just like the government trained him to do.
And now the same system, in two short weeks, is sending him to sentencing.
Which, they say, will probably be life in prison.
For letting his training take over.
Now the governor has said that he will pardon him as soon as the paperwork hits his desk, but...
Let's not forget, folks, that there's pardon boards, right?
The governor can't just pick somebody up out of prison.
I think there has to be a majority vote amongst the board, and I want to say that in Texas it's seven people.
So four people need to vote for the pardon for it to happen.
But don't worry about it.
Just let your training take over.
We'll be right back.
Hey folks, welcome here to the next segment of the show.
When we ended the last segment, I was talking about Mr.
Daniel Perry and his court case, his murder trial.
And the idea that the United States government has trained him to be a warrior and are now possibly going to put him in prison for being a warrior, for letting his training do what it taught him to do.
And I want to reiterate something, that this whole story, this whole thing is tragic.
Garrett Foster didn't have to die.
It's extremely sad that he did.
And my condolences go out to his whole family.
He had a fiancé.
Of course, he has parents, friends, the whole community around him.
So it's sad, it's tragic that he is dead.
But I gotta tell you...
If you come up to my car and point a rifle at my face, I'm going to shoot you.
Especially, especially if I'm in Texas.
One of the strongest stand-your-ground states in the Union.
So that there, folks, is just one more reason, one more example of how I believe, unfortunately, that we're one more example of how I believe, unfortunately, that we're seeing over and over again how the system that swore to take care of us is not taking that we're seeing over and
Thank you.
How can a guy who chose to serve his country get out Has to, you know, not has to, but chooses to be a rideshare driver to try to earn a living.
Allegedly makes a wrong turn.
Finds himself with a man at his window pointing a rifle at his face and decides, well, it's either going to be him or me, and today it's going to be me.
And that day it was him.
Daniel Perry made the decision that it's going to be this dude or it's going to be me.
And Daniel Perry is still here.
So how does all that happen?
How can a jury of his peers...
It's a stupid question.
How can a jury of his peers find him guilty?
Yeah, I get it.
They weren't his peers.
But it's clear to me from the story that he was defending himself.
So we'll just leave it at that.
Greg Abbott says that he's going to pardon this guy as soon as the paperwork hits his desk.
I guess we have yet to see if that's going to happen.
Like we talked about, there's a pardon board and there needs to be a vote and decisions made.
And so we'll see.
The other thing I wanted to kind of touch on today is also in recent news.
It appears that the VA is proposing a 22% budget cut on their annual budget.
There are some folks out there that claim that our VA disability benefits are safe.
Maybe they're right.
There's a gentleman on YouTube.
He goes by Combat Craig.
He's got a lot of great information.
I watch his videos often when I have questions about what may be happening with my VA business.
But he was one of the guys that said, don't worry.
I believe that our VA disability compensation will be okay.
And Craig, I hope that you're right.
I hope that he is right.
But...
Here's the other side of the coin is 22% of that budget is quite large.
And we're going to cut 22% of a budget for a government entity that is already struggling.
Already struggling to provide good quality care for the population in which they serve.
They're already understaffed.
They already have a confined budget as it relates to supply, like medical supplies and equipment.
So my question is, if they're not going to cut any of our monetary benefits, what's going to end up leaving?
It's going to be personnel, of course.
They're going to lay people off.
Doctors, nurses, physical therapists, radiology techs, the folks that take your blood, I forget what they're called, but those people, they seem to be very important because I tell you what, every time I go to the VA for any appointment that's not mental health, They remind me, hey, by the way, can you stop down at the blood draw clinic?
I don't know what they're doing with all this blood of mine, but they tell you to do it, and then, like soldiers do, they just go and sit in a chair, and they take three, four, five vials of blood?
Phlebotomists.
Ha!
They're called phlebotomists, if I'm saying it correctly.
So we're going to lose those people.
Which is going to just increase wait times.
It's going to drive veterans to seek out other options for medical care, which may be rightfully so.
But the catch is that other medical care is expensive.
Many veterans rely on VA health care because they can't afford other medical care.
Or they work jobs maybe that don't provide insurance or provide insurance that's better than being able to go to the VA. But even that crappy insurance from some employers is expensive and not worth the money in their eyes.
There isn't a whole lot that beats free health care.
And so, now it gets into not just veterans' benefits, but I believe that this has a ripple effect throughout a lot of other things that go on in our country.
For example, we already have a military that is becoming smaller because recruitment numbers are so low.
Do we think that young adults, high school kids, are going to be chomping at the bit to enlist in the service when one of the biggest benefits of serving your country is the medical care, should you need it?
And we already talked about that, right?
People join the military with the idea that if anything happens to me and I need care, I'll be taken care of in that respect.
And now we're going to put on this persona that we can do without 22% of the budget.
And to be honest, folks, for me, it's not about the money.
I think that if you were to go out and find a group of veterans, like go to your local Legion or your local VA, but go to your local VFW and talk to a couple of these folks, men and women.
Would you rather have your monthly VA compensation check, or would you rather have health care?
And I think what you'll find is that veterans who are younger will probably say, well, yeah, I'd rather have the paycheck, you know, like I got a mortgage to pay, and I got a new truck to pay for, and my kids are in hockey, and my daughter's in dance, and this and that and the other thing.
But I think that if you find veterans who are in their mid to late 50s, 60s, 70s and up, they would choose the healthcare.
All that money doesn't mean nothing.
And I shouldn't say all that money because it's not like it's enough to make you rich.
It helps.
There's no doubt about it.
It helps.
But if I'm going to keep my VA disability compensation, and then I've got to pay all of it out to go to the doctor for the things that ail me, then you lose in both.
At least if you get to keep your health care option and go to the VA hospital or the VA clinic for care, At a very reduced rate or free, depending on your individual's situation, you're already ahead.
You have a lot of money in your pocket that you wouldn't have had you not served your country.
And so I wonder if when recruiters are going into high school to try to recruit these high school kids to sign up for the military, if they're telling them this stuff...
Hey, man, we really would love to have you.
You got good grades.
You look like you're motivated.
We'd love to have you.
Okay, well, yeah, that sounds good, sir.
What's going to happen when I get out of the military?
Well, you know, you're not going to get any health care because the VA is cutting that out and bonuses have gone away and, you know, this, that, and the other thing.
I mean, I think that the...
There's not a shimmering package.
There's not a shiny, sparkly package that military service comes in anymore.
And I'll tell you what, when I joined the military in the early 2000s, I was hesitant, right?
It was just after 9-11 when I joined, so that was a motivator for me.
But there was a lot of things going on in my life that I really didn't see a whole lot of other options for a career path.
You know, I'd left school.
I couldn't play football anymore.
And in order to get to where I wanted to be, the people in my life that were currently serving in the military or had served in the military were talking to me about all the great options that it affords me.
And so, somewhat reluctantly, I went to the recruiter's office and I joined up and I made a date to fly out to Fort Sill, Oklahoma to do my basic training and then from there go on to Fort Bliss, Texas to do my advanced training and I was going to make a go of this.
But I wasn't, I got to be honest, I wasn't super excited about it.
It wasn't what I really wanted to do.
But there were some things that I was told that I would have the opportunity to take advantage of.
The things like VA health care.
Things like, hey man, if you join now and you put in some hard work, you'll be able to possibly be retired or semi-retired before you're 45 or 50.
You know, there's medical care.
There's, hopefully you don't need it, but if something happens to you, there's disability.
So you get some payments.
Prescriptions are cheap.
VA home loan.
Education benefits.
There was a lot of cool stuff.
Enlistment bonuses.
So there was a lot of stuff that you were able to take advantage of should you need it.
I'm not sure that a lot of that same stuff is there any longer.
And I'm not sure that this sparkly package sitting up on the shelf that says, come join me and serve in the military, is still a thing.
I hope that I'm wrong.
I think if our military gets a whole lot smaller, we're going to be in trouble.
I think we're possibly already in trouble.
But I think that we could be in a whole lot more trouble.
And again, I mean, I mean, that's just a few examples that we have discussed today that kind of make me think that there's a whole lot other things going on within the system as it relates to veterans that meets the eye.
A whole lot of song and dance.
One hell of a puppet show, maybe.
And I hope that I'm wrong.
But I don't know.
I don't know that I am.
I hate the idea that veterans are the guinea pigs for government programs.
I mean, it seems, now if you think about it, it seems highly plausible.
And it makes a little bit of sense.
Right?
Like, the records, veterans' records, are very easy for the government to access.
Because after all, we go to a government-owned and ran facility to get medical care.
When we buy homes with the benefit that we earn through our service, social security number, I mean, all that stuff.
I mean, your social security number is out there anyway.
You know, I mean, crap, if you did more than a year or two in the military, your social security number is everywhere.
It shouldn't be, but I think that that's just the reality.
So they got all that information.
And so when somebody comes up with some harebrained idea, some scheme, well, let's try it out on the veterans.
Because not a lot of them will bitch.
Not enough of them will complain for it to make a difference.
We can test it out, see how it works, refine it a little bit, and then we'll roll it out to the rest of the country for the common folk.
For the civilians.
You know, the VA is doing this thing, and I haven't dug into it yet because I feel like it's one hell of a wormhole.
But there's this deal going.
Robin and I talked about it very shortly, very briefly, in one of the episodes that we did together about V-signals.
And from what I understand, part of this deal is...
The VA is kind of spying on us in VA facilities without our knowledge.
You know, they have...
The claim is that there's recording devices and things like that that...
Know who you are when you speak because all our voices and all that stuff has been coded into a system and if it picks you up and you're talking and you're angry and you're talking at a high tone of voice or you're sounding angry or you're using certain words that you get flagged and they're trying to do all this to try to figure out what's really going on with veterans and What
are their real needs?
And they disguise it under this idea that it's all about the veteran experience.
Right, so if we're sitting in the lobby, if me and Stu Peters are sitting in the lobby at the VA, and I haven't seen him in months or years, hey man, how you doing?
Well, you know, I'm alright, but I'm having trouble paying my mortgage, my kids are assholes, and my wife is complaining all the time.
You know, life really kind of sucks right now, but you never know, it could get better.
Boom.
Signaled.
Flagged.
And apparently...
The Veterans Experience Office is the one that gets these reports, tabulates all this data, and then does what with it, I don't know.
But the fact of the matter is that they're collecting data on us that we don't know about.
It's very possible.
I wouldn't be surprised.
I mean, at this point, I don't know if I would be pissed off or I would be shocked if they did nothing with it.
I don't know.
But this is apparently a program that's being tested.
And if they get what they're looking for, it's something that will possibly be put in every hospital and every medical clinic in the nation.
There's research.
Did you know that at VA facilities across this country, they keep all kinds of animals for research?
They have all kinds of animals.
I worked, in fact, I worked at our local VA hospital for a few short months, some years ago, and one of the guys I worked with was in charge of taking care of all the animals at the Minneapolis VA. I couldn't believe it.
They had all kinds of stuff.
Well, what do they have those animals?
Well, they do research, you know.
Research on what?
You know, and again, here's another topic that I'm ignorant about.
Maybe I shouldn't be talking about it on the show because I'm not a thousand percent sure.
But nobody would think that they're doing research and On animals at the VA. What is it about?
I don't know, but it's fishy.
It seems fishy to me.
How much money is the VA spending on research?
Are they researching medications?
Are they researching lasers and x-ray equipment?
What are they doing?
What scientific research are you doing at a facility...
That is a thousand percent supposed to be taking care of veterans.
Medical needs.
I understand research needs to be done.
Without research, there'd be no technological advances.
There'd be no medical advances.
All that stuff needs to be done.
My question is, quite simply, why are we doing research at VA facilities across the country?
Maybe there's a good answer for it.
But it's these types of things that go on that make you wonder what really is going on.
And these are questions that will probably never get answered or probably never know.
But it really makes you think.
Hey folks, stick with us.
We'll be right back.
Hey folks, welcome back here for the end of the show.
We've got just a few minutes left.
I sat up on my soapbox a little longer than I should have in the third segment there, but I want to just take a little bit of time here at the end to just talk about some of the people.
The people that I have met while doing this show since I've started it just over a year ago has been pretty awesome.
There's a lot of folks out there that have a whole lot of knowledge and a whole lot of tenacity and a whole lot of courage and bravery.
And I think that this community, this veteran community, the warrior culture that we live in is just that much better.
Some days it seems like it's the lowest of the low.
But with folks out there fighting and talking about it, it makes it just a little bit better.
And the one person that sticks out to me is Robin.
I mean, her and I had conversations offline after filming shows just about how upsetting all this stuff is.
And so, I want you to think about something.
Just think about the idea of giving up an education and a career to take care of a loved one.
For Robin, it's her husband.
For others, it's their mother or father or their brother or sister or We interviewed Dwayne Gertner some months ago.
His caregiver is not even a family member.
His caregiver is the mother of his best friend, his childhood best friend.
These people give up their lives to see to the full-time care of a veteran, in which that they love and respect and care about.
And they do so under the promise that there's support.
And so now that things like this caregiver program seem to still there, but sometimes it seems like it's just kind of awaiting games.
Just a waiting game until it goes away because they gave them three more years to try to figure it out through legislation.
But then people like Robin, they choose to come on this show.
And this show, we don't get millions of views.
We're not a Joe Rogan.
We're not a, you know, anything like that.
Which is fine.
You know, we get 30,000 to 60,000 views a week.
Which, in my opinion, is still a lot of people.
And I hope that the things that we talk about are helpful for folks.
But then Robin chooses to come on here for seven or eight weeks and spill her guts.
With the possibility of being ridiculed.
The possibility of being told again that she's wrong.
But she doesn't care.
Because the idea of fighting...
This thing, not fighting because she's malicious, but fighting because these are the things in which her family is able to get, or should be able to get, because of her husband's service.
And then having to relive all this stuff, and talk about it, and Think about it when you're going to bed and think about it when you're waking up in the morning.
I mean, she lives it.
She lives it every day.
All these caregivers, they live it every day.
And I sometimes think about how upset I was after we would film the episode and we would have these discussions.
But then in the morning, I don't have to live it.
I did at times.
But Robin doesn't have a choice.
She chose to keep coming on this show, talking about the issue in hopes that there's some lightning in the tunnel or hopes that somebody will see it and take action.
I think if most people in our communities...
Fought the way that she's fighting and has the tenacity that she has.
Things would be a whole lot different.
So, Robin, if you're watching this, I applaud you.
I applaud your bravery.
I applaud your courage and your leadership.
You're doing a great thing for the community of people that need it.
And so, folks, I want you to think about that.
Think about how you can be better.
Think about how you can fight for the people that need more or need anything.
And fight for yourself.
Fight for yourself the way that Daniel Perry seemed to fight for himself, regardless of the consequences of At the end of the day, people like Robin Stitt can rest, go to sleep at night, knowing that if anything else, she stood up and fought.
If the VA Family Caregiver Program goes away, nobody will ever be able to say that she didn't fight.
She didn't try.
She didn't lead that group of people the way that she did.
There's a lot of people in that group that are leaders.
But as it relates to speaking up and taking a stand, Robin, you're the leader on that one.
Folks, I want to thank you again for joining us.
I realize today's show might have been kind of slow, but I had a lot of things on my mind.
And so if you agree with me, cool.
If you disagree, that's fine too.
But let's have a discussion about it.
I would like to be able to do that at times, have discussions about What's going on and what we're talking about.
Please don't forget to come back next week.
We'll be back next week.
Thank you so much for being here.
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