Pastor Plek's Podcast
Pastor Plek's Podcast
Veterans' Path to Healing
300: Michael Carson and Cody Bruns from the Freedom Fighter Foundation join Pastor Plek and Machine Gun Nick on this episode. These veterans trade stories about their own journeys from the front lines back to civilian life. In the heart of this episode lies the poignant reality of combat veterans wrestling with PTSD. They tackle the weighty comments by John MacArthur on mental health and dig into the concept of "identity exchange," where the quest for healing embraces faith as a cornerstone. With a backdrop of camaraderie, they reveal the therapeutic power of community, as our guests share their own pathways from despair to redemption, challenging traditional mental health paradigms and embracing the potential for post-traumatic growth within a holistic healing journey.
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and welcome back to passerplex podcast. So glad to have you all here. Is recording live from austin texas, and with me in studio is none other than machine gun nick. Welcome back, machine gun nick. I brought friends. He did bring friends, and so with us in studio, uh, from the it's the freedom fighter foundation, is that the best way to put that? That that's a great way to put it. Yeah, michael Carson to my left, your right, and Cody Bruns to my right, your left. So, hey, thank you guys for joining us. First, michael, tell us a little bit about yourself, and how did you even come to be here on the Elite Pastor Plex podcast.
Speaker 2:Oh man, great question, great question and truly an honor to be here too. By the way, this is something that You've been waiting your whole life. Really for it. I've been waiting for this. Yes, I have no, actually little did I know Machine Gun Nick. I didn't know that was his nickname. So, now, this is new to me.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to have to. I'm changing his name on my phone. Yeah, machine Gun Nick, that's how the entire church knows him. Is Machine Gun Nick? That's awesome. It used to be $300, nick, but that didn't connote the right. Yeah, yeah, anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 2:So yeah, national Outreach Director for the Freedom Fighter Foundation got here. Through Nick Machine Gun Nick, he was able to bring me, tell me about the podcast and some things.
Speaker 1:How did you meet him?
Speaker 2:Oh man, what a great question, machine Gun, nick, as I had actually let me back up so I had applied for the youth pastor position at City View Bible Church, yeah, through Shepherd Staff, and kind of went on this trusted path that God had me on, did not get hired on, actually got eliminated as the final four. I was the last one out- yeah, it was over.
Speaker 2:It was done. So as I was kind of going through all of that, my pastor hit me up and he was like hey, I think I see something greater in you of maybe being a church planter. So, national Association or not? The National Association? Hill Country Bible Association.
Speaker 1:Association of Hill Country Churches.
Speaker 2:There we go Association of Hill Country Churches. They host a conference every year on church planting. And so I went to the church plant and, lo and behold, mr Machine Gun Nick was there. And so we ended, we were, we were, I was sitting kind of towards the back, he was a little bit more towards the front, I'm kind of the front left and, and you know, as veterans we have a tendency to our training kicks in every now and then and we start scanning the room, you know, just checking, you know scoping things out. And so he turned and was scoping things out and I was scoping him out and he was like huh.
Speaker 4:It was at that moment I'm like I got to talk to this guy. Yeah, it was one of those feelings, you know, feelings God's like hey, go talk to this guy. And I thought, you know, figured he's got to be a veteran too, but you know, who knows what's going to happen? And then we talk and you give me a card, and then I call you and then we start talking about this foundation and you know how it helps veterans out, and I'm like whoa, what?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And I was like might not hurt. I had a few things I'm working on.
Speaker 1:I love that. Okay, so that's how we met. That was the beginning, All right. So how does Cody fit into this? How did you become the third wheel?
Speaker 3:Third wheel. That's pretty much how I've been described my whole life. So I just recently moved to the Austin area, about five, six months ago now, oh nice. From Arizona.
Speaker 1:You're not from California. I did not.
Speaker 3:My wife did, but I found hold on, I found the one actual.
Speaker 1:Non-negro crazy person.
Speaker 3:Two, my bad two my wife's from California, his wife's from California as well, our student pastor's, also from California.
Speaker 2:There's some refugees. I brought a refugee back to America.
Speaker 3:That's how I like to put it. I was stationed out there. I was a United States Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton. So we moved out this way about five, six months ago and started going to City View Church with a friend of mine named Cameron. The first week we're there, he's like hey, that guy right there from across the lobby, I guess, points to Michael Carson and says that's the dude that runs the veterans group. Well, I had never. I got out in 2014,. I'd never done any sort of. I hadn't even really ever talked about what.
Speaker 1:I did.
Speaker 3:Nothing and got with this dude and he was like you're coming Be here Thursday. I was like, okay, and here we are. Now I'm an emerging leader and I'm going to start running the round rock group Nice. I love that. That's awesome. Okay, congratulations, that's a big deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:All right.
Speaker 1:So, um, let's talk about what the freedom fighter foundation is. I mean, like, give me let's. Let's talk about what if I've.
Speaker 2:I've got the brochure and you know I don't read, so tell me what it is so that I don't have to read it. I always like to start anything with a mission statement. A mission statement is really how you really verbally transmit or translate what we do. So the Freedom Fighter Foundation helps veterans, first responders and their families overcome the battle within, to break cycles of family dysfunction and create generational legacy. And so our goal at the Freedom Fighter Foundation is to restore integrity to the family unit and, in turn, strengthen community by creating an impactful generational legacy that will affect not only generations but nations. And so, in a nutshell, really what we do, that's our mission statement and our vision statement. We like to restate that and go to you know John Maxwell guy. He said restate the mission statement every 28 days you know, that's right.
Speaker 2:Uh, but really what we do is is we're, we're. We're a bunch of veterans that got together with veteran veteran spouses. We got tired of seeing broken homes, broken families, veteran suicide and decided to step in and do something about it.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:Um, we offer Christ-centered solutions for trauma and you know we don't hesitate in any way, shape or form to know that it is Christ who heals. And you know, that's really what we do. So we create environments for God to come in and be a healer.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's talk about just restoring identity to veterans and the integrity of the whole family by using Christ-centered discipleship. How do you like talk to me when you have a vision for a man and his family specifically I know there's obviously women veterans too, but I'm a man right now Like talk to me about what you're, how you do that or how someone could do that. Ask that question again. So how does somebody? How do you restore identity to a veteran?
Speaker 2:Restoring identity. Okay, so I mean, it's really it has to do with. We do what we call an identity exchange a lot of times, which is basically just bringing Jesus in the room, but there's a whole lot that goes into this man. This is a very heavy topic as far as like, how do you take a veteran and say, hey, you're no longer a combat veteran who's struggling with PTSD, You're a son of the Most High King. And so if you can give a veteran his identity in Christ and do that identity exchange of like, hey, you've been walking in some false identities, but Jesus doesn't speak to us in our false identities. He didn't speak to prostitutes, he didn't speak to tax collectors.
Speaker 1:He, he didn't speak to prostitutes. He didn't speak to tax collectors. He talks to sons and daughters. Yeah, so I don't know if you've heard about john this I might be throwing totally on the spot, but john mcarthur has made several statements recently about ptsd. Have you heard any of these, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, uh actually a guy just sent me a something on that and I was like huh, okay, yeah, and he's like there's no such thing as mental mental illness or mental whatever, um, and so then he, when he got pushed to shove, he would say, well, if it is, it would be just called grief, which I'm like okay, semantics there, buddy. I mean like right, what? Why do we need to make a? I think some people say shocking things just to say shocking things, although his point was that the whole um mental health thing was just a way to get up the pharmaceuticals for drugs and whatnot. But I think we can kind of look at it just for let's just call it grief for a second. What can we do as Christians to help process that grief?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, when you've seen your buddy have his face blown off, or you've picked up body parts of the enemy or friendlies, or you've engaged in some stuff where death and harrowing adventure, and you've made some mistakes, where you shot when you shouldn't have shot, or death and harrowing adventure, and you made some mistakes, where you shot when you shouldn't have shot, or you thought you were doing the right thing, and then, over the years, your collective memory comes back and you're like right, and you replay that moment and you're like, should I had him, should I have pulled that trigger. I pulled the trigger and I don't I feel bad about pulling the trigger and I think that's where a lot of us go. Uh, you know I'm a veteran 0405 and I'm from iraq. Uh, in uh camp habanilla, in between Fallujah and Ramadi.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of action that we had, and on the battlefield was a constant, ever-changing environment where one day I'm throwing chairs across the room because one of my platoon sergeants had a guy that was not qualified to drive, drive and end up killing a little girl because he was inexperienced and you're just like ah, ah, ah, and you're just feeling the weight of all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um and so, and that's real, yeah, it's real. Or, or you, you know you weren't you. You doze off because you're so tired all the time and someone throws uh, you know that someone gets an edge on you with a grenade or an rpg or something because you weren't paying attention for a second, because you weren't vigilant, because you just got lulled into a false sense of security, as you've been out there for hours, 12-hour shifts or whatever you're dealing with.
Speaker 1:So how do you and I know you don't have all the answers- but, just walk me through the process of helping guys who just keep on that memory. We call it a cycle of dysfunction, right and in the airborne we used to you know, racetrack. I don't know if you guys ever did this you go around the drop zone and you go around and you're like get me out of this. You're going, you're napping the earth.
Speaker 4:You're like get me out of this stupid airplane. And then you're like the worst is and your rock is waiting to you, because if you the front of you is a rucksack, the back of you is a parachute. Right, it's like, and you're just like. And then you're like in the and it's going back and forth and side to side and a little ups down, so you're just like. It's like you're surfing and the whole time you're holding on my hands up here because I'm I'm holding on to the invisible static line that's in my mind.
Speaker 4:That's like if I've got to keep control of this, something bad's going to happen and the other pan has got to be on the reserve, because if somebody bumps that and pulls that, then, it's going to pop out and it might make you snake to the door. If it snakes to the door, you and everybody in front of you better jump out or we're going to become smashed into the fuselage of the inside of that aircraft. To me it sounds like you guys just joined the wrong branch.
Speaker 2:Cody coming in with the Marine Corps.
Speaker 4:That's why we brought it. We needed that token. Marine, sorry, I couldn't find any Navy Air Force guys and we're in Texas. Well, the Marines are Department of the Navy Navy Air Force guys and we're in Texas.
Speaker 2:Well, the Marines are a department of the Navy. Yeah, that counts Right. Right, the men's department.
Speaker 4:I wasn't going to say it again the men's department or clearance department.
Speaker 3:You guys get all the broken stuff. It's very true, though.
Speaker 1:We replaced the Marines when we got to Iraq. We were in the Al-Anbar province and so it was a Marine place and so we were there and all we got, and all these guys were using equipment from like 10 years. I was like what in the world? Your rifles are like M16s without any sights. What's wrong? A2s?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was wild and we had like M4s with the CCO and I was like M4s with CCOs. We had M4s with ACOGs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're an army man, but when they got, the ACOGs.
Speaker 4:Finally, like after I don't know how long we were in the war, they get a criminal investigation on them because they had shoot-intuitive people.
Speaker 3:I was like they just didn't shoot. The reason is we don't need that equipment. We can do it with Kmart Specials.
Speaker 1:That's right and that's why I gave you guys all the credit. I was like, listen, better you than me. All right, so anyway, we're back, all right. Yeah, let's hit the. Let's hit the. How do you get them off?
Speaker 2:the cycle, so um cycle of dysfunction. You know some of the things. One of the I do want to hit the kind of address that like is PTSD real? The truth, um, in in all of this, and I'm going to give you a scenario.
Speaker 2:This is something that our foundation is doing right now. Um, we are actually in Israel, um, and we are helping IDF soldiers that are coming back with PTSD, right, um, but we're catching them early so that they don't have the longevity. That's, that's, that's, this is done. And so the argument was, when we were sitting at the table, they had a bunch of mental health professionals there and they were like, oh, this is PTSD, we got to attack it. We got to do mental health. We got to do cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive processing therapy, emdr. We need to shut down the neural pathways that are going and the receptors in their brain that is causing this depression. We can shut those off. All the SSRIs, all of the things that go on with mental health, right, and they're arguing back and forth and the guy that brought, you know, got us at this meeting with some of the most elite people in Israel. He's nudging him and he's like man, you guys got to get in on this conversation, you know. And our national director and our national training director are like this isn't what we do. We don't do mental health, this is not what we do.
Speaker 2:And so, finally, after the conversation kind of was going back and forth and all this kind of stuff. The Holy spirit just came in and just hushed that whole table and shade, our, our national director. He was like now everybody looked at kind of at Jake and shade and shade was like you know, in America we got it wrong. You see, since world war one we've been trying to attack this thing from the mental health perspective. We've been trying to attack it.
Speaker 2:It was called shell shock and then it was warrior's heart and it was Vietnam veteran syndrome. And you just go through the wars and men and women have been coming home with this, what we now call PTSD, and have coined the phrase. But it's just a term that is used for post-trauma stress, post-trauma things that have happened in life. And here's the thing it's not just PTSD, is not just something that's with veterans, it can be anyone who has this. So anyway, our national director was like we've been trying to attack this thing from the mental health perspective. And you know what we have today? Right now we have over 22 veterans a day committing suicide. That's what we got. We don't have this thing figured out. Mental health hasn't healed anybody, anybody right?
Speaker 1:it can give you great coping skills and grounding techniques it's kind of like education doesn't change the culture, because exactly, education just makes you smarter.
Speaker 2:Sinners, yes and so we sit where these guys are sitting there and they're like, okay, well, what is it? And we've like, okay, well, here at the freedom fighter foundation, you know what we have found? We have found that god is the healer. We got guys who have been struggling with PTSD for many years. I'm one of them. I'm a walking miracle Struggled with PTSD. I've got a whole testimonial story Served 19 years in the army, went to Iraq.
Speaker 2:I got four deployments. I got blown up, captured, came back home, used alcohol and drugs to try and gr know um grieve, uh, properly. Yes, the grief was there, but it was also some of the shame and the guilt that I had done. It wasn't just grief, it was I had done some bad things on purpose, because I had hate my heart towards another race, yep, and so in all of those things, it's more than just a. There's more than just grieving, right. And so, yes, ptsd is very, very real. But what we like to focus on at our freedom fighter foundation is called post-traumatic growth, and so and it's a psychological you can look this up it's another psychological way of this. Let me get back to my israel story. So, anyway, so we told him.
Speaker 1:I think when you kind of like it's like yeah, we're in israel, blah blah, I need you, kind of like idf is israeli defense force give me the whole, because I feel like that's such common knowledge to you.
Speaker 4:Translation that's what we call the Israeli Army.
Speaker 1:Yes, so you're doing that with guys that are coming off of battling Hamas in Gaza and they are destroying the enemy and they're doing a righteous thing, but they're still struggling even with that. So talk me through it.
Speaker 2:So as we went over there and we approached them, we said, hey look, we got it wrong in America, but here's what we didn't have. We didn't have a table full of people like you that know that God is the healer. We don't have to convince you that God is real. We don't have to convince you that there's a real enemy that's out to kill, steal and destroy, and really what that is is is guys who are dealing with the things that they have done, and mental health does a really good job of telling you why you are the way you are. It can diagnose you with ptsd and depression and anxiety and suicidal homicide it does a good job explaining, yes, but not moving forward.
Speaker 2:But there's no redemption right. I still got guilt and shame for the things that I've, and I'm going to be a veteran that always has to live with PTSD for the rest of my life. Yeah, what about Jesus? What about? The old is gone and the new has come.
Speaker 1:So at the IDF—.
Speaker 2:These IDF soldiers—.
Speaker 1:I don't think Christian in general doesn't come to my mind. No.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, we're not taking Western Christianity into—.
Speaker 1:So how do you talk to Israelis who don't believe in jesus about the healing power of god without the holy spirit?
Speaker 2:that's the part where I'm like, yeah, that's it's, it's a wild thing, right. And so, as we look at this, we don't bring up jesus. We don't have to bring up jesus. We say god is a healer. They know that. Uh, you know yahweh, or you know?
Speaker 2:jehovah rafa, that's god is healer right and so god is the healer, and what we do is we say, okay, let me walk you through this identity exchange real quick, I'll write down all your false identities, like on this. You know, imagine yourself writing all your false identities down on a piece of paper, right? And then you hand those things to God. What did God do with that piece of paper? He wadded it up, you know, threw it over his shoulder, whatever. Cool, now sit for a minute and when you're with God, let him tell you who you are. Not a combat veteran who's struggling with PTSD. Not a veteran who's never going to be able to get better. Not an alcoholic that's always going to be an alcoholic. Not a drug addict that's always going to be a drug addict. But a son. That's who you are. And those bad things did happen to you and I'm real sorry about that, and there's a lot of guys out there and gals out there that need to hear this. I'm sorry that those bad things happen.
Speaker 2:But if you're going to continue to live in your past. God doesn't say we should live in our past. He says things of present and things to come, not past. And so when we do that identity exchange with these guys we've watched Muslims, we've watched different religions, we've watched all these things actually come out of and actually turn to Christianity in some ways. But we're not over there trying to make converts to Christianity, we're just trying to prevent IDF soldiers from committing suicide.
Speaker 1:I know this might be like a weird question, but why not? Why not try and convert them?
Speaker 2:Well, um, that, I think, can happen, naturally in some ways, um, but really we're not going over there. You have to understand something, um, here in America, yes, it would make sense in a Western Christianity culture to go over there and try and take our culture over there. But if you try to take western christianity into israel, you're they're going to kick you out, you're not going to have any any luck with that right and we're not really there to give them, teach them about western christianity what we're there to do.
Speaker 1:Eastern christianity, I mean, I guess, what eastern christianity, or any kind of christianity? Yeah, like, why, why not? Why not jesus and I and it? Might be, it might be just because, like they're gonna, obviously they're jews, so they're going to reject.
Speaker 2:Jesus, yeah, you have Messianic Jews, you have all kinds of different religions there, and so what is our purpose there is to help, is to break cycles of family dysfunction and establish generational legacy within these veterans. We don't want those veterans going and getting broken homes and broken families and committing suicide.
Speaker 1:So that's what you're saying is like it might not necessarily be the goal, specifically when you're talking about taking to Israel, right, what about talking about people who are here in America? Yeah, talk to me about that.
Speaker 2:So, in America. You know, yes, 100%. So I want to cover a couple of the problems. And the majority of Americans are acutely aware of the physical, mental and spiritual struggles that our nation's veterans are struggling with, are acutely aware of the physical, mental and spiritual struggles that our nation's veterans are struggling with. With that, the political climate, the economic system, the quote-unquote cancel culture those are all not helping in any of those areas. What do you mean?
Speaker 1:The current political climate doesn't help veterans.
Speaker 2:Is it that we're all seen as terrorists? It's going to be a hot topic right here. I'm about to get famous real quick.
Speaker 4:Where do you want us to begin? Yeah, or suppose the next terrorist or homegrown terrorist in this country? And then you got the other, like we've always been called what baby killers by the the.
Speaker 2:Vietnam veteran era. Yeah, that's a big one for Vietnam really went away.
Speaker 3:I mean, I know personally, I've had that conversation, I've been called those things by people. I went to high school with yeah, you know guys who knew me my whole life, and it's like, well, hold on a second, how can we?
Speaker 1:so, and I don't want to be like uh short or like glib, but isn't there a point like this is where most men would say grow a pair. People are going to talk about you all the time, but talk to me about how that affects you as a guy that's been in combat and you would think that words I mean like seriously, what do you?
Speaker 3:I think I'd rather have you shoot at me than say bad things to me really okay, I'm not not like. There's a difference when you're talking about like it sounds like liberal, liberal, leftist tears it does, and I just want to be like crying like the left.
Speaker 1:Now what happened? No, not at all.
Speaker 3:I think it's I think it goes back to the idea you know that, like nobody wants to have those things said about them. Yeah, not only on top of the fact that you know we went out and did some of the the hardest, most difficult things that human beings will ever have to do. We went to war, right, yeah, right, at the end of the day, there's, there's not much more past that that you can do. That damages not only yourself but everyone around you. Yeah, why do I want to come back and have to relive all of those, like you said, those, those mistakes, right, that do happen in more, absolutely, yep, but then to be from lashed out on.
Speaker 3:Exactly. If any one of you three gentlemen said one of those things to me, okay, we joke around about it, but someone who has no idea and has never been there and doesn't do that, and then they bring that kind of stuff up, you're like I'm going to smash you. Man, you are touching on a very sensitive subject. Right, Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Machine gun Machine gun sensitive subject.
Speaker 4:Right, I mean go ahead before I smash him. My comeback was like well, the baby was alive when I threw it in the well oh gosh you know um.
Speaker 2:This is what this is this is and by no means do I say that he's supposed to be coming to my groups.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're working, I'm gonna drag him myself. Why would you say that? I mean's a process, if you fuse the situation.
Speaker 4:Either they're going to back the heck up and it is a horrible thing to say and I'll claim that I'll own it but they're either going to back up before I smash them in the face, because that's where we're going, right, you come at me like that, and this is the anger that we're talking about, about.
Speaker 1:this is what's always bubbling right at the surface of veterans, and I and I think, because I think, when non-veterans hear that, they're just aghast, they're like how don't, why would you? And they don't know the reality of the darkness of the heart that's right under the surface, that is around people that you see every single day, and they're this far away from just driving their car off a bridge or smashing their car into you, and I think that's the part where sometimes that's the domestic terrorism, uh, label comes from. It's because all this anger is pent up in serving the one country where so you have people putting their life on the line for people that are then mocking them at the same time, which is part of the american constitution, but anyway, so walk me through that.
Speaker 2:So I love where each one of those conversations actually went right. And so when I say the government and, uh, you know, cancel culture and all this kind of stuff, like the things that I'm talking about in this, is like what, what society has tried to do. So, um, you know, I told you, you know all the stuff that I had walked through. You know, when I got back from combat uh, first tour iraq, or 506 uh, it was three months later I walked into my best friend hanging in his closet right because of this underlying stuff that wasn't taken care of right 506 like curry where we at uh oh, 506 talil all the way up.
Speaker 1:Oh, 82nd. Yeah, oh okay, cool again wrong branch oh no, no, that's all good.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, yeah, all up and down, most are yeah, yeah, I don't got 506 and 82nd.
Speaker 4:Yeah, 506, parachute, entry 504, 505, 506 506. No, I'm first the 508 was there 506, was I thought, 101st? Yeah, or?
Speaker 1:korea. Well, because it's a rock of sons. Yeah, in two division two battalions were in uh campbell and I was the one.
Speaker 4:We didn't have any 506 anyway doesn't matter, go on just going there. We go, you guys, we'll get that, we'll get that, we'll get that part figured out later on.
Speaker 2:So so with all of that, um, you know when, when that happened to me, I blamed myself. There was a lot of things that that happened. After that, um, I ended up jumping on. Another deployment went over to kosovo. Um got a whole mess over there. I got the worst firefighter I've been in. Supposed to be a peacekeeping mission ended up getting blown up captured um in kosovo.
Speaker 2:I was actually in serbia, but, yeah, just north, but so, but when I got back off of that, you know, and I don't I mean, there's a whole bunch of crazy awesome veteran stories that we can tell into that. But what I'm saying is when I got back from that, like I was different. I was changed. Each time it changed me, it changed who I was. I became something different. I had a different identity. I had a different way of dealing with things. But my deal was is I grew up on a farm and ranch in bovina, texas, and in the military you suck it up and drive on. You drink water, drive on, and you better pull yourself up by your bootstraps and be a man. You ain't got time to deal with that stuff. You lost your best friend, take it out on the enemy, and this is stuff I get taught and so that's all I know to do. But, like you were just talking about, there's something boiling right at the surface and all it takes is a bunch of those things. It's like a pressure cooker and once it goes off and it usually goes off on the wrong person that's what happened to me it went off on the wrong person I ended up with. You know, right now on my record I have a DWI, public intoxication, terroristic threat against a family and harassment charges. That's what I ended up with in an inpatient facility getting treated for PTSD and they were telling me here's a bunch of medication and a bunch of coping skills. Sorry about your bad luck. That's where I ended up, and it wasn't until I got into another inpatient facility for about 10 months that I found Jesus. Jesus came in, started to change how I looked at things. I just got off a lot of medication, but the problem was I was still under spiritual oppression. I get out from that and then, once I get out from there it was three weeks I ended up getting with a girl having sex outside of marriage, got right back into drinking and almost got another terroristic threat on her. Why did all that happen? I had Jesus, I was following, I was reading the Bible, I was doing all this stuff Like what's going on here. I had my combat trauma healing manual. I dealt with all this stuff, but there was still spiritual oppression inside of me. I hadn't been completely, truly set free yet Right, and what I found also was there was a gap. There's a gap when you come out of a tree.
Speaker 2:If you get me in an institutionalization type setting, I am going to prosper. You tell me when to get up, when to go to the bathroom, when to eat breakfast, when to you know uh, you know, work out and all this other stuff I'm going to do. Well, give me a mission and I'll go accomplish this thing. Why? Because I've been doing it for the last 20 years in the army. I operate well in that.
Speaker 2:When you get me outside that environment, I don't have a place to plug into coming out like. There's so many people, there's so many organizations out there veteran support organizations that are doing great things hunts and fishing trips and all of these things that are really amazing for veterans. But then there's what do you do when you get done with that? You know, is your story going to be? Well, I always have to go hunt and fish and do these coping skills and make sure that I'm going to my therapy every week and taking this medication the heck with my family and my wife and my children, because I just got to keep myself from committing suicide, right? Or is there more? And I wanted more. I said I'm tired of living that way, and so I saw that there was a gap and a problem and I said I want to start running peer support groups. I got ahold of some people.
Speaker 2:Next thing, you know, freedom Fighter Foundation is birthed. So in that and that's where this filling the problem comes in and the gap is is like we filled in a gap of like there's. There has to be discipleship, right, you have to teach how to put down your old. You die to your old self. Yes, be born again new. That part is key. That's your new identity.
Speaker 2:But then how do you walk in this newfound freedom? Because if you don't know how to walk in freedom, I mean, basically you're like a brand new baby who gets oh yeah, let's convert this person to Christianity or whatever. And well, no, not whatever, but Christianity, let's convert them to Christian, to be a Christian. And then the next thing, you know, you're like, okay, cool, and like a brand new baby. You put them in the crib and you're like, okay, well, bathroom's on the left, food's in the pantry, call us if you need something. That baby's gonna die, right. So there needed to be discipleship. So freedom fighter foundation with burrs to do that and not to just affect the veteran but the whole family unit. Because guess what, when we came home, we probably put our wives and spouses through some stuff, yeah, and our kids, and they saw a different version of us, and maybe moms and dads that were like, man, you were such a kind young man and then when you went to war and came home, you changed and you were different, right, all of that stuff. So in all of that, our political system says Jesus can't come in here.
Speaker 2:Now let me fast forward to where I ended up going and speaking for Judge Barker with the Williamson County Veterans Treatment Court. I became her mentor, coordinator for about two years, trying to bring Christ into the courtroom, and it's like, and they're like how did you change? Let me see, and I'm like you're not gonna like my answer and they didn't, right, but they still allow me to operate and function for a little while in there. Mind you, judge Barker is also the same judge that sentenced me to terroristic threat on our family. So, god, transforming my life. I was actually now working for the same judge that sentenced me, oh, wow. And then one of the, a police officer that was a former elder at City View Bible Church, asked me if I would consider becoming a chaplain. Yeah. So then I went down. This is Tim. Yeah, tim, chancellor. Yeah, good friend of mine.
Speaker 1:He's now an elder at Taylor Bible Church, one of our yes who. We sent our.
Speaker 2:Man dude. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Awesome dude Actually. Yeah, I've spent a lot of time with him, disciple his son Noah, anyway, so really good connection there. But he was like you ever thought about doing this and so I went down and talked to Chief Banks, talked to like all of the staff.
Speaker 1:Chief of police. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I'm name dropping a little bit there, but I guess. But what I'm at is like I got an opportunity to sit in front of these people and say, hey, I have a record, a severe record, right, and you're gonna let me come and work in a police department. Yeah, that's super. That's naturally that shouldn't happen, right, but super naturally.
Speaker 2:They heard my story and they're like this guy's, completely transformed I love that didn't see my kids for two and a half years now expand the standard visitation of my two girls remarried. Like god has transformed my life because it's no longer I who live, but christ who lives in me, and this is what we try to establish in the freedom fighter foundation.
Speaker 1:I love it so talk to me about like you have uh groups right like we do. Yeah, that's what it looks like okay.
Speaker 2:So a group is, um, that's kind of the starting grounds for us of where we get people. Um, because you need like-minded people. Like veterans aren't just going to come in to be like jesus is going to save you and they're gonna be like you take your jesus and get out of here. Where was jesus when my friend got blown up? Where was god when, when my marriage dissolved, where was god? You can take your god and stick it up your rear end, basically right and so, um, you can't just start with that. So, but when, uh, you come in and share a like-minded story of like man, yeah, I was in iraq. Man, yeah, and then you start sharing these stories, like, okay, what do you have? I want what you have. There's something there. Oh, come to our group. And so we run.
Speaker 2:We work out of what's called a combat trauma healing manual. It's from crew military, crew, ministry, all of our facilitators, like Cody Bruins over here. He's the up and coming emerging leader and he's going to be one of the facilitators there that runs the group. Uh, in that we work through the combat trauma healing manual. It is a individually paced but we um, so each individual will get discipled one-on-one but during the group session time. That's like where we can actually share some of the things that happened to us in combat. That's where the rawness comes out right. So, guys who aren't believers, uh, girls, it's you know, it's you know. Guys and girls, it doesn't matter. If you're a veteran, you can come in. If you're a first responder, you can come in and you come into that group. Um, you're going to meet some like-minded people.
Speaker 2:You get to meet machine gun you know, machine gun, nick boy, and he will tell you some wild stories. But it's so relatable because you're like oh man, I remember that and I remember, but it brings stuff to light that maybe has been hidden in the darkness for a long time.
Speaker 2:And now you can talk to that individual because you've got a relatable story. So, as that process happens, you start to grow and you'll start, you'll, you'll, you'll figure out. You know who God is. Well, he's not my enemy, he's my ally, Right. And then you figure out who the enemy is, the real enemy right, which is the devil and all his demons. And so then you figure out, okay, well, what happened to me? And you walk through your story and then we'll have you basically get in there and write your story out from the earliest childhood memory, because we find that a lot of stuff goes back to childhood why you joined the military in the first place. Usually it was to either get out of a family situation or you wanted to better your life. Maybe you didn't have a great you know, I wasn't very good in school.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what I wanted to do so I'm going to join the Army, they wouldn't take me in the Air Force. I didn't score higher than I was on the ASVAB type deal but anyhow. So with all of that, like sorry, getting back to the group. So go childhood trauma to present day Everything good, bad, ugly, beautiful and in between. And then you share that with your brothers in arms and you're like man and that brother gets to share with you in the hurt and the struggle and the pain and the things that, yes, you may have had to do.
Speaker 2:Maybe you didn't do, um, you know, maybe you didn't go to go uh and pull, maybe you weren't a door kicker, trigger puller, but you know, and you felt like, oh man, I didn't do enough for my country, right, um? Or I didn't get to deploy but I spent time in the military and now I lost friends that went over and I should have been the one that went over there and not me, like a survivor's guilt and all these different things and how to deal with that and and and how to grief properly.
Speaker 1:So all right. So someone is like man, I'm really wrestling with um PTSD or grief or whatever we want to call the word. Right, You're dealing with like the the shock and awe of battle, right, and I'm like, all right, I'm ready to take the next step. Where do people go? Freedom fighter foundationorg? And then, is that where they're gonna?
Speaker 2:they go go to the website.
Speaker 1:As soon as I go to the website and then it's like where is a like do I get to? Can I go to a like? Is there a group that I can kind of go to right off the bat?
Speaker 2:or how's that. So we have, uh, and so we're, and we're only two years old, right, we're really young and we really wanted to grow deep before we went wide. So right now we're in Round Rock, we're in San Antonio, we're in Waco, we're fixing to run a Killeen group, we've got some future groups on the horizon in Seattle and one in Florida and of course, we've got you know so talk to me what a group looks like. So typically it's just we have a group facilitator and leader and then you'll have a mentor, usually within that group, and you come in. It's an hour long and everybody gets to come in share what's going on during the week. We usually have a topic and it's covered in the book as we work through it.
Speaker 2:You just go through the combat Combat trauma healing manual somewhat, but typically what happens is you'll start to throw some things out there and then the group itself starts to really talk about what's what's affecting them in their life. Right, that's good man, and so, um, that's usually what happens in a group um, we pray over each other, um, and then throughout the week they'll they'll be in contact. Our facilitators and mentors will be in contact throughout the week like, hey, how you holding up specifically, if somebody's having a hard time getting through maybe, um, a specific trauma, right, um, then we'll be really surrounding them, not only with prayer, but like, hey, we're going to walk with you. Not like, hey, we're here for you. And so that's what the group does.
Speaker 1:So do you guys ever go hunting together? Do you guys ever go shooting stuff up?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, that's typical. Go ahead, Cody, we definitely.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say we definitely all of us need to go do those things.
Speaker 1:Do you ever take Tannerite and just blow stuff up with massive explosions?
Speaker 3:I have plenty of weapons, we can have some fun. We can definitely have some fun.
Speaker 4:I have a said chemical in my house as well.
Speaker 3:But one of the great things about this organization just to kind of piggyback off what Mike was saying was that it is not like a typical men's or women's ministry type stuff that you get. It really is a brotherhood Like you walk right back into. One of the things when I got out in 2014 that I missed the most was the brotherhood. Yeah, Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had guys who I went to college and I had guys who were in the military, but it wasn't the same. This is the Freedom Fighter Foundation is literally living life together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think this. So tip, and this is where I think people get stuck is in church culture, because that's where I live now. Like a small group or a community group or whatever you want to call them. You go there. You don't ever talk to those people the rest of the week. It's just like another church service, that and read the thing and no one ever talks to you beyond those hours Come on.
Speaker 1:So talk to me about the difference then, for this is like I go to this group, I connect to a sponsor or somebody like that, and they're going to be like hey, I want to walk you through life and I'm going to be texting you like every day.
Speaker 3:Well, I've been trying to get Machine Gun Nick to go to the gym with me months now, but that's that's, that's not. I'm throwing you under the bus, dude.
Speaker 4:I've been trying to get you to go to the gym too.
Speaker 3:You're the one that's like I've been going. Where are you?
Speaker 4:What House of pains.
Speaker 3:House of gains.
Speaker 4:I go to planet fitness.
Speaker 1:He's like, he's like I'm not going to lie to you.
Speaker 4:I'm like where are you at Cody? He's like Planet Fitness.
Speaker 3:I'm like huh, in fairness, planet Fitness really Listen man it's cheap and they're open 24-7.
Speaker 3:I don't sleep most days, so it's 2.30 in the morning and I'm like so, walk me through it. Why don't you sleep? I've always been that way. That's not a. Is this not a PTSD thing? No, no, no, no. This is like I just don't sleep. I used to have and I'll be 100%, I used to have really bad nightmares, all kinds of stuff like that surrounding PTSD. I just don't anymore. We could dive deep into that, I just don't anymore. Do you think you've experienced healing? Oh, 100% healing.
Speaker 1:I don't dream. So there's that. Well, yeah, we have another issue there.
Speaker 3:But talk to me about what do you think?
Speaker 1:So initially, when I was in combat, I would have this. The dream that I would have over and over is like I was in this firefight I see dead people everywhere, everybody's dead, and I'm just sitting in the fire going like huh. And it was weird because I wasn't afraid, I wasn't scared, I was just like huh. That's weird. Everyone's dead and it's burning. So tell me about what your dream was sort of like and how progressively it got either less or healed or whatever.
Speaker 3:Well, that's an easy one. I deployed with 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Division out of Camp Pendleton, california, so I'm an LAR Bubba, if anybody's watching All 12 of them that you said, um, and so my biggest problem was always didn't feel like I did enough, right right, and was always, uh, grew up in a in a not bad neighborhood, you know, not bad family or whatever. I had definitely had some problems there, but needed to, didn't feel like I ever did enough. So my problem and what I would dream about all the time was I was always missing, like I was 30 seconds behind where I needed to be, and so it wasn't enough. You know, I can remember exactly one of my dreams was um that I had was one of my, like, best friends in life, was in the military with me and was standing around a corner and I needed to grab him, to pull him back around and he took one and I'm like did you sense in the moment you should pull the back?
Speaker 3:yeah, and those are dreams again, those are 100 dreams, and the thing that really set me free from all of that was the Freedom Through Freedom Fighter Foundation and having conversations and going through the combat healing I always mess that one up. Say it for me, mike. Combat trauma healing manual.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 3:And living life together with brothers who are like-minded, and we're always trying to push each other back towards Christ. No matter what we're doing, no matter what it is, we're pushing each other back towards Christ because that's the healer.
Speaker 3:You can't fit a. You know, I always I use this analogy with everybody but you can't fit a square peg in a circle hole, right? We all hear that in the military. Well, a lot of times what we're doing as veterans, you're trying to beat something into that Jesus-sized hole in our heart. We're trying to push pills, we're trying to push alcohol, we're trying to push you know, I know one of my big things was buying guns, like all of those things trying to push it into a spot that only Christ can heal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good, I think. For me when I was in combat, one of the things that really really I struggled with is I sent a squad squad so we had a bomb go off. I remember exactly where it was. I had, um. Do you guys remember the crow? Did you guys ever?
Speaker 2:use a crow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's like a remote control 50 cal and uh, we didn't have those.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had just gotten it, we didn't have those, like we were like we still had world war ii, ma deuces, yeah right, hey listen it's still a ma deuce all right anyway, so it was uh, so was a 50 Cal that we had in this OP.
Speaker 1:It was remote controlled. It was super great OP observation post Yep, we were working on it in the talk TAC Collaboration Center and a bomb was off.
Speaker 2:He's really good at that.
Speaker 1:And the bomb was like bombs went off all the time. So I looked over my RTO radio telephone operator. I go hey, Murphy, uh, murphy, what happened? And he's on the radio. He's like hey, there's a an id at the, you know the 523 explosive device what's that?
Speaker 1:yeah, thank you yeah and uh I I was like I got nothing and I remember I was like, oh gosh, it was right near the cemetery. We'd been hit there before and I was like we're about to get replaced by the pennsylvania national guard. It could be their problem. Uh, and I was like, do we really want to send in? It was May 8th, I'll never forget it. Do I really want to send in a squad to go in? We're going to leave here in two months. Why don't we just play it safe?
Speaker 1:And I was like, ah, we can't do that to the next unit, it's going to screw them over. And I remember just like, was Jason? I was like, hey, man, go look for line of sight onto the area where the bomb went off. There's probably some with a video camera once you, you know, because Al Jazeera, you get paid as a terrorist by Al Jazeera to get, like you know, footage of Americans dying. So that was sort of like the glory for them. So I was like, go find somewhere Someone's probably filming it dying. So that was sort of like the glory for them. So I was like, go find somewhere, someone's probably filming it.
Speaker 1:And so, as they enter into the uh cemetery, massive id strike and two guys end up dead. And uh, mark, messmer, thor, ingraham, those two guys. And I remember just like like going, oh my gosh, why did I do that? I? We got two months left. I shouldn't have sent him in there. And I was really struggling with that decision. And this is why God's word becomes so powerful. And I was reading God's word, matthew 10, 29. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your father's care. And if he cares that much for birds? How much more does he care for you?
Speaker 1:And what that meant for me was like oh God's in control, like I, I'm a fool if I think I'm in control of the life or death of any of my soldiers and so I thought it was appropriate for me to weep for those guys yeah, absolutely and but that's the cost of war there's, you know, like I sent guys all over the place and they didn't die on this one, on this decision, I, you know. All right, go investigate, go do whatever.
Speaker 1:And've gotten off my tank, ran around the battlefield and nothing happened, and you know it was terrifying, but nothing ever happened, like not, I didn't get shot and um, and these guys, you know I'm I'm zipping up their body bag going, just feeling the weight of that kind of you know how it is. You want to kind of ingrain the their face into your heart and soul because it feels so horrible about it. But for me that's where the scripture had real power. It had real power to bring healing and I'm so grateful I had that healing in the moment. I didn't have to wait until I went on a crime spree or anything else. I was like in the moment what?
Speaker 3:were you trying to say man? I was going to say something there.
Speaker 2:I didn't have to come back home.
Speaker 1:So say, I was gonna say something there, like I didn't come back, so what? I'm saying is like that's where jesus is so important and that's why what you guys are doing is really powerful for veterans now and even current um, because I think you guys have a chaplaincy part of this work we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're active duty needs. These guys are in the field and communicating, I think, communicating the sovereignty of god and his great understanding of life and death. And he has, before the foundations of the world were even built. He knew the lifespan. All the days of your life were written in my book, and so, in the same way that I can't write a day in someone else's book, I can't end it either, and so I'm only responsible for what I can control and the moral, ethical decisions that I can control. And in the moment, as a commander, you're going to make decisions that you're like. You know that can go either way, and so that for me became a really powerful way to sort of move past some of the. The trauma I guess of of that moment is understanding God's sovereignty of grace in it, for me as well as for those guys, and I don't know how. You know their families. You know Thor's family and Mark's family.
Speaker 1:I feel always terrible for that, because the consequence of that decision in that moment on May 8th of 2005, is, if you're a soldier, you're a Marine, you're a combat veteran. What you need to understand, I think, sometimes, is that even in your mistakes, god is sovereign over that, that nothing that happened in your life was outside of the bounds of God's sovereign hand, even in your most cruel and evil. That you knew you were evil, you didn't care and you were going to the darkness. And now that you've gotten a conscious, and now that you knew you were evil, you didn't care and you were going to the darkness. Now that you've gotten a conscious, and now that you've been saved or whatever, and you're reliving those things, it might be that Jesus is trying to tell you that the whole world is jacked up, the whole world is completely depraved, and we saw the reality of that in combat.
Speaker 1:I think what happens is when you can feel the healing of your own soul, you're able to give it to others, and it might not like heal the world, but you can heal you and then heal those around you. And I think that's part of the whole message of the gospel is that Jesus came to save sinners. Crumple up your sins, remove them as far as the East is from the West and take the penalty for your sin, take on hell for you, and when the moment you start taking that shame on yourself, what you're saying is like what Jesus did on the cross was not good enough. Amen.
Speaker 1:And if people what happens when you do that, when you say, like when I sort of relive and I feel guilty and I feel shame, like ah Jesus, let me take some of that from you, and you're robbing Christ of his glory, when you want to wallow in your shame because you're saying what you did, jesus was not good enough. And so I think that's the part that I really want people to hear. If you're a veteran dealing with struggles of combat, dealing with the struggle of making a decision in the moment that now, years later, you're like I could have gone a different way, I want you to hear that you are taking and robbing from the glory of God by not letting him take on the full responsibility.
Speaker 4:So anyway, I want to kind of get that across. I feel that's important. That really resonates, because what Cody was saying about how he felt like he didn't do enough, that was when I came to the church. That was the reoccurring thought pattern that I never did enough. I need one more deployment to make it right.
Speaker 4:And in fact there was never going to be enough deployments to ever make it right. And my biggest problem was, you know, the friends that didn't come home and it was just that and I remember feeling like you know grief that they weren't. They didn't come home and I wasn't on those you know missions with them. I wasn't even in country with them but, like these guys, one died from id strike, a sniper got another one and you know, I'll just know, anthony legman is, is, uh, well, staff sergeant anthony legman, who was a marine for a little while, but we, we forgive him.
Speaker 4:Uh, I'll never forget that man, and he wasn't just a great soldier and probably a really awesome Marine too. Um, he was a good guy, yeah, and he was just like one of those standup dudes that you know, cause usually we come from you know bad home situations and stuff, and we don't know how to act. Right, we act when no one's looking, when we're not in our regimen, like you said, like we just go haywire. How many weekends have we woke up on, like monday morning, like what happened, I don't know. We got pt, okay, and that's that right, and he just wasn't that guy just making sure you still have your military id in your, yeah, your pocket.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he's the guy kicking you awake, being like, hey, get up, dummy, you know. And he caught it. And I'll never forget that feeling. When I learned that I was like what and like I carried that I mean I still kind of carry it that feeling of like loss and just like he got picked to die and I didn't. And then then you started thinking, well, you're just not good enough.
Speaker 3:I think one of the things that I learned through all of the growth and the change that I've done is is from the standpoint of not doing enough, is I just wasn't doing it in the right area?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:You know, I I wasn't. There wasn't going to be enough deployments, there wasn't going to be enough combat, there wasn't going to be enough alcohol, there wasn't like all of those things that I struggled with throughout my entire life. There was never going to be enough, because it's not what I was called to do, right Like my, you know, personal opinion, and this between me and God is this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to help fellow veterans heal and understand who their Lord and Savior, jesus Christ, is. That's the mission, that's the battlefield that I belong on Afghanistan, that was for a season, that was a season of my life and I, yes, we had fun and, yes, it was challenging and all of those things, but all of that was to bring me to the right battlefield, which is I'm on now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that's I mean, that's what I'm fighting for now.
Speaker 2:And that's what we see like in our emerging leaders, in that is, like guys who here's the cool thing about the Freedom Fighter Foundation and kind of what we do, yeah, with veterans and first responders are not scared of a fight Right, and that's one thing we love, right. And once we figure out who the real enemy is, these guys will storm the gates of hell and redirect traffic. Nice, they are not scared to go in there and be like, look devil, you ain't got no control over this, no more. Like we aren't giving you access to our friends anymore, yeah, do I mean?
Speaker 2:You were talking about free will earlier and you were kind of getting into like the free will of I blamed God because of the bad thing. If you're a good God and you're all knowing and powerful and you can do something about this, and you're letting my friend die and you're letting it happen. I don't want nothing to do with you. God's not the enemy, it's man, it's evil men doing evil things to each other. That's free will, choices that everyone gets to make, and that's the truth that everyone gets to make. And that's the truth. And so, in that, when you look at God as an ally, not an enemy man that changes things. And so when you get their identity back in Christ, all of those kinds of things, and when you don't know, you don't know, you only know what you know no-transcript automatically send an email, um to our uh, higher echelon. I don't know if you want to call them, but higher echelons, yeah, yeah higher echelons, they'll be able to it's about my back shop.
Speaker 1:It's about my. It's the S4 shop. It's going to the S4. It's going to the S1. The S shop, yeah, the S shop.
Speaker 2:It'll hit the S shop and it'll get back to us. No, it'll go to national director, national outreach director, which is myself, and then our national trainer director. Will things that happen too? We got freedom conferences. We got marriage tune-ups. We got, uh, hunting trips, fishing trips like we've got a hunting trip coming up, like this year uh, I think they're all full for this year. Wow, all full, all full. Just missed the cut.
Speaker 2:So yeah, just missed the cut, but next year is, and so if you give me information, let me know, I'll connect you. And it's actually a partnered ministry called patriot outfitter and we also get with legacy outfitters, another one that we use, and both of those are christ-centered and what they do is they take you on this hunt and I mean, what are? Some of our guys just got back from a like a lifetime hunt. They shot an axis, gave him a shoulder mount, and all they do is like, and you get to keep the meat, like, uh, pretty good, but the deal about it is is, it's not even about that, right, you get a whole lot of jesus in the hunt.
Speaker 2:Name bad, nice, yeah, and then that's what happens and these can speak to it because they've been on a hunt, I've been on one Were you.
Speaker 3:I've never been on one yet.
Speaker 4:I was on one last January and it was. It was a whole lot of Jesus and the hunting was all right yeah.
Speaker 2:I saw a deer yeah.
Speaker 4:I saw a deer. I saw a deer.
Speaker 2:I love it, I love it and so and those are the kind of organizations we with too, is like. You know, guys, who they want? More jesus, and so heroes. Below is another one. It's a scuba diving one, and all it is is stress reduction, relaxation, but and if you got back problems, I'm carrying around a rucksack and jumping out airplanes and rappelling out of helicopters for a lot of years.
Speaker 3:Wrong branch, gentlemen, wrong branch, we just march we're just walking around uh
Speaker 2:huffing around with a 90 pound rucksack and and yeah, okay, so, but if you have those things and back injuries, knee injuries, right, takes all the pressure off your back and knees. You're in floating, you're blowing bubbles. It takes away all the outside noises. Man, what a great time to spend in prayer, right? Um, and so that's another organization that we work with. Um, we're getting ready to do a living water weekend down at messiah ranch. Uh, in july we got a couple of spots open, so if there's anybody interested in that, just hit me up on the. What's that? Living Water? Living Water Weekend is going to be a scuba float, so you'll dive. You can bring your wife actually as well, and so, wife and you know, or if you're single, and that's fine, come on. We'll have three days and this isn't going to cost you anything. It's completely free. How do people pay? How is it free?
Speaker 2:Well okay, this gets into what we do as Freedom Fighter Foundation. So when people donate to our foundation, this is what those donations go to.
Speaker 1:So how do people?
Speaker 2:donate. Go to the website Click on.
Speaker 1:Freedomfighterfoundationorg.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, freedomfighterfoundationorg. Click on donate and you can make a donation. That's one priority for us is being able to get donations in to be able to do these missions.
Speaker 1:Because what you're offering is a free service for guys that are really struggling.
Speaker 2:And have served your country and that's why, and have you know, gave us the freedoms that we are able to have here in the United States, and so we want to give those guys who have, you know, been through a lot and paid a lot in those families, the opportunity now to have some freedom for themselves.
Speaker 1:Awesome, well, hey thanks so much, both you guys and, of course, Machine Gun Nick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Machine Gun, Nick man.
Speaker 1:Listen, we're a Pastor Plex podcast. We talk about faith, culture and everything in between. It's definitely one of those everything in between. Thanks for watching. If you've got any questions, you can text us at 737-231-0605. Or go to PastorPleckcom and we can bring these guys back. If you got any questions about what the Freedom Fighter Foundation does or how you can get involved, we would love to help you get connected. Listen. Thanks so much for watching or listening from our house to yours. Have an awesome week of worship.