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So Lieutenant General Walt Pyatt is in studio. He's a Wounded Warrior Project CEO. Big day tomorrow. We have the soldier ride, which really started with Tony Snow and this radio show, which I ended up taking over because he went to the White House. And now it's getting bigger than ever.
They're going to be heading out all the way to the Hamptons. If you don't know New York, no, it's about 60 miles.
So there'll be a few stops, and it's not going to be easy. General, welcome back.
Well, thanks for having me. Good to be back in New York. Yeah, so tell me how the Wounded Warrior Project's doing. Oh, we're doing really good. I mean, sadly, there's still a big need out there.
Many warriors and their families are suffering from their impacts of their life of military service. As I said, most Young men and women, you know, they have to unfortunately accept the end of the life they thought they were going to have and embrace a life they didn't think was possible. And we're there to help them. We're there to help them get in a new path of life of hope and renewed purpose and get physically and mentally strong and bring every warrior home, mind, body, and soul. And when you talk about the issue now, it's no longer two hot wars going on at once and who knows what other conflicts are happening in Africa.
You have things to settle down.
So we're seeing the aftermath of that. How many people are enrolled with the Wounded Warrior Project? We're almost at 300,000 now. We bring in about 25,000 a year. We're trying to get that number more because so many men and women have served since 9-11 in uniform.
So I think the need is greater than what we have registered.
So we're constantly looking out for warriors. And I tell every community, if you know a veteran that served after 9-11 and needs help, we'll get them to help or we'll get them to the place that they need. What kind of help do they need? Mostly, I think. First off, it's normally just filing their claim with the Veterans Affair.
It's a really, it's a difficult process. And for any warrior, especially if they've got a traumatic brain injury, any type of injury, it's hard to do. We help them with that. That's kind of our initial handshake so they know you're not connected. You are special.
You're a veteran. Your nation cares about you. We care about you. And then we help them with financial planning, Warriors to Work program, help them get a job. But a big range of our programs have to deal with mental health, the invisible wounds of war.
And we have a lot of things, and this soldier ride. is one of them. It looks like we're riding bicycles, but really it's movement towards healing. It's getting everyone outside, reconnecting, getting them in a beautiful place like New York City. And you should see what the city does for us.
You know, your nation appreciates your service, and that helps the warrior feel appreciated. It helps the warrior come home. How do you feel about with Marcus Luttrell and his brother and Governor Perry of Texas talking about psychedelics and dealing with the psychology of coming back from war? They're claiming that it's unbelievably successful. We're actually backing some research on it as well with MDMA and there's other treatments.
We're following the science.
So we have a warrior care network. We leverage academic universities across the country from UMass in Boston to Emory in Atlanta, Rush in Chicago, UCLA in California. And we're allowing the world's best scientists to research this.
So we want to follow the science and the data will show, I believe there's hope for it. And it will be, you'll know the exact doses. It'll be made. You'll know where it's made. It'll be treated by a trained physician that will apply it.
Anything that is showing promise, we need to continue to research, especially because PTSD is treatable. We do a wide range of programs that help it, and you help a warrior deal with it. If there are better ways, and there will be, we need to follow the science, do the research, especially to with traumatic brain injury. That's where we don't know enough. PTSD we've been doing for several years now, so we're learning a lot more.
But with traumatic brain injuries, we don't know, there's still much more. We need to know and what are the best treatments. Then, when we find those treatments, Brian, and I'm hopefully we will, I'm optimistic that we will, and I think MDMA will have a part. What is MDMA?
Well, it's the psychedelics that you're talking about.
So, it's a drug, but it's not something where a warrior is going in a room and they're getting high from it. It's not that at all. It's clinically administered with other evidence-based therapies so we can help the warrior unleash these memories that they're having. And it's showing promise in research.
So, I think once the science is there, our nation will make good decisions. Then it'll be hard to scale it because I think the numbers are greater than we think. And it's not just veterans, it's first responders. It's a lot of people in an auto accident. They've been through trauma.
They're suffering from post-traumatic trauma and they need help.
So, will you focus on the people that serve, though? I know that Tunnel of the Tower has expanded and they're starting to do first responders. That's not your focus. No, we're 9-11. We're post-9-11, and that was really because, and veterans, but they're family members as well.
Because when a warrior comes back and he or she has suffered, From injuries of war, the whole family suffers, the children suffer, the spouse, the extended family.
So, we have a family support member. My wife is a family support member. She's actually on one of our programs right now in Colorado. She was doing stand-up boarding yesterday. She's out doing physical activities and learning.
So, the families were going to be part. But I'm a big fan of Tunnels for Towers too, because first responders, you know, they're able to help many that need help, especially with homelessness of veterans and first responders. You know, people who serve this great country should not be left homeless. You know, that's just not the way America shows their appreciation. And I think Tunnels for Towers, other programs out there that help our veterans and our other first responders and other people in need, God bless them for doing so.
How did the Afghanistan withdrawal affect the men and women that served? I think there was great anxiety. I was still serving in the Pentagon at that time. What I tell our friends that I've served with, that our nation committed a lot there, and there were many successes that we'll probably never know. Many terrorists.
Networks never were able to attack us because of our time in Afghanistan. Policy decisions are what they are, and the military executes them. But I think a lot of warriors were left and families with questions. I think it created anxiety, and they just needed help. And it kind of allowed us to help them deal with other things they were dealing with.
It wasn't necessarily the withdrawal. It was probably the withdrawal that triggered other issues that they experienced in Afghanistan that they never dealt with.
So I think it in some way probably helped with awareness and got people to seek help because of the things and the hard service they went through while serving in Afghanistan.
So and then soldier ride tomorrow, how is it going to lay out? No, it's going to be great. We're starting right here, right downstairs.
So thank you. Thank you for joining us in Midtown Manhattan. Yeah, so thanks for having us again. And then we'll ride to Coney Island, so 20 plus miles tomorrow. And then day two will be in Babylon, day three in the Hamptons, where really it really originated out in the Hamptons.
So for us, it's the power of movement. It's the healing power.
So we're going to ride together. We'll have warriors showing up today, getting fitted. Many of them yesterday. Probably thought about not coming because they're full of anxiety and it happens every time.
So they'll be very nervous tonight. They'll be very nervous tomorrow. But after about midday, especially when we get to Coney Island, they'll all be smiling. They'll be hugging one another. Then they'll start telling stories.
They'll probably be crying and smiling by day two.
So it really is not about the physical activity of riding a bicycle for three days in this beautiful state, Long Island. It's really about the power of movement and healing and coming together and that connection that this particular soldier ride offers them. How do you feel about the Pentagon's new rules where they're trying to make men and women and bring up the standards a little bit and get the political correctness out? Have you felt the ripple effect downrange? I did not.
In my time in service, I did a lot to promote access to women in what we would call combat arms.
So I was the chief of infantry at one time, and we wanted women to get into ranger school. That's the story from former Medal of Honor recipient, the late Colonel Ralph Puckett. He built Ranger School for the Army. It's one of the toughest schools the Army has. But it was for men only.
And when we were asked to explore how do we put women, integrate women into Ranger School, Ralph was the first guy I called. And I said, Sir, I'm going to need your help because we've got to do this. We need women to get this training. Without lowering the standards because it puts people's lives at risk. Right.
And he said, I'll never forget it because he said, Wald, he said, it's about time. But we never lowered the standards. I mean, that school's hard no matter when I went through it, and it's hard for everybody.
So I got to see that women in our uniform, when given the opportunity to compete in a fair level of play, they will excel. They will do things just like any athlete will.
Some athletes are faster, bigger, stronger. And I think what they wanted was just to be treated fairly and be given an opportunity to serve in some branches that were formerly prohibited from serving just because of their gender. I think the military gets it right. It's like an NFL football team. You either can block or run or you can't.
So in the military, you either can shoot or you can't. We just measure the outcome. You've got to perform to the high standards our military demands. And I think that demanding high standards is what the Army's always done for 250 years. And I think they're going to continue to do it.
That's why we're the best. And the numbers show, General, that the recruiting's gone up. On almost every branch. Anecdotally, or whether you saw the numbers, do you get that sense? Yes, I do.
It's hard to say. The employment is at 4%. Usually they say when the economic strife leads a lot of people to the military insurgency, but we don't have an uneven economic situation. Right. I don't know if we ever get it right.
People say a lot of things like that, like what's impact. I don't know if we get it. I think there's still a desire to serve. And I see young people in this country today, and I think they get a bad rap. Like they're lazy, they're not physically active.
But I think they want to serve more than they want to be paid. They want to serve. We get that in our organization. People, maybe not signing up for the military, but they want to come work for Wounded Warrior Project because they want to give to something greater than themselves. And I think the military always attracts that.
And we get great citizens from this country to put their hand up. Did you go through the academy? I did not. I was enlisted first.
So I came in as a private. I went to a small college in Pennsylvania after I got out as a sergeant. I was very proud of my enlisted time. I loved it. I joined because, you know, my father was in World War II.
Most of my teachers and high school coaches all served. I thought that's what you did. You got out of high school, you joined a military service, you got out, you went back and taught school and coached football. You know, that was my dream. Didn't work out so well, but 42 years later, you know, I hung it up.
But I just love our military because they're just so full of people that are there for the right reasons. They just want to give. I hear you.
So, Lieutenant General Walter Pyatt, thanks so much. If you people want to give to the Wounded Warrior Project or be part of it, what do they do? WoundedWarriorProject.com, woundedwarriorproject.org. Come donate or sign up for our services. And we have ways for many people to volunteer.
You'll see it at Soldier Ride Now. You'll see the communities come out tomorrow and at Babylon and at Hamptons. They just want to come out and say thank you. They'll ride along with us. Every little bit helps because it shows a warrior they're appreciated and that their country cares about you.
All right. Thanks so much, General. Great to see you again. Thank you, sir. Back in a moment.
You're with Brian Kilmead. Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy, host of the Trey Gaddy Podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at FoxNewsPodcast.com.
