Center For Healthy Veterans

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Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. In some cases, like Vietnam veterans, they come home and we spit on them in their shame.

Why is this? And how do we serve and love our veterans? What is the National Center for Healthy Veterans? And who is General Bob Deese? Because I'm sitting right next to him and I am in the heart of this place.

Unbelievable. I pulled through this fence and I just pulled into like a paradise here. Bob Deese, where are we? What's going on, man? Well, you're at Valor Farm where we have the National Center for Healthy Veterans.

It's an amazing place. We think our veterans are untapped national treasures. Think about their courage, their candor, their commitment, their competencies. And they, some of them are wounded on our behalf. You know, they've gone to war, they've been wounded, or they've engaged in military and they've been wounded. Maybe they have family of origin issues, mama, daddy, whatever, and they've been wounded and now they come in the military and it just gets even worse and they are fractured. So our purpose is to return healthy veterans to America.

And American needs our veterans now more than ever before. So we're in this room. Now paint a picture.

We're with your team. I got the bearded brother over there. I got the big 10 gallon hat over there. The livestock guy. I mean, I'm seeing horses, animals, dogs. I got guys.

I got more pickup trucks here than a Ford dealership. I mean, what in the world? There's some veterans. There's an Army guy, a Marine guy. Army guy.

I got to be careful. Maybe I should have said Chevy dealership. I don't know. You never know if you've got a Ford or Chevy guy in here or a Dodge Ram truck guy.

I don't know, but I know there's trucks and there's wheels and there's a lot of land out there. But set the stage for us here. Who are all these folks? Yeah, well, these are part of our staff around the room. We have Brenda Schwartz, who's our chief operating officer. Brenda is an amazing lady because she's also a soldier's wife and has been handled, handled many death notifications and casualty notifications for tens upon tens.

So she's got the T-shirt. She understands as a soldier's wife, but she also understands as a leader of wives and readiness groups within the military. Then we have Jake Corwin over there. Jake's our livestock foreman.

It's funny. People talk about who they trust on the farm. And usually Jake's name comes up because he teaches them horsemanship.

He's part of the equine therapy team that does this. And the net is that Jake is a man's man and he's also a man of God and that combination. Every one of our staff members sign a statement of faith. So they're all faith.

They're all Christians. Now, we don't have any acid tests for people to come here, but our staff creates this environment. That's our secret sauce.

Okay. And then around the room, we have Aaron Blaine here. Aaron, just a tremendous program director for us. And Aaron has been there, done that. Aaron wouldn't mind me telling you he's been behind bars at times.

These people can't pull any wool over his eyes. And he's amazing. And then there's Victoria. Victoria is case manager. Victoria handles with... She's been in charge of nursing homes and things, handling people with compassion. And she also has some military background. And so she combines those giftings. It's almost like God has prepared each one of these people. And as he's called them, he's brought them here, he's prepared them even more.

And they're an amazing team. And then my bride Kathleen is right here. Kathleen, we celebrated our anniversary two weeks ago, 50th anniversary. So that's pretty cool. And what meant the most to me, the greatest anniversary gift I received from her, she said, there's nothing I'd rather be doing at this point in our lives. And that's powerful.

That's a real testimony. She's a military bride, moved us 21 times, 31 years. She's a military mother, military grandmother. So you get the point. She's been there.

She's got the T-shirt as well. Well, I want to hear about you now. Hey, you want to hear from our fearless leader? Guys, let me hear some noise. Come on.

All right. I brought you some muscadine juice as a Thanksgiving gift to thank you for your amazing work here. But Bob Dease, tell us who is Bob Dease and how did you get started? I guess we can start there. And then how did you get involved with the National Center for Healthy Veterans?

It's bringing a lot of these veterans here to get some healing and some help with these wonderful team members. Yeah. Well, thanks for the Thanksgiving gift, by the way. No, I was raised in a Christian home, blessed to be raised by godly mom and dad and particularly mother and grandmother that just really poured into me. So at age 11, I gave myself to the Lord, but I wanted as a teenager the way many of us do. And I got to this place called West Point and they took away my hair. They took away my Pontiac.

How dare they? They call me a plebe. I was the lowest to the low.

And I recognize that if I dug down real deep, I might come up empty handed. And that was the point in time where I really got serious about Jesus. I rededicated my life and God provided some mentors that are still mentors to this day.

50 plus years ago, Gail and Andy Seidel, and they invested in me and this cute gal from Houston, Texas I was dating at the time that was Kathleen. And so that's the way it started out at West Point. And I went to West Point to play football and I didn't ended up not doing that because of concussions and for a pretty girl.

And so I guess one out of two is not bad. And then when I graduated, you know, it's interesting at West Point. It's like they stamp on your forehead, accomplish the mission, take care of the troops, accomplish mission, take care of the troops. But when you get out there with those troops, it suddenly shifts from your head to your heart.

When you see your radio telephone operator die at your side or when you see the pathos of those blue collar workers in the military that are selfless servants and they will do anything for the nation and for one another. So it moves from your head to your heart and eventually to your gut as a divine calling. And that's what happened with us early on as a divine calling. People had invested in us, they discipled us. So when we got it in the military, it was just a natural thing. We became ambassadors in uniform for Jesus as we went 31 years around the military. And God blessed us.

We had all sorts of commands, high level responsibilities around the world. And then after we got off of that path, retired from the military, I knew that God was not finished with us yet. And in fact, it was not lost on me at that time that the active duty and veteran suicide statistics were higher than in recorded history.

And this shouldn't be happening in America. So I was righteously indignant. You know, typical, we look in the mirror and we say, well, somebody ought to do something about this. Well, we recognize that with us.

And God had other dots, other ingredients to put in place. But that was like in 2003 that we retired. And now 20 years later, this is coming to fruition as all these dots connect. And we're grateful. The team I've introduced to you is just part of our team.

You've got a big team. And I've heard you speak. I've always been like a long time admirer, first time interviewer.

But we've met and talked and hung out. But just what you're doing practically to help folks. Give a quick summary of this amazing National Center for Healthy Veterans and this Camp Valor that we're at.

Sure. We have 339 acres and it's just beautiful healing platform. Horses, cattle, chickens, donkeys. You know, you name it. God's at work here. And we pray that the Holy Spirit hovers over this place. And we really sense that whenever you come on the property. In addition, we have community living. We need to show you the houses up on the hill.

We've got a whole village up there that's now complete. And they live in community to defeat isolation, which is one of the primary causes of veteran suicide. So all of it is very intentional to bring them out of isolation. The second thing is that we have work that provides dignity and self-esteem and teamwork. And this work is really therapy more than anything.

And so you'll find that as much as they go through classes, they also are next to Jake and next to Aaron working, you know, mending fences, doing this, helping with animals. And that is very important for their self-esteem and getting back on track. Thirdly, we have faith based trauma recovering life skills programs. We have three things. One is resilience that helps them understand some life tools for navigating adversity. The second one is reboot. The reboot really dives deep into processing the traumas that they have experienced and are suffering from at present. How do you get emotional regulation?

How do you deal with triggers? All those things. And then thirdly, we have a career preparation program. It's called Jobs for Life. And we're excited about it because they we want them to know from the very start. And then at the end, we want them to be successful professionally. And we think I said they're a national treasure. We want them to be businessmen, entrepreneurs, coaches, educators, radio personalities out there so that they can be doing good things for America as well as for themselves.

It looks like your Web site is healthyveterans.org. And what a statement and what a powerful thing to pour into those who have poured their life out for us. Many of them didn't come home. The ones that have come home, you're loving on them and you're bringing them to Jesus and bringing some healing into their life. PTSD, all these things, marriage crisis, other things and getting them off the streets and just helping them be all they can be for Christ. Yeah.

Well, you're all over it. PTSD, moral injury, mild traumatic brain injury and then family of origin issues, as I mentioned. All of those are some of their presenting needs. And so we just wrap arms around them.

You know, we live in a microwave society and sometimes people think a weekend retreat or fly fishing trip. Those are good. I'm not dissing them.

Those are good. But for these folks, they need continuity of care. They need somebody wraps arm around them, rides a roller coaster with them.

It's on an upward, but it's still a roller coaster. And then at the end of this, we see tremendous life changes. We've we've seen amazing transformations. Some people have come to Christ right in that very arena. People have been baptized. It's really exciting and meaningful for us to see what God is doing here in our midst.

Praise Lord. How can our listeners support, pray for you and what's your word? All the veterans out there listening, struggling, battling with life right now, listening right now to our our program.

General Bob Dease, of course. Well, you mentioned healthy veterans dot org. We need specific help in two areas. One referrals of veterans that need what we have aren't going to be out on the street corner saying, help me, help me. They're going to be in their parents basement playing video games. They're going to be under a bridge hiding and in isolation. They're going to be doing other things.

They might even be in prison. Whatever it is, we find that we really need to help these people and we wrap arms around them. So we need referrals. People in America need to find these folks and let's get them help. Secondly, we obviously need resources.

We need beans, bullets, ammunition, and people understand that. And then thirdly, we want to get this word out to veterans that there is hope. God is the healer.

You know, it says not by power, by might, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. So our secret sauce, we do a lot of things that other people do and then some were sort of like these. You know, we have this living arrangement. We put people in houses. But our real graduate level work, our intellectual property is how do we rewire the brain, reshape the heart, restore the soul of these veterans so they can go out and do good things for America. So to the veterans, I'd say there is hope. We have help for you. Hopefully you'll consider us or recommend your buddies to come here if you fit this this program.

It's a nine month residential program. So it's like you land on an aircraft carrier. You rearm, refuel, and then you take off again and do good things.

All right. I'm on that ranch right now. Over 300 acres of just amazing. The Holy Spirit's moving here.

Your team is amazing. I get to see the joy of the Lord in their countenance. And that sweet lady has stood by you all these years, over 50 years of marriage. God bless you, Kathleen. And you're not just you're just within earshite of the new ninety three point seven FM out of Lynchburg. One of our wonderful Truth Network stations and affiliates of Truth Talk. Thank you to all of our affiliates for standing with us and for letting us give a voice to this man of God. These kind of ministries and the Web site. One more time. Bob Deas, healthy veterans dot org. See you there. This is the Truth Network.