[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Jockel Underground podcast number two nineteen with Carrie Helton.
[SPEAKER_00]: curious sitting in the seat, normally occupied by echo Charles, but echo Charles is extraordinarily busy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's tied up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's tied up on an extended vacation.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're holding his calls.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're in the hot seat.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have brought with you today questions from the
[SPEAKER_00]: Questions from the troopers that are out there making things happen and we will provide answers or suggestions or guidance or at a minimum courses of action for you to proceed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's get into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: First question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jaco recently my father died, being a non-betterin who was drafted into the first cavalry.
[SPEAKER_01]: My struggles with this is a result of me being one of me being the one who found him.
[SPEAKER_01]: A live mind you and trying everything I could to keep him going for EMS to arrive on scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mother died in 2001 and I learned how to grow up quickly and become a man so to speak.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I knew that I always needed to be there for my father as it affected him greatly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Although I know he is at peace and where he wants to be reunited with my mother, I cannot stop feeling responsible for what happened to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I'm very active, go to the gym regularly and have become accustomed to using lifting as my therapy.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, I don't understand how I can get past these feelings of being responsible for it all.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was hoping that you could share some insight on how you would handle the loss of a value teammate during your deployments in Iraq, heard a little bit about it from your interview with Sean Ryan, but was hoping to try and make this a little more personal towards me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Any thoughts on continuing to mentally strong and getting after it, as you say, is greatly appreciated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, I'm, well, sorry to hear about your dad and sorry to hear about your mom and thanks you dad for his service, the, uh, the first cab in NOM.
[SPEAKER_00]: nothing but respect and yeah you say that you've heard me talk about overcoming loss and unfortunately something I've had to do quite a bit of it's something that never never gets easy and you know you probably heard me talk about my initial reaction especially in combat was just to get back to work
[SPEAKER_00]: right, get back to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: But quite frankly, getting back to work is a distraction.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a distraction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's actually a distraction in a good way because in these situations there is so much emotion that it can be overwhelming.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think getting distracted by work is helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: because your mind is trying to process all that emotion and you can't just get wrapped up in that emotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen families do the same thing or family members do the same thing after loss, which is focus on whatever like the logistics of the funeral and the memorial service and the execution of the will and all these things and it helps them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you're clearly you're through that phase
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad you're getting after it and using weights as therapy.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a chance that you need to actual therapy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's a real thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have, you know, I had my friends to talk to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know you've talked to about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your mom's also has died.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know you've got brothers or sisters or someone that you're talking through this stuff with.
[SPEAKER_00]: But...
[SPEAKER_00]: If you aren't talking to anyone about this, there's a chance that you need to.
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to go to some therapy, use the protocol that I used first unintentionally, but eventually, which is right about it, right about what happened with your dad, right about what you miss about him, right about how you feel.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good thing to do, but you might need to go and talk to somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is perfectly normal, because I think that where you're out you're past the phase of like, hey, we're just going to work through this.
[SPEAKER_00]: That can get you through a little bit, but you're looking at the big picture right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And part of what you're talking about, part of what you're talking about, I guess, is that you somehow feel responsible, which is in this scenario, it does not seem realistic to me, death is part of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a beginning, there is a middle, and there's an end, and nothing can stop that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the best doctors in the world, not the best scientists in the world, not the person with unlimited money.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one can stop this from happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: So to think you can stop this from happening is not a realistic assessment.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is part of life, it is completely and utterly unstoppable.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, in a way, I'm sure that that can seem very terrible and awful and threatening and overwhelming, right, to think, hey, we're all going to die.
[SPEAKER_00]: That might be part of the thing that's bothering you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: For me, the fact that death is imminent is kind of comforting because there is no choice
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no choice but to accept it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no, you can't fight against it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no other option.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like you're in a pressure situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to make a decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what's happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no other possible way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna happen to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna happen to our family.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna happen to our friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna happen to our enemies.
[SPEAKER_00]: it's going to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is just it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, to me, it's not a bad thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's every every story has beginning a middle and an end.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every story has a beginning a middle and an end.
[SPEAKER_00]: And life would not be so precious without death.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, life wouldn't be a thing without death.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wouldn't be a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wouldn't, it wouldn't be a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And your dad got to live a long life, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: He experienced a lot, he experienced good, he experienced bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had a wife, he had a family, he served his country.
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, what else is there?
[SPEAKER_00]: What an incredible legacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So to me, in the same way that I try to live my life to honor my friends that I've lost, I think the best possible thing that you can do is honor your dad and you honor your dad by living the best life possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And part of that is not wallowing in or remorse being
[SPEAKER_00]: your dad does not want you to feel that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants, he is begging you to stop feeling like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants you to carry on, I promise you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants you to go and live life, the best life possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every day, every minute, every second, that's what he wants.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that's what I would do if I were you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: You ask, share the, how I handle sharing of loss of teammates, live a life worthy of their sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for you, live a life worthy of his sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_00]: He made all kinds of sacrifices for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: A dad being a dad is a massive amount of sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know what the reward is incredible.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what the reward is?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocco Underground podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you want to continue to listen,
[SPEAKER_00]: go to jockelunderground.com and subscribe and we're doing this, we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms so we are not subject to their control and we are doing this so that we can support the jockel podcast which will remain as is free for all as long as we can keep it that way but we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us, and to do that we are building a website right now, where we'll build the utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you, it's jockelunderground.com.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We can still support you just email assistance at jockelonaground.com and we'll get you taken care of until then we will see you mobilized underground.