Are We Ignoring The #1 Cause Of Veteran Suicide? Exploring Moral-Injury

Today, I sit down with veteran advocate and author Eric Donoho for an honest discussion on veteran mental health, moral injury, and the challenges of life after service. Mr. Donoho shares his journey from enlisting at 26 to enduring multiple combat injuries in Iraq, ultimately leading him to Washington, D.C. There, he became an advocate for veterans’ rights and suicide prevention.

The conversation highlights the critical distinction between PTSD and moral injury—an often-overlooked wound of the spirit that leaves many veterans struggling to find purpose. Eric opens up about his personal battle with suicidal thoughts, his failed attempt, and the moment he realized he was meant for something greater. Through faith, service, and advocacy, he has worked tirelessly to ensure that veterans receive the support they need—particularly through initiatives like the 988 Suicide Hotline.

Additionally, Mr. Donoho exposes wasted efforts and financial decisions made for veterans due to selfish motivations that don't have veterans at the forefront of the decisions, from suicide prevention to post-service benefits. 

https://ericdonoho.com/

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Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey. And if you listen frequently, it may seem, as always, I'm sick. It's, the weather has been so strange here in Georgia. It was 70, now it's 30, then it was 20, then it was 60, now it's back down to 30.

So, I don't know if my body can't keep up or what it may be. But, as you can hear, if you listen frequently, I am sick. But, I wanted to make sure I was here for today's episode because We have a guest whose bio was extensively long and as I was reading through it There was just so many different facets to it.

A lot of them all branching into stuff We've covered on the show from VA home loans to suicide prevention to just military and veteran mental health So today's episode is going to be packed full of a lot of information But even if you're a civilian side, there's going to be a lot of great advice that you can take away from this as well.

So I definitely encourage y'all to listen regardless of whether you served or not. But we are here with a man who did serve honorably and who even went through so many trials that we'll get into both during the service as well as afterward. Mr. Eric Donohoe, it's so great to have you here and I'd love for you to introduce yourself for us, please. 

Well, thank you for having me, Mr. Whiskey. I'm looking forward to being on your podcast today.  Like you said, I have quite a journey actually. Um, and I never really saw it like that, but it, it really started for me when I was 26 years old, I was working at a radio station doing advertising and marketing, um, and local, you know, events, um, like  concerts and that sort of thing.

And I just didn't feel,  I don't know, fulfilled or. Happy with myself, I didn't have that confidence that I looked at other people and saw in them. And so I was at a, uh,  I was at a recruiting, the recruiting station for a sales call for the radio station. And at 26, I was in shape, we're in the middle of war and they didn't try to recruit me.

And so after I left that sales appointment, I went back a little bit later and I'm like, hey, why didn't you recruit me? try to recruit me and they're like, well, cause you have a good job. Like, why would you leave your job and go join the military? You're old.  And I was like, Hmm. And so I sat on it for a couple of weeks and literally about three weeks later, I was in the recruiting station, uh, joining as an airborne infantryman, uh, went off to basic training down at Fort Benning, which is. 

I don't know what it's called now. I don't even care to be honest. Something more, quote, politically correct than the full name for you. Yeah, I don't even care. It'll always be Fort Benning. Just like it'll always be whatever it is now to the guys that show up there. To me, it'll always be Fort Benning. Um, so I showed up at Fort Benning and then I went through basic training, infantry school, javelin school, then airborne school, and then I went off to Alaska, uh, for my first duty station where  I ended up being a member of the Scout Sniper Platoon.

We deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom in  October of 2006. And came home December 2007. I think everyone in our brigade was home in January of 2008 though.  And, um, shortly after coming home, I found myself at warrior transitions unit, which is a place where you go if you've been wounded, um, or blown up too many times at war, which was my case.

Um, I had gotten blown up by two IEDs. Um, one EFP and, uh, was in a, um, Katyusha rocket attack.  Yeah, actually I was browsing your Instagram this morning and I saw you recently posted about how that particular day you decided to combat lock your door. Can you tell us about that experience? Yeah, so, I, I mean  Um, so one of the explosions, um, that one is pinned to the top of my Instagram, uh, the February 14th,  um,  2007, we were driving on Rock, Chicago.

And I just had a feeling in inside of me to, to combat lock our doors for people who don't know combat locking your door is like essentially putting a steel bolt across the Humvee door. So, you know, you're more protected in case it gets blown up. We had been in the,  um, process of our habit of not locking our combat doors because if you had a rollover trying to get out of.

The Humvee with it combat locked is really, really hard. And there were some casualties that resulted from, you know, rolling over into a canal and not being able to get the combat locked door open. So that day, for whatever reason, that gut feeling, I mean, I've later come to learn that that gut feeling was, was God.

Um, but I had a gut feeling and I combat locked my door. About 250 meters after I did that, I got hit with my second roadside bomb, um, that just, you know, devastated the Humvee and, and, and left me, you know, dazed and confused, uh, will be the, the best, the best thing that I can say about that.  Yeah. So you talk about,  you know, this experience you had in military and then afterward.

You wanted to advocate for veterans and the thing I want to focus on to begin with was your work in legislation specifically the 9a a CSI hotline because Suicide prevention and awareness is one of the biggest topics on my show and it's uh, you know, what's We've talked about the most and some of my best performing episodes and it's something important to me as well I was on a ship that you know went under investigation for mass suicide wave and you know the 988 hotline is one that we put out a lot on the show and So I'd love to know how you contributed to that if if you helped create that that's definitely something.

Yeah, so  I think the best way to  Talk about this is to first talk about how I got into advocating, uh, in DC. So there are a number of what they're called veteran service organizations. Um, non profits who their focus and mission is on, uh, creating legislation and helping the VA understand how to do things better.

Um, and so a lot of those organizations are ones that we all know, uh, VFW, American Legion, Wounded Warrior Project.  Afghanistan Veterans of America Independence Fund. Um,  Blue Star Families has just been Added into the group. And there's a few others that are, that are in there as well. Um,  and so for me, uh, I had always been connected with, uh, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans of America.

And so, um, every year, matter of fact, I think right now. I saw something come across, uh, that they have applications open right now to go to the Hill to advocate, um, for, for veterans. So for me, I, I,  because I was involved with them, I became what's called a leadership fellow with them in 2000, June of 2018.

And what that entailed was me coming to D. C.  On average, I was in D. C. about once a quarter. Um, it also included writing emails. And then eventually, as the years went on, it first started by just, you know, sharing my story and working with lawmakers. To then helping train other veterans to leading veterans on the hill to appointments and so forth like that.

So specifically for the 9 8 8 suicide, um, I was relatively new to, to the game. And so for me, um,  really the area where I provided help was in, um, sharing my story with lawmakers. Uh, ahem.  Which at the time, you know, um, wasn't even, you know, I hadn't had my book out, I, I, I had only been a survivor of veteran suicide for three years, and so it was still real raw for me, but it was also clear enough to me that I was lucky and thankful that my Glock wouldn't fire that day, um, because had I  Fixed whatever was happening that day, I wouldn't be here.

And, um, at that time, and it's still true to today, you know, I am so grateful that in, when I sat down at my kitchen table and tried to end my life in December of 2015, that it didn't work.  And it was really resulted in a loss of hope, uh, that anything in life would get better. And, uh, I had been, uh, retired in February of 2009 on what's called the Temporary TDRL, or Temporary Retirement List, until I could be evaluated how my conditions would fare over a few years.

So in 2009, I became temporarily retired. Um, and I would go to counseling every week, I would do all the things that everybody told me I needed to do for PTSD, but nothing was getting better for me. So, in December of 2015,  I, um, I found myself at a table thinking everybody would be better off without me.

What I didn't realize  in December of 2015.  Was that there was an underlying, underlining issue that I wasn't dealing with called moral injury. And moral injury is an injury to our spirits. I know there are a lot of people out there that want to try to  make it more of a clinical type of thing that they can, you know,  treat and write about in textbooks and treat in hospitals, but the reality is moral injury is an injury to our core and our spirit.

And once I realized, you know, after my failed attempt at Suicide and I really started to dig into, well, I'm still here. I'm after all of these things, after three bombs, a katusha rocket attack, a suicide attack, all the, or a suicide attempt, all these different things. I'm still here. So there needs. There, there has to be some sort of purpose that I'm meant for here, and in trying to figure out what that purpose is, um, I started to learn about moral injury, and as I started to dig into moral injury, I started to learn that, you know,  this is something that is affecting me, and I wondered if I start trying to deal with that injury, will I start to get better, and  And the reality is, um, you can definitely heal the moral injury part of this equation.

Um, and that's the important thing to focus on. The PTSD, the things that get tattooed on your brain during war, I don't think those are ever II veterans in my life. I've had the blessing to talk with them and I've had some mentorship from them and I don't think those things ever leave you, but when you deal with that moral injury, what that does is it gives you the strong, strong enough foundation to carry those other things with dignity and pride in life and looking at them as assets rather than  things that keep us on the couch and broken.

So I covered a whole lot in there, but, um, in all of this, um, what brought me to DC and what made me start sharing my story for the 9 8 8 suicide hotline and, and dive into that particular bill first was that experience.  You talked a lot about moral injury. What exactly did that look like in your life?

Like, how did it kind of manifest and how did you go about fixing that kind of injury and even identifying it?  Um, so I talk about this in my book, uh, a little bit about the experience of where Um, and when I recognized that moral injury was something that I needed to focus on and maybe learn a little bit about, um, for your audience to, you know, kind of keep it in a, succinct and not drawn out, um,  I realized something was wrong when I had an inability to have faith in anything. 

I was consistently and always trying to control my situations. Based on the aspect of knowing what the worst humanity can do to one another in the name of something. Right. So everything became, you know, uh, me trying to mitigate any risk that that would,  you know, potentially, you know, uh, Have towards my family towards me towards my kids and when you're trying to control in that way, you know, it's really coming out of fear and it's stifling your relationships with your family.

So I knew something was wrong based on that, right? And based on the fact that I wasn't building relationships, I would, I was. stifling them. I was suffocating them with my individual fears that I brought home from war. And so in looking at this, everyone always told me, well that's the PTSD coming through, that fear.

And so I always just assumed it was that. Um, when I started to look into moral injury, what I learned is that moral injury will run concurrent with PTSD, although you don't need one to have the other, but you usually will have a couple of, you know, it will usually run concurrent. concurrent. But the problem with moral injury  is that moral injury manifests many of the same symptoms as PTSD, anger, fear, um, the need to control, you know, this inability to have faith in something other than what you can do and, and, and put out there. 

And so, um, I think ultimately, when I realized that  it produces all the same symptoms. And I had been legitimately putting in the work on PTSD for so many years that it was logical to say, okay, I need to I need to start doing this somewhere. So in the book, you get a bigger,  you know, understanding of what that looks like, but simply put, I wasn't ready to put my faith back in God.

I was still very angry with God. Um,  so for me. What it looked like was I knew that in order to have faith in something, I needed to put it in something other than myself. So to start with, I put it into my wife. Who had always told me, you know, that God is watching out for me, that God is taking care of me, that God is taking care of us, despite all of these, you know, challenges we have had both in, you know, my professional life and then in our personal life.

And so I thought, you know, if she believes that she's my ride or die, and so I need to put my faith in her. And start there. And that was the very first thing that I did, and in putting that faith in her,  she helped me walk my path, and I eventually, you know, found  My version of what  a relationship with God looks like for me, and I think each and every one of us have to find that for ourselves.

I think the Bible gives us a good, you know, base of how to live our lives, but it doesn't necessarily always. Reflect the relationship we need to create with Jesus and God. Um, it just gives us the advice to turn to when we're having anxiety, when we're having stress, when we're doing something new in life and it's scary, that gives us a good guidepost for where to keep, you know, our trajectory, kind of like a compass.

And so, the fact that I grew up Irish Catholic, the fact that I went to, you know, Catholic schools my whole life.  And then, you know, here I am later in life. It's not surprising that moral injury was an issue for me. Um,  and so, um, that kind of became something that I started to learn a lot about and try to overcome and, and that's a lot of what my book is really about, is about overcoming moral injury.

And you do that by  putting your faith in something other than yourself and serving. people other than yourself.  A lot of times I've heard with, you know, believers interacting with people who don't believe are going through periods of doubt. I've heard a lot when it comes to, you know, I'll be praying for you.

And the person is like, Oh, you know, I don't believe in that. Or, you know, I don't believe in God. And I've heard a lot of believers say. Well, believe that I believe, you know, that my faith is great enough for the two of us. And that's what you remind me of with that whole story with your wife. And you mentioned your book a few times, and I know for those of you who are listening, not watching, Mr.

Donahue has it behind him, Canyon of Hope. Can you tell us a little more about that book? You know, I know you talked about when you got out, even three years afterward, you still hadn't written the book. So when did that come about and what is that meant to serve and do?  So the book just got published, um,  in August.

Its launch was in September for National Suicide Awareness Month. And, um, the book came out of, uh, you know, a number of different issues. The  two biggest issues for me was I wanted to have a roadmap for my kids, uh, of Of highlighting, you know, life and, and making choices one way and, and in life and making choices another way and, you know, a comparison and contrast for that kind of life, the secondary and, you know, from a professional standpoint, the reason I wrote it was because I'm really tired of the veteran community, not talking about moral injury at, the scale that it should be talked about.

Um, and there are lots of reasons on why that exists. So, one of the things that I looked at is, well, what could I do in my own life to, you know, start to change that trajectory and needle? And, um, in doing that, you know, you kind of give a roadmap for somebody who might have been like me, you know, spending a lot of years focusing on PTSD.

Not realizing that maybe they're suffering from a separate injury that will not get better until you start dealing with it. And I think that's probably the most important thing I left out from our conversation a second ago is that traditional PTSD treatments actually provide no relief for a moral injury. 

Because a moral injury is a faith based injury. It's an injury to your moral compass.  From that standpoint, you have to deal with those injuries different. Which is why I said you have to find an ability to put faith in something. Um, you know, and, uh, an ability to, um,  serve others. Because in serving others, you get out of that.

Woe is me. Oh, this is, you know, so bad. My life is so horrible. And you start to see how blessed you actually are on serving other people.  Um,  and, you know, for me, that isn't just, you know, uh,  A statement I'm putting on a podcast. It is something that I believe to my core. My company's name is hand up LLC and our tagline are two are better than one because if one falls, the other is there to give a hand up.

And it's something I believe to my core. Um, and so, you know, in,  in believing that message. That's where I found the healing.  You know, it's, it's so interesting. I had just shared on my Instagram story this morning that quote from Ecclesiastes, which is two are better than one for one falls, the other can help up.

And not many people get that that's actually where my tagline, that's exactly where my tagline comes from. Yeah, it's, I just, I love that God always has, if a Bible quote is put in my life, uh, at a particular time, He'll send it like two or three times. That day or week like he he'll hit me repeatedly with it.

Yes. So try to drive in a message to me So I just saw a few minutes ago on Instagram put on my story and then you just said it so one of those days But yeah, I think it's definitely the case, you know There's so many veterans who feel so isolated feel so alone even within their own veteran or military community But I want to go back to you talk about Treating PTSD and not moral injury at the same time, and it reminded me a lot of the conversations we've had on this show about, you know, dry versus sober in terms of addiction recovery, where you can remove the alcohol.

and kind of combat the addiction. But if you're not sobering up, which means you're also working on your social life, your spiritual life, all of that, that, you know, that addiction relief isn't gonna be to its full extent, or that getting rid of that isn't gonna fix your life. Just like you said, which, again, I agree with you that, like, PTSD, I think is one of those permanent things, and you can learn to deal with it, to cope with it, to minimize it, but even if you have it minimized, You know, if you don't fix the moral injury, your life is still going to be in a bad place.

And I think  a lot of people think, alright, if I get rid of the PTSD, I'll go back to the normal civilian life I had before the military. And that's not necessarily the case. There's a lot of other stuff, especially moral, you know, injury that you have to deal with as well. And so,  would you say your book is kind of, obviously it shares your story.

Would you say it's also a guidebook on, on how to deal with moral injury?  Even, what do you say, is a good preventative book for active duty members or, you know, family members and loved ones of veterans in active duty to read as well as veterans themselves.  When I, um, when I started out with this book, one of the things, um, that is incredibly important to me is that I try to bring value in whatever product or whatever service that I'm, you know, putting out into this world.

And so I didn't just want to write a book that regurgitated my life, you know, right? I'm just a retired sergeant infantry guy. I'm, you know, not a tier one operator. Like, I'm no one special. I'm just like one of the other millions of vets that served in that post 9 11 generation time frame, um, that  You know, is found struggle and then found a way through that struggle.

And, um, so this book,  when I sent it out to pre readers and then since it's been out has, I've gotten positive feedback from family members, dealing with veterans and trying to understand who they are. Um, I've gotten good feedback from civilians trying to understand who veterans are. I've gotten good feedback from veterans who say things like, you put words to feelings that I've had for a long time, um, and didn't know what to do with, um, to personal email messages about how this book gave them hope that things can get better.

better. And that's really the crutch of what all of this is because I believe there are things that we can do to try to combat veteran suicide, but there's only one thing that'll actually  You know, um, truly make veteran suicide go away, which is providing hope, hope that life can get better than the dark pit.

You find yourself stuck in today. And, um, and it starts with, you know, us. And it starts with us holding ourselves accountable and, and I tried to do that in this book, you know, this isn't, um, this isn't a book about war stories or any of that sort of thing. It's a book about, um, things I could have done better and situations like, for example, um, when I left to deploy to Operation Iraqi Freedom, my wife was pregnant.

With our son, uh, she was seven and a half months pregnant. And by the time I left from Fort Richardson, Alaska and arrived at camp Buring Kuwait, so I hadn't even, you know, offloaded from the bus yet. I had a, uh, NCO waiting for me at the bus. with a Red Cross message that we had lost our son, David.  And so I immediately turned around, got back on a plane, um, because of great leadership, I was back next to my wife for the stillbirth.

And then, you know, we buried our son, David, at Fort Richardson National Cemetery. The Army was like, Hey, you know,  you really need to stay home. You need to stay here with your wife.  And, um, you know, I, I just,  I don't know the way I grew up Irish Catholic, the way we handled things was with anger a lot. So for me, I was like, no, I need to go back to war.

I was like, my guys need me knowing damn well, they didn't need me. Like they didn't need me at all, but in my head, I'm like, no, this is what I've been training for. I got to go do this. And really what it came down to was I, I just was running away from being scared to have to face these emotions. And so when I write about that in the book, it isn't about this bravado that, you know, like, Oh, it's like all of these mistakes that I made.

Don't make them in your life. Right? Like,  So, you know, the lesson that someone can take away from that is if you're for a husband and your wife has a miscarriage, you know, like you need to find out how to be there for her. And that is different for every woman, right? You don't run away. And because of that, that shaped.

How we would handle conflicts, you know, for many, many years in our marriage until much later when I would start to find healing in my own life. And then we could start to find healing in our marriage.  Right. And so that's your book, Canyon of Hope, part of it. And then besides your book, I know you do so much from volunteering to speaking, but can you tell us more about Hand Up LLC and kind of what that all entails and does to, you know, help veterans and to provide services to them? 

Uh, so hand up LLC is my for profit company. Um, I have a realty company that falls underneath there. My book falls underneath there. Um, and a lot of what I do with that company is fund me  in the, um, ability to go out to do the work in, in DC. And then I also try to donate.  Um,  as much as I can, like, you know, this is a business.

I have a life I have to, you know, feed my family. And so not everything that comes into my business goes out to, to, to serve veterans, you know, um, but I do try to live by the rule of at least 10 percent of what comes in, it's usually more than that. And it's done quietly, um,  and it will always be done quietly.

I don't believe that I need to make noise when I go out to do those sort of things. Um, but.  Organizations that I would support or that I do support and that I, and I do and have donated to are organizations like Warrior Rising, who are working with veteran entrepreneurs and making sure that they have access to capital, which is the hardest thing for veterans to do when you're starting out.

So young veterans like yourself, starting a podcast business. I mean, this is a business, right? Um, you should definitely check out warriorrising. org if you haven't. Um,  I'm in the process of  re evaluating who I work with in D. C. and how my funds or how I direct funds to organizations that work in D. C.

Right now, I can tell you that the one organization. I full wholeheartedly and 100 percent behind, um, is blue star families. I know a lot of individuals who, um, work over there and they're doing really good work.  I have some issues with some of the other organizations based on what they're willing to talk about, what they're not willing to talk about.

And the fact that, um, you know, they're taking donations.  From Tik TOK to the tune of a million dollars, which really means they're taking donations from China. And so when you look at these large of an organization, you know, Tik TOK is using them and, uh, the veterans, 86 percent approval rating to try to, you know, combat the narrative that they are, um, you know, an arm of the Chinese government.

And so  when I look at. You know, an organization like Wounded Warrior Project who routinely brings in hundreds of millions of dollars. I can't, for the life of me, understand why they would ever think that a million dollars from TikTok would be a good idea. I know for certainty that they don't employ any IT staff that would be able to know whether the apps that they're using to upload.

Um, have gotten into their database and, you know, compromised the thousands of wounded warriors that they have, um, not to mention the fact that, you know, none of them have really been open and honest. It's not just wounded warrior project. Um, even the, uh, organization that I worked for for, uh, and volunteered with IAVA, they're one of the ones who took a million dollars.

Um, Independence Fund, uh, Elizabeth Dole Foundation. I mean, my God, the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, if their development team couldn't raise a million dollars within five phone calls with the name Elizabeth Dole Foundation, then they should be fired. I mean, this is, this is insane that these.  This level of, of organizations would take this kind of donation from,  in essence, the Chinese government.

Knowing full well why they're, they're giving them the donation and then actively trying to keep it quiet. Um, that donation happened, uh, November  11th, Veterans Day. And, you know, none of those organizations Um, VFW was one, another one of them. Student Veterans of America was another one of them. None of them put out any press releases, but at the same time, Disney donated a million dollars to Student Veterans of America and it was plastered all over their homepage. 

So they knew what they were doing, and my issue with it is if you're going to take the million dollars, be upfront about taking the million dollars. You know, do the same kind of promotions that you would do for anyone else, but they're not. So, you know, and then when we dig into the moral injury, most of them say, you know, we have a no God policy, which means they're not going to talk about faith.

So if you go to any of the major. VSOs with the exception of one, which is the DAV, uh, disabled Vet or Disabled Veterans of America, DDVA or whatever that is. Uh, if you go to theirs, they're the only site that you know is actively in DC pushing legislation that has anything about moral injury on their, their website.

The rest of 'em may be an article here or there, but nothing to to tell you that this is a real injury.  Or any of those sort of things. And the reason why is because they have this no faith, no God policy that I was completely unaware of until, you know, just recently when  trying to understand and why they're not talking about moral injury.

So  in doing the research, I. Thought, okay, well, let's do the research and see if this is even something that's an issue or what we need to do. And so, uh, I'm a numbers guy. They, they don't lie. People tend to lie. Numbers don't. So, um, I thought, all right, let's look at. In the military, let's look at veteran or military and veteran.

Let's look at suicide. Who is the group that is at the highest risk level? So in my research and doing that, the highest risk group, according to the VA out of New Jersey, is, uh, those suffering from moral injury.  Okay. What's the second highest at risk group? That group is the LGBTQ plus. Community makes sense.

I knew that was high. I didn't realize they were the second highest, but okay,  I re I can. I can get it. I'm tracking again. Numbers don't lie. So when I look at moral injury, what defines or who would define moral injury? So when you dig into that definition, anyone who has a spiritual affiliation could or would be more susceptible to suffer from a moral injury, So then I started looking at, well, what are the numbers in the, the DOD that, uh, affiliate, uh, affiliate with some sort of religion?

You know, we all check those boxes when we list, right? So that is an accurate number. That is 71% of the DOD say that they have some sort of religious affiliation. So then when I looked at the numbers coming out of the VA and the studies coming out of there. That told a different story, a much higher story,  91%.

So then I was like, all right, well, what, what makes up this second group? In the military, uh, the best that I, uh, the  annotation that they have is 6. 1 percent for the, you know, reliable data that I could find. That makes up that community and in the VA, I, I couldn't find any reliable numbers, so I'm just going to classify it for, you know, sakes as being 6.

1 to 10%, you know, to give some room here. So then I was like, okay. Much smaller. Here's number 1, very large population. Number 2, very small population.  Let's look at investment, you know, so what are we doing for more injury over the past 10 years? What are we doing to help the LGBTQ plus community over the last 10 years  and.

In the first group, in the last 10 years for moral injury with the DOD and VA, there have been zero programs created out of 1, 100 new programs. Zero, I'll say it again, zero have been for moral injury. And zero dollars have been spent on combating moral injury.  To compare that with the much smaller group, what has been spent over the last ten years and done over the last ten years for that group? 

And I'm missing four years of data on that group, the last four years to be specific. So these numbers could be much higher. In that last four years, they dialed in on gender affirming care and psychotherapy for that. Group and spent 29. 6 million  on that group.  So to get this  clear, we have a group of people that make up the majority. 

And we've spent 0 on that group  over the 20 years that we've been really actively, you know, trying to tackle veteran suicide. We have created zero programs. We've spent 0 on moral injury, but we have routinely spent, you know, close to a billion dollars a year on the government side, well over a billion on the private side  to combat, um,  to combat veteran suicide.

And the numbers haven't changed.  We're at the same numbers. So to double down and keep doubling down on things that aren't working make zero sense. And the one thing that we haven't talked about is moral injury, which is something that is potentially or that has the potential to affect the majority of people who serve and veterans. 

This is insane.  And they're not talking about it. And when they do talk, they're not talking about it in this way that I'm talking about it from a spiritual context, because they have the no God policies in place. And they're trying, if they are talking about it, they're trying to be clinical about it. And they're bringing PhDs in, and they're bringing all these different people in, but what you don't see are spiritual leaders, chaplains, who have been calling out moral injury as a significant thing that we need to deal with since 2009. 

Yeah, so there's, there's a lot you said that I want to address going Yeah, sorry, I kind of went on for a while there, but No, you're totally fine, so Numbers don't lie. Yeah, going to the  The veteran organizations that may be morally questionable. I think that you mentioned the approval, you know, rating of veterans in terms of, you know, publicity  in some recent episodes, we've talked about Christianity being merchandised, you know, people saying Jesus Christ or God to whether they're political leaders or influencers online, whatever the case may be using.

You know, God and religion as branding as an approval rating. Same with the veterans. You know, we've seen plenty of people. We use veterans or support for veterans as a way to push their business or ideologies. So that's the only comment I'll make in terms of, you know, kind of what you were talking about there with veteran organizations and how people can use that for good or for evil.

And there's definitely a lot of people who want to use it for evil. Well, yeah, I mean, so I, I'll give you an example, uh, another example that is, um,  an interesting example. So every year there's a bill that gets introduced in Congress that would allow, um, veterans to, instead of use their post nine, nine 11 GI bill to go back to school and get educated.

It would instead allow them to utilize it as a one time grant to start up their small business. So imagine like a plumber, right? You go into the military, you, you, um, you know, you, you become a plumber. You, you learn your trade, you come out as an E6, you know, everything you need to do, you need to pass some tests in your state.

You go past those tests and you become a licensed plumber in your state. The hardest thing for you to do as a veteran is to find funding to start that small business. So then what you end up doing is to go to work for someone else. Whereas if you  Instead, you know, looked at the GI Bill and offered that to a veteran, you know, who joined the military in the first place without any intent of wanting to go to school.

They joined the military to go learn something so that they then go out. And, you know, work in the civilian world and not have to go to school. And so  every year I'm, I'm all for this bill. Every year I'm, I'm a champion of it. And every year it gets killed before it even gets started. And let me explain why this bill gets killed.

So it's not that it would just give you money. You would have to go through an approved, um, business bootcamp where you learn to write a. You know, um, a business plan, you get mentors, everybody makes sure all your I's and T's are crossed, and then once they are, you're issued that grant, and then you get your, you know, housing allowance that you get with the post 9 11 GI Bill as well for one year. 

And so that gives that veteran a real chance at making that business successful because you're also bringing in income that allows you to pay your bills and all that sort of stuff. I'm for this a hundred percent. Right. Yeah. I mean, every veteran I've talked to is like, why isn't this already happened?

Right. So this is why it doesn't happen. Because every time that this bill goes to get introduced, the student veterans of America,  who are a subsidiary of the VFW, their partners, very strong partnership, uh, both of those organizations, Heal that bill right off the start.  They just, they end it. They'll say, this is an end run around, you know, trying to steal money from the GI bill and privatize it.

Now, the most important thing that people need to understand is the biggest donors to the student veterans of America are universities and colleges, and who are the biggest recipients. To the tune of last year, 10. 1 billion, colleges and universities.  This isn't about doing what's best for the veteran.

This is about doing what's best for their organization. They don't look at this and say, well, you know. This is actually a good point because a third of people who join the military don't even want to be, you know, don't want to go to college in the first place. They join the military to go learn a trade.

So this would allow them to then go off and create small businesses that are needed in our rural communities more than ever. And the classes right now that are becoming millionaires, Wall Street Journal just did a huge article about this not that long ago about how, um, individuals starting plumbing businesses, electrical businesses, contractors, all of this local little businesses are becoming millionaires because they're getting bought out when it comes time to sell by larger organizations and hedge funds.

And so, you know, all of these people coming out of the military will actually have a better shot of becoming a millionaire, a millionaire quicker by building that business than they do by going and getting indoctrinated in some bullshit program at a four year university. And I've been to both. I'm wearing University of Alaska sweatshirt right now.

I love them. I went there, love them. I went to Holy Cross College. I have both. Perspectives here. It depends on what it is you want to do, and we have to start getting back to that, and we have to have people who are willing to hold these organizations accountable, and, you know, as much as I hate sitting here, you know, calling it out, I'm also tired of watching it happen. 

Yeah, I completely agree with everything you said. You know, I think. That small business opportunity. It would be a lot because there's so many veterans who get out and they don't use the G. I. R. Post 9 11 bill because they don't want to go to school and I totally get that. So I think I completely agree with it.

I would love to see that bill pushed obviously. And  the other point I want to make without getting too political is just that, you know, the military has always been very left leaning and that community has A tendency to, you know, glorify and idolize the homosexual community and put down the faith based community.

And so to see all the funding go to, you know, that first one and not to the latter, I mean, I'm not surprised at all by that. And to see that Be the case and be pushed because of a political agenda again the same situation where it's not what's best for veterans It's what is best in terms of you know Government and politics and what makes the government and military look better, you know Whereas I rather see the government and the veteran, you know associations  work on a majority of the veterans and preventing veteran suicides and pinpointing on a group that they consider to be a minority to make everyone feel, you know, all happy about it.

I think that, especially if historically we've seen it's not working, then that's more than enough evidence. Like you said, the numbers are there and not having the last four years. I I could, you know, I would, I would bet my soul on it that there was even more money put into that community than ever before in history,  just the way that we saw money be put into other countries and other organizations over the past four years, I would, I would bet that a hundred percent.

So, yeah, no, I, I, I think the, the numbers are likely to have gone up and, and I think, you know,  I think we're both saying the same thing in this, which is. And this is where it gets skewed, right? Like I, I have this conversation with a lot of people and then they try to say, well, I'm, I'm being anti LGBTQ plus community and I'm not like that, that,  you know, when we talk about this, I think that that community  who, whoever, or, or whatever community decides to serve.

If that community is struggling with suicide or struggling with some health condition or something, right? Like. Um, you definitely need to take care of it. Um, the problem comes into play when  those same people, you know, when you're having this conversation and instead of looking at people who have a religious spirituality and affiliation as a group, it's then this same group over here that then comes in and says, wait a second, separation of church and state.

What if I don't believe?  And that's not what I'm saying. I'm not, you know, that's not what you are saying. We're saying each specific group should be represented and should be getting funding to help that group overcome these problems. And  you know,  we're not seeing even distribution community for attention.

C I'm sorry, we're not seeing even distribution or attention to the groups we're seeing, you know, just pinpoint focus or on one and not the other. Right. And, and it's about,  that is a, that is really about garnering news, garnering press, garnering attention. Um,  it's, it's all driven by  the donor's agenda.

You know, um, it isn't driven by the actual veterans that they serve. And that's where I think. You know, um,  that's where I get frustrated. Like, for example, I don't know if you've ever heard of this group. I know until I started doing my research, I had never heard of them. It's called the Mighty Oaks Foundation.

And I'm going to share this on this pod podcast,  because if there is any veterans out there struggling, um,  what I'm about to share, go to this website or their, you know, their website, their foundation for help. I think it'll help speed up your process. So that it's not as long as like what mine was, right.

Or, or some other people's, but Mighty Oaks Foundation is a veteran nonprofit that focuses on faith based solutions to these problems. So dealing with moral injury, dealing with these sort of things, um, they've served over 2000 veterans so far, and they've had zero suicides. 

So I don't know one group of a veteran group that I'm a part of, um,  that has not had a veteran suicide. And what I mean by veteran group, I mean, the people who are actually serving the veterans who are in need on the ground, right? We're kind of moved beyond DC and that's kind of like its own separate entity.

And then there's like the people who actually serve veterans.  And these groups who serve veterans. Um,  I don't know one of them that have not lost at least one of these veterans that they've served.  Um, Mighty Oaks hasn't.  And so, you know, you have to look at that and you have to ask yourself, Okay, so what's there?

They're treating moral injury. 

You know, nothing gets better  in life until you start  treating all the components of your life.  Right? So It goes back to what you were saying about addiction. If you don't deal with the root cause that made you, uh, uh, have, made you an addict in the first place,  your recovery is dated.  You have a, you, you will, you will most likely relapse again.

Because you didn't take time to face those fires. And so when the fires come, they won't come in that way again. They'll come in the shape of something different. And when that same fire, just different, you don't realize it's, it's the same fire because you didn't deal with the fire in the first place, you didn't come out the furnace boards stronger.

And that's why it's so important to face what we're, you know, we're facing.  Mighty Oaks encourages that kind of growth. Um,  you know,  if you can't talk about God and you have a no faith clause, right? Like how do you go out and communicate around a fire with veterans  who are struggling with all kinds of different things? 

It's just, it's insane. So, especially when you think about like for me, you know, being in the infantry, when we roll outside the wire, before we roll outside the wire, I'd see 85, 90 percent of the guys all huddled up in prayers or smaller groups settled up in prayers before they get into their own bees praying.

And yet, you know, when we come home, that's not supposed to be any part of our journey home. Like,  you know, it's  just, it's.  It's a crazy thing that we don't, you know, uh, talk more about it.  Yeah. I mean, overall, it's been a somber but hopeful conversation. And we're going to have all of your information in the description below for people who want to connect with you.

Whether that's your book, your realty, or speaking, we're going to have your information below. Even if it's just, you know, one to one conversations with other veterans. So we're gonna have that all in the description below for y'all to check out ladies and gentlemen and Mr. Donahoe I just want to thank you for your service as well as your service beyond, you know, the battlefield everything you're doing having these what some would deem Controversial conversations holding people accountable and trying to provide for the veteran community So I really appreciate that and I thank you for your time on the show today  Hey, I thank you.

Thank you for your service. Thank you for creating platforms for people like me to come and talk about these things and, um, you know, keep up, keep this up, man. Like we need veteran voices out there. Uh, not just providing conversations about veterans, but like what you're doing, providing hope and allowing God's light to shine through you.

So never stop brother.