SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey, and welcome to the Faithful Warrior Podcast, where courage meets conviction. Each episode shines a light on the powerful testimonies of veterans, first responders, and godly men of faith who have walked through the fire and found strength in Christ. These are the stories of real-life warriors on the battlefield and in the life who share the journeys of struggle, redemption, purpose, and unwavering faith. Join us as we dive deep into what it is into the heart of being a faithful in the fight and anchored in hope. Well, welcome, Chris, man. This is Chris Snyder of uh Sad Team Six, a nonprofit man helping military ventures and the first responders. And uh man, I got to uh know Chris a couple months back, I believe it was about the first of the year, and we met on a social media platform, man. And uh and I tell you, people talk about these social media platforms and uh the bad that they can do, but also there's good in it too. And this is one example right here is uh we know how it is in the nonprofit world of just getting the word out, getting the word out is huge. So, man, getting a link up with you and uh getting talked to you and know you a little bit. Uh it's a great message what you got for us tonight, and how you can help people. So tell us a little bit about who Chris is today.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

So uh Chris is a former career firefighter. I worked for the uh city of Canton, Ohio. I was a member of the IAFF Local 249 uh for about 15 years. Um, prior to that, I worked for another smaller department. And then uh, like a lot of people, I cut my teeth in EMS. I got started on the private ambulance side of things, working um for a small company rural. Uh I preferred it because uh in our area here in Ohio, a lot of the private ambulance companies do interfacility transfers, and that's like nursing home to the doctor, blah, blah, blah. That's boring. That's not what I wanted to do, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Right.

SPEAKER_04 2:08

Um, it was uh, but working for the gentleman that I did in that rural area, he ran primary EMS. You were the response because the local fire department was volunteer. You were we were the primary paramedics for the area. Um had a lot of fun there, saw a lot of wild things um out there. But uh my career was uh for the most part great. Uh I had a lot of great times. I'm uh uh been married 24 years. Uh I have a uh 21-year-old son and a uh 26-year-old stepdaughter that uh we uh we've just been uh doing the thing lately, but uh it's uh and then in uh January of twenty twenty-four.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:12

Um I uh I had a suicide attempt after um just uh what I can say now was a steady decline. Uh I recognize that in the months that led to that, I was really a uh I was having the suicidal ideations almost every day.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:39

Um when will this be over? What can I, you know, let me let me get this at work, let me catch one at work so my family gets paid, you know, things like that. I was thinking those things constantly. Uh, but uh I finally popped that early January. Um I spent six weeks in a psychiatric hospital. It was unpleasant. Uh there were a lot of things about that journey that uh uh really stuck to me and drove me to advocacy because there I didn't uh I didn't feel like I was treated like a human. Um it was wild. Uh it was the wild, wild west. And uh that sat on me hard. Um, but I was very fortunate being a union firefighter. Uh there were resources available to me. And um I went to the uh IAFF Center of Excellence, uh, which is an incredible facility that is a resource for union firefighters. Um and uh they treat uh addiction and mental health. Uh there I was introduced to CBT, DBT, EMDR. Um, and while I was there, EMDR was really a big help. Uh yeah, it really lightened the load. Uh I had an excellent practitioner. She was so funny, she was so amazing to work with. And um she kind of picked through the nut pile, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:35

And she gave what EMDR gave me was a lot of relief from very specific calls that were in my past, uh, things that I had responded to over my career. And uh from there, I returned to work. Uh which at the time I don't know if it was the move. Um, but it felt like I had to. And I made it back, and then a month later, a uh a brother of ours named Jared took his life. Uh so you know, now I uh I w I had to walk that path. Um and it was very challenging. There were a lot of things that I felt I had to be a part of, and then there were other things where I didn't want to be seen because it uh to be honest, with everybody was just staring at me like, how's he handling this? How's he, you know? And it became uncomfortable and I didn't like it. Um, one of the first times in my life I didn't want to be the center of attention.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

And uh, you know, I'm a clown, man. I like having fun and being ornery, and that wasn't it. But um a few months later, uh, I started just carrying the conversation forward with my friends, the the guys that um I met in Maryland, the guys that stayed in contact with me. We buddied up and we had this peer support. And with their help and encouragement, uh we I started the actual conversation. And then uh, but the idea was born in on the property at the IAFF Center of Excellence. A uh really cool uh guy I enjoyed there, firefighter named Paul. Yeah, he was out of Miami. Uh he he had these tokens made and it said uh sad team six elite. And we started calling ourselves sad team six uh because we started calling the center of excellence sad camp, which uh they didn't they didn't they didn't like it. Uh they really did not want us to call it sad camp, but as a group of ornary firefighters, we doubled down and made poker chips. So yeah, and then you know how you squat up, you buddy up with people, yeah. And uh during that uh it became the sad team that we were sad team six, the elite of sad camp. And then um, so uh when it came time to do this, you know, it was it was an absolute nod to that organiz to those men uh and women. There were uh that was uh inner facility there. I mean, you were in different bunk room, different bunk houses, you know, but uh um the uh heavily favored towards male population, but the people that were there really made a difference in my life, and what I wanted this organization to do was make a difference in other people's lives, and it's a catchy name. We came up with a cool logo, yeah. We're had we had fun with it. Um, and since it has just continued to grow, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Um yeah, and we uh get into how it grows. Can I ask you some questions about breaking up to Sat Team CX?

SPEAKER_04 9:36

Yeah, man. Sorry, I was just on a tear there.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah, no, man, no, let's get there. I I love it. Um when we talked about the fire service, what led you to get into the fire service?

SPEAKER_04 9:49

Um one of the I had a cousin that got into it first, and uh he was an older cousin. Um, you know how you look up to your older cousins, and um he was the first, um, but shortly thereafter, um I had I think I had five firefighter, five firefighter cousins and one deputy.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:24

Um you know, we um I grew up in a church. I attended the Perry Christian church in Canton, Ohio. My grandfather had hands in building the building. Uh my grandparents, you know, my grandparents were founding members, I guess is what they would say. And uh I grew up, you know, vacation Bible school, all the things I learned service very early. Gotcha. Um, I came from a very strong matriarchal family, mom's and Graham's was it, dude. Like Graham's was the authority. That was it. Uh and Graham's held the parties, Grams made the food, Grams made the pies, you know, and uh she instilled so much love in us, and I think honestly, it just spilled out into lives of service. But uh, I never really wanted to be law enforcement. Um I was never like a criminal by any stretch of the word, but I enjoyed mischief more than I enjoyed following the rules, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Right.

SPEAKER_04 11:38

So uh and uh boy did I find my people in the fire service. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

All right, cool, man. Cool. Appreciate you sharing that. When did you first realize that? And you know, I'm gonna say it for our listeners right now, and I I'm gonna say this word PTSD. And I don't like the the D on it. I take it off. I like saying PTS because it's really not a disorder. I feel it's like a human label that puts on something we've all been through, something traumatic in our lives, and and how we're gonna deal with it. It's a traumatic event. So when did you first realize that PTS was faked in your life?

SPEAKER_04 12:18

Right after my suicide attempt.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:22

Um it was up until then. Now, and listen, being raw with you, three months before my suicide attempt, I became a peer support specialist. Uh yeah, I was I loved helping other people. And I would lay it down. I had so many phone calls over my career where I had a lot of friends that hit hard times. And there were 2 a.m., 3 a.m. drives to here or there. There were uh 4 a.m. phone calls, like, nah, dude, we're not doing this. We're not, we're definitely not doing this. Let's get together right now, you know? Uh, there's always a waffle house, man. You know?

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah. Why is it so why is it such a struggle for for veterans and first responders to ask for help?

SPEAKER_04 13:24

We've been conditioned our whole lives to suck it up. You get hurt when you're little and in sports, what do you do? You rub some dirt on it, you bagging a game, you man up, you pull your bootstraps up, you chin up, chest out, walk it off. Don't be uh, you know what I mean? Like it's yeah, it's the it's the recipe of our DNA. Uh, and then you head into careers of service, where that doubles that. What listen, kid, if you can't do this, Wendy's is hiring. You know. Uh, if you, you know what I mean, if you think this is a problem, you shouldn't be here. Maybe they were right, you know, when they were saying it, but it was from this hard mentality. But uh there's there's been no protections in place. And furthermore, speaking out for the longest time was weakness. It felt like weakness. And if you said that call is gnawing at me, now you're on like a watch list. You're gonna take my pension. I, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's what people they're worried about their career uh by speaking out. And now there are peer support organizations. Uh we're building one behind the scenes, but um there's so many out there, and they're popping up, and there's places now where you can get you can get therapy without your department knowing you're doing it, you can get help because that's the biggest concern is yeah, anybody above you looking down and saying, Well, now this guy's a flake. End of your career, kid. You know?

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Mm-hmm. Most definitely, most definitely. Yeah, I know that back in even in the law enforcement part, you know, when somebody did, you know, kind of go off the end, and we know it because they didn't ask for help, we all sat there going, like, what's wrong with that dude? Yeah, knowing we're dealing with all of it our same self.

SPEAKER_04 15:42

Yeah, and that's the thing. Once the ice started to break, like right now, there are conversations happening everywhere about our mental health, about first responders and veteran mental health. They are starting to happen. And it's, you know, when they drop it in on you as a training and you're in an all hands and you're sitting down and somebody starts talking about it, you're just like, you know what I mean? On our side, we're like, we got to get to the grocery store. When is this over? Um, and they bring somebody in that talks to you, and they don't know your language. The honest truth is they don't know how to talk to us. And that's something we tried to strike out and change by using humor, by using, by not being afraid of using dark humor. You know, they put dark humor as a warning sign. Maybe it is. I'm I'm not a doctor, I'm not a scientist, and I don't have any training in the making or creating of words, but I know that I can talk to veterans and first responders with a little sauce, with a little bit of that spice, and that opens a door of conversation where now we can talk honestly. Yes. Because it's authentic. And we can smell and read bullshit and someone's false narrative a mile away. Because we've learned to interview people, we've learned that they don't know what's wrong with them or they're lying about what's wrong with them. You know, no, I'm not hiding nothing, you know, and I mean, yeah, yeah. I, you know, like we become conversational detectives by training. And without authenticity, without genuine concern, and without really walking the path, they don't want to hear your words. You couldn't know what it was like to A, B, or C. And they do that every day in their careers, you know? Yeah, and you know, and then somebody gives you that. I know, I know how you feel. And you're like, Oh, do oh do you now? Oh, do you now? Yeah, let's talk about those smells, let's talk about those screams, yeah, buddy. Let's talk about those.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yeah, you you you welcome those conversations. Come on, yeah. Oh, give me says it, you'll you'll know real quick if they if they know yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:36

You you can sniff out those BSs in a second, but real quick, real quick.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

And one last question before we move into what sad team six is is looking back, what were warning signs for our listeners out there that that are in the in the career in the field right now that you missed?

SPEAKER_04 18:58

Sleeplessness, yeah, rage, uh, uh hypervigilance, and I detached from I slowly began to detach. By that December, I would go to work, put on my face, do what I had to do at work, go home, and because of my family schedule, it would be about five, six hours before anybody else got home. I would lay in bed and I would just stare at the wall. I didn't even have the TV on. And then I had an alarm that went off so that I at 8 p.m. I would turn the TV on and then resume staring at the wall. But this way, when they walked in, I was watching TV, yeah, and I'd stare at the wall for nine, 10 hours and just isolate. I wouldn't answer my messages, I wouldn't answer phone calls, I was just hiding in the dark. Uh road rage. Oh, dude. Yeah, that's a bad one. Oh yeah. Like, if you if we're at one of those lanes where, excuse me, right lane ends ahead and I'm in the left lane, I would have buried you into the guardrail rather than give you my lane.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 20:31

You know what I'm saying? Yes, I'd have been like, you're your paint, bud, let's dance. You know, yeah, I was playing chicken for real. Bring it. There was no way I was yielding. No God help you if you pulled out in front of me and the wife and kids were in the car. You know, I would lose my mind. And I was sleeping three, four hours a night for eight years, eight to ten years. Uh, it doesn't sustain. You feel like you can keep hell. I would brag about it. I would run shifts, I would run like shifts, and we were a we were a tough little city. Like it can't be a busy little city. So we would get peppered a night, and you would have zero sleep. And then I'd have to go home and be dad and get him ready for school, and then get home, and I'd have to get the grass mode. And by then I was like, I don't want to take a nap, I want to sleep tonight, you know? So I'd just keep plowing through, and then I'd get three hours of sleep, and then that was it. But I would go, I would go 48, 72 hours a lot in about six years ago, eight years ago, I would do that several times a week. I would just be a zombie at family functions. I would stand there, and my mom would say, You would look tired. And I'm like, I am. And I would Eat a piece of pie and then I would go, I would just go sit on a couch while everybody had you know, I was like, uh uh and just try and hold conversation with everybody or watch the game, whatever. But yeah, yeah, all the signs were there, man. They were all there.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

And I want to tell for our listeners, man, if if you're one of those people, because I'm just gonna tell you everything that Chris just described from every warning sign, I had them also. And if you're going through that, you need to reach out for help before it's too late. Yeah, reach out now. You can reach out to Chris at SAD Team Six. You can reach out to myself. You know, you need to reach out because there is an issue, underlying issue going on that needs to be taken care of. And just don't get it.

SPEAKER_04 22:43

There are a lot of there are so many amazing things out there now.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yes. Uh you're gonna tell us about one.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

You are man, you ain't kidding.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

I'm gonna yes, sir. So let's jump right on into TAD team six. And it's uh 501c3 nonprofit.

SPEAKER_04 23:02

Yes, sir. State of Ohio. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Yep, let's go. Tell us all about it.

SPEAKER_04 23:07

So, uh, what we do, our mission is to raise awareness and reduce the stigmas of our first responder in veteran health. And we do that by having comedy shows. We do stand-up comedy shows, and it's a fundraising endeavor. Uh and it also allows an introduction and we use some dark humor. Like we'll do a clean show if if it's the audience, you know, if that's if we're requested for an all-clean show. But um, for the most part, when we're talking to first responders and veterans, it's about talking on that level, it's about talking about some of the stuff. And those are the things that make us all laugh. And uh, are you are you a practitioner, a little of the dark humor?

unknown 24:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:01

A little bit. All right. So when I was in the psych ward and I sat down in front of my very first psychiatrist of my all-inclusive stay there, uh, he said the first thing he asked me was, why did you do it? This is two days after my attempt. Yeah, I said it was getting really dark inside my head, so I thought I'd put in a skylight. Yeah, see. Uh that's the thing, you know what I mean? Like even from our own traumas, you know, that's in us. Yes, but uh it uh the laughter was so strong and present while I was at the Center of Excellence. And so we started doing comedy shows. They're they're so much fun. We have such great feedback afterwards. Um, but that started to build the peer support. Yeah. And so right now uh we're building a page on Discord uh that's gonna be a virtual bonfire because one of the things we found so much joy and respite with was there was a campfire, and no practitioners or physicians were allowed at the campfire. It was just us. And it was a chance to say all the things judgment free, no pen and paper writing anything down. Uh, sacred circle kind of stuff, you know, what happens here stays here, and it's your ass if you start talking about it outside of here. You're done with the circle. That's it, you know, and little traditions, you know, like uh one person speaks, everybody listens, you know, support afterwards, you know, kind of modeled after the uh AA algorithm there. And uh, but there are actually scientific studies on sitting around a campfire physically because your brain cannot focus on one thing. The fire is constantly moving. Scientifically, that says you're more open and receptive to a conversation because it allows your sympathetic nervous system to come down and your parasympathetic to go up. And it that's why we drop our guard when it's just four dudes poking a fire with a stick. There's actually science behind it. Come on, so uh, but uh yeah, right. So uh, but we want to do like virtual hikes, log on. We're gonna talk and walk in talks. Like I walk in parks a lot of times with somebody that just wants to meet me for a conversation when we don't want to have our conversation in a coffee shop where there's ears listening. And so we walk a tow path, we we walk a walking path and we talk, and people like that idea, but uh singularly, our main focus right now is uh helping first responders and veterans find the conversation to create the conversation and raise that awareness that there are things, and then we follow that up with the stellate ganglion block, the SGB shot.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

SGB.

SPEAKER_04 27:39

We have uh a great relationship with Dr. James Lynch in Gambrels, Maryland. Uh, he is an expert on the stellate ganglion block. His website is drjameslinch.com. Couldn't be any easier. Uh, I strongly recommend you look at his frequently asked questions page first. And he has YouTube videos that explain the entirety of the procedure, how it goes down, what's involved, but I can give you the nitty-gritty. Um, but what this does, and so what SAD Team Six is trying to do is fundraise to be able to send the spouses and the children of first responders, veterans, widows of those that uh lost their fight, and uh send them. There are three incredible organizations uh Honor and Courage Foundation. Uh Heather, that runs that is impeccably amazing as a human. She will respond to you so very quickly. That's who I went through to get my injection process. Um, that's who a lot of first responders have gone through. They will cover first responders and veterans or active military. I should say active military. Um, because you don't have to be out to get this. Uh and then um honor and courage for the love of a veteran and silent watch are all nonprofit organizations that fund that will fund the injection process. Uh right now there isn't any we found that pays for travel. So since we're stepping to the spouse and the children, we're adding travel. We want to be able to pay for their flights and their hotel stay. Um, it's a two-day procedure.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

And it's it's so incredibly simple. But what you do is uh you contact one of these organizations, you tell them you're interested in getting it. Um they will they will help you get it funded through Dr. Lynch at $1,600, uh, which I will tell you on the backside of it is an extraordinarily fair price to pay for what you're gonna feel. But um the uh what you potentially would feel. And uh what you have is you have a little nerf bundle right here between C4 and C6.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:24

And it's called the stellate ganglion. And what he does is he injects a drug that's called ropivicaine. It's a numbing agent. It's not a you're not gonna get like nothing like that. It's right um, it puts this little nerve bundle to sleep for like six, eight hours. And what that does is it's control alt delete for your sympathetic nervous system. It allows your nervous system, which is running like this, because of all the things you've seen and experienced through your first responder or military careers, all the things, all the traumas. This, and then on day two, he does this side. So that's it. One injection here above it, one injection here below it. Ultrasound guided in. He talks to you the whole process. You walk in his office, it's a comfortable environment. Second day, this side, this side. Um on my TikTok, there's a video pinned at the top of me getting the of me right after the injection.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 31:34

Um, I had a very large emotional release.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

What's your TikTok real quick?

SPEAKER_04 31:40

Said Team Chris.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Said team Chris, y'all. Check him out on that. Yep. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

And then uh said team six is also on there, yeah. But um, yeah, sorry. Uh said team Chris, and at the top pinned is the uh my reaction to getting it. Uh, I had this incredible release where I have heard so many people give so many great analogies because I've gotten to be a part of so many of these journeys. But the best one I've heard is it was like taking off a hot, wet coat.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:15

And dropping it. And there is just this relief. And it's the stored trauma. Uh, a really incredible book in this space is called The Body Keeps the Score about how physically your body stores trauma. Uh, definitely something for anybody in this space to check out. Um, but uh from that, uh you're good to go. Like you can walk out of the office, you're good to go eat, take a nap. A lot of people like to go take a nap. Um, and then there's these huge shifts in your well-being. And so I got my stellate ganglion block January 14th of this year.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 33:06

And uh I have slept seven to eight hours a night ever since. I haven't had a nightmare since January 14th. I had plenty of nightmares. Um, very routinely. Bless you. Thank you. Uh, I had so many nightmares, and they're just gone. And with the sleep came productivity. With the sleep came productivity and want and desire to succeed again. And all of a sudden, Dwayne, I wasn't living a life sentence. I was thriving. I was thriving. And it opened me up to more conversations, more things. It led me to Mighty Oaks, it led me to more conversations and more avenues of healing. It took me back to prayer, which I had lost for a long time. Uh, I'm finding my path.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:14

Um, I think is really the best way to summarize it, you know?

SPEAKER_00 34:21

Yeah. So what did you sleep like before January?

SPEAKER_04 34:26

Oh three, four hours a night.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Three or four hours.

SPEAKER_04 34:30

For for a decade, yeah. Three, four hours a night, and then the last three or four years nightmares, uh, almost every night. Uh, I would wake up and I would rejoice, and I would tell my wife, I didn't have a nightmare. Or and there were times where I thought I got through them, but there were times where she would say, That was a bad one last night. You know, I got tired of waking up and washing the bed sheets every day because I sweat through them six out of seven nights, you know. I mean, you know what I mean? We're we were beating the hell out of the bed sheets, right? Um, but uh it was still unsustainable, but uh I just learned to deal with it, you know, and that's what we do. We adapt and we overcome, but there is a fail point, and I mean the thing is, we're talking about some of the baddest of the bad to walk the planet, right? These are badass men and women that do amazing things mentally and physically, but you're fine. Reminder to take my pill, which is funny because I took it before the so that that wouldn't happen, but I didn't shut the alarm off.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

There we go. Hey, we got some more humor, y'all. We got some more humor, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:10

You know what I mean? Hey, listen, you know, like I'm that guy, my life got busy, and I talk peer support to a lot of people. I I love helping somebody, and I get a lot of great calls of success or catching up, and here's where I'm at to hey man, somebody said maybe I ought to try reaching out to you. And uh, so I'll get lost in those moments, I'll get lost in the conversation, and then I'm like, did I take my pill? I don't know. Well, we'll start over tomorrow, you know what I mean? And then that turns into three or four days, and then I'm like, why don't I feel so good?

unknown 36:48

Right.

SPEAKER_04 36:48

Yep. So accountability, man. But if if if we put you know, big old Brian Shaw, one of the strongest, biggest humans on the planet, there is a limit of weight you can put on his shoulders before his knees will give out. And on your journey of military, first responder, and then how many how many vets do you know that go from that into first responder, right? Yeah, so many. Oh, yeah, and um, they're carrying all that weight forward. So eventually, and everybody's different, but eventually there is a break. There is a break. And uh we're trying to show people that through peer support, through things like the SGB, through therapy, um, through finding all the avenues and leaning into them, you will find a better version of you, a healthier version of you that can keep going in your career, that can get you to your pension, that can get you that payout, you know, because that's what we all started. I mean, it was, you know, but real talk a little bit. But uh I mean, yeah, the SGB is changing lives. And when I say more than not, his statistics are in the 90 percentile of one and done. You go to him once, that's it, it's done. He reset the system. And then there are people, you know, because anatomy is, because God willed us to be unique and individual and wonderful in our own little ways, but from that, there's always somebody that has to get it twice. Their body was resistant to it, and then there's this little percentage of people, it just doesn't work for. Yeah, but that's it. That's it. Like, that's the data. Um, now, like when you read on there, like any procedure, you're gonna have is there potential for bleeding? Yeah. Is there potential that he sneezes and shots it through your neck? I guess. But when you meet this guy, this is a 30-year army veteran that was Delta orthopedic surgeon and has dedicated his life to helping and healing others. And now, like twice a year, he and his wife go to the Ukraine and train doctors to do the SGB shot to help out so many of the, you know, because they got kids fighting on that front. Yeah. And he'll go over there and help them get, he'll do the injections and train other physicians on how to do it properly. He's an ace of a dude.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Yeah, man. Yeah, sounds like it. So, um, the question about the SGB shot.

SPEAKER_04 39:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

You said that that uh your sleep went to, you know, just you're getting eight hours a day. What other changes have you seen since you've taken the SGB shot?

SPEAKER_04 40:03

Um so one of the most profound for me was just this quiet. Uh my butt my bud Justin Miller um was my emotional support human when I went and got my shot and my videographer. And uh, I was so blessed to have Justin there and have his support. And I strongly encourage you, if you look into the SGB shot, if you sign up to go get it, don't do it alone. Take somebody with you. It's worth it. And uh if you're interested and you don't have somebody to travel the country with, or you want somebody that's been through it, we will have somebody there at Dr. Lynch's office to bro down with you. We will bro down with you. We'll meet you at your hotel, we'll bro down with you. Um, we we want this to be the best it can be. That's what Sad Team 6 will do. Uh because anxiety, right? Anxiety is a real thing amongst these symptoms. Hypervigilance. So um for me, I'm sitting there in the hotel room after the injection. Justin says, sees me staring out the window and says, Woody, where are you at, man? What's going on? And I said, I just can't believe how quiet it is. I couldn't believe how there was there was just no uh constantly in my head. And three weeks later, I was driving, and this donkey and like this little Honda Civic gives me the, you know? Yeah, and I literally was like, what a dick. And I'm driving, and I literally I looked at myself in the rear view mirror and I went, huh? Whoa! I can't believe how mildly I was just like, good luck, dude. No, no, not before, whoa, whoa, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, uh, just gone, and I love that it's gone. Um, yeah, you don't lose your edge, you don't lose your ability to get mad, you can still get mad, you can still get angry, uh, you still do things, you know. Uh, you set your intentions and things, and I pray about the things I need to be better at, but um, I don't have that, like Justin says, I don't have that two-second fuse. I have the ability to process things, I have the ability to assess the situation and respond appropriately rather than mad. Yeah. Rage, violence, the only answer is violence, right? Yeah. And right, I saw one of those funny clips. It said uh uh, the surest way to convince a man there's an there's another way to solve something with then with violence is to put a mosquito on his uh on his boys.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:34

Yeah, you'll solve that problem without smashing. Gotcha. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

All right, well, I got another question for you. Yeah, man. If you could change one thing about the first responder culture, what would it be?

SPEAKER_04 44:03

It would be the ability to ro if if they could look out for each other the way they would on a scene. Back at the firehouse, back at the police station, back in your barracks. Oh man. Because we would die for each other. We would die for each other on those scenarios. And it's not it's it's something that's in you. You just you will help them. But then you get back and you park the rig, you park the car, you park the whatever, and it's just like yeah, walk that off, bud. Uh do we have to talk about this at dinner? You know? And they'll always offer you a critical incident stress, rebriefing, they'll offer you pastoral care with somebody you don't know, they'll offer you peer support with somebody that's not a fireman. And that's changing, you know. Um, it's changing. But again, how likely are you to talk about? Yeah, I'm having pretty dark thoughts. Like, I don't know how long I want to keep living. Like, I just want to make it till my kids graduate, maybe. Yeah. To a guy who works two stations over. You know, the trust isn't there. It's there when we're in the shit. It's not there when we go back and walk calmly. Uh if I could change something with my it would be that.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Amen. I agree. I agree. All right, so uh I got two more questions for you. And uh man, let me just ask this first one. Is what would you say to a first responder who's listening right now who feels completely alone?

SPEAKER_04 46:13

You are not alone. You are never alone. There is somebody somewhere twenty-four hours a day willing to talk to you. And right now, you have so many resources available that never existed. Now, you have 988, which is the crisis line, right? Uh, we have to mention it. Is it perfect? No. Because it doesn't have you exactly in mind, but there is there are there are numbers, there are tabs. Um, I highly recommend you. Uh, so for the first responder, I gotta stay on that topic. Um, there are so many things that this is where we were talking. Social media is coming together. There are spaces on social media where you can go and you don't have to be Chris Snyder, you can be, you know, Bilbo Bangins 99 Thunder Buns, you know, there's so many creative names, I love them. But um there is an ornery one that stops in our lives named Miss Piggy Fontaine.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 47:48

And uh, dude, every time I see that name, I giggle. But uh the uh there are peer support trainings, there are peer support programs, and there is no catch-all. But if uh if you're in crisis, you need you need to seek, you need to start with 988. You need to start with your bro, who is your battle buddy, who is your friend that you know you can call and say, man, I am seriously considering. Because that's a guy that's gonna take care of you and you're gonna do a little thing, you're gonna have conversations, and you're gonna get that hand-in-hand help. Um, I had so many people I could have reached out to, and I did not. Brother, on I went in on a Friday night, uh processed through Saturday morning at like uh 10, 11 a.m. I had 72 individual phone calls to the psych ward. 72 individual calls, and some of those were couples. And brother, let me tell you, some of them were straight crying. What what what happened? Mad, angry, pissed, um crying, laughing, and pissed, all in the same conversation, you know. Uh why and every every single one of them, why didn't you call me? This was my answer. I don't know. And the greatest thing you can do is have that bro. And if you if you're feeling dark thoughts, if you've if you because only you can be honest about it, it's not a sign that someone else can see, it's not a bruise. But if you're having ideations, if you're if you're if you're thinking, God, what is it for? Why? And how long will this endure? It's time to talk to somebody. If you started imagining, if you started organizing things, one of my things was I would say all the time, hey, listen, you guys need to know how to do this when I'm gone. Like, like I I had a time limit, you know?

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:24

Um, and uh, you know, they always tell you the other signs, but the the thing is you have to take a little bit of accountability for yourself. And the hardest thing, the hardest thing in the process is just saying, I need a little help.

SPEAKER_02 50:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:44

But let me tell you something. You ever move a gun safe by yourself?

SPEAKER_02 50:49

No.

SPEAKER_04 50:50

Nah, dude. You call the bros.

SPEAKER_02 50:53

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 50:54

That's all we're saying. It's about shifting that narrative. It's just about tweaking that conversation to this is also okay to talk about. You're not weak for handling and living and seeing some of the ugliest stuff that life can throw at us in humanity. The children, right? We all struggle with the kids stuff. There's conversations, and these are conversations now that you can have anonymously. You know, there's so much help out there. For your veteran community, there's an uh app called uh Operation Zero. By all means, veterans, download that app. And if you're a person that does apps, go create that for first responders, would you? Get off your ass and make that app because I don't know anything about technology. Um it is a free resource. And if you are the loved one or a friend of a veteran, go download that app. Uh, there are there is a Pathfinder program that they have that teaches someone now. So the Pathfinder program is for people who are loved ones of veterans or active military. And what it does is it's just a couple of videos that teaches you specific warning signs, but also how to talk to a veteran that is in crisis, actively in crisis. What an incredible free resource that everybody should get. You know, if you live in a community, you know a veteran. I would love to be able to, if I walked outside of Giant Eagle or my grocery store, and there stood somebody I knew that was a veteran that like went into crisis. That's like knowing CPR, man.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

Yeah.

unknown 52:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:56

That's just common, just do that. Um, be a better human for someone in their darkest days. But it is a free resource. For the veterans, it is a free resource, and they can connect with peer support through where they were deployed, what their MOS was, their religious affiliation, what what gender they are. Break it down all the way into the subgroups until you find the guy that speaks your language.

SPEAKER_00 53:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 53:26

And that's magic, Dwayne. That's magic sauce.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_04 53:30

But uh, my buddy Justin Miller, he was one of the yeah, he was one of the co-founders of that. So nice, nice, proud of him. But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

Man, as as we start to close out here, man, and I appreciate you being on the show, man. I actually I was sitting here thinking while we were talking, like we we need to do another one. We need to do another one. I would love to just have it, you know, your cornermen, your battle buddies. And yeah, we need to play on that as brothers, and I think that's important because sometimes we we slip and we fail as the cornermen or battle buddies to check on each other. Yeah, and that's so important. But uh man, tell us how we can get in touch with you, how your website, that kind of information, donations, anything you want to plug in. You got it. It's your code.

SPEAKER_04 54:18

So uh, yep. So sadteam6.com, that is where you can find uh the link to everything. Um we are happy to take your donations. They are tax deductible. Uh the money, if you choose to, you can earmarket SGB. Uh, if you earmarket SGB, we will use those funds specifically for funding SGB. Um we have administrative costs, but we are uh there is no staff. We are all volunteers as of this point. Uh and I'll be honest with you, we hope to grow to a point that we have paid people. Um, we hope to be that kind of entity, but uh we're all hammering it out in our own lives uh and doing these things. And uh for the first for this first run, almost all of this came out of my pocket. Um, and now uh my friends, you know, my teammates add to the pot to make things happen. But uh um we'll take we'll take anything if you believe in what we're doing, we're happy to do it. Um, and we're gonna keep fundraising through the comedy. But uh you can find us on Facebook and TikTok and Instagram um as sad team six on Facebook. It's called Sad Team Six Social. Um because somebody snaked our account. It was weird. But uh TikTok is the platform um we've had the most success and fun on. But uh yeah, there are all kinds of tabs on the sad teamsix.com website. I encourage you to check it out. Uh, and uh feel free to let me know what you think it needs. It's a new website. Uh if you think there's some stuff missing or you have suggestions for me, I want to reach the I want to reach as many people as we can and help them, you know.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

Awesome, awesome, Chris. I appreciate that. And man, I just want I want to touch on one thing, man, from our listeners. What he says is he came out of pocket for most of this as a nonprofit. And there's not a paid staff. So who runs this? Who runs these nonprofits? The people who found them usually spend more time in their family invested in it than volunteers. They use their own money until they get it off the ground and start getting help. So if you're listening and this touches your heart, go to sadteam6.com, hit that donate button. And I'm telling you, it's yeah, it's needed.

SPEAKER_04 57:01

It's needed, and uh it's mean it's a challenging space because there are so many that have abused the system and have used a nonprofit status for their personal gain and not for their mission, you know. Uh I'm a blue-collar dude, fair wage for fair work, man. You know, and uh when when we have the ability, and you know, the thing is, we're at we're actively going after grants, uh, grants specific for administrative costs. I don't want to ask for administrative money, you know. I want to ask for SGB money. I want to flood the coffers. I don't want to say no to anybody when they say I want to go get that shot. I don't want to say no. That's really bitter in my mouth when I have to say no. And it drives me to go get more, man. Yeah, but we're trying. Appreciate the love and support, man. Appreciate you sharing your platform with us.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

Yeah, brother. Yeah, brother. Appreciate you, appreciate you. And as we close out, remember this being a faithful warrior is not about being the strongest person in the room. It's not about having it all together. It's about remaining faithful to Jesus no matter what battle you face. If you're walking through a difficult season of the day, don't quit. Keep trusting, keep praying, keep moving forward. God is not finished with your story. Until next time, stay faithful, keep your eyes on Christ, and remember the battle is real, but also is the God that walks with you through it. We'll see you on the next episode of Faithful Warrior Podcast.