Happy Veteran's Day!

Hey, Cadre family doctor Carrie here streaming live. Just gonna wait a minute for people to jump on. Awesome. Thanks for joining with me today, guys. I have the immense pleasure of doing a live video on Veterans Day, and I personally raised my hand on the Cadre team and said, I want to do a live on this day because it means something to me. And if I'm completely honest with you, I, before dating my fiance who's in the military, before that, I didn't really know anybody in the military or the armed forces.

And it's just, growing up in Minnesota, there's not a military base of any kind there. So I honestly probably couldn't have even rattled off the types of military branches throughout my entire life. And I honestly thought Veterans Day was just a holiday for people that had died in war, like, maybe that had been shot. Like, I just. I had no concept. I'm just being completely honest with you. I had no, no knowledge on the military before my current relationship. And then I moved to San Diego, and there are bases out here, and I meet people in the military, and everybody knows somebody in the military out in San Diego.

And so I got to learn the culture a little bit. But it wasn't until I started dating my now fiance that I got kind of a crash course in what military life is like, what being a part of the military is, what being even knowing somebody, family members, all of that. And I just want to share a little bit of my story about this today because I've had the opportunity in the past few days to spend time in Virginia, where there's also a bunch of military bases, and just learning the effect that this has on the people that serve, the sacrifices people make and sacrifices families make.

It's just touching me so much more this year. So I just want to explain kind of, like, what my experience with the military is on this day. And so my fiance and I had been dating a couple months. Things were getting pretty serious. He then moved to another base in California. So we started doing long distance. So that was immediately you a challenge on our relationship, because when you start dating someone, you want to spend a lot of time with them. So I'm learning, okay, so long distance is probably going to be a part of this for us.

And within a couple of weeks after him moving, I got a text message from him that said, I cannot share this information with you, but I want to because I want you to pray. And he had learned that there had been a plane crash in his old unit where he used to work, and there were probably people dead. And this is, like, you cannot share this information in the military. And I didn't understand that there was rules about this. And, like, I just. I had no idea. And he said, I really can't be telling you this, so don't tell anybody, but I just need you to pray for whoever is dead or their families.

And so it just kind of hit me, and I'm like, boy, this is like drinking through a fire hose. Like, I am learning military life really fast here. And, like, what being significant other of somebody in the military means. So my fiance is a marine pilot, and so turns out, and this is now public knowledge, this happened a few months ago. There were five pilots that ended up in a just routine exercise, probably plain malfunction. They're not really even sure, and it crashed, and all five of them died.

And it was a devastating day, obviously, for just the marines in general, for anybody in this unit, especially. But the hardest thing for me as an outsider was seeing the toll that it took on my fiance because he wasn't even in the plane crash. He wasn't even still in that unit. But the survivor guilt that he carried was so profound. And he said, I have flown in that exact plane before. I have flown in worse conditions before, and why didn't I die? And he used to also work in the safety role in the unit, so he probably would have been the one on the scene for days on end picking up body parts.

And he's like, why did I survive? Why am I now in a different unit? And I have, like, this isn't affecting me, but yet it still affected him, right? Like, it was just so profound to see the effect it had on him. I'm like, good riddance. You weren't there. Like, I'm glad you weren't. But, like, these were people he went on tours overseas with and deployed with. Like, these. When you. When you were in the military, especially when you deploy, like, the tribe that you form, the family that you form is so intense.

And so these were like brothers to him, right? And they. They were dead. They were just gone. And I had no idea how to cope with this. Like, I work as a life coach, and I, like, you know, I'm pretty well versed in mental health space, but I'm like, I don't. I'm fish out of water here. I don't know what to do. Like, I don't know how to support him because I just. I don't know. And then I started having issues. I had not been even dating him. None of those flashes of reality of, like, how dangerous is his job, really?

And this was just a routine exercise, much less when they go overseas and deploy and fly over like, combat zones. Okay, so this is like a normal Tuesday on the job, and I'm thinking, I'm dating somebody that could die tomorrow when he goes to work. And so it just. It wrecked me, honestly. It wrecked him. We had a very emotional week, and then find out on the day that he came back to go talk to, you know, everybody in the unit and console them. His new unit officer said, oh, by the way, you're gonna be going to another state for several weeks this summer.

I know we weren't planning on that, but I'm gonna need you to go. So all of a sudden, our long distance relationship, which was a car ride away, was now an ocean away. And I'm just like, I didn't sign up for this s***. Excuse my French. But I'm like, no, I don't want to do this kind of lifestyle. But it gave me so much awareness of what life in the military might be like for someone. And I got kind of a crash course really fast. And so I was like, well, I want to be with him. So I guess I'm signing up for this life, but I just have so much more respect and honor for people that serve, but also the families.

And I was listening to a Zoom call the other day from the commanding officer of his unit giving all the families an update, and he said, you know, thank you for your service. And I was like, who's he talking to? Like, it's just family members on here. Me. But then I realized he's literally talking to us. He's saying, you are considered serving in the military because you are with somebody who's serving. And now my fiance is deployed, and so we're going through that challenge of what life is like through deployment.

But I just wanted to say on this day in particular, I have so much respect for people that choose this lifestyle, that have the honor and the courage to sign up and say, I'm going to serve my country and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to make a difference in the world. And I had such fun talking to people this week out in Virginia who a lot of these people work in, like, the EMS fire, paramedic field, but they also work in the armed forces, or they used to be, and they've done their tours in Iraq, have a whole ton of PTSD, and now they work in, like, EMS Field, which brings its own set of PTSD but just the toll that it takes on the human beings that sign up for this life.

I just have so much respect for you. And so I want to tell you, on this day in particular, if you need help, if you need help because you are struggling with PTSD, you are struggling with suicidal thoughts. First of all, just know that those are real. That's a real experience that you're having. The stuff that you guys see, men and women, when you serve, especially overseas, is real. And it is really hard to sleep sometimes. I listened to a presentation this week about a guy, and he said that was the number one distressing symptom for me when I was dealing with my PTSD from the military was the sleep deprivation, because when you don't sleep, it affects everything in your life.

Everything. It affects how you react to other people. It affects your mental state. It affects everything. And he eventually became suicidal. And so I just want to tell you that there is help available. You are not alone. You are not alone. There are a lot of people out there who can talk to you, who can be there for you. There are suicide hotlines. Call that number. And if you are struggling with symptoms of PTSD, in particular, we are here to help. We have a coaching team at Cadre. Myself, in particular, specialize in PTSD, and we want to help you.

And I just want to say, again, on behalf of myself, as someone who now is serving, I say that lightly in the military and everybody else that I know that serves the people that I don't know, that serves the people that have finished their careers and moved on, the people that we have lost to serving. I want to say on behalf of Cadre, we honor and. And we respect you, and we are so grateful for your service. So thank you for what you do. Happy Veterans Day. I hope this was inspiring for you. And just know that from the bottom of my heart, I am so unbelievably grateful to everybody out there who is serving and the families and friends that come alongside them to support them.

So, thank you, guys. God bless.