J Basser: 0:03

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of Exposed Vet Productions. My name is John Stacy, I'm Exposed Vet. That's wwwexposedvetcom. My co-host, as always, mr Ray Cobb of the great state of Tennessee. How are you doing, ray?

Ray Cobb: 0:18

I'm doing great, I think. I hope I got this computer turned on and working right.

J Basser: 0:24

Oh yeah, you got it looking pretty good, man, but I'm sitting here in my man cave. You're sitting in your man cave and we're going to discuss a topic that's kind of been taboo for many, many years. It's post-traumatic stress disorder, ptsd and we're going to discuss basically what it is and we're going to give a couple of examples of what to do and what not to do.

Ray Cobb: 0:48

Sounds good to me.

J Basser: 0:49

Yeah, ray. He did a show earlier in the week on your show and you guys discussed this poor guy in eastern Tennessee and he had PTSD. Can you explain to the masses what this poor fellow did?

Ray Cobb: 1:04

Yeah, it was kind of an unusual. It's the only situation I've heard of like this. This happened back in I believe it was 2018. A young man he came, he served over in Iraq, did two tours of duty over there, served over in Iraq, did two tours of duty over there and he was diagnosed with PTSD After he got back and got out of the service after six years.

Ray Cobb: 1:34

I think he's in six years, maybe eight years, I'm thinking six years of service and he got out and was having a problem holding a job and was married, had two children and you know he had some of the basics that you know about with PTSD, got diagnosed, got rated 100% for PTSD and he reached out on Facebook and made contact with a lot of old high school friends and one of them happened to be an old high school girlfriend that he dated his junior and senior year in high school and then they kind of went their separate ways and he ended up going to the military and she married another guy and living out in Dallas, texas, and what he did? She started we don't know why, she never said why, but she started playing off of him and eventually convinced him to get rid of her husband. She convinced him that her husband was abusive to her and her children. She was actually in a car wreck, took some photographs of that car wreck, which had happened two or three years earlier, but posted them or sent them to him, stating that her husband had beat her that weekend, or he cut her with a knife or he did this, and she had a black eye one time and a big bruise on her back and evidently almost all of these occurred from this car wreck. And her husband had a good job working for American Airlines. They lived just outside of Dallas. Had a good job working for American Airlines, they lived just outside of Dallas. Financially they were fine. But he convinced her that she was being abused and how she hated him. Now she claimed she went to the police and the police wouldn't do anything. And he told her to take out a restraining order. She scared to do it, says he'll kill me and my children and you know all these type of things. And he believed her. And it kept going on and going on and going on and finally he said I'll take care of it. So we learned how to take care of our own.

Ray Cobb: 4:02

Um, now you got to understand another part. This young, young man was born and raised in East Tennessee and you being up there from Eastern Kentucky, where I am down in Southern Tennessee, back in the old days, if I'm going to call it the old days, back in the 30s, if a guy was ugly and beating his wife or whatever, some of the other friends would go and, like a better term, take him out behind the woodshed and teach him a lesson. You know, that was just kind of the way it was done back there. Well, this guy carried it to the far extreme. He got in his vehicle and drove to Dallas, went to where she lived, never saw her, hadn't seen her since she was in high school. She hid out at a vacant house, a couple of doors down, and watched for two or three days and got his pattern. This guy would come out at 7 o'clock in the morning to walk the dog, then would go in and come back out at 20 till 8 and go to work, and that was an everyday routine.

Ray Cobb: 5:04

The kids would come out at 7, 7, 30 and would get on the school bus to go to school. So he got the routine down and about three or four days after getting that down he hid in the bushes beside the house and he came out at seven o'clock to walk the dog. He stepped out of the bushes, shot him three times, killed him. Him, ran back into the back, jumped over the fence, got in his car on the roads, parked behind him and took off and came back to Tennessee. So they were able through emails because they were looking at her. He had a pretty good life insurance policy and stuff. So in looking at her they found these emails about him and so they tracked him down and he admitted what he did. But he said that was my PTSD that kicked in. And he said the military taught me how to kill and how to protect people I love and to protect my country. And that's what I was doing. I was protecting somebody that I loved.

Ray Cobb: 6:10

And the jury didn't buy it. He ended up, I think, with about 50 years up here in prison now. But that's sometimes, you know, do I believe PTSD did it? It?

J Basser: 6:25

was premeditated.

Ray Cobb: 6:27

Probably played a part in it, but you got to learn to control it. You know, and that's probably one of the most important things we can share with our listeners is that you know there's different levels, everything from a 20% to 100%.

J Basser: 6:47

They tried him in Texas.

Ray Cobb: 6:49

Yeah, they got him in Texas and he's serving in a prison out there in Texas.

J Basser: 6:55

Well, he's lucky to be serving time at all. In Texas. You do something like that. In Texas it's usually Mr Stick. You're the electric chair, isn't it?

Ray Cobb: 7:03

Well, I think they usually give him a shot there now. But, that being said, if it hadn't been for her involvement and her trying to convince him to do it and the fact that he did have records of being mentally unstable, that probably kept him from getting the shot, the needle in the arm, that's probably the only thing that kept him from doing that. But I think he got something like 55 years and she got 15 years for setting it up and convincing him. So kind of an interesting story about PTSD, and I don't know how many others around the country are like that. I just happened to run into that one and it caught my interest.

J Basser: 7:52

I met several.

Ray Cobb: 7:54

And you know I've heard of an awful lot of suicides. I mean somebody. The other day I was down in Murfreesboro at the VA hospital and was talking to a public relations gentleman there and he looked real proud. He said, yeah, we have PTSD, we've got that down to somewhere around 35 a day. Well, he's right, that's better than the 44 that it was just a year or so ago. However, 35 is still too many. That means at least you know what every 50 minutes somewhere along an era that a veteran has committed suicide from PTSD. So that's still outrageous. And that doesn't take into account.

Ray Cobb: 8:41

I mean, I know another gentleman right here in Franklin County, tennessee suffered from PTSD and he had an anger management problem. He actually went around and mowed yards because he couldn't hardly work with anybody or get along with anyone and his wife had a good job at one of the banks locally and his wife had a good job at one of the banks locally. He caught her with another guy and beat her up and killed the other guy and we got one of his friends to bury him and the other friend got scared and went to the police and told them about what happened. So he's now serving time here in Tennessee. I think he got 75 years, if I'm right For an accessory.

Ray Cobb: 9:30

No, he was the one that did it, the guy in the accessory, the guy that helped him bury the man. He got 10 years and five years probation. So he had to serve five years and he got probation. So he had to serve five years and he got probation. So you know, you never know where this PTSD can take you guys. So you need to be aware of it. You need to face up to the fact that you may have it. To what degree? Only a psychologist and going through counseling can actually determine to what level and what degree you need and whether or not it's something you can handle with counseling and talking to other vets that have it, or whether or not you need medication.

Ray Cobb: 10:16

There's not any shame in admitting it and going into that. Everybody says well, they'll take my guns. Well, unless you show and state a fact that you're going to try to hurt somebody or harm somebody or make a threat against somebody, they're not going to take your guns, not in Tennessee anyway. I don't know about other states, but in Tennessee they're not going to do that. They probably wouldn't do it in Texas either.

J Basser: 10:50

But in any case, guys, you know Well there's a stipulation with that as far as PTSD, mental health issues, I mean you can be 100% mental health. You don't have to have PTSD. You can have a severe depression and things like that, as long as you're pretty much cognitive and when you go you know you're like your exam that gives you your rating. The psychiatrist is going to ask you this and this and he's going to make the determination if you can pay your bills or not. And if you cannot pay your bills, they go to and they assign you a judiciary to pay your bills for you, and usually, in most cases it's your spouse or somebody like that. But sometimes they have to use a law firm or an attorney to do that and that rolls the ball right there.

J Basser: 11:40

Because you have to have a judiciary, you don't have the responsibility to pay your bills. They don't think you have the responsibility to own a firearm, and I've known four or five that had that situation and they sure enough, had to turn them in. But there's bills now passed in different states to get that overturned, not to stop it, but say if they improve and get better, then they get their firearms back. But that's the key point. It's like when we talk about special monthly compensation. The door that opens up the vault to the higher levels of special monthly compensation is SMC level L, which is aid and attendance right.

Ray Cobb: 12:20

Right.

J Basser: 12:21

Well, the bad door is, if you get stuck in the judiciary, then that opens up the door to a whole host of problems, one of them being, if they will, they can come and confiscate your weapons. You know, yeah, okay, but there's a lot of doors in the VA. I'm going to crack some hoops too, but you know how that hits trains. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about I'm going to crack some hoops too, but you know how that hits brains. Let's talk a little bit about PTSD in itself. Now, post-traumatic stress disorder.

J Basser: 12:52

Okay, some of the main causes for PTSD. The main cause is combat. You know somebody's trying to kill you and you're trying to kill them. I mean, it can leave a lasting impression on you and that's pretty much you know. If you're a combat veteran and you claim that, then the result if you got the right paperwork and it shows you were a combat vet, then they have to take your word for it. You know, all they have to do is justify the severity of the case.

J Basser: 13:21

Then there's other ways you get PTSD too. You don't have to be a combat vet. You say, for example, you worked on board, say you was at a base that transferred the bodies from a port, to a ship or whatever. You've done that and you handle all that. That's kind of gruesome too, or an error. You know the error, that taking them back and forth and things like that or anything. That's traumatic, and that's another issue. The military is a dangerous place. Contrary to popular belief, there are bad eggs in the military. The military does have issues when it comes to everyday life. Back when I was in, they had a little bit of a drug problem. Of course, it all started in Vietnam. You remember those days, don't you Ray?

Ray Cobb: 14:10

Oh, I do.

J Basser: 14:13

You've got to be careful because if you do something the wrong way and you tip off the wrong people especially if you're in the Navy you might go swimming or they're going to try to beat you to death. So you've got to be careful. And I can call PTSD, too, a personal assault, and things like that. It's combat-related because they're trying to kill you. If you get beat up by a piece of equipment that belongs to the military, According to James, it's kind of a combat injury.

Ray Cobb: 14:42

That's yeah when you get into it. There's not any difference as far as treatment or severity between combat veteran and an individual, for whatever reason, that has severe depression with high anxiety attacks. Now how can that happen? I know of one or two that they were. They were athletes growing up, they were strong, they had a lot of physical ability and then the exposure to Agent Orange in one guy's case was to the Air Force exposure to Agent Orange, and one guy's case was through the Air Force.

Ray Cobb: 15:45

It caused him to come down with diabetes and stent, heart disease and all the things that go along with it, and he became depressed because he couldn't do what he had planned his whole life doing in retirement. You know, fishing, playing golf, playing with his grandkids all of that stuff went by the wayside. So he became pretty depressed because his lifelong dreams and ideas were shattered. Well, he finally got counseling and he's doing a lot better today. He still doesn't go out in public very much, he still doesn't participate in a lot of activities in groups, but overall I think he's accepted his condition pretty well.

Ray Cobb: 16:42

And then another one that we've talked about before on this show, who just recently his job he has 100% PTSD and his job was he was an intelligence guy and his job was he was an intelligence guy and he was over in Iraq or Afghanistan and he read newspapers and figured out. He had names of individuals that our forces were looking for and he would report where they were, what they were doing, if they were going to make a public appearance, appearance and then, um, four or five days later he would be reading the newspaper and see where they had been assassinated or killed in a car wreck or fell off of the roof. Um, you know things of that nature and, um, you know when, when, when that happened, uh, that that kind of created a total different atmosphere for him. He wasn't in combat but he knew, by these guys' names, that he had destroyed that family. I remember he told one of a gentleman that had actually had I think it was a wife and four or five children, and the picture that they chose to run in the paper was that of his wife with the five children trying to hold on to his casket as he came out of the church or whatever, and the kids bawling and crying, and he said that affected him a lot.

Ray Cobb: 18:22

Um, so he, you know, he went. He wasn't seeing anyone when I first met him and I convinced him to go to counseling and to hear him talk. Today his voice is so much better, so much stronger. He has accepted his situation and I think he's going to be okay now. But that's the case that he had gone. He couldn't understand why he couldn't get along with people and he couldn't understand why he couldn't hold a with people and he couldn't understand why he couldn't hold a decent job.

J Basser: 19:00

That's true.

J Basser: 19:04

I know I had a vet that I helped out 10 or 15 years ago. He lived down south of you, down there in northern Alabama toward Florence. He was on the USS Lexington, which is the hat that I got on tonight. I'm going to do that in memory of him. He actually was on board the Lexington. In fact, when he was on board it was a training carrier. That's where everybody that became naval aviators made their first carrier landing was on board the Lexington. They'd take off and fly them training planes in there and they'd land on the plane, on the carrier and his job on board the carrier.

J Basser: 19:45

He was a catapult operator captain and on one certain day he was in charge of catapult number two and they're expecting this plane to come in. This guy's plane came in and he was getting off the glide path, so the signalman waved him off and somehow the guy panicked and instead of using the stick to move the rudders, he used his feet to hit his brakes while he was driving his car and the only thing he did was invert the plane upside down and he crashed right before the tower on top of everything, killed several people, and that explosion was went a little place. So he dove over the rail and jumped up and got a fire suit and went in trying to help out the fire and stuff and he messed him up pretty bad and that was his first time for PTSD. He filed his claim and they laughed at him but he got Social Security orders for it. But they denied his VA claims. They said we can't prove you were there and anything else you know. So he was talking to me one day and asked me to give me the story so I could, you know, get him to. You know, open up a little bit, and I was going to put him with the right, you know the right person to help him do the claim and do his appeal. And he said in all carrier landings taped. He says, yeah, it is.

J Basser: 21:02

And sure enough, he went to video, did a search for it and there was an accident on the internet and it showed a big old dude standing there, right there when the plane started to crash. It shows a big old dude diving over into the basket, getting out of the way and then flames going right across his head. So he jumps up A few seconds later, comes in and they're trying to fight the fire and, you know, save people. He said what am I going to do now? I said, well, you go ahead and download that video, save it on a thumb drive and send that into the VA and link that as evidence. Yeah, and he had a bunch of buddies in there that went through the video. So that's him, that's him, that's him Buddy status. So he got connected to that. Unfortunately, it didn't last too long, though. His PTSD was really bad. It cost him his family, his house, his boats and everything, and he wound up getting murdered over some kind of stupid argument. He got into the gut, he couldn't let it go and the guy shot him.

Ray Cobb: 22:02

So it's pretty sad and that's one of the side effects that people don't realize can happen. I mean, there's this gentleman that I just started helping a month ago and I could tell by talking to him that he had some PTSD. Sure enough, he had done two tours in Iraq. He was on the tank. He had actually broken his ankle three times and he now can't move that ankle, that foot. So we were talking about doing a claim for that. But in our conversation I could tell he had some other problems. So I started asking him.

Ray Cobb: 22:41

I said well, do you go out with friends and stuff on Friday? Oh no, I don't do that. No, I'm pretty much a homeboy. Or if it's hunting or fishing season, I may go out hunting or fishing, but I just do it usually by myself, or maybe my son might go with me. And then I said well, okay, where do you go to church? He said well, he says I do. He said but I go to a little small church up here on the mountain. We only got 10 members and he said you know there's seven or eight there on Sunday not very many.

Ray Cobb: 23:15

And I kept talking to him and finding out more and more. And then I said well, you said you have a son. Where's your wife? Oh, she left me about a year or so after I got back. I said, really, he said, yeah, we got to where we didn't see eye to eye, we couldn't make heads or tails, and I said, so you guys got a divorce. Yeah, we got a divorce. I don't want anything to do with her anymore.

Ray Cobb: 23:43

So all these things add up, one by itself maybe not, but four or five things that are common in individuals that are suffering from PTSD. You just got to connect the dots. I mean, is he more than 60 percent? Maybe 70, probably more like 50. You know, I don't think he has threatened to beat anybody up or he doesn't get in fights. He's a big old guy. If he ever got in a fight he'd hurt somebody bad, you know. And uh, you know, he's probably about six two and probably weighs close to 300 pounds and, uh, just almost all muscle. He's a. He's a electronic engineer, I mean electronic electrician. Let's say it right in a minute. He's a licensed electrician but he does a little handy work and stuff like that around for guys that need stuff done, does a lot of work for veterans in the community here. But anyway, I'm hoping that things go right and we can get him into the system and get him doing what he needs to do.

J Basser: 25:08

That's right, ray, you do got to do. You know you can do whatever you need to do to help these vets out. Do what you got to do. I mean, basically, you know we really you know we don't really do veteran claims ourselves. I mean, you know, we're just kind of like when we come on the map, you know A, b, c, d, you need to go here here here and see these people. You know that's what we do. We kind of specialize in that. Then when we do that and get situated, we make sure that you know the people we recommend them to go to. They'll take care of things and see their paperwork and things like that. Get them done. Then, of course, we've always done that and we'll continue to do that, you know, because I have no wants or needs to be a claims agent or anything like that, you know. I mean I just want to make a veteran smile and make his life better.

Ray Cobb: 25:57

Well, right, that's what it's all about. I mean, I'm like you there and one thing I've noticed in this particular case which you're just talking about, the guy didn't know, he doesn't have a diagnosis, he's never sat down with a social worker and that's the first thing that he needs to do. And guys, normally it takes a minimum of three, most of the time five or six visits with that social worker. You may see them once a week or, if it's real severe, you'll see them twice a week.

Ray Cobb: 26:30

But, once they get that evaluation and they give you the diagnosis, then they will come up with a plan or a way to treat you. And that's the key right there.

J Basser: 26:41

That's true. I mean, if you've got any type of mental health issue like that and you're saying you're getting VA care, you might have PTSD. They're going to ask you questions probably every other time you go in of how you've been treated and things like that. They talk to you all the time. Usually the intake nurse does it, but it might help to speak to a mental health specialist. It's a see you and have them talk you out like that, and then you know if you think you've got it and they think you've got it, you go ahead and file a claim.

J Basser: 27:12

There are certain, you know there are certain aspects of PTSD and mental health conditions that you know that should be pretty, pretty, pretty open to getting a claim passed to get it through. And one of the most common calls you know people getting connected for mental health is if you're high rated, say, well, you don't have to be high rated but say you're 7% for a certain issue and maybe your leg can't use your leg or something like that, and you got a 60% for that leg and maybe 10% is not enough. Well, if you can't walk like you're supposed to and run and play with your kids and things like that, that can cause issues. So you can file that, as you know, just depression and anxiety, secondary to that, the service-med conditions, and that you know that might get you to. Well, it depends on how severe it is. You know you can go to 100% PTSD, but you know they don't like giving that off the bat. You know, unless you meet the criteria.

J Basser: 28:09

It used to be. They changed the criteria, folks, last year on PTSD. It used to be you had to be pretty severe, suicidal just to get 100% or you couldn't. Basically it was like total occupational and social impairment. It means you had to stay away from people and work, and so they've changed that a little bit and they've added some caveats in there. Now you guys ought to look it up Title 38, part 4, scattered, afraid and Disabilities. Look it up PTSD. You can read it and of course you know still pretty severe criteria to get there. But I think it's easier now to get certain levels and I know several folks that are 100% PTSD have been away for years.

Ray Cobb: 28:49

You know you're talking about this one guy here I know he told me this story. He was 80% PTSD.

Ray Cobb: 29:00

And he said yeah. He said I got that pretty quick. I said you did. I said what makes you think you got it? How did it happen so fast? He said well, it was about my third visit and I went in and I'm talking to the social worker and she asked me if I'd ever thought about committing suicide. And I said, yeah, I thought about it last week. And she said, well, how did you plan on doing it? He said well.

Ray Cobb: 29:29

He said well, he said that was the easy part and she said okay, what was? He says well, you know, we have this little boat right close to my house called devil's step, and it's where you can launch your boat and stuff. He said I figured I'd just go down there and take my shotgun and wait out about waist deep, put, put that shotgun underneath my chin and pull the trigger. He said that way the catfish would have something to eat and it wouldn't mess up the wife's living room. Well, he got his 80% pretty damn quick. With that type of thing, whenever you have thought that much into doing it, that's an indication that you're on your way of actually committing that, that making that happen?

J Basser: 30:15

Yeah, because how are you going to do it? It's a step, you know, and people do it all the time and we just had a kid across the street here last year that did it and he just he had it real bad, his mom passed away and he just he overdosed on fentanyl and drugs and it's pretty sad, but it happens. You know, and you're right, 44 veterans a day, that's kind of an estimated number. They're thinking it's two and a half times the number of what the press is reporting. They're reporting like 20, 22 a day, and so I say 44 is the actual number and that's what the charts show, and so that's what we're. 1,600 vets per that's a lot of vets every year. It is One is too many. You know what I mean.

Ray Cobb: 31:08

Yeah, what's interesting to to me, we're seeing more now of the younger soldiers, the guys coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan and they're getting out now that are in their, you know, late 50s, early 60s. Because of the fact that most of the ones which they never kept record of they didn't want to admit it from right after the Vietnam War, those never got properly recorded. So we don't know how many came out of the Vietnam era. We know that some of them in later years, you know, once they got into their 60s usually the last five or 10 years of their work history it really started setting up pretty strong. I know it was again.

Ray Cobb: 31:55

I know of a local gentleman. He was fine until about two years before he retired. Then he just lost interest and the PTSD just came on pretty strong and pretty quick and it was a Vietnam era veteran and served in Vietnam. So you know there's a lot of, there's a lot of that, though, from the Vietnam era that actually never got properly diagnosed and recorded because it was still I guess, probably until what? 2010? Diagnosed and recorded because it was still uh, uh, well, I guess, probably until what, 2010,. It was still kind of somewhat brushed under the rug from uh, by the VA, yeah, you know. And then, finally, they came along and uh, what was it in 2021 that they passed? Did the PAC act?

Ray Cobb: 32:47

and that identified it more.

J Basser: 32:52

Well, it did to a certain extent, but they're kind of packed back for more exposure, anything, any type of airborne hazard. Now it started out years ago with the lady and her husband in Texas. He got some kind of cancer or whatever and she started suing everybody for the burn pit exposures and so Congress got together and made this thing up. And it's kind of funny how Congress would make something up like that and they'll stick it in the VA and dump it on them and the next thing you know the VA is having to scramble. As soon as they have to scramble they've got to get a bunch of new people and help do these claims and it takes at least two or three years to get people up to speed and it's pretty sad.

J Basser: 33:33

But the PACT Act itself I mean, with all these cuts coming down the pipe, of course it's going to slow it down a little bit because the court ruled today they couldn't do it. So we'll see what happens. But anyhow, with all the PAC Act it's just going to cause the claims to be ungodly long processing. You know like it used to be back in the old days. It took you seven, eight years to win a claim. Remember those days, right?

Ray Cobb: 33:59

I was in them. I did that. It took me eight years to win my first claim In 2014. Yeah, to win my first claim 2014.

J Basser: 34:06

Yeah, and I was direct service connected, believe it or not. So pretty sad and that will give you PTSD. Fighting the DA will give you PTSD, in my opinion.

Ray Cobb: 34:16

I agree with that.

J Basser: 34:17

Yeah.

Ray Cobb: 34:19

I agree with that and I think there's a lot of social workers that believe in that, and you know what's kind of interesting. Now we're going to see, I think, if what I'm beginning to hear down the pipe most of the people that you get your evaluations from at first are your social workers that are assigned to your primary care doctors, are your social workers that are assigned to your primary care doctors, and if they're going to cut back on these social workers what's going to happen to your PTSD patients?

J Basser: 35:02

That's true. I don't know if that's going to be a good question. Social workers have a lot to do with it, but usually your primary care doctor and your special care doctors can bypass that. You can go straight to see mental health. A social worker might assess your living situation, things like that. Or if you need the caregiver act and of course, they handled the caregiver and that's another thing that was built to anybody's lap. Yeah, without funds. Without funds, it's pretty sad. It is pretty sad, but that's the way it is. You know it's pretty sad. Most social workers that I know are pretty decent people. You know I don't hear a lot about the caregiver act. Workers that I know are pretty decent people. You know I don't hear a lot about the caregiving racked up here. I know they've got a few of them, but I don't think we've got as many veterans that are messed up as, for example, say, as other places do. That are bigger cities, you know.

Ray Cobb: 36:03

Right.

J Basser: 36:04

And so you know that all depends on the population. I would say there's probably quite a few in the state of Florida, because that's her. You know, that's the retirement capital of the world. Everybody wants to go to Florida. Everybody wants to go to Florida.

Ray Cobb: 36:30

You're bringing that up about cities, major cities. You know major cities always have a homeless problem yes, they do I'm wondering how many of these homeless veterans are actually service connected or could be service-connected for PTSD. But because of what you said a moment ago, the anger of trying to work with a VA, they just throw their hands up and say I quit.

J Basser: 36:57

Yeah, they just throw their hands up and say I just quit. Of course, now it all depends on the job market. You know, sometimes the job market is pretty much wide open and people can go work where they want to work and do what they want to do. Then, once they get her done, then they can get another job or do whatever. But I mean, sometimes these degrees you get, like social work and other things like that, you know you're kind of trapped because in order to get a job within the government or teaching, you have to have a master's degree or above. You know, and it costs a lot of money to get a master's degree now, buddy, and a whole lot to get a PhD.

J Basser: 37:47

But you know social workers are good. You know they've got their purpose. You know it's kind of like a laundry hamper, you know, as long as you get the right one, you know you got one for your whites, your colors and your jeans. You know you put the right laundry in the right basket. That's VA claims. You put the whites in the whites, you put the colors in one and you put the jeans in the other one. I mean, if you're like some people, I know, you know you've got a delicate one and you've got special clothing stuff. You don't have to be handled with kid gloves. You put them in there and you wash them on a delicate cycle, you know.

Ray Cobb: 38:24

You're liable to get in trouble tonight Probably, oh man, you're liable to get in trouble tonight?

J Basser: 38:27

Uh-huh Probably. It won't be the first time and I guarantee you it will not be the last time.

Ray Cobb: 38:38

Oh man, I got a big dog house in the backyard and he hadn't had a dog in 30 years.

J Basser: 38:47

You got Sarah Shavings in it. Huh, we got everything. Man, you just have to spiders and would-be's out of it. Guys, I won't be serious for a minute. I mean, yeah, we cut up a little bit. I'm going to tell you something.

J Basser: 39:02

If you've got mental health issues and PTSD, get help. Talk to somebody. Don't clam up and things like that. Don't take it out on your family. If something happens where it triggers your PTSD, just take a walk and get out of there and do something. Go up there and get in the room, do something like that. Just leave everybody alone. Get some help. You are tasked with remaining in control as best you can, because if you don't remain in control, you lose control and wind up like that poor guy that Ray talked about first the show. You know he went out and believed this little girl telling lies and he went out and bumped off her husband. Okay, don't let it run your life. Get treatment, get the right medication, Get treatment, get the right medication, Get help. It will help you, you know, and anxiety is definitely Well, you know.

Ray Cobb: 39:53

John, you need to learn. That's a great point. And, guys, you're not the only one affected. Your spouse, your children, your in-laws, your best friends, they all said if all of a sudden you havelaws, your best friends, they all said if all of a sudden you have a whole bunch of friends, the next thing you know you only have one or two. You need to ask yourself how come? What am I doing to run these folks off? And more than likely, the underlining cause is some minor form or some form of PTSD or some type of a mental problem, whether it's depression with anxiety attacks or what. But get help. That's all we can say is get help.

J Basser: 40:42

You're exactly right, ray. Get as much help as you can. There's stuff out there. If you're thinking suicide, you can call the suicide hotline, call the crisis line. They'll help you out.

J Basser: 40:57

I worked for the VA. One of my units was 2 North, which is here in Lexington, and that was the psych unit. That place stayed full of, you know, of veterans and I had to go up there several times a week, you know, to do rounds and stuff and talk to people and take care of you know, business stuff. It wasn't anything to do with the medical side, but I see people who went to high school with us in there and everything else, you know, and they'd recognize me and I'd shake my head at them, you know. But as soon as I come out of the door I was kind of happy. We had one guy that was in there.

J Basser: 41:28

We had a long-term mental health facility across town. It was an old World War II VA and there was a guy on the second floor and I worked over there too and this poor guy would run around the halls and we're talking, you could walk and build a building and they've got tunnels under the ground and it's a beautiful facility. This guy would run around with a cape on and thought he was Superman. That's how bad. He was. Nicest guy in the world, but he was Superman, and so don't look down on somebody that's got PTSD. You know, be nice to everybody if you can be, you know, and uh, you see people having issues all the time. You know, blow up some things like that, but once you let your emotions take a hold, it's hard to gain control of it. You know what I'm saying, right?

Ray Cobb: 42:18

I do, yeah, I do you, and I've seen it more than we need to. I guess we see it so much that sometimes, when we bump into a guy, a veteran, that just in general conversation, by the time you talk with him for five or ten minutes and leave, you realize he has a level of PTSD or mental problems. You don't know a level of PTSD or mental problems, you don't know. You know, I mean, I'm not a psychologist and I don't know at what level he has them, but I know he has them.

J Basser: 42:54

Yeah, that's also too, when y'all realize too you're talking to the vet, mr Vet, and they've got PTSD. You know you can ask a couple of questions or whatever you know and nobody knows for sure. I mean nobody will know. I mean the guy can tell you he was this and that and this and that he may not have been. You never know. You get a lot of folks like that. But what's a gut PTSD?

J Basser: 43:15

In my opinion, PTSD itself is. It is a medical diagnosis, but it is basically a diagnosis based off of the examiner and the treating physician's word, because there's not really any medical tests to physically show PTSD, like there is a heart cath or lung problems or whatever MRIs and things like that. So basically it's kind of an educated gift by the docs and what you've been through as to what's going on with you now. As you put A and B together, your chance to get rated is pretty good, but you have to have some kind of event or something for PTSD. Anyways, you got to have some type of stressful event to make it happen, like combat, personal assault, mst or anything like that. You know, fear of your life If you hear somebody trying to kill you. That's basically what you're looking for. You know that, ray.

Ray Cobb: 44:13

I did.

J Basser: 44:14

Yeah, I did Mm-hmm. But anxiety and depression is different because it can be based off of certain types of disabilities. And I want to tell you, the majority of vets are probably having anxiety and depression because you can't do what you used to do and you're stuck in a wheelchair or you're stuck here and stuck there. You know it's depressing as all get-up because your life's changed, you know. I mean you don't see Ray up there playing the drums anymore.

Ray Cobb: 44:40

No, couldn't even hold a set of drumsticks anymore. I know it.

J Basser: 44:47

You know you don't see me on lake bass fishing, much more do you I throw every rod I had in the water.

J Basser: 44:55

I've done that enough. That's how I found out about my service. Connected issues in my left arm start throwing rods in the water for no reason, so but that's the way it is. Well, I think, guys, we're out of time. I want to thank Ray for coming on and being a co-host. We're going to have a good show next week.

J Basser: 45:17

We're going to try to discuss the VA court, what goes on at the VA court. So, if I can get somebody to come on, I've got a couple feelers right now, but I want to discuss this issue since it's kind of an interesting subject right now, and right now everybody's in kind of turmoil. So you know, it's kind of I'd like to see what they do. You know, look at the court cases and things like that. But I just want to go with that procedural thing that face that me. I might get alex to come on maybe in that and we'll walk and walk us through it and what happens when you do your paperwork and who to file and how you get an attorney and things like that and paperwork, and how much you got to pay and the perks of getting to court and winning your claim and having the government pay your bill, which is pretty good. Yeah, so we need to discuss that and other than that. Well, it's been a good show.

J Basser: 46:07

Folks, you can watch this on YouTube If you want to go back. It's under Jay Basher Exposed Vet page on YouTube. It'll be audioed up to Apple Podcasts and maybe a couple other places, but that's on this 13th day, which is Thursday the 13th and not Friday of March. That's a good thing. Yeah, 2025. This is John on behalf of Ray Cobb and Expose that Productions. We'll be signing off for now.

Ray Cobb: 46:38

Good night guys.