The Warrior Angels Foundation 4x4x48

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

What is going on ladies and gentlemen? Welcome to another episode of the Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert Palmitessa, and I am here each week delivering tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas to help The US military veteran community to live their absolute best lives. I've been doing this podcast for almost seven years now, and I can't believe it. It's been an awesome ride.

I've gotten to talk to some really interesting people, people like Robert Greene, the author of the 48 laws of power, Gary John Bishop, author of Unfuck Yourself, great media personalities like Ryan Michler from The Order of Man, fighters like Bas Rutten, and veterans like Nick Koumalatsos, Donnie O'Malley, and and so many more, you know. And, one of the people that I've gotten to know over the past few years is is Andrew Marr. He's the head of the Warrior Angels Foundation. Him and his brother who's another really awesome guy and and and good friend of mine, Adam Marr, they they put together an event for the Warrior Angels Foundation this past weekend. It it it was the four by four by forty eight.

A bunch of veterans and and others from around the country got together in the Houston National Forest on on Andrew and Adam's land, and we ran four miles every four hours for forty eight hours, along with a series of rituals from the Four Worlds Institute. We had, chief Phil Lane come down, and he he blessed us and and took us through some rites from the Dakota Indians up in Canada. They came all the way down to to to work with us, and we got to partake in some some very sacred ceremonies during that time period. It was an amazing experience, and it it brought a few things to mind for me because the connections I was able to make with the other veterans there, the people I was able to meet there, the the the feelings I got from that. You know, running four miles every four hours for forty eight hours is grueling, but this event, in my opinion, was not about the run.

It was about the connections we were able to make on such a deep human level. It was about the love we were able to feel for each other in our community. You know? It was about the the stories and the struggles I've seen other people go through. I did an interview with a gentleman named Kegan Gill, and he was a fighter pilot who who had to force an ejection at the sound barrier and had his body ripped apart and had a crazy recovery.

He came back to becoming a fighter pilot, but then he had to deal with the effects of traumatic brain injury, he's got such a harrowing story, and it impacted me so much. And everybody at that weekend impacted me so much. And I wanna kind of give you a series of lessons that that I learned from from this weekend, from from this experience. And I think that, you know, this event itself is is eventually going to be a a a much bigger event, you know, one of the hallmark events for the veteran community in our country and and for our allies. But but I I think that it's so much even more important besides the event that we as a veteran community take certain things and we integrate them into ourselves.

And and the first one is this, interpersonal connection. Right? We are a community. Right? And being a community, we have similar backgrounds.

Right? We've gone through similar struggles. We've achieved similar things. We've dealt with similar problems. We've had similar failures.

And what that should do for us is it should strengthen bonds. You know, when you're able to, you know, sit down across somebody and be able to look them in the eyes and and and and be in their presence, you know, I think that is so important because it allows you to connect. And when you can can talk about the struggles you've been through, when you could talk about the problems you faced, when you could talk about it with somebody who understands, somebody who's been there, it makes all the difference. And I think, you know, one of the mistakes that that men make in general when they get into their thirties is that they start isolating themselves. You know, maybe you're around your wife, your kids, some of your family members, the people at work, But what you stop doing is you stop actually connecting with other men.

Alright? Other people who've been through, you know, your struggle. Maybe you're a woman too. Right? Maybe you're a woman who served.

Right? And think about your life too. Right? What is it now? You know, maybe you're connecting with your husband, your kids, but but you're not around the people who've gone through similar things that you've gone through.

We we lose that, we lose our friends, we lose our tribe, you know, and some of this is is necessary because, you know, you wanna go on, you wanna raise a family, you wanna raise children, but if you don't have people around you who who've been through the similar things that you've been through, then it's gonna be a really isolating experience. I mean, if you think back to to the way things used to be when we lived in smaller villages, you know, we didn't know so many people, when we didn't have social media, when we didn't work for large corporations, and and and have most of our days taken up sitting in front of a computer or or, you know, manning a machine or doing something else. You know, what we were able to do was was was be around people who were going through similar things, you know, even even as as recent as World War two. Right? Guys got to come back, you know, maybe they went to college, but they were housed with other veterans.

Right? They they they they they went through life being able to to connect with those who served with them. Right? Maybe they joined groups like the the the Veterans of Foreign Wars or the American Legion. Right?

All of these things played into them having a connection with this group for the rest of their lives, you know. And for us, what do we have? We have the Internet. You know, that far too many of us are sitting at home posting memes on IG and not doing much else to to connect with other human beings. You need other humans.

You need other humans to be around you. You need to connect with them. Alright? So events like this that the Warrior Angel Foundation put on are so important, and that was was the most impactful thing for me, was was being able to connect with with others like me, who thought like me, who who had a similar background to me, who who were dealing with the same struggles is so important.

You know, number two, I think one of the things that that that we get so wrapped up in as a community is is kind of being hard. Right? Going out there and and and pushing and freaking driving and and that's who we are. That's our background. I think that is important.

You need to push yourself physically a lot. Right? Like I said, just we we I'm talking about an event where we ran four miles every four hours for forty eight hours. That's 48 miles. Right?

But at the same time, I think it's important to give yourself a little bit of grace. Right? You can't always be hard.

Right? Maybe David Goggins is gonna come in here and punch me in the face right now, but I'm telling you right now, you cannot always be hard. You need love in your life, real love. You need you need the love of your significant other, but but I think also you need brotherly love. Right?

You need you need to be able to be vulnerable in front of your brother. Right? Because otherwise, how is he gonna know how to help you? Right? How is he gonna know what's going on in your head if you're not able to express it?

How is anybody gonna know the demons that are haunting you right now if you cannot identify them? Right? The most evil demon in the world is an is a demon that's able to hide from plain sight. Right? It's able to to to not, you know, be seen by anybody else except for you.

Right? And it only comes out when you're by yourself, when you're isolated, when you're not expressing yourself, when you're holding it in and that's what makes it stronger. You can't do that. All you're doing is giving it power. Right?

So, you know, if you're going through some shit right now, call somebody. Right? Ask for help. Fucking reach out. Right?

Because if you don't, then you're just gonna be stuck in a situation where you're dealing with it on your own. And, you know, maybe some simple insight from somebody else from outside your situation could help so much. You know? We've all gotta open our minds to this. And I think giving love and seeking love and feeling like you're worthy of love is so important to healing.

Now, you know, and here's the third thing. I think that, you know, we're in a situation right now. We just got out of twenty years of war. It looks like we're gonna be back to war very soon. I don't like it.

I'm not in agreement with it. I'm very much against any possibility of war right now because I do not think our country is ready. I don't think we're ready to take care of the veterans coming home from from a potential conflict on the scale of what I think this conflict is going to be. I don't think that that our our countrymen are ready to to give that kind of love to to the homecoming veterans because a lot of them weren't able to give that kind of love to us. Right?

So what do we need to do? What what we need to do is we need to coalesce as a community. We need to to make our voices heard. And maybe we won't be able to prevent this country from going into a full hearty war with with a great another great power, but what we can do is if it does happen, we can take care of those who fucking go out there and do end up fighting this war. We can be there for them when they come back, and we can grow stronger, even stronger as a community so that our voices are never ever ignored again.

You know, I think that's so important. The rest of the country needs to hear us. I've always said this veteran community is the sleeping giant in this country. We wake up, they're gonna hear us. Alright?

I just wanted to really get some thoughts out about this whole experience, whole weekend, you know, for all you guys because I've had a lot going on in my head lately. I haven't done a solo podcast like this in a bit, doing a lot of interviews, but I think these are important. I think it's important that I get my mind out there. I also think it's important that you get your mind out there. So don't be afraid to to comment on social media, to to to put your thoughts down, and to let me and everybody else know what you're thinking.

Like I said, reach out. Your voice is important. Alright? If you guys wanna learn more about the Warrior Angels Foundation and and the other amazing organizations that were involved in this like the heroic hearts, you know, vets and then in great businesses like Brass and Unity were involved. You know, go over to www.warriorangelsfoundation.com or .org.

That's www.warriorangelsfoundation.org,org. And and they've got a link up there that says four by four by 48. You can learn more about that. You can check out the past interviews I've done with Andrew Marr and Adam Marr, and I've got some great interviews coming up for you, with people like Kegan Gill, who participated in this event. We actually recorded at the event, fighter pilot who was ejected at the sound barrier and and had a giant struggle afterwards.

So, I'm looking forward to bringing all this to you, and, I'm looking forward to continuing this mission and this show for this amazing community. I love you all. God bless you. This is Chris Albert Palmitessa with the Warrior Soul podcast, and I am out.