Episode 93 Transcription

Welcome to episode 93 of Behind The Mission, a show that sparks conversations with PsychArmor trusted partners and educational experts.

My name is Duane France, and each week I'll be having conversations with podcasts guests that will equip you with tools and resources to effectively engage with and support military service members, Veterans, and their families. You can find the show on your podcast player of choice or by going to www.psycharmor.org/podcast. 

Thanks again for joining us on Behind The Mission, our work and mission are supported by generous partnerships and sponsors who also believe that education changes lives. This show is brought to you by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem, specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations. 

On today's episode, I'll be talking about the national warrior call day campaign with Navy Veteran, Frank Larkin. Frank is a national advocate for suicide prevention and military traumatic brain injury research. He currently serves as the chief operating officer for the Troops First Foundation and the national warrior called a campaign. He recently served as a vice president for corporate development at SAP national security services. And was the 40th United States, Senate Sergeant at arms. Frank served for more than two decades in the United States secret service and served as a special warfare operator in the Navy seals. One short caveat at this point, in addition to Frank's respected service to our nation in multiple different he and his wife were also parents of a Navy seal, Ryan Larkin, who died by suicide in 2017. Frank talks about the impact of that loss in our conversation. And while our discussion is not graphic in the details, it might be emotionally impactful for those listeners who have experienced a similar loss. You can find out more about Frank by checking out his bio in our show notes. So let's get into my conversation with him and come back afterwards to talk about some of the key points. 

DUANE: Frank, I'm grateful that we're able to share the work that you're doing to save the lives of those who served. I'm grateful to be able to share your story. I think we'd be able to have a whole conversation about your amazing career from the Navy as a seal to your time as sergeant of arms of the Senate, your corporate work. But I get a sense that all of that is secondary of the mission that you have now.

Perhaps you can give us a bit of background on your journey and why this work you're doing now is so important to.

FRANK: No, you're exactly right. The characterization is spot on. I'm in this now to try to affect change, especially for our Veterans who are struggling every day with invisible wounds. I came out of the corporate world, about six months ago with this very keen focus on working in the nonprofit space, Veteran advocacy space to elevate the narrative about invisible wounds, traumatic brain injury, and Veteran suicide. The reason I'm in this is, unfortunately, five years ago, I lost my Navy Seal son, very decorated operator, to suicide. He had seen multiple tours, combat tours to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places of the world, other conflict zone and started unravel. And we witnessed him go from our son to something that we almost didn't recognize. And one morning, he took his life. I found him, he was in the basement of our home, wearing his seal Team seven T-shirt dressed in red, white, and blue board shorts, and it illuminated a shadow box I had built for him during the holidays to recognize his achievements. So it had his medals, his devices, his memorabilia, and, he had illuminated that and had burned a hard drive in the fireplace that contained all his deployment photos.

The reason why I share that intimate and horrible moment, still leaves a huge hole in my heart is that as he struggled, over a two year period, one year still in the Navy and the teams, under the care of defense health, and then a following his honorable discharge, and under the care of the va. He constantly said that something's wrong with my head, but nobody's listening to me. You know, he was having a lot of the signs and symptoms that we have learned to recognize or at least to understand to some degree being, talked about by our Veterans, the inability to sleep nightmares, bounced with anxiety, depression. He became hypervigilant, almost paranoid at times, stopped smiling. You could almost see a mask draped down over his face that was completely void of all emotions. And  he was struggling trying to stop the slide, trying to understand what was happening to him. He got to a point where he felt that he was becoming a liability to his team and to his teammates. But at the same time, was concerned that he was abandoning them if he left. And when he highlighted his challenges to his command and ultimately tried to get some level of support, through the system, it was weaponized against him.

And unlike a lot of the operational commands that have operational focus, you're good to go as long as you can contribute to operations. Once you fall into that category of not being able to operationally deploy, be of operational utility, then they don't have time for you and that's where you see a lot of  these warriors cut away. And that creates a huge wound beyond what they're already experiencing the issues of isolation, separation from your tribe is huge. It just rips, an individual's dignity. It's a direct attack on their reputation, on who they were, all their purpose, for being there and for what they do.

 And, he said to me one night around the fire, about three months before his death, he said, “Hey, dad. I'm banged up inside and I'm not gonna live to an old age. I'm just ripped up.” You, I, you know, as a dad, I'm thinking, “Hey, Ryan, we're gonna get through this. Look what you've done already, the achievements, I mean,we'll get through this. Yeah. Yeah, I know. And he followed up with, “Hey, look, if anything ever happens to me, I want you to donate my brain for traumatic brain injury research, breacher syndrome research.” So that morning, that horrible morning when I found him, he had taken his life in a way that absolutely preserved his brain for that donation. He knew what he was doing. He was a combat special operations medic. He was also a sniper Seal sniper. And then after he came off his deployments, he was in charge of training, deploying seal platoons for combat because of his experience, he led that training effort and continued to be subjected to breaching charges, concussion grenades, the heavy weapon systems that they were using at the time, especially the CAR G Rocket mortars. So all along he knew what was going on. Unfortunately, the system defaulted towards, he was mentally ill and in the two years we tried to rescue him, they couldn't settle on any single diagnosis of what was wrong with them.

But most of it landed within the psychiatric behavioral health arena, which then ushered in all the drugs that they had put him on. He was on over 40 different medications, in that two year period. Everything from over the counter potions, lotions, and creams to high end psychotropics and mood stabilizers. He was a  walking experiment and above all, they didn't listen to him. They were quick to judge, they were quick to label, to justify their assessments and their actions, but they never listened to 'em. And, I'm convinced that, Ryan died from this in service to this. He died from his combat injuries.

He just didn't die right away, and he knew what he was doing. So I've got, he's passed that baton onto me, and, like a dog on the bone, I'm taking this into the end zone. I don't want to be irresponsible, but what haunts me two things, because the positions I've had in the past, I have access and, for those parents, for those loved ones that have lost, these valiant warriors and don't have a platform, to kick a door to get in to talk to somebody or to make issue, then I'm trying to help be that voice for them to advocate for their point of view, because every suicide affects about 130 people. It's devastating. Not only, it's just the family, it's friends, it's teammates, it's community, it's just, it's eating holes away in our society right now, it's at the epidemic levels. And the other burden I carry is that, I've had 35, almost 40 years of rescuing other people, and in the end, I couldn't rescue my own son. I know people say, yeah, you did everything you could, you were there for him. Nah, it's,this is something I'll take to my grave, but my promise to him and my promise to you and anybody that's listening, within your audience I'm not gonna give up. Every week we hear from men and women who are struggling and are out there isolated, they're alone. They barely, get through their day and, we're just trying to keep their lips above the water, trying to give them hope and throw a lifeline to them to let them know that they're not alone. And the connection of isolation to suicide is huge. So is the growing body of evidence that's connecting undiagnosed TBI to suicide. 

And it makes sense because when your circuits are fried, things don't work the way they should. Your thought process is your sense of wellbeing, your stability. I have, in recent times as I talk to these warriors, said to them, hey, you did what this nation asked you to do. You went into harm's way, you supported this nation so that what happened on 9/11 never happens again. And as a consequence, you've come home, with these invisible wounds that we're yet trying to understand. So what you need to understand is that you're not crazy. You very well may be injured, injured in service to this nation. We just need the science to catch up to validate that. 

DUANE: I think that is an excellent point. And I think that having heard your story before at least the surface of the story, the initial parts of how you lost your son, but obviously not to that depth. I want to say I appreciate you sharing that with us and sharing with the audience. And it puts me in mind of a conversation I had, with a parent who’ son, one of his sons, both sons served one, was serving in a ranger regimen. He told me as a father of an army ranger, I knew there would be sleepless nights when he was deployed or he was overseas. He said, but nobody told me that there would be sleepless nights for the rest of his life.That doesn't come to people intuitively. You think that once they're out of the service, they're safe, so to speak, but that's not always the case.

FRANK: It comes down to this, and this is why it's so important to have these conversations right now. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be over on paper, but they're not over for the hundreds of thousands of men and women who have served during this past 20, 21 years of persistent conflict, and they're struggling every day. It said that, 1% or less of the American public actually serves this nation in uniform. And then, you have our first responders who I view as our domestic warriors, and they've been under tremendous pressures, and we're seeing the suicide rates within those ranks escalating. So, yeah, there's a trail of debris behind all this that's going to be decades long. And we need to understand and recognize that. And my position here is one, we need to try to take care of this on the front end to do what we can once we understand what's going on to prevent this from happening. But the reality is, is that we have people now that are hurting. And so my analogy is a like a railroad track to give you a visible, kind of reference.

One rail is the urgent need to do the science. That's good science that will help to inform on what we're dealing with and potentially the path forward as far as care and rehabilitation. But in order to get good science, you have to do good science. And in some cases, there's been bad science that has informed on this and we need to correct that, but yet we have to drive the urgency for the science. And we can't be afraid to learn, new facts, new evidence that can help us make better decisions. Then you go to the other rail and that is those Veterans that are hurting now and need help right now and are descending down this well, and the further they go, the less visible the light is and the darker it is and the more isolated they are. And when they get into dark places, bad things happen. You know, they feel that they're alone, nobody understands them cuz they're not listening to them. They've tried multiple solutions to try to feel better. And when you talk to a lot of these Veterans, they say, if you could just help me feel 10, 15% better, that's all I'm asking.

I just want to get a good night's sleep. I just want the anxiety to go away. I just want to  have just a feeling of comfort. So they're wrestling with all these different emotions and feelings, which are not, just because we can't see them does mean that they're not. And I can remember, on a number of my speaking engagements where I'm standing up next to wounded warriors who have visible injuries, amputations, wounds, burns and so forth. And just to hear these warriors talk and the first thing that they have said we're standing before you and you see clearly that we had been injured, that something has happened to us. But my teammate, Ryan over here, my teammate, Sarah over here, they look perfectly normal. The reality is they may be hurt worse than me, hurt on the inside. It's this, the invisible wounds as we've come to know them is this complex rubric of post traumatic stress disorder, moral injury, which we don't talk about a lot, the moral implications of what we've put our men and women through and these combat zones. We raise them to value human life, respect each other, follow the rule of law.

Then we train 'em up to be these warriors and we send them to different parts of the globe where they experience things that are just beyond definition. They see that things, they feel things, they do things that when they come home, they're carrying these burdens and unfortunately they come back to a society that's very judgemental and they don't feel like they can talk about what they've been through.

So it sits inside them like little pacmen chewing away. And at some point they come out. And they come out in bad ways. So we really have to open up this narrative, to increase a level of understanding amongst our American public and get them to recognize that these men and women and their sacrifice allows them to go to sporting events, allows them to celebrate holidays and move about our society without fear of attacks like we've had on 9/11. And oh, by the way, when, I'm asked, how do you feel about, the way we left Iraq and Afghanistan and was this all for nothing. And as you view the loss of your son and my son enlisted in the Navy volunteered for SEAL training because as he witnessed the events unfold on 9/11, just west of New York City that day, and my office was in one of the world trade towers, and I had been reported missing and was in the middle of all that. He came home a number of years later and said, Dad, I just enlisted. I volunteered for SEAL training. I said, Why? He said, Because I want to be part of the solution. I don't ever want to happen. What happened on 9/11 to happen here again. And he's not the only one that embraced that ethic, that challenge many men and women, hundreds of thousands, stepped out of their lives and, went forward to serve our nation.

So we owe them, the care and support, for that sacrifice. And many of them didn't come home and then others came home, missing body parts and with other challenges. And then we have those that have the invisible wounds that, that kind of, thread through all this. You know what bothered me the other day, quite honestly was, witnessing, the Miami Dolphins quarterback go down on the field with obvious, some type of neurological injury, from hitting his head on the, on the field.

And then to see some of the other clips that supported that, he had incurred some head injuries, a number of days before, and then, commentary that came out, or a response that came out and said he was stumbling because he had some type of back problem or an ankle injury. And, we're all watching this on TV and saying, that's not a back injury or an ankle injury. This guy's, he's got his bell rung severely, and then to see that he's, he was cleared and then allowed to fly home that night. I just was shaking my head and obviously there's been a big dust up about the concussion protocol within the nfl, much of it generated by the players' union, but I what bothered me is, and again, it was appropriate what was going on to review the concussion protocol.

I'm switching over to, hey, how come we don't have this same sense of outrage and concern for the hundreds of thousands of men and women that you know are courting traumatic brain injuries, many of them undiagnosed, that have served this nation. And we wouldn't even be watching these Thursday night or Monday night football games or weekend sports events if it wasn't for the sacrifice these men and women who had protected this. And maybe that's a little too onerous or heavy handed of a view. That's what that incident, pulled outta me and I'm throwing it out there.

DUANE: I think that's a great perspective and that is a different perspective, right? As you said, it's very appropriate that all these things, with the quarterback was evaluated. But then those kind of things are happening every day behind closed doors. And a lot of people, they're not thinking about it.

It's not in their face the way it was watching it on tv, and that's really what your goal has been to do now this new effort to establish, the Warrior Call Program. This is the initiative that you're involved with to raise that kind of awareness about service members, Veterans or first responders, who may be isolated from support and might need help.

FRANK: Yeah, so this all goes back to connectivity and isolation. When you get separated from your tribe, you get separated from your teammates, the friends that you in many cases you've been to battle with, and it's not the need to be in combat It's just that team dynamic, that sense of being part of something larger than yourself is very powerful for, the men and women, in uniform, both in our military uniform, in our domestic warriors within our first or community.

It's when they become separated and distanced or pushed out of that circle that you start seeing some bad things. A sense of desperation, depression, very often these folks are in pain. I will tell you that, almost every special operator, let alone conventional warrior, that have served is in some degree of pain.

It's just the fact and you being a Veteran yourself,I know I'm speaking to the choir. And we kind of, you know, put it back, you and deal with it while others have a lot more challenge in dealing with their pain and it's just not physical pain. It's the emotional and spiritual pain that also rides sidecar with what we're talking about. And so how do you deal with that and deal with it effectively so you can improve somebody's quality of life? So the National Warrior Call Initiative, which is underway, right now and is a set to kick off on November 13th, two days after Veteran's Day is really a national outreach effort that we're asking our Congress to support and to codify, as an event that draws attention to this need to simply make a call to a warrior or a first responder. Take a call and have an honest conversation. It's as basic deck plate level, grassroots level as that, to try to snap into somebody that may be isolated, identify that they're struggling, and then connect them up with resources. And the one thing that we've seen clearly, as we've tried to address the advancing or escalating suicide problem is isolation is a key factor.

And a lot of these men and women get very good at hiding the fact that they're alone, even though they're walking about amongst us, they're maybe participating, in activities or they are at work. When you peel it back, they, they feel isolated. They feel that they're alone, that nobody understands. And that's what we're trying to correct. So by simply making a call, taking a call and engaging somebody, and just a routine conversation, Hey Steve, how you doing? Thinking about you, Geez, I just started to give you a call. See what's up? How you doing? or, Sally, you know, Hey, I just came across this photo of us, that remember we were at Bogram and it's amazing what that does. And the reason I can say that is that we've gotten so much reflection from folks that we've worked with that call pulled them out of, snapped them out of a bad trajectory that they were going down avery dark path or right on the verge of doing something horrible. And that phone call just reeled them back in and connected them up with reality and connected them up with people that they loved and felt a tie to. So where are we with it right now?

It's a Senate resoultion waiting to be voted on. And I hope our Congress can make this happen because they've quite frankly, had difficulty in making things happen for us, here in the past number of years because all the distractions. But I'm confident that they'll come through on this.

But we have a growing list of senators and congressmen, on both sides of the aisle that are supporting this. We also have had over 27 Medal of Honor recipients that are supporting this National Warrior Call initiative and over 50 non-profits, which is almost unheard of. All benevolent organizations, Veteran focused organizations, others that are in this space of trying to help Veterans and first responders are signing up to say, This National Warrior Call Day is something that we need to do.

And even though Troops First is sponsoring, you know the initiative, it's not a Troops First Foundation Initiative. This is a unity of effort. This is the coalition of the willing. These are people that care about our Veterans and first responders are saying, hey, we need to continue to recognize the sacrifice that these men and women make.

Welcome the support from your audience for pushing National Warrior Call Day. Even a note to your political representative, helps in this effort, I will be very disappointed if our Congress does not come through with this.

DUANE: I think that's extremely important. If people wanted to find out more about how to support National Warrior Call Day. Maybe do some of that outreach, if it to be able to encourage lawmakers. How can they find out more about National Warrior Call?

FRANK: They can go to www.warriorcall.org. Simple as that. And there’s a list of the supporting agencies and activities that we're engaged in, and it's Senate Resolution 474 that is hopefully gonna be on the table soon to vote out. Unfortunately, the Congress is in recess, so that does not help.

And they're focused on the midterms, but this is what our elected officials should be focused on. We can't leave anymore behind. Unfortunately, we've been leaving too many behind and that really challenges our core ethos, no matter what service that you were a member of or what public service activity that you were a member we all share that same ethos of not leaving anyone behind, and it's all about our teammates. Yeah, I know it's about service to the nation and so forth, but when you peel it back, it's all about your brothers and sisters that you're serving with. You don't want to disappoint them, you don't wanna let 'em down. You don't want to fail your mission.

DUANE: Oh, that's absolutely true. And I appreciate your new mission, this newfound mission that you have. And I'll make sure that links to the resolution as well as the National Warrior Call Day are in the show notes. Frank, thank you so much for joining me on the show.

FRANK: I appreciate the opportunity to speak and, again, I know, your listeners, your audience out there, the reason they listen to you is because they care and be part of the, you the posse that, we're forming, to connect to our warriors that are struggling.

Invisible wounds are not gonna go away. We can't be afraid to try to understand what they mean and what they represent. I'm confident that we'll find the solutions. It's not because we lack intellectual capability or capacity. It's the will. We've gotta break down these cultural barrier.We've gotta be willing to look ugly in the face and do something about it.

DUANE: No, that's absolutely true. Thank.

FRANK: Thank you.

Once again, we would like to thank this week's sponsor, PsychArmor. PsychArmor is the premier education and learning ecosystem specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that is free individual learners, as well as custom training options for organizations.

It can be hard to say that I hope you appreciated my conversation with Frank. It may be closer to the point to say that I hope you valued it. For anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide, you recognize the pain that Frank shared with us, as well as his frustration and his desire to make a difference. 

There are many, many things that I have thoughts about related to my conversation but I want to start off with talking about the commonalities and differences in death by suicide. And talking about Ryan struggles with the neurological and psychological impacts of his military service, Frank shared some themes that are somewhat common of those who serve. The desire to not let their teammates down or be a drag on the mission, the helplessness that might come from knowing that there's something wrong, but having no one around you, that seems to have any of the answers. The hopelessness that Ryan expressed sitting by the fire that night, the feeling of brokenness and despair. Frank is absolutely right. Ryan wasn't broken. He was injured. And those who served and who are struggling with these things are injured, not broken. 

But there are unique conditions that can influence suicide deaths which is what makes it so hard to predict, prevent and intervene. From what Frank described, the challenges that Ryan was experiencing were not only psychological depression, guilt, possibly posttraumatic stress. There were also neurological direct traumatic brain injuries in the form of concussions, most likely, but also diffuse traumatic brain injury from blast over pressure. In this instance, it's a combination of a physical injury and the psychological impacts of service. And it's difficult to say which came first. And Frank talks about the importance of connectedness. That's what the national warrior call day is about. And how isolation can be detrimental. But in Ryan's case, there was a connection to his family and they were actively engaged in supporting him. But isolation is not just a physical separation. How many times have you felt alone in a crowded room or felt separated from those that you care for, even though you're connected to them. 

Some who died by suicide are truly physically isolated, but others may appear to be connected and engaged and still feel isolated. That no one understands possibly that they're a burden to others going back to Dr. Joiner's interpersonal theory on suicide. So Frank story Ryan's story is an example of how common some aspects of suicide can be and at the same time, how unique they can be. 

The other point that I would like to bring up is Frank's goal. The national warrior call day campaign. This is a goal that the first Sunday after Veteran's day of every year, be designated as national warrior call day in order to make a call to someone who served, take a call from someone who cares from you if you did serve and have an honest conversation about how things are going. 

This is an effort to make connections to those who served with the possibility that it could save a life. And I can tell you from direct firsthand experience that this is truly a life saving effort. 

For any long-term listeners out there you've likely heard me say that my first experience with suicide prevention and intervention was with my father who served in Vietnam. In a number of different ways that experience influenced my life to the point of sending me down the path of being a mental health professional. 

I was serving in Germany at the time. This was around the year 2000. I got a call from my older sister who said that one of our family friends reached out to her with some concerns about my father state of mind, and that he might be considering suicide. They weren't sure how to handle the situation so she was calling me for advice. At that point again, this was pre 9/11. We had been receiving some annual training around suicide prevention. It wasn't much part of the chaplains briefing once a year, but I knew that it was necessary to know what we were dealing with. So I called my father. I asked him directly if he was thinking of killing himself and he said, yes. And everything changed at that moment. We talked for a while. We got someone to come over to be with him, to make sure he was safe. And we got them the immediate help that he needed. Thankfully, we were able to make a difference and that difference was made by three phone calls, our family, friend of my sister, my sister to me and me to my father. If anyone of those phone calls hadn't been made then the story may have turned out much differently. I didn't know what to say or do at that time, other than just asking my father about his intentions and plans. I wasn't a mental health professional. I wasn't trained in suicide intervention skills. I was just a son who cared for his father and wanted to do what I could. 

And that's the same for you or anyone who has similar experiences. As a quick aside, I shared with Frank that I was going to include this brief story about my own experiences with suicide. From a son trying to help a father to a father who tried to help a son. I intended it in no way to overshadow his story about Ryan's loss, but to demonstrate that it can work, it does work. We lost my father to natural causes in 2017. The same year that Ryan died by suicide. 

Everything wasn't immediately good for my father after we got him the help that he needed. But the last five years of his life were great and much, much better than the previous 40 years. But we wouldn't have had those additional 17 years if those phone calls hadn't been made. 

He wouldn't have been around to see his grandchildren grow up or give me advice about combat on the eve of my first deployment to Iraq or hundreds of other moments, big and small. And it was all made possible because of phone calls. So I'm an advocate for the national warrior call day campaign not because I think it's a good idea, which it is, but because I know that it works. 

So I hope you found value in our conversation. If you or someone you care about is in a suicidal crisis or struggling with mental health concerns, please reach out by dialing 988. If you were the person you're caring for is a service member or veteran press one to be connected the veteran crisis line. You can also go to www.veterancrisisline.net to chat live, or send a text to 8 3 8 2 5 5 to be connected directly to a caring, qualified, and trained crisis response specialist. We appreciate you and those that you care for. 

For this week PsychArmor Resource Of The Week, I'd like to share the entire catalog of courses, supporting suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. You can see the 19 different courses available for those interested in learning more about suicide. Everything from grief and trauma, developing a crisis response plan and the gatekeeper training safe. If you're interested in participating in national warrior call day, but concerned that you might not be prepared to have a direct conversation about suicide, taking these courses ahead of time may give you the confidence that you're looking for. You can find a link to these courses at our show notes.