A Fuller Life
For many veterans living a fuller life may seem like a dream. A Fuller Life Foundation, co founded by Navy Veteran Lee Dyer, provides mental health support to veterans who need faster support or more urgently than the VA can support. Providing Peoria Illinois area based Veterans with the resources and support to help them start living a fuller life. The Foundation was named after Lee's brother in law SFC John Matthew Fuller who lost his battle with his demons in 2019. Lee, his wife Sarah, their friend and John's Battle Buddy Severin Gilbert co founded the organization to honor John and work towards providing the resources that were not available when John needed them the most. Lee shares their story and mission and what kinds of things may be on the horizon for their foundation!
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Transcript from Episode 75 with Lee Dyer:
Keith McKeever
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the battle buddy podcast. Got a great guest today. It's always wonderful to have somebody local that I know personally. So you're going to love this nonprofit and what they're trying to do. This is all about mental health suicide, we got to end those numbers. Before I get started, make sure you hit that LIKE SUBSCRIBE button and follow. And all as always, make sure you follow my guest to welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever. Welcome to the show, Lee. Hey, how's it going? Yeah, great. It's absolutely wonderful, man. So go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself first, your military story, your backstory, all that stuff?
Lee Dyer
Definitely. Yeah, my name is Lee Dyer. I was one of those lucky guys that graduated from high school and realized that I didn't want to do anything that was around the area kind of deal. My dad was in the Navy way back in the day too. So that kind of had that little bit of pride to it or whatever. So I went down to the local recruiters office, I was like, hey, what can we do? And they're like, yeah, we'll give you the whole world like nine yards, like, you know, these bonuses, all that kind of stuff. I'm like, Yeah, sounds great. So I went up, signed my name to it. And then yeah, just, you know, enjoying myself while I was in, did a few years and didn't really get anything to bow heavier. And then my dad thankfully, did a lot of electronics back and behind the scenes working on missile systems and radar, and all that fun, electronic stuff, got a lot of really good experiences out of the two course. But that just was a really, really great experience. And I mean, even though I don't think it was like, I never did make it a career, you know, I think that little bit of structure, especially, it'd be an 18 year old punk coming out of high school, like, like, I knew everything, and all that kind of stuff was kind of nice to have them kind of helped me get some structure and some discipline, I realized that I really needed so
Keith McKeever
I think there's a lot of people that can say that, you know, we you know, almost everybody goes in when they're pretty young, we all need a little bit of that reality and reshaping of our lives a little bit, do we all get it to some degree. So what I know, you know, if you want to join the military to see the world, the Navy tends to be the place to do it, you have to get a lot more opportunities. So what were you on on a ship? Or where you land based? What kind of places did you go to,
Lee Dyer
I was the one of the lucky guys in the Navy that never went on a deployment. How crazy is that? Now we just stay by there, I was in Chicago for all my training. And then I went to Norfolk, Virginia, and did my finish everything out there ended up doing some, like actual teaching, and just really kind of enjoyed the life of a military non note, I don't know, it's felt like I was a civilian working in the military. But obviously, we still had all the guidelines and uniform and, you know, his muster every morning. And you know, there's a little bit more strict guidelines for that, of course, the military base there. But yeah, we got the work of Australians got to do a lot of work on some of the programs that the Navy was using at the time, which they're not using them anymore, but at the time, you know, it was kind of a cutting edge like this will be a great new thing. So it was it was kind of an interesting experience for me, as opposed to some of the other buddies of mine that went in and just like straight to like three or four deployments overseas and all that kind of stuff. So
Keith McKeever
spending their entire time, you know, with the hot swapping, or whatever the the term is, you know, the hot bunk or whatever, sharing your bed with other people different. As an airman, I just, that was one of those things. I'm like, No way, that would be so uncomfortable. I toss and turn to mush in the middle. And if I had this fear, like if I would have joined the Navy, I would have got I would have been the guy that got stuck in there somehow because it didn't look like there was a whole lot space
Lee Dyer
at all, like in my I was actually married at the time and my wife was on the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier. So we didn't went up on the air all the time to hang out with them and stuff like that even being a giant like US aircraft carrier that can hold like up to 6000 people on it. But I mean, you're hitting your knees everywhere you go your shins because like the holes are just like this. Like it's not a whole doorway, right? It's just this like little porthole that you can close up every time. So between smashing my head on everything and hitting my legs, like I was definitely way too tall.
Keith McKeever
You're pretty tall guy. I mean, I'd imagine you'd have to, like completely bend over and have to go through some of those.
Lee Dyer
Some of them yeah, like, whatever. Like we have this tiny little ladder and he's like, you know, do this thing or whatever.
Keith McKeever
I'm gonna suffer from claustrophobia, but that would still be too. Too much too much tightness.
Lee Dyer
Oh, man, especially when you get to that point where you're out there for six months, right? And all you see is gray and blue light gray for the flip side and blue for the water you know, and you just don't see anything else like that. We've definitely been a little more taxing, I think.
Keith McKeever
Yeah, no other color comment. Yeah, nothing, nothing else, like your eyes get used to it. I saw I felt like I'm on my first deployment. And then when we came back we actually landed in Thailand for just a couple of hours. But to go from just everything be a desert and brown and even the buildings you know that all the Air Force buildings, everything was brown, you know? And then we landed in this jungle, we get off the plane and everybody's just like, great. Honestly, I haven't seen as much green ever. I mean, it was just, it was just wild. It was like your first taste of candy ever. Like oh, what is this? You know? This is amazing.
Lee Dyer
Oh yeah. I've totally missing out on that, like, just having that difference in drastic Ness for so long. You know, I mean, even like during COVID everybody's sitting inside their house, right? They need to do when we look out over like my house as much anymore, right? Let me go somewhere else you don't want to move. But at the same time we like to get let me get out, let me get away from looking at what we're looking at,
Keith McKeever
kind of get me out of these four walls for crying out loud and away from these people. You know, you love your family. But you know, your family drives you nuts when you're that close to him. Thank goodness for past some of that stuff. But you know, I know, pandemic probably kept you kind of busy. I don't know, some of when you guys actually started your nonprofit. But you've got a wonderful nonprofit that we want to highlight here. And you're just kind of operating in this area here in central Illinois. Correct? Correct. Yeah, for
Lee Dyer
now. The ultimate goal is to live spread out to the world and to the country or whatever. But we kind of felt like, the best place to start is in your own backyard. So we kind of thought that would be where we go. It's closer local, we had connections with some of the offices in the area. And it just made sense to kind of stick to that for now.
Keith McKeever
Absolutely. I mean, that's what community is you start with your your local community and build out so. But your nonprofit, unfortunately, you guys got your start. Because it's something tragic. It's something that we as veterans see. To say way too frequently, is a massive understatement. But it's your name is because of this person. So who was John, just give us some of that backstory.
Lee Dyer
So John was my brother in law, my wife's brother. But he's the kind of guy that when we first met him, he was like your brother instantly kind of deal. I think being in that, because of the fact that we both had that military background kind of made a big difference for it. Just because when you're in you know, when you're in a when I never went to a foxhole, but when you're in I like to do with somebody else, like that's somebody that can be responsible for your life. So you make that connection, right. And so John, and always just kind of made it sort of point to like, make it that connection with everybody that it was around. When they served for 18 years in the Army, actually between reserves and active duty. And he actually had just gotten back from we did two tours over in Kuwait. He handled a lot of like drones, a lot of like communications, trying to get some of that kind of Intel type stuff that he did, mostly like unmanned drone piloting, trying to pick up radio signals, phone calls, like at least a little bit that he could tell us anyways, away he did while he was over there. But he
Keith McKeever
sounds like one of those jobs. You can't say too much.
Lee Dyer
He's cool remote controls and fly planes around. But then when you started talking to him, of course, and he just kind of got real quiet was like yeah, so how about numbers are, you know, trying to change the subject do of course, which I kind of figured that much. You know, from my experience, it was a top secret information that you know, and you can kind of share that, unfortunately. But he came back from two tutors. And he kind of had this whole, like he had six months off, right. And all this leaves built up just because he just went straight from like, one tour of the year came back was like here for like two weeks just enough to get debriefed re briefed and then head back over there kind of deal. And so then I think that might have been really what kind of put a lot of stress on was the last tour like, now he's trying to do it to kind of make a little extra money and just kind of help set things up, like for his family, which is great. But then when he came back, he talked even less about military stuff than he had before. But he seemed like he was doing really well during that timeframe. And then he actually at one point actually was going to get out of the army wasn't going to go back then changed his mind decided, You know what, he's so close to the 20 year mark, he's like, I'll just go back and as a reservists to go back into reservist, things are going really well. And then unfortunately, one day we came home, actually, my wife sister, went to go get him because he didn't pick his son up from school one day. And he's kind of guy that like, he could very easily taken a nap in a park somewhere, you know, he kind of just wasn't like the best on time management or whatever. So we just figured you to wake him up, or he was asleep. And unfortunately, she got him committed suicide at that point. And it just kind of really, I mean, they're just one of those shocking, unexpected ones. You know, and I think a lot of it, I'm finding that a lot of these military guys. It can get that way, just because some of the strings that they're putting through, we've been trained in the military, like, don't ask, don't tell, you know, be strong, hide all your emotions. So like when you're on the field of battle, you get used to that, and then you come back around people that care about you and want you to share those things, and you just innately bill to not share that kind of thing. And we found out that during that timeframe to that he had been trying to get help through the VA and the VA, you know, I mean, they do the best they can, right. You know what I mean? Not not any organization is perfect. But unfortunately, what the VA sometimes they're just so big, and there's so many veterans that are trying to get services, and they only have a limited budget, but he was waiting like six weeks, I think it was when we found out that he was trying to meet with somebody. This was one of those things where he just took way too long. And where they crushed us so much. We didn't want anybody else go through that either. So that's where we decided that we were like, Why don't we just start a foundation and why don't we just try to raise money and provide free counseling for veterans? Because another one of the stigmas around that too is like if you go to a doctor that can go to On your military record, and unfortunately, in the military, if you have any kind of mental health things on there, like I said, I've been helping you through it, they assume that it's like a liability, a lot of times, they'll just release people from the military for mental health disorders, things along those lines, too. So this gives the somebody the ability to have somewhere safe, somewhere local, they can go to doesn't cost them anything, that you have to provide information with the clinic and stuff like that, of course, but don't go anywhere near that military record, doesn't have to be shared with anybody unless they want to, it's all the same HIPAA and privacy, you know, compliance that you would get going to a regular doctor. But we just wanted to make sure that there was an avenue that if they needed to see somebody that they didn't have to wait six weeks to do that.
Keith McKeever
Yeah, I think sometimes we have a tendency to let the stuff just pile on our shoulders for so long. That you just kind of just let it you just let it pile there. And I think some people just let that go too long, or they get it gets to a point, then they call the VA. And unfortunately, it's six weeks, because I agree, they they, they have their purpose, they do their thing. But there's a lot of red tape, there's a lot of steps to jump through. It's not easy. It's not immediate. It should be but then again, there's not a lot, there's a lack of mental health professionals in this country, too. So you combine that with a system, and we all know, they don't pay their doctors enough. I've heard that from my own doctors at the VA, you know, they're, I want five, five, you know, primary care team doctors. I'm on my fifth one in 11 years. You No, no, it's one of the factors. I even heard my own doctor told me that she's like, Yeah, you know, she was, I'm here because it's local, and it's close to home. But for a lot of people, they can make a lot more money somewhere else. That's why they're here for a couple years and leave. So same thing with counselors and things like that. So it's just kind of the nature of the beast and the system we have to deal with. But it's unfortunate that there's that gap in coverage or care. And so I applaud you guys for seeing that and, you know, doing something to try and fill that for people.
Lee Dyer
Yeah, that's actually something we're trying to work towards to this. So there's some special certifications that you can get for counseling, that's like a grief and like PTSD, veteran counseling. It's not like it's an entire school, but it's a program that you can put people through as well. So it's like kind of the next step that we're looking to, because we kind of found that as well, like, with the lack of providers available, reaching out to the different clinics and locations, you know, and there were a lot of people will know, and I applaud them very much. There were a lot of counselors that already had a couple of veterans, you know, that they were getting free counseling to et cetera. But that's only one counselor, you know, they don't have that, like the ability to see an influx of patients like we would so, you know, thankfully, genre day is able to help us there. But I can just continue to see that as we keep growing, and we keep getting more referrals and more people needing to talk to somebody that, you know, we're going to get to the point where that clinics not going to be able to handle the income that we have to. So that's why we're kind of looking at different ways in different avenues to kind of just provide that for veterans, having somebody to talk to, you know, also creating like a get together once a month or so it just kind of like gives you the ability to sometimes you don't need a counselor, maybe you just need somebody else to talk to you that's been through with them too. Many times,
Keith McKeever
it's certainly a way to bridge the gap. And you know, it's kind of weird. Like, that's a good problem to have to have growth.
Keith McKeever
Yeah, I don't know. It's weird. Like, you don't want people to have problems, but people are always gonna have problems, but you want to be able to grow enough to be able to support more. So you know, so not not in every situation is world do you work yourself into the next problem? On purpose. So it's good thing,
Lee Dyer
that's typically been a fun Avenue from that standpoint of like learning how because this is the first time that I that we've ever done a nonprofit before, like I'm a complete new new person to all of it. So there was a lot of like, we started in 2019, my brother in law committed suicide on March 22, which, honestly, I kind of, I know, it sounds terrible, but we kind of thought it might have been him, like sharing a sign with us, because that's the number of them for the last few years now is at 22 veterans commit suicide every day. And that's something that he had talked about, too, with the fact that, you know, we needed, like, needed help for the veterans and for mental health, you know, and it's kind of, you look back, and you think maybe that was a sign that he needed to help too, but it's just so hard to tell when they look like they have themselves all together, because you were looking for so long how to put up this phone to change that. So it can definitely get bad very quickly. And so we're just kind of glad that we got started when we did, we started officially in June, there's just a lot of research, a lot of like, finding state laws and trying to get everything all set up. And even to this day is still you know, a new system to learn every day. And it seems like we had an event recently. It turned out great. But then we found out that our marketing would have been could have been better, you know, maybe got a better turnout or whatever, right? So it's just all those fun little things with any business or any new foundation or whatever they were kind of going through. So it's been an amazing experience. So there's been a lot of reach out outreach from people like yourself having us here on the podcast, which is amazing. You know, we've had some news people and just kind of the ability to see veterans and talk to The veterans that are at different events to just, you know, be able to kind of share that and get that word spread out and try to break the stigma. Because I mean, as much as we want to help veterans, and we want to provide those counseling for them, it'd be really nice if we could like kind of start working towards a new way forward where Listen, as these veterans get out of the military, whether they have addressed issues with PTSD or not, that we kind of kind of have a system to kind of help guide them back into that like civilian world and get them back to us to be in you know, just kind of being a normal person, again, in trying to take care of them from that aspect before it gets to the point where they're at wit's end, you know, needing somebody to bring them down off that ledge presume,
Keith McKeever
yeah, even if somebody's perfectly fine. You and I've been through it, transitions, lonely, you go from one world, one system to a totally different ballgame. So I don't care who you are, whether you're getting out of the Guard Reserve or active duty, active duty is probably worse, because you're just somewhere else, and you got to move back home, wherever you you settle down, but you got to navigate life, and all the complexities of it. And, you know, you're used to be a paid on the first and 15th through use to medical coverage, you just go to sick Hall, you know, you have all these other people looking out watching your back, and all of a sudden, you are navigating everything by yourself.
Lee Dyer
And some of these guys have done their like, you know, having done deployments and been away from their families long enough, like then you kind of like, are around your family more, and it's a great thing, you're gonna be wrong, it's a good thing to be around family more, but learning to interact with your family and your children that you don't see him for a year at a time, like a lot happens anywhere, like, especially when you're small chip kids, right, like a year of growth is just huge. So even just simple things like that, you know, kind of help it I'm gonna transition back into how to, you know, not that they're a bad parent, but just tasks and ways to learn to be better parents or to handle some of that stress better, you know, things along those lines to like, are always plus, I mean, even being unhealthy, like it's still the same medicine, like it's, you have to be sick, right? Or you have to have something wrong with you to talk to your counselor. But I mean, like, I feel like I'm pretty healthy guy, you know, I'm not perfect by any means. But I still talk to a counselor on a regular basis at times, just because there are certain things in my life that, you know, as much as I'd love to be great at everything, you know, I'm great at some things, I'm not so good at other things. And so that's kind of helps me bridge that gap of like, how to not only deal with not being good at it, but then also was to work through some of those issues or confrontations in life that we come across. Oh, absolutely.
Keith McKeever
I started seeing a counselor myself a couple years ago. And you know, just the tips and the tricks and the advice. I mean, when I first started going, I've shared this with a few people. My you know, one of my problems was my kids were being homeschooled during the pandemic. And they would come in here and bug me all the time. So my concentration would get off of the email that I was trying to send or whatever task I was doing, you know, that breaking concentration would just be I'd be like, What do you want, again? Every five minutes, I don't know how teachers do it, by the way. But my counselor was like, Do you have a lock on your door? And I was like, yeah, she's like, Shut lock the door. And I was like, Okay, well, that's interesting. And she goes, Did you have a whiteboard? And I said, Well, ironically, I have two whiteboards that are in the storage room, she was hanging one of those on the wall, put some markers there until your kids if they have something for you to write it down, right? You know, is it a math question? Is it English question, whatever. And then come out of your office, like every hour or something like that. So which was funny, putting it into practice, lower blood stress level. And this is just simple advice from a counselor, just one example. And it's my example. But I would go out there. And I realized that like 70% of the time, it was my youngest just wanted to write I love you dad on the board. Like he just wanted to come in to see me, he was just getting just one of the distractions of his class, and the door was open. So he would just come in to see me, and then eventually just got to the point where he would slow down and focus on school. But, you know, counselors can help you in so many different ways that you don't even think about, you know, when we start talking about your problems, and what like, Okay, what's bothers you? And it's like, that's one of the things I told her. I'm like, that really bothers me. You know, and that was, doesn't happen now. Kids are back at school. Thank goodness. Not today as of our recording, because it's parent teacher conferences.
Lee Dyer
Days, like that got to deal with him. But
Keith McKeever
yeah, at least it's not the whole year, thank goodness. Yes. Yes. The things we never thought we'd be having to do in our lives. But
Lee Dyer
I never thought I'd be a teacher. I'm like, No, I'm not good at teaching. And then I'm like, oh,
Keith McKeever
yeah, well, you know, we always life changes freight. I mean, it just comes at you, and you just deal with it. So
Lee Dyer
hopefully, it helps with counseling too, because a lot of times, like I said, we let things build up, build up, build up, right. So like, if you wouldn't have addressed that, like, you could have gotten to a point where you started having like rural resentment issues towards the kids or whatever, right? Like, you know, not anything bad or whatever. We're just just kind of then it builds up right. So then you're driving Oh, somebody cuts you off in traffic, and you're already stressed from the fact that you've been dealing with kids all day and then you just, you know, just just as escalates right, and we don't realize How much that changes. So even going to see a counselor and just a couple little things that you didn't realize were even causing you so many issues, you know, and all sudden you take care of those and you're like, dang, you know what life like you get a big problem coming over here like, you know what, it's not that bad because I don't have all this other like three or four other things that I've been dealing with and to hold on to at the same time too. So,
Keith McKeever
yeah, well, I've always had this growth mindset, I guess maybe the key word for it, but I've always had this, this idea of like, I don't want to get stuck in my ways, you know, I want to continually challenge myself to do better, be better, whatever, in many aspects of my life. But, you know, what I realized going through the counseling and realizing things was, there was things that I had blinders on that I didn't realize that I dealt with this in a negative way, or whatever. But when you when you can talk, talk those things out, and you can take those blinders off and realize it and then get the skills to go past it, you know, but shutting my door and locking, it allowed me to focus and concentrate more, less stress, which I certainly hope turned into better results for my clients, or whatever job I'm working on. So like, there's this compound effect of just taking care of yourself
Lee Dyer
is to like is now with them having that access all the time, they just come in and have like, sometimes have negative, or not always positive interactions, right. But now with you having that time set apart, when you go out, like you're mentally prepared to deal with anything that comes your way, or at least a little bit better prepared, right, so then, like, those little interactions that your kids have, that they'll remember are going to be more positive. So then they're gonna think, well, yeah, dad was working in his office, but he still, you know, he's always come out, like, and just check on us make sure we're doing you know, and that's the kind of stuff that they would remember. Whereas Otherwise, they would remember you always to go vote at all time and yell at us, and like, tell us to get out of his office, you know, whatever that kind of deal. So to kind of change some of those stigmas and ruining your family's life, you know, and I think, with my counseling, it's helped my family's out too, because I've been able to use some of the techniques that I've learned with my kids to like raising them, and because they, we all go through the same struggles and stressors, it's just, you know, it's a different one specific individual stress, but it's still stress on the body, it's still the most important thing you've ever done in your life, whether it's like a math test for my kids, or it's me trying to plan an event, you know, to raise money for veterans and for suicide, you know, it's like, it's always give you those nerves and like to stress but like, you know, learning ways to deal with that you can share some of that with the kids too, and, like, help them to kind of learn to see things in a better way.
Keith McKeever
You know, just had a random thought. We can also use the skills we picked up in the military to teach things to our kids to outside of, you know, this to help you get through a counselor, but just just how to deal with problems in life and navigate things. And, like, one of the things I try to teach my kids all the time is like, I don't pay attention to certain things, I don't really pay attention to the news. I don't really, you know, I just don't watch the news, I just don't pay attention to politics and things like that, like, if it doesn't affect you, ignore it, cut the distractions out, just like just one, just one example. Like, you know, sometimes we have to realize we have, we have a lot of things we can give to our children. Just as a side
Lee Dyer
note, and that's a good sign to the discipline, strength training. And like, even with homework, you know, like teaching my kids and making them sit down every night and get to the homework and helping them out, you know, and making sure that that's your priority first, that when you teach them to get it take care of your business first, then you can move on to the phone stuff, you know, and then if you can kind of help prioritize and change that, then that'll help take a lot of stress out of their life, because they're not, they've got the better ways to handle that too. Whereas us having to learn about our own or learn from a counselor, you know, and kind of share that wisdom with them to kind of help them out along the way.
Keith McKeever
Absolutely. So, you know, back to your organization, fuller life foundation, you kind of alluded to some future plans, but what you know what other kinds of plants besides you know, making the whole thing blow up and go national, you know, I think more medium term.
Lee Dyer
So this year, we were successfully able to do, we did a 2.2 mile run walk on March, we didn't get to do on a 22nd Because I fell on like a Tuesday and nobody wants to get up at six o'clock. And we're on Tuesday, like at work and stuff like that. So we hit it on the 19th. Because we wanted to do it before to kind of give that recognition to the 22nd of March, not only for our brother, but also for veterans and suicide awareness. So that was really great. We got a lot of veterans came out, we actually had a group of guys that came out put on full patch, like they loaded it up with like weights and stuff like that. And like we had like four or five guys like running boots and packs, you know, like during this run kind of deal just to show that like solidarity for other other brothers and stuff. So that was great. And then we also did our little event this year as well. It was like a celebration, kind of some music and just some good food and things like that, too. We've done that. We did that that first year, actually, after John had passed away. That was our first event we ever did, went off really, really well. But then of course COVID hits so that took a couple of years of our time to kind of like which was actually really good because it gave us a couple of years to sit back and just really look through like okay, what what are we doing in the past so far? What do we want to do going forward and we had all this time to plan and prepared. So we're going to try to open up a golf outing as well this year, the upcoming year to just so we can try to raise our goal is to obviously raise funds because we have set up through John our bay associates here in Peoria. So if you're a veteran, listen to this podcast and you're in the POA area, you can either contact us on our website, or through our Facebook page, or you can just go directly through to John RV and associates that Apulia. And they'll make sure that they get you all taken care of, and you can talk to somebody. But we just want to continue to kind of grow that. So we're looking at doing, we have a situation. So when we first started as a foundation, I'm big into EDM electronic music, and one of the DJs that I was working with, which I unfortunately can't talk about now, because since things have happened in life, and unfortunately, some guys seem great on paper and don't end up being great. But anyways, needless to say, they had a non for profit. And so we applied it with our Mr. Brandon Foundation, we applied and they gave us like 1500 bucks just to like cover, we said, this is how many visits it would cover for a veteran. And so they paid for, like 10 visits for a veteran basically with just gave it to us, helped us out gave us some promotion on their website and things like that. And that kind of got our started on the setup for it. And that's really what we want to try to do, though is then they also provided us with some free health visits to like BetterHelp, there's a lot of other organizations on there online, that we can help veterans all across the country for a good price, too. So that's kind of what our next goal is not to like blow up to the whole world, but at least to provide some online visits. That way you're not pigeon holed into, okay, no, I gotta go to the office, because there's some stress and some, like deterrence that might come from that. It's like, okay, this is a stranger, I don't know who they are, you want me to go in person and like, be there right in front of them next to, you know, talking to him. And so we're kind of hoping that maybe this online counseling process will help too, because I have text messaging available, they have all kinds of different resources that are available that are besides just your, like, once a week, you know, 30 minute visit with a counselor as well. So that's kind of our next plan and hope for attack is to continue to grow with our events, continue to raise the money and then hopefully reach out now to do and be able to do it online as well. That way, if you have a friend that's reaches out to you want to podcast as from Florida, well, they wouldn't want to come here every week for a visit. But if we could get them online, then we can still give them some help. And even if they didn't, you know, at that point, they can still that will give them some time, right? So find something locally, maybe if we can give them four to five visits, give him a month and a half, two months of visits worth to just get them through that transitional period where they can find something locally and go forward. And if they can't, then I mean, you know, be in a position where we can just kind of keep providing that for them, you know, as long as they continue to use it.
Keith McKeever
Yeah, you kind of hit on something that's, I think, very important is, you know, the virtual consultations, because I think there's something very important about somebody being comfortable in their own environment. Like as in counseling, you need to open up, you need to have that communication with the counselor. And sometimes it can be a little awkward in person, you know, yes, you're a person. Like there's pros and cons to both. But when you're out in your own environment, in home, sitting on a couch, in your office, sit in the dining room table, whatever, you're at your home, you're in your safe space, you're in your comfort zone. And you you know, for some people that might be more beneficial for some other people, maybe they just need to go, you know, physically be in there. But, you know, I know when given the chance for some of my consultations for certain things with the VA, like, you gotta you got a video chat or a telehealth available, I'm going to take it, you know, if I could share if I gotta come in for something, they got to stick, you know, stick a needle in my arm, draw some blood. Yeah, I gotta go in for that. But
Lee Dyer
any medicine I've already already prescribed, haven't taken for a while and just want to check and see how things go. And then yeah, by all things,
Keith McKeever
yeah, like one house? Well, I
Lee Dyer
got to put pants on and like, why can't I just be in my pajamas and to do it from home, you know, whatever.
Keith McKeever
Exactly. I mean, it's so much more easier and convenient to just hop in, that's just could just be me too. So we want to go in there.
Lee Dyer
The idea behind it too, is like if you provide the you know, we provide people with enough opportunities and different ways to accept, not accept, but in different ways to go through the counseling, like, be comfortable, like, you know, we want to help you, if you want to do it at home, do it at home, if you want to do it over phone call, like do a phone call, you know, if you want to go in person, like we just, we kind of just want to like do as much as we can to continue to be there and be available for veterans reviews, and recently had a couple people where we've able been able to kind of help them with some prescription medications like that a couple of veterans reach out. So like, yes, we are focused more on counseling visits and stuff. But, you know, if you're a veteran in trouble that needs any kind of medical help or assistance along those lines, like definitely reach out, like we don't mind doing, you know, one by one cases, if it's a real a real need, you know, and that's what's kind of nice for us to kind of still, even though it wasn't what we were expecting when we got the contact from them. You know, it was still nice to be able to like help out and provide assistance to a veteran that was struggling and wasn't sure how they were going to continue to keep going with their medicine and stuff like that. So, you know, I think that's our biggest thing is just making sure that we provide enough availability to just help as many veterans as we possibly can.
Keith McKeever
Absolutely. That's great too on a medicine because you don't want to get behind on that, especially for something in the mental health side. That helps regulate somebody and keep somebody where they You need to be, you definitely don't want to get behind on that and play that catch up game.
Lee Dyer
You know, because I mean, even the side effects just from buying, I mean, you also go through withdrawal sometimes with some of these medications, because you're, you have a chemical imbalance or whatever that diagnosis may be that this medication is actually helping adjust that for you. And then you get to yourself that at the right level, and then all of a sudden, you either can't take it anymore, or you change it drastically, you know, like that can have a huge change on your mentality and how you see things, you know, to the point where, like, we've had some family members of ours that have gone through some mental health. So that's why I think it helps it hit a little closer to home to where, like, you can almost don't recognize people like we're there, you know, when they're in a moment, or having a moment where they're not themselves, like, you know, it's can be difficult. So that's why we wanted to just do whatever we can to kind of help prevent that. Because obviously, we want to be there if somebody gets to that level, but anything we can do to kind of help ease that level, even like, you know, instead of going attendant, drop it down to an eight or a seven, you know, is always a plus and relief.
Keith McKeever
Every little bit helps. Because at the end of the day, we have to do whatever we can to, to, to lower these numbers. And I don't mean just suicide either. I mean, it's substance abuse, it's homelessness, it's all the problems that touch our community, we got to we got to lower those numbers. And, you know, I've said it before that, I think civilians civilians do care about us, they want to help us they want to care care for us. But nobody knows our problems like us. Yeah. And if we to really end these numbers, we need the support. The, I guess, physical support, but we also need the money support from civilians, because we're, we're very small percentage of the population. But we need to band together to end these. And that can look in a lot of different ways. And you mentioned your, your event, which which I went to your little fundraising event, you had to live by collaboration. For everybody listening, if they're running a nonprofit, you cannot do it alone. Now, I'm gonna maybe steal a little bit of your thunder here, but your nonprofit, you had a veteran artist doing a live painting, you had a couple of bands, you had another guy, Mike, who runs another nonprofit here, that's, that's about veterans and arts and kind of healing through art, he made a stop out there, there was a few people I didn't meet that I'm sure connected in some way, shape, or form. So like, You got to bring the people in the community together to have that support. So you guys did a great job of that it was a fun little event took my family out there, they loved it. Even like bringing his goat
Lee Dyer
to MDS was great, I brought the whole thing together for us gave us didn't charge us anything hardly for all of it. Like they put together a special dream, you know, so it's like, leaning on others. And that kind of helps with even in like us as veterans, like it's okay to lean on another veteran or another person, you know, talk to them. Or if you need help ask for you know, like, if that person can't help you like a lot of times, like if you don't have names, like you have so many resources, right from doing your podcast. So if somebody reaches out to you, and they're like, hey, I need help with this, you're like, Well, you know what, I don't specifically do that. But he's like, I think, from my context, I think these guys here would be able to help you or you know, something like that, right? It's just helps to have a resources and just friends together to kind of all band together to help each other out. You know, I mean, a really cool idea. I think someday, too. It'd be like a veteran, like we saw it not like a resource book or like a business's at all like it not only support veterans that are like, have veteran people that work there, stuff like that that way. Like if I need to get my car fixed, like, Okay, I know that Joe down at the local body shop, that guy was a veteran, a good 10 years in the Navy, or 10 years in the Air Force or whatever, like, let's go down there and help him out. Right? Because then you're putting a little extra cash in his pocket. And I just think that's kind of like, again, those things of like us helping each other out. Right? Like, let's just boost each other up, because there's only so many of us, right? So want to take care of each other and keep each other going forward.
Keith McKeever
Yeah, yeah. And unfortunately, a lot of guys get out and they don't, they don't want to identify as a veteran, which I get it, you don't want to be that guy, right? That's basically just just walking around with veteran tattooed across your forehead, like thanks for thanking me for my service and stuff. But like, you know, you shouldn't hide from the fact either you should be proud of your service. You should be connected to your community, you should be plugged in to some degree. I get it. It's different for some people, especially our Vietnam vets, you know, those guys obviously, we all know how those guys were treated coming back, but you know, should be proud of it. Doesn't mean you got to wear the, you know, the campaign, you know, hat that's, you know, Vietnam veteran or whatever. I've got one I very rarely wear it. You know, I don't wear T shirts to have the flag on the shoulder stuff like that, you know, that's just my personal preference. But you know, you should you should be proud of your service and you should be connected to the community.
Lee Dyer
But when the governor you're running paperwork, you know, I mean, like every part of that and so More important than with the military. And it's I can't teach you how they're like Final oiled machine works, right? Like, it's all the parts and cogs have to work together to get in deployment setup and to get everybody out ready to go and take care of the business that we're setting out to take care of, and stuff like that. So kinda helps. And that's where I think if we do something along those lines to have my help, because veterans are already used to it, right, they're already used to having to deal with so many different departments and stuff like that, from the VA to when they were in the service and all that kind of stuff. Like if we could set up something similar to that, and familiarity to it, then that would kind of help maybe bring them into a little more.
Keith McKeever
Absolutely. So when it comes to statistics, and helping help veterans, how do you think veterans out there, when they run into another veteran who's having a problem can really help with that person, if that person is in some way, shape, or form, physically saying that or not, that they need help? How can they, you know, really help try and make an impact on that person and lowered statistics,
Lee Dyer
I really feel like, just showing that you care sometimes makes a huge difference, if somebody comes to you with an issue or a concern, and you don't have to fix for it like, I mean, because we can't always fix everything, you know, sometimes it's just sometimes even just being there to listen to them. I think another good thing is reach out all the time, as much as you can, if you have veterans that are friends of yours, or acquaintances, or if you have their phone number, their email address their friends of yours on Facebook, like, I mean, I try like once a month to, to chat with some of my veteran friends, you know, and even some of my guys, I was in service with two, but the guys that I haven't met, we've met along the way through the foundation and stuff like that. So just reach out to them and talk to them and say, Hey, how's it going, like, you know, try to invite them out to different little events, stuff like that, just to kind of make sure that you don't have to, like be there 24/7 for somebody, but sometimes when you're in a dark place that one person reached out, and they're like, Hey, man, I love You Hope you're doing good. You know, if you wanted to get together someday, this week, or next week, or whatever, hit me up, you know, if they don't reach out, that's fine, too. But you still we've made that connection, somebody out there knows that they care about them. And it makes a huge difference just in a small little ways. We got some literature too, that we're getting ready to load up to our website. So we went out, we got a chance. I'm not the best web site developer and stuff like that. So I've gotten a little bit behind on catching up on some of our information. But the plan is for next week to kind of get the website updated with some stuff that we were able to do. So back in June, we went to Electric Forest as a foundation. And we got to have a little wasn't like a booth per se, but we had a small table setup. And we put a banner up. And we just put on the banner, it was like a picture of this forest. And I said it's okay to not be okay. And then we had some pamphlets of literature. So I'm gonna try to get some of that literature put up too, but just like ABCs of veteran suicide, ways to help your friends in that case, like that aren't veteran related. And our goal that weekend, and the whole time we were there was just to kind of let everybody know that we loved them. We were there for them, you know, and we had quite a few surprised, I was surprised how many veterans actually came up and were like, Hey, I'm a veteran too. Like, thanks so much for being out here. You know, that kind of deal. We were given out stickers, and just something to kind of help pump everybody up and make them feel a little bit better. And then, of course, we did our events here. So we've got a little bit behind on kitchen, some of that stuff. But it's just nice to, with our foundation not being set in stone on any one specific thing that we do, like anything that we can do regarding mental health, or you know, helping promote that cause and letting other people know that hey, it's you know, if you're having a crappy day, and you don't want to talk to anybody, and you just feel like crap, like it's okay like to feel like that, like, it's what we do afterwards is what makes the biggest difference in our lives and the changes that we make so
Keith McKeever
absolutely. Well, yeah, I think you guys are definitely got a good foundation built for how to help people improve their life, and no pun intended, but to build a fuller life, you know, to really take things to the next level and find a way to thrive and survive and press on and most importantly be here tomorrow. So now what last question for you before I let you get out of here? What kind of help or assistance are you guys looking for? You know, what would help take things to the next level for you guys?
Lee Dyer
Honestly, for us right now, I think the next level for us is going to be working on some of our marketing, trying to get our information out there more. We've done a pretty good job over the few years of like doing some fundraising I mean, we're not like rich by any means or have a huge bank account but we have enough stuff on set up to where you know, if we had 1015 veterans 20 veterans you know how to remain I think we can do like 50 veterans right now for four visits with the possibility of doing an additional two to four after that with the counselors they feel like they needed or have a little couple things that they're going through. But our biggest thing right now is that we just feel like we don't have as many people coming through for it you know, I think part of that's the stigma from it but I think another part of it too would be just like a marketing standpoint. So I think just me continuing to work on it learn and if there's anybody out there that's amazing with marketing and has a you know is really good at catching people's eyes and get people interested like definitely reach out we would love to talk to you to chat with you. You know, get buy a cup of coffee and just even if it's not necessarily you do in the workforce, whatever just kind of some have ideas or tips that might help?
Keith McKeever
Yeah, no idea is a stupid idea. Yeah, well, you always have to remember when it comes to nonprofits. It takes people to run it. Yeah, that's always the key. Maybe you could do any who pull off anything. But you got to have the people to lead it and run it. Exactly. I was told that many years ago by Phyllis Perino for the greater pra Honor Flight. You know, I came, I came, I came up with some crazy ideas. She's like, that's awesome, Keith. But you're gonna need like, 25 people to run it. Yeah. Right. And I was like, that's a good point. You know what I mean? Like, there's that fine balance gotta come up with but you know, she was she was 100%. Right. And I think about that all the time. Like you could you could pull off the biggest, grandest, craziest fundraising or awareness campaign ever. But you got to have the right you know, the right people and enough people to run it. So. But I do encourage anybody who does have any kind of idea out there, if you if you have ideas, advice, connections, anything for Lee or any other nonprofit out there, if you see somebody is doing something good reach out to him and offered a volunteer offer to help offer your assistance. So
Lee Dyer
if you see a veteran out there, say hi to them, thank them for their service and tell him you care about them. And I know that sounds silly, and they might hear it all the time. But not every veteran hears that all the time. So you know, it's definitely a rewarding thing. Absolutely. Everyday when not every day, but like once a month, check in on your beds, like your best friends or whatever to like, if you don't feel like you need to talk to them, just shoot them a message or something like that will make a huge difference. And that's something simple that doesn't cost you any money, or any other than just a few minutes to just reach out and say hi to your friends, and let them know that you're still waiting for him. And
Keith McKeever
that's probably the cheapest and easiest thing any of us could do to help lower these statistics, because I'll be the first to admit, I am not the best at doing that. And my Facebook page is full of guys I served with or Guys, guys and gals I've met since that I got enough people, I could probably reach out to two or three, four, maybe five a day, you know, for all month in touch everybody wants a month. It's not the easiest thing to do. But we all need to do a better job at
Lee Dyer
it. Yeah, just one person a month even if you start somewhere, right? Like if you don't reach out to anybody. Now he reached out to one person a month, like that's one more person that's going to have a better chance at you know, being around tomorrow or getting to see him the next time you guys hang out or whatever. So
Keith McKeever
absolutely. So well Lee, I really appreciate you stopping by and sharing with us what you're doing. Hopefully it inspires somebody else, maybe do something similar or support, you guys are supported nonprofit doing something like that in their neck of the woods. Whatever the case may be. So I appreciate you.
Lee Dyer
Thank you so much. I appreciate you having here. Remember, if it sounds scary, it probably is something that's worth doing. So go for it. Even if you're nervous. I've never done something like that before. Just let it go, man, it'll be fine.
Keith McKeever
There's there's always a way to do it. You'll you know, if you got a passion for it, you'll figure out a way. And for anybody listening, I've had it scrolled for a couple of minutes here. Now the website, a fuller dot life. It'd be in the show notes. Don't
Keith McKeever
worry, as always, it'll be in the show notes for anybody. So make sure you go follow. But check out the website. Go check out Lee's social accounts, whatever accounts you got out there. What where else can we find you, Lee?
Lee Dyer
So we are on currently on Facebook, we've got our website, and we are in the process of doing Instagram apparently that's the new way to share some stuff out there. So I'm, I'm older. I feel like I'm that old. But like technology's changed so much that even Instagram, it just feels like a young kids game. But yeah, we're still going to have an Instagram account up soon. But they can definitely reach out on both of those places, though Facebook and our websites always open and feel free to send us a message or an email. We'll definitely get back to you.
Keith McKeever
Awesome. We get that you get that Instagram built you let me know and I'll add it to the show notes at a later date. Sounds good? All right. Thanks again, Lee. All right. There you have it, folks. Make sure you check out like and follow Li and the fuller life foundation. You're gonna check out all kinds of resources information on my website, like I always say, if you find something that's not there and you think it should be reached out to me and hold you guys to it. And remember the national suicide hotline number is now 988 press one or you can text 838255
