J.R. Smith co founded the Veterans Ranch in 2017 with his wife as a way to provide equine therapy to the large population of veterans in his region of Florida. Growing up with a father and grandfather who served J.R. was well aware of the sacrifices and struggles veterans face and has played a huge part in the Veterans Ranch mission to make an impact on the veteran suicide numbers. In this episode we discuss what equine therapy looks like and how veterans are seeing breakthroughs with just being around horses!

Battle Buddy Podcast Guest Links:

https://www.theveteransranch.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/j-r-smith-58578b30/

Battle Buddy Podcast Links:

https://linktr.ee/battlebuddypodcast

Transcript from Episode 66 with J.R. Smith:

Keith McKeever 0:01

Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever. Hey, welcome back to the battle buddy podcast. I've got a great guest with me today we're going to talk about equine therapy, you may have heard of it, you may have not. Today you're going to learn a little bit about equine therapy and the amazing power benefit that can be behind veterans or anybody with trauma, you know, hanging out with horses riding horses, and I'll just let Jr. kind of talk about that. Before we do though. Be sure hit the like and subscribe button to follow this channel. Follow the contents, listen to the podcast. Also make sure it'd be at the end. Make sure you go follow Jr. and his mission as well. So without further ado, Jr. Welcome to the show.

JR Smith 0:39

Thanks for having me. Appreciate being here.

Keith McKeever 0:41

Yeah. So go ahead and start us off and tell us a little bit about yourself.

JR Smith 0:45

Yeah, so Jared Smith, born and raised, Midwest boy moved to Florida in 1999. You know, started, you know, been really been in a lot of different things was in sales and marketing and all kinds of stuff from that time I was 18. But I was always surrounded by veterans. So I'm a patriot myself. Meaning we're the 99% that support the 1% of all that, you know, raise your right hand said I'll go send me and, you know, I had a Vietnam father who had a world war two father who had post depression parents. So I was told, you know, basically, if your feelings go make a difference in the dash, but when you're born when you die, and that's that's what we're doing here. You know, with the veterans Ranch, we're we're making a difference in the dash of hopefully a lot of veterans lives here across the country. You know, been married 22 years, got a great daughter that we just shipped off to college. So I'm an empty nester with nothing to do but go help veterans now. So you know, having a lot of fun.

Keith McKeever 1:45

Must be an interesting feeling being an empty nester, I got a few years to go on that. But let's face some conflicting emotions there.

JR Smith 1:52

Yeah, there's, there's the freedom of, hey, I don't get to drive her anywhere anymore. But then there's the Damn, she's 10 hours away.

Keith McKeever 2:00

She's on her own, you know, figure out life. We all know how many bumps and bruises we get in life and you know, the hard lessons you learn. And yeah, it's got to be the tough part is parent let them kids learn it themselves. Exactly. So you could say something that's really neat, though, you know, between the dashes, you know, in life, and I think a lot personally about legacy and what we can all do with our lives. And we're all fortunate enough to, to even be alive, right? It's a miracle enough as it is, but we don't know when we're gonna die. But you do have a time period in between there. And everybody can make an impact. And it doesn't have to be big. It can be small, little small ones add up to big things he never have a smile can impact somebody's day. So anyway, enough beyond that, you are the co founder of the veterans ranch. So really curious, what exactly is a veteran's ranch? And how did this idea come about?

JR Smith 2:55

Yeah, so it's me and my wife. Again, we're both patriots, my dad, who's the Vietnam veteran, he was in Vietnam 6970. And in the Navy until 73. Veterans ranch quite honestly, is was formed out of frustration. And what I mean by that is, you know, we'd been looking for things to do to help more veterans because we get sick and tired of being sick and tired of denied till you die. Here's another pill. We've seen what my wife's father who was Army 55 to 57 what he's gone through I preface this by saying I believe there's a lot of great people within the VA system. It's just the the hierarchy, the red tape, bureaucracy, that is a screwed up problem and veterans don't get the help that they completely need and deserve from that organization. So we just thought, okay, how can we help we didn't you know, there's a lot of great dog programs out there, we didn't want to be white noise and become another dog program. Because you know, now you could pay this guy to train your dog and this guy to get you a dog faster. And I have opinions about that I'll keep to myself, but you know, horses are God's majestic animal. And we if you want to Yellowstone everybody thinks I got this line from from there. But you know, we've been preaching this for decades. A horse can literally feel in that land on its back. So if it's that intuitive, what do you think it knows about you up to 30 feet away? Okay, humans have an energy field of five to seven feet. That's why somebody can dam your run right up on top here before you know there there are horses energy field is 15 to 30. So before you even realize it's paying attention to you, it's paying attention to you. So we just know that through working with horses and horse people out there watching this right now they're sitting there going like this, they get it okay, you can go groom your horse for an hour and feel better about your day. That's quite honestly how we start. Okay, well, Eric, go camera. We put one of these in your hand, okay, it's a grooming brush. Okay, these are provided us by Decker manufacturing and Kia tuck, Iowa. Decker manufacturing.com got to give them the plug. Check them out. They're veteran owned. family owned business. If you need grooming supplies, check them out. But you know, you start going like this, you start getting that rhythmic motion, okay, of grooming that horse. Now you're grooming it, you're cleaning it, but what are you really doing? You're starting to build a connection, you're starting to build a bond of trust with an animal that's inherently born not to trust anybody. They're pack animals, their prey animals, they need a leader. Horses want to know two things in life. Are you strong enough to take care of me? And are you going to hurt me? Now with your own horse, you'll spend your whole life mastering that imagine one you just met five minutes ago. And you've got to start building that trust quick, you have to give yourself to the horse, you have to shut down, you got to stop thinking about thinking Leave your problems at the gate. They'll be there when you get back, and hopefully less of them to pick up when you get back there. Okay, so that is that is the key to what we do. When you look at our brand, you see the horse's head in a circle. What that means in signifies is that through working with horses, we want you to lay down heavy coats a burden that you might be hanging on to, and start walking off a new and improved version of yourself. however long that takes however many times you need to come to our events and hang out with us, we're gonna be here for you to help you out. And we're not conflict specific. Let me be really clear. If you're still ticking from World War Two, Korea, Vietnam, all the way up to somebody who just you know, discharged today, and is transitioning out new their new version of life outside of the military, the veterans Ranch is here to help you get through anything you might be dealing with, or you just want to have fun and come out and play with a horse.

Keith McKeever 6:42

I'm sure you get some people that just love horses and just want to come out and be

JR Smith 6:46

around their whole life and they just want to hang out with other veterans, and help other veterans and then they get to play with somebody else's horses at the same time. Well, that's

Keith McKeever 6:55

one of the one of the pillars that that I've noticed over the years through this podcast and stuff I saw on the internet before I started this podcast, the reason I did was lack of connection to the community, to the veteran community. And I think that's that's a huge thing. And it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be being an officer at the VFW or the American Legion, great organizations, I'm just just using them as example. You don't have to volunteer and spent hours upon hours upon hours, it could just be an hour to a week, hour to a month, just just something to look forward to on the horizon of like, Hey, I'm gonna see John Doe and Jane Doe today out at the ranch, you know, or I'm gonna see him next week when I when I'm scheduled to go out there. And that just keeps that person going. It keeps something a goal in mind. So I think that's a really, really powerful thing. Officers the you know, bonding with the horse and dropping of your garden and all that stuff. So that's pretty cool. So beyond the brushing, what else do you guys do? Assuming trail rides and other care and stuff like that, that people pitching with?

JR Smith 8:07

Yeah, some days. It's just as simple as a trail ride. And I say just as simple. I was on one, you know, last week, and it was up in the mountains in Tennessee, and it was absolutely beautiful therapeutic is hell. As on this, you know, beautiful horse by 18 hands. And by the way, for people that don't know what I just said, you measure a horse and hands by 123 You know, so from their hoof to their withers, ie their shoulder. That's how you measure hands. That's how tall horses I was hoping to get the one that was 26 hands. That's almost like riding a Clydesdale

Keith McKeever 8:40

sounds like a Clydesdale.

JR Smith 8:42

Yeah, so it was but it was cool. Getting the one I got he was he was a really good piece of work. Genuinely, so it's sometimes as simple as that. But a lot of what we do is called Liberty training. Okay, it is you a horse around pen and a training flag. No lead rope, no halter, you can't yank on the horse's head and make them kind of bend to your will. And, you know, and all those kinds of things, you have to build that connection with that horse. Short story. We had a man we did an event back in January. And we had a man he was working with this horse. And for everybody my age or older, they understand silver from you know, the Lone Ranger. That's what this horse looked like gorgeous white mare. And so we got him working with this horse. And we have to keep reminding people to relax because again, that horse feels everything you're feeling and projects it back at you. Well, after about eight or nine times to telling this young man who's probably in his late 20s to relax at jaw just kept getting tighter and tighter and he goes on here and relaxing. And he's trying to think like he was whispering well at first picked up on him being right on the other side of the round pen. So he thought he was done for the day. We're like, nope, wait, let me out of the round pen. You're making this happen. Fast forward an hour and a half later. They're walking shoulder to shoulder around the round pen he could stop turning Go the other way the horse would follow and he'd start trotting and the horse would trot with him. We work you back to the center of the round pen, and your weight horses learning the release, they don't learn when you're training them. When you stop, they go, Oh, I must have done something right. Let me learn what that is when you see a horse licking their lips, okay, that's them learning going, okay, you know, that's showing their acceptance to what you just taught them. Five interested or this horse comes up, touches him right here in the chest. The man melted, literally broke down crying like he's too. We didn't know why. But we couldn't run into the round pen because we had a destroyed what he just did with that horse for an hour and a half, we get him out. You know, I'm six, four to 60. But we're man hug and we're all over him. Because that's a breakthrough. We just had to learn what it was. Well come to find out later at our campfire we did that night he shared his story that he spent nine months in the brig while he was in the Air Force for something he didn't do. Now, all the charges ended up getting dropped. They got the the young lady, okay, so it was one of those kinds of situations, who was accusing young men of you know, base to base the base of what she was accusing him of. But he still spent nine months in the brig at 19 years old. Imagine what that would do to you. And he and it just held on to him. And it still he was trying to figure out how to start letting that go. When that horse touched him. It all just started Melton off. So that's the power of what horses can do for people. Dogs are good too. Don't get me wrong. I've had a dog in my house since I was eight years old. But you know, the power of horses is just absolutely amazing.

Keith McKeever 11:34

Yeah, well, yeah, there's a lot of a lot of benefits to a dog. But you know, you can't bring a horse around with you every day. So fun fact, because I'm in real estate, I know this, that there's only two types of animals you can have as a service registered service animal, and that is a dog and a miniature horse. Never have I ever seen anybody dragging a miniature horse to Walmart, although that would be freaking hilarious.

JR Smith 12:01

I'd have to go over and talk to him, you know, horses on planes for a while. I don't know how the hell they did that one. But you know, you're still something that weighs a few 100 pounds, you know that you're trying to

Keith McKeever 12:17

get away? Just as much as a great, great dane or St. Bernard or some of those extremely large breed dogs like yeah, I'll say at that point, you can almost write it.

JR Smith 12:29

I mean, ordinary going down the aisle with your luggage, you know? Yeah.

Keith McKeever 12:33

You know, that kind of brings and brings up an interesting question. I wonder, obviously, we take the trail riding stuff out on there, but miniature horses would probably have the same temperament and same in same everything. Just smaller package.

JR Smith 12:46

Well, yeah. So some are a little feisty. Some are, you know, like miniature horses, and then you get down into ponies, obviously. Some of them can be 10 pounds in a five pound bag, right? I mean, they're just rambunctious, energetic. But yes, the concept is still the same. So a lot of what we do doesn't necessarily depend on the size of the horse is just doing what you need to do and is giving yourself to that horse and ended up becoming better yourself and not realizing it. You know, the horses in charge. Always are a little bit bigger. Yeah, you're just there along for the ride. Yeah, absolutely.

Keith McKeever 13:28

Yeah. So how do you how do you go about and I want to skip to forward into your network and stuff. But what makes an ideal horse for this?

JR Smith 13:40

Very gentle. When I say broke, I don't mean you know, they still want to spirit. Okay. And I don't mind a little fire in a horse, but I don't need something that just came off the racetrack yesterday. You know, good trail horses. Missouri Fox Trotter. So there's, there's all different kinds of breeds that that you can you know, have, but just good gentle natured. You can't have a triggered horse with a triggered vet. Right? I mean, that's like getting to positive sides of a magnet together. That's not going

Keith McKeever 14:13

to like combining gasoline and fire. It's not

JR Smith 14:16

it and there are different programs out there that I'm a fan of, but it takes a lot more work like working with rescued Mustangs, okay. These are horses that have never been, you know, they've been in the wild their whole life. Now you've gotten them in a rut and I got to work with one one time and it was amazing. But the amount of more effort you have to put into letting yourself go to work with something that you talk about the alpha male in the group, that's a rescued Mustang. You know,

Keith McKeever 14:44

that would probably be something more for somebody who could do maybe like a residency on the ranch for a while because it takes her there. Yeah, yeah, that's

JR Smith 14:51

not just a one day deal. So yeah, very good, gentle natured horses, like you said, not so broke that you know, they You just have no spirit, but just good gentle spirit horses.

Keith McKeever 15:03

Okay, that makes sense. I didn't know if there's like, certain breeds or or anything like that they do is it makes sense to have them a little older horses some of the more experienced, you know, not a

JR Smith 15:17

little bit more experienced, but you know, you're always working with them, you're always training them. Yeah, your two and three year olds, you don't necessarily, you know, again, if you're working with them a lot. And they're not a performance horse. Absolutely a two and three year old can be just as good as a 10 year old or older.

Keith McKeever 15:38

But I was thinking of like energy, you know, younger, more rambunctious more energy and gotten older and calm down, like as grown like as adults, right?

JR Smith 15:46

Well, sometimes it's cool for some of the, you know, some of the younger vets that got a lot of pent up energy and whatnot, you know, the horse can take your energy. And you know, again, you're working with it. But we stay out of the younger end of the performance horse world, your Rayners your rodeo horses. First of all, those are $250,000 Plus horses. You know, they're not know that we're getting them on the retirement side of life. Yeah. Makes sense. Not on the not on the youth side. So

Keith McKeever 16:18

they're making money at that point. Yeah.

JR Smith 16:20

Yeah, that's, that's their job. And so, but yeah, most of the ones we work with they're 810 12, worked one with one that was 20. And quite honestly had as much energy as the eight year old. So yeah, it just depends on how often you're working with them. And everything is that if they have any health issues, if they have arthritis and whatnot, they're grown ponies, meaning it's all ground work, you're not getting on their back or anything like that, that you take you take care of them

Keith McKeever 16:46

suck out leads to another question, because I'm such an inquisitive person. So, you know, with your horses, and you have, say, a couple of veterans come knowing the temperament of the horses? Do you have conversations with the veterans ahead of time and like, strategically pick which horse, you kind of pair them with?

JR Smith 17:06

Yeah, if we have the capability of doing that, because you know, we utilize right now, when we started this, we just want to be real clear with everybody and brutally honest as we are, we work with other people's horses and facilities to do what we do at this point. We've been around for about five years, we're really close to getting our own piece of dirt, as we call it, and growing and expanding into that. But that being said, we absolutely do that we want to kind of find out, we just want to get to know the veterans, first of all, you know, just have a conversation. See if they want to talk about any issues, any PTS any anything, right? If they don't want to share, we don't push. But then we'll kind of know in advance, especially if we've been to this particular place a bunch of times the temperament of certain horses, and who we can pair up with who, like I said, the last time the last event we did, they paired me up with the wild mustang who was on its forever home, but it was on its third home. So you know, this horse was 15 hands about 1200 pounds. And you know, here I am six for 260. I was like, Yeah, I was open, I got him, you know, and they're like, Okay, which alpha is given up first. And you know, in this arena today, right? So, so we will try and match them up on temperament. But you know, the horse, there have been studies done for this. And I won't get too long winded into this. But a horse will actually change its heartbeat to match the person that's working with. That's how intuitive horses are. So you can have a horse. If this happens to my wife all the time. We'll go out we'll work with some horses ago, hey, now this one likes to lead this one kind of nips at the horse in front of it a little bit or be careful about this or about that. I won't do any of that with her. It'll do it to the next person who won't do it with her. My wife's not a horse whisperer, but there's just something about her. And it's her calm demeanor, that that that horse won't do that stuff that day, and they go we can't believe it. If he does that with everybody. It's like, well doesn't do it with us. So, you know, a horse could be a little high strung and I see it happen with kids and veteran families all the time. That horse will calm itself down, it will give itself to the kid. You know, because here's a kid, you know, here's a kid who's maybe five feet tall, right? Four feet tall, young kid, here's something that's 18 hands, you've got that immediate, you know, oh man, I don't know about this situation, sometimes coming from the kid if they didn't deal with horses much their lives. So a horse will give itself to the kid so they can come together and I'm telling you, they're absolutely amazing animals. And they really are. I've been, you know, convinced from time to time that you know, there are reincarnated family members that just come back to take care of us or because it's just the way they give themselves to you as much as you give yourself dead a horse. Here's the horse loyalty summed up really quick. You can ask a horse to run for you at tops. be read, and it will do so until its heart explodes and collapses and dies. That's loyalty. You don't see that outside

Keith McKeever 20:08

when they see, well, you don't see it in new movies, but in the older movies when the horses sweating, is it last summer? Anyway, I watched a lot of Westerns as a kid Yeah.

JR Smith 20:19

Sweating in there foaming at the mouth,

Keith McKeever 20:22

keep going and going and going, they'll just they'll do it,

JR Smith 20:25

they'll keep doing it. That's loyalty that servicemen and women don't see outside of the service. And most people in general don't see that kind of loyalty. You know, your own family will let you down your own, your horse won't let you down, you'll let your horse down before your first lets you down.

Keith McKeever 20:39

That is a darn good point. And

Keith McKeever 20:41

that's why I can really see the impact for some people because some people's problems are family, you know, may not be a lack of connection to the community. It may not be financial mean, it may not be so much medical or physical or mental health, it could just be lack of support for family. No connections there. Wow. That's interesting. I didn't know I was gonna learn so much about horses. I mean, I knew we were gonna have this conversation. But like my mind is kind of blown on some of that stuff. So did you see any particular? Well, we kind of talked about advantages. Is there any limitations to equine therapy?

JR Smith 21:16

Knowing that I found

Keith McKeever 21:18

that Okay, okay. Yeah, I mean, I knew there's a lot of advantages. One thing, we talked about this before we started recording, it's like, I'm pretty familiar with this. But doing this podcast, while I haven't had a conversation about equine therapy, yet, I'm very well aware of it. You're in my Facebook group, you post stuff in there all the time. And I know other organizations that are doing stuff, but I know that there's

Keith McKeever 21:39

it doesn't get the attention that service dogs do. And other organizations and stuff like that it's kind of up and coming thing. Some people don't really think about it, especially if you live in a city, it might definitely not be on your radar. Ya know, if you're out in the country, you happen to know somebody who knows somebody, you might be a little bit more on your radar. But

JR Smith 21:56

well, that's the key. And and you know, that's why we're here to change that, you know, we're not the only one out there doing equine therapy, there needs to be more out there. Because the stats that have been out there for decades with autism, special needs kids and special needs. Adults are immense. What horses have done in that community. So it's shocking to me, honestly, that the veteran community still does not know as much about it, like you said, unless you have someone that's gone through a program are ones close enough to you that you've at least heard of it again, I'll restate if you're not getting the results out of equine therapy, it's probably you. It's not the horse. And that's tough, right? If you've got an alpha personality, and you're working with a horse, what's a horse that damn horse? No, no, it ain't the horse. It's you, you know, and whatever that is, you got to figure out what it is. You've got to let go of that that horse is sensing from you. Well, I'm fine. Right? Well, anybody that's watched the movie, Italian Job is seeing the acronym for fine. You know, effed up insecure, neurotic and emotional, right? That's fine. So, you know, most people aren't fine. We say we're fine. Fine is not a feeling fine is just fine. You know, move on to the you know, because you don't want to talk about it. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm good. You might be but you know, that's not a feeling. It's not an emotion. So there's something that horses sensing out of you that you've got to let go of before that horse will give itself to you. It wants you to give yourself to it. So you know, I mean, we had a guy again, short story. We had a guy, him and his wife came out for a trail ride. And he was active duty Air Force. She was medically retired Air Force. She'd written dressage for like 20 years. So she was in her element. She was having a great time. You know, and all of a sudden she comes over because we're pairing people up. Okay? And again, making sure they understand that this is not completely your steering wheel your feet or you know, work as much as your hands and we get them comfortable on the horses. Well, we paired this guy up again, we always bring out a big boy horse for guys my size, but we brought out a Belgian. Okay, now for everybody who doesn't know what a Belgian is. Everybody's seen a Budweiser Clydesdale on TV. Take a Clydesdale shrink it down just a little bit and there's a Belgian. Okay, this thing was about 20 hands. I'm looking at withers standing on the ground. I'm looking at withers at eye level. This dude is five five with boots on Okay, he's looking at ribs. So, right. So yeah, y'all see where this is going? She comes over Jerry. You need to help me. He's freaking out. He's cursing me out. He's mad. He wants to go home. He's upset. I'm like, no, he's scared. You don't know how to MIT. I will never talk to somebody like I wear the uniform. I will not throw that level of disrespect on y'all. But I always have veterans with me. So I brought this marine with me who I guess loves to make fun airmen, and the ribbing between branches. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 25:05

And don't make it pretty easy as an Air Force. But I must admit, we make it pretty easy.

JR Smith 25:10

So I'm telling it, what's going on. He started to laugh and I'm like, Oh, shit, what's he going to do? And he's like, You got this. He's like, Oh, I got this. What he did in two minutes blew my mind. He almost talked to him like a drill instructor. Okay. And now for the podcast sake of anybody watching. I'll clean up what he said, he's like, What the heck's wrong with you, airman. You're worse, you're gonna go on to Okinawa and you can't get up on a horse with the F's wrong with you. uniform, the uniform, he could break him down. But then we started laughing real quick, because, you know, we're not trying to make the situation worse. And we just said, seriously, dude, you were fine, quote, fine. 10 minutes ago, what's wrong? And he said, Guys, I'm from the Bronx. So all you had to say we're done. We're all cracking up and laugh and he goes, Look, I never saw the mountain patrol in Central Park dogs running through the neighborhood restraints. You want me to get up on this monstrosity. Long story short, we get him on it. Get him comfortable with it made sure experienced riders were in front and behind him. He not only went on the first ride, he got off walking a little funny. So of course, we were making fun of him. And he got some, you know, some drinks, you know, we get like, Powerade and water and stuff like that. He said, can I go out on the second ride? Do we all lost it? You know, his wife was in tears because he went for an hour earlier cursing her out to wanting to go on the second ride. We're like, fucking Hey, yeah, you can go out on the second ride. And somebody actually gave up their spot so he could go out on the second ride. He comes back. While he's gone. We asked the owner for a bag of frozen peas. So he comes back, we get him off the horse. We chuck them in the bag of frozen peas. He's like fu guys, but thanks. You know, we're okay. You want to go on the third ride? No, no, no. There wasn't a third ride for my rear end can handle Alan. Yeah. He left there that day overcoming a fear. He didn't even know it was a fear. Him and his wife were closer now because he wouldn't ever explain to her why he didn't want to go to horse stuff with her. So now he was a little more in tune with why she loved him so much. And he was about to deploy back out so he could go into Okinawa with his chest puffed out a little higher, go and you're gonna believe the Jedi Did you know and and so that's again, the power of the horse. It's a good lord and horse, okay, it is not us. The good Lord said go do this. And that's what we're doing. You know, so it's a good lord horse coming together to heal. And that's one one at a time. And you know, he happened to be active duty. But I guarantee you when he gets out, he's calling us.

Keith McKeever 27:42

That's pretty cool. If somebody gave up their seat, they must. They must have recognized what was going on. And realize, hey, you know, this guy just had a breakthrough. We can't put the brakes on now. Yeah,

JR Smith 27:52

happens all the time. fall forward. Yeah, the young man that's been an hour and a half in the round pen. Three people gave up there slots so he could do what he needed to do. When we see it all the time. You know, I mean, again, y'all went, you know, y'all are 1% said, I'll go send me. You know, I tell people, I try to educate civilians on this all the time. It's like, Y'all got to understand something. Somebody could be a cook for 30 years in the Army sling and three, four meals a day. Everybody in the service is a rifleman. Now, I know that's a Marine Corps thing. But it's true. Somebody may have to grab their rifle and give their last full measure of devotion for their country. Think about that you're a cook, but you may have to grab a rifle and maybe end up in a box. That takes something to go do that. So you know, when y'all get together again, I love it. It gives me goosebumps talking about it. Because the camaraderie of it doesn't matter what your rank is anymore. Doesn't matter what branch service you're in. Sure you have fun and read each other. You know, I hear him all the time. Chair force. Everybody in the Navy's gay, you know, crayon eaters, you know, I mean, I hear him all right. But it's and I love watching that I don't participate. Because you know, the minute it's kind of like your family can make fun of family but if an outsider makes fun of family now you got all of us coming. Yeah,

Keith McKeever 29:13

it'd be like a broken record if you're trying to

JR Smith 29:18

hurt or what do you just say? So, so you know, I love I truly do. I mean, hopefully everybody out here today can see my passion through this as to why we love doing what we do, and and helping everybody we can't because veterans aren't broken. You know, if you hear somebody out there, say that term, bitch slap them. Maybe not literally, but figuratively. Because, you know, y'all have just walked through some things in life that you now have to adjust how you live life, you're not broken. You know, so I don't hate that term. But

Keith McKeever 29:52

we just we just experienced things differently. Yeah, you know, I'm also going between 18 and let's say 18 to 24. Just the basic training experience, you know, The idea is to break you down and build you back up so that you can be the best airman, Marine, sailor, soldier, etc. Exactly, just that process breaks you down and builds you up. And it gives you skills, it gives you insight, knowledge, all these different things that none of the civilian counterparts of your of your age, peer age group even get. They just don't you know, and then you go on to your weather, you know, to go to your job, whether your Guard Reserve active duty, whatever, but, you know, you have these experiences that nobody else has, and you're right, we're not broken. We're just wired differently.

Keith McKeever 30:36

You know, we just had to, you know, to adapt to it, and sometimes it sucks. You know, like one that still gets me. And I'm not exactly 15 minutes earlier, you're late all the time, but I do try to be, you know, good five minutes early to different things. And when people walk in late, it bugs the heck out of me, I hate being late. And if I'm running, if I'm running a minute late, it bugs me. Yeah. And sometimes it's unavoidable, you know, by line of business. So I could fall call or something, it might be a couple of minutes late. And most clients don't. Most people don't really care. You message them. Hey,

Keith McKeever 31:09

I'm running to three minutes late. Okay, no problem. Yeah, but it matters. It's not a habit, but a matter all.

JR Smith 31:17

Time. 15 minutes or heads on time on times late. Yeah. I'm the same way.

Keith McKeever 31:23

Yep. And, you know, I mean, it's, I've been out for 12 years. So it's, I guess it's not as bad. You know, I don't show up 15 minutes early to everything. But, you know, somewhere, you know, about five minutes early. I like to be there early. You know, but, yeah, that's just one one example. And I'm sure that's, it's totally relatable.

JR Smith 31:43

Well, we're getting, you know, a veteran father who had a Oh, and a veteran grandfather, and, you know, yeah, so I mean, that's how I was plus, you know, my uniform was Boy Scouts. Okay, I'm an Eagle Scout. So, you know, at all that, you know, the, you know, the Boy Scouts transcended from, you know, the army basically, you know, there's a lot of crossover there. Yeah, it was ROTC before they had ROTC, basically, you know, back in the day when I started, so, you know, there was a lot of those things that were taught to me at a young age, on that level, that, you know, I still transcend in through today, and, you know, the be prepared and, you know, and all that kind of stuff. So it's yeah, there's, there's a lot of, that's where I have some, under some understanding of that, your side of the world,

Keith McKeever 32:26

I never really thought about that. But there is a lot of tie in a lot of the skills, you know, being in nature, shooting, camping, some of those things

JR Smith 32:34

kind of loosely, but they're not the same skills, and, you know,

Keith McKeever 32:38

just uniform standards and respect for authority, and teamwork, and stuff like that. Those are those are very important skills. So absolutely. But so back to what you're doing and what you found it. So you've got a little network, kind of view it in my mind is a map a little dots all over the place, little little ranches or people who own some horses. But go ahead and tell us a little bit about how you're organized there so people can kind of have an idea.

JR Smith 33:04

Absolutely. Yeah, we are headquartered in Florida. We are registered to do business in Texas. But we are looking to expand nationwide. And how we're doing that is we launched an affiliate ranch program. Okay. What that means is when we started this in 2017, there were 30,000 charities that dealt with veterans, and there's now 50,000 Plus not counting ones that will get approved today. folks out there and thinking about starting your own nonprofit, God bless you if you got the heart want to do it. But understand the C and 501 C three stands for Corporation. I'm putting in at 90 hour weeks to you know, get done what we're getting done. So here's the opportunity. If you are a veteran, and you have land and you have horses, okay, it could be 510 acres and five horses. It doesn't have to be, you know, the four sixes in North Texas, okay, it doesn't have to be Yellowstone, you can come under our umbrella and be the veterans ranch in your city. So you get the tax benefits. You get the marketing support, the advertising support, the relationships we've built and continue to build. I've got two relationships in the wings right now, I can't announce yet. But let me tell you, if I told you the initials of who they are, everybody watching this today would know who they are. And so you get the benefits of those things. And it's about serving more veterans. You know, when we get our piece of dirt, it's going to be about 20 horses on a 25 day Work Month. And that only allows us to serve 5000 veterans where there are 450,000 veterans in a 10 County area where I sit. Imagine today how many veterans we could serve and veteran serving other veterans by having the veterans ranch sea to shining sea and we'll put them in Honolulu to I don't care. You know, somebody's got horses inland out there too. So hey, all right, right, you ain't good and I would love that. So reach out to us again, if you are a veteran with Landon horses, and you have always been looking for a way to give back but didn't necessarily know how or didn't want to start your own nonprofit or how to start your own nonprofit. We're making it simple and easy for you. And you can reach out to us today and we can explain how to do it.

Keith McKeever 35:12

Okay, awesome. So outside of that you have you know, what kind of needs do you guys have as an organization? Obviously there's always funding that's a big one but volunteers anything else that you guys need?

JR Smith 35:22

Yeah, you know, and honestly, we need of course the funding sure, you know, you know non pray here the diesel in the you know, blood drive vans, you see doesn't run on peaches, roses and fluffy bunnies, right? It runs on cash. We ask people to go to our website and give what you can look, we know times are tough for people out there, I got an F 350 with a 25 gallon diesel tank, okay. I two years ago, I was paying 60 $65 Fill it up. And it's highest. I was paying a buck and a quarter. I understand the pinch out there. But here's the one thing I will share with the American public out there fast food joints, liquor stores, restaurants, they may be hurting a little bit, but they're not going out of business. What does that mean? I mean, people are still buying cases of Bush light, they're still buying double quarter cheese, and you know, and pizzas and everything else. We ask people to go to the veterans ranch.org click the donate button and pledged $22 a month in memory of the minimum 22 A day we're losing veteran suicide folks, the real number is 35 a day. Think about that more than one an hour today. We are losing that we shouldn't have to can we save them all? No. But to him if we're not going to die dry. Okay, so 22 a month, it's $264 a year it is less than one trip for you and your family do a fast food joint a month. So don't go to the arches don't go to the one because I don't want to say names right? Read pig tail hair. Don't go to the pizza boxes once a month. That's it. That's all we're asking for. And we're asking people to help spread our message. If you care about veterans, if you care about animals, hopefully you care about both. Help us help them. Join the team. It doesn't take much we always talk about you know, you got a lot doing a little get you're talking 73 cents a day. And I know y'all see the commercials every night of all the big nonprofit organizations out there. And it's called reduced to the ridiculous they break it all down. But folks, that's what it really comes down to 73 cents a day donated today can save a veteran's life tomorrow. If that matters, veterans ranch.org br megaphone, help us shout that message out there and become part of the team yourself.

Keith McKeever 37:47

There's no doubt that it can save some lives. You know, you never know when when it's called hit that that person and I'm sure without a doubt, you've probably saved one or two at least.

JR Smith 37:57

Well, we, we have made an effort right now we are running a 67% success rate of ones that have admitted they have some kind of PTS, you notice I dropped the D off there. It's not a damn disorder, government calls it dancing qualify for some money. You again, you've walked through some things in life, and you gotta learn how to, you know, process that differently. But we're running a 67% success rate of ones that said Our programs are helping. So we're proud as hell of that, you know, sure, we want 100%. But we just gotta get everybody admitting they have some kind of PTS because let's face it, I'm a civilian, I've walked through some things in my life that crushed most people. But I've never fired a shot in anger, never had a bullet was by my head never lost a buddy in combat. So I understand there's a lot of more empathy that I can have than sympathy. But you know, we're here to help. And we're here to help get, you know, get you to that new place in life.

Keith McKeever 38:51

Yeah, I would, I would agree, you know, 67%. I mean, that's two thirds. And for those that, that cannot have the strength to admit that they have a problem. And those that don't have the strength to admit that it helped. You know, that's, that's, that's not bad. Given those two factors.

JR Smith 39:11

Yeah, it takes a lot to admit any of those things. And so we're very proud of that. You know, of course, we're always trying to get that number higher. But, you know, for just a five year old organization to have those kinds of numbers. You know, again, I'm not breaking my shoulder, you know, but we're working hard every day to help y'all out there in the world. The uniform and again, no conflict specific you got out yesterday, you got out 50 years ago, we're here it out.

Keith McKeever 39:38

There's no doubt about it. 67% is better than you know what? Zero is better than zero. Exactly. Even 1%. has, it has a chance for an impact. Yeah, if you're not doing anything, you're not doing anything. Yes, that's right. Absolutely. Jr. I will have I've got it scrolling across the bottom for those that watch this, but I'll have it in the show notes to all of your contact info. Make sure where they can contact you, the website where they can donate all those things. But once again, I appreciate you coming by here and sharing what you guys do.

JR Smith 40:07

It's our pleasure. Thank you for having us on today. Thank you for everybody out there that supports us and our new supporters, our new team members and our new family you know, because when you come on board with us, you're you're on board with our mission and you're now family.

Keith McKeever 40:22

Awesome. All right, there you go. Folks, hope you enjoyed that episode. Marine go check out our website battle buddy podcast.net for all kinds of resources of information. If you don't find something there that you think you shouldn't be there. Send me a message. Let me know what you think I should add to the podcast to the podcast website. And if you're struggling, remember the number is now 988. Press one for the National Suicide Hotline or you can text 838255