Marine veteran Chris Kirwan is taking care of fellow veterans in a unique way that you may or may not have heard of. Chris is involved with the nationwide organization called Irreverent Warriors. Irreverent Warrior's mission is "to bring veterans together using humor and camaraderie to improve mental health and prevent veteran suicide". Chris runs the Greensboro, North Carolina chapter. Chris discusses their annual hike, others around the area and how the mission impacts veterans as well as how it has impacted him.

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https://irreverentwarriors.com/

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Transcript from Episode 50 with Chris Kirwan:

Keith McKeever 0:03

Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever. Welcome back to another episode of battle buddy Podcast. Today we are talking with Chris Kerwin from irreverent warriors, Greensboro. One of their chapters, hubs locations. I don't know what you guys call it. But they're spread around the country. I know there's there's tons of them all over the place. Before we get started, welcome, Chris. Appreciate you being here.

Chris Kirwan 0:28

Thanks for having me. Yep, chapter. That's right. Chapter.

Keith McKeever 0:31

Okay. All right. You know, you know, when you got networks all across the country, everybody calls it something different. So, yeah, somebody, I'm gonna go ahead, put that scroll across the bottom here. So his link tree, if you scroll across the bottom, if you're listening to this, it'll be in the show notes, as well as the website to irreverent warriors. But go ahead and tell us a little about yourself, Chris.

Chris Kirwan 0:50

Yeah, so I'm a Marine Corps veteran, served from 2011 to 2017. During my time, I was in several different places in different capacities in different roles. Probably the, I'd say probably the peak of my career was my time in Afghanistan 2013. I deployed there with CLB, six, I was attached to them as a communications Marine, I was communications by trade. And pretty much anytime that somebody finds out that you have any kind of tech background, you automatically become some sort of techie. And so I was in 2011, I went to comm school and in Twentynine Palms and learn how to use to program and use telephones, I was a tactical switchboard operator, which basically just as a telephone guy, and the old core would call it a wire dog, which is kind of like a secondary job, but doesn't get used a whole lot anymore, because we have digital, digital telephone signals and things like that. Now what it sounds cool, yeah, well, we don't have to, you know, run cable, hundreds of feet and miles and distances around compounds and things like that to establish telephone communication. So kind of past that we moved into a more digital and IP based market. So did that. And then when I joined my unit in Campbell, June, which is CLB, six, they, I was embedded into a truck platoon. I was reserved, I was reserved for most of my career other than that. But yeah, so I came back and 2000, late 2013 and finish the rest of my career here in Greensboro, where I'm from and where I live now, and pretty much just wrote it out to the end, and the Marine Corps changed a lot and the war was effectively over for me and decide to get out, move on to other things.

Keith McKeever 3:04

Yeah, that's kind of a good point of the time when you served, you know, the war in Iraq was over Afghanistan, I hate to say had been going on for so long was kind of out of sight out of mind for many Americans. Yeah. Which is which is an absolute shame. But I think that was kind of the reality at that point in time. So I'm sure there was a lot of changes as that dragged on and got closer to the end last year. So

Chris Kirwan 3:31

yeah, the when I was there in 2013, so CLB six Combat Logistics battalion six, they're effectively we support all the Ford elements, whether it's combat elements or any kind of other logistical elements we we get the the three B's the beans, bullets and band aids and we get them out to the front lines are. So we go from Camp Leatherneck, which was the biggest, you know, the biggest five out there, and then we would transport it to smaller fobs, like camp Dwyer read the shugar ze Shivani Musa kala bass basically anywhere north south we would deliver whatever it is, I mean 20 foot clog cones and equipment and other vehicles and all sorts of stuff so

Keith McKeever 4:24

so you're everybody's best friend bringing this up?

Chris Kirwan 4:27

Yeah, we never really knew what we were bringing. But we are you know, it was basically you got your your load out and you just you go to different parts of Leatherneck and pick stuff up for somebody and take it somewhere.

Keith McKeever 4:42

Yeah, take into the guys who need it. Like I said, You gotta gotta be everybody's best friend at that point. Because I know my first deployment we had less logistical issues getting food sometimes and other things and when it came in boy did morale go up. So that's awesome. So once you got out you, you eventually got evolved with the river warriors. For those people who may not be aware of what it is, what is a river warriors? And how did that kind of get started?

Chris Kirwan 5:07

So reverent warriors. To start with our mission statement, we bring veterans together using humor and camaraderie to improve mental health and prevent veteran suicide. We do this through many different avenues. But probably our favorite Avenue is our silky hikes. That's basically the nucleus. And it's our Super Bowl, we spend our entire year planning. And basically, from the ground up, we plan these elaborate hikes that look really simple to the hikers, which is kind of the goal is to give them an experience that seems really easy to just go to and be a part of. For us, it involves marketing, fundraising, project management, it work, it involves a lot of different stuff. So I kind of got so my personal connection to this organization kind of started in 2019, when I launched my own nonprofit called home for the 22. And it was kind of the same thing it was, you know, I lost David West and 2014. And then John Brunel and 2015, two Marines I served with who took their own lives, and for many years, just kind of sitting with, with that, and all the questions that come around that like, you know, could I have done more? And just the, the confusion, really of wondering, man is, you know, why is this happening? What did I miss? Yeah, I mean, what were the signs that I missed? And how can I make sure I never feel this way again. And you know, it just whether you knew somebody or not there, there's a connection, every veteran is connected to somebody who dealt with this struggle, because it is such a epidemic right now. veteran suicide the 22 a day, it's there's a lot of studies that show different numbers. I say, it doesn't matter. One is too many. And so in 2019, and I was like, you know, what can we do? And I started seeing these these kind of Sookie hikes all across the countries all across the country. I mean, I didn't know if they are reverent warriors or not, but I would just see them like now looks really fun. And so basically, I got together with some friends, I said, Let's try to put something like that on in Greensboro. And, you know, we'll go 22 kilometers with 22 pounds for the 22 really simple. I think it had some traction, and we did it for three years. Last year was was the last year I did it. But it didn't, I think the 22 kilometers where we lost a lot of people. It's, I mean, even for my son asked

Keith McKeever 8:02

me there. Yeah. You know, 20 to 22 kilometers, I don't know.

Chris Kirwan 8:07

Yeah. Even for myself, I don't consider myself any kind of athletic, you know, freak or anything like that. But I'm in decent shape. And I exercise regularly and eat well. And I, I really struggle with it. So I had to do a lot of prep, and a lot of, you know, training rocks to work up to it. And so that was really difficult. But what happened was, I found out about Reverend warriors through 22 Kill. And they were like, hey, you know, these guys over here, kind of like doing the same thing. Once you could talk to him. So I did. And I got hooked up with Nate McDonald's, who's their COO, another Marine Corps veteran, and got on a call with him just, you know, looking for advice. What can what can we do better and long story short, he basically said, Well, you know, we're not really that territorial with with the cities that we pick. But, you know, North Carolina is a pretty popular state for these hikes. There's before me, there were seven other hikes. And in North Carolina,

Keith McKeever 9:07

I was just say, I looked at the map again, you know, the day and the dates and it was like, wow, there's there is a lot, I think, in North and South Carolina, the whole Southeast area, there's a loss.

Chris Kirwan 9:17

Yeah, from basically, Virginia, all the way down the east coast, there's probably 15 to 20 hikes right in there. And so he was like, you know, we're probably going to eventually have a hike in Greensboro, you know, so why not let it be you that coordinates it if you're already plugged in, and you already kind of know what you're doing there? And so I was like, you know, that sounds like a good idea. I'll think about it and then prayed about it. And because, you know, hopefully 22 was kind of my baby. It was kind of my, my project and so I had a little shattered pride thinking, you know, I was gonna give that up. I was like, you know, what the like looking at By the way, they've been able to affect the veteran population and the way that they're able to bring people in and have such a great culture. And I'm like, man, like, if I could just bring that to Greensboro, that would be a far better service than what I'm going to be able to provide with the spare time that I can give to it. So I said, Yeah, let's do it. I talked to the other guys. That was helping me and I said, you know, what do you guys think? And they said, You know what, we'll support you with whatever. So here we are, I have a great team of five other individuals, for the three other Marines and to Army cat. So we're really we're full steam ahead. We've got a great hike plan already. And we're really moving forward in a good way. And so we're pretty excited to get to put Greensboro on the map this year.

Keith McKeever 10:55

Awesome. years if I if memory, I didn't write it down in my notes, but is it? July 16? Well, that's right. That's right. Okay. I see. Oh, look, I remember that from the other day. Yeah. I couldn't do that, again, if I tried. Yeah, but no, that's, that's really awesome to have, that had to be really hard, you know, to make that decision with your nonprofit. But when you look at something that Reverend warriors, because I've known of him for a few years, when they're doing it at scale, and they have systems and they have support that's around you, it's, it's more of a

Chris Kirwan 11:26

do I try to do this on my own or jump on the bandwagon and making, you know, make a more immediate effect, because, you know, exactly could have been effect yourself. But, you know, we were approaching some really difficult decisions, and some really big Growing Pains on how we were going to get the traction that we wanted to actually be able to make it worth our time. And they had already been through the growing pains, and they already had the culture and they already had the processes and everything was in place. And all I had to do was just step into it and trust God that this was going to be a place for me. And so it's been a really incredible experience. So far, they will I was gonna say two is the silky hikes are our big thing. But this year, especially, they have emphasized the fact that we can't prevent veteran suicide one day a year at our hikes. And so we have to be, we have to take some responsible responsibility and accountability for our communities throughout the year. So just my chapter alone, we've had an event. Let's see, we've had a couple of events already. But we've got an event, basically every month leading up to our hike, and then we'll have some more in the fall. And so the money that we're able to raise goes towards those things to like, Excuse me, next Saturday, we're going up to Hanging Rock, about 40 minutes away. And we're doing like a little camping, camping and hiking overnight trip. And you know, so the some of the money that we raised, we're going to be able to buy some food, have a nice barbecue have some camaraderie and, and so stuff like that just allows veterans to kind of get out of their comfort zone and lean into something that's really easy for them to just come hang out, no strings attached. You can, you know, come for an hour come for just stay overnight, stuff like that we want to be able to offer. And so we've effectively been able to do that.

Keith McKeever 13:23

I think that's where I see the effect is effectiveness of this is whether it's the hikes or camping or whatever else somebody could come up with. It's, it's, it's easy. And virtually everybody can do it. Even if you can't physically do those things you can at least show up and you know, and have that connection to the community. Because I've said for a while now, while there's a lot of different things that get veterans down the path of either suicide, homelessness or substance abuse issues. One of them is arguably one of the bigger ones is a lack of connection to the veteran community. Because as you know, we lose that moment we leave, you left the Marine Corps and as soon as you did, when the Marines do, they put somebody in your slot in your unit, somebody else is doing the job. And so you're on the outside, and your only connection to them was who was on your Facebook friends list, right? You know, who you connected with on LinkedIn. And that's about it. And you know, it's not you're not bumping into him every day, you're into a different world immediately.

Chris Kirwan 14:20

That was a really difficult part for me in my transition out of the Marine Corps, because I had been in the reserves. And so I saw these guys on a pretty regular basis for six years. And so finally hanging up the uniform and, you know, realizing, I can't take anything back. I can't do anything differently. I can no longer impact the Marine Corps as it stands today. And I was I'm not trying to pat myself on the back but I worked really hard and I felt like I did a good job for the areas that I was given the opportunity to serve and and And I would like to say that I didn't leave anything out out there on the on the field. But, you know, there's always regrets things I wish I could have done better and, and impacts I wish I could have made more of and you know, but at the end of the day, it just, you never feel like you do enough, you never feel like you impact enough people. And that really sat with me for a long time and pretty much spent most of last year praying for an opportunity to be able to serve veterans with the experiences that I have to be able to show veterans that people will still love them that they still have a purpose and that they're, they're valuable, and they're necessary for our society. And I've been able to find that here, they are able to find a connection other veterans who just are all and for each other. That's that's another big issue I've found is the relationships with, I'd say, I guess you call it the civilian population. It's difficult to lean on civilians, the way that I used to lean on people in the Marine Corps, you know, you just expect the people you're close with in the Marine Corps, you just, you don't have any doubt that they're going to show up for you. I can't say that about all the friends that I have on the civilian side. It just is a different level of commitment. And so when you're really hyper committed, so people in your life, and they can't show you the same kind of commitment, you know, you really just kind of look at and go, you know, none of the time and none of the effort that I've put into my relationships are really bearing any fruit. And then with the Reverend warriors, it's like, all you have to do is call somebody. There's there's always somebody wanting to talk to you. There's always somebody who can relate. And there's not going to be any judgment, there's no. And the thing I love too is we don't care about what you did in the military or didn't do. We don't care if you're a combat veteran, we don't care if you're, you know, an admin guy that never saw, you know, never left your desk on state side. It doesn't matter to us, we just, we're committed to keeping veterans alive. And that's the bottom line.

Keith McKeever 17:25

And absolutely, I mean, it's a, I've said for a while as well, that there's this weird dynamic between civilians and veterans. There's this curiosity that they have about us, that they'll just never, they'll never fully know and understand. And we will never quite fully know or understand their perspective, either. Yeah, because of the things we've seen done that just even just to train and go into basic training boot camp, or whatever, you know, you just train for different things. And you look at the world as just a different view. Like it's, it's nine day difference. Yeah. And because I felt the same way. Like, I've got some close friends that grew up with, you know, we're, I've talked to him a couple times a year, you know, it's, it's not the same as what it was before I joined the military, that's for sure. But even if you're not professionally, networking with other people, and then you find out you're a veteran, then they start asking questions, you know, it's, it gets weird and awkward. You know, it's like, well, now I'm telling the PG related version of what happened, you know, it's, whereas you and I are, you know, any veteran, the veteran could, you know, share their stories in there, it's a more graphic detail. And, you know, more to it and, and, you know, sometimes you end up kind of, like I said, making it PG, for some of the civilians, you know, things like that, just so just, there's this, there's this barrier that just needs to be broken down. I don't know if I ever will. But we can definitely do what we can to break that down. But at least we have each other. That's the goal is we need to have each other's back.

Chris Kirwan 19:10

Yeah. And something that I tried to emphasize, especially locally, is communicating and getting out into the public. Getting out into places where there are a heavy civilian population. Because, number one, we need them. We're nonprofit, right? So we need them to source our activities, or we need them to fund our activities. And the other thing is that there's Yeah, you know, you do look at the civilian population, like they don't understand us, you know, they don't, they won't help us. It's like, that's not true. Like they want to help you. They they look at all the organizations that are ran by civilians dedicated to helping veterans. I mean, there's so many of them.

Keith McKeever 19:57

Yeah, they want to sometimes they may not know The best way of, of really helping, right, and the passion is there

Chris Kirwan 20:05

it is. And so I think we owe, I think we do a disservice to, to the public, when we kind of create a barrier, and just draw a hard line in the sand, we're insane that these people are never gonna understand us. And we're just, you know, I don't want anything to do with them. And, and so I try to make it a point to for our, at least for Greensboro. And I think irreverent warriors does this as, as a whole, because we're operating in their space, right, we need to abide by their rules, we need to respect the cities that we involve ourselves in. We that's why over the years, we've worked to say we have only been a part of the organization for less than a year, but the company as a whole has worked to become a more professional organization, to be able to be more effective in what we're doing. We need civilians to be on board with us so that we can be able to operate still. And that we can be able to be you we want to be one of those names that's mentioned with other organizations that help prevent suicide. You know, we want to be kind of a household name in the veteran community. And the only way we're gonna get there is by telling our story in front of civilians who want to back us. And so it's important, and we're really dedicated to it, especially in this city for me, because I've lived here my whole life. And both my parents are also Marines. And my brother is a, an officer in the Navy, and my sister is a EE for the Navy. And so the military community is is a really big deal to me. And there's a lot of people I know who want to who want to back us and want to help us. And so it's been a really good opportunity to be able to share what irreverent Warriors is doing locally and nationally. Internationally. Really, we're, we're international now.

Keith McKeever 22:08

Wow. So people could book some tickets and go go overseas and do some hikes. Yeah, you can go backpacking in Europe,

Chris Kirwan 22:15

but Normandy, France is having their hike this year. It'd be awesome, Juna love it. And then England has a hike, such as Guam and Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico already had their hike. So we're international now. And I think I think we're gonna want to go to Germany as well. So I

Keith McKeever 22:35

was just thinking that Germany and Japan and South Korea would be some great places to Yeah, more. We're

Chris Kirwan 22:41

definitely expanding to countries like that. Because we, we we've, you know, it's all been about the American veteran up to this point. But we want to emphasize veteran, his veteran and that are in especially NATO countries who were in Afghanistan with us. We want to we want to reach them as well.

Keith McKeever 22:59

Absolutely. I think, well, that's something that gets lost, as I know, between my two deployments, so especially the first deployment saw Polish troops coming through there quite a bit. We were in southern Iraq. So we were in the AOR for the Brits. They had, I think, pretty much everything for Boser south. And, you know, so I can't remember some of the other ones. But I know a Kuwait you know, you had all Australia's air you had the Japanese air Self Defense Forces there. The Germans were there, you know, so it's Turkey, Georgia, a lot of different countries. Matter of fact, I just ordered. I've got an episode coming out here just a few weeks with the British Army veteran. Yeah. So it's a we that's a good way of looking at things. We're not all alone. We didn't fight these wars alone. We had we had allies, and we need to be allies, across the giant pawns too. So yep. That's awesome to hear. Here's some things going on there. So you've only been at the organisation for a little while, but you know, you had yours as well, what kind of what kind of impact have you seen through the programs that you've been doing?

Chris Kirwan 24:08

So the biggest things for me that I've been able to just see up front and personal is, I seen some people who I know personally have struggled with, with PTSD severely, who struggle with social anxiety and things like that. I have been able to see them, find people that they've been able to connect to, and just watch them grow in a really cool way. And I think that, for me, personally, being able to connect people on that level, it doesn't have to, it's not about me, it's just being able to make the connection between two people and be able to help them find each other like, I have a friend who I introduced to another friend at an event we did two weeks ago, and it turns out they had the same AO and Afghanistan and Musa Kala and were there at the same time. in different capacities. And so, you know, when you choose the same dirt as somebody in a place that you feel like you, you know, kind of left a part of your soul in. It's just like an instant connection. And so being able to make those connections has really been a beautiful thing for me to be able to witness. And honestly, it's everything that I prayed for. And it's everything that I hoped for when I joined this organization just to be able to impact people like that. I mean, there's, there's a lot of stories that haven't been told yet I know. It just being able to find that veteran who didn't even know that we were going to be at such and such place, and they hear about us, and they just instantly want to jump in and seeing seeing other veterans be passionate about meeting other veterans has been a great deal of satisfaction for me.

Keith McKeever 25:58

Yeah, you never know who you're gonna, you're gonna bump into in an event, and especially something big like that, because I'm sure every little chapter is different, but I'm sure some of them get quite massive. You know, and then when you I think, some of the power, I don't know if the other chapters are doing it, but I love that you're having camping and other type activities. Because I think for those that are out there, really struggling. Just the idea that, Oh, you know what, I got a week and a half until the next event, and I want to see Chris again. You know, it's cool dude, can't wait to hang out with them have a beer around the campfire, you know, just like the thought of like, Yeah, I'm gonna see my buddy again, in a couple of weeks. Like, I cannot, I can't do this, like just hanging there, whatever. You know, just that almost accountability, I guess. It is like, I got something to do. I got somebody to see people who care about me and understand me. And that alone, just the idea of that coming up, I could see having a huge

Chris Kirwan 27:00

impact on saving lives. It does. I mean, there's I've heard stories, that there are people who these hikes are literally saving their lives that they hike every single week. And they don't take their own lives, because they know that there's a hike that they can go to every single week in that constant, you know, feeding of the, of the soul really, and being able to release those endorphins and have something to look for. You know, it really does a lot for a lot of people. I mean, just look at, just look at our lives, take the veteran aspect out of it, and just look at, you know, you as a person, you're grinding at work all the time. Maybe it sees podcasts for you to be able to connect to other people. For me, it's like it's church, and it's a reverend lawyers and, and just to be able to have something to look forward to. It's what really keeps us going because the daily grind, it just gets old if you don't have something that you're passionate about on the side that you're doing. And that's what I really love about Ron Wars is we're not like a club, we don't have, you know, it's not like we have a membership. And, you know, I'll compare it to like the Marine Corps League, very effective and very important organization. But the reason why it's it's it kind of fades out, and it's not real popular amongst younger people is because we can't commit to that, you know, because we have a spine careers, we have young children, things like that. We need something that's no strings attached. We can just get up and go to a place if we're available. And that's what a reward is just being able to done and that's why it's attracting so many people is just because, hey, there's a hike this weekend. You know,

Keith McKeever 28:46

it's a half a day. Yeah, we were in this tech savvy world where everything is so fast paced. Everything is like at our fingertips and attention to short that, you know, just you're just capturing a small snippet of time in the year.

Chris Kirwan 28:59

Yep. And like with North Carolina, the North Carolina hikers we travel because there's eight hikes in North Carolina. There's one next month in April, April 9, I want to say is the first hike in Jacksonville, North Carolina. And from there all the way till November, we have a hike every single month. So Wow. You know, it's like it's, it's, it's easy to be able to just plan on going to a hike every single month if that's what you want to do. It's available to you. And that's just North Carolina. So I mean, you'd like he just said we have Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee. Alabama, Virginia, West Virginia.

Keith McKeever 29:44

Yeah, they're, they're all over the place. I know here. We've got 120 minutes for me. And they do that on July 4 In Hopedale, Illinois. Chicago has won I think St. Louis has one there's one in Davenport and I might be mistaken but I believe Indianapolis has as well. So there's good.

Chris Kirwan 30:02

I remember on the national IT team. And I remember doing the Indianapolis email address this year.

Keith McKeever 30:11

Yeah. Okay. So I mean, so that's, that's like four hours away. So that's, if you're here, Central Illinois Anyway, you've got four other hikes other than Hopedale, one that are within a four hour drive. That's doable. Yeah. So it's, you know, I'm sure across the nation, they're going to be more sparse in some places. Yeah. populated and others. The Midwest.

Chris Kirwan 30:34

It's growing, but it's there's some spotty areas in the Midwest. I don't think we have anything in the Dakotas, I don't think.

Keith McKeever 30:44

Does that surprise you?

Chris Kirwan 30:46

But I mean, those are kind of like destination hikes for me. Be beautiful to be able to do that.

Keith McKeever 30:52

I'm sure a couple months out of the year, that would that would be absolutely beautiful. It really would. When I think of the Dakotas, I think about wintertime, and you know, yeah, well, snow,

Chris Kirwan 31:00

the reason why there's eight hikes in North Carolina, and the reason why we can pull that off is because, you know, it's not really cold, unless it's December to February, you know, pretty much past that. And then three of our hikes are just right on the beach. You know, Jacksonville, we then and Atlantic Beach, are all just right there on the beach.

Keith McKeever 31:25

I'm sure they're not all like this, but I could see places like that. Or if you get up in the foothills of the mountains or something, you know, really scenic places. I I don't know how much talk there is about that. But that in itself could be therapeutic and healing to some people. You know, I hate to say it's cornfields all around. So it's all about the people with you. Right. But walking on the beach is different.

Chris Kirwan 31:48

I had I had somebody reach out to me who wanted to possibly do one out west, because I want to say that I'm the furthest West for for North Carolina, and we don't have one west of me, and somebody was wanting to do on possibly in Asheville, which is another like, you know, you know, anything by Asheville, North Carolina, not a whole lot. That's where the Biltmore Estate is. Okay. All right, the Biltmore House is there, and it's a lot of great restaurants and breweries downtown. So they're kind of famous for the Biltmore House, but a place like that might be really scenic, but there's as far as scenic hikes. Trying to think Texas doesn't have any. Maybe some Florida, a lot of Florida hikes are on the beach. Yeah, I don't know. I can't remember. There's so many there's 90 hikes. So I was

Keith McKeever 32:49

gonna say it's got to be close to close to 100 or so. Yeah, based on what I remembered on the map do that every year, we grow like 25 to 30%. Nice. I mean, yeah, it'd be awesome to have some more on here because I missed July 4 last year. That was the first time I heard of them having one here. So I know it was the first one or not but But speaking of scenery, I think it's important for people that don't know that. beaches and mountains are not the only scene you got to kind of paint the scene. as a whole. This is not just people showing up at a park or beach and just going for a hike. There's a lot more to it. There's the silkies there's the you know, American flag, bandanas and all the crazy outfits or the shirtless people painting on themselves. And yeah,

Chris Kirwan 33:36

gotta get you gotta get you some silkies these are. These are my thigh huggers. They're the jorts George silkies.

Keith McKeever 33:46

Chris, you're the first model I've ever had on on the podcast. That is a first. I can tell you what. I will not be wearing silkies myself. I will be that guy that is not wearing them. Come on. Little short for me. Okay.

Chris Kirwan 34:04

We'll get you some. Yeah, well,

Keith McKeever 34:06

we'll see about that. Maybe, maybe I'll get a pair and try them and see if it see if it's comfortable. I'm a I'm a basketball short kind of guy. Okay, fair enough. But yeah, you know, I'd be more tempted to go shirtless, even though I get really sad. Yeah, that's alright. You know, it's it's all for the software, the fun but yeah, yeah.

Chris Kirwan 34:30

Oh, let me see Hold on. So, basically, usually my garb is red, white and blue. And then I'm kind of known for this right here. This is, this is kind of my staple wallet. It's a fake wallet. It's kind of what I wear when I'm on the hikes is usually a red, white blue, all the way down to my chucks and I rock this with

Keith McKeever 34:58

built in some On protection, you don't have to, you know, that's awesome. off your face, I will have to find out where you got that I need like a truck. I mean, you know what I need go back to the guy, maybe, if you can make me one with that,

Chris Kirwan 35:11

yeah, get yourself a fanny pack for all your good stuff there. And the other thing too is a lot of people they don't, they don't even hike with like a pack or anything. Because, you know, the the water situation is that there's always water there, we have hike support that allows that basically just jumps to different parts of the hike and will hand out water and Gatorade, snacks, everything. So you don't even have to worry about carrying a heavy pack with all your gear in it. Like this is I'm going to have this fanny pack so that I could have my wallet, my keys, my phone, and then I'll take a light backpack just to basically put socks and maybe some we got meal tape and things like that.

Keith McKeever 36:05

You gotta carry a few things with you. And, you know, I'm glad to kind of mention the volunteers along the along the path passing out water stuff, because some people you know, hiking may not be their thing. They just not want to do it, but just show up. So should they reach out to the local chapter and say, hey, I'm interested in volunteering, you know, not interested in walking, where can you use me?

Chris Kirwan 36:24

Yeah, absolutely. So you can go to that chapters Eventbrite, which is where you sign up for the hike. Or you can find, if you go to road warriors.com and go to the city's tab and find a hike that you want to attend and volunteer at, you just sign up for the hike and just sign up as a volunteer. And they'll get you going.

Keith McKeever 36:44

Awesome, great opportunities there. So anything else that you can do to paint a picture of, you know, what else goes on at some of these events.

Chris Kirwan 36:52

So there are so there's usually stops at the events where you you probably walk a mile two mile and a half per stop, it's at the pace is very slow, usually 2.75 miles per hour is the average pace, which is super slow, Shuffle Along, especially at the front, they're going as slow as possible to prevent any kind of bungee effect. And so we try and stay organized and try not to just look like a gaggle out there, because we really, you know, Wilmington is 400 people. So you talk about if you start gambling, and you get really, you know, out of water, that that height can look like a mess. And so it can look like a riot a mob. And so we want to we want to look uniformed, and so very slow pace, and then the stops are usually like for our stops, we actually have a local brewery who is going to brew us a beer, called humor and camaraderie is actually the first time I'm announcing it, it's in the works right now. And they're going to sell it to all the different restaurants and breweries that we're going to be stopping at. So people can actually buy it and drink the beer on the hike. And so that is a thing. And then other stops might be like we're going to stop at a park we're going to play like would do some sack racing or do some corn cornhole, tug of war, stuff like that. And then so there's little games and stuff like that, that we play, it just gives people an opportunity to get to know one another talk for a little bit. And also it breaks up the, the high quarter. So like when you fall back in, you might fall back in next to somebody else's time and talk to them for a little while. And things like that. So it just gives you a really good opportunity to get to know some different people.

Keith McKeever 38:44

Yes, yeah. Easy to do under

Chris Kirwan 38:45

400 people. And I do want to say, I do want to say there, you know, there's some people I talked to who are sober, and they want to stay sober. There is drinking dinner generally at the hikes just by nature of it, you're on veterans, there's probably going to be alcohol. And so we have a real problem to think of. Yeah, yeah, we have a really strict policy about open container or like in the high formation. That's why we give people an opportunity to stop drink at stops, so that we don't run into any kind of legal issues because we do have to pull permit. And a lot of times that involves, you know, obeying the law,

Keith McKeever 39:24

jumping through some hoops. Yeah. And so

Chris Kirwan 39:28

there are if you're interested in going on the hike, and you want to stay sober, reach out to the local coordinator, which you can usually get a hold of them by going to our Facebook group, or going to our Instagram page and just saying Could I get in tot coffee or go to our good our national page or national Facebook page, I want to contact the local coordinator of the greens website, and they will give you a direct line to me and I will answer it and if you say hey, I want to come to this hike but um you know, I'm really early on in my A effort to be sober. You know, I'll get you a battle buddy, I'll get you somebody who can be accountable for you, and somebody will be accountable for you. And so if that's something you're worried about, don't worry about it, we'll help you out, we'll make sure you stay sober.

Keith McKeever 40:13

That's awesome. That's awesome. Because last thing we want somebody to do is to break their sobriety. Absolutely. You know, I would, I would, I would urge any listeners that are interested in doing this. If you're one of those people, that's like, like me, I I drink, but it just depends, like, there's a lot of I don't like drinking. And so it just depends. And I would be one of those kind of guys where I would reach out to my local chapter, and I may very well do this and say, Look, if you got somebody who, who wants to do is in a sobriety, and they don't want that peer pressure, I will go with them. You know? Yeah. So you need those people to you need to go to people say we had a battle buddy.

Chris Kirwan 40:51

Yeah, and there's a lot of people who just don't want to drink on these hikes, because it it number one, the some of the issues we've ran into in the past that have give irreverent warriors are given a river warriors and negative image are the ones that drink too much on the hikes. And those people, they don't always get invited back. And we don't want to have to do that, you know, we want everybody to have a good time. And if you're out there looking like a drunk aihole, you know, it really, really kills the mood a little bit. And so we want to Yeah, exactly. And, you know, we're walking on busy streets to like mine, where we walk in downtown, like, we don't want to look like a drunken mob. And so we we try, we try to we have a strict rule that we don't we don't allow open container in hike formation. And that's to try to attract anybody from from drinking in the formation. We're not I'm not going to be the police and stop somebody from from drinking, you know, if they're doing it kind of under the radar. If I don't see it, then I can't stop it. Right. But if I see it, I'm gonna have to stop it. But just being there'll be that guy. Yeah. Point being, we try to keep the hikes as sober as possible while we're moving as an element. And so it

Keith McKeever 42:08

gives you an opportunity in the hot sun to hydrate up in between.

Chris Kirwan 42:12

So the thing is, we're hiking in July. And that's why we're giving people an opportunity to drink at stops if they want to. Otherwise, you should stay hydrated.

Keith McKeever 42:21

Absolutely. We should all be good at that. Yeah. We're, we're gonna hydrating, I'm not saying it's water. But we're good as veterans.

Chris Kirwan 42:32

So what's functional alcoholics in the world?

Keith McKeever 42:36

There's a lot of truth to active duty military. Absolutely. So but anyway, Chris, I appreciate you coming on here and sharing everything about your story. And I highly encourage anybody out there who you know, just wants something to do wants to meet some people, or get some exercise or just wants to walk, talk and drink some beer? Yes, is a great way to do it. And build your network and connect with people.

Chris Kirwan 43:02

Yeah, and if you have any questions, feel free to hit that link tree. There's a contact form in there and I'll come directly to our email and if you need any other information or if you're a little confused and just hit us up, we'll be happy to talk with you. Absolutely.

Keith McKeever 43:16

Yeah, that link tree and the Reuters website will be linked in the show notes so people to contact him there. You can reach out to Chris directly reach out to me if if you need and I'll put you in right direction. But most importantly, people just remember to share this episode. Share this with your battle buddies, people who might need it people who might be interested, go like and go like share follow Chris's chapter and river wares as a whole and my podcasts so the more we spread messages of what people are doing, the more we can impact people. So once again, Chris, I appreciate you being on the show.

Chris Kirwan 43:51

Yeah, thank you so much, Keith.