Participants: Arthur Nowlin (Host), Dr. Kim Logan-Nowlin (Host), Pr. Phillip Willis Jr., Rosco Gray
Series Code: MIW
Program Code: MIW000008
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00:01 Hi, I'm Dr. Kim Logan Nowlin.
00:02 And I'm Arthur Nowlin. 00:03 And welcome to "Making it Work." 00:36 You know, Arthur, we did part one to military and service 00:40 but we wanted to do part two 00:41 because it was so much information. 00:43 It was a lot of information 00:44 and it was really something that was exciting to me. 00:48 Well, definitely, well, I just want to recap 00:50 for those who are just joining us 00:51 for the first time today, you served in the Air Force 00:55 and you also served in Vietnam, is that correct? 00:57 That's correct. 00:59 All right, and our special guests, 01:00 we want to welcome them, 01:02 Pastor Philip Willis and also Mr. Roscoe Gray. 01:05 Tell us a little bit where you served 01:07 and the impact of that service. 01:10 I served as a chaplain in the army 01:12 and I'm still serving currently now. 01:14 I did two tours in Iraq. 01:16 Two tours? All right, Mr. Gray? 01:20 I served as a fire team leader in Vietnam. 01:23 And I was a paratrooper 01:24 and served 11 months in Vietnam. 01:26 Eleven months. 01:28 All right, well, let's pick up where we left off. 01:31 We were talking about your service, 01:34 you being injured there, Mr. Gray, 01:37 and what you went through. 01:38 What was it like coming back home, after service? 01:44 It was isolated. 01:46 Getting out of the service, at the airport, 01:49 you're all by-- you're all alone. 01:52 No one said welcome home, no one said good job. 01:57 You're just all alone. Just like walking in a maze. 02:03 What did I do to be isolated like this? 02:07 That's absolutely true, I've had the same feeling, 02:11 it was terrible, you know. 02:13 I can remember coming into Los Angeles 02:15 and it was like an experience that I'll never forget 02:21 because no one paid attention to me at all. 02:24 Nobody asked me any questions, you know, as a matter of fact, 02:28 it was just like, hurry, get on your next stop and go. 02:31 Wow. 02:32 But you had guys with one arm, 02:34 one leg, in a wheelchairs, no one said welcome home. 02:39 No one said, I've been praying for you. 02:41 Was nothing like that. 02:43 I think in contrast, we had a big ceremony. 02:46 I mean, we got off the plane, 02:48 there were people there to greet us, 02:49 shaking our hands, the general, chief of staff, 02:52 and then after that we bussed to our home station 02:55 and there were celebrating fans there, 02:57 waiting on us, family members. 03:00 I remember, I did a piece on Fox News, 03:02 they were there, talking about it. 03:03 But I will say this, 03:04 probably the most memorable experience that I had, 03:07 I think, should have been deserved 03:09 for our veterans of Vietnam. 03:12 I went to the airport, 03:13 I was returning back to Iraq through Atlanta, 03:17 and the guy who was guiding us, he wasn't a military person, 03:19 he worked for the airport, he guided all the soldiers back 03:22 that were coming home off of leave 03:24 and going back to Iraq. 03:25 And he said in the airport, everybody stand up, 03:28 these soldiers are fighting for your freedom 03:30 and let's give them a standing ovation. 03:32 Come on, that must have been something. 03:34 I was moved emotionally by it, 03:35 I just couldn't help but think about, 03:37 you know, some of the Vietnam guys that never got that. 03:39 But it was a tremendous feeling, you know. 03:42 Felt proud. 03:43 Let's talk about PTSD. 03:47 I think we mentioned it a little on our last program. 03:49 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, let's talk about it, 03:54 what it is and how you define it within yourselves. 03:57 And as counselors, 03:59 we see a lot of that in our clinic in Detroit. 04:01 So let's talk about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 04:05 Well, when the soldiers 04:07 from the Vietnam area came home, 04:10 they were sent home. 04:12 But yet they was troubled, 04:14 emotionally, spiritually, physically. 04:18 And as time would pass, 04:20 the-- what's wrong with you, 04:21 why you acting like that? 04:23 I don't know. Are you crazy? 04:26 That's what was happening. 04:27 But what was happening, 04:29 they was having all these problems, 04:31 couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, you daydream a lot. 04:35 Flashbacks. 04:36 Especially when you're alone. When you have nightmares. 04:40 And people say, you just crazy, that's all. 04:44 And no one would understand 04:46 the side effect of what was going on. 04:49 I had a friend of mine-- 04:52 Served well on 173rd came home, killed himself. 04:56 What? 04:57 Came home, killed himself. 04:59 We had a lot of that that was happening 05:02 in the Air Force when they were out on stations, 05:05 they would-- the next thing you know, 05:09 they would call you and let you know 05:11 that somebody just committed suicide. 05:13 And it was really strange to me, 05:15 especially the first time I heard it, 05:16 I couldn't understand, 05:18 you know, what would make them go to that point. 05:20 But I think there was a lot of things that, 05:24 maybe the military person was seeing that 05:27 what's causing them to act that way. 05:29 And I guess when you were explaining about going back 05:33 and seeing the death that was around you, 05:35 you know, that was really traumatic. 05:37 I tell soldiers the reintegration process 05:39 can be different depending on the people. 05:41 You know, there are some soldiers 05:42 that are like Teflon, they'll go 05:43 and they'll see all the experiences, 05:45 you know, see the elements of war 05:47 and come home and act as if nothing ever happened. 05:50 But then you have people that are really in touch 05:51 with their feelings and emotions 05:53 and just the whole intensity of it. 05:55 I remember I was going on a mission, 05:57 and I'd gone on several missions with this one soldier 05:59 and he said, chaplain, I really need to talk to you. 06:01 So finally, in the midst of one of the missions 06:04 he said-- I said, let's talk 06:05 and we sat down and we talked 06:07 and I said, we need to get you to one of our psychologists. 06:09 I took him in to the psychologist, 06:10 because he was saying, 06:12 chaplain, I'm having nightmares, 06:13 you know, this is my fourth tour, 06:15 we lost 11 guys on the last tour 06:17 and I'm having a difficult time. 06:18 Sometimes commanders think that 06:20 soldiers are just trying to get off the mission 06:21 but I said, I'm going to get you some help. 06:23 I took a man in and the psychologist 06:26 came back out and said, chaplain, 06:27 this soldier has severe PTSD. 06:29 We need to get him some support. 06:32 I think the reintegration process is difficult 06:34 because it's a detour from reality. 06:38 Most people know that when you're-- 06:41 there's harm ahead of you, you evade it. 06:44 But in a war zone, you go right into it 06:46 and it's part of your life. 06:48 And then you begin to anticipate it 06:50 and your adrenaline high is so high 06:52 that you kind of need it to keep going from day to day. 06:55 And then when you come home, 06:56 everything stops all of a sudden. 06:58 Literally one day you're in a war zone 07:00 and then three or four days after you get home, 07:02 you're back on the streets. 07:04 I remember, even as a chaplain, I didn't carry any weapons, 07:07 but I was in those same vehicles 07:09 that those guys were in, 07:10 looking out for insurgents, wondering 07:12 if the IED was going to blow up the next minute. 07:15 And if you've had those experiences, it intensifies it. 07:18 So I came home to Detroit after my first tour, 07:21 I'm driving down 696, I'm looking down the road 07:24 in my Honda Civic for roadside bombs. 07:27 Wow. 07:28 Oh, I can believe that. I can definitely believe that. 07:32 And I have to say this, I remember 07:34 when you came home the first time. 07:35 Oh, yes. 07:37 And I remember some of the difficulties 07:40 that you were experiencing 07:41 and I talked to you for a moment 07:44 and in the process of talking to you, 07:46 I can sense that it was a different you. 07:49 It was more intense 07:51 and you were really thinking about 07:56 the experience that you had just come out of. 07:58 Right, well, you see, this is what happens for me, 08:00 you have soldiers they live 24 years 08:02 of their life on this side, 30 years of their life-- 08:04 18 years of their life in normal reality. 08:07 And I tell them it's a departure from reality 08:08 because when you go to war, 08:10 it's like two intersecting lines. 08:12 Regular life continues to go forward, 08:14 you go into like a time warp and when you come back, 08:17 you expect to return to the same love, 08:19 to the same life, 08:20 but everything has moved forward, 08:22 your wife, your spouse, whoever else has moved forward, 08:24 friends have other degrees, 08:26 they're continuing to move forward. 08:28 You come back and you've missed out on a whole lot. 08:31 So you have to rediscover the reality that you left. 08:34 What did I use to do before I went over there? 08:37 I used to go out, eat, I used to go to this place. 08:39 So I was at boarders one time, 08:41 just trying to get situational awareness, 08:44 get my feet back on the ground, and I had a friend call me. 08:47 He was in Kuwait, he never saw combat, 08:50 he was working at a hospital. 08:52 I was in the area of Mosul 08:54 where we were getting bombed and blown up, 08:55 mortars were coming in every day, 08:57 so the impact was quite different for me... 08:59 I can imagine. Than it was for him. 09:01 I got a call from him as I was going 09:04 through my recovery phase, 09:06 as I call it detoxification, day after day. 09:09 He calls me, he says Phil, 09:11 I'm finding myself more aggressive. 09:14 And I was feeling the same thing, 09:16 but I was saying, why is this guy 09:17 finding himself more aggressive, 09:18 when all he did was work at the hospital? 09:21 But he was seeing the broken bodies-- 09:23 Right. That was coming in. 09:27 You see, and we tend to take it 09:29 so lightly from the other side, 09:30 when we're sitting down and watching it on television. 09:33 We don't really understand the impact, 09:34 but those family members understand the impact. 09:37 What was the reaction 09:39 when your mother saw you, Brother Gray? 09:42 What happened, Mr. Gray, when he saw you? 09:45 Well, when I first came home, 09:50 I first went to see my girlfriend. 09:51 You See, your girlfriend? 09:52 I wanted to see my girlfriend. Before mama? 09:54 I wanted to see my girlfriend. 09:55 Oh, I couldn't wait... 09:57 The plane from Washington DC 09:59 at Walter Reed Hospital to Detroit, it was so slow. 10:04 The plane was slow? 10:05 I'd never been on a plane that's so slow. 10:07 Okay, okay. 10:08 I want to get out of there in a hurry. 10:11 And I go over to her house, 10:15 now this is my high school sweetheart. 10:16 Guess what? What? 10:18 She's 7 months pregnant. 10:19 Oh. 10:21 Seeing her like that was worse than being shot in Vietnam. 10:26 Because before I was shot, 10:27 the last letter I received from her was, 10:30 nothing will happen to you because you are so smart. 10:32 Wow. 10:34 I went home to my mother and she just cried. 10:37 Just to see her baby, all scarred up, 10:40 guts in the bag, I mean, you could just see my stomach, 10:43 because I was talking to the doctors. 10:46 I got to go home. I want to go home. 10:49 So what he did, he colored my stomach. 10:52 What do you mean they colored your stomach? 10:53 What happened, he put some black tar 10:56 or something on it, because I was open all here. 10:59 Then I had my colostomy out 11:02 and my mother wanted to see my stomach and she fainted. 11:05 She fainted. 11:06 I had a colostomy out, my stomach's messed up, 11:09 I was walking with a cane, my finger was gone, 11:12 I was set afire and she just fell out. 11:16 And just cried, just cried. 11:19 Well, on top of that we're talking about a society 11:21 that didn't accept you back. 11:24 You know, and then a girlfriend that was 7 months pregnant. 11:28 7 months pregnant. 11:29 So how did you keep it together? 11:32 Well, I don't even know. I don't even know. 11:36 I'll tell you what happened, 11:37 I was supposed to be home for 30 days. 11:40 I went home in a week 11:41 but I went back to work in one week's time. 11:44 Because I went back where my friends were. 11:46 Right, right. 11:47 Where you connected. 11:49 Right, right, where I connected. 11:50 Went back there. 11:51 You're home, you're back so soon? 11:53 Yeah, and the hospital, guys was all banged up 11:59 from Vietnam, lost limbs, lost this or that, 12:03 and their wives or girlfriends would come and look at them 12:05 and walk right out the door and go back home. 12:07 And just leave them? Just leave them. 12:10 Well, I'd like to say something about that 12:11 because, you know, the wives and girlfriends can't relate. 12:15 I think it takes a mature person to really try to relate. 12:19 But what usually ends up happening is, 12:21 is that the soldiers want to be normal, 12:23 and they think they're normal 12:24 and they think they can return back to normal, 12:26 but the spouses or significant others 12:28 see that they're different and, you know, 12:31 they just don't have the connectivity with 12:34 what they're going through 12:35 and they can't deal with it a lot of times. 12:36 So you're almost saying then that a process 12:40 or some type of therapy may be needed 12:45 for the family members just to accept a person back, 12:48 especially if he's a wounded veteran. 12:51 The families need to know because they think 12:53 they're getting the same person back and they're not. 12:55 They can't identify. 12:56 In fact, you can't even, soldiers can't really even talk 12:59 and go into detail, because as soon as-- 13:01 three seconds, three or four seconds 13:02 while you're telling them about your experience, 13:05 their eyes glaze over and you know they don't get it 13:07 and you don't want to talk about it anymore. 13:09 Did either one of you receive counseling after your tour? 13:12 No. 13:15 No? No counseling was provided? 13:17 No. 13:18 I definitely would believe that 13:19 you probably didn't receive one, 13:21 after Vietnam, you probably didn't. 13:22 Go out to the hospital, out in Allen Park, 13:27 they had all these Vietnam vets out there. 13:30 All kids of problems. They was given darvons. 13:34 You know what darvons are? Pain pills. 13:37 You didn't work on the system that was happening to them, 13:39 they was messed up here. 13:41 But they gave you a darvon. 13:43 In one town, I went to a private doctor, 13:47 he said, wow, you have ulcers all inside your stomach. 13:51 I had bleeding ulcers. Bleeding ulcers. 13:55 And all that the VA would to give him-- 13:56 give me and other guys was darvons. 14:00 They had to take-- They had to stop giving 14:01 those guys the darvons, make them crazy. 14:02 Yeah, I remember that. 14:03 You got addicted to it. The darvons. 14:06 They're taking drugs now, soldiers are heavily medicated 14:08 and they're not able to really be lucid in their thinking, 14:12 they just try to numb away the pain. 14:14 But I did go to counseling. You did? 14:17 And here's the reason why. 14:19 Chaplains don't-- people don't think 14:20 that chaplains actually engage in the battle, 14:23 they think they're sitting back, 14:24 waiting for soldiers to come with them. 14:25 I'm not cut that way just to sit at an oak desk 14:28 and wait for soldiers to come or whatever. 14:30 I engaged in the battle, I went out on the missions, 14:33 I was there with the soldiers 14:35 when they-- trucks got blown up and shot at 14:37 and all that stuff, I was there. 14:39 Not to mention that, I had 1,900 soldiers 14:42 under my purview, in a battalion, 14:46 all those guys came to one chaplain, I was their guy. 14:49 So I had problems, I was getting woken up 14:51 at 3 o'clock in the morning. 14:53 Chaplain, we just had a mission 14:55 that was hit, two soldiers are dead. 14:57 All of a sudden I got to get ready 14:58 for a memorial ceremony 15:00 and I know those guys and stuff like that. 15:02 Or I get waken up in the middle of the night 15:04 and the guy tells me, 15:06 I knew something bad was gonna happen, 15:07 I was just about to get on the radio 15:09 and tell 'em, and then we got hit 15:11 and those guys are dead, 15:12 you know, I'm dealing with all of this. 15:13 So all of this bad stuff that happened, where do I go? 15:17 I had social workers there coming to me for counseling. 15:20 Now so I go home with all of this stuff. 15:23 Where do I put it? My goodness. 15:25 And it wasn't till my dad was diagnosed with cancer, 15:28 and my girlfriend broke up with me, 15:31 that I started to kind of unravel. 15:32 Never missed a day of work, never missed a sermon, 15:35 but inside I was broken emotionally. 15:38 So what they have now 15:40 is they have military OneSource where you can call-- 15:43 And 24 hours you can call them. 15:45 And I cried and I talked to them on the phone 15:47 and the lady said, hey, you're going to be okay. 15:50 We understand what you're going through. 15:52 We're going to get you set up for somebody to talk to. 15:54 And they took care of me. 15:56 I needed that, because I had nowhere 15:57 to download all of that stuff. 15:58 For that 13 months that first tour. 16:01 So that was effective for you? 16:03 It was. It helped, it helped. 16:05 In a real critical period in my life, it really helped. 16:08 Big time. 16:09 We had that-- when I came from Vietnam, 16:13 a lot of guys were a lot better off. 16:16 Seeing bodies burnt, with the napalm, 16:21 seeing your friends that 16:22 you got to hold them till he die. 16:25 You have to put them in the body bag and zip 'em up. 16:29 And that stays right with you. 16:31 You know, the mind is not supposed to see that. 16:34 You know, I saw brain matter rolling down 16:36 the side of a vehicle, after a guy-- 16:37 'Cause, you know, they call the chaplain in for this stuff. 16:40 You're not supposed to see that. 16:43 Not in that environment, you know, you don't anticipate 16:46 that that's what you're going to see. 16:47 That's what war is and when you wake up 16:49 to that reality, it changes you forever. 16:52 So now we're at a point 16:53 where post traumatic stress has been recognized 16:58 as something that is extremely debilitating, 17:01 especially when we're talking about dealing with combat. 17:06 So what do you see in the future 17:10 as far as something that's going to be significant, 17:15 to really help veterans coming back? 17:18 Well, what they're doing now for the Vietnam vets, 17:20 what the DAV, the VFW and the other agencies, 17:26 all have the same symptoms, the same problems. 17:29 Oh, something wrong with that. 17:32 Now they're getting help. 17:34 Lot of these guys came home, 17:35 went to work, they're retired now, 17:37 now they have all kinds of problems. 17:40 Sexual problems, everything. 17:42 Sexual problems, everything. 17:44 So now their needs are being looked after. 17:48 But look at that, that's 40 years later. 17:49 40 years later. 17:51 40 years later, and a lot of the guys 17:52 that came home got married, divorced, married, divorced. 17:57 If they had the counseling, 17:59 things would have been a lot better. 18:00 Well, you know, I want to look at the future, 18:05 and look at the lives because there have been 18:07 some happy endings for many of our soldiers. 18:09 Oh, yes. 18:10 And tell us what you're doing now and, Mr. Gray, 18:15 I want to know how you came 18:18 into the Seventh-day Adventist message. 18:20 How did you become a Christian? 18:22 I had a girlfriend that broke up with me. 18:24 I know but it was-- 18:26 Oh, man, she broke my heart. 18:28 I mean, she-- 18:30 I was thinking about suicide and everything. 18:34 I mean, all these women breaking up with me 18:36 and all this bad luck with women, 18:38 what's my problem? 18:40 My grandmother called me. 18:41 Your grandmother? 18:42 She said, why don't you come out 18:44 to California for a little while? 18:45 Okay. She was an Adventist. 18:46 Is that right? 18:48 And I took a leave from work, 18:51 went out to San Jose, California, 18:54 and come, go to church with me. 18:55 I don't want to go to church with you, 18:56 I didn't come out here to go to church. 18:58 I went out there to get a girlfriend. 19:03 That's what I went out there for. 19:04 To find another... 19:05 You were gonna find you someone else. 19:06 Find me somebody. 19:07 Okay, 'cause you did not want to be alone. 19:09 Right. Okay. 19:11 You know, I never went to church with her. 19:13 I called my cousin, 19:14 we'd go to Fresco and Oakland and party, 19:17 come home Friday nights, make grandma mad. 19:20 You know, come go to church with me. 19:22 Oh, grandma, I can't go today, I'll go next week. 19:25 My aunt, also an Adventist, 19:26 she said, come go to church with me. 19:28 Okay, just to get away from grandma, 19:31 I went to her, I went to church with her. 19:34 But the night before I went to church with her, 19:36 she told me everything, everything. 19:40 Why God did this, why God did that, why, why, why. 19:44 And when I went to church for that Sabbath, 19:45 everybody in South Central 19:47 Seventh-day Adventist Church knew who I was. 19:50 They had been praying for you. 19:51 You are Sister Gray's grandson. I met Pastor Hart. 19:55 He said, young man, we've been praying for you. 19:56 Wow. 19:58 When we heard you got shot, we fast for you. 20:00 Wow. 20:02 And I said well-- I started taking Bible studies. 20:05 And I said, well, when I get back to Detroit, 20:07 I'll join the church. 20:10 Two years later I joined a church two years. 20:11 It took you two years. 20:13 From when you came from California? 20:14 But you joined. 20:16 I joined the church. The snow was that deep. 20:19 And you joined? I joined the church. 20:21 And then, 'cause you were employed where? 20:24 For a motor company. 20:25 For a motor company until you retired. 20:27 And then you met, you met that girlfriend. 20:30 Well, a mutual friend of ours introduced me. 20:33 And I said, wow, look at this young lady. 20:37 And she walked down the center aisle 20:39 to cedar top towards the back door 20:40 and as she turned around, I got her. 20:44 And she turned around and looked at me 20:46 and I started chasing her ever since. 20:49 But you know what, this is the-- 20:52 A friend of mine's mother told me that 20:54 the Lord put people in your life just for a season. 20:57 And all these girlfriends that broke up with me, 21:00 they was only there for a season. 21:01 For a season. 21:02 Until my wife came along, 21:05 and she was the one that the Lord had chose for me. 21:08 Yeah, it's a long time ago. 21:09 And how long have you all been married? 21:10 36 years. 21:12 36 years. I'm blessed. 21:13 Three children, and two and a half 21:16 grandchildren, you got another grandchild. 21:17 We've got one in the oven now. 21:18 One in the oven. 21:20 And now you're working with veterans. 21:22 Oh, yes, I go down to the VA on Thursdays. 21:25 Do you? 21:26 Talk to the veterans. That's wonderful. 21:27 And what did-- Go ahead. 21:28 And also with the DAV, post number one on Puritan, 21:32 where we work with veterans as well. 21:34 Right. And DAV stands for? 21:36 Disabled American Veterans. 21:37 Now one of the things that 21:40 I've seen in the news recently is that a lot of the veterans 21:46 that are coming home now 21:48 from the wars are not only suffering 21:51 from post traumatic stress, but they're also homeless. 21:55 I mean, which is astounding. 21:57 Because they are unable to find employment, 22:00 they are unable to-- 22:03 A lot of them that may qualify for certain benefits, 22:06 haven't even applied, 22:08 so they're on the streets, you know. 22:11 And so how do you see that changing 22:13 or if you see that changing? 22:14 Well, I heard recently this initiative 22:16 by the president to provide-- 22:18 Funds were available for individuals that 22:20 wanted to put homes together for veterans 22:24 that were without homes. 22:25 There's a lot of programs available. 22:27 The issue is getting the message out to those guys, 22:29 you know, I think more than it's ever been before, 22:32 there's programs available. 22:34 There's the counseling 24 hours, 22:36 all they have to do is call or go online 22:38 and they can get in touch with somebody. 22:40 Same thing for homes. 22:42 There's programs but they just need to know. 22:44 They don't have that knowledge. 22:45 They don't have the knowledge. Pastor Willis? 22:47 Now you have married, new baby, and you're pastoring. 22:52 And you're still, like you said, active, you're still, 22:55 you know, is that the reserve that you're in a part of? 22:57 I am just transferred to the reserves. 22:58 To the reserves. 22:59 So you were in a National Guard. 23:00 I was in the National Guard 23:01 and I transferred to the reserves. 23:04 Now you are pastoring in Gary, Indiana. 23:07 That's right, and South Chicago. 23:08 And South Chicago. Two churches. 23:10 And you have a program called the Man College. 23:12 Tell me about that. 23:14 You know, Man College is a really aggressive program 23:16 that we developed after looking at our community. 23:18 64% of all the families in Gary, Indiana 23:21 and South Chicago are from single parents, 23:23 primarily female dominated. 23:25 64%, so that means that 23:29 you have boys and girls out there with only one parent. 23:32 And if they have a job, 23:33 who's taking care of those kids? 23:35 But I noticed in my church that 23:36 we found some of the boys were aggressive, 23:40 some of them having been raised by their mother, 23:42 their grandmother and their sister, 23:44 had some characteristics that were un-man like. 23:48 Long fingernails, not well groomed, 23:50 you know, aggressive behavior, 23:52 and I said, we definitely need to do something. 23:54 There was an incident that raised my awareness, 23:56 where we had a young man, had responded to somebody 23:59 and he punched two holes in the wall of our church. 24:01 And I said, we've got to do something aggressively 24:03 to help wrap our arms around them 24:05 and to embrace them and teach them. 24:07 So we developed Man College 24:09 which goes back to the basis of education 24:11 and align them with positive male role models 24:15 that will help them through some tough times in life 24:17 and just some coaching and mentoring and teaching. 24:20 Let me ask now, is Man College 24:24 a part of maybe your philosophy from your military experience? 24:30 I would have to say so. 24:32 You know, because predominantly, 24:33 majority of the guys that I worked with were men 24:36 and I got a chance to see how they were, 24:38 and how they were impacted by it. 24:40 I came back, after I volunteered 24:43 for my second tour and that had something to do 24:44 with reintegration, because I saw that 24:47 I was better suited, after one year of that 24:50 horrible experience to go back again, 24:52 then stay here and deal with the reality. 24:54 That's a major decision. 24:55 And you know what? 24:56 A lot of soldiers are doing that, multiple tours, 24:59 and that's why their PTSD is a greater number now 25:02 than it's ever been in the former wars, 25:05 because of the multiple tours that they're having. 25:07 Well, you know, was to give them opportunity 25:11 to find some type of success, 25:13 here and in the United States, when they get out, 25:15 if there's no employment, I'd rather go back. 25:18 Go back. 25:20 Well, what they can do is get involved. 25:22 Is get involved in the social programs, 25:27 just out at the Peterson-Warren Academy 25:28 I take guys fishing, 25:30 take 'em to ball games, take 'em bowling, 25:32 work with them how to be a man. 25:35 When I first joined the church, I used to be an escort. 25:39 A escort what? 25:40 An escort. A military escort. 25:43 Oh, okay, you know what I was thinking, right? 25:46 You know what we were thinking. 25:48 I mean... that's why we had 25:50 to ask you two or three times. 25:52 A military escort. Okay. 25:55 At Walter Reed, the colonel came in 25:57 and said, can you walk? 25:58 Yes, okay, you're going down to Fort Bragg to be an escort. 26:01 Because I was still taking, 26:03 still getting operations and everything. 26:05 So I would talk-- take girls out, 26:09 colonel's daughter, the general's daughter, 26:11 and we wanted to train them how to treat a lady, 26:13 how to hold their hand, how to do things like that. 26:16 So out at Peterson, 26:19 I taught the young guys how to hold a lady's hand, 26:22 how to bow to 'em and everything. 26:26 That's what I did with Peterson. 26:28 We do the same thing with Man College. 26:30 And we have 28 boys that we're working with, 26:31 from the city, they're not members of the church 26:33 but we recruited them from the streets. 26:35 28 young men, we're teaching them 26:37 how to dress, how to prepare for interview, 26:39 how to, you know, just be gentlemen, 26:41 and not respond in an aggressive manner. 26:42 And a lot of the young men that you're dealing with 26:46 come from referrals within the community. 26:48 That's correct. Yes, the referrals. 26:49 That's a good deal, so that's the church, 26:51 your church, and a community 26:53 coming together to address this issue. 26:54 That's right, and the discipline, 26:56 the military side helps me teach them the discipline 26:58 that they need to make better decisions and exposure. 27:02 You know what, you need a part three to this, okay? 27:05 But we have truly enjoyed you being with us, 27:08 you got to come back again 27:09 because there's so much information 27:11 that our viewers need. 27:12 I want to thank you, Pastor Philip Willis 27:14 and Mr. Roscoe Gray, and let me say, the reason why, 27:17 in our previous show, I referred to him as elder, 27:20 and he's our first elder of the City Temple 27:23 Seventh-day Adventist church 27:24 and he's served in so many capacities 27:27 but the role of the elder is right underneath the pastor, 27:29 to be there to support, to strengthen 27:32 and to help guide, and he truly has been that. 27:36 And our spiritual leader under our pastor. 27:39 Well, Arthur, I'm glad that you're home 27:42 and that you're safe. 27:43 Pastor Willis and Mr. Roscoe Gray. 27:46 I'm still suffering from PTSD when I'm at home. 27:50 He does, seriously, well, seriously, he does 27:52 and I mean, seriously and I've noticed some things 27:55 but it's gotten better over the years, so we thank God. 27:57 It's a support system though. 27:59 It is a support system, it really is. 28:00 The support system if it's there then 28:02 that can make things a whole lot easier. 28:04 And that's what I've come to see. 28:07 Could you say that again? Nothing like a good wife. 28:09 I have a good wife. I'm gonna close with that. 28:11 I'm Dr. Kim Logan Nowlin. And I'm Arthur Nowlin. 28:13 And thank you for joining us 28:15 on another program of "Making it Work." |
Revised 2015-04-27