Helping Veterans: Mighty Oaks Is Producing Lasting Results and 100% Success Rate. In today’s episode, we talk with Chad Robichaux, founder of Mighty Oaks Warrior Programs. Mighty Oaks is a Foundation committed to serving the brokenhearted by providing intensive peer-based discipleship through a series of programs, outpost meetings, and speaking events. Listen to this episode to find out how you can help vets in your community and across the nation.
Air Date:Â 03/28/2017
Guests: Chad Robichaux, David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton
- WallBuilders | American historical events, founding fathers, historical documents, books, videos, CDs, tapes, David Barton’s speaking schedule.
- Mighty Oaks
Listen:
Download: Click Here
Transcription note: Â As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Â However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Â Additionally, names may be misspelled because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.
Welcome
Rick:
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. Â This is WallBuilders Live! Where we”re talking about these hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, always looking at it from Biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.
We’re here with David Barton America’s premiere historian and the founder of WallBuilders. Also, Tim Barton with us today national speaker, pastor, and president of WallBuilders. And my name’s Rick Green. Â I’m a former Texas state rep.
Find out more about us and the organization at our websites WallBuilders.com and WallBuildersLive.com. WallBuilders is a national pro-family organization presenting America’s forgotten history and heroes with an emphasis on our religious, moral, and constitutional heritage.
Faith Based Programs Produce The Most Results
David, Tim, we cover a lot of topics on this program. One of the ones I think we all three enjoy the most is how to serve, not just honor, our veterans, how to actually bring glory to God in that arena and to take care of these guys when they come home. They’ve been out there laying their lives down for us.
We’ve had guys like General Dees and many other folks that have have devoted their lives to that on the program. They were talking about the epidemic of, what, 22 suicides a day, an 80 percent divorce rate out there. And there’s more that can be done to help prevent, not just when they come home, but help to prevent it from happening in the first place.
David:
We do care about that, do want to get involved. One of the things I run, I work with several organizations and in one area I run a charity. As part of those charities, part of what we do in these charities, we have a veterans section. A veterans section because there is some money over there from the chief fundraiser. We have money available.
So, we’re getting requests all the time from all these veterans groups to help fund them and fund what they do, job stuff, halfway house, and whatever it is.
And I’ve just been kind of a stick in the mud since I get to run it, “Well, I really liked the idea of helping veterans, but I want to see some metrics. I want to know that what you do actually works.”
It”s like Kill 22. Â Everybody has heard about Kill 22, became real popular. What it did was highlight the fact that you”ve got 22 veterans a day that are committing suicide, particularly combat deployed veterans.
“We want to stop that, so give money to kill 22.” Well, you’ve done a great job of highlighting the problem. What’s your success rate in being able to stop those 22 suicides a day? Just highlighting is good, but where is your solution?
There’s a lot of groups that we get requests from and we don’t necessarily give to because it’s a great idea, but it doesn’t necessarily produce the results that they want. And what we have found over time is the things that produce the best results are faith-based programs.
Whether it be General Dees, as you mentioned. He retired two-star general and was so concerned about the condition of guys mentally, psychologically, etc., that he really got into what to do with this. All the studies and all the work he did working with just countless hospitals and medical programs, he found out that the ones that have the metrics that work are faith-based programs. That’s really where we are, we want to help these guys.
Rick:
Didn’t we find that also in prisons? You can look in other areas of the culture when you have the faith tell me you get more success. You remember how doing the faith-based prisons and actually speaking to the heart and the spiritual part of it, the recidivism. Â What was it like six or seven percent when it’s faith-based versus–?
David:
Yeah, and in the 15 or so states that have faith-based prisons- and in those prisons you still do your time. You”ve got to do your time, nothing changes there. But while you’re there you get spiritual input. And for those who get spiritual input, spiritual direction, spiritual guidance, where that prison focus not on just the outside but in the inside, focus on the heart – Jesus told us way back and in Mark 7 that crime comes out of the heart, doesn’t come out of the hand it comes out of the heart.
So if you can solve the heart problem you can solve what’s in the hand, solve the crime. And so in those 15 states or so, the stats were- and they measured what’s called, “recidivism.” Â In other words, if you are release from prison in three years what percentage of those guys will be back in prison? Â
I don’t gamble, but if I were in Vegas and I had the opportunity to lay down a bet and the odds on the one side wore one out of three chance that I would win and my other option was the odds were 11 out of 12 that I would win, I would definitely take the 11 out of 12 as opposed to the one out of three.
So 11 out of 12, that’s what we get on a faith-based program only 8 percent don’t win. Only 8 percent go back to prison, as opposed to a secular program where the 67-68 percent do go back in prison. Two out of three are losers as opposed to one out of three. I would definitely go with 11 or 12 in this faith-based programs.
Think what that means in terms of you need fewer prisons, you need fewer wardens, you need fewer prison guards-
Rick:
Fewer people are harmed.
David:
Yeah, the victims’ side of it, less property is taken, fewer lives lost, so, the program that worked, you need halfway houses and they’re great, but when you get faith-based stuff now you’re really looking at a probability of success rather than a two out of three probability of failure.
Rick:
We”re going to take a quick break, but we’ll be right back. Stay with us. Â You’re listening to WallBuilders Live!
Moment From American History
This is TimBarton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. In the early seventeen hundreds, the Reverend John Wise preached that all men were created equal, that taxation without representation was tyranny, and that God’s preferred form of government was the consent of the governed.
All of which is language recognizable in the Declaration of Independence. Why? Because in 1772 the Sons of Liberty led by founders Sam Adams and John Hancock reprinted and distributed the Reverend Wise’s sermons.
Four years later much of the Declaration reflected the language of those sermons by John Wise. Â In 1926 on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence President Calvin Coolidge affirmed, “The thoughts in the Declaration can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was saying.”
Few today know that the Declaration was so strongly influenced by the Rev. John Wise. For more information on this and other stories go to WallBuilders.com.
Christian Schools Have A Higher Performance Level
Rick:
Welcome back! Â Thanks for staying with us here on WallBuildersLive. We’re talking today about, specifically, how to better serve our members of the military and prevent this 22 suicides a day, and an 80 percent divorce rate.
Also looking at the other examples where the one key element that is sometimes left out in programs, and they don’t work as well, is the faith element. David, you were talking about the prison example and faith-based prisons versus secular prisons. Tim, on the break you were mentioning and you thought education was the same thing.
Tim:
Yeah, I think there’s probably several categories you can point to. Â But certainly, if you look at modern education that is a very clear distinction if you look at what the U.S. Supreme Court did back in 1962, 1963, where they said, “Hey, God’s not allowed in public schools anymore.”
And you see the impact it had when you remove God from the equation, you have the increase in violent crime, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, and academically they’re just, I mean, the floor fell off from under them, right?
That the achievement testing, we used to be number one in the entire industrialized world. Now, depending on whether we’re talking a math, science, or comprehension, or whatever category you’re looking at, we’re down in the 20s -50s. We’re, in public education, not doing well.
But you contrast that with private schools, Christian schools, and homeschool groups that feature and focus on faith, you see the same level of performance that public education to be number one in the world. Well, that’s still happening in a lot of these private and Christian schools. Where faith is prioritized you don’t see the same level of problems.
We mentioned on the show before that even from our own US Department of Education, they identify that some 19 percent of graduating seniors are functionally illiterate. Seniors graduate from public school after over $150,000 worth of education that’s been pumped into them, they can’t even read or write. Â Well, that”s public education. That”s a very clear delineation between public schools and Christian schools, the most significant distinction is the God factor.
David:
Well, actually, we’ve got stats on that, even through the Department of Education. Their own stats show that if you go to a religious based school, whether that’s private, or parochial, or Christian, or homeschool, or whatever, you usually average two to four grade levels higher than your counterparts in public schools.
Public schools say, “Well, you guys don’t have the diversity we have.” No, there’s over two dozen studies that show that there’s more diversity in private education than public education, having more racial diversity, more demographic diversity, etc.
Private schools have the same kind of issues, but they take a different approach to it. They get two to four grade levels higher on the difference.
Fun Fact About Benjamin Rush
This really goes back to something that Benjamin Franklin said a long time ago. Â I think it”s in his Poor Richard’s Almanac, but Benjamin Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Right now, we try to shut the barn door after the horses are out. Whereas, we used to try to keep it from getting out. And so we understood the spiritual nature of man, that if you deal with the spiritual things.
Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration, talking about education he warned that if you ever took the Bible out of schools and didn’t teach the Bible in schools, you would have a crime explosion.
Because they understood that what prevents the bad behavior is internal restraints that come through the Word of God. By the way, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” type of stuff.
Benjamin Rush is also the guy that came up with the idea of brushing your teeth. He said, “If you can brush your teeth, you”ll keep your teeth from decaying and if you do something simple like brushing your teeth then you won’t have gum disease and gum disease leads to infections throughout the whole body.” He talked about how just brushing your teeth could keep your whole body healthy by keeping disease down.
Rick:
Wait, all these years of learning about all these Founding Fathers around you, I’ve never heard that story. So, Benjamin Rush came up with that? Do you have that in your Benjamin Rush book?
David:
Yes.
Rick:
I guess I didn’t pay close enough attention. How did I miss that?
David:
It was the little things that make a big difference.
Rick:
This a guy who signed the Declaration of Independence. We trained like 2,000 doctors with all these crazy things. incredible things he did. He came up with brushing teeth. I didn’t know that.
David:
Oh yeah, from a medical standpoint. By the way, he’s also the guy who came up and told us, “Well, I now know that smoking tobacco causes lung cancer and chewing tobacco causes mouth cancer.” Two hundred years ago, Bro.
Chad Robichaux Organization Has A 100% Success Rate Â
Rick:
Wow. Well, I got you off track there. Â You were talking about the prevention thing. He said, “We’d have more crime.” Look at our culture 40-50 years now taking God out of the classroom. And we’ve got this sex trafficking thing, we’ve got prisons full, we see it all over the place.
David:
We do see it all over. Like we”re talking about before, we look at military organizations and we try to help those that really have a success rate that can show metrics. Not just good ideas but they can show things actually work. One of those has been Mighty Oaks Warriors Program.
We’ve had Chad Robichaux on before. Force Recon Marine, he’s an undefeated MMA fighter, just unbelievable guy. But he went through serious PTSD that screwed up his family, screwed up his life, the way he got out of that was a spiritual help.
A guy who is a Texas rep took him under the arm and mentored him, said, “What you need is God. Here’s what will fix it.” And it has done that. Since then, Chad has now gone in and they have had more than, I guess, nearly twelve hundred guys go through the program who are looking at suicide as an option and thus far they have zero suicides out of twelve hundred guys that really have serious problems.
But the “Ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” philosophy, their now into at this point. They’ve been having to deal with guys who come back home with serious divorce problems or want to get a divorce or PTSD or whatever.
Now they’re able to go into boot camps and start telling these guys ahead of time, “Here’s a spiritual solution you need. And when you get deployed you”ve got to keep this in mind. If you do this it’ll prevent all this kind of nonsense that everybody’s facing.” And it is working.
So, this spiritual approach is a very effective approach. And Chad’s got a brand new book out. It’s kind of lays all this out for the guys. This is what they’re giving to guys who are about to be deployed. Â Guys are going in and boot camp and it kind of lays out that you really need to see the solution before you get there. If you don’t understand there’s a spiritual component you’ll never be able to handle the pressures you’re going to be under. So great book by Chad, a great organization. Â It”s one that we give to at WallBuilders.
People give to us, and we tithe what they give to us. Â We take 10 percent of that and put it into other organizations that we think are doing fruitful things and Mighty Oaks Warriors Program is one of those groups.
Rick:
What you’re saying is that they have the spiritual element in the cure for these folks that are coming back that they didn’t have the chance to work with before they switched over. Which is working because they”ve got the right element in there.
But now, they’re saying, “We can do both.” So we’re going to have the cure part with the right spiritual element. Still get these incredible results, but now we’re actually going to do the prevention part as well and Chad’s really been given a lot of favor. Â Like you were saying, in a lot of these bases and different places where he’s able to minister to these guys. He has a new book out to do that as well. He’s going to be our guest today. Â Chad Robichaux, when we come back on WallBuilders Live!
America”s History
This is David Barton with another moment from America’s history. In several decisions, over recent years the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that it is unconstitutional for the government to encourage religion.
Did our Founding Fathers agree with this? Consider the words of Henry Lawrence, a signer of the Constitution, and a president of Congress. Henry Lawrence declared, “I had the honor of being one who framed that Constitution, in order effectually to accomplish these great ends set forth in the Constitution. It is especially the duty of those who bear rule to promote and encourage respect for God and virtue and to discourage every degree of vice and immorality.”
Founding Father Henry Lawrence believed that the goals of the Constitution could not be fulfilled apart from a fear and a respect for God and that it was, therefore, the duty of government to encourage this among the people. For more information on God’s hand in American history. Contact WallBuilders at 1 800 8 REBUILD.
Mighty Oaks Warrior Program
Rick:
Welcome back! Â Thanks for staying with us here on Wallbuilders Live. Our good friend Chad Robichaux is with us. Â He’s the founder of Mighty Oaks Warrior programs. Â We will give out that website today. In fact, if you have not heard one of our programs with Chad you’ve got to check out this ministry, Â It”s a great one to support. We love supporting them. Â They’re getting incredible results. Chad, always good to have you, Brother. Thanks for coming back on.
Chad:
Great to be on. I had a great week with you last week and now I get to do this again.
Rick:
Hey, you”ve got a new book coming out as well, right?
An Unfair Advantage
Chad:
We’re working on one right now called, “An Unfair Advantage” and it’s really a collection of some of my stories from Afghanistan, and life, and diving into the parallels of stories from the Bible from warrior stories and finding that an unfair advantage that comes with having a relationship with Christ.
Rick:
Awesome! And then you’ve got, “Path to Resiliency” that recently came out.
Chad:
That’s right, we have Path to Resiliency, Jeremy Stalnecker and I wrote it, and you were able to help us with it. Now, we”ve made it as a gift to our active duty and veteran service members to get more of a preemptive side to have them be able to be prepared for that military service, even in combat. To not just fall on your face and struggle, to get out afterward, but to be prepared.
Serving Them Before They Go In
Rick:
Well, you’ve been dealing with, at Mighty Oaks, the back end, right? I mean, they come home when you’re dealing with the struggles and the and the challenges, just like you personally went through. So, what you’re saying as you said, “Hey, wait a minute. Â There are some prevention methods that we need to get in the hands of these folks.”
Chad:
Yeah, when we first started Mighty Oaks we were working on the guys that were getting out and the veteran community. Â Then we kept moving left, so to speak, of the incident getting closer and closer.
We’re getting guys right when they come home. We realized, “Hey, we’re serving the wounded warrior battalions, the guys that are hurt. What if we could get on the front end of this and take the same principles and put them on the front end and guys could apply these principles in their life and walk into these traumatic or stressful situations with this knowledge and have some preventative measures.”
So, the military has allowed us to do that. A lot of platforms, one being I go to the Marine Corps boot camp and speak on spiritual resiliency. I do pre-deployment briefs. So in doing that, realizing we’re having an effect an impact, we want to have to leave behind.
So, we wrote Path to Resiliency. It”s kind of palatable, smaller book, about 75 pages of reading, something that an 18-year-old Marine would actually feel like they can digest and read and put application in their life.
We just printed five thousand of them. We’ve almost given them all out already and we have just had a request for 100,000. To get out the troops across the country.
You Can Help Your Vets
Rick:
So, a listener right now that has someone in their lives that they like to get one to can go to Mighty Oaks website and buy one and give it to them. But sounds like also you need donors out there and others that would be willing to help you get some more printed and get them distributed to the to these folks as well?
Chad:
That’s right. We sell them on a website for nine bucks. Â It’s a terrible deal for a buyer because this is extremely overpriced, but we do that in the way that we could we could turn around and take those profit margins and get it in the hands of another warrior. So, a great way to support is to buy it.
Rick:
Oh, so it”s a double whammy? They get one for their family member or friend that that needs one but by paying the nine bucks they’re paying for a few more copies for you to be able to get out to others.
Chad:
That’s right. And like I said, we just had a request for a hundred thousand of them. So we’re trying to figure out how to do that now. We want to get them into the hands of our troops before, particularly since it”s a special opportunity that the military is allowing us to put them in the hands of our guys.
Rick:
Well, folks that are listening, this is not some just concept. Chad didn’t just come back and say, “Hey, I think I might want to do this or why don’t I start a ministry? His story is absolutely amazing. You can learn more about it at his website MightyOaksPrograms.org. Or we’ll have links to our past interviews with Chad on the website today, where you can also hear those stories. But more importantly, you’re going to hear the stories of the success that they’ve had at Mighty Oaks. Chad, you guys are over a thousand now, that have come to the program, right?
Mighty Oaks Is Producing Lasting Results
Chad:
Twelve hundred thirty-nine. We just had 20 new students show up last night at the ranch in California and they’re diving right in this week. And you know, I’m not there, I got to report that the session is underway and they”re doing great.
They”ve got some really challenging cases like we usually do, but that’s what we want. We want the worst case scenarios because we feel like and, I”ve talked about this many times, we feel like we have the solution and we’re happy.
Rick:
Well, the results speak for themselves. You’re talking average out there of what, 22-23 suicides a day, 80 percent divorce rates. You guys are putting a stop to that with the people that come through your program.
Chad:
That’s right, we’ve had to date, 0 suicides of our graduates and despite the fact that we are dealing with some of the worst cases.
Rick:
Yeah, these are guys-
Chad:
We’re asking for the worst cases.
Rick:
They literally have been to hell and back. Â The ministry that you guys are doing, we owe it to these folks that are coming back. These are the people putting their lives on the line for us. We love supporting your ministry, we love seeing the results that you get.
Listeners out there, go to the website today, http://www.mightyoaksprograms.org to learn more. You can get on Chad’s email list, you can find out about the programs. Â You probably have somebody in your family or friends that need to go through this, and maybe you can come alongside Chad and help them finance these books that are going to go out to so many hundred thousand requests. Or maybe even sponsor someone to attend the program. Chad you keep up the great work man. God bless you. Â Thanks for all you’re doing. Let’s get some folks out there helping you.
Chad:
Thanks! God bless you guys!
Rick:
Stay with us folks, Â We’ll be back in a moment with David.
Truth Be Told With Tim Barton and David Pate
Tim:
Hi, this is Tim Barton from WallBuilders and we are battling culture and attack on truth. Â In fact, the majority of Americans now no longer believe that there are absolutes and that absolute truth does not exist. Well, we are being bombarded from an existentialist, a postmodern, a humanistic, and a secular worldview that tells us the truth is how we define it. Truth is what we imagine, truth is what we believe.
Well, friends, I can tell you that’s not the way it works. In fact, God defined truth in the Word of God and laid out very clearly what it is. And we have great examples from history. They show us some things work and some things don’t work. What we’ve done a while ago is to try to help combat this attack against truth. Â
We started a conference called Truth Be Told.  One of the other speakers, David Pate, and myself team up and we go around from city to city talking about cultural issues but looking at it from a Biblical perspective and from American history seeing the examples. And so if you want to learn more about how we can apply truth to various issues of culture you can go visit our website, WallBuilders.com  and look for information on Truth Be Told. Friends, in a time when truth is being attacked, it’s time for truth to be told.
Trusting In God To Fix Even The Worst Of Situations
Rick:
Thanks for staying with us here on WallBuilders Live. Back now with David and Tim Barton. Thanks to Chad Robichaux for being with us today and for the incredible work they’re doing at Mighty Oaks Warriors Program.
You guys were exactly right. He’s saying, “Look, we figured out what works on the back end if we can give them that information ahead of time. Then you have fewer than that that have to deal with those problems coming home.”
David:
Yeah, I love the fact that not only are they helping guys get ready but as he said, they’ve started another 20. And by the way, he thought he was talking to me when he was talking to you. So, that’s what all that stuff was at the beginning. He texted afterward, “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry.” So we just talked to Chad.
Rick:
I was being stealth.
David:
Well, I’m sorry. Sorry, you got insulted but being compared to me.
Rick:
I”m going to therapy right after we get off the air.
David:
Exactly. I love the fact that as he pointed, “Yeah, but we’re asking for the worst problems. We want the worst problems and that’s usually not what you hear from any program. But this is the confidence they have, and the metrics and the numbers they have that this thing works so well that you’ll give us the absolute biggest problems you’ve got.
I love the fact that this thing is now working so well that they”re actually getting active duty assignments from commanders who can’t handle the guys they’re sending over Chad these guys and they come back totally different soldiers.
A Tear Jerker Story
Tim:
And let me just point out, Dad, you’ve said several times “the metrics of it.” Â Now, although that is technically correct what they have is some of the best testimonies. The reason that Chad wants these really tough cases is because that’s who he was. His life was broken and his marriage was broken and he was a terrible father.
His testimony is just remarkable all the things that he was dealing with and went through. What that redemption, that faith element in his life, what God was able to do in his life, what he allowed God to come in and do in the restorative process.
All that happened, because of it. Â Those testimonies are what they get. Every single group of guys they have come in God shows up and God does these incredible things. So they’ve seen the reality of faith of God in the life makes such a difference.
So, it’s not just the metrics. They have these testimonies on every single class, every session they do. And so this is why they want these tough cases because they know exactly what God has been faithful to do for them and they know he can do it for someone else.
David:
They”ve got some of those testimonies posted. Â You and I recently heard of a guy who really has just gotten himself turned around, just finished the program. But he had tried to kill himself. He jumped out a 60-foot window to kill himself but it didn”t.
He’s been running 30,000 soldiers under him, he’s a big high soldier guy. Now, he’s got a whole different purpose for life and living. It’s a cool story to see. Â It’s a tearjerker when you see it, it”s only five-six minute long. You can go to their website and you can look at some of the testimonial stories, absolutely phenomenal.
If you want to help Chad, $1,000 bucks will send one veteran through their program. So a thousand bucks, if you want to contribute, or if you want to give 10 bucks or anything. Â This is good ground to put some money into it because you will get good returns on this.
Rick:
You can also help get more of those books out as well. Â The need is obviously there. A hundred thousand copies requested so you can make a donation to help pay for some of those books or buy a few of them yourself and it’ll help pay for some additional ones as well and you give them to your friends and family that have served in the military or are headed off to serve in the military. Thanks so much for listening today. Â You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.
Leave A Comment