Giving Our Veterans A New Opportunity – with General Bob Dees: Our black history segment today is on Bridget Mason, the story of a former slave who goes on to become very successful and start churches in California. Our interview segment is with General Bob Dees to talk about their Valor Farm program, taking Veterans who need help becoming re-acclimated to society. It’s a one-year program where patriots can learn new trades and get plugged back in to society.

Air Date: 2/28/2023

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Tim Barton and Rick Green

Guest: General Bob Dees

Valor Farm link

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Transcription:

Rick Green
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders. We’re taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I’m Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton. And we’re thrilled that you’ve joined us. You can also join us on our websites WallBuilders.com, and also WallBuildersLive.com . You can make a contribution there, one time or monthly. It’s a great way to come alongside us, lock shields with us. By supporting us, you’re helping us to train pastors and teachers and students and all kinds of folks on the Constitution on founding principles, and restoring our constitutional republic. David and Tim, of course, we’re in February, we got a few more days to go with some great stories. No, this is the last day isn’t it? This is our last chance to do a hero of history, Tim, you’ve done so many of these are so good. I think it might become habitual, we’ll just have to do this. Maybe once a week, I don’t know, we’ll think about it. But here’s your last one for Black History Month, here we go.

Tim Barton
If it wasn’t for all the work, we would definitely do these more often. And it definitely does cut into some of the conversation about some cultural events. However, I mean, it’s so important that we’re able to highlight some of these heroes, to push back against some of the modern CRT 1619 narrative. Really, really the Marxist narrative is what we’re talking about where you’re you, are defined as either oppressed or an oppressor based on the color of your skin. I mean, something that’s totally unbiblical and really not even historically accurate, which is why we wanted to take time and highlight some of the stories. We’ve got so many emails, even to the month of February, where people have offered suggestions of people that should be covered. We have entire books of some incredible black heroes from American history, that we haven’t even scratched the surface of how many amazing heroes we can talk about. And certainly we could do this throughout the year. But the last one we’re highlighting this month is Bridget Mason, also Biddy Mason as she was known, she was someone like many of the individuals we talked about was born in the slavery was able to overcome really negative situation and circumstances to accomplish some pretty significant things. And so for her, she was born in the Deep South, she was sold multiple times, across the South in Georgia and Mississippi and South Carolina. She actually served as a midwife in a lot of the different homes where she was in slave plantations. And so she developed some medical skills and abilities, she ends up when she’s 18 being sold in a group of slaves… or given in a group of slaves as a wedding present to Robert Smith in Mississippi. And a cousin of her owner of South Carolina while serving on the plantation, she ends up giving birth to three daughters. And then several years later, the family decides, the Smith family decides, that they’re going to move west. And so they’re loading up the cargo from their plantation, they take all the slaves with them. Well, they end up going to Utah to the Salt Lake City region, which first of all, a 2000 mile journey, and the majority of the individuals going, including all of the slaves, they walked for 2000 miles on this journey, which is a incredibly long way to walk as you’re going on this overland trip ended up arriving in Salt Lake City, but the owner decides we really want to go to California. Now California, that’s great that you want to go to California, but he had people tell him that California is a free state and they actually passed anti slavery laws. And if you take your slaves there, there’s going to be pressure for you to free your slaves. He said, It’s fine. My slaves will stay with me. So he takes his slaves to California. Well, when he gets to California, his slaves were smart enough, including Bridget was smart enough to go wait a second, we can have freedom here. We don’t have to be a slave in California. This is an anti slavery state. So she’s able, with a group of other slaves, to take him to court, and they end up winning their freedom. And now that she’s free, I mentioned she had been a midwife on plantations when they came west. She helped with medical things on the wagon train coming west and really increased some of her medical skill and ability. She’s able to start working in a doctor’s office, she became a nurse and a midwife, she began saving up her money, she began buying real estate. And she actually was one of the first black women in America to own property. So really big deal. She continued expanding her holdings, buying more property, making more investments, and becomes incredibly wealthy. One of the things she also does, she starts a church and the… it’s actually now the oldest black church in Los Angeles. So kind of significant, what she was able to do, her contributions, but in the midst of all of this, she also really believed that you’re supposed to help anybody in need. So she begins helping everybody she can find who’s in need. Very much like the Matthew 25 parable, where Jesus talked about dividing the sheep and the goats and whatever you did for the least of these, my brethren, you did for me, that’s what she did. Well, she became so wealthy and successful in her investments that her children actually became the wealthiest blacks in the west, based on what she had earned and given to them. She continued to donate all these charities so much philanthropy work. And this is what she said her life philosophy was- if you hold your hand closed, nothing good can come in. The open hand is blessed for it gives in abundance even as it receives. And she’s someone who… the incredible wealth she was able to attain and even pass on to her kids and all the charity she did. She’s someone that made a mark on the landscape of California, and somebody that should be remembered for incredible contributions. And she’s one of many we talked about, that there’s so many more stories, we can highlight. For more information, go to WallBuilders.com. So many of these heroes we don’t know and should be remembered.

Rick Green
WallBuilders.com to find out more and also to get to some of the other stories. You know, every day in February that we had a program airing, we’ve done a story. Those stories are available for you right now in the archive section at WallBuildersLive.com. Alright guys, we’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, we’ve got General Bob Dees back with us. It’s good to have him back on the program and a really, really important program we’re going to be sharing that he’s been working on for years. Of course, he’s done incredible work for years. But this Valor Farms in Virginia is amazing. Absolutely amazing. Stay with us, folks. We’ll tell you more about it when we’ll return on WallBuilders.

Tim Barton
Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders. And as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuildersLive, you’ve probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties about all the things that makes America exceptional. And you might be thinking as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area, and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school, or public school, or some political event or activity. If you’re interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website www.WallBuilders.com. And there’s a tab for scheduling. And if you’ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers bios to events that are already going on. And there’s a section where you can request an event. To bring this information about who we are where we came from our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area.

Rick Green
Hi, folks, we’ve got with us General Bob Dees back with us, been on the program many times hopefully you’ve read the books, you’ve listened to the programs when we’ve had him on. But today, you’re going to find out about a great opportunity to help and serve veterans in your life. Gen Dees, thanks so much for joining us today.

Bob Dees
Oh, it’s great to be with you guys. And David and Rick, appreciate what you do. WallBuilders. Patriot Academy a thousand other things, so you guys are great Americans.

Rick Green
Well, we appreciate you too, brother and you know, I can remember, years ago having you on the program and just the idea for National Center for Healthy veterans. Just being a vision that you had, it’s absolutely come into place and we want to let people know about it and let them know how to get this information in the hands of friends of theirs that are veterans that need this program. So first of all, just congratulations on God blessing the vision and it coming into being and now you getting to actually see it in, you know… actually happening and ministering to veterans. It’s really, really cool thing to see. So tell us about division first, where it is in Virginia, and how folks can get involved?

Bob Dees
Yeah, you bet. Well, our bumper sticker is To Return Healthy Veterans to America. And the whole premise is that our veterans are an untapped national treasure. I mean, you say it many ways, but we are the land of the free and the home of the brave because of our great veterans who served and who continue to serve. And so when we talk about returning healthy veterans to America, we take that out of the great commandment, heart, soul, mind, strength, neighbor, relational as yourself. And we want these veterans to be healthy in every one of those elements and then get back out in America and do great things on the track to… as coaches, educators, entrepreneurs, businessmen and women, tradesmen, humanitarian professionals, societal role models, you get the point. We want… they have great potential great character, great commitment, great competencies, and we want to get them back out. And that’s what we’re doing at the National Center for Healthy Veterans. So we have a great platform. It’s called Valor Farm. It’s a 339 acre farm ranch construction zone. And now as we building tiny home, and houses for veterans to live in, it’s in Southern Virginia, near Lynchburg. 12 miles from Lynchburg and Liberty University. And we just have a great time bringing veterans in. The whole point is we want to give them a community to defeat isolation, one of the primary causes of veterans suicide. We want to give them dignified work to provide self esteem and purpose. We give them faith based life skills programs and trauma recovery. They use the resilience curriculum or resilience God style that you guys are very familiar with, and that 10,000 Liberty students have gone through over the last decade. And so we call ourselves a holistic integration of proven best practices. And because you know, I’ve been on a lot of laps around the track in the military and veteran carrying the ecosystem. And so we’ve established what we think is best practice. And then finally, a career preparation. All on this natural platform, horses, cattle, donkeys, 600 egg-laying chickens that give us 100 dozen eggs a week, hogs that give us 700 pounds of pork, every month, all sorts of things that there’s plenty of quote, dignified work. So I’ll quit machine gunning you guys. But that gives you a first overview of this thing.

David Barton
Hey general, going back to your beliefs for a long time, back when you were even at the war college, you were writing papers about the aspect of spirituality and spiritual fitness and the overall national strategic plan. And so this had been a passion to you. And then after you go through all those years in the Middle East, where we’ve had so many hundreds of thousands of soldiers come through, and PTS becomes a big issue, you’re also at the forefront of getting statistical research done, that actually showed that if you had the spiritual element involved, you really got better results, and the recovery of so many of these guys fighting PTS than any other program. So you’ve always had a spiritual component to this. And you’ve always seen that is really key. And now you have the statistics and even the evidence to prove that. Yeah, well, you’re exactly right. You know, David, Harold koenig at Duke University is one of the foremost leaders in the world on some of these faith based outcomes, you know, the first… in the civilian sector, but then he also has really gone deep into the military sector, and he has a lot of empirical validation of the approaches we’re taking. And then way back in post Vietnam study… Calhoun in North Carolina studied the reactions of post Vietnam veterans and who did well who didn’t do well, they reverse engineered it, they found out that there were a number of resilience factors, including faith and spirituality, that if the people had invested in those ahead of time, then they were more inclined to have a positive response to trauma, rather than a negative spiral downward into eventually suicide as the worst case. So there’s a whole theoretical and empirical basis to what we’re doing in the Resilience God’s style writings, obviously, but here as we apply all of that, at Valor Farm. You know, David, I was… I don’t know if I’ve told you this story before, and Rick, I was a platoon leader in 1973 101st airborne. I was… Life was good jumping out of airplanes, and all that, Screaming Eagles. And then I’d been there three weeks and the night before Easter, I get a call: go Sergeant Smitty’s house trailer. Never good call late at night. So I went there. And as it turned out Sergeant Smitty had killed himself in the back room. And after the first responders left, I’m left there with a young widow, and I say… and her three year old daughter, and I say, well, how can I help you? And she said, Well, we hid easter eggs today. Would you come back in the morning, and help me and my young daughter gather easter eggs? Let’s give her a, quote, normal Easter. So strong medicine for her obviously, but also for me as a young leader, and then fast forward 31 years later, commands all around the world, all that stuff you mentioned, and I’m retiring. I’m taking off my uniform becoming a civilian, a veteran. It’s not lost on me that the active duty and veteran military suicide statistics are higher than in recorded history. So the government during my time in uniform, 31 years, had thrown millions and eventually billions of dollars at it, the problem had gotten worse and worse. And when I retired, I was pretty righteously indignant, this shouldn’t be happening in America or anywhere else. That was really the birth of what we’re doing. And, you know, over the intervening time, God just continued to lay some breadcrumbs, give new life experiences, new connect… networks. And so it’s all converging now into this integration of best practices. And we’re seeing a lot of fun outcomes I can talk to you about if you’re interested.

Rick Green
Well, I have to say, General, and what you just described is the most important part of this entire interview but I’m actually stuck on something you said earlier- 100 dozen eggs a week, like that would pay for the national debt wouldn’t it, at the price of eggs right now? No?

Bob Dees
That’s good. Not the national debt. [laughter]

Rick Green
But you threw out some staggering numbers there. So there’s a lot of production going on, on the property as well. And I’m just perusing the website right now, by the way, I got to tell you, brother, the lodge looks amazing. The houses look fantastic. Everything about it has just turned out gorgeous and I can only imagine these veterans coming in, what an important time this is. But you’ve just created an incredible environment, based on the psychology and everything that you’ve learned over the years was needed the spiritual aspect, all of it, like you said, I mean, it’s all kind of coming to…you know, this is for such a time as this. I mean, God knew, you know, you were going to be doing this right now. And he puts you through all of those things to prepare you for this moment.

Bob Dees
Right, right. Amen. Well, it’s interesting, you know, I’m not telling you all anything. We live in a microwave society. And if you can zap it in 15 seconds, or produce popcorn in a minute, or whatever, whatever. That’s the mentality. And so we’ve got a lot of great organizations that help veterans and God bless them. But sometimes a weekend retreat is not going to solve the problems we’re dealing with. We’re working with people that are at risk in various ways. They’re stuck in trauma or transition, they’ve got post traumatic stress, they’ve got traumatic brain injury, they’ve got moral injury, they’ve got all these different challenges. And a quick little microwave doesn’t get it, you know, it takes a long time to rewire the brain. It takes a long time to set new habits. So our crown jewel here is a one year residential program. And sometimes people say, well, golly, that’s a long time to spend there. And you say, well, you spent four years in college. What did you get out of that? Or I, no, I don’t ask that question. But you also… you know, one year, if it’s time well spent intentionally at Valor Farm, to set you up for success for the rest of your life, then it’s not only can you… you can’t afford not to do it. And it’s a responsible thing. And we operate by referral. So we have parents and corporations, churches, veterans organizations around the country refer us we’ve got a guy in Kansas City getting ready to come here, a guy from Georgia getting ready to come here. We’ve had people from New York, Maine, there’s one coming here from Maine. So you get the point.

Rick Green
Well, and one of the things that you know, even the brain science technology that you guys are doing the physical therapy, it’s just, I mean, you’re going deep. In other words, you’re going deep, and you’re addressing these things for the rest of their life. And it’s just, it’s incredible. So how does someone, you know, let’s say we got a listener right now, and they’re… And either they are the veteran that needs this help, or they’ve got a family member, that, you know, they know is struggling right now and need something like this? What’s the way for them to apply? And how much do they pay to do the program? Can our listeners donate to help sponsor veterans? Kind of walk us through the process of someone attending valor farms?

Bob Dees
You bet. Well, first, the website is really the motherlode it’s healthyveterans.org , and on healthyveterans.org. The like, the very top button on the whole website says “refer a patriot.” And so if you need help, or if you want to help somebody, you punch that button, refer a patriot, it talks about the process it connects you to us. And then we do a pretty good look at people that are wanting to come here. We do an FBI background check. We, we really want to know what we know so that we can best help them and so that we don’t accept too much risk. Generally, we don’t accept convicted, violent felons, people that have active alcohol or drug addictions, or sexual offenders. I mean, we’ll we’ll consider those. But really, those are sort of red lines for us. Everybody else is there, previously incarcerated, previously addicted previous this, previous that. We don’t care where you’ve been, we just want to help you get to where God wants you to go. And so that referral process is, that’s the way you kick it off.

Rick Green
Excellent, excellent. And then if someone wants to help, you know, that maybe they don’t have someone directly related to them, or in their life that they’re thinking of right now that they want to refer, but you know, all of us can donate, a small amount, big amount, whatever we’re do, because I’m assuming that a big chunk of this is done by, you know, donors that are willing to help.

Bob Dees
Right. Right. When you pull together, the programs, the room, the board, the chow, the equine therapy, all these different things, we offer a veteran, it’s about $2,000 a month. So a veteran… to scholarship a veteran for an entire year at Valor Farm is roughly $24,000, to give people a feel for that. Sometimes people when they refer a veteran, we call them patriots when they refer them here. We… Sometimes they’ll send money with him, but most of the time, they don’t. Most time they don’t have the means to do that. So we do rely upon other donors to help scholarship veterans that they may or may not know, just because of the good of the cause. And we want to get one more veteran back out on the streets to do good things.

Rick Green
Amen. Amen. Jumping around a little bit on your here, General, But talk a little bit about the, just the training them for the workforce or even connecting them to the workforce, because you talked a lot about that at the beginning and get my brain kind of going on that, it’s… you know, there’s such a need for people with good work ethic and the kind of things they learned in the military. So that seems like the market is crying out for them, going through this program, and then being ready for the workforce seems like a perfect match.

Bob Dees
Yeah, well, you’re exactly right. You know, I made the point earlier, but, you know, consider the values like Army values, honor, duty, loyalty, courage, integrity, selfless service, respect for others. What employer would not want that on his workforce? Or the competencies- maybe they’re an aircraft mechanic or, you know, they got highly technical skills? What employer would not want that? And so the first job we have as an outreach to them is, figure out what they’re really good at, what are they passionate about? What direction do their life experiences point them towards? So we really help a lot of folks figure out what seat on the bus they need to be in when they go into the workforce. We do… At the very front, we do blood tests, we do stool samples, and gut health. We work on them physically, but we also give them a whole diagnostic, battery of diagnostic tools to include workforce readiness questionnaires and things and that helps us figure out what industry if you will, they might be involved in. We have a partnership with Virginia Technical Institute helps on the trade side, we’re right around the corner, Liberty University helps us on the academic side. So we’ve got a lot of relationships going to get the best content for our veterans and then we help them after we get them into a right place. We’ve got a guy that’s an amazing astronomer, we got a guy that’s a great cook, a guy that’s a very gifted welder. You know, these folks, we’ve… we try to figure out what they’re good at. And then we prospect for them within that job market. And then after they go into that job market, we do everything we can to safety net them, and some of them have a real entrepreneurial spirit. So we’re ready, willing and able to establish an LLC underneath them, help them establish their own business, coach them on that process as well.

Rick Green
Wow, that’s going above and beyond right there. I mean, you’re already going above and beyond. But I mean, I love it. I mean, that’s the kind of help that people need to not just, you know, get better. But then, I mean, literally thrive once they get get home and General, I don’t ever ask people to donate to something that I don’t donate to. So, I’m making a donation right now, on the website. And I want to encourage everybody listening right now, go to the website today, and help them do this. This is important work. And it’s incredibly done it this is top notch, well done, well, research is the kind of organization you know, your money is doing well and being used effectively. Just absolutely incredible. And so thankful for what you’re doing.

Bob Dees
I would just say, where would we be without our veterans? You know, 6 June 1944 was… one of those veterans, or all of them had said, it’s too wet. It’s too windy It’s uncomfortable. We’ll go tomorrow. We know how that would have worked out or across our nation’s history. Gratefully, we don’t have to ask that question because they always have been there for us. That’s why we are the land of the free, the home of the brave. And we send them out in harm’s way they come back battle worn in various ways. So we owe it to them. It’s our moral responsibility to help them this is a private sector initiative that moves at the speed of the civilian sector, not at the speed of the government sector. We work with government entities, but we’re moving out we’re drawing fire, we’re doing good things in veterans lives. We’re seeing lives changed. And it’s exciting prospect. And it’s all in the power of Jesus, frankly, because we’re a faith based organization. And we’re not apologetic about that. That is one of the key healing factors and we want to get everything in the fight on behalf of our nation’s veterans.

Rick Green
Amen. Amen. So good, so good General. God bless you. It’s been too long since we had you on. We have to get you back as soon as possible and just excited to see the program grow and obviously want people to visit the website today, and again, the best place for them to, first of all, learn about the program, but to recommend somebody if somebody listening is interested in the program, healthyveterans.org is the website. General Bob Dees, God bless you, brother. Thanks for coming on today.

Bob Dees
Well, God bless you guys. Thanks for the work you do. Look forward to you coming to visit the farm as well. We’ll put you on a horse.

Rick Green
All right. Well, you know David, that’s like second nature for him. He’d rather be on a horse than in a car or sitting in a chair. Now me on the other hand, you know when I’ve been at the ranch with David riding horses, I couldn’t keep up with the guy for sure. So if I come, can I come out there without David so I’m not embarrassed by contrast?

Bob Dees
Well, we have a couple of donkeys, Rick, if that will help.

Rick Green
[laughter] Put the donkey on the donkey, I think is what you might be thinking there. But anyway, looking forward to it General.

Bob Dees
Okay, God bless you guys. See you later.

Rick Green
That was General Bob Dees. Great to have him back on the program and once again when encourage everybody to visit the website, it is healthyveterans.org healthyveterans.org . You know, David, Tim, you guys, I mean, we’ve known the general for years and years and years. It’s just awesome to see this come… this dream come to life. I mean, I love looking at… I can’t wait to go visit and actually be on site and see what they’ve done there. But the website, it looks incredible.

David Barton
Well, I can’t wait to see go visit because I want to see you ride a donkey.

Rick Green
[laughter] I knew you were going to enjoy that part, you know… And actually, I think Tim will enjoy taking pictures of me on a little donkey next to you on some big horse. That’s probably, yeah, that’ll be a classic moment for WallBuilders radio.

Tim Barton
Well, you know, guys, we have so appreciated how he’s been able to help so many people over the years with his resiliency training. And now you know, as he mentioned, when sometimes people hear, you go for a year and they go, man a year such a long time, not in the grand scheme of things, if it gives a good reset and a foundation for success for people. And you know, we, guys we’ve talked before about even some of these Christian organizations, that’ll have a one year intern program for college students, trying to give them a foundation for success etc. But when we’re talking about our veterans and people that have put their lives on the line and served our nation, and now they’re struggling with themselves and what they can do and how they can do it. This is such a good program and one that we highly recommend.

Rick Green
Thanks again to General Bob Dees for being with us today. Thank you for listening. You can get more of our programming at our websites WallBuilders.com and WallBuildersLive.com . You’ve been listening to WallBuilders.