Faith, Trauma, and the Will to Rebuild with Jay Setchell

SPEAKER_01 0:02

A father is often expected to be the strong one, to hold his family together, to keep moving forward, even when part of his world has fallen apart. After losing his daughter Jessica to cancer, James Moffat discovered how few places existed for grieving fathers, and how many men were carrying their pain in silence. The Father's Refuge podcast was created to give those fathers a place to be seen, heard, and reminded that they don't have to walk through grief alone. Through honest conversations, personal stories, and faith-rooted encouragement, James explores the realities of loss, trauma, emotional healing, and rebuilding life after the unimaginable. Grief may change a father forever, but it doesn't have to destroy his faith or take away his hope. This is the Father's Refuge Podcast, a place for grieving fathers to find understanding, healing, and refuge.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Hello and welcome to Father's Refuge Podcast. My name is James Moffitt, and I'll be your host. My guest today, Jay Setchel, is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who survived a near fatal car accident that left him shattered. His journey back from that abyss is a powerful story of pain, faith, and the relentless will to rebuild. Today we're going to talk about what it means to find strength when you have none left and how to find a new mission when the life you knew is gone. Jay, how are you today?

SPEAKER_02 1:39

I'm doing good, James. I'm glad to be here. We finally got connected. So finally.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Thank you for being here. Where are you coming from? Uh South Central Texas, just north of I'm big I'm between San Antonio and Austin.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

So Okay. Yeah, my wife went to University of Texas many moons ago.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Well, I'm in the Canyon Lake area, New Bronfels. So you're you're familiar you've heard of that.

SPEAKER_03 2:01

Yep. I was raised in a little town called Quinlan, Texas, just uh southeast of southeast of uh Dallas.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's up to east of east of Waxahatchie.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

There you go. So do me a f do me a favor and introduce yourself to the listening audience.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Whoa, James, uh I I'm not sure quite what to say. I was born and raised on a working farm in north central Illinois. It's still it's still going. We don't have the cattle and stuff anymore, but back back in when I was younger, we had a lot of cattle, hogs, chickens, the whole shot, and crops. We did a lot of egg spraying and with planes, of course, and and uh it was an interesting time. I it was probably some of the best education I ever got because it gave me a sense of urgency and ownership and responsibility. But when I right after I turned 17, I enlisted in the Marine Corps, and then I I didn't get to go in until I was eighteen. But uh I did that and and as you mentioned before, I mean I I didn't make it too long in the Marine Corps. I was a sergeant, but we uh I was taking another Marine back to base that was very badly injured and and uh semi had pulled out in front and we hit him and and it was a horrific accident. And um uh spent a year in the naval hospital recouping from that. Got out of that and uh I I uh rehabbed a little bit at home because they don't give you any rehab time and and uh started several businesses and and uh actually I died again from a drunk driver hitting me almost head on in September of 73, and that didn't help any and put me back into the hospital pretty good. And but uh you know, things just move forward and it you know so much of it is it's not what's happened to you, it's what you've learned from it. Because it's it's really uh wow, what did it what did I do or where did I go? And and things progressed. I ended up uh we keeping the businesses going, but uh let's see, February of uh 81, I started with uh GTE, which was I'm sure you remember it. We're old enough to remember GTE back in the day, and and I was in the yellow page portion of it, which uh was the world's largest publisher of yellow pages. And uh but shortly after I joined him, I did real good in sales. It was just natural and I don't know, I just found a I found kind of a home and I believed in it. But um on July 4th, 1981, I jumped in a swimming pool feet first after uh playing volleyball and stuff and broke my neck in four places and drowned. So that that put me out of things again, and they told me I'd never move again. I've been through the Gardiner Wells, tongs, and the halo cast bulls, I've had tracheotomy. I've I've had 73 surgeries total now. But they told me I'd crazy. Yes, sir. You don't have to tell me you're you're preaching to the choir. I you know, I I just I took it in faith that a gentleman offered a prayer. Uh I was married three weeks a day that that happened, and my wife introduced me. Well, I was laying face down and she said there's a gentleman I met in the waiting room and he'd like to say a prayer for you. And uh, if you if that's okay, blink your eyes. That's all I could move, you know. And uh he did. And uh I don't remember what he said, but through what he did after that, put me in belief of the power of the prayer. And I and I always knew what prayer was good. I always had, you know, believed in the Lord. I believed he walked with me, uh, you know, like in the Marine Corps, you know when you're in combat, you know. I mean, back in my day, at least was yeah, though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you shall fear no evil. You know, we had a different ending, but for thou art with me, because you gotta believe in something. And that's that carried me a long way. But I eventually was able to walk. I proved him wrong. I ended up uh kind of a an award that I it was kind of like getting the Eagle Globe an anchor when you become a Marine, very important. But they had me back the year after I'd gotten out uh of the rehab institute as patient of the year. And it was the first patient of the year they'd ever had, and the first patient they've ever had since then, and that's 126 years that that place has been there. But when I was there, I just overperformed. I I would never quit. I reached out to other people, which I think is very important, is you know, when they were pushing me down to physical therapy or occupational therapy, and you got the halo cast bolt in your skull and you know, and whatnot, stop by and say hi to somebody. Reach out, see if you can help them, see if there's something you can help them set a goal, if nothing else. But at any rate, got out of all that and uh as patient of the year, the award said for exceptional rehabilitational achievement and attitude. And that goes so far. Having a good mindset is so very important in life. When I got out of that, they I wanted to go back to work. They told me, well, if you don't, if you don't measure up, you know, we can't do the job, we'll have to let you go. I said, that's fine. And uh I started back though and uh went right to the top again. So they did pretty uh did very well, but uh they finally retired me. I transferred uh three times and uh took over problems. They retired me, so to speak, put me on long-term disability when I was 41. So that's kind of in midlife, you know. It's like I had enough set aside. I could have retired, but or just not gone back. But that I kind of used that James as being the easy way out. You know, it's easy to quit. It's harder to march forward. And um, I started uh some other businesses, we've done really well, and now I'm involved in another one. I sold the last one or stopped and actually sold some of the assets here uh three years ago and been involved in another company that we've now gone international. And uh I've authored a book. Um I've got a I'm a co-inventor on a project, I've got another invention I'm working on. I like to do this podcast guesting. I I really enjoy it. I've been I've spoken to groups before about various subjects of everything from Christian groups to high schools to whatnot. And uh I find it enjoyable because you get to share real life experiences. That's I just always want people to understand there's there's always an opportunity to get ahead. That's don't don't let it go. Life is too short, time is too precious, and it goes way too fast. But other than that, I'm I'm pretty well done, and that's a kind of a quick overview.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

I think I think you win the award for the longest uh overview.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Well, I'm I try to keep it short.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

I'm like Yeah, no, you're fine. That's good. And uh everybody has a story, right? And obviously you have a story to tell, and it's uh very very amazing. So let's dig into this a little bit, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

You go for it. Whatever you wherever you want to go with it, Jane.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

So I wanna I want to kind of throw away the resume. And let's get get past the accolades and the accomplishments, and not that that's not important, it's just I want to I want to get back down to the basics of like it the man before the crash, who was Jay Setchel, the Marine, the husband, the father before your life changed forever. So talk a little bit about uh, you know, like your teenage years, your young adult years. Who who were you? I know you were raised on a farm, and so there's an old timey saying that says that grass doesn't grow under your feet, so I'm sure you can relate to that. And uh you you sound like you were a go-getter, and it sounds like you were an overachiever, maybe. And there's there's nothing wrong with that. Most of the people. So talk talk about life before the accident.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

I I like I said, on the on the farm, I mean, you know, you always there was always something to do. If you if if my dad didn't point it out, um you found it. And and it didn't take long for me to realize a lot of it. Now I needed some of his input and help on some things, but uh everything from say pulling weeds. And my dad told me when I was a kid, he said, you know, I I never want to have to tell you to do something. I want to suggest. It appears like the weeds around a cat a lot could be pulled. Well, okay. That's his that's that's kind of a good suggestion, you know. And I learned very young that it's better to pull weeds after it's rained a time or two because they pull out a lot easier. Right. But uh by the time I was about four and a half, I was feeding calves out of a nipple bucket and, you know, getting up at dawn with my dad, going down in the basement, beating powder milk, warm water, and a nipple pail. And, you know, that if I didn't feed them, they wouldn't get fed. Now, whether that was 90 degrees in the summer, 95, 100, or whether it was 25 below in a winter time and snow blowing, it didn't matter. It it had to be done. But that's kind of where I, back in those days, is kind of where I, you know, trudged along a little bit and I realized that it's very important that if it is to be, it is up to me. And it's 10 two-letter words I've really taken to heart over my years, and they and they're very strong. And and I used them on my one of my sons one time when he was causing some crap, and his mother and I were divorced, and uh, she called and said, you know, so-and-so's he got in trouble again last night. And I knew he was coming up on his getting his driver's license. And I told him, I said, you know, Aaron, I I don't, you gotta realize I can't do this for you. You know, your mom can't do it for you. This is all up to you. I can't take your vision test, I can't take your written test, I can't take the driving test. You have to do it. So live by that creed that that you have to accomplish certain things in your life. Somebody else cannot do it for you. You know, and I talked to him here about a month ago about something, and he said, I just got through sharing something with a young guy that's in his early 20s. And I said, Well, what was that? And he said, something that I got told when I was 15. If it is to be, it is up to me. I said, You remember that? And he said, Dad, I've never forgotten it because it's it's so important. But, you know, I mean, I high school, I didn't really like I I didn't mind school, but I wasn't like, oh gosh, I get to go to school. I don't know that a lot of kids did in the 50s, you know, and and the school we went to was very old. My dad went to school there. My it was shed was still there where they used to ride their horses to school. So, you know, and and tie them up there during the daytime. But, you know, we had snow come in, we had little snow drips by the windows, and the radiators didn't work for crap, so you're sitting there with all your, you know, your winter jackets on in the wintertime in particular, but I just always was doing something, whether that's on the farm in particular, and there was so much to do with airplanes, tractors, combines, whatever, feeding cattle, feeding hogs, collecting the eggs, sorting the eggs, uh brown and white, the double yokers, cleaning them off. My dad would take loads of them to the candling plant. A lot of people have never even heard of something like that. And uh, you know, whether it's painting corn cribs, whether it's working over in the airplane hangers or doing something, I gun for my dad when he's spraying crops. But when I was in high school, I started working uh at the forge garage. I worked there with freshman and part of my sophomore year, uh washing cars, you know, undercoating cars, and oil, cleaning the front showroom, small garage, a small shop. I got a job at a small agriculture factory in our hometown, and I was only 15, and uh I drove there. It didn't matter. I mean, it was the old days. It's not like it is today.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

But I was able to drive and I worked school got high school got out a quarter to four. I started working at four o'clock, and I worked till 12 30 at night, got home, got into bed about one, got back up at 5 30 because that's when my dad was hitting the door. If I didn't help him in the morning with his chores, he wouldn't help me with my chores. And when I was a junior and senior, I had 40 head of cattle and 40 head of hogs, and uh plus my crops. But if I didn't, like I said, if I didn't help him in the morning, he'd he would charge me at nighttime to do my chores. He didn't charge me much, it was like $2. But the point was that time has a value to it. And I think that's just where I got a lot of education. It's kind of like I want to say something about it's like straightening nails. I they start they got me straightening nails up. Round nails aren't too bad to straighten. Square nails are harder because it's old steel. And um, I was five years old and you put them on an anvil, and I'm smashing my fingers, and the nails are turning. And but by the time I was seven, it came it came pretty natural. And whenever you had spare time or on a rainy day, you'd straighten nails, or you'd organize nuts and bolts and flat washers and lock washers and such. I the the part of the the the education of that isn't straightening nails. It's being frugal, it's saving money, it's using stuff, it's recycling something that you've got. Why go to the elevator or we didn't have I guess we did have a hardware store, but you bought your nails and lumber at the elevator. And uh that way you didn't spend money on something. I don't know if nails were 20 cents a pound, but that's back, James, when uh a few pennies had some value. Now a few dollars don't have much value. So, you know, I I carried that into the Marine Corps, and the Marine Corps that they really do. That, you know, they they push a lot of responsibility, ownership, sense of urgency down your throat, which is good. But I already had that. It it tightened up my discipline a little bit. It made you harder. I was physically, I was already in very good shape just from what I did, whether that's bailing hay, climbing silos, it doesn't matter. As a matter of fact, when I I say climbing silos, I was on uh just after I turned 17 four or five days in 1967. Birthday's New Year's Eve, and I I came down from a silo where I'd been chipping some silage off because it was frozen to the outside of the silo, and walking down the feeding auger at the bottom of the silo, I was sitting just getting ready to jump off, and my grandfather hit the hit the auger power and it barely turned. I mean a half a turn, but it snapped my ankle back, broke my ankle, cut my boot open, cut my leg open pretty good. But I was already launching off into a snowbank, and I got there, and I mean, I don't know whether the adrenaline was there, and looking back over the years, you know, I I don't remember much pain. I mean, I'm sure it hurt. The blood was floating pretty good. My grandfather was terrified, he came out of the silage shed. But I was grateful nothing worse had happened, because if that auger would have run for two seconds at 120 revolutions per minute, uh I'd have been sausage. I'd have been ground up just like hamburger that you buy in the store. And they'd have never found me. So, you know, you just learn that if it is to be, it's gonna happen. There's not a lot you can change, whether it's an accident or whether it's just life. And you gotta have a toughness about you, I think. And that's not to lighten anybody else's issues or problems, whether it's whatever it is, but it's to understand that I kind of look at things like this, that God allowed me, or a greater power if s somebody doesn't like to use the term God or Lord, allowed me to be conceived. He allowed me to be born, he allowed me to go through stepping on nails that came through my feet, he the feeding auger accident, the Marine Corps, the drunk driver, the broken neck. And he's kept me here. So I I'm not gonna quit on him. I'm not gonna quit on him because he's been there with me. So I'm gonna I'm gonna stay faithful to that.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Before we go any further, I want to say thank you for your service. And uh I never served in the armed forces. Uh they they labeled me as disabled, so I never got I signed up for the selective service thing that you have to sign up for when you're eighteen. But uh you Jay, you come from a different era. Yes, sir. For sure. And how young are you?

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Uh be seventy-seven.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

Okay. Yeah, you're uh you're about a decade ahead of me. And uh I want to go back to to your uh you talk about your faith, and that's wonderful. And uh I know that I know that I know that your faith probably helped you get through a lot of this, a lot of your story and made you who you are. But at what point did you come to your faith in God? Was there a specific point?

SPEAKER_02 18:23

You know, James, I I did the you know, Sunday school thing, had perfect attendance, first grade through senior in high school. We went to church on occasion, not not a lot. We had picnics, we had family picnics. We had a great sense of community. And I think that that's missing in today's world. We're helping each other, reaching out. How many people today know the person that if they're in a city that lives above them, below them, to the left, to the right? They don't, even if you're in the suburbs. Who lives across the street from you? I don't know. Who lives down the block from you? I don't know. You know, and back that's something that I think is very important that you said my era. Well, I I remember a three-digit phone number and you rang it twice fast and once slow. And we had seven people on a party line. Okay. Air conditioning didn't exist. Maybe it did somewhere, but not where I live. Television was out, I think, but we didn't get TV till I was 12 years old, 1962. My dad said, you don't need it. I don't, I haven't watched TV in 20 years. I've watched very little television. I think you need to get back to the sense of community, caring about others, and that's how I was raised. I watched and emulated my grandparents, my dad, reaching out to farmers that had had an accident. Or if somebody down the road was, you heard through the through your your your party line if sometimes, you know, that you know, Edna Mae was sick. I know she's been my my mother or my grandmother knew she couldn't cook supper or have meals. So they'd they'd make an extra meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and peach cobbler, and they we'd take it to them and have make sure they had enough for a couple of days to help them through and to make sure they had something to eat. And not that they couldn't have cooked, it's just it's neighborly. And we've lost that. I I too many people want to, you know, to use a the the here, it was like the cell phone. You know, you look for this and you want to swipe left or swipe right. No. They don't know how to communicate. We've lost communication. I think during Sunday school and a lot of that, you know, I was confirmed in the in the I was born and raised as a in in the Methodist church, and I've got a Bible that was given to me by the church when I turned 10 years old. And uh our confirmation was at that age. So I I knew it was there. And, you know, did I say prayers? Well, we always said grace before supper. We said a prayer before we went to sleep at night, and I think that became ingrained in me. I miss those days. I miss a lot of that, and I see that that is a weakness in today's world. I I it's just we're not grateful. People don't care. It's just like hurry up and take. But I I kind of fell into that a little bit after I got out of the Marine Corps and I got the companies going until I broke my neck. I got through because I pushed through, I shoved through, I made it happen. But yet at the same time, I was employing people, I was helping people, I still cared about people. Like I said, I followed a lot of my family tradition. But it was after I broke my neck, and the band that prayed that prayer for me went to a church with about 5,000 people. This is an important part of my life. And that is, that means like 1,500, 1,600 people at every service, three services on Sunday. And Tom never missed going to all three services and asking for prayer for me from all 5,000 people or how many were there every time every week I was every Sunday that I was in the hospital and for the many months that I was in a rehab clinic. My mother did the same thing at our church in our hometown, which was, I don't know. know about five six hundred miles away. But as much as I'm an overachiever, if they when my arm, when they they told me I'd never move, of course. And you know, so but my goal was to walk, not to run, not to skip, not to run the hurdles, walk. That's all I wanted to do. If I could do that, I've achieved a phenomenal goal and I proved them all wrong. And um I I know that it was like when my arm started working. It took a lot of effort. And and uh if they said raise it five times I'd raise it seven times. And they said no we said five. No, I raised it eight. Okay, Smarty, raise it nine. I'd raise it 12. I don't care. I am going to do it. And it's a mental mindset. But I had all this prayer coming in. And if I would do something, James, and to measure success at that time, let's say I bust my butt all week and I gain a quarter of an inch of movement. A quarter inch just as an example. On Sundays with all of that prayer going on, I would gain a half inch. Now how did that happen if there wasn't a greater power? I really need, you know, I I've never been able to explain it. You know, and my mom and dad came to visit me uh uh when I was about in about four months and my left arm was starting to come around good my left leg, my legs weren't moving at all yet. My right arm was flipping like this some, but that was about it. And you know she asked how I was and I I said you know kind of why me? Why me? And I and I didn't mean it badly and I didn't mean it like woe is me, I'm terrible. What happened and why does God pick on me? It was why me from the sense of I should have died when I was in high school in a feed accident. I should have been ground up like hamburger. I did die and they got me back in the Marine Corps. The drunk driver, the broken neck. I was paying a long price. And when the first two accidents happen, I have an old saying that says sweat dries, blood clots, and broken bones heal. You know, you're going to heal from that because you can see the damage. You may leave a scar. I've got a lot of scars. I've been there done that so to speak got the scars to prove it. But when it's internal when it's head damage brain damage spinal cord damage a stroke you can't see it. And that's a very important point. You know you have to act on faith not hope. Hope is good. Hope hope I hope I win the lottery but I guess I got to buy a ticket. You know it's one of those things. You can hope and you can wish you can throw a penny in the fountain or a quarter if you want a bigger wish. But it's having faith in something that you can't see but you know is going to happen. That's what I think faith is. That's a good definition of it. And for an example in parallel bars, you're familiar with the parallel bars in a hospital or okay and and my right hand didn't work my left hand was working good enough by that time when I several months later, but they would put my hand on the bar and they would tie it up with an ace bandage. And everybody that I watched learning to walk on the parallel bars always looked at their feet. They looked at their hands they looked down. They never they didn't look anywhere. And this to me this is a very important point. I wasn't do that or wasn't going to do that. And I didn't do that. I never did that I looked at the end of the damn bar. I looked down at the end 10 feet, 12 feet however long that bar was and that was my that was my goal. That was the direction I was going to go and that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to get to the other end of the bar. So whether they were walking behind me with a wheelchair that they do or they walk in front of you with you know somebody's in front of you you got a gate belt on so if you fall they can grab you but I just shuffled my hands and I shuffled my feet. And it took time it didn't happen the first day or second day or first week or second week but it happened but I not once looked down I looked ahead. And I think that that's something also that people don't do today. They don't look at what they can achieve and have faith that they can get it done. Does that make sense? Yeah you know and that's what I think brought me through it. I really do. I mean I I I kept that faith and determination perseverance discipline whatever word grit you know that's a word that doesn't get used it's coming back a little bit but grit I I when I was a little boy I remember I I came in from a field I was chopping corn out of the soybeans and I had gotten a seed in my eye or something and it was a like a a a smart weed seed or something but man it tore me up and I got to my grandma's and she took my eyelid and lifted it up and took a swipe with a Q-tip and and got it out and uh and she told me just go lay down and root just give it a rest. Close your eyes let the water you know your the saline in your eyes or whatever give get take 10 minutes. I said no grandma I got to get get back out I got I got corn to chop out of the beans. I got too much to do I don't have time to stop and she said you're a gritty little shit you know that and that's just the way it is it's like you just go you get you never stop and over the years I've been called the ever ready bunny and all that stuff because whether I'm I've been disabled in a wheelchair on a walker for 18 years whatever I'm not going to quit. I'm not going to quit till the till the Lord takes me on my final time then that's it. I accept that but that that's just it I think faith community family understanding that you have a purpose here and and a lot of people don't know their purpose. I didn't know my purpose I just kept forging ahead I don't know I I guess my purpose anymore today is to reach out and to talk to people and to let them know that they can do it. They can accomplish it they have a strength the inside of everybody has a strength inside of them that they need to find and rely on. So I think a lot of that's my purpose is to share that.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

Okay. So you were you you're telling me that you were kind of raised in the Methodist church?

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Well I mean that my folks were Methodist and my grandparents were Methodist and Okay. And back back in that day back in my grandparents' day and and then their parents they had the circuit writers that would preach the Bible you know or have have the gatherings. That's how it all started kind of like a lot of the other ones as well but that's how the Methodist church kind of it was just I I I I was told that the Methodist stood for a method but I don't know what I mean we believe that you know Jesus was here and he died for our sins and when he rose from the dead it was for us and so on and so forth. I mean it really what Christianity believes it it's no different than to me the Presbyterians, Methodists, the Lutherans, Baptists, everybody if you believe that and you're a Christian, I my brother-in-law was agnostic and an atheist his whole life. I mean he didn't believe anything and he was born ten years to the day after I was New Year's Eve 1959 and uh he's been dead about ten years roughly and uh he was feeling the same way till he was about ready to bite the bullet and he didn't want another another procedure done and he wanted to go home and pass away and he didn't even get home and but he asked to see someone and talk and he wanted to accept the Lord before he died. He didn't want to go off into the unknown and I think that's a that's a powerful statement. You know he he wanted he wanted to receive Christ before he died and I I think he's in a better place for having done that.

SPEAKER_03 29:42

Amen. So let's talk about the long road back I mean you've already kind of shared a lot of trials and tribulations and events that happened in your life as a young man as well as you know when you were in the Marine Corps, the accident, the accidents so the the long road back the reality of recovery, the pain, the step the setbacks, the moments of despair where was God in those moments?

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Healing me and healing me in ways that I probably didn't know giving me peace because I I knew that when you lay in traction in the naval hospital for eight and a half months and including with that your jaws are wired together for five months or five and a half months and you when you're they take the wires out you just don't open your jaws it takes two months to get a spoon in and I was missing all these teeth and that was fortunate in a way because I I got to drink milkshakes and baby food and all that. I must have been in the Marine Corps huh?

SPEAKER_03 30:38

I like that ringer yes very apropos I forgot that it was on I I meant to have it turned off. No that's okay but it's very appropriate yeah correct on that Roger that do you so I I a little side story here. I live here in Goose Creek South Carolina which is a little suburb outside of North Charleston Charleston and I live very close to the naval weapons station. Oh every morning ever every morning at 7 a.m you can hear Revelly if I go sit out on my porch I hear the trumpet and uh well pretty cool I as much as I you know in the Marine Corps we heard Revelly but we were already up for two or three hours.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Right. You know, at least in boot camp and ITR and stuff but the one that I I really liked a lot more to hear was was tap was was was night was was taps you know when it when they pulled the flag down and you know at the end of the day kind of signaled hey you know this this is going to be over in a bit we're gonna be able to hit the rack you know you survived another day right yes sir yes sir absolutely but I don't I don't remember where we were at chatting about something here.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

No that's fine. The the term when you when your phone rang that's what kind of threw me into that little little story. Yeah. So let's let's talk about the turning point how you moved from victim to survivor and embraced the idea that you had to fight for your own future and your s your statement of if it is to be it is it is up to me. Where tell me about that saying and where you got that from well I got that that's what I was saying.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

I I said it before it kind of goes back I I realized my calves that I got when they were five, six days old and uh if I didn't feed them my dad wouldn't do that. He said that they're your calves you got to take care of them. And I knew that it's kind of like the crops you know if you don't if you don't plant the corn it's not going to grow. If you don't uh cultivate it's not going to be weed free. If you don't spray it if you need to for for insects or whatever or harvest it or chop it for silage to feed the cattle there's so much out there but it has you have to do it. And it doesn't mean and this is an important thing it doesn't and when I say if if it is to be it is up to me it is up to me. But that doesn't mean I'm not asking James for help or James for direction or James for a phone number to call somebody that can have me you know make a product or help me with something or you know it it still takes that it gets back to that community. So that's where I think that so much of everybody out here that's struggling today, reach out. There's so many people that are willing to help you know and if you listen to the news if you're a news watcher, news listener, the world's going to go to hell. And it's not it's really not. You know we've heard that through the 50s I remember being in grade school and there's not many people out here unless you've got some people in their 70s at least their 70s listening because they quit it probably by eight or 10 years after I did it. But in grade school along with tornado drills where you got under your desk they had we had atomic bomb drills. We had missile drills. You know I was raised in northern Illinois and a lot of those ICBM silos were in the Dakotas and Minnesota and stuff and so all the drift would come our way that's the way the natural airflow around the world goes it would have come over us. So we did atomic bomb drills, atomic missile drills. We did all that stuff. And I think the time as you just bend over and kiss your butt goodbye is really was was really the main answer because they lied to us.

SPEAKER_03 34:19

Yeah I don't I don't think those little wooden school desks were going to do much good.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

No and the metal would have got real hot there was there were the wood but I just so much of it James is that so much is you have to push through it. And I don't know you just have to find that and that's where in my book I talk about you know s some of the I'm just gonna jump ahead into that a little because it's it's it's not what I've been through. It's not what's happened to me. It really isn't. It's not the fact of the dying or how it happened or how they got me back or the time in a hospital. It's staying busy while you're injured. Put your mind on something else. Think about something else. To this day I don't like going to the dentist but I go to the dentist and I had bad bad my this jaw was ripped off down here my head was caved in here. You can run your tongue over the roof of your mouth everybody in the audience can do that. And you feel those little ridges on the roof of your mouth I've got a scar about three eighths of an inch wide that goes from right behind my front teeth where they were supposed to be and there's a plate there but I've got a scar that wide that runs the whole length of my mouth my upper palate was completely split in half I could stick my tongue up through the roof of my mouth well okay but it didn't last. It did end it did get back together between the wiring and the help and how they took care of it. So I think people just need to realize that everything takes time it's like when you get a big bruise from sometime when you've been hit the bruise eventually dissipates. It goes away that's why I say you know that you know sweat dries blood clots and broken bones heal. Deal with it. Suck it up move on you know it it's just I think that people can find if there's a will there's a way and I will find a way because I have the will and you have to dig deep you've got to reach in and like I say with my book it's not what I've what happened is what you've how you've dealt with it what you've learned from it. In each instance that anybody listening they can go through something that's happened to them that they didn't enjoy was uncomfortable even whatever they want to call it you know it's too hot I'm gonna die today because it's too hot or it's too cold. Whatever I'm more concerned about cold because you can freeze to death and you don't have any option. When you're hot you can find some shade or you can do splash some water on you do something. But you can get through it you know deal with it and look for that look back at those days when you weren't happy about something that you were uncomfortable and and and use that to give you strength to move through what you're going to when I when I had broken my neck James through that time they didn't like the fact that I brought up my past they saw it doesn't matter. Well it did matter it mattered a heck of a lot because I had gotten through things that they would I guess they decided I couldn't do it. And I I I it wasn't the same but it was the strength that I needed. What did I do here? How did that work? I debreeded my own third degree burns and people would not do that. Today they wouldn't allow you to do it. I suctioned out my own tracheotomy with a tube it's not the fact that I did it that I'm talking about it just like awards that I got when I was corporate president's award and hall of fame rings and diamonds and trips and distinguished management awards it's the fact that you were doing it for somebody else. If you don't focus on the award or the accolades as you said use that word earlier don't worry about that. Don't worry about the money. Worry about doing the best you can do for other people and the best you can do for yourself and care about them. And all the all that when you do all that kind of stuff all the all the good stuff happens. It just comes along so here's a question for you.

SPEAKER_03 38:13

Yes or no have you have you ex experienced loss or grief?

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Well I've lost my grandparents I've lost my parents I I've had two divorces and going through another one now. It's bad. Uh uh I my wife and I have just I don't know if you want to use the word growing apart. I don't know if you want to use the word just I don't know why. But nine years ago her son well ten years ago almost her son had had a young gal pregnant they were on drugs they shouldn't have been when they found out she was pregnant they finally got her in she did none of the stuff to help herself through the pregnancy and the kids were born uh and they tested positive for things that you don't want to know about, you know? One of those things. And uh we took them at three weeks, had the state get us all approved we took them in, we took care of them and we adopted them a little after three years. And so I've got an adopted son and daughter a little boy and girl um that are now over nine but you know I I was terrified in earlier because I quite literally saved my daughter's life and my adopt first adopted son the first son I ever had I adopted his mother and father she was pregnant with him and he got his draft notice in 1969 on a Thursday got divorced on a Tuesday and went to Canada on a Wednesday. Now and then Carter gave them blanket freedom or you know oh we'll wait and yeah amnesty I don't want to go any further I'm I'm I I don't even want to cover that so anyhow I I I met her she moved back to our town from Springfield Illinois well my dad had gone to school with her dad he also knew her mother and we connected and I adopted her son. So he was five when I adopted him and we you know changed his name and all that because we intended on having a child which is Aaron and he's 51 and one turned 57 and then Aaron will be 52. They're five years apart almost six and uh you know but Aaron my wife and I my dad had dug a swimming pool out on the farm with a tractor and uh just kind of a long thing. We lined it with black plastic from the silos and stuff and uh the water was clear but it was dark. You couldn't see I mean when it you know like a black potum pool you can't you don't know where anything's at. And my wife and I were down at the one end and we were kind of kissing and flirting around a little bit and I I knew that there was a tube floating across and then I heard a splash and I didn't see Pete. He's the oldest one that I adopted and I thought crap he jumped towards that tube and he missed it. So I went through the water I mean I just went out in a full whoa whoa went through the water I had no idea where he was at reached around the best I could and I I caught him the second or third effort and I brought him up out of the water and he was and he was another 30 seconds he'd drown 20 seconds maybe so you know that stayed with me. Next I we were out looking at some raspberry bushes on a I don't know thing that raspberry bushes grow on and uh a grape arbor and stuff. And my dad had a little koi pond didn't have coi it had just a little fish pond and he had concreted it and put it in up by the house and had recirculating water in it. And my next oldest son Aaron uh was toddling around all four of them uh been there for I looked up and I saw him he was on his hands and knees he was just a toddler I didn't I wasn't aware I thought my wife had him everybody else you know no who knows and he was about 100 100 now maybe 50 75 yards from us but he fell over headfirst into that little pond and so I mean I as fast as I could go my left leg wasn't perfect yet I had a leg brace on but I got there you know and I scooped him up I mean if somebody hadn't been out there that'd have been another casualty my daughter had adeno down in her throat and uh they kept her longer she was continuing to bleed. Well it was a Sunday night I was corporately employed at the time um and I was uh was uh uh supposed to be on the road on a Sunday night we had about a five hour drive to get where we were going and it was snowing like hell out I thought you know I'm just gonna leave like at four in the morning and uh you know uh maybe it'll let up a little bit and I'll it'll be okay. All of a sudden my daughter she'd been coughing and crying in the other little another road uh my wife said you need to check on her Chris and uh she went in she she screamed well she was quiet it was nothing there was no no sound crying quit coughing quit everything quit I said Chris you need to go check on go check here and uh she did and she screams and she said hey she's dark turning color she's not the right I said oh I you know she could move quicker than I could so I said bring her in here to the bed and lay her on her back and call 911 so by the time she got her picked up got her into the room put her on our bed and I gotten out of bed and I gotten over to that corner the other side of the bed and uh she was not doing good a lot of blood on her face. I I I pushed on her on her whatever solar plexus area and then I started giving her mouth to mouth and it was probably about a minute and a half might have been I don't know roughly and uh she's you know and she Barfed up or puked up, whatever you want to call it, a a big old blood clot that had been caught down inside her. About that time, EMS was only three blocks away. They were there, Johnny on the spot. And they came in and and uh I was I was trying to set her up a little bit so she could breathe a little bit. She was um about three, not quite three. Yeah. Uh because Matt, my son, that was also in the Marine Corps, he was in the room across the hall. And uh so anyhow, the paramedics said, holy crap, you know, you thank you. I mean, you whatever you however you did it, whatever you did, because she would have died. And uh my I was all covered with blood, she was covered with blood, you know, it was pretty bad. So Chris rode in the ambulance to the the hospital at Hoffman Estates, north of Schaumburg, Illinois. And when they got to the hospital, she had another one, and they had to resuscitate her in the ambulance before they got her into the hospital. So if I hadn't have stayed home that night, made that decision. What helped me make that decision? Was that a God thing? I don't know. How do you explain that? And then we got I got transferred. They they had needed somebody to solve some problems, and nobody else wanted to step up to the plate. And I took the challenge and I moved to Houston. And I had several states down here to handle. We we had a nice, nice home, and and we weren't there very long, and my little boy was not quite four yet. Carrie comes running in, she says, Daddy, daddy, Matt's choking, Matt's choking, Matt's. And those chairs that have those um uh rows of um kind of stretchy material. If you sit in it too long, it's too warm, it kind of goes down, and it's supposed to be comfortable. If you get a sunburn from the back, it you leave lines across you. The chair, he he was in that chair somehow. The chair folded up on him and and he was caught. He was he was going out. He he couldn't scream, he couldn't talk, he couldn't yell, but he was well, I went out right away, but I saw and I tried pulling it apart and I couldn't get him far enough to get him I couldn't do it. So I ran back in the house as fast as I could, got a knife, went back out and cut the cut that whatever it is, plastic rubber stuff, and uh got him up and you know, I I don't know, worked with him a little bit, and then he started coughing and and uh crying and whatnot. And so that that's four. No, I haven't experienced it fully, but it's terrified me. It terrified me more than me dying. I know that, because you're seeing your children. So, you know, I mean that stays with me. It stays with me when I watch my son Matt that was in the Marine Corps, was bouncing on a trampoline. He was about eight approximately, and in our backyard. And he went off of it and he ended up on his head. I mean, and he just leaned over. And I thought, oh my God, because I'd already had my broken neck. I was 40, 44, 45, 40 when that happened, I know approximately. And uh I've not I've never told anybody really about it. I mean, we when it happens, it's years ago and you forget about it. Now you're making me think. And I was concerned that he broke his neck because I'd had a broken neck and he landed on his head and then went just like and flat. And he didn't move. And I, three weeks before I got out of high school, we had a guy named Steve Stone when we were in high school, right before we graduated, like I said, about three weeks, we were doing tumbling in gym class where they put a big round thing and you tumble over it and you kind of bounce and you get back up. Steve Stone did that and he laid there. And Coach Lewis says, Stone, get up and go. We got people who go through this exercise. Steve says, Coach, I can't move. And he said, Stone, get your, you know, and that was that I was in the class. Steve Stone had broken his neck up high, like C2, C three, C4, and or C1, C2, C three. I it was bad. And they put him in Peoria, Illinois, and uh he ended up, he never came out of it. He was like, he never came out of it. He was like that until he died. I had broken my neck and gone and seen him. He lived for several years. He lived till he was probably about 40, maybe 42. And he had the opportunity to go to Chicago and have surgery. They discovered some way to potentially release pressure or something. And I encouraged it. I would have done it, but I I'd seen that. I'd been through it. I was the one that took the chances. He didn't want to do it. He just wanted to lay there and do what he did. So, but yeah, I it it's you never know what's going to happen. And I I feel but I've but I've suffered grief and stuff and people that are very, very close to me, like in Marine Corps Brothers, and one of the three Marines, the last of the three Marines had helped save my life, we went and saw him May 10th this year. My son helped drive me over. He was in a veterans home in uh Orlando, Florida, and uh he didn't know who I was at first. And when he realized it only took about 10 or 15 seconds, he cried, I cried. We talked about things for about an hour and 20 minutes. I could tell he was getting tired, and I left and I cried. I got and uh anyhow, uh my son did me the favor or disfavor of taking pictures of it. And uh if I look at it, it really breaks me up. But he passed away six weeks later. So if I hadn't have gone and seen him, I wouldn't have seen a man that helped save my life. And he was still having nightmares till he died about what he had gone through to save us, with our car on fire and us burning inside of it and couldn't get us out. And he was three trips in Vietnam. He said, I never seen it, I never saw anything like that. So yes and no to your answers.

SPEAKER_03 49:46

I appreciate you telling telling us these stories. Uh I know they're deeply personal to you. And wow. Tell us about your book.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

The name of it's uh The Strength Within You. It's Always Too Soon to Quit. Um it's you can get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Uh it's out on audio in some places and should be on audible pretty soon, I hope, at Amazon. They had some mix-up in the format, but it really, like I said earlier, it it kind of covers some of what I've been through, but more importantly, what I've done with it. Where do you go with what you've been through? How do you handle it? Do you accept it and move forward? Because that's the power that you need to have. Accept it, move forward. You can't do anything about it. You can't change it, deal with it. I every day, James, I sit here in a chair paralyzed, largely paralyzed. I can't walk, I can't do things. It's hard to get into bed, get out of bed, get on a toilet, off the toilet, shower has to be set up special. I have a van that I run my wheelchair up. I can transfer yet into the seat and I can drive with hand controls, but I don't go many places. So I ask other people to drive it because I just take the knob off the apparatus off the steering wheel and they can drive it like a regular van, but I've got controls that work, the brake and the accelerator. And uh you just have to deal with the hand you've been dealt. And and I, you know, and there and I heard a story once about, you know, you there's a some people get dealt a bad hand, and some people get dealt a good hand. But there's been a lot of times that the bad hands won the game because it's how you play the game, not the cards you were dealt. There's a lot of people get a good hand at cards and they blew it. And I mean that from financially or health-wise, it doesn't matter. They take they they make wrong decisions. Everybody has choices, and they make a decision on what that choice is, whether you're going to drink a glass of water or have a shot of whiskey. That's a choice. Cup of coffee or a glass of iced tea. That's a choice. But you make the decision to have one or the other. And people are a product of the choices they've had and the decisions they've made throughout their life. My mother, when she came to visit me, after I broke my neck, and I was starting to tell that, and it's a kind of an important point, is, you know, and I said, you know, why me and all that? But she told me, she said, Jay, you're the one that jumped in the pool. You're the one that made that decision. And if I said this before, I'm sorry, and I forgot, but I don't think I did. And she said, but it was that young lady that jumped in when you were turning colors after seven or eight minutes, and then the young guy that jumped in to follow her when he saw she couldn't bring you up. That was like they were acting on behalf of God. So, and I believe that. Why did they make that time? Why did they jump in then? So it's like, how did I happen to not go on the road when my daughter was joking from a blood clot? I don't know, James. There's too many unanswered things, but reach out, search, ask people, find that community, find those people that can work with you. Whatever you're dealing with, there's other people out there that have been through it. I have not been through what a lot of people in your audience have. And there's a lot of people in your audience haven't been through what I've been through. You know, how would they have dealt with what I went through? I don't know how I deal with what they went through. So I think that's where you're going with it. And I just ask people, be patient, you know, and I got a kind of a final word I'll share at the end, but getting back real quick to the book is really it's it's they need to look inside themselves. Maybe it's frustration, irritation, aggravation, pain, pain of a loss. Okay, well, other people are going through it. If you're strong enough, reach out to others and help them. A good example of that is a lot of times I've been in hotel lobbies. I traveled a lot for years, a lot. And I would see here I'm on a walker for 18 years, for example, and I would see somebody in the hotel lobby of a jewelry hotel and the kids in a wheelchair, or a young adult, or an older adult. It doesn't matter. And, you know, everybody else is sitting there going, look at them. Oh, don't look at them. Oh, you know, look away. And I would go over and introduce myself and say hello and and you know, strike up a conversation. And I never had one person, one time, because they could see that I was disabled too, if you want to use that word. And I don't think I'm disabled. I think I'm differently able, but we have a lot more in common than you realize. Everybody. And those people were very appreciative because they saw and they knew all these people sitting around them, always for years, maybe, were pointing at them or talking about, oh, that look at that. I wonder what happened to that. Well, don't wonder, go over and express your empathy or, you know, talk with them, discover something. You might learn something. But I had people thank me time and time and time. I had people in tears because I came over. And that that affected me. So why not reach out? You know? It's the important part. Reach out and discover. You know, half of your life is what you know, and the second half is who you know. And it's an important thing to reach out to those that have been through things. Ask them what how did they handle it? What where can you get help? And help comes in a lot of different forms.

SPEAKER_03 54:54

Jay, I appreciate you sharing your life with your life story with us. And uh I hope people will get your book and uh get some comfort from that. So to the listening audience, I'll say Jay's story is a profound reminder that even when our bodies are broken, our spirit can fight on. It's a testament to the power of faith and the resilience that lies within us. If you're in a dark place, I hope this conversation gives you a glimmer of hope to hold on to. All right. Thanks for being on the show.

SPEAKER_02 55:23

Hey, thanks, James. I I I appreciate you having me on. I know it's a it's a tough subject to cover, and and I hope that at least something I've said strikes a a bit of spirit in somebody's heart and mine.

SPEAKER_03 55:35

All right. Thank you, Jay.

SPEAKER_02 55:36

Thank you, sir.