Unfortunately, we lose our identities overnight, right? You get out, you lose your team, you lose your command, most of your friends don't even call you to check up on you, just out. And it's a very scary, dark place to be. There was a time where I held a gun in my hand and I thought, is this the last day? Welcome to Veteran Voices, with your hosts, Tom and Chris Faust. Welcome to Veteran Voices. I am your co-host, Tom Faust, here with my son, Chris. And today we have Robert Wheeler with us, and we are going to talk about his service, his experience with transitioning, issues that he's been through and how he resolved them, and then what he's doing these days. So welcome, Robert. Glad to have you on here. Thank you. Can you tell us a little bit about your service? What made you decide to join in the first place, what service you were in, et cetera? So about joining, that's always a funny story. So, you know, when I was 21, I was still living at home with my parents and my dad didn't appreciate that very much. He was in the Navy for three years and he owned his own business. I worked with him for about a year. But after that, I went to college. I dropped out of college because I just didn't have any like vision or goals at the time. And literally every morning at 6 a.m. before he left to his office, he would literally kick open the door in my bedroom and say, join the Navy and then just walk out. And he did that over a course of about six months. My door was probably broken by the end of that time. And as a way to say, F you, dad, I joined the Navy. But unfortunately, he got exactly what he wanted. Right. So, his reverse psychology actually worked on me. So, I joined the Navy in 1997. Like I said, in about 99, 2000, they had an early out. If you enlisted in college, you could get out early. So, I didn't like the Navy at that time. I actually hated it. Got out. During that time, I was a CB, which is a construction battalion. I think the Army's like Army Corps of Engineers or something similar, if I correct. And to me, that was like being basically a Marine. We wore, you know, rucksacks. We marched. We had to carry our weapons. We had to deploy to hostile environments. If there was something coming during a war because a CB goes in there, they set up the infrastructure, protect the base while everybody else comes in. So, luckily, I never saw, you know, any hostile environments. But I was just like, man, I don't like this. This isn't for me. Got out. Went to college once again. Could not adapt to college. Just wasn't school. Wasn't like in me at the time. And September 11th happened. And as September 11th happened, I always say I wish I kept the letter because I swear I got this letter before September 11th. But it said, you can either go in the Navy or we'll bring you in the Navy. And knowing that I didn't want to go back to my same old job and be miserable, I went down to the recruiting center. They said, hey, we have this new police force. We need cops due to September 11th. So, I was like, man, that sounds pretty cool. So, I went to become a master at arms, which is military police for the Navy. I went to one of the first military police academies in Virginia Beach, Virginia. And after that, I would serve for an initial seven years, making a 10 year total enlistment during my time. And then after that, you know, like we were talking about backstage, I went to Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was aboard the Kennedy aircraft carrier. We stayed there for about six months, came home. And no sooner I got home, my command, I was with the Hilo squadron. I don't know why, but they never really wanted me there, right? When we were overseas, I was with ship police. When we were back in our home base at NAS Jacksonville, I was with base police. So, they just shift me back and forth. I never really saw the squadron. And the captain of the squadron called me in one day after being back for literally like two months and said, hey, you're going to ground forces Iraq. You're going to go to army training and you're going to have to go to combat. So, they sent me to a flight surgeon to see if I was fit for duty. And essentially most military branches, but especially the Navy when I was in, had a way of taking anything that you were injured by or hurt by or sick by and just brushing it on the rug and say, don't worry about it. Here's some Motrin, suck it up, go back to work. Like, because they're not in the business of healing people, they're in the business of just keeping them working as long as possible. And the flight surgeon takes one look at my knees and he's like, your knees are all jacked up. You're not fit for anything. So, that started six months physical therapy, orthoscopic surgery, six months more physical therapy. And the last straw was I'm sitting in my doctor's office and he's inserting a needle about this long into my knee for steroid injections. And I asked him, I said, hey, doc, if I'm going to do these steroid injections, how long do I have to do them? He says, the rest of your career. I said, okay, I'm done. And that was what led me to get out of the military at that point. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. But yeah, you're not wrong about the whole Motrin thing. That was, I remember I got back to base after we jumped out of a plane. It was a little mission training stuff. Got back because I had popped my knee out of joint and had to basically pop it back in, walk and do our mission, everything. Got back, went to sick call basically for it because it was swollen up. Give me some Motrin. All right, stay at it for a couple hours and you're back to it. It's like, great, thanks. So, I guess when you said you were done with your military service, because of that, what was your transition to civilian life like? Well, like most veterans and one of the things that I like talking about, there really was no transition. At the time that I got out in 2007, I went through TAPS class. I don't remember anything about TAPS class. I remember death by PowerPoint. The problem with TAPS class is they'll give you by the book, how you should apply for a job, how you write a resume, but they don't tell you what happens when you lose your community. They don't tell you what happens if you have mental health issues. They don't tell you, there's no one that checks up on you six months and says, hey, what are you doing? How are you doing? So, there really was no transition. Unfortunately, we lose our identities overnight, right? You get out, you lose your team, you lose your command, most of your friends don't even call you to check up on you. You're just out and it's a very scary, dark place to be. But essentially, I did what most military members do. Instead of trying to find something they love or something they enjoy, you go do the job that you were trained for. So, essentially, I went to become DOD police officer. I was a DOD police officer at a pre-positioning base for four years. And then from there, I transferred to a Veteran Affairs Hospital where I was a police for six years. So, that's essentially what happened after I got out. And I remember that when we talked before this, before the interview, we talked about you're being a cop and that you didn't like really doing that. And so, you wanted to quit and then eventually came back to it for a while. Yeah. So, you know, what's funny and one of the things I really advocate for, obviously, besides men's mental health is Veteran and first responders mental health, right? So, I get out of the military. I didn't know what trauma was. I didn't know what PTSD was. I didn't know why I was depressed. And then I take all this and I go become a cop. And then I go to a command where essentially, luckily, there wasn't really any action. We were more like a guard force than anything. But the command is miserable. Your coworkers are miserable. Your supervisors are miserable. So, the climate is miserable. So, now you're stacking more depression, more trauma. Then I'm taking that home. And because I don't know at the time how to turn this stuff off, now I'm taking it out on the wife. Now I'm yelling at the kids for no reason. And it's not because I'm mad at them. I just don't know what to do. So, you know, I go to the VA hospital. I was like, I have to get out of this first command. I go to the VA hospital. And at first, I'm like, man, I'm going to take care of the vets. I'm going to be there for the vets. I'm going to help them. And then I realized the hard truth that I was arresting the same vets all the time. I was dealing with the same mental health issues that vets had all the time. All the vets that I saw, they weren't nice people. They were, you know, dirtbags. There were people that wanted to take my life. There were people that wanted to fight. There were people that I'd had to take to jail constantly, go to court constantly. So, that really like just shocked my mental health. I'm like, man, like this is my community and they suck. Like this, this is not cool. And then once again, everybody was miserable. My bosses were miserable. Everybody there at the hospital was miserable. And you start to realize like, wow, now I know why all these veterans like complain about their care because nobody's happy working there. The conditions aren't, yeah, we get paid well, but the conditions suck. They don't, once again, like the military, they just want you to work, work, work. They don't care about your family. They don't care about your vacation. My mother died in 2018 and they wouldn't even give me bereavement leave to go deal with that issue. So, I'm stacking trauma on trauma on trauma. And after I get divorced, I'm going through a divorce on top of it. So, it was more trauma. And I meet my current wife who we've been married a year, but we've been together for eight years now. And I'm like, I got to do something else. And fitness is in my heart and soul. So, I decided to open a gym. So, I left in 2018 to open my own strength and conditioning gym. I ran that for four years. And then unfortunately, COVID completely wiped me out. So, that caused some more depression and more issues because I'm like, this is my passion. This is my purpose. This is what I'm supposed to do. This is what I love. And my wife trying to be supportive and knowing that we need income in the house, obviously, because I have to help pay the bills and give money to my kids and everything else. She goes, why don't you go be a cop again? And originally, that was the wrong answer. But me being because I'm like, I'm good at being a cop. I like it. I went and get state certified in Florida. I go to another police department, but nothing changed. That police department, even in the state of Florida, they were miserable. Their supervisors hated everybody. They were putting us in dangerous situations that they didn't need to. My second day, I saw a young man take his life. I had to process the scene. I had to take the gun out of his hands. I had to pull his body out of the car where he killed himself. I still see his face today every occasionally, just random. And after being there for only four months from April to July, I remember my FTO, who was much older than me, but he knew I had experience. At that time, I'm 45, 46 years old. So, I'm a grown man. He's just berating me, treating me like a child. And I come home and I'm just in tears. And my wife's like, what's wrong? I'm like, I just can't do this. I failed you. I'm a man. I failed you, but I can't do this. And luckily, thank God for support. Support systems are huge because she was like, I understand. Go ahead and quit. So, I went ahead and quit. I went to the sergeant and said, hey, thank you for the opportunity, but I can't do this. And then I was done completely with law enforcement at that time. That's crazy. I guess that's when, at that point is when you realized, let me rephrase. I wanted to make it a question. Is that the point in time that you kind of realized that you needed some help or something to get out of the PTSD, to just stay away from that environment? No. So, I was in counseling. I've always tried counseling. I've always tried medication. Mm-hmm. It just didn't necessarily work for me. I couldn't relate to the counselors. And at the end of the day, I'm not telling anybody not to seek mental health help if they need it. But most of the time, the mental health professionals, they're not cops. They're not first responders. They're not veterans. So, they're teaching you not from a point of, hey, I've been through some shit. They're teaching you from schoolbook, from knowledge, from going to class. And I understand that these professions have to spend a long time in school, and they have to go do on-the-job training and everything. But I couldn't relate to any of them. And so, for all these years, I'm just operating negative. I was the guy like, F my life. Everything sucks. I hate this. If you cut me off, I would chase you down. If you got in my face, I would probably fight you. If you messed up my order, I would just... I was a very unhappy, ugly, nasty individual for no reason. And what happened essentially, and this is what led to what I'm doing now, I didn't have an aha moment, but I knew I'm like, man, I'm going to lose my second wife, and I love her to death. I can't be this guy if I want to stay with her. I can't have another failed marriage. I'm not being a product of society. I'm pretty much just a loner, keep to myself, not try to meet with anybody, talk with anybody, be with anybody, shut off in my room. There was a time where I held a gun in my hand and I thought, is this the last day? And I was on social media, scrolling, and somebody was talking about gratitude. And I laughed. I'm like, this is some hippie bullshit. This can't work. This is stupid. But that night I went to bed and I thought of three things I was thankful for. I thought about, I'm like, oh man, I have a pretty decent house. My wife loves me. My kids love me. I have a good relationship with my kids after the divorce. I'm a pretty good guy. I'm in shape. I'm healthy. And I just kind of meditated on that for a little bit. And then when I got up, I would say to myself, today's going to be a good day. Now, initially being so negative, I'd have to say it over and over again. I'm brushing my teeth. Today's going to be a good day. I'm in the car. Today's going to be a good day. I'm just saying it over and over and over again. But when I stacked that up over time, I started to honestly instantly feel better. I was like, man, my life's not that bad. And then from owning the gym, my former members, I still see them out into town to this day. And they always tell me, they're like, no one has ever coached like you. No one ever cared about us like you do. No one ever trained us like you do. And I was like, man, maybe I don't have a gym, but maybe I can do something in another way. We have this internet. We have the podcast. We have everything to reach out to whoever and however. And that's essentially when Coach Rob was officially born and I started my brand, Battlefitted, where I coach men 30 and over, primarily to work with first responders and veterans, but I help them overcome trauma, being stuck, whether they're having communications issues with their wife, everything from my perspective of my traumas and the things I dealt with to help them become the best version of themselves. So you had said that you do coaching. You typically do first responders, veterans, things like that. So I guess kind of elaborate a little bit on how you help other veterans now. I use a current coaching client. He's not a veteran, but he was a GS-15 employee that lost his job during the whole Dodge exchange. He's an older gentleman. He reached out to me because honestly, he was following me on LinkedIn of all places. And he just reached out and said, you know, whatever you're talking about, whatever you're doing, it inspires me. And honestly, it's keeping me going right now. So I said, look, do you want to have a coaching consult to see if I can help you? And for this particular gentleman, I do some coaching for free. I was like, look, no charge. I understand you lost your job. Things are hard. Let's talk. So I had a meeting with him on Friday and I just try to ask a lot of the right questions. It's not questions like, what do you want to do for a living? I asked him, I'm like, you know, with this job you had, because he worked for an anti-terrorist organization in DHS. So a prominent position, leader, man, he's proud, right? And I kept asking him like, what's the main thing that you're upset about? Is it that you don't have this position of power anymore and you don't have a purpose? And you could see it as face, like the emotion change. Because I'm not saying, oh, what do you want to do for a living? I'm trying to get to the meat, to the root of what's bothering him. And he's like, this is exactly. And even after our call, so I take notes, I ask all the right questions. So my three pillar coaching starts from fitness first. If I can look at your overall health and fitness and nutrition, what you're putting in your body. And that gives me a base point to start because we know if we look good, we feel good. It's common sense. And a lot of things with people, when I talk about nutrition, I don't talk about diets. I don't believe in that. Most of us, it's all about over-consumption, right? If we're stressed, we eat. If we go to McDonald's, we get three things instead of one. If we get a pizza, we eat half the pizza. So it's about controlling that, right? So I look at their overall health and fitness, and then I work on the mindset. The mindset, like I said, is asking him the right questions. What are you really upset about? He has a daughter that's graduating. If you wanted your daughter to know one more most important thing about you, what would that be? I give them things to think about on a more realistic, logical level than just how much money do you want to make? What kind of job do you want to do? Because that's not going to get them to start thinking about how he can change his life. And I had to keep telling him like, look, you're a man, you're a father, you're a husband. Those things come first. Your job, honestly, it's gone. It doesn't matter. What you do now, that's what matters. How you take care of your family, that's what matters. And it's just getting people on the mindset path to reframe how they think, right? Because most of the time we just think, oh, I have to go to work. I have to do this. I have to do that. We don't think of the deeper emotional level. And then the discipline is just, I really want people to be able to continue on. I don't want people to work with me forever because they have to be able to take care of themselves. And so what kind of message do you think you would want veterans that are in need of something like what you do? They're still suffering. They don't have their answers yet. What kind of message would you want them to hear? The biggest message for anybody and the main thing in my life that I'm advocating for now is if you have depression, PTSD, anxiety, whatever, trauma, you're not broken. You're not a bad person. You're not unloved. People love you and you're meant to be here on this earth and do something with your life and just to not give up. And even on my podcast, Battle Harder, I have these people come on my show that tell these stories of overcoming adversity and overcoming trauma. And these stories that they're overcoming is way more bigger than things I ever faced. And that really puts in perspective my life and what I'm thankful for, because yeah, I went through some trauma and I figured out not really how to defeat it. And I tell everybody, my trauma is not gone. I still have some bad days. The PTSD is probably never going to go away. The hypervigilance is probably never going to go away. The depression is in and out sometimes, but I found a better way to deal with it. And that's what we have to do. We have to have more good days than bad, right? If you stack up 1% good days over time, that equals a lot of progress versus just being miserable all your life. Yeah. Well, on top of your podcast and everything that you have to do, are you involved in any sort of other projects or organizations or other kinds of efforts that you're also trying to break into to reach out to more people? I mean, I try to work with anybody that aligns with my goals or what I'm trying to do. I do other things as well. So, like I was talking backstage, so part of Battlefitted is I have my own clothing brand and I created a shirt right now that I'm donating all proceeds to Texas Relief. The shirt's called Texas Strong. And this shirt, literally, I'm giving everything that I make from the shirt. It's on pre-order now. I'm sending that to, I think the charity is called ADR. They're deep within Texas providing relief for the victims right now. In all of what you do, what you've been through, what would you say is something that really gives you hope for the future of this? I mean, for me, everything I do is very therapeutic for me. When I coach somebody, it's therapeutic. When I tell somebody a story, it's therapeutic. Even in my clothing, the designs I put out because I design everything myself, anybody can get through trauma. Anybody can get through adversity. As humans, we're so resilient. I think a lot of times we don't realize that, right? We're so stuck and being stuck. And I tell everybody that it's funny because, say, for example, you want to go ask out somebody and you know that up to that point, you're so nervous, you're scared. You tell yourself a million times, I'm not going to do this. I can't do this. They're going to reject me. But then once you do it, whether they say yes or no, it's not that bad. It's the same thing with trauma. Once you get in the eye of the storm and you deal with it, we're so fearful and scared of being hurt more or being rejected or not overcoming this. But once you get in the eye of the storm and you defeat this, you're like, man, I should have done this a long time ago. It wasn't that bad as I thought. And I'm OK. And I'm going to be OK. Yeah. So you mentioned that coaching and helping others is therapeutic to you. So I guess that implies that something that people could use who are still going through these issues and still need to continue moving through them would actually benefit from helping others do the same. I believe. Yeah, definitely. I've always had a service mindset from the time I was younger all the way. I mean, that's why I joined the military the second time. That's why I became a cop was to help those that can't help themselves when you're serving other people and you're serving them from a place that comes from within your heart. You're not looking for how much money you're going to make or what you're going to get out of it. Whether it's God, the universe, you get an abundance of things that come back to you. So, you know, if if one person helps somebody come over their mental health issues and then another person and it goes on and on and on, it'll be a domino effect. And then before you know it, we'll have less veterans taking their lives. We'll have less cops taking their lives and we'll have more tools that are better to help people. And at the end of the day, one of the things I want to be is once again, I think mental health providers, medicine therapies are great and, you know, do what works for you. I want to be an extension of those therapies. So if someone comes to that therapist and they can't relate with them, well, they can either have me sit in on a session or talk to him via Zoom or take one of my journals or my book on how to five steps to mental resilience or beating imposter syndrome and have a resource to give to that person. So at the end of the day, I never want to take over mental health. I think it's important. But I think there's a need for people in this space to be able to be an extension of the mental health services. So what is your kind of favorite way to reset on a rough day? You said you're still going through it yourself. What's kind of your go-to way to reset your mindset? Well, so first and foremost, fitness is a huge proponent of my life. I truly believe that if I wasn't continually in the gym at least three times a week, that I would succumb to my injuries. I truly believe that working out has kept my knees in place, has kept my back in place, has allowed me to continue to run with my son and play with him and go upstairs and all the things we need. But beyond fitness, the podcast, I love the podcast. I'm a big nerd. As you see behind me, I have all this Star Wars stuff. I love Star Wars and Marvel. I read comic books. I play video games. I always try to take some part of a time during a bad day, even if I have business. If I can, I will stop what I'm doing to take 20 minutes, 30 minutes to try to do something else to take my mind off the bad stuff. And then the last thing I guess would be just sitting in silence. It's pretty scary when you turn off everything and you just close your eyes and you sit there and you try to keep those voices out of your head and phase that into a more positive manner. I think something you mentioned earlier is probably important as well, which is gratitude. Just being grateful for what you have. It's surprising that a lot of Americans, we think we have it so tough, but you want to see tough, go look at some third world country. Our worst days are usually better than some of their better days. So what would you want? I don't know if this relates to something I asked earlier, but what would you want every veteran who's listening now to know? The biggest thing for us as veterans is community. We have to find our community. We have to find our tribe. And if you're not in touch with people from your old unit or you lost too many veterans and it's giving you bad thoughts, find a group, find a nonprofit, find me, find someone that can help you find community. Find some friends you can be gym bros or gym girls with and go to the gym. There's plenty of nonprofits like Irreverent Warriors is big out here and they basically do ruck marches. So I'm in a group on Facebook called Veterans of South Florida, where we can communicate and we can promote our business and we can go to veteran events. So find that tribe, that group of people that's going to relate to you and know who you are and just check up on your people. I mean, I have friends, we go to lunch once a week, we try to go watch a movie together or something. As men, I think it's harder for us and especially as we get older, we don't want to be friends with anybody, right? Because people, once you're set in your ways, people might not understand that dark humor or know who you are. But loneliness, man, as we get older, it sucks. Like not having friends sucks. You have to find your people and be able to have some fellowship with them. Definitely a good thing to do. Humans in general are, we're packed people. I mean, you see it with pets especially too. It's like you pack bond. You need communication. You can get people that say, oh, I don't need anybody. I can stand here and do whatever I want on my own. But deep down, there's just something that's not fully complete. We need to interact with someone or something. So kind of on that where you were saying that you want veterans to know, to find their people, that there's people they can talk to and reach out to. Where can people connect with you? So the best place to find me is at battlefittedbrand.com. My website there has all the links to everything, my podcast. My biggest social media platform right now is LinkedIn at Battlefitted, but I'm prevalent on all social medias, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, all at Battlefitted. So any social media platform and then the website. So one more thing. I just started this on our last podcast, and I'm going to try and continue it. We'll see where it goes. Just a question that I want to just ask each one. So what would you say is one way that we as a society could better support those transitioning from military service to civilian life? Just be empathetic, right? I'm about to have a Vietnam vet on my show, and I've been thinking about this lately. The Vietnam vets, they got treated like trash, right? And now most of us vets were treated almost like heroes, but there's still that other side that says, oh, you get free dinner, you get this discount, you get that discount. And people are bitter by that, but they don't understand what we went through, right? They don't understand. Almost every veteran probably has faced some form of trauma, whether it's a serious injury or an assault or something, because the military still isn't like the greatest place in the world to be. So just have empathy. All right. Well, this is some good stuff. We will share the links that you have for us. We'll make sure we share these with the podcast. Encourage people to contact you if they need this kind of help. And it's great having you on here. We really appreciate your time. And so, Chris, I'll leave the rest to you here. Yeah, the usual. So yeah, on top of thanking Rob, we appreciate and thank everyone who tunes in, watching the podcast, if you're listening to it. We appreciate you taking your time out of your day to listen to us just pass off information to you and ask that if you can spread the information around, hand it off to somebody who might need it, you think might need it, or just anybody in general, get the word out there because they might know somebody who needs it. So thank you for your time and click like, subscribe, everything else that you can do to help spread the word to pass this information out to people. All right. Yeah, great. Okay. On that note, again, thanks. And we will see you next time.