This pre recorded show furnished by Matthew Matern. This is Unite and Heal America with your host Matt Matern. And I'm here with a special guest here today, Michael Barrett, a former US Marine. Michael's got an amazing bio. He's served the country for many years, he's now shifted to doing some work on the home front with an organization called Working Wardrobes. He's the director there. Welcome to the show, Michael.

Thank you, Matt. Appreciate you having me on.

Well, tell us a little bit about yourself and what got you into the Marine Corps and and then what your experiences were while serving in the Marines.

It Well, I have a background family wise of service in our nation's military. My father is a retired Marine. My mother was a Marine, deeper roots in America's military forces in our family. So it was, it was my call, of course, my dad, and I joke about that people think I was forced to join, but that's not the case. But I elected to join the United States Marine Corps. One of the best decisions I think I've ever made in my life.

I've had the honor and privilege to serve in our nation's military, as I like to refer to were the cloth of our nation in service to the defense of the freedom of this great nation as a Marine. And I was fortunate to do so for almost 21 years. And it was a it was an amazing journey that I found myself on the east coast, the West Coast overseas combat deployments, serving in different capacities of leadership, being a servant leader, 100% throughout my career, and a lot of those intangibles that are essentially my DNA, I've taken with me post military service in the sector of of work I'm doing now with the Working Wardrobes, nonprofits, specifically the bed net program.

Well, I'm fascinated by part of the bio and that you were a drill sergeant and went to school for the drill sergeant, we've all seen movies with the drill sergeant, and, you know, you seem like such a nice guy. I guess, you know, in a different role, you a little bit tougher.

It was it of course, I of course, as a Marine, I gotta say it for any of the Marines listening, you know, the Army has a drill sergeants, the Marine Corps has drill instructors. So I'm gonna plug that one, right. But I did, I had the honor of serving in that capacity. It's a special duty assignment in San Diego, California as a Marine Corps drill instructor at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, it was an amazing tour.

And even like, I alluded to family roots, I worked as a drill instructor in the same training battalion that my father in years previous was the battalion sergeant major in in second recruit training battalion. So he and I have got to share quite a bit throughout my military service and have aligned and shared a lot of similar experiences up to and including combat, unfortunate side of being combat wounded as well.

But I love my time down there, though my time and you know, effectively molding the future of the United States Marine Corps, not many can say that, right, that you've got the opportunity to, to mold if you will, and prepare the young men and women in our case, men down there in San Diego to take on the challenges of military service, specifically, in this case, the Marine Corps, and carry forth all of the training out into the fleet and and be of service wherever their path took them.

How long did it take you to kind of get to that level where you were at a drill instructor?

Let's say I went down there that ended up being my third duty station. I was a sergeant when I went down. So you know, I'm around I'm over eight years ish in the Marine Corps already. Right. And, you know, I have that in my in my plan, if you will, career plan, you know, 10 years or less, I will be a Marine Corps drill instructor, because it was written out I wanted to do that I wanted to be a part of that environment. And, you know, careful what you ask for because it's some hard work.

And I think I joke now I think my feet still hurt from that timeframe. But But man, what an opportunity to be a part of something like that, right, working alongside some amazing Marines from different specialties, jobs, specimen specialties from around the Marine Corps. You know, you have infantry man all the way to administration and everything in between. In here we are united as one training the future of the United States Marine Corps and having our hands in that.

And one thing we always enjoy is for the rest of our lives and the rest of our career, both. We're going to run into these young men, and we're going to see them down the road. As they've grown, matured, professionally progressed, and I got to experience that I still do just a few years ago, I was at a Marine Corps Birthday Ball in Las Vegas as a guest of honor and one My recruits was now a gunnery sergeant ie seven years later.

And he's a Marine in that unit, and he himself is already selected for the rank of first sergeant, a rank that I retired at, you know, you know, again, to be able to kind of come full circle and you know, smile and joke, laugh about some of the early days to where he is today, and you can celebrate him and celebrate others just like him. And, and, you know, to be a part of that it's pretty special. Well,

I would imagine they have quite a challenging leadership gauntlet that you have to get to, to, to be an instructor. And, you know, those of us who are, who haven't served probably don't have a clue of what that's like, maybe you can clue us in, because that's, that's something that I think a lot of Westerners be interested in, and really have no sense of what what that like what that is, like.

Absolutely, you know, for, for the men and women that take on that special duty assignment and become Marine Corps drill instructors, they themselves go back through training, almost a feeling, essentially, especially in the beginning of drill, instructor school, feeling as if I'm back in boot camp, once again.

And I've been in the Marine Corps, eight years, and I feel like a recruit, again, is a little bit jokingly say that, but you know, it's pretty intense. It's an intense physically, mentally, emotionally, academically, you're really put through a professional gauntlet, because you're going to go across the street, we call it across the street, into the trenches with the training companies.

And you're going to be physically responsible for the lives of others, and preparing in molding the future of the United States Marine Corps and all that that entails. And the training is, like I said, it's 13 weeks, it's almost like going to boot camp all over again.

It's a fascinating experience, and not too many people have have lived it. So thank you for sharing that with us, then you did serve over in Iraq, as well. And tell us a little bit about your experiences serving over there.

I did. I was fortunate to serve two combat deployments combat data operations in for me, that timeframe was Iraq. I was there in 2004. Not a good deployment, I actually our Humvee was struck by an IED a roadside bomb. It hit us pretty bad three of us, including myself, severely wounded and resulted to be medevacked out of country. So our deployment, if you will, ended quickly. And off, we went into, you know, the medical realm for rehabilitation and recovery.

All of us striving to do our best to you know, like any, any military service member will tell you that that experience is something like that. All you want to do is get back in the fight, all you want to do is get back with your troops, get back with your Marines, your soldiers, your sailors, whatever the case may be, is that that's where your heart is. That's where they are, that's where I want to be. And that certainly was a focus for me.

Throughout my time, in medical recovery, I had to learn how to walk again, I got hit pretty bad. And shrapnel ripped through my right leg to the upper hip at hip thigh area, shattered my femur severed my femoral artery and then blew out behind my right the nerve damage burns. Your drums are blown as bleeding out of both ears and several other areas of my right side of my body. But I had an amazing, you know, group of Marines that were there that you know, I am where I am today because of them. I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if it were not for them.

And these are young troops, right? Some of them we joke about like, where, where were you last year or a year and a half ago, I was still in high school worried about finals. And you know, hahaha, right, that kind of conversation. But here it is these young men and women. Now they're in the middle of combat operations and seeing something that is going to be they're going to carry with them mentally for the rest of their lives, seeing their brothers hurt, wounded, injured, significantly severely, but training instinctively kicked in. And like I said, I owe it all to them.

You know, I am where I am today. Because of the Marines first and foremost, they were boots on the ground on that scene where we were when we got hit all the way to an Army medic. And I say an Army medic showed up that after the bomb went off, they came to where we were. Our corpsman was treating the other wounded Marines from my truck. All five of us were wounded, and an Army medic started working on myself. It was a pretty sketchy scene and ultimately the decision was made to place my my body on the hood of another Humvee inside of school of Constantine wire barbed wire. So I basically picture your body laying inside of a nest of barbed wire.

And I did they brought me right in the middle of it. You know the windshield was right here to my Right, the front of the truck was immediately to my left. My lieutenant was on the hood with me JC dentistry, and that Army medic. Who, man, I wish I knew his name. You could be him for all I know, I have no idea what this guy looks like what his name is, but here he is on the hood of a Humvee with me, my lieutenant, we load the rest of our wounded into the trucks and boom, we now we're driving back to the camp. So we drive back to the camp back through a village back through a marketplace.

So many opportunities to take on additional contact fire. Another ID possibly, I mean, you never know the what ifs are endless, but we make it back to the camp right into medical, shock, trauma, trauma platooning they start working on us and I recall everything you know, I was awake and refuse morphine and I wanted to maintain a sense of clarity and my mouth still worked. I was still in charge as far as I was concerned. It didn't matter if I was wounded.

And, and you know, God bless those Marines that that Army medic, our corpsman, the rest of the team, our EOD team, explosive ordnance team that was with us as well, we were a security element with EOD and, and got us back to the camp safely. And then, you know, the medical journey, took his course for the next from my clock is the day I was wounded. To the day I re enlisted was 533 days, and I go through it in between. But I re enlisted back in, in the desert doing pre deployment workups and then I deployed with my Marines back to Iraq again, two years later.

So that's an amazing story. Well, we're gonna go to break right now, my guess Michael Barrett, and this is the Unite and Heal America program. I'm Matt Matern on KABC 790. We'll be back with you in just one minute.

You're back on Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. And I've got my special guest, Michael Barrett, the US Marine Corps, drill instructor and Iraq veteran. You were just hearing Michael share with us what harrowing experience he had gone through when his Humvee blew up over explosive device in Iraq. And I wish the viewers could kind of see the picture of this Humvee, it's I saw it.

And it was literally like blown apart. I could, I could barely imagine that anybody survived this explosion, it was pretty incredible. So it's a miracle that you're here with us and glad to have you here. And maybe you can share with us a little bit about your road back to recovery after such a incredible explosion and injuries that you suffered.

Yeah, absolutely. I forgot you had sold the vehicle, that truck that you saw, that was the fifth day that we had that vehicle we had just received, it was early on stage, one of the armament of the Humvee vehicles. So if you saw a picture of what we were driving before, none of us, I wouldn't be here talking to you right now. It would have ripped us, like Swiss cheese, who would have been, we would have been dead, but the truck was, it took a beating, you can see and anybody would I agree with you, 1,000%, you look at that picture, and ask somebody how many you think live, everybody would say no way.

But all five of us live. And it's just, it's a blessing in itself. It wasn't our turn to go. We have a higher purpose to be here for a different path. And, you know, it's certainly thankful for that, you know, the journey through rehabilitation. And recovery is, you know, it's an arduous process. It's challenging, it has its ups and downs. It's mentally, emotionally, physically draining. But I think for me personally, it was, I find myself to be very fortunate, you know, I had an amazing support system.

Number one, that starts with, obviously, the Marines that were around me, that our family, my medical staff, the leadership there, as well as the commander of my unit really took care of me. Honestly, I probably should have been medically retired based on the circumstances at hand and the injuries but I was I like to say professionally belligerent, and my time was not up I'm not getting out. I refuse to accept that. I didn't want to hear it.

And I said, we're gonna get through this and I'm gonna bust my tail to do so. And it again, it was a lot of work. It was, I went to hospitals, I was at home care. I lived on my couch at home, I couldn't walk up my own stairs. I had a PICC line inserted for infectious medicine. To receive that for six months. My wife essentially became my doctor at home she changed out the infectious medication every six hours and then she got up to check on me to make sure I was good changed out the IV in the bag and the whole nine in the middle of the night.

Make sure I was being taken care of. You know, the small things a little some snacks right next to the couch because I couldn't I wasn't really mobile. You you know, minimal very slow but eventually I got to the point in in and through and recovery rehab busted my tail the holes in my legs eventually got to a point to where the skin graft could take place and plastic surgery was able to do their their magic and you know remove skin from a portion of my leg and put it over the the two large holes and my body accepted the new skin which was awesome.

And I didn't have to go through that process again. And many veterans that have ever had a skin graft know that it's not a comfortable process. It's pretty painful. And in the healing began and you know, for me, it was like How quick can I get into a pool, I can get into swim tank, we call it right and I can start working on the muscle groups in my leg without the pounding of physical therapy, right. And I eventually got there and I really gained a lot of strength in my in my lower limbs, my hip, and other you know, portions of my body which I became very, very weak.

I mean, I was skinny pale. I was like 145-150 pounds, and it was bad. I had friends who visited me in the hospital at one point walk right past me as I was being wheeled true story I was being wheeled to physical therapy, and there they go. And they're like, Was that was that him? I didn't even recognize me because I was I was in pretty bad shape. But you know, we joke about it. Now I am at a place in life where I can joke about it now, you know, sure, it's still painful process and memories. But you know, I'm comfortable, obviously, where I am now talking about it.

But again, like all credit is to my family, the Marines, my medical team staff, I am where I am today, because of them my wife 100%, I would not be where I am today. Without her my success is due 100% to her. And she's still here. We've been together for 24 years, married for 22 years. And, you know, like I said it was a hard process. But again, I had an amazing team. My goals were lofty, they were high retention, reenlistment, staying in the Marine Corps, concluding and making and achieving a goal of retirement. And I did actually pass a little bit over 20 years, but I eventually retired.

So then you so you got back from that tremendous set of injuries you suffered. And then you got back into active duty again and went on another tour duty. So tell us a little bit about that.

Second deployment went back again in 2006-2007. You know, I wish I could say everybody came home, but they didn't, you know, it was a tough deployment. And you know, we have some warriors with us and in another IED took three of our brothers in the same town almost in the exact same spot that I got hit two years prior That in itself is a little a little creepy, right to the same town, same road almost in the exact same spot to marine survive still in touch with those gentlemen, one a little bit more than the other, of course, but he and I, as he would put it and said

You and I share a grid square, right, uh, grid square, and I rack up what we share in life together. And I was like, Yes, sir. We do. And the deployment was, it was a long one, we had some tough moments, some tough points. But the Marines we had with us remain ever resilient. And while we wish we could have brought all of our brothers home. You know, the Marines were steadfast and dedicated to the mission, worrying about and staying focused on the mission and the day at hand and continuing to keep freedom and the protection of it in the forefront while still challenging challenge with adversity.

And in all that comes with it being in a combat theater of operations. Aside from the last, you know, it was a successful deployment. And you know, we all came home and then eventually everybody started to you know, you go to the new duty station, you transition you a lot of the Marines exited service and went back, either state, local, or hometown, USA and began their next chapter in life. But for me, I when I got home, I transitioned and I moved on to another duty station,

looking back, you know, from this perspective, having been involved in multiple deployments and and now seeing what's happening in Iraq now, you know, and we've reduced our presence down there to about 2500 troops from my understanding, do you think that we should pull out or do you think we should stay with that deployment or or increase it?

You know, I'm I am and I'll always be 100%, supportive of whomever our commander in chief is at the time, and or will be all of our professional leaders of military service and the decisions that they have strategically operationally around the globe. We certainly have all had conversations of potentially why are we here? Right?

I mean, you could probably go through every era of history and talk to a servicemen from their time and probably would have the same conversation to a point right, but we support the big picture. We understand the why. I'd rather us always go forward into another arena that have to fight these battles here at home, and in our society, be it faced with such challenges, you know, some societies globally, they deal with combat element type stuff every day in their neighborhoods.

And that's just the way of life. You know, we saw that a lot in the Middle East, and it still goes on. It's sad to see that, right? You'd like to think that, you know, the footprints that you left were all forward positive momentum and gaining of positive change. And they're certainly what absolutely 100% certainly was, but there's often times where it feels like you're, you know, three steps backwards vise three steps forward in the regression vise, the progression and that, that in itself is frustrating. Yeah,

certainly the the immediate problems that you all experienced, there must have been incredibly harrowing. But, yeah, you can look back at a lot of progress that you did make and good things that did happen. And hopefully, the Iraqi government and the people take and build upon some of the good work that was done and, you know, ousted, the ISIS, primarily from their territory. I mean, there's still elements there. But, you know, fortunately, it's, it's less than it was a few years ago.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I focus on certain aspects of, especially, you know, the ultimate sacrifice is certainly not in vain. You know, we did do positive things, we did have effective change, you know, the big picture and the why, and the understanding of that, why, why we're here, etc, is something positive to focus on.

And I like to think that, you know, again, regardless of frustrations and challenges and uncertainties in the big picture, you still have made a positive impact here globally, in the eyes of people around the world, you know, understanding and knowing that, you know, the United States military is here, and will be here and will be of service to our allied nations, should they call upon us? And should they need us and that is going to be the case 100% all of the time. And I got to be a part of that.

Right. Well, I mean, certainly our troops are very valiantly and have served and continue to serve valiantly in that theater as well as theaters around the world. And that sends the right message to our friends and to our foes that we are who we are and take us seriously for sure. We're going to be going to a break my guest Michael Barrett, a US Marine, and you're here listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern on KABC 790. We're gonna pivot when we come back with Michael to the work that he's been doing stateside with working wardrobe. So when we get back Michael Barrett.

You are listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern and my guest, Michael Barrett, US Marine and and now working stateside with Working Wardrobes. You're a director at that program. And I'd love to hear more about your work there. I know that lots of Armed Forces personnel come back to the US after having served and unfortunately a lot of them have struggled with various problems upon coming back and getting back into you know, the flow here and my understanding is your organization works with them to help them kind of get reoriented.

Absolutely. You know, I'm the director of our VetNet program. It's a safety net for veterans here at Working Wardrobes in our Career Success Center in Santa Ana, California, and the working world Joe's VetNet program supports demographically no man women, families of our military veterans and transitioning servicemembers. You know, our objective is, you know, provision of a variety of workforce readiness services and programs.

Of course, for us as always, in an environment of dignity and respect. And our team works to assist in each individual and or collective unit with a path to job opportunities, I should say a path to career success. So you know, it's, it's, it's quite a bit of what we do here. The VetNet program here at Working Wardrobes has been in place since 2012. Organizationally, we have been around for 30 years in Orange County, and you know, we're of service to the veterans and military families in our community.

And we are here to do everything that we can to assist them with everything overcoming barriers that they're currently facing, you know, such as unemployment, homelessness, you know, our VetNet program, it has a Department of Labor grant, it is referred to as h VRP, homeless veteran Reintegration Program, assisting veterans that are homeless or at risk of homelessness, getting them trained, getting them off the street, assisting them and navigating toward placement in permanent housing, and all of the in between career readiness services that we're going to provide them from touching up or creating a new resume, job search, job leads this Luckily shoulder to shoulder at a computer working with our VetNet job developer in our career navigation team and helping them with training, working on soft skills, hard skills, connecting with our job coaches, a big piece of what we do is in the name to write Working Wardrobes, we are pretty unique.

And in the county here, we provide professional wardrobe to our clients. And when they reach a point after going through the programs and the training, they are paired with a personal shopper write our own in little Neiman Marcus feel right, and they're paired up and our ladies and gentlemen receive professional wardrobe, head to toe as I like to call suited and booted Dress for Success ready to attack that interview and sit before a potential ended or future employer and achieve and attain career success. In the end.

We're a part of changing that mentally, emotionally, physically and getting them to that point, and they walk out with a brand new suit. And again, all of our services, I should have said this from the get go is 100%. Free to our veterans, they don't pay for anything.

Yeah, it sounds like a great set of services. And I was just curious as to how many vets is your organization working with say In an average year pandemic year 2020. Right. So many challenges, we probably need more time. But you know, we had some pretty significant success even during the pandemic, with all that, that faced on average, we're serving as an organization, you know, around 5000, or more annually, VetNet in general.

And that's between all four of our programs. We have a VetNet program, CSI, which is our Career Success Institute serving our civilian contingent, the bowknot C Sep, which is our 55 and older demographic, with training and placement, a much slower pace workforce with that age group, and our older, and our re entry to success serving those that are previously justice involve reducing recidivism, doing our part to get them back into society successfully and not repeating patterns, if you will, and all the way down to VetNet, as I mentioned, working with transitioning servicemen and women, spouses, veterans of all era, anytime we've had from Vietnam, we had won World War Two veteran with us one time God bless him, he was awesome.

It was like sitting inside of a History Channel and just listening to him talk. It was awesome. It was great, great moments in time. But we you know, we have all of this, all of these opportunities that we provide. And, you know, our goals are lofty, we look to be of service to as many veterans as physically possible, within the core competencies of what our organization provides. And I feel that we've been extremely successful in doing so even at the the onset of a pandemic.

And as you may know, already, just prior to the pandemic in 2020, Working Wardrobes organization and facility burned to the ground on the fire. We lost everything gone. Superbowl Sunday, one year ago, we lost everything that day. That was on a Sunday, yet by May. I love the show. This is Monday morning, our team convened at a board members office here in Orange County.

And we sat there collectively with the leadership that we have Miss Jerry rose in our CEO and founder. She stood before the collective group and said Today we begin to rebuild when the ladder easily could have been, it's been a great ride. I love having all of you on board. But we're shutting the doors. That's it because we just lost everything. Quite the opposite.

We began to work in rebuild the very next day, we were remote. We were without assets. We had essentially nothing community partners and organizations that came together to really support us. We were spread throughout the county, still supporting our base of clients didn't change. They didn't go anywhere. They still needed us. And we are still going to be of service to them, regardless of the challenge and adversity we're facing at the time.

And I tell you what, we continue to work and we continue to put our heads down and what and resilient staff and team to get us to the point where we reopened in June. Okay, this happened February, June, reopened our donation center in Irvine. And they're they're doing amazing work right now as we speak.

And then where I am today, sitting inside of our New Career Success Center here in Santa Ana reopened just two months later, maybe less than two months later. And here we are now still providing service, still supporting our community still supporting and being of service to those in need.

Well, that's a that's a great story. And certainly your marine training has served you well and dealing with the difficult circumstances and taking, taking the lemons and turning them into lemonade. So how does your organization kind of engage in outreach to to find the veterans in need so that you can help them out?

That's a great question on my team, I have an outreach specialist. However, all of us essentially wear that hat proudly. And we use as many tools in our toolbox that we have readily available all things social platforms, exercising outreach to a mass audience instantly via social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Also interfacing with community partners organizations throughout Orange County from, you know, even as far up as Long Beach touching base and chatting with folks in Los Angeles, San Diego, tapping into and reminding folks of who we are, what we do, and most importantly, who we do it for going out to in meeting with the staff at shelters, working and communicating with the Department of Veterans Affairs that are assisting veterans through the HUD VASH process and assisting that app.

But getting back permanent placement in remaining readily available, right, branding, marketing in every capacity. It's physically possible and allowed and really reminding folks that we're still here, and this is what we can do. This is what we will do, and not just doing it verbally, but we're going to do it and show it through action perform.

Tell our listeners, how they should be contacting you or how they can contact you and and what types of services that both for veterans and non veterans listening could reach out to your organization. Yes, sir.

I mean, always start with a website, www.workingwardrobes “with an s” .org O-R-G. Our main line telephone is 714-210-2460. We are a Monday through Friday operation 830 to 5pm. And our services are readily available to as I mentioned just a moment ago, of course, all veterans, newly transitioning soon to be transitioning veterans of all eras and ages, we have our reentry to success and serving those that are justice involved.

And faced with those challenges, our CSET program, serving our 55 and older demographic and CSI career six Success Institute, which is our civilian contingent, four pillar programs being a service to our population. We have a donation center, we have hanger boutiques, and our hanger store outlet stores where we take some of our items and place them for resale at a is extremely nice. We've shopped and wear this stuff ourselves, but it's at a much more affordable rate.

And that helps us you know, resupply and keep the monies and keep our doors open. In addition to needing of course support from the community, getting engaged and involved with our campaigns and programs, helping sponsor or fundraise and get involved and get engaged, that really allows us collectively to keep our doors open and continue to be of service. We can't do it without you. Well, definitely.

That's that's something that I'd like you to talk about in terms of ways that people can donate their time, as well as, obviously resources. You mentioned clothing, money, whatever it is, what are the ways that people can contribute? We've got about 30 seconds before we go to break, and I'll let you kind of just hit the audience with how they should be looking to contribute to this great organization.

Go to our website, there's opportunities for internships with our organization, there's opportunities to get involved in volunteerism, support and donate lightly user new on hangers to our donation center and allow us to repurpose those professional items back to the clients that we serve. Again to our website, you can look at the campaigns and fundraising opportunities where you can engage and get involved directly yourselves donate, I mean, 50 cents $1 to however high your allowable you can afford is certainly appreciated.

And, you know, never hesitate to reach out to our team, call us how can we CSR days working with employers and other companies join us getting engaged with us. I guarantee you, the time will be well spent, and it will be something you'll remember for the rest of your life.

Well, thank you for that, Michael. I really appreciate the work that Working Wardrobes is doing. This is Matt Matern. You're listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. We're going to be back in just a minute and talk further with Michael Barrett, former US Marine and now director at Working Wardrobes down here in Orange County. Great work that's being done. We'll be back in just a minute.

You're listening to Unite and Heal America with Matern KABC 790. My guest today is Michael Barrett, former US Marine also now working stateside with Working Wardrobes and organization based in Orange County that has done a lot of great work. And Michael has been talking with us about that. I wanted to pivot a little bit to an issue that I've been working on which is a bill to help house homeless people and giving a stipend to families and organizations that take in of homeless individuals.

So it's a benefit for for the community to help people find homes and and the it's kind of similar to the foster care system where people take in young children and they get some money for doing it but it's a benefit obviously to our community to help people be housed and so wanted to float that idea by you and get your thoughts about that.

Yeah, I mean, good on you Matt. Big salute to you sir. I think that it's hard in mines are in the right place with that our nation across the board, you know, is faced with with homelessness and all that, that that entails here in Southern California, we have a very large footprint, especially in Los Angeles, but we certainly have that down here in Orange County as well. We see it every day, you know, city officials, county state, you know, etc. Across the board.

You know, I know as of late have made over this last year, I'd like to speak to because I saw it physically come to fruition. Finally, you look at from the veteran homeless population. They opened up two veterans villages here in Orange County. One is the Santa Ana Veterans Village known as heroes landing previously homeless veterans now inside of a I believe it's a 75 bed facility. It is a beautiful facility. It's not I hate to say busy, it's like apartments.

And I'd love to live there if I could, I mean, it's, it's an amazing amenity, but the placement is supportive based in you know, their status, veteran status, their their economic status. And as far as you know, it doesn't matter, you have to make this much to live here or you can't, no, they make it work. And they balance it and bring balance, I should say to the lives of those veterans in taking them off the streets and putting them into permanent housing.

And the other was opened up not too long after in Placencia, right outside next to Anaheim, right, and essentially a veteran's village, an amazing facility in itself. Please, listeners, Google it, look it up, take a peek at it, you're gonna love it. And I can tell you, I was just there and my team was there the last two days at the Santa Ana veteran's village heroes landing, we had some monies that we applied for via grant and were awarded $10,000, our VetNet program chose to use every cent $10,000 to address food insecurity for our homeless veterans, our veterans and military families.

And we were at the facility. And in two days time, after we were able to get as many as we could, we had 59 veterans that we were able to physically hand $100 Grocery gift card to to assist them with addressing some potential food insecurities that they were currently facing. And I'm still doing that I still have some cards left. And I have 100 in total. And I'm so proud to speak about that.

Because you know, it's not just a gift card, you know, you're putting food in a refrigerator that you know you didn't have, you're putting food on the table that you potentially weren't going to have, you know, addressing directly some challenges with food insecurities and making a positive impact. And we've been doing that over the last several weeks, and not just ourselves. We've called upon our community partners, right? Do you have veterans you're working with that are facing the same challenge?

Let's collaborate, right? We are 100% about collaboration, not competition, if we can help, let's work together. And that's just an example of what we've been doing. That's a great program. And I know we've worked with an organization that called Food finders, and they they do work in both Orange County and LA County and, and they try to help distribute food that would have gone to waste to many organizations.

And I don't know if you've worked with them before, but I know they do some great work they do. I've heard of them. Absolutely. And again, if somebody is faced with a challenge, and they get a phone call or an email or word of mouth and say, Hey, come by tomorrow, and this is what you're gonna get, you immediately added some positivity to their life, keeping them on a positive path and falling, you know, backwards to a negative path. And having that level of impact is pretty, it's pretty amazing.

How do you coordinate your work with the Veterans Affairs Bureau? And because obviously, you're a private organization, and the federal government has a lot more resources but you're probably a little bit more nimble when in addressing these problems, lack of better term, not as much bureaucracy and red tape, I'm probably spot on with that one, right?

I mean, you have a bit more autonomy to do what you want how you want. And you can see usually in the 100 percentile in this type of environment, you're able to achieve exactly what you want to do because of you know, you don't have the same barriers interface with some other entities in government may present right and our impact is easily or easily achievable.

Directly then having a ghost and navigate through some other sidebar, red tape, etc. But working with and communicating with the Department of Veterans Affairs such as here in Santa Ana at the VA CRC, like I mentioned earlier, for those that are working to application to HUD VASH permanent placement address seeing, you know, permanent housing placement is a big proponent of what we're doing here with the VA.

Prior to the pandemic, my team would drive up to the Long Beach VA, in meet in building 50 was right up behind the hospital. And we would present our programs and opportunities to the veterans that were cycling through the hospital, letting them know Well, part of outreach that, hey, we're here, and this is how we can work and support one another to address everything homelessness, underemployment, unemployment, you know, food, etc.

Why no, Judge David Carter down there in federal court judge in Santa Ana has visited some of the homeless encampments, and has kind of made some orders to to make progress on that I don't know if any of that work had touched upon things that you're working with, with your organization, Working Wardrobes.

Oh, we're not physically, you know, in that capacity we're not, they're usually at a few stages past that by the time they arrive to us. But I have a portion of my VetNet team we have is contracted to Orange County health care agency to OC for vet program, veteran behavioral health, but my team there and a little bit of my team here obviously, worked very closely with county programs, who are that initial contact boots on the ground.

At times, a portion of my team does work hand in hand when it is a veteran in need, in assisting that team from the county side, in navigating in support of that veteran, because, again, my team is all veterans. So we are on the same clause speak the same language and understand the challenges of how to assist them with potential barriers faced and you know, in that capacity is how we really leverage our partnerships and relationships, all in the best interests of serving those in the community in need. Well,

I know that a lot of veterans have have suffered mental health issues coming back from theatres of war. And what role is, is your organization playing in it helping those veterans navigate those, those very challenging circumstances?

Absolutely. Everybody comes with their own path in life and a heavy bag, if you will, to carry first and foremost, we remind them that it's free of judgment here, we don't judge anybody, and we let them know, they are not alone. And I think most importantly, of all, it's okay to ask for help. And sometimes it's, you know, the experiential learning, shared learning, we opened up a little bit in in, you know, the relatable experience is very powerful, we let them know I to have been I've had, you know, teammates themselves that were previously homeless, post military service.

And this is how they navigated, right? Remind them and present them with positive opportunities to change their current circumstance. But reminding them that I'm not just handing this to you and tell you to figure out, I am going to be on this journey with you, we will be on this journey with you the entire time, we're guiding you, but you're going to lead us empowerment at the same time.

You know, we remind them all of the above there, and we do our best to support those that are in need connecting to clinical services, behavioral health, substance abuse, you know, anything that may be justice involved, etc. to really help them overcome, you know, any barrier faced really, so they can come out on the back end positively.

Well, I would imagine it's particularly difficult for for people who are are combat veterans or kind of tough individuals to reach out and ask for help. So I would imagine you've got your hands full doing that.

Yeah, I smile, not that it's not funny. It's not I smile, because I was that guy. I was I was like, I don't need anybody. So I don't I'm not going to ask for anybody help. No stigmas, you're gonna think I'm weak, or I can't, you know, I'm a man, I can't, you know, without, for me, like, I can't take care of myself and all that nonsense is what it is, you know, and sometimes it takes a conversation or two, with someone of like mind and shared experience to really get them to see a different perspective. open their eyes, open up a new door that they may not have really known was there or trusted.

And we build that through conversation, positive motivational interviewing and relationship building. And we get to a point where they didn't take that positive step forward, and they received the service and support that they need to come out possibly.

Well, Michael, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. It's you've been listening to Unite and Heal America on KABC 790. I'm Matt Matern and in our guest was Michael Barrett, former US Marine from Working Wardrobes. Looking forward to having you all the listeners back next week. Have a great week.

This pre recorded show furnished by Matthew Matern.