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Law Enforcement Talk: True Crime and Trauma Stories
A Different Way To Treat PTSD?
00:39:59
A Different Way To Treat PTSD? Combat Veteran Speaks. In a powerful Special Episode of the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast, listeners are introduced to a man whose life mission is transforming the way people think about trauma, healing, and post-traumatic growth. Dr. Matthew Burke, a Combat Veteran, author, and Ph.D., opens up about his personal battle with PTSD, his journey toward healing, and how he’s helping others do the same.
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Matthew Burke
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John J. Wiley
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Matthew Burke
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John J. Wiley
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John J. Wiley
See mintmobile.com his experiences as a military combat veteran inspired him to get his PhD and dedicate his life to helping first responders and military veterans deal better with the effects of trauma and lead better lives. Welcome to the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. In the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show, we are joined by special guests talking about their experiences, the realities of investigating crimes, plus those who have experienced horrendous trauma, police fraud, first responders, military and victims of crime share their stories. Hi, I'm John J. Wiley. In addition to being a broadcaster, I'm also a retired police sergeant. Be sure to check out our website letradio.com and also like us on Facebook, search for the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show. Be sure to check out our website letradio.com that's letradio.com there you'll find episodes of the show available as a podcast after airing on radio. And they're always free. There's 700 plus episodes on there right now. There's blogs. Get information about our sponsors, all that and much more@letradio.com again the website is letradio.com calling us from Northeast Florida. We have Matthew R. Burke, PhD, retired combat veteran, founder of Tin Can Inc. Their website's Tin Can Us. Also check them out on Facebook facebook.com for/10 and you find them right there. Matthew, thanks so much for being guest on the show. Very much appreciate it.
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Matthew Burke
Hey, thank you for having me.
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John J. Wiley
First of All I appreciate your service, our country. I know you're going to talk a bit about that. You were a military, you were a military person for a while and you are retired combat vet now, correct?
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Matthew Burke
That's correct.
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John J. Wiley
How long did you do in the military?
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Matthew Burke
I did 13 years.
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John J. Wiley
And what branch were you in?
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Matthew Burke
Air Force.
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John J. Wiley
All right, now, I'm not going to make any Air Force jokes. A lot of people like to do that. Look, there's a lot of tough assignments in the Air Force and a lot of people that make these jokes. I understand it's okay for other military branches to do that, those outside. If you think it's easy, sign up and try it yourself and let us know how it was. So I won't be doing that. During your career in the Air Force, you saw combat, correct?
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Matthew Burke
Yes.
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John J. Wiley
And without going knee deep in the weeds, it had a profound impact on you, didn't it?
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Matthew Burke
I did, yeah.
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John J. Wiley
What was some of the experiences that were a huge factor in your. I hate this term mental health, emotional health, whatever it might be afterwards?
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Matthew Burke
Well, there's definitely pros and cons. I like to start with the cons first. And the cons is, you know, it's. Life is. Life can be taken from you in an instant. And if you're not prepared, it's your family. You kind of leave your family on their own, everybody having to kind of pick up the pieces and whatnot. Some of the other things of mental health. Is that what I consider being a spiritual prisoner of war? It's that post traumatic stress that a lot of. For a long time I had a hard time. I had a hard time escaping. Those are the terminologies I use because when we talk about spiritual warfare, it's really hard to understand something that we can't touch or smell or see. Right. It's really just really difficult. And so what I had to learn is how to apply my combat training to what's going on inside of me. What's going on inside my head, My head, my command center, if you would. And now it started out as a con, but ultimately ended up as a pro. And what I've, what I've, been able to do is take what I've learned in escaping from the spiritual prison and these constant attacks, with these constant attacks from the enemy, you know, that we carry stuff home with us. And so it's really, it's really just tough to describe unless you've been there, done that.
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John J. Wiley
It is. And I tell people one of the best ways I can describe it was all the tools I needed to be a good street cop. Everything I needed to stay alive. And by the way, going back to what you said earlier, if people realized how easy they could lose their lives or how easy they could be maimed, they would be in a constant state of panic. So I don't want people to think that. But all those tools that I needed eventually became a handicap for me having a pleasant life today. And I had to remind myself all the time. I'm not telling my story, but I have to remind myself all the time, hey, that was needed back then. It's not needed now. The situation now is not like then. Even though there are triggers, and I hate that word, I'm air. Air quoting that leads me to think I need to react a certain way because it reminds me of past incidents.
- [06:20]
Matthew Burke
Yeah, I actually like the word trigger because it's, it's what we know. As if you would gunslingers. And if you're familiar with the trigger, when it first was designed, there was no trigger guards and people ended up shooting yourself in the foot and had a lot of mishaps, if you would. So what, what I teach a lot of, a lot of people and I had to teach myself this is to build a guard around my trigger to protect not just myself, but others. Right. And so I actually like that word because it's something that most warriors can, can, can recognize. But going to the, going to the pro of seeing combat and seeing just the massive destruction of stuff that, that, that I witnessed over there, you know, the pro is that I value life.
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John J. Wiley
I.
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Matthew Burke
All this drama, the petty stuff that, that we face in first world country, it's nothing if you've experienced what, what a lot of warriors have experienced, like myself, you know, and, and it's like for, for example, the COVID pandemic, a lot of people were freaking out. You had the, the global shortage of toilet paper and you got people hoarding ammunition. A lot of different things because people are scared. They've never faced anything like this. But I would, I would venture to guess that I'm not alone and saying that this was, this was my prime operating platform when everybody's freaking out. I function at the highest, highest levels. And that's something that you don't get unless you've been under fire and you've been under those stressful situations, that you can function in a high stress environment and enjoy it. And not that I enjoyed seeing all the deaths that was taking place with COVID It was that I just enjoy, I enjoy being able to operate in high intense Situations. And you know, when everybody shut down, I stayed in the field, man. And I. What do they call, what they call them in the Air Force who call them noners? Non essential personnel. Right. And so I wasn't going to be a noner. I wasn't going to sit in the. Sit in a bunker, sit in my house and do nothing. I felt that I needed to be out in the field and still taking my mission to serving a purpose, if you would.
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John J. Wiley
Yeah, I agree. I was laughing earlier because my wife will say one of the classic examples is, and I know this sounds ridiculous, a tree frog jumped off of a sliding glass door and landed on her shoulder. And she went crazy. And I'm like, I did barely respond. And she's like, how come you didn't come save my life? And I was like, honey, it's not a life threatening situation. I handle threatening situations differently, you know. And here's part of the weird thing. Even after all these years, Matthew, part of me, deep down inside, as much as I dislike sometimes how it has affected me, I seem to perform better in crisis, chaos and life threatening situations than I do in the mundane. You talked about.
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Matthew Burke
Yes.
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John J. Wiley
And she doesn't get the right response and she's like, you're. You're not even paying attention. Why don't you care? I think you could relate to that.
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Matthew Burke
I can, yes.
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John J. Wiley
That's the hard part. We're sitting down having dinner and another guest talked about this. We're having dinner, we're trying to have a nice time. You know, we see these TV commercials. You have the couples there, they've got the candlelight dinner, the nice restaurant. They're looking at each other's eyes and they're having deep, heartfelt conversations and intimacy and all these things. And I'm trying to do that. And some guys talking too loud in the corner. And I'm paying attention to what he's doing because it reads as a possible threat to me and it kind of destroys the entire moment. Let's just put it this way, it doesn't wind up being like the television shows and movies. We're talking with Matthew Burke. He is a PhD, he's a combat veteran. He's the founder of Ten. Can we talk more about his story, his mission afterwards? Trauma, combat, you name it. It's all coming up on a law enforcement show. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Of all the radio stations in the United States, there are no other shows like the law enforcement talk radio show. And on Facebook, there's only one official page Do a search on Facebook for the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show and be sure to like the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show Facebook page.
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John J. Wiley
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John J. Wiley
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John J. Wiley
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John J. Wiley
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John J. Wiley
Matthew Burke on the Law Enforcement Show. Matthew is a retired U.S. air Force combat veteran. He's a PhD. He's a founder of 10 Can Inc. 10 Us is a website also on Facebook facebook.com 10 can just do a search on Facebook for 10 number 10 when we were talking earlier, I think one of the profound experiences for me, and I'm sure it was for you, is, look, I want people to be comfortable in their beds at night and not be aware of how dangerous life really can be. And for me, it was a huge culture shock. The amount of violence that I saw. When you were deployed, especially overseas, you were a relatively young man. This had to be quite the shock experience for you to be deployed to a combat war zone.
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Matthew Burke
Yeah, it definitely was.
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John J. Wiley
Every little thing about that, the sounds, the sights, did that lead you into becoming a better combat veteran?
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Matthew Burke
Yeah, it did. It actually did. You know, although I was struggling with some traumatic stress, it allowed me to be more focused, honed in. It's what we call being seasoned and kind of a really being the master of your environment and situationally aware. You're checking corners, you're watching people more with more intent. You're reading body languages, you're sitting with your back in the corner. Different things of that nature.
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John J. Wiley
Yeah, my wife knows the routine. When we go out to eat, there's certain spots I'm more comfortable at and other ones I'm not. And she already knows we don't even have to have. She'll say periodically. This is good for you, isn't it? I'm like, yeah, this is perfect.
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Matthew Burke
That's awesome. Yeah. My family is very similar. They've been able to adapt, and it was a shock, really. It was a shock for them when I came home, and I was different. And my kid just the other day, she's 21, married to a Marine now, and we were going over kind of some history, and she's like, dad, you know, you've come a long ways. You know, I can appreciate you. But, you know, one of the biggest things was I didn't like it when you came home different. And that broke my heart, you know, coming home, you know, kind of as this different person. So I don't know really how to explain it unless you've been there, done that, and that. That happens for military, it happens kind of instantly because we're exposed 247 for 6 to 12 months. Whereas, you know, first responders, you can. It can gradually occur over time because we just don't have a safe haven over there to where we can escape and get our minds and soul restored, if you would.
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John J. Wiley
One of the things you said, I think that's important, is when you came home. For me, I was exposed to so much violence and trauma and stress all the time that I had to leave Baltimore. I had to get out of the state of Maryland. I love being a couple hours away, but still, it was too close. I moved to a totally different other part of the United States. I'm in Florida now, and I still walk around. Not with my head on a swivel like I used to, not like it was when I was on the job, but eventually I still. I still have those cues in there. And there's only two places I ever felt totally relaxed, actually. Three. One's Blue Ridge, Georgia, in the mountains with no people around. Funny how that is. The other one is the Lower Keys, because it's so peaceful down there. And the other one's the country of Ireland. It's so relaxing, so little violent crime. I just. Just didn't immediately felt the absence of threat of violence. So when you come home, there's got to be a difficult phase of changing and flipping that switch, for lack of better words.
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Matthew Burke
Yeah, it was definitely. I turned to the outdoors because that's where my childhood roots are. I turn to the outdoors for the healing and to try to get. Get squared away, if you would. But, you know, I'm with you, man. When I'm hunting and fishing, I feel at peace. It's. It's a good way for me to flesh out some stuff that I'm dealing with, you know, surviving, doing a survival challenge. It reminds me of how bad life can really be because we, we do have it good. And, and when you, when you deploy and you're taking a shower in cold water and freezing temperatures outside, you don't have a Posturepedic bed to snuggle up in, you can't touch your, you know, wife or whatever the case may be, hug your kids, then those, those are the, those are the things we often take for granted here, here in America. And, and what I like to do is just get out and remind myself how, how tough things could really be and how good I actually have it. You know, that's when I get complacent. Everybody gets complacent.
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John J. Wiley
We do.
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Matthew Burke
I mean, it's, it's, you know, one of the things that, that, that I, that, that I'm able to lower my guard in is when I'm around, when I'm around my brothers, if I'm around someone in law enforcement, I trust them, you know, and I feel like I can sit with my back to the door because they got my six. And it's important to be able to trust one another and have intimate friends that, you know, can handle their business. And that's one thing that you talk about, you know, going out and being alone, that's really important because that helps us build a relationship with our creator. But it's also important to remain in contact with our brothers and sisters because fellowship, it's what strengthens us.
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John J. Wiley
It does. And you're absolutely right. When I am around other people that I trust, I know they got my back, I can relax. I don't have to be on guard. And it's not a conscious decision. Those who don't go through this, I want you to understand, be grateful you don't. And it's far better today than it ever was. I tell people, you know, I have my scars, I'm aware of my scars. So the people who are important to me, like you said earlier, your daughter, they don't have to be. They don't, they don't. We don't have these conversations anymore because it's a non issue in your life. And that makes me very, very happy. Because there was a time where it was not that way, where it was a raw nerve all the time. And I was angry, I was short fuse, I was reactionary, and I was distant. Maybe the term is isolation. I wasn't available emotionally for people who mattered to me. And what I was doing, Matthew, was, I was pushing them further and further.
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Matthew Burke
Away as a protective measure for them.
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John J. Wiley
Yeah. Got to a point where I, I feared my insides more than anything. And I was. And I. This is so weird. I felt like I was a burden and a drain on those who matter to me and whatever sense of, of emotional pride I had. And we'll get to the spiritual aspect in the next segment because that's so important. But what spiritual connection I felt I had to the God of my understanding was gone and had been gone for a long time. And I couldn't find a way to get back to that. And I, I tell people this. There was a time when I was a kid where I believed in Santa Claus and life was great. The biggest concern was, what are you getting for Christmas? There was no worries, no fears. And I was so far away from that guy that I was deeply ashamed. Not of things I'd done. I was deeply ashamed of who I became.
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Matthew Burke
Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times, man. Like for me and countless other veterans, we're used to, you know, taking on the enemy and taking out the enemy, if you would. And when we deal with these internal, internal turmoil, post traumatic stress suicide tends to flutter around in the mind as an, as an option to take out the monster and stop being such a burden to people, you know, and, and so I struggled with that. I almost tapped out, man.
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John J. Wiley
And we're going to talk about that in just a few moments. Matthew Burke is our guest. He's a PhD. He's retired combat vet, founder of 10 Can Inc. Their website is 10us online and Facebook. Do a search for 10 can and you'll find them. This is Law Enforcement show. We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back.
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- [22:04]
John J. Wiley
Return to conversation with Matthew Burke, Ph.D. on the Law enforcement show. That sounds fancy. He's a retired combat veteran, which is what I appreciate the most. He's the founder of 10 can, which I also appreciate because they're dedicated to helping military veterans first responders overcome and find a better life in spite of trauma and the effects of trauma. Their website is 10can. It's number one zero Ken us. They're on Facebook. Do a search for 10 number 10 and you will find them. We went to rank Matthew. We were starting to talk about losing oneself, not just mentally, not just physically. The mission. I had a different mission in life. My career was over suddenly, but there was a huge loss spiritually. A lack of connection with people who mattered to me, a lack of connection with not getting religious, with my higher power, with God, and feeling like I was ashamed of myself and a burden on my family. And immediately I got the reaction from you that it was similar for you.
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Matthew Burke
It definitely was, yes.
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John J. Wiley
How would you explain that? And it sounds so nonsensical, but it really isn't. Something in me changed. And I don't know, I can't know if you can explain it, but something in me changed and I was no longer the same guy. And I was trying desperately using willpower to be the guy I was before all this stuff happened. Was that a good way of explaining for you?
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Matthew Burke
Yeah, you know, I. I tell my kids often that you become a product of your environment. Right. So when you're around, for us, when. When we're around this violence and this destruction and death and disease, war, we become a product of that environment. And as humans, we're, you know, that's unnatural. It's unnatural to see, to smell, to hear, just to witness all of that. And when we do witness it, it becomes problematic. And what we have to do is spiritually, we have to learn how to apply our tactical skills that we exercise on the outside to an enemy, to the enemy within. And for law enforcement, it should be an easy transition. Military comb. That should be an easy transition. But, you know, what about firefighters? How does a firefighter take what they know and then fighting fires and saving lives and apply it to their spiritual war that they deal with? And so that's something that I've. I've explored, I've researched, and I've developed kind of this. This formula that. That saved my life. And my faith is the foundation of it. But there are life elements, 10 life elements that you have to balance. You have to balance. You know, if one of those elements are off, it's like a spoke in a wheel that will. Becomes wobbly. And that's what happens in your life. If any. Any one of those life elements are off, you. You become unbalanced, and then chaos can. Can ensue. Yeah. At the end of the day, we're trying to. We're trying to achieve joy. And the only way to achieve joy is. Is to take the enemy captive and put him in prison. And that's the enemy within.
- [25:27]
John J. Wiley
Right. So I'm so glad you said that. The enemy became me. Yeah. And I was a guy I didn't want to be. Here's part of the problem, and there's a term I see quite often and sometimes aggravates me, and other times I'm like, yeah, they're spot on. And it's a term spiritual injury or moral injury or moral conflict. Part of it was I was raised my entire life to be a certain kind of guy. Be a gentleman, be this, be that. You know, be ready if you need to, to defend yourself and your family, but be a gentleman the rest of the time. And then I found myself, Matthew, in really bad life and death situations, and I was capable of extreme violence. And it's not. And it's almost like it's a totally different side of me. And without getting crazy deep into this, there's a very primitive part of me that I was shocked that was around that actually, I don't want to say celebrate. Word was happy. I overcame the threat to my life and was very primitive. And what that did, Matthews, it created a huge conflict in me. I was capable of doing things that I didn't. The conflict, the moral injury, whatever might be. And I felt guilty. I didn't do anything wrong. I did. Was required to stay alive, but I carried around, again, that word shame. Was that an issue for you?
- [26:57]
Matthew Burke
I don't believe it was. I don't believe it was a non issue, but I don't believe it was a real issue. You know, being a Product of the environment that I was in. I did, I did start struggling with these hostile feelings, these hyper vigilance, this, these, I'm going to use the word triggers, loud noises, whatever the case may be. And I became violent. You know, violent because I was expecting violence and unnecessarily, I would, I would react to situations where it caused issues. And I found myself being an enemy to my family, the people that I cared about the most. And that, that within itself, you know, kind of traumatized or morally wounded me that I could possibly hurt those who I love the most. And I, my, my job is to protect them, right? And I was, I was, I was becoming the problem for them. Not, not physically hostile, not emotionally or mental hostile because they, they never, they never got abused. They never got, they never got anything that, that may be classified as domestic violence. I was never, I was never at that point, but I was short of that point. And I commit, I thought about, you know, I thought about committing suicide, man. I thought about taking the enemy out. And that enemy was me. And that's, that's something that I came really close to. And anytime I talk about it in public, I usually, I usually become, I usually get back to where I was emotionally and I just well up, man. And I really have a hard time talking about it because of how good life is now. Chose to live. I chose to fight forward. And had I not made that decision that to fight this enemy and to know and to recognize that I'm good, I'm good people, my family loves me, I love my family. And I just need to, need to get through this. I wouldn't have noted, you know, if I wouldn't noted that, man, I'd have been out and what I've been able to, the impact I've been able to make in my family's life and the lives of countless others, I, I, you know, I just, I just bask in how good God is and in the opportunity to continue serving and having purpose in my life. You know, that just.
- [29:28]
John J. Wiley
I get it 100%, 150%, and I hate that saying, but it came to the point where, and I don't know the right words to use, but I'm going to go back to something. Early in the conversation you said when you were around your brothers, your combat veterans or other first responders and you know, they got your back. They know they're not going to let anything bad happen to you. You can relax. I needed to find that connection with God so that I could feel like I had somebody to depend on that had my back all the time and that I could relax. And I'm going to paraphrase this right now. Nothing about God changed. It was my perception. It was me who changed. I needed to get back to that kid. Remember I talked about the kid earlier that believe in Santa Claus and life is good. I need to find a way to try to get back to some sort of that state of mind. Is that what you found for you?
- [30:25]
Matthew Burke
Yeah, absolutely, man. There was a sign hanging up in Linden Church of God that I went to as a kid. It said, if God seemed far away, who moved. And so that stuck with me for quite some time. And I've taught my kids the same thing, you know, and what I, what I learned is to tap into my five senses and to kind of reminisce on my childhood. What did I. What did I enjoy about my childhood? And then how can I bring back those positive memories? And through hunting and fishing, I was able to do that. You know, the smell, the sight, the sounds, the feel of the environment. In the spring, chasing turkeys or in the fall, you know, chasing, pursuing whitetail or now it's alligators, man. I'm big into hunting alligators down here.
- [31:10]
John J. Wiley
Short break. We're going to talk more about how Matthew found relief, not just through his spiritual life, which is a big part of it, but also the outdoors. This is a law enforcement show. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. One of the questions I get all the time is how can I show my support for law enforcement? We're all busy. We've got busy lives. But there's something oh so simple you can do with our Facebook page. Search for law enforcement talk radio show Facebook page and when you see a post you agree with, that resonates with you. Share it. Especially episodes of the podcast. To do all that, just search for us on Facebook, look for law enforcement talk radio show and be sure to.
- [31:54]
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- [32:27]
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- [32:59]
John J. Wiley
Return conversation with Matthew Burke on a law enforcement show. He's a PhD. He's a retired combat veteran. He's a founder of 10 Can, Inc. That's number 1 0. Their website is 10 Can 10 Us. They're on Facebook. Do a search for Tin Can, Inc. And you will find them. I want to thank you so much for not just your service. I know this said a lot, and if you're like me, I don't know how to reply to it. So most of the time I've conditioned myself to say, you're welcome because that's the appropriate thing to say. And I appreciate even more talking about how combat affected you, how things damaged your life afterwards. There must have come a point and maybe you said you were considering tapping out. You're considering, you know, dying by suicide. That had to be a bottom for you when you decided I got to do things differently. What are some of the things? What, what did you do and where are you at today?
- [33:52]
Matthew Burke
Oh, some of the things that I did was just getting back to having a purpose and serving, you know, in prayer and supplication. I finally heard from God and it wasn't. It wasn't some. It was just. It's just quite breeze, man. You know, like it talks about the Bible and sometimes he talks to you in different ways, man, through dreams or whatever the case may be. But I heard from him and, and it was this organization that, that I was able to. To build up from the tailgate of my pickup truck, if you would. And one of the things that I've learned on this journey in 15 years, research and development on adolescent development and then trying to reach warriors and show them a better way forward, was an outdoor ministry, if you would. And we do things a little different, man. We're considered a parachurch, but it's.
- [34:53]
John J. Wiley
I've never heard that term before. Parachurch.
- [34:55]
Matthew Burke
Yeah. Yeah, it's.
- [34:57]
John J. Wiley
Is that a new one?
- [34:58]
Matthew Burke
Yeah, it's relatively new. It's starting to float around a little bit. And. And I, I held on to it. I like it because where two or more gathered is what the Bible say says. When two or more are gathered, there he'll be. And so we, when we get together on these adventures, you know, we'll get around the campfire and what we use is a, is called vicarious ministry. And vicarious ministry came out of my findings of vicarious trauma. And that is that people like to listen and such as eavesdropping. They'd rather eavesdrop than be talked at. Right. So. Oh yeah, yeah. So what we, what we've done is, is just hanging around the campfire and just have conversations and you know, I'll pick someone that I know has been through it and they've, they've been able to overcome it or they found faith. And we'll have a conversation that before you know it, everybody's weighing in man, it and, and then we're just fellowshiping.
- [35:59]
John J. Wiley
And that's got to be where the healing starts for many people.
- [36:02]
Matthew Burke
It is, it is man. It is to be able to find that escape. And so what we do outside of kind of the devotions, if you would, of vicarious ministry, we like to evangelize action adventure in the great outdoors. Right. So that's. We want to show people the love of Christ. We want to show people how they can, they can find the living water, the well of life, if you would. And so through those action based steps, we lead warriors back to their childhood roots and we use the five senses to do that. You know, whatever they say, hey man, I used to walk on a beach when I was a kid, man, and that used to bring me so much memories. Well, let's go, let's go for a walk on the beach. Let's do this right. And when we're talking about preventative maintenance or proactive medicine, we want to focus on raising up that next generation of warriors. And that's one of the, one of the main things that we do is when we take out a warrior and their kid, we're looking at restoring that relationship that may be fragmented from some traumatic stress that the warrior went through and helping that healing process of their family development. But in that, in that focus on that hero's most valuable treasure in this world, we're looking at that kid is 80% likely of falling her parents footsteps.
- [37:30]
John J. Wiley
Right?
- [37:30]
Matthew Burke
So what we want to do is create those, that those five senses in the outdoors and that way when they face trauma, it's not if, but when they face trauma, they can tap back into that source and find healing. And so that's our proactive way of raising warriors, if you would. That's going to be more. Yeah, it's going to be more resilient than what we're facing today.
- [37:55]
John J. Wiley
Because everybody's going to experience trauma. That's what I was trying to get at. Military is going to experience it. Our first responders are experienced it. Look, the mom and dads, the, the person who sells cars for a living is going to encounter trauma and some of them are going to have tremendous impact and it's going to affect them. One of the things I think you are alluding to, as you said, let's go back to and do things that you took a lot of pleasure from and got a lot of relief from when you were a kid and let's do those things. Two things came to mind. One is a thought that I was taught a long time ago and I tried to remember to do this is to change a thought. I have to move a muscle. I have to do something. If I sit around thinking it's going to go to bad places. The second one is in combat. Whether it be military combat for you guys or street cops like myself. We develop a suit of armor and that suit of armor is designed to protect us. However, that suit of armor becomes rusty and it becomes a prison and it creates a life we don't want. And I have to find a way to take that armor off when I don't need it. And by doing things outdoors and using that word to use vicarious ministry. When I listen to other people, I move a muscle and I can do things and I can change my state of mind.
- [39:11]
Matthew Burke
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man. It's a pretty powerful finding that I write about in my book Saving Heroes and I share my journey through that book and the formula that we use through our organization. And that Formula has been 100% successful in saving over 3500 lawyers from committing suicide. And this formula is back to basics. It has, has faith built into it, not, not really, necessarily religion. Because with religion, I love religion, don't get me wrong, I love the church. But what we do, what we've done is create denominational segregation within our country, within the, within religion. And so religion has gotten a bad rap. And the word and the phrase religion has really turned people off, especially warriors who, who may be having some anti authoritarian issues.
- [40:06]
John J. Wiley
Because even term ministry can shut people down. Because remember you said earlier, if, if my relationship with God has changed, who moved? Yep, that's what's. We're being influenced by outside sources. And a lot of these outside sources are organizations, institutions, the media, news media, print, whatever it might be that designed to make a profit. So we're being led by people who have profit in mind. Instead of healing you mentioned earlier and I want to get to this what you do. You have a book. What's the name of that book?
- [40:38]
Matthew Burke
Saving Heroes.
- [40:39]
John J. Wiley
And where can people get it?
- [40:43]
Matthew Burke
It's published online. You can get it from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, my website, matthewburkebooks.com. there's a variety of ways to be able to get it.
- [40:55]
John J. Wiley
Now let's talk about your organization. See, you became a PhD and you decided to help people. And a big part of that is 10 can tell us about 10 can what you do where people get more information.
- [41:08]
Matthew Burke
Yeah, our mission is to save heroes, raise warriors and restore hope. That's an elevator statement. But the core of our mission is to lead, lead our warriors and their families to Christ. And we do that in a very unique way. Some don't even realize it's happening. Some know. I always want to let people know that this is who we are as an organization, brother. We serve, we serve atheists, we're very diverse. We serve Muslims, we serve Buddhists. We serve everybody, man. We don't force our beliefs on anybody. We're just, we're just out here having a good time and showing people the way to joy. Right. And we hunt, fish, survive. I'm building a waterfront retreat center in St. Augustine, Florida and our, and our, one of our fundraisers coming up is going to help help fuel that. We created a membership program that, that I'm really, really excited about. That membership is $10 a month or $100 a year. And that, that right there is going to be able to help us create a sustainable financial bas operations. But not just that, but unite our voices for our military and first responder families and to be able to go over to a government entity and say hey look, Florida fishing game. I believe that the warriors can benefit from, from doing this change. Would you listen? And, and if we have the membership base, the numbers, they're going to listen. But right now we don't, we don't have, because we've been operating for nine years without this, the structured formula. You know, we've served maybe 50,000 families.
- [43:03]
John J. Wiley
I guess the best thing to do was have people go to your website and Facebook and see how and by the way, never ever underestimate the power of making a five or ten dollar contribution. Many, many charities, nonprofits say fundraising is the other F word. This is law enforcement show. Matthew, thanks so much for being a guest on the show. Very much appreciated.
- [43:24]
Matthew Burke
Appreciate it, Jake.
- [43:25]
John J. Wiley
I'd like to thank our guests for coming on the law enforcement talk radio show. The law enforcement talk Radio show is a nationally syndicated weekly radio show broadcast on Numerous AM&FM radio stations across the country. We're always adding more affiliate stations. If you enjoyed the podcast version of the show, which is always free, please do me a favor and tell a friend or two or three. I'll be back in just a few days with another episode of Law Enforcement Talk Radio show and Podcast. Until then, this is John J. Wiley. See ya.
- [44:00]
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- [45:01]
Matthew Burke
Step into the shadows of history with.
- [45:02]
John J. Wiley
The youe Town Podcast. Each week we uncover the chilling, bizarre.
- [45:06]
Matthew Burke
And often forgotten true stories that shape towns big and small, from notorious crimes to legends that refuse to die. If you love gripping storytelling, dark mysteries, and a journey into the past that feels way too real, this is the show for you. New episodes drop every Monday, so subscribe now and start exploring the story's history. Tried to Bury the Yorktown Podcast available wherever you get your podcasts.