Before we get into today’s episode i want to thank a couple sponsors that we were able to secure for this season uh season five of the scuttlebutt it’s exciting to be able to get sponsors for this uh we’re really thankful for them uh the first one we’d also like to thank
A new sponsor for the scuttlebutt tobacco-free adagio health tobacco-free adagio health is dedicated to preventing and reducing tobacco use and increasing education about tobacco hazards and secondhand smoke of course the best way to be tobacco-free is to never start and we’ll be sharing more about the many programs offered by tobacco free adagio
Health in the future you can check out more of their work at tobaccofree.adagiohealth.adagiohealth.org tobaccofree.adagiohealth.org really excited to have sponsors on board uh for the scuttlebutt and uh i hope you enjoy this upcoming episode so we help brothers we help veterans expand their resume and their portfolios if that’s
What you’re looking to do that’s what you can do at a local level you can be that court president you can be that vice president you can be that media coordinator and these refine and utilize the skills that you’ve gained into the military and you convert them within the private sector Hello everyone and welcome to the scuttlebutt i’m your host sean hall director of programming with the veterans breakfast club whose mission is to create communities of listening around veterans and their stories to connect educate heal and inspire if you have been a long time listener of the scuttlebutt welcome back if this is
Your first time please like share subscribe ring the bell on youtube and also connect with me you can do that through sean shaun veteransbreakfastclub.org we’re always interested to hear from our audience about their thoughts or comments on the subject matter uh and since we’re also connected with bbc the non-profit we
Also like to do other non-profit spotlights uh and this being uh one for season five here really excited by our two guests today from moo betafi fraternity we’re gonna hear all about the fraternity um but also hear a bit about both of their service uh gary and
Greg it’s so uh so awesome to have you guys aboard for this episode of the podcast i want to go around the room and have you guys introduce yourselves uh gary if you if you’d like to go ahead um you know welcome to the welcome to the show
Yes and uh thank you very much sean and um and yes uh i am i’m very pleased to be here thank you for having us uh my name is gary ammons i am uh one of the founders of mu beta 5 military fraternity i served 22 years in the united states
Navy as the scene chief and a avionics technician and once i retired i started working for the navy and for the coast guard as a flight control engineer and currently serving as a curriculum developer in the instructional systems design uh division and um and pretty much uh you know i occupy my time
Uh with me beta phi um founding the organization just trying to create a brotherhood of men that want to continue to serve the community serve our country um and help veterans and also active duty through mentorship scholarship and um you know education so uh that’s pretty much that’s pretty much about us
You know it’s real simple you know just a brotherhood trying to continue to serve thank you so much gary and greg welcome to the show i i know right oh i like this i like the veterans breakfast club room i’m down with you sean hey what’s going on
Everybody my name is greg hush williams uh i am the national media director for mu beta 5 military fraternity incorporated the number one military fraternity in america see gary he’s just he’s one of the founders he’s humble i’m not humble uh we are the 2021 recipients for the most outstanding
Community service award which was awarded to us by the professional fraternity association so we beat out the bands we beat out the dentists we beat out the medical fraternities we are the number one professional fraternity as far as community service in america a little bit about me uh i served in the
Army reserves where i deployed twice afghanistan africa doing combat operations doing a little bit of civil affairs transportation public affairs you name it i’ve done it um and i had so much fun you know during my time in the reserves and being activated our missions got to go to slovenia macedonia
Um all of these great places uh you know doing missions and telling the army story or working with the uh uh non-governmental organizations and other non-profits to help stabilize the civil populace so that you know we can go inside as a military force and do what we have to do to build relations
And you know help our host nation partners so definitely my role with mu betafi is not just you know heading up the media department but i host our podcast the final life you know which if you just google the finer life but it’s not fi
It’s phi you know like new beta 5 phi so it’s the finer life show and you can find us on spotify iheart radio uh apple podcasts google plays you name it we’re on it and i’m so great to be here i’ve wanted to be on vbc for a while
And uh i did it i made it mama hey you guys it’s everything’s coming up mu beta phi uh which is fantastic news um to start before we dive into sort of what began you bettafy uh gary tell me a bit about your service navy uh you were
In for quite a while what made you what made you enlist so yeah so um so yeah so my family we we come from uh uh or i come from a family of military service my grandfather he was in the army uh my brother he was
Also in the navy and um i’ve always looked up to him so you know that i just figured i’d follow him i started off in college at florida a m um and then i had to come back home after my freshman year and then i decided to join the uh the navy
Um and you know i loved it so i stayed you know i was one of those guys that was like i’m four years and i’m out um but then as i i loved it and they started throwing money at me and stuff i decided to stay and four years turned
Into 22 years and you know and so i was you know i was blessed with a really good and promising career and and it’s you know helped me and my lifestyle these days and it allows me to give back um to this community and to service members so
Um that’s pretty much what started me and what would help me to make the decision to become a naval service member nice what was your mos and what ships did you serve on so so for the navy we don’t go by uh mos yeah it’s a navy uh what
Maybe occupational code that’s what we call it um or nec type of thing so i was what you call the aviation electronics technician so um inside that rating or that job description i was what you called a um uh automatic carrier landing systems um technician that’s what i started off as
Um but then as i moved up i was uh the leading chief for the production control division and then in the latter part of my career i walked i went over to the schoolhouse and i became the learning standards officer the lcpo for the training division and um
You know i ran the school house for the navy for aviation maintenance courses fantastic um what was it like being in for 22 years you retired congrats uh it’s you know that’s that’s quite a long career yeah um you know it’s it’s just like any other career field or any other thing
That you have longevity in has its good days and bad days but i definitely would say it had more good days than it had bad um i learned a lot um i met a lot of people that i would have never met living in my neighborhood in philadelphia so you know it definitely
Brought my scope um on you know personalities uh different ethnicities and um you know lifestyles and things like that um but also from a leadership standpoint it taught me how to deal with different personalities and how you know to keep yourself flexible and open uh you know for your service member that
May need you for help or assistance and trying to find the right answer to get them where they need to be did you get a lot of time to travel with the navy uh yeah i did i did uh i deployed seven times in my career um i’ve been everywhere from southeast asia
To the mediterranean i’ve been to brazil dubai uh japan brazil you know i’ve been to many different places so i definitely have not complained it you know did you have a favorite oh yeah the buy was was my all-time favorite well no i take that back purse
Australia was my all time but then the buy will be like 1a and greg you chose army uh what what made you choose to enlist uh you know i actually joined the reserves on a lunch break so you know i i was working for a movie marketing company at
The time and one of my brothers from the church he came in his army service uniform and you know he walked downstairs i was like yo aunt that looks cool man i didn’t know you went army full-time he was like no i did it part-time i was like wait there’s a
Part-time because i thought you had to like give your life in seoul to the military i didn’t know anything about it but um i was like oh and you could get extra money and you get to travel and you get you get you know a shot at retirement because i was a
Struggling actor at the time so i was actually balancing an acting career and working for a marketing company and i just went and i joined during a lunch break and you know my family actually they served in the military yeah here’s here’s my grandfather if if
I could show it you know he served in uh world war ii and yes bernard gillian yeah you know way back in the day 1943 fighting in the philippines you know and um i was just like always looking up to him and always wanted to emulate a piece of his
Military service is just you know i didn’t know about i thought it was the full-time part and i wanted to pursue my dreams and uh i did you know i was successful i became a member of sag-aftra i did a couple of movies manchurian candidate with denzel washington law and
Order white collar the blacklist uh even got to be on luke cage was which was awesome um and it’s just kind of like you know once i learned about the reserves i joined and i just loved it i fell in love with it and it was just something that i excelled at
And i started gathering mosses like pokemon yeah you know i started out in transportation then i got public affairs and and then i got civil affairs and it’s it was just a crazy ride you know i was actually the first ever meet your army facebook live host you
Know and i hosted an event in times square it was just you know a great ride you know pretty cool um and well you and i have that have that in common i have a previous life as an actor as well so uh i hear you on all of that it’s great
Yeah people don’t know that that once you’re a struggling actor they see the glitz and glamour they don’t know that you had to start out back in the day with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and trying to take food home from craft services exactly i hear you um well you know
Uh gary jumping into mu beta phi i mean this is a big fraternity that i mean you guys have a lot of praise coming at you guys you guys are growing and nationally you got a lot of members tell me about how this idea started and
Then out how as you came out of the navy what what made you decide that you want to start this yeah um so so yeah it definitely is a history behind the start of new beta fight so so for me um when i divorced from my first wife um
I was just kind of looking for like a brotherhood that i could latch on to and just kind of stay active and keep my mind in a good place and so i i joined another military fraternity and you know without going into too much detail it
Just really was not what i expected um you know with the philanthropy work or you know the camaraderie and things like that so it just didn’t work out too well so i ended up leaving that organization and then uh greg and i both came from another organization as well
And they was even worse than the first one um so sorry to interrupt you real quick i i didn’t know that there were a lot of military fraternities out there yes so so um this is a community that is is up and coming um you know uh right now i believe we’re up
To 33 organizations um some in existence by name only some you know they’re um you know doing doing some some some good work in the community and things like that um but yes uh you know with mubitify um what i said to myself was um
I was not if i was going to do anything else it would not be under the vision of anyone else other than myself so what i did was um i i put together a blueprint and a plan of what i wanted this to look like what i
Wanted us to be about and then we did the leg work that was needed to get legal with our name and the incorporation of the organization and we stood up in 2017 um and then uh what i did was i went out and i found our first ten members to start the organization
Uh we we typically call it our alpha line and so we you know we we held them for about three months uh developing our our um fraternal information and and some of the things that you know is important to the organization and then uh i want to say was july of
2017 we inducted our first 10 members and so from there we just continued to build uh to develop the vision and and uh the the reasoning behind the organization and uh what we wanted to be about and what we wanted to look like in uh in 2017 we inducted i believe 48 members
Um and each year it has just grown um this previous year we inducted 131 members um and so you know we’re where we currently sit at in year five um we have 13 chapters across the united states two um charterings going on overseas one in um germany one in uh the persian gulf
Region and uh we have brothers you know all over the world you know um you know united states uh southeast asian region the mediterranean and european region in the persian gulf region so we just continue to to push the brand and and what what we’re here for and it’s worked
Well in our favor and before we get into the chapters uh and congrats on the expansion of this very fast expansion what is the like the the primary goal of mu beta 5 the mission of the organization so sure um and so as i tell all the
Members um everything we do in our organization is is really up under our two national programs um my other founding brother who’s out in on the chicago area he and i sat down we developed our two main initiatives one was the mentoring of youth and the other
Was the assistance of uh veterans and and specifically homeless veterans and so what you have is you have our mighty warriors program and um our herculean effort program and um you know what we try to tell our members that you know everything we do out in community is to help the veteran
That that need assistance that don’t know about the veterans affairs or benefits or how to apply for benefits but also those that are suffering from substance abuse issues being able to put them in front of someone who can clinically help them um you know and and try to get them
Support in in the services that they need uh but then you have our youth um side of the house which is where we have um you know a lot of families that come from single home families you know it could be um someone you know was killed in action during war
Um or you know the the one of the two parents are deployed constantly so what we want to do is we want make sure we keep our hands on those youth and try to help mentor them put them in position to be strong ambassadors in the in the civil
Community as they get older but also help them with educational needs through grants um and through scholarships that we provide to those young men um that may be in need what did you learn about leadership in the navy that has helped you with mu beta phi
Oh uh you know that’s actually a great question um you know depending on what you do in your job at a very young rank or a very junior rank you start developing those leadership skills and um what it what it then turns to is finding someone that you can look to for
Mentorship and so i’ve been blessed throughout my 22 years to always have a good mentor over top me top of me to tell me how to do certain things and as a navy chief um you know we have a model it’s called ask the chief but you have to look deeper than that
Which is you know you can ask the chief but is he going to give you an integrable answer and is going to give you the right information and put you on the right road so the biggest thing that i’ve learned is always be authentic always be flexible
And um and organic in the way you do business and what that means simply is if a sailor comes to me in need if i don’t have the answer be transparent enough to tell him or her you don’t have the answer but you you know you’ll come
Back and find it and so a lot of times it puts you in a position to actually research do your homework read and understand um you know what you’re getting ready to give to this to the seller that’s in need and it has been absolutely the most rewarding part of my
Career is being able to help a sailor in need help them their promotions help them in their personal life but also being flexible and understanding that things change like the win in the military you know you can come into work one day and they’ll tell you hey you’re deploying or
You’re going to detachment for three months and then you don’t even have a chance to kiss your family goodbye you know you just come into work and you’re going so you you always have to be flexible that way you can kind of sustain through stressful environments
And um and yeah and and i think that’s the one of the biggest uh tools i have in my tool bag is you know i’m a very flexible person but also you know you can lead calmly um you know to your to your people that
You’re in charge of so that’s what i use speaking of that changing like the wind i’m guessing you served over the course of when 9 11 happened oh yes yeah yeah i was i was then when 9 11 how did your service change from what you thought it was going to be before
That to after 9 11. um a lot more deployments um so so you know 9 11 happened um president bush at that time uh he he changed things from you know focusing on iraq to what we call the global war on terror which um put a lot of uh the military um
You know greg you know he’s army so a lot of a lot of the stressful environments the army was going into um because they were undermanned they had to augment a lot of their jobs off to the other services so you know i did an individual augmentee tour over in baghdad
Um you know and so we deployed a lot heavier and we we um we did a lot of uh that a lot of diverse deployments with other branches of the services uh filling their jobs and things like that and so i had the opportunity to experience that as well
It was just an interesting thought i had but back to mu beta phi how did you find the first 10 members of the fraternity what what were you looking for so so what i looked well so so i found the 10 members um through my own service um these were a
Lot of men that i served with in the military over the years sailors that had worked for me um in my time um in service and so what i wanted to do was bring trusted men that i knew had skill sets that could help grow the organization
Um and and basically that’s what i did i um i took six people that was on the ship with me my last ship before i retired um i took them brought them into the organization and then two of those found two other members um and that made that made four for them
And then the six that i brought in so that gave us our first 10 initiates and so um you know what i looked for was strong integrable brothers with good leadership skills but also um senior and seasoned service you know men who have deployed multiple times you know and
Have been in a in an environment that you you know that was stressful and that you know you had to be flexible so that that’s what i look for with those guys everybody sort of can speak the same language that in that way i’m sure um greg
How were you initiated what did you have to go through to become a part of it so uh so uh as uh gary said we were in another organization together and what was so funny was i was deployed um when we were in this other organization together
And um and i’ll just give a little bit more clarity so there are you know 33 we call it emglos military greek letter organizations big shout out to sigma phi psi for starting the whole thing in 2000 the ladies the lady lioness out up in
Texas got to give them a shout out they started it and then it started growing and growing and i want to put this out as a disclaimer because i get this all the time are you trying to replace vfws and american legions no not at all no people have to understand that
Nonprofits started by veterans within different service eras were designed to help uplift that veteran community for those specific you know whether it was pitfalls and gaps that the federal government was not you know handling or to address veteran issues of that time
I myself i am a member of a vfw a lot of our members are members of american legions and vfws you know military greek letter organizations we are in the age of technology the 9 11 gi bill and voc rehab and you know getting all of these educational
Tools that were not afforded to the vietnam veterans that were not talked about to you know world war ii veterans um and and is just basically an evolution of organizations that are there to help sustain the veteran community by veterans so we are not here to replace any organizations we’re just here to
Simply evolve the process meet the demands of the veteran population and community and enhance the capabilities to take care of ourselves and to become self-sufficient in a non-governmental aspect sorry go ahead i was gonna say it doesn’t it doesn’t exclude a certain age group though you have no only so my line
Oddly enough sean on my line there were 20 members our oldest member was 64 and our youngest member was 23. so we had this whole age range of just experience uh branches and it was just so rich and it was so telling of who served during the vietnam era who served during iraq
Who is afghanistan who never deployed and that’s what i love about mu beta phi we’re so diverse we have members who are asian caucasian african-american i mean you know albanian yeah i got to give a shout out to lightning you know hey you got to represent man um
And you know we were so gary and i we were in another organization and different strokes for different folks that’s all i’m gonna say you know it’s just kind of like you know working maybe with a non-profit for an extended amount of time and you don’t see the growth
And you say hey let me go over here and for me you know i was with that organization for a while even longer and gary had started mu beta fi i came off the plane i’ll never forget it 2017 when he first started it i came off the plane in italy because we
Were coming back home to america and i was like gary you left what’s going on and he was like listen dawg i got all of these dreams i gotta line this up you have to get away from the non-profit aspect and go into a business model
That’s what separates us out of all 33 m goals and i show love to everybody shout out to all mblos only three of them are with the professional fraternity association only one of them is a member of the veteran chamber of commerce it’s about business at the end of the day
For me you know that’s what my degree is in my master’s it’s about business and how can we utilize federal funding federal grants scholarships to help increase the the capabilities of an organization so that we can sustain the veteran community so that’s why i chose mu betta phi
Uh just like any greek you know organization letter or any greek letter organization there’s a system set in place there’s no hazing we don’t do that all right there are some members with ptsd we no no no we are not breaking out wood as they would say back in the day and uh
Gary can speak to more of that because he and that was also another thing that i had to take into account he is already a member of phi beta sigma which is phi beta sigma fraternity which is a great you know greek letter organization one
Of the you know d9s and he had that experience so not only are we blending the military experience the veteran experience the professional development the business acumen um but we’re blending in the greek letter system so that when we do talk to members and commune with other members of greek letter organizations
They know we’re the real deal you know we could say the greek letter alphabet and whatever and and just know who they are they know who we are and we can just you know put our powers together like voltron and make it happen i’m loving all these culture references man that’s great
Let me just let me kind of jump in here um to kind of tag on something that uh greg said and you know he does a great job you know laying out the organization the one thing i do want people to understand um because we we are very diverse in our
Organization i think we’re one of the most diverse military fraternities that’s in this community but not only that um we’re not just um uh isolated to american armed services our brotherhood allied forces have the ability to join we’re getting ready to introduce our caribbean chapter um for the bahamian
Navy we have members that’s coming from the bahamian navy that’s getting ready to join the organization and stand up on one of the chapters down in the virgin islands um but we also have members from other countries uh albania is one that he he just spoke on um we have uh members from
Japan uh so you know it’s not a brotherhood that’s just central to one race or one branch of service or one country of service uh we really tried to build this brotherhood to include all that one want to be brothers and then two want to serve in the communities
That they live reside and take ownership in and like i said that that has been the biggest selling point for our organization and it has worked out tremendously for us i got a lot of questions about this the chapters but it seems like an interesting theme sort of
Develops through each season of the scuttlebutt and i’m feeling like uh veteran advocacy is really is really becoming a theme of season five here and can you talk to me a bit about uh how mu beta phi works within that veteran advocacy field greg you touched on that
Gary i thought you might expand on it yeah i definitely can and um this is a great topic because we were just talking about this last night and so um you know what you what you typically find well i won’t say typically what has been alarming that you find in
The military community um on average the national statistic is uh they give a veteran after they exit their active service they give them a three to five year lifespan um through either health problems uh suicide ideologies um or some other accident that may happen they they say
That we’re only going to live five years after our service now when i heard that my light bulb clicked on i’m just like well why would they say that and i know for sure i’m definitely going to pass that five years so you know um so so i say
That to say this is that um we are very strategic in the way we we recruit our members in our organization we do look for those that can help in one of the two programs if if you have school teachers that love dealing with children you know you’re a good fit for
Our mighty warriors program but more importantly is that that advocacy piece for substance abuse for uh mental health issues for um you know suicide rates and things of that nature so what we look for is those that are um certified in certain uh doctoral practices um mental health uh fields and things of
That nature and so we bring on um brothers that can actually bring those attributes to the organization and so what you find um you know i have genuine love for each and every member in our organization so if i see one that i know is struggling we don’t have to outsource
We don’t have to take them somewhere that may compromise their position at their job or may put them in a situation where you know they’re unemployed or whatever whatever have you we have brothers inside of the inside the organization that can take them on in private practice keep a confidentiality um
Policy but also give them the rehabilitation and the care and training that they need um to you know overcome any kind of vice that they may have in their life and then obviously you know if it gets too far outside of um our response area of responsibility then we
Do have networks and outlets that we can refer to for va um services or crisis lines um or other uh private practices that we can turn a brother over to or someone that comes to us for help great this is it so it’s not so much just diversity in ethnicity but
Diversity and profession and and the ability to help anybody who’s coming to to the fraternity um how does these chapters that are uh international how does their advocacy differ in their country as opposed to like mu beta phi here in the states so with that um it really starts with
Our intake um teaching and education part of one what we are looking for from them as a brother in the organization and what their responsibility is once they become a member and what we tell everyone is that you need to be a community advocate um it doesn’t matter if it’s the united
States if it’s china wherever it may be whatever country it may be um we all have an environment of need we all do um and so what we do is we take those brothers and whatever skill sets that they come to the table with we just ask them to
Utilize it in the community to help better the community and so it’s again it’s one of those things that really has just worked in our favor you know we have members that’s overseas in germany that that’s working on the base um and they’re basically just taking our product and they’re they’re working it
At that you know at that facility on the base um whether it’s a beautification project or it’s training uh young men um through mentorship um you know on the base there and things like that but also in the community as well you know um you know you’re working with allied forces
They have children so we we take them when we try to mentor them as much as possible speak a bit about the chapters how did it grow this quick this fast and and how does how does a chapter grow how does it get initiated yeah so so
Depending on who you talk to you know there’s different ways that a person can charter i i would i would like to think that uh mu beta phi has one of the more strenuous programs it will take uh it will take you know a group of men to establish a chapter
Eight to 12 months um before they can receive a charter but really it’s about gaining a brotherhood in a certain area um those men feel confident enough that they can um stand up the brand in that area and so as long as they have enough members to
Um equate to an executive board for for that chapter um we’ll let them go through the process but they there’s there’s uh wickets that they’d have to meet there’s certain walls that they have to sit at a certain point in time to get through and i and i just mean like you know
We have we call it pqs personal qualification standards we have something a system set up like that where it has requirements that they have to meet and some things we put there to make it a longer process so that we can stop pause for a second and just understand what they’re doing how
They’re doing it and how do you get through this wall and so sometimes it’ll take them eight to twelve months to uh to gain a charter and then you know uh once we feel comfortable with them myself and my other founders will you know approve it and we’ll will start
Their chart will sign off on your charter greg starting at the member level how do you speaking of echoing gary here how does a member live up to the brand you gotta you gotta want it um i came in you know i already had experience working in the nonprofit sector uh i
You know i’m a very uh focused person let’s just say that when i put my mind to something i want it i’m gonna go get it and you know when you join an organization um one thing and gary will probably be like strangling me afterwards but we don’t like letter wearers
That’s people that join they just want to wear the beautiful memorabilia and all this other stuff they want to wear the letters and they want to walk around and they don’t want to do anything we pride ourselves on having workers if you have a great work ethic if you want to
Expand your role within the nonprofit sector you know we have a linkedin page we have uh uh inter you know organizational training you know so we help brothers we help veterans expand their resume and their portfolios if that’s what you’re looking to do that’s what
You can do at a local level you can be that court president you can be that vice president you can be that media coordinator you can be that and take and these refine and utilize the skills that you’ve gained into the merit military and you convert them within the private
Sector so you know at a membership level you know you’re gonna go through the intake process you’re gonna learn about one another which is very important that it’s a it’s a greek letter organizational system that has been here for hundreds of years you know and you put that military veteran twist
To it you know and you don’t judge and just like the military in boot camp you all come in at the same level you all come in with no rank you learn about one another you learn about the organization if anything i will say that it is very daunting as far as in
Learning the material from a business perspective because that’s what it’s about it’s about knowing the brand knowing the goals knowing the mission knowing the objective and finding your niche of where you’re going to fit so after you go from there you go and you look for opportunities within
That court you know and and people say chapters we say courts you go within that court to look to to work and see where you fit in you find your own mos you know you find your own line and then you go from there and you grow so
When i joined i didn’t come in being a national media director gary knew me and he you know he’s just like listen all right you gonna start at the bottom just like everybody else there’s no favoritism and i came in and i ground ground running you know i
Went through you know membership then i went into you know a local media coordinator then we had elections i gave my resume i you know i used to work at bet mtv fox news guys my degrees here’s my photo journalism and i gained the respect you know there are a lot of
Initiatives we we we’re actually one of the few military greek letter organizations and maybe you know greek organic letter organizations i don’t know everybody but it is what it is we were in the streets we had a whole campaign when the pandemic started called kings against covid where we distributed thousands of
Ppe across the nation you know we mobilize over 300 members within 14 locations you know trying to help save lives and educate people uh we’re the only to date that i know of military greek letter organization that we actually participated with the afghan refugee stabilization it was called labor of
Love initiative out there in new jersey you know big shout out to the new jersey veteran chamber of commerce you know uh jeff cantor retired colonel got to give him the the the love there and the vfw that’s out there in fort lee new jersey um and we created that partnership with
With local with other local vfws and and and municipalities and we help give clothes to afghans in need so it’s these things like this you know uh also big shout out to us intrepid out here in new york city you know we did a virtual uh show for veterans around the nation um
To expand our virtual programming it was all of these things that you know i brought to the table or i knew that people could break to the table to help the veteran community that it helped me gain not just status respect right because that is what we pride ourselves
As members on respect respect not only with each other but within our communities because you can talk it but can you walk it that’s the thing gary how does a chapter live up to the brand so um greg hit it right on the head is
Um it starts with the work ethic and um you know understanding that uh our our model inside our fraternity is community first so before anything else you know we can work hard and play hard but that work piece is definitely at the forefront of what we do um every chapter every
Chapter potential president they understand that they carry that motto into with their with their brotherhood in local areas and you know what our expectation is to see all of our brothers out in the community um lending the help in hand and that and they the men have that understanding and
Um not only do they have the understanding it’s something that they personally want to do and you know i can’t tell you how many members you know they always say thank you for creating a brotherhood because they want to just give back they want to do something positive in the community
Um and when you talk about communities like philadelphia new york chicago detroit that inner city piece you know you have men that are hungry to make a positive change in those cities and that’s what we’ve done you know and that’s what we continue to do that that
Is our brand that is our model you know so that’s how it’s worked for us uh speak a bit about how does faith become a part of this how does it play uh a role in within mu beta phi yeah um um and greg greg can attest to
This uh one of our objectives is faith um and so when when we speak on faith as men of rebate of phi we talk about restoring faith in the community um and and what that simply means is that a lot of veterans um a lot of veteran families have just given up on
The community and uh in the belief that there is uh relevant and substantial help out there for those veterans in need uh our mission objective is restoring the faith in the local and veteran community so this kind of ties to what we just spoke about is the community seeing these men
Of mu beta phi our colors our our unity our uniformity seeing that in the community um being approachable and not just being approachable being resolute and getting um the help that’s needed and that rebuilds the confidence that people genuinely care for that missed veteran that’s sitting on the street or you know
Starving from um hunger that they have people that are are doing the work in their name and in their honor and so that just boosts their confidence that brings back the faith but also a religious belief there too with our chaplain’s core um we always pride ourselves at um
Speaking at uh community town halls um you know uh making uh networks and partnerships with the local chat uh churches in our in our uh in our areas and things of that nature so it’s it’s all a one-fold for us you know we really try to just restore the faith in the community
It’s awesome um a couple more questions for you both but what do you think is the biggest challenge for veterans that are coming out of service and how does mu beta phi help them transition oh i’m gonna take this one i’m gonna take this one let me take this one oh okay so
Transition when you talk about transition you have to understand that no veteran is the same no service member is the same you have to look at transition as a whole and you have to incorporate all of the branches and the fallacies and the pros and cons because you do
Have active duty you have guard you have reserve so you’re talking about three systems three different transitional systems for the citizenship soldiers or or citizens sailors the citizens airmen the citizen marines and then active duty so active duty you know you’re given you’re given a housing stipend you’re given a place to
Live you know it’s kind of like hey as long as i work everything’s peachy keen i get to move every four or five years you know hey get to see the world get paid and now all of a sudden whoa i gotta pay for rent what’s what’s a utility bill that’s a
Cable bill you know what’s all of us all of these things you know wait i have to pay taxes on milk now because at the commissary is tax-free you know right at the next wait it’s not discounted i gotta go to best buy you know big shout out to best buy um [Laughter]
And all of these things and you have to kind of like re-learn how to be self-sustaining and then comes the hardest part with employment how did you build your resume during your ets class you know because they only give you a certain amount of time maybe
A month a month and a half for transitional you know activities whether you’re building your resume you know because you have to convert your line or your mos into something that hopefully somebody in the civilian sector can understand and replicate and find a place for you within their workforce
Right so with mu beta phi you know we have that rich network of people that have already transitioned and we take those lessons learned and within our own membership each one teach one and we build that network you know it’s a great thing where i can get on my device
I can hit up my line brother hey you know how do i build a resume do you know anybody that can do that do you know anybody that has maybe a tie-in to the human resources person at this place and you know i can’t say it now but we
Are working on even something larger you know um with some big organizations that have been featured on a final life series and uh we’re going to partner to help transition service members not just members service members into the workforce into the real estate industry utilizing that va home loan to its max capacity
Helping them you know when they want to get their claims together you know we got some big things down the pipeline i’m not going to talk about it but if gary talks about it he talks about it because he’s the founder i can’t do that but
You know and also we do have the podcast series where veterans and service members can get the latest and greatest i just talked to the senior vice president of dod programs at recruit military you know big shout out chris newsome i talked to baby garcia military veterans in journalism
For veterans you know or service members that want to get into media i talked to john williams who’s a veteran service officer about claims uh jay alexander martin who’s um uh honorary member he is the co-founder of fubu clothing which is a multi-million dollar clothing line about veteran
Entrepreneurship i talked to the uh former uh va secretary david shulkin about organizational leadership skills so veterans can utilize these tips and these tricks on how to ease the transition period but that’s about it for my end gary can take it from there i think he’s gonna be
Like greg you’re headed on the head again well you you know you did hence why i say you’re the person for this job but anyway um i think greg you know he did touch on a lot of important pieces but for me my own personal turn on take on this uh i think
With veterans that you know exit the service i think the education and knowledge piece is what’s missing um each branch of the service uh we do set up uh we call it tax class a transition transition assistance program um that you know you know i would say a
Year before you exit the service you’ll go through a week-long class and they kind of force feed information into you but the reality of it is a lot of the veterans that come out of service have no clue on what they’re getting into and the lifestyle change and the culture
Shock that they get hit with when they exit service and so um for us what we try to do um is try to help them you know when it comes to va claims va benefits what you qualify for hey hey you um you don’t
Have a place to stay okay we can go to the va and we can talk to them um write a letter and they can find you substantial housing you know um based off a certain criteria that you meet and so that helps uh veterans you know just
Get on their feet with the basic needs and you know that what i think is important to take away from this is that um you would be surprised how many men and women who leave the service and have uh you know for 10 15 20 years have been kind of
Spinning their wheels getting certain things done because they just did not have the knowledge of how to complete va claim or complete a request for allowance um that’s available to the majority of the veterans that we have and so once once you start talking to them and start uh pointing them in the
Right direction their eyes open up and i’ve i’ve even had some members even just cry because they didn’t realize they had those avenues open and so like that for me that that is always going to be the answer to the why we as mu betafi is here because
If we can take one veteran and just help one veteran and get them off the street then the mission is accomplished you know and do i want to take one veteran off no i my i aspire to help all veterans that’s in my realm but um
You know you’re doing the right thing if you’re able to take at least one veteran off the streets and you know that’s the motivating factor there last question for you and it kind of bounces right off what you just said is how does someone find mu betify how do
You become a member transitioning veteran or uh what is the best way to reach you guys and and and tap into the services that you provide i’ll let greg tackle that one oh he was he wants me because on the final life uh show you know i always say
Well if you want to find mu beta 5 please log on to www.mbphikings2017.org that is www.m and then from there they can just contact you and and someone will reach out to them sean it’s all there it’s like you know they’ll go to the about page they’ll see
The programs they’ll be like oh i want to do that then you see the membership page and listen it’s an interview process we don’t want letter where’s we want some workers so if you are a veteran um no matter your age all you need you know
What gary you have to go down the criteria eligibility i let i gotta let the founder do it gotta let him know sure so so i can tell you just to get to the front door you definitely have to have some type of armed service
Um you need to have what we call a dd214 which is your your um history of service which tells us what type of service you did and obviously uh honorable discharge is what we’re looking for um you have to serve at least one tour of duty in the military
And then obviously uh you can apply at that point once you apply your um your application to be processed you’ll go through an interview process to see if you meet what we’re looking for and you meet what we uh uh or we meet which what they’re looking for
Um and then from there you know uh basically your intake process will start awesome and let me wait wait i gotta clean it up for my reserving guard now he was that’s primarily active duty if you served in a reserve a guard honorably for at least two years which we know
That’s only about what 100 drills uh yeah you should be good to go uh one tour of duty active duty hey listen for guard and reserve we lo citizen warriors this is for you you want you want to get that community service ribbon this is where it’s at that’s another
Thing gary you didn’t talk about us helping get the award man come on okay i’m gonna sean ask him how we do help current service members promotion that’s a big key development go ahead gary sure sure and so you know greg i definitely thank you for keeping me on my toes um
So the the active duty is an important piece um and we have a lot of senior military servicemen we have master chiefs we have colonels we have uh um captains who all are stakeholders in the the promotion process so what we’ve tried to do is develop internal training on certain
Things that you need with our community service uh each branch the military has the military outstanding volunteer service medal and so what we push and we challenge our active duty members is to achieve your volunteer service medal um you can do it solely through mu beta phi we have people that
Can that are directors of these community service events but also we uh we um initiate the uh the letters that they need to support the awarding of the award and um yeah we we’ve had multiple men in our organization attain their volunteer service medal through the service and rebate of phi so
That’s definitely a plus for us so yeah reserve and guard same thing listen that’s 10 15 promotion ports for that next board and we all know how hard it is to make at least sergeant staff sergeant yeah it gets real well i really want to thank you both for
Taking the time to come on and talk about me beta 5’s incredible organization i really hope our audience takes this and runs with it because what you guys are doing is really fantastic a great service to veterans um and it’s really awesome to see uh successes that you guys have already had
And i’m sure we’ll continue to have and we will hope uh that they will jump over and listen to your podcast as well as that just got off the ground um but uh again and we want to thank our sponsors d d auto salvage and adagio tobacco free
Health uh for their support of the vbc and the scuttlebutt uh gentlemen uh it’s been a pleasure and an honor uh to to be here with you today and to hear your stories thank you very much and thank you for having us all right thank you sean and us you know
Gary we gotta end it out what do we say you you fine thanks gents
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