Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

Kevin Krall 0:00
You're listening to special programming sponsored by making moves life coaching services. The content of Veterans Affairs plus does not reflect the views or opinions of public radio K, u and v. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Unknown Speaker 0:20
Good morning. This is Veterans Affairs. Plus, I'm Dave Washington, your host. Good morning. This is Veterans Affairs. Plus, I'm Dave Washington your hosts the show sponsored by making moves life coaching services. We have a few guests today that will join us shortly. First, I have a few announcements one happy birthday to my grandson Karen who turns I believe 10 This month, and also duck golfer Byron Holmes, turning 75 Another announcement Miss Sue Phelps, a veterans reporter news is hosting a personal planning and survivors spouse symposium this will occur on Monday, May 16 2022. At the Clark County Library 1401 East Flamingo call for more information 70249651344. Again, additional information. And I just want to remind everyone that look, this is membership drive here. And 91.5 Jazz and more. You get to hear the wonderful voice of Mr. Kevin Grohl from time to time up there doing his thing. So give us a call. We can we can use your help. Another thing is, if you haven't seen I understand that there's a documentary out on Dr. Ruby Duncan, it's a must see movie, she is a warrior. So check it out. And I'll have to get further information on where that actually is being played. To firefighters out there. The Carl Holmes executive development institute is scheduled for June 6 through 10. A dealer University in New Orleans, online registration is possible. And of course, I want to extend condolences to the family of Miss Mars that Lewis who was outspoken community activist who took the school district on many, many times as those of you been around a long time knows, again, a great lady who did a lot of work for our community. And then I'd like to extend condolences on behalf of Making Moves. Organization to include Veterans Affairs plus to the families, the soldiers or civilians who have been killed or injured around the world because we know that there's several different wars that are going on in our world. And unfortunately, man sometimes fights for for various reasons. But we certainly want to extend condolences to those folks. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs plus on any 1.5 Jazz and more. We're going to have a guest call in here shortly. He is Mr. Willie fields. Mr. Willie fields, the cobbler. He is an outstanding individual from our community. So he'll be calling in shortly. And again, this is making moves life coaching services President Dave Washington, and our show is Veterans Affairs plus, Mr. fields will be calling in shortly. One other thing as we wait on his call in the Nevada Wellness Center, dispensary owner, Mr. Frank Hawkins has informed me that there's a smoking Lounge is this going to be available under a lottery system, a lottery system. So the key to when there's a lottery system going on, you got to get a lot of folks to apply. So according to him, and I know he knows the facts of this because he's very active in that industry. There is a requirement of I think is $200,000 of assets. You don't have to have $20,000 cash, but in assets to actually apply for one of the smoking lounges. So with that, we certainly want to encourage folks who want to get into the industry because according to Mr. Hawkins, who is an insider, there is going to be an industry this is an this is an industry that's going to grow tremendously. It's already a multimillion moving toward a billion dollar industry before it's all said and done. It may be a trillion dollar business. So look out for that. And when those applications come out, again, encourage folks to apply because you never know you might get in and become one of those millionaires as a result of this particular industry. So with that, we're going to wait for the call from Mr. Willie fields Mr. Willie fields, a well known community activist, and a cobbler in our community, so he should be calling in short.

Unknown Speaker 5:15
This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. As I mentioned earlier, our first guest is now retired cobbler. Mr. Willie fields. Willie feels as my friend. And he has done so much in our community. First of all, Willie, what branch of military Did you serve in?

Unknown Speaker 5:36
Intelligence? That's the three United States Army.

Unknown Speaker 5:38
United States Army. United States.

Unknown Speaker 5:42
Yeah, crypto, I was spying on Russia during the Vietnam War.

Unknown Speaker 5:45
Okay. All right. Well, we appreciate the service that you provided for our country. One other thing that I know about Willie, among many, many things, Willie, established a medical center on the west side many, many years ago. Willie, tell the are listening honest about that experience, if you would,

Unknown Speaker 6:06
it was a long time before Obamacare. The mayor of North Las Vegas at the time was regained and he asked me to participate in that. And I did. So when I, when I took over as chairman of the board more for community health centers. It was an opportunity to serve those that didn't have insurance. So by the time I ended, that medical practice, had over 40,000 patients robbed the community. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. throughout the community. And my good friend John Edmonds was gracious enough to have me in a shopping center with my headquarters right

Unknown Speaker 6:46
there. Oh, that's right, right in nucleus Plaza. Yeah, this

Unknown Speaker 6:50
is back in the 80s.

Unknown Speaker 6:51
Another thing that I know about you among many things, I consider you Mr. Lions Club in the city of North Las Vegas mentioned a few of the programs that you run now, that certainly will help not only veterans, but others from our community.

Unknown Speaker 7:08
Okay, I have a foundation that buys eyeglasses for autistic kids in the school district. No charge pre allocated a school district has to do it, go to the school nurse, get permission from the family. And I have 27 doctors that do exams for those kids free. And I managed arranged through LensCrafters. They issue out during the regular school year, over 250 pairs of eyeglasses a month. Wow. kids can't learn it, they can't see.

Unknown Speaker 7:43
Very true. So who actually funds the program?

Unknown Speaker 7:46
Actually, there's no funding man's got to do it. LensCrafters donate the eyeglasses for free. And they use it as a write off for their actual visitors. And I let them have the credit. Sure. And the doctors that do the exam, for free. Usually exams are like 75 bucks, right? But but they do it for free too. So they can get a write up. It's a win win win. So there's no money involved.

Unknown Speaker 8:14
So how long have you been doing it? Now?

Unknown Speaker 8:18
This applies

Unknown Speaker 8:19
so far, five. Wow, that is that is a blessing for a lot of young people in our community for sure. Yes. Now, Willie, I know that's just one among many programs that you actually take care of within the city. So give us another one that you do

Unknown Speaker 8:37
three wheelchairs for those that need it. And most of the wheelchairs I give to the churches and three organizations like the homeless, and the senior citizens home that don't provide that for them free.

Unknown Speaker 8:51
Another free program. So that is one that someone just provides these chairs for you. And there's no actual funding that has to be garnered by you. And absolutely not

Unknown Speaker 9:03
one nickel, not that one nickel.

Unknown Speaker 9:07
That is great. And again, is for anyone who meets certain criteria.

Unknown Speaker 9:13
All you have to do is accent.

Unknown Speaker 9:15
Okay. Now,

Unknown Speaker 9:18
my other project is three hearing aids.

Unknown Speaker 9:21
Free hearing aids. Give us some detail on that, please.

Unknown Speaker 9:24
Okay, your name is usually go to seniors. And I think the average cost could be anywhere from six or $7,000. But we have a validation through me that the good thing is pre hearing aids. So it helps the community and like I said, there's no money involved in this. It's often the heart and all of the people that serve with me. They don't they don't require your payment.

Unknown Speaker 9:56
That is excellent. So I know that You just recently retired as a cobbler, which is seems to be a lost art and industry. Just in general, I know my wife and many other friends that we know, instead of going buy a new pair of shoes and you broke some and they would bring them to you and you would put new heel, including myself soles and whatever else, whatever else was needed to repair a pair of shoes that were already broken in. So that is going to be greatly missed my friend greatly miss

Unknown Speaker 10:29
God, children gotta have shoes.

Unknown Speaker 10:31
True. So what's the what's the plan, if you care to share any thing that you're planning on doing in the near future?

Unknown Speaker 10:39
I'm not gonna give up the foundations that I provide for the community. I just set up an office in the Lions Club. And in our field, fix my phone number. So that so that all of that and he can reach me.

Unknown Speaker 10:54
That is great. So the club itself, how long has the Lions Club been around?

Unknown Speaker 11:00
Since 1948, the North Las Vegas chapter has.

Unknown Speaker 11:05
So do you recall offhand when you came on board?

Unknown Speaker 11:08
36 years ago.

Unknown Speaker 11:11
Now, what is your you the President or you hold some Officer role? isin

Unknown Speaker 11:16
Oh, play off this isn't that I am the current president of the North Las Vegas chapter. I'm a past district governor for the state of Nevada, and California. I am immediately as president as an International Medical Group that travels all over the world taking care of I care for indigenous people. What Amala Chihuahua, Mexico, Peru, Dominican Republic, I can go on and on. I can talk you all day about a great project.

Unknown Speaker 11:48
I can tell you, Willie, the work that you have done over many many years has not gone unnoticed because I tell people about you all the time some don't take me up on it. I say look, if you need some glasses, your child if you need some hearing aids, Mr. Feaster go and see Willie, he will get you squared away. What are you wait, oh, I can hear I can hear. Come on, man. Go take care. It's a resource that that's made available through this man Mr. Willie fields. And folks, particularly well, everyone, but again, Veterans Affairs plus is trying to get information out to veterans who live in our community. So certainly encourage you vets out there. And other family members who may not be veterans. But contact Willie at the at the lions office headquarters. Give us that address, Mr. Fields,

Unknown Speaker 12:44
when I am 34 Vandermeer North Las Vegas 89030. But I do have an application online application. It's called site first foundation of Southern Nevada. Excellent. And at the top of the website, there's a there's an app that you can download that says, application to fill out the application. And a referral is always, always ask people to use my name because I'm the founder of foundation. That helps the process of all

Unknown Speaker 13:21
excellent well, you have done tremendous work and we certainly wish you Godspeed in your retirement from the cobbler work but certainly is it appears as though you will continue on doing your community activities. And again, your work is not unrecognized my friend because Willie there's a lot of people know you. They appreciate you. And we certainly don't have time unfortunately to get into your political background and activities. Because you are you are a well known figure in the political arena in our valley, not just yet not just in the city of North Las Vegas, but around his Valley. So any closing remarks sir?

Unknown Speaker 14:03
Politics is my hobby.

Unknown Speaker 14:07
It's your hobby. A really appreciate you man. I look forward to getting with you as you go in take on the next stage of your life my friend we appreciate you. Okay, God bless you. All right, take care. Once again, this Veteran Affairs plus 190 1.5 Jazz and more. We're gonna take a brief break, be right back

Unknown Speaker 14:38
once again, ladies and gentlemen this is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host and it is brought to you by my life safety, life safety. My life coaching business making moves life coaching services. This is Dave Washington. And next Our next guest is Miss Deidre wills. And she's a fellow member of the Black achievement fund, and Miss Deidre, how are you today?

Unknown Speaker 15:06
I'm very well,

Unknown Speaker 15:07
let me say this. Let me say this to our listening audience. I am with this young lady for meditation every Saturday morning, and Miss Deidre, she trains and facilitates us, a number of us who join this session. And one of the many services provided by the black achievement fund. Mr. Just give a little bit of background on yourself if you would, for our listening audience here and around the world, in fact, because this can be heard all over the world, under the 91.5, jazz and more app.

Unknown Speaker 15:40
Okay, but today, my name is Deirdre fields. Wilson, I'm, here in Queens, New York, my grandmother and mother and a member of the Black achievement fund, been a member for over a year and a half now. And he had to make it easy a trip for everyone who's looking for it. So.

Unknown Speaker 16:05
So with respect to what you do in terms of meditation, how important is it for our mental well being? Would you say?

Unknown Speaker 16:16
Okay, well, meditation is important for everyone's well being has a lot of physical benefits and mental benefits. It can change your mind, literally. And we use it when we're stressed, or when things are not going well. It comes in handy when you're not feeling well, physically not feeling well. Meditation is very old is the old practice 1000s of years old. And it works, it takes a lot of practice. And matter of fact, that interchangeable name for meditation is the practice.

Unknown Speaker 17:01
So in terms of practice, how often should one actually practice to, I guess, to get it down to a science or get it down to a routine in which they can further develop their their ability to relax or whatever the case may be?

Unknown Speaker 17:19
Well, the record, it depends. If you're a beginner, you're just starting out. The whole idea is just to give yourself one minute, and then you increase the two minutes, and then three minutes. And as you get comfortable with sitting in one location, then you can increase it to 15 minutes. Some people do it for 30 minutes. But the prime thing to do is to at least put in 10 minutes in the mornings and 10 minutes in the evenings. But you have to go according to your schedule. What is nice about meditation is you don't really have to have the same place all the time. It's good if you can, if you can get up at six in the morning at five in the morning and come up with the sun and do your meditation then, of course, because you're working with the actual environment in which we you know, the Earth is awakening in the morning, and then it's resting in the evening. So if you can get on that type of schedule, it's optimum. But we can't all do that. So the whole idea with meditation is to just practice it. Anytime you have an opportunity. What's wonderful about it, you can be anywhere you can be at work, because I gotta go to the ladies room, you go and the lady from you stand in the corner by yourself in the booth and you just do some breathing, in and out, in and out. So you can be anywhere you could be at the store. You could be in your car, which is a common place where people get road rage. So you want to stop the road rage, just breathe. That's all meditation is is breathing in and breathing out. And that breathing process allows your mind to slow down. It allows us to slow it down it allows oxygen into your system. And extra oxygen and oxygen give your cells your body parts. It went and that breathing in and out relaxing the muscles in your arms and legs. The breathing also taking in that oxygen, you can actually literally then the oxygen to different parts of your body. Now this is all a mental process. So you're you're controlling what's happening to your body with your mind. So you tell yourself, I need oxygen and specific parts say you have backdrop. When you're doing your breathing. You want to literally tell the oxygen to travel to my body. It sounds it may sound corny, but in reality, you are in control of your mind and control. So you don't have to tell your mind and your body what it is you need. We tend not to do that, you know, we talk to everyone else. But we don't tell ourselves what we can do, literally from the inside out.

Unknown Speaker 20:15
So are there different kinds or types of meditation that is done by folks? Yes. Is there any particular one that you recommend,

Unknown Speaker 20:28
I recommend a meditation that works when you have to experiment in order to find that out, right. So you have transcendental meditation, breathing in and out and counting the breath. And staying focused. Yes, sleeping meditation, which, you know, some people have can't sleep at night, right. And you can actually meditate just so sweet. One of the processes when we were kids, some people may remember that we told him, You can't sleep count sheet, don't go to sleep, or count the sheet, one to sheet that all that is, is a form of meditation, okay, that's all it is, is the same thing we do, we just breathe in, and we breathe out. And that process will give you a body of relaxed relaxation. Matter of fact, when people do meditation, one of the first thing that happens is they fall asleep, because you get so relaxed. So you know, when we're doing Transcendental Meditation, we prefer that you'd be up in a sitting position, okay, which, whichever neck and you're back in alignment, you know, one does have his head held back and, you know, sitting back and you're relaxing stations, you really want to get into a position with because you've taken an air. And this is a process that happens in our body. So we have electrical currents that come in, come in, through our body and run down, down on neck down our back into our spine. And we're sending oxygen to those areas at the same time. And anything, you know, if you have a store, and you're trying to drink, but a store, and you can barely get what this is once you straighten the store.

Unknown Speaker 22:26
So as we as we move toward wrapping up, I know as a member of the the black achievement fund, there are different areas of responsibility. And I know that you are M. And Ambassador, if I remember correctly, can you give a little shed a little light on that for our listening audience?

Unknown Speaker 22:52
Not for profit model C three. We believe that if 10 million people come together, that puts $9 A month inserted into an account that we would have $90 million in one month time, over 10 billion in a year's time. And we believe that we can we have a solution. And it's an economic solution. In the black achievement fund. How we get people interested is one of the things we do we offer different services. So one of the services that I offer is meditation. So we have accountability Saturdays, where we do meditation at 9am. Eastern Standard Time. And at 10:10am. We work out. So that's one of the things we have on Saturday. We have like this evening, we have movie night and book. Night we read a book, reading the destruction of black civilization tonight. We have Thursdays where we do money, talk about finding your finances to help people out of debt. Right? We Wednesdays we have sister agency the Toastmasters program to help us without a lot of most of us they own every time we talk, lessons books and get rid of debt. Yes. So we have many different programs. You know, to invite people as a group, we believe that as a collective, we can accomplish a lot more. So we have a dividuals who put their time and energy into making this organization strong and positive.

Unknown Speaker 24:33
Well, you mentioned sister, Raven, also sister faith. I know that they both have done the physical exercise program on Saturday morning, which I participated in. You know, I think sometime in the near future we'll get one or both of them on and particularly young Mr. Raven to talk about Toastmasters which I've been a member back in the day. I mean, it was a long time ago. But I've, I've been involved in two different Toastmaster programs and they are important to help one. Get up and speak before an audience, if you will. And I can tell you that as we, my producer, an engineer, we were having technical difficulties. I don't mind seeing it out there to the to the people on the air, but man, I'm sitting here sweating, he's so cool and calm. He's, he said, he will aid this stuff happens all the time. And it is what it is. But the bottom line is

Unknown Speaker 25:32
definitely using meditation, right?

Unknown Speaker 25:35
Just can't calm yourself down. Well, if I if I don't see the engineer, and I remember, as a in the fire service, Mr. Bryan Willard, who was our video technician, and we do these videos, if he didn't get nervous, and he would mean, he didn't care what your rank was, you could be the mayor. And Brian is a retired captain out of the Air Force. And he don't play man. You know, when these engineers and directors get it, they stop pointing and giving you fingers and numbers. That means you're supposed to move our stuff. Kevin said no, no. He's laughing. He's a That's right. That's right, Dave, watch him. When I give you the number, you better wrap it up? Well, I'll tell you, Miss Dejah, we certainly appreciate you coming on today. I think it's valuable information. And once again, we try to get information out to veterans in particular, but we have the plus side. So we can talk about a lot of different other things that are important to our community, I can tell you that. From a meditation standpoint, I can only imagine that the kind of help that it will give to our veterans who are in the listening audience. And we hope that they will try the trend. Some will say sorry, I couldn't spit that out fast enough. But I can tell you that it's something that is important for us all as fellow human beings, because it'll help you to relax. And I've been involved with Miss deja for the last few months and, and I try to do some practicing daily. I don't always get to it. But I know that doing that routine is going to help me to drive where I need to be in terms of getting a lot more relaxing what I do on a day to day basis. So, young lady, we appreciate your time and wish you will and we look forward to Well, tomorrow. And yeah, Kevin, I have to get up at what Kevin Kevin has an on air personality to he won't give me no sympathy for the 6am. tired because he's on Monday through Friday 6am pm in the Queen there, they do a show here on 91.5. And please to the listening audience and your friends there in Queens, you can get the app and pull it down and put it on your phone. And you can hear this radio show anywhere in the world. So those who are out there listening, tell your friends that we have our show once a month. And it's called Veterans Affairs plus. And our goal is to get information out particularly to our veterans, because there's a lot of hurt going on in this world. And a lot of times, the veterans don't get what they need in terms of assistance from us. So one of our main goals is to get that information out. So in speaking out that any closing remarks only?

Unknown Speaker 28:20
Well just would like to put this out there you will talk my sister faith leaving the accountability pass. So I just want everyone to know that she's the reason that she's not there is because she's doing an accountability class with AARP. So if you're over 60, or over 55, if I'm correct those and you have if you're on a AARP, you could look up since the face she's teaching, taking care your body for the AARP right now. So you know, I just wanted people to know that she's still out there working and you can still visit her and be a part of her workout class. But I thank you for having us. BHF thanks to the black achievement fund. Please look us up at the AF dot solution. And we hope and if you can stop by on Saturday morning. We had we zoom every Saturday mornings. 332-802-6097 is the zone entrance. You don't need any other passwords, many other numbers. And please come on out.

Unknown Speaker 29:23
All right. So that's the deja, we thank you for your time. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 Jazz and warm. I'm Dave Washington, and we will talk to you again next month. Thank you again Kevin.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai