Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

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what's going on good day Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host, and I got two super guests. I call him one, the sheriff. Kevin McMahon, great guy. We'll have some discussion with him shortly. And then Faye Duncan, Daniel down and Helena Arkansas. However, before I get those individuals in, I'm going to talk about a few birthdays. Miss Mary fountain, my wife's mother, her she's deceased now, but we want to acknowledge her and her daughter, oldest daughter, Wally Jones, birthday is this month.

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Doreen Armageddon, my son in law's mom over in Cape Town, South Africa. And then a cousin named Christian, His birthday is this month as well. And we already mentioned Elsie Kennedy, my uncle, and also my aunt, magnolias coming up this month as well. And Sister Anita and chief Eugene Campbell was just a couple days ago. So with that, we want to acknowledge

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the loss of James Earl Jones, a great actor with that baritone voice, Sheriff, I know you know. I know you like that voice as I do.

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Darth Vader, what a great guy anyway. Just wanted to make those acknowledgements. I got a great guy online now. Sheriff Kevin McHale, Sheriff, give us your background as far as military is concerned real quickly, and then we'll get into some other things that I think are important for us to share or you to share with our listening audience,

Unknown Speaker 2:22
yeah, Dave, thanks again for having me. You're right. I'm very saddened by James Earl Jones or Darth Vader pass. And he is a hero of mine. I think he was just unbelievable. And so, yes, I guess we're all getting a little bit older, aren't we, buddy, I'm telling you, yeah. Hey, Kevin, I keep telling everybody I'm going to live till I die.

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Amen. Amen. So I was I joined the military, the army, specifically, in 1986

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went to Anniston, Alabama for training. Military Police deployed over to South Korea, pretty much all over the country, for the next two years before I finished out my time at end of 1989 in Northern California at a place called Sierra Army Depot. Okay, so where are you from? Here?

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I grew up in I was born in California, but I grew up in Denver, Colorado. Okay, so he's up in a real cold country, huh? So Denver's not real cold. There's some very cold spots in Colorado, but my my father was a lifelong fireman, and my mom pretty much stayed home. There are five kids, so been a pretty decent upbringing, you know, right, cool. So, yeah, you're right. I've been up to Denver several times. A friend of mine before he passed away, I used to go visit him every so often. He worked for the railroad, and I recall one time I was up there for a convention,

Unknown Speaker 3:42
Kevin, it rained, it snowed, and the day we left, it was 84 degrees. I'm like, this is they say anything might happen up on the Mile High? You know, Denver, Colorado. I sure remember a lot of days where you'd get some snow one day and the sun would be out to be 80 the next.

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Yes, yes, sir, Kevin, you're doing some very exciting things, man, that I certainly wanted to honor you by having you on the show. Ramadan sent me something that from what was it Vegas legal, and they had a long article on you. And I was very impressed by that. And I know y'all had you on here as guests a couple times, but this year is so important, because I think that we sometimes we do the X's and O's, if you will, in terms of just training, execute, etc, with our staffs and public safety, but sometimes we forget about the mental aspects. And man, you have brought it front and center. So

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tell our listening audience a little bit about what you're doing with that, because I think it's so important.

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Yeah, you know, Dave, the interesting part about

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what was sort of the catalyst for this was my what myself and my wife, our own experiences that were out of not only a lifelong career of policing, but the experience that.

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Is responding to one October where, you know,

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lost their lives, and 422, were shot that day, and so,

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you know, really dealing with that ourselves, and then watching what police fire and EMS all around us were having to deal with, because that's not a normal day. That's not a normal day at the office, and it's not normal for your firefighters or my police officers or those ambulance people to go out day after day and deal with mangled bodies from car wrecks homicide suspect and victims and people dying, and it takes a toll on all of us, because you know, as well as I do that the vast majority of people that get involved in our lines of work are people that really have a heart for the community and want to make a difference. And so what I did was I decided that when I was running for sheriff, that I was going to build what I call a wellness bureau. And wellness Bureau is focused in on the heart, mind, body and soul of our first responders to find ways to take care of them in ways that we never have, so that they can take care of this community in ways that they never have. And so I've hired my I've hired a doctor, a PhD, as well as eight clinicians at Metro already. You think, wow, that's that seems like a lot, but I can tell you, they're seeing over 400 of my department members every single month in wellness visits, from mental health, family and marital addiction, whatever the issue is, without judgment. Let's find a way to keep these individuals healthy so that they're not struggling the rest of their lives of the things that this job makes them see absolutely and that is so commendable, and I can give you, from a personal standpoint, one of our engines turned on his side. And I know our audience has heard this from me before, but I think it's worth mentioning here at this stage of our conversation. And that is

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this gentleman, one of the there's four of them that were injured, and one more seriously than others. In fact, he became a quadriplegic, and I run a program down at Dillard University. It's an unpaid position. I'm the president and CEO, and I'm in class one day just visiting, and we got to talking about

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the stress that firefighters and other public safety officers are under, and they asked me about and the particular case I just mentioned about the engine turning over, they say, Were you ever debriefed on it? And I start crying. I'm like, no, no, no, I was never debriefed, but I incident debriefing person came by, Brenda Donohoe, I never forget Brenda. Brenda came by, Hey, Chief, we need to talk Kevin. She came by about four or five times, and I kept, you know, with this typical police firefighter mentality, I'm good, I'm good, man, I was carrying that stuff on my shoulders for three or four years, and didn't even realize it. And I was debriefed right in the classroom. I just totally broke down, because each time I talked about the case, I'd start crying after that, I haven't cried since, but a lot of pressure was taken off of me. I know in you know, in retrospect, that I was carrying a load that I didn't realize I was carrying. And so what you're doing, man, is just it is great, because sometimes we forget about the people that's out there on the front lines, and you never know what you might see. But like, say, one October, that was a that was a different thing, you know, at the level that it was, but each day you can see something totally different out there, man. And if our people aren't taken care of, they're gonna take it home. They're gonna do ugly things. And when I first came on the department in 74 there was people killing themselves, left and right, firefighters. I'm like, What the heck's going on, and then we start moving into where we need to have somebody on staff to talk to folks, go and talk to them. So what you're doing is so honorable, but go ahead, my brother,

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yeah, listen, I mean, you were a decade and some ahead of me. I came on in 1990

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and we were taught a different way to deal with it. You didn't talk about, no, you pulled a baby out of a pool and the baby died in your arms. You were expected to go dry off and get back in the car and go back to work. And you know, those those days are over. You know, God willing, here in Southern Nevada, at least. But you know, there's been a lot of leaders that a we weren't taught how to deal with it. So we never really knew how to deal with it. And I always tell people that if you go out and you look on the walls of Metro of all of those, they're all men at this point, but all of the men who gave their lives in the line of duty. If we actually put a wall up for the people that have worked here and taken their own lives, the wall that taken their own lives would be much larger. And so the truth is, is that because of the trauma that we see, the trauma that we live, we have higher rates of divorce and suicide and alcoholism and all of these terrible things. And so it's time for us as leaders to step up and do something about it. And so that's why I am, you know, it's a controversial thing. It's a slow thing. You gotta, you gotta.

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To maintain the trust of the people that work for you, to be willing to take those chances, to come in and lay it out on the line that I need help, because that's not something that we've ever said in our professions for as long as we've been around, to understand that it's okay to not be okay. That's true. Very true. In fact, shortly after I left,

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they got rid of the position of our incident debriefing person. I'm like, it makes no sense, because it's saying to me, and I trust that others who kind of know what's going on as it relates to the harm that not only to our personnel, but what can be further damaged to their families without having someone around me. And so what you're doing, and these clinical people, and you got a doctor, a PhD that knows this, the background of this kind of stuff, man,

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let me tell you something, what I believe and I and I love and appreciate you for stepping out and doing this. There's going to be others that's going to do it too. You watch because it is. Yeah, yes, they will follow. They will follow your lead. Man, because when it's all said and done, if you don't look out for your people, man, that stress and that harm is going to be reflected in their in their ability or

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inability to do a proper job when they go out there in the public, because they're going to be under so much stress, and sometimes they just blow up. And it happens,

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you know, Dave, just from, from a simple perspective, for anybody listening, let me just give it. Give just one idea to think about.

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I don't personally know a police officer or firefighter that currently serves, that sleeps through the night. I'd

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be interested to hear you. You've been retired a number of years now. How long did it take for you after you retired to sleep peacefully through the night? Man, I still don't sleep. You

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know, the truth is, it comes from the exposures that you've had. But also, look, I'm also going to tell the truth about that. The other part is, you were the chief, yes, and the buck stops with you, right? That's right. Lot of times you go to bed worrying about things that other people don't have to worry about, like I do,

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but that's okay. We took these jobs for a reason, but we took these jobs so that when we have the opportunity to make a difference, we're going to really work hard at doing that, and that's really what this is about. I'm very grateful to you for your friendship, your leadership, your mentorship, but also your acknowledgment of the fact that our men and women in the in the fire service and the police service and as well as the EMS Field, really deserve this kind of support from our community, because they do. That's right, that's right. And sometimes people, oh, man, we should be spending money. And I've heard this from firefighters, oh, we should be spending money on more firefighters. Well, we also need to be spending some money on someone that's going to help you maintain your balance in terms of your mentality, because the stress that you're under, sometimes you don't even recognize it. Like I said, in my case, I didn't even recognize that I was under all this pressure. Again, as you said, Kevin, I was thinking about this happened on my watch, and it bothered me because and I hadn't done anything wrong, but it still bothered me because it happened on my watch. So anything that happens out there, the buck stops with the sheriff. The buck stops with the fire chief, no doubt about it, and somebody's gonna question your ability to lead if you're not doing anything. And I'm telling you, man, I guarantee you, Kevin, there's gonna be a whole bunch of departments that's gonna follow your lead, because it's so, so important.

Unknown Speaker 13:27
Yeah, I mean, listen, we are. We're already trying to build that out with the rest of the police and fire agencies in the valley, and there's some of them that are doing it, and some of them that want to do it. We're just going to continue to open our doors and find ways to make that work for everybody as we move along. Great. Well, we got a couple more minutes, so give me some closing remarks and things that we can do to help you in terms of us as the public.

Unknown Speaker 13:53
Yeah, so I think the other you know, listen, when just had a lot of conversation around what our crime looks like right now? No down another 18% this year following a 20% reduction last year in homicide, same 20% in robbery, and 20% down in robbery again this year, homicide solve rates of 90% and higher for a decade. But what I would say to you is is that lots of people always want to talk about why we're effective. And, you know, they think it's that. It's, it's, it look the truth is, it's, it's good police work, good detective work, relentless follow up, great leadership, all coming together, whole of agency approach to make a difference in crime. But the other side of it is, and this is where you and I have been, you know, working together for many, many years,

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through my through my Multicultural Affairs Council, but also really just work in the community. And what I would ask of your listeners is to get involved. We have these groups and these alliances working on, on improving our recruitment for all different groups. But the truth is, I need a lot.

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To help in the African American recruitment piece. On the female recruitment piece, I need a lot of help in finding ways to make relationships in places that we don't have them, right? You know, right now we're at 78 homicides for the year. My goal is to be under 100 that would be the first time that would be under 100 in a very, very long time, right? But I believe that we can do it and and the reason I believe we can do it is because we've made so much effort on the community policing side of this. You've heard me talk about injecting humanity as being the sort of the role of what I want my community policing effort to be absolutely so I would just encourage every one of your listeners, regardless of where you work or live in the city, whatever area command that you live near, reach out to the captain, reach out to me, and find ways to get involved with your police department, because, after all, we're here to serve you absolutely. Well. Said, sure, hey man, once again, I love you, I appreciate you, and I tell you gasm as I try to get to know people, because relationships are so important. Kevin was the under sheriff. I said, Man, let me take you to lunch. I want to get to know you a little bit better. We go over to grits. When I hear this dude order some greens, man, I say, what you know about greens? You see, I do a lot more than you think. I know. Chief.

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Hey, man, I appreciate you, Kevin.

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Hey, hey, man, you're welcome anytime. So reach out to me if you have something that you want covered, that I that I miss. I think it's so important for you to constantly be in getting I know you guys got a show that Ramadan runs on on another station, in fact, 88.1 I'll say it out loud, and we appreciate that, because I think it's important for the public to know about the things that you're doing down at that agency. So God bless you. Be safe and tell your wife. I said, Hey, in fact, I love what she did before she left. When she was over personnel, she got civilians involved in selecting your officers. That that's a key. Thank you, Sheriff still going on. Appreciate that. I'll pass that on. God bless you, and I appreciate you as well. My brother. All right, take care.

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Bye once again. This is veteran Veterans Affairs plus so 91.5 jazz and more. We'll be back on the other side with Faye Duncan, Daniel of Helena Arkansas.

Unknown Speaker 17:21
Good day. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. And as I mentioned on this, in this phase of the show, we'll have Faye Duncan, Daniel from down in Eleanor, Helena, Arkansas. However, I want to mention again those who need help with seeking out their benefits. As veterans service officer, Tony Marshall. Tony Marshall, 301-537-9462,

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Tony Marshall, if you got any need in terms of trying to get your benefit package together. So with that, I'm going to introduce again Faye Duncan, Daniel, longtime friend. She had a great function down in her community of Helena, Arkansas. So Faye, how you doing? And we'd like to give you our listing audience an update on how things went on when you had your program.

Unknown Speaker 18:12
I'm doing good, Dave, and thank you for having me on your show. Can I just take one moment of personal privilege to reach out to those veterans to encourage them to to get their benefits, because they have given so much of this country we need to hold so I want to encourage and to thank the veterans for their service and encourage them to go get themselves in the best shape. Great. Appreciate that. But my program was July 27 2024

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and I have to say, honored Ashley, that it was an excellent program. It went as we planned. Every aspect of it went as planned. There was rain predicted for that night, while the rain went all around us. Remember, we were outside on the levee on the Mississippi River with a gospel concert. We had eight different gospel groups to perform, and each one did their best performance, and we had about 150

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people in attendance. Wow, that's great. Idea was you could see the water and we and you could taste the water, and you could hear the songs about water. So it was a total immersion. And it was an absolute I must say, here I already boast on myself, but I must say, in this instance, I earned it. Great. Was a great program. Wonderful, wonderful. So faith once again. How did this come about?

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Well, you know, David, I get up every morning and I walk to the river and and I'm so enamored with that river is enamored with with his history and with it, and with what it does for the United States. And we're talking about the, arguably the.

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Third longest river in the world, and as a geography major, that that's my passion. Okay, I just thought that the that our community needed to be more

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aware of the river,

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and we need to go out and really protect the river, because every year, when you read the paper up in St Louis, they dump billions of gallons of toxic waste into the river.

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And so as humans, we're not being good stewards of the river, right? So we want to, I want to arouse that, to get people more involved, to get people to take ownership of the river. So, so we did that by marrying the river and gospels, which is sort of the history. And my introduction to the river was through gospel, gospel music. So it was a combination of the geography and the appreciation of the river and preserving gospel music and it all, and then honoring teachers, which is a whole other story around water. We're having a water crisis in our part of the country. We're not getting the kind of publicity that Jackson, Mississippi got or Flint, Michigan, but our problems are just as, just as unique as theirs. So we were trying to bring attention to to the river, to get folks to fall in love with it, because it's a major contributor to our economy and to our health and to our recreation. So we wanted, I wanted people to have a greater appreciation for it. So having written that play a way to get people more aware of it, and then also to preserve gospel music in its current iteration, great because, you know, we have music going so many different directions, right? We want to make sure that will stay in that direction. So Faye, in terms of you putting this together, so that you use local talent, or

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pretty much, yes, we use local talent. And they were funded by a group that's called One Nation, One project. And they did an 18 cultural event, cultural and art event all over the United States, and our city was one of those cities that was chosen. Okay, the idea was, was that in this part of the country, we have some real negative racial history, but we're trying to erase that through the arts, because everybody, no matter what your ethnic leaning is or your religious beliefs are the arts, is, is, is a is what is what binds us together? Very true, very true. In fact, did you? Did you guys get any, any regional coverage or or local coverage from from any type of media?

Unknown Speaker 22:59
We got local coverage from our local newspaper, because we don't have a local TV station. We're not that big, okay, but we did get lots of lots of coverage in our local paper. So what is, what is the possibility of it being funded again, to to have it on an annual or biannual, whatever the case may be, but have it continue to go because I think what you're bringing about, to me, is so educational for people, some who don't know, who get to know as and you're bringing them together in a somewhat of a fun atmosphere, if you Will.

Unknown Speaker 23:38
Well, we what our next step is, is the university. We have a small community college here that has that's a university, so they're taking an interest in it. And we also have some little cultural centers here, and pretty much, like the one that you guys thought in Las Vegas, and they're going to they're taking an interest in it. So we're going to continue with it. We just don't have any firm dates yet. We're sort of still celebrating july 27 Okay? And you would think that there will be, if I know you told me that there was some funding that was made available through some groups so you guys could put this, this particular function on. I would think that because, like you say art and culture and music, it brings people together. And you would think that there's some funding out there that, I mean, we have to seek it, but certainly there should be some funding out there to continue to put this event on, because I think it's so educational, particularly for young folks who sometimes they don't think and look back at history. They just only looking at current and beyond. But I think your history is important, because, as they say, if you check out your history, know it thoroughly. You won't keep repeating some of the errors and mistakes that we've made, and I'm talking about all of us. And one thing.

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That you said is so key to me, Faye, is that. And we just had Sheriff Kevin mcmahill, and he talked about the humanity. And I agree humanity has been lost amongst us because we want to treat everybody like nobody's got any sense, like we're all a bunch of animals, and that is so far from the truth. So the humanity must come back into play for all of us as fellow human beings. And I think this will be a smile, put a smile on God's face, if you will.

Unknown Speaker 25:30
Well, that was beautifully put. David, thank you, and that's what we're trying to do. We are trying to stay connected in a way that promotes humanity and peace, because we all need to be living in peace. We don't need to be afraid of our neighbor, no matter what their persuade what they are, or what their persuasions are. And art is the way that we can is a vehicle that we use to get there. Absolutely, we all enjoy art at some degree, and I agree we do need another level of civility. Absolutely. You know, in terms of art, I got, we got three

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artists,

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our middle daughter, who, you know, Angel, her son. KJ, he's in college now. You got a scholarship for a little small junior college in Kansas City, Missouri. But he is a great artist. And then also Amber's middle child,

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Karen, he can draw. And I keep telling me, you need to design some of your own stuff and maybe put together your own little

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comic book. And then we just discovered the youngest one of Amber's children a mirror this girl can draw, and I'm like, Wow, man, the talent. And I know you remember Lou and Vicki Richardson. I tried to support Vick as much as possible by going out making donations, as well as trying to get my grandchildren out there to see some of the various shows that she have in the

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in the studio there. So art is so important.

Unknown Speaker 27:05
Well anyway, we can support art, because art has that calming effect and that uniting effect on all humanity. And I agree with you, that's something that we seem to be losing far too rapidly. For me, I love a community where there was where people are

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loving each other and supportive of each other, and art promotes that so. So that was the reason that art was the perfect tool, the perfect vehicle to

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to get this done through. And again, it was such a beautiful night. I tell you, when we were setting up outside, we were told it was going to rain three times that day. We have a hard rain at noon and one and one and one and four, and none of those came. So we just kept setting up, and the rain went all around, and we said, look at God. Oh yeah, God. And then so we all had an opportunity to eat some hot, fried fish and look at the river and just admire something that's ancient, something that's been there for billions of years, excellent. And we can actually walk out and look at it well, God bless you, Faye. And hopefully somehow it will happen again, and maybe marsh and I will be able to get down and visit, because I think it's so important to keep that tie and to talk about the river and the water, how important it is for our continued existence is something that sometimes the rich and famous seem to forget about. But hey, you got to have that age two old man in order to survive. So Faye, once again, we appreciate you so much, and we'll have you back on again. And I know you did do a play. So anything else you're doing, please contact us, because we have a listening audience all over the world, and also we expect to pick up our numbers down there in the great city of Helen, Arkansas, once again, Las Vegas is a vested Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more, we just had the great faith Duncan Daniel, who's down there doing great things in the city of Helena, Arkansas. Thank you so much, Faye,

Unknown Speaker 29:08
thank you, Dave, and goodbye to you. And thank you to your audience. Alrighty. Take care.

Unknown Speaker 29:14
You. Bye, bye, bye.

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All

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the smoke in the air till they hate when they stare all the pain that we bear, all you bear.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai