Full Transcript for Jack Hammond: The Warrior

we call buddy checks and everybody gets a buddy assigned to them. when we're overseas to keep an eye on each other. you know, quite, you know, if you're in the field and you have to go use a latrine or you have to go use the woods, you don't go alone. You know, you have somebody help you with that and follow you out there just to keep an eye on you, to make sure you're okay. But more than that, once you have that buddy, ⁓ you have a responsibility to keep an eye on each other and check in with each other. And as leaders, you have that same overarching responsibility to do that. The easiest way I would tell you that it can be accomplished is, we call it counseling by coffee cup. And it's just around the break room or in a meeting, have somebody hang back for a minutes and have a coffee or iced tea with them and have a chat and just see how they're doing and keep an eye on them. If somebody's not doing well, connect them to the resources that your company offers. But step one is just engaging and having a conversation. and not being afraid to be a little vulnerable and have that, you know, explain that, you know, we all have challenges. And when you look at the world today, mean, it's like a, ⁓ it's a very difficult environment. You know, we have these incredible external threats to this country, ⁓ as well as internal threats. ⁓ And people are beleaguered in many cases because they were just starting to come back from COVID. And all of a sudden the political divisiveness in the country took over. and it took it to another level. And you can't have good conversations with folks because you've got this thing in the middle that often drives a wedge. And we've got to get away from it. We've got to heal as a country. We've got to move past that. And it starts with conversations. Todd Faber: Yeah. No, I think that's a great point. And I do like the analogy with just having a cup of coffee with somebody, even though I don't drink coffee. The fact of the matter is that concept. Maybe we should make that into a tea chart. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: Here do I. Iced tea. Yeah, I don't drink coffee. Todd Faber: but it is interesting. You talked about vulnerability, right? And, ⁓ correct me if I'm wrong, but, certainly I see it in the real world, but I would, I would tend to think more so in the military historically that, ⁓ strength is often defined by what you can kind of endure, ⁓ in indoor and silence. but I know that at home base, you folks are really trying to teach veterans that having that conversation. having the courage to talk about whatever the pain is that they're feeling is how you start to manage it. And, you know, we certainly have a mindset in terms of how we view military leaders as being pretty stoic, right? And you being, having been a general for a long time, ⁓ how do you, as a leader, how do you transition from that mindset of being a stoic general whose mission focused to now advocating for folks with this sort radical idea of emotional honesty. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: Yeah, I think it's time and place, right? And situation dependent. so in the military, ⁓ we teach our folks to be resilient, self reliance, self starters. ⁓ And we teach them to play hard. That's a, that, you know, and, that's a big deal because if you're out on a combat patrol and you twist your ankle, There's a question, are you hurt or you're injured? If you're hurt, we'll tell them to suck it up. That's why we invented duct tape and 800 milligram Motrin. You gotta carry on with the mission because you could pretty much stop a mission dead in its track if you have to pause and call for a medevac to pull somebody out and bring them to the rear. so... Todd Faber: Right. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: You know, they need to be injured, not just hurt. We're all hurt. You you're falling out of airplanes, you're jumping out of helicopters, you're banging your knee on tanks and the inside of it. And so there's always a lot of injury. I mean, you you get hurt quite a bit, ⁓ but you hurt or injured. And if you're injured, you require medical attention. ⁓ And that's a different situation. And so if you're injured, we want you to get help because you can't play with, you know, you can't play with a broken ankle. You're going to become a liability for the organization. You can play when you're hurt a little bit and we do teach them to play hurt. When you come home from that combat environment, you've got to recognize number one, the difference and the threshold is different. And you don't need to play hurt anymore when you're back in the rear, when you're back in America, you know, in the safety of daily garrison routine or you're back in the civilian world, ⁓ you get help. ⁓ As soon as you can. Todd Faber: Right. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: You address your medical issue, address your mental health issue so that you can then get back into the swing of things. a lot of these challenges, we spent so much time teaching folks to be self-reliant and resilient. They feel like they're a little bit weak if they can't deal with mental health stuff. If they've got a fractured ankle, they will obviously go in and get help. You know what I mean? But when comes to mental health, they feel like... You know, they're just not feeling it and that that's a personal shortcoming. and so they'll try and keep going on and keep going on. And that's why, quite frankly, ⁓ we had a great, we, we, we graduated 24 veterans from our intensive two week clinical program. ⁓ one of the warriors that graduated today was a Vietnam veteran and he's been carrying this pain for 50 years, 50 years. And, and as I listened to him, Todd Faber: Wow. Yeah, I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine that. There was always a stigma, right? In terms of that mindset and coming out of that generation that it was a sign of weakness. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: It was a sign of weakness. And some other cases I've heard them say, well, that's my cross to bear for the things I've done. And

there's all sorts of reasons. And it's also, know, PTSD is an injury of avoidance. And so they just don't want to revisit. They don't want to talk about it. They don't want to deal with it. And it's so remarkable sometimes when you meet the spouses of these Vietnam guys and they'll share with you that my boyfriend became my husband. and he went to war and my boyfriend never came home. The guy I met, the guy I fell in love with, the guy I married. And after 50 years, I just got him back. For the last 50 years, I've had this angry, frustrated person that I don't really know and I don't quite understand. once they let that go and they move on and they heal, they get back to the person they once were. And that's what we try and do is help them reclaim their lives. You don't need to wait 50 years. If you're not doing well, get some assistance. And quite frankly, as I share with the folks at graduation, Homebase doesn't fix anybody. Homebase works with you, provides you with the tools. Again, you're a self-starter, you're a self-reliant person, but if you try and change a flat tire with a screwdriver, you're not gonna get very far. And if you don't have the tools to deal with some of these complex mental health challenges, you're not going to get very far. And that's what happens. They try and try and try to get over it. As they say, you you always say, get over it. But they can't because they hit a stuck point and they don't have the tools to do it. We give them the tools so that they can then reclaim their life. And then they can not only move past that stuck point, they can then ⁓ have the resilience skills so that when they face those challenges in the future, as you will, when life happens, they're equipped to deal with them. Todd Faber: No, I, yeah, I, it's amazing. You know, that story just of the, the Vietnam vet who, who was stuck for 50 years in, in that changeover, right? And it was a behavioral thing because you know, our personalities typically don't change, but we can alter our behaviors. I I wrote my senior thesis in 1990 on post-traumatic stress. And back then there was very little literature about. But the fact that now we're at a point where we've got a lot of soldiers coming off of various wars over the last 20 years, the fact that you guys have created a space for them. that allows them to feel comfortable and feel vulnerable so they can heal is huge. You know, and it's interesting when you think about it, because Mr. Rogers, you know, created his neighborhood, right? And the concept was that the neighborhood was supposed to be safe for every child. The neighborhoods that your soldiers were in were some of the most dangerous environments on earth. And so when you look back at your career in the military as a leader who clearly BG Ret. Jack Hammond: you All right. you Todd Faber: has the capability to be compassionate, has the capability to be kind, has the capability to be empathetic, not just because you're in this role with Home Base, but in your role as a general. What were some of those sort of Roger S things that you tried to do or that your staff tried to do to make your soldiers feel seen and feel valued as human beings, even while they were in some of these dangerous places? BG Ret. Jack Hammond: I think there's a couple of things that we try and do and you know, in the military, one of things we talk about is leading from the front, which means you wouldn't ask your soldiers to do anything you're not willing to do. so back when I was a younger officer, a lieutenant colonel back in Iraq and Afghanistan, I used to purposely go out on patrol every night with a different group of folks. So I had that shared experience and nobody could say, oh, he's just sending off, he doesn't understand what's going on. And so when you're out there at night with them on patrol and bad things happen and you're with them, you're sharing that experience. And then when you get back to the, ⁓ base, you can kind of talk through it with them a little bit. ⁓ and as I got more senior, ⁓ it's not as practical to do that because you can actually, ⁓ create more problems. If the bad guys find out there's a general travel with them. Now I put a bullseye on these guys and that's not helpful. Right. And so, but you'd still do those check-ins and I can remember we had a, ⁓ Todd Faber: Big target on the whole truth. Yeah. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: a couple of young soldiers that were manning a tower on one of our bases. And some bad guys pulled up and there really wasn't much ballistic protection. It was corrugated tin. So they, you know, and they had some sandbag stuff and they just pulled up in a pickup truck, got out and fired AK-47s into the tower where they were. And the two young soldiers were very brave. They returned fire, suppressed the fire and kept it up until others came and the bad guys left. And I went and spent some time with the guys. I sat in the tower with them afterwards and had a conversation because I knew they were rattled. ⁓ and you know, it's not natural for somebody to pop out of a vehicle and start shooting a AK 47 at you. ⁓ and so we had a conversation as we're talking. I remember, you know, while one of the kids, ⁓ hands were shaking a bit as he was reaching for his canteen and he apologized and I said, don't apologize. That was probably the scariest thing you've ever experienced. And I said, right now you've got your body is loaded with nervous energy and it's got to find a way out and your knees popping up and down. That's part of it. Your hands shaking. And I said, give it some time and you'll be fine. And I said, if you're not though, make sure you talk to somebody because you know, it's not normal to get shot at and your, your, your, response to this, this beat, you know, that, that outside, ⁓ stimulus is overwhelming. If you weren't rattled by it a little bit, I'd be more worried about you. ⁓ And it's normal to do it. And when you normalize it and you explain to them, you

know, these are tough times, but we're here for you. And, and, know, and then after that I get down out of the tower and that, you know, I, I found out, you know, it talked to his commander and I said, make sure his first line is squad leader, his first line supervisor, you know, keeps an eye on him because, know, he was pretty rattled by this. And for the next few days, just keep an eye on him. And if he doesn't need to go up in the tower, maybe you can do something else tomorrow where he doesn't have to go back into that tower right. So quick. And. We can kind of shift the things around a little bit. ⁓ so it's not, he's not crawling back into that same tower that, you know, it was pretty scary. I think there's other things you can do tomorrow and somebody else can spend a little time in that tower. But there's all sorts of ways that you can, number one, relate and kind of acknowledge that it's a scary environment, and, talk it through with them or you share the experience with them and you, know, talking through it again is a lot and in the military. you know, like other, probably police departments and probably fire services. There's some gallows humor, some dark humor. And that's another way that you get through stuff. And after you get back off the, you know, a bad ambush or something, there's a lot of nervous laughter and joking. ⁓ but it's a way to let it out of your body, ⁓ and kind of normalize a very abnormal situation, ⁓ and make it manageable. And then you keep an eye on things and see who bounces back and who doesn't. And if they seem like they're still struggling with that, and then you get the chaplain involved in some other things, get them to behavioral health and kind of work on it a little bit more while you're there. But staying connected, I think, is a big part and sharing the experience with those that you work with. Todd Faber: I mean, that's where the empathy comes along as far as great leadership. And, you know, it's interesting you talk about sort of the handshaking or the knee shaking. mean, we do have a physiological response to stress that impacts our nervous system. And the fact that you kind of acknowledge that for them also probably lightens the load mentally a little bit as well, because those are things that we can't necessarily, excuse me, control. So I think that's great. mean, that's a great tactic to be able to use as you're talking through. And, and again, the idea of being empathetic with them is hugely important. And to your point, when you're out on patrol with them and you're, you're in it, right? Your sleeves are rolled up. And to me, that's great leadership because it levels the playing field, so to speak. And you don't see yourself as above anybody else. And to me, you know, that's the hallmark of leadership. So. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: Okay. Todd Faber: I think that's great. And obviously now transitioning to home base, you can still relate to the veterans because you've gone through some of the same things. But one of the things that I think we tend to lose track of in terms of, I've part of the genesis of this podcast for me was the idea that, you know, when you have a bad experience at work or, you you got a lousy boss, excuse me, you're going to take that with you. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: Okay. Todd Faber: Right? That's going to follow you home. It's going to follow you in terms of your treatment of your spouse or your kids. And that's not a good thing either. And I know that Homebase ⁓ does a great job of treating the entire family, not just the veteran. And so, and we look at the family of these veterans, like this, this woman who's been married to the vet from Vietnam for 50 plus years. She's a helper. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: you Mm. Okay. Todd Faber: And Fred Rogers was a big proponent of finding helpers, acknowledging helpers, but also helping helpers. And so when you look at your role or as a leader role, what do you think that leader can do to support sort of their invisible team behind the employees? BG Ret. Jack Hammond: Yeah, you know, it's funny in the military. It's a little easier because Our families are part of our responsibility the welfare of our families, you know, if you're if you're is like a team leader 20 year old kid in charge of five other soldiers or a squad leader in charge of ten They might only be you know, 23 24 years old they're not only responsible for their ten soldiers Todd Faber: Cough BG Ret. Jack Hammond: but they're also responsible with those 10 soldiers family. So if something's going on at home, they have to know about it. have to figure out, help find solutions, find resources to help. If somebody has a sick kid and it's affecting their performance, they're expected to throw themselves into it and then work with the chain of command to help find a solution because we don't want anybody ⁓ worrying alone. And that's a great line I learned and I want to share it with you. Our chief nurse from Mass General, ⁓ was also the chief nurse for something called Boston Hope, which was back in the COVID pandemic. Governor Baker asked us at home base to establish a 1,000 bed COVID field hospital. And one of the first key players I picked up on my team was this great woman, Dr. Jeanette Ives Erickson, who was the chief nurse of Mass General for a number of years and became ours. And you can imagine, very tumultuous time period. Todd Faber: I know that, yep. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: And this kind of pivots to the private sector. You know, we saw some of the challenges with healthcare workers during the COVID pandemic. On one occasion, we found one of our young nurses three hours after her shift ended in the fetal position, sobbing in the locker room, the break room, whatever. ⁓ And one of the things Jeanette shared with us through her great experience at Mass General was that nobody needs to worry alone. together we can solve problems. No one has to bear that whole burden by themselves. And I think that's the best lesson

to pivot to, to the private sector as a part of leadership team. Never let a team member be subjected to trying to solve a problem by themselves. And they've got to know that, that you're open to helping them. Because again, while we fight the stigma of self-reliance in the military, there's still that personal belief in the private sector that you don't want to show somebody you can't handle something because they'll give it to somebody else next time that can. ⁓ And when you're a little more vulnerable and share with them that we understand there's going to be challenges that you can't overcome, that you're going to need help with. We don't want you spinning out trying to do it yourself. Of course, give it your best shot, but if you hit the wall and then you try it again, you still hit the wall. We don't want you worrying about this thing by yourself and trying to torture yourself trying to get through it because you bring two or three other people in there and you get this diverse viewpoint of leadership and other coworkers looking at it, that 360 degrees looking at that same problem, you're gonna find a solution. And if there's no solution, we're gonna collectively come to that agreement that this is not good, this is not something we're gonna fix, let's look at doing something different because try as we may, collectively we can't find a solution. But not letting anyone worry alone, I think is a ⁓ win for an organization to take that mindset on ⁓ and leaders to share that with their team members so they know when they do hit the wall that there's help on the horizon. Todd Faber: I, I, that's great. And I, and, you know, it's interesting because it has to come from leadership, right? They need to let their folks know that when you hit a wall, asking for help is okay. Asking for help is a sign of strength, right? We talked about the vulnerability in terms of the military and how handling things yourself is never, ⁓ is never a great thing. if you can get help from other people. And I think that's wonderful advice and more leaders need to do that. They need to be able to say, this is an assignment that you might get that you may not be able to solve yourself and that's okay. That's why we have a team. That's why we have a company. That's why we have people in different roles because they all add value. And when people see that they're more likely to say, ⁓ okay, you know what? I can't get through this. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: Thanks. Thank Thank Todd Faber: I would rather use my time more wisely. Let's solve this together and we can work on something else after that more quickly. So, ⁓ you know, you, mentioned a little earlier the, we've got right now and how divisive the world is, ⁓ especially here in our country. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: Okay. Todd Faber: Fred Rogers once said that mutual care is what eventually will make our world safe. And you look at the veterans who've come through your program, what gives you the most hope as you see them and

you see the challenges that they get through and they get out to the other side, even if it takes 50 years for somebody to get through that? What really gives you the most hope that we can actually heal these divisions and what are really invisible wounds within the wider society today? BG Ret. Jack Hammond: Yeah, I think, and you make a great example. So when I look at today, I had a graduation for two cohort groups of 12 that went through this intensive 14 day clinical program for PTSD ⁓ whereby we compressed two years of therapy into 14 days. That's a lot. But one of the things we realized was you know, there was two ways to approach it. We could have had a rolling admission as people come in, they start their own individual journey. Or we could do it as a team and we opted for a team. In the Army, the basic element of our whole structure is a squad of 10 to 12 people. And they become exceptionally close. I mean, they may not love everybody. but they work together and they respect each other and they would do anything for each other, even though they may not personally, they may not get along that great. You're never gonna get 10 people in room and everybody's just gonna be, it's not gonna be a love fest, especially. Todd Faber: I can barely do that at my own dinner table with Jen and the two girls, so I get it. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: Yep. And you know, and when you then place yourself in a difficult situation where people's true colors come out, it gets, it can get worse. Right. And so what we found is, ⁓ by these folks working together, opening up to each other, ⁓ they, they create this amazing peer support group. And we see this happen, ⁓ every two weeks, it day one for this program. It's hoodies up, eyes down, nobody talking, a lot of angry people. because life hasn't been going well. Day 14, it's laughing, joking, and I love you man, stay in touch. And they set up a text chain, a closed Facebook thing, ⁓ where they can connect with each other whenever they're not feeling it. And they've got four or five folks that they can lean on by sending out a text, I'm not doing great today. There'll be four or five folks that jump right in. One might even call and say, I'll be on a plane in five minutes. You know what mean? And having that level of support is really huge. So that gives me hope because these guys come from a mixed background of gender, race, socioeconomic, enlisted, officer, blue, red, north, south, east, west. mean, it's the full, because... We fly in these 24 veterans from anywhere in the United States and anywhere, U.S. veterans living anywhere in the world, we fly them into this program at no cost. And so you get a mixed bag with every 12 person group. And they've asked us in past, how did you know to put us together and we'd work so well? Like totally random. You guys figure it out because you're together and you work at it, right? And I can tell you as a teenager when I probably was working my mom's last nerve and I was... she was trying to tell me something I wasn't listening to. She said, remember you have two ears and one mouth, use them in that priority. And that, you you gotta listen, you gotta be willing to listen. And when you look at the divisiveness, you know, that's what we don't see is when people stop listening to each other and try and find common ground. Because this isn't the first time in our nation's history that we've had polarized beliefs. And I had the... Great pleasure to have an uncle who was Tip O'Neill's chief of staff when he was the speaker of the House of Representatives for Congress. And I would hear the inside stories about how O'Neill would be playing cards with Nixon after work and other big staunch Republicans. And he was a dyed in the wool Democrat. And at the end of the day though, neither one changed their values, beliefs or anything, but they played cards at night. They drank a little bourbon and they talked. And they would actually score out the day and say, you really got me today. That was, you set me up and knocked me down pretty hard. But I got something for you tomorrow. And they'd all laugh about it because they didn't let it get personal. And then they would make deals. And they say, all right, I can bend on this, but I need you to bend on this. And then we can get a package together we can both work on. I think that's part of what we're missing is the willingness to collaborate for the greater good. And I think the country's getting sick and tired of it. Todd Faber: Yeah. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: We're tired of demonizing two different groups, the Hapfills and McCoys, because collectively, neither one's getting anything done. And they're working on the polar fringe stuff instead of the common good. And I'm hoping over the next year or two that our political leaders realize that they need to do better. They need to work with each other. Or we're going to continue to fail as a nation moving forward and addressing some pretty difficult challenges. And the problem is when they fail like that and they create these public spectacles, the folks that ⁓ align themselves with whatever political belief they have, they make it part of their own ideology and it's part of them now. And so they're not willing to compromise their view. And so it goes from being political challenges to national challenges because large groups of people aren't willing to talk and listen to each other. And so we need to... Going back to my mom, you have two ears and a mouth, use them in that order. Todd Faber: And your mom's advice is great. But going back to what you were talking about with the cohorts and the differences they have, at the end of the day, I look at various aspects of what makes somebody a great leader, and it's the acknowledgement of our shared humanity. And that's really the baseline. And clearly, this cohort of 12 individuals coming, again, socioeconomic, gender, race, et cetera. They found that. They found that shared humanity. And I think

that if more leaders can kind of promote that as a baseline, we will be better off functioning, not just politically and sort of in the national spectrum of things, but also in our own little worlds, whether it's our company and nonprofit, it doesn't matter. But if we can all sort of acknowledge that, we might have these other differences, we have a shared humanity. And if we use that as the baseline, it definitely... will work to our advantage to kind of get through this. So I think that was a great example that you gave with that cohort, being able to kind of get through that. ⁓ But I have a, I sort of have an interesting question for you now, cause you know, you and I, we're both older. We've lived our lives or part of our lives. Hopefully we've got a lot more to live, but you have these experiences and you've had quite a number of experiences professionally and personally, and now sort of where you are with Homebase. When you look back, BG Ret. Jack Hammond: you Todd Faber: 40 years, right? When you were a young lieutenant ⁓ and you think about Mr. Rogers and his concept of leading with the heart. What would be the advice you'd give to yourself? If any, I mean, maybe you're like, I was perfect. ⁓ But if there's any advice that you would give to yourself looking back, what would it be? BG Ret. Jack Hammond: I think, you know, with age comes some wisdom, hopefully. And it's a lot of times because you chipped your teeth a couple of times along the way and you wish you would have a mulligan on some things. And at different points in my career, I know I could have been a little more compassionate. And as a young lieutenant, you know, you're full of fire and vinegar and you're there You know, and they raise you and grow you to do that, to be a hard charger. And you're at the tip of the spear of leadership where you have a 30 person platoon and that, you know, you've got a team, a squad and a platoon. ⁓ That is the first level of operational mission capability. And so a lot's riding on you and they talk to you about. don't accept ⁓ anything substandard because if you do that, you've now created a new standard. If somebody doesn't salute you, don't walk by, you can't let that go because you're letting standards slip and when they stop doing that, they'll stop doing something else and then it can become dangerous, et cetera. ⁓ I think older me would tell younger me that number one, there's a way to correct somebody. You don't have to snap at them. And I tried not to and I thought I was pretty good at it but. I also know, I don't think I dug a little deeper where I could have to find out why a soldier was having a problem. You I focused on the problem and fixing the problem. And I would try and be polite and respectful about it, but I didn't peel the onion back to say, you know, why is this guy having a tough time? Because instead of, I tried to solve the first tier problem, which was on the surface, the guy was late, the guy failed to salute, the guy's uniform wasn't where it needed to be. I made the on the spot correction. You need to square that away. You know the standards, blah, blah. And I did it politely and respectfully. And I never yelled at him in front of other people. You you pull him aside and have that conversation. But I don't think I did a very good job of finding out why. You know, is he not feeling good? Is he homesick? Does he have, is he in a fight with his spouse and it's not going well? You know what I mean? Does he have a sick kid or does she, is she a single mom? trying to juggle a bunch of different things. All I had to do is get up this morning as a young single lieutenant, throw on my uniform and come to work, where she might have one or two children, and she had to get them ready, get them to school, get everybody ready, get her uniform on. She had about eight other tasks to get there, and somebody, she got derailed because one of the kids was sick at daycare that morning. ⁓ you know, having those conversations, find out why there was a problem and help solve the problem and not just solve the tip of the iceberg issue that I witnessed. I think I probably would have, you know, advised myself to try and solve the problem and be a little more helpful in figuring out that solution so that that soldier who's normally pretty good is back where they need to be. Todd Faber: sure you did the best that you could. And I, it sounds like you did, but it is a good point. think that empathy starts with asking questions. And I know your mom said, you know, listen, then talk, but sometimes you just have to ask the question and then you can spend your time listening. And you know, again, just another hallmark of this whole program and leadership is finding a way in and finding a way to help. understand what might again cause somebody simply just not to salute when they typically do. And I think that's the great point. And that certainly would be great advice. mean, compassion is free and so are all the other things like empathy and kindness. But I get that sometimes it's difficult. It's difficult for some bosses to do that. But overall, when most leaders behave in that way where you feel valued, you feel heard, BG Ret. Jack Hammond: Mm. Okay. you Todd Faber: they're not going to then take it out down the road, right? They're going to, they might say, geez, you know, ⁓ Lieutenant, are you having a bad day? Right? And so it becomes reciprocal. And, and I think that goes back to that idea of shared humanity around how we behave towards each other, how we can be empathetic to each other and therefore become more kind, become more compassionate and just become better as leaders in our respective fields. ⁓ listen, BG Ret. Jack Hammond: you Yeah. Todd Faber: Jack, as always, this is great. I appreciate it. Your advice is wonderful. Your stories are fantastic. I can tell you that you'd certainly be a CEO that I would have loved to have worked for, or if ⁓ my mom would have let me join the military, I would have happily served under you, but that was never gonna happen. ⁓ But I appreciate you and I appreciate what you guys are doing now with the Homebase program. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: . Todd Faber: and the lives you're changing for the better through the program. Again, even if it's a 50 year, you know, Vietnam vet or a kid that might be coming back from Iran in a month, it's an important program. And the idea that you folks are focusing on how do we help you help yourself is fantastic. So I just want to thank you. No, it is my pleasure. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: Thanks, Todd. And thanks for having me today. Todd Faber: Have a great rest of your day, and we'll catch up soon. BG Ret. Jack Hammond: All right, thank you, Todd. Todd Faber: Thanks, Jack. Bye.