022 BJ Ganem, wounded warrior

Bob Smith 0:00
losing a leg in a rack wasn’t the end of his life. It was just the beginning tells

Unknown Speaker 0:06
me I can’t do something. I’ll do it

Bob Smith 0:07
and do it. He does. Today. He runs marathons, climbs mountains, plays football greats from the NFL appears on late night television and is on a first name basis with the President of the United States who sent Him into battle. Today he’s using his newfound celebrity to help wounded warriors like himself, move forward with their lives. Coming up an interview with former Marine BJ ghanim on the off ramp with Bob Smith.

Welcome to the off ramp with Bob Smith a chance to slow down steered clear of crazy take a side road to sanity and get some perspective on life. Today we profile a wounded warrior named BJ GANIM. But first a trivia question. What’s the best selling art book of all time? The best selling art book of all time? Well, believe it or not, it’s portraits of courage, a commander in Chiefs tribute to America’s warriors by painter George W. Bush, the same Bush who was America’s President for two terms. It’s a collection of more than 60 paintings and stories honoring the sacrifices and courage of American military veterans and their transitions into civilian life. The book has sold more copies than any other art book in history. The paintings by the former president have been praised by art critics as sensitive and accomplished. And our guest today is the subject of one of them. In fact, BJ ghanim is one of the few Americans in history who has been painted by a US president, a print of two portraits hangs in his house in Reedsburg, Wisconsin,

Speaker 1 2:12
a saw in the book first because before the book was even released, President Bush sent us all autographed copies. It’s just amazing the level of detail and kind of what you know, his interpretations of what he captures about us, is really phenomenal. It’s moving. And when you have a sense of the artists and you are the subject, it really does open up your mind and your emotions a lot more to see what somebody else kind of expresses about you. So it was it’s something that will always be close to my heart. And

Bob Smith 2:43
now BJ ghanim, who like many disabled veterans had his challenges returning to civilian life is using his celebrity and his business skills to help wounded warriors like himself, move forward with Sierra Delta service dogs, dogs trained specifically to help wounded veterans. But let’s just back up a little bit. What kind of a person were you? What kind of a kid were you growing up? rambunctious,

Speaker 1 3:09
rebellious. I think there’s some things that can be attributed to me. I joined the military after losing an academic scholarship to college because I just basically didn’t show up to class enough. And literally was drunk, watched Legends of the Fall and was like, I’ll just join the Marine Corps. That was my solution. Well,

Bob Smith 3:29
I read somewhere you said that you joined the Marines to prove to your mom you had a plan. Yeah,

Speaker 1 3:35
exactly. Because that was like, easiest way I could think of to be like, Yeah, I have a plan. Don’t worry. I got kicked out of college. But I have a plan. I joined the Marine Corps.

Bob Smith 3:46
How old are you in this habit

Unknown Speaker 3:47
just turned 20 When I went in.

Bob Smith 3:49
After four uneventful years of domestic duty primarily as a Marine trainer, BJ returned home and began a corporate career as a sales representative for Kraft cheese. All the while staying active in the Marine Corps ready reserves.

Speaker 1 4:05
The reserves was better for me because you can get a lot more training in one weekend, a month, two weeks out a year. Then I was able to work for craft and actually build a retirement and actually make money for

Bob Smith 4:16
BJ life went on normally, until his reserve unit was called into active duty in Iraq. three short months later, on Thanksgiving night 2004 His Humvee was struck by a roadside bomb in the Al Anbar Province causing the injury that would change his life. You were hit put out of commission pretty quick. Yeah, three months,

Speaker 1 4:38
three months. Yeah, is one of the first tripwire initiated IDs that we encountered on a road. So normally, I’d gone through 13 Before that, they tried to time it out. And we always kept our vehicles we only had four vehicles at a time for our patrols. We had great dispersion. We never use lights at night. And again, tried not to follow the same paths or be predictable This night happened to be Thanksgiving night. We had gotten a bunch of steaks from the base because we lived out underneath a bridge. We didn’t live at the base. So we were just eating hot food for the first time and a bunch of months and went on to patrol that night where we would fall behind these huge army convoys that would always get shot at and then we would see where the shots are coming from peel off and deal with that. And that night, it was pretty quiet on the way back. We hit this IED. small arms fire. My gunner Ryan Tapio was killed instantly A piece of shrapnel went up over his neck protector and got his jugular and he just bled out before we could do anything. We were injured. The quick reaction for us came from our position in the bridge. They couldn’t land the Blackhawks to take me in a few other injuries because they were worried about the ambush. So we had to drive out. And then from Mama dia, which is the forward operating base there was flown to Baghdad

Bob Smith 6:06
BJs legs were badly damaged and his left leg was eventually amputated. his left eye is scarred and his ears still ring. He has been diagnosed with TBI and mild pts.

Speaker 1 6:19
The main thing I remember is how angry I was that I was taken out of the fight. Like I was just really, really upset that I didn’t really care about losing the foot to this day is what bothers me the most is that I’ve only got half a combat deployment. I don’t have a full combat deployment, you know, and there’s men and women out there that have 910 You know, deployments.

Bob Smith 6:40
But that was not to be. And to this day, BJ can tell you every step of his journey from the deserts of Iraq to a hospital in Washington, DC. It was at Bethesda that BJ met his commander in chief President George W. Bush. It was an impromptu meeting, one of many the President made at the time behind the scenes to meet and greet veterans who returned wounded from the battlefield

Speaker 1 7:06
became into get his yearly physical and he came by and visited with everybody that was in the hospital at the time. So this was right after your Yeah, this was I want to say December of Oh, four. When I got there, right around the holidays he was coming in. Were you surprised at that? I didn’t know it was happening until it happen. Like they came in and said that the President is going to come by we need everybody stay in the room while the Secret Service is on the floor. And it was cool. And he spent about 45 minutes with me. We talked a lot of baseball and just behind him stuff and had some pictures. And he went on to the next room. And we ended up staying in contact. And he did the portraits occurred. And that was one of the ones he chose, which was really cool, really cool honor after Bethesda went to Walter Reed, because that’s where they had all the amputees go.

Bob Smith 7:51
BJs journey to recovery was long and painful. He came back home to resume his life, his family and his corporate career. But things quickly fell apart, that things go well for a while. And then they didn’t go well.

Speaker 1 8:05
Obviously, when you get back, there’s the euphoria that I’m not dead, right? Because when you’re activated, you only think of two scenarios. Either you come back, or you die. Like there’s really no in between. And it’s probably a good thing, because you don’t really want to dwell on all that other stuff, right? You just need to be able to perform your job. And you need a certain

Bob Smith 8:29
arrogance. But the arrogance disappeared. Once he began dealing with the new problems he now faced in civilian life, the marriage

Speaker 1 8:37
starts to fall apart. I’m burying myself in work full time and going to school full time just trying to feel adequate again, right now I’m no longer marine and trying to just feel relevant, creating a new identity, a new identity. Exactly. And so divorce is filed, we realized that the credit situation is so bad, we it’s best if we do a bankruptcy. And lo and behold, you know, I am blowing off steam too much I get a DUI. And this could end my career at Kraft as could do a lot of bad things. And it was at that moment when I kind of looked in the mirror and realized that yeah, life wasn’t going the way I wanted to. But nothing was going to change unless I started to change myself. So I took a long look in the mirror and decided that you know, I’m going to focus on me. And once I feel like I’ve made all the changes on me, then I’ll try to change the world. So I pulled my own head out of my ass and

Bob Smith 9:35
George Bush actually put that on his website. So I thought that was interesting. Former President he’s so hey, this is what the guy said. I agree with

Speaker 1 9:42
it. Yeah, exactly. Well, there’s a lot of truth to it. BJs

Bob Smith 9:46
actual quote and former president George Bush’s book is I wanted to see what I could accomplish when my head was removed from my ass. The President even chuckles in the audio book after reading this,

Speaker 1 9:57
the only thing I have any control over in this world is me. It’s not my four kids. It’s not my wife. It’s not my job. It’s just me and has been free.

Bob Smith 10:08
We’ll be back with more of Bj ghanim on the off ramp with Bob Smith in just a moment. We returned to the off ramp with Bob Smith and an interview with Wounded Warrior BJ GANIM. You are a remarkable athlete. Now I don’t know if you were before but I saw the list of what you do. You ski you hike. You tell me all the things you do. Tell

Speaker 1 10:31
me I can’t do something and I’ll do it. Yeah, I’ve run two marathons. I didn’t win either. I just random me. No, it took me like seven hours do both. I did the Boston Marathon and I did the Marine Corps Marathon and of handcycle both of those have a couple of times and then mountain climbing climb some mountains. I climbed to fourteeners out in Colorado to 14,000 feet mountains. Did some hiking do some dog sledding golf you this

Bob Smith 10:57
one of the things you find therapy in. Did you play golf much before?

Speaker 1 11:01
No, actually, I always growing up in Savannah and growing up in more of a like a working class family. And you know, I always looked at golf as that was, you know, rich man’s leisure sport. And it’s easy, right? Because the ball is sitting there. It’s not like baseball or football. I didn’t get into it until after I was injured. But one of the things I loved about golf, and especially with helping other vets is that it is just you versus the course. So it takes a lot of concentration. But it also takes a lot of self forgiveness. And just knowing that it’s going to be a grind. And that’s kind of how life is and you have to be able to take that in stride. You know, and just know I will yet today wasn’t the best day but there’s always tomorrow that play flag football against NFL alumni.

Bob Smith 11:46
This is the Wounded Warrior amputee football team. Yeah, yeah. And so

Speaker 1 11:50
they reached out to me in 2013. I believe in like, Hey, do you want to play flag football against, you know, some NFL and I was like, Well, yeah, so I ended up doing a bunch with them. That’s what got me on the David Letterman show when the Super Bowl was in New York, and that was such a treat. He was an amazing guy. I mean, you don’t get to meet him until you go on stage. You’re talking to David Letterman of Atlanta. Okay, he doesn’t meet you because he wants it to be fresh when he’s talking to you. So you don’t talk beforehand, which I think is actually a good way to do it. Right? Just kind of go in and see what happens. And so I just went in with really no expectations and just tried to have fun with it. And it turned out great. We had a great time. And you know, Louie CK went on first. And then it was funny because David Letterman was given a hard time about not wearing a tie. And of course I’m wearing shorts and a sweater because, you know, everybody was advised me like you want to make sure you see the leg. So I go on I won’t apologize for my attire.

Speaker 2 12:51
Welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. Great pleasure to have you here sir. Now let’s see it says here. You’re the Wounded Warrior. amputee captain of the Wounded Warrior MPT football team. Here’s how ignorant I am okay. Didn’t know there was a wounded warrior amputee football team. Well,

Speaker 1 13:07
it’s pretty new. And first of all, I want to apologize. I just saw you busted. Oh, okay. All right. And I’m dressed like I’m about to fly on the yacht.

Speaker 2 13:16
He needs to tie okay. Okay, good. But

Speaker 1 13:25
he was very grateful at the end of the interview and, and everybody on the whole staff was great. And it was, yeah, it was, you know, one of the highlights of my life and it was, you looked very relaxed. What else were they gonna do?

Bob Smith 13:40
Well, most people would go on there and think there’s 40 million people watching me oh my god, and then I better not screw this up. And you just came out like, Hey, how you doing? I mean, I looked at I thought, wow, he must have met him beforehand.

Speaker 1 13:52
No, no, it just went with it. It was my one shot might as well go for the fences.

Bob Smith 13:57
At one point BJ even took his artificial leg off and put it on Letterman’s desk. Tell me about the

Unknown Speaker 14:04
the initials across the top of your sir. Oh my goodness. So

Speaker 1 14:10
the carbon fiber and steel. The initials there are the five guys we lost in Iraq from Madison’s golf company of 224 which is a marine reserve unit. It’s Ken tapeo Ramy O’Donnell warns and Simon think about him all the time.

Speaker 2 14:29
We’ve seen the website for the center five. Okay, that also and the Wounded Warrior, amputee football team. We’ve seen that there that is also right there. Here. Take your leg and get out of here. Got it. Thank you very much. BJ GANIM. Lead a gentleman God bless you. Thank you for your family. Thank you.

Bob Smith 14:50
As part of his transition to civilian life, BJ changed his career path, dropping his business management major and earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Saint Leo University and a master’s degree in social work from USC with an emphasis on military life, he found a mission to help disabled vets like himself start new lives. PJ looked back to draw on his own experience at his lowest moment when his dog inspired him to move forward with his life.

Speaker 1 15:20
dozer was an old English Bulldog that I got bought them from a litter, it was in a paper, just all head and wrinkles, and he’s asleep in my neck and like a dog at the pound, exactly like a dog get a pound. And he was the one thing that could help me get through Phantom Pains, more so than any other medicine, any other therapy. And he instinctively knew when I was having him, and he would just lay on my leg. And I really helped. And in 2007, when I was facing, you know, that nasty divorce, I was in bankruptcy, the DUI, when I thought about quitting life, the only thing I could think of was, If I die, those are just gonna get sent to the pound and in healing it being killed. And I was able to kind of get through that messy time by realizing how much those who needed me. And as I look at other veterans kind of struggling, even if you’re married to somebody, or you have kids, you know that they will go on, they’ll either figure out a way to care for themselves or somebody else will care for them. It’s not always that way with a dog.

Bob Smith 16:20
This man dog partnership came back to BJ while thinking about service dogs for veterans. Instead of a public access dog, a purpose bred dog trained to help the disabled or the blind go everywhere. What about a more focused partnership between a dog and a veteran, a rescue dog, the vet would save and train to handle his own specific needs, the veteran would find purpose in saving the dog, training it to take on a mission to serve his specific needs, and gain a companion for his new life in the process. That’s when the concept of Sierra Delta service dogs crystallized.

Speaker 1 17:01
There’s a lot of organizations that are focused on this. And now most of these organizations also focus on the civilian side that needs help. But like myself, I have a prosthetic leg, and obviously have some mobility issues or can be, but I don’t need a dog to go everywhere with me. I just need a dog to help me out around the house, like fetching a prosthetic, or if I’m not in my leg and I’m on crutches and I dropped something they could pick it up or if I grabbed the wrong line or go grab my other line or from wherever I keep them different things like that. So we’re trying to help address the need and connect people. And one of the ways we’re doing it is by helping them get a rescue dog. With that prolonged exposure and helping to train a dog for their own needs. They also become better at home with family members or at work with work members, because it does help them to reformulate how they are communicating with other people from a subconscious level. So we pair them up with a dog and made them feel like I need you to save this dog. I need you to train this dog. And this dog will get better based on how much you engage with the training

Bob Smith 18:15
so that vets and the dogs go into training together together. Yeah, and we

Speaker 1 18:20
do it. We’ve actually talked with the American Legion and VFW in utilizing their clubhouses for group training. And that gets the vets tied into more ancillary services because they each have a VSO, a Veteran Service Officer who can help them with their benefits. Again, it’s about creating connections. Tierra

Bob Smith 18:37
delta is more than dogs. BJs group is harnessing technology with phone apps, to better enable disabled vets physically and psychologically.

Speaker 1 18:47
We also have with our platform, there’s vets can keep medical records of their dogs on their phone on the app, their training certificates, like if they just post Hey, fluffy and I went for a walk, they get points. And if they volunteer their local shelter, they get points if they volunteer to talk to the Rotary Club or schools or whatever, they get points. And with those points, every quarter, we have different swag that’s given out from us and from other partner corporations and other partner nonprofits. And then other trips and other events are based off of their apps engagement. So we’re trying to reward them for saying, Hey, I’m getting better. Right? I’m getting better. And this is what I’m doing with my dog. We’re doing this, we’re doing that. Because right now of the VA, in order for you to get benefits and services, you have to tell them how bad you are doing. And oftentimes, you have to tell them your worst day possible in order to try to break down that door and be one of the 6 million actually getting services because you’re only you’re only guaranteed one year of VA health care a year after discharge unless you have a disability.

Bob Smith 19:59
So is this under this thought the way you’re approaching it come from your psychology degree. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 20:04
And also what training made us elite in the military world can we implement on the civilian side that will help them be better civilians, and having a team member a dog, let’s try to pair them up and then try to monitor the progress as it goes. And like I said, this way, we can get a lot more people in line to get help and start actively working themselves on helping themselves instead of just waiting for some program to open up so they can get in and just start trying to

Bob Smith 20:36
receive better. By now you can tell BJ ghanim is a man of many ideas. He sees the military becoming bloated the

Speaker 1 20:45
way the world is, we have no more big armies to face unless China or Russia want to get in a fight. And I just don’t really see that happening, a lot more asymmetrical warfare. So you need more teams. So if you look at how the Navy SEALs or the Rangers or even the Marines are set up, you need to set up all your forces like that. He

Bob Smith 21:04
asks why we need five branches of the armed forces, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard, why not just one,

Speaker 1 21:12
we only have 2 million active in reservists serving at any given year. So why do we need five different branches of service like this, just make it the United States military. And then we don’t need, you know, five, five star generals. Now we just need one.

Bob Smith 21:29
He also has ideas that might dissuade the DOD, the Department of Defense and future presidents from jumping into war.

Speaker 1 21:38
All the veteran benefits need to be factored into the DoD budget. If you imagine that DOD owns a person from the moment that they raise their right hand and pledged to uphold the Constitution until the moment they die. And 25% of their annual budget has to go towards veteran care. Think about how much more the Department of Defense may think about entering a war if the repercussions of that war is coming out of their bottom line, versus being able to send it to another government agency like the VA. And

Bob Smith 22:09
he has ideas about how that veterans administration might treat veterans better. For

Speaker 1 22:15
the past 15 years, all of my health care has been taken care of at the VA and I’ve gotten great care, I would get so much better care if private hospitals could be Pete for my business. So instead of me being one of 400,000 vets in the state of Wisconsin, I can be one of 40 vets that go to this one clinic. So many doctors and nurses that I meet want the opportunity to be able to serve it, and I

Bob Smith 22:42
just passed the place. Yeah, there’s a facility probably two miles from your house, you could go to right as opposed to driving to Madison, which is how far from here? How long does it

Speaker 1 22:49
take 50 minutes, and depending on traffic, it can be an hour each way. Plus, I get paid travel to do that. But it’s American taxpayers. Why, and

Bob Smith 22:58
with wars requiring smaller numbers of people, which result in fewer disabled veterans, BJ thinks there may be ways to put VA facilities to civilian use.

Speaker 1 23:09
My concern about the VA facilities is that the population of veterans shrinking. So there’s going to be over capacity, and there’s going to be over capacity. Plus you have what is estimated 25 million people without health care insurance and growing. So let’s take the VA system, which is I think they have 12,000 facilities across the United States. Let’s make that United States domestic Health Corps. And then you have free or reduced healthcare from the VA facilities. And then you can also allow people right out of high school to sign up to get a job similar to the military, except for you gonna be deployed outside of the country, you only be deployed where we need more nurses and where we need more doctors or where we need more. So

Bob Smith 23:53
it’s almost like America, America, but the medical component to a health care component to it, yes.

Speaker 1 23:59
And then then you allow for choice. Now there’s at least a safety net, that if all else fails, you can go to the United States, domestic Health Corps, and all the buildings are already built.

Bob Smith 24:10
And BJ thinks that government and private enterprise could work together better to make sure veterans get jobs they’re more qualified for than civilians. These

Speaker 1 24:21
men and women have a lot of value love to give, they have so many more skills than your average college kid. Right. And the other thing is, is that they have college fully paid for. So an idea would be is if companies can kind of work together with the government and come up with a reverse internship to where they’re working and going to college paid for by the government. But yet the company that I’ve chosen can kind of help guide it. These are the classes we really want you to take. Certainly once you finish those classes will promote you to this level. And we’ll get more out of the money that we’re spending on the GI Bill and Voc Rehab. Doing it this way to where they can see The tangible results from their effort.

Bob Smith 25:02
We mentioned earlier that BJ is on a first name basis with the man who sent Him into battle. The former president even gave BJ A nickname. So

Speaker 1 25:10
President George Bush calls me Belushi. And at the time, when we got to spend a lot of time around each other was I think, the 2015. Warrior open. Of course, I’m always chubby, and I’m always doing ridiculous things to get people to laugh. So he just started calling me Belushi and it fit. And

Bob Smith 25:29
he said, You’re a funny dude. Exactly. And this bush warrior open. It’s a very competitive format. And I remember when

Speaker 1 25:35
President Bush came up to announce the winners, he’s like, Don’t worry, blue sheet and win. And I was like, I know. And then I’ve written a couple of letters. And he’s written me a couple of notes, especially when he heard that I had cancer. I couldn’t make last year’s warrior open because of the cancer. And actually, Jackman told him about it at the warrior open and then that next week, I received a card from him saying that I heard that you have cancer. I know you’ll beat it.

Bob Smith 26:04
Isn’t it interesting that you have that kind of a friendship with somebody like that? Yeah. But

Speaker 1 26:08
if you know President Bush, like, like, he remembers everybody, like even at the Bush Library, like the janitor, he’ll stop and talk to the janitor knows, like, he has this family and all this other stuff. And I think that’s why you see so many of what would be his adversaries become his friends. He didn’t like President Obama and stuff like that. And at the warrior open, he usually buzzes around, he calls himself. Chief heckler, right. So he hackles all of us and, and the whole time he’s there, buzzing around spending time with everybody heckling, not only us, but talking to the crowds that are there to watch us play. He does honestly seem to try. I don’t expect any president to get to know, everybody. But I mean, he’s made more of an effort to get to know as much of us as he can. And then I can really think, you know, except for maybe Eisenhower that led a bunch of them. Right. You know, I don’t really know that many more presidents that probably know the average Joe servicemen as much as George W. Bush. I think what he did for us as a as a community, as the veteran community with the portraits of courage is great. We all got notification that the President was interested in painting. Some of us he didn’t know which ones would make the book, but you know, he definitely wants your consent first. And you sent pictures of yours. I sent pictures. This one was my LinkedIn profile, like, have you sitting in the chair and me sitting in the chair. And it’s so funny that we were just about to get rid of that chair when the book came out. And then so it’s sitting over there in a diner and we don’t know what to do with it yet. I was thinking about donating it to the exhibit so that people can sit in the same exact chair underneath my painting. It belongs

Bob Smith 27:48
in the Smithsonian. Exactly. BJ GANIM of Reedsburg. Wisconsin marine entrepreneur, husband, father hero with his Sierra Delta service dogs. He’s using his celebrity as a wounded warrior. To help veterans like himself, face the challenges of everyday life. visit his website at Sierra delta.com. This is Bob Smith. A special thanks to my friend Kent Jackman, the high school classmate of mine from 50 years ago, who today in his retirement is a docent at the Bush Library in Dallas. He helped arrange this interview and is a friend of both BJ and that’s it for this episode of the off ramp. Thanks for listening.

The off ramp with Bob Smith is produced in association with CPL radio and the Cedarbrook Public Library. Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai