Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
Produced by Security Halt Media
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Green Beret Nicholas Allen on TBI, Veteran Resilience & the Fight for Mental Health Reform
In this powerful episode of Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman, host Bruce dives deep into the hidden wounds of war with U.S. Army veteran and mental health advocate Nicholas Allen. From a life-altering training accident to living with traumatic brain injury (TBI), Nicholas shares his raw, unfiltered journey through pain, purpose, and personal growth.
You’ll hear firsthand about the long-term effects of repetitive brain trauma, the barriers veterans face in seeking care, and the cultural stigma that prevents many from speaking up. Nicholas unpacks how alcohol became a temporary crutch—and how storytelling and service helped him reclaim his path. He also discusses his work with the Lesser Known Operators podcast and his impactful TEDx talk on resilience.
Together, Bruce and Nicholas tackle the urgent need for better TBI awareness, mental health advocacy, and veteran-centered innovation—from peer support to nonprofit impact and beyond.
👉 Don’t miss this eye-opening conversation about healing, courage, and the battle beyond the battlefield.
🎧 Listen, Follow, Share, Like & Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube today to support the Broken Brains mission.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is sponsored by The Mac Parkman Foundation
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Repetitive Brain Trauma
02:26 Nicholas Allen's Journey to the Army
07:24 Experiencing TBI: The Training Accident
14:59 Navigating Military Support and Mental Health
21:12 Advocacy and Recovery Journey
22:59 The Weight of Sacrifice
24:21 Lesser Known Operators Podcast
27:13 Gaps in TBI Treatment
32:38 The Role of Nonprofits
35:58 Innovative Treatments for Mental Health
40:00 Nicholas Allen's TEDx Talk
43:52 Empowering Veterans Through Storytelling
https://www.mpfact.com/headsmart-app/
Follow Nicholas on social media and check out his podcast today!
Instagram: lesserknownoperators
Podcast: Lesser Known Operators
Produced by Security Halt Media
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken Brains with your host, Bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation, where we look at the issue of repetitive brain trauma from repetitive head impacts in contact sports to repetitive blast explosions in our military and veterans community, and what these two conditions are doing to the brains and mental well-being of our veterans, our kids and our athletes. And the concept of repetitive brain trauma is not taught in any medical, nursing or psychological schools right now and is literally the largest preventable cause of mental illness in this country. So we reach out to parents, advocates, researchers, scientists, authors, veterans to give you the 360-degree perception of this condition, because you need to know about it, because it's your brain, it's the brain of those that you love, it's the brains of your children, and these are all at risk at this time because our society is not properly dealing with this issue. On our show today, another amazing guest and a veteran, Mr Nicholas Allen, is a US Army veteran and a former Green Beret who spent eight years in special forces. His military career was significantly impacted during a training mission where he sustained multiple concussions resulting in a TBI. Despite this, Nick has remained committed to supporting his team, his mission and our veteran community. He spent eight years in the United States Army Special Forces, which, we mentioned, is no easy task. I've been there for 18 years myself. He continues to serve after staining multiple cushions and being noticed with TBI. He's an advocate for TBI awareness and veteran mental health, which is absolutely why we're here to talk about this today, because TBIs and repetitive blast exposure has resulted in significant damage to our veteran population, which has not until just now started to be properly diagnosed.
Speaker 1:He's delivered a TED Talk on resilience. I want to know more about that because that is absolutely cool. It's one of my goals in life and navigating life setbacks. He's been on the Half Percent podcast series, Journey, and now he's on the Mac Parkman Broken Brains podcast. We're going to send him out to the universe, Nick. Welcome to the show, man, and thank you so much for your service, bro. Really appreciate it, man, Thank you. Thank you for having me on. It's an honor. Nah, man, Dude. So tell us about Nick Allen man. Where'd you start, Where'd you grow up and how'd you end up?
Speaker 2:What convinced you to join the United States Army Special Forces? I know everybody says they have a weird path or a difficult path, but I say that I'm from the first easy class of Special Forces. So I grew up in Antioch, illinois, and just a regular kid living on a farm in the middle of fucking nowhere, normal upbringing, just cornfield and soybeans and that's it, nothing exceptional. Through high school, just an athlete. And then, I guess you know, the world fell apart in 2008, 2009. We weren't building homes anymore. Construction was starting to slow down. So I got into bartending and that's a really negative feedback loop if you get into that and you're partying and drinking all the time.
Speaker 2:So one day I woke up, went to the recruiter's office and said what do you got for me? Unfortunately it was the Marine recruiter and they said we can't take you because you have tattoos. So I walked out and said what's the hardest thing you got? At the army, and they said we can't take you because you have tattoos. So I walked out and said what's the hardest thing you got at the Army, and they said well, you can't do that either because you're kind of colorblind. So I took whatever they had for me, which was field artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, fire direction system specialist, went to basic training and AIT at Fort Sill and then, as punishment for finishing at the top of my class twice, I got stationed at Fort Sill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's punishment there, buddy it was.
Speaker 2:So on the car ride from AIT over to my unit, which was only a couple blocks, I decided I was going to go to special forces selection as soon as I, as soon as I possibly could. I knew I was going to go at that point, um, after having some discussions with the cadre at AIT and my drill sergeant, but uh, they sent us out to the field and I got back and I went to the brief at the library that week and 90 days later I was at selection. I hurt myself, hurt my knee. I couldn't bend my leg anymore during land nav, so I got pulled, trained up, went right back, passed that straight through the course, got to my team in January of 2015, first group, and in April I got hurt in a training accident on the ocean and that was it.
Speaker 1:No more operational time April of 2015? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So my bio might have been a little off there. So I spent four years trying to get to group and then four years in group.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool man. So what was your MOS? 18 Charlie, 18 charlie man. So you were not all right. So what kind of athlete were you? Your contact sports guy or baseball?
Speaker 2:or something like that would you play when I was little it was whatever you could do baseball, soccer um. It was wrestling, track and field and wrestling as I got into high school, it was just wrestling okay, so you're wrestler.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you look like a wrestler, and then you join field artillery, which is more repetitive blast, explosion and then you become an explosives guy. Yeah and uh, and uh, as 18 charlie, yeah good.
Speaker 2:I never did my job in field artillery and never it up. Um, it turns out I was just a computer guy. It wasn't like you're shooting one, five, five rounds or anything like that. Uh, I say this all the time If you're a high performer or good at your job in the regular army, that means you're not going to get to do your job. You're going to go have to do work in some office like S2 or S3 or to be the commander's driver or something. And that's what happened to me.
Speaker 1:I had to go sit in s2 because I knew how to type you know that for uh, 20 years I hid the fact that I knew how to write. But when I became a team sergeant I could write all those con apps so we could get training ammo and shit like that. But I never told anybody I knew how to write because I watched guys that knew how to type and that's all they they did. They just started doing PowerPoints for the team start and all that stuff. So, yeah, man, I was not doing good.
Speaker 2:I don't remember anything from high school except typing class. That was my first hour freshman year and I learned more in that class than I learned from the rest of high school all combined.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's why we go to high school, man, we get out of it, you know, sooner or later. What group were you assigned to?
Speaker 2:First group, first group, ah, okay, cool man man, cool beans you ever make it out to Oki Just for some support stuff when I was on the team. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell us about your uh, you know, your tbi man, what happened, dude. So, uh, here's one thing I wanted to bring up because, like, I tell this, like I got hurt in the thing and then it's all a piece together, like fishing story at this point, of what people have told me and then what I remember. So, disclaimer, this is what I remember and if anybody out there has more information, I would love to hear from you because I skipped a bunch of time after it happened.
Speaker 1:But you know, when you get older you say this is my story and I'm sticking to it.
Speaker 2:So just so you know some of the guys are still in and they're getting out now and I would love to have them on my show to fill in all the gaps of what actually happened. Um, because it was pretty fucked. It was kind of fucked up. But so where you go out to Astoria, oregon, um, beautiful place, very nice. Um, we had 10 guys instead of 12.
Speaker 2:So we're down to and we're going out and we're doing daylight iterations of beach landing, seizure training. That's kind of where everything started to go wrong. So we were out supposed to be out in three to five foot waves. We were out in 12 to 15 foot waves. Whoa, we were supposed to have the 55 horsepower engines. We had the 35 horsepower engines. We're supposed to have six guys in the boat engines. We had the 35-horsepower engines. We were supposed to have six guys in the boat. We had five guys in the boat and we kicked out two rescue swimmers in the surf instead of past the surf or before the surf. So while we're in the 12 to 15-foot waves, we only had three guys in the boat with an underpowered engine.
Speaker 2:So we kicked the guys out and as soon as we turned to go back out to see, the boat went up a large wave and uh, kind of like ramped it into the air, like it was oh yeah and uh, I was on the front right of the boat of the zodiac and the comes back down to the ocean floor, however far that was, and I came back down onto it, onto my face, uh, got knocked out into the water. They pulled me in. I kind of come to medic on the engine says we're done, heading back in um, and then we flipped over and, uh, so the engine's hanging off of the lanyard steel lanyard. So we finally get the boat righted and as I'm pulling the lanyard up to set the engine back on, the transom wave washes up, push the engine into my face, under my chin. So we're counting that as kind of concussion too. But it's only been like 20, 25 minutes like that.
Speaker 2:We couldn't, we were mission ineffective. So we got to the point where we were just draped over the side of the boat because we couldn't flip it over anymore to get the engine on. We just would flip over and flip over. So we did that all the way to shore. An hour, two hours, something like that. And yeah, the medic grabs me. I'm not all there, adrenaline's starting to wear off, and then I kind of skip. What kind of happens there? But the main point is team sergeant overruled.
Speaker 2:The captain did not stop training, didn't send me home. I was allowed to hurt myself the next day when I hit my head on the doorframe of the TMP and then fell and bounced my head off the concrete. So I would have been fine with the first two, I really feel like, but that one is the one where I started throwing up and the pains in my head started happening, uh, and didn't go away. Um, I don't really remember, and that was in April. I don't really remember too much until november.
Speaker 2:So I kind of, when I think back, yeah, there's little pieces there, but really started becoming clear again in november when we started getting ready to go to korea. So, um, hey, man, tie that in with my several concussions leading up to that. Uh, seer, uh, selection combatives, basic training, all either knocked out or close to it, hit as hard as possible. The one in seer really always bothers me because we were point zero, zero, zero, zero, seconds, one second away from being liberated and the fucking cadre just hit me as hard as he could. I was like God damn it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I used to be a seer instructor, but I never. You know, we had strict rules. Like you know, you don't come out of left field. I don't know. We were, we, we, we ran a really tight school when I was there. That was back in 87, when nick rowe just left, and uh but it's interesting how you got your tbis, because I too am the victim of a I got run over by the boat.
Speaker 1:I was actually uh, in a zodiac in panama and, uh, we were doing riverine operations, were coming in, not no, no, I mean, I don't even know if I would get in a zodiac in 12 know, 12 to 15 foot swells, dude, that's crazy. But we were rolling them in and on the way back out they had me holding down the front of the boat because I was the new guy. We were loaded up with a couple of Puerto Rican National Guardsmen. We won and the guy did the same thing. He shot the motor at the wrong time and we launched up the wave. But when we came on on the other side I got flipped out. Then the boat ran me over and chopped me up and they had to call a helicopter in for that one, bro. But yeah, man boats. Ain't no joke, dude, because up there where you're at, that's where the Coast Guard does their rollover drills, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, right there at the mouth of the Columbia, the Coast Guard, everybody does theirs. Right there it's apparently very dangerous. I had a bad time so I consider it dangerous. But, on the positive note, I get a check on the first of every month now and I'm afraid of the ocean, so I got that going for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, as a matter of fact, I was putting some chlorine in my pool and since scuba school I still can't smell chlorine without my blood pressure going through the roof.
Speaker 2:So yeah, man, I mean dude sorry to hear it, bro so you did three more years on the team, just sergeant major and the commander saw something in me that they kind of took me under their wing and I stayed on the B team. We went to Korea. I did a good job, we got back and then I was able to go to another second battalion, the Charlie company, that was going back to Korea to do the same thing. So I was able to go hide out in Korea for eight more months.
Speaker 2:This time we came back, I went to battalion the battalion Charlie, and when we came down on orders for Afghanistan my deal to go live in Korea fell apart. I was going to go over to take the SOC Corps job and Sergeant Major, I came into work one day, Sergeant Major had gone and my deal kind of fell apart. So I thought I was going to be able to stay in. If I would have got over to Korea, I feel like I'd still be in, but I still would have never gone back to a team. I'm a liability.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what's going on? I mean so obviously this concussion it wasn't just a concussion, bro. I mean if, uh, you know you were severely impacted and not and not allowed to, you know, deploy or go on, uh, uh, go back to an A team. So, um well, how was the support from the military in your uh during this timeframe that we uh, were you getting the right treatments at the TMC and the hospital and stuff, bro?
Speaker 2:I could have. I could have probably done that. Um, I could have, I could have probably done that. Most of it was trying to avoid the people at the one clinic because they wanted me to be medically retired. So real popular center over there. I had to do a different one and nothing came out of that. The colonel at the end he said you know, all your scans look fine, but that's the thing about head trauma is some of this stuff we're not going to be able to see until you're dead. So, and concussions are weird like that. You have all of these concussions and we're talking about in the teens, including childhood and the military service. So just that last concussion set off these symptoms and they really couldn't find anything. But the symptoms aren't going away like and sometimes they'll just pop up randomly, even still now. And I haven't had a, haven't been hit in the head severely in 10 years now.
Speaker 1:So, Roger, how about their impact on your mental health? Cause? Usually I mean, they don't they, they, they usually go hand in hand you don't have to talk about I mean I, I talk openly about, you know, falling apart about three years ago and putting myself back together, but you don't have to do it. It's just that usually you know the impact of, you know these conditions on mental health and where, where I'm getting that man, is that usually the correlation? When, when people are struggling with mental health and they've had a brain injury, nobody knows how to tie the two together. It's usually your mental health comes from being in combat, some childhood trauma, whatever, and so they treat the mental health separately from the brain, which means usually they medicate you with all these great pharmaceutical drugs that you don't need, and then they don't treat the brain with a lot of the modalities and processes that are out there in order to heal the cause of the mental illness or the cause of some of the pain that you're having right now. I mean, have you, um, you?
Speaker 2:know I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good now and I wasn't pausing to say if I want to talk about I'm trying to start my my train of thought on that. Um, because I firmly believe that the mental health crisis in the military is this three has like three heads. Right, we've got undiagnosed traumatic brain injury problems at home and then treating everything with alcohol. And now I'm having to rethink that because the guest I had on earlier this week, dr Bosley, and he's telling me he's like well, you take the traumatic brain injury and that's on the same line as untreated hormone disorders, so you could have those two playing against each other. Then you mix in the drinking, then you mix in the family problems and that's a recipe for disaster. So I'm trying to come up with a better analogy for that. But the drinking culture in the military is entrenched and then, as you know, in special forces we are the best at our jobs and drinking is one of those jobs.
Speaker 1:I was pretty good at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:For a long time Green berets with a beer in our hand. So we're doing that hand, so we're doing that if something's wrong at home or something's wrong, but we can keep the team life. That's our beacon, that we're we're we're holding on to, and we can put everything at bay with drinking. Um, we're going to do that. The px is always open, you know, it's 24 hour, one on post. They'll always sell you more booze and as long as you're going at your job, you will succeed. And I went down that road and it got to be too much about a year ago, a little over a year ago. I don't drink anymore.
Speaker 1:One day I just wasn't able to.
Speaker 2:I just couldn't be any semblance of a good person when I was drinking anymore. So I'm completely sober now. When I was drinking anymore, so I'm completely sober now. But I was angry, unexpectedly angry, would get vertigo at weird times. I would just come and go. That one kind of is still around and it'll just happen occasionally. It's not as bad, just like mood swings, even like uh, kind of you know said Zodiacs, if I get. I noticed once if I got around to Zodiac like I, I like started getting sweaty.
Speaker 1:I'm like this is a real, this is a real thing, that's a real thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, I thought all that shit was fake. But no, no, but no, no, fuck, no Changed my perspective on things. But I've got yeah, I have a joke about it, you know and the processing power and like the memory and everything I tell people I used to be really, really, really smart and now I'm just a genius, but that's like everybody at Group Smart. And then when, kind of when I got back into the team life, I'm like something's missing. I don't feel like I'm everybody else anymore after that and I don't know if I ever got back to that. So a lot of things come along with it.
Speaker 1:And so tell us about your advocacy, man. Obviously you got hurt, right, and that's impacted your life, and so how did you get back on top? I mean, I know that when we do suffer from mental illness personally, for me it's a pit man. It's hard to see a way out, it's hard to see a light, it's dark all the time, time, and we find ways to cope and they're never enough. And so, um, you know, how did you, how did you find your way out, man? So how'd you get up here?
Speaker 2:I guess I'm still climbing Um, but the big one was last April when I stopped drinking. Um, that was that, was it. If, uh, if anybody's listening and they're lying to themselves that that's not the problem, it is. If you have any inkling that that's the problem. Especially if you're having symptoms related to TBI, that is one of the major contributing factors. So that was the big one. I got out. I was unhappy about getting med boarded and I just dealt with it poorly. Med boarded and I just dealt with it poorly. So kind of trying to find my way with the Green Beret Foundation and saying what can I do to help you guys or just be part of what you guys are doing? And that the back of my mind, and now it's become more of me developing into. What I want to do now is helping special operations veterans in the same way that sergeant major and the commander helped me.
Speaker 2:They didn't have to do that at saved my life, because losing you know getting off the team is devastating, uh, when you're, when you're done with it, but to just get there and then you're never going back to the team, um was everything I spent four or five years. That's. All I was doing was trying to become a green beret, and then I lost it. Um, I still was able to do it, but in a support role. But being on team guy and losing some of those opportunities, yeah, yeah, not not the same man and uh, and it's.
Speaker 1:It's hard to hear. You know stories like that because you know you put so much work into it. Right, you put you can't control accidents. You know you can't control. You know that's what training's all about. We train harder than anybody in the world, bro. You know that's it. And we train real. I mean you're out there and you know you can't control the weather in combat. So I mean you jumped into those big-ass waves and then you got injured and it ended your career after all that hard work and it's. You know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't imagine, I don't regret anything, though I wouldn't change a fucking thing because of where I am now. I got the beret. I always have it and I feel like I have friends that I've made the last lifetime from group and everything. I feel like I'm well-respected and now that I'm trying to do what I'm trying to do is with my show and the jobs I'm trying to get into is help people in the way that I was helped, and I just think we are some of the baddest motherfuckers on the planet and special operations, soldiers or whatever branch that you were in, and that's all I want to do, that's that's all I think about.
Speaker 2:Tell us about your show man, what you got going on, so let's meet. I uh, my podcast is called lesser known operators Love it.
Speaker 1:That's probably 95% of us.
Speaker 2:I think it's probably higher than that, because there's only a few guys that consistently make the news and there's a hundred and some thousand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we don't write books, we don't go into movies, man. So I think, yeah, most of us are less than I love the name, by the way.
Speaker 2:That's awesome it makes me very happy that you like that right away because I was talking to somebody last night and he goes yeah, the hardest name for the show was coming up, or was hardest thing for the show was coming up with the name. I was like man, I got bad news for you. I spent nine seconds on my name. It just was the first idea.
Speaker 1:And I went oh.
Speaker 2:I guess we're done Okay.
Speaker 1:So what do you? What do you focus on on your show man?
Speaker 2:Special operations, guys or gals and their stories.
Speaker 2:So started with my friends, um, and the more I interview people, the more it changes how I feel about my service and the commitment I had and what I was able to accomplish.
Speaker 2:And then I just love talking to the people and the challenge of pulling out their story so that they enjoy the experience and that I enjoy speaking to them and people want to listen to it. I don't have any experience interviewing people, but everybody comes on seems to like it and it's all about the guest. I have you on and I want to talk about your story and special operations and life that comes along with it and how that affected you and what it has turned you into now, and highlight the pitfalls that we all fall into because, as much as we don't want to tell ourselves that this is true, there's a sacrifice to be made for what we want to go accomplish in our careers and hopefully the people that listen to the show, that choose to go in those careers later, have those things in mind and they can mitigate some of those downfalls that guys get themselves into.
Speaker 1:Ah, no doubt, man. I mean, yeah, when I was a sergeant major, I didn't care how many mistakes you made as a team sergeant, I didn't care. As long as you didn a team sergeant, I didn't care, as long as you didn't make the same mistake twice. Then you're learning. But those mistakes are what everybody needs to know about. And so if you have a podcast outlining stories, people listen. And then you say I ain't touching that stove, you already touched it for me, right? I ain't going there man. So, yeah, good on you man, it for me, right? I ain't going there man. So, yeah, good on you man. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:So, in your journey since your incident and your recovery and staying as long as you could in the military right now, what do you consider are the gaps in TBI treatment in terms of the experience you went through and what needs to improve? We deal a lot with veterans that are looking at a lot of. We meet a lot of veterans that have had a lot of dealings with VA, the medical clinic, the mental society. You know, at the Green Beret Foundation you guys support a lot of very, very unique holistic treatments that are not covered by the VA or covered by insurance. So where do you think the gaps are that we need to work on and improve?
Speaker 2:I spoke to Sergeant Major Ritter the other day. Shout out to Chuck Ritter. He said we did this shit together. Right, the Army and me did all this stuff together. We were holding hands when we did it, so we got to fix it together and the Army needs to uphold its end of the bargain. That's part of it. But when you get out, I learned very quickly that the VA and the US military have never heard of one another. So Fair enough, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:I didn't go to the VA for 15 years. They asked me where the hell have you been?
Speaker 2:I was like I didn't think I needed it, so it's there's. You're going to a whole different branch of the government when you get out of the military and it's like, oh well, we have to, you know, we have to reassess you and all this other shit. If you're not medically retired like I was, um, that's, there's a big gap and you, that's on the user, us or the veteran to do all that themselves, to say hey, hey, I'm here, I need my benefits. Well, prove it. Oh, fuck shit. Let me go look through my records.
Speaker 1:So if you have them. If you have them. If you have them, I think a lot of my stuff.
Speaker 2:And if you're going to put that onus on the soldier after they get out instead of making them do it before they get out. Once they get out, there's nobody telling them what to do every day. There's no first sergeant having them form up, making them do PT. You know, everybody goes into a slump right when they get out for nine months, whether if they retire from the civilian world or they get out of the military. They're going to hit the low point in like nine months and then they're going to start saying, oh, I got to figure my shit out. Unless they're going to start saying, oh, I got to figure my shit out, unless they square to square the fuck away, but still, there's going to be some lag and then we, if you give them a choice to do it on their own, that imposter syndrome is going to creep into their mind. It's going to be right there and go.
Speaker 2:I don't think I deserve these benefits because there's nobody around them telling them yes, yes, you do. It's just them getting in their thoughts and saying, well, there's people that are more fucked up than me, or that had more combat tours than me, or had this old story, or has lost a leg or got blown up or this and that, blah, blah, blah blah. And they start comparing themselves to others when they should be saying no, I want I should get all of the benefits that are owed to me from the VA to me, not to those people. You can't compare yourself to those people, so that's kind. Of. One thing that I see is guys get in their own head and say they don't deserve it or somebody deserves it more. I don't know if you hear that from people.
Speaker 1:No, when I walked in, they asked me where have you been? I go well, there's people that need it more. And they go what are you talking about? You earned this. I go look man, I retired before 9-11. Yes, I participated, participated too. You know, I was on the ground in El Salvador for 15 months and I literally took the first troops into Kosovo, which is kind of a contingency operation, but and I did both invasions as a contract that's what God wanted me to say. I got you, got guys out there that need this place, and they go. No, you need it too. And they dragged me in there. I was really surprised. This large African-American woman goes Sergeant Major, you get your ass over here right now. And she dragged me in there. She goes. You have earned this. And so, to your point. You're right, there's a lot of folks out there. You know, I felt that my stance was justified. You know, I'm not a 9-11 guy and that's where the real, to me, the real fighting started. And those are the guys and girls that really need this. And so, to your point. Yeah, I think that goes on quite often.
Speaker 1:What about documenting? You bring up a good point On your way out of the military. Nobody's really talking about the VA and guiding you on how to prep for it. I mean, you go to any military school. You go to a prep school, usually SFAS for selection, pre-scuba. For SCUBA they chuck you out in Halo school. But you know that, you know. But there's usually somebody giving you a hand when you do these huge transitional steps in your military career. But nobody. I don't. I don't know if it's changed, but when it comes to the VA, there's really not you're, you're, you're right when you're out. You got to go figure it out, you know, and so you know. It'd be nice if somebody's you know actively helping the guys out a little bit more shout out.
Speaker 2:Green beret foundation has been going and doing transition seminars at the groups, right, they've been doing that more and that's great. But we only make up, like this, much of the force, right? So non-profits are filling in where the government should be um, they're going to give them the real information. This is what you need to do to. You need to fill out this block. You need to say these things, you need to do these things. That's great.
Speaker 2:The big army is not afforded that and that's 99 percent of our forces, right, or 98 percent of our forces. And you can see that when you see memes posted up of units going to ntc with soldiers in like wheelchairs or have boots on their feet like, oh, we got a full number. These soldiers are not going to be afforded the time to get out of the army and fill that shit out correctly. If they're doing that with training, then they're just a number. Um, is that? Is that a problem that can be fixed? I don't know.
Speaker 2:That's for some general to decide, but we did this together and there's an obligation on the military to fulfill that obligation. Because they know and as much as they say they don't like the people at NFL, they knew those concussions were going to be a problem later on down the road and they didn't do anything about it. They know that sending people to combat for 20 years and saying, hey, get in a firefight, and you're having to shoot off 20 Kral Gustavs and then fire the 50 Cal right after it when your brain's fucked up, or you're on the line as a 13 Bravo pulling the string on a 155 Howitzer over and over and over again, that's some serious overpressure. And then you're just going to, you know, string them along, and then they get out of the army and then they're really fucked up and, like I said, they'll self-medicate, they'll get in their own head and then it'll end in problems. That's, I mean, we see it in the headlines, right?
Speaker 1:Well, unfortunately, you know the issue that you're talking about repetitive blast exposure is just coming to light and those issues unfortunately result in mental illness. Right, that's the first indicator we have that a brain's been damaged. Because you can't see inside the brain, these kids don't get assessed on their way out. A lot of them have seen significant combat, not just once, multiple times. They've trained for combat and our position on this is you know, since 9-11, your generation has either been in combat or training on combat, and so the exposure to overpressure has been relentless on these brains. Yet it's not ever assessed at all. Until you know, until you go to the polytrauma and they'll assess it and they'll are aware of it. But then the treatments offered pills and therapy do not cut it. And there's some therapies out there EMDR, equine therapy, I don't know, water, polo, whatever. But let's talk about this as a foundation, the Greenbrae Foundation. We now know that there's extensive modalities out there the psychedelics, all the electronic modalities, transgranular magnetic stimulation, photobiophedback, vagus nerve stimulation, yada, yada, h5. Then we have brain supplementation, we have outpatient procedures like stellate ganglion blocks. So you know all of these right now. If you go to VA for them, they're like ha, not FDA approved. We're not touching it.
Speaker 1:And yet we got, you know, 22 plus kids. We all know people that are not longer here. They couldn't deal with it anymore, and so we know this is the focus of our foundation. This is a massive problem here. What is the Green Beret Foundation? And I know you're not speaking on behalf of the Green Beret Foundation, but, uh, we do know that a lot of the VSOs are helping veterans out with this. So, uh, you know, if, if you guys, uh, you know what number one as a veteran, you know what's your opinion on all this other stuff that we know can deal with this, which helps with mental illness? And then is, uh, you know, does the Green Beret Foundation offer some support there so these veterans know where they could go if they're 18, or support guys?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely so. Green Beret Foundation provides direct support to Green Berets and their families. Unfortunately, due to a mission statement, that's what we're limited to, right Green Berets and their families. So if you are a Green Beret and you need help, go to greenberetfoundationorg. Request help, fill out the little questionnaire and then, based on what you answer, those let's say it's VSO, you need help from a VSO. They will reach out to you, schedule a meeting, contact, and then you'll sign a couple of forms and they'll do everything on your behalf to get you the rating or the appointments and or just help you give you advice.
Speaker 2:As far as other things, I don't look too much into the other foundations that are out there. Just in the special operations community I find if you are too broad in your endeavors, then you're inundated by all of the opportunities out there. So I was a special operations veteran. I feel like I have a responsibility to the guys. I got hurt in a certain way, but not terribly right so where I got to a point where I can recover. So I feel I have a responsibility to stand up and speak for the guys that either can't or won't. And if I'm going to put myself in that limelight, I better do a fucking good job and if people reach out to me I will help them get where they need to go. Cool man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am aware that there are other special operations foundations, some that support psychedelics therapy, others won't touch it and that's cool. It's. Where do the veterans need to go for these different? You know? Number one they have to get assessed right. That means we've got to get them diagnosed and actually we're having a town hall on repetitive blast exposure tomorrow, first one ever in Tampa. I'm speaking at it. We're going to be talking, we're having a VA guy get up there and say this is how you document, this is how you know you've got your DD-214,. You've got your combat tours, you've got your MOS.
Speaker 1:Have you ever heard of a GBEV, a generalized blast exposure variable? Okay, that's this calculation that SOCOM paid for that can tell you how many units of blast that you've had. The threshold for brain damage, according to the experts, is 200,000 units. I did my calculation. I put this on a spreadsheet. I'm actually going to put this out on the website. I did my own calculation. I'm a Cold War vet. I was at 2 million.
Speaker 1:We have guys coming out of our special operations units at 16, 20, 34 million units and the first indicator that we have that blast exposures impact the brain is mental illness, much like TBI, like you can have a TBI and you can have headaches, you can have physiological symptoms, but when it starts emanating in mental health issues you know, addiction, drug abuse, violence, what all that stuff then it's time to look a little bit deeper at what we're doing for the brain to heal the brain. The fact that you've recovered is astounding and that's great, and but I, you know, I know the Green Beret Foundation. I was one of the nine guys. I got a picture back here, me and Harley Davis and Chris Setts. I donated the first $100,000 to the foundation to get it going with Aaron Anderson back in the day and we were very proud of what.
Speaker 1:We stood up and I'm glad to hear that. You know you guys are continuing on that place because we have, you know we've got a lot of special operations guys out there that are hurting and you know there's a litany of special operations, foundations that have stood up to take its place. So the fact that you're speaking out is awesome. Man. Tell me about this TED Talk, man, I heard you got it. Looks like you got up there. Where was that? Was it a TEDx or a TED Talk? It was a TEDx, nice.
Speaker 2:I went and did this kind of like veterans retreat over the summer in 18, and we're just sitting around the fire. I was still in the military at the time, but I was getting in the med board process and I just mentioned, you know, someday I'd like to do a TEDx talk. Just it's a goal, right? A couple months later I'm out and one of the guys sitting around the fire another Green Beret says hey, man, I just had to drop out of the TEDx event. And they said asked if I could fill it with another green beret says hey, man, I just had to drop out of the tedx event, uh, and they said asked if I could fill it with another green beret. It's in three weeks. Can you do it absolutely?
Speaker 1:absolutely I can do it.
Speaker 2:Attitude man heck yeah, I can do that man I had five single lines on a sheet, on a little note card paper, as my outline. That's all I I had and I said, yep, I can do it. So I wrote the whole thing, memorized it and performed it all in three weeks at Mississippi State University.
Speaker 1:Good for you, man. What was your subject? What did you speak on TBI?
Speaker 2:resilience. I just told my story. I figured it would be the easiest to memorize. It was tough. I figured it would be the easiest to memorize. It was tough. I didn't know even how, because everybody afterwards is like, man, that's really cool and you know, it just fell in my lap and I just did it. But looking back, I'm like that was really cool, like I got to record a TEDx talk and I can always put that up there. But I go back and listen to it and I, I, if I did it now, I would just have a different tone. I'm a lot more relaxed, I'm a lot more deliberate in what I say. But then you could just hear how angry I was, that I was out of the military. You just hear it in my voice. So it would be just a little bit different today. But I listened to it the other day and I'm like got like goosebumps. I'm like I'm fired up right now. God damn.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm here to tell you I've been retired 24 years and I still miss it, man, dream about it. I miss the guys. Um, you know it's uh, it's not that. You know I, I, you know I got friends, you know I and I got some old buddies, man, I catch up with. But that rapport it's. You know, once you've experienced it it's hard to build back up, but that's you know.
Speaker 1:The fact that you guys are reaching out and you're trying to reach our veteran population is amazing, because so many guys got to understand that they have to talk, they have to speak up, they have to let people know that they're hurting, because there is help, there is hope. I mean, when it comes down to treating the brain. Now, since my son passed away just four and a half years ago, there are so many ways to treat the brain that nobody even heard of. I mean, there's a revolution of non-pharmaceutical brain health coming our way that can not only help our guys in the military you know brain optimization and all that stuff but can help them when they get out. So thank you so much for speaking up, speaking out. We need more guys like you.
Speaker 1:So, as we close, man, tell people what's coming up next for Nicholas Allen. Tell us what's going on, what are you doing, what are you going to do next? And then how do people find you for you? Your foundation, your podcast, and then the Green Beret Foundation. Pump your chest, man, what you got All right, I am Nicholas Allen.
Speaker 2:Everything right now is circled around lesser known operators. You can find us on Instagram at lesser known operators, that's it. I just want to build that up. And at the base of the show is, if you were a special operations veteran no matter how big the show gets or how popular I get and what kind of show I'm doing at the time if you get out and you send me a message and you want to come on the show, you will get on. We will book an episode. We will 100% record an episode. I promise that that is the base of the show and we'll come on. You can come on and talk about whatever you want. That's what I want it to be for for special operations veterans to have a place they can come talk and I'll talk to you about whatever the fuck you want to talk about. If you want to talk about your war stories or you want to talk about your new business or your book or whatever, and you have a hard time talking about yourself, I'll do it for you.
Speaker 1:So that's it All right. Hey, I'll come on your show man, let's go. I'll be a lesser known operator man, I am.
Speaker 2:I'd love to have you on the show. I do to have you on the show. I do long episodes, man. I do two and a half three hour episodes and people like where'd the time go?
Speaker 1:it's like see, it's fun when you uh the shit that I, my journey is god's. God has been all over this dude man. I can't even it's. It's crazy. But uh, the big thing is, I don't want to go on for me, I want to go on. I made so many mistakes, I have been so many places where people have not been in life that I've got just some well-earned wisdom that I like to pass on. It ain't about me, it's never about me anymore. It's about the Lord and the fact that there is a I have and I have blown myself up. I've been, you know. It's just that I like helping others.
Speaker 1:I gave a talk at 7 Special Forces Group about working for yourself, working for the man, and they loved it. Man, it's like look, you don't need to be a defense contractor, bro, you can run anything. You know. Pick a business, set of titty bars, gas stations, chinese food you can run this. You can be successful. You don't, you know.
Speaker 1:And we find out that a lot of our young men coming out of special forces and women, even though they've been in combat or they've been through the worst training that the Army can throw at them, they don't have the confidence to step out and be an entrepreneur and it is killing this country because all these unbelievable business leaders are not business leaders and I think that can be changed. I've you know, I've been there. I'm on my eighth company, bro. I mean, I've you know, I've, I, uh, and, and there's so much there and it's you know, it's so rewarding working for yourself and and I've blown them up too.
Speaker 1:Don't worry, I've got multi-million dollar mistakes that have, you know that, cauterize me to this day. But anyways, enough about me. But if you'd like to, you know love to come on and share, because you know that's a service and I do believe that what you're doing back to you Sorry about my diatribe there it's your selfless service, dude, it's the fact that you're out there helping others and that's a virtue and it's a gift to this world. So keep on doing it, man. It's a amazing, it's amazing gift.
Speaker 2:I fucked up a lot, you know like I fucked up a lot and I just, and when I couldn't be in group anymore, I don't, didn't have anything I wanted to do, and now I found this and that's all I want to do.
Speaker 2:It's all I think about is helping special operations, guys or gals and whatever they need, even if it's just my show or my funny memes or my reels or like my fitness stuff, like if it inspires you just a little bit, and then that makes me feel so good. Or you're just commenting on my stuff, or it is nothing, or you don't even follow me and you just see it one time you go. Oh, that's awesome. It's just to be the example, to get people to get out of their minds that they're silent professionals, not quiet professionals. You can do things tactfully. If you don't think you need to talk about your experiences and how awesome you are, then shut the fuck up, get out of your head and speak up and be proud of your accomplishments, and if they can see me doing that, then hopefully I'm an example for them to do the same.
Speaker 1:I despise that quiet professionals term I cost us. When that came out, you know, I don't know where, I don't know what rank I was. I think I was in E7. I'm like that stinks. We're not supposed to be quiet professionals, we're supposed to be loud. Green berets, dude man. I mean, come on, let's go mess it up. You know it was quiet. I always thought that was an officer term man. It's probably still on in OER.
Speaker 2:It's probably still on some of those OERs. That's what we got promoted on that one.
Speaker 1:But, nick, hey, thanks so much for coming on the show man. Your insight's been awesome. Your service to the community is great. Dude, I can't thank you enough and I wish you all the best on your show man. You keep that thing going.
Speaker 1:Books another great episode, Thanks to Nick Allen, the Green Beret Foundation coming up Just because I helped start it. Man, I love the Green Beret Foundation. Man, I've got to get back to touching them. Don't forget free book, the only book written by me for you to not expose your kids to contact sports. We've got the book. We've got the summit the only but yet second summit on repetitive brain trauma is going to be here in Tampa, hosted by the Mac Park Foundation, September 2nd and 3rd. And go to the Google and Apple store for our Head Smart app Download on the phone. It's the best concussion awareness app out there. In fact, it's the only app out there with information on repetitive head impacts and how they're impacting the people that you love, and it comes with a free copy of the book Book, book, book, book, book. All right. So, anyways, take care of yourselves, Take care of the people you love. God bless you all and take care of those brains. You only got one and it's everything that you're going to be no-transcript.