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Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
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captain Kyle comfort.
Captain Kyle a. Comfort.
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captain Kyle a. Comfort.
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Many of us here understand
that in order for us to live,
the sacrifice of another life must be given.
Okay, great. Come on, let's go.
Bring him on out. Come on, bring him out, bring him out, bring him out.
Bring him out here. A little further. Bring him out. Bring him out.
By witnessing these things,
we gain a deeper respect for ourselves and others.
It is a celebration of those who live and those we have lost.
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- Sergeant Ricky england. - Ready.
- I sergeant Charles may. - Here.
- Senior airman Adam stern. - Here.
- Specialist Trenton free. - Here.
Trying to think where to start that one.
I'll try not to smile.
Like, I mean, it's... I don't know, it's...
To me, it doesn't seem like it's a lot, you know?
I guess, like, you get blown up, but after the first time, you don't really recall
the other times you get blown up.
I've never been in a car accident.
But I can imagine that that's what it would feel like fo be t-boned.
Um, it's basically a giant flash of dust
and a really loud bang and then...
I had almost an entirely positive experience with war.
Enough firefights to have a good story.
And we didn't lose anyone from my platoon or my company.
During that, uh, during that deployment,
we lost an interpreter that was well-loved by all of us
when a Humvee flipped.
Uh, and we had one, one of our brothers that got wounded in action.
But we had no, uh, nobody killed in action,
and just had a lot of good action and, and a good time while we were there.
Uh, we got ambushed on a bridge
and, uh,
we were taking heavy fire,
and they really had us pinned down on this bridge.
And I was lead gun truck.
Um, and so, I turned my turret, uh,
fowards the right.
And I saw a bunch of,
you know, feet running near the war truck, and I just start laying 50 Cal into them.
But, uh, instead of a bunch of dang on water buffalos, I was just shooting with 50 Cal.
Other times you get blown up.
Do you really get blown up?
I've been in two direct explosions, like on my vehicle.
And then I've also had multiple near misses where you just keep driving.
It's not even... It doesn't even matter.
Il don't know, that's pretty much Iraq.
Yeah?
We basically go there and get shot at and then blown up.
And out of nowhere, this kaabo warrior man,
he just kind of like Tokyo drift, like right over top of us,
and just started raining down hell on these guys
and hellfire missiles and just,
you know, beautiful firefight,
great American fire power, all that kind of stuff.
It's so funny because about a year ago,
I'm sitting here at the farm and this guy calls me up.
One of my buddy, Joe, Joe, Joe dirt.
I'nat's what we call him. He calls me up.
He said, "Jon, remember the story you told me about that red door?"
And I was like, "yeah." He goes,
“ll want you to talk to somebody."
And so me and this guy started talking
and we're telling the same stories and he's like...
He's like, "yeah, dude.”
He goes, "I was the kaabo warrior. I was the guy in the helicopter.”
You know, it's like one of the most epic firefights that we've been into.
And-=-
just to kind of corroborate that
and meet the dude that was actually flying over top of me years later,
now we're friends today.
So what I've, what I've found in doing this is,
uh, the more the animal trusts you,
the more easily approachable it becomes
when you're harvesting the animal.
And it's, I've been on the fence about it a little bit because jt's...
It sort of sounds sadistic that, and I tell some of my friends this, you know,
like the best way to kill something is to get it to trust you.
And in saying that, you know, it does, it sounds, I don't know,
it sounds a little twisted.
But in reality
for safety measures and for, uh,
what we like to call humane slaughter,
which some people disagree and they say, "no slaughter is humane.”
But when you, when you befriend that animal
and you care for that animal, I don't do it.
I genuinely care for the animal, um,
and get to know it on a... On a personal level,
like it was my pet or my friend.
And, um,
it makes for the safest possible harvest.
The emotional connection is, is important.
Um, it's hard. It makes it harder.
It makes it a lot more difficult fo take the life of that animal.
But when you accept the fact
that it's a... it's a necessity
in the lifestyle that you choose to lead.
And, um,
you do that, you know,
like I said and keep saying before in a spiritual, respectful manner, um,
being connected to that animal eases that process for the animal,
which for me is more important than my feelings.
If I'm going to take that animal's life,
if I'm going to cross it over and into the spirit world,
then, um, I want it to be comfortable.
I want it to be secure
and not anxious or, you know, fearful.
Uh, and it's not an easy thing.
It's... it's never an easy thing.
So that's my sacrifice,
is my emotion and my feelings,
um, and the hurt that I feel, and the pain that it causes.
And...
It's hard to, you know,
fake them down and then turn around and say well, I took the old boys down.
He might've been an enemy, but you didn't like fo do that.
That was... that was something awful.
But it was either you or him, so what are you... what are you going to do?
You are... you going to take him down.
The 32nd infantry division nicknamed the red arrow division,
its shoulder patch, a red arrow piercing a line.
The 32nd has more combat hours in world war 2
than any other American division.
654 days of fighting
with more than 28,000 enemy known to have been killed.
And we were looking at MacArthur
when yamashita get... get... Furned his sword...
Turned his sword over fo him.
It had to change,
it had to change.
But what we did back when we were in combat,
uh, we made up our own minds who we were going to shoot
or who we're not to shoot or what we were going to do.
But now, good gracious life, I got to go watch them fools,
they shoot at anything.
No, these boys now think they're really barring down on
but they're not.
Back in the day we didn't...
If I was in trouble, we didn't know no better.
We didn't know who was supposed to get nothing, you know.
And we didn't.
There was no hospitals for us
and, um,
only ones that was,
he's got a leg blown off or something.
They might think he or somewhere like that, see?
To the walls!
Pretty good, that was.
You take a bunch of old boys, they'll think up something.
Well, what they would do is, see, they was down there,
they got in this cave-like thing, you know, and then throw that...
Throw that, uh, hand grenade over there.
And what it would do, they wouldn't do a thing, they would just pitch it.
Pitch it on.
And you wasn't getting that to 'em
but what we did that we tied a string onto it
as far as it would go down, oh, and when it did,
he didn't have time to get that thing.
So it blowed him up, yeah.
And let me tell you, another little thing happened
right at that same mountain,
that was kind of, uh,
something we had a...
What was that, a p... a p59?
What was that double-bodied plane?
P50 something now, whatever it was, anyway.
He come in and this pilot, these two pilots wanted to see
what it looked like in that valley.
Well, boy, when they pulled into that dog gone valley there,
they... they killed both or I don't know,
but one of the pilots anyway, and they scattered the boys...
Scattered them all up and down that valley in there.
And that was something that kind of bares on your mind a bit too.
There's a lot of it I can't talk about.
I just can't do it.
And by the way,
we draw... we draw 21 dollars a month when I went in.
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When I got back, things started to get a little weird.
Going from war, where you are living and, you know,
living with and sleeping next to the same people, uh,
and everybody is somebody that you trust with your life
whether you like him or not.
Um, coming back and just,
sort of being released into the wild is a real jam.
It's a difficult transition to make
under even the best circumstances.
And while we lost nobody to combat wounds
in Iraq during that year,
in the 15 years since then
we've lost over 10% of the men in my platoon,
most of whom have died at their own hands
whether intentionally or accidentally.
Uh, I had a catering business at the time that was pretty successful
and, economy did what it did, so.
1, uh, basically, in may of 2016 I had, uh...
Yeah, I reached the boiling point where, you know,
the kettle was about to blow its lid,
so yean, I attempted to, um,
you know, take my life, um,
through an act of slamming into my house.
So, I ran myself into the house, uh,
did a pretty good, uh, wound to myself in doing that.
So when, uh,
when this took place and that injury that day,
kind of set in motion where the wife then took the reins
and removed me from the situation, that being my family,
and, un, that was an eye opener.
'Cause really, nobody knew what was going to happen next.
And so she did the right thing.
She did something that was extraordinarily brave
and it was like, if this is the way it's going to be,
then you go do your thing and we'll go do ours.
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misconceptions about veterans
can sort of be summed up
kind of simply that, um,
we have this idea of what a veteran is
and that is the misconception.
You know, I have that image in my head too.
You know, um,
sort of the homeless, Vietnam veteran
that just sort of a cultural image that exists.
Um, the biggest misconception boils down to,
that there is something that sums up veterans, and there's not.
Every veteran is an individual.
That big cultural misconception
tends to split veterans into object of pity or object of worship,
and neither is good.
Uh, neither is accurate, neither is worthwhile,
um, just because someone's a veteran doesn't mean they're a good person.
Doesn't mean they're a hero, doesn't mean anything.
Just means they served and, um, you know,
s0, some veterans are great people and others are really not,
and just like anybody else,
some veterans have problems that are military related, some do not.
Everybody on earth has problems that are not related to what they do or did for a job,
because life is hard, and that's just how that one goes.
Certain experiences in the army have brought that out more clearly
because you've been thrown in with Tom, and dick, and Harry
and need to get along with them.
It's not necessary to be in the army.
It's not necessary fo be in the war.
These kind of troubles have always gone on
in all time, through all the centuries.
I don't think that the faulty media narrative
of the, uh, broken veteran
is something that was done with any sort of grand plan.
I think that it's just something that catches people's eyes.
Um, and there's an old statistic,
it's more now but there were, a few years ago, when I checked,
over 10,000 registered non-profits for veterans.
Um, 10,000,
and so, this narrative comes not just from media
but from veterans themselves as well
who, with the best intentions, are trying to raise money,
uh, but sort of having that unintended consequence
of perpetuating that idea of veterans as, uh,
sort of the passive recipients of help.
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When he came back, he just couldn't stand being here,
so he went back because he just couldn't...
He, I mean, he really enjoyed it.
I mean, he got blown up by a roadside bomb in a Hummer,
but that didn't deter him from wanting to go back.
What he experienced there, he could never experience here.
So he just kept wanting this...
And that's not new, um, I mean,
I forget his first name, Morris,
he was a special forces major in Vietnam.
He wrote books about that too.
Uh, about this thing that is war.
And war is the purest
and most intense thing that you'll ever experience.
Uh, even Churchill said something like, you know,
uh, "there is no greater feeling in the world
than to have somebody try to kill you and fail.”
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Once you've had that,
there's nothing else that compares to it,
and not just from the excitement and adrenaline, but from the unit.
So, one of the things we miss
is just that intensity of war, but not just the experience of combat,
but also the relationships that you have.
And that camaraderie and that trust
that's built within that environment is uncommon.
It's unbreakable, is what it is.
You have closer, more intimate relationships
with people that you're in combat with
Providers, what do they know about veterans
is that they go to war and they come back with PTSD.
So, veteran shows up with a problem, and maybe it's PTSD, maybe it's not.
And they get that diagnosis, and maybe they get sent to treatment for PTSD.
But you know what? It doesn't work,
because that's not what's going on with them.
Maybe it's not about what happened at war.
Maybe it's what's happening now that their problem is.
And then we come back to civilian life and it's like, well,
we just want to work hard and do it, you know.
We need something to grab onto and hold on to and work hard for.
So, you know, those misconceptions
that if a veteran is having problems
it's because of their military service, no. Usually not.
After Iraq, it did affect me a lot
because I didn't have those people around me that I entrusted with my life.
I'he camaraderie wasn't there. The people weren't there.
It can sometimes fall by the wayside
that there's all these other things that can happen.
There's the syndrome of just social alienation.
You know, we go from this highly disciplined, cohesive unit
and then out into the civilian world and just don't fit in,
and so there's just that social isolation,
that sense that I don't belong.
That is just as toxic and just as deadly as PTSD.
But it doesn't have a name and it doesn't have a diagnosis.
My own thoughts and my own ways of thinking,
it's like having a working dog and putting it in a cage.
It's going to cause that dog complete stress.
It's going to cause the dog depression.
It's going to cause the dog anxiety.
And the dog's not going to know what to do with itself.
You know, it's that camaraderie.
It's that brotherhood of, uh,
you get around in it and it's immediately, that's what you live for while you're in.
It's what got you through.
I had like an eight year stint of just a ginormous lull after Iraq.
And it was because of just not feeling fulfilled in my life, um,
with just that...
Go back to that physical attribute.
You know, I want to work hard.
Um, depression happens after combat experiences and trauma,
whether or not you have PTSD,
that can be something totally different in itself.
Anxiety, just sort of general anxiety, can also be that.
PTSD is a very specific thing,
but it's only one of many potential negative outcomes.
We go from being, you know, super, super high one moment
and then super, super low the next moment.
I'nere's no in-between, you know.
You're either go, go, go, go, go
or dull, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you know.
Whether it'd be people shooting at you,
whether it'd be having a vehicle go down from an ied or rpg shot at you,
it goes from 0 to 1000 miles per hour really quickly
as you learn how to react to those things,
and it does change people.
And so, um,
it's kind of tough for a lot of us guys,
going from, you know, a high tempo environment
where everything is black and white
and then coming back here, living in the grey, where everything is grey.
There's really no black and white.
And I think that's probably the toughest thing
for, uh, combat vets like myself to adjust to,
is living in the grey.
You know, I'm part of a lot of like women, wife groups
and the biggest thing that they talk about
is seeing their husband go from, you know, big tough burly men
to, um, feeling like they're not needed anymore and they're not useful.
If you feel useless,
if you feel like everything you've trained for is... you're not...
You can't do it anymore,
how do you just go into civilian life and,
you know, move forward?
There's this great quote, and I can't even remember who said it
but, uh, he was talking about my division, particularly,
the 82nd airborne division.
He talks about, "who do you recruit for this?"
So you tell people,
“we are going to put all the equipment that you own on your body,
were going to strap you into a parachute.
We're going to put you on a plane.
Now, if you get to the target without getting shot out of the air
and if your parachute opens and if you don't break your legs or your back
when you land or get shot out of the sky,
well then, all you need to do is figure out where you are,
find your friends and go pick a fight."
Now, the kind of person who says,
"you know what? That's a great idea. I want to do that.”
That's a person that's a little different.
That's a person who maybe is not really going to be all that well suited
or stay all that healthy in a cubical farm.
- Staff sergeant retired Jon Jackson. - Here.
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Four out of the six days, um, that was out,
we were in heavy combat whether it was, you know,
improvised explosive devices, ieds, um, you know,
direct contact ambushes, things like that.
And, un,
it was pretty intense.
Made me a catcher one in tend
and so I engulfed myself
in all these types of things until I'd just become numb to it.
And after my second, third, fourth deployment,
il wasn't in a situation where I cared as much about that,
because instead of being the hunted,
you go to being a hunter.
You know, you feel real comfortable in that environment,
more comfortable in that environment than you do here.
And, so, um,
coming back home and being in a situation here
was a lot different for me
because, um, I felt
I was extremely hyper-vigilant, um, very cautious,
didn't trust a lot of people, because that's just how I operated overseas.
Um...
You know, traumatic brain injury, I didn't know what that was,
memory loss issues, um,
having some seizure type things that I didn't know what's going on.
I felt like I was losing my edge.
I felt like I was losing my purpose to be a warrior.
And, um,
I wanted to take my life, man.
I literally just...
The most beautiful thing in, um,
about my deployments was sunsets and sunrises.
And I was literally watching my last sunset in my room
and gun in my lap,
just watched it and,
um, the sun was just going down
and I just came to grips with the fact that I would be okay.
It was probably the most happiest I'd felt in a very long time
and, uh, I didn't want it to go away.
And, um,
then my damn son walked in the room and asks if we could go to... to eat,
like, literally.
And I think the whole point of...
Like, it totally derailed me
because I was in this frame of mind where I...
I was ready to end it all.
And I didn't play the tape all the way through and, um,
I took him out to eat, you know,
we were sitting down, we were talking and, um,
I was just looking at him, I was looking at how beautiful he was,
and just realized like,
“man, this is my son.
This kid, like, deserves so much more from me, to be there in his life."
Um...
And then it really hit me
because I started to think about like,
what he would have saw, you know,
had he been 15, 20 minutes too late to walk into that room.
So, what we end up doing is going into what they call the cocoon phase,
or where we ve been or even why.
As the caterpillar, we were conditioned to be warriors,
but as civilians, we're not conditioned to be civilians again.
So that's where we are in the cocoon phase.
He would always say, he would always tell his counselor, he will always say, you know,
“it's not that I want to kill myself.
It's that 1 don't want to be here.”
And people would just gloss over that
and I would think to myself like, you know,
“that's not really something that you should gloss over, you know?"
I felt like, if I'm going through this,
how many other guys are going through this?
And I didn't know what I was going to do.
There have been so many vets that have killed themselves.
More veterans have killed themselves in 2017 alone
than we've lost in the whole war.
That is crazy.
Who's talking about that?
And what are we going to do about that?
But,
the type of person he is isn't the type of person that'd just, you know,
let other people struggle too.
So, I think if it was just him that's struggling
and nobody else had an issue, I think he would just, you know,
be okay with that.
And I've put a lot of thought into like how I want to live the rest of my life,
and I want to live the rest of my life helping people, that's number one.
So I started getting involved in non-profit work
and just helping around as much as I could
and I realized there were some gaps that were missing
in between all of this and, uh,
that's kind of where this little...
Smoldering fire of desire
just started to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
And I was just like, "you know what? I think we've got to do something about this."
He started to make more of an effort
in hanging out with his... You know, hanging out with us.
And when we lived...
Before we moved to the farm, um, you know,
before we moved to the farm, um, he would come home,
go in the house, go in the room and just kind of seclude himself.
We moved to the farm in about...
I think it was right after our pigs
had their first set of babies.
And he came in the house,
like he's just super excited 'cause, you know,
although he's like this, you know, burly man,
you know, big, strong farmer man,
he sees a baby pig and he just like melts, you know what I mean?
Like he just loves the babies and, you know,
he came in super excited like, "the babies dropped!" You know.
And then after that he was outside everyday just sitting there watching them.
And I noticed the more that he stood outside
and the more that he stayed outside watching the animals,
the more connected to us that he became.
Because in war,
I could be playing table tennis one day with my buddy
and then cleaning up his teeth and brain matter the next day.
And I really have to dissociate myself from that action
because the next day it could be me.
You know, agriculture, um,
it's... you got to get down in the trenches, you know, you...
The reward is that you see your hard work, you know,
like you are working on your pt and you're proficient at your weapon.
I kind of came up with this...
This idea back in 2014,
you know, um,
to use agriculture and farming
as a way to kind of help recondition vets back to a new normal,
and at the same time, un,
give us a new mission to help our communities in America.
I grew up around in the 80's and 90's,
and my parents, you know,
I mean, all these processed foods and stuff like that...
That I ate was just unbelievable, you know?
So, um,
I don't want my kids eating those type of things.
I know other people don't want their children eating those type of things,
you know, um...
We're so fat and obese in this country, I mean, nobody cares.
Diabetes is out of control, you know,
heart disease is out of control.
So, it's like as a veteran, looking for a new mission
to help fight and combat that.
How do we do that? Captain Kyle a. Comfort died in combat.
He was a good friend of mine,
and so many other of my ranger buddies have died in combat,
and what I wanted to do,
I realized that on bases, their ranges, gyms,
defects named after soldiers and things like that.
And I wanted to name farms.
I wanted to name farms after my fallen comrades
that have sacrificed so much for so many, so that people won't forget.
I got Afghanistan, I've got Iraq,
I could take you there, do what I need to do.
Starting a farm and starting a non-profit is not my wheelhouse, alright?
Oh, yeah. You know, it's beautiful, it's great,
it's peaceful and I'm like,
"hell no, this is absolute chaos every single day."
I mean, and chaos is war, right?
You're fighting mother nature. You're out here fighting bad decisions.
You're out here, constantly losing a battle
that you need to get a leg up on.
You have to work with a board of directors, you know,
noses are busting and you have water issues,
put that wasn't what you planned on doing that day, you had other stuff planned.
Ll mean, I don't know how many times, and I'm sure he doesn't
probably want me to say this, but I don't know how many times he has said,
"Bree, I just want to give up, you know.
I'm done. I'm done.” that's what he says, "I'm done.”
But every day he gets up and just says,
"but, maybe, you know, I'll quit tomorrow, you know,
like, not today, it's not going to be today."
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comfort farms is a treatment center.
- Grow your food and eat it. - Grow your food.
Yeah, the rest of the world might want to try that.
Yeah, we're going to show them how.
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Are you trying to do a formal table or are you trying to do buffet style
or you are trying to do plating?
And here are slightly larger 200 gallons.
This is basically a boiling... Round bottomed boiling flask.
It is locally grown.
Getting that airborne school about this time.
Airborne!
- 18 years ago, down at fort penny. - Yes, sir.
J I'm looking for a hand to guide me
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but, uh,
being a us army ranger, there's nothing I can't do.
So I tackle this thing.
Because now I have a relationship with my kids and my wife again
in a way that I never thought I could.
Absent of the va and absent of medication.
I knew you were going to have a party, I didn't know we were going to have a party.
Hell yeah, hell yeah.
So let's get back to today.
Today we're at the, um...
And then we got to do rabbits today.
So is everybody in agreement, is that cool if we do...
I don't know how you feel about that, Jon.
Start with cows on the grass.
Yeah, is that cool if we start with the cow and then we take care of the goat?
- I yeah. - Then we...
We get it done today, we just change the order up a little bit.
That way the animals are, you know, we...
It'll give them a little more time today to kind of settle down,
and I'll go smudge them and ta-ta them a little bit
and, um,
you know, say some prayers and see if I can calm them down a little bit.
Therese has been working with the goat,
getting friendly with it and trying to get it calm.
And I think once we get the calf out of there then,
you know, we're definitely going to have to give the goat a minute to cool out
'cause that's going to be some commotion.
Hopefully, the calf will go down easy and we won't cause too much of a ruckus.
Okay. - Where's the calf getting butchered?
Well, one thing I was just talking to someone down the hill,
about, you know, the sacrifice of the animal
and being here with all the veterans,
and, you know, the death that they have to witness,
and her concern was that, you know,
through these things that we do
that it might bring back some of those bad feelings and thoughts
of what they had to go through in combat.
And, um,
but what I hope through that is
the positive part of what we do here and, um,
those deaths are good deaths.
I'hey're celebrated deaths.
It's a necessity for us fo survive and to live
and to make those sacrifices with the lives of those animals.
You know, is... is, um, more of a celebration of life,
um, because without that sacrifice, you know, we would cease to be alive.
Don't know.
I don't know what it brings up for people.
I mean, there's something about death and dying, right?
I guess.
Doesn't really remind me of it.
The-=-
the setting is different, the chaos is different,
and the noises that people make
are different than animals.
Don't know.
I don't know how to answer that.
F don't know. I just like watching the people react.
I had a good conversation with someone,
just after that, who was a little bit tearful about it,
hadn't seen an animal slaughtered or butchered before,
un, so that was a new experience to them.
To some people, it's just no big deal, right?
It's just a critter, and it dies, and that's just food.
And, you know, some people, that's not a significant event for them,
and other people kind of have
some deep spiritual significance, uh, with that.
And other people, you know, never eat meat again.
And um, I'm not sure there's any of those
that's more or less appropriate than the others.
I'ney all just seem real and, uh,
it's neat to see how people react to it.
You know, you get something genuine from people when, when they're doing that.
A lot of people come in thinking, you know,
it's about the food and it's about the party and...
But it's... it's really, that's not it at all.
We all love to eat good food,
it's an awesome by-product of what we do,
but for the core
it's honoring that sacrifice of that animal
so that we can move on and hopefully, um,
improve all aspects of life,
not just, you know, like I said, not just meat...
It's not just about growing great meat, it's about...
To make everything more acceptable to our body,
fo its natural state.
More important than the humane slaughter is the actual, um,
it's the actual, you know,
the killing of the animal that you actually know of.
And a lot of people disconnect themselves from... from their food.
I'ney'd much rather...
And I'm going to use this word and say it,
they cowardly turn their back away and let atrocities happen,
uh, for the... For their convenience
and the sake of their convenience
at supermarkets and things like that.
Um, here, what we ado,
we force people to get out of their comfort zone
uh, to literally know the food that they're eating
and if that bothers you, don't eat meat,
eat more vegetables, you know.
And the purpose of this is for people to make a conscious decision
of what they going to do and who they support
and so, you know, on a business sense,
we don't... we don't, uh,
price our animals cheaply because we value their lives that they've lead.
Um, and that's what sets us apart
from the major, you know, uh, commercial industry
that just are producing pounds, uh,
versus, um, caring for the animals' life.
J 1used to think &
j there ain't no way j
j 1 can move ond
j after my body's gone/j
=; Now I know j
j I was wrong lj
j ihe only reason that I'm singing this song j
j is because of youl
I he war is tough. I don't do what you...
Which way you come in,
and then a lot of these fellows will come in
and then we'll go to Iraq and places like that and, my god,
you sleep scared all the time and it's just...
It's just something that you're afraid of.
And if he's not afraid, boy, I'm afraid he's not living.
The psychiatrist listened to the stories of the men
who tell them as best as they can.
Ine names and places are different,
the circumstances are different.
But through all the stories runs one thread:
Death, and the fear of death.
You go, and you get one thing.
And living and doing
in anyway what you used to.
Keep on, keep it on.
When there ain't nothing there to keep on.
And i1t... if is hard.
J 1used to think &
j there ain't no way j
j 1 can live ond
j after my body's gone/j
j now! Know
j I was wrong lj
j ihe only reason that I'm singing this song j
j is because of youl
yes, I wanted to go back. I wanted to stay there.
I wanted to keep on defending all the other guys,
you know, John, striker, kegs, Hopkins.
And how do you feel right now?
I feel alright.
In fact, I don't know what they have done.
They never done nothing with me, I had it.
Yes, I had it.
And...
But back then, you had a... You had a different soldier.
The word is they used to do it without.
The worse, what really gets into you,
you get to think about nobody cares.
Nobody don't care nothing.
They got what they wanted and that's all they... all they really wanted.
When I come back and worked with the mine down there,
I felt like my daddy was the only thing I had.
Well, sir,
to be painfully honest with you, um,
I'm very much in love with my sweetheart.
She has been the one person that gave me a sense of importance
and with her cooperation with me,
we were able to surmount so many obstacles.
What happened?
Well, when I was in combat with, uh...
Can you speak louder? I can't hear you. Yes.
Uh, during a time,
I got worried that my brother...
He was killed on a canal.
- What was he, a marine? - Yes.
Now, I know there's a necessary test in here,
that you saw a vision of your brother.
What, uh, tell me something about that.
What... what happened?
Oh.
Well, 1 guess it was a dream.
Well, describe the dream. What... What did you see in the dream?
Man, yeah.
I was trying to say that somebody was being trained in your sub,
you know what I mean?
And then...
And they wasn't,
you just got to make sure that that's not happening.
Don't promise me something and then just back off
because that ain't what it's all about.
I don't want it.
Well, I had a bad experience out of the v8 down there
because I went, and they didn't even know I was in the world.
I went to get an examination,
and shucks, my name wasn't even on it.
Come back two weeks later, and they still hadn't put it on it.
And, in other words, this went on for two years,
and I just feel like
that even though they may have not got my name on it,
but I sent a card, and yes,
but even though I didn't have my name on it, I was still a veteran.
It don't make no difference whether it has the name on it or not.
The weeks have stripped by fast.
The first string since the hospital life has become a routine.
Sometimes, the man learns something new.
The ranger always did want to play guitar.
I'm so glad we got somebody who's got nerve enough
to get out there and do something with life.
Goddamn, I didn't see you there!
Oh, man.
Jon is alright, he's doing something that I don't...
A lot of people may think he's just doing something to help himself,
but I don't think so.
I think he... I think he had to do it.
God knows somebody needs to do it.
It's not me.
I don't... 1 don't mean to say
that everything they do is wrong as a veteran,
but dog gone it, a bunch of it is,
and there's no reason why it should be.
Il don't want none of their money,
but I do think they need to look after them old boys.
After all what that man gave is he gave is...
Well, I would say three quarters of his life.
Them boys right there, they feel the pain.
They feel the pain.
And now the days begin to seem long,
as tne all healthy sound of belly aching in the air.
"Spinach, spinach again.”
And how about a good movie for a change?
And how about putting some ice cream in the ice cream soda?
[Up-tempo musicl
um,
and I think for him
not losing another person,
you know, is his goal.
It's just, I don't want to lose another...
Another, you know, friend, I don't want to lose another brother or sister.
Seems like he's continuing to fight, he's taking the same spirit and...
Mm-hmm.
I'he sun is rising at comfort farms in milledgeville
and the day is bringing something new for veterans like Scott Kennedy.
I've been searching for the last two or three years with friends,
family, other vets, trying to lock in a place where I can get treatment.
He spent three years in the marine corps
serving overseas in the south pacific during the late 80's.
You know, I didn't know about the networks that were out there.
I didn't know about the available help outside the va.
I had no clue at that point.
No, the va is not trying to kill you.
The va has a massive mission, and there are appropriated limited funds to do that.
I'here are those who have negative experiences,
and I'm not justifying or excusing that.
They really do have massive foul ups and, uh,
and problems that are difficult to address,
but the va isn't trying to kill anybody,
they're trying to help.
They're doing the best that they can in a system that doesn't always work well.
So do I think that society or the va is doing a good job at handling veterans?
Um, I think they want fo,
but I also think that society
wants to just check the box to say that they did it.
And they want these quick, we done it programs
to kind of give everybody a high five to say that we did something,
to feel good about themselves.
Um, and so we spend a lot of money on the wrong type of programs
that don't get down to the root of the cause
for why vets are killing themselves every day
or homeless or in jail and things like that.
A lot of organizations are just in that helper mode.
Uh, they're going to find a veteran in need and they're going to save them.
And that is sometimes necessary but it's never empowering.
Um, people need to be the agents of their own change
and to have ownership in their own recovery,
and if I'm just sort of going to the va,
or going to a program and sitting there, being the passive recipient of help,
um, just waiting around for somebody to fix me,
then that's going to take a long time.
J some people think that Elvis died j
j 1don't believe itj
j Kurt cobain committed suicide j
j 1don't believe itj
what comfort farms does different is that veterans,
even veterans who need help are not just the recipients of help.
Veterans are the agents of change.
They are the agents of making our communities better
when we're growing food for the local community,
when we are working with volunteer groups from the local community.
This is putting those veterans,
even those ones who are having symptoms and having problems
in an empowered place
where they're not only helping themselves, but they're helping others.
Yeah, that... I mean, that just drives me crazy
for when people actually think that, you know,
vets are being... are pitiful and things like that.
And, you know, woe is me and...
And that's one of the reasons
why when I run this organization the way I do, I get guys that come here,
it's like, "no, brother.
Take a knee,
pull the Thorn out of your eye, drink some water,
get up and move out, okay?
We got work to do. You got work to do.
Um, you've dealt with way harder stuff than this.”
And the people coming out of military service
can work with the first teams, they can work with people who they might not like,
they can adapt to fluid situations,
we've got all these kind of, uh,
values and traits that are super useful for society.
80% of people who experience traumatic events
report that they are stronger or better in some way for that,
even when they have symptoms that affect them
and impair their function in some point.
What we're able to do
is to take a veteran who's been disconnected from his family,
we'll bring him to the farm, we'll put him around the animals,
and what we're trying to achieve
is for him to start to develop the skills that he once lost in combat.
Not necessarily to be with his family,
but to develop the emotional skills that he once lost.
The part of the therapy that we're working on
that we will initiate is actually called agro cognitive behavioral therapy,
so, uh, acbt,
and what that is, it's really going to mimic
how veterans were conditioned, uh, to be soldiers,
to be marines, to be airmen, you know, to be core men,
through even, you know, we create the agriculture culinary academy, um,
all these life lessons are going to be put into the curriculum
where vets are not even going to know it, uh,
to help condition them back to their new normal, uh,
in much the same way that they were conditioned to be warriors.
So it's like the skills that you learn in war, you know,
are being applied right now to fight in a big agricultural corporate model
that, uh, wins all the time against us.
You know, you close the distance with the enemy
and you win and you succeed.
You know, the same thing is, you know,
when you bring in, you know, we raise our hogs or, you know,
we connect with small farmers to get, you know, their produce to market
and we're working with chefs to kind of have them understand that, you know,
small farming is like the solution for, um, you know,
our community needs and American needs,
and how do we close the distance on all those things.
And that's again that same way with the military um, you know,
and you get up early, you put in the time,
you do what you got to do,
and the end result is, everybody comes home,
everybody is in better shape, morale is up,
un, it's a conesive, well-oiled machine.
I do think that there is an understanding gap
between the civilians and veterans.
Comfort farms can assist in that.
It's a challenge, you know,
especially when you don't have money, um,
and you just have a thought, you know, but we do have grit.
Being a veteran, and sort of the transition from military to veteran
goes through shedding that idea of who you were and...
That veteran status not being about what you used to be,
but about what you are now and what you still have to give.
Yeah, it's named after my ranger buddy, Kyle a. Comfort.
You're really not here for comfort,
you're here to push yourself past your comfort limits
because when you do that, you grow, and stress is growth.
In the eye, it's a popular white meat.
And so, with rabbit,
we're able to get these chefs who want to do seasonal cooking
with a new type of protein on their menu.
Uh, a lot of folks with the advent of, uh...
The advent of, uh, you know, television,
like food network and a lot of chefs and things like that.
I mean, you got Hector Santiago, he was on top chef,
ver here, he was on top chef, you know.
People follow that kind of stuff, and they're interested,
so they want to see new and exciting things.
And, uh, rabbit is not new,
it was a main staple of American cuisine,
main staple of European cuisine and so, um, we grow rabbits here.
So we're not going to have a high production of rabbits
but, um, we will have rabbits,
that are raised sustainably and ethically, you know,
for what we... being at the farm.
We can get everything done and then have folks over the weekend.
A lot of those chefs are going to have all their meat and protein products
underneath the shelves.
And they are gonna be underneath the tank
and they'll be able to prepare all the meals tomorrow.
One of the things that we like to do is use the stick method.
Some people like to use blunt force trauma right to the base of the head,
but you're going to ruin the meat,
if you don't hit it right, you'll end up really hurting your rabbit.
J country loved
j is in the stars daily ;
j don't know j
but it's painted on the barn?
J I fell in loved
j for the first time in the country;
j that's where I gotj
j my country love/j
Um, when you're emotionally connected to something,
you're going to ensure that they have a good life.
You're going to ensure that you take the steps provided, uh,
that the quality of life is going to be of the upmost importance.
If you're not emotionally connected to it, um,
it's just more like a manufacturing position just day in and day out.
You know, um, the value of these animals is, is far more than money.
It's what they give us when they are alive,
uh, the memories that we have when they are alive,
things that we don't forget
and the conversations that continue around the table
when we consume them.
J 1 can't have a house j
j on the side of the highest mountain
j to the seal
j 1don't wanna died
j but if I've got to goj
j 1'd like to know j
j' that's where I'll bed
j tennesseej
Let me see if I find the same place.
One, two...
Yep, right here, that's exactly where,
that's exactly where it is, you can feel it, right?
It's this...
It's right where the connection on the top of the neck and back of the head is.
Yep, yep. Well, actually it's a little bit higher than that
because right here is where the back of the neck sits.
Yep, make sure you flush it up against,
make sure it's pressed up against when you press.
That's that.
I okay. Watch it.
That was just complete killing it. - It kills them.
Yep. That's it.
Um, the stock and all that he has is his troops.
He cares for them. He's, in a sense, well, you know, the first sergeant.
He meets their needs, he takes care of them,
socializes with them, spends time with them, um,
on a small scale, what they do for him,
is they give back that emotional support.
The loss of life, um,
kind of resonates to the building of life.
You know, um,
I would say probably the most significant...
One of the most significant events that we've had here
was with, um, doing the butchery.
When we were slaughtering rabbits and that woman...
And there was a lady,
um, she was crying on the side, watching the rabbits,
you know, being humanely put down.
And we watched her and we asked her if everything was okay,
and she said, "yes." She nodded her head and said yes.
She raised her hand, she volunteered, she said,
“1 want to do this.”
And when she went and she held that rabbit
and she, you know, put the stick down,
and she went to cervically dislocate it, you know,
she was crying the whole way,
and one of our vets kind of went over and said, "hey!"
And she kind of pushed them away she goes, "no! I must do this."
That's what I appreciate about humanity.
You know, the things that, um, we don't want to do,
but we force ourselves to do it and we push ourselves outside our comfort zone.
We have this conversation, right, this philosophical conversation.
Should a farmer be, um,
emotionally attached to his animals or to his livestock?
And most farmers will tell you,
"no, you never become emotionally attached to your animals
because you have to slaughter them and all this other kind of stuff," right?
But I do understand that need to be connected with something
that you don't necessarily want fo be connected to
because you want to take ownership of that.
You want to be held accountable for that.
We're out here, we're raising these animals from,
literally, from birth to slaughter,
and life is precious.
Life is...
I mean, life is sacred.
You know, at the end of the day, um,
we put a lot of energy into making sure
that our animals are happy, you know.
Um, I used to say that life is cheap
when my buddy got killed in combat
and I would have to go back out there the next day
and fight and just move on.
Life is cheap.
Um, but life doesn't have to be.
So, um, we will never devalue our animals' life
by selling them cheaply or selling them to people
who don't appreciate the life that they led,
and I'll make sure of that.
A lot of consumers who are connected to their food or connected to their farmer,
they want their farmers to have some sort of, you know,
emotional attachment to their animals,
understanding that, you know, it is tough,
um, because when we are not emotionally attached to our animals,
we allow atrocities to happen that should never, never happen.
Um, I'm not saying that that's how everybody should be,
but for my life, um, because I do view life as sacred,
um, I want to know...
I want that animal to know,
um, that it was cared for, whether it realizes it or not.
But, um, you can tell big time that,
you know, through, um, through how we raise our animals
and the... and the sustenance that it provides for us
that these animals were loved.
And people don't like to see animals being slaughtered,
they don't like to see their, you know, their meat and things like that,
and I tell them that's perfectly fine.
Then eat more vegetables.
If you can't eat the animal
or watch the animal be slaughtered,
um, eat more vegetables.
Do that animal justice.
[Up-tempo musicl
You're sweating. =yeah.
=-nice. I know, man, you're late, bro!
All Jon ever wanted for me...
All he wanted for me was to have a good quality of life.
/t taught me immensely, it's really brought a lot of fire back to me
just digging in the dirt and getting dirty it... it's healing.
He, every day, he wakes up, he goes to work
because he knows that the end result is going to be an organization
that he can go to for therapy himself.
It's just being around other people with the same mentality we have,
uh, the same dark humor, the same jokes.
So you feel that sense of dedication,
you know, to serve, and it's all about the service.
It feeds the people, whether they're veterans or not, you know.
It feeds the... The local people good food.
It's local grown food.
If you want to eat crap, go ahead and eat crap,
but if you want to eat something that's been raised with love and care,
then we're here for you.
That's just the bottom line, and that's just what we do.
And it's about quality
and, you know, the end goal is the best product possible.
Right now, there are veterans who are thinking about committing suicide,
and I want them to listen to this quote,
it says, "just when the caterpillar thought the world was over,
it became a butterfly."
So I'm talking to you,
if you're watching this,
put the gun down,
put the pills down.
There's life after this event.
Play the tape, all the way through.
Realize that the greatness that lies in you is just within reach.
Captain Kyle comfort.
Captain Kyle a. Comfort.
He's no longer with us.
Captain Kyle comfort was killed in action
in may of 2010, serving in Afghanistan.
J / wanna be an airborne ranger
j'/ wanna be an airborne ranger
j build me a life of love and danger ;
j build me a life of love and danger j
j airborne ranger j
j 1 got caught in your eyes j
j and I realize the size of the sunj
j I'he leaves may be wet/I
stopping one day, listening to the birds,
thinking about my family,
realizing all the lives that I'm affecting right now
and the one thing that came to fruition for me
was that I was able to learn how to love myself again.
And so with that, I'm carrying on
the messages of my brothers and sisters who are struggling,
and the families that are enduring every day
to do what they need to do,
and for the community that wants to be a part of what we're doing.
We're making some headway in this effort
to lead not only a food revolution,
but taking care of food needs for our local communities
and also taking care of our vets from the root down.
Our vets need to serve again,
and that's what we're going to do.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
I got two uniforms and.
J they love to live alone lj
without you, I'll never know j
j we trust youl
j make it home j
j we trust youl
j make it home j
J people throwing pennies in a wishing well &
j wishing the well is gonna run dry »
j but I ain't gonna leave you tonight»
j everybody talking about changing the world j;
j ihe world ain't never gonna change?
J but you can always change in front of me j
ji shuck all the oysters and you keep the pearls
ji do my shucking and my jiving for free;
j freed
j like walking down the beach at night >
j put a bunch of lines out to the one you want?
J "till you get itrignt?
J sometimes you don'tj
j getitrightt
j sometimes you won't'
J getitrightt
j but when you do/j
j it's out of sight
j sometimes you do/j
J getitrightt