Is Here !

Good day, good night, brothers and sisters.

Nice to be with you. This is Chris and you're listening to Ten Gentially Speaking yet again.

Welcome to those of you for whom it's not yet again for whom it's the first time.

Welcome. Hope you'll stick around, join the party. This is part of the continuing series of

conversations with veterans of the United States foreign policy snafu's. John Deel is the guest this week

who's a lovely young guy that is working on a farm here in Portland. So I did this one in person.

It was really nice to be able to sit down on a picnic table out by the garden and chat with him

about his experiences. I really enjoyed this conversation. I was listening to it again

yesterday when I was putting this episode together. I was reminded of just how authentic and smart

and kind and open-hearted this guy is. It's always an honor when someone opens up to you.

They don't know you. We get into this thing again about how people sort and know because they

listen to the podcast, whatever. But it's the first time he's sat down with me, first time we've met

each other. It's always beautiful and touching when someone is so trusting and open, not only with

me, but with you. He knows you're listening to this. He knows there are lots of you out there

that he's never met, that he might run into. So there's a lot of trust going on, especially when

you're talking about difficult things. John talks about some difficult experiences he's had

the process of trying to overcome and recover and integrate these experiences into life.

Which is why I wanted to do this series anyway. Because a lot of these people who

have been in the military, they come home and they just feel isolated and alone. Nobody understands

what they went through. It's one of the tragedies of our culture that we send people into these

bizarre situations and expect them to perform, train them to perform. Then they come home and they're

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