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00:00Welcome to Operation Healing Heroes. Join me today in beautiful Bernie, Texas on Legacy
00:10Farmstead as we feature Green Beret US Army veteran John Arroyo. They served for us.
00:18They sacrificed for us. Their stories deserve to be told.
00:28Every military veteran has a story to tell. Join our host Jay Garstecki as we honor the stories of our true American heroes, one soldier at a time.
00:44The mission today is Operation Healing Heroes. Brought to you by Great Clips.
00:58Multiple people were injured in a workplace shooting.
01:01The Sheriff's Office confirming that they've had an active shooter.
01:04New details coming in after a deadly workplace shooting today.
01:07We are a nation plagued by tragedy and violence, where the unthinkable has become all too common, having to endure the devastating impact of mass shootings.
01:18Where every gunshot echoes through the heart of humanity, shattering lives, dreams, and innocence.
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04:08don't get out of here. You're going to be a loser the rest of your life. And I'm like, well,
04:11what do I do? My sister told me the truth. She walked me into an army recruiter and she said,
04:17John, if you don't leave here, you'll be a loser the rest of your life and you will give your son
04:22what we receive, which is nothing. And that's how I ended up in the military. I ended up,
04:28there's not a lot of people that know this. And so my sister's not going to be happy that I'm
04:32saying it, but I'm going to say the truth because we're telling a story to help somebody else,
04:38right? That's, that's what Operation Healing Heroes is about. It's about bringing those
04:43others along. When my recruiter picked me up, I was doing drugs in the bathroom before he took me.
04:49Then the next day I would get on a flight. I was actually detoxing from methamphetamines while I
04:56was in basic training. Well, here I am getting my last fix before my life transforms.
05:02Operation Healing Heroes is brought to you by Great Clips, Northern Clearing, and by Enbridge.
05:19Operation Healing Heroes is a nonprofit organization dedicated to documenting the
05:24lives of our U.S. military veterans. In addition, we also provide financial support and treatment
05:29for post-traumatic stress. Your donation will help heal our heroes.
05:46So my first duty assignment was Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of the 82nd Airborne Division and
05:51home of special operations. I would see these Green Berets and Army Rangers and everybody would say,
05:55oh my goodness, the Green Berets, they're the best. The Rangers, they're the best.
06:00Well, special forces, they wear a tab on their shoulders as special. I needed people to see me
06:06as special. So I started telling everybody, I'm going to be a Green Beret one day. I didn't even know
06:10what Green Berets do. But it didn't matter because all I really wanted was the fanfare of telling people
06:17that I was going to, I wanted to be a Green Beret. I had a close teammate that came up to me one day
06:22and he said, stop telling people you're going to be a Green Beret. Just go do it. So it was put up
06:28or shut up. And that's where I found the men and women that called out that leadership inside of me.
06:37They saw what grandma saw. They saw what my sister saw. So September 10th, 2001, I start selection,
06:44which is special forces assessment and selection. In September 11th, the colonel pulls us in a classroom
06:50and says, gentlemen, we're now a nation at war. We didn't believe him. We thought that he was going
06:56to give us some ammo cans, throw us in the woods and tell us to go get the down pilot. We thought
07:01it was part of the scenario, but it wasn't. And it became real. And that's when I knew that I wanted
07:07to be a Green Beret, not because I wanted the fanfare, but because I wanted to be one of the most
07:11elite commandos. And when the flag went up, I wanted to be in that nation six months behind enemy lines
07:17when the president says we got our best on the ground.
07:31You know, when I was in the 82nd Airborne Division as a young soldier, we were told that we were the
07:35most physically fit alcoholics. And we wore it like a badge. It was almost like we were proud of it.
07:40I put myself into alcohol. Alcohol became the source of my resilience. And then during that time,
07:48I became just a mean, angry drinker. It was always like a honeymoon. When I came home,
07:55it was good with the kids. But, you know, the military realized that there's something that happens
08:00in reintegration. And it was something that my wife and I and our family, we weren't prepared for. So,
08:05you know, my wife had to take over the role of the home. But I would get home and I would try to
08:13step back into those roles. And I was bringing that anxiety with me. I was bringing that tension
08:18into my home. And my wife, she couldn't act right. My children couldn't act right. At least in my eyes,
08:25they had to walk this fine line almost like they were in the military. And what happened is I just
08:30brought war home. And the truth is, I didn't beat my family. I didn't put my hands on them. But what
08:36I did is I cut my wife down and my children with my tongue. You know, when we were young kids, we were
08:42told sticks and stones will break my bones, but words would never hurt me. That is the greatest lie.
08:47I hurt my family with my words.
08:53Operation Healing Heroes is brought to you by Great Clips, Battle Born Batteries, and by SKB Cases.
09:03I would grab grandma's little bottle of anointing oil and I would put it on everything. And I had a
09:13teammate come up to me one day and he said, you and I know that you're praying for us, but no one's
09:17shooting at us. He said, would you stop praying? That's the dumbest thing I ever heard.
09:22If you'd like to see more behind the scenes footage, follow us on social media and subscribe
09:27to our YouTube channel. If you're a U.S. military veteran in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota,
09:34or beautiful sunny Florida, log on to our website, takeavetfishing.org to find an event near you.
09:46John had some soul searching to do. After two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq,
09:52and despite his struggles with alcohol, John would graduate as an officer, uproot his family,
09:59and head to Fort Hood. Thinking he had left violence behind overseas, he had no idea that
10:06violence would follow him home. On Fort Hood, April 2nd, 2014, four o'clock in the afternoon,
10:14changed my life, changed my wife's life, our family. Army Specialist Ivan Lopez opened fire,
10:21killing three people and wounding 16 others. It is believed that Specialist Lopez had an argument
10:27with a fellow soldier before the shooting. The suspect had been evaluated for post-traumatic stress
10:33and was receiving treatment for depression and anxiety.
10:37And so about four o'clock in the afternoon, I have to go to my unit headquarters. And so I park,
10:42and I get out of the car, and I'm stepping away from my vehicle, and I hear shots fired.
10:47I didn't think that I was in danger on base. So what I was listening to when I was looking up the road
10:54is him shooting at every soldier that was standing behind their unit building. He pulls in my parking
10:59lot, and when I took my eyes off of him, I didn't realize that he pulled up a weapon.
11:03And the next shot I heard ripped through my throat. So I took a .45 caliber that severed my jugular vein,
11:10went through my voice box, and traveled into my right shoulder. So essentially,
11:13it went straight through me like this. It felt like a baseball bat hit me in the chest.
11:19And then I thought to myself, am I hit? So as I'm on the ground, my life is pouring out,
11:26and I'm thinking about the people that I love the most. In that moment, I hear this audible voice,
11:32John, get up, or your wife is going to die. I didn't understand what was happening.
11:36And the voice didn't come from outside, it came from inside of me.
11:39And I hear it again, but this time in a more stern tone, John, get up, or your wife is going to die.
11:46My wife had lost her brother and her mother and her father. Now I'm on the ground,
11:50and my life is pouring out. And I hear this audible voice. And what I now understand is
11:55it was God speaking to me, and he was saying, John, if you don't get up,
11:59your wife is going to take her life. It was easier that day to stay on the ground.
12:03And I took a 45 through my throat. No one would have ever thought that I would have lived through
12:10that anyways. So on that ground, I had to make a decision. And there was nobody there to pick me
12:17up, Jay. God didn't reach down to pick me up. All he did is he told me to get up.
12:22So I have to make a decision. Am I going to fight? Am I going to choose? Am I going to live?
12:28What's the legacy of my family going to be if I don't make a decision to live? So I get up off
12:32the ground, and I try to live. And I start walking. I'm looking for help. And there's a soldier
12:37walking towards me. Four o'clock in the afternoon on Fort Hood. There's 30,000 soldiers on this base.
12:44It should have been like a beehive. And I only see one soldier walking towards me, and I'm trying to get to
12:50him. I can't yell out to him because I can't speak. And he's getting closer to me, and I'm trying to
12:55ask him for help. And he gets close enough to me, and he stops. And he's 10 feet in front of me.
13:00And he's just real hypervigilant. He's looking around like this. And I realize that I'm standing
13:05in front of the man that just shot me. He looks right at me, looks through me, looks to the left and
13:12right, and Jesus blinds him. I believe there was a divine intervention, and he was blinded.
13:20He turns like he doesn't see me, walks into this building we're both standing in front of,
13:25and he shoots three more people, walks out the back, and takes his life. I just remember closing
13:30my eyes and thinking to myself, like, just keep breathing. Just keep breathing. So they get me to
13:36the elevators, and the elevator doors open, and two doctors come out of the elevator they're trying
13:41to put me in, and they're the ear, nose, and throat surgeons. Jay, everything I needed was exactly
13:48where it needed to be the moment I obeyed God when he told me to get up.
14:00Helping the Homefront provides financial resources to assist active-duty military families
14:05through partnerships with churches and ministries near military installations across the U.S. and abroad.
14:13If you'd like to personally thank a veteran that you've seen in one of our episodes or nominate
14:19a veteran to be featured in a future episode, log on to our website, OperationHealingHeroes.org.
14:26Operation Healing Heroes is brought to you by Suzuki Marine, Wiley X Sunglasses, and by Recon Boats.
14:37God's voice prompted John to get up in an act of bravery and obedience. John responded. He chose to
14:50live, and that would start a long, grueling road to recovery. I think at the hospital is when I went
14:58into shock. His head was as big as a basketball. His tongue was sticking out. I just told him that
15:05that was not my husband. I could not believe that he was looking like he was. I didn't know a body
15:13could take that much swelling, and they also told me he may never speak again.
15:18I felt that his outlook was going to be difficult, that he would carry a burden for the rest of his
15:26life because that bullet is a .45 caliber, and it hit his jugular vein. It hit his voice box. It went
15:34in an angle that it went out the shoulder blade on the right shoulder. I felt that he was going to
15:40have a limp, useless arm, and he was to some degree joyful because he had hope. His injuries were not
15:48the end, that there was something bigger for him waiting. The first part of my recovery became the
15:54process of healing my family, and it was in that moment when here I am, I'm broken, and I got tubes and
16:01everything coming out of my throat, and I'm in this Fisher house, and I look at my son, and I ask him for
16:07forgiveness, and it was in that moment that I said, I'm sorry, and that's when the healing process started, but the
16:14physical healing and the mental and emotional process, that's been a journey, Jay. We're better. We're healed, but it's
16:24been 10 years of healing. I'm sure you're still healing. Yeah, we still are. I didn't know anything
16:30about sharing my faith outside of a church, but that's what God's plan was, and here I am today
16:37sharing hope and resilience with the world that needs it right now. I realized there was a change in John
16:45six months to a year after the incident. He was telling everybody about Jesus. See, I didn't know
16:56that I was in uniform as a Green Beret really is a precursor for what the job I'm doing today.
17:03Today, my job is to go all over the world, wherever the doors are open, and step in and free the
17:09oppressed, but the only difference is it's not the Taliban that's chasing them. It's mental and emotional
17:14trauma. Why is it that I'm not dead? Why haven't I taken my life? Because it was what I made the
17:21source of my resilience, and that is the greatest thing that we're trying to help soldiers and first
17:27responders understand. What is the source of resilience? For me, my source was Jesus Christ.
17:33I made him the foundation of my recovery because Angel and I, we couldn't depend on each other. She
17:38couldn't lean on me, and I couldn't lean on her. We were broken. We needed something greater than us
17:44to stand on. And I'm telling you today, Jay, the reason why I'm here right now and I'm talking to you
17:49is because Jesus became the source of my resilience. And I tell them what was told to me. I just tell them
17:56to get up. Hey, look, you're going to be okay. You may go through some things in life, but it's only going
18:01to be for a moment. Tomorrow, just get up. Legacy Farmstead offers healing to service members by providing
18:11equine-assisted therapy and encouraging vulnerability to build trust and empathy.
18:18So there's some pretty unique science between, you know, the influence of their heart and your heart
18:23and being in proximity to them and grooming them and taking care of them, that animal husbandry
18:30effect. So a lot of veterans and first responders with PTSD or chronic anxiety feel relaxed, feel
18:39blood pressure change. They're reading your emotions and your feelings, and you've got to figure that out.
18:45And so that's one of the powerful things about equine-assisted therapy.
18:48As a token of our appreciation and our family, I want to present this red, white, and blue rod to
18:56you. It's got all the branches of service on it, and it says, in appreciation of your sacrifice and
19:02service, John Arroyo. And I just want to make sure that this is my token to you to tell you that I
19:07promise you I'm going to take you out fishing, okay? And no fisherman is official without an official
19:14Operation Healing Heroes jersey. So we got you an Operation Healing Heroes jersey with
19:19John Arroyo on the front and Arroyo on the back, and that's for you, sir. I can't say thank you
19:24enough for sharing your story with us. You're a true American hero by every stretch of the
19:29imagination, and the fact that you're here today still talking to us about it makes me
19:34so proud to do what I do.
19:35Jay, I'm crying because this is something that a boy should do with his dad, and I never got
19:45a fishing rod. I never got to go fishing with my dad. I've never, this is the very first fishing
19:54rod I've ever received in my life. But Jay, I promise that I'll give my boys one, and I'll
20:04start a legacy. Thank you.
20:08Can I hug you?
20:11Thanks for being you, brother.
20:16Thanks, brother.
20:17Love you.
20:18Love you.
20:20If you'd like to personally thank a veteran that you've seen in one of our episodes,
20:35or nominate a veteran to be featured in a future episode, log on to our website, OperationHealingHeroes.org,
20:41and click on the nominate button.
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