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The Grit Podcast: with Dr. Ben PeeryAuthor: Ben Peery MD
A series of discussions with front line responders about trauma and mental health. Language: en Genres: Health & Fitness, Medicine Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Episode 79: The 20-Year War
Episode 79
Thursday, 27 February, 2025
I speak with Josh Moore, combat Marine, former SWAT and law enforcement officer with Orange County Police Department, husband and father of two young girls and head of sales of a tech startup company called INVI Mindhealth™. Josh and I formed a friendship over the past year when I joined INVI as their medical director. I first heard Josh's story as he spoke last summer in front of a large SWAT audience, recounting a series of horrific firefights at a forward operating base in Afghanistan, where he suffered the loss of two of his friends Geno Mills and Hunter Hogan. Josh joins us to share his full story, from leaving home after high school, graduation from the Marine Corps, and deployment to Afghanistan in 2012. During the months of deployment, he details the ominous buildup of enemy forces around their outpost culminating in a sudden series of ambushes against an overwhelming force. With terrifying granularity, he describes each crystalized second of the attack, enemy bullets snapping over his head, returning machine gun fire to protect his team mates, and how in the span of 3 minutes, his platoon was nearly overrun and Geno Mills was mortally wounded. Then, already reeling from grief, the following day, while leading his platoon on patrol, Josh and his team are attacked again, and Hunter Hogan was killed by sniper fire. Josh was 19 years old. The ghosts of that deployment in Afghanistan haunted him, and struggling with severe depression, Josh left the Marine Corps. He tried to balance reentry into the civilian world, a young family, and a new career in law enforcement and SWAT. But like so many veterans of combat, Josh fought a 20-year war with PTSD, depression and substance dependence. His incredible narrative is a journey of loss, reckoning, and ultimately of healing. Thanks for listening to and supporting our podcast! Please follow the podcast in Instagram: @thegritwithdrbenpeery Please reach out to with any feedback to: @drben0636 on Instagram. Check out these resources from previous podcast guests for assistance with tracking your mental health, and reaching out for therapeutic assistance: 1. Jonathan Wilson and INVI MindHealth™ have developed an App using smart watch technology to track your daily mental health and wellness: https://www.invimh.com/ You can check out Jonathan's episode as a guest on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shawn-ryan-show/id1492492083?i=1000646864307 2. From Raul Rivas and his Trauma Behind the Badge podcast episode he shared the online resource therapy resource: https://www.lighthousehw.org/ Available on the App Store or on Google Play. Lighthouse Health & Wellness is an in-hand, on-demand, 100% confidential health and wellness platform available at no cost to our nation's public safety agencies. Lighthouse was designed to provide your employees and their families anonymous access to your agency's existing health and wellness programs, along with a growing library of the latest educational health and wellness information and tools that have been tailored to the unique needs of those working in public safety. 3. Please support Spike's K9 Fund helping the training, care and preservation of working dogs: https://spikesk9fund.org/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAo7KqBhDhARIsAKhZ4uji-HOepJMLAJF8H96Ncth_rySZeZXBt7bc1TtS2czEo_vOwpba9acaAv81EALw_wcB
