August 17, 2023 • 12 mins
My latest podcast features SMOKE, President of the USVMC Ga Chapter. We learn more about The Veteran's Rally Point event on September 2 and the amazing things this organization does to help our Veterans nationwide.
If you would like to make a donation - here are a few ways:
And send it to:U.S. Military Vets MC P.O. Box 1314 Cumming, GA 30028
If you would like to make a donation - here are a few ways:
- Make a donation by PayPal and/or the Venmo - may need to enter a number, 4261.
- Make a donation by mail, they can make it payable to:
And send it to:U.S. Military Vets MC P.O. Box 1314 Cumming, GA 30028
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's Angie Ward. Thank you somuch for joining me for my podcast today.
I think it is going to warmyour heart when you hear the amazing
things that the US Military Veterans MotorcycleClub is doing to help veterans throughout the
state of Georgia and our country.I spoke with an incredible veteran, Smoke,
(00:21):
who is with the US Military VeteransMotorcycle Club, about an event that
they've got coming up, but moreimportantly, how they help our veterans through
various organizations. The homeless Veterans Encampments, there's the US Military Veterans College Grants.
They also help disabled American vets andTunnels to Towers which actually builds homes
(00:43):
for veterans with disabilities. We're goingto talk to Smoke about this incredible event
and how you can help with thedifferent organizations as well. It's Angie Ward
with my friends Smoke from the USMilitary Veterans Motorcycle Club. Smoke, you're
a Vet. Thank you for you, sir, and thank you for being
here with me today. I'm soexcited to spread the word about the rally
(01:06):
point that's coming up. Just tellme a little about sure the Veterans Rally
Point. It's our sixth annual VRP. It's scheduled for September two, the
first Saturday in September at the AmericanLegion in sugar Hill, Sore, not
too far outside of Atlanta. Butwe're expecting well over five thousand people this
year. Should be a great event. That is amazing, Okay, So
(01:27):
how can we get involved and bepart of this awesome event? So there's
two ways to get involved. Theone is as a vendor. We prefer
to have ninety plus percent of ourvendors as veteran owned or veteran operated companies.
It's an opportunity for us to helpthem to get more recognition to help
them grow their businesses. The secondway is to just come out as an
attendee and just bring your kids havea good time. We've got all kinds
(01:49):
of stuff for families to do.We've got live music, and of course
there's the bar right for us adults. What kind of vendors are you looking
for? I'll give you an idea. We've got a couple of law firms
that are our vendors. We've gotsome of the sponsors are companies like Trigicon,
yeah, same point, Primary Arms, Palmetto State Armories. So a
(02:13):
lot of gun manufacturers. Why alot of gun stuff. But but there's
also other really cool stuff we've got. There's a company out in Jasper that
they run that they jeep jamboree outthere and oh yeah, yeah I know
them. Yeah. Every year theybuild us a four wall fire pit that's
mobile so you can take it apartand put it in the truck and bring
it away. Every cool and sowe've got two of those to raffle off.
(02:37):
This year. We've got a gunto raffle off, of course.
Yeah, yeah, But there's there'sso many ways that they could get involved.
If they didn't want to get involvedin any of the raffles, they
could just make a straight donation eitherthrough Venmo, pay Pal or through a
check to our po box. Sois this a family friendly event or okay,
all right, tell you some ofthe things we have for kids.
Actually, we've got we've got agame. There's a company called Jumping Jack's
(03:01):
Moonwalks that those bounce houses and they'veevery year they donate a three piece set
to us for use for the event. That's football toss, a soccer kick
and a basketball context. You haveto try it right the day before I
try it to make sure it worked. I try it just to show to
(03:21):
myself that there are some things Ineed to get better at. But but
we've got that for kids. We'vegot three hum vs that kids can explore.
We've got an LMTV. We've gota World War two cannon that they
could take a look at and takephotos with. We've even got a Huey
helicopter, believe it or not,a Vietnam era Huey helicopter. So there's
so much going on at this event. But things like funnel cakes, cotton
(03:44):
candy, popcorn, soft drinks.It's just so. It's all at the
American Legion Post on sugar Hill andSwanny Damn Road. I know where that
is, sugar Hill, so andthat what are the hours? So it
starts at noon and take five.But that's not much time, spell much
time, not much at all.But in the beginning we actually start with
the honor guard, so it's it'svery moving over it is, and then
(04:09):
we do prayer and pledge of allegianceof course, and then we have our
guest speaker every year. That lastyear we had her name was Patricia Ross.
She's the Commissioner of Veteran Services forthe State of Georgia. This year,
our guest speaker is Command Sergeant MajorBallinger, who's the starm Major over
all of the National Guard for theState of Georgia. So we've got a
(04:30):
lot of stuff planned, but thatthat starts at twelve. By the time
the guest speaker has done, it'susually about twelve twenty twelve thirty and then
the live band kicks off, partykicks off, friends, family, kids.
All right, my people are gonnawant to know if there's food there.
There's plenty of Yeah, my lesterslove to eat. Okay, We've
(04:54):
got angel Fire seven Barbecue who's comingout and they'll be doing brisket, they'll
be doing that, were doing pulledpork, all kinds of stuff. We've
got chicken wings, and then ofcourse the Legion itself has a full menu.
And I can tell you I've beenthere for a couple of years now
and I've never had anything. Ohwait, already sounds incredibly fun. It's
(05:15):
a rally, right, So arethere going to be bikes there? And
there'll be a ton of bikes andall of this benefit are veterans, but
through different avenues tell me about that. So there's several different things that we
raise money for through this event.The first is we make a donation every
year to an organization called Tunnel toTowers. That's an organization that builds mortgage
(05:38):
free smart homes for catastrophically disabled veterans, guys who've lost legs, arms,
lost eyesight, things of that nature. Just an incredible organization. The second
place we send money to every yearis an organization called the DAV It's the
Disabled American Veterans Foundation, and theyhelp veterans with TBI, PTSD, you
name it. They do so muchfor veterans across the country. It's just
(06:00):
it's just enormous what these guys do. The third thing that we do is
something that we call our Homeless VetsEncampments, and we have right now.
We have two locations, one inStaceboro, Georgia, another in Savannah,
Georgia. And what we do iswe get about sixty or eighty of us
on our bikes and we have atruck or a van behind us, and
we ride out into presumably the middleof nowhere the woods, and we drop
(06:25):
kickstands, We build fires. Wepitched tents and we roast hot dogs over
the fire, eat beans out ofa can like the homeless doe, and
we just kind of hang out throughoutthe day in the night and watch as
literally hundreds of homeless vets come outof the woods to hang out with us.
And I like to say that alot of these guys their bodies are
(06:46):
here, but their minds are stillsomeplace else, sure, and it's an
opportunity for us to let them know, hey, we haven't forgotten about you,
man. And we just hang outfor the day and night and swap
stories, listen to their stories,we tell them our stories, and we
just kind of try to relate tothem if anything else, and we wind
up going to sleep. Next morning, we wake up and that van or
truck that we had follow us,we unload it and we give them supplies.
(07:10):
We give them backpacks, blankets,socks, underwear, toothbrush, toothpaste,
boots, you name it, anythingthey can carry on their backs,
and they load up. They gooff into the woods, and nobody sees
them again for the next three hundredand sixty four days until we show up
again the next year, same day, same time, same location, and
it's like that every year, butthis is our nineteenth year. Oh my
gosh, that is amazing that you'vebeen doing this for so Long's it's a
(07:34):
humbling experience. It's also heartbreaking.I don't know. I'm I'm so incredibly
thankful to all of our military menand women who have served, who are
serving now. To you as aveteran, thank you for your service.
I mean, I try not totake for granted one single day the freedom
(07:56):
that I have, and the reasonI have it is because men and women
who decided to serve our country andprotect and serve, and it just,
I don't know, it just hurtsmy heart so much to think that anyone
would serve our country and then comehome and not have a home. So
(08:16):
I'm very curious to learn more aboutthese homeless encampments. So these are places
that these vets know, they justgo and they live there. Yeah,
there's there's several cities or towns inthe state of Georgia that have very high
concentrations of homeless veterans. Statesboro andSavannah happened to be two of them.
We actually just found another one justover the last two months, Cherokee County
(08:39):
as I understand, it has overeleven thousand homeless vets in the county between
Cherokee County and Forsyth County. Sowe're gonna start another homeless Vet encampment probably
next year for that area, forNorth Georgia, and they just find each
other and yeah, you know,we we have a tendency to congregate.
Yeah, yeah, it's Uh,it's one of those things where I won't
(09:03):
try to speak for anyone else,but for me, when I got out
of the military, after I gotback from overseas, it was it was
really hard to it was really hardto relate to civilians in my mid twenties
early thirties, I had already gonethrough so much in my life that that
most people, and I don't meanthis in a bad way, but most
(09:24):
people just have no idea, Theyjust have no clue. So it's so
hard to relate to people like that. So when we do get to get
a chance to congregate, generally speaking, we try to stay close. Yeah,
definitely. Well, I am soglad to hear that there are great
people like you, uh and theUS Military Vets Motorcycle Club who are getting
(09:46):
together and continuing to help and supportand I am happy to be part of
this now too. Gosh, I'mexcited for September second. Now, yeah,
it's it's gonna be a great weekend. Can I come and just not
be in the way, but helpyou in any way? Okay, all
you have to do is come andhave a drink on me. Okay,
I will do that for sure.No, and I'll bring my family to.
(10:07):
My son in law is in theGeorgia Guard you know, and and
uh, we love to support anykind of military thing, but I like
motorcycles too, So it's going tobe a big day. But just to
be clear, this is not amotorcycle ride. It's not. No do
you do any of those. Soour first year we did a ride and
there were so many people that showedup for the first year we had it.
(10:31):
Yeah, this is uh, thisis our sixth annual Veterans Rally.
Point. Our first year we hadtwo hundred and fifty people that showed up.
Last year we had almost four thousandpeople that showed up. So to
get put together a ride, yeah, no, well that's it would be
kind of the police would be theirheads that explode with having to the road
closures and stuff. We calling insupport from towns. I have done all
(10:54):
that before. Is not easy.When you see these motorcycle rides, you
think, oh, that's great,they're just out there. No, there's
so much red day. Oh yeah, well, this is awesome. I've
got all the info in the commentssection. You can find out more about
the sixth Annual Veterans Rally point that'sgoing on in sugar Hill on September the
(11:15):
second. All this money raised isgoing to help the homeless vets encampments.
And it looks like other things you'redoing here too. The college grant.
Tell me about that. Yeah,So every year we have veterans, their
children, whoever's in high school andsenior in high school. They're allowed to
apply for a grant from our club, from our chapter specifically, and they
(11:37):
have to go through a typical grantprocess where they have to fill out an
application, they have to write anessay, they have to submit it to
us. When we get all ofthem, we have a committee, an
actual committee that sits down. It'sa bunch of senior guys and they read
through all of them and then theywouldle it down to the top five and
then they bring them in for interviews. And they interview them one on one.
They wouldle it down to the topthree than the top two. Then
(11:58):
whoever wins gets a college grant.It's not a ton of money. It's
not going to pay for a year'sworth of college or anything. We don't
we don't have to trust me.Every little bit helps, absolutely, Yeah,
but it's enough to maybe pay fora few books, or maybe pay
for your room and board for amonth or something like that. Yeah,
you're talking to a girl who hada just a mosh pit of different scholarships
(12:18):
to make it through college. SoI was taking money here and the money
there, money here, everything wecan do. So it's great, Smoke.
I really appreciate you stopping by andtelling me about this. I'm I'm
so excited to be there on Septemberthe second. Follow my socials at anti
Ward online. We'll be posting moreupdates about it as we get closer to
the event and try to do whatwe can. I appreciate you so much
(12:41):
for what you're doing for our eventsand for educating us too. Smoke.
Thank you so much for stopping by, and I will see you on the second
It's Angie Ward. Thank you somuch for joining me for my podcast today.
I think it is going to warmyour heart when you hear the amazing
things that the US Military Veterans MotorcycleClub is doing to help veterans throughout the
state of Georgia and our country.I spoke with an incredible veteran, Smoke,
(00:21):
who is with the US Military VeteransMotorcycle Club, about an event that
they've got coming up, but moreimportantly, how they help our veterans through
various organizations. The homeless Veterans Encampments, there's the US Military Veterans College Grants.
They also help disabled American vets andTunnels to Towers which actually builds homes
(00:43):
for veterans with disabilities. We're goingto talk to Smoke about this incredible event
and how you can help with thedifferent organizations as well. It's Angie Ward
with my friends Smoke from the USMilitary Veterans Motorcycle Club. Smoke, you're
a Vet. Thank you for you, sir, and thank you for being
here with me today. I'm soexcited to spread the word about the rally
(01:06):
point that's coming up. Just tellme a little about sure the Veterans Rally
Point. It's our sixth annual VRP. It's scheduled for September two, the
first Saturday in September at the AmericanLegion in sugar Hill, Sore, not
too far outside of Atlanta. Butwe're expecting well over five thousand people this
year. Should be a great event. That is amazing, Okay, So
(01:27):
how can we get involved and bepart of this awesome event? So there's
two ways to get involved. Theone is as a vendor. We prefer
to have ninety plus percent of ourvendors as veteran owned or veteran operated companies.
It's an opportunity for us to helpthem to get more recognition to help
them grow their businesses. The secondway is to just come out as an
attendee and just bring your kids havea good time. We've got all kinds
(01:49):
of stuff for families to do.We've got live music, and of course
there's the bar right for us adults. What kind of vendors are you looking
for? I'll give you an idea. We've got a couple of law firms
that are our vendors. We've gotsome of the sponsors are companies like Trigicon,
yeah, same point, Primary Arms, Palmetto State Armories. So a
(02:13):
lot of gun manufacturers. Why alot of gun stuff. But but there's
also other really cool stuff we've got. There's a company out in Jasper that
they run that they jeep jamboree outthere and oh yeah, yeah I know
them. Yeah. Every year theybuild us a four wall fire pit that's
mobile so you can take it apartand put it in the truck and bring
it away. Every cool and sowe've got two of those to raffle off.
(02:37):
This year. We've got a gunto raffle off, of course.
Yeah, yeah, But there's there'sso many ways that they could get involved.
If they didn't want to get involvedin any of the raffles, they
could just make a straight donation eitherthrough Venmo, pay Pal or through a
check to our po box. Sois this a family friendly event or okay,
all right, tell you some ofthe things we have for kids.
Actually, we've got we've got agame. There's a company called Jumping Jack's
(03:01):
Moonwalks that those bounce houses and they'veevery year they donate a three piece set
to us for use for the event. That's football toss, a soccer kick
and a basketball context. You haveto try it right the day before I
try it to make sure it worked. I try it just to show to
(03:21):
myself that there are some things Ineed to get better at. But but
we've got that for kids. We'vegot three hum vs that kids can explore.
We've got an LMTV. We've gota World War two cannon that they
could take a look at and takephotos with. We've even got a Huey
helicopter, believe it or not,a Vietnam era Huey helicopter. So there's
so much going on at this event. But things like funnel cakes, cotton
(03:44):
candy, popcorn, soft drinks.It's just so. It's all at the
American Legion Post on sugar Hill andSwanny Damn Road. I know where that
is, sugar Hill, so andthat what are the hours? So it
starts at noon and take five.But that's not much time, spell much
time, not much at all.But in the beginning we actually start with
the honor guard, so it's it'svery moving over it is, and then
(04:09):
we do prayer and pledge of allegianceof course, and then we have our
guest speaker every year. That lastyear we had her name was Patricia Ross.
She's the Commissioner of Veteran Services forthe State of Georgia. This year,
our guest speaker is Command Sergeant MajorBallinger, who's the starm Major over
all of the National Guard for theState of Georgia. So we've got a
(04:30):
lot of stuff planned, but thatthat starts at twelve. By the time
the guest speaker has done, it'susually about twelve twenty twelve thirty and then
the live band kicks off, partykicks off, friends, family, kids.
All right, my people are gonnawant to know if there's food there.
There's plenty of Yeah, my lesterslove to eat. Okay, We've
(04:54):
got angel Fire seven Barbecue who's comingout and they'll be doing brisket, they'll
be doing that, were doing pulledpork, all kinds of stuff. We've
got chicken wings, and then ofcourse the Legion itself has a full menu.
And I can tell you I've beenthere for a couple of years now
and I've never had anything. Ohwait, already sounds incredibly fun. It's
(05:15):
a rally, right, So arethere going to be bikes there? And
there'll be a ton of bikes andall of this benefit are veterans, but
through different avenues tell me about that. So there's several different things that we
raise money for through this event.The first is we make a donation every
year to an organization called Tunnel toTowers. That's an organization that builds mortgage
(05:38):
free smart homes for catastrophically disabled veterans, guys who've lost legs, arms,
lost eyesight, things of that nature. Just an incredible organization. The second
place we send money to every yearis an organization called the DAV It's the
Disabled American Veterans Foundation, and theyhelp veterans with TBI, PTSD, you
name it. They do so muchfor veterans across the country. It's just
(06:00):
it's just enormous what these guys do. The third thing that we do is
something that we call our Homeless VetsEncampments, and we have right now.
We have two locations, one inStaceboro, Georgia, another in Savannah,
Georgia. And what we do iswe get about sixty or eighty of us
on our bikes and we have atruck or a van behind us, and
we ride out into presumably the middleof nowhere the woods, and we drop
(06:25):
kickstands, We build fires. Wepitched tents and we roast hot dogs over
the fire, eat beans out ofa can like the homeless doe, and
we just kind of hang out throughoutthe day in the night and watch as
literally hundreds of homeless vets come outof the woods to hang out with us.
And I like to say that alot of these guys their bodies are
(06:46):
here, but their minds are stillsomeplace else, sure, and it's an
opportunity for us to let them know, hey, we haven't forgotten about you,
man. And we just hang outfor the day and night and swap
stories, listen to their stories,we tell them our stories, and we
just kind of try to relate tothem if anything else, and we wind
up going to sleep. Next morning, we wake up and that van or
truck that we had follow us,we unload it and we give them supplies.
(07:10):
We give them backpacks, blankets,socks, underwear, toothbrush, toothpaste,
boots, you name it, anythingthey can carry on their backs,
and they load up. They gooff into the woods, and nobody sees
them again for the next three hundredand sixty four days until we show up
again the next year, same day, same time, same location, and
it's like that every year, butthis is our nineteenth year. Oh my
gosh, that is amazing that you'vebeen doing this for so Long's it's a
(07:34):
humbling experience. It's also heartbreaking.I don't know. I'm I'm so incredibly
thankful to all of our military menand women who have served, who are
serving now. To you as aveteran, thank you for your service.
I mean, I try not totake for granted one single day the freedom
(07:56):
that I have, and the reasonI have it is because men and women
who decided to serve our country andprotect and serve, and it just,
I don't know, it just hurtsmy heart so much to think that anyone
would serve our country and then comehome and not have a home. So
(08:16):
I'm very curious to learn more aboutthese homeless encampments. So these are places
that these vets know, they justgo and they live there. Yeah,
there's there's several cities or towns inthe state of Georgia that have very high
concentrations of homeless veterans. Statesboro andSavannah happened to be two of them.
We actually just found another one justover the last two months, Cherokee County
(08:39):
as I understand, it has overeleven thousand homeless vets in the county between
Cherokee County and Forsyth County. Sowe're gonna start another homeless Vet encampment probably
next year for that area, forNorth Georgia, and they just find each
other and yeah, you know,we we have a tendency to congregate.
Yeah, yeah, it's Uh,it's one of those things where I won't
(09:03):
try to speak for anyone else,but for me, when I got out
of the military, after I gotback from overseas, it was it was
really hard to it was really hardto relate to civilians in my mid twenties
early thirties, I had already gonethrough so much in my life that that
most people, and I don't meanthis in a bad way, but most
(09:24):
people just have no idea, Theyjust have no clue. So it's so
hard to relate to people like that. So when we do get to get
a chance to congregate, generally speaking, we try to stay close. Yeah,
definitely. Well, I am soglad to hear that there are great
people like you, uh and theUS Military Vets Motorcycle Club who are getting
(09:46):
together and continuing to help and supportand I am happy to be part of
this now too. Gosh, I'mexcited for September second. Now, yeah,
it's it's gonna be a great weekend. Can I come and just not
be in the way, but helpyou in any way? Okay, all
you have to do is come andhave a drink on me. Okay,
I will do that for sure.No, and I'll bring my family to.
(10:07):
My son in law is in theGeorgia Guard you know, and and
uh, we love to support anykind of military thing, but I like
motorcycles too, So it's going tobe a big day. But just to
be clear, this is not amotorcycle ride. It's not. No do
you do any of those. Soour first year we did a ride and
there were so many people that showedup for the first year we had it.
(10:31):
Yeah, this is uh, thisis our sixth annual Veterans Rally.
Point. Our first year we hadtwo hundred and fifty people that showed up.
Last year we had almost four thousandpeople that showed up. So to
get put together a ride, yeah, no, well that's it would be
kind of the police would be theirheads that explode with having to the road
closures and stuff. We calling insupport from towns. I have done all
(10:54):
that before. Is not easy.When you see these motorcycle rides, you
think, oh, that's great,they're just out there. No, there's
so much red day. Oh yeah, well, this is awesome. I've
got all the info in the commentssection. You can find out more about
the sixth Annual Veterans Rally point that'sgoing on in sugar Hill on September the
(11:15):
second. All this money raised isgoing to help the homeless vets encampments.
And it looks like other things you'redoing here too. The college grant.
Tell me about that. Yeah,So every year we have veterans, their
children, whoever's in high school andsenior in high school. They're allowed to
apply for a grant from our club, from our chapter specifically, and they
(11:37):
have to go through a typical grantprocess where they have to fill out an
application, they have to write anessay, they have to submit it to
us. When we get all ofthem, we have a committee, an
actual committee that sits down. It'sa bunch of senior guys and they read
through all of them and then theywouldle it down to the top five and
then they bring them in for interviews. And they interview them one on one.
They wouldle it down to the topthree than the top two. Then
(11:58):
whoever wins gets a college grant.It's not a ton of money. It's
not going to pay for a year'sworth of college or anything. We don't
we don't have to trust me.Every little bit helps, absolutely, Yeah,
but it's enough to maybe pay fora few books, or maybe pay
for your room and board for amonth or something like that. Yeah,
you're talking to a girl who hada just a mosh pit of different scholarships
(12:18):
to make it through college. SoI was taking money here and the money
there, money here, everything wecan do. So it's great, Smoke.
I really appreciate you stopping by andtelling me about this. I'm I'm
so excited to be there on Septemberthe second. Follow my socials at anti
Ward online. We'll be posting moreupdates about it as we get closer to
the event and try to do whatwe can. I appreciate you so much
(12:41):
for what you're doing for our eventsand for educating us too. Smoke.
Thank you so much for stopping by, and I will see you on the second
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