Veterans' court

Volunteer with Boys & Girls Club.

Instrumental in the founding of the Veterans Court here in La Porte County.

Uh, he was a public defender for many years.

It goes on, but rather than me just list all the awesome things this guy has done, we're just gonna hear directly from him.

Like, I'm, I'm ...

I got a new focus now.

Um, [laughs] so I know one of the things that you were instrumental in is helping to set up the Veterans Court, which is part of three, right?

Correct.

And their discovery of over 600 members, a part of the church, a deacon body, now serve 11 different ministries within the church and in the community.

Working with our good friend Judge John Roach, working with Veterans Court and the Fowler program, we learned that churches are making an impact in families as well as veterans and their children's lives.

We were talking before the show, and if you think about an audience that's the least likely to raise their hand and say, "I'm having a mental health issue," it's veterans.

Oh, definitely.

Sheila is a veteran herself, just a tremendous group, fractional CFO and fractional CMO.

Mm.

But then going into Judge Roach, a Marine veteran, part of the municipal court system, but also serving Veterans Court.

And then of course everybody knows Lieutenant Colonel Allen West-

It's taken a little bit, but it's here.

Veterans Court is now in Fargo.

Mm, awesome.

So that is absolutely wonderful.

soldiers.

And so I think there's 20, there's, I don't know, 22, 24 veterans courts in the state of Michigan.

Mm-hmm.

So that's how that got started.

When it comes to some of the tenure here, I had some questions of some of the changes that have happened.

In January, I think it was of this year, you mentioned that the supervisor, that your office won't participate in the Drug Court, Veterans Court, or DWI Court this year.

But I do note that you also said, hey, look, we're going to reevaluate maybe in 2027.

What needs to change? Well, first, why? Why are you not participating in that, number one?

And, uh, They're like, but you've never had any rehab, never had any treatment for all these DUIs.

And so they ended up giving me Veterans Court.

I did Veterans Court.

I never drank.

My last drink was in December, no, July 15, 2013.

So it's been about 13 years since I've drank alcohol.

And it was all from that situation, all from the Veterans Court recovery program that they had, all the classes, all the direction, all the...

They made it hell, but it was like what I needed because I would have manipulated the system if it wasn't so hard.