Ep 94-96, Dec. 2021:

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Today on Wisconsin veterans forward it's arts month, December is arts month at the Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce. And you might be asking yourself first off, holy cow. Is it already December 1st? Yeah. Yeah, it is. We're in our last 12th of the year already. I hope I hope y'all are on track to hit your personal professional business metrics. If not, you still got a month home stretch. Y all, you can do it, but you're probably asking yourself that. And once you've come to terms with the fact that it is in fact, December 1st, 20, 21, crazy. The other thing you're asking is what do the arts have to do with the veteran community, with the military community aren't veterans and military members just like robotic lack of personality. We just take orders and, you know, oh, of course the answer is no. <Laugh> there is a lot of talent and a lot of diverse talents in the military.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

There are musicians, there are actors and actresses. There are artists, there are people. I mean, it's a talented military, very diverse, very talented military we have here. And even outside of that, post-military an important consideration is the role that the arts plays in the healing process for many veterans, military spouses, military family members, caregivers, everybody that's, that's even tangentially connected to the veteran ecosystem could or can, or does benefit from the power of the arts. And for those of you that are familiar with the Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce every year, we have an event called veterans, light up the arts, where we seek to draw attention to the healing power of the arts for the veteran military family community. And it really is an impactful thing. And today, super excited to talk about my absolute like favorite organization run by some of my favorite people.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

One we're talking to today his name's Patrick. He's awesome. You're gonna get to know him. He's the co-founder of a national nonprofit organization called guitars for vets. And as the name implies, they provide free guitars and guitar lessons for veterans to help them overcome the trauma and the struggles of post-service life and post traumatic stress. Talk about a worthy cause. And this organization has just blown up over the last couple years. I mean, just blown up. They've got hundreds of chapters nationwide. They're getting thousands of guitars into the hands of people and lessons and giving people the skills to be able to use this, to heal from stuff that they legit need help with. And it's helping people overcome adversity and it's saving lives legit. When you help somebody heal or cope or manage posttraumatic stress, you're saving a life. It's the coolest thing.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Oh, Hey, focus, digital coming in air over focus. Digital says the love G for V and a lot of love for guitars for vets out there, and it's warranted. They deserve it. They're doing great work out there. And I'm excited to talk about not just what they do, but where they came from, because that's a really important part of this whole equation is we're gonna ask Patrick how they were founded, where they came from, where you know, where the, what the future holds for this organization. Cuz the sky's the limit. The sky's the limit for this. I'm super excited about this. Anyways. I'm gonna zip it. We're gonna dive in talking about guitars for vets as part of Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce arts month, right after this brief bumper, you are listening to Wisconsin veterans forward. Wisconsin's premier audio resource for veterans, military families, veteran own and veteran friendly businesses. Wisconsin veterans forward is brought to you by the Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce@wiveteranschamber.org.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

I can't believe we are like four office hours away from having a new intro and outro bumper, which I've started working on. It's gonna be a little shorter cuz if you notice viewing hours, especially on like YouTube after act, a lot of times when people get to the bumper, they're just like, I'm not gonna sit around for eight seconds. Let me just click off, go to the next thing. The bumper's gonna be way shorter. We've got some great footage from our events this year than I'm gonna put in there instead of generic stuff, looking for new music. I don't know if anybody has some royalty license, free stuff that they're willing to donate to us for the cause I don't don't know could be a good thing. Instead of the generic that is could pump me up music though. Anyways, I love about that folks. Patrick is here and he's playing his guitar.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Of course, that's all I do, Adam. That's all I do. And you know, I, I heard you on the intro saying, you're gonna ask me where we came from. I'm a middle aged man. And I still don't know where I came from. <Laugh> what's going on here.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

<Laugh> middle aged. You're seasoned

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

That's coffee, man. These days I drink coffee from a Mason jar. <Laugh> coffee

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

From a Mason jar. You hipster

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

I'm hip. But you know, as far as the, now on the traditional sense of the term hipster, I

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Think, I think you're a hip guy, but

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

You know, when I wanna look smart, he is put on my David Bowie glasses. I do

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Like those. You showed me those when we saw each other like a month ago and it was like that. They're totally you. I love it. So, so Patrick, you gotta tell me, tell everybody here, cuz I kind of know the story we've talked before. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> where did guitars for vets come from you yourself did not serve from outside appearances. Here's this kind of just stare stereotyping. You know that he's got a ponytail, he's a hip dude.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Well, so why guitars for vets? Where did that, where did that come from, man? Tell us about it. All right, Adam.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Well let's see. I decided I wanted to be rock star when I grew up, when I was about five years old and started playing guitar seriously about the age of 13. And by the time I got into college, the thought was, do I wanna go into medicine or do I wanna go into music? And given the fact that at I, I came from a place where they, they tracked students based on their socioeconomic status, whether to go to college or go work in the Foundry. I decided to follow the musician's path. But I did go to school. I went to the walkie shark extension at the time and then whitewater for amount of time in Milwaukee. But what, what that does that, that brings us way forward to years of playing guitar in, in various bands, jazz bands, rock bands, punk bands, country bands, rubber bands, you know, anything that would allow me to make noise and, and working probably about 40 different jobs, you know, including driving limousine, managing apartment buildings, being a painter refinishing furniture.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

I mean, whatever one needs to be able to support their music habit and back in 2006, a gentle came in to see me for a guitar lesson. So teaching guitar and, and playing and writing music had been the common thread through that time. His name Dan van busker, Dan served in 1968 and 69 first Marine recon in D name, Vietnam and Dan basically, you know, I, I, I don't always like telling a veteran's story for them. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but from my observation as a civilian, you know, dude survived apocalypse now, basically. Right. And you know, jungle warfare recon at that time was an insertion, an extraction. And all you had was the ammo you carried. So he carried ammo rather than water. They lost a lot of folks, you know, down in the, the low areas, the swamps to heat exhaustion, heat stroke, you know, it'd be 130 degrees wow.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Humidity down there. So it wasn't a dry heat. And so, but anyway, Dan came in for these lessons and it was, it was really cool for me because I went to high school in the 1980s. And, and you think about the time I was in high school, it'd been less than two, 10 years from when Vietnam ended. And we hadn't learned anything about Vietnam nor you know, everything I learned about Korea, the Korean war came from mash, you know, everything I learned about world war II, John Wayne movies, 12 o'clock high and so forth. Right. You know, and, and so I know I'm digressing a little bit, but, but that's how we roll at him. <Laugh> yeah, no, that's all relevant, man. I love it. You know, so but so I got a, a, somebody who was there, somebody <affirmative> who actually experienced this, that was willing to talk about it. And on Dan's side of the equation, he had always lot to play guitar, but because of the challenges of post traumatic stress, it could be difficult for him to focus.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

There was a lot of, you know, anxiety around performing and just a, a, a thought that he, he wouldn't actually take this on because the, the fear of, of failure, and I've learned from many vets over the years, you know, what's your greatest fear and it isn't, it, you know, nobody likes the concept of, of dying, but it's the fear of failure because on the battlefield, if you fail <affirmative> in your assignment, then you have the potential of losing your brothers and sisters mm-hmm <affirmative> right. And I've seen that kinda wash itself over into other endeavors in life mm-hmm <affirmative>. So we had that interchange that, that you know, really free sharing and, and the guitar itself can be very expressive. It really helped Dan, according to him, his testimonial with his symptoms of, of PTSD, cuz he could go home and you know, I'm teaching him how to fish, but he can fish himself and you, you know, nice E minor cord, the heavy metal cord <laugh> <laugh> and, and but it's the first chord we teach generally.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

And it's very soothing, introspective chord. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, <affirmative> some people think it's a sad chord. That's just cuz it's tapping into whatever's making them, you know, could be making them sad. Sure. You know, the interpretation is based upon wherever you are and it transcends you know, the the, the boundaries or the force field that we, that we put up and, and, and gets into that. So it helped Dan so much where if he woke up, you know, from a night terror or just had insomnia, you could go downstairs and strum the instrument that he felt we should go to the VA and play for are some of the men and women there. And this was in Milwaukee at Zablocki the spinal rehab department. This is what's so cool, Adam, cuz this is this whole Genesis thing of this organization. I stopped at cream city music where I was teaching guitar. That's where Dan was referred to me from. Yeah. Yeah. This would've been in spring of 2007 and the owner at the time, Joe Berger, his father had recently passed of complications due to war trauma from the Korean war. Oh wow. And Joe said, Hey man, that's great. You guys are going down there to play. Here's two guitars to give away. So just to give away, just to give away, I wanna do this in, in my father's honor.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Well, the first thing we do is give away the instruments. These two guys, like I say lit up like a holiday. Yeah. getting them and both of them had had one gen well actually both of them couldn't use their legs. They're both paras. Mm <affirmative>. And then there was some quad characteristics going on too. Sure. Mm-hmm <affirmative> it was obvious we had to teach 'em how to play. Yeah. Yeah. It'd just be a badge of honor hanging on the wall or under the bed, you know, in the closet worse. And the it was obvious that, that the guitar, that catalyst for the positive human interaction, nursing staff said, come on back. We haven't seen these guys smile since they've been in here, they're being treated for MEA infections, which can take, you know, four to three weeks to clear and it's you know, it's, as far as recreation goes, it's not very fun. Yeah. Oh, I'd imagine. So having that instrument and, and having somebody show up, volunteer to share that with them and be there just to, just to help lift them up, you know, put some inspiration on that little spark that keeps them going was very profound. And Dan and I, within a couple days were meeting at my studio, which was my at, but I becomes a studio. Oh yeah.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Throw an instrument in an attic, it's a studio

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

And so I said, you know what, Dan, I'm not, I mean, I'm already good at not making money. Why don't we make a nonprofit <laugh> and, and I said, how about guitars for vets? It's there, wasn't a lot of, you know, pets for vets, vans, for vets, vets, for vets, all the four vets things didn't they

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Weren't around in, in at that time. Not so much. Yeah. You were one of the, one of the flagships

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

There. Right. That's great. They, they are. And if, if they're really doing the good work so I Google searched it in quotes and the three words guitars, four vets did not come up once, according to the all scene Oracle.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

And yeah. Yep. 5 0 1 C3 put a board of directors together. And you know, we've grown quite a bit

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Let's talk about that growth. So, I mean, how hard was it for you to gain traction with this, cuz I mean, and we'll talk about where you are now and where you're going and whatnot, but you hadn't had any experience running a nonprofit prior to this. Correct. How did, how did you scale or was it received really well and just caught fire? Or how did, how did you get this off the ground and get the word out?

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Good question. And it certainly caught fire with the folks that we were working with and with the medical staff around them. Hmm. But I would say the, a thing that I learned through this process, Adam, that was most surprising to me is how hard it can be to raise money for veterans organizations. Hmm. You know? Okay. This was about the time where, you know, people were starting to, you know, veterans at least were being welcomed home a little better. Right, right. In the past. And you know, because you look at the Vietnam experience and, and that's all I had known about veterans coming home it right. It wasn't very pretty. So, you know, and this was

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Before nine 11, right. When you started trying to raise money or was it after this? Would've

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Been 2007. 2000.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Okay. So, so a little bit after you.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Yeah. Yeah. So the, the country was at a better spot regarding, you know, honoring its warriors. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> however, it was at a terrible spot regarding the economy. Cause that was about the time we had the big crash and the, and it, it was tough, you know, we, our, our first big event, I thought that, you know, we had music, we had, you know, the veteran's cause it was at a Harley, it was at the Harley Davidson museum. Okay. And, you know, I thought there'd be people lined up around the block, you know, we, we had a decent crowd, but it's it really, and, and, and, and I'm not, you know, here saying that people's commitment to our veterans. Isn't authentic, but it is sometimes it's not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the truth. That's

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

The truth. I mean, and, and I know, I know you're, you're, you don't wanna to, to ruffle any feathers and, and I mean, but you nailed it. I mean, sometimes people have a magnetic support, our troops ribbon on their car, and that's where the support ends, you know, when it comes time to actually putting their money where their mouth is, or actually providing support or actually providing resources, or actually just holding somebody's hand and being there for them, it's superficial at best. A lot of times, we've it, it's, it's, it's an epidemic thing. So, I mean, you hit the nail in the head man,

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Right on, right on. Yeah. It, that is the truth. That is the truth. You know, you, you are judged by your actions in this world should be, you know, there's a saying was it, I can't hear a thing that you're saying because your, your actions are so loud and, and sometimes, I mean, that could be a good thing, but it's also somebody, you know, telling you how, if somebody has to tell you what a great Patriot they are. <Laugh>

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Yeah, yeah. Shouldn't the magnetic ribbon do that. Yeah. Spent a dollar on that thing. Come on. <Laugh> yeah.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

You got your name on a little boot, you know, paper boot on the wall in Walgreens or something. Yeah,

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Exactly. So, so you have, so you, you, you launch and you start to realize that, that getting the funding for this may not be as easy as you thought. How did you overcome that? Was it a slow gradual thing? Did anything break out that helped push you over the edge or, or what?

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

It was, as far as funding is concerned, we operated pretty much close to as when I say a zero budget for the first five, six years. Yeah. I don't mean we, we never went into the red, but we, we burned what we earned right away. Right. And as far as the business philosophy behind it, again, like you said, you know, I didn't have any experience with this, but so some of this was just based, based on a creative hunch, you know, that's why I call my myself a strategic visionary. What is it that you do? I'm a strategic, visionary import exports <laugh>. But what we did is our first chapter was in Milwaukee, the next chapter we were at Toma at the time. Okay. But then we went to Houston and then Miami. Oh, wow. And then we got out to California. So the whole idea, my approach was really not the traditional one where you, like, I guess the bacteria in the Petri dishes.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Right. But instead you were finding proof of concept in Milwaukee and going to the big cities on the coast and trying to work in, is that it? Well, well,

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Really what it is, is it, now we could say we're a national organization right. Within the first year we were a national organization

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

And then you've, you've grown exponentially since then. So what, how many, how many chapters do you have coast to coast right now? I

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Believe we have about 110 brick and mortar chapters, you know, that are either hosted at a VA medical center, a C, B a vet center. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, we're moving into VFWs. Now we just got a national agreement with the VFW. Oh, right on man. Start putting chapters in there. Some universities we'd like to have a bigger presence in that sector. Yeah. Yeah. So I say brick and mortar, cuz we also have a cyber chapter and that's teaching guitar, like, you know, you and I could be doing right, right here. Virtual lessons. Yes. Yeah. Through, through zoom or whatever modality you, you, the good folks and operations have chosen to use. Right, right. But I'll tell you what Adam, and I think we might have talked about this video teleconferencing has been around what, since Skype was at late nineties or oh, right, right. I, I truly discovered covered it during COVID

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Lockdowns. A lot of it were, I mean, we started doing this livestream thing due to the lockdown. We had talked about needing to do it for a long time. And I'm assuming in your board meetings leading up to COVID you were like, man, we really should do a virtual thing. I guarantee you said it, everybody said it in their boardroom, we really should do blank and then COVID hits and they're just straight up forced to do those things. Right. Is that kind of how you guys experienced it?

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

That's absolutely. It, I mean, I was pushing it hard in April of that would be 20, 20 mm-hmm <affirmative> and I would say half the board thought it was a good idea and the other half did not mm-hmm <affirmative> and that is again, it's not because they're, they're not good people with a, with a big heart, if they didn't understand that we can make a connection doing this. Right. Absolutely. You know, I can even touch your nose. Right. <laugh>

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Yeah. We're not maybe in the metaverse maybe in meta. Oh.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

But you truly can teach good guitar and, and, and connect with people this way. Yeah. I mean, in person that's great. Cause then I can take somebody's hands and literally, you know, put it on and you know, do crazy pinky things.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

I just had a great idea. And you should write this down. Metaverse guitar lessons, virtual reality guitar lessons. You, you could be the first

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Well that's and it's true because they do have guitars, this one doesn't but where the there's E D lights under each string under each fret. Oh, wow. Okay. So here's your G chord, you know, your second fret of the fifth string, your third of the six, your third Fred of the first and what you would do while I was teaching it is light up where they're supposed to put their fingers.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Oh dude. That's what? A time to be alive. Right?

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

It, it, it truly is cool. It's one of the good side effects of COVID yeah. Overweight,

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

I guess.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Yeah. It's Gastly I, I would rather have just discovered this on my own, but you know, we can't change that reality. So we have to you know, is that an army thing adapt and overcome? I don't know. Or

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

That's, that's pretty much military wide military wide and overcome. I bet you everybody. I mean, we said the, that in the air force, but I bet we stole it from the army <laugh>

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

We stole it from the Marines. No doubt. Yeah.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Pro oh, probably you ask a Marine and they'll tell you, you stole it from the Marines. <Laugh> asking soldier, you stole it from the army. Exactly. You got a different story across the board. So, so you got over a hundred chapters now. I'm sure. You know, always in the nonprofit world funding is a challenge. Probably not like it was on the onset. So my question is, is what does the, what's your vision? What does the future hold? Like if, if in five years you've accomplished everything that you've set out to accomplish, you have, you have perfect score 100 out of a hundred. What is that world look like in five years? And where does, where does guitars for vets fit into that?

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Right on man. I mean, if we hit the grand slam, it would be, this program is available to any veteran in the United States. It qualifies and statistics last year, the us government, 1.2 million veterans are currently being treated through the VA medical system for posttraumatic stress. Now I think it's safe to say there's at least another 800,000 that haven't gotten treatment. So let's go, let's roll with 2 million. Yeah. So let's say just for the sake of discussion, 5% of the 2 million are interested in guitars vets. It's a hundred thousand people and in 15 years we've served 6,000, which is, is great. We've done that.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

We've saved 6,000 lives and not to mention the impact that postman stress has not only on those service members that are struggling with it, but they're family members as well. I mean, you've, you've cured livelihoods here.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

You've you totally get this, Adam. It is interconnected because we, you know, non-profit

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Bob says, hear from the Oklahoma city chapter.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Yes. Hey Bob.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

<Laugh> right on Bob. I love your <laugh>. I love your picture there, Bob and I love Oklahoma city. I've been there a couple times, a million years ago. I was a professional musician myself. And it's toured through Oklahoma city. A handful of times. They always put us up right outside of Bricktown. Loved it down there. I know there's more to Oklahoma city than Bricktown, but great community really loved it anyways. Sorry. Complete aside.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

But, and inspired a musical many years ago, you know, <laugh>

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Indeed I little bit different now of a, of a place than it was back then, but yeah,

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Right on man. No, I'd, I'd love to visit and thanks Bob, you know, for, for your support of, of

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Says he teaches guitarists for vets, man. You're national. So yeah, we, we were talking about your vision.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Yeah, yeah. The, the point is here. Let, let me just put this in perspective here. At the end of may, there was a newsletter that the VA put out mm-hmm <affirmative> events, you know, they're cyber newsletter, virtual newsletter, which was great. But we saw within three weeks, like over 5,000 inquiries. So that quickly, you know, we, we are tooled up to be able to handle a thousand a year, but you gotta remember these though. We get instruments donated the, the, the bulk of them we pay for, we get, you know, we buy a dealer cost, but there there's money for that. We're still, you know, given that we have 110 chapters, we're in 43 states, mm-hmm <affirmative> we have three chapters in Australia. Now we have one in London. We have three in Wales, the UK you're

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

International baby.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

We are international. We have global

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Man <laugh> global.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

I love it. As far as we know, we're universal, but mm-hmm, <affirmative> you think this could be a million dollar company. I'm not saying that so I could get, oh, course off of this, but we need, we need a million dollars a year to run. And you know, this year we're hoping to raise about $600,000 about a hundred thousand one 20 short, but December is usually a good month for us. I'm very open with our financial records. You know, we are a public nonprofit, but right, right. I save people time. Don't even look it up here. It is. <Laugh>, you know, this is what we do as a nonprofit, we work for half, probably half of what our market value is. You know, I say, I get paid enough to stay married. <Laugh>

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Bob says, you're starting a chapter in Tulsa after the holidays.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

I, oh man. That's awesome. Bob, that would be spectacular. You know, it's what, what Adam was saying before about the interconnectedness of this all. So as a nonprofit, we do compete, we compete with other nonprofits and you know, the majority of the nonprofits we compete with are wonderful. Just wonderful causes. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> but when you look at the ranking of where people give money, you know, you got children's charities, mm-hmm <affirmative> animal that, that both compete with each other. Oh yeah, yeah. At the top veterans are down farther. Now that doesn't mean people are heartless, but it, it is a, a tendency that if you see, you know, just the, the you know, I don't know, even the, a tragic image of a child with no hair going through chemotherapy, you know, holding a, a, a puppy that's going to get and should get good response.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Absolutely. But we show a vet who is struggling with, you know, emotional trauma who might be living under a bridge. Yeah. And they're probably not gonna be smiling. People have this stereotype that this is somebody completely unhinged and yeah. There's nuggets of truth in, in, in, I mean it is men, mental illness, mental trauma. Yeah. What it is, and it can be man, and I'm, I'm sure you've seen this in the P people watching this have seen this, or maybe experienced it. And I've gone through, through, you know, mental challenges as well. You can turn this stuff around and you can learn to manage it. So it does not control your life. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, mm-hmm <affirmative> music can do that. So when you look at the family, let's say the, the <affirmative> let's say the family has stated, you know, we got your nuclear family there mm-hmm <affirmative> and the mother you know, served in infantry or, and, and I don't know if women can, can fight, but they're right.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

They're right there. That, yeah. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> okay. There you go. And there's you know, post traumatic stress, trauma mm-hmm <affirmative> and then she starts getting, you know, starts playing guitar. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> that starts finding ways to self soothe. And even if you open up a window of serenity that lasts for two minutes while playing that that's two minutes that your soul can, can heal. Cause you, yeah. You know, your, your fingers are going you're, you're strumming, you're feeling, you're hearing. And it's all those things senses working together. It breaks the trance, you know, that, that, that pit in the stomach and in the front of the head and the grieving, it gets you from that. So mommy does better. Now, the marriage is probably better. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> the kids get better educational opportunities. The dog doesn't get kicked in, you know, so all those other charities that help these specific things, which again, wonderful. Right. But I believe, and it's probably cuz it's the one thing that I, that I'm really, you know, passionate about music. It's part of that equation to help everything.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Yeah, it doesn't just help the, the guitar lesson taker. It, I mean it helps the whole family and it reverberates into our communities.

This you back, you guys are doing, you guys are doing amazing, amazing work. And I mean, if, think about it, if you're, if your vision is, if we picture that there are a hundred thousand veterans over the next period of time, that will be in need.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

If we think about how much does it cost to put a guitar in the hand of a hundred thousand veterans that cost, I mean, and then also facilitate their lessons and logistics behind those. You know, this is the, it is a big operation and with, with the growth and the traction that they've had, I'm confident you guys will get it. But, but folks, if you're watching, this is one of my favorite organizations. I've been a big fan of Patrick and guitars for vets for a long time. Patrick, how can somebody learn more about guitars for vets and potentially support? I

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

What's your get on, man? The best way is just go to guitars with an S four, the number four or F O R vets with s.org mm-hmm <affirmative> or.com. Either one will take you there. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> and read all about it. I think it's a pretty, pretty decent website. Yeah, but a, if you have questions, you can email info guitars for vets.org.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

I wanna post the link. I'm gonna put it on a little, a little ticker here. Let's see, create a banner scroll ad. There we go.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Yeah. You can put like the weather report on there,

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Right on. So the other guys just accept general operating donations, you accept guitar and other musical instrument donations, whether they're serviceable or not. Can you talk

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

About that? There's the thing about, yeah, right on. Here's the thing about guitars? So like I mentioned, the lessons are important. So guitar zone end up in the closet under the bed and so forth. Now, one guitar is a entry drug to many guitars <laugh> and so they are out there. There are enough guitars to meet a hundred thousand people, which would take us probably 10 years to get through. But what we do, we take these guitar donations. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and if the guitar is a valuable instrument, this one I've played quite a bit over the years, but let's say the guitar is worth five, over $500. We ask the donor, can we sell these? Can we sell that instrument on our reverb site? R E V E R B reverb.com. And then you look up the guitars for vets shop because it costs $200 to put a vet through the program that pays for the new guitar and all the accessories. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> $500 guitar, you know, will put at least two vets through the program. Yeah. Yeah. So a guitar that's worth, you know, two to $500 that plays really well. Those become graduate guitars, the graduate guitar. We buy this a Yamaha FG 800 guitar. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> craft music here in Franklin, Wisconsin. We get these at dealer cost, which saves us a tremendous amount of money. Craft music donates a hundred guitars a year.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Whoa, nice.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Yamaha corporation of America donated 100 of these beautiful integrating Epiphone guitars into the mix and tailor guitars. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> has also been donating

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

What happens to the guitars that people donate that are just they're July

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Here. It is now, not that I'm a fan of war Lords, but I'm a fan of this guitar. Okay. So cool. This was one of our first art guitars. This guy did this in Johnny Exacto. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> in 2011. So this guitar is pretty much something you, you could win at carnival and it just doesn't play well. So we take these gelos and we give them the visual artists who do their painting on it. They make sculptures out of it. And now we can sell these things, you know, 200 bucks, a piece, $200 puts a vet through. You've made a donation. You get a really cool piece of wall art.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

I often you get him signed by like Tom petty and you know, like well, that'd be

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Great. We get Tom

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

<Laugh> I'm. I'm not sure he is reachable these days.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

<Laugh> not through my my form of communication. <Laugh>

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

I don't is he still making, is, is, did he pass away? Am I

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Mistaken? No. No, he gone he's he's yeah.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

He died in 2017. Yeah. Yeah. Not reachable for signature. Though. We do, we do appreciate Tom petty bad example. Oh yeah. Yeah. We'll just pretend I didn't say it. And

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

We'll just, he's jamming with the Wilber man. Yeah,

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

He is, man. He still rocking out. He's still rocking out. <Laugh>

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

So with, but to, to your point, Adam, we were will take a guitar in any condition. Another way you can get ahold of us, if you wanna donate your instrument is 8 5 5 G four, the number four V. Hero 8 55 G four V. Hero.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Well, hold on. I'm gonna put it right here. 8 55 G4 V

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Hero. Yes. Right on operators are standing by <laugh>. Maybe they're sitting, if it's a nice enough place in India where they're, you know, we're getting our answering service from,

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

They can donate guitars or cash through 8 55 G four V hero.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

What they can do is those, the cash donations can come right through our website. It's an informational line, a routing number. You know, if they wanna talk, somebody wants to talk to me, just say, Hey, this is for Patrick. You know, if I wanna start a chapter, then they'll route it to right person. You know, I wanna donate my you know, Rick Nielson from chief tricks. I wanna donate, you know, half my guitar collection. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> you know, which would be what about 6,000 guitars? That's a lot of,

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Yeah, it's, there's a lot of guitars. It's

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Good stuff, man. Yeah. And you know, there there's two things I wanna get out here. Absolutely. Okay. One is, if you want to start a chapter guitars chapter, or if you wanna teach or volunteer, you don't have to be a, a guitar player to volunteer. You know, we do, we do fundraising at events. We'll be at summer Fest again. And in 22, I think we're gonna have our own stage this year as well. Adam. Nice, good stuff. We do our in June on the 21st, we do the guitar. That's 21 guitar salute mm-hmm <affirmative> and which is June is national PTSD awareness month. Yeah. Every veteran's day we do rock to remember that's our big event in, in, you can help us with these events. You can help us with instrument drives. There's four things that this company needs. And, and I know this is a chamber of commerce related meeting and, and so I think people can relate.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

I, I use the word, the acronym via V I a M or VM, which is Latin for like the path or the role. Mm okay. By a doc. That's where that comes from. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> V this is what we need to grow. And sustain V is for volunteers. I is for instruments. A is awareness. M is money mm-hmm <affirmative>. So any of those four things <laugh> any of those four things. <Laugh> what you talking up by, you know, can help the other thing to be a volunteer. There's just four things you need there. And I'll hit you with another acronym. We've talked about, do it. Hey, we

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Do acronyms in the military. You're speaking our language, right?

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Jess <laugh> we call it page being on the same page. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and this is you gotta have, you know, these four pillars to really fit into this organization. Patience, acceptance, gratitude, empathy.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Mm. I love it. I can get on board with Paige. You

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Bet. Totally man. And, and you can imagine, or remember if, if, unfortunately you've been down this path, what it feels like to be struggling with anxiety and panic attacks, which is one of the worst things humanity can experience. Yeah. Depression, crushing depression, all this stuff, rather than telling somebody, telling you to, to get off your, your, your butt and, and you know what? You just get off there and walk around the block. You'll feel a lot better, you know, start whistling, take up whistling, you know? Yeah.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

People love getting really bad advice like that to people that are struggling with mental health issues. Have you tried just, have you tried just feeling better?

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Yeah. Just stop it. Just stop doing it.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Yeah. Just think about something else. <Laugh> thanks grandpa. I'll do it. That that'll do it. Thank you. Have you

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Ever tried this? Oh, <laugh> we've got people out there doing that right now. Go for a

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Walk. That'll do

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

It. Oh yeah. Yeah. We've heard it all. Yeah. And more important than even the guitar or guitar lessons or whatever it is. The first thing people need is patience, acceptance, gratitude, empathy. So somebody feels, they, they are part of a greater community of accept that acceptance piece community, building community, you know, having the village step up to help and slowly and compassionately bring somebody out of their cave. And that's what this does because now you're meeting, you know, you do your 10 private lessons. You graduate by completing the 10th lesson. There's no test. Just show up, you get your brand new ya Maha or whatever guitar it is that we have for you. All the accessories, the stand, the strap, the tuner strings. Then you go on to group lessons. And that is that estuary where civilians like myself and vets, like you come together and we have a greater understanding. Sometimes they're just BS sessions, guitar in your arms. You know, that's the LL for communication. But you know, every week that there, those, you know, brothers and sisters are there to support and that guitar is there for you that, you know, 2:00 AM.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Yeah. I mean, I know people personally who have been through your program years ago that are still playing frequently. Some of them are performing out and doing their own gigs. They play stuff on via their own online channels their own social media. They, they still use it to maintain that, that healing atmosphere and you know, so they can mitigate at any sort of issues with their, their stressors or their traumas or whatever. They're still doing that you're saving lives. And some of those people, one of 'em I know he is just, you know, his family's growing. I mean, things are, are work. And he came from a dark place and you helped him through it. I mean, everything that you guys are doing, if it's just for that one life alone, I mean, golly, it's worth it. And you do this on the scale of hundreds and thousands of people every year.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

I mean, you're, you're, that's why I'm a big fan of you guys. Bob has a question. I'm a new instructor, but we had a veteran come through with some big fingers. Made me think about with a hand issue. What about an electric base instead? Is there an instructor available that would authorize a base over a six string? I'll let, I'll let you chat with bat with, with Bob offline about that, but that's a good question. Maybe there's a good, maybe there's a piano for vets or a hammer Domer for vets or the

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

No, we can find, we can find him a base.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

How about a, how about sack butt for vets? That's actually a real instrument folks. I didn't make that up early, early iteration of what? The trombone or the French horn, the sack butt sack Butte.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Yeah. That's that's right there with the Contra

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Basson Contra bassoon. I have, I have a colleague that played Basson. She used to call it the farting bed post <laugh>

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Dot com.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Yeah. Not even sure if that's a, that's a thing I should share in a

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Professional. I think that was, that was the Twilight zone episode that was never aired the farting

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Farting post. Where did that come from? Tara thought it was the bed post.

Patrick Nettesheim, G4V:

Yes. Which was the precursor to the Dutch oven. Yeah.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

<Laugh> oh my goodness. We're crazy, Patrick. I missed you my friend. Yeah, I missed you everybody. Patrick, I'll ask you to hang on the line here. Thank you for your time. And for all you do. Just one moment as I close out friends, this Oregon is that if you can't tell, these are people that are passionate about helping the community and they're doing it the right way in a targeted fashion. In, in modern times, the are veterans supporting nonprofits, there are tens and tens of thousands of them, them nationwide. There are di there's tons of them <affirmative> and it, it, it appears as if there's a new one every day and it gets less and less targeted, which ends up mudding the waters for everybody else. It takes funding and resources and volunteers away from the good targeted ones. This is one of those good targeted ones.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

You can tell that they have a mission. They have a vision, they have a strategy. They have, you know, they have a target audience. They go in, they take care of business and they scale so they can help more people. It's a great organization. I would encourage all of you. I know giving Tuesday is yesterday. But guitars number four, vets.org, or you can call 8 55 G four V hero or reach out to magic or anybody, or ask us about guitars for vets. The work they're doing is saving lives in livelihoods throughout the entire country. And now I've learned globally. I mean, this is, this is, this is a great cause if you have any resources, got, you know, if your cryptocurrency wallet is, is, is expanding you know, and you have some, some extra Bitcoin you wanna throw their way or whatever.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

I mean, seriously, help these guys out. They're they're, they're good people doing good work. We're gonna continue talking about these awesome organizations, these awesome arts centric initiative that are important and relevant to the veteran and military family community throughout arts month with the Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce, please subscribe on YouTube. Look for Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce subscribe. So you don't miss any of these. If you get a wide variety of, of valuable information for this community, we're here to help not monetize eyes in any way. It is just here for you. So make sure you subscribe and follow along. Couldn't have said it better myself. Follow us on all platforms. Add this podcast to your library. We're here to help you. Thank you for joining us as we quickly approach 100 episodes of Wisconsin veterans forward. Wow. Very cool. See you next time.

Adam Braatz, WVCC:

Thank you for joining us on Wisconsin veterans forward brought to you by the Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce. Please visit us@wiveteranschamber.org. Read our blog, sign up for our newsletter and follow us across all social media platforms.