Former Recon Marine Shares Graphic Combat Stories-PTSD awareness

so I'm Chris Bova I'm a former Marine grew up in Park City Utah had a pretty uh ideal upbringing I feel like I hit the jackpot in all regards I was born into a family that did really well for themselves both my parents my mom and my dad lived in Park City and provided for me everything I wanted 9 11 happened and it's not that I was living anywhere close to New York City or had anybody any close ties really kind of felt a a calling to join the military so I waited till I was 18 on my 18th birthday I went down to MEPS sign the paperwork and within a couple months was off to boot camp the very first firefight I was ever in was in Samara desert in Iraq and one of the elements stumbled Upon a a group of about 23 insurgents that were ready to rock we hit that that building did a raid on it and the firefight lasted a pretty pretty lengthy time we were outnumbered outgunned these guys were screaming out of the building with suicide vests on blowing themselves up trying to get us it was just tunnel vision at that point pulled right in front of the building we just started Pokemon jabbing we ended up killing every one of those insurgents but one there was times that were really really intense and focused where I remember every detail and times that were kind of blurry so the next day we were digging through Rubble of a building that took a bunch of you know jadam bombs hominin and there's just dead bodies everywhere and I didn't feel phased by it I was actually kind of like I can do this for a long time that was fun one firefight in particular where I was a saw Gunner I carried an M249 saw which is a light machine gun and I was going down the main hallway and a guy was just running directly at me and I just pulled the trigger and until his body stopped five feet in front of me and he probably had 50 rounds in his torso I'd go on deployment for two months come home for two months and there was no transition period it was I got off a plane in Washington DC and took a plane to Park City Utah the next day I'm home with family and friends and it was just over stimulus [Music] culture shock over and over again and I didn't necessarily know what to do so I would just drink I didn't want to feel the emotions I was young I had no clue what to do and had no one really to to reach out to every every day I was home I'd be snorting cocaine and polishing off half a bottle of whiskey in the morning and I burned Bridges with my family with my friends didn't give a [ __ ] some of my buddies that were on the same program as me and we were also in the Marine Corps together they were like what the [ __ ] are you doing man we've got higher expectations for you it wasn't really until I I sobered up I made a path with my best friend okay I'm not gonna [ __ ] drink because every bad decision I've made in my life has been filled with booze and cocaine stayed the course came to realize that I have zero [ __ ] control over anything in life except for choice I just didn't want to be a [ __ ] statistic I just [ __ ] made a choice that I'm gonna go on and do things that my friends that were killed in combat or that came home and killed themselves would be [ __ ] proud of I want to make myself proud of the Life I Lived I moved to Dallas Texas in February of this year I was introduced to Brian Shotwell and Brian and I kind of kicked it off right away kind of spoke the same language had had shared similar experiences as far as military life goes and we both enjoy the CrossFit type training and always striving to better ourselves mentally and physically and his brand is called honeybear training you know it started off as you know an occasional Saturday I would go up to his place and we'd do a little little Meathead lifting out in the sun in the Texas sunshine and he talked about wanting to open up a CrossFit gym out on his own and and doing something to help veterans and that that sparked interest for me immediately I was like man I want to get involved and whatever ideas you have let me know I want to support this and then he launched a line of Honey beer protein you know a percentage of the money he makes off of his protein sales goes towards mental health for Veterans because there's a stigma in society around that's attached to PTSD post-traumatic stress disorder particularly with veterans it's not a disease it's not something that people are just going to snap and go crazy on you it's bringing awareness to this is really really really important right now I've had a handful of friends that had nowhere to turn and nobody said it was okay to talk about it that took their own lives and there's currently 22 veterans that kill themselves a day we need to find a way to help the veteran community so we can lower that number and hopefully eliminate that number completely so the mission is to sell a ton of protein and rely on honey beard with organizations to bring awareness to help those guys out that are dealing with some really really tough stuff enable guys and ladies who served to come back and live filling joyful lives hey I'm Chris Bova join us in helping reduce veteran suicides

Channel: The Hive

Views: 1,947,019

Keywords: veteran, marines, reconmarines, ptsd, combat, interview, specialforces, veteransuicide, combatstories, military

Id: xbYZW4-k75Y

Length: 5min 36sec (336 seconds)

Published: Tue May 07 2019