Episode 491 Terri & Patrick Caserta The Brandon Act and the Fight to End Military Suicide Transcript

This transcript is from episode 491 with guest Terri & Patrick Caserta.

Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Before we get started with this episode, I wanna give a quick warning to the listeners that this episode does include discussions about suicide. If you are someone that you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, please consider reaching out for some support. Dial 9, 8 8 and get the help that you need.

May 25th marks what Terry and Patrick Caserta call their son. Brandon’s seventh Heavenly birthday. He should be here celebrating with them, but instead they’re fighting to make sure that no other military family endures the same heartbreak that they had to endure. Brandon Caserta was a warrior. He was strong, resilient, and full of life.

He dreamed of serving with honor, pushing himself to the limits, serving with the elite of the elite. But the real battle wasn’t with an enemy on the battlefield that he faced. It was with the very people who were supposed to have his back. The [00:01:00] toxic leadership, the hazing, the abuse, it pushed him to an impossible corner, and instead of the support he needed, he was met with silence, feeling trapped and out of options.

Brandon took his own life on his Navy flight line. It was a powerful act, meant to expose the failures in his command, and while their son was unable to speak up for himself, Terry and Patrick aren’t staying silent. They’re turning their grief into a mission fighting for real change through the Brandon Act, which ensures that service members have access to the mental health care that they need before it’s too late.

If you’ve ever struggled with feeling trapped, if you’ve ever wondered if anyone in your leadership truly has your back, this conversation is for you. Stay with us.[00:02:00]

Hey, Terry and Patrick I really wanna thank you for taking the time to come on the show and, and welcome you to the show. I’m, I’m really glad to have you here.

Patrick Caserta: Well, thank you for inviting us. We appreciate it.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. I, I had heard a little bit about your story just through social media and things had kind of come up and I, as, as I was hearing about your story and, and your son’s story, and we’ll, we’ll get more into that in just a minute here. I, I said, you know what an inspiration to have such a tragedy happen to a family and take that to turn it into something good.

And something positive through the, the advocacy work and, and legislation and, and the, the work that you guys have done. I thought that was just a, you know, in, in a simple term, turning lemons into lemonade kind of thing. And I know it’s, that’s doesn’t do it justice for, for what you guys have been through and what you guys have done.

But would you guys mind sharing a bit [00:03:00] about your son, Brandon and his story? For the listeners who might not be familiar with it and, and so that way we can kinda have an understanding of, of first off who he was and, and maybe we can get a little bit into his story as well and, and kind of what led you guys to where you guys are today.

Teri Caserta: Absolutely. Thank you very much.

Patrick Caserta: Brandon, Brandon, just start. Brandon was the kindest, nicest person I’ve ever met in my life. I, I mean that in his history backs that he’s well liked always smiling. He had a smile that made you wanna smile. He helped everyone. He, he played football year round since he was four.

He was in karate and swimming since he was four. He he loved football and, and swimming. And he you, you know, it was kind of strange ’cause whenever I’d go to the parent teachers conference, I, you know, you never know what to expect. And they always started out with how much they liked him. I, I mean, he just was a joy to have in their class.

They always told us that. [00:04:00] And he just you know, is you, you look back at your life and you, you know, you’ve done a lot of things wrong, and then you’ve done some things right, but that this, we got it right with him. Although he was easy to love and he earned everything he got and had and well deserved it.

He, he just made people’s lives better and we feel that’s what, you know, he stood for.

Teri Caserta: Yeah. He was

just, he was just amazing. And, you know, talking about the parent teacher conferences, they always told us too, that Brandon would jump to help somebody with their with their issues, whether it’s math, he was really good at math or, or anything.

And he, he used to stay after school to help special needs kids with their homework.

And one day we went to go pick him up. And he was late. And we, and I had to go in and, and see where he was at. And he was like, oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was helping, helping [00:05:00] these, these kids. And, and quietly he said, they have special needs, so they need some help.

And I’m like, no, that’s fine. You know that, that’s great. I’m glad you’re doing it. We were worried that, you know, something happened, but he, he really loved people and it really didn’t matter what you looked like. Even the ones that bullied him, he got them on their side. On his side. So he, he, you know, when they needed help, he helped them.

And the then, you know, once they got to know him, he, they helped him too.

So he was just a kind. Considerate, always lived by his karate code. Words, honor, respect, patience, and kindness. That’s, that was Brandon to a t, that’s how he lived his life

Patrick Caserta: and

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, it sounded like that got probably drilled into him at an early age. And that [00:06:00] just became his, you know, we all have like our values and our, our our moral compass, our moral code, whatever you wanna call it. And that probably just became a part of his from an early age. And that to him wasn’t like to, to us hearing this story, it sounds like a pretty incredible special person, but to him it was probably, well, this is just how you do things.

This is just my, my standard operating procedure. Right.

Patrick Caserta: Exactly. That. That was him to a t. Yeah.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s pretty amazing. Now we’re here, obviously obviously he was from what you’re, you’re, you’re saying here he is a, you know, a great guy. But we’re, we’re, we’re here for unfortunately you know, some unfortunate circumstances that led up to his tragic passing. Can you talk about those circumstances that that led up to, hi, his passing and you know, kind of what, what flipped that switch maybe in, in him, if, if you guys have any insights on that [00:07:00] and, and what, what happened, what changed? You know, those types of things.

Patrick Caserta: Well, he he wanted to be a Navy seal. We did not want him to join the military. I’m 22 years. Retired a hundred percent disabled combat Veteran Navy. And I was a Navy counselor and I, I didn’t want him to join. And I’d seen a lot of change that I didn’t like and I moved up the ranks quickly and it, it just never changed.

And I really wanted to provide better for him. I didn’t have those opportunities, wanted him to go to college. We could pay for his college and that’s what we wanted. But he wanted to be a Navy seal, so he wanted to be a police officer. And his plan, and Brandon was a planner was to go in the military and be a Navy SEAL and then go squat.

And when I say Navy SEAL Member something, you’re, you have an opportunity to try out. You make, most people don’t make it through. But let me tell you, this kid was epitome of [00:08:00] shape and he could take abuse like you’ve never seen. I mean, you could tell him he’s the ugliest person ever walk, he’d laugh at you. And it was epitome of in shape. He did really well on all the testing. And so as parents we were faced with, we say no, and he could join someday anyway if he chose to, or we support him. So we supported him. We got him the goggles, the seals wear to swim fins, the swim trunks the we took him to San Diego, we met Seals.

He saw them work out. He was around them. We did everything we could to set him up for success, and he took advantage of it. I mean, he worked out all the time. Examples would be we, he liked endless shrimp at Red Lobster. We’d, we’d go and he’d put down, you know, a hundred shrimp or something. I, I don’t know exactly how many, but and afterwards it’d be kind of late, you know, it’d be like close to nine o’clock at night and he’d come home and go work out.

He’d just go work out, do his two, three hour routine every night. And like it was nothing alone. Alone, and he’d

have to hop the fence at his high school to get to the track and [00:09:00] bring his bike over. He, he

just loved it. And no lights. Yeah, no lights. And he so anyway, he was in seals and he was doing really well.

He made it to week three, but he was complaining about his leg and they kept telling him when he’d go to medical, he had severe shin splints. He says, no, I don’t, I’ve had ’em before. I know how to work through it. And they refused to do an x-ray. And one morning, early in the morning, he was, they had the boats overhead that they did at that time. And he collapsed and passed out on the beach. They threw him in the back of a pickup truck, took him to the famous bell that everybody should know about. If you don’t, you have to ring the bell to leave yourself. And he went there and he refused to ring the bell. And they fought with him. He wouldn’t ring the bell.

So they rang it for him, which is illegal and wrong, and they left him there. And this is the reason I’m bringing this up. This is the start of everything. You leave a guy there to collapse and passed out on the [00:10:00] beach. I mean, I, I suppose he doesn’t need any medical attention. And the most important part is the rig, the, the bell.

Of course, I, I mean,

Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Right?

Patrick Caserta: And so just like that, it was over. I I went out there ’cause we, we live in Phoenix. We went to San Diego immediately. I told him I can get ’em back in the seals. And he looked at me, he said, dad, there’s no doubt in my mind you can get me back in right away, but they’ll never let me get through.

And he’d know

and he was right. So unfortunately, if you don’t make it through, hate to break the news to everybody. You’re at the mercy of the military, or in this case the Navy.

And you you don’t get to get out. Okay.

Teri Caserta: You forgot a piece. Oh,

Patrick Caserta: and then I also wanna point out to everyone, ’cause this is important in the story, is that two hours after Brandon passed out on the beach, the people that rang the bell illegally for him, they’re the ones that literally, I kid you not murdered. A kid in the pool. They drowned a kid in the pool. Brandon would’ve been there. I mean, you’d [00:11:00] never drown Brandon. I’m telling you, that kid was swimming since he was four. But my point is and I’m sure it was hard to drown the other guy too, don’t doubt in my mind, or he wouldn’t be there. But that was ruled a homicide.

Those were the same people. Nothing ever happened to them. So they did get away with murder. They got away with doing what they did to our son. But anyway, my apology, now I see what Terry was saying. So after he rang they, they rang the bell for him. They left. He called us and I made him go to medical. And he went to medical. The doctor told him, you have severe shit and splints. There’s no doubt in my mind, but for the heck of it, I’m gonna do an x-ray. He goes, is anything’s wrong? I’ll call you but don’t expect to call. Brandon gets the x-ray. He leaves 15 minutes later they call, said, get back here right now. Turns out his leg was broken in three different places

Scott DeLuzio: Oh wow.

Patrick Caserta: and that’s why he collapsed and passed out. And they did all that and they were totally wrong. And that’s how I could have got him back, just so everybody knows, is because they, [00:12:00] the kid had a broken leg. I,

I mean, and that is grounds they set you back for, you know, a couple of months and then you start over again.

That’s how they do it.

And that was grounds for that many people that’s happened to, and they got set back. But it all started there. And then remember, I’m hurrying for you, trying to get to the points here for you. The story is long and but he after that he went to, it, it is called Aviation Electronics School in Pensacola.

He left on crutches. He was on crutches, went to school, passed that one into his new command. He went to advanced training in his new command for electronics. And from day one, checking in his command, they treated him horribly

Teri Caserta: in Norfolk, Virginia.

Patrick Caserta: Right. In

Norfolk. And we didn’t want him to go there. There was no, I mean, we, we, you have no C in, I’m just pointing out. We rolled the dice and boy did we get a low number.

And so he is his normal self. Immediately he was labeled the hardest, best worker in the command. [00:13:00] And everybody liked him, don’t get me wrong. And he was a hard worker. And, but they had him immediately selling candy. And I’m not lying to you. I kid you not, you could look into this a hundred times. He was selling candy and every command, in Brandon’s case, there’s, he went to a helicopter squadron. There’s 13 helicopter squadrons in Norfolk, Virginia. All 13 of them have people selling candy and all the aviation commands in the entire world have people selling candy. I mean, and why is this significant?

And I’m bringing it up. Number one, it’s illegal. Number two, that’s what vending machines are for. But

number three, I want you to think about this. I know this, I was in navy recruiting for 15 years. This is old information, but I’ll use it. It cost the government approximately a hundred thousand dollars a year to maintain one military member, junior military member.

There was eight to 10 of them selling candy. Now times that,

Scott DeLuzio: They’re not selling that much

Patrick Caserta: correct? Right. And, and so times that, times the [00:14:00] 13 in Norfolk, that’s just helicopter squatters, aviation commands. There’s probably a good 13 there too. And look at the billions of dollars a year wasted on selling candy. That’s waste, fraud, and abuse is its best.

But more importantly is Brandon, the government paid $300,000 to send him to school. Why would you have him selling candy? Selling candy is for somebody that is injured. Brandon was healed by then,

or maybe pregnant maybe getting out in a couple months or maybe they never went to school.

Okay. That’s the people.

If you’re gonna have anybody selling candy, that’s who sells candy.

You don’t have your top eight people selling candy. And Brandon did it for close to two years. That, that if you had them doing

it for a month or two, I, I’m not gonna say I understand. I’m just saying it would make more sense. But

anyway, here’s the saddest part about that, and I’ll shut up on that subject, is they accept this, they act like it’s the part of the [00:15:00] military.

They, they all accept it. They don’t fight it, they don’t argue, they don’t see it word. They just do it. That that’s, but see, that’s how great those people were. I, I can honestly tell you, I, I could not imagine doing that. And they shut up and did it. And in Brandon’s case, he did it well. I mean, he was the best candy seller there was.

He made record profits for them. He he would find out what they like and he’d go get that stuff for them. And he really made a lot of money for them. And he was good. He could take anything and make it better that that’s Brandon’s trademark. And

find a way to do it faster, easier, more efficient and better.

That’s just him. So they were treating him badly. He had a, a, they call it lpo, so leading petty officers called, that was in charge of him. And this guy did not like Brandon because Brandon smiled all the time. He was a hard worker. He couldn’t get to Brandon. Brandon did whatever he wanted. He just didn’t like Brandon.

To give you examples, we sent him a [00:16:00] package at Christmas ’cause he couldn’t come home from Christmas ’cause he had taken too much leave before he went to the command. And, he this guy gets the package, he drops it in the middle of the room and says, heya, this package is for you. And there was breakables in there.

Nothing broke, fortunately, but there were breakables in there, and that’s the kind of guy he was. And then Brandon would finish his work, go up to him, say, I’m done. Do you have any more for me? Go, go help other people do their work. So he’d go do that, and then he’d come back, ask for more, and then the guy would tell him, why don’t you just go make yourself useful somewhere else?

That’s the kind of person this guy was.

Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

Patrick Caserta: And so anyway, moving on. Brandon wanted to do something more than that. He, he likes special warfare, so he didn’t make it through seals. He didn’t wanna go back to seals. And the reason he didn’t wanna go back one of the reasons I word it this way is, ironically, you would hear, you were hearing about this now, if you heard about it. The drugs and the seals, the pods,

PDs. Okay, that [00:17:00] was going on. When Brandon was in there, he refused to do drugs. Brandon hated drugs. He wouldn’t do it. I could tell you right now, he told us about it. I found it hard to believe only because I thought urinalysis, the testing was all the time, you know, how many samples I gave in 22 years? And and I mean, you had to, I mean, I mean, if I had off, I had to go in and do it. It it, you couldn’t get out of it. You’d have to be on vacation somewhere to get out of it.

Your number comes up, you gotta go. And you only have a certain amount of time too. It’s not like, you know, show up when you get there.

It doesn’t work that way. And I was

high ranking for a long time and, and I, you know, I had to play by the rules.

And so we found that hard to believe. Well, what a lot of people don’t know. In 2017, a story broke on it about the PDs and SEAL training and they was a big story, but everybody forgot about it because recently there’s been stuff, and it’s gotten a spotlight, but nobody talks about 2017.

They act like it’s just a new thing in 2023, four-ish. [00:18:00] And it’s old. But anyway, what was happening is when Brandon was in SEAL training, they were stealing his uniforms. Brandon’s uniforms were squared, man, this kid could shine shoes like you’ve never seen. And he, his uniform was just pristine, flawless pri And they would steal his uniforms, they’d steal his gear, his boots. It, what it was is you had the people that were doing that and the people that didn’t, and the people that didn’t, weren’t a threat because they could turn those people in. If you really think about it, they were a threat to those people.

Teri Caserta: If they were not

doing

Patrick Caserta: the right, if they were not doing it, if you were doing it, then you were one of them.

You didn’t have to worry about it.

So he had a lot of backlash. And a matter of fact, when he collapsed that morning. These boats that you carry on overhead, your height makes a difference. Brandon was five eight, so if you’re in a certain spot, it’s easier for you. And he was struggling because something was wrong and he was trying to switch positions.

They wouldn’t switch positions with him because those were the people doing the PDs and they didn’t like him.[00:19:00]

Scott DeLuzio: I

Patrick Caserta: And, but anyway, he didn’t wanna go back there, so he decided to go rescue swimmer. So he applied for it. He passed a swim test. It was like, I believe 25 people tried out that day. He did. And he’s the only one that passed. It’s hard.

And he passed. What had happened is this LPO that didn’t like him and deployed. And when he was gone, Brandon applied for this and got accepted. Well, unfortunately, unfortunately, the LPO when he was deployed, got fired for toxic abuse of leadership and abuse of power, and he came back to the command and he was in charge again.

When he found out Brandon was leaving and going in that program, he was livid. He hated Brandon a hundred times even more because he didn’t approve it and he didn’t have a say in it anyway. He would’ve been overrid.

Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

Patrick Caserta: And so he constantly picked on Brandon and he got away with it. But Brandon was leaving. And what had happened is he Brandon rode his bike into work every day. And one day he was going into work [00:20:00] and the handle grip of his bike slipped off. He fell at the ground, broke his collarbone. So when he broke his collar bone, he had a navy counselor that’s who’s in charge of your programs that you apply for and one could say your career track. And this guy Brandon was friends with him too. He took it upon himself to cancel Brandon’s orders. And he told Brandon, I called there, I talked to the, they called the detailer, that’s who’s in charge of the orders. And he said that, they said that as soon as you’re found fit for duty and healed, you’ll be outta here in a week. ’cause he was due to transfer of March, he had broken his collarbone in October, he was due,

or February, excuse me, and he broken in October. So on February 28th, he was found fit for duty. So he found the guy said, Hey, I’m fit for duty, get me outta here. And he was like, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

And he’s like, wait a minute, you told me. And I went with this member. I’m a Navy council, I only went with this because it kind of made sense. It wasn’t outta line. [00:21:00] That

they would do that. So they made him do everything all over again. The counselor said, I, you have to do your whole physical, everything.

So Brandon did his whole physical over and I wanna rem tell you guys, that was the fourth physical he’d done in a year. The redo. That was ridiculous. But he did

it. And so this is significant. I, I’ll tell you why I’ll go back to it, but, so he does it. He’s gonna be leaving shortly and they’re delaying it.

This LPO by the name of BROS is delaying it. And there are others involved in this. There, there’s 12 other people. There’s people above this guy and all this. They’re all in cahoots. They don’t wanna lose Brandon ’cause he’s the hardest, best worker in the command and they had plans for him. But these special programs, when you apply for them, I don’t care who you are, you, I actually qualify, which is hard to do on any of ’em. You have to support the Navy, ’cause the Navy’s [00:22:00] always hurting in these categories. So your command is responsible for getting these people there. If they’re lead and qualified,

you get them there, you have to. So anyway, Brandon was having problems with them and everything and I he had had enough.

So I called the command and I was talking to his the, it’s called the senior enlisted advisor. And I was on the phone with this guy. This guy’s going round and round with me about stuff with Brandon. And he didn’t even know what he was saying, this guy. ’cause he didn’t have a leg to stand on. I’m a hard ar I can argue hard, especially with the 22 years behind.

I know what I’m talking about. And

Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

Patrick Caserta: so he said he had to go. Do you wanna hit the driver’s license? Yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Well, he, he’s skipping quite a bit. They. I don’t know how long before it happened, but they pulled Brandon into a room full of what? Seven different people at all different ranks.

Teri Caserta: And Brandon Brandon did not [00:23:00] drive. He did have a driver’s license. He did not drive. He’s just one of those kids nowadays who just refuses to drive. He wasn’t

ready. And we put him through, you know, one of the best schools in Arizona to teach him and get him comfortable. Well, they pulled Brandon into this room and a insig was, on the computer, on the Arizona DMV looking for Brandon’s license, and Brandon’s like, you know, I have a driver’s license. And then, you know, they’re, they’re looking for his driver’s license on online. They said, well, did you move? And Brandon’s like, yeah, we moved recently. So he gave him the new address and he found the, the, the driver’s license. So he asked Brandon if he had any money and Brandon’s like, no. And he goes, well, gimme your wallet. So Brandon, being [00:24:00] the person that he is, obeys him, opens his wallet and the guy takes his credit card and pays for a driver’s license that Brandon already had. It was here at home. And Brandon asked us, probably about two or three hours prior if we could send it to him. And that’s what it was in an envelope waiting to be mailed that day. But he, this this guy what’s his name?

Patrick Caserta: Dalessandro. Oh

Teri Caserta: yeah. Deandro. Paid for the driver’s license and had the driver’s license sent to himself. So

Brandon, even, even if Brandon was alive, he never would’ve gotten it. Deandra would’ve.

Patrick Caserta: And he Deandro stole his wallet, stole his credit card. This is factual. And on being on a DMV computer, this de Alessandro clown said he was from Arizona. So he had to lay some authority or something. I have to tell you something, I [00:25:00] want you to think about this in your mind. Yeah, that man committed so many felonies.

They wouldn’t even bother with a trial if that guy went to court. I,

I, if you really put your mind to it, I want you to think about all the felonies that were committed there. What comes to mind quickly, I know is privacy act and all that. Oh, those are small compared to the crimes he committed in there.

Teri Caserta: And, and for the what he was saying, the, the amount that Virginia allows for to be considered a felony

Patrick Caserta: $7

Teri Caserta: is five.

Patrick Caserta: $5.

Teri Caserta: $5.

Patrick Caserta: And

so

Scott DeLuzio: so, so clearly the, the driver’s license fee, whatever that was, is more than $5. I’m, I’m positive of that.

Patrick Caserta: And then,

Scott DeLuzio: the, the

Patrick Caserta: right

Scott DeLuzio: than that probably.

Patrick Caserta: then, then to top it off, I’ll, I’ll talk about this part now. He I. Obviously, you know, this is tragic story. So after what happens, happens we immediately [00:26:00] put in a change of address on Brandon’s command to our address here. Guess how many pieces of mail we got to this day from his command? Yep.

And get this,

the driver’s license. We specifically were looking for that. It never came. We called the DMV every month for six months. It never came. It did finally arrive back after we were pressing charges against his dalessandro. It mysteriously showed up at the DMV six months after the fact. He had stolen the driver’s license when it came into command. When it came after Brandon passes, he, he stole the driver’s license. He was smart enough not to shred it. Of course, we don’t know what was in the envelope. The DMV wouldn’t give it to us, but in the history of the DMV, they never had that happen. Nothing takes six months to come back e even with our lovely mail system.

Scott DeLuzio: yeah, the, the government’s

Patrick Caserta: Right? Exactly. So he stole the driver’s license. So [00:27:00] in other words, he paid for it, he stole his credit card, paid for it, and he stole the license. And he so

Scott DeLuzio: And for and for what purpose? Do you know what he was doing with the the license?

Patrick Caserta: the driver’s license, the reason they wanted it, they wanted to try to make him drive an 18 passenger van and a four door full-size pickup kid, never drove anything bigger than a medium car, and he only drove that on his driver’s test, and he never drove alone in his life.

I can honestly tell you that the last time he drove was with the driver instructor. And they wanted him to drive and they can’t. And that’s what came up when I called him on the phone. I know, I know. I was explaining that earlier. I’ll go back to it. When I was talking on the phone, he was arguing with me about the driver’s license and finally I had to put this to rest with that guy, the senior listed advisor, Karski, Karski. I had to put it to rest. I said, you know, let timeout, I said, it is not a requirement to join the Navy to have a driver’s license. It is not a requirement to be an electrician or a rescue swimmer to have a driver’s [00:28:00] license. It’s not a requirement to be in your command to have a driver’s license. And then finally, I had to break the news to this guy, and you are not entitled to his driver’s license period. And, and I said, on top of that, he doesn’t have car insurance, never has ever had car insurance in the state of Virginia. You have to have car insurance. And I said, don’t gimme the garbage. The government is self-insured. I said I was a recruiter for 15 years. I drove a government car every freaking day, and I had to maintain insurance.

My own insurance. Yes. If I was in an accident, 99.9% of the time, the government would pay for it. Provided there was no gross negligence, they would pay for the accident. Fortunately, I can honestly tell you the good news is I was never in an accident probably ’cause I didn’t wanna deal with all the red tape because I had to do accident investigations when my people got into accident.

So it, it’s horrible.

But he didn’t know what to say to me. He said he had to go. He got off the phone, he ran to [00:29:00] Brandon, he tracked him down, ran to Brandon, screamed at him saying, I’m gonna ruin your life and career and all this. It’s over. Yeah. Next thing I know, he calls me back. I’m on the phone with him.

Somebody yells something to him. He says, repeat that they did, and he said he had to go. I got off the phone with him. We lost contact with Brandon. We hadn’t heard from him. We waited, till late at night, like, ’cause they were three hours ahead of us. Nothing, unfortunately. This would be one of the times, I’ll tell you when you have cameras on your house that you know, it’s a good thing and a bad thing.

A government car pulled up, two uniform people got out. We knew immediately what had happened. So they broke the news to us. This next part, I always have Terry explain it. She does a better job at it by far. I just want you to know up to this point, I, I know that there’s thousands of stories out there and you hear conspiracy theories and all this. If you have any doubt. One thing I can honestly tell you Brandon’s story backed by a hundred percent fact. That’s why it’s the only one we talk about. We’ve come across. I want to tell you, and I mean this from my heart, [00:30:00] there are hundreds of thousands of Brandon stories military wide over the years. His is backed by fact.

Other people’s, we can’t verify anything, so we don’t talk about it. Okay? But if you

have any doubt about our story, this next part will tell you exactly what the, the point of truth, how truthful this story is. Go ahead.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Be. Before we get into that, I just wanna, I just wanna kind of recap a couple things. Just make sure for me, for the listeners, make sure we’re, we’re kind of tracking here. One thing that I picked up on as you’re talking I, I was never a Navy seal, but I know about Navy Seals, I know enough Navy Seals to know that they want tough, they, they want people who are tough and who are willing to push through and not ring the bell and not quit because of whatever minor setback they may be facing in that moment.

But we weren’t talking about a [00:31:00] minor setback. He had a broken leg in three places and he was still pushing forward. And so that to me sounds like the type of person that any Navy seal, if you, you ask any honest Navy Seal anyways that’s the type of person you want. Someone who’s going to not quit no matter what.

And for those people to have forced him out, essentially, that to me just sounds like that would’ve been red flag number one. Like, Hey, what’s wrong with these people? That they don’t want this guy to be in this program? And yeah, sure. Broken leg, obviously that needs to heal first. We’re not gonna make him run on a broken leg or, you know, do any of that kind of stuff because that, that’s stupid.

That, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But, get ’em healed up and get ’em back in the program. ’cause that’s, that’s the type of attitude that we want. That’s the type of let’s not quit kind of attitude that we, we want to have in the Navy Seals. But then fast forward a bit into this story, and you have this guy who clearly has this attitude [00:32:00] of, you know, a can do attitude.

A will never quit type of attitude, goes through all this different training, like you said, and he’s selling candy. And I can’t tell you, I can tell, I mean, you can tell me. But from my point of view, if I’m sitting there selling candy, knowing that I have these, these skills in, in different things, whether it’s electronics or you know, whatever, whatever the training might have been, and I’m selling candy, like a girl scout, standing outside and you know, in front of the, the grocery store or whatever, selling cookies, that to me would be like.

They clearly can figure out how to get a vending machine. Like why can’t they just do that? Why do they need me sitting here? That would be very demoralizing.

Patrick Caserta: that, and that’s what,

Scott DeLuzio: in

Patrick Caserta: that was part of what was tearing down. He had a, a shield of armor, untouchable. And to give you an example, and

I’m sorry I moved fast, is. One thing I

didn’t tell you is Brandon Lin story I told you about the broken leg [00:33:00] for three weeks that was going on. He was running 20

miles a day and doing seal training with a broken leg.

That’s why it was getting worse and why there was three places that of one place.

That’s how tough he was. And he the other thing on that thing is I want you to know and I, I have told reporters this over the past, whether or not it made it an article, I don’t know. The only one selling those PDs is the instructors.

I got news for you. Those people that killed that kid, they were selling the PDs. How do I know this? Because you’re gonna tell me that you are going, these people with little time they had off and they have none when they’re in SEAL training. Really? They were going to a street corner in San Diego.

Downtown San Diego scoring PDs. I don’t think so.

And if you read the latest story out there. You, you’ll see how it was being done, and it’s the instructors. But the I always joke around and I mean, is my life and Brandon’s military career is like Fort Gump’s story. I, the things he came [00:34:00] across. But in that command, that was how that, that probably broke his shield.

He had a little bit the demoralizing, but he made the

best out of it. And he soldiered on it was very tough. And he

Teri Caserta: he hated being called a Buds stu, right?

Patrick Caserta: They called him a budda. I never even heard that term. You know, 22 years naming. Never heard that term. I’ve been around many people that make it through seals and there are a lot of them. And Brandon made it to week three. Most of them don’t make it that far. And, the they, I never heard that term. I, I can’t believe anybody would call anybody

that, only because these people are an epitome of in shape. And then the test score alone to qualify and check all those blocks is high. And then to the physical fitness is epitome of physical fitness. And to do that, and then it is not just physical fitness. You have to know how to swim, swim far in the

ocean. They practice in the ocean every day. They would swim

3, 4, 5

miles. I, I mean, it’s incredible.

Scott DeLuzio: [00:35:00] Yeah, you’re not, you’re not talking about a controlled environment like a, your, your high school pool or, you know, something like that in a community. You’re, you’re talking the ocean, which is very unpredictable, like the currents and the waves and the, who knows the, the sea life and everything else that might be in there.

That, that’s a very unpredictable environment. And, and if you can swim in there and do it well and, and pass all the tests and everything yeah. you’re you’re pretty high up

Patrick Caserta: A and when we picked him up he had the broken leg. So he is on crutches. We go to San Diego, he’s on crutches. He has sight, his ammonia, this is common and you’ll read articles about it. Now it’s

coming out. It’s common ’cause of the water’s contaminated over there. ’cause the Tijuana River come, wastewater goes in there. And he had all that wrong with him and he was fine. I mean, meaning he was sick. But my point

is he was fine. It, it didn’t phase him until

Teri Caserta: he still wanted to go to, to where’d we go? SeaWorld?

Patrick Caserta: Yeah. Yeah. And want to go to SeaWorld on [00:36:00] crutches. Yeah, on crutches. Went to SeaWorld. And you know, and then another funny tidbit that reminds us, so in basic training. He was in there and he was in, they put him in a group with special warfare people, all the different special warfares, not just seals. And they work out a little more than the others. And when we

saw him, we go running down the bleachers, we’re getting yelled at you not supposed to do that. But we hadn’t, you know, we hadn’t seen him in a month, you know, two months.

And we go running down through the crowd, grab him. First thing out of his mouth is after he hugs us, he’s smiling away. He, he told us, you don’t know how outta shape I am because of this basic training. I, I mean, that’s how good a shape this kid was in. He was so disappointed that they didn’t work out more because he was so outta shape.

Because his workout program was leaps and bounds above that, that he had done every day. And but

Teri Caserta: that’s Brandon.

Patrick Caserta: So going back, what happened is after that guy yelled at him and I was on the phone, [00:37:00] Karski Tarkowski, he, I want you to think about this. Think of it like an airport, this giant flight line area, and all these people are stationed on there.

There’s about 14 of ’em, and their sole job is safety on top of launching these hilos. So Brandon just walks right through all of ’em, and it is let ’em go. They, they don’t say a word. I mean, they don’t say a word and he runs up to they call the person, the plane captain says, sorry for what you’re about to see, and she ignores him and he takes off running for the tail rotor. He jumps up once misses, so he does it again. All these people just watch. They don’t do anything. Nothing. They just

watch. They should have tackled him. They should have done something so. He succeeds, he hits the tail rotor and they all run away. All of them various ranks, various experience. Every one of ’em run away.

Just leave [00:38:00] him on the tarmac. That’s the kind of command he was in. And they turns out they left him on the tarmac. He went from the tarmac to the morgue. Nobody performed first aid, nothing. They called paramedics. They finally showed up, but they left him there. They didn’t bring him to the hospital.

He never went to the hospital. They forgot about him. They covered him with a blanket and forgot about him and left him on that tarmac. But that phone call, when he called me back, that person yelled into him. That’s when they told him that Brandon had died. I didn’t know this ’cause I didn’t hear what was said, but I was on the phone with them when Brandon died. Now everybody always asks me this, so answer now. No, I had no idea. Brandon was the last person I ever met that would ever take his life. I’m here to tell you that. But I

will tell you this ’cause you talked about this earlier. Unfortunately in the beginning when, you know, the story broke, took a year and we got the story out there and everything.

You know, people make comments and I read comments and I should have never done that ’cause there’s a lot of bad people out [00:39:00] there that write negative things. But I’m here to tell you, I don’t care what

anybody says. I had never met anybody in my entire life. And I mean this, I don’t agree with what Brandon did.

But what I can tell you is who in the world has the guts to miss? And then do it again. I I And yet alone, go through with something like that. That way that takes guts. Sorry. It does. And that shows what kind of person he was. When I say that is he was brave. Trust me. He made a statement. He made a statement.

He was brave. He was exposing his command for toxic, abusive leadership and abuse of power, and all these bad things happened to him. And another thing that happened to him, he never told us. We found out after the fact Brandon was sexually assaulted and we. Received a anonymous letter and explained it, and in your mind you’re thinking, yeah, the kid’s tough.

I got news for you. He was a black belt. He’s tough. Unfortunately, if six people mess with you, I don’t care who you are other than the [00:40:00] Marvel comic guys you, you’re not gonna, you, you, you have no, there’s nothing you can do. But he was exposing his command. He left us a lot of information.

Unfortunately, the command destroyed and kept it all. And the Navy covered this up. When I say the Navy, his command covered up. I’m not gonna blame big. Well, I do blame Big Navy because Big Navy should have went after all these people. And I called the CO that night when the casualty assistant officers came, were here. And I told him I want a huge investigation. He promised me all this stuff he didn’t do. Not only did he not do anything, he covered it up. And the unfortunate part is this,

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

Patrick Caserta: he could have Dwayne Whitmer is his name. And Trevor Proudy, they could have investigated this, held the people accountable for this, and their careers would’ve been intact. It wouldn’t have been perfect at first, but they would’ve been fine. Instead, they chose to cover it up for their careers. And that is the epitome of people that should be in jail and that we don’t want in the military. [00:41:00] But the kid died if the, if he was alive somehow or he would’ve never died, and they covered it up, that’s fine. When I say that, meaning at least they’re alive. The kid is dead. He deserved justice. He deserved to have an investigation other than

NCIS, making sure the method of death matched the ME’S report, as in blunt force trauma. And

Teri Caserta: suicide.

Patrick Caserta: And suicide. That

kid could have come home at any time. He was welcome home.

He could have lived a rent free, he. He could college, could have gone to college, could have been a police officer. He was getting there. He is 21. He’d been 21 for one month exactly when he died. He could have been a police officer. Any of that stuff was going forehand. Why he would give all that up to expose the command.

He really believed that he was doing the community and people good by exposing this.

Teri Caserta: And he was asking for help with everybody that he could and in his command, HSC [00:42:00] 28. And they just, they ignored him. He, he, a week before he died, he left a letter to commander Whitmer. And the standard operating procedure apparently is to slip. If, if you want the, the CO to see something, you slip it under his door and then you put it in this anonymous box. So that’s what we have a witness saying that she watched Brandon slip his letter under the door and it told him everything a week before he died and nothing was done.

Patrick Caserta: And, and Brandon took, we found this, we, we never understood what it was.

We figured it out. But he took a picture of the printer at the command, he printed it out on with the serial number timestamp. So it was a week before he died. That’s why he’d done that, to prove that the Navy didn’t know what it was. They left it, they didn’t delete it. They didn’t know what it was. We, we [00:43:00] figured it out.

It’s like, why is this printer, you know? Yeah. And he took a

Teri Caserta: picture of the screen with the

words and then he took a picture of the serial number of the computer

and a serial number.

of the printer.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. So, so that way there’s, there’s probably an electronic record of that being printed out on that printer from that

Patrick Caserta: He was smart. Yeah.

Scott DeLuzio: all that, right? So, yeah, that, that, that doesn’t, that’s not somebody in my mind that that’s not somebody who is not with their full faculties. Like they’re, you know, someone, you know, has some mental disorder or something like that and, and they go and they do something like that.

And it, I, not that I can say, yeah, okay, that, you know, that makes sense, but it, it kind of. You can kind of make more sense of it in that, that respect, right? Because something, the wiring’s off something’s wrong. I, I don’t know the technical terms, but you know, something’s just not [00:44:00] right. But with someone who had that kind of clarity to say, Hey, I’m gonna take these, these pictures as evidence, and I, I want to keep this as proof.

That to me says that they have some sort of you know, logic or, you know, they’re, they’re able to, to think clearly

Patrick Caserta: Yep. Yeah. And take you a step further. A lot of people don’t know this has never made the articles. It would be too long is why, so that you’ll hear about this. I guess for the first time there was a group of people in Phoenix that were all going special warfare and they work out together. They became really good friends and really tight friends.

None of ’em made it through unfortunately, but most of them ended up in Norfolk, Virginia. And one of Brandon’s better friends of the group was in Virginia and he was having problems in his command and he was the hardest, best worker too, was kind of ironic. It was a theme with all these guys. And he had one night told Brandon, he’s afraid he was gonna hurt somebody.

He didn’t say hurt [00:45:00] himself, he said somebody. So I got, Brandon called me concerned. I got him help, meaning I put him in touch with. What he needed to talk to. He did. He was processed out with an honorable discharge and he actually went on, the story goes, he got out, he was a dual citizen with ship with Australia and the United States.

He went in Australian military and he, he did really well. He went in there and did really well. But my point is, Brandon, witnesses a guy, get out of the military when an honorable discharge for mental health reasons, mind you. So why wouldn’t he

take that same path? So we ask that kid that, ’cause he’s been in touch with us.

He’s still in touch with us to this day. He

told us, because I’m trying to paint a bigger picture for you here. He said that they talked about that. Brandon talked to him about that, and Brandon was afraid. His command was so powerful and toxic that they would ruin it and he get a dishonorable discharge.

That’s how bad these people are. [00:46:00] We can only give you some examples, but these people. We’re the worst. And when I say this, follow me on this. There was a time, a couple years before Brandon arrived, that was the best command on the waterfront. Literally in Norfolk, Virginia. All the good people left. The bad apples took over. They were the worst. And when I say this, you have a suicide. I don’t care where it is anywhere in the military, if it’s not one of the 10 top reasons that people take their lives in this world. So one of one of ’em would be gambling, debt, debt, divorce

Teri Caserta: relationship issues. Yeah. Alcohol.

Patrick Caserta: None of they don’t

fit that. You could rest assured that the command they’re in, I is a leader in crimes, sexual assault, sexual harassment, you name it, they are the leader. Brandon’s command was ironically, this command was bad. And to add to

that, and then Terry still has to tell her part the brand,

there was a girl in that commander was sexually harass, assaulted seven times. Brandon walked her to her car [00:47:00] at night. Now, I want you to think about this. If there was military justice and people follow orders and everything in that command, why would a girl need to be walked to her car with lights and, and 50 feet out in front? She parks. What is she afraid of? I mean, what would she have to be afraid of?

You had to walk her to her car every night. You walked her to her car. This is a fact. We found out about this. We didn’t know. He didn’t tell

us. She told us. She told us. And that’s how

bad that command was. So there was red flags everywhere. A death is just the, the final thing that happens when a command is toxic and very bad.

That’s just one of the things. And you’ll have several deaths and there were there.

Scott DeLuzio: Sure. And, and, and when you feel trapped. Like you have no place to go. Unfortunately, sometimes what else is left? But to find your way out and, and unfortunately in this case, that was the avenue that he,

Patrick Caserta: he, he sure did. You’re absolutely right. And

he,

Teri Caserta: he kept telling [00:48:00] us

that everybody in the command hated him. There was not one person who liked

him.

Patrick Caserta: And, and I remember, don’t get me wrong, I remember days, especially on my first ship, that I felt that way. It wasn’t true that everyone was a little exaggeration. In Brandon’s

case, based on how they acted after he died and what they all did and how to this day, very few of ’em have come forward and the ones that need to come forward have not I gotta tell you, it’s, he was telling the truth and I, I can’t believe it. You know, Napoleon said, it’s amazing what people will do for a piece of ribbon.

A cloth, excuse me, piece of cloth, my apology,

and, these people were rewarded with rewards to keep their mouth shut. Advancement evaluations, dalessandro, just like you know, he became an officer and he was already selected for officer. When he did what he did, they concealed it. The conceal denied it to NCIS and NCS didn’t pursue what that guy did. That guy should be in jail right now. He should be in jail over that.

And he caused that death. [00:49:00] Don’t get me wrong, the LPO did so did Tarkowski, LT Spence, the counselor, all those people caused the death. And that reminds me before I

forget, tell you apart, so I someone was bothering me after Brandon died, about a month after he died.

I woke up in the middle of the night and it dawned on me. I’m like, why did the detailer cancel his orders if the command called and said that? I’m still like, that doesn’t make sense to me anymore. So I called the detail. I haven’t told him who I was. He just, I, he talked to me whether, whether or not what he believed and didn’t believe.

I don’t know. But he talked to me and I said, why in the world did you cancel Brandon’s orders? And he goes, he tells me more for it. I don’t know what you’re talking about. He looks it up. He says, I didn’t cancel his orders. He went on to tell me this. He says, I haven’t spoken to that command since Brandon was selected in September of 2017.

He said that nobody called me. He said, I received a, a message to cancel the [00:50:00] orders from the command. I never spoke to them. He said, I didn’t want to cancel the orders. And he said I could have moved him out and given him a different date. And I was

waiting for him to be fit for duty. He said, once I was told he was fit for duty, I would’ve had him out of there within a week. He really would’ve. But he never told anybody in command that line that was told to Brandon. But he was telling, you know, us. He was very disappointed because he needed, Brandon qualified for the hardest rescue swimmer they had, and hardly anybody qualifies for it. So, excuse me. He was very upset. But he said he never did that.

That counselor took it upon himself to do that, and he did that on purpose to appease the command. That’s what I mean. The command was corrupt. Big time.

Scott DeLuzio: Sure. you, you’ve been you, I, I know you’ve had something that you, you’ve been wanting to add to this as well. Why don’t you go ahead and, and kind of fill us in

Teri Caserta: Okay. So, the casualty assistant officers came and told us exactly what [00:51:00] happened and they stayed with us for a

long time. Well, they came back the next day because we were just too distraught to do all the paperwork that needed to be done. So,

Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

Teri Caserta: they opened up to us and I. What they said was, I have to let you know that when we got word to come to your house, the wording was Brandon was alive and in the hospital they said that is what they were coming to tell us. So on the way, on the way to our house to tell us just that, they saw a news clip, I guess on, on, you know, their phones or something and they pulled over and called the command. And what that news clip was is it said there was a mishap at Norfolk Naval Base. The, the [00:52:00] sailor was deceased. So when they pulled over and called the command, the Whitmer Whitmer said, all you need to do is tell the parents that he’s alive and in the hospital. And, and according to the casualty assistant officer, they went round and round for about 10 minutes, and finally Whitmer told them that, yes, that is Brandon, but you still have to tell them that Brandon is alive and in the hospital they said, we cannot and will not lie to the parents. So they told us the truth.

Patrick Caserta: And, and so that’s my point. If there’s any doubt about what happened, something else, significance to that is we specifically did not want a

press release. They leaked it to the press that Brandon died. They lied and said it was a mishap. This is the command. Did this. then that’s what they label

him.

Again, a lot of people won’t understand as a [00:53:00] striker, Brandon was not a striker. A striker is what they call a non-designated airman who never been to school. Brandon had been to advanced schools, they did that because that’s the only position that could justify selling candy. Yeah. They, he should have never been doing that.

And they knew it. And they knew they were busted because when they found out I was a retired military navy, they knew that they were in trouble. And but they told them to lie. We were fortunate these guys were e sevens and they had nothing to do with the command and they wouldn’t go for it. But that right there tells you right there, if you have any doubts about any of this, that these people are corrupt

Teri Caserta: and

Patrick Caserta: Oh

Teri Caserta: yeah, there’s more.

Patrick Caserta: And, and why is this so important to the theme is. And, and we’re gonna talk about this in a little bit. I know we are, but that’s why these people need to be held accountable because they will continue to kill. Yeah. And they will teach new people how to kill and it will never stop. The only way to stop it is to hold them accountable because you hold somebody accountable.

[00:54:00] A couple things happen. Sometimes they get away with murder. I’m not gonna deny that. However, usually they stop, okay? They’re not serial killers, okay? We’re not going down that road. But they’ll stop if they’re almost caught.

Scott DeLuzio: Right.

Patrick Caserta: Sometimes they stop, change their mo, wait till later, get more powerful, that kind of thing.

But most of the time you could put a stop to it if you stop them in their foot tracks. And that’s why you have to hold them accountable. And this is all over the place. We lose three a day active duty. We lose 22 veterans a day. And I’m here to tell you that number is low. I’m just giving you a number that is agreed upon. Those veterans,

in order to be a veteran, you had to serve on active duty. Active duty is the problem to those veterans. They were told in Vietnam to do unspeakable things. They were told to suck it up and carry on. That was the theme with Brandon. Brandon

many times, many people come forward and said, Brandon said I’m depressed, I need help.

They told ’em to suck it up and get back to work. We’ve been told this, Brandon never told us that. I’m telling you,

they wouldn’t let [00:55:00] him go to mental health nor

anybody in that command go to mental health. But go ahead. What more was it?

Teri Caserta: Oh, the we were not invited to his, they did hold a memorial service.

We were not invited. And the day of the memorial service we or they, they requested extra security at both of the Norfolk Gates just in case we showed up and we wouldn’t be able to get on base.

Patrick Caserta: Right. ’cause I could get on base and, well, so Terry,

technically, I mean, she has an ID card and, ’cause I’m a retiree, and and then on top of that, remember I told you those friends Brandon had in other commands on that base, they wouldn’t let them go.

They tried. They wouldn’t tell ’em where it

was at. They deliberately would not let ’em go to the funeral or the, excuse me, memorial service.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. So, so, so it sounds to me like you’re, you’re painting a pretty clear picture of the the type of leadership, the toxic leadership that, I mean, it, it goes beyond just selling candy, right? If that was the extent of it. Like, [00:56:00] okay, well, all not ideal, but he probably can, you know, look past that, right?

But it, it just goes to show that it’s, it’s abusing the Navy’s resources, right? Let’s face it, any sailor in the Navy is a resource of the Navy. Same with any other branch of, of the military. It, it’s an abuse of tho those resources that, that were trained to do a particular job. And that job, I guarantee you, there’s no MOS for candy cellar that, that, that exists in the, in the military, right?

So that wasn’t his job to do. But. His job was to follow orders, and he did that. And he, he went and he, he, you know, sold the candy, did the things that he was told to do you know, handed his wallet over when it wasn’t required of him to do that, but he was following orders and he, and he was doing those types of things, but all of which led to just this diminished you know, morale and just feeling like you’re, you’re trapped.

You have no place to go. You’re gonna report it up to a [00:57:00] chain of command that they all are kind of walking in, in step with this same types of toxic leadership. So why why bring it up to them and, and then if not to them, then to who? And if you, you know, where, where are you gonna end up going if.

You can’t, and then you’re gonna, you know, blow the whistle and, and bring it up to somebody else, and then you’re worried that now it’s gonna get back to you, and then it’s just gonna be 10 times worse. And so, you know, this, this picture that you’ve painted, as far as I’m concerned, like, it, it, I don’t wanna say it makes sense, you know, to, to your point Patrick, that I, I, don’t agree with like that, that route that, that he went down, but, but it doesn’t, it’s not it’s not like, it doesn’t make sense either.

And so that you know, it’s, it’s tragic, it’s unfortunate. So now I, I wanna fast forward a little bit here and I wanna talk about the legislative work that you guys have, have been a part of and, and kind of how how you guys have you know, for [00:58:00] lack of better terms, turn lemons into lemonade and you know, try to, try to make

Teri Caserta: We, we turned, we tried.

Patrick Caserta: We, we, we did try. And but it happened is the, we come to find out about the suicides. We, I was on active. I didn’t know there was that many suicides. I can honestly tell you, although you will find a history

that started around 2000, I. And I, I was still on active duty for another six years after that, but it, it was never really, you know, I, I had, I was in recruiting, I had the Navy Times, it just wasn’t talked about.

And it’s unfortunate ’cause nobody wants to talk about it

to this day. I got news for you. It, talking about this subject is important, but when we found out how many people die and we read Brandon’s letter and I, I’m here to tell you it’s posted. You can read that letter anytime. I encourage you to read it.

It’s incomplete. The command stole the middle of it. It’s two different, it’s a beginning and an ending merge together. They stole the middle. We don’t know what it said, but we [00:59:00] know Brandon and he would provide evidence and he probably had a video and they took all that ’cause they kept his computer, his phone. Matter of fact, one tidbit for you is he was laying on a tarmac dead. And he used his finger to unlock his phone. His command did this to steal all the inf evidence in there. And, and that phone, ironically, this is one of the cases, you know, in the military, they own you, they own all your stuff. You’re on their base. I own the phone when I say that. We did, we paid for the phone. We just gave him it a month before. That was his birthday. We all got new phones. We paid for the phone. He didn’t reimburse

us. We didn’t want any money. My point is, it was my phone, you called, it says Patrick Concerta, not Brandon Concerta. They had no right to have that phone.

I told them that they, they laughed at me. But the computer was the same thing. It was mine. I gave it to him and he it belonged to me and they stole everything off it. And, but anyway, he funeral, the actual funeral, that one person from his command came to it here in Arizona. The guy [01:00:00] that escorted his body was an officer that was deliberate. I got news for you. Enlisted escort, enlisted officers. Escort officers. They sent an officer because they knew that the enlisted would talk to me. And I’d get it out of them about that command. And they didn’t wanna expose anything, so they sent an officer, what does this guy do? He escorts the body. I just want you to paint a picture.

I have to command this because it’s touching to us. So when the plane pulled up and they unloading the body, the, the tire airport firefighters of Phoenix and the Phoenix police all lined up and did a ceremony. It was like touching, unfortunately the downside was that lieutenant

being there. But the he went, he wanted a ride with the funeral home.

Yeah, the, the

Teri Caserta: funeral director. Yeah.

Patrick Caserta: And they didn’t have any room. He was mad because he had to take an Uber, apparently. But and he shows up there and he wants to inspect Brandon’s uniform. And we’re like we weren’t there. The funeral director’s like, well, we’ve already changed him out of it.

And then like, the guy is mad about [01:01:00] that. It specifically states in Brandon’s letter. That he doesn’t want a military funeral. He doesn’t wanna be buried in his uniform. All we were doing is honoring his orders. We overwrote him on the military honors, but we took him out of his uniform, put him in his favorite suit, and he was furious.

Oh yeah. And in retrospect, I Why is that significant turning point? Because we think something was wrong with Brandon’s that he was afraid that she might see because there was problems in autopsy. It took like 11 days to get Brandon’s body from Norfolk to here. And I got news for you. You get people from the war zone in three days and we looked in the me report of the autopsy. It shows in there that the FBI actually intervened a little bit. We have no idea why. It just talks about it. We don’t know what they did or didn’t do. But my point is there was something going on over there. I, I can’t tell you why. I’m just telling you what happened. So [01:02:00] anyway, the next two days later, the funeral happens and the captain of the color guard, she’s actual captain, woman captain, she comes up to me and asking, where does lieutenant is?

I, I have no idea. And she’s looking for him. So the funeral director’s there, we went up to her and the funeral director says, oh, he already went back to Norfolk. She’s like, what do you mean? He went back to Norfolk. He’s, and she was, God, she was mad. It, it turns out I did not know this and I wish I didn’t know it, but all of you are gonna know about it. If you’re retired military, you get a flag too. So Terry got a flag. I get a flag. He was supposed to present me the other flag, A person in uniform. That’s how it works. They don’t have enough people to cover all that, the honor guards. They, they, they. And so that’s what the significant was. So he went back to Norfolk.

So you speak about disrespecting our son again. So, and I bring

this story up to you. It’s not to. Show up bad. The command is, I’m telling you, this was all going through our head. It was constantly, every day. I mean, we had the [01:03:00] NCIS calling us ’cause I was calling people off the phone Bill Brandon’s phone because it was Brandon’s phone asking them questions and NCIS calling me up and saying, the only reason they’re talking to you is because they feel sorry for you.

I mean, this is what we had to deal with. And so every day it was a blow

after blow. And we’re like, we have to do something about this. Okay, we, we cannot have this anymore.

Teri Caserta: No other parents should go through this, right?

Patrick Caserta: No.

Teri Caserta: And

Patrick Caserta: so we gotta do some, no

one else has. We need to do something. So that’s where we started the Brandon Act. And that’s where we mastermind, coming up with congress. We, you know, Brandon’s letter’s, a statement, his legacy saving lives. We decided that. So we wrote the Brandon Act. We literally, I kid you not, we bought a new car, we opt in the car. Terry did set up appointments okay. For Capitol Hill and we drove to Washington, literally drove to Washington and we wore spent all week.

Yeah, we spent all week. We wore regular clothes. The reason for that is [01:04:00] and you know, sneakers and everything because we, the elevators, I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, it is packed. You can’t get up and down. So we could run up the stairs and make all these appointments and we had a boy, we really did bad planning, but we had a crisscross to the Senate and the house and the we’re running around, but we could cover a lot of ground in these clothes.

A lot of people probably looked at us ’cause everybody’s in suits and everything. But that’s what we decided to do. And we our first appointment ironically was with Congressman Moulton and he was a veteran and they sat down with us and they were very interested in it. And by the end of the day, we were heading back for the day after we went to some appointments and he said he wanted to sponsor it. And so we said, okay, and then we continue on all week on appointments. The only difference was, this was another lesson learned. We were staying at a base, an outline base. I think it was Bethesda. That drive was horrible in the morning. Parking was outrageous. So we took the subway in. The subway stop was there.

So we were taking the subway in every day, coming back late. And we went door to door with our appointments [01:05:00] and other places we wanted to go in the capitol and we were trying to win ’em over. We thought it was gonna be a cakewalk. I got news for you. I have a, after I retired, I went to Arizona State University.

I got a degree in communication and political science, and I thought I understood the procedure. Well, I got news for you, anybody. You remember schoolhouse rocks. It ain’t like that getting a bill passed. Let me tell you. I wish it was like that. I actually believed it was like that. Yes.

And,

Scott DeLuzio: overly simplified, I’m sure,

Patrick Caserta: it was, I mean, I figured how could anybody say no to this?

You know, I, I honestly felt that way. And it

didn’t matter if they were veteran or not, to me, I, it didn’t matter. And it was tough. And we so we went, we had a sponsor. We had to wait till the next year because, you know, the NDA was already done and they wanted to submit it with that. So we had to wait till the following year and then Covid happened and it ruined everything like it did for so many people, I’m sure. And it delayed us. And the building, it passed the house that year, but did not pass the Senate, [01:06:00] believe it or not. And I know everybody’s gonna find this hard to believe, and I hate even talking about it, but our biggest obstacle was, the Armed Forces Senate Committee and it was the, the head of it and the assistant. And the reason being is DOD told them they didn’t want the Brandon Act. So they were honoring that. That was cute. Didn’t matter about what it said, we don’t want it. Okay, no

problem. So Reid and an Hoff went out of their way to make sure that it didn’t get on the Senate side Correct, of the NDAA. So the following year, same thing happened, breeze us through the house and then the Senate is not gonna pass it.

And Congress of Moton ran in there talking to them and he told ’em, you need this. Your staffs are failing. You’re failing. This is horrible. You need to do something. They, in front of the public view, they were forced to pass it. And so they did.

Scott DeLuzio: Okay. So tell us a little bit more about the Brandon Act. I know you guys did a lot of work legwork to, to push it across the finish line. [01:07:00] What, what exactly does that that sure. Well, it

Patrick Caserta: turns out, believe it or not, a lot of people are gonna find this hard to believe. And there’s a lot of people this surgery are gonna tell me I’m crazy. I’m not crazy. You’re not entitled to mental health help apparently, if you’re active duty. I was in recruiting 15 years and I sold everybody on free medical, and that included mental health if you needed it.

Unfortunately they don’t let you go to mental health. So what it is, it’s an entitlement program. It’s a law. It is law that entitles people and it empowers them to get mental health help. So without

Teri Caserta: retaliation and without going through their chain of command,

Patrick Caserta: right? And what it is, is it is really more than that.

Again, in summary, most people attach to mental health. You can invoke the brand act. You have an alcohol problem, a drug problem, you’re sexually assaulted or rash, you invoke the brand act, you’re protected. Period. It is the law to land and command don’t have a choice. And by going to Congress, it’s a law that, that was the beauty [01:08:00] of it.

Again, we didn’t think about that part, we just knew Congress was above the military. It just turns out you get a bill passed, it becomes law. So it, it is a law. So

Scott DeLuzio: Right,

Patrick Caserta: we we felt that’s the only way we could protect our service members. We’re losing too many people for no reason. Believe it or not, mental health, a lot of people use it. And I hate the term mental health. I will tell you that, but there’s no other way to say it. It, most people, if you have some kind of problem, you go there, four or five sessions, they get you on your journey to healing. They teach you how to heal. And then ironically, you’ll be able to help others.

You’ll learn to help others. That’s the beauty of mental health in the

process when you let it work. And what’s funny is you wouldn’t believe how many senior people in the military use mental health. The problem is. That when they go, they don’t have to tell anybody. They go, when the junior people go, you’re trapped because you gotta let them know where you’re going. And so that’s why we had to do the

branding act. We had to put a stop to it. So that’s what it does. It it and entitles them [01:09:00] and empowers them to be able to get mental health out.

Scott DeLuzio: I, I think that’s an especially important thing. I never realized that that wasn’t an option before, to just go and get, get help if you need it. You know, that seems like a pretty simple concept. If you, if you need help with something, go, go get the help. And you would think in a, in a command that wasn’t.

Corrupt in having, having those types of issues that you’ve, you’ve described you would think that you would want people to go get help so that they’re on top of their game so that they can do their job to the best of their ability. Where if they’re struggling with some sort of mental health issue they’re, they’re not gonna be on top of their game because they’re, they’re depressed, they’re anxious, they’re whatever it is that they’re, they’re dealing with, they’re, they’re dealing with that and trying to do their job.

And it’s, it’s not an easy thing to do. So when, when you [01:10:00] have when you, when you have a command that is saying, no, you can’t go do this, that to me is, is a big red flag to, to say, no, you can’t go get better. Don’t, as a commander, wouldn’t. You want the best

Patrick Caserta: I.

Scott DeLuzio: people you know, un under you.

That, that, that would be my

Patrick Caserta: I,

will tell you this, and I mean this, if I would’ve gone to mental health in

my career, my career would’ve been over. Now don’t get me wrong, I had the

luxury, ’cause I told you I moved up the ranks quickly. I just say I have an appointment. I wouldn’t have to tell anybody anything.

But if somehow somebody found out,

Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

Patrick Caserta: it changed a little bit after that. But it, it, it’s a good command will get you the help You have to remember, we’re talking about, about 35% of the commands are toxic. The other 65 are good commands and they help their people and they will encourage ’em and get them the help they need. It’s the bad commands we’re talking about, but that’s where we’re losing the people is the bad commands. And, [01:11:00] but you

are right, because I, I

mean in Brandon’s command it was like you know, I. You either do it their way and turn to the dark side or you’re leaving a pine box. I, I mean, there’s no if, ands or buts that that’s basically what it is.

So

it does make sense. It’s a no brainer. I mean, they’ll deny it and everything and say, oh no, it’s available and all that, but it it’s not, and, and, and it was never, that was another thing the Brandon Act did is mental health. Right? Now you, we have people calling us, telling us this, okay? It takes six months to get an appointment in Norfolk, Virginia under the Brandon Act.

You can use your phone

at lunchtime if you choose privately. You don’t have to tell your command either. They can’t retaliate, you don’t have to tell ’em. You can keep it private. You can go in your car, walk around the base or whatever and be on a Zoom call and do a mental health consult and talk to your mental health provider appointment after appointment if you choose to.

That’s what changed with the brand and act. You can do that. [01:12:00] And so it’s important, but mental health’s important. You wouldn’t believe how many people use it in the regular world everywhere. It, it’s an important step and it’s not what everybody thinks it is. These people are not crazy, right?

They’re going through crisis and they need help. And outside of the people that you’re around is a better place to talk to. Besides talking to somebody that’s neutral and not pro-military and not pro you, you’re gonna get to the bottom of your problems a lot quicker than any way I can think of. And these professionals in modern times, I mean, they are very good.

They know what they’re doing and they know how to help you, but more importantly, it fits the. Like it or not, most people don’t know this, but the medical of the military, their, their mission is basically to patch you up, get you healed, get you back into service. It’s the same thing with mental health.

Same exact thing, except for you might not be outta service. So what you’re going to an appointment once a week for a month or two, that’s it. You’re going for an hour. That’s it. And then you’re healed [01:13:00] or on your journey to healing. I, I don’t know, you’re completely healed, but

you’re on your journey to healing. And, but a lot of people, they go back. It’s like with suicide. You talk that term. You talk mental health, they automatically think something’s wrong with you. Go tell somebody. You’re seeing a, a counselor or a psychologist, they’ll look at you funny and even your best friend will look at you funny thinking there’s something wrong with you, dude, what’s wrong with you?

That’s not

what’s going on here.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Well, you know, I, I, I think back, you know, you were talking about how in your career if you told anyone that you were going to see mental health, your career would’ve been over because, well, that was, that was years ago that, that I, I think the attitude has, has shifted somewhat still not a hundred percent where, where we want it to be, but I think it’s gotten better since then.

And, and when you, but like you said, when you have somebody who says that they’re having all, you know, all sorts of mental health issues, the, the attitude [01:14:00] still to some extent is that, geez, something’s wrong with this guy. You know? If you ever watch even old television shows, like from the, the eighties or nineties or, or so, some, sometimes, you know, someone talks about, oh, I’m, I’m going to see a psychiatrist, and everyone, you know, kind of rolls their eyes and makes, makes a face, and they’re, they’re, they’re thinking like, what’s wrong with this person?

You know? But it’s like. Maybe nothing. It may just be like, Hey, this person’s having a tough time with something, and they, they just need that, like you said, a neutral third party to help them navigate through whatever it is that they’re dealing with. Right. And, and it’s not that, it’s not like a, not like we need to go lock people in a padded room and put ’em, put ’em in a strait jacket and, you know, shove pills down their throat to, to get ’em to, you know, be semi-normal or, or anything like that.

Like, that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re just talking about, it could be someone, you know, something as, as, as, as common as the loss of a loved one, you know, dealing with grief. Right? [01:15:00] And if, if, if you, if either one of you right now said, Hey, we went to go talk to somebody, you know, after our son passed because we’re dealing with the grief and, and that, and I, I don’t like, I wouldn’t look at you like, oh my gosh, man, something, something with you guys.

Or, you know, something’s a little off with you guys. I, I’d be like, well, yeah, that’s a normal thing people would do that because that just makes sense. Why, why wouldn’t you be grieving your, your son? You know, and, and whether you did or not, like that’s, that’s not the point. It’s just that that’s a common thing that someone would go and talk to a counselor for.

And there, there’s, there’s plenty of those types of things that are out there that it’s like, who, who am I to judge you or anybody else if you want to go and

Patrick Caserta: I agree

with you. Yep. And,

Scott DeLuzio: you know, get, get,

Patrick Caserta: just that anyone know, i, when I retired, I was in TAPS class and they had the VA come in. It was the vet center. They wrote on the board all these symptoms of PTSD. I checked the block on every one of those and I, I was in [01:16:00] war. I was told you I was a combat veteran. And I they got my attention and I started going myself.

I didn’t want to go and I started seeing them and they were good.

But to take it a step further, boy did it pay off. I’ll tell you how it

paid off is. Obviously I did have PTSD, just so everybody knows. Like I said, most, a lot of military, do you help me when my family helped me function better in the world? And it was a good thing. But to take it a step further, I could have never predicted this, but the person that was helping me along the way ended up a lot of people don’t know this next part either. So I see what Brandon wanted to join. I wanted. An independent person to talk to him to make sure he was making the right decision. And so I had him go to the vet center and he talked to, you’re allowed to do this. Meaning it’s a perk of the military being a veteran. And he talked to Brandon, and Brandon had a sound plan and Brandon was fine, clean bill of health. Matter of fact we had him talk to Brandon a year before Brandon died.

[01:17:00] Talked to him again. He was on, Brandon was on active duty and talked to him and they found him fine. He, he was fine, literally fine. Still had

plans, still had all these things tick in. Same Brandon. And but anyway, that individual I, when Brandon died, I called him and told him Brandon died. And he immediately offered help for me and Terry and we saw him and he got us through this mess.

’cause I’m here to tell you, get one thing outta this story. The worst thing you could ever do in your life is bear your own son or daughter. So.

Scott DeLuzio: A hundred percent that that is, that is, not anything that we want anyone to have to go through. I know, I know. It’s a reality, you know, given the, the military and we send, send our, our sons and daughters off to war. And unfortunately in the, the course of doing that business

Patrick Caserta: and that’s understandable,

Scott DeLuzio: people don’t come home.

And that is that, and, and I think everybody who, you know, raises their hand and, and joins the [01:18:00] military and, and. They understand that that’s a risk that they’re willing to take, right? But this is, this to me is, is somewhat different because no, nobody signs up and says, Hey, I’m gonna go serve my country under the most toxic conditions possible.

And you know, damn the consequences and, and all that. Like, it’s, it, it, you assume that you’re joining a team and that in a team, you know, you, you talked about Brendan playing sports and, you know, a lot of, a lot of other people are, are familiar with sports. But in a team, you, you have a common goal. You wanna win that game, you wanna win that championship, you wanna, you know, and you’re all working together to achieve that goal.

The defense of our country you know, defending the constitution, our, our country, our, our citizens, all that, like that should be a common goal. I don’t care if it’s a Navy or Marines army, air Force, coast Guard, space Force, I don’t, I don’t care what branch of the military you’re in, and it’s a common goal and.

You would [01:19:00] think going in that you, you can expect that from your chain of command is that we all wanna push this closer towards the goal line of, of defending this country. And when people have, for whatever reason, they have corrupted that that system then it doesn’t work like a normal, traditional functioning team with where everyone has the same goals.

Now we, now we’re, we’re serving two masters almost in, in this sense not, not to get, you know, religious or anything on, on that, but it, it, in a sense that’s kind of what it is, is, you know, we, we have our own self-interest and then we, we also have the interest of, of the Navy in this case. Right. And that they, they.

We’re competing, and in, in that case, the personal interests are gonna win out of, of those people who were in charge. And that’s, that’s tragic and un unfortunate, but fortunately what has come out of this is the, the Brand Act. And you know, those, those [01:20:00] service members who are struggling with their mental health, they can now go and get the help that they, they need.

And like you said, and a lot of times it’s just a handful of sessions that will get them back on track and, you know, give them the tools anyways to put in their toolbox that they can now use in those stressful situations or whatever it is that’s causing them you know, some, some mental health related issues.

They can now take those, those tools that they’ve been able to learn through the, the counseling that they’ve been able to receive because of the Brand Act. And, and they. With no repercussions. And that’s I think, a super important piece of all of this. So, you know, for on behalf of, I guess, the military community, I know I’m not technically still serving, but I’m, you know, I am a veteran, but I do, I do want to thank you guys for the work that you did to make sure that his, his death was not, [01:21:00] you know, for in vain.

You know, it, it, it, you know, it probably still feels that way to you guys, but something good, something positive came out of it. And it’s something that’s, that’s a, a lasting thing that’s going to be able to help service members for years to come. And that, I think is, is an incredible thing that you guys have done.

You’ve definitely honored his name and his memory by, by pushing this forward and not giving up, you know, when it, when it didn’t pass that first time. And I, I think those are the things that you know. Whatever your beliefs are. You know, in my my world, I, I believe he’s looking

Patrick Caserta: I hope so.

Scott DeLuzio: still with that big smile on his face.

You know, thankful that, that you And we’re not done yet

push us across the finish

Patrick Caserta: more to do, and

Scott DeLuzio: I’m sure you’re not. No.

Teri Caserta: going back and getting some amendments done

Patrick Caserta: and, and you know, unfortunately

one of the things you were talking about is, you know, most of these deaths are occurring stateside. Yeah. Like I said, if Brandon died on a mission, we can accept that again.

It’d be just as tragic. I can’t [01:22:00] deny that. But it’s, you can explain it.

It’s understandable. You know, people picking rank and awards over somebody dying, somebody’s a life. Yeah. I mean, I understand. If it was processed out and they picked all that to keep their mouth shut, that’s fine. I, when I say it’s fine, it’s not fine.

But my point is I can understand that more than I can understand. Somebody died here. You come forward and get those people justice and you ensure it doesn’t happen to anybody else. That’s your duty and

obligation period and

Scott DeLuzio: and that’s part of the honor and integrity that you would

Patrick Caserta: but they’re dying stateside. The other thing that happened, that mental health I told you about, now imagine this, just, I’m gonna use Norfolk as an example, but let’s just say it one time. There was 20. Counselor slash psychologist in Norfolk, Virginia to help thousands of service members. So they, conveniently, it was before Brandon died and years before he died, [01:23:00] instead of paying for all those people, they got rid of them. So they, they kept like two or three, got rid of everybody else,

reallocated that money, and then it, it, it why it wasn’t being utilized because they were not letting people go. So that was another dilemma with all this is they’ve had to rebuild and then, then, on at the same time, you have the rest of the world utilizing mental health, their record pace, and all these people are busy. I, I’m very busy. And so they have no providers and then the providers out in town are booked to no end. I mean, it was just a mess. That philosophy, I mean, I, again, that accountability factor, every one of those people that made those decisions should have been dealt with, awarded that way.

Teri Caserta: And they let a lot of them go. Right after Covid started because nobody could go into the office to see them.

And by the time, you know, every, they let everybody go like Norfolk, like he said, only had two, two psychologists or [01:24:00] psychiatrists on that entire base. And that is the largest base Navy base in the world.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And so it’s, so two people for, and I don’t know how many people are, are stationed there, but however many it is, it’s too many for just two mental health providers to be able to, to handle. And I, you know, I don’t know if they had any other staff of, of other people who weren’t, you know, maybe the, the doctor level you know, psychologist or, or whatever.

But I, I gotta imagine that whatever that number was, it was, it was not enough. And I’ve experienced it in my area around here. E even with the va, there’s, their staff is their numbers are, are not high enough to handle the number of people. Sometimes they, you know, you, you want to get an appointment, it’s, it’s five, six months out before you can get an appointment.

It’s like, that just doesn’t make any sense. You know, so it’s like, there, there’s clearly a demand for [01:25:00] this type of service. But. Let’s start filling the, these positions, these roles so that we can make sure that this, this demand is being met before unfortunately cases like, like Brandon’s, that that demand goes away.

And that’s, that’s unfortunate that, that it gets to that point. And you know, I, if it does feel sometimes like they kind of would rather the problem just take care of itself than, than actually deal with the problem, roll up the sleeves and, and do the, do the work that needs to be done. And that’s, that’s a tragedy in and of itself.

But, before we, we wrap up I know we covered a lot of ground here and, and even talked about some things that you guys haven’t like you said, haven’t brought out in, in public before. We, we talked about some of those things. Is there anything else that you guys wanna share? Either about Brandon, about his, his journey, or, or where you guys, you, I know you guys said that there’s some work to be done still.

Patrick Caserta: And to do a

couple, quite [01:26:00] a few things. Sorry. There’ll be a lot. The one thing I wanna point out is you know how you haven’t seen somebody in years, your friends, you go out to dinner, you guys always courtesy to ask about

their children. They ask about yours. You ask on it. If your friend says, Johnny joined the Army, he’s having a hard time.

You know how you let it go in one ear out the other, you need. To tell those parents to get involved and ensure that their son or daughter is safeguarded because that’s how it starts. Yeah. I’m telling you right now that that’s how you end up with the doorbell ringing. Okay. And get involved as parents.

And I’m not talking about call his command. Don’t do that. I’m talking about your son or daughter. You tell them, just talk to ’em. Talk to them. Tell ’em they’re welcome home. Tell ’em, no matter how bad it is, we’ll accept you and

help you.

Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

Patrick Caserta: Let them know that ahead of time. That way they’ll never go down the road.

They’ll never even think about it. Even like [01:27:00] Brandon did again, we had nothing to go on. Fine. He was unhappy having a hard time, but he was dealing with it. Okay. He just, he said

Teri Caserta: kept, he kept saying he had it.

Patrick Caserta: Yeah. He was dealing

with the Right.

Everybody laughed, but he was dealing with Dar Vader. Okay. We didn’t know that.

Okay. I exactly how bad it was there. So, that’s where it starts and that’s what you need to do. The other thing you need to understand about this story is I know what people say. I hear it all the time. This will never happen to me. Okay, so let’s, let’s look at this logically. So, 10 years from now, you don’t know what your son or daughter’s gonna do.

You could say you’ll never let ’em join the military. That’s fine. You can’t stop them. Okay? But that’s fine. Alright. They’re never gonna join. You’re gonna send ’em to college. Okay.

Well, so how are you gonna feel if they graduate? They become electronical engineer and they go to work for Google and they’re doing great.

Supposedly doorbell rings, your son or daughter’s dead. It’s not uniform [01:28:00] people telling you, but you find out your son or daughter’s dead. Turns out that. The people that were in charge of Brandon, one of them is the president of Google over there, and your son or daughter worked directly for them.

Remember, these people retire and become veterans and move on, get other jobs, and that person’s the same person that killed our son. How are you gonna feel that you didn’t do anything and you could have, how are you

gonna feel? You didn’t take any precautions? Trust me, there are things you can do and holding these people accountable is not gonna hurt anything because I’m here to tell you, for every CO that’s out there there are probably 50 to 60 people that will never be a co.

They’re, they’re, they don’t have, they can’t act like Jack Nicholson and all that, and they just don’t fit in. Those people are good people that could run commands very well. Trust me, better than those others. Those people are waiting and hoping to get a chance. They never will get a chance. We need to get rid of the ones that shouldn’t be there and put those people in charge. You have a better military and force is ’cause [01:29:00] I’m here to tell you. If you think that Brandon’s command was ready to go to war for us, you were crazy. They’d go, but you, they would be hurting other commands. They’d be killing people because they’re

not prepared. All those people gear ’em out as themselves and they don’t work together.

There’s no teamwork, nothing. Those people would cost your sons and daughters lives and other commands because they’re not dependable. We have to weed this out and we, the people have to do it. History shows. We, the people do it. We did it. We went to Capitol Hill, we got this passed. As

small as it is. I got news for you.

We’re, we’re heading here. I’m gonna let Terry talk about it. We have a foundation. We formed a foundation. We did not want to, we were dead set against it. We had to because nobody was helping active duty and helping these parents. And we get hundreds of calls a week. This stuff ain’t stopped. It’s gotten worse and. We’re helping people. My point is we have to work together. We, the people fix things in history. That’s how it fixes itself, is [01:30:00] we, the people, Congress does some things, and I know everybody has their opinion about Congress. And believe me, we could talk forever about Congress. There’s pros and cons to it like anything else.

But my point is when we take something mattered, Amber Alert example is the Amber Alert was created outta tragedy. The Brandon Act was created outta tragedy. Tragedy

helps America. Come on. We, I, I, I mean, you hope it’s not you, but it does help America.

But if you lost your son or daughter in an Amber alert, got ’em back, you certainly would be grateful.

You can’t deny that to that person that did the Amber Alert. You can’t deny that. And so we need to work together. We need

to talk about this subject and understand that it what goes on here. I mean, ’cause. You know, your son or daughter like myself, I, I survived the military. I believe me, I’ve been subjected to things I’ll never talk about. But the bottom line is you can survive. I wish our son would’ve he didn’t, but his tragedy can [01:31:00] serve a lot to save others. And he has already around how many people call us saying that Brandon Act saved my life. They say that on their own to Terry. She’ll tell you more about it in a second. Sorry.

And but I just wanna get the point across, talk about this subject nobody wants to talk about, because it’s the only way we’re gonna fix it. We have to work together. And again, I’m telling you this from the heart. We have nothing to gain. We never, were in this for money. Just to give you an example, our foundation, we funded ourselves.

I mean, we do get donations, don’t get me wrong. My point is we have a hard time getting any help. And to let you know quickly, we went to every VSO you can think of, none of ’em would help us to get the Brand Act passed. They wouldn’t even support us. They said we’d never get it passed.

Scott DeLuzio: Really?

Patrick Caserta: Okay. Whatever. They, they lose 22 a day and we’ll never get a pass.

Of course, they had no they didn’t wanna help. That was cute. We didn’t Oh, and get this, this was my motto. I didn’t ask for money. I just wanted magazine space, their support and help and to talk about it and promote awareness and help with the brand. That’s it. I didn’t ask [01:32:00] for money. Everybody asked for money.

I didn’t ask for no money. That’s all we wanted from them. They wouldn’t even give that.

Teri Caserta: They showed us the door.

Patrick Caserta: Yeah. The, the worst one was the gallant few. And then when it comes to

senators, I’m, I’m gonna talk about this one quickly. Is Senator Sinema, we go to her office, she says she’s gonna help us and everything.

Those people turned their back on us and didn’t help us. I can’t believe it. I she helps veterans. You’re reading this paper how much she did for veterans. Really? You did a lot for veterans. Senator, I gotta tell you, I’m impressed. We’ll never forget it. We told you we wouldn’t, God, I wish you would’ve ran for reelection.

You guys would’ve seen this on national tv. Those commercials, we would’ve had one of them about this subject. But there’s nothing more important than somebody

losing their lives. I’m sorry. We’re in a subject that nothing is more important than this because these people have room, board, money, everything. They are not living on the streets. You cannot compare them to homeless. You cannot compare them to people in poverty. These people are different and they’re serving our country ’cause they want to, and they didn’t join to [01:33:00] come home in a pine box. I can assure you that. And if they did, they were gonna do it with honor and fighting for this country they believe in. We have to honor those people and keep them alive,

and we have to do it together. So I’ll shut up there. Please listen to that again. I, I, we’re here for anybody. Our foundation helps act of duty. We help veterans, we help everybody. It doesn’t matter if you were in the military or not, but the bottom line is, we do what we can. And we’re here for you. We stand to watch for you and with you, and we always will. I’ll let Terry explain more about the foundation

Teri Caserta: and, and nobody’s alone. Nobody’s alone. We’re, we’re here. There’s a

lot of good organizations out there that they can reach out to. Most of them, like he said, doesn’t help. They, they don’t help active duty, and that’s sad. And like he said too, that’s the only reason why we are, we have the Brandon Concerta Foundation. It’s a lot of work. We we [01:34:00] support duty. Those are the calls that I get all the time is active duty. They have never heard about the Brandon Act. And so they find us. And, and yes, like he said, we do get donations and everything, but our, our mission is to keep. Are veterans and service members alive. That’s pure and simple that that’s all we try to do. And knock on wood, we have not lost one yet.

Scott DeLuzio: You know, I. I, I a hundred percent agree. You know, that’s the purpose of this podcast is to keep those folks, folks that you just mentioned, to keep them alive. You know, there’s, there’s far too many people that I’ve known personally and then hearing, you know, you talked about the 22 a day and, and everything, and we can talk about whether that statistic is right or not.

And I, I, [01:35:00] I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole right now, but I’m, I’m, I’m sure we probably share the same view on that. But

Patrick Caserta: Yes.

Scott DeLuzio: know, 22 is, is too much. One is too many. And, and I, I think as a community, the military and the veteran community, if we put our heads together, we have some pretty incredible people in this, in this community.

And, and not just the service members and the veterans, but the their, their families as well. If we put our our heads together, we can, we can accomplish just about anything. And. I mean, you guys are proving it right now. By, by going out there. And it’s not easy to get a, a law passed by by going, you know, especially, you know, just you know, I don’t want to diminish it.

Just two people going out there to Capitol Hill on your own without lobbyists and, and all that, that kind of stuff. It’s not an easy thing to do yet. You here to, you did it and it’s passed and, and people are being helped get or getting the help that they [01:36:00] need because of the efforts that you guys put in.

And that’s, to me, that’s incredible. And I, I, I want to, I wanted to have you guys on the show to shine light on, on the efforts that you guys did, but also to raise awareness that this Brandon Hack does exist and that for those service members who need the help, that they can get the help if, if they want it.

And they, they just need to know really where to go and, and who to talk to and, and all that. And you know, that’s, that’s. That’s easy, that’s a low hanging fruit. We, we can, we can guide people to the Right, right. People. But knowing that they won’t, they won’t have the repercussions from their chain of command or, or anything like that, that they can, they can do this, like you said on a, on a lunch break or something like that.

They, they can, they can get on a Zoom type call and, and just have that conversation and, and get the help that they need. It’s a, you know, a few, few sessions and, and in most cases that’s, that’s all you really need. And, and that’s, that’s awesome. [01:37:00] Obviously there’s more work to be done, you know, getting to the root of the problem of, you know, that toxic leadership in, in the chains of chain of command that you know, throughout

Patrick Caserta: holding

people accountable, holding them, holding them accountable, big time.

And the,

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Holding people account. Yep. How do we deal with that? You know, that’s another you know, issue as well to, to be tackled.

Patrick Caserta: I,

I have a, cure for that.

Scott DeLuzio: huge battle to be, to be

Patrick Caserta: no, we have several things in the world just to let you know, we, several programs and things in the work. We’re getting amendments as we told you. And we we do, we do need an angel donor or something. I can’t talk about it, but if you’ll have us back, we will, when we get to that point announced, I unfortunately, believe it or not, you’re gonna laugh, but they’re people out there that find other people’s stuff and take it and use it and make all kinds of money.

We’re not in this for the money. We’re in this to save lives. And we’ve proven that to this point. And we will stand by that We don’t

[01:38:00] like, an example is we don’t draw salaries and we won’t. Nobody does. We’re all volunteers that help with the branding act and but I will tell you this, I told Congress this, you know, some of ’em were insulted, but whatever the you take away three cos in handcuffs when there’s a suicide, three suicides.

So one day’s work, take away three of ’em in handcuffs. I guarantee you suicides will go to zero overnight. How do I know that? Because those, every co after that will be at the front door when you come into work handing out their business card with their cell number saying, you call me twenty four seven, you have any problems whatsoever.

I don’t care what they tell you. I’m here for you. They will do that. Accountability will fix this. That’s why you don’t drive 150 down the freeway.

And those few that do, I’m sure most of them get caught. And if they don’t, that’s great, as long as they didn’t cause an accident. But the point is, accountability prevents us from doing bad things.

Mm-hmm. Hold these cos accountable. You need to, and

they need to be held accountable because from day [01:39:00] one I was in the military, it never changed. That ship sank. No matter how it sank. It was a CO’s fault. A suicide is a CO’s fault and training needs to happen.

And but like I said, we have some things coming, some good things and we wanna get off the

ground that are really changing, that is not out there that no one thought of.

And it was. Just through pure luck that we ran into some experts on some things that have some really good stuff that would really benefit all of us. And it’s more than the standard stuff you hear. Hotlines are great. Love them. I, I’m nothing bad to say, but we need more than hotlines and we need more than psychologists and psychiatrists.

We need things that are available all the time that people can understand, learn early, and embrace and engage in. And that’s the way to fix this over time. So like you said together, but we really appreciate you having us and how long this took, sorry. Again, it’s a test story [01:40:00] and it you asked some really good questions and you, you were very thorough.

We appreciate that. But like I said, it it, it is all about saving lives. There’s nothing to it. We dedicated the rest of our lives to that. And we’ve had people like yourself and many others that have helped us over the years and we deeply appreciate and couldn’t have done it without them. It just was a, a long, painful journey for us.

And believe me, we wanted to quit so many times and we didn’t because Brandon, he never quit in anything and he didn’t quit it life. Like I said, read the letter. It’s a, he made a statement.

He believed in what he was doing was the right thing, and he was gonna save lives. And ironically, he proved himself right.

I mean, it’s a shame. Yeah. He had to lose his life. I’m just pointing out. He did save many lives and it will continue to forever. His name is embedded forever to save lives, and that’s what we wanted. It’s his legacy and we believe that. And we support what you do and appreciate it. And awareness is, I’m telling you, it’s huge in this [01:41:00] conversation is huge. I, I, I just knowing about the brand Act is huge. We’re going back for those amendments at the same time. The military did not implement the brand in act properly. Only 10% of the 1.5 million know about it. So there’s your problems right there. You can help with that. When I, when I say that, I’m talking about voice, your opinion to your senator, to your congress person, to your those people, your state, even

Teri Caserta: elected officials.

Yes,

Patrick Caserta: all of them voice your opinion. Again, there are so many ways to help with this, and it doesn’t require money. You don’t have to donate anything. You, you, we have people calling us every day telling us what a great thing this is and anything they could do to help. And we, we don’t ask for money and sometimes they do on their own.

Give money, that’s fine. But you don’t have to. I mean, we need people to help us get press. We need people to help us get the awareness, the

story out there. All that is equally important and that’ll require your time, but your time will pay off with, there’s nothing like saving life, I’ll tell you. It’s really a good feeling knowing you’re saving lives.[01:42:00]

Scott DeLuzio: A hundred percent. And, and that’s, I mean, I mean really the name of the game with this show is, is raising awareness of. Of resources and services and opportunities that are out there for people that maybe they just didn’t know about. And, you know, we, we all know about, you know, the VA is a resource that’s available to veterans, but there’s thousands of other resources that are available to veterans as well.

This is a resource largely geared towards active duty you know, service, currently serving, you know, service members, which is fine because it’s, it’s a hundred percent needed in, in this space. And I, I think, you know, to your point, what you were saying earlier, there’s not enough being done for those people who are currently still in uniform.

And so by having this, this resource available, my goal with this episode was to raise awareness about it and, and talk about not only do I wanna honor Brandon and his story and, and share that as well, but I wanted [01:43:00] to talk about. What it is that the, the service members now have available to them because of the tragedy and because of the work that you guys put, put into, push this across the finish line.

So, again thank you both for taking the time to come on and sharing your story, Brandon’s story and the story of essentially of this toxic environment that unfortunately so many service members have to have to serve under. And it’s, it’s something that, you know, hopefully in, in short order will be, be fixed.

It’s not an easy fix, but you know, it’s, it’s something that I, I think you know, as, as we’re shining more light on it

Patrick Caserta: I like that. Yeah, I like that.

Scott DeLuzio: disinfecting problems. So, you know, ho ho hopefully

Patrick Caserta: crossed, but thank you.

Scott DeLuzio: problem as well. So, so thank you so much.

​