Episode 1632
GOLD STAR RIDE FOUNDATION – Anthony “Token Squid” Price part 2
GOLD STAR RIDE FOUNDATION Anthony “Token Squid” Price
part 2
The episode delves into the impactful mission of Anthony Price, the founder and executive director of the Gold Star Ride Foundation, whose work focuses on providing support to Gold Star families who have lost loved ones in military service. He shares the profound personal inspiration that led him to establish this foundation, stemming from his experiences meeting grieving families during his motorcycle rides across the country. Throughout the conversation, Anthony emphasizes the societal apathy toward the sacrifices made by these families, suggesting that contemporary culture has become increasingly disconnected from such realities. He also reflects on his own journey of empathy and connection, illustrating how his motorcycle rides serve not only as a means of outreach but as a transformative experience for himself and those he meets along the way. The episode culminates in a heartfelt exploration of the emotional resonance of his mission, encouraging listeners to recognize and support the often-overlooked needs of Gold Star families.
Takeaways:
- The Kingdom Crossroads podcast features Pastor Bob Thibodeau interviewing various Christian influencers who share impactful stories about faith and service.
- Anthony Price, founder of Gold Star Ride Foundation, emphasizes the importance of supporting Gold Star families, who often feel forgotten in society.
- During his motorcycle journeys, Anthony encounters numerous families, illustrating the profound emotional connections formed during these visits.
- The podcast discusses the societal empathy deficit, suggesting that younger generations may lack understanding of sacrifices made by service members and their families.
- Anthony's motorcycle experiences are described as transcendental, highlighting how they help him connect more deeply with the individuals he meets across the country.
- The narrative encourages listeners to appreciate the value of community and to actively engage in supporting those who have suffered loss due to military service.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Email: info@goldstarride.org
Website: https://www.goldstarride.org
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Transcript
Welcome to the Kingdom Crossroads podcast with Pastor Bob Thibodeau.
Speaker A:Pastor Bob conducts personal interviews with Christian influencers from around the globe, helping Christian authors, recording artists, CEOs, entrepreneurs, non profit leaders, and yes, pastors and ministry leaders to get the word out about what they are doing to impact the world with the gospel.
Speaker A:Our podcast has been rated in the top 1/2% of all podcasts in the world by ListenNotes.com so you know your message will be heard.
Speaker A:Now here is your host with today's interview, Pastor Bob Thibodeau.
Speaker B:Hello everyone everywhere.
Speaker B:Pastor Bob Thibodeau here.
Speaker B:Welcome to the Kingdom Crossroads podcast.
Speaker B:Today we are so blessed that you are joining us for part two, what turned out to be a three part interview with Anthony Price.
Speaker B:His trade name, I guess you could say his military nickname is Anthony Tolkensquid Price.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:And he's the founder and he's the executive director of Gold Star Ride foundation where he travels the country meeting with Gold Star families.
Speaker B:This is part two of the conversation.
Speaker B:If you missed part one, you need to go back, catch up because that is where he laid out the, the basics of everything that got him going and what he's doing today.
Speaker B:We're going to do a deep dive into this and I just want to jump back into the interview.
Speaker B:Here we go back into the interview with Anthony Price.
Speaker B:Share with us.
Speaker B:What inspired you to start this Cold Star Ride Foundation?
Speaker B:How was the idea of delivering that support?
Speaker C:Well, it was that first, that first time I went for that ride with that, that and we ended up meeting that family, I was in tears.
Speaker C:Just like all those other bikers in her front yard.
Speaker C:I was in tears too.
Speaker C:And I just said, listen, I've never heard of Gold Star families before, but Gold Star families need me to pay attention to them.
Speaker C:That's just it, it just, you know, I'm a huge motorcycle enthusiast.
Speaker C:I love riding motorcycles.
Speaker C:I, it's, I refer to it as an esoteric experience.
Speaker C:When I get on the motorcycle, it's a different, I become a different person.
Speaker C:When my wife dances, she becomes a different person.
Speaker C:And you can actually watch her move across the dance floor and it looks like her feet don't touch the ground.
Speaker C:You know, it's a different level of an experience.
Speaker C:So that's where, that's how the motorcycles fit into it.
Speaker C:And when it comes to what I get to do and who I get to meet and the, the people I get to take care of, I believe that these are people who are largely forgotten.
Speaker C:And it helps me to put myself in that esoteric level once again, because I'm going to go meet somebody brand new.
Speaker C:Now, granted, you and I just met.
Speaker C:For all intensive purposes, you and I just met, and we're going to get to know each other.
Speaker C:We're probably going to become friends after this is all done.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker C:Fingers crossed.
Speaker C:Open.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:But it's.
Speaker C:It's a different.
Speaker C:It's a different sort of a level.
Speaker C:I mean, sitting here in this chair, talking on this microphone, watching my computer screen and.
Speaker C:And trying to keep my face in perfect focus in the camera.
Speaker C:All of that is me doing something.
Speaker C:And I can sit down over there and I can read a book or I can.
Speaker C:I can go pet my dogs or take my dogs for a walk, and then I'm just a person who's alive and who's just being a person.
Speaker C:I got.
Speaker C:I got all those skills, too, and I do all of those things, too.
Speaker C:I drive to the grocery store, I drive to the post office, I go to the.
Speaker C:The home supply store to get a new kitchen sink, and I install it in my sink.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And I do all of the stuff that people do, and all of that stuff is fine and wonderful and.
Speaker C:And good.
Speaker C:Well, we.
Speaker C:Fingers crossed.
Speaker C:We're trying to keep it good, but when I get to ride the motorcycle, it's a different level.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:It's a notch or two up.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:You know what the better way to describe it would be if you ever saw the movie Spinal Tap.
Speaker C:If you haven't seen the movie, watch the movie.
Speaker C:It's very funny.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:If you haven't seen the movie, it's a pretend documentary on an aging rock band.
Speaker C:The truth of the story is there never really was a band called Spinal Tap.
Speaker C:But Spinal Tap is the band that they're doing this documentary on.
Speaker C:Rob.
Speaker C:Rob, I like to call him just Meathead, the guy who played Meathead on.
Speaker C:On all in the Family.
Speaker C:He's the director and he's.
Speaker C:He's got a role.
Speaker B:I can't think of his name either.
Speaker B:Yeah, I know who you're talking.
Speaker C:Anyway, he's interviewing the guitar player, and they're in the guitar room.
Speaker C:The room is just filled with guitars.
Speaker C:They get 30 guitars and.
Speaker C:And different guitar amplifiers are scattered around the floor and stuff too.
Speaker C:And at one point, he walks over to this one guitar amplifier and he says, well, see this one?
Speaker C:All of the volume knobs go to 11.
Speaker C:And then.
Speaker C:And then the interviewer says, well, why don't you just make 10 a little louder and just keep it going.
Speaker C:To 10.
Speaker C:He says, no, no, no, it's different because it goes to 11.
Speaker C:So sometimes you're at 10 and you think you just need a little more.
Speaker C:So this one, we can go to 11.
Speaker C:We got a little more.
Speaker C:They go back and forth with this for like 15 minutes.
Speaker C:It's just hilarious.
Speaker C:It's like this doesn't make any sense whatsoever because he's got 15 other amps in there.
Speaker C:They all have different volumes, right?
Speaker C:But they all go to 10, except this one.
Speaker C:This one, the knobs all go to 11.
Speaker C:And that's kind of what it's like for me.
Speaker C:I get on the motorcycle, the knobs go to 11.
Speaker C:There's just that one extra little.
Speaker C:There's a little push to get you over the top of that hump.
Speaker C:The knobs all go to 11.
Speaker B:I mean, you mentioned something a second ago and I want to go back to that.
Speaker B:What do you think?
Speaker B:Why do you think most people don't understand about gold star families and the sacrifices they make?
Speaker C:Boy, you really want me to opine here?
Speaker C:This is what I think, and this is only what I think.
Speaker C:I haven't read it in any books.
Speaker C:I haven't done any kind of double blind studies to find out if it's accurate or not.
Speaker C:This is just kind of what I think.
Speaker C:And it's a.
Speaker C:It's kind of a big deal.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:It's a great big, huge societal problem.
Speaker C:And, and I can hypothesize what I think the cause is and what the effects are.
Speaker C:I think the effects, first of all, are that we have a generation of citizens in the United States that are far less empathetic to their neighbors than we've had in the past.
Speaker C:Maybe I'm very, very lucky because I've been floating around on this big blue marble for more than six decades.
Speaker C:And I remember a time when taking care of your neighbors was the most important mission on your daily list.
Speaker C:I don't think that's.
Speaker C:I don't think that's true anymore.
Speaker C:And I think it's true for a couple of different reasons.
Speaker C:I recently read an essay written by a 20something college student who said that she is part of a generation that does not understand how wealthy they are.
Speaker C:They think they're impoverished, but they have everything.
Speaker C:Yeah, they have cars, shoes, clothes, everything.
Speaker C:I remember I was just having a conversation with somebody a couple days ago and they said, gosh, can you imagine having only one pair of jeans?
Speaker C:I said, yeah, that's how I grew up.
Speaker C:I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker C:I only had one pair of jeans.
Speaker B:When I got a hole in it, they end up having it and they.
Speaker C:Had a hole in it.
Speaker C:And I only had one pair of shoes.
Speaker C:In the summertime I went barefoot.
Speaker C:That was my other pair of shoes to go barefoot.
Speaker C:And we had, we had our Sunday clothes, we had Sunday shoes, Sunday pants, Sunday shirt.
Speaker C:You never wore those clothes on any other day than Sunday.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker C:And this is what I grew up with.
Speaker C:This is, dare I say this, this is my white privilege.
Speaker C:This is what I grew up with.
Speaker C:I had one pair of jeans and I had to wash them on Wednesday night.
Speaker C:And I had to stay up late at night because at school the next day, right?
Speaker C:So we had to go, but I had to stay up late to make sure I got them put in the dryer.
Speaker C:And heaven forbid the dryer should break.
Speaker C:Oh man, if the dryer broke and that happened, if the washing machine broke and that happened, we had to leave a note.
Speaker C: would come home from work at: Speaker C:All the kids would be in bed.
Speaker C:Remember, there was 13 of us.
Speaker C:We would have to leave our clothes in a pile on the floor in front of the washing machine with a note on the kitchen table that says, dear dad, the washing machine broke, please help, love your son or whatever, or a simple little note like that.
Speaker C:My dad would come home at 10 o'clock and silently, he would never wake anybody up.
Speaker C:He would silently get out his toolbox, tear that washing machine apart, find a way to fix it, get it fixed, get it put back together, put the clothes in it and turn it on so that they would wash throughout the night.
Speaker C:And we'd wake up in the morning, oh, look, dad did it.
Speaker C:You know, these are the, this is what I grew up with.
Speaker C:And I don't think it was very uncommon for my next door neighbors and the friends I went to school with.
Speaker C:I think most of them had a very similar upbringing.
Speaker C:Their fathers knew how to fix stuff too.
Speaker C:Of course, I also grew up on a, in a farm community.
Speaker C:So every, everybody I knew was living on a farm.
Speaker C:Yeah, almost everybody I knew was, was they were farm kids.
Speaker C:And I, I purchased the first three cars that I owned in my life with money that I made working for farmers.
Speaker C:So maybe there was something to it about that.
Speaker C:There was, but, and then the, the, the, the other part of this hypothesis is that we now have adults in their twenties who have been experiencing video screens, their Entire life.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:We didn't have a video screen in my world.
Speaker C:I mean, we had television, but it had three channels, right.
Speaker C:And you had to watch all the commercial.
Speaker B: And they went off at: Speaker C:And they went off at 11 midnight.
Speaker B:Or about midnight, I guess.
Speaker B:Midnight, midnight.
Speaker B:Because Johnny had.
Speaker C:You had the, you had the airplane flying and the Star Spangled Banner and then nothing.
Speaker B:A test pattern for about 30 years.
Speaker C:Static or whatever it was.
Speaker C:Yeah, so we had that, that was our video screen.
Speaker C:So, you know, we just kind of learned how to juggle without it.
Speaker C:And, and I think it was the doctor whose name I can't remember.
Speaker C:I bought both of his books.
Speaker C:He was a doctor of psychology from a university in, in Canada.
Speaker C:And then he became an outspoken doctor.
Speaker C:So they fired him.
Speaker C:Anyway, I think it was him that I heard say something to the effect of children, young children of 0 through 2.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Newborn babies 0 through 2 are very, very selfish.
Speaker C:Everything is mine, mine, mine.
Speaker C:Give me, give me, give me.
Speaker C:Wah, wah.
Speaker C:I'm hungry.
Speaker C:Feed me, change my diaper, whatever.
Speaker C:From two to four, they start interacting with other small people.
Speaker C:We'll say they're like grown ups, but shorter.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker C:But anyway, they start interacting.
Speaker C:So by two, they're interacting with other small people.
Speaker C:They're interacting better with their parents.
Speaker C:They're learning rudimentary levels of negotiating.
Speaker C:Oh, I would like that toy that you have.
Speaker C:I'll give you mine if you give me yours.
Speaker C:You know that it's at a rudimentary level, but that's something that they're learning and that's something that continues.
Speaker C:That's something that I learned when I was 2, 3 and 4 years old.
Speaker C:It was easier for me.
Speaker C:I had 12 brothers and sisters.
Speaker C:I had to negotiate for dinner.
Speaker B:Yeah, anyways, that was ingrained there.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So we had a, we had a lot of that kind of stuff.
Speaker C:But anyway, we, we now have a generation or we have people in their 20s now, today, instead of learning to negotiate when they were 2 and 3, 4, they were just given a computer screen with endless lives.
Speaker C:You could die as many times you want.
Speaker C:You know, when I was a kid, you got one chance to die, and if you died, it was over.
Speaker C:It was that.
Speaker C:That was it.
Speaker C:If you.
Speaker C:Even if we're putting quarters into a video game to play the video game, you know, even at that, you only got to die three times, Right.
Speaker C:You're playing Pac man, you got to die three times.
Speaker C:That was it.
Speaker C:You didn't get to play anymore.
Speaker C:Now we have a generation where all of that has changed.
Speaker C:Everything has changed.
Speaker C:So instead of the child learning how to negotiate, they instead learn how to be distracted, and it's just a distraction.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And they never learn how to negotiate.
Speaker C:So I think that you put all that crap together and you come up with.
Speaker C:And it kind of points to the possibility of a society that has less empathy.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Than the generation then.
Speaker C:A generation.
Speaker B:Their attitude is more or less like, man, sucks for them, but it doesn't affect me, you know?
Speaker B:Yeah, there's a lot of attitude.
Speaker B:It is.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah, there's a lot of that.
Speaker C:Now when it comes to the Gold Star families, however, it's a little bit easier.
Speaker C:It seems to be a little bit easier for me to tell people a story because you have a brother, don't you?
Speaker C:Do you have a brother or a sister?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker B:Of course.
Speaker C:You know what?
Speaker C:Here's the deal.
Speaker C:Moving forward, from this day on, your brother is going to be dead in the ground.
Speaker C:That's the trade off for you to be free to have this podcast.
Speaker C:Your brother's going to be in the ground.
Speaker C:You know, and there's something startling about making that statement to people.
Speaker C:And of course, I'm not.
Speaker C:I wouldn't wish anything on your brother.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And I'm using you as a hypothetical example.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:But when I can point out a point, the picture a little bit like that, it's a little bit easier for the people I'm talking to to say, oh, so there must be some value.
Speaker C:They're.
Speaker C:They're immediately interpreting that there is some value to the notion that Gold Star families exist.
Speaker C:And then the other immediate fallout from all of that is, well, they volunteered, didn't they?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:So did Jesus.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:Jesus volunteered, too.
Speaker C:You didn't ask him to do it, but he did it.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And there's.
Speaker C:I'm gonna let you take that one.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:You get to tell everybody about the benefits of Jesus volunteering.
Speaker C:I'll take it the part of the subject where we get to talk about the military volunteering for your freedoms.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And the.
Speaker C:The truth of the matter is the United States has the greatest fighting force that humankind has ever known.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker C:Currently.
Speaker C:And it's a wonderful gift that we have so few people able to do so much to protect us, and we have recent.
Speaker B:What's the old adage?
Speaker B:We've been doing so much for so long with so little, we're now qualified to do almost anything with nothing.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's a.
Speaker C:That's an old adage that.
Speaker C:That predates the reasons that we would say something like that.
Speaker B:But tell us about your book though.
Speaker B:Why did you write your book?
Speaker C:You know, it's a funny thing.
Speaker C:I had this idea that I was going to make a documentary film about this first ride.
Speaker C:So when I, when I get the idea that I'm going to go do something for Gold Star Fam, they get the idea that I'm going to go on a motorcycle.
Speaker C:And I'm thinking I'm going to do it once, one time.
Speaker C:So I create this map and I find all of these Gold Star families.
Speaker C:Actually, they find me.
Speaker C:We figure out where we're going to go.
Speaker C:We're going to go up to Concord, New Hampshire, we're going to go to Worcester, Massachusetts and we're going to Maryland, and we're going to Iowa and we're going to Denver and we're going to Arizona.
Speaker C:By the way, do not ride a motorcycle in Arizona the third week in August or the second week in August.
Speaker C:Highly recommend you stay away from motorcycles in.
Speaker C:In Phoenix, Arizona the second week in August.
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker C:I fell down on three different occasions in two days from heat exhaustion.
Speaker B:Oh, man.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:The last day that I was there was 122 degrees.
Speaker C:122.
Speaker C:And don't give me this stuff about oh, but it's a dry heat, you know what, so is an oven, but I'm not going to stick my head in one.
Speaker B:Well, you got a ready made air conditioner.
Speaker C:Just go faster, you know, it was so hot.
Speaker C:It was so hot when I was riding across Arizona that I couldn't breathe on the highway.
Speaker C:I could feel my lungs just like they were going to, about to start on fire.
Speaker C:It was so hot.
Speaker C:I had to hold my breath until I would see an overpass, right?
Speaker C:A bridge.
Speaker C:And when I get to the bridge, I would slow way down and take as many breaths as I could in the shade.
Speaker C:And then I would hold my breath again until I got to the next bridge.
Speaker C:That's how hot it was.
Speaker C:We.
Speaker C:My wife flew and, and joined me for a day in, in Phoenix.
Speaker C:And the day that she joined me, I had already fallen down twice from.
Speaker C:I fell down once from heat exhaustion.
Speaker C:And six hours later I had, you know, a bunch of protein shakes and all the stuff that you need to, to hydrate and all that stuff.
Speaker C:I get on my motorcycle and I go to the airport and I fell down at the airport from heat exhaustion.
Speaker C:And the security comes around and say, you can't leave that motorcycle parked here.
Speaker C:And I'm on the sidewalk and going, just give me a minute.
Speaker C:I'll be fine.
Speaker C:Just a minute.
Speaker C:She said, come on inside where there's air conditioning.
Speaker C:And we're sitting inside and she comes back a couple of minutes later.
Speaker C:She says, if you don't stop shaking in 30 seconds, I'm calling the ambulance.
Speaker C:So I'll be fine, I'll be fine.
Speaker C:Anyway, we get it all loaded up.
Speaker C:My wife gets on a motorcycle with me.
Speaker C:We go down the road, we go a mile, we stop and get.
Speaker C:I snarf down to vanilla shakes at a fast food joint just immediately.
Speaker C:And then I drank two bottles of water.
Speaker C:Okay, we're going to try this again.
Speaker C:It's 122 degrees outside.
Speaker C:We're getting on a motorcycle.
Speaker C:It's all packed down.
Speaker C:It's got all her gear, it's got all my gear.
Speaker C:The motorcycle is packed as packed gets.
Speaker C:We go down the road.
Speaker C:We made it about five miles down the road.
Speaker C:And I said, that's it, I can't make it any farther.
Speaker C:And I pulled off, parked at a gas station, went inside the gas station, sat down on the floor by the refrigerator.
Speaker C:And my wife comes over to me and she says, I'm so glad you stopped.
Speaker C:I felt like I was sitting in my favorite chair in the living room with a hundred hair dryers pointed at me and I couldn't turn any of them off anyway, so this was.
Speaker C:Thanks for letting me get off on that, that little side tale there.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:So this is the ride that I'm working on and it ended up being like 17, 000 miles.
Speaker C:I made it to 44 states.
Speaker C:I met with 64 gold star families all across the country.
Speaker C:Basically I went clockwise around the country east of the Mississippi river and then across the Mississippi river and then it went clockwise around the country west of the Mississippi River.
Speaker C:That's basically what it amounted to anyway.
Speaker C:It was 56 days of solid riding.
Speaker C:I averaged 307 miles a day, seven days a week for eight weeks.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker C:And I mean that's, that's what the averages were.
Speaker C:There were, there was, I think three days in that eight week period where I just said, I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker C:I can't move.
Speaker C:I'm going to stay in this hotel room.
Speaker C:My feet are up, the TV's on.
Speaker C:I'm just vegetating because I gotta, I gotta keep something going on up here because every single day I'm meeting somebody new, just like I met you.
Speaker C:And you know what we get to talk about?
Speaker C:We get to talk about the dead person in their family.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:That's the equivalent of Going to a funeral.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker C:When I finally made it home from that trip, 56 days on the road, I finally make it home, and I spent a little time making sure that my wife still loved me.
Speaker C:And 30 days later, she let me back in the house.
Speaker C:And then I sat down and I wrote the book to just tell people the story.
Speaker C:I wanted to do a documentary movie.
Speaker C:But, like, the second day that I was home, we went out to dinner with some friends, and the friend said, skip the movie, write the book.
Speaker C:And they said, well, I got all this hour.
Speaker C:I got hours and hours and hours of footage.
Speaker C:Skip the movie, write the book.
Speaker C:Just write the book first.
Speaker C:Then you go back and make the movie anytime, but get the book up anyway.
Speaker C:The book is yours very sincerely and respectfully.
Speaker C:As you read the title earlier.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker C:And I proved that I can write it because it has my name on the front.
Speaker C:And when you look at the pictures in the back, I'm in almost all of the pictures.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker C:And I'll.
Speaker C:One of these pictures is.
Speaker C:There's actually.
Speaker C:There's a picture of my wife and I in Arizona on 122 degree day.
Speaker C:Let's see if we can get that.
Speaker C:I don't know if you can see that squiggly line.
Speaker B:Yeah, I see it right there.
Speaker C:That's the actual route that I took on that first ride.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker C:According to the book, it was 17,487 miles, 64 families, 56 days.
Speaker C:Anyway, when I came home, I wrote that.
Speaker C:That.
Speaker C:That adventure became this book.
Speaker C:So this book is all about it.
Speaker C:And I didn't want to write.
Speaker C:I wanted to write something that people wanted to read.
Speaker C:You know, I didn't want to write something that people would look at and go, well, this is kind of boring.
Speaker C:You know, I didn't want it.
Speaker C:It wasn't Monday.
Speaker C:This happened Tuesday.
Speaker C:This happened Wednesday.
Speaker C:This happened.
Speaker C:It's not like that at all.
Speaker C:Chapter one, how to set up a 501c3 charity organization.
Speaker C:Chapter two, how to get corporate sponsors.
Speaker C:Chapter three, gold star family stories.
Speaker C:Chapter four is.
Speaker C:And I'm making this up.
Speaker C:I don't know if I've got the chapters correct or not, but chapter four is Bad Hotels.
Speaker C:Chapter five is Motorcycle Breakdowns.
Speaker C:Chapter six is, you know, this, that and the other thing.
Speaker C:And I.
Speaker C:So I wrote it like that.
Speaker C:I tell people, read the last chapter last.
Speaker C:There's 10 chapters in the book.
Speaker C:Read the last chapter last because it.
Speaker C:That it will have a lot more meaning for you if you do it.
Speaker C:That way.
Speaker C:But other than the last chapter, it doesn't make any difference which chapter you read.
Speaker C:Just start the beginning of a chapter, read it to the end of the chapter, and then flip on to the next one.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker C:Anyway, we've managed to.
Speaker C:All the money from that book goes back to the Gold Star Ride Foundation.
Speaker C:I don't take any of it.
Speaker C:I'm an unpaid volunteer for everything.
Speaker C:I live off my military disability, so it's all good.
Speaker C:And even with that, in fact, about 25% of my disability income goes to the charity also.
Speaker B:Yeah, that is.
Speaker C:But you know, we, we, we do what we can with what we have to work with.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker C:And we do a lot of these, we do a lot of these to tell more so more people, more and more people can learn about Gold Star families, what Gold Star families are.
Speaker B:And you've been featured, you've been featured on Fox News and radio shows, over 350 podcasts.
Speaker B:I mean, what's the one message that you always hope to get across in every single interview?
Speaker C:You know, each interview is a little bit different, so there's a different message for each one.
Speaker C:For example, with this one coming on with you, I had a, I had a working knowledge of, of kind of the.
Speaker C:One of the things I wanted to put a lot of emphasis on was my guardian angels.
Speaker C:But I also, and, but I don't always get the message.
Speaker C:I don't get around to saying the message, the story that I want to tell, because the, the most powerful story that I tell is the story of when I was doing that long ride right before I wrote that book.
Speaker C:I, Somebody sends me an email message and they say, you got to meet my best friend.
Speaker C:She's a gold star mom.
Speaker C:That's all she says.
Speaker C:She doesn't tell me how she's Gold Star mom.
Speaker C:She said, this is where we live.
Speaker C:And I write her back and I say, set it up.
Speaker C:We'll have lunch.
Speaker C:Three days later, I'm having lunch with this woman who I meet for the first moment just when I arrived.
Speaker C:Hi, how are you?
Speaker C:I'm a weird guy.
Speaker C:I'm driving around the country on a motorcycle just to come see you.
Speaker C:Anyway, we're having lunch and it turned out to be about a three hour lunch.
Speaker C:And about an hour into it, she stops and she looks at me and she says, I just don't understand why my son would take his own life.
Speaker C:And that was my first introduction to how she became a Gold Star mom.
Speaker C:Anyway, I instantly, I just said, he didn't take his own life.
Speaker C:That was a sniper's bullet from 7,000 miles away.
Speaker C:And she immediately burst into tears.
Speaker C:And there was a whole bunch of people there, 15 or 20 people sitting around that lunch table.
Speaker C:Everybody there was in tears.
Speaker C:Everybody got it.
Speaker C:Everybody understood that, that message, that moment at that time.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Hour and a half later, I take off, I swing my leg over my motorcycle, and I turn on my.
Speaker C:My superpower.
Speaker C:My superpower is invisibility.
Speaker C:I turn it on whenever I swing my leg over the motorcycle and down the road I go.
Speaker C:And the short version of this is I was somewhere in the neighborhood of I had put 3,000 miles on the motorcycle in seven days, more or less, give or take.
Speaker C:And I check into this.
Speaker C:I call them roach motels, because I always stayed in the worst motels I could find.
Speaker C:Because we've got soldiers in the Middle east sleeping in the dirt.
Speaker C:And if they can sleep in the dirt, I can wear red to remember everyone deployed, and I can sleep in a crappy hotel.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker C:And I check in on my email, and I got an email message from the best friend of that Gold Star mom that I just told you about.
Speaker C:An email message was very short, right to the point.
Speaker C:Didn't go on with a whole lot of this, that, or the other thing.
Speaker C:And it just said, your visit here was the greatest thing could have ever happened.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker C:Because later that day, she went home and tore up her own suicide note.
Speaker C:And I, I, I remember when I read that email, I just, I couldn't believe it.
Speaker C:I, I was, I, I, I, I just, I did the only thing I could do.
Speaker C:I was completely alone in that hotel room, and I just sat there and wept for about 20 minutes.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because anybody who thinks that I'm just riding around because I like riding around, it's only a teeny, tiny piece of it.
Speaker C:I'm riding around because of that email.
Speaker C:I'm riding around because of that.
Speaker C:And to reinforce the notion that I'm doing something that I'm supposed to do.
Speaker C:There are a lot of these kind of stories.
Speaker C:I'll just tell you just one.
Speaker B:Hey, folks, Pastor Bob here.
Speaker B:We're all out of time for today's portion, part two of this great interview with Anthony Price, founder of the Gold Star ride Foundation.
Speaker B:And if that didn't touch your heart, I don't know what will.
Speaker B:I mean, it choked me up just listening to it.
Speaker B:And wow.
Speaker B:That's all I can say.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:Drop down the show notes, reach out to Anthony, support his foundation, click the links, go through, give a donation to this, this Foundation.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:They're really doing a terrific work.
Speaker B:But be sure to come back for the very next episode.
Speaker B:Part three will be concluding our interview, and you do not want to miss what he shares next.
Speaker B:Amen.
Speaker B:It's just gonna amaze you.
Speaker B:I mean, you're just gonna give God praise for what we're gonna discuss in this next episode.
Speaker B:Until then, it's Pastor Bob Ryan.
Speaker B:Be blessed in all that you do.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Kingdom Crossroads podcast.
Speaker A:Please subscribe to our podcast so you can be notified when another episode is published.
Speaker A: interviews and: Speaker A:To share their messages with the world, please visit our website@www.podcastersforchrist.com.
Speaker A:that web address again is www.podcastersforchrist.Com.
Speaker A:for more information, until next time, Be blessed in all that you do.
