A Veteran reflects on PTSD and Politics.

Join Laura Gassner Otting as she hosts this week's episode of LGOtv with special guests, Jason & Diana Kander.

Jason Kander - Veteran. Little League Coach. Recovering Politician.

President Barack Obama - in the final interview of his presidency - was asked who gave him hope for America’s future, and the first person he mentioned was Jason Kander.

A former Army Captain who served in Afghanistan, Jason was elected to the Missouri state legislature in 2008 and as Missouri Secretary of State in 2012, making him the first millennial ever elected to statewide office. In 2016, while Donald Trump was winning Missouri by 19 points, Jason nearly unseated a Republican U.S. Senator.

In 2017, he founded Let America Vote, a national campaign against voter suppression. His first book, Outside the Wire, became a New York Times bestseller the following year.

Jason is the President of National Expansion at Veterans Community Project, and the host of Majority54, one of the nation's most popular political podcasts. His memoir, Invisible Storm, is due out July 5th.

He lives in Kansas City with his wife Diana, their son True, and their daughter Bella.

4:19 “You have what I have, you have the natural.” - Barack Obama

7:28 I was denying my PTSD and was saying to myself: I had meetings, that doesn’t count as combat.

11:30 My M. Night Shyamalan twist to the story.

14:31: I learned how to triage threats and stress in my mind.

18:34 PTSD is applicable to a lot of people in different situations - not just those in the military.

24:39 You can’t see the picture when you’re inside the frame.

30:04 How many people are in jobs where where they have PTSD and all they get taken care of is not the treatment for it, but that it’s removed from their record.

32:14 One in five Americans have experienced trauma.

34:32 People write the book that they needed during a certain time.

37:58 As you go through the story chronologically, what we didn’t do was used language that we learned in therapy.

41:32 Can you be post PTSD?

43:00 You realize the voice inside your head is not your real voice.

48:20 The story of my son True and the dollar.

Links:

instagram.com/jasonkander

twitter.com/jasonkander

https://twitter.com/dianakander

https://www.instagram.com/dianakander/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-kander-406308a/

https://amzn.to/3OfPwbY