brian: sherman gillums, jr., what is your job? sherman: i am the executive director of paralyzed veterans of america. brian: what is it? sherman: i empower veterans who have suffered catastrophic disabilities, to help them find their way back into life. him him him him it is great work because it reflects my own experience. that's what i get up and do everyday, empower people to help us carry out our mission. brian: how many paralyzed veterans are there that you serve? sherman: we estimate about 60,000 in this country, most have spinal cord injuries, but a number have multiple sclerosis, lou gehrig's disease, there is spinal cord dysfunction. the common experience is the profound effect that spinal cord dysfunction has on just about every bodily system. we are bonded by that experience. it is pretty unique in terms of the impact it has on our lives. we are sort of a core within the veterans population. as brian: i read that the veterans that paralyzed veterans of america was established after world war ii. is it a government institution now? sherman: it was started as a club, a membership organization. but it was about self-advocacy

because you had other bigger veterans service organizations of for a while that they were not advocating for the unique needs of veterans in that era. we are talking about things like equal access in society, research. you would die in 18 months if you had a spinal cord injury back then. in fact, george patton was a war hero, but he died of a spinal cord injury in 1946 because the medicine and research have not caught up with the desire to live with that injury. over time, that band of paralyzed veterans grew into what is now a 76-year-old organization, member led advocates who look for other paralyzed veterans and pulled them in and take care of them.

brian: where does the money come from? sherman: 100% from individual donors and corporations. we don't take government funding. him that is a struggle. him we have to deliver results. we have to have impact, and we are proud of that because we do have impact. because we are free from government funding, we are not bound by those relationships or having to deal in that way. we can be the opposition, and truly advocate for our members because we have independence. brian: what year did you join the marine corps and why? sherman: i thought about it, i was probably a sophomore in high school. whoever did the advertising was looking for me. i think back there it was a dragon with the marine in dress blues. the sword. brian: where were you? sherman: buffalo, new york. i was smart enough to go to school but i did not think that

was for me. i wanted to get out of buffalo and see the world. i loved the uniforms, but i wanted to be a military police officer. i'm not sure why i have that fixation early on. i wanted to do that, and i felt the marine corps was the path because of the reputation of the discipline. i joined on my 17th birthday, my mother had to sign the papers for me to even talk to the recruiter. i was pretty certain the young age this is what i wanted to do. brian: what year was that? sherman: 1990, i joined boot camp right after high school. brian: what was your experience in the marine corps like? sherman: i grew up in a single parent household, my mother was the father figure and the mother figure, but the marine corps became that father figure. i gravitated to that instantly, i love the discipline. i love how hard it was, it felt like something i needed to earn. it took a lot of pride in the

difficulty i endured to get that uniform, that title. but it fills a hole for me in my life. i think to this day i a lot of what i am to that early experience of embracing the marine corps as a father figure, embodied in drill instructors and mentors i had in the early years, and a lot of my judgment today, the way i view life, it began in those days through those people. brian: you mentioned drill instructors. they have somewhat of a reputation for people outside of the marine corps, tough guys. you ended up being one. how did that happen, and what year in your marine corps time did you become a drill instructor? sherman: i went back to paris island in 1997, so seven years later. it was a choice i made. i was a sergeant in the marine corps, and that is about the

time you have to decide what you will do, the recruiter option, become a security guard, a drill instructor. that is to give you a little diversity in your career. i said, i want to go back and be that person i admired. that is exactly how i pattern myself. i had a great set of drill instructors as a recruit. i wanted to emulate them. because i knew i wanted to emulate them. because i knew the impact it had on me, i wanted to do that same thing for a lot of young men who probably shared my experience. i fancied myself as being that mentor and example that would shape their worldview, and the choices they would make later in

life. it is an eclectic mix. you think of the marine corps as type a jocks, but you get the nerds, the gangbangers, the loners, they are all looking for something. that's why the marine corps works, it get you that identity that everyone can get behind. brian: what was your approach as a drill sergeant that you decided to take because of the drill sergeants you might have had in the past? did you have any rules for yourself? sherman: one thing i took for my senior drill instructor, you have to be an example first. you don't ask anybody to do something you're not willing to do, and to do it at the same level of excellence. you can't have a bad day, you have to be ready. i went into every contact with my platoons to be that model of perfection as close as i could become. of course, we are all fallible,

but when you're on a run, you don't show weakness. and you are consistent. that is one of the secrets of being a good disciplinarian, you are consistent. don't go too far in any one direction, expectation does not waver. i think recruits appreciate consistency in the demand for discipline. i tried to emulate that as much as i could. brian: what do you think happens to an individual that comes out of the civilian world and who goes into the marine corps and it is a tough situation with the discipline? what are the kind of things that happen to people? sherman: you get tested along him all of your vulnerabilities. everyone has something they are not going to be good at. i don't know of a single recruit that was perfect at anything, everything, marksmanship

swimming, running, being able to , take stress. a lot of recruits would wrestle with things they brought to boot camp. you could tell the guys that did not have a lot of good parenting but wanted something better . they just did not know how to achieve it. you actually develop these sort of one-on-one engagement with these young men, even though there are a lot of them. you try to figure out what is that thing you are going to overcome? for me it was a dad and wanting that completeness. but i think everybody finds that one thing they need to overcome, whether it is being overweight youot the fastest, all get the same uniform at the end. it is a true meritocracy, but you all at the end of it, you of all achieved the goal and you get uniform and the drill instructor shakes her hand. that means everything, because you have overcome a demon or something personal to get there. brian: what was your toughest moment in boot camp? sherman: the toughest moment in boot camp for me or for anybody?

brian: from what you have observed? sherman: the realization that you made a choice you probably regret in that first week. i think you realize you stepped into something very serious, these are usually 18 to 22-year-olds who have never taken anything serious in her life to this level. once you get there, you are not a prisoner because you could leave. you can quit, but there is something inside of you that compels you to tough it out, it comes at a cost. you lose your sense of yourself. it is chaos, i am isolated, i feel alone, i don't know these people. at the same time, you understand you are going through a metamorphosis, you are there to be changed and transformed and this is what it takes. it takes understanding that this is what marines do and how they are created. you are being pounded like a diamond from a piece of coal.

but that is a tough process to get through in the beginning. but if you can endure that, you will make it. and it's just a matter of getting through it. brian: what percentage don't of recruits don't don't make it? sherman: it fluctuates. depends on the needs of the marine corps. when i was a drill instructor, we undertook a concerted effort to keep recruits, not drop as many recruits. it was probably about 10% of the platoon level. if you have a 60 man platoon, you will lose 6-10, something ike that, but in some cases, had one kid who was really overweight but was really determined, and i decided to keep him. by the time he graduated six

months later, i did not recognize him. that is the real roi. you want to see somebody really appreciate the change and transformation. while some instructors were quick to get rid of the weak ones, i tried to hold onto the ones i thought had heart. brian: when did you leave the marine corps? sherman: 2002. brian: what happened in 2001? where was your accident? sherman: it was in 2002, at camp pendleton. february 20. the day began pretty neat. i was training for the los angeles marathon, and we were in california on the base with an olympic medalist the day i got in the crash that paralyzed me. we were training with the pendleton running team and i was finalizing my affairs because we were getting ready to deploy to afghanistan. so i had a lot going on.

and it was, you know, sort of an inflection point in my life. i left the base. brian: southern california. sherman: san diego, the oceanside area. brian: near where richard nixon used to live. sherman: yes, a big base there. i got in my car and i left the base like i do all the time. i call it a freak accident because there was no rhyme or reason for how it happened. a truck, a semi truck got cut off by a guy who's worked in swerved in front of the truck, i guess he missed his exit. i only know this because i read the reports. i do not recall any of it. he cut the truck off, the truck swerved and i swerved to miss the truck and lost control and my car flipped three times, landed on its roof. that was the story, according to the report i read.

i was medivac-ed. repaired my c4 vertebrae, and i woke up about three days later at scripps memorial hospital, and that was the new chapter. brian: were you married then? sherman: no. brian: what was your first thought when you woke up? sherman: my first thought was i cannot breathe. why can't i take a breath? i wasn't sure what happened to me, but i was on a machine and i did not know i was hooked to it until i try to take a breath and i heard it slow my breathing down. i tried to take another breath and it stopped me. i saw the connection, felt the connection through the breathing and i thought, i'm going to suffocate. i don't know where i am or what

happened, but i am going to suffocate because this thing is stopping me from taking a deep breath. that was my very first thought. the next thought was, how did i get here? brian: was there anybody you knew near you at that time? when you woke up? sherman: i think it was in the middle of the night and there might have been a nurse who passed by and i tried to yell and i couldn't because i was intubated. i remember he stopped, looked at me and then walked away. i thought, i'm going to die, this guy does not realize i am getting ready to suffocate .ecause of this i must have passed out after that. i don't remember too much until i was awakened again by the surgeon, who explained, and i am under morphine and all kinds of medications, who explained i have been in an accident and i accepted it. i am a pretty stoic individual,

and it may be the way i was raised, and the marine corps. but i wanted to know details. what happened? did anybody else get hurt? where am i? i did not get a whole lot of that until later. but my brain was alive and firing off. my body was not connected. i was in two different senses of myself. brian: did you ever meet any of the people involved in the accident? sherman: i did not, i did talk to a police officer who arrived on scene first, a first responder. he gave me a brief explanation of what he saw, and then took down my story. he had to get details for my point of view so i gave him what i could remember. but i never did, i would love to do that, but i don't know their names. i would not even know where to look. i'm not sure if it is in the medical records or not.

brian: who was held as being at fault? sherman: the driver of the car that cut off the truck was at fault. i found out later he did leave the scene but turned himself in a day later after he got an attorney. he was an out of work actor, a smalltime actor, nobody famous. that was about it. i think i wanted to detach from the situation by not knowing too much because then i'd hold it against this person and i didn't invest time. brian: how long were you in the hospital? sherman: the first hospital, 11 days, which is about on average to stabilize. i got transferred to the v.a. medical center in san diego for five months and patient rehabilitation. brian: when did mom find out? sherman: either the same day or

shortly after. a lot of my family was called. my family flew in that week to see me. i had family in california already, so they gave her a lot of details. it was pretty tough, because i am her oldest son. i probably had seen her just about a month before, and my sister two days before that. i was upright and walking around, and then here i am in this position where there is a lot of uncertainty about how this will turn out. it really did break their heart. it probably hurt them more than it hurt me because they could not control anything, they do not have information. it left a scar that i think runs pretty deep today. brian: a couple of weeks ago you

made a presentation in front of a group telling them the story of pain and all that. what was the group? sherman: it was the paralyzed veterans of america health summit that we put on every year. this may have been our seventh year the group was about 900 spinal cord injury professionals who work with spinal cord diseases and dysfunction, therapists, doctors, nurses, social workers, anyone who would touch that population. we have this once a year, it is the largest in the country. it is also mostly employees of the department of veterans affairs. it is a convening of that specific group of professionals. brian: we're going to show a 30-second clip. it may be redundant, but let's watch. you have a technique you use in order to get your tengion that we will show. sherman: close your eyes for a moment and stretch -- close your

eyes, i see you. [laughter] sherman: trust me, empathy. and i want you to stretch your imagination. [crashing] sherman: open your eyes. that is how fast it happens. in a blink, no warning. brian: the reaction of the audience was dramatic. did you expect that? sherman: i don't know what i expected. i think i just wanted something different, something to register that these people you are caring for were not born this way, they did not just happen to fall into your care. something bad happened, and maybe the sound effect, maybe that would help that. i wanted something different to register, to set the tone of what we would talk about. brian: you talk about empathy and compassion. discuss that a bit.

sherman: i don't think there's any doubt that most providers are compassionate and how they do their work. the point i made was compassion is about healing. you are healing these people, you are trying to release pain. empathy is different. it is difficult to empathize with people you don't immediately identify with. when you are a doctor or nurse, i found in my experience, they don't immediately empathize or understand what it feels like. you are relieving pain, but do you understand, some of the things you say makes a difference. i talked about how my doctor told me for the first time i would never walk again, very callous. it lacked humanness. i said to myself, would that dr. want to hear that news that callously? would you want that information delivered that way. i realize that maybe that is the

professional way, to stay detached, but that was not helpful. it did not help me see him as a healer. it made me mad. it's the same way you find out you have a cancer diagnosis, it is just, you have cancer. you are a healer on more than one level. when you are telling somebody news that bad come how about -- you have some, you know, you are talking to a human being, not an object. that plays out when you are in care for a long time and in rehab, you see too many instances of that. and because i work with them now as an advocate, i point out to you are dealing with a world war ii veteran, you are mad, you are a nurse, and this guy has probably sacrificed more than you ever will for this country. have some empathy, what if this would your grandfather or dad? that was the tone i wanted to set. i did not want to give them a

tongue lashing. i wanted them to know i appreciate the path they chose, but the lack of empathy is why the v.a. found itself in the position where it is now being challenged in terms of its purpose and whether we need to have this system of care as we know it today. brian: here is you describing being paralyzed. [video clip] sherman: at this point, stop moving. this side of the room, you are quadriplegics, stop moving. please. this side of the room, you are paraplegic, you are the lucky ones. you cannot move, bear with me. tches,ose

because you can't. you cannot move, you're paralyzed. you have to accept it. over here, you can wave your arms and scratch but don't stretch her legs because you cannot. brian: when you woke up in hospital, how much could you move? sherman: nothing. when i woke up, i could move my head, i was in a full body collar, but i could not feel my body. it is a very surreal state of being. the only thing i could compare it to that would make sense to someone who does not know what it feels like, if you stood at the edge of a cliff with your toes hanging off and you leaned your head over. one push, and you go over. that is what it feels like the to lack the connection to your body. it feels like i am going to fall any moment and somebody is holding me up, but i feel like any moment, a gust of wind will push me over. that does not even adequately describe it, but there is no real feeling i can analogize for the able-bodied world. it feels like that, you will fall over at any moment.

brian: how much pain did you feel? sherman: none at first. you can't feel anything. there is no pain there. brian: are you saying in the car or in the hospital? sherman: i would say the first 10 days, i could not feel anything. i was on so much morphine at the time. the pain is just the uncertainty, the anxiety, and the fear. and the real pain does not kick in until you start to heal and the condition resolves itself and the nerve pain begins to creep in and you start to realize, i can still feel my body but now it hurts. i don't know if you have ever had frostbite, but it is a pretty bad condition, imagine your whole body feels like that, pins and needles and it does not stop. and then of course if you have joint problems with shoulder rotation and all of those things, all the exercises and

pushing the chair and those kind of things. brian: what did happen to you physically? sherman: the spinal cord injury itself was incomplete. that is hard to explain for people who don't understand what that means, but you have a complete injury where the spinal cord is completely severed, and you have incomplete where it has been damaged, but not severed. that causes a paralysis, because of the celll death. the cells don't get oxygen so they die. that makes it permanent, but only partially. so even though the injury happened here -- you had christopher reeve lose just about everything. he had a complete spinal cord injury. but it is different for everyone. certain parts get spared. in my case, i was considered an incomplete spinal cord injury at a certain function level, i can move my arms.

i can move certain muscles below the waist. i cannot move them, but i can feel them. you have sensory but not motoring. so it is this sort of patchwork of things that work and don't work and it differs on the individual. brian: how many operations did you have? sherman: just one to repair my spinal cord. i was fortunate. brian: what's the worst thing someone can say to someone who has had a spinal inury or any injury and you spend all that time in a hospital, i am sure you have heard it. sherman: the worst thing i hear is that maybe one day you will walk again. maybe you will get in the gym or god will perform a miracle -- it is not the intention behind the words that make it bad, it is the fact that i am fine with how things turned out. i'm having a pretty good life, i

got married, i have a child post-injury. i am doing fine. i have a full-time job. there is a perception that there is something more or something wrong with me from people who don't understand that sometimes you accept your condition and move on. it's not the walking that bothers me. maybe it's not having full manual dexterity or other functions, but that always bothers me a little bit, although i understand why somebody would say it. i think that's probably the one thing i would rather not hear.

brian: back to this event you have for the 900 people who work in this kind of world helping people. this is about 50 seconds, and this again goes back to the actual moment when the accident happened. [video clip] sherman: while you are sitting there in newly paralyzation, the next sound you hear after the accident you suffered, it is not a chainsaw or lawnmower, it is the jaws of life. [motor] sherman: your car is cut open like a can. the things you remember are the smell of twisted, burnt metal. it will haunt you for the rest of your life. everytime you have that smell. your body is extricated from the vehicle, and the last sound you will hear before going completely unconscious is this. [sirens] sherman: then it fades to black. brian: did you have that same experience? sherman: i imagine i did.

because i was conscious. according to the records, i was able to give my phone number, where i worked. i am aware the jaws of life were used. i don't know if i pieced it together mentally. the body goes into protection mode where the brain does things to protect itself from shock. and i probably was in shock, so i think as i understood what happened, i pieced it together. i imagine that it's the experience, but cannot say i recall it after the accident dud. brian: the spinal injuries you deal with all the time and especially people who have been in combat, what do they look like? what is the difference between what they got and what you got. when i became an advocate, i got to see those folks returning from afghanistan and iraq.

my first case was a young marine who shot himself in the stomach because he thought his comrades were trying to kill him. he had some pre-existing mental issues. that was one case. there was another kid who was blown up by an iud and was paralyzed. it becomes such a profound state of being that i cannot compare it to what i went through. these guys carry so much more because they have a survivor's guilt. a lot of times they had friends the disabling incident and they carry that with them. a lot of them, if they have a traumatic brain injury, that is

a challenge unto itself. definitely saw a big difference in the way life has changed when you are in a car accident versus a situation where someone tried to kill you. and you have to bring that back, then rehabilitate with all your family. so i got to appreciate through that experience with those individuals that it is pretty profound, the differences between the two ways to become injured. brian: did you get any sense of what impact it had on those 900 people when you did this presentation and had you done it before? i gave one that talked about the patient experience. this one was heartfelt. it was about me, the sounds, the descriptions, but feedback i got was we needed this because i know what the v.a. is going

through. i deal with the secretary and president and all these people who talk about what the department of veterans affairs is and should be. i speak from a lot of dimensions about this problem but in that room i am trying to tell them, this is the problem. this is what i see from a perspective, a patient's perspective, from an advocacy perspective. you have to emphasize that will make it the ideal provider for veterans who have gone to combat and sacrifice. to a man and a woman, they appreciate this wake-up call that we gave them at the event. brian: one more clip from your presentation. this has to do with what it was like when you woke up in the hospital. [video clip] sherman: the first sound you hear when you wake up. [breathing machine]

sherman: this is what it sounds like to be maintained by a machine. that is what woke you up. these are the next set of sounds that will haunt you for the next few nights as you try to figure out what happened while starring in the dark. brian: you have been in both private hospitals and the va hospital. do people who are working there know what it sounds like, all the noise in the background and can anything be done about it if you do not like it? sherman: i don't think they know because when you say they, the staff, they are the ones making the noises. , when youear laughter

state ofe lowest mystery you can bn and you hear people laughing in hallways and caring on and you hear people , is itg in the hallways happy, sad? it is a cacophony of confusion. because you're paralyzed, you already feel like you have given up control. it is usually in darkness it is more pronounced and it does not stop until you fall asleep. i am sure everybody means well. no one means to make it bad. that is just the way hospitals are. that is why i prefer not to be in them, to be frank about it. but i think that, the experience for me, the noises is what i

took away from that experience. brian: you found yourself in the white house right next to the president of the united states. we will watch this and ask you about it. [video clip] pres. trump: this is called the choice program improvement act. it speaks for itself. this bill shows it improves the veterans choice program so that more veterans can see the doctor of their choice. we have made a lot of strides for our veterans. these are the most incredible people in our country as far as i'm concerned and they have not in taking care of properly. brian: is that correct? in some cases, too many cases, that is correct, but in many cases, it just depends on the situation. there are some hospitals that are part of the va system that are great, but in the cases you hear about there were egregious

instances where veterans were not taking care of properly. we have to fix that. brian: what was it like being with the president? we were there to get business done, so we don't get enamored by the moment. you are the leader of this country. what are you going to do to fix this? he is a public servant before he is anything i looked at it as . though it was my opportunity and obligation to speak for men and women who are paralyzed and have never had this audience. so i felt more the weight of that responsibility more than anything. afterwards you kind of egg exhale and say this is the white house and the president, but first you have to speak for the people you represent. brian: and what did that act do, or will it do? sherman: well, this act was to continue the veterans choice program.

it is pretty controversial right now because there is no real reliable formula for how to fix what is going on at the v.a. in some instances. this in proved it in some ways by taking out some of the red tape. there were some accountability measures. this was the first step towards improving at that time what was known as the choice act. brian: what would you tell the theident if you had opportunity of everything you want done for paralyzed veterans? sherman: i did get to tell him in a meeting before that. what i did tell him is that you have a lot of changes occurring and everybody has different ideas about what is best for veterans. don't forget that there are veterans who have suffered catastrophic disabilities.

vulnerable, most and they are relatively small, but if you do right by that population, you will be able to fix just about everything else. the problem starts with those who need the most from this department. and if you can get it right, i promise you it will bring greater things later. whether he took it to heart or not, i don't know, but since gainsime we have had good games in terms of investment in what are known as foundational services. he authorized the hiring of 800 to 1000 workers in those specialized care systems. most veterans can get pretty v.a. are outside the the

the secretary has directed 5% of hospital budgets needs to be invested. this was while we are talking about expanding care to the community. most veterans can get pretty good care outside of the va but there are things va does well. you cannot outsource it. you have to invest in it. i think we are going in a good direction. brian: when you have hundreds of v.a. hospitals and 180 billion and a budget, how do you keep compassion and empathy in that large of an organization? sherman: that is our purpose. we have to be intelligent advocates. we have a presence in those spinal cord injury centers and as long as we do not forget our purpose, which is to speak for them. it is not about having access to

the president or the v.a. secretary, it is is about the individuals who give us our purpose. we are doing our site visits .ere it we provid we provide reports to the secretary. we speak directly to the patients. you listen to the patients. brian: if you go into one of those spinal care centers, what do you see? sherman: we see everything. realize the model center, so every site visit is a comparison of that center to what we consider the model. we start with a discussion with hospital leadership about why we are there, what happened last year and what changes are taking place. we visit the unit itself. athave architects that look the layout, barriers to access. we have nurses who are experts

in the actual practice and what should be happening clinically. we talk to the different disciplines that are part of the spinal cord injury team. and we talk to the patients. i tell every hospital director, there are three questions i ask that tell me how good is the hospital. how is the food? if it is cold when it is given to patients, you are probably understaffed. how is the cleanliness? that helps us understand the morale. the final question deals with the nursing staff and how responsive the nursing staff is to your needs. when you hit that call switch, does it ever go unanswered? how is it on weekends? how is it at night on gearing nightshift? those three symptomatic indications of the efficiency of a hospital tell me a lot. i start there. from there you can identify

understaffing, a leadership issue, whether there are equipment issues or injury issues, or just morale overall. brian: what would be the difference if you had had that accident this year versus when you had it in 2002? in the way you would be treated in a va hospital, or any hospital for that matter. sherman: the difference today, certainly there have been gains in medicine. responders have a different protocol. i got the steroid shot. i think that was found eventually to not be as effective. there are cold therapies now used to treat on the scene. there are also different rehabilitation options. you have different machines now that stand you up or do you have different medications that make life a little bit easier. you have a broader range of options.

i guess that is a question i would have to explore by taking a look at how different things are than they were before. i have forgotten my own patient experience. i think more about how we can maximize progress for today's veterans. even if i didn't have it years ago, i want to see that progress continue. brian: what is happening in iraq and afghanistan to the spinal cord injury situation? are they going up, down, or du have that measured? sherman: surprisingly a lot of folks assumed there was a great deal of spinal cord injuries in the recent conflicts, but there haven't been. the body is protected a lot better. in fact, i know of two or three cases where the service member spine, onerough the right to the neck, and he walks today because of the battlefield

medicine and how efficient it is. they get you treated, stabilize, then they get you out of there. they get you back in the states within 48 hours. before, if you did not survive these afflictions, you were stuck somewhere. maybe in germany, and not progressing. i think about 250 total we have counted, and these are the dod numbers, of actual spinal cord injuries, only about 250 to 300. brian: what do you think about the way congress and the president deal with veterans overall, just your different feeling, and the way the public treats it and how much money is being spent? sherman: today, the money is there. it is how we spend it. it is what gets prioritized. that is the question.

while theised that spirit of patriotism is there, there are not a lot of people joining the military. there is a lot of talk about love for military, but there is a recruiting problem. participated in today's -- and this is after we got attacked. the biggest terrorist attack in our nations history and not a lot of people raise their hand to join the fight. a lot of talk, but not a lot of putting real skin in the game. really standing up for the country at great sacrifice. i don't try to divine anyone's intent or love for the country , but i am surprised how people little most people are willing

to sacrifice to live out their patriotism and to sacrifice for something bigger than oneself. brian: you talked about pain, do you have it? sherman: all the time. brian: where? sherman: i have the nerve pain throughout my body. it is a consequence of working, being active. a lot of people take a lot of medications. i take very little if any. because it has side effects. i would rather live life and endure a little pain than to be limited by a drug. so i am not a typical case. the doctors are always surprised by how little medication i take , but it does come with the price of living with the pain. brian: how often do you spend your whole day in this chair? sherman: i sleep about six hours a day and the rest is in this chair. brian: can you walk at all? sherman: not at all. brian: is there anything they

are working on in research that someday may allow you to walk? sherman: there is a lot of research going on. a lot of it is promising. it is not at this stage were humans can be tested. animal research is controversial right now. that have seen indications -- research is such that you have to be patient. you have to wait on it. breakthroughs happen when they happen. organization, we have invested a lot into understanding the spinal cord, why cell death happens, can they be regenerated after they die. i think that is probably where the biggest drive will happen once we understand how we can replace the cells in the spinal cord and get limbs working that were killed off by a trauma to the spinal cord. i'm not a researcher.

i can't speak with authority on where it is now, but through our partnership with yale and the new haven v.a., as a person who lives with this hope, i am encouraged by what i see. brian: you mentioned animal research, here is a congressman on the floor the house of representatives talking about something i want you to comment on. [video clip] >> my amendment will stop funding for dog experiements at the v.a. earlier this year when my wife and i read the report about the dog testing program, we were disturbed by the types of experiments conducted on the se puppies. from what i have read the type of work they were doing was on the level of torture. brian: where does that issue stand now? sherman: this was a report out of the richmond v.a. medical center. i believe they were canines being tested with cardiovascular

research. that is essentially what the report talked about. in this case, he is the congressman from the state of virginia, so he would have richmond in his territory. so he took that report and fashioned legislation that would essentially ban all of the specific types of animal research the causes pain. that is pretty broad. the issue for us was not that this should be an accountability case. ifthere was wrong doing, they deviated from scientific protocols, there should be accountability. the undersecretary can stop funding, stop research, shut down a laboratory. none of that happened. the individual found in violation was removed and that is where it should have stayed. no discussion happen. the house had a voice vote. unanimous. we are going to pass this banning animal research.

once we got word of it, we were thinking this has larger repercussions than they understand. for us it was not about banning animal research, it was understanding what the implications are when you stop certain kinds of research. explain to the public is that there are reasons why research happens a certain way. at least if you understand why you would use a canine as opposed to a mouse or a monkey, let's talk about that. let's understand that. there are a lot of things that have come out of animal research. the pacemaker, the artificial , a lot ofinsulin things that he'll a lot of people come from animal research. again, we are not going to defend any type of specific research, but we're going to have a conversation or force a conversation to consider the implications if you stop certain things, especially if it is a reaction to what was essentially an isolated incident.

brian: senator john mccain a couple of years ago talking about an issue that you have a had a lot to say about. let's watch. [video clip] senator mccain: it has been more than a month since allegations that some 40 veterans died while waiting for care at the phoenix v.a. were first made public. to date, the obama administration has failed to respond in an effective manner. clearly the v.a. is suffering from problems in this culture that require strong leadership. to address. he left after all this. i read the inspector general of the v.a. said there were really only six out of 40 that died. what is the status of all this? sherman: that story grew a lot of tentacles. it would not matter if it was one or 100 to me.

if somebody dies, someone should be held accountable. of, i won't say misinformation, but there was clearly in efficiency. we reported in 2011 that they had a staph problem. they were understaffed and were going to have an issue with backlogs and waiting lists. it was not addressed. on some level, it needed the attention. i think the undersecretary at the time was not a good leader. doing a lot of things the right way. it was inevitable. it went way too far because it was not fixing the problem to talk about it in the way a lot of people did. demagoguing the issue so that nothing was good enough. the reality is it was a system that was underfunded and understaffed way too long.

they measured the requirement instead of the need. no one measured the need and provided the wherewithal to meet that demand. it was not unique to phoenix. phoenix is where the bottom fell out, but there were many facilities that could have been phoenix across the country. and while a lot of them were run by good, well-meaning people, it was going to fall apart at some point, and that is exactly what happened in 2014. brian: any improvement? sherman: lots of improvement. i think veterans are because the public is aware of this and looks for it, that is incentive for specifically v.a. leaders to do better, to be more mindful , to listen more. i think that secretary mcdonnell was a former secretary that started a lot of great initiatives that are now carried forward by the current secretary.

can it get better? yeah, but at least we are seeing leaders acknowledge the problem. that is the best transition that i have seen undertaken and i think that is the best hope for finally fixing what is happening. brian: how much money do you need to raise the year to function? $100 million a year to function. brian: $100 million? where does most of that money go? sherman: our core mission is to provide benefit assistant, medical advocacy, research and education, and fight for the civil rights and dignity of our members, and to educate the public. so the majority of what we race goes to those functions. brian: how many people work for the paralyzed veterans of america? sherman: approximately 260. brian: where is it based?

sherman: we are based in washington, d.c., but we have offices in 68 locations around the country and in puerto rico. brian: why were you picked to run this organization? sherman: a lot of it was luck. being in the right place at the right time. the reality is there was a near and dear mentor to me. his name was homer townsend. he was a former executive director of paralyzed veterans of america. we lost him last year. he succumbed to the effects of spinal cord injury. he lived for 42 years with the injury. i met him on one of the assignments for the committee and he saw something in me. i don't know what it was, but he saw it. he asked me to come to washington, d.c. i did that. i worked at the appeals office for a year and a half. he handpicked me to run the veterans benefits department.

i went to washington and he and then replaced him. i will credit his wisdom for why i was selected but i'm trying to live up to every expectation he had of me. brian: if people want to give to the group you run or get in touch with the group, what how do they do it? sherman: anyone who wants to give, learn about what we do, can go to vagov.org. this is what we are investing in. we do not talk about ourselves enough in public and try to do that. you can also find us at pva on facebook and twitter. there are multiple ways to donate. we have a lot of corporate partners who have some great programs. we have penske truck rental. we have got ups. great companies that have been with us for a long time and love what we do.

they have market income opportunities, things like that. very quickly because we are running out of time. what was your last rank when you left the marine corps? sherman: i was chief foreign officer two. brian: when did you meet your wife? sherman: 2011. my youngest son is four. and i have four teenage daughters and an older son. brian: we are out of time. sorry we cannot talk about it more. gillums junior, he is the executive director of the paralyzed veterans of america. thank you so much. sherman: thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] announcer: for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org. q&a programs are also available as c-span podcasts.

announcer: if you enjoyed the "q&a" interview, here are some other programs you might like. the department of veterans affairs on the medical services available to veterans from the federal government to huffington post military correspondent david wood on his series about severely wounded veterans called beyond the battlefield. david finkel on his book, "thank you for your service." you can watch anytime or search our entire video library at c-span.org. next, live with your calls and comments on washington journal. , legislativenoon

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