to my new shells. seriously, why watch something that's so different. several opinions that he won't get anywhere else. welcome to please or do you have the state department c i a weapons, bankers, multi 1000000000 dollar corporations. choose your fax for you. go ahead. i changed and whatever you do, don't marshall state main street because i'm probably going to make you uncomfortable. my show is called direction. but again, you probably don't wanna watch it because it might just change the wayne state in the there are lots of lots of lower organizations out there, especially in the united states, western europe in australia. but many of them are very parochial. they focus on narrow subjects or issues rather than focusing on the mental well being of the wisdom below. becoming a waste of lower is a decision not to be taken lightly. i promise you that it often results in almost

immediate, social and professional ostracism in isolation. so how does a whistleblower deal with that? well, here she associates with the rape organization. i'm john to reaku. welcome to the whistle blowers the . 2 2 2 we've already told you the personal story of pentagon whistleblower jackie garrick. jackie grew up like many americans who came from the immigrant families intensely patriotic and wanting to give something back to the country that had given them so much in the 1980s. she did an internship at the veterans administration medical center in new york and developed an interest in post traumatic stress disorder, or p t. s. d. in veterans who had returned from service in vietnam. in 1992, she joined the army as a captain, n as a social worker. following the adage, if you want to work with veterans b one. after leaving the military,

she worked as the deputy director of health care at the american legion, and then went onto a position on the veterans disability benefits commission in the department of veterans affairs. and after a few years on capitol hill, the obama administration asked her to organize the defense suicide prevention office, which oversaw disability policies impacting wounded warriors, mental health care, accessability, suicide prevention and diversity and inclusion. jackie survived a period of great turmoil at the pentagon, serving under 10 under secretaries and 12 supervisors in only 8 years. in 2014 jackie began working for a politically appointed supervisor who seemed to be hostile to her after she made legally protected disclosures regarding possible conflicts of interest and possible contract fraud. she was moved to another chain of command and soon after found that her performance ratings were being lowered and job openings were being close to her

. she filed whistleblower complaints with both the office of the special counsel and with the defense department's office of inspector general. for purely bureaucratic reasons, jackie never received any satisfaction from her whistle blowing, and indeed, in the end, she lost her job and was deemed in eligible for federal retirement. it was only after a freedom of information act request and an appeal beyond the office of personnel management that she was finally able to retire. and once she did, she created the group whistle blowers of america, where she provides peer support for other whistle blowers who have suffered retaliation after having identified harm to individuals or to the public. that's what we want to tell you about today. jackie, thanks for joining us. we're so glad to have you back. thank you for having me back . it's that an honor and privilege to be able to speak to twice of the. the pleasure is all mine. believe me, jackie, the last time we had you on the show, we talked about your own whistle blowing,

but we didn't have time to get into what you've done since then. and actually the work you've done has been very important. you created whistleblowers of america, which is one of the leading whistleblower advocacy groups in the country. tell us about why you did that. there were certainly other whistleblower groups already in existence. what were they missing that you wanted to accomplish? the store? so i, i think the idea for whistle blowers of america was born out of this conversation that i had with a complete stranger. we were um, connecting through linkedin and gotten on a phone call and she endorsed having a gun and was actively thinking about suicide. and it just reminded me of all the conversations i've ever had with combat the sun. i thought we, we cannot go through this alone. one of the things i saw that work with veterans so well was to bring a peer support approach and to have people connect. so that's what am i felt like

we needed to create was the lawyers of america to really address these psycho social mental health sense of safety issues. we needed to make people feel more resilient and to really combat the trauma piece. um, do you notice i'm in a hotel or in san diego this week for the institute on violence and do some trauma and we just present to, to probably a 100 or so clinical staff that comes out of the federal government, the states, private sector. this issue resonates with people. they understand that workplace trauma, workplace, bullying means something and that we have to start addressing these issues. a meant to that, to me, one of the most important things that you or anybody else could do is to provide disappear support to whistle blowers. i can't stress how stress enough really, how important this is. not just for me as a whistleblower,

but for many other whistle blowers that i'm in touch with. i always have lower once asked me what i thought i needed the most. when i blew the whistle on the sea ice towards your program, i said money, a press spokesman and a psychiatrist, and i was only half joking. every whistle blower feels isolated after going public and he or she needs someone to talk to even if it's just an event. so tell us about that. and about the peer to peer mentoring program. yeah, so i, i think you're a 100 percent spot on with that observation. it's the and it's easy to find the attorneys because they're yes, you know, they're, there's lots of organizations, bar associations. there's ways to look up the attorneys, but most was the lowest. don't even fully understand that what's happening to them is trauma. as a mental health community where i think it would be the beginning of understanding

teach yesterday and was the lower retaliation quite the way. we were in the 1980s when pj yesterday was a new diagnosis and vietnam vets were, you know, listed as having more neurosis or lingering and lazy. we had all these negative stereotypes associated with, with them and then generation. and then it wasn't until other areas of veterans, other types of survivors, accident victims, crime victims, disaster. i'm victims were starting to come forward and saying, hey wait, this is me to, i have these symptoms too. and i think we're gonna see the same thing with list of ours, and we're gonna start to see retaliation, or at least i'm hoping we'll see retaliation and the mental health impact that it has without having it also be a weaponized diagnosis and then gets used against them so i think we see this catch 22. we know we need more mental health. and yet,

because of the legal system and the ramifications to come and changing cases to court for damages for pain and suffering. where we're still at a place where we're arguing not just like the va argue fugitives, the in combat trauma with vietnam, that's for decades. until, you know, we sort of got that presumption that if you were in a combat. so, and you were exposed to trauma. if you're in a hostile work environment, you are exposed to trauma and we have to have a trauma important perspective. i think that's absolutely right. whistleblowers of america has a wonderful website, w w, w dot whistle blowers of america dot org. is that right board or? yes, i encourage all of our viewers to go and take a look at it. it is so straightforward and plain spoken that it makes this complicated issue of whistle blowing. actually easy to get through. many whistle blowers fear, becoming known as a rat, or a snitch. this is something you address on the website. somebody who,

who tells on others years ago i help the greek government write a new whistle blower protection law. this was in 2015. it was eventually passed and it became the basis for the european union's whistleblower protection law. but a great deal of the work was getting past the idea that whistle blowing with snitching. tell us how you've dealt with that. yes, so i think what you're talking about on our website is we've written letters to the american webster dictionary hospital to change the definition because and they told us that the reason microsoft because we wrote to microsoft office and they told us that the reason that when you type the word was the lower, then you hit send and then you get read stage, tattletale to pigeon. all those negative things. so the description is very positive, you know, preventing wrong, doing, addressing corruption. it's all very positive things. and then you come to the

sending them and you know, the rails come off. and so we started this campaign by writing to microsoft who came back and told us we, we just pull it from marietta webster. so we've written it to marian webster and they say, well, it's all about common language use. so they've encourage us to address common language use issues. and that when people are defining what's the wars that they're using, the words, the heroes of integrity, truth teller, emphasis, protect or 1st relate or disclose. or we've gotten lamplighter l ringer. there are so many other or positive words to describe what was the lawyers are actually doing them the negative ones. and you know, if we don't reduce the stigma, then we don't want to make these employees feel safe in the workplace. and that's really what a lot of this is about is psychological st. james, it's in veteran,

had a bad consultation. right. and nobody would want me to claim to be a veteran. we just have to get past the negative connotation of the word and make people proud to be a whistle blower and make organizations to be proud to have them. and then maybe we can get away from the web. the nice thing diagnoses. jackie, talk a little bit about founding the group about pulling together resources and the work that you've done. what kinds of whistle blowers have reached out to you for help? is it specific to the military or the government? or do you accept all variety of whistle blowers? yes. so when we did our articles of incorporation and attorney asked me, so what's our scope and i that model and i hope everybody um, by the way now usually had this vision of it being like a lien and circle, you know, 12 of us. so we're gonna get together have some coffee and talk about our cases while we're closing in on almost

a 1000 people who have contacted us to in our 5 years. and they are in 17 countries . wow. and that just keeps reaffirming to me that this is a trauma based risk response to these toxic tactics, just like the toxicity of a combat zone. just like a current, any crime victim. we are seeing the same kind of effects universally. and it doesn't matter what uniform a combat that war can i get serve in greece in the us in the u. k. holland, finland, france, you pick a country, they all can have p t s d, no matter the structure of the military because of the exposure. and so that's where i believe that these hostile work environments, there's almost like a presumption that we need for that because of the universal nature. so when you attack someone, when you do the same them when you bully them. hayes them. when you marginalize

them, gaslight them, those are those tactics that we look at very specifically and have outlined think i mentioned we did a dr. martina buck and i did a book on the psycho social impacts. it was a retaliation. it was so that we could set up a whistle blower, retaliation checklist because you know, we like checklists in this world. we have to have a way of documenting and measuring, and we can hold you accountable. then there's this is not going to end on the way to hold people accountable is to make them pay for it. and if you harm someone, you know, i break, i lose my arm and the wind shipper. we know how to accommodate me in the air and compensate me in a, a disability construct. we need the same thing for mental health and for with the little retaliation you make a very important point on the website that i'd like to reiterate here. and that is

that was the blower, retaliation is bullying. now we're finally getting smart all around the world, about bullying. and what bullying leads to it can lead to terrible things, not just social ostracism, but things like suicide or alcoholism or drug abuse. you know, self medication to try to get through the bullying. we have to keep repeating over and over that retaliation against whistle blowers is a form of bully. and another thing that we need to keep repeating over and over again is the fact that there is a legal definition of whistle blowing. and that is bringing to light evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, illegality, or threats to the public health or public safety. that's not snitching or reading or being a tattle tale. it's in the public service. so it's up to us. i agree with you completely. it's up to us to make sure that the general public, who maybe otherwise wouldn't give much thought to an issue like this. gets our side of the story because this is going to sound arrogant. but we're right and they're

wrong. and we have to make sure that they understand that right. anything when we are wrong, we don't deserve to be harmed. yeah, i agree with the services restored. absolutely correct. we're going to cut to a short break, so please stay with us. when we get back, we'll ask jackie garrick about the role of whistle blowers of america in the constellation of whistleblower groups and about an important upcoming event. we'll be right back. 2 2 2 2 the, [000:00:00;00]

the solutions may be able to turn to atrocities. in other countries, the united states of america is different. wherever people longed to be free, they will find a friend in the united states, the, to the automated body of the bolts, anybody phase, the sincerely city, and teach all the look at me for the in service of the cigarette. 18 color

revolutions is one among several means to reach the goal of conquering foreign lands and bringing them onto the help of us. the western economic interest people been cited as him that he did to, to go by the democrats, the new training portal acted sol, suite, the st. louis of the by way. i mean, he cast the final goal of the steamer of allusions to ensure that there are no independent players in the world anymore. the the welcome back to the list of lawyers. i'm john kerry onto we're speaking with jackie garrick, a pentagon whistleblower and the founder of whistle blowers of america. jackie, good to have you with us. to be back, jackie, whistle blowers of america is hosting an event here in washington dc during the 1st

week of september. tell us about that event and about what the organization is doing for it. a yeah, so we started the workplace promise institute into our 3rd year. it was the beginning of the pandemic. so we began by having our 1st um conference virtually because we do what we call a whistleblower protection advocate, certification. and we came up with this um idea that a minimum of 10 hours of training was when somebody should have so that they understood what we did in our network and appears according the skills we 1st lunch that again 3 years ago. and now this year we're going to be doing our event live and live streaming from washington dc. add uh at 614th street in uh downtown by metro center. and the goal would be, is to remove the requirements for the hours, for the training,

as well as provide people the opportunity to connect. we have a host of attorneys joining us. we have an international panel, so people are logging in from all over the world. we're going to be talking to journalists like yourself and some publishers, some of the craters, and talking some health staffers, so that we can talk about the different things that was always needed to know and how we can help mentor and support each other through the process um, on the 1st day we do what we call the draft boards. we started those because with the lower stand tall and stick their necks out. everywhere i go. i find a draft and i just found this little guy here in san diego. so i'm taking them home with me because we need to be mindful that we, we have to embrace this idea that this is who we are and this is what we've done and we need to recognize each other. we're also going to do

a rose garden march to the white house from our conference location, because uh, sending grossly has asked every president since ronald reagan, so hostile, what was the lower the in the rose garden and none ever has. so we are the side, did that, you know what? we don't need to wait for it. any president where we've got our own roses, they're plastic. we have our own roses and we're going to take them with us. and we can stand outside the white house and we're going to post our own ceremony. we have children joining us this year of the whistle blowers because we have to spend some time this year focusing on what's the boeing is a family issue? um, as you probably know, especially when they're minor children in the house, their, their home, when the home is rated, they're watching their parents struggle. they're, they're learning how to be afraid. they're being told don't answer the phone, don't answer the door, don't go out. we always need to know where each other is. and so we,

we see this intergenerational transmission of trauma. they might not fully understand what they're experiencing, but um, you know, you have done yearly who's the founder of the intergenerational legacy of trauma project in new york. that's probably not the full title, but we have her on one of our round tables and we talked about children who are survivors because they lives through the experience. and then children who grow up with parents who have been traumatized. they don't understand the trauma, but they understand or taught the hyper vigilance and their responses. the trauma survivors go through. so we're incorporating them this year and they're actually making these water water color paper roses that we're going to take up to senator grassley. and that we're going to take to the white house with us. very exciting. that is to have them join us this year. that's right, to yeah,

to do these kinds of projects and bring community together is really important. it isn't the here for, for a 2nd. i thought maybe i was missing out on something because no president has ever invited me to the white house to celebrate whistle blower protection day. so i guess i'm not. i'm not sure if that's right. does what's included in there, so that's right, we'll just do it ourselves. this was a blurs of america partner with other organizations. i'm thinking about, for example, the national width of lower center, which is here in washington, the government accountability project. and the like. i'm also interested in hearing about your areas of real expertise and specialties. what does whistle blowers of america do best in your estimation? so we believe you. i think that's what we do best. yeah. you don't need to prove anything to us. there's a love and acceptance for you as a whistleblower. we're going to try to help you as best we can. we are

a very small non profit. so and so we're all volunteers. there's no paid staff. so we, we do our best to connect and to listen and to share and give advice and, and sometimes just to offer that moral support. so we have worked with the other other groups, nonprofit's law firms. um, so you know, i take help and assistance from anybody who's offering it to the march to the white house. the gap and the food integrity campaign project led to the virtual rose garden event. i think on linkedin, them on social media platforms. they're helping us this year with getting the word out about the march to the white house. and we have attended events, but the national was the lower center has put on the national list of lower summit into festival as well as some international partners. we've worked a lot with we suppose

u k it in the you k was the lower house in south africa with the blowing canada. a and, and the blueprints for free speech. you've mentioned greece and we've worked at the chapter there. so we've got a um, large group of people coming for the global imperative panel that are working in several different countries. i wish we can have all 17 on one panel, but obviously we can't do that. and so we've got some really great speakers coming in. and again, i have found there's just this international groups. and we're, we're really trying to build coalitions because i think, you know, we're strong together. is we need an army, we need to raise our own army and we can't splinter and fight because we need each other to carry home a consistent message. 100 percent. right? i'm curious also about whether the private sector whistle blowers reach out to you

here in washington. it's so easy to focus on government and government whistleblowers and especially military and national security whistle blowers. but what about people who work in private industry? do they approach you or yeah, we, we try that every, every type of story, a mention of all it this find lots of government, lots of department of veterans affairs employees are probably 40 percent. actually of the people who reach out to us. we get a lot of law enforcement, but we've had some, you know, money laundering and banking. again, part of the international is corporate with the lawyers from all over the world. reach out to us because they're just looking for that level of support discrimination cases, races, races um, disability discrimination if you've made a disclosure of any kind of nature. um as long as you do it as an employee, that's kind of the limit of our sco. we,

we will do our best to help you match you with somebody who's had a similar story to yours. find the resources that you maybe need um, teach you how to find an attorney teacher, how to find a therapist work with you if you're really wanting to talk to a journalist. i think you've interviewed a couple of people we've sent your way. yes indeed, jackie, thank you so much for being with us. thank you for having me back and i look forward to seeing you that the workplace promise institute september 7th. i think we're gonna have a good time september 7th. right here in washington dc. 614th street northwest. i want to thank our viewers, also for joining us on the whistle blowers of america website. there is a quote by president john f kennedy. that is, that so perfectly encapsulates the mind of the whistleblower that i have to convey it to you. it's this quote without belittling the courage with which men have died

. we should not forget those acts of courage with which men have lived. the courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moments. but it is no less than magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy . a man does what he must, in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures. and that is the basis of all human morality. in whatever reason of life, 1 may needs the challenge of courage. whatever may be the sacrifice as he faces. if he follows his conscience, the loss of his friends as fortune is contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men. each man must decide for yourself of course that he will follow the stories of past courage can find that ingredients they can teach . they can offer hope they can provide inspiration, but they cannot supply courage itself. for this, each man must look into his own soul. thanks for joining us for another episode of the whistle blowers. i'm john to reaku and we will see you next time

the. 2 2 2 the now can you the media visits typically fall hip? nancy, nancy kim's, in the book the national shifts never gets to the young showcase in genes. nathaniel. so who's going into the, by the way,

is that the boy the probably the one that's new that will be for them. i'm not sure if this to florida doesn't want that extra them. but adults under that, the question, i mean you clear up she was the most schools do if you look for the visual do while i pull up significantly post the seller, will it be almost getting used to put value or do you do or to but yeah, that's, that's the was done, the newest government

believes systems to do what i see these the buses. the little gear motivation says this to, to, to have done both of the flight interference. me here slammed statements by the french president as he back saying, sions, and a possible intervention in the country. while the french and us defense ministers, earth, a diplomatic solution to the prices. the thousands of demonstrators loved any here in capital. calling on french troops to leave the country. that's as france refuses to recognize the new military government. we hear from locals voicing their discontent with french policies.