Scott DeLuzio:    00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting Veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcasts. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there click the subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes. As soon as they come out. If you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit Drive On Podcasts.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email list. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio. And now let’s get on with the show.

Scott DeLuzio:    00:44    Everybody today, my guest is Lani Hankins.  Lani is the host of the Kruse Corner Podcast and blog where she discusses stories of interest to the military. Lani, welcome to the show.  Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself and who you are, your military background and things like that?

Lani Hankins:    01:04    Well, first thanks for having me.  My name is Lonnie Hankins, and I joined the Army when I was 22. I was in college working on an Art degree and people were telling me that wouldn’t go anywhere. And so, I started second guessing myself and I got down to that last semester and I had family that had done military time. So, I figured I’ll give it a try. And so, I did the four-year contract with the Army active duty, ended up switching over to the Reserves for the last two years. So, six total served out of Fort Riley, Kansas.  I did one deployment with the 1st Squadron 4th Cavalry Regiment to Paktika Province, Afghanistan, and then was out of Fort Myers, Florida for the Reserve.

Scott DeLuzio:    01:53    And so now you’re the host of the Kruse Corner podcast and your mission with that podcast and what you’re doing over there probably started off similarly to how I started this podcast and why I started it. Could you tell us a little bit about the motivation behind the Kruse Corner and where the idea came from to do what you’re doing now?

Lani Hankins:    02:22    So it originally started off just as a blog. It was something that I started because I was in my final year working on my Master’s degree. And you had to have a place to post your final research paper and mine was on the VA. So, I figured I’ll just post it to my own blog, a cheat thing. I didn’t want to have to ask anyone to put it on their stuff. And I didn’t want to just have this one random research paper by itself on a website. So, I padded it with some writing I had been doing and some of my friends saw it and they’re just like, you have to keep it going. And so, the name came from my buddy Cruz, who I served with at the Quarter Cav and he’d committed suicide my last month

Lani Hankins:    03:08    I was inactive duty. And so, I wanted to do something as a homage to him little bit.  I had been struggling myself and writing was just my therapy. And then people started telling me they didn’t like to read. So it turned into the podcast because people basically wanted me to read forums. So the podcast started off with me still doing the blog, but I was reading the articles basically for people. So, it was like the audio Kindle version. But I didn’t realize until I went to school with civilians that people did not understand the Veteran community and what was happening. And I got frustrated with it and with the suicide epidemic going on. How do you not know that 22 Veterans kill themselves a day? How is it possible that people don’t know this stuff? And I...