[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Some wounds don’t show up physically. They’re not gonna show up on an x-ray or an MRI or anything like that. You can be home doing your job, showing up for your family, and still feel like part of you is stuck in the past. A lot of veterans know what it’s like to carry this pain around with them day to day and to feel disconnected and wonder whether life will ever feel the same again.

[00:00:22] This conversation in this episode brings, uh, brings up some sort of hope. As our guest today, Lyubim Kogan shares his path from surviving nine 11 to building wings for heroes. Uh, you’re gonna hear how this sense of purpose can be rebuilt, how movement can wake something back up inside of you, and how healing can start with one person refusing to look away.

[00:00:46] There’s no sugarcoating in this episode Here we, we took a real look at grief at service trauma community, and the types of action that, uh, helps wounded veterans feel strong again. [00:01:00] Before we get into this episode, I wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something deeply important to our community.

[00:01:04] The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial will be both a tribute to those who’ve served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

[00:01:25] If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:01:32]

[00:01:45] Scott DeLuzio: Hey, Lyubim welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:01:49] Lyubim Kogan: Thank you for having me, Scott. I actually was waiting for

[00:01:51] this one a long time.

[00:01:53] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it’s been a little while since, since, we first got in touch and, you know, finally here’s, here’s the day. We can, we can [00:02:00] actually uh, you know, sit down and, and have a conversation But uh, before we kind of jump conversation, for the listeners who maybe aren’t familiar with who you are, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and, and your background and, and things like that just to give the listeners an idea of uh, who we’re talking about here.

[00:02:16] Lyubim Kogan: So right now I run a humanitarian mission that I started a little more than two years ago. It’s called Wings for Heroes. And the original idea was to take um, combat veterans who had amputations. Bring ’em to a peaceful place. And the peaceful place that I found is a beach in Turkey.

[00:02:40] We have the beach. We have the mountains. the culture is really awesome. You know, people are really great and I thought, you know, they, they’d spend some time in quiet because, you know, in some parts of the world there is no peace and quiet right now, like in Ukraine. And um, I thought that, you know, my [00:03:00] passion, my sport is paragliding is for those who don’t know, it’s, we go out with this little plastic bag over our head and we have little strings, right?

[00:03:09] And there is no fuselage and there is no engine. And when I found went flying the first time, it really scared me. And like to the point where I was saying...