50. Humble Beginnings to White House Medical Officer with Bernard Toney

Brock Briggs  0:00  

Hello and welcome to the Scuttlebutt, the show for current and former service members ready to do the work. I'm your host, Brock Briggs and today I'm speaking with Bernard Toney. Bernard is a former Army physician's assistant and now a professor at the University of Lynchburg while pursuing his Master's of Public Health. In this conversation, Bernard recounts some of his humble beginnings growing up in Atlanta, Georgia. He'd self described himself as completely hopeless. 

Although a bright individual, he talks about his own self sabotage, both in school and even in the army as an enlisted man. He shares that one of the more radical changes that occurred for him during his time in the army as he found people who believed in him. That belief truly went a long way. After his time in the army, he went on to be a medical officer at the White House. He talks through his observations from caring for some of the most powerful people in the world amidst the COVID 19 pandemic, one of the largest health crises we've seen in decades. We go deep on some of the larger issues about why access to opportunity isn't always the answer. 

He talks about being presented with the opportunity at a young age to attend a better funded school with more resources. But at the time, he wasn't ready to receive and take advantage of that. The question of access to opportunity comes up again in his observations of how the world accesses medicine and shares some of his thoughts on ways our healthcare system can be improved. Bernard's come up story is real and showcases how the military can be influential in turning people's lives around. Please enjoy this conversation with Bernard Toney.

Brock Briggs

Is there something that you're incredibly proud of that you don't get to talk about very often?

Bernard Toney  1:58  

Yes, I would say that, for me, I am a first generation everything in my family. And so I'm a first generation college graduate, first generation career soldier, first generation officer. First of all, a lot of things in my life. And for me, I think from a personal standpoint, that sets a new floor, you know. I definitely didn't set the ceiling for my family. But I set a new floor baseline for people to be able to work from in the hope that that's something that can propel not only my nuclear family, but even my extended family to aspire to.

Brock Briggs  2:41  

Is that something that you felt as you were kind of coming up? We're gonna get into maybe a little bit of your background and some of those humble beginnings that you're talking about. But is that something that while you were in that process, you were like, oh, you know, my kids or maybe grandkids even are gonna be better off because of this?

Bernard Toney  3:01  

Absolutely not. So when you start where I started, there isn't a whole lot that you can see outside of your immediate circumstances. So I'd never thought of, I guess, in trying to paraphrase that or rephrase that. It's like, I never thought about creating a legacy. I always thought about just trying to essentially get out of the situation that I was in at the moment. And set better conditions for myself, so that I can, you know, explore different options. But now in retrospect, hindsight is always 2020. I can see where I'm gonna lay some groundwork. And I'm hoping that that's able to be built upon by my family and friends. 

Brock Briggs  3:43  

Can you maybe start by getting into some of that background and where you're coming from? We're gonna get into where you are today and talk about your field of study and the things that have brought you there. But for context, I think it would be helpful to start from the beginning and talk about that.

Bernard Toney  4:01  

Yeah, so I guess it depends on how far back do you wanna go. People tend to hone in on some of the most traumatic experiences that I had, which were some, you know, robberies when I was a young kid, and I drive by shooting, but I guess if I would go as far back as about the age of middle school, elementary, middle school, I was always a very bright kid that I was always in a bad situation, bad socio economic environment, high crime rates, things like that growing up in Atlanta, Georgia. And I was identified quite early as someone who was bright, smart. And so I was chosen to park taking this thing called the MTM program. 

So I believe it's minority to majority program in which they were bus black kids or minority kids to white schools where they will have that opportunity. But that was traumatic for me and so I went there and self sabotage. And that's when I said, you know, I don't belong here. I don't fit in here. These people are better than I am. I can't make it in this environment. And so I self sabotaged and brought myself right back to my neighborhood school in Atlanta, Georgia, Decatur, Georgia to be more specific. That sort of self sabotage kind of continued on throughout my middle school years, high school years. 

And I took on this face of something that, you know, I'm not terribly proud of. I had about 12 gold teeth and I hung out with nefarious characters that to this day, I don't know how I survived that because many of them are dead or in jail. And at the age 17 about three and a half weeks before joining the army, I was a victim of a drive by shooting in which my car was shot up many times, several rounds into my car. And my best friend, Ivan Gray, unfortunately passed in that shooting. 

And I have already committed myself to joining the army as an enlisted man during the delayed entry program. So you sign up for the military in your senior year. And then as soon as you graduate, you kind of move on to boot camp, but had already made that commitment. And about three and a half weeks before joining or coming with active duty, I was holding my friend in this lipless body on the ground next to my car after a shooting. And so that was for me the start of something that was my past. And as we get more to the podcast and have more of a conversation, we'll see how that sort of brought into my future.

Brock Briggs  6:45  

We don't need to spend a ton of time on it. Because I think that that probably is the focal point of a lot of people's they wanna know all about that. But I guess my one question to that particular story of circumstance would be was that a targeted thing to you? Or was that, were you a victim of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Bernard Toney  7:09  

I was a victim of circumstance. One thing I hadn't talked about with some other people on other podcasts or interviews was and that happened, I can't explain to this day, I can't explain why it happened. But as a young private when I was going through my second AIT, I was made to come back to Atlanta, Georgia to testify in the murder trial. And I don't recognize those gentlemen. I don't think they recognize me. I think that it was completely random. But I can't explain why it happened. But it was definitely a pivotal point. And luckily, they were able to find both of those what were kids at the time, I believe they're both 17 as well. And so they ended up spending quite some time in prison. I think they're still there. 

Brock Briggs  7:59  

You said that going through being bused to that other school while you're an elementary school kind of junior high, you're going through this like self sabotage phase. Looking back on that experience, what did that tell you about having access to the opportunity versus being ready to accept the opportunity? Was there any kind of like, kind of detraction there like what, you know, we talked about, there are a lot of communities across the country and the world that are extremely underprivileged and don't have access to that opportunity. But when you said that, hey, I was given this and I didn't take care of it. That's an interesting thing that I don't hear a lot.

Bernard Toney  8:44  

Yeah. So I think the way you see yourself is important. And in my career, you know, all of my, not all of my success, but much of my success as leaders, saying something to me that I didn't see myself, at that time at that developmental stage is hard to really see yourself as anything other than what you've always known to be. And so for me, it was a challenge because one, I didn't look like anyone in that school. That was traumatic for me. It was like taking a fish out of water, essentially. I mean, it wasn't just the academics and having access to computers and things. 

It was more so how do you fit in a social context. There are other things that I don't think that were very well planned out. And this isn't a hit on the program. But, you know, for example, after school, you might hang out with your friends. Well for me, I had to take a 40 minute bus ride back to my neighborhood, you know. And so I didn't have those opportunities to build those bridges and make those connections with other people, as they naturally would have to school because, you know, I have to make it back to my portion of the city. And that was a challenge. 

And you know and I think that in some ways, I think that it was well intentioned, you know. It was a part of this integration program and I'm all for diversity inclusion and all those sorts of things. But I think that we have to be prudent about the way that we approach things. We have to be prudent about implementation of things. And so I don't think that I was quite ready for that. I don't remember a conversation about it. And so I think it was just something that said, listen, you're smart, this is your opportunity. And to your point, just because the door of opportunity opens, doesn't mean you're ready to step through it.

Brock Briggs  10:32  

What I think is interesting about that call out there is not only were you plucked from your circumstances and placed into something that was extremely irregular to you, but then I could see how that may be potentially estrange you from your own community as well. Because then now, not only are you not able to hang out with the kids outside of this other school, you're also not hanging out with the community at your home because you're on the bus still. 

Bernard Toney  11:01  

Right. And you know and I'll use common terms from where I grew up. Either you're, you know, you go to school and you're black or you go back to your school and you're not black enough.

Brock Briggs  11:12  

Right. So now you've like made yourself a middle ground there. That’s funny! Were you ever given flack for like being a kid that was going to another school? Like was there any kind of animosity that was felt there because of that?

Bernard Toney  11:30  

I don't entirely think so. I think though, that when I came back, I took those extra steps to try to fit in. You know, I tried to be more of a hoodlum of a thug, if you will. And that's sort of where, you know, sort of this transformation with gold teeth and my outward appearance, there's really nothing like, you know, Bernard Toney inwardly. But that's the presentation that I needed to have to be able to fit into that environment. Because to your point, I didn't really fit in, in the school that I was I was made to go to.

Brock Briggs  12:09  

I empathize with that situation a lot. While much different I was put into like a similar situation after leaving home and graduating high school and kind of placed in this underground kind of culture with people with tattoos. I grew up in this very, like Christian home, Christian school, like the whole thing and then join this like subculture, like underbelly of the city type of population.

And all of a sudden, a couple months, you know, you like, oh, he starts smoking. Like, oh, first tattoo like this, that. Like you slowly are kind of becoming part of that thing, just by nature of like being around those people, right? That product of environment conversation. 

Bernard Toney  

Correct

Brock Briggs 

What gets you to enlist in the army? So you were three weeks out and normally, I usually don't spend a lot of time about how they joined the military and stuff. The stories, they're very similar, but in your case, I'm particularly interested about you coming back to this life and then what allows you to kind of see through needing a change there.

Bernard Toney  13:17  

So during that time, again, the murder happened after already committed to the military. I committed to the military, I believe, in December of 98 date myself here. But the commitment was based on everyone had somewhere else to go, you know. The people who were in the hood, they were headed towards a full stop, you know. I mean, there was nothing that was gonna change their trajectory. The people who were smarter and committed themselves to the academics had already defined their college path. I had a 2.1 as I recall. I didn't have any money and didn't have any stable job. I worked at Popeyes, McDonald's, Pizza Hut.

And so I didn't have any definable trajectory. One thing I didn't know is that I remember my father didn't wear the uniform. He was active duty infantry for quite some time. He didn't retire though. I think he did about four or five years active duty some time in the reserves. So I did remember seeing his uniform. And there was that recruiter, we had this Air Force recruiter that would hang around in the army recruiter that we hang around, and I was not good enough for the Air Force. But I was good enough for the Army. 

And so I think I just needed something. You know, I was really, like probably many enlisted folks, were there just for anyone who joins the army. A lot of times they don't either see a divine path to upper mobility or they recognize some leverage that they can get from the army or the military. Or they come to join for some noble reason. Well, I was the first of those three options. I had really no definable path. And that was my escape. You know, even before some of the more tragic things that happened later on to my senior year of high school.

Brock Briggs  15:14  

I think in the same way that indecision is a decision in itself, understanding that you don't have a path and having the internal realization that you need to do something about that. I still think that that's so good. Like that's needed. And I think that almost the worst path of those things because there's a lot of high school kids that don't have that kind of clear path forward. Realizing that, but then not doing anything about it is probably the worst possible thing that you can do.

Bernard Toney  15:50  

Right. Because not doing nothing is an option as well. I mean, so yeah, it was a step in a direction, I just didn't know where it would take me.

Brock Briggs  16:02  

Did the army boot camp AIT and then going on from there, did that give you kind of the transformational change and kind of give you that trajectory that you're looking for?

Bernard Toney  16:16  

Not at all. Not at all. 

Brock Briggs  

Okay, okay 

Bernard Toney 

Absolutely not. You have to understand, I joined the Army looking the same way you saw on that photo on LinkedIn. And that was not consistent with what the Army wanted at that time. So when I joined, I did well on my ASVAB. So I became a Russian cryptologic linguist. And so I went out to Monterey, California. Again, as you can imagine, I'm probably the only person that looks like me in that environment and so I was estranged, people were so confused. Why is he here? And why does he look this way? 

No, I had people ask, did you get into a free car accident and they replaced all of your teeth with metal. I mean, there were references to James Bond jobs I had, I've never watched James Bond growing up. But that was something that other people recognized. It was middle school all over again, it was I don't belong here. And let me self sabotage my way out of this situation. So no, I did not have a transformative experience. If anything, I have more questions as to why did I choose this path?

Brock Briggs  17:38  

What kind of things were you doing to like, what did that self sabotage include in the army?

Bernard Toney  17:44  

Whatever discipline was required, I did the opposite, right? So like, I didn't show up on time. I didn't wear my uniform the right way. I didn't do anything that they wanted me to do. Because, you know, there were periods in which I would have, let's say, drill sergeants sort of cornered me and say, what gang are you from? What are you from? And, you know, it was like the thing that I was trying to get away from, but remember, you know, a month or two out of a murder situation. And I'm being, you know, sort of psychologically brought back to that. 

Now, again, that's just part of drill sergeant, you know, sort of training. They kind of, you know, you know, bring you all the way down to nothing to build you back up sort of thing, but at the time, I didn't really see it that way. I saw it as this was a bad decision. And, you know, they eventually put me out, you know. I won't comply, they'll eventually put me out of the military. But I had, you know, let's say if I had a drill sergeants, I have one, at least one that will pull me to the side and give me some extra attention to tell me that I can make it. You know, in the face of, there's one drill sergeant, I'll go ahead and name them. 

Once I got over to MIT, Gary Berkeley, there was a drill sergeant who was haranguing me. And he was saying all sorts of things about you know, I'm a gangster. I'm from the hood. I'm this, I'm that. And this drill sergeant would have me drop and drop, you know, go down to do push ups. And so he would tell me to do push ups and yell at me but then he'll come over and whisper in my ear. Don't listen to these people. You're gonna make it. I'm gonna protect you, like this amazing thing so hourly, it looks like he's punishing me. But in that six inches of conversation was giving me you know, uplift.

Brock Briggs  19:30  

It's so funny, the diverse range of people that come into the military because on one hand, you have people like yourself who really need somebody to believe in them. Like they really need that positive affirmation and encouragement and all of these things. And then the complete opposite end of the spectrum they have over entitled cocky assholes, which is kind of what the way that I came in, and they need to be broken. Like, they've had too many people believing in them. And then they've got everybody in between. And it's just such a short amount of time, they need to figure out where you are and kind of mold you. And they kind of figured out what it's gonna take to make you successful.

Bernard Toney  20:17  

Yeah, no, you're right. I didn't think about the other side of the bell curve there.

Brock Briggs  20:22  

Well, as being on the other side, I had never really thought about that. I thought that everybody kind of came in the same way. But hearing stories like these people come from a very wide background and different kinds of mental states. And then, you know, people are motivated and incentivized by different things.

Bernard Toney  20:42  

By different things, correct.

Brock Briggs  20:44  

Was there any type of lightbulb moment for you during your time enlisted? And forgive me, how long were you enlisted?

Bernard Toney  20:55  

I was enlisted for seven years, seven years. And so no, there was no light bulb moment. I was asked this question yesterday. Because I think people really wanna hone in on, you know, what, where's the tipping point? No, there wasn't. What I can tell you is that there was at every point in my career, there was one. And they all know who they are. It was one person who saw something in me, that I didn't see in myself and that no one else saw me. And I can, those names are on top of mind, tip of tongue all the time because had it not been for them at every critical juncture. And we'll say one poor assignment, essentially, then I wouldn't be here. So no, there wasn't a one singular moment or event. It was a confluence of all those people that saw something in me during the season in their life that I was able to spend with them.

Brock Briggs  22:00  

So you're in for seven years. It sounds like maybe even from an early point, you probably didn't think that that was gonna be a career move for you.

Bernard Toney  22:10  

I'm absolutely not 

Brock Briggs

I’m putting that together. 

Bernard Toney 

Absolutely not. So I was a belt, school self sabotage out of Washington School. I said, I don't belong here. I retrained as a medic/mental health specialist. And so while at AIT, you know, that's when I sort of solidified my standing to be able to complete that first enlistment. At the end of that first enlistment, I said, you know, I wanna go. I want to get my EMT license. So I wanna go back to Atlanta and be an EMT in Atlanta. I started to do an interview over the phone. And the place that I wanted to go back to, they were offering their medics bullet proof vests. Literally, they were offering them, you know, armor because there was an issue with a medic being shot in Atlanta at that time.

Brock Briggs  23:06  

You may as well stay in the army at that rate, doing the same job just about. 

Bernard Toney  23:09  

When you looked at the salary, where you looked at, you know, everything all of the above, I was still in the army. And so that's what made me stay in the army. I said, well, I don't wanna stay in this position. I wanna go back and try to become a linguist again. So I went back to language school and I completed French at the Defense Language Institute. And from there, they gave me two options AT second airborne or third Special Forces Group. I opted for the latter. And I finished up my enlisted career in Third Battalion Special Forces Group. 

Brock Briggs  23:43  

Okay. Any deployments over that time?

Bernard Toney  23:46  

Absolutely, two deployments. The first was to Lawar, Afghanistan. If you know where that is, that's now Tilman for operating base, I guess, up to the point that we left Afghanistan but that's what Pat Tillman died. So he died early that year. And I arrived in August of 2004. And so I was in that cycle of, you know, going into Afghanistan coming back, doing the normal routine things airborne jobs and then going back again. So I deployed once again, while I deployed I said, you know, I can't do this for in perpetuity. So I decided at that point, I wanted to try to become an officer and I went to ROTC. 

Brock Briggs  24:34  

Okay, so well and I love the foreshadowing about Tillman because you are a Tillman scholar, correct?

Bernard Toney  24:40  

I am. That's correct, though.

Brock Briggs  24:43  

No, that's fantastic. That's always like an interesting like flag on somebody's profile. You're like, oh, okay, that's interesting. So, you at that point, you realized like you're wanting to stay in and kind of or like, be a part the army for like a longer period of time?

Bernard Toney  25:03  

No, no, even then I still didn't. It was at that point it was, I don't wanna deploy in perpetuity. I know where this ends. And in fact,

Brock Briggs  25:13  

Sorry, excuse me, sorry to cut you off. Where did you see that ending? Like, what was the ending that you saw and said, no, I don't want that.

Bernard Toney  25:23  

So when I decided to leave the Special Forces Group, it was a bittersweet moment. So my commander didn't want me to leave. Because my plan was crazy. I had a house, I had cars, I had responsibilities, but I was leaving on ROTC scholarship, meaning that I didn't have a paycheck. And so my commander didn't want to sign off on that. And Special Forces, the commanders major, the company commanders are major. And he said, you know, sorry, Toney. I'm not signing off on this. 

So for me, it was really, I wanted to leave the military and get an education at that point. I had already started really trying to get an education, earnestly, while I was in the military. I took an English composition class on a border of Pakistan and Afghanistan on a mountaintop of a listening post observation post. I would hike the mountain, you know, and write my papers and then come back down. With that comes, I will be able to send those papers to my professor. And so education was really my focal point. 

The military at that point was really a means to get there. But then, also definitely wanted to become a leader because I felt like I had more to offer. At that point, I felt like I didn't really have the space or capacity to lead in the way I wanted to. So becoming an officer was probably the best way to do it. But that still didn't mean that I was open to transitioning out of the military once I was done with my ROTC obligation.

Brock Briggs  27:03  

At this point, like why not get out and just use your GI Bill to go to school? What was the thought process on why you wanted to? So I'm guessing you had to have applied for ROTC while you're enlisted and chose that versus this other way?

Bernard Toney  27:22  

Why not just leave? Yeah, I definitely made that calculation. And what I didn't see a lot of growing up in army was black officers. And the first black officer that I saw, was the name guiding Clyde Hill. I think he's an O-6 now, if not completely retired. And he was my company commander when I was in ROTC. And that was, I'm sorry, my company commander in AIT, rather. And it was you know, the way he will come out and command the formation for me as an E-3 or E-2 at the time, it was phenomenal. 

And so I always had this idea that what if I can make it there? You know, what if I can, you know, what if I can become an officer? I hadn't seen many officers that look like me. But Clyde Hill made it so that I knew that it was a possibility. If you went on any command, wall structure, you know, the command photos. And in the hallways of, you know, organizations, you didn't really see a lot of people that look like me. And Clyde Hill changed that. And so coupling my desire for education would seen what potential possibility of being an officer looked like. I think that was enticing. And so I went that route.

Brock Briggs  28:37  

This is normally like more of a closer type question but maybe fitting or appropriate here. Was he a hero for you? And or do you have any heroes that you're kind of like looking up to at this point?

Bernard Toney  28:54  

Clyde Hill was not a hero. He represented possibility for me. He's a friend, you know, we actually went to the same church in Hawaii. And he was responsible for sending me off to Airborne School and things like that. But no, he wasn't. I wouldn't say that he was a hero. I will say that he was extremely influential in my decision making, you know. And I would say that he was a great role model. And so I have a lot of role models. But as far as a hero, I don't know if I will be able to coin him with that term. 

Brock Briggs  29:27  

Role models are probably more effective. Anyway, sometimes heroes have like this sense of being larger than life. And people talk about heroes as very aspirational and inspirational. But I think sometimes they're so detached from they're like so far ahead of you it like the reality of trying to follow in their footsteps maybe might seem more difficult than is actually possible.

Bernard Toney  29:58  

Yeah, no, I mean, so yeah, there was you know, there was one, I will say if I could say a military guy was ever my hero, I would say it was a Chris Wells. He's retired Colonel Special Forces. He knows why. Buy yeah, I will say that was the closest thing that I've ever seen as far as a hero on the battlefield. And, you know, still to this day as old as I am, I will still follow that guy into battle.

Brock Briggs  30:25  

That's what you want and somebody like that, that’s for sure. So you get into school and I feel like just kind of like breezing through your academic record here. You become like a rock star. I mean, do you talking just about climbing up this hill in Afghanistan to send your paper. You're obviously like, extremely committed to being successful in school. You said that earlier on, you're kind of naturally smart or whatever. What did that mean in the context of college and kind of the relationship of that to the army?

Bernard Toney  31:07  

That, you know, for me, I think academics comes, you know. Academically, I'm comfortable with a lot of things. And so school was not really a challenge for me, it was really aligning my abilities and talents with opportunities with programs and things like that. And so I've always done very well in school. And some might say that my wife will tell you that that's the bad part of me that I'm always in school. I'm still finishing a master's in public health at George Washington University at the moment. At the same time, I'll be in a professor, you know, and so I think I've sort of buried myself in academics because that's where I'm most comfortable.

Brock Briggs  31:51  

Was ROTC in hindsight, the right move for you? And do you ever regret, maybe just like I pitched earlier, like, getting out and just going to school and kind of going, you're making your own route? 

Bernard Toney  32:05  

No, ROTC was pivotal. Because it took me a while to realize that while I had this great experience as an enlisted guy, two combat tours in Afghanistan, going in with ROTC cadets who have never, you know, really been in the army, I felt like I was, you know, larger than life. And so my professor in military science. His name was Colonel McFarland. He just retired, we retired on the same date this year, actually. He pushed me hard. You know, he made me the ROTC company commander. He, you know, he made me do things that I just did not wanna do. And I appreciate him to this day because I hadn't been left to my own desires and I wouldn't have pushed as hard as he wanted me to. 

And I credit him to me becoming a distinguished military graduate, graduated in the top 10% of the entire nation in ROTC all schools combined. And so no, he pushed me to another level. I've really appreciated that experience because it helped me see that, you know, sort of the difference between what an officer is and what an enlisted career is. And I don't think I would have gotten that in let's say OCS, for example, you know, three or four month course I needed those years to be able to be groomed into what an officer is.

Brock Briggs  33:39  

It doesn't sound like you actively sought out that type of accountability that he was maybe giving you and kind of holding your feet to the fire. I don't think that it's natural for us to look for people to kind of hold us accountable. But it's so, so important. Like you need somebody that like you were talking about earlier, like that believes in you, pushes you and it sucks, like it's really, really hard. What have you learned about maybe finding strong mentors? Because, you know, when we can't, our natural instinct isn't to go and find these people that make our lives hard. But we need that. How do we overcome that and look for those people that allow them the space in our lives to like, hold us accountable?

Bernard Toney  34:28  

Yeah, that's, you know, that's the challenging part when your mentor mentee relationship when you don't really know how to find those people. And sometimes those great leaders don't seek you out. I think just always being open to you know, for me the idea was if I can find someone who looks like me, for example? That's the reason why diversity is so important, not just diversity as far as race and ethnicity but diversity in experience, diversity in thought. If you can find someone who fits, you know, your mold, but they weren't there somewhere in life that you want to be, to be unafraid to reach out to them and ask for for mentorship, make them tell you know. I've done, you know, active seeking of mentors and I've had mentors that have reached out to me, as well. 

I would say, in my lifetime, though, it's been more of the latter, more people have sought to improve, you know, Bernard Tony, then I've wanted to improve myself. So I would say, you know, to your question, you have to have those people. But you have to be open to that mentorship and sometimes it's not comfortable. But if someone's giving you the attention, if someone's giving you attention in any way that's gonna improve your life, be open, be receptive. You don't have to take every suggestion, but I've been blessed with having some of the greatest mentors ever in the military, four star generals. But some of the same impacts or similar impacts have come from E-5s. 

You know, there is no rain. You know, I can tell you, there's probably more enlisted men and women that have impacted me, you know, if you're looking at this in a quantifiable way, than 4 star generals and three star generals. I can email them. I can call them but I will tell you that the folks that really made that groundbreaking pivotal impact was that the E-5 level and I'll give you a quick story to kind of make that point. There was a guy named Jason Durr. Jason Durr was on his way out of the army as I was coming into the organization. He wanted to be a social worker. Jason Durr told me, hey private Toney, you're gonna go to college. I said, Sergeant, I can't do it. I'm not that smart. 

I'm not gonna do this. Okay, well, listen, I'm a sergeant in the Army and you know, 24 hours a day. Either, you know, you can go to college or I can find something for you to do until I get tired of watching you. That can be anything from moving rocks from one place to another and then back all over again. I took that class I failed. It was a Western civilization class at some University online. Told him, see? I told you, I'm not smart enough to do this. He forced me to go back to school. I say force and you know, in a loose term, he basically made it so that it was gonna be extremely uncomfortable if I didn't. And so I went to school and I started getting A's and A's and A's and A's. 

And that's been sort of the story ever since. I was able to hire Jason Durr as a social worker when I was an executive officer in bomb older Germany. And I was hiring for certain positions in our clinic. And I was able to hire him. And man that brought me so much joy, you know. I mean, but he put me on that trajectory, that path to be now you know at that point, a young captain in a decision making capacity to now impact his life and his family's side. And that uninhibited investment in people is what I was seeing, what I was shown as a young soldier from a multitude of people.

Brock Briggs  38:32  

Now, that is so cool and so fulfilling to be able to give back in a meaningful way to somebody that's like had a positive impact on you. Have you thought any about how to filter the advice that we get? Because there is certainly no shortage of people, especially in the military that want to give you advice on the way things ought to be? Misery loves company, though, as we know and I remember so many times, you know, I'm sitting down in the galley of a ship and there's like a brand new check in and they're eating their first meal aboard the ship. And, you know, they're shaking because they're so nervous. And the gravity of just the situation is so appalling. 

And they are, it's like sharks coming to water. Like they can sense somebody new and they just wanna tell them, like how bad everything is. And it's just the most destructive thing. And it's terrible for morale. It's terrible for career wise, like if you wanna find a bunch of people that will hate the military, that is the way to do it. 

Bernard Toney

Right

Brock Briggs

So I think that that filtering mechanism is extremely important of who you've listened to and decided just curious if you had any thoughts or frameworks on how we ought to think about that.

Bernard Toney  39:59  

Well, you know, for all of my career, I've always felt like I just didn't have whatever it was, you know. I didn't have the smarts. I didn't have the athletic ability, the physical fitness, the leadership, abilities to be able to do whatever it took. I think Henry Ford said it best. I think he said, if you think you can or if you think you can't, you're right. And it makes so much sense. Whatever you're telling yourself, that is going to be your reality unfortunately. Sometimes it takes those good leaders to be able to pour into you to help you see yourself differently. But it comes back to self at the end of the day, you know, and so even all the way up to me, being a captain and applying for PA school. 

In Afghanistan again at this moment, I told my good friend, Erik Arnold. He was a major at the time and went on to be a colonel. I said, I'm not good enough. I can't do this. You know and this is at that point, I was already ROTC DMG distinguished military graduate, already graduated magna cum laude. I already had, you know, I excelled academically but I still told myself I wasn't good enough. I needed that push. I needed the extra attention from good leaders. But it ultimately came down to what I told myself. And if you find yourself telling yourself things that are antithetical to where you wanna be, that's a problem, you know. And you might, you know, another good way to look at this is, if someone's in your same foxhole complaining about things, then they're probably not the person that you wanna listen to anyway. So always sought out people that were in positions that I wanted to be in later on. 

And so I will look, I will listen to those folks. And they oftentimes had a different message. Almost universally, they had a much more forward thinking, forward looking message for me because they had broke out of, you know, those initial sticking points that gets a lot of people or they did break out of situations that were, you know, very difficult for that. And so they had a testimony. And I was able to use that testimony and live, you know, vicariously through those folks and apply it to myself. 

Brock Briggs  42:33  

Did you say that you were applying to go back to Afghanistan now?

Bernard Toney  42:37  

No, no, I was saying that when I was a captain, I was applying for PA school. I was already a Medical Service Corps officer. And I was applying for PA school. And at the time, I wasn't confident in my abilities. And so that was the third time I was in Afghanistan applying for something. 

Brock Briggs

Okay, I got you. 

Bernard Toney

I think I'm seeing a trainer. I think when I get to Afghanistan, I apply for something.

Brock Briggs  43:01  

All right. Anytime you're ready for like a life mix up, you better just head on over and get you thinking real deep about what the next couple steps are.

Bernard Toney  43:10  

There you go. There you go. If you wanna really change your life, go to the worst conditions and environment ever.

Brock Briggs  43:18  

It's funny what that does to you. And I think that that's why just like hanging out with junior enlisted people, why people make such rash decisions on stuff is because you get into a stressful situation. And all of a sudden, it's like, you know, the classic like Junior troupe thing, like, I need to get married, like, you know. Like, I need to go buy this expensive car, like just do this wild stuff. Yeah. And it just really quickly can kind of like catapult out of control. So yeah, that stress on our mental health is a rough one. And you gotta filter out what you're gonna do with it for sure.

Bernard Toney 

Right

Brock Briggs 

So I wanna talk for kind of our remainder of the time about your interest in medicine, what you're doing now. When you like cross trained, I think you called it to the medic side. Did you instantly say oh, yeah, this is really good. Like, where did that interest in health come from?

Bernard Toney  44:31  

No. So if you recall, I failed Russian. I became a medic/mental health technician, but I wanted to go back and finish that language. Though that was a personal goal, where I really sort of decided that I wanted to go on this path was I was in Afghanistan working as a French cryptologic linguist for the Third Special Forces Group. Those two things don't match up very well. There's not a lot of French speaking Afghans. And so I spent a lot of time working with the Special Forces and medics because of my previous combat medic experience as an enlisted guy. And so there's this one amazing medic named Bruce Holmes, who just retired from the Special Forces this year, I believe. 

I saw him work magic on the battlefield. I mean, it was, he was phenomenal in combat, trauma medicine, and so whether it was taking care of us, whether it was taking care of Afghans, they came through the gate with blown off limbs. He was, you know, with the scarcity of resources, it was just phenomenal the things that I watched him do. He said he wanted to become a PA after that tour in Afghanistan. He said he was gonna apply to PA school and I had no idea what that meant. And so that was how I learned what a PA is and what a PA does. And so that was sort of the nexus between my deciding to stay in the military. And then at some point, becoming a PA. really the idea of, you know, intrinsically, that sort of gut feeling of wanting to go into medicine kind of came back to that drive by shooting, where I was holding my friend on the side of the street there on Memorial Drive, in Decatur, Georgia. 

And the EMS dispatchers were actually, where is he shot? Where is he bleeding? Is he breathing? And I just did not have any answers to these questions because I was panicking. And it was probably the most helpless feeling I've ever felt in my entire life. And so I never really wanted to feel like that again. And I didn't know that was going to translate into a lifetime career in medicine, but I will say if I were to go back and look back tests probably were my interest in medicine came into play because I wasn't able to do something and neither were the medics or the hospital that received them. And so you take that experience. You combine it with seeing how medicine does work out, you know, combat medicine, trauma medicine does work out on the battlefield. I was able to make that connection, that bridge and say, you know, this is what I wanna do with the rest of my life.

Brock Briggs  47:21  

It looks like from your background, you've kind of taken that PA position and applied it to some different kind of specialties. And what's really gonna highlight here is my ignorance about medicine, so forgive me in advance, but we spent some time with family medicine and then ended up like in the like aero medical space, like while you're working with the army. I'm guessing that is how are PA jobs like segmented I guess? Is it combat? Is it aeromedical? Is it all of these different things? Or is it just kind of more cross pollinated, I guess?

Bernard Toney  48:02  

All of the above. So the thing about being a straight position is that usually residency training means you choose a breadth of field of medicine that you're gonna stay in. And that's what you practice. And so if you have a cardiologist, they study cardiology, they did residency and that's what they do. They take care of the heart. And you know, in perpetuity. PA’s, we are able to bounce around different fields of medicine because we're not tied to a specific residency and so you sort of cross train into all of those different fields. 

I started as a family medicine PA in South Korea and that's where I kind of focus and hone my medical skills as a primary care clinician, women's health, taking care of Pediatrics taking care of some soldiers, but primarily dependents. And then from there, I started to branch out into other fields, aerospace, aeromedical field, and then I spent primarily the rest of my career in executive medicine in different positions working at the four star general officer level or at the White House.

Brock Briggs  49:12  

What have you found to be the most fulfilling like having the ability to kind of jump in and out of like all of these different segments? Is there like a particular segment that is more or less appealing to you and why?

Bernard Toney  49:28  

I would say no, I think everything has its benefits. When I was in family medicine, I was able to, I love taking care of kids, you know. It was really nice to see little kiddos come back and see me and do their Well Child exams and also take care of their parents. So you have like this nucleus of patients that you see and you take care of regularly. Aeromedical field is cool from an army perspective and the flying around on helicopters and doing things in the air and under strange conditions that you probably wouldn't normally wanna do on the ground in stable conditions. Executive medicine is extremely interesting. Working at the White House was the capstone of my career. And I would say that's probably one of the most interesting jobs I've ever had. But everything has pros and cons, even the White House definitely had things that were detrimental, you know, let's say to the family life, that, you know, you can't really balance out.

Brock Briggs  50:29  

Let's spend some time. I'd love to talk about your time at the White House. You so you officially retired from the army, correct? 

Bernard Toney 

Correct

Brock Briggs 

21 years? I guess, what was the final? I shouldn't say final straw, you're retiring. So you've done your time. Did that retirement come about because of the opportunity to go to the White House? Or?

Bernard Toney  50:57  

Great question. No, I would say that that retirement was based upon, you know, you can always say to 25 years 30, or whatever it is. I decided to stay in for the sake of my family. At the White House, I've traveled anywhere between 50 to 70% of the month. And so I didn't really see my family often. And when I did see my family, I was working. And so we worked, you know, tirelessly, has great opportunity to work with the President and Vice President for two different administrations. 

But it's also when you look at presidents and they're in there, you look at them before they became the president, look at their hair after it's gray and the hairline recedes a little bit. And I think that stress over time, some of its you stress with some of this distress, right? And so a lot of it is great as fun and you love to be able to do the mission with Secret Service and all your other counterparts. But at the you know, in the same breath, your family is not going with you while you're doing these things. 

And they oftentimes they're ostracized from what you're doing from clearance in a security perspective. So you kind of live in these double lives. But you're only given at least in my case, I was only given my family about 20 to 30% of my time in best conditions, while serving up the, you know, at the pleasure of the President or Vice President. So I would you know, for me, it was not a bad thing. But it was a shift of pivot back towards normalcy for my life.

Brock Briggs  52:36  

Yeah, 50 to 70% of the time, that's a huge chunk that probably makes your time in the army seen, like laid back in terms of like deployment schedules and I'm not sure what that exactly looks like for doctors, but a lot of the doctors in the Navy, you're like, you're going home every day, you know. That is a huge contrast.

Bernard Toney  52:59  

Right. Right. Yeah, absolutely.

Brock Briggs  53:03  

Where does that job come from? I'm guessing that they don't hire medical officers for the White House, just like on LinkedIn jobs or anything like that. Did they come like, give you the tap on the shoulder and say, hey, we need you or your country needs you. In a different way like, we understand that you just served 21 years in the Army, but now we need something more from you.

Bernard Toney  53:33  

No, no. Great question. So just like anything else, there's, you know, there's the opportunity and then you can apply for it. So this is nothing really fancy or special. I had a mentor, Stuart Miller, who, when I was training as a PA in Hawaii, he told me that he was once a White House PA. And I was like, oh my God, I've never, I mean, I didn't even know the military people. I didn't know there was a White House Military Office. I had no idea that it existed. And so I said, I wonder what that looked like. And so he was very helpful in showing me that all my career timeline, my trajectory, my glide path, as we called it at the time, that it could fit in, you know, into my career goals and objectives, if I wanted to apply. 

And so at that moment, when it was possible, I was able to apply for it and and then come out to Washington, DC. I was actually stationed in South Korea at the time I came out for the second time. I was in South Korea, and I had the opportunity to fly out to DC and go through the laborious interview process. But really, it was more so if you've had the baseline, you know, background and you know, you had these certain skills that you were able to that they were demonstrable, you had already excelled as a clinician, then the next hurdle was from a security perspective. Can you be within arms reach of the President, which is much different from just having a, say, a top secret security clearance, you know, a lot of people have those things. 

But can you be within arm's reach of the leader of the free world? That takes a different look. And then the sort of third part of that assessment was, do you fit in? You know, are you pompous? Yes, you're smart. Yes, you’re this. But are you pompous? Are you humble? You know, are you able to do things that, you know, probably don't fit into your job description, you know, and so, sort of those assessments took place and then they make their determinations and kind of go from there. 

Brock Briggs  55:39  

I imagine that the screening process for something like that would be extremely rigorous, but I didn't really think about what those extra questions might look like about personality. And I imagine if you're literally going to be administering medicine to, you know, people who are there and I guess maybe, could you maybe describe what that job entailed. And like, what's your day to day responsibilities are? Here in just a second, but yeah, I didn't really think about you probably don't wanna be like a super rude like you said, a pompous person if you're gonna be dealing with that level.

Bernard Toney  56:20  

Right. Right. Absolutely. You could definitely find resumes look stellar. And haven't been on the, you know, on the side of interviewing people and you're kind of shocked at what you get that walks in the door. Like wait a minute, this resume looks amazing, but I would never wanna work with you or for you, or anything. 

Brock Briggs  

Right 

Bernard Toney

So we were blessed and that we were able to pick our teammates, which is not a common thing in the military, specifically. Because generally you show up to a unit and you just get orders, you know, it doesn't matter if you're an officer or enlisted. It's all the same, you get orders. And then now the unit has to figure out how to, you know, integrate this face into this space for function and so far team were able to pick our teammates. 

Brock Briggs  57:12  

Okay. Let's see here. Are you able to talk about like day to day responsibilities? What did waking up and going to work look like for you?

Bernard Toney  57:22  

We'll put it this way, without going into a lot of granularity, no two days are alike. There isn't a day to day, if you will, it’s varied all the time. But as a PA, I was often the primary provider for the Vice President and for the First Lady. And so that meant a lot of travel with the principles. So if I was traveling with the Vice President or First Lady, I've traveled all over the world not just the United States, but every country. And I was the primary care provider for any range of situations. 

And so that's what it looked like at the PA level. And then for the President, we did a lot of medical planning for the President. And we would also integrate into the overall team, the medical team that supported the president. So it was a really robust sort of medical infrastructure and plan. And we were essentially responsible for developing a plan for every contingency and implementing that plan when needed.

Brock Briggs  58:32  

What do you think is the most interesting thing that you observed during your time at the White House? You were there for three years and some change. I'm sure that and like you said, two administrations. Anything that you can share that like, really blew your socks off or an observation even that stood out to you.

Bernard Toney  58:53  

I would say for me, much like most other people I think the pandemic was, it comes as top of mind, to see a whole of government approach, private and public sector all coming together. I don't think we've seen anything like that since probably World War ll. And so to see that level of collaboration across private sectors, industry leaders, all working together for share calls, it definitely was not, you know, you take a job that doesn't meet the status quo and then you add on a global pandemic on top of it. I think it really was just mind blowing to see all of our nation's leaders trying to figure out with very little information how to lead this country. 

And so that was, you know, to be a fly on the wall as I often was, was very interesting to be able to see how all this stuff played out. And to see the humanity in our nation's leaders, you know, because what most people see as they see sound bites on newsreels and things like that. But again, having this much more intimate experience allowed me to see the humanity in people that, you know, I wish it was more often seen and to see the collaborative efforts that was more often portrayed. I was able to see a narrative that really didn't fit what was in a news cycle, oftentimes. 

And so I think that the pandemic was definitely that most pivotal point to see everyone coming together. And again, going back to the point of doing things that you wouldn't normally do, you know, standing outside in the middle of the cold taking people's temperatures, you know, when we had nothing else, we had no testing mechanism, we had no vaccines, we had nothing. CMR colleagues at all ranks, you know, doing everyone else's job just because that's what we needed to do to protect one another in animation. 

Brock Briggs  1:01:04  

Did that lead to any changes in how you other than, like, the observation of like humanity, as you said, was there any changes in how you see the world? How you see medicine being charged with the kind of the responsibility of the health of very critical people in the world?

Bernard Toney  1:01:28  

Absolutely. I would say that that's what prompted me to go back to school to get a master's in public health because I was able to see, you know, the inequities that exist in the United States and more broadly around the world, you know. How access to testing and again, this isn't White House driven, but this is things that is distributed across all the 50 states. I was able to see how people who had access were not as affected by the pandemic as the people who did have access to resources and medications and the ability to telework and things like that. And had I not been at the White House, I would have been in my city, my neighborhood, probably just like, you are hunkering down, quarantining, you know, isolating all these types of things. 

But because of my job, I was still traveling all around the world and every single ground zero, if you will. I was in Seattle when people didn't have access to masks or PPE. And going over to New York and all over, you know, all over the world, we never stopped working, we never stopped traveling. And as a secondary benefit of that, I was able to see, wow, you know, these populations in this town or the city, they don't have a lot. And ironically, these are the people who are most affected or this population of people can't tell, they physically have to go to work. They work in a service industry or whatever it is. And they don't have access to being able to say, I'll just work from home for the next six months or really sick people who couldn't go to a doctor during that time. 

Because, you know, public transportation wasn't running in certain cities at certain times during the pandemic. And so what the White House did as a benefit of all the travel that I did, as a part of my medical planning to protect our most powerful people in the world, it gave me a lens of what the United States of America and the world, to be candid with you, looks like from an equity perspective. And so for me, that's what prompted me to go and take MPH as I'm finishing now. And I worked very closely with our embedded epidemiologist at the CDC and looking at a lot of the data. And so yeah, absolutely, I looked at the world much differently. And I realized that there's a lot of inequity. And so I wanna be able to work in that space to be able to affect change.

Brock Briggs  1:04:15  

So you're now pursuing your Master's of Public Health as kind of like a byproduct of that. How have your personal goals and or outlook changed on what you can do to influence that change because of that?

Bernard Toney  1:04:35  

Yeah. So the natural inclination for a lot of people that come out of my job, the job that I had at the White House is to do something very, you know, unique and different and unorthodox. There's some positions in the White House that, you know, they created this executive medicine sort of deal for, you know, for people who have enough money to own yachts, but they need a medical plan, you know, as they're, you know, sailing the seas. And I've had folks that have gone to work for, you know, sort of in the same capacity executive medicine for billionaire, the billionaire class and things like that. 

For me, personally, I just realized, you know, that I can do more good taking care of and figuring out ways to impact the least, you know, of our society, the people who are on the margins of society, the people that no one will ever know their name, unfortunately. I feel like I've been able to develop an acute awareness of what those people look and feel like. And for me, that's my personal fulfillment, that's my personal journey in life. Case in point I went out to India with President Trump and India's interesting place, I was in New Delhi. And I remember seeing, we stayed in this nice luxury hotel. And, you know, we had everything you can ever imagine worthy of a president and his staff and his delegation. 

And then I would go into the city and see women begging me for food, half naked, and the children were already at the age of two, learning the begging sign, you know, give me money, please give me money. And so, it was hard to reconcile that. Although I had already been in Afghanistan as a soldier, I was much closer to what poverty and distress looks like at that moment in my life. But once I made it to the White House, and I was, you know, working with the President and Vice President, you can imagine the accommodations. You can imagine the resources. I mean, the most powerful country supporting the most powerful man and family in the entire world. 

And so that stark contrast is hard for me to reconcile even to this day, knowing that there's probably about a billion people who are in the conditions that they don't have enough money just to stay alive. And you know, and so for me to be able to use my platform, my voice, my expertise, my connections to be able to affect change for those people, was much more meaningful than what a lot of my other colleagues would have wanted to do coming out of the White House, which is something more of the same.

Brock Briggs  1:07:39  

In your opinion, with the knowledge that you have about the health inequity, if that's the right way to describe tha. What is the best way that our country we individually, from a public health perspective, however you wanna approach that, is the best way that we can work for change on that. Is it a policy thing? Is it an insurance thing? Where is the big problem to you?

Bernard Toney  1:08:10  

You speak in the United States, specifically? Within our country? 

Brock Briggs 

Sure. And then we can talk globally too. 

Bernard Toney

Yeah, from the United States perspective, there's still about 5% of the children who don't have insurance. Why is that the case? You know, we spend about 16% as an estimate of our GDP on health care. Where does that money go? We have people who are, we have, you know, we have the obesity epidemic that's ravaging our country. That's creating chronic diseases, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, dyslipidemia, all these things. What is happening to our nation if we're spending so much money speaking United States specifically, but we still have poor outcomes and maternal mortality, infant mortality? 

I think you're right. I think that when you parse out the details and you see where these people die, you know who's most affected is mostly structural inequities. Inequities in the sense that, you know, if you're in a certain socio economic class, maybe you're not so poor that you can get Medicaid. But you don't have enough money to pay the hospital bill or the coinsurance or the deductibles as well. So I think what we have to look at from a policy perspective is how do we create buffers and supports for the people who cannot take care of themselves from a health perspective to be able to do so? That's a challenge. 

I remember talking to Senator McConnell. Before he even got to the White House, this is 2016. And he was, they were trying to change the health care policies in the United States and so it's a difficult task. We have to figure out ways to make those changes now. We have a system that's broken. I don't think anyone would disagree with me. We have a system for old people, Medicare. We have a system for poor people, Medicaid. We have a system that, you know, for veterans and military, like you and I had the benefit of experiencing, which is very different than our counterparts in the civilian sector who pay for their insurance through their employer. You'd have self payers. 

And then you have this big gap where people don't fit into any of those buckets. And those are people usually on the margins of society. And we have to figure out a way to take care of them. So that way, we can steer the shift in a better direction to take care of the population writ large. Overall, I think we need to have some form of universal health care, but I really don't know exactly how we will get there at this point.

Brock Briggs  1:10:47  

That does seem like a very, very large leap compared to where we are now. This is gonna be kind of like a personal question just from like my own interest in healthcare and why we're in the position that we're in today. Do you think that greater access to care over time, we're still obviously have a long way to go as you're highlighting here, but over time that is increasing? Do you think that expanded access drives the cost up, like we're visiting the doctor more and so that insurance costs more and so at kind of the point that you made about where's all this money is being spent? But like, where's it going like, if the numbers aren't changing?

Bernard Toney  1:11:35  

Yeah, so it depends on what you're measuring. It depends on what you choose to measure. The United States, I would never go anywhere else in the world for health care. That's me, right? And so this is the greatest country in the world for health care. We're super highly specialized, right? If you had the most rarest form of autoimmune disease, you'll find a team of physicians to be able to address that. If you have the risk of cancer, we have cancer centers all over America. Where we don't do well is the primary and preventative care. And so the most expensive care, the cancers, the autoimmune diseases, the chronic diseases that are very long term, those are the people who are going to consume the most expensive care, but not the greatest quantity of care. 

What we need to figure out is how do we expand care, basic care to the general population and preventative care so that they don't have the chronic diseases that are costly. It takes much more money to, for example, manage diabetes and high cholesterol than it does to give immunizations, right? To children than it does to do a wellness checkup, to give good health education and promote health literacy. That's peanuts compared to expensive MRIs and PET scans and CT scans and, you know, the cost of specialists. So the population of people who are really sick is growing and their diseases are expensive. 

And they're living with those diseases longer. So that means we're investing more money into very certain vertical disease conditions and states. What's more beneficial long term on a time horizon perspective is to expand that care out to the general population so that we prevent these chronic diseases and we prevent these disease states that cost money over time. Well, we don't currently have a cure for.

Brock Briggs  1:13:40  

you have anything for me/listeners on better ways that we can take care of ourselves? Anything, any advice that's maybe non traditional. We'd a lot of times know what we should be doing. But anything that is less common that would benefit. 

Bernard Toney  1:14:01  

Unique advice? No, I will say if you're in the military, you're probably getting you know, some of the best advice, force advice ever, right? Your mates exercise you're made to, the military has control over your diet. If you're a younger soldier, you know, you're probably eating better things. But I would say, you know, look at your family history. You know, I would say, for me, it was very difficult for me to think about, you know, if I gave you statistics, that doesn't mean a whole lot. 1.5 million people have hypertension this year. What does that mean to you? What means more is if you have family members that you can live to because not all people do. 

But if you have members that you can look to, look at how they live and look at what conditions they have. And that oftentimes kind of is a good predictor of what your future will be if you lived the way that they live. So I use my mother as an example. She has chronic diseases. And so they're pretty consistent with eating a high sugar diet, a high sodium diet over the course of an entire lifetime. And I love her to death. But these were things that were sort of lifestyle things that at the time, she just didn't have the knowledge on. You know, I grew up and we drank Kool Aid. I don't know if you've ever heard Kool Aid. You're so young, but we drank Kool Aid. And it was nothing but sugar and food coloring. And healthy for us was eating vegetables out of a can. Look at the sodium content in the can, right? 

And so we ate that way because it was cultural, because we didn't know any better, because we didn't have health literacy. But now with younger people, you know, your age and your demographic, you have access to information at all times. But you also probably have this living example of what it looks like to be unhealthy in your own families. And so if you look at those examples and now you have all this information on how to avoid it, then that gives you this more personal nexus of how to figure out ways in your own lifestyle to be able to avert those disastrous health conditions.

Brock Briggs  1:16:13  

What is the endgame for you? What are you working towards? Is there a job title or something that is aspirational for you? As if you haven't already accomplished enough. Like, we're over here to gas you on all of those things. But what are you working towards?

Bernard Toney  1:16:35  

My goal is that there's about a, you know, there used to be about a billion people in poverty. COVID has made it so that it's hard to measure those numbers. But there's say 750 million to 1 billion people are so in extreme poverty. We don't have extreme poverty in the United States. We have relative poverty. We have people who aren't millionaires, but they can, you know, but they can still go to a food kitchen. They can still find shelter, you know, at night, those types of things. I wanna work in a cross sectoral way to be able to affect that bottom billion people in the world because those are the people who don't have enough money to stay alive. And so you might as well how do you fit into that if you're not an economist? Well, all these things interconnect. So healthy kids do better in school. 

So if you're in Sub Saharan Africa, you know, you get malaria on a regular basis. That means a lot of times, you're not attending school. If you're not attending school, then you're not getting an education. If you're not getting an education, you're not getting a good job. If you don't have the job, then you're not productive in society. If you're not productive in society, that hurts the overall economic standing for that country, the GDP, the productivity. You have to have healthy people to have healthy, productive citizens of whatever nation that you're in. And so my goal is to be able to affect that bottom billion from a healthy perspective, to get them off that, you know, off the ground and onto the first rung of the development ladder. 

So that way, they can take care of themselves at some point. But you can't really take care of yourself if every single day is a struggle just to stay alive. We're not having the right conversations if we're saying just give them more medicines or just give them more shots. We have to work in a cross-sectoral way with environmentalists, people who work in industry, people who are working in infrastructure development, people who work in economy, you know, economic planning, people who work in governance. Working in all those different areas to be able to tie all that together is important for me and health is a big part of it. So you'll probably find me in Sub Saharan Africa and other low and middle income countries moving forward.

Brock Briggs  1:18:53  

That's fantastic. I think that that's a very admirable mission and really highlights. You're not really any good to anybody. We're not able to fulfill our own dreams, we're not able to help other people, we're not able to do anything unless your own personal, physical and mental health is all squared away and aligned. 

Bernard Toney

Absolutely

Brock Briggs

Bernard, this has been a really, really fun, enlightening conversation. I have one closing question for you. What can we learn from you and your story that we can implement today?

Bernard Toney  1:19:33  

That's a really great question. Thank you for asking. I would say, you mentioned a lot, I believe, you know, some of the people who might be listening to this might be younger, maybe lower enlisted, maybe aren't considered. They don't feel like they're leaders. I would say that even if you aren't in a position of personal excuse me, positional leadership, you're not a First Sergeant. Or you're not an officer that's leading an organization, or even in the civilian sector. If you’re not considered in a position of leadership. Personal leadership means oftentimes, so much more. You can do that chess about at any level. 

And I say that from having, again, going back to my original point, that many of the people that have the greatest impact on me that really sort of got me on a certain trajectory and a certain aspect, didn't have a whole lot of positional power. But they had a lot of personal power, a lot of personal leadership, and find ways to invest in other people. You know, I've gone back to a lot of my leaders and some of them have cried because they thought, I had no idea that I made this impact on you. 

And it sounds sort of cliche and like an empty platitude to pay it forward. But that's really what we're doing is we're investing in one another. Every single day finding out opportunities to invest in other people every single day. That changes not only you as a person, the way you think, the way you approach things, the way you approach problems in life, the way you approach leadership that changes you fundamentally. But as a byproduct, you're probably changing other people's lives as well. And so is mutually supportive. And I would just say fine, every single day, a way to pour into someone else's cup.

Brock Briggs  1:21:28  

I like that, pour into somebody else's cup. That's a great way to put it, can never be too full. Bernard, where can people go to learn more about you? Anything that you wanna shout out? Or causes people could go support or things they should look up? 

Bernard Toney  1:21:46  

No, I don't have any shameless plugs. I will say that the really the only way to find me is on LinkedIn. I used to have Facebook and Instagram and I'm of the age now where a lot of the other things like TikTok, you know, there's too far of a reach for me. And because of my national security background, I've kind of limited myself to the LinkedIn platform. So that's usually where you can find me and that's usually where you'll find whatever initiatives that I'm working on and collaborations that I have with other people. But I'm always looking for opportunities to work with other people. And if you need a mentor, if I can't be your mentor, I probably know someone who can. So absolutely reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Brock Briggs  1:22:25  

Awesome. I know that that's where the White House found you. They hit you on the LinkedIn jobs. Bernard, thank you so much!

Bernard Toney 

All right. Thank you!