Our Veterans, Our Stories Podcast

Brian and Lara Beltz United States Navy Veterans

Welcome to the Our Veterans, Our Stories podcast with the Hancock County Veterans Service Office. This is where we give our local veterans an opportunity to share their stories with our community and beyond. There is a real brotherhood among all vets, and it will be great to help others to know their stories about serving our country. And it gives us an opportunity to introduce the community to our team at the Hancock County Veterans Service Office, so people can learn a little bit more about what we do and how we can help. Welcome to today’s episode of Our Veterans, Our Stories.

 

0:32

Today we’re fortunate enough to have Brian and Laura Belz with us. Get settled in, this is going to be a good one. Welcome, Brian and Laura.

 

0:41

Thank you for having us.

 

0:43

I guess let’s just jump right into it. Where are you from?

 

0:47

Who are you? Where’d you grow up?

 

0:48

I mean, tell me, where did it all start?

 

0:51

Well, I’m from, originally from Wharton, Ohio, and I went to Riverdale High School locally. And I went straight from there into a delayed entry for the Navy. And from there, came back and went to college here in Finley, Ohio at the university for graphic design and had a great freelance career for a while. And then Brian and I got together and I’ve been doing the marketing there for our company for, oh, jeez. almost 20 years.

 

1:31

Did you know Brian in high school?

 

1:33

No.

 

1:34

Where are you from Brian?

1:36

I’m from Finley. So I grew up born and raised here in Finley, went to Finley High School, graduated, went right into the Navy and came back here after I was done and started working and worked in the trades for a while doing kind of the same thing I did in the Navy and then started a business.

 

2:00

Speaking of the Navy, it’s interesting how you were both Navy, and I’m sure we’ll hear more about that later, but what made you choose the Navy?

 

2:11

Mine was pretty easy. I decided to join the military because, you know, growing up through junior high and high school, the time that I went through, everybody was pushing college prep, so that was just the way that we were way it was taught, right, is you take college prep classes because you’re going to go to college after high school, and I was never really college material, but I took all the classes and everything, and so getting to the point where We were getting ready to graduate, a buddy and I went and decided we were going to go look at the military because we knew we were in like party mode in high school and thinking nothing more, no more schooling, that’s what we were thinking. So we were smart enough to know that with parents that were they were going to support us by sending us to college, that we would just piss their money away.

 

3:12

It’s kind of like strikes, you know, hey, let’s go do this for our future.

 

3:15

Yes.

 

3:15

Yes.

 

3:15

Yeah.

 

3:16

So, yeah, that was pretty well my story.

 

3:19

Yeah.

 

3:20

How about you, Laura? Well, my dad was second generation, is second generation Navy. And when I was in junior high, I think it was my junior year, I was thinking along the same lines, like I really hated school and I didn’t want to go to college. I just, I absolutely hated the idea of having any more schooling. And I thought, I really want to get out of here and go as far away as possible. I thought this area was completely boring.

 

3:52

You know, it’s funny how life changes.

 

3:55

perception. And so my dad was, you know, have you thought about going to college? And I said, no, I’m just going to waste your money because I don’t want to go to school. I don’t want to do that anymore. And I had this like burning desire, really, is the best way to describe it, to be a part of something bigger than myself. And I thought, yeah, I’ll join the military. And then I thought, well, I don’t really want to follow in the same path. I just want to kind of cut my own path. So I thought, well, forget the Navy. I’ll go in the Air Force. And originally, I did sign with the Air Force. And somewhere along the line, before I actually went to boot camp, I switched over and saw the light. So that’s how I ended up in the Navy. Just having that thought of serving something bigger than yourself was really important to me and helping other people.

 

4:59

And one of the main decisions for you know going into the Navy was the fact that they would guarantee that I could become a physical therapist because I could go as a corpsman and then after that go into school for physical therapy and I had been volunteering at Blanchard Valley for quite a while in the PT department so that was kind of how I got into the Navy. I see so that explains why you chose the Navy and the MOS that you chose there.

 

5:29

Brian, what did you do as an MOS and kind of why did you choose that MOS? A little different than her. That sounds well planned. I scored pretty well on the ASVAB test when I went down and took it. And so I looked at what schools were the longest. So the electrician had one of the longer schools, other than I think it was nuclear on a submarine, and I didn’t want any part of that.

 

5:58

So that was really why I chose what I did, because it had the longest school.

 

6:04

Yeah, that’s an interesting way to look at things.

 

6:08

That just means he didn’t want to get to work right away.

 

6:12

Delayed. Yeah, so I’m sure you did your things. What were some places that stood out to you in the military? Where were some places you were stationed? And then the big question was, when did you meet in the Navy? Can you walk me through that?

 

6:29

Walk us through that.

 

6:31

I was in, I started in Great Lakes.

 

6:35

This is more exciting. I don’t know about that. I started in Great Lakes and then ended up down in Portsmouth, Virginia, and I didn’t really get to do much patient care there. It was more records. The exciting thing there was I got to go into the morgue.

 

6:55

I worked in decedent affairs for a while, so we got to visit the morgue, and I found that pretty cool.

 

7:01

It was exciting. I know, and there were just crazy, I think it’s just the nature of some of the youth when you’re in the military, some of the crazy stories of how people ended their days was fascinating. But I think the most interesting part was probably when I went to Sicily. I was stationed there, and that was an amazing island, an amazing group of people I was stationed with. and some of the best travel that I’ve ever experienced. I feel like that place left such a mark on me that I carry a piece of that. with me definitely today.

 

7:47

If you told me here’s a ticket to go to Sicily, I’d be on the plane in a minute.

 

7:52

Would you be with her?

 

7:53

Yeah, absolutely.

 

7:54

It’s beautiful there.

 

7:55

So you were in Sicily as well?

 

7:57

No, no.

 

7:58

We went there for our honeymoon.

 

8:01

Not in the Navy.

 

8:04

So what about during the Navy, where were you stationed? So I had some choices when I got out of my long school for electrical, and I chose Jacksonville, Florida. I was like, oh, that sounds awesome. It’s nice and warm and a great place to be. And so I reported there. I think it was four or six weeks maybe after I reported to duty there. We were shipped up to Virginia during the winter. And we were in dry dock, because we put the ship into dry dock and refurbished the whole ship.

 

8:41

So we were living in a hotel for, I don’t know, it was like nine months or whatever, and going to a shipyard every day.

 

8:48

Not quite the Florida experience.

 

8:49

Super exciting.

 

8:51

Yeah. And then we spent the next almost year out testing everything that we redid and fixed. And, you know, we did some, we chased some drug runners and and things like that.

 

9:04

But it was not as exciting as being in Sicily. Yeah.

 

9:09

So when did you all meet in the Navy?

 

9:10

Tell us about that.

 

9:11

How did that happen?

 

9:12

We really, we met through a friend later, actually.

 

9:19

Oh, OK.

 

9:19

So not in the Navy. OK. All right.

 

9:23

So let’s work our way up to that point.

 

9:25

Because that’s a big point of this. So OK.

 

9:29

So you complete your time in the Navy. What do you do next? Mine was easy. I came back and I started working doing online. jobs. I did all kinds of jobs, working kind of in the construction, trade field. Well, like my job in the Navy, I was on a destroyer, so it was a small ship. And we did all of the stuff. And I didn’t know any better just because I was young. So meaning we worked on not only the electrical things and the in the ship, the communications. We also worked in the engineering department. So that meant we worked on gray water systems, black water systems, boilers, engines. So we just learned all of the mechanicals of the ship. And so when I got back, we just started working on, I don’t know, we did water lines, sewer lines, we did some directional boring, drove a dump truck.

 

10:25

And then I got into doing service work.

 

10:29

I got hired in as the electrician, but we did electrical plumbing, heating, cooling, and so it just kind of fell right into…

 

10:35

Right up your alley.

 

10:36

Yeah, kind of what I used to do. Yeah. It’s amazing what an MOS in the military actually relates, and most of them do.

 

10:44

Yeah. You know, that’s the good thing about the military. What about you, Laura, when you got back? I had a really hard transition when I got out. I think it was a combination of, I worked in the ER, Ran EMS while I was in Sicily, so that’s a really high stress, high adrenaline. I sometimes miss the working like a well -oiled machine of the department because there were only three corpsmen, a nurse, and one doctor on shift for basically the entire island. There’s not really, you know, and some people live out in town so they’re all the way across. The base is pretty close to Catania, which is on the east side of the island. And we had people who were living all the way out by Palermo, which is on the west side. So, you know, it was, that’s a lot to take care of.

 

11:43

We also were kind of the hopping point from if someone got injured on the ship, then they would be medevacked to our location, stabilized, and then they would be transferred to like Ramstein, you know, Germany for further care. we saw a lot of stuff. And I, I think the combination of coming off of that day to day, every single week doing that kind of high stress job and figuring, trying to figure out how to deal with some of the, you know, cause we’re not, we’re not saving everybody. We’re doing our best, but we’re not saving everybody. So I’m trying to figure out how to deal with the decompression of, of that kind of event in your life and then coming from a foreign country and coming back to the states after you’ve lived in a foreign country for a couple years, you know, and you leave that nucleus of a family that you’ve built. in in a foreign country because you’ve got no one you know you you get you get stationed in a foreign country by yourself and and a lot of times the people you work with day in and day out are they become your family because there is nobody else you know you’re not coming home for every single holiday you’re you’re there with them so you have holidays with them and and it’s I mean the the team that I worked with I’ve got a handful of ladies that I worked with on shift and we talk still to this day almost every single day.

 

13:20

So that bond is super tight even to this day and it’s been a long time ago.

 

13:27

But coming back to the states was just, it was hard.

 

13:30

you know come back and people are married and they’re having kids and or they’ve graduated from college and and I just found it really hard to quote -unquote assimilate back into civilian life because you’re not living in the foreign country, you’re not in the military anymore, everybody seems to have moved on with their lives so It was just really, really hard.

 

13:54

Did you ever feel like you lost your sense of purpose?

 

13:57

Yes.

 

13:58

Yeah, that’s a tough thing.

 

13:59

Yeah. How did you deal with it? Not well. Not well? Not well. We talked about the fact that the military gives you lots of really good skills. And we talked about, Brian and I discuss this on a regular basis. With our business, we hire people all the time. looking for those skills that people have in the military with abundance, great. I think one of the great things that come out of being in the service, especially if you’re in a high intense type of job, you learn how to, like, whatever emotions you’re feeling about the event, stuff it, you know, stow it away because there’s a job to be done and it needs to be the most important thing. So you get through those moments. You do the job that needs to be done and you move on. They just don’t do a great, and maybe they do now. I mean, it’s been a long time, but at that time there wasn’t really a really good outlet to kind of unpack that. So, you know, you take it with you and that kind of stuff just piles on top of each other until there comes a time where you have to talk about it.

 

15:12

You have to go see somebody about it. So I didn’t do really good back then. I’d say it was probably another 10 years before I really unpacked all of that. And I’ll be honest. I went to therapy through the VA for a good year to try and just kind of work through that stuff and be able to be at peace with it. And I would encourage anybody that’s, you know, whether they’re in the military or not, if you’re dealing with stuff, you need to talk about it. You have to talk about it. The more you talk about it, and I think for me, realizing Having somebody else point out a different point of view and validate the feelings that you’re having and check the ones that you have but aren’t authentic. So that’s my fault. I should have done better. I should have been able to save this person. I should have been able to take care of this. No. Those people made those choices, especially a lot of the people that we saw in my circumstance. it wasn’t always military -related.

 

16:20

A lot of it was, you know, they’re off time, they’re on liberty, they’re doing stupid stuff, they’re, you know, scuba diving when they shouldn’t be scuba diving, or driving a car like they shouldn’t be driving a car, you know, those type of things. So when you have somebody point out, that’s not your fault, they chose to do those things. So just, that’s just an example of one of the ways that I think talking to somebody and having a different point of view of you don’t need to carry this baggage. It’s not your baggage to carry is a huge, huge benefit of going and talking to somebody. Yeah, I’m glad you made it to that point of that realization and taking the steps needed.

 

17:05

It’s got to feel like your shoulders are 80 pounds lighter. And I know I’ve seen you both in our office. How did the Hancock County Veterans Service Office assist you in anything? I mean, how have they been there to help you? Well, we’ve used the office to get into the VA system in the very beginning. Sometimes I think that can be a little daunting because you get out, you don’t want, we were talking about this earlier, you don’t really want anything to do with the military.

 

17:35

Sometimes when you get out, it’s just the mentality you have.

 

17:39

You’re like, okay, I’m closing that door.

 

17:41

I’m moving on. And I think just getting into that system and making sure that you’re utilizing the benefits that are there for you because you’ve already paid for them.

 

17:52

With your time.

 

17:53

You’ve earned them. Yeah, you’ve earned them, so take advantage of them.

 

17:58

And, you know, we didn’t do very much in the beginning, but I think that you forget by the time, you know, two, three years goes by, all the stuff that you did in the military ends up catching up with you, with your body or your mind.

 

18:11

Yes, absolutely. Because, you know, you’re young and you’re doing everything that you need to be doing to get the mission accomplished.

 

18:19

And it’s not always great on your body.

 

18:22

Yeah. What about you, Brian? You holding up? I am.

 

18:28

I am. But I’ve utilized the VA for some medical things. And same, body catches up with you over time. So it’s a great benefit and a resource using the VA.

 

18:48

We would not have been able to, I don’t think, understand exactly what we needed to do to get into that system had we not gone to the Veterans Service Office first. And we’ve not only used that, but with our business, the employees that we hire that are veterans, we make sure that they get connected with you guys.

 

19:08

And I know that they have had multiple incidences where not just getting into the VA, but getting some sort of other benefit that was, you know, available to them that they didn’t know about, or a connection within the community for, you know, I wish I could give you an instance, but I know that they have used your office multiple times to find different ways to help. Yeah, I definitely feel like we’ve used, like through our business, we’ve used the connections with the Veterans Service Office and our employees and the community way more than we have personally.

 

19:45

It’s been a great vehicle. Yeah, I know we see at all of our events and, you know, whether you’re an exhibitor or just there attending, it’s always great to see you guys around. You’re a big supporter of veterans in our community. We all thank you for that and all you do. It’s our pleasure, quite frankly. It’s our community of veterans around here. They’re some of the most amazing individuals. And being veterans ourselves, we understand that there’s things that people carry with them and they need support for. And there’s also a whole backstory to all these people that nobody ever knows about. and they’ve got amazing talents that I bet hardly even their family knows about.

 

20:31

You know, unless you’re doing like Brian, where you’ve used your MOS further on down the line in life.

 

20:38

I’m not doing anything of what I did in the Navy.

 

20:41

I’m not in the inpatient care at all.

 

20:45

No one, unless I tell you that I was a corpsman, you would never even know. I didn’t know that before today. Yeah. Yeah. So what advice would you have for young people or anyone of any age that are considering the military in today’s world. I would say definitely join.

 

21:07

Not that I enjoyed it so much. while I was in but definitely as I look back the things that it instilled in me the discipline the drive just that there’s this there’s this ability that they teach you in the military to you know to to just get things done right and and a problem solve and it’s always about you know kind of mission you’re you’re let’s say your feelings aside, but it just teaches you to figure out a way and get things done. And that’s hard to teach as we see people coming up through school and into the workforce. It’s tough for them to have, they don’t have that, a lot of them don’t have that ability to be disciplined and to stay focused until the end, you know, just to figure things out. A lot of people give up way too easy and that’s tough coming from the military where you’re like, you know, just figure it out and just do it. Yeah, that’s just the way, that’s just the way we live. So, um, you know, I, I think we’ve seen that more and more as time goes on, um, that, and I’m not saying there aren’t hardworking, you know, they’re hardworking, but he’s right.

 

22:24

The tenacity and the, I’m going to see this through to the end, no matter what, like, this is what’s going to happen. We’re going to figure out a way. I just, I don’t know anywhere else in life that gives you that skill. So, you know, I agree with him. Not everything is amazing in the military. You ask anybody who’s served, there’s aspects that are absolutely miserable.

 

22:52

They were asking me some stories earlier, Colin was, our son Colin was asking us stories about, you know, our time in and it’s like, I think back to like boot camp when we’re we’re sitting there and and the DI’s come in the in the barracks and just tear the whole place up and you know throw your clothes out the window and flip the beds and and scare you to death and and you know trying to explain that to somebody who hasn’t experienced it but just I think it gives you a really good look into Your ability is beyond your mind.

 

23:34

Your ability is so far beyond what you think it is. And I think that there’s so much potential in so many people and they never get to experience some of that amazing, you know, deep potential because they don’t push themselves. far enough. I think there’s also this realization we were talking about this earlier that when you join the military you know what they don’t tell you in the recruiting office right is that you you when you sign on the line the government owns you for you know three years five years six years whatever whatever time frame and when you have that realization that you can’t just quit There’s a mindset shift that happens when you’re into there of you either make the best of what you’re, you know, while you’re there and you just have to get through. Whereas, you know, in the normal workforce today, you have that option where you can just, I just want to quit. I see you two having a lot of influence though.

 

24:42

pushing that military influence on the people and proving to them that they can do more than they, you know, like mentoring, things like that. Maybe one, this associate tells this other one, here’s how you do this. Bear with me, we’re going to get through this. You know, and I see, you know, your company is a very strong company in our community, and I see that military influence bleeding off into your company, and that’s appreciative, you know, too, so.

 

25:11

Well, we’re trying our best to mentor to a lot of young people. We’ve got, we’ve got quite a few very young, we’ve even got some high school students that are, you know, that are internshiping with us, so just trying to instill those skills that will help you the rest of your life. He talks about these memories, maybe not so great.

 

25:37

Well, they might not have been, but they ended up being some of the key reasons for our success later in life. The key. That’s wonderful. We never did hear how you met, though. I know it was through a friend, but that’s as far as we got. Yeah, we met through a friend. I was doing freelance, freelance graphic design at the time. I came back and got my degree in that, in marketing, and they wanted me to take a look at a van wrap, because they wanted me to do a different one. So we met up, and We just hit it off. Brian’s pretty persistent. He’s pretty tenacious.

 

26:20

He’s probably, I would say, the smartest man I know and the most tenacious.

 

26:29

I’ve dated a fair amount of people in my life, but I’ve never ever dated anyone so relentless in a good way.

 

26:38

He knew exactly what he wanted and he was just going to make it happen.

 

26:43

And that’s just part of his personality in life, in our business, and in our life. So that’s just part of who he is. Military didn’t have anything to do with that. No, no. As much as I want to deny it. Well, it’s been wonderful hearing your story.

 

27:05

And again, from our office, we thank you very much for what you do. And I can speak for the community.

 

27:10

I know this community loves Belts Home Service.

 

27:15

And we appreciate what you do. And thank you for your service. Thank you for yours. Thank you. You’re welcome.