#188: Veterans...Not Victims - Sheepdog The Movie Filmmaker Steven Grayhm

There's action, adventure, and good for a civil.

But for most veterans, their service isn't defined or explained by their war stories. For most veterans, the story that is by far the most difficult to write and to live is a story they have to write themselves. In this episode I sat down with Stephen Graham, writer and director of Sheep Dog, a film dedicated to telling the most difficult story of our veterans.

The story of what happens to us, our families, our friends, and those around us when the war stories fade, reality sets in, and the hard work must actually begin. Stephen explains this 14-year journey to make Sheep Dog, the thousands of hours he's been with veterans of all walks of life, his and bedman at the VA hospitals across the country, and the reality of independent filmmaking, a blue-collar process rooted in grit rather than

the red carpet, where every dollar raise this face to face, and every decision carries

“away, the film confronts veterans suicide honestly, while reinforcing a simple truth, and”

your life does not end the pain. It ends the possibility of ever getting better. What drove Sheep Dog was not an interest in war, but a responsibility to understand what happens after it. Stephen and his team studied the realities of trauma, addiction, brain injury, generational

differences between Vietnam and a post-9/11 service members, and in a long shadow that working cast over identity and purpose, they went where the conversations were uncomfortable, so the answers were not clean, and where trust had to be earned. The result was a film that focuses not on combat, but I'm a war within. Veterans are not victims.

Sheep Dog recognizes that service members volunteer took risk, and her and something that does not disappear when the uniform comes off. A veteran's perspective matters, trauma exists, but it does not eliminate the responsibility of veterans to continue their personal and professional growth post-service. The Sheep Dog is a story about redefining purpose, about post-traumatic growth, and about

the courage required to take the first step forward when the path is off-clean. It reflects the reality that transition is not a checklist, that no two experiences

were the same, and that finding the right sense of mission after service is critical.

Special thanks to Stephen and the Sheep Dog team for their tireless effort in making this film. Follow the Jedberg Podcasts in the Greenbrake Foundation on social media, listen to any favorite podcast on read on our website, and watch the full video version on YouTube, as we continue to show you why America must lead them in the front, no matter the challenge.

Stephen, welcome to the Jedberg Podcast. Thank you for having me. I appreciate what you've done here, and we're going to talk a lot about Sheep Dog, the movie, which is going to come out here in the next couple of days, but there are a few

“films that really I believe capture the essence of what it means to be a veteran.”

I think that we have a lot of film writers who capture various aspects of soldiering of what it's like to go to combat the glorification of war. It is very, very hard to tell the story of what it's like to come home. I have said time and time again, as we started this podcast, as I've had to go through my transition journey, which I can't believe we're coming up on 10 years, and I'm fortunate

to still be so connected to the community, it feels like yesterday. The hardest thing I ever have done wasn't to become a Greenbrake. It was to not be a Greenbrake. Amen, for so many of the reasons that you highlight in this film, but I want to start with why did you want to make this movie?

Yeah, so I would say going back into my youth, I think that the foundation was laid in my early years.

My grandfather was a POW of the Second World War who was a Polish farmer, and I grew up

to his stories when I was young of his survival, and my grandmother's survival of being captured, held captive on their own land at one point being tortured. And then, of course, deliberation from the Allied forces and American troops. And so, you know, that stays with you for life.

“And I think that at some point in my life, their likely would have been a call to action”

within me is my thank you, because I wouldn't be sitting here with you if it hadn't have been both for the liberation of Europe, but also his survival instincts to make it to North America, you know, during those five years. So in 2011, my car broke down three hours north of Los Angeles. I was shooting a movie in Vancouver as an actor for a month, and I wrapped, and I drove

through the night, and, you know, I'm tired, car overheats, pull over on the side of the five freeway call AAA. They sent out the local tow guy, and he was, you know, he was just like Saddle up partner. We got a long ride into town. And you had to know, too.

know, three hours of towing. It's desolate out there. But, oh, to sing. Fresno. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I'm good. And, you know, I'm just tired, and I'm nodding off. And he began to open up about his own life. His challenges of being a father of three. Some of the marital issues he was experiencing, financial hardship, and then he began to open up about the various medications that he was

on that were tethered to his service as military service and his deployments. And he had

“only been back. I think, like, at that point, since 2011. So, I think, like, you don't”

been back here and a half. So, he just transitioned out. And I don't think I said, like, three words, I just listened. And throughout that entire conversation, you know, you would remark. I can't believe I'm telling you this, man. I don't even know you. And I

can't believe I have never told my wife. And I haven't told the therapist. And so,

by the time we got back to LA, you know, I thanked him for giving me home safe and for being so open and sharing. And I was, you know, as a civilian, you know, what to do. And I was, like, brother, I, you know, I'm here for you. And I really meant that. And I was like, let's if you ever want to go for a beer, I'm here. I'll come see you or whatever. And there was a look in his eyes that I was certain that he was comforted by the fact that he

would likely never see me again. And that was a very sort of learned moment to be like, oh, it's easier to tell somebody that will share, that will listen to you without prejudice and not judge you. That it would be to somebody in your direct circle. That was the seminal moment. And that summer of 2011, I went on a nationwide road trip with my co-star in the film Matt Dallas to uncover the truth to see if there were more men and

women like this tow truck driver that were suffering in silence, folks that had served their country, honorably come home and felt so disconnected from their families, their communities, even from their brothers that they served with. And that summer we set out to uncover that truth, which became the foundation for sheep out. Well, you cover a lot in this film, when we talk about scars of combat, you know, going through and understanding the highest highs

of lowest lows, you talk about tribes and the difference between tribes and friendship. And when that truly means an addiction to drugs and alcohol, TBI's, the time to CTE, how that it's led to is so many other medical challenges that our veterans face. When we look at our veteran community, and you mentioned the other chances to say that with so many folks now talk more about the research because you didn't serve. And neither did men. Now, and now

“you have to become in order to really pull this off an expert on something that at the”

outset, you know, very terrifying. Terrifying. I mean, from from the very first veteran that

we met with him, McCallan, Texas, it became very personal, very quickly. And we were very aware that we had been off more than we could chew. We had no medical background. I mean, not in, you know, trauma, psychology, neurology, none of that, right? We were just idealistic. And so our intentions were pure because we had no agenda, but to be in service of veterans like yourself to understand your play. That was it. And so the research began that first road trip,

where we were willing to speak to anybody and everybody who would speak with us. We took it very seriously. We learned very quickly, not to set up cameras because when you put a camera on somebody, you're not just, it just becomes a different thing. And we worked really, really hard to build trust. And we were very fortunate that folks stuck their necks out for us. And we would meet, give an example, you know, when you meet with a certain groups of guys that, you know,

serve in the same unit and are all over the country. They may call another guy. They served with

“the unit saying, hey, I can vouch for these guys. You know, I think what they're doing,”

could be really helpful to our community and words. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. You know, he saw it. Yeah. He's wicked smile. But anyway, so then then gold star families did that for us.

And then that first road trip, I walked into the VA into Troy. And I don't know what, I mean,

I think look back on it now of how ridiculous we must have sounded to them. But I was just trying to make allies, just trying to understand the system. And I was very lucky that a lady at least only that was one of the heads of that particular VA had taken a chance on us. She spoke to Dr. Tara Constellino, who's now a very close friend who also loosely inspired Virginia

some years, I was able to turn like a custodian's broom closet into an office. And I would go there,

“stay into Troy for sometimes a month at a time and roleplay with doctors and veteran”

and just absorb it. And over that time, you become a fly on the wall. So for any cynics listening, yes, in the beginning, I'm sure that you would expect the VA to present the best possible veneer, if you will. I'm telling you what I saw was the unsung heroes. It was the folks that were showing up every day to work, trying to make a difference in earnest and making breakthroughs, some of them with our veterans. In my research, getting to in that role playing to undergo

EMDR treatments, prolonged exposure. I mean, you just to really fully understand what it is.

And then to also then you get into all the medications that are being prescribed and why and what

is that doing? What does this do to try to fully understand the full scope of it? And then of course, trying to make an entertaining story that can take place in two hours. Well, the VA is a complicated place. Yeah. We've been really fortunate on this show to be all of a sit down with Secretary Doug Collins, the Secretary of the VA. I could really hear from his perspective, you know, what are the challenges that the VA faces? How are they combating those with

this administration? How are they balancing the needs that are very different between generations? And when I talk about generation to talk about the Vietnam generation and we talk about the cause the post-war post-9/11 generation, the global war on terror generation. And then that generation in between, who was trained and brought up by the Vietnam generation, had the Gulf War and that had to transition to counter terrorism operations, which was much different than what

the military had done in the past, especially for the previous few decades. Do you spend?

“I would call it a lot of time in the movie, but you have to kind of understand what you're looking at.”

I think to get the subtlety behind that, but you address the differences between those two generations. I'm sharing the Vietnam generation and the post-9/11 generation when you have Calvin and Whitney to the main characters here and the bond that they form, which transcends those generations. Why was that such an important part of the story for you? Because you saw that and I want you to tie it back into the DNA, because I know that's what you saw when you sat in the

VA, when you saw those two different types of people there. Oh sure, it's just sitting away in the room. And you just like that right there is, it's just very eye-opening. Look, I thought it was important to hold the mirror up to show what I saw. So, for instance, you know, Fondy Curtis Hall's character, what do you say in your main place of Vietnam veteran and I had done multiple honor flights to DC out of Austin? So, you take, for those that don't know you,

you shop around Vietnam veterans and World War II veterans to the respective memorials in DC, spend a weekend together. They are yours to take care of. You share a hotel room. It's very intimate. So, in that time, you become, if you're lucky, fast friends, it starts off very emotional. Oh, if you're going to the wall, you can imagine that some of these folks haven't been on a plane

“some of them in these rural areas since they served since that plane back home from their service, right?”

So, it's heavy, but it's also beautiful. And if you're so lucky to be invited down to the hotel

lobby bar for whiskey on that first night, that's where you take it all in. And I was very open

with a lot of the Vietnam veterans that I was explaining like I was writing a film on the subject matter and so on. And they were also gracious and so open. I will say, though, that in all of that, I did get to see the differences, because sometimes you have like, OIF and OIF, that's that are also shop-roaning. I was a civilian, so they get to see it themselves of the differences as the shop-roaning, right? You'll see the difference between World War II veterans and Vietnam veterans.

I'll give you an example. We had a scenario where a couple of guys were arguing and one of the World War II veterans was just ripping on one of the Vietnam vats and it was like, hey, we didn't get to come home until we won the war. You got to come, you went on a tour and to a civilian, you're like, whoa, you don't even, then you have the OIF and the OIF guys that are like, you know, the Vietnam vats are like, well, you weren't dropped into a jungle with like trench foot

malaria reptiles. I mean, just keep going on, right? So again, but that's it respectively in their

So I thought it was important in the film that yes, some of those things can be humorous, but also it's like walking a mile when somebody else's shoes and I wanted the audience to understand that it's not one size fits all. And that your experience of even as a green beret is incredibly different than somebody else's, but your sacrifice sitting down on the table and the courage it takes to make that sacrifice is similar. One of the refrains of the film is this concept that pain is

relative. Yeah. And you have kind of the second part of that isn't this here behind us, or sometimes we have to fall apart to find ourselves all over again. Yeah. A lot of times people will say, what's the number one thing you take away from serving, from being in the military? The answer

I give them is perspective. Yeah. I always have from the day I got out until today that it's

perspective. Yeah. You understand a different perspective on the world on challenges that you face on what truly is hard, you know, verse, what can we find a solution to and how are we going to do that? Why was bringing that concept into the film really important when we talk about, you know, the different perspectives that you have, whether it be from a civilian, whether it be from those various generations or even from the caregivers themselves? Wow. That's a load of one. Yeah.

And thank you. That's very thoughtful because it had been described to me for some folks as walking

“through the portal. And that's what Whitney has that line in the film. And that could mean various”

things. First of all, you know, in somebody's service, you're discipline, right? Then it's like, if you are not all that folks that serve are in combat, but if you have and things, you know,

very quickly become the most important thing is to your guy to your left and to your right.

Most civilians can't understand that concept of what that really means. Most civilians can't understand the concept of jumping over six foot-sender blocked walls during a village sweeper three in the morning. Like that you're playing the ultimate extreme sport. Yeah. And these are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, which makes you essentially extraordinary because the courage that that takes. The pain aspect of it is that we say this in trauma and I've learned this

that we don't compare our traumas. And that's why pain is relative, right? And trauma doesn't have to come and your pain does not have to come from your military service. It could have been something from your childhood. It could be just your family dynamic, the loss of a friend,

“whatever it is. But why it was important to address that was that how we handle it”

is really important, how we cope, how we save that's really important. So when Whitney says in the film from the warrior on the battlefield with a thousand yards there to the cosmonaut who breaches the unknown, because that was a bit about once you've gone into space and you've seen it all, your perspective as we talk about entirely changes. And that was, it was a part of actually had cut out in the film because it was too lengthy, but Whitney goes on about Buzz Aldrin,

how he came home and God bless him, but became an alcoholic and for a lot of people, I mean, for even me, it was like, wow, you preach the unknown and was it living with the insignificance of our existence? Like, what is it in your perspective? And I have to tell you I really appreciate you bringing that out because for those that have summited the mountain and touched the fire,

“that's what they talk about is your perspective. And I think it's important to share and I'm”

not putting words in your mouth, but I'm just to say that perspective sometimes can be very painful because you're living life unfiltered now, but at the same time when we talk about post-traumatic growth in the film, it's also a sense of enlightenment, your perspective. You're not going to waste time as precious to you now, right? And how you look at your relationships with people, what matters to you most, family relationships, commitment to service, your business,

providing as a father, whatever it is, I feel like that can be also a gift that folks get from their service. I'd say that that was one of the things that struck me, the most in watching the film, but also truly understanding that there are a lot of things that when you're a young soldier or marine, you know, airmen, guardians now, which didn't exist when I was in, or wherever you serve, you know, sailors, too, there's this thing you don't think about. Yeah, you are trained,

and yeah, you know, you saw a kind of subtle undertone of the film is you're trained to do a job,

but they trained you so well to do that job that you never really understand

And I mean, I recall, you haven't told a story a not too many times, but you know, I was an

“infantry platoon leader and combat in my first time. The only thing I wanted to do was get in a”

firefight. Wow, until the very first firefight. Sure. Because you go through years of training,

you go to Ranger School, you know, you're a badass. Sure. And you're ready to bring it. Yeah. And then it gets brought. Yeah. And for that split moment, that's about the last place on earth that you actually want to be. Yeah. Until that training kind of kicks in and then, you know, you realize, hey, we got a job to do here or not going to get out of here. Yeah. But we all kind of have to go through that in your combat experience to start to put in, really, it gets you

to understand that, hey, there's a very real result to the training and what has been ingrained in us up to this moment. And I think that comes through in the film. And, you know, it's something that needs to truly be understood. You talk in the film about your lose moreality when you go to war. And that, for me, I always told myself, I would leave it there. Yeah. And I'd say somewhat ingest to folks, you know, that maybe that will mess me up later in life. You know, that'll come

in fruition, you know? Yeah. But I always told myself that, and I remember the very first

deployment we got to the base of the airplane. You know, we took the steps up. And I stopped and I paused for a second and I said, whatever happens on the other side of this, I'm going to leave. It's going to be there. And I remember coming home and stepping off that plane, off that last step. And just kind of in my mind shedding that. But just saying, that was there. This is this, yeah, that's when it reality. And I kind of told myself that every deployment that I had,

every thing that I went and did over, you know, nearly 13-year career that I had. And I don't know if

“that's the best way to handle what you experience, what you see, because another thing you talk about”

is that, you know, feelings are normal, trauma is not. Yeah. And you see things that you can't

prepare for that live with you. But to me, I always felt like this is reality. There are real

results here. Some of my friends didn't come back. Yeah. You know, other guys on my platoon in my unit, you've got injured and left the battlefield that night. And I didn't see them for six, eight months. Yeah. Again. Yeah. Here's something I never saw again. There's a very real result to that. Yeah. But at the same time, there are things that are happening in that reality that are not out here in Western Massachusetts in L.A. in New York. You don't have the power of arrest. You know,

you don't have the ability and you know, a deal of work with law enforcement now. You know, law enforcement officer draws their weapon in the line of duty. They're under investigation. Even if they don't use that weapon. Yeah. Yeah. We were in a job where it was expected that you would draw your weapon, use your weapon, inflict casualties on the other side. Yeah. And then getting your truck and go home, you know, eat a sandwich, great. Go to your room and do it

“again. Yeah. It's very different place. Yeah. And I think that that was part of my fascination.”

You know, but also once we were in the research, once we were in that deep, here like this is a responsibility, right? And that was for me, one of the most challenging things in this journey of sheep dog was getting it right, because just one false note, your toast, you saw a lost audience. You know, in N.A. had studied not only the films in our genre to understand what doesn't work, what does work, but also in trying to tell a truthful and authentic story that would

be in service of all the folks I sat in front of. But you just humanizing right now. So this is what we're talking about. You know, so for any of the cynics that listen to this, that especially for civilians, because sheep dog is not a political film, and that was part of why I think, you know, when we went into it, the only agenda was to tell the truth, your truth, whoever we sat in front of, right? It was not we didn't come into it. Like, oh, what would be a

cool story to tell her? Or influences outside influences, right? We made this movie entirely outside the Hollywood system. I didn't get studio notes. I got notes from the real folks that were, you know,

judgment on any of these conflicts from Vietnam to OIF or OIF, the warrior doesn't get to choose the war they go into. You were of service to the country. And you go and you do your best, you do everything that you're trained to do, and you try to bring everybody home with you. And I

“don't like to simplify it that way. But the truth is, it's like just even sitting here with you right”

now in jeans and a hoodie and thinking there was a time you were in uniform, probably kicking down a door and trying to save, you know, that to me, I marvel at, right? Because that's not a

movie. You live that, that's real like the stakes are as high as they can ever be. And I'll never

stop marveling at that. And I think that that was important to show in our film that this is so multi-layered. You know, this is so multi-layered to be put in scenarios like that. And just as you described, get back in your truck, eat a sandwich back at the place. And but then come home to your country and just be at a cookout, right, with all your friends. And you've just experienced something even if your last deployment was a year or two years ago. You've experienced something that

unless anybody else in that backyard has been there side by side with you, they will never have

“any comprehension of what that truly is. I really felt that in our storytelling, I was like, how do I”

bridge that from the civilian population to the veteran population, just to give them an idea without these massive battle scenes or something. I mean, to to speak to the war within the soul to our humanity, so I appreciate you sharing that. Well, let's go there next to that's rise, I share it. I'm going to go there. I very much appreciate the fact that this is not a war movie. Yeah, this is not a combat movie. And I went into watching this film with really very little background

on I understand the story, but yeah, I kind of didn't want to have any, you know, pre-conditions when I watched it. And I was waiting, especially in the first time. Yeah, we're counting. I know what it is about. Yeah. With Dr. Knox. Yeah. And starts to talk about experiences. Yeah. And I'm waiting to go to the flashback of the battle scene. Yeah, you know, and the combat

and I never went. Yeah. And I actually thought to myself, I'm so happy. Oh, that's so good to hear.

Yeah, because look, so I spent years writing these deployments. I was going to show you three deployments to an Iraq and one in Afghanistan. And some really good advice, simple advice that was given to me from a friend of mine, Braden Aftergood, who was an executive producer on loan survivor. Here's a brother. If you get to a place where you don't have the budget to properly shoot those deployments, do not shoot them. No matter how many favors you can cut to just don't do it,

because it'll be worse. It'll be a disservice to the community you're trying to honor. And that was told to me years ago. So as we got closer and closer to shooting, and the budget just kept evaporating before my eyes. I had to cut those with the most expensive scenes. But the gift of that was that all that work, it was some of my best writing in those deployments. And how layered they were and how much more it was going to reveal about the character. So I thought

lived with inside me. So that when I sat down on the day to shoot with Virginia Manson, I saw that cheap pen. That was loosely inspired by a real military operation that went sideways. I had met with several of the guys in that unit and lived with one of them that saw at first hand in Pennsylvania. And that was one take. Like I saw it. And I felt it. There was no acting.

It wasn't like I never looked down on my script of what I wrote. I had believed it. It was in

my neighborhood haunted me in my nightmares for years that crack in the shoe pen wall. And so you kind of get to a place where like there's no camera tricks. There's no just speak from your heart and trust the words on the page that you spent years writing and being informed by real folks like yourself and had to just trust that. And I appreciate you saying that because

“I think it made for a better film. I would agree. Yeah. Absolutely. When faced with the”

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ish right now depending on what organizations and numbers you want to take down from 22 a day.

“I recently gave a talk at an event. You were raising funds for the prevention of veterans”

suicide. And I said very first thing I said was I don't want to be here. Yeah. I never want to come here

again. Yeah. Because we're here for something that really should be avoidable. More in our veterans have taken their life that have been killed in combat on a magnitude that multiple is egregious. Allow many. We've lost post service. Yeah. As compared to how many have been killed in combat. And to me that's a unacceptable number. You address veterans suicide in this films specifically. We're really through the relationship between Calvin and Darrell. And

is one of the most difficult. I would say parts of being in the veteran community is having to talk to the survivors of veterans suicide. And then there's a part in here where you address it by saying that suicide doesn't stop things from getting worse. It eliminates a possibility of getting better. The hardest interview I ever did was not with a congressman or a cabinet secretary or a general. It was with this woman, close friend of mine, became named Sarah Wilkinson. There was

an early episode and her husband was a Navy SEAL Chad Wilkinson and Chad died by suicide. And she talked about the anger. And the fact that she had to forgive him about blamed him for quitting on them and leaving her and her two children and giving up on the opportunity of

“finding some resolution and moving forward. Why was the inclusion of the suicide piece so important”

to the film? So when I started this journey, the stat from 2012 came out in 2013 for 22 a day. And at the time, in my research, every time I talked about it, even when I would talk to the press, like nobody wanted to talk about it, right? The word suicide, it was like especially going a morning television show. You'll see a producer behind the camera freak out the moment

you start talking about that kind of stuff, right? So, like first of all, it's an astonishing

one is too many let alone 17, let alone 22. But it was such a staggering statistic and that also was like, but what's the why? Right? And how was that happening? And then in so in those early years that built the foundation of like, well, the questions I was asking in the truth I was in search of, you know, and, you know, Matt and I in a handful of our friends that we were working with at the time started the 22 push-up challenge. It began as we called it like sweat for vats

and we changed it to just going to push-up challenge because we were going into recruitment offices and pushing out 22 as a way to bring awareness to it and it was at the time of the ice bucket challenge and we would work with some VSOs that were highlighting that, but it was an attempt to make it more palatable if you could to be able to talk about it, right? Because it's kind of a dead end road just for the same reason you didn't want to be at that place. It's very difficult

and, you know, I would be remiss to not share that in this journey figure 14 years to the screen. I have lost guys. That was very close with. I have been that last call and fortunately it

“been successful in talking that individual off the ledge that night anyway. And I think it's important”

and it was important in the film to address it because the guys that like I learned to be more worried about were the guys that smiled through the pain. Not the guys posting on Facebook all the problems though that's valid and though you need to be heard and seen. The guys that would like, if you want to look at a Facebook post, it would be like, "Hey, anybody know of a good plumber? I did it, it would be like just random things. You work at a here at a see it."

And that really informed me of just like checking in and what that looks like for years I never

ever shot my phone off at night or put it on silence for fear that I would miss that last call.

it would typically just be a text message of the person's name and we all know. And, um, and look,

“I don't have the answers other than, you know, I hope that the film, if anything, serves as”

a beacon of hope that though I do go there and the story telling with post-traumatic stress, I do also show you based on what I've seen and it is a long road traveled, but it's a worthy one of the light at the end of that tunnel being post-traumatic growth. So I had to take the audience to a place to show them, you know, I mean, and I also lived it, you know, because the folks that I met with in 2011, many of them I still talk to to this day, right? And the research

didn't end in 2011. It continued on as I refined the screenplay. So I got to see so many people across

the country, mental health workers, first responders, veterans, gold star family members,

their communities. I got to see the journey, warts and all, the triumphs, the challenges.

“And that's why I thought it was really important to also be a film that I hadn't seen before,”

which picks up 10 years after the last deployment. Man, there's a lot of life that happens in that time, right? Not just the year after, then when you're first transitioning, but I'm to answer your question, it's complicated. And I get very nervous when people wax poetically about suicide, because it comes in all different forms. We all know often times that the whispers lie, I mean, other people's nightmares that they lived became my own as the storyteller,

where you start to like blur the lines of like fact and fiction, where you're waking up in

night sweats to something that never happened to you, happened to somebody else, but in your nightmare

becomes you, you start to take on that. And that was very eye-opening for me. And that's why I can sit here and do my best to talk to you about it just from my own experience being very close to it.

“Yeah, I mean, I think that's the hardest part of that topic. Yeah. And even in my conversation with”

Secretary Collins at the VA, we talked the extensively about suicide. What did he say? I'm like fascinating. Well, number one, the resources exist. Yeah. Yeah, which is important that we talk about. Yeah. You know, I think that that, and I think you do a good job of the film of really showing that like with these resources exist, the stigma of the VA not being there, not having the resources, they do exist. Now as your character points out, all the resources in the

world can exist, but it doesn't matter if you're not willing to use them. Yeah. And we see that in active duty. We see that in the veteran community. You see that, you know, with retirees. And I think you see that across generationally. And oftentimes people will take on this persona, which I've vehemently disagree with, that I'm a veteran in some of victim. Yeah. Veterans are not victims. We're not victims. And I remind guys who talked to me like that,

and I say, hey man, you volunteered. Yeah. You volunteered. Now, I'll give you that we volunteer for something we didn't fully understand what we were volunteering for. But the courage that it takes to volunteer, let us not like overstep that like that truly is in that voluntary that you made a decision that most of us don't have it in us to make truth be told. Yeah. And you did that that already makes you already pretty extraordinary. Yeah. Right. 100%. But finding that self-value is what you're saying is like

it is you are volunteering. But to take heat of that, that's a pretty amazing thing that you were

willing to do that. Right. Again, not knowing what conflict you could be sent in, if any, being away from your family, being away from like when you're 22 or 25 and you're in a conflict zone and your friends are back, barbecuing that summer in Kentucky, drinking Bud Light, and you are in a foreign country with a target on your back and the stress and anxiety and yes, all the camaraderie and all that. But I mean, because just not to get off a one, but I I feel like that's

what that was why in the film is you would see no one feels sorry for themselves. These are not broken people. There are fragments, but they are not broken. And I tell you wholeheartedly, that's what I

what I saw. Yeah. Right. Like you can get down some on yourself, but not how I had seen veterans depicted in film. Yeah. Right. His drug addicts and I mean, the list goes on of all the tropes,

but it was like, that's not what I saw. It's actually always opposite than what you think it is.

Right. So the quiet guy sitting in the corner can be very personality type the loudest guy in the room. You know, without me getting into it of like the personality types of what that is, but just getting back to it, what are your thoughts and what I'm not asking you for the answer, but what are your thoughts on how we talk about the resources? Is it a matter in your opinion, we need to do better on making sure people know that care is there and that their resources are like going to just curious.

I'm not sure my. I think we have to do better as the veteran to number one and remove the victim

mindset to understand that we, this was a period in our life that we volunteered to do something that

we didn't fully understand what we volunteered to do, but we went out and did it for a variety of different reasons and we did it at a high level and you came home and you're entered a new chapter of your life. Now, let me get to the other point that you make in the story about grit,

“about grit and about how sometimes the only way out is through it. Yeah. I became a green brave.”

Thousands have. Millions have served in the army. None of those journeys were easy. None of them were the same. Every one of us has a different path of service. We have different reasons why we come in. We're joined in a common bond. We go through the same experiences, but our perspective matters and how we tackle them. All of those things took grit. Yeah. Every single thing that we did in the film, there's a lot about the metals, you know,

the valor awards, the purple hearts, those things didn't come to people. As you said earlier, they came to ordinary people who did extraordinary things when they had no choice. Correct. Nobody leaves the base in the morning and goes, "Today I'm coming home with a purple heart because I was wounded and nobody goes out and says, I can't wait to earn my valor award." Right. And almost anybody you speak to, they don't want those awards. Correct. Right. You're not

hoping to get injured. So you get a purple heart or you're not, not wishing to be in a scenario

“to prove your courage. You know what I mean at the loss of potentially your met, you know what I mean?”

It's yes. So nobody wants those things. But in order to have gone through those experiences, it took grit. It took hard work. It took them having an eye on the result. And then what happens, I think, to a lot of folks, they come back, they transition out, they adopt this victim mentality. And all of a sudden, they lose sight of the fact that it's going to be hard work to assimilate into civilian society. The longer you serve the harder it is, you were reprogrammed to go to

be a civilian. You were programmed to do a very specific thing that the nation asked you to do. And okay, I served almost 13 years in out-processing. There's much better now. The 10 years later, out-processing, especially for our green berets, is like 12 months, 18 months, you know, like the programs that have been announced is great. Yes, since I got out our tremendous. I think I have like a week. Yeah. And you sit through a couple of briefings, you know, you read a couple of pamphlets.

Yeah. And they're like, good luck. Yeah. Thanks for your service. And they show you the door and you leave. And you're like, well, what now? Yeah. And now we have so many internships that guys take so many different opportunities. But you still have to do the work. Yeah. You still have to understand that I took the uniform off, but just because I changed my clothes, it doesn't change who I am

“100%. And it never goes away. You just have to change your perspective. You have to change how you live”

life every day. One of the things that I've, I won't say I've worked hard. I do it. And I hope that one day other people will do it too. And they'll see that I do it is I don't call green berets,

form or green berets. No. And I understand. You're still a green beret. Yeah. You always you

earned that green beret. It was not given to you. Yeah. It's just because somebody took your ID card and they handed you a DD-214. And they said, you're not in the army anymore. Yeah. It doesn't mean

And I only want to hire green berets. Why? Because of all the reasons that the army said, they were going to be the most elite soldier in service. Why wanted my company? Right. Because they still have those things. And they're ready to do the work. And I think when we look

“at veteran transition and, you know, it comes out towards the end. Yeah. You have to do the work.”

Yeah. And I think it's worth also mentioning that on the subject matter that it's also going back to your week transition that you had an understanding, I don't want to oversimplify anything, but having a sense of purpose. You had that in the green beret. You had sense of community, a brotherhood. You get transitioned out. I mean, I can tell you stories of getting a phone call from an army grant who became very close with. And, you know, he hit, he had seen some action.

He was doing his best to, as a civilian, at this point two years out, coping with that. Okay. And he called me and he was, you know, worked up. But I'm like, hey, what's going on brother, you okay? And he knows, yeah, you know, I just, you know, and he had just started a job at like Bahama Breeze. And his responsibility, as he had said, had been reduced to like refilling your ice teas. And he was like, I commanded my squad into combat. I was responsible for other, like,

I got to hear about you don't, you know, you need another ice tea refill. And I think that to me, that was very poetic in a way of like he's being underutilized.

“So when we talk about care, and that's why when we talk about even serving at an elite level,”

right, well, what fits that sort of training in the civilian world for you. So if that's owning a business and and having employees and working in security, it's like, I know, Marine vets that went into came home, used a GI bill and got, got, you became a lawyer and then worked at a firm and we're trying to, you know, utilize organizational skills and so on. But I think

and then again, not to oversimplify, it's that time, that critical time that you're trying to

figure that out. And that's, that's really important for when we talk about community support to get you there, because it's not just the care of like, if you have a TBI and you don't know why you feel a certain way and you're giving prescribed medications, you're irritable, you're, you know, hypervigilant. I mean, any of those sorts of reactions to potentially to trauma,

“but then that doesn't mean that you have to look at the environment, like, maybe you should”

not be working at that restaurant. Maybe there's a different environment for you. But it's not a one-size-fits-all as we say, right, it's, it's important to figure that out. And for me, I've just seen

it more often than not that it's finding that sense of purpose. That's critical. And that goes

in hand in hand with that brotherhood. If you're in a rural area and I saw this a lot when I would go into small towns and it's also why I wanted to shoot sheep dog here in a mill town, because I had seen so much of those that served came from blue-collar families, working class families, that it sacrificed the family, you know, it sacrificed so much, especially when their kids are deployed to foreign countries. And I also saw the transition of coming home and trying

to find work where maybe the economy's not great. And then you kind of potentially slip through the cracks, then you're separated from your brothers that you served with. So that sense of community, civilians don't know how to really understand your experience. And so I say this because outside of like Facebook groups are how you can possibly find that connective tissue. How do you do that? And I love to hear your thoughts because I know that like with the American

Legion and the VFW, you know, those places were set up to give you a place to go there and to fellowship and connect. And I found that a lot of the younger generation weren't interested in going into a bar to hear some old guy at the end of the bar and a bar still talk about

Vietnam or something. And I would always encourage the younger generation to go,

but there's something in there though that you'd be amazed and I've seen it when it happens at its beautiful of that connective tissue of like that person, though different conflict, can understand you on a level that other folks can. And I do, you know, so I want to just hear your thoughts because like what is that modern day sweat lodge? I think everyone's experience is different. You have to accept the fact that this journey is going to just like when you go to

Yeah. And you have to embark on transition in very much the same way. And what I tell guys, and I've lived in, I'll tell you about that in a second. I've lived in, you know, like,

“you have to be okay. You talk about the concept. We talk about, oh, you're a lot of the”

variants. Maybe you have to be okay, not be okay. For, well, you know, you've got to be okay, not knowing what's next, too. Because, and we were really good about that in the military. And this is what's very interesting, especially when special operators do this all the time I taught to guys. And they can't really work up about what they're going to do when they get out. Right. And they want to have some detail plan. And I'll say, how many times did you have a detail

plan about what your career was going to look like in the army? Yeah. Never. Almost never.

Almost never did you know your next duty assignment? Did you know what the next project you were going to, almost never. Yeah. And yet, our special operators will get up every day. They'll put their uniform on down their beret, go to work, and tackle the unknown. Right. And then all the stuff, and they look at transition and they're like, oh God, what do I do? I don't have a two-year plan one-year plan, a two-year plan, a five-year plan. And I say, guys, you got to do one thing.

“You have to take first step. Okay. I got out of the army on January 15th. It was a Friday,”

it was my last day, January 16th. It was my last day of service. I created my DD214. And that's Saturday, I drove from Colorado Springs to New York. Okay. You said that you can be lonely in a

rural western Massachusetts. You can be lonely in New York City with 12 million people. Absolutely.

And with a family. Absolutely. And have a family staring at you. Yeah. And be lonely. Yeah. And I had a week where I didn't, I guess the long week I've been unemployed. And I, then I started the only job that I had yet, which was, which was to be a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch. Okay. Somebody took a chance on me, Danny Riff Nelson, changed my life, to continue to change my life. And the majority, this show wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Rick Nelson.

Oh, okay. For a variety of reasons, primarily because he introduced me the owner of Jersey

“Mike's, and he funded the first two years of this podcast. So who would have never been on the”

deal? I got you. So, but in a lot of ways, a lot of what I did is he took a chance. And he said, "Look, somebody assessed you to be somebody of character who works hard. You can get the job done. I know you know nothing about financial advisory, but I wanted to come here and figure it out. Day one to a clock in the afternoon. A guy walked, I was sitting at a cubicle. Nobody had nothing like getting to know what I was supposed to do. Nobody was there to tell me

what to do. And I was sitting there and a guy came out of his office. Swing in a pudder with a, we had the blue teeth. And he's his back here with the microphone back then talking to somebody. And he looks at me and he kind of gives me a little wink and you know, had not, you know, got to give me a little kiss. There's a new Jersey. So, yeah, so you see, you can imagine. Who's on the Jersey Shore? Well, it was actually Jordan Balfour. Yeah. Oh, he thought he was. Yeah.

And I looked at this guy and I said, two things are going to happen one here. We're going to have here one. I'm going to be the show of this guy right in the office or two. I'll get to leave. And I packed up my stuff and I walked down two blocks to the Starbucks and I sat in the window and I started crying because I didn't know what I'd done. My whole world had changed. My last job, that was the aid to the two-star general in charge of special operations in Africa. That was

traveling the world with him meeting foreign leaders, going to the places that don't exist and government buildings. And here I am in rural New Jersey with some two out of the Jersey Shore. Yeah. Treating me like home of a piece of shit. Yeah. And I sat there and for a few minutes, no intention of going back. And I said, then I thought about my career, my whole life kind of went through my head and these, I don't know, seems like an hour is by 15 minutes, you know, as I'm sitting

there thinking of myself, you know, you did all these things in your life. You were a division one collegiate athlete, you know, you went in the Army, you were the honor graduate of Ranger School of the Special Forces qualification course. You were at the top of everything you did. And the only

thing I thought to myself was I never quit. I thought to myself, why did I, why did I have this

I get you know, success, I guess in my mind. Sure. And I came back to this thing, well, you never quit. And then I, I said, you know what, this isn't going to be forever. And I've never quit anything

here. That I'm going to be a short of amount of time as I can possibly be here. But I'm not going

to quit today. And then I packed my stuff and I went back and I lasted 18 months that worked there while I went to business school. And that embarked on, you know, what is now a 10-year journey. Yeah. And that journey has been going to business school. We're from Maryland being the Chief Security Officer and that snapchat in LA. Yeah. Running a cannabis company for a Russian oligarch in LA. And then starting my own company. Yeah. I think I was, I was the Chief People Officer of an outsourced

accounting firm. You know, I did work for my brother's company. And then I started this show. And I started my security company. And I still wake up every day and think about, you know, I'm not at the end of my transition journey. I don't know where I am along that journey. I don't know where I'm going to be tomorrow. Sure. But as you said earlier, you're 10 years to your character. There's a lot of life lived. Yeah. And a lot of experiences. Experiences that I know I would have

not been. And not all those were successful. Most of them were not. Yeah. Some of the hardest lessons I've learned personally and professionally have been in those 10 years. But I got through those because of the grit that I had as a matter because of my experiences in the army, which showed me

“that you just have to push through and you have to figure it out. You have to do it. When it's 35”

and raining, you know, and you're cold and wet and tired and you're hallucinating, you have to put one foot in front of the other. Yeah. And so being in service isn't easy, being veteran, isn't easy, transitioning isn't easy. And I think that's my message to transitioning folks is nobody said when you join the army or the Marines or the Navy or the Air Force. Hey, guess what? You're about to embark on a very, less as the Air Force. You're about to embark on a very easy career in which

it's going to be leisurely and you're going to get to do all the things you want to do. That's not true and that's not true in life and that's not true when you transition out. And I think it's also worth adding to that moment you had when you went down to the Starbucks that you look I don't think if you decided to quit, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If you decided to

“stay and go back either way. But I think the important takeaway as I sit here and listen to tell”

that story is having a sense of yourself and your service and your worth, right, to know, like,

you know, I don't want to ever be that guy. I will never be that guy. But having the grit to go,

but I don't have to be, I can go back into that office and I can learn and then thank all you did from, you know, somebody who became a mentor and somebody that would help. But having that sense of yourself that you took a moment to yourself to go, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, I'm not, especially because you're fresh out, right? And you're trying to like, again, not putting words in your mouth, but define what your next chapter is going to look like, right? But I think having a sense of yourself

and knowing, because this is a big thing that I also like a theme in the film is having options and not feeling like you're stuck, right, which can feel suffocating, where you feel like the walls are closing in on you and having the option to leave that Starbucks and go home and you'll just, you know, figure it out, you look into a different, you know, form of employment or to go back into that office and go, you know what? I'm not going to be a shitter to the guy. I'm going to go

sit back in my cubicle. I'm going to see if there's something here I can learn. If I don't feel this certain way in a month from now, hey, I'll find something else out, but I'm good. I got it. It doesn't have to be perfect. Maybe there's something here and I think there's a lot of strength

in that because especially when you're first out and I can only imagine your questioning,

this is maybe even subconsciously your value in an environment because you know your value in the environment you were trained in and you know the value of every single guy you served with,

“you have to know their value. But in a civilian scenario, I get that and I think that that's”

really fascinating and it's interesting how that path took you to sitting here today. You know, having that fortitude to be like, hey, I'll be patient. I'll see how this goes, you know? Yes, don't think anyone, especially to have all the answers. I mean, no, I had a box. When I left college, I know I penned all of my, you know, all the plaques they give you,

I packed it all in one box and that box sat unopened in my apartment in New York for a year.

And I looked at every day. I looked at it and I said, I never intended to open that box again.

Because I had thought that I had to compartmentalize it so much. And then you start to realize, like, look, that was a different chapter. I have, you know, I'm figure out what's next. That could be okay with that. I can come to grips with, you know, the fact that that's not me.

“He says, I'm a few minutes ago, which I think is important to bring up again.”

He said, you have to figure out all the things that you did and what, some of the things that you fear of the things that you did and what you're going to, in your past life, be able to do now. Yeah. Well, I also, I think you're right,

but I also think you have to accept that there are certain things that you're never going to do again.

100%. Like there's nothing more exhilarating than writing in a black-hawk to an objective and landing on someone's roof and there you hard, blown their door down, you know, kick it in. You know, whatever you want to do, and I don't glorify combat. You'll never see that on the show. We don't know war stories. You'll never hear me say that. You'll never hear me tell the war story on that one. Never have someone on who tells the war story on the show. Not going to happen.

But there's nothing more exhilarating than that. Yeah. What I love to do is, yeah, and hell, yeah. Right. Am I going to? Unfortunately, I'm not. Right. And that's okay, too. Yeah. And I think that a lot of folks struggle

in understanding that there's some things that you're just never going to get to do again.

Yeah. And thank you. Because that's important. Because that's like a lot of you get that a lot, especially with the elite groups, you know, especially because the training's just so intense. And it's just the muscle memory that goes into all of that. And it just becomes who you are.

“And I think it's important to say that because that's part of that, like,”

accepting that that was that chapter in your life. Right. And I know that there's also we don't have to get into this. But like, you know, I remember my earlier research of meeting with folks that had been in very stressful high intensity situations during combat. And they came home and there adrenal glands are blown. So they're like just chasing whatever that is, whether it's bearing the needle on a crotch rocket, you know, or just doing things that could otherwise be described as

dangerous to themselves to others and so on. But I think that like that description, you just gave it's like just knowing that. But then understanding, okay, it's not that, but how do I feel useful or feel challenged or especially if you hold yourself a certain way that you're like, I accomplish these incredible things. I don't need to pat on myself on the back for it, but feeling that way. And then going, you know, this job over here or this pursuit over here just

doesn't fulfill me. Right. And we don't all have to be fulfilled. But I think that for most of us, it's healthy to feel useful, you know. There's one more thing I want to add to it about and it comes up. It's an underlying theme of the film, but it comes up more towards the end, which is, was it all for nothing? Why bring that into the storyline? Because as we say, I asked you that and put a little bit more context, we are in a polarizing time for our service members.

Yeah. You know, the war, those of us who served in the post-9 11-generation went to combat for 20 years. Yeah. And you do have to ask yourself, why? Did Lee achieve what we're supposed to, was it all for nothing? So I'm going to share a story with you that I've never told because there's a reason why I put that in the film. So in that first year in 2011, I was very fortunate to be invited to go to the White House for a Goldstone family members event, but an even JK who has become like a

second mother to me. She spoke at our wedding and my wife and I are our wedding and has been so involved in this journey from day one. And it was really important to her 14 years ago to have me as a guest and I why told her I want to earn this moment. I didn't want to go and she's like,

“no, you need to see this for yourself. You need to see what these families go through.”

So we spent a weekend in DC who are at the White House. It's, you know, you hang it in ornament on the presidential tree and you're immersed in this world. And yes, I needed to see it. And my god did a change. Everything for me. I'm talking about perspective. The last night we were there

right there. On the TV is herald over there saying, we won. You know, the pull out of a rack. It was, he was at the gates and there was, like, hem wraps and humbese coming through or whatever. And I was sitting on my bed. Goldstone mother Beniva was sitting on her bed and we were watching it. And I remember because she had the menu for room service in her hand because we were going to order dinner. And I looked at her and she looked down and she looked at the window at the White House.

She looked at the TV and she turned to me and she was like, but what did we win? And I knew in that moment she was processing because her son was killed in a rack. What did my son give his life for and how do I make sense of that? Because she wasn't buying what the newsfeed was packaging. Right, this is somebody who's lived this, right, whose son was killed in such a horrific way. You know, thousands of miles away from home and I didn't have the answer in the moment.

Other than to say what he was called to do, you know, Cody always wanted to be

of service to his country. It was very good at what he did, very good. You know, it was a team leader and just

“and I thought, well, that's a question worth asking in our film. Was it all for nothing?”

And my answer will always be, it was not all for nothing. It was not all for nothing. And you can peel back then in in all the different ways you want to. Of like, oh, war on terror, you know, all the different things we've heard and some of them known to be truthful, but to the individual that calling is a very personal thing. And the answer for me is it does count. And the lives that you impact. And again, because we don't get to choose

when I say we those that volunteer, the conflicts you go into. And so that moment always stayed

with me. And I felt that it was important for the folks that we represent on screen to know that I felt that way as the storyteller on behalf of so many hundreds of people I had sat in front of from all different walks of life. It is for something. And that next morning, we walked around the national mall and so on. And and I was just really glad that I had spent that time with her to be here, especially for that moment, also because it was, you know, just I'd also had a

chance to really open up about her son's service that she didn't know and wasn't aware of because, you know, the guys that that served with her son or spread all over the country. And though she kept in contact with some of them, but to get into the more intimate details of his service.

And she had told me that morning that she had never slept so good since the night he passed.

And that I'll always stay with me. And I, yeah, and I do for anyone listening to this or see the film, you'll see that that moment's earned in that conversation that my character is willing to ask that, especially to mental health professional, who has not served, who has not been

“in conflict. How do you answer that question? You know, what do you hope is the result of this movie?”

I hope for veterans that see it that they feel seen and heard and that they know that they're not alone taking it a step further to not, that you don't have to suffer in silence. And yes, it is okay to not be okay. You know, there's a line in the film that my wife in the film says, you know, walking through the front door, she's referring to the VA in this scenario. It can be the longest journey traveled for some. It's also to know that there's care there. There is care. There are folks that

come to work every day that this is not a job to them, that they are all in. They are trying to positively impact the lives of others. There's other resources, whether it's the GI Bill, for folks that haven't utilized it to explore, you know, what that next chapter might look like.

“But I think most importantly is to know that you matter and to know that your service and sacrifice”

is acknowledged and for civilians to understand that, you know, I understand, but saying thank you for your service for some folks, especially civilians, is can feel like a hollow gesture to a veteran, but certainly for some civilians take a lot of courage to say, pushing that conversation or that gesture further to say, how are you? How are you doing? What was your service like? You know, and not to say that every veteran wants to get into a conversation with somebody about that,

but to bridge that, that gap that we feel that I've seen, I've witnessed of the 1% of the

disconnected now even with social media and smartphones than we ever were prior because it is in

“all volunteer military and civilians have the luxury to be disconnected by that, not to say they”

want to be, but just saying that that's just sort of whether it's by default what has happened, and I, I witnessed firsthand the military community taking care of the military community. You see that a lot, and so my hope is to inform and retain and stir the soul, whether that's to go out and be of service to your community, especially if you're a civilian, you don't have to served in the military to relate to the story, as you know, it's an ensemble film,

by design their six sort of main supporting characters. My hope was always as the storyteller that

you were able to identify with one of those characters, whether it's a military spouse, mental health worker, a Vietnam veteran, a civilian, you know, former hockey coach turned cop, family members,

“because I wanted folks to see the impact of that service in sacrifice and when we use the word hero,”

what that really means, what that really means when we're talking about courage, you know, so starting a conversation, a really meaningful conversation at the very least, and I've seen the impact that the film was made in the last year on the film festival circuit, I've held in my arms, Vietnam veterans with tears in their eyes that have said thank you because they feel seen and heard OIF and OIF that stand up in front of a full auditorium and say I wish I had this movie 10 years

ago to show my family why I am the way I am, but why they are the way they are. I wish I could show my

ex-wife this film. So to me, that is first and foremost, and if we can save a single life with this film,

my god, that would be the greatest Hollywood success story that I could imagine. Well, I can't give away

“the whole film, but I would talk a lot about some of the core pieces, but I'll tell you, you know,”

I laughed, I cried, while I empathized, I sympathized, I identified with, I'd say, damn near everything that was presented from all the various characters that you talked about, and to me, it hit home, you know, specifically, there's a part, and I don't want to give it away, and I won't, but I'll deal with you, my youngest daughter is the named Izzy. Well, this morning, as I was watching the film, she came into the room, and that was when I knew that

this was a story we had to tell on this show. And so I look forward to sheep dog being the broader market, and I do know, not hope, I know, that lives will be saved because of this film. And I thank you for giving us the opportunity to tell your story, and thank you for doing this. I'm speechless. Thank you. Wow. I'm the universe. It does really work in mysterious ways, and thank you. Thank you for the song, and thank you for your commitment to service the

sacrifice of your family's sacrifice and using your platform to amplify the message of sheep dog in this film. And we're just on behalf of our entire team that has worked so hard to try to bring this story to the world. Just thank you so much, and keep doing the good work you're doing, which just it's a tremendous honor. Thank you. The American Jet Birds went on to form the foundation of the United States special forces in the special activities director of the Central

Intelligence Agency. Thanks for listening to the Jet Bird podcast on the official program of the Greenberry Foundation. I'm your creator and host, friend, Richard. Join us next week for a new episode on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Check us out on YouTube for full episodes, highlights, and other long and short-form content. If you like what you heard, give us a like and leave a review. Follow the Jet Bird podcast and the Greenberry Foundation on LinkedIn,

Instagram, Facebook, and extra threats. Send your comments and inquiries to [email protected]. As former members of Special Operations Forces, the Jet Bird Media Channel and the Greenberry Foundation remain committed to supporting all generations of U.S. Army Special Forces and their families. Thanks for joining us on this episode. How you prepared today to determine success tomorrow.