Gary Sinise Talks Forrest Gump, His Son Mac & Helping Veterans | Unsubscribe Podcast 257

This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen. Snacks. A stapler? The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pass keys, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See paypal.com slash protection terms. You were in first down? I was the guy with no legs. Oh, that guy. That guy, okay. What's Forrest Gump? Hollywood got very anti-war, anti-Iraq. I have a role to play here in supporting the folks that are serving out there. I'm sure you've had to deal with a lot of politicians in your life. A fair amount. I'm going to go ahead and guess every one since the movie Forrest Gump came out. Yeah. I'm among friends here now. Say hi to Eli. He's racially ambiguous. Brandon. His hair is fucking fabulous. Donut. A dark joke disposition. And there's a fat electrician. Welcome to Unsubscribe. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Unsubscribe podcast. I'm joined today by Eli Doubletap, fat electrician. Our very special guest, Gary Sinise. We're in his office. We're his guest, honestly. Brandon Herrera, myself, Donut Operator. Thank you so much for being here. Mr. Gary, holy crap. We've been excited for this one. For months now. Like, since last year, I think we've been trying to set something up. And finally, everything worked out. And now we are here. And we are stoked because, I mean. Cody's upset. He's got more challenge coins than all of us can buy. No, I'm a little upset by it. I thought I had the biggest challenge coin collection in the world. And then I walk into here and I tell Gary, I'm like, dude, you have so many challenge coins. He says, well, you haven't seen the other room full of challenge coins. We have to have some place to put them all. Yeah. You know Eli's being extra respectful when he's not swearing intentionally. I won't even curse right now. You're probably used to it. Thanks for coming, guys. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having us today. So for a quick, I don't even know how to start this one because you've done so much work in the veteran space. And that's what is awesome to see from all our ends is just the sheer amount of work and good you do and how to change the lives. And that's. Tell the people what got you on that journey, because I think that's a super important one, because you have a family. You come from like a line of veterans and your entire family history, right? Yeah, that's where it would start with me. I mean, that's my dad right there. He was in the Navy during Korea. Navy guy up there. That's my uncle Jack. He was a navigator on a B-17 bomber in World War II. And this is my uncle Jerry on the left. He was in the Navy during World War II. My grandfather right there who served in the Army during World War I. And I've got a great uncle, cousins, all this stuff, lots of military in the family. And then my wife also on her side of the family, Vietnam veterans. Her two brothers served in Vietnam. Her sister's husband served in Vietnam. Her sister served in the Army. Married a Vietnam veteran. They had a son. He was in the Army. He's now a cop up in Washington State. So a lot of service. I would say that that's kind of the, you know, that's the family history that kind of laid the groundwork for me getting so involved. But then there's a series of things that happened over the years that just got me more tuned up and more invested and more active with all of it. Yeah, because I, I mean, I don't know if it's an exaggeration to say, but your work specifically, I think you're probably the biggest veteran advocate as far as dollars raised in the country's history. I mean, I can't think of anybody bigger. I mean, what is it now? 400 million? We're over $650 million in the 15 year history of the foundation. We're in our 15th year right now. So started with one donor and then we. We started branching, you know, just as the foundation got more busier and more well-known, you know, people started hearing about it. The donor base grew and we have a tremendous philanthropy team. We're, you know, operating many, many different spaces now. So we're able to raise a good amount of money. But that's that's a fair amount there. I would say over the last several years. Amazing. It's incredible. Yeah, that's insane. That's a really. That's a number right there, guys. We need to step it up. You said that was your grandfather. So this is my grandfather right here. Yeah. And he was in the army in World War One. He drove an ambulance in France. So he in fact, I have a you see you can see across there. There's a an album cover on the wall over there. That's a picture of my grandfather on a horse training in Yuma, Arizona, to go off to World War One. And he ended up he was in the army. He ended up driving an ambulance in France during the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne. And that, you know, that that battle we lost over twenty six thousand in that one single battle history. And he was back and forth from the front line to the rear, just taking the wounded back. And there's one story from. My grandfather, where he was in a convoy of ambulances, they all had that red cross painted on the side. I don't know why they did that, but it's supposed to be the German shoot at the jury. Yeah, well, the Germans did that. They started targeting the ambulances and the one in front of them got blown up and the one behind them got blown up and he he was spared. He just kept driving. So he got very lucky during that. I didn't I didn't talk to my grandfather too much. When I was a kid, he died when I was in my early twenties. And, you know, of course, when I got more active with military support and veteran support and all of that, I started looking back at those days and just wished that I had been, you know, not such a dopey kid that I actually paid attention to what my grandfather had done. Thankfully, my uncle, this one, Uncle Jerry, he was on a ship in the Pacific during. World War Two. He became a writer after he got home from the war, and so he was able to get my grandfather to talk a little bit and he wrote down some of the things he said. That's where I know about the the story about the ambulances from my uncle just interviewing my grandfather and trying to get him to talk to a shocking amount of notable people were ambulance drivers in World War One as well as thinking that it's like Hemingway, Ray Kroc, Walt Disney. Like there's a lot of a lot of. Notable folks. I don't even know that. Was it? Was it Elvis too? No, it was World War Two. It might have been World War Two. Yeah. I don't know. Elvis drove an ambulance? He had. In World War Two? I swear that's what it was. He did something. I thought it was, I know it was something with an ambulance. I think you might be right. No, I think he, I think he was, Elvis was after World War Two. I swore he was during, or is it? Where, when? Yeah, when did he join? Well, let's check. Yeah. Oh, that's. A beautiful little box in our pocket. Let's pull it up on the phone. Yeah. The nightmare brick in our pocket might have the answer. For sure. Was it, I mean, a lot of that old generation, they really didn't talk about their service, especially if they were in World War One, World War Two. Your uncle getting as much information, did he only grab a couple pieces or a couple stories from your grandpa or great grandpa at that time? Yeah. Yeah. Just, you know, very, very limited because my grandfather just didn't want to talk about it too much. You know, but he did share a couple of little stories like that with my uncle and my uncle, again, he was, he wrote books and he wrote articles and whatnot, and he was able to document my grandpa and what he had done. And so when I wrote a book that came out in 2019 and I talk about my family history and I pull some of my uncle's stories about my grandfather and just stuck them in the book, because that's what, what I know. But I wish, you know, I've been aware as a kid to, to just talk to my, even, even my uncle, Jerry, I never really talked to him much about his service. He was on a ship in the Pacific during the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. And then he was part of the occupying force in Japan after the surrender, but he lived in Texas and I, you know, I just never engaged with him. Very much. Do you know what ship he was on? Cause it looks like a battleship. He, no, that that's, that's just a superimposed picture. We just grabbed a ship and put him in front of it, but he was on a landing ship tank. So those were the ships that would roll in and the ramp would drop down and a tank would roll out LST and he, yeah, LST. And so he was on a, he was on two 811 and 870. I have those documented and you know, You know, I got to hear some pretty good stories from him about what he had done because he wrote about his service a bit the family history is important it sets up you know a lot and you know i'll tell you when but when i was a kid i wasn't paying attention to any of it it all happened later when i started getting more involved with supporting vietnam veterans and then i i played the vietnam veteran and forrest gump and he was a wounded veteran of course you were in first i was the guy with no legs yeah oh okay oh that guy that guy okay what's forrest gone before your time okay probably we were all joking before the podcast we're like wouldn't it be funny if we all pretended like none of us knew what forrest gump was we just thought you were we didn't even know you're an actor you're just really into the veteran community we're like we just have really good stuff about you with yeah oh you act like they said we should come over with cameras foundation raised 600 million dollars for veterans and i thought he was a cool guy dang i had to you act don't don't make me take you through it i had to throw this out there everybody knows you from you know forrest gump and things like that i knew you first from uh disney world mission space the command center thing yes that's it's kind of a wild throwback yes sir the ride that goes to mars yes yes okay i didn't even get that it was a reference to your other mars movie um but i just immediately as a uh as a kid i was just like oh wait hold on that's the that's the mission space guy so when did you go when did you go on that ride how how old were you oh man i was a kid i have no idea so yeah i did a movie for disney uh mission to mars about going to mars and when they were building the ride we had a great technical advisor on mission to mars uh he you know this is an astronaut who been up six times on the space shuttle uh story musgrave brilliant brilliant guy they hired story to be kind of the technical advisor when they were building the ride to go to mars and uh i got to i got to do the movie and then they asked me to be the capcom on the ride so what he's talking about you come into the ride and there's somebody on car on on the screen and they say hi welcome to mission space and here's what you're going to do and watch out don't vomit all that stuff advice some people don't take yeah right but it was it was a good ride though brandon could you tell me what super power does not draws let me step in for brandon eli superpower sends a medically licensed professional to your home to conduct a lab test you can choose to either do it at your home or nearby lab to get the test done it's one simple lab draw are you here for my hundred biomarkers i am here for more than just your hundred biomarkers they're pulling out your biomark yeah this is how you learn if you're up or not all jokes aside uh tests like this are one of the reasons why i found out i have lead poisoning which is a very serious issue that i wish i had paid more attention to i thought i had cancer and then found out i don't that was a heavy weight off my shoulders and off of your ass it actually presents all your information on an app that you can just check everything literally everything so you get to learn basically what you're deficient in what you do not have in your daily diet or whatever and then they give you recommendations on how to fix that and a lot of the times it is genetic so different people will have different eating habits or what helps their body perform better and super power helps break that down so it'll tell you hey you need more iron creatine to give a real concrete example like i i found out through tests like this uh i'm actually uh deficient in ferritin which actually helps your body process iron super power gives you access to high-end concierge level care for only 199 but with unsub's discount you're getting it for 179. know your numbers this year with super power super power make this the year you stop guessing about your health with super power head to www.superpower.com unsub and use code unsub at checkout to get yourself twenty dollars off after you sign up they're gonna ask how you're you heard about super power tell them it was us on uh on the way here in in forrest gump uh lieutenant dan invests their money in a quote unquote fruit company apple yeah um and it got me thinking how good of advice would that have been if you just invested in apple when the movie forrest gump came out oh i did the math if you to put a thousand dollars in apple after watching forrest gump in the movie theater it'd be worth 1.1 million dollars right now should have taken your advice when i was five yeah it was like 11. i wonder how many people did that you might have changed some lives with your your advice and only 80 percent of that is inflation well you know during first gump you actually did uh like boot camp or they had you do different kind of training for the military right yeah yeah we're we went and lived in the woods and did all that uh did some training um i think we were out there for three or three or four nights and slept out there did all the boot camp stuff you know war games you know live with the snakes all that kind of stuff and it was it was great because right after we finished that um we went right into the vietnam sequences so i had shot already some of the some of the shrimp boat stuff we had done i think in the beginning of when i started shooting and then and that was with like a long hair wig you know because we had to go back and forth between like long hair scenes and short hair scenes so i had a long hair wig for you know and scruffy stuff on my face then i went and took the wig off shaved and then we went into the woods and lived in the woods and then we went and started shooting the vietnam stuff after that so it was very the timing was good because by the time we marched in to start shooting all the vietnam stuff we were we were ready to go and you this episode is brought to you by paypal you know how a mom's bag has everything sunscreen snacks a stapler the new paypal app is like that but for your money shop pay manage your account and earn rewards all in one place and with purchase protection on eligible items biometric security and pass keys you're protected at every step download the new paypal app to get started see paypal.com protection terms now you did this with even apollo 13 uh what was the hardest training you did like preparing for a role preparing for any any role yeah because apollo 13 okay you did space camp for x amount of days are correct i did yeah yeah so what was the hard one were you like okay this actually sucked way more than i thought it would well i mean it wasn't fun to you know i i remember when we were training for forrest gump i went down into an anthill you know it was like they had some mortars set up we were marching across this field and they had planted like mortars out there um so you know special effects stuff so they set these mortars off you know and we all hit the deck right and i went right into an anthill and just like that you know ants everywhere snakes so that wasn't fun i didn't like that any of that that was i i i would have rather been back in my hotel room at that point what uh what area was that in south carolina oh okay buford yeah i'm familiar with that i was a police officer in south carolina okay you know they i i really liked it there actually i i loved it down there i loved being there i loved shooting there years later uh they started something uh where we were supporting our wounded and a lot of our wounded would come down for the weekend and they had they named they had this thing called lieutenant dam weekend and my band would come and play and they'd have you know dozens of wounded service members would come down we raised money we were supporting something called the independence fund yep and so money for that too yeah i supported them for a long time and uh they they wanted to do lieutenant dan weekend so i came down and it was great to be able to visit that i went back year after year and i loved the area charleston yeah yeah then we moved the event from buford we used to do it right in the town square right on the water and my band would play right there and it got so big they had to move it up to charleston yeah i saw you jamming out in charleston yeah i saw you jamming out in charleston so i love that area man yeah you're about to get married there i'm getting married there in uh 35 days congratulations love you congratulations yes and we haven't got to say this on camera brandon congratulations he just won a congress seat oh yeah well primary for it yeah primary yeah um yeah i forgot we haven't done a podcast since but yeah i just i beat out uh tony gonzalez in district 23. well Where is that? So it's basically all of West Texas. It's the western side of San Antonio all the way out to El Paso. Well, congratulations. Appreciate it, brother. Thank you. I'm sitting with a politician. I know. It sucks, right? I didn't know. Run, you fool. I'll take statesman. I don't think I'll ever be a politician, or at least I hope not. That's good. That's good. I hope not. Congrats on that. I was like, oh, yeah, we got the news after the fact because that was a weird – that was weird timing. That was very, very odd. Is the pun a drop? Well, you explain it. Well, yeah. So March 3rd was the primary, and this was a rematch. I had run against him last time. We had lost by, in a runoff, 407 votes. And so this time I was hoping he would get better. He didn't. Actually, things got a lot worse. And he – so I ran again this cycle. And we were already looking pretty good in the polls, and then it dropped. He was in a very, very serious scandal where he pressured a subordinate into a sexual relationship. Can't do that. That's not good. And then afterward basically broke up her home to the point where she committed suicide via self-immolation. Oh, my God. It was a wild story. The entire thing was wild. And then he lied to cover it up. He lied. He lied the entire time, lied to media, lied to the voters. And then – so we shellacked him on Tuesday. But neither one of us got above 50%, which means in the state of Texas you have to go to then a runoff election. So there were four people in the race. We were both in the 40s. We beat him, but not by enough to take it outright. And then two days later – so I'm expecting to go into a three-month runoff election, like another election, which I was pretty confident we were going to win. Two days later he announced he was dropping out. Well, he went on somebody else's podcast. And after he had been for six months at this point saying that these were all rumors and they weren't true and it was just a political hit job, he went on a podcast and said, well, actually, it is true, but it's not my fault. And then after that, the Speaker of the House basically told him he needs to step down. So he dropped out of his reelection bid. So Brandon kind of took that by default being most votes. Yeah. I was sitting at my house bar playing blackjack with Connor. We're just like screwing around, like just trying to like decompress a little bit. Like, okay, we got a big fight to win. It's like 11 o'clock at night. And then I just get – my phone is just over in the corner on the side of my bar. Just – like, oh, shit. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Stress. I think I'm the nominee now. Big news. Yeah. So it's been a wild, wild journey. He got 50 percent? Yeah. Even with that going on? He got like 41 percent, I think. But that was all being exposed? It was there at all, man. Well, that had – the confirmation that it was true didn't hit the news until early voting had already started. Okay. So then it was kind of like the voting was already happening when it was getting pushed out. So it was a matter of like how many voters could actually – how many voters that are A, already voted, and B, how many voters weren't going to see or realize that's who it was. Right. Until that point in time because on the ballot, he's still seen as the Republican incumbent. So everybody – if you don't – if you're not super into politics, you kind of just vote for the incumbent because that's what everybody does. They have the highest chance of winning. So I think that's where a lot of the votes came from. Yeah. We had people that came to us like our – like sign-waving teams and whatnot. People came up later saying, I cast my vote on the first day of early voting. I didn't know. Is there anything I can do to help? Which, you know, that's pretty indicative that, you know, it's a major shift. Because he really did. He said that I was lying. He tried to defame my character saying that, oh, no, he's just smearing me politically. I'm like, no, I'm doing the same thing I've been doing since day one, which is tell the truth about you. Yeah. A little background on this guy here. I got to give him praise. Firearms manufacturer. Started a YouTube channel. YouTube channel. Pretty big. And we moved to San Antonio. His family's from Texas originally. And he – one day – Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He just said, hey, I don't like this guy. I don't like my congressman. He started running. And now he's – you got it, buddy. We'll see. We'll see. And all self-funded and with the help of, you know, the audience and everything like that. No special interests. No big D.C. money. Just gave it the best race we could. And it was enough to take down a sitting congressman. Well, sounds like he needed to be taken down. I think it's pretty fair to say at this point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was an argument before. I don't know if there was one, though. Right. And he finally – it finally was so clear there was no ducking around it. He couldn't get it – get away with it. Yeah. He basically had to come out and admit it. Yeah. Now our friend's a politician. Ew. I know. I still hate that. That word still sounds like a slur. I'm going to move over a little bit from you. It's because it is. Yeah. Connor, how do you shave your chest? How do I shave my chest? He doesn't have certain genes like me and Eli do. Yes. I am a Caucasoid. Oh, well. Okay. He doesn't have certain genes like I do. Oh, and actually, this smells really good. It looks smooth. Feels smooth. Simba. It does say, we highly encourage the hosts to get creative. Oh, that is a mistake. I'd shave me. Would you shave me? Why does he have forehead hair? You got to keep it under control, which is why I trust people like Harry's. Actually, that is remarkably smooth. Those are – I use those. They're cheaper than a majority of razors and they're really good. I didn't lube myself up like other folks. So, Harry owns its own world-class blade factory in Germany. Harry's has launched their most advanced razor ever. Why is he putting deodorant on his neck? Harry's Plus is Harry's heaviest razor handle ever. How heavy is it? Made of entirely metal, no plastic. How does it feel? Refreshing. Harry's doesn't make just razors. They've got a full line of grooming essentials. All of Harry's blades and grooming equipment can be delivered directly to your door. For a limited time, our listeners can get the Harry's Plus trial set for only $10 at harrys.com/unsub. This set includes the all-new Harry's Plus razor. One refined five-blade cartridge. And a two-ounce can of foaming shave gel. And a travel cover to protect your razor on the go. Just head to harrys.com/unsub to claim this offer. And after you pick up Harry's Plus razor, you can get a new razor. And if you purchase, they're going to ask you, "Huh, how'd you hear about us?" Tell them Unsub, or I'll shave you. Well, that'll be an interesting life change, I'm sure, if you get in there. Yeah, it's going to be a negative one for me. A fair amount, you know. A couple. I've seen the pictures, Gary. I know you do. I was going to say, you've got a casual photo of W. I was going to say, W's over there hanging out with you. Yeah, I wonder where that was. Oh, right there. Yeah, no, I've met a few. Yeah. Yeah, that changed a lot. I hadn't done that many movies before that, so I wasn't well-known. I had done a lot of theater, but Forrest Gump was maybe. I don't know, what, third movie or. Which is. Third or fourth movie, something like that. I mean, wild. Third movie? Third or fourth. You know, I did, like, 90. My first real good part in a movie, I did three movies in 91. And then 92 of Mice and Men came out. I did that as a film. And the producers for Forrest Gump saw that, and they invited me to come and audition. And that was with John Malkovich, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then I auditioned for it, and I got a couple of good parts that year. You know, when you're in a movie like that that's so popular, and you're not that well-known, and you play a good part, you know, things are going to change for you. So I got some good parts after that. Did you have any idea, like, during the filming that it was going to be as big as it ended up? No, no, no. I mean, so I'm working with Tom Hanks. He was a big movie star. So that was a good thing. Bob Zemeckis was top director. Really, you know, a lot of success. The script was good. So you got three things going for you there that give you an indication, like, oh, you're involved in something that could be pretty cool. But the nature of the way, if you remember that, the nature of the way that story was told, is you've got Forrest Gump interacting with all these different characters, right? Like, there's the Jenny story, and there's the Bubba story, and there's the Lieutenant Dan story and the Mama story. And we didn't really interact with each other, you know, all those other characters. It wasn't like we were all in the same scene. So I didn't really know what Robin Wright was doing as Jenny. I didn't know what—I knew a couple things about Michael T. Williamson, because I was in some scenes with him. But Sally Field, I didn't really know what was going on. on tom was doing all these scenes with everybody else i didn't know what they were doing so so i didn't know what the movie is going to turn out like until i saw it did you have a script that showed or was it just primarily your yeah no you have the whole script okay well that was that was my question because i've heard like some obviously every movie is different but i've heard some people that are like i don't i don't know what the script even is i just show up and do what the director says which would have been very funny from your uh your perspective at the time because you're showing up all right today you don't have any legs and then like tomorrow you're gonna you're gonna have no legs you're gonna be clean shaven today you've got long hair and a beard like i guess i'm putting on the green socks and you're wheeling around like shrimp no i i read the whole script i i like to know what the story is that's good you know and uh you know but the nature of the lieutenant dan story is just these little you know these little moments you know he's in vietnam and then he's in the hospital in vietnam and then he's gone you see him in new york and then you see him on the shrimp boat and then it's just these little little segments so the i mean the story just what i like about that story is is the way it ends up for our veterans right uh i have a lot of vietnam veterans in my family i you know remember what that was like i've met so many wounded folks over the years and we want we want that story to be the story of success that our wounded have right they they're able to move on from life it's a happy ending and we haven't really seen the story of a vietnam veteran have a happy ending in a movie up until that point but that is a happy ending and we want that happy ending for everybody who serves our country i think so you talked about um one of your interviews you were discussing how important community is for the veterans when they get out and a lot of them just didn't have that vietnam veterans wild because that is you're coming back you are hated which none of us have seen or experienced that we were still drinking on the community thing yeah yeah but this episode is brought to you by paypal you know how a mom's bag has everything sunscreen snacks a stapler but this episode is brought to you by paypal you know how a mom's bag has everything sunscreen snacks a stapler the new paypal app is like that but for your money shop pay manage your account and earn rewards all in one place and with purchase protection on eligible items biometric security and pass keys you're protected at every step download the new paypal app to get started see paypal.com protection terms as you said i think it was family or friends that they had more success if they were still with that community the veteran community or they stayed active duty during that transition period versus the people that got out and just went into civilian world they were lost a lot of the times well my my wife's two brothers are two two different stories like that one stayed in the army career army guy um silver star recipient in vietnam two tours in vietnam very uh west pointer high profile guy uh unfortunately he got cancer in 83 and died uh of cancer um but he was very very uh he profound impact on the army uh kind of person he rewrote the entire leadership manual for the army he was very invested in the army gonna have a career if uh he had lived he would have been a four-star there's no question about it uh he would have been in the iraq war and you know afghanistan conflicts all of that he was that career army guy then the second brother the younger of the two brothers with a helicopter pilot who who went in um he was like the second son you know the the first son was the father really looked to him as you know he was very proud of him going to west point and all that the second son wanted to kind of i think be a part of that and so he he joined the army helicopter pilot 800 combat hours but it was it was rough on him it was rough on him and he came back and got out of the army and he struggled still struggles you know he survived he's still alive but still struggles i mean he kind of withdrew from life in a way again a recluse bit and uh i think and for my other brother-in-law who served in combat as a combat medic he stayed in the army too after vietnam and i think it was just easier for folks to to come back from vietnam and still be amongst their fellow vietnam veterans who were still serving in the army they had this community of support they'd all been through it you know they weren't they were still serving their country uh it was a bit different for them i think than somebody who came home got out of the service and tried to just disappear and forget about it i also wonder i i i don't know what the answer to this is but i'm just kind of like i don't know pontificating uh if it was a little bit easier for guys after world war ii was over because that was something that if you were a red-blooded male you know you you went and you served like that was that was kind of a universal experience for everyone whereas g-watt that's not the case yeah stuff like that like it's it was something that if there was another guy that was your age out in public odds are we served together we did the same thing and that's just not the case anymore and i wonder if that makes it harder on veterans nowadays um like even in the tv show the pacific it like the ending of that show touches on it because like even uh the pacific war veterans were treated a lot different than the european war veterans for world war ii just because like the the general consensus back home when world war ii like a lot of people on the civilian side and especially like europeans too um when hitler surrendered that was the end of world war ii in a lot of people's minds like the the pacific theater was like a side quest to a lot of people so like in i'll get into my comment sections on like the history videos i do like i've had europeans comment like this guy thinks world war ii ended when japan surrendered what's he talking about and it's like it because it did because it because it did but to them it was it was just a european theater and the end of the pacific shows that where the pacific war veterans are coming home you know six eight months a year later after the occupation of japan and they're looking for a job and they're like i just got back from the service and they're like what what do you the war ended a year ago what are you talking about why are you just now looking for a job and he's like no i was i was in the pacific and like the civilians are genuinely confused because they thought the war had been over for like way longer they weren't thinking about that we occupied japan for as long as we did exactly and the other crazy part to me it's like doing war history and hearing even people like you talking about your families where it's like america's really really young because like i wouldn't have thought that your grandfather would have been old enough to have fought in world war one makes sense if i look at the timeline but like it seems so long ago to me versus you know and then his grandfather easily could have fought in the civil war so it's like you're like eight we're eight well no no he was in the he was he's an italian so my my my great-grandfather and there's a picture of him over there he came over from uh from italy pro in the late 1800s and uh my uh my grandfather was one of nine kids five were born in italy and then his father moved to uh to chicago from italy and four more children were born so maybe the civil war in italy it's funny it's funny though to see those timelines those things that you wouldn't think would work out uh like because we have videos like actual videos of civil war veterans like speaking and like talking to each other and things like that it's also like it's one of those where you you just segment these things in your mind um but you don't actually think about okay where this where this went like for example i know the meme that gets shared around is uh rosa parks lived to see the movie shrek yeah it's like things that in your mind don't make sense well it's like oh well hell i guess that's what you're talking about i don't know what you're talking about i don't know that's true even even like what he just said about how you know if he had stayed in he would have been a four-star general he would have been in iraq as a vietnam veteran like yeah it doesn't sound that but then like i read up on war heroes and it's like oh this guy got his medal of honor in vietnam but he also jumped into normandy like that seems crazy to me that you fought in world war ii korea and vietnam the timeline makes sense my great grandfather but it's just weird to me or like uh we did it's been clipped to oblivion on the internet but we were talking about the um god what is his name general clint um he was the the nine-year-old drummer boy in the civil war he was a nine-year-old drummer boy in the civil war was when he started his service and he served his entire life and he ended up being a general in world war one like it's just crazy somebody can see that many different stages of war especially that going from that's a big job muskets to machine guns and tanks and in your lifetime and planes yeah in a different country yeah that's crazy i like My grandfather was a combat dozer or combat engineer in the Pacific in World War II, then fought in Korea, and then did some spooky advisory stuff in Vietnam. And so the way that it was described to me, anyway, was that in Vietnam, his role was, we'll go up in a plane. He was a pilot. We'd go up in a plane. We'd take pictures of things with the locals. And then the next day, when we went up in that plane again, the things we took pictures of weren't there anymore. Then we had to take the topographer up to update maps. It was kind of one of those, I heard that there was like a family gathering. It's like, oh, yeah, I was in Vietnam from this time to this time. Grandpa, we weren't in Vietnam then. He's like, I was. Hey, do you know what's better than anything, brother? Homemade cooking. Oh, God, Eli, are we doing this bit again? Yes, we are. I'm not doing the Macho Man bit. I've got HelloFresh for three minutes. HelloFresh rises to the top. Oh, yeah. Hey, you want to make life easier? This is how you do it. HelloFresh, because it comes in and all you have to do is cook it. To make anything, you have to prep anything. They do that for you. You get all the ingredients. You just put them together at home. Makes you look like a master chef. Invite somebody over to your house and be like, hey, I made this. Just for you. Just me. Just me. I made this just for you. Choose over a hundred different recipes each week. Including cuisines from around the world. I'm not doing the Macho Man voice. We know. They even got the Asian meals, you know. They make tacos, huh? I'm kind of doing Mexican accent. Porciones más grande para satisfacer todos. Choose from more than 35 high-protein recipes each week. Including Mediterranean and friendly GLP-1 options. GLP-1 friendly. GLP-1 friendly. GLP-1 friendly options. Eli, what's a GLP-1? Feel great with wholesome ingredients like sustainably sourced seafood and 100% hormone and antibiotic-free chicken. Make meals with seasonal products like pears, apples, and Asperger's. Asparagus. Head over to HelloFresh.com slash Unsub10FM and get 10 free meals. Plus a freeze-willing knife. On your third box? Offer valid while supplies last. Free meals apply at its discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. It sucks that we don't have those interviews of those World War I veterans. Because those are the stories. It's all those stories that are lost throughout history. Because we don't have that many one-on-ones. How many one-on-ones with World War I veterans? Are there that many? I'm sure there has to be. It gets a lot harder after World War II to find personal accounts. As far as actual writing books and recording, war experiences, it gets a lot tougher once you get past Audie Murphy. Audie Murphy's book, To Hell and Back, was one of the first big books where a war hero actually wrote down their perspective and their story. Yeah, there weren't Navy SEALs back then, so there's not a lot of books. Damn it. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I like not to break my wrist or anything, but it was why I like what we do on Unsub10FM. with bringing on so many World War II vets. Because I remember, you know, in my lifetime growing up, the moment I saw the headline that the world's last World War I veteran died. And thinking like, wow, okay, those are stories that can never be told now. And so giving them the platform, the opportunity to be able to tell those stories is super important. Yeah, B-Li, did you tell Gary who we had on? We have Papa Jake, Don Graves, Al, Al. We've had three World War II veterans. And one was at the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. Like he was there during that. And then Grandpa Jake was Battle Bull, and Normandy. Hearing his version of the story is hilarious. Cause it's like, yeah, we raised the first one up on some drainage pipe we found, but then they said the flag wasn't big enough. So they had to go grab one off of one of the battleships and bring it over. We had to do it again for the picture. Gary, I'll tell you Papa Jake, he was trying to steal our girls the entire time. He was, he was, he was, he was, he was risen up the ladies the whole time. He was. He was not interested in any of the guys at all. Look at the smile on your fiance's face right now. What do you mean trying? He's at that old man face. Hope he was succeeding. Don Graves is pretty, pretty frisky too. I was gonna say you had to have known Don. Which I don't think we. He's pretty, I mean, he's, he's got more energy than, jeez. We've had Don on some trips and that kind of thing. Don is awesome. Pretty special guy. Any excuse that man has to sing? Hmm. Yeah. He'll, he'll do it immediately. He loves that. Yeah. God, I remember, cuz I think I was one of the first people to sit down at the table with Don and, uh, like Eli was getting the cameras ready. You guys were like getting the drinks ready or whatever. And I was just sitting there with him and he just starts rattling off like pure gold. And I'm like, Eli, turn the cameras on, turn the cameras on right now. We're gonna have to bleep half of this. This is amazing. No, it wasn't even that it's just like the dude just sits down and just starts dropping like incredible stories just off the top of his head and it's like, oh my God. Everything he says is so cool. I don't know if we've gotten a chance to say it on the podcast podcast yet, but rest in peace, Papa Jake. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Papa Jake passed. We lost him a couple months ago. We helped, uh, with the statue of Papa Jake though. Did we? So they'll have an unsub thing under it stoned cuz we, we threw some money towards it for that to get erected. It's awesome. We had him and then major capers actually just got his, I think he got approved for the medal of honor, right? Did he get approved? I haven't heard that. I think that I hope so. I hope so. The man deserves it. Awesome. Let's look it up. Do you know who major capers is? He was, uh, he was, uh, not Marine Raider. He was force recon, force recon Marine during Vietnam and, uh, led a team. And, um, basically he, he had been recommended for the medal of honor, but, uh, he was what I believe he was the first black officer in American history to receive a field promotion. Like in theater. And he, he has, he has this incredible story, this humongous military career, and he basically kind of got shafted for the medal of honor. And there's been a humongous push to get that retroactively fixed and got approved. He got approved. Very nice. Yes. Really? Yeah. Congressman Norman bills is to award major John James caper with the medal of honor. I'm excited for it. He deserves it. He really does. There's a, there, there's also a thing about, uh, him being like one of the first, uh, I don't know what the, the qualifications called. Black combat divers. Yep. Yeah. Cause his, his story on that when he was going to dive school was crazy because he, uh, he showed up to dive school and the person, I don't know if it was a literal doctor, but the, the medical person in charge of the program didn't even want to let him go through the course because according to what major James capers was told was he has a medical evidence that black people can't swim is what they told him. And he's like, no, I can, I can swim. And he ended up like passing the course and performed. I think he said three combat dives and yeah, just a crazy military career. Is that what they told you in buds? Yeah. You know how a mom's bag has everything sunscreen snacks, a stapler. The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money shop, pay manager account and earn rewards all in one place. They just sink. I don't know what to tell you. The fastest swimmers we had in buds were the black dudes. One of my favorite moments, we've done hundreds of these podcasts. One of my favorite moments is, uh, I had read his book prior to him coming on and he has a story about when they were. They were in, they were in Vietnam on a mission, I know where this is going and on their way back up to their, their fob, which is on top of this big hill slash mountain. Uh, they had to cross a river and they found a 26 foot long Python that weighed like 300 pounds and they couldn't carry it across this river, but they were, they told everybody up on the fob that they found this gigantic snake and they're like, no, you didn't. That's not true. Whatever. So one of the helicopter pilots flew them back down and they captured the snake and kept it. It was a pet and they named it Gomer and they were, they ran into town and they were feeding it ducks. Well, he tells this whole story and it's hilarious. And then we, we have his book on the table and we flipped through it. And in the pictures, there's a picture of him and his guys, like six dudes to hold up this snake. It's humongous. And there's two pictures like that. And one picture says Gomer number one and the other picture says Gomer number two. And I was like, how many snakes did you catch? He's like, oh yeah, we caught, we caught another one in Panama too. So he's just. Catching these gigantic pythons while he's out on missions for fun. This is in operations. Like that's awesome. Pulling back from a mission and be like, whoa, there's spin up the helicopter. Grab that 300 pound snake. This is gonna be cool. And then put a bag over it. It's the most dude thing I've ever heard of. That guy's gotta have something to do. They didn't have X boxes on the fob yet. Oh man. What you've been in many, many movies. But as you said, Forrest Gump was number three or four. yeah early on yeah and then it was just big movie after big movie because you've done three with tom hanks or he um yeah apollo 13 was was one i did right after never heard of it and i did the green mile with him it was american propaganda to make it look like we went to the moon oh thank you big stuff yeah they use the same studio actually were you because you say you didn't know how big your uh you know forrest gump would be especially your role with lieutenant dan were you at all concerned like after it did blow up and got as big as it did that you were going to kind of be typecasted into that military type role because i mean i i don't think you were you went in every role's significantly different you're not just like the army guy in every movie were you concerned no i wasn't worried about that okay no um i ended up you know you might get offered some things but i i just was looking for the the best projects that were coming my way at the time and ended up played harry truman in a in a movie for hbo um that was that was an interesting project because you know it's a historical figure footage of him you know lots of documentation a lot of books you um so the the the trick there is you're creating an impression of somebody who really lived right so you've got to do a believable enough impression that people kind of go with it and forget forget it's you so that was a good that was a good acting challenge that right after i started shooting that right after the oscars for forrest gump i i left like the next day and went and started shooting harry truman so some really good projects started coming my way at the time the 90s were very very good good good time i'm curious what what got you into acting like what made you want to want to get because you said you did theater first what made you want to do all that well i was i was a uh bad student in uh high school i'm among friends i can see i'm among friends here now yeah bad student in high school failing a lot of classes not doing well playing in a rock band um getting into trouble all that kind of stuff um and i i just stumbled into auditioning for a play for the hell of it i saw all the pretty girls walking in and i followed them in and i you know thought okay give me the script i'll try it you know and i auditioned for west side story the no kidding musical and i got in it i got a little tiny part of it and i was like oh my god i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this and that and you know here i was i'm probably getting ready to get kicked out of school at the time and that whole theater community and the fun that i had doing that show and everything just changed everything for me it really was a turning point and the teacher that i had was unlike any teacher i'd ever had before she's she she just was different and she saw something in me that was that you know that she kind of encouraged and i was you know and then after after that play i just wanted to be in all these shows and i ended up doing really well in theater ended up starting a theater company when i got out of high school um called steppenwolf and that that theater company is now old over 50 years old it's we ended up we were little kids we ended up building a building that takes an entire city block so it really is a great american dream story where you start with absolutely nothing just kids wanting to do some plays and it turns into something special these caricatures up here on the wall are from different steppenwolf plays that we moved to new york and did on broadway or off broadway and we started moving our shows to new york that gave us a lot of international recognition and because of the international recognition we were able to raise the amount of money that we needed to raise to build a building and we ended up building a building that's awesome are you still like very heavily involved in that no no i um you know i support my support but september 11th changed everything for me i was i was in new york that year doing one of our shows um and it was it was a broadway show big hit all of that it closed about six weeks before the attack of 9-11 and i was profoundly impacted by that whole incident and everything changed for me i just decided that's when i got super heavily involved in all this and um i didn't go back and do do plays after that that was the last play i did because i turned towards service and volunteerism and raising money for our veterans and entertaining them and building houses for wounded all these different things that we do that became the mission i ended up getting a tv series after that which was lucrative and very very good at the time to have a television series right at the time that i was getting so involved in all of this was a great benefit not only financially but when you have a public platform like that you're on television every week and it's a hit show and it's doing well uh i had a i had a megaphone i could get up and talk about what i was doing on uso tours and visiting the hospitals and talking about all that and it gave me a good reputation in the community and i got so busy with all of that i haven't been back to do theater since connor what are you doing i'm fuming brother you fuming okay you ain't never seen nobody cheap like this boy can fume responsibly look at connor i'm cured from what my oral fixation i would have something else in my mouth right now but thanks to fume it's not made of human flesh can i have that please you want to hit my fume bro i do it's also got a fidget movement on it for those who are tactilically challenged made that up tactilically is a rare often non-standard adverb of the form tactile used to describe interacting with or understanding something through the sense of touch physical feel or haptic feedback you pass me my fume bro we're fuming it up dude look at how cool he looks he's getting fumed out of his mind i'm not a fume too much bro my favorite flavor is orange vanilla it tastes like somebody near you at a coffee shop ordered an earl grey tea crisp mint yeah one time i was really really fiending for something something i legally cannot say in this advertisement but instead i reached for my fume and boy oh oh did that hit the spot use code unsub to get a free gift with your journey pack fume has already helped over 700 000 people take steps towards better habits and now it's your turn head to try fume.com that's t-r-y-f-u-m.com use code unsub to get a free gift today did hollywood ever have a problem with your involvement with like how how passionate you are about the u.s military a problem in in what way wouldn't it it's like there's a lot of you know like anti-war actors or producers or things like that did anyone ever like you ever have a problem no um not me but i was i was actually i know what you're talking about like during the iraq war uh you know everything you know we were kind of a nation that came together after september 11th right we were we wanted to do something about what had happened to us as a nation but as time went on and we went into iraq after that and everything like that things started to splinter again and hollywood got very anti-bush anti-war anti-iraq stuff i didn't feel that way and i'll tell you why because as i said i've got vietnam veterans in my family i could sense that hey what's happening right now in the country is very similar to what was happening to our vietnam veterans the media and folks are turning against the war the the soldiers the marines the people that are serving they're going to get caught in the middle of all that uh and i don't want that to happen so i just started to go on tours and go overseas and go to the war zones and go to the hospitals and you know support organizations that were helping our our service members and i the more i sensed all that stuff coming you know like i it just motivated me to do a lot more did that affect me in the movie and television business no i had i was the lead in a hit show so what are they going to do about it I mean, you know, I had a television show. I love it. Had a TV show every week. The show was doing well. Like I said, it gave me financial security that was beneficial, and I could start a foundation with that and all that. But I also had that public platform. And so I'd do interviews, and I'd say people would ask me about what you've been doing. And I'd say, well, I just went to Afghanistan or something, and here's what I saw. Here's the people that are serving our country. This is what they're doing. This is why we should support them. I got to see a lot of things on the inside that, you know, the average American doesn't get to see what gets done, right? I mean, they don't see the people that serve in the way that somebody who's maybe related to somebody. You know, you have a personal relationship to somebody who's serving in the military or on the police force. So you see it in a different way than the average American who may not have a personal connection. So I felt like I was kind of a little bit of a bridge. I could go to the war zones, and I could go see what people do and, you know, train with the special forces, see what they actually do, and then come back and talk about it and let people know how fortunate we are that we have such exceptional people. You know, serving our country. And so somebody like me is saying that kind of stuff. I mean, some people paid attention. Others probably thought it was, you know, it wasn't what they wanted to hear. But I felt like that's my role. My role is to – I have a role to play here in supporting the folks that are serving out there. And it turned into a full-time thing. Speaking of which, with your trips to, like, Iraq and Afghanistan, things like that, with the U.S. Army. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How did that transition work? You know, it's one of those things. You wake up one day. You're like, I think I want to do something. I want to make a difference. How did that conversation go? Well, I wanted to – you know, after September 11th, like I said, I just felt heartbroken and crushed by that. And I wanted to do something. I wanted to get involved. And so what do you do, you know? I had been involved a little bit with a disabled American veteran. I had been involved a little bit with a disabled American veteran's organization because of Forrest Gump. And I'd been supporting the DAV for a little while. But how do I support our active duty folks that are now deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq? And we're in a war now, you know. And they're getting hurt. And they're getting killed. And families are losing loved ones. And people are really banged up. You know, they need some support. And so one of the first things I did was contact the USO and just say, hey, I want to go on a trip. And it's funny. I've told this story before. But I left some messages on their machine. I called the USO and said, I'm Gary Sinise. I want to go on a tour. And I didn't hear anything back. And then I called him back again. I said, hi, I'm Gary Sinise. I'd really love to go on a USO tour, go to Iraq or whatever. Didn't hear anything back. Then I started to think. You dropped the Lieutenant Dan on them, didn't you? They don't know who Gary Sinise is. So I better call him back. I said, I'm the guy who played Lieutenant Dan. And then they called me back. So I wasn't real well known at that point. You know, this is back in, this is before CSI New York. I'd done, you know, I'd done Ransom with Mel Gibson. I'd done Apollo 13. I'd done some pretty big movies. I did The Stand, which was a miniseries on ABC. So, but still I wasn't like a recognizable name actor. So I figured that out. I figured, oh, okay. I gotta, I gotta tell them who I am. So they called me back and I went, I started going on tours and I went on the first one to Iraq. It was the first big USO tour to Iraq in June of 2013. We hadn't sent a tour over there yet. We'd just gone into Iraq in March. Remember the statue coming down? And that was in April. And then in June I was over in the war zone. Were you in a green zone? That would have been like Iraq. A surge, wasn't it? Yeah. I mean, that's during the surge. You're pulling down the statues and there's maybe one green zone at that time. Where did you go? That entire experience, like I have no picture. No, this is, this is, yeah, this is before. Uh, the insurgency and all that. So this is right, just within months of us getting there, right? Pulling the statue down. We had, we were in Baghdad. We were all over the place. And so I went over there on the first big USO tour and there were 180 of us on this tour. Northwest Airlines gave us an airplane and a 747 taken all of us over there on the plane. Kid Rock was on the plane. We were the only people on that tour, Leanne Womack, um, gosh, um, basketball players, football players, Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. I mean, it was, it was a big, big tour, dude, it was crazy when we pull up to base, cause I, I lived out in sector. So I had to come back and we see posters for, it's like, Hey, this person's coming to the base. I'm like, I don't get to be on the base any of those times. I was just thinking about the chronological. The chronological possibility that you, Kid Rock, and Eli were in country at the same time. Yeah, were you there in like 2007, 2008? Yeah, I was in, yeah, both, both, both years. Yeah, see, probably there and I was out in sector. Oh, you guys served together. Gosh, yeah, I was there both, both years. I, I was in Balad. Um, oh yeah, I was in Balad too, yeah. Taji and all, all these different places. I, I, I was, uh, both those years I went. I did two in a row. Balad's beautiful. Oh, if you get to live there. I was at Camp Anaconda. Yep, I, yep. What is the service member equivalent of Eskimo Bros? Yeah, pretty much. I know this area. How was it like getting off that plane the first time? Cause that had to be a change. Yeah, a change for you. You're not prepared for war. And we just got in the country eight months ago. Hey, here, can you entertain these people? That's a wild. I'm sorry, I can't get you. Being in, in character for Lieutenant Dan surrounded by Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders out of my head. That was entertaining. It's like the New Year's. That meme. That was. Sunscreen. Snacks. A stapler. Shop, pay, manage your account. Earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security and pass keys. You're protected at every step. See paypal.com/protectionterms. That was fun. That was fun. Well, how was it getting off the plane? It was hot. Like 150 degrees or whatever. Oh, the temperature. I thought we were still talking about the cheerleaders. My bad. Well, that was hot too. That was good. Better than the fire ants. I am Lieutenant Dan. We had a great tour though. I mean, it was called Project Salute, that 2003 tour. And then. How was it scary though? Like, was anyone worried going into that? Cause that would have been military. You signed up for it. You're going to war. You're going to a country where a war is happening. They prep you for it. But from your side, I want to do a good thing. I'm going to make a difference landing in country, getting off in a C-130 or a Blackhawk. And you're like, oh, it's really hot. Yeah. No, we landed in Kuwait first. And then we went up to Baghdad. You know, there were so many of us, 180 on that first tour, that we split off into three different groups. And I remember one group went into Kuwait. Another group went up into Iraq. Another group flew out to a carrier in the Gulf. Gulf out there. We were just splitting off and trying to cover as much territory as possible. And I remember I went up, yeah, I went up to, you know, we were doing a lot in Kuwait. I went up to Baghdad, did some stuff, came back. And then Tommy Franks, he was running the war. And he said he wanted to go, he was going up to Baghdad the next day. And he wanted a small group to go with him. And so I went back up. I went up into Baghdad with Tommy Franks. And Robert De Niro was on the airplane. You know, we're on a C-130, and we're going up. That was a really, that was an incredible trip. And I wanted to go back once I got home. So we were well-protected, and we weren't going to anywhere, you know. We were such a big tour that we weren't, like, fob hopping or anything like that. I went back that same year, in November just whatever it was four months later that one was a little bit different um I remember mortars coming in you know at one point and it sounded it felt to me like like everything was rattling like the pipes were rattling or something like that I was sleeping on a cot in this room there's no lights no electricity and I was like what's going on here and I came out and there were two soldiers just sitting there sitting there and the building had been rattling you know smoking they were just sitting there like this you know and I'm like what's going on you know I'm like and they said all the mortars you know mortars coming just another day yeah you know it's another night the James Franco meme first time yeah I don't like that they were they were not I mean if they weren't gonna freak out you know and like okay everybody's out we're going into the bunker or whatever uh but they weren't they that it was a routine and they could tell how far away they were by the noise you know so they knew that we were at that point this was kind of a routine thing bad guys out there throwing the mortars in at this time of night you know kind of thing I would have but that was the first time for that you know I would have looked at my buddy like we're dead Gary Sinise is here this makes zero sense we need to run my current job is to guard lieutenant Dan what the fuck are we doing here yeah two two guys out there not doing anything you hear you hear incoming stumble out of the tent hung over like lieutenant Dan the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders follow the shorts mortar got me hey you ever just wake up and fell like your mattress sucks and it beat your ass punched you in the face that's crazy does the mattress also your mom you ever wake up feeling like you slept in a swamp because you're a disgusting nasty ball sweat I see most of you on reddit so I know you have time to break up with that mattress get divorced from your mattress get a ghost bed that 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pillows already being up and running 50 off come on guys what are we doing what are we doing why aren't you going to why aren't you going why aren't you going using code on subscribe hey go use cold on sob what's happening what's going on that's ghostbed.com unsubscribe use code unsubscribe sleep better stay cooler this is a threat I was actually just going to ask it and forgive my uh my ignorance on this but I don't know if any of the uso shows like intentionally got attacked or anything like that with me when I was on that I mean with you in general no no we we did uh there uh outside of balad there was a big soccer stadium it was a big soccer stadium Saddam Hussein and his family used to like torture people in this stadium but we wait what yeah they yeah they out of all the places they were like as an intentional like media event bad stuff would happen in that stadium yeah they didn't and we saw I was in palaces with swimming pools and there were like empty swimming pools with blood on the side and wow you know there was some ugly stuff that they did that the bath party and all that um they did some ugly stuff but I remember the soccer stadium and we I was with Wayne Newton uh Chris Isaac your tour was way better than my tour yeah I'm sure it was yeah and I got to leave after a few days Eli's like he didn't even get shot you know who Neil McCoy is Neil uh lives in Texas he's a country singer and everything Neil was on that trip great guy uh and so we were entertaining on that trip and we did a big um there's a picture around here somewhere uh from that trip um me talking to thousands of troops uh in the soccer stadium and there was probably five or six thousand in the soccer stadium in this is in the ballad area uh five or six thousand troops you know they're all out there uh didn't feel dangerous to me or anything like that it felt like okay we're we're here it's November 2003 fairly early on after we kind of started occupying things um we went out to visit some Iraqi schools that they had uh helped to rebuild I started a program after that called Operation Iraqi Children we started shipping school supplies over to the troops in Iraq and they would take them out and give them to the kids put them in the convoys you know roll into a sort of somewhat tense situation just get out started handing out stuff and it changed the mood so that was a good program and that started because of the November trip um so I didn't feel there were a couple you know a couple times where it felt a little little sketchy in the convoy you know just going down the road and stuff you're kind of looking around you know wondering what's going on but we we were we were pretty good nothing nothing happened do you know if any anything happened like to any of the others like because I want to say there was one show that did get attacked but I don't remember or an attack happened during the show rather a lot of the time I don't remember you'd have mortars I was going to expect you to deal with like one mortar incoming and it is as you said Balad's huge like Balad is a massive base and that was big yeah and you'll have one that's did they even have the alarm systems at that time or is it just like oh yeah so it's boom boom boom you'll hear them you'll see either people running or they don't care and they're like eh whatever but was it only about one mortar situation uh yeah that night because I was only there that one night um of course the one that you're there yeah I was I was there that one night but it seemed kind of routine like it was a sort of a routine thing or something oh yeah speaking of incoming yeah incoming at that time of night oh it was a daily if you lived on a big base it was expected if you lived outside you're in a cop never get mortar because it's so small but when you're on a giant place like Balad or Eagle any one of those is just shoot a mortar and see what happens yeah the show when I was at Bagram um in Afghanistan some similar things you know some alarms went off we had to hunker down and stuff like that but I don't recall any anything coming in but there was a reason they set the alarms off uh so yeah you you feel sometimes some pretty dangerous situations on the other hand I'm with a group that's surrounded by a bunch of guys with guns so I mean they they protected us pretty well over there not a bad place to be the show you're talking about is when Toby Keith came to Kandahar airfield and he played and I was there and it got bombed oh really Kandahar yes sir so it was my first tour I landed and then I ate at a Burger King yeah at the board wall yeah I played a concert on that you you did I did yeah man in 2009 I played a concert on the boardwalk but yeah I was playing a concert in 2009 but it wasn't that you know what I'm saying well they had like Subway and Tim it's crazy yeah yeah and a bunch of fast food places on this boardwalk so you were where uh so I we landed there but then we went to Garmzer and then uh I did that tour but my second tour did the invasion into Marjah but like I just landed there my daughter had just been born and have like all these weird feelings and I'm eating like a whopper at the peak of the military it's surreal yeah I think you did a video on that like the army's deployable Burger King yeah the army has a deployable Burger King yeah anywhere in the world god I love this country so much we're the best dude nothing more demoralizing to the enemy is like they're bringing in a lot of troops oh they're bringing out a trailer what's in that yeah they brought a Burger King with them they're gonna smoke you they're gonna have a good time or Subway there was a Subway there was a Subway too it was it was I heard they even put a TGI Fridays in there wait what I swear I swear to you you can look this up on on the line but I heard they put a TGI Fridays in there is it just as mediocre in the Middle East yes TBI Fridays my my first meal was like something like Subway or Burger King when I got to to to uh Kandahar it's wild because like it's such a big active base especially at that time with all the nato forces and stuff and the marines were like literally off where they turned into like a waste depot we're literally bringing capitalism with us yeah yeah all over democracy's the best but um how do these troops get by huh it's called a whopper oh but uh he came in and he was playing him and um scotty emrick i think's his name they were playing some songs and stuff and he got to the end he started playing the taliban song and then the sirens went off the air raid sirens and then like the air force attache like ran up there and was like no no no and like we're all there because we're a bunch of animals we started booing we're like get back out here and then he came back out he's like well i guess i'm going to finish the taliban song since they're attacking us and he finished the song and then they took him away but it was like crazy i had a belly full of burger king and toby keith singing the taliban song while the taliban song was playing and he was like oh my god he's like oh my god he wasn't playing on the boardwalk though no he was like off in a different area okay because uh they wouldn't let's go over there but he was just like the taliban baby you know like they banned the marines from the boardwalk is that what you're telling me shortly thereafter we were not allowed to go back to the boardwalk yes i wonder why bartering incidents but on that trip now i just you know the guy that played bubba and forrest gump yeah michael t williamson i took him with me on that trip no kidding yeah and he plays harmonica so he got up and played with us a little bit and you know just from my perspective as a veteran i really appreciate everything your organization has done for so many people tyler vargas andrews to name a few like you've literally changed lives and gone out of your way to help people who need it the most and like really show what true patriotism is and it like means a lot to me thank you like from like the deepest part of my heart i'm not often serious but i do mean this well i appreciate what you did for our country so it was my honor so thank you so much i'm gonna try back out with a more handsome version of you and i'll see you next time it's crazy sharing that oh yeah it was awesome thank you sir good stuff just the amount of work you've done and go into more depth with what your foundation does because it changes lives in different ways and how it helps community so what is some of the big ways uh gary sinise is helping veterans or soldiers or families or families um you know like i said i got involved uh very uh long time ago decades ago and it uh it just kind of spiraled into something there's a i wrote a book called grateful american and there's a chapter in the book called turning point and that is really the september 11th chapter and and what that moment did to kind of galvanize me toward the service uh or veterans and first responders and and i think that's one way before i had my own foundation one way that i would do it was start with a lot of different foundations that were in a lot of different spaces right helping our wounded building houses for them helping our families of our fallen entertainment whatever it was and i would get involved with a lot of different organizations and support them and so that gave me a lot of insight into where the needs were and i think that's one way that i would do it and i think that's one way that i would do it uh and what different organizations were doing to fill those needs and how i as a public figure could best benefit that effort so i started getting more and more and more involved in all these different efforts i actually the home building stuff that we do where we build houses for our wounded service members that actually started i got involved with that before i had a foundation so once i got involved with that i got involved with that before i had a foundation i created the foundation we created a program we started raising money now we've we just gave away our 101st home that i've been involved with since 2010 and so 15 years and we just just uh just this past week we gave away our 101st house um but i saw that that was a need that was not that was an it was not a service that was provided to our vietnam veterans when they came home right oh let me build you a house you know it was vietnam veterans disappear because it was not a good time to be a vietnam veteran i didn't want that to happen again you know to afghanistan and iraq veterans and so got involved with the home building effort started uh doing that now we have a very vigorous program where we not only build homes but we also have a very vigorous program homes but we provide adapted vehicles mobility devices you know track chairs wheelchairs that kind of thing um we uh do home modifications so we'll we'll we have you know dozens of home modifications in the queue right now where we will go in somebody's you know and we do these for elderly veterans we do this for anybody who's serving right uh you got a lot of aging veterans and you know they're maybe they're having trouble in their house they can't get up the stairs anymore we make the bedroom downstairs much bigger for them we go in we fix the bathroom up whatever we do modifications but we're still building a lot of homes from the ground up for people that have been very very badly wounded uh tyler is is one of those you know um in fact tyler vargas andrews i um when he um when he was first wounded in that stupid withdrawal um i reached out pretty quickly uh to the hospital to find out what was going on with our wounded and talked to his mom and started communicating with his mom because he couldn't really communicate and i wanted her to know that there were services that we could provide should he need that and i'm glad that eventually he came around to um applying for the program um you know um he sacrificed a lot um and we want to do something to give back and back to him so we have we have a couple of our wounded from the abigate uh mess that um we're we're building for um we probably have 20 in the queue right now i mean we thought maybe this was going to start to wind down a little bit we wouldn't there wouldn't be as much of a need for us to build these specially adapted smart technology houses for badly wounded service members but there are a lot of needs out there so i don't want to be uh somebody who says no a lot you know so we we have a pretty vigorous program and we're trying to provide those services on multiple floors and we're trying to provide those services on multiple floors and fronts to help a lot of different people we have we've had world war ii programs for world war ii veterans we we just uh you know we're taking a bunch of rosy the riveters down to the new orleans to the national world war ii museum wherever we can serve those who have served and defended and protected us uh that's where i want my foundation to place its efforts and i'm uh i feel blessed that the american people have kind of uh put their trust in us uh you know send us their donations or you know they help us if we have a special project or something like we'll we'll have a a disaster a hurricane or something like that our national guard starts going in helping well we we back them up we'll go in with disaster relief stuff uh to help them help the people so we're operating on a lot of different different areas mainly focused of course on supporting first responders supporting our veterans supporting our active duty supporting our families of our fallen you know wherever we can place our hands and wrap our arms around these people that's that's what i want my foundation to do and i'm glad you brought up the mobility part of that because a lot of people don't realize just how bad the va is with stuff like that uh i mean i'm representing now are about to be one of the big ones i'm representing now are about to be one of the big ones i'm representing now are about the biggest veteran districts in the entire country with you know fort sam houston fort bliss everything like that um there's people that i've talked to that you know need for example like a mobility uh like a wheelchair electric wheelchair essentially and there's limitations on if it breaks like for example in this case like a battery broke like okay well can we get it replaced well no okay well if i go out and purchase the battery will you service it well also no okay can i get it replaced well also no okay can i get it replaced well also no okay can i get it replaced well also i think is the cutoff and so this guy's just he's being forced to wheel around his elderly disabled veteran i don't think there's an excuse for that you know what here's what i i would say about that first of all if we didn't have the number of non-profits that are in the space of veterans and first reform or sports space uh there'd be a catastrophe i don't believe that the government would be able to do that i don't believe that the government would be able to do that government can do everything and The government does certain things. I know my dad benefited from his V8 benefits and all that, and many veterans do. But I always say, look, we as citizens who benefit from the freedom and protection of our defenders, there's a role for us to play. There is a role for us to play. I don't think we can depend on the government to do everything. They should always do more. But I always say my foundation should always do more. There's always more that we can do, and I think that's a great way for our citizens to participate in helping our service members through difficult times. There's thousands of nonprofits out there that are in this space. And if they weren't here. If they weren't here, we'd have a catastrophe. If it was all up to the government, massive catastrophe. So it's a good thing that these nonprofits are out there. It's a good thing for people to be aware of all the different nonprofits. And not all of them. You can't. There's too many. But, you know, be aware of some good nonprofits, especially in your area. What are the veteran support organizations in your area that are helping your local veterans? Yes. If every citizen in this country. If every citizen in this country took some responsibility for, you know, reaching out to the men and women who have served our country and sacrificed for our country, just to help them through their day. You know, maybe just go buy groceries. If maybe somebody's deployed, and that spouse is left at home, and the car breaks down, and she's got four kids, and she's trying to manage everything like that, you know, just a little helping hand can help that person a lot. And people always. ask me who should i support what should i do i always say look in your own neighborhood look in your own community are there veterans and military families and first responders who are struggling can they use a helping hand it'll make you feel really good if you do it you don't have to write the big check you can do you can do something very personal personal touches matter uh i started my you know by just a lot of personal touches going out to the war zones and patting people on the back and shaking hands and taking pictures and sitting down and having dinner with them that meant a lot to them just to know that somebody cares know that somebody in the country who's benefiting from what they're doing to protect and defend us that it matters to that person i i try to let our service members know that their service matters and uh to let our fellow citizens know that they're not the only ones who are suffering and i try to let our fellow citizens moon bounces for the kids, rock climbing walls. You know, I mean, we set up a festival outside. So they look forward to it every year. Come on over and see what we're doing. We would love to help out. Listen, it could be awesome. I'd love to. Yeah, because we would put out, I mean, even our post. If we can help with any of that, let us know. That's one space we want. Stay in touch with my team. They know that I have a concert at the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar in California on the 15th. And then on the 17th, I'm in San Antonio. Dan Band. The band is, it's a rocking band, yeah. Is that the name though? Is that? Which one is Dan Band? Yeah, it's really good. Is that still just like your passion? It's just the music side of things? The music is, that's kind of my escape, you know. It's really, you know, I don't go play golf. I don't go on trips other than for the mission. And so when I'm playing, a concert, that's really my, that's my release. You know, I pay the band. I've had this band for over 20 years. I play for free and that's, it's just part of the mission. That's awesome. And then if we can, just a quick shout out to your son, Natkins, that's where you guys connected really because that last album he did that you didn't know about. Well, my, yeah, my son was, he was a great musician. Great composer, you know, he was, he was my number two drummer. So if my guy couldn't play, I would always ask Mac to sit in and play with us. He was just really exceptionally good. There's a picture of him over there when he's nine years old and with his drumsticks. When I, it's the first day I put him on the drum set. Uh, it's, it's over there and I took a picture of him. Uh, he became just a great drummer, went to USC music school, wrote a lot of music. Um, ended up working for the foundation, writing music for the foundation. Um, he got very, very sick and, uh, with, with, uh, a rare cancer called chordoma and he fought it for. He fought it for five and a half years and, uh, in the last year of his life, he hadn't been thinking about music at all. And he said, dad, there's a piece of music I wrote in college. I never finished it. And I've been thinking about it and I think I'd like to try to finish him. And he was paralyzed from the chest down from the cancer. He was in a hospital bed and, uh, he finished the piece of music. They ended up going into the studio, uh, recording it with an orchestra. You can see it at Max and nice YouTube. You can see the recording sessions for the first record. He called the record resurrection and revival. He ended up doing a whole album, 10, 10 pieces of music. And he, and the album went to press the week that he died. So he never got to see that album, but that album, that's a picture of my grandfather and his grave grandfather on the cover. And one of the things Mac did for the foundation was kind of resurrect and revive things in my archive, uh, old photographs that I have from World War I, World War II. And he loved that picture of my grandfather from World War I. And he, he brought it back to life and put it on the cover. And he brought that piece of music that he wrote in college back to life, you know, resurrected it and revived it after he died. I started to find all this other music that he wrote. So that's one. I did a resurrection and revival part two. Um, and then believe it or not, I started to find even more after I finished that record. So we're putting the finishing touches on resurrection and revival part three right now, and that'll be available, uh, in June, 31 pieces of music are on this record. Wow. I thought I found everything he wrote. When I, when I did the second record, but then I found all these little things and just all these melodies that he created. And so we've taken them and brought, brought them to life. And if I was listening to it on the way over here today, and it's, it's great. You can download both resurrection and revival and resurrection and revival part two. You can buy the albums, the vinyls, all the proceeds go to the Gary Sinise foundation. Cause that's what Mac wanted. He said, dad, I want to make some. Vinyls. If we ever sell them, I want the proceeds to go to the foundation. And where people find that if they want to buy the, the vinyls or anything, the vinyls right at Gary Sinise foundation.org. Perfect. Uh, the vinyls are available. We've sold over 9,000 copies. You know, people buy them. They don't even have a record player, but, but it's, you know, they buy the album and then they go get a record player because the, the music is very special when you want, when you watch the YouTube. Videos, there's a piece called Arctic circles and it's an orchestral piece at Mac road. That's the piece that he was thinking about that he never finished in college and, uh, he finished it and it's stunning. It's a stunningly beautiful piece that led to a whole album that I found more and now I found even more. So between all three albums, it's about 60 pieces of music that he created. When does the third one? One drop in where it will also in the exact same location. Yeah. You guys are getting a scoop. If I haven't told anybody about it. So that, that third album is coming out in June. Yeah. We're going to have it. It goes to press next week. So we're, you know, we got a couple of months where they're, they'll print it and get it all ready, you know, get all the artwork done and everything like that. And then it'll, it'll be available on our website on, uh, in early June. So we're going to have it on our website. Before we close this out. I always, I always say, um, that while we, we can, I believe that we can never do enough for the men and women to serve our country, protect our cities, you know, run into burning buildings, try to save people. I don't know all these different things. We can never do enough for them, but we can always do enough for them. We can always try to do a little more. And that's what I'm trying to do here is just find ways that we can continue to do more, that we can continue to inspire young people, uh, and motivate young people to learn a little bit more about why it's important that we have defenders out there protecting our country, you know, and that we're lucky to have. So all you veterans. You know, I really, uh, my, my hat's off to you. I, I thank you. This foundation was created because of, you know, what you've done for a country. And, and, uh, I don't take it for granted. Sure. They appreciate it. But let me, uh, just talking to you guys. All you. Thank all you guys. Brain. Hey, let's not even cook. You got a whole crowd over. Don't embarrass me in front of Gary. You want to close this out? Thank you guys for joining the unsubscribe podcast. I was joined today by Eli double tap, the fat electrician, Gary sneeze, Brandon Herrera, myself, donor operator. We love you. Yeah. Honor it is to sit next to the fat electric. We'll be right back. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-CONTACTS. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-CONTACTS.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-CONTACTS.