The Unsung Veteran

07/13/2026

New episode with Terrence Rotering — 20 years in the Air Force as an F-111 and F-15E weapons officer, the same two jets he had posters of on his wall as a kid. After retiring he wrote a Christian fantasy and sci-fi series for his kids that turned into four trilogies, and ran into a string of coincidences along the way he still can't explain — a place he invented in his books turned out to be a real site in ancient Israel. I'm an avid reader myself, and this is one I'm actually going to go pick up. If you know a veteran who'd connect with this one, share it their way.

The two jets on his childhood bedroom wall turned out to be the two jets he flew. A veteran-to-veteran conversation on The Unsung Veteran.

07/06/2026

She was tracking to make major. The Marine Corps offered her a UK billet and a school selection. Madison Diederich turned it all down and got out — because she knew if she did one more year past ten, she'd end up doing twenty.

This week's guest, Diederich, is a friend of mine from the air defense community. She went Navy sailor, then Marine officer, and walked away from a career she was good at to chase something that actually fulfilled her. Now she's a commercial diver and underwater welder, an EMT heading to paramedic school. What got me was how honest she was about the first year out being harder than she let on — and how she found the life she wanted on the other side of it.

https://theunsungveteran.com/guests/madison-diederich

If you know a veteran who'd connect with this, share it their way.

She was tracking to make major. She left anyway. A veteran-to-veteran conversation on The Unsung Veteran.

06/27/2026

"Aren't you scraping the bottom of the barrel here?" Kelly Galvin asked, when the Army called to pull him back in. "Yeah," they told him, "and the floor underneath it too." He was 52, thirteen years retired — and he went.

This week's guest, Kelly Galvin, had a career most of us couldn't fit into one lifetime: infantryman in Cold War Germany, medic, signal officer, medical service corps, then back in the fight in Iraq. What got me was that he never really stopped serving — church, the Legion, the Red Cross, wheelchairs at the VA. He just kept showing up.

https://youtu.be/JEDjr-eFXCI

If you know a veteran who'd connect with this, share it their way.

www.theunsungveteran.com

06/17/2026

"You're gonna get out and it's gonna be like you're standing still while all your boys in the Marine Corps are continuing to move forward." That's Carl Able on the part of transition nobody warns you about.

Carl joined the Marines at 18, came up in intelligence, and finished as a training chief teaching young Marines. This week we sat down and talked about getting out, that rough first year, and finding the next mission once the uniform comes off. We don't agree on politics, and we said so right out loud — then had a real, honest conversation anyway. Two Marines, talking like men. That's the whole point of this channel.

https://youtu.be/AFYEAmfMeTY

If you know a veteran who'd connect with this, share it their way.

Carl Able joined the Marines at 18 after a recruiter in dress blues...

06/07/2026

The Unsung Veteran has a home now: www.theunsungveteran.com

One place for all the conversations, where to listen, and resources for veterans who need a hand. There's no topic on this channel. The topic is you.

Know a veteran whose story should be heard? You can reach out right from the site.

If this is something you believe in, share it with a veteran who'd want to find us.

06/03/2026

Joe Gonzalez tore his lungs on a Desert Storm deployment. The Navy told him to walk it off. He coughed up blood for fifteen years before a doctor finally connected the dots.

We sat down on the porch and talked about all of it — the injury they walked off, the VA denials, the coma, the rage, and what he built coming out the other side. He calls it The Landlord Theory: the pain, the anger, the PTSD, the addiction — those are roommates in your head. You gotta stay the landlord.

My heart's broken for him in places. He's still searching. But he's built something real out of what he's been through.

Episode 22 is live. If you know a veteran who'd connect with this, share it their way. 🌊

https://youtu.be/nxYOthGqE3A

05/27/2026

Antoinette Berrafato's service dog used to unload her dryer and pull the laundry basket from room to room — because Antoinette couldn't.
That's a sentence I wasn't prepared for. I went into this knowing she'd had a TBI and used a service dog. I didn't know the depth of it — 18 months housebound, a walker, a full-time caregiver. An 11-year Army vet, an air assault medic, a tech CEO. Down to that.
She came back. Lives off-grid now, grows her own food, and turns around to pull others up — the young woman in a wheelchair Antoinette taught to kayak, who walked across a stage for the first time a month later.

That's the comeback. Full episode is live.
https://youtu.be/gJquRK5nSWI?si=kCjCvEZ9keDpyvWl

If you know a veteran who'd connect with this, share it their way.

05/25/2026

Today, stop.

Pray for the ones who never came home. Pray for the families still carrying their names. Pray for the brothers and sisters who came home with them but didn't survive the quiet years that followed.

And if you knew one of them — if you carried a name out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, or anywhere our flag has been — tell their story today.

That's how they stay unsung no longer. Their story doesn't die with the ones who knew them. It lives because somebody chose to say their name out loud.

Trust that God has a plan. Today, His plan is for us to remember.

05/20/2026

Rand Timmerman walked off a plane from Vietnam in dress greens, got called a baby killer at the boarding gate, and came within an inch of doing something he could never take back — until four stewardesses gently took the stanchion out of his hands. Decades later, at 72, he hiked 1,863 miles of the Appalachian Trail with his younger brother — Rand four years sober and chasing the man God always wanted him to be.
We talked about all of it — Vietnam, the nightmares, his father telling him not to talk, the JAG career, the bottom, and the prayer in a parking lot that changed everything. Marine to Marine, this one stuck with me. ❤️

https://youtu.be/-kpMAEawHM4

If you know a veteran who'd connect with this, share it their way.

Rand Timmerman enlisted in the Marine Corps on a dare and a hangove...

05/13/2026

There's a moment in this conversation where Lavelle describes a Marine veteran — raised in the U.S. since he was six months old, pledged allegiance every day in school, enlisted, served honorably — dropped off at the Tijuana border at 2 a.m. with no money and no Spanish. That hit me.

Lavelle spent 25 years in the Army, was on the ground during Black Hawk Down, jumped into Panama at 19 with rounds going past his ear, and now he's directing a documentary called Served in Exile — telling the stories of non-citizen veterans who were deported after their service. It's a complicated subject, and we didn't shy away from any of it.

Lavelle— grateful you brought this one to the porch.

If you know a veteran who'd connect with this, share it their way.

Listen on Spotify https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/theunsungveteran/episodes/Ep-19-Lavelle-Lemonier--Deported-Veterans-and-25-Years-of-Service-e3isi3b
Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unsung-veteran/id1877168685
Watch on Youtube https://youtu.be/_zDoFFyA8aM