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VET SOS Podcast VET S.O.S. Don't Drown in the Sea of Transition - Grab the VET S.O.S. Lifeline.

is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit empowering veterans & military families through the military-to-civilian transition via a 445+ episode podcast network and newsletter.

04/10/2026

“He pulled over right in front of the church, parked underneath a big oak tree… and I got saved that night.”

Have you ever looked back and realized that one seemingly ordinary invitation completely changed the direction of your life?

For Navy veteran Ray Kunze, it started with a phone call.

At the time, Ray's marriage was falling apart. He and his wife had already decided it was over. They were literally waiting for payday so they could afford the retainer for a divorce attorney.

Then the realtor who had sold them their home called.

His church was holding a Navy-versus-Marine Corps football game, and he needed another sailor.

Ray went.

That invitation eventually got Ray through the doors of a church. What he heard there made him angry. The pastor seemed to be talking directly about everything happening inside Ray's home.

So Ray went back.

And kept going back.

Eventually Ray found himself riding with that pastor and explaining what had been changing inside him. The pastor pulled his truck underneath an oak tree, opened his Bible, and walked Ray through Scripture.

Ray gave his life to Christ. 🌳✝️

Then he raced home and shared those same Scriptures with his wife.

She accepted Christ too.

Their problems didn't magically disappear. There was still forgiveness, discipleship, rebuilding, and a lot of work ahead.

But the direction of their family had changed.

All because someone was willing to make an invitation.

Who made that kind of difference in your life?

Drop a comment below, and share this with a veteran who needs to hear Ray's testimony. 🙏

03/10/2026

“He used to be.”

How much of the impact of deployment do we only recognize years later?

Susan L. Combs shares an incredibly personal moment from Callie, one of the 12 female veterans featured in Wonder Woman: The Untold Stories of Female Veterans.

Callie deployed while raising three children under five. She remembers walking away while her children cried—and she didn't even know where she was going.

Years passed. Two of those sons eventually chose military service themselves.

Then Callie sat down with their fiancées. During the conversation, one mentioned that her son wasn't really “touchy-feely.”

Callie told her:
“He used to be.”

Then came the realization that hit even harder:
“Susan, I did that.”

That's a side of military service we need to keep talking about.

We rightly honor the person who raises their right hand. But deployments don't only happen to the service member.

Spouses experience them. Children experience them. Parents experience them.

And sometimes we don't understand what those separations changed until the children are adults.

Susan describes these stories as complex because they are. There isn't always a clean lesson or easy answer.

Sometimes the first thing we need to do is simply create enough space for someone to tell us what happened.

What impact did deployment have on your family that you didn't recognize until years later?

Drop a comment below or share this with a military family whose story deserves to be heard.

30/09/2026

“Watching them literally walk out of our house… a completely different individual with confidence, head held high.”
What does making an impact actually look like?

For Rob and Mel of MELT Beauty Company, sometimes it happens in front of a mirror.

Mel understands hair loss personally. She developed alopecia after losing her father, and their family has also watched loved ones experience cancer and other circumstances that can cause hair loss.

That means the people who come through their door aren't simply customers looking for another beauty product.
They may be carrying insecurity, grief, frustration, or a loss of confidence.

Rob described watching women arrive feeling down and defeated. They spend time with Mel—sometimes an hour or more—talking, trying hair, working with makeup, and receiving the kind of personal attention that can't be packed into a shipping box.

Then comes the moment that matters.

They look in the mirror.

They smile.

They walk out differently than they walked in—with confidence and their heads held high.

For Rob, who served in both the Navy and Army, helping create those moments has become part of his mission after military service.

That is one of the lessons we continue to hear from veteran entrepreneurs on Operation Startup: purpose doesn't have to disappear when the uniform comes off. Sometimes you simply discover a new group of people to serve.

🎙️ Hear the full conversation with Rob and Mel on VET S.O.S. Presents: Operation Startup.

Share this with a veteran entrepreneur who is building a business around service and impact, and tell us in the comments: What does success look like when you measure more than money?

29/09/2026

“What would have taken probably about six hours... she now does with an agent that she built for herself in about 15 minutes each day.”

What would you do if you could get that kind of time back?

Ted Adair shared a great example from AI Mission Ready involving an 82nd Airborne veteran who was also volunteering as a leader in her local community.

She had a real problem—not a hypothetical AI exercise.

She was managing calendars, events, upcoming meetings, and a constant stream of emails from community members asking which issues needed to be addressed.

So she built an AI agent.

The tool connected with her calendar and email, triaged the incoming messages, and helped “rack and stack” the issues based on topic, priority, and what could have the greatest impact on the community.

From there, she could quickly generate the topics for the meeting agenda and communicate the plan back to the community.

Something that might have consumed roughly six hours of her time could now be handled in about 15 minutes each day.

That is an important distinction in the conversation surrounding AI.

The question isn’t simply, “Do you use AI?”

A better question might be: What problem are you trying to solve?

For this veteran, the answer wasn’t replacing leadership or judgment. It was reducing the administrative burden so she could spend more time actually leading and serving her community.

What repetitive task would you give back to technology if it meant having more time for the things that actually matter?

Drop your answer below, and share this with a veteran who needs to see a practical example of AI at work.

12/09/2026

“Leaders love to label themselves leaders, but if they’re not doing it, they are not.”

Here’s a question for our community: When someone on your team is struggling, do you correct the behavior first—or try to understand what’s causing it?

In this conversation on The Scoop, Enrique Acosta Gonzalez uses something as simple as an employee showing up late to expose a much bigger leadership issue.

Instead of immediately belittling someone for being late, what happens if a leader asks, “How can we help you so that you don’t have to show up here late?”

Maybe transportation is the issue. Maybe something is happening at home. Maybe there’s a problem the leader can’t solve—but perhaps they know someone who can help.

That doesn't mean leaders can fix everything. It doesn't mean standards disappear. It means we remember that leadership involves people. 🤝

Enrique puts the challenge plainly: plenty of people want to be known as leaders while failing to perform the leadership their people actually need.

And the people know the difference.

Leadership isn't proven by what you call yourself. It's demonstrated by how you respond when the people entrusted to you need you. 🎙️

What does people-first leadership look like in your organization?

Drop a comment below, and share this with another leader who needs to hear it.

09/09/2026

“If you make a mistake, that’s okay. It’s not failure—you just learn something.” — Francine Juhlin

What’s something you avoided trying because you were afraid you wouldn’t know how to do it?

For Francine, technology was once a major obstacle. She shared on VET S.O.S. Presents: Operation Startup that there was a time when she didn’t even know how to copy and paste.

She could have stopped there.

Instead, she kept trying.

Now she’s gone from struggling with basic computer skills to using AI and technology as part of her work as an entrepreneur, author, and coach. 💻

Her lesson is one veterans already understand better than most: you learn by doing.

We don’t expect someone to master a military skill without training, repetition, mistakes, correction, and experience. Why should entrepreneurship—or civilian life after service—be any different?

Maybe you’re struggling with social media. Maybe it’s AI, accounting software, building a website, recording video, or another tool everyone else seems to understand.

Don’t confuse being inexperienced with being incapable.

Start where you are. Try the tool. Make the mistake. Learn what happened. Make an adjustment. Then do it again.

That’s not failure. That’s progress. 🎯

Drop a comment below: What technology or skill are you currently trying to learn?

And share this with a veteran who needs the reminder that they don’t have to know everything before they begin.

08/09/2026

“What if I put those dogs to work with humans that also need to be rescued?”

What happens when two lives needing a second chance find each other?

When Brett returned from Iraq, his mother, Shari Duval, saw that the family dog was one of the few things that helped him feel normal again. She also knew shelters were filled with dogs waiting for someone to rescue them.

That sparked an idea that would eventually become K9s For Warriors. 🐕‍🦺🇺🇸

In our conversation with Daniel Bean, he explains how the organization pairs veterans living with post-traumatic stress with trained service dogs. These aren't simply pets. They're Battle Buddies trained to help veterans navigate environments that may have become difficult, recognize changes in anxiety, and provide a constant source of support.

And many of the dogs are getting a second chance too.

Daniel told us that 80% of the dogs K9s For Warriors used in 2025 were rescues. The organization studies the personality of both the veteran and the dog and works to find the right match.

That's why one of their favorite sayings carries so much weight:
They save lives on both sides of the leash.

For a veteran who has become isolated or feels like post-traumatic stress has taken away pieces of everyday life, knowing resources like this exist matters.

Share this with a veteran or military family who needs to know about K9s For Warriors, and drop a comment below: What role have animals played in your life after military service?

06/09/2026

“I believed the lie that the enemy tries to sell us that, ‘Your best days are behind you.’”

Have you ever wondered how many veterans quietly believe exactly that?

For Gabriel Axtell, the loss of his military career became much more than a professional transition. He had spent 12 years in the Marine Corps, built a life around service and mission, and knew what it meant to have influence and responsibility.

Then he found himself sitting behind a desk in a corporate job feeling like “just another number.”

The lies started getting louder.

You're broken.

Your best days are behind you.

What can God do with you now?

People would probably be better off without you.

Eventually, Gabriel planned to take his own life.

But God wasn't finished with his story. 🙏

On Testimony Strong, Gabriel shares the road from that moment to discovering that his identity wasn't confined to a uniform—and that the end of his military career wasn't the end of his purpose.

Today, the testimony born from one of the darkest seasons of his life is being used to reach other veterans who may be asking the same questions he once asked.

That's why these conversations matter.

Someone can have a job, a family, and appear to have successfully transitioned while privately wondering whether they still matter. 🛟

We need to keep reminding our brothers and sisters that there is life beyond the uniform, purpose beyond the career, and hope beyond the darkness.

Share this with a veteran who needs to hear that their best days do not have to be behind them.

05/09/2026

"Live in that dash, 'cause you only got one shot."

If the dash between the dates on your tombstone represented your entire life, what would you want yours to say?

During her conversation with Kings Scott on The Scoop, Dr. Andrena Phillips shared a powerful reminder about something most of us rarely think about.

We know there is a beginning. We know there will eventually be an ending. Between them is a tiny dash representing every relationship, decision, setback, victory, loss, act of service, and moment when we chose to keep going.

That's especially worth remembering in the veteran and military community.

Military service gives us missions, milestones, responsibilities, and a strong sense of identity. But eventually the mission changes. Sometimes life changes because of transition. Sometimes it's retirement, a new career, losing someone we love, or circumstances we never expected.

Those changes don't mean the dash is finished.

Dr. Phillips' story and her book Walking Again challenge us to keep showing up. We may not control everything that happens during our lives, but we can decide what we do with the time we're given.

So here's the question for our community:
How are you living your dash right now?

Drop a comment below, and share this with a veteran or military family member who needs the reminder to keep moving forward.

02/09/2026

“Trying to find something that gives you that same purpose and fulfillment… is really hard to find post-uniform.”

What gave you purpose after you took the uniform off?

🇺🇸 In this episode of VET S.O.S. Presents: Operation Startup, Army veteran Kevin Capozzoli talks about something that reaches far beyond entrepreneurship: the search for meaningful work after military service.

Kevin served for 25 years. During that time, like so many veterans, his work came with responsibility, pride, teamwork, and the knowledge that what he was doing could have a direct impact on matters of national significance.

That sense of purpose doesn't automatically disappear when military service ends.

But the structure around it does.

Kevin points out that this is one reason some veterans remain close to the military as government employees or contractors. There's still a connection to the old mission.

But what if your next purpose is somewhere else?

🎙️ Kevin describes the challenge as finding something you're willing to commit your “life force” to—work that moves you enough to invest the remaining years of your professional life in it.

For Kevin, entrepreneurship helped provide that renewed sense of mission.

Your answer may be entrepreneurship. It may be corporate leadership, public service, education, nonprofit work, skilled trades, or something completely different.

The important question isn't simply:
“What am I going to do for work?”

It may be:
“What am I willing to commit myself to next?”

💬 Drop a comment below: Where did you find your sense of purpose after military service?

And share this with a veteran who is still searching for their next mission.

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