Here we are together again, my friend for a new episode, an exciting episode. I cannot tell you. I know I say this every time, but I am so thrilled to present this episode of Love Someone with you today. This podcast is for grads and dads especially. I want to honor all graduating seniors, whether it's from high school or college, and I'd like to honor dads as well, and I'm going to do that by dedicating this podcast to a couple of my sons. Isaiah, my oldest son, happens to
be the most amazing father I have ever met. He's also a first responder who wears a police uniform and bears the responsibilities of being an officer, not the profession I would have guessed when who is a kid because he was such a sensitive child. Can't believe he decided to become a police officer and he has to face
so much heartbreak every single day. I don't know how he bears up under it, but I understand without those qualities, without him having that sensitive heart, he probably would not be the stellar officer that he is serving and protecting with admirable strength and incredible compassion. And he is such a good, committed loving, nurturing, hands on, involved in every aspect of their life daddy, and I'm so proud of him. I also would like to dedicate this podcast to my son, Thomas.
Thomas graduated high school a couple of days ago. He has had many hurdles to overcome in life. He experienced childhood trauma before he came to us and his forever family, and yet, in spite of is kind, he has emerged such a wonderful young man. I'm so proud of him. I'm so proud of his older brother Sonny. I'm so proud of all my boys that are fathers, and so
I just wanted to dedicate this podcast to them. Today's guest joins me from the passenger seat of a car taking him to one stop after another on a frantic press day. He's on his cell phone, not in the studio with me, as my guests usually are, so the audio quality of our conversation isn't as good as it normally is, and I do apologize for that, but the conversation is so powerful and inspiring, so compelling. You will be grateful for these stolen moments out of the life
of an incredibly busy man. Before I introduce you. I want to stop here for a few moments and take a moment for a message from our sponsor. Today we have the privilege of talking with the man admired by many for many different reasons. He's an actor, it's a talented musician. He's an advocate and activist, and now an author, amongst many other titles I could bestow upon him. He has spent his life in the entertainment industry, playing brave
and honorable characters to great acclaim. Now, in addition to TV and movie roles, he devotes his life to bettering the lives of our service veterans, our first responders, and their families through his time, his resources, his great works organization, the Gary Sinise Foundation. Let's welcome Gary Sinise. Hi, Gary, Hello, I am so geeked out to get to talk to you.
Thank you for taking time. So geeked out.
When I heard about your new book that's just come out, grateful American for himself to service. I put my order in for a copy right away. I did not know I could love you anymore than I did when you played Lieutenant Dan. Now I love you all the more so. Thank you for taking the time. Gary to be on our podcast.
Oh my pleasure.
You're so inspiring. Thank you so say your name the way that it was before it was changed. I love that. I love that.
I was saying it out loud after I read that in your book, and I see you in a whole new.
Light now Italian.
Yeah, I'm getting pinched on your cheek by a grandma.
For my grandfather's laughing.
So grateful American is a culmination of well, it's a story of your life, but it's a culmination of so many ways that but your heart has been impacted by the men and women who are there to serve. And I want to know, do you remember that first time that you felt your heart grow like ten times when it hit you or did you have that moment like I did, where the reality of that kind of sacrificial love hit you full force?
Well, sure, in various ways over time. I have veterans in my family. Why it all begins there with my side of the family, my grandfather, my uncles, my dad, my wife's side of the family. Her brothers be a non veterans or sisters serving the army. Sister married to be a non veteran who was in the Army for twenty two years. They had a son that served in the army for thirteen years. A lot of veterans in my family into the kind of that that gets your men.
Then I just got great compassion back in the seventies and eighties after meeting the Vietnam veterans on my wife's side of the family, because they were just slightly older than I was and had gone to war and come come back in the nation that was corn apart over the war, and the Vietnam veteran got gout in the middle of all that, and it was a it was a terrible period in our history when the way we treated them
when they returned home. And so I felt great compassion there and I just tried to supporting veteran supers in various ways. And then I played the veteran and Chrest Gump that that started me working without wounded and I just started meaning, you know, multiple injured warriors, and you know, going back to World War Two and all the way
up until that time. The Forrest Gumps came out a few years after the Golf War, and I met a lot of folks back then, and then after September eleventh, I just you know, there was a calling for serving a greater capacity after that, and it's just manifested itself into a full time commitment and a full time foundation, the.
Gary Sonese Foundation.
And if somebody would like to volunteer, like to get involved, like to say, hey, use me, I'll help, I'll jump in there.
How can they do that?
First thing to do is go look at the website, Garison, these foundations dot board, and I always recommend people go to the YouTube channel. It's at the bottom of the homepage.
You just click on that little icon and that'll take you to the YouTube channel and you'll see all our programs and accinam videos from every one of our programs, ranging from building homes for our badly wounded service members to supporting World War Two veterans, taking them down in the National World War Two Museum in New Orleans and preparing them up with the high school kids. It's an
educational trip that we do. Our Serving Heroes program. We go into usos and vas all over the world and provide appreciation with a big meal and everything, letting them know that we're not forgetting that they're serving out there. We have multiple programs and various capacities. Our Snowball Express program is focused on the children of our fallen heroes. Just dozens of things that are going on at the garis and Ees Foundation. You can learn more about it at Garisne Foundation dot org.
So before anybody goes there, I have to say, though, please have a box or two of tissue, because when I watched the videos, I was a wreck.
So inspiring.
There's a lot of very moving things. You meet all these various people that we're working with and supporting them. We learn the stories, and we have profiles of everyone in the wounded service numbers that we're building homes or I'll do a special profile on their life and what happened. Those profiles are all on the YouTube channel. Yeah, and you know you can see us take We took over a thousand children of our fallen Heroes down to Disney World last December and treated them to four days of
what we call hope and healing. You know, when you bring these kids together and they meet all these other kids who are going through the same thing having lost a parent in military service, it really is a very healing thing for them to meet these other kids. And then we provide a lot of fun and joy and love and just give them a lot of support, which they desperately need going through this grief. We can never forget,
you know, these families and what they go through. So and they do it, you know, selflessly in any ways, and they don't ask for a lot. I just want to take a proactive approach to making sure that they get the services they need when they need them.
And you're not just building homes.
When I was watching and reading, I was fascinated Gary with the fact that you're finding the latest technology that makes life livable for somebody who's been seriously wounded. I mean everything from appliances that they can work using computers and that sort of thing. I was like, dang, you're not just putting in a ramp for wheelchair. You're giving back the fullness of life.
What we you know, I started doing this home building back in two times. We met a soldier who has blown up and he lost both his arms and both his legs. He was opposed to survive the prabupal amputation, so obviously he's going to have some special needs. And we get a concert to raise money and stat In Island to build him especially adapted house that he would be comfortable in and feel more independent of them because
of the things that we provide inside there. You know, he had obviously special needs, and that was quite a while ago and in between them and now we're with all the homes that we've completed and the ones that are under construction and then planning stages. We're over about seventy houses now. So our guys that these are all professional builders and we've learned a lot over the years
about the needs of these wounded service members. We try to provide each individual with, you know, the special things that that person might need. We want them to be able to be more independent in their home. The program is called RISE Restoring Independence Supporting in Parliament and we want to give them their independence back. You know, they've
kind of taken away. They have to depend on people to help them, and we provide this smart technology in the house that helps them to take better care of themselves and that that provides more independence for the people that are they're living with it because they can worry a lot us and as the wounded serviceman can take better care of themselves on their own.
You're sharing so much with me and my listeners, Gary that I'm having trouble wrapping up my brain around all it is that you and your foundation do for some of the most deserving people in our country. We're going to pause here and let some of it sink in, and I'll take this time to talk about my podcast sponsor, who is behind you all the way they love our servicemen and women. I want to talk about the Home Depot.
I am always proud to have the Home Depot sponsor my radio show at night, and now proud to have them a sponsor this podcast. They help so many people in times of need, in times of ambitious projects about to take off, in times of changing your paint color for the emptyenth time, no questions ask. The Home Depot staff includes more than thirty five thousand men and women who have served our new within our military ranks. They came home and found a career with the Home Depot.
That's just one of the things I think of when choosing where to go for any home improvement project. I am thinking about taking on the Home Depot more saving, more doing well the Garysonese Foundation. Like you said, go to Garysonese Foundation dot org and and don't just be touched. I really want to encourage people to step outside of their comfort zone Gary and raise their hand and say I can do this, I can help, I can do this,
I can get involved with. You know, almost every state has a hospital or someplace that you can go, a naval base, a military base where you can go and get involved.
The one thing that I always say to folks, you know, they asked me, you know who should I donate to? And you know, while you can certainly donate to the Garisonese Foundation and other great nonprofits, there's a different ways that you can help if everybody in every neighborhood and every community in every town and city just took a little responsibility to plant their veterans on the back and ask them what they need. These are all freedom providers.
They're out there all the sacrificing. Our first responders are doing that on a great daily basis. You know, just consider this. We support first responders in my foundation as well. And you have police officers and firefighters that on a daily basis they that they could see a lot of
bad things. I mean, just consider a massive car wreck and the firefighters that have to go in there and they see those things, and then they go home and want and they have to go to sleep and get up the next day and do the same thing all over again. That can take its toll. And we know that the community is behind them, supporting them and providing services or support that can make a difference in the morales somebody who's going through some difficult times like them.
You know, my oldest son is a police officer and a member of the SWAT team, and my stepdaughter is a police officer, and her fiance is a police officer and an investigator, and my husband is a former Green Beret and a former police officer. So we love our first responders and the heroes, but truly, Gary, unless you hear their stories. And I talk to my son, I try to talk to him at least two or three times a week. My heart is broken for him over
what you just said. And when he has to respond to a situation where a child's been hurt or abused, his heart is broken. My heart is broken for him.
It's difficult stuff. And then they have to put on a uniform again the next day and go on go back out, So you know what I mean, It can happen to know that people appreciate what they're going through. And they don't take it for granted, and we want to do something. I write a book called Grateful America, a Journey from Self to Service, and it was really about the moments in my life that has led to
this full on service work. One of the people who have inspired me along the way and are police officers of firefighters, are military personnel. I've met extraordinary people. There may be a lot of self with work. They don't get a lot of packs on the back, and if I can do something to help them, I'm not a great way that I can serve.
And you do.
You and your Lieutenant Dan band, which is really really good, Well thank you.
You know, we've played hundreds of concerts over the years for the troops. I've started taking a band out about two thousand and three, fifteen or sixteen years now. We've just played hundreds and hundreds of shows and the band is a program of the Jars and Ease Foundation. I play for free, but I have to pay the expenses of paying the band members their own musicians, that's how they make their living. I have to pay them, and I have to pay that production costs and things like that.
So much like when you donate to the USO. You know, the USA provides entertainment to the troops if you donate to the Gerris and Ease Foundation. One of our programs is Gerris Andise and the Lieutenant Van Dam and that allows me to multiple times a year go on to military bases or do fundraiser for first responders support concerts all over the country. I'd do maybe thirty some shows a year, and it's all for the military and our
first responder community. John Andrasik and I just did a contract that my foundations produced right down here in California in Thousand Oaks. You know, we had those terrible shootings at Borderline Bar and Grill and then you know, ten within ten hours, the hills were on fire and burning everywhere. So we did we did something called Contract for the Fenders and it was just a free concert to support that community and to bring our first responders some joy
and to support the Borderline families. The foundation allows me to do that. The people that donate to the Gears and each foundation are generously helping me to help other people, and that's a good thing.
So the book title again, Grateful American. It's available everywhere now, I would say to listeners even if you are not an avid reader, that you don't you go to bed every night with the book in your hand. This is a book that you need to get and then you need to give it away to bless somebody else that when you're.
Done with it.
Well, thank you. That's a great endorsement, and I really appreciate it. I hope people we'll pick up a copy.
I hope they will pick up a copy, and I hope they will be motivated. And I hope every time they see a police officer, a fireman, an EMT, member of the military, they sincerely thank them and their fans families.
Awesome.
Indeed, Gary Sonise, thank you so much for being here on love Someone with Delilah, and God bless you and your family and your wife, your kids, your grandkids and everything that you put.
Your hand to. I just pray that God blesses you and protects you.
Thanks so much. You have a wonderful day.
Okay, all right, thank you.
I appreciate it. Well.
Gary shared so much with us about all that his foundation does. Now you know why I ask you to listen to this podcast. Even though there was some static over the line, many of you know that I am a loud and proud supporter of the men and women who serve our freedom providers, as Gary calls them, and during our conversation, he and I both mentioned all of
our family members who wear uniforms. What many of you may not know is the story of my own awakening revelation, the moment and when the enormity of the sacrificial love that service members embody hit me and changed me forever. It's one of the two or three things that have happened in my life that I believe changed me on a cellular level. Before I went to Iraq and Afghanistan, before I was asked to be a part of the Air Force Reserves, I loved our servicemen and women I did.
I thank them, I respected them, I appreciated what they did.
But I had no clue.
I truly had no clue what sacrificial love was, because in my life and my experience, love happens between people that are connected, that are family members, or sweethearts, or husbands and wives, or in a committed relationship. Love is demonstrated for your cousins or your best people you went to high school with. I never knew what sacrificial love was.
Until I went with our military to Afghanistan and Iraq, and I met men and women in our military that were willing to lay down their lives not just for their family members, not just for a friend, but for complete strangers, for people that might not even like them or respect them. And I saw it in action. I
saw it in action. I met men and women on a Thursday night, Thanksgiving night, in fact that I saw one week later, exactly one week later, coming into Ramstein, Germany and too Ramstein the military hospital missing limbs because they were at war, and their lives were forever changed for you, for me, for our country. And even though I might disagree with what they are asked to do, I love and respect our military men and women so much and what they do for us. Like I said,
I was changed forever. I hope you have been inspired by this podcast to become more involved wherever your heart leads. Helping our veterans, helping first responders might be what you're called to do.
I hope it is.
I encourage you to pick up a copy of Grateful American. It is such a good book, such a good read, and to visit the Garysiniz Foundation dot org. You can also visit my American Forces Network section of Delilah dot com for further inspiration and help a veteran bless somebody. I'd also like to wish all the dads out there
are very happy Father's Day. It's an important job, this datting business, and deserves much applod recognition and respect, as do all the accomplishments of the cap tossing graduates life Like my son TK Toma is so proud of you, Lindsey Piper, so proud of my niece. Good luck in all that you do in life. Subscribe to my podcast Love Someone with Delilah for access to new episodes as soon as they drop. Also tune into my nightly radio show of course, thank you for joining me. My friends.
We'll be back together soon.
Do me a favor.
Slow down and love someone.
Slow down and love someone
With love