Security Halt!
Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
Join us as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder, proving that even after the mission changes, the call to serve and thrive never ends.
Security Halt!
From Air Force Veteran to Filmmaker: Carey Kight’s Inspiring Journey
In this inspiring episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero sits down with Carey Kight, a veteran turned creative entrepreneur, to explore the transformative journey from military service to civilian life. Carey shares his upbringing, his decision to join the Air Force, and the lessons learned throughout his military career. He discusses the challenges of transitioning to the creative industry, where he found purpose and fulfillment in storytelling and film.
Carey emphasizes the importance of veterans recognizing the transferable skills gained during service and applying them to new fields, particularly in creative careers. He also highlights his work with Veteran Made Productions, a company dedicated to empowering veterans in their creative pursuits and fostering a connection between military and civilian communities. This episode is a testament to resilience, storytelling, and the endless opportunities available to veterans.
Don’t miss this episode! Follow, share, like, and subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts to support veteran voices and stories.
BE A BRO! Support the show!!
buymeacoffee.com/sechaltpodcast
https://buymeacoffee.com/sechaltpodcast
Looking for hand crafted, custom work, military memorabilia or need something laser engraved? Connect with my good friend and PREMIER Season 7 Sponsor
Eric Gilgenast.
Instagram: haus_gilgenast_woodworks_main
https://www.instagram.com/haus_gilgenast_woodworks_main/
Chapters
00:00 Growing Up and Early Influences
10:01 Transitioning to the Air Force
18:41 Finding Purpose in Service
26:15 Embracing the Military Experience
33:32 Transitioning from Military to Creative Careers
45:19 Building Veteran Made Productions
56:35 Future Aspirations and Community Impact
Instagram: @securityhalt
Tik Tok: @security.halt.pod
LinkedIn: Deny Caballero
Follow Carey on LinkedIn, on social media and check out Veteran Made podcast today!
LikedIn: Carey Kight
https://www.linkedin.com/in/careykight/
Instagram: veteranmade.ck
https://www.instagram.com/veteranmade.ck/
Website: veteranmadeproductions.com
https://www.veteranmadeproductions.com/
Produced by Security Halt Media
Security Odd Podcast. Let's go the only podcast that's purpose-built from the ground up to support you Not just you, but the wider audience, everybody. Authentic, impactful and insightful conversations that serve a purpose to help you. And the quality has gone up. It's decent and it's hosted by me, danny Caballero.
Speaker 2:Yeah where did you grow up?
Speaker 1:Well, I was born in Panama and I grew up in parts of inland Florida and then Colorado. That's where I grew up for the rest of my childhood. What part of Florida? Paisley Florida, Very small, like in central Florida, Very redneckish area.
Speaker 2:I spent a few years in Orlando oh nice. So I know Central Florida pretty well. My mom now lives in South Central Florida. She's in Fort.
Speaker 1:Myers area. Yeah, yeah, this is like the redneck dirt farm area of Florida that nobody ever stops at. Yeah, shout out to Paisley, florida, the world's worst shithole to grow up in. And with that being said, cary Guy, welcome to Security Hub Podcast. Hey brother.
Speaker 2:Good to see you, good afternoon. We just hit noon, so it's great to be with you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. Yeah, man, I can't pass up an opportunity to bring somebody on to share their journey from military into something that I find to be completely unique and very interesting, which is going into film, going into production. That is something that can at first be very scary, I would imagine, and you have to believe in yourself and be willing to double down, because conventional wisdom says don't do that, don't follow your heart, don't follow dreams of being a creative, stay with what you do and do something that will pay you a lot of money by just staying. You know a normal, mild-mannered individual, but looking through your LinkedIn, looking at what you're doing in your projects, you did the complete opposite and you pushed deeper into unknown territory. So today, man, this is your episode, so let's kick it off. Man, how did you find yourself in the military?
Speaker 2:Thanks, man. Yeah, I will just say we'll obviously get to the transition. We'll get to entrepreneurship and creativity and film. It starts scary and it stays scary.
Speaker 2:You know, it doesn't actually get any less scary, which is honestly one of the one of the draws to it. How did I find myself in the military? I mean, I I always say that I had. I had the kind of the, the, the trifecta for me. So, apart patriotism, right, I was an eighth grader when a nine11 happened. My dad was traveling for work in DC at the time and so, you know, he watched. He watched one of those planes fly into the Pentagon, you know, and it connects to creativity and art. I was in art class in eighth grade when that happened.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I didn't get along very well with my art teacher. She and I butted heads quite a bit um and um, but when I said, hey, you know when everything was going down, we were watching on those, if you remember, those old rolly box televisions right there oh yeah, dude, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:I was watching that in the high school too, man like I was. We were all gathered in the library and I watched the first one hit at home, got to school, and that was the same thing in a large gathering of students with the same media cart.
Speaker 2:TV. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, I mean, I saw the first one hit. Well, we saw the second one hit. We saw when the first one hit, everybody, all the teachers and administrators, found out about it, so they all kind of turned those TVs on, and so we saw the first tower smoking, and then we watched the second plane hit, um, and then we heard about that third plane hitting the Pentagon and I told her, I said, ms Cheatham, uh, my dad is, is in DC. I need to, I need to try to call him. I, you know, try to call my, my stepmom. She said, oh, my gosh, of course I mean I remember this like it was yesterday there attached to the wall, and called him on his cell phone, didn't get an answer, called my step-mom. She answered right away. I said, have you talked to dad? She said not yet. And so I just kind of kept, kept calling and going back and forth and at that time that principal came on and said hey, turn the TVs off. Kids can watch when they get home at their parents' discretion. Um, and so my dad, you, uh, from DC to Columbus, ohio, and I very distinctly remember meeting him in in the, in the driveway, you know, late at night. We had been watching coverage all night, my stepmom and I and he got home and and you know he wasn't close to it, you know he wasn't in danger, but it was still very emotional as an American, very emotional as a person, you know, very emotional as a son and uh, there was lots of people obviously who, who, who died that day and he wasn't one of them, thankfully, even though he was fairly close. So that happens and you know we watched all the coverage and we watched all the films and all these different things over the course of my high school career. So it was in the back of my mind to serve right and being a part of that generation and being a part of a generation where there there was a war going on.
Speaker 2:The second piece was I definitely wasn't ready for college. I played football in high school. Um, I wasn't like D one or anything like that, but I was getting looks at small D one schools, one double A schools, d two and D three. But, frankly, my rate, my grades, just weren't really good enough. I knew I wanted to study writing, I knew I wanted to get into filmmaking and creative writing and you know my dad, uh, he's, he passed away earlier this year, but, um, you know, he, he would always tell me listen, like I'm not going to pay for you to go to art school, just to dick around. And my language not his, but um. But so you need to get your grades in order If you're going to go play football at one of these small schools, cause you're not going to get an athletic scholarship.
Speaker 2:Um, and and I, I had applied to some state schools in Ohio university, cincinnati, bowling Green, akron, Toledo, kind of all those as as backups, so to speak, and thought about going to walk on the track team or something there, uh, at one of those places. And then I, just, I, just I was, I was restless, right, and that's that third piece. I was restless, I was anxious for adventure, I wanted to go do something on my own, I wanted to carve my own path. I had a great relationship with my dad and with my family, but I did not want to put any sort of financial burden on them, knowing that I wasn't performing at the level that I needed to be performing in the classroom and in life. At the time I wasn't really getting any bad trouble, just little trouble here and there.
Speaker 2:So I had that third piece of adventure, that, um, that I was interested in. So I ultimately called uh a recruiter at one of those uh ROTC detachment at one of those schools, and the guy just laughed. He's like listen, man, you're, you're way behind. Like these. These applications need to go in a year in advance and you're a few minutes away from a few months away, excuse me, from the semester starting. So you're not gonna, you're not going to make it. Why don't you call one of the enlisted recruiters? It's like all right. And so I did that. I called the enlisted recruiter and they were obviously very happy to hear from me.
Speaker 1:Another one yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, I sat my family down at our local pizza place that we went to a couple times a week and the conversation came up about what are you doing? You're a senior, it's spring, you're running track, you know you got into some of these schools but you're not gonna be able to pay for it. What's going on? And so we cut to the chase and I said I think I'm gonna enlist, and so I did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that time period, man. I can only imagine the fear and trepidation from your parents as you told them that, because it was early on in the g, while, like you were going, everybody was going. Like what was it like sitting down and breaking that to your parents?
Speaker 2:um, you know, it wasn't hard because I was fairly immature, I wasn't thinking about them, I was thinking about me. Um, my dad was, was, was, was, excited and proud. Um, he, he immediately knew that it was the right thing for me to do going to community college and staying at home and and and either paying him rent or, you know, getting an apartment and and going to community college. I think he also knew wasn't wasn't the right move, and he knew that I needed discipline. He knew that I needed structure. He knew that I needed to to go grow up and do something hard. So he was excited and proud.
Speaker 2:My stepmom was more reserved, obviously, and a little bit more worried, but I wouldn't even use the word worried, I think she was just, it was a classic mom-dad dynamic right, where the mom is a little bit more cautious and nurturing and careful and the dad is a little bit more like heck, yeah, go go, do this thing that you need to do. Uh, my older brother he's six years older than me. He was living in town at the time, working, working with my dad, working for my dad, and so he was there and he felt the same way that my dad did and, um, you know, cool thing happened there. My brother and I were working out getting ready to go play college football in case that's what I was going to go do, cause that's what he did. And uh, that's what he did. And so he immediately, like, at that dinner, it was like all right, we're going to switch your training regimen, I'm going to go do some some research and and we'll, we'll adjust the training that we're already doing to prepare you for the military instead.
Speaker 1:So the family, uh, received it really well, accepted it really well, and we all we all just adjusted and uh, adjusted the track and then and got ready to go, and uh, what'd you enlist?
Speaker 2:as so I enlisted.
Speaker 2:I enlisted to go be a PJ Um the the Air Force had a program where you could enlist right into as long as you passed the past um, physical and stamina test. You could, you could enlist with one of those slots. Uh, I, I called the recruiter and, um, you know the next day and said, hey, come to the school. I talked to my parents like I'm good to go, so come to the school. And so I was sitting in the counselor's office and, uh, in one of those conference rooms, right, and I had an appointment and I was there early and I've kind of walked, watched him walk in and he flipped open the, the, the pamphlet. It was a paper pamphlet at the time, right, those kind of magazine-style things and he started giving me a spiel and he just started flipping through.
Speaker 2:I saw a commando, face painted, wearing a ruck rifle, trained, wearing BDUs. I didn't know what BDUs were at the time, I didn't know any of this stuff and I said, hey, can you stop there? What is that that I want to do that? Um, and he said, well, let me finish my spiel first and we're gonna kind of get through everything. That's really hard. I said, okay, well, tell me, tell me what that is. He said, well, it's air force special operations. At the time there were two pararescue and combat control. Um, and I said which one's which? Uh, he said, well, they call. They call the pararescue pipeline superman school. It's the most difficult that the dod has to offer. No offense to you, no offense to our seals and ranger friends no dude, no, no offense ever taken man right those schools are tough, man, those those pipelines are tough.
Speaker 1:They throw everything at you from the beginning and you ask that you can go to dive school if you want. When you get to a team yeah, like those things like for for you guys in that pipeline or anybody that goes into that it's like it's a known factor, like before you even get to the finish line, you're gonna go through hell.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's right, that's what he told me right. He said they call it superman school. It's the hardest school the dod has to offer, hardest pipeline the dod has to offer. And he laid out all the things that you're gonna go do right, boot camp in doc jump school, halo dive, then your your paramedic training and then you're going to go through the final pair rescue course and do all of that. So he laid out you know exactly what you just said and just got me excited. And so it really pulled at that third pillar for me, that adventure pillar for me, and I said, all right, man, let's do it. And he goes, cause, man, we're in central Ohio. You got to pass, you got to swim. I played water. I played high school water polo. My stepdad was no shit.
Speaker 2:High school water polo coach. I played high school water polo when I was like 12, you know he would just like throw me in the pool with these guys. So I was like I've been in the water, I have. You know what I now know term is water confidence, right, and I had there and obviously ran track and played football, so I wasn't worried about the um, you know body weight, strength and the running and he's like man, are you serious? And I was like, yeah, schedule that, motherfucker, let's go.
Speaker 1:And he goes okay.
Speaker 2:So so he scheduled it and and, uh, you know, I took the ASVAB.
Speaker 2:You know, got like a 90 something on the ASVAB which opened me up to anything. And then, um, past the past and, and he was obviously very excited, so a slot dropped for October. So I just spent the summer working at Steak and Shake, waiting tables, living with my parents, uh, training and getting ready to go. Um, went to basic training, got through basic training, uh, went to in doc. I got, I got done with basic training before Christmas. So there was an odd period of time where we were working with some of the trainees that had passed in doc and we're getting ready to go to jump school or halo or dive or you know wherever. Cause you would always you would go to your school, then come back to Lackland, go to your school, come back to Lackland, go to your school, come back to Lackland, and then you would go to New Mexico for the, for the final, final phase of training. So I got to interact with a ton of trainees that were already in the pipeline and they trained us up and got us ready for our class to start in January. So I got to, I got to train a little bit at the medina annex um, I'm not sure what it's called now. I think they with all the joint bases, they they named it. I think that may be named at the chapman uh training complex. Now, um, after, after uh, medal of honor winner john chapman uh, it was the medina annex at the time.
Speaker 2:So I trained for a little bit, got to go home for christmas, like we didn't have to use leave, like everything was closed, and so they just sent us home. We got to go home, um, so I got some time at home for christmas, got back, did like one, one or two more weeks um to prep and then got right into into into indoc. Uh, I made it through, made it through to the midterms in my first, my first flight at indoc. Uh, and I failed pull-ups. I was doing really well in everything but being a football guy and being a track guy and having very long orangutan arms on gymnastics or anything like that, pull-ups were really tough for me. Um, and so I failed midterms, failed pull-ups at midterms and then um, and then got uh recycled and picked up with the next flight when they made it to.
Speaker 2:When they made it to uh midterms, picked up there past the midterms made it all the way to graduation. Uh, I made it all the way to the end of the of the of the process. I failed my run by six seconds. I passed everything else in the second flight of in doc and then failed the run by six seconds. And then a week later I got in an off duty car accident and, uh, really messed up my knee so I wasn't able to stay in in the pipeline and uh, got reclassed, got a couple of letter, recommendations from an element leader and our class commander who was going through to be a crow and ultimately big Air Force kind of put me where they needed me and they gave me a slot for 2W1, which is a weapons loader, flight line weapons loader on F-15s.
Speaker 2:And so I left Lackland and I went to Shepherd Air Force Base there in North Texas, kind of almost Oklahoma and um, went through, went through the training program there and that was my first real lesson in transition. Right, like that transition into the military was not super difficult, cause I was, I was anxious for it, I was ready for it, I wanted the adventure, I wanted the difficulty, but yeah, so that that was my first like real lesson in transition. And where, where that paradigm started to be something that I thought about, I did not struggle um transitioning into the military, into basic military training. I really, outside of the physical struggles with with pull-ups which I thoroughly enjoyed because it was something I wanted to work on and I had a bunch of great guys around me doing it that was there was a physical struggle there, but there really wasn't that much of a mental or an emotional struggle for me going through in doc.
Speaker 2:I loved all of that. Like I said, I had all that water time, grew up surfing and spent so much time in the water and water confidence was a blast. Buddy breathing was a blast. Not tying was a blast, like you know, underwater was a blast. Finning was a blast. I loved all of it and so it. It might sound arrogant, especially for somebody who ultimately did not serve as an operator, but that really wasn't that hard for me. What ended up being very hard for me emotionally and then relationally, was that transition back to the conventional Air Force.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I can only imagine man and we see it happen all the time Tons of guys that you're close friends with don't make it through and eventually they're left with this idea of like, what's my purpose now? This was a dream of mine. I have dear friends of mine that they eventually made it over that hump. A great friend of mine I served with him in 82nd. We went through selection together, we're in a pipeline together and failed a PT test by margins, yeah and had that same like okay, you're going back to 82nd. He was blessed, went back to a great unit, goes to combat. Now he's a senior NCO. He's a senior guy still struggling with when can I go back?
Speaker 1:But in those moments of desperation he was able to find that moment in Afghanistan where it's like, wait a second, I'm a leader here, I'm a leader in combat, this matters. And that changed the paradigm for him and and the stories he shares from that deployment. It's like, dude, you've got more hardcore combat experience than some fucking operators. I know like you did some real bravo, like fucking rambo shit in combat. And he finally realized that oh yeah, my service mattered. Yeah, my service matters too.
Speaker 1:And it's we get this idea that if you don't make it within special operations, if you're not part of these elite guys, oh your service isn't good enough. And dude, I'm here to tell the audience everybody listening that is not the fucking case. There are millions of different jobs you can do in the military that put you in danger, that put you in the frontline, or just make you part of an amazing team that contributes to the overall mission, which is to fucking serve, to be a person of purpose in service to your nation, and I can only imagine the pain you went with when you're now like picking up your bags. Now the Air Force is telling you yeah, now I need you to go do this job. You don't get a chance to choose. Now I need you to go do this. What?
Speaker 2:was it like, yeah, I mean, and the real struggle for me right was like in the Air Force, they, you know it was AFSOC, now it's AFSPEC war, they used to call it the Battlefield Airmen, you know AFSCs, moss. So the big struggle for me, knowing that I was going to go where big Air Force was going to put me, is I wasn't going to go be able to kick any doors, pull any triggers. I was going to go do something, you know, that was, in my mind, way less important, way less valuable for me personally, way less interesting.
Speaker 2:I'm not mechanically or electrically inclined, right, like that's not something I signed up to do and so, so yeah, I mean that tech school follow on training that I did at Shepard was really difficult, um, you know, and I leaned on my dad and my brother quite a bit. I mean we talked, we talked daily, we talked weekly about um, about it right, like I was very open, always been very close to both of them and I was very open with the emotional struggles that I was having. That exact same talk track that you're saying right, which is, you know, this isn't as important as what my other friends are doing, this isn't as valuable. And my dad told me, like service is service, service matters. You're put where you are to do the best job that you can do, um, and and contribute to the mission. And it really took me. I think that tech school was about eight to 10 weeks, maybe 12 weeks, I can't remember exactly what it was, but it took me the entire time to like really really get there. You know I was the. I came back from my injury really quickly. You know I was still running a five and a half minute mile Um, you know I was still performing upper body PT really, really well, because it was my knee that was injured and you know I did ultimately come back from the injury too quickly and I did end up getting some some long term injury in that knee because I came back too quickly knowing that I had served with guys you know in my element who had who had reclassed and then come back to in doc, as you know, e5s or E6s and that's that's what I thought that I wanted to do. So I came back from that training too hard and I was.
Speaker 2:I tried to be the PT God at at at tech school and you know one of my best friends to this day he's a senior master Sergeant uh in the weapons career field, now getting ready to retire in a couple of years, and he and I saw each other recently when I was on a work trip to Texas and and he was like dude, do you remember how much of an asshole you were when we were all doing PT and you were trying to convince us that we needed to do all this extra PT, that that we didn't really need to do. So I struggled with it Uh, but I did ultimately earn an award in that class called the weapons warrior award, which is the one I didn't score the highest uh test scores. But I did. I did um kind of uh, you know, I, I the the award is for the person that the instructor would most want to have on their crew in the operational air force and so I was very proud of that.
Speaker 2:You know, it's a silly piece of paper. It's folded up somewhere back here, um, you know, with with my other, with my other paperwork, but it really meant a lot to me because I was able to push through, you know, emotionally, um, not so much physically, but I was able to push through emotionally to, to really learn to love where I was right, to learn where, where I was and what I was doing and, more importantly, who I was doing it with. Um. And then I got blessed, I got lucky. I pulled RAF Lake and Heath um as a as a first duty station, which was the 48th fighter wing, uh 494th and 492nd fighter squadrons at 15-15E models out of England who were on significant rotations. And so I knew, coming out of tech school, that I was going to hit my first duty station, I was going to get qualled and then I was going to be boots on the ground at Bagram.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, anybody. There's a significant amount of like. It is a very tasking job.
Speaker 1:I have the pleasure of being married into the air force and through my wife I have a lot of friends that that work in various fields, various jobs, and as an infantry guy, as a guy in special operations, you don't always understand what it takes to do maintenance in the Air Force. You don't understand what it's like to coordinate and do supply in the Air Force and all these other jobs that we think, oh, it's fucking nerds. No, really, when you think about the amount of knowledge that you're forcing into a young kid about a weapons system that has to fly across the horizon to get to Afghanistan to drop that munition, for you that's a lot, that's a lot to ask. And dude, you're right. Like you get in that station and getting to Bagram, like you you're providing support for every single dude that's on the ground. Some of your own teammates that you had before in training did that help you close that loop of feeling like, okay, I do have a purpose, I do have a mission. Now I get to support my dudes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was the second piece, which I'll get to the first piece that I feel incredibly blessed to have gotten into the armament career field in the Air Force. So there's the back shop, right, that works on all of the missile launchers and the bomb racks and all of those pieces of equipment. Right, they work on the back shop of the flight line. So they're still there, but they're not necessarily out in the elements all the time which you know we were out in the elements in England where the weather's not great, and then in Afghanistan, where the weather's not great, but I love that aspect of it.
Speaker 2:So I got very lucky that I got put on the flight line. So not only was I going to deploy, but I was going to deploy on the flight line in the elements with those birds and with the munitions. The other piece of it that was great was that, uh, in the weapons career field for fighter jets, you work in crews of three on the flight line. So you have a one man, a two man and a three man one man's in charge of the crew, usually E five or an E six, and then two airmen that are working, two men and three men. Two men kind of has our tools and the three men which is what I did drives the jammer right, drives the bomb loading the bomb loading truck. So a few things there that that I was able to pull both from my, my, my sports experience as a kid and as well as as itch scratched some of those itches that I would have gotten from being on teams. I was on a team. I was on a team with two other dudes, um, that had to manage their aspects of the mission. I had to manage my aspect of the mission. We're doing it together as a crew. Number two we had to be called every month. So while I wasn't getting called pulling the trigger, I was getting called loading um, you know, conventional and unconventional weapons on a monthly basis. And so it was. There was a competitive aspect to it, there was the qualification aspect to it and there was like there was the sex appeal factor to it. Right, like crew chiefs, crew chiefs do a thankless job. Yes, their name is on the side of the jet. Right, you can see it back here. Their name's on the side of the jet, but they're maintaining the entire bird. Right, it's, it's. It's very thankless and very boring and I thank God I didn't have to do it. You know avionics troops while they're working on the electrical systems on these fighter jets pretty cool, but a little too technical kind of for me With weapons. It's a. It is a very it's technical, but it's also very performative and you can do it. Well, you can do it fast and you can.
Speaker 2:You know you can make a name for yourself in the enlisted ranks.
Speaker 2:You know being one of the better people at that job and we were at a command, you know, in USAFE where we were the premier fighter wing in US Air Forces in Europe. So not only did I get to deploy, but I got to go on some really badass TDYs working with allied air forces across Europe. And then I did a lot of dog and pony shows for generals and senior enlisted that would come down from the command and would want to see us load you know um some of the some of the the bigger, cooler, faster, better munitions that we had, um. And so I really got I get really got the full experience as an airman in the air force deploying, doing a difficult job, doing it in the elements, doing something I needed to be, I needed to be qualified for. And then I also got to do some of those dog and pony shows and like really learn how to work with with you know officers and senior enlisted in a way that has really helped me in my career on the civilian side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Did you find at at? At the end of the day, looking back, were you able to fall in love with your service? Were you able to, finally, when you walk away, when you finally transition and look back? Were you able to look back on that career and say, hell, yeah, I did something amazing?
Speaker 2:Yes, I was, but only relatively recently. You had asked if a part of it was supporting the boys on the teams that I had gone through with, and that was a big piece of it. I was very lucky when I worked at Lake and Heath we were not under the maintenance command, we were under the fighter squadron command. So my commanding officer and our XO were fighter pilots. No disrespect to maintenance officers I don't really know what they do. I'm sure it's a lot of planning, I'm sure it's a lot of logistics and I'm certain that it's important. So I'm not trying to dismiss what they do.
Speaker 2:But I got to work with fighter pilots on a daily basis. They're the ones that were using the munitions that we were loading right, and in the f-15e model there's a backseater, a wizzo, a weapon system officer. So we worked very, very directly with them, you know, doing mechanical and electrical work, to to really understand what it was that they needed, these different platforms that we were loading onto the jet, and so that brought a little bit of spark to it. And then one of the things that our commanding officer used to always say was we are doing this for the guys on the ground. So the minute you find yourself getting bored the minute, you find yourself getting disengaged, the minute that you find yourself wishing you were somewhere else. Understand that what you're doing matters very, very much on the battlefield and we are doing it for the guys on the ground.
Speaker 2:So that was I was able to directly connect to, you know, a bunch of those PJs that did end up deploying to a similar location to me during my second tour, where they're out out on missions and we are directly supporting them, and so I was able to, you know, go into the skiff and and watch all this footage and really work with the fighter pilots and the wizards to understand, like, where our guys were and what they were doing and what we were supporting. So, you know, it was a little bit of a struggle for me while I was in because, while that was a cool connection to have, it still had that. I still had that FOMO I still had that yeah.
Speaker 2:And I wish I was there. But yeah, it did. It did start to click into place and then it fully clicked into place for me, you know, I would say probably two years ago, when I was in the middle of starting this podcast and unpacking my own service, my own journey, the skills and experiences that I developed in the military and how I'm using them in the civilian world Now.
Speaker 2:I've had the opportunity to talk to so many guys excuse me, so many guys and gals across the military that I mean I've had episodes, dude, where I'm talking to somebody and they're like, yep, so I was in Afghanistan in such and such time and I was doing this mission and I'm like that sounds very familiar. And I'm like thinking back to you know something I watched in the skiff and I'm like, holy shit, I was directly supporting you. And now here I am, you know, 10 plus years later, talking to you on a podcast. Um, so yeah, initially in the military, while I was deployed, I got to scratch that itch a little bit and and feel that purpose. But it really wasn't until, you know, a few years ago that I really fully started to embrace it, understand it and and, like you said, grow to, to love my service.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's important for all of us to be able to have this medium so so impactful. Man Like I constantly tell people to kill the myth not not for your benefit, but for the benefit of others like people suffer and people go through things, and it's not because we tend to think, say we I mean civilians and people on the outside that the only people that serve, the only people that do great, impactful things, are people that you see on CBS and all these different TV shows and movies and that can be further from the truth. So we have to be able to have these shows, have these interactions. Kill the myth myth, man, like everybody serves, everybody does something important.
Speaker 1:I don't care if it's 88 mike food prep, everybody that's signed up. And and, of course, there there are people, there are certain individuals that will also. I mean, we'll scratch him out, yeah, but we have to be able to talk, be able to share and be able to say things like me, man, like what you did and what you continue to do is inspiring to everybody. And we have to be able to get outside of ourselves and our own lived experience to say, yeah, man, just because I did this job doesn't make me any better than somebody else who served alongside me in the same time frame.
Speaker 2:I think that's right, you know, and there's shit bags in every, in every MOS and every AFSC. Right, like you're with your buddy who who serves in the 82nd. Like I've talked to a lot of, talked to a lot of seals. I've talked to a lot of SF guys. I've talked to a lot of PJs and controllers, tacp, you know, Rangers, you name it.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, you know, a lot of people got got to get their fight on over the course of the last 20 plus years, but a lot of guys didn't. They went through the pipelines and and and big army or big air force or big Navy put them where they needed to. I mean, how many guys you know? Jack Carr is a great example. Obviously, he got to see some action eventually, but he talks about it all the time. Where he was in um, he was in Guam when nine 11 happened and he was pissed. Him and his guys were pissed because they wanted to go fight and they didn't get to and they thought, you know, based on Desert Storm initially, uh, there was gonna be all days right we didn't know that we had 20 years of 20 years of sustained conflict out of us, and so, obviously, him, him and others did get to go get their fight on.
Speaker 2:but but, but yeah, I mean there's, there's, there. This is the thing about service, right, like there, like there are selfish elements to it, right, whether you want adventure, whether you want difficulty, whether you want the GI Bill, whether you want to get out of poverty, whether you want to just go make a name for yourself and go do something different, those elements are there, but they coexist with the selfless element, which is you're going to go where you are needed. Right, when you sign the dotted line, you raise your right hand, like you're going to go where the military and this country needs you to go, and you're going to go do what they need you to do, and you can only control where you are and what you're doing. You can't control any of those other things. And so, for me, this idea, for the guys on the ground like I've, I've carried that with me and it and it's it's what guides me through the podcast too, because two things that we've learned over the course of the last 20 years.
Speaker 2:One, the suicide epidemic in our community, the vast majority of people who kill themselves did not see combat, were not in special operations, Um, and so I have an opportunity to build a platform that can help people find meaning and purpose in life and work after service.
Speaker 2:For those like me that did not see direct combat, uh, which is an important piece.
Speaker 2:And then the other piece is a lot of the guys that did see combat, they did so many tours, um, you know, on the teams or or in the infantry, and they have a difficult time understanding where those skills and experiences can be a foundation for life and work after and they're put into career fields, whether it's contracting, supply, IT security or sales.
Speaker 2:Right, Sales is great. There's a lot of guys that see success doing sales, but they don't understand that they can get into marketing, they can get into the creative services they can get into whatever it is that they want to get into. It's up to them to learn how to take those skills and experiences and translate them into the new arena, the new industry that they want to be in. So for me, for the guys on the ground like that, has become a mantra that it was not just for me to look back and say, oh, that's what I was doing in my time in service in the military. It's now what I'm doing as I'm serving the community, you know, hosting the podcast and doing the work that I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And how did you find like you grew up being a creative, you grew up at least understanding that you had a creative drive within you. How did that begin when you started that transition phase? How did that come about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean I I was. Yeah, I grew up wanting to be an actor. I grew up wanting to be in front of the camera. Uh, you know, super gregarious, not shy. You know acted in all the school plays. I was in the drama, drama class and drama club in high school, even though I wasn't able to participate in the plays cause I was playing sports. I was trying to do both and um. So it was always in the back of my mind. It was always something I wanted to do after the military, regardless of what I did in the military, regardless of how long I served. But, yeah, that second piece of kind of interdependence for my family and going to get my own education on my own terms. I got out, I came back to Columbus, I went to Ohio State. That's where most of my family went. Fan of the football team, my family still lived here. My brother lived here, he was working. I was able to move in with him, lived here, my brother lived here and he was working. I was able to move in with him. You know, waited tables, tended bar, got into Ohio state into the film program with an eye towards, you know, studying film and then and then going to Los Angeles to do it.
Speaker 2:Um, I got to Ohio state and I had a great experience for the most part. I had a couple of classes that I struggled with because the military affairs wasn't great at placing. I took a three oh one class. I, you know, I got like a. I always joke I earned a D plus in that. In that class was comparative mythology class and that. That. That professor, that instructor, she's still at Ohio state and I'm still in touch with her, you know. She pulled me aside and she said you're working your ass off in this class and you're you're, you might fail it because you weren't prepared. There were two classes you needed to take before this one. They shouldn't have let you take this class. So I had that experience with her and then I did fail communications 101. It was a 500 person lecture hall course.
Speaker 2:I'm 22, 23 years old, studying the wrong things. The TAs are grading all those papers, names and dates, and I'm over here trying to understand human communication and all in all of its different forms, and I'm interested in the theory and the application, not in the history and the names and the dates, necessarily. And so I ultimately left Ohio State to go to a more targeted program at Full Sail University in Orlando, florida, which was an accelerated program. That was a full Bachelor of Fine Arts, a BFA, but it was an accelerated program that focused on making. So I got a screen, a creative writing for entertainment degree, uh, from Full Sail University and I studied everything from all the genres, right Drama, comedy, horror, thriller, sci-fi, fantasy. We wrote, you know, uh, short form short stories, we wrote longer form short stories, we wrote screenplays, we wrote video games, we wrote all of these different things. And so I got a very well-rounded but targeted and practical education in how to make in the field that I wanted to get into and I loved it. It was great.
Speaker 2:Parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents will ask me to this day is Full Sail right for my students and my kid?
Speaker 2:And I always say, well, it really depends. Like I benefited tremendously from that program because I was older, I had a job, I had an apartment, I had a car, I connected with the professors, I was there with a bunch of, you know, 18 year old kids that had never been through anything. I'd never been through anything, you know, like those adverse conditions right. Like it wasn't austere in the sense of like what you and I might know and what you know better than me, but it was still felt that way for these 18 year old kids were like I have to do two classes a month on an accelerated program and kind of get this done. I ate that shit up like I absolutely loved it. So you know, I had four short stories published in college. I wrote two screenplays, two short screenplays you know, one of which won some awards at some various film festivals and screenplay competitions, one of which won some awards at some various film festivals and screenplay competitions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I was.
Speaker 2:I was, I was really excited and energized in that program and and did really well because because of the kind of student that I was at the time, being older and a little bit more disciplined, a little bit more free thinking and a little bit more willing to to work directly with these professors who were all working in the industry in addition to teaching. So, you know, for me it was like it was all of my hopes and dreams as a kid kind of coming to bear. In high school I got more into, you know, reading screenplays and watching behind the scenes documentaries, and so I knew I wanted to get away from acting and get more into the making of things, the writing of things, the producing of things and the directing of things. And so my experience at Full Sail was great because I was a military student and I was a little bit older and so, yeah, I worked really hard there and I did really well. And then I took that portfolio and I went out to Los Angeles and kind of tried to make it an indie film.
Speaker 1:Nice. And how did that go that? That seems like the scariest, most unwelcoming environment that I could think of being a service member you know it's really cool.
Speaker 2:So that's that's where. That's where I really started to see where my where my experience in the military and very specifically on the flight line came to bear. So I got to LA, stayed with a family friend in their guest room for about six months. I was applying for a bunch of jobs on Craigslist and all the trades websites for the industry out there, knowing that I wanted to learn production because I learned writing and creativity in college. But I really wanted to get the practical experience. So I was applying for production assistant jobs and on-set jobs, gopher jobs, right that I could go just be on a set and kind of learn how things worked. Well, I applied for a gig as a PA in the assistant director department on a web series. It was unpaid, which was fine with me. I had a little bit of a nest egg. It was obviously going to be prepared to work in restaurants as well, and so I applied for this job. I drive from Redondo Beach to Hollywood. I meet with three producers, two of which were the executive producers of the series and they wrote the series and they were stars of the series, and the other who's the unit production manager, who was the first kind of below the line producer on the project, excuse me and I expected to meet older, seasoned, you know, hollywood veterans. It turns out I met three dudes my age, uh, from the midwest. Uh, two were from the midwest detroit, and one was from texas, and we had a great conversation and they're like hey, this is an unpaid position, but you know, we saw that you were in the military, we saw that you, you know you're organized, all these different things. I would love for you to come on board and help. I was like great, the unit production manager gives me a book. It's called Running the Show. I've got it somewhere over here.
Speaker 2:It's basically about what assistant directors do. There's a first assistant director who works with the director of the project and the director of photography to grip an electric crew and the camera crew to make sure that everything is is moving quickly and that you make your day. You do everything on time or early and you're moving from setup to setup. The second assistant director is in charge of of the cast right, all of the talent, making sure that they're getting in on their call times, making sure they're getting from hair and makeup into wardrobe and then getting from wardrobe to set and you know, managing the people that aren't on set at the time, making sure they're getting through hair and makeup and wardrobe right, like you're kind of managing all that behind the scenes. And then there's a second, second assistant director who assists both of them.
Speaker 2:I was going to be the fourth person in that department who was just an unpaid production assistant to help them out. We had three days to build a set and then we were going to shoot for 15 days. Um, I showed up and the first assistant director had quit, and then the second assistant director quit, and then the second assistant director quit and the unit production manager looks at me and he goes did you read the book? I said cover to cover. And he goes you think you can do this by yourself. And I looked at these guys and I was like it doesn't look like we have a fucking choice, boys, you don't have anybody else.
Speaker 2:We're shooting tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Like let's go, you know Um and so I learned on the job right this on the job training that we're all, that we're all experienced with in the military. I learned on the job, and so that first day was brutal. I'm sitting at lunch and I felt like I was failing. I felt like I was behind drinking water from a fire hose. But I sat at lunch and I looked around and I saw that each department was sitting with each other Wardrobe was sitting together, hair and makeup was sitting together, electric were sitting together, the camera department was sitting together.
Speaker 2:I'm sitting with the director, the producers and this unit production manager, and it hit me that I'm on a flight line. You've got crew chiefs, you've got avionics, you've got engines, you've got weapons, you've got air to ground equipment Yep, each of these career fields has what they need to do so that this film, in this case, this web series, can get made. Once I saw that framework and I saw that paradigm, it was just like off to the races, and so I felt very comfortable translating all of the skills and experiences that I had on the flight line into production on a film set, and we crushed it.
Speaker 1:Dude, it's beautiful how God's infinite wisdom and his plan finally kicks in. Like everything in your journey happened for a friggin reason, man. And I'll tell you, dude, like there's yeah, there's soft guys everywhere. But if you wouldn't have had the experience of everything you learned and everything, and then how to work with a team on a flight line, if and fast forwarded that day, you'd be like oh fuck, I'm an operator, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Let's you figure you would have figured it out, but you wouldn't have had that moment of like full circle, everything finally clicks and it's like all right, you're awesome, god, you got me, dude, that's it. Like that's it after that project. Like how did, how does it feel to finally have, like that, that freaking moment of like fuck, yeah, like I know what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was incredible, Right. So that that crew, they picked me up for a paid gig immediately after that. We actually we wrapped at around midnight 15 days later and then we drove from Los Angeles to the southern tip of Illinois and we shot a ultra low budget horror film. I'll send you the link. It's it's. It's very kitschy and very silly and not very good, but on purpose silly and not very good, but on purpose.
Speaker 2:And the role that I played on that was I was a hybrid. I was both the unit production manager and the second assistant director, so I managed all the talent, but I also managed the schedule. And so, yes, I had that moment that you're describing which is, hell yeah, I'm here, I'm, I'm in it, I'm doing what I want to be doing and I'm lucky that I'm able to do it pretty quickly out of film school. But then I also had that next job and I was and I was learning again on the job and this time I was scheduling it, I was working with budgets, I was working with the executive producers and the director you know kind of big time folks working with big time talent and and I'm managing all of this and I'm getting more on the job training and because I had on the job training, you know, on the previous web series I now have my feet a little bit more under me, so to speak and so I took that crew.
Speaker 2:After that film we went back to Los Angeles and I was like, hey guys, I don't have a ton of money, but you know, I've got a, I've got a zeroed out credit card. Let's put a couple of these short films on it. If you guys are game like, let's, let's pull this crew together and shoot a couple of short films. No-transcript wanted to build, you know, to go be, to go be a filmmaker in Hollywood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's badass man. Yeah, and how did? How did the so? Now, coming to where we're at now veteran made your own, you've got your own thing. Now, like, how, how does that make you feel? And where are you going with veteran made?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question. Um, so, you know, I'll, I'll give you the highlights from from the, the short films, to where we are now. I reconnected with my now wife, who was living in New York city and I was obviously living in Los Angeles, and, uh, you know, we, we reconnected, got back together, dated long distance for a little bit before I moved to New York. The reason I moved to New York was because, uh, she had a friend who was working in production and advertising and he had a project out in Los Angeles and he needed a local crew, and so she connected me to him. He flew out to LA, we, we made this, you know, very short piece of branded content for the Disney channel and one of their shows and one of the sponsors, and we were having, you know, rap beers after we finished the project.
Speaker 2:He's like what are you doing, man? You're waiting tables, you're attending bar, you're trying to make it as an indie filmmaker. What are you doing? I was like I don't know, man, I'm trying to get an agent, like I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm advised me, he said, and he was a little little cynical. I don't share his cynicism, but I think the logic stands. He said um, you should work in advertising instead of waiting tables and tending bar, because you'll make more money. You'll be working with people who work for the man Monday through Friday, which means you can still make short films, you can still build your own content on the side. You don't have to pay people because they never get to do fun art stuff. They always just have to do this advertising stuff. So you'll be able to make more money yourself. Work with a larger pool of talent that are working in advertising that never get to do the fun stuff. Do that fun stuff on the weekends and continue to build your portfolio. And then also, you know, build your portfolio on the advertising side so you can get bigger, better and higher paying jobs. I was like man. That sounds a little cynical, like I said, but it makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 2:So I got back, together with my wife, I moved to New York City and still waited tables and still attended bar, but then I started going after advertising gigs to build my portfolio and I really struggled because I was a little bit of a writer, a little bit of a producer, a little bit of a director. In the advertising industry you really need to choose one. If you don't choose one, you're not going to build the correct portfolio. I didn't really agree with that. I knew that I had a harder path ahead of me, but I still wanted to do everything. So I started to cobble together a bit of a portfolio on the advertising side, doing a lot of branded content, branded documentaries and things like that. I ended up working my way into a small agency and then did really well there worked with NASCAR, worked with Fox Sports, worked with Anheuser-Busch, did a Super Bowl spot, did a bunch of fun things.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:I had an interesting experience with that agency. I was being mentored by an executive producer who sits at the top of where creative and production meet in advertising, and he was mentoring me and he was great. And I asked the co-owner of the agency, who was the chief creative officer. I was like hey, can I take you to happy hour? I want to ask you some questions. He said yeah, man, let's do it.
Speaker 2:So we went to happy hour sitting there having beers and a couple of appetizers, and he's like what do you want to talk about? I said well, listen, this is the track that I'm on. I'm getting mentored by this guy. I don't want to take his job, but I do want his job somewhere else. That's what I'm working towards. What do you recommend?
Speaker 2:And he said you're not ready yet. I said what do you mean? He said well, you're really good. You know your military experience keeps you boots on the ground level. Like you're very good at managing crews, you're very good at managing sets. He's like here we asked you to punch up, punch above your weight, which I took as a compliment. Turns out that is a that's a negative phrase which I didn't even realize. He's like you do a little bit of writing, you do a little bit of directing, but your portfolio is not cohesive, like you're not going to go be an executive producer or a head of production at an advertising agency right now. Um, you know, you, you, you need to just kind of, you need to pick a track and you need to build the portfolio. And you know, I still had a little bit of snark and a little bit of arrogance, a little bit of cockiness and I was like hey, to his face. I was like thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate it in my heart in my, in my mind, I'm saying screw you.
Speaker 2:Man Like I, I can absolutely do this. I'm already doing all of those things. I just I need, I just need a little bit more Right, um, so I ultimately you know I will say it was mutual my, my contract with them uh, came up and they didn't renew me, but I didn't really pursue any more work with them. I just I was, I was not into it. So I went and did you know some of my own work, some freelance work? My daughter was born right at the beginning of COVID. I was applying for a bunch of these jobs that I thought I was qualified for. I finally got one as a producer at another agency, still small but a little bit bigger than the one that I was at previously. They very immediately had the exact opposite view. They were like, hey, all of the frameworks that you bring to these projects and we had, we had just launched.
Speaker 2:At the beginning of COVID we launched, um King C Gillette, which is an at-home beard care brand for black and Latino men, uh, which, at the very beginning of a pandemic, was incredible, because this is a, this is a, this is a demographic that goes to the barber once a week.
Speaker 2:Um, they don't do these things typically don't do these things themselves at home. So we're building this brand, a pandemic happens where everybody's on zoom, like we are right, or on teams, or on Riverside or whatever, and so the client was like all right, here's a bunch of extra money. Take the assets that we've shot and continue to create more assets that we can deploy, you know, digitally and online rather than television, um and so, through that process, these guys that I was now working for had the exact opposite experience that the guy previously did. They're like we love your frameworks, we love that you bring military frameworks, but you're not militaristic. You work really well across all of these different departments within an advertising agency. You work really well with our clients. Do you want to take over the production department? Oh, shit.
Speaker 2:I'm like dude, what is going?
Speaker 1:on how in the world. Maybe, I don't know Maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like I'm wholly unqualified, but yeah, I'll give it a shot. And so we spent the year of COVID. I was working for these two guys. We had about 20 people in the agency, but I was working directly for these two guys, one of which who is currently leading production. He handed it off to me and at the beginning of 2021, I took over as the head of production there, and it was during that process that I really started to think about my journey, the application of my skills and experiences.
Speaker 2:How can I give back to the veteran community? How can I still unpack more of my own journey? I still don't understand how I made it here doing this thing that I really want to do. I'm working my dream job here. How did I do this? And I figured the here doing this thing that I really want to do, I'm working my dream job here, like, how did I do this? And I figured the best way to do that was to have conversations with other entrepreneurial and creative veterans who have been doing similar things, and I can help them and they can help me better understand. And so that was the genesis of the podcast. So I grew you know, I helped grow the revenue at that agency pretty significantly and then started the podcast and really started these conversations um that that I now have with with other veterans who are doing creative and entrepreneurial things.
Speaker 1:Dude, and it's. It doesn't sound like you. You struggled with the imposter syndrome, but or or did you at all through this experience?
Speaker 2:Uh, no, I had the opposite problem. I did not. I did not have you know the. No, I had the opposite problem I. I did not. I did not have you know the the I had. I had probably looking back too much confidence. Right, it worked, you know, and I got lucky. But I did have a couple of those struggles, like that conversation I just told you about was really difficult.
Speaker 1:But I didn't feel imposter syndrome.
Speaker 2:I felt, I felt like he was wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it, it. It plays out like you were chasing it and you came. You had a plan, you had a plan of action. You, you went for the education you wanted and you consistently I mean even from the, the story you share, from where you really got your first start like you were grinding, you were working, you were proving, it was the, the proof was in the pudding, so to speak, and now it's like it's great to have these these stories where it it's like no man, like I worked my ass off and I, I saw the growth and I saw my potential and I understood it.
Speaker 1:Because right now, it's like so many of us and so many people out there, they do deal with that, that imposter syndrome, and are going after something that seems big and what's bigger than following your dreams, going into, like production, work and making it happen. Um, yeah, and I don't want to take too much of your time, but let us know, like, if we want to be a part of your journey, how can we follow veteran made and where are you? What are your next projects? Uh, are you working on anything new and exciting?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, I don't know how much time you have, I can keep going for a little while. Let me, um, go outside, go, um, yeah, I mean so, I mean so, yeah, I mean, we're, we're, I'm, you know, uh, veteranmadeck on instagram. That's, that's where, um, that's where I, I, primarily, you know, post all the content from the podcast, uh, veteranmadeproductionscom. We've, we've turned, we've turned, so I've turned, so I, I ultimately left that agency, the, the, the second agency that I was telling you about under under great terms. Like he, they ended up, um, basically, slow, rolling, closing down the shop. Everybody kind of went off and did their own things. Um, I can still continue to consult and freelance and work with them, and I, I parlayed it into working under under my company.
Speaker 2:Uh, my wife and I co-own the company. She's a documentary director by trade, um, she wasn't in the military, uh, but obviously she's a vet spouse, uh, and we dated while I was in the military, so she has that experience and she also played division one golf, so she really does understand that that transition from sports and military into different careers and and where it can take you. And so we co-own the company. Um, it's, it's under the Veteran Made banner. We produce omni-channel marketing campaigns for advertising agencies and then we also go direct to clients. We do everything supportive of the podcast. So I was running the podcast and doing it weekly while I was still working at that agency and they were very supportive. We produced a bunch of work for him last year and then now he's doing his own thing and he's building a beer brand.
Speaker 2:And then now we're off to the races with our own production company or production agency, depending on who we're talking to. If it's a client, we can do all the agency side things. If it's an agency that just needs us to be a production company, we can do that as well. And we also produce documentaries. Like I said, my wife directed a feature documentary last year and so now we're looking at that and we're working with a couple of partners in the military and veteran space on the nonprofit side and a couple of veteran owned businesses to build documentary, brand storytelling, product storytelling. And yeah, man, it's been a hell of a journey. Um, you know, folks can go to veteran made productionscom. Um, backslash episodes, that's that's where all the podcasts lived. Um, they, they go on every major platform. We do, you know, youtube, spotify, google, um, amazon, apple. Uh, we, we do them all, um and and then, yeah, veteran made productionscom is where you can find all of our work. And, yeah, man, we're just on this journey and we're loving it.
Speaker 1:Heck. Yeah, man, dude, it's awesome to see you guys' work. Do you think you'll ever go back and make another film, or are you still working on creating something big, maybe another?
Speaker 2:indie movie? Yeah, it's a good question. I wrote a feature length screenplay. My last week of college at Full Sail was a portfolio class and because I was a military student and I knew I wanted to get to LA and work right away, my portfolio was done by the time I got to that class. And the first three weeks of that class I worked with this woman who is the professor for that class, very, very, very tied into the industry, and, um, we worked together for three weeks to build the portfolio and then that final week she had a contact in the industry who, uh, was interested in a horror film, uh, for one of her friends to direct and she wanted to produce it. And so our teacher said do you, does anybody have a log line for a horror film? And I did, I had one for a horror film. And she pulled me aside and she was like hey, do you, do you think you could, you could like, write this, uh? And I was like, yeah, I mean, I guess, uh, and she goes cool, take the last week of class and write it.
Speaker 2:So I went home and I wrote it over the course of the week and I told the story on one of my episodes actually with another writer that's going to go live next week, and I looked back at it recently, like within the last couple of years. I read it and there's about one third of it was really good. Two thirds of it was really bad. It was really good, two thirds of it was really bad, um, but then I had another conversation last night for for another episode of of my podcast a veteran made that's going to go live in two weeks, and I was like, oh man, there might be something there, like there, I might be able to go back to that screenplay and do that, um, and so I don't have. I'm not going to make the time to do that right now, but it is in the back of my mind to do that. I've spoken with a couple of other people in our community who have some scripts that they want to get into development. I'm open to it, I'm interested in it.
Speaker 2:I love brand storytelling. Now, though, I do really enjoy documentary storytelling. I really do enjoy brand and product storytelling, kind of contributing to the marketplace right. That like where art and commerce intersect with each other and integrate, like I do. Yes, it's where, it's where the money is, and so it's it's nice to be able to make a living. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna downplay that aspect of it, but I also just do really enjoy that solving problems and solving problems with people, um, to help them sell products that I believe in, uh is is, is really enjoyable. So I think you know advertising and brand storytelling, branded content, branded entertainment, documentary storytelling is probably going to be the vast majority of what we do, but I'm still a writer at heart. I'm working on another screenplay in the background right now, in addition to some of the other writing that I'm doing, and so, yeah, man, I'm just, I just do the work that's right in front of me and kind of see where it takes me.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, man. Kerry, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your story. It's absolutely remarkable to see somebody go after their dreams, but not just do it in like a small way, but going big and going for broke. It's beautiful because it inspires all of us to continue thriving, continue going after it and that's what we need and also help us kill the myth that only operators matter. It's everybody. We can all be inspired by it, regardless of the freaking jobs you did.
Speaker 2:Thank you so?
Speaker 1:much for being here Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Here's what I will say. Here's the t-shirt that I'm wearing. We're going to be launching this t-shirt here pretty soon. It says not an operator. It is along those lines, right, like I don't have, listen, I have. I have my feet in kind of both sides of the community conventional side as well as the special operations side of things, and I've, I've, I've, really grown past the, the. You know I hesitate to use the word trauma, but, like the, the, the emotional issues that I have. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man, and along the lines of what you're talking about. Like I am now.
Speaker 2:I don't want to say that I'm proud to, to not be an operator, but it is one of those things where we're going to. We're going to. We made something, a film, like a very short film that we're going to be launching here. I'm not sure when this episode is going live, but we're going to be launching it in the next couple of weeks that that pokes a little bit of fun and has a little bit of fun. It doesn't poke fun at the special operations community, but it really platforms the rest of the community in a way that adds some humor that I think people are going to enjoy. Yeah, we're going to sell these t-shirts and we're going to do a little bit of merch and we're going to do some things that I think will continue to foster the conversation.
Speaker 2:We have a military-civilian divide that we need to bridge, but we also have a military to military divide that we need to bridge Right, and this, you know, it's air force doctrine. They're supported and they're supporting, and supported and supporting can swing back and forth, depending on what the mission set is. And so as I move forward, you know, in my career, as well as move forward hosting the podcast and fostering these conversations, it's important to to bridge that military, military divide as well. Um, you know, no, nobody hates veterans more than other veterans, which is terrible.
Speaker 2:Um and uh. You know, I, I want to. I want to contribute to that conversation in a positive way, but I also I also want to do it in a little bit of a snarky way. That I think will be a fun way to start the conversation.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, man, and along those lines I got my own. Mine is Kill the Myth, the myth that only operators are worthy of our service. There's millions of nonprofits devoted purely to our soft community and I love all of them. They're great. But you know what? I've got a lot of infantry and paratrooper friends that are pretty messed up too, and we need to support them as well.
Speaker 1:So, kerry, thank you for being here, thank you for being vulnerable, and to all y'all tuning in, do me a favor Go follow Kerry's show, follow my show, share it. There's not enough veterans doing stuff like this to help support and send out a good message. So you know, you know the whole spiel Like, follow, share, subscribe. Send me an email, hell, send me a letter. You have my address. I put it out there. Thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you all next time. Until then, take care. Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to like, follow, share, subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to support us, head on over to buymeacoffeecom forward slash SecHawk podcast and buy us a coffee. Connect with us on Instagram X or TikTok and share your thoughts or questions about today's episode. You can also visit securityhawkcom for exclusive content, resources and updates. And remember we get through this together. If you're still listening, the episode's over. Yeah, there's no more Tune in tomorrow or next week. Thank you.
