This Past Weekend - #623 - Gary Sinise

Starting point is 00:00:00 A PSA from Instacart. It's Sunday, 5 p.m. You had a non-stop weekend. You're running on empty, and so is your fridge. You're in the trenches of the Sunday Scaries. You don't have it in you to go to the store. But this is your reminder. You don't have to.

Starting point is 00:00:17 You can get everything you need delivered through Instacart so that you can get what you really need, more time to do whatever you want. Instacart, for one less Sunday Scary. We're here. Today's guest is an actor. He's a musician and he's an activist. You know him for some of his famous roles like Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump and Mack Taylor in CSI, New York.

Starting point is 00:00:42 But he's also known for his work helping veterans and first responders. I had a great chat today with the one and only Mr. Gary Senise. Thanks for having so you bought in Nashville in... Well, we bought in 21, and then we moved in 23. Okay. So we had to do some renovating for our son and his, what was going on with him and everything like that. But then we finally, I moved my foundation in 22, and then we moved out in 23. And overall, has it been a, has it been a good experience? Fantastic.

Starting point is 00:01:34 Yeah. I got in over. I was in Hollywood for 35 years. Wow. That's enough. Yeah. That's a lot of service. Man, you kind of like, you did, you did your service.

Starting point is 00:01:46 Yeah. It was good. You know, we raised our kids there and everything. Oh, yeah. Gary Seneas, thanks for joining me, man. Oh, it's great to be with you, but. I appreciate it. And the Lieutenant Dan Band, you guys are performing at the Riemann Auditorium on Veterans Day?

Starting point is 00:02:02 Yep, yeah, at the Opry. Sorry, you guys are performing at the Grand Ole Opry. Yeah, that's true. Oh, that's going to be sick. There's more seats there, too, which is even better. I think it's 4,000-something seats in there. You know, we played there summer of 24. They did a really fun thing.

Starting point is 00:02:22 They wanted, we were talking about having my band. come there at some point to the Opry and it was the 30th anniversary of Forrest Gump coming out that summer. So they did a, Opry celebrates 30 years of Forrest Gump and we went and we played and we had a bunch of people on the bill and yeah, there we are. Did you guys play any songs from the movie? Well, everybody did. That's what was cool about the night is we had Gary LaVox from Rascal Flats. He was on the bill. Jamie Johnson.

Starting point is 00:02:56 Jamie Johnson's the best, dude. Yeah, Jamie. And he'll be there on Tuesday when we play. The bill, this, the Tuesday is great. And then when we did the 30th anniversary, it was great. And they had the idea that everybody on the bill would do songs from the soundtrack and Forrest Gump. That's so cool. So we all did.

Starting point is 00:03:17 What a fun night. It was really fun. Does the band rehearse a lot? you know we i mean this i've been doing it with this band for over 20 years so we you know we will rehearse once or twice a year yeah um and it's all about learning some new songs you know sometimes we can plug those in and our sound check we just give a little extra time for sound check and we wind up a song a new sound song but uh we've played you know we play a lot of same songs for because my band is the whole purpose of my band is the military veterans first responders

Starting point is 00:03:56 mission so i take the ban on military bases and military hospitals and do all that kind of stuff that's i don't play for money this is what i do for a for a mission it's a service mission i have to i have to pay the band i have to pay the production costs of the staging of course and that's up pricey people don't realize it does you know it's cost with a fix with that yeah we have a big band yeah if you look at my band there's you know there's me plus 12 so there's 13 of us in the bag it's not cheap yeah it's it's an expensive show but it's a good show we play a lot a lot of good songs were you always a musician well um back in fourth grade i got my first guitar and that this is this goes back to the 60s So the Beach Boys were my band, and I started listening to them a lot and trying to play their songs.

Starting point is 00:04:50 And then I got my guitar, and then in seventh grade, I got a bass, and I started playing bass, and then played all the way through high school into my early 20s, and then I got very busy with acting, and started the theater company, and got very busy with that. So I didn't play for a long time until, like, the late 90s, I started picking it up again. And now we've, you know, formed a band and started going on military bases. And overseas, we've done over 600-something shows for the military. Wow. That's incredible, man.

Starting point is 00:05:25 Thank you so much for your service for supporting the people who serve. You bet. Yeah, whenever I was first starting out in comedy, we would do a bunch of, like, kind of U.S.O-affiliated kind of tours where you would go. and we went to so many unique places that you don't even think that there's bases that you don't even think that there's people like little like four to operate

Starting point is 00:05:50 like Araf John we went to one time I've been there we went to the Azores Oh my gosh We went to like places in Spain Just places you don't even think that there's bases and there's people there There you know what there?

Starting point is 00:06:04 We have How many bases do you think there are that the U.S. has in the world? I mean, I couldn't even guess. I don't think. It's about 800 bases. And the big giant ones, you know, like Fort Bragg or something like that, two very, very tiny ones in little remote areas, like you said.

Starting point is 00:06:24 And a lot of them don't get a lot of support or entertainment, that kind of thing. I think it's 750, 800 bases, something like that. What's that say? Yeah, it says that. Oh, yeah. 750, yeah. to 877 U.S. military base. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:06:40 That's a lot of bases. When I started out with this, my goal was to hit every single one of them, and then I realized, well, I think I'm about 25% the way there. I think I've played about 200 bases around. That's cool. Oh, there's something about like, like I went to Qatar a couple of months ago.

Starting point is 00:06:58 Sure, yeah. The president was doing something there, and they invited me to come. And so it was just like, But you get there and the... Were you on that big Middle East tour that... I wasn't on the whole thing. I was just on Qatar and it was like a last-minute thing.

Starting point is 00:07:15 I was literally... Central Command, yeah. Yeah. And they're like, do you want to come? You have to get on a plane in like five hours and I was like... Of course, yeah. And, dude, but even the best part of it was when you walk up, there's all these soldiers like in line because they're like, I don't know if it was mandatory that they go to this event,

Starting point is 00:07:30 but I think a lot of them wanted to, too. It was probably like a fun thing to do on the base that day. Oh, sure, yeah. Anything to break up the day. That's for sure. And just to walk up and a lot of them were like, hey, what's up? And just like that moment alone, like not for me, but for both of us kind of, it was just like that I got to beat.

Starting point is 00:07:47 It was just awesome, man. That's what it's like, yeah, it was just awesome. And then, yeah, you see guys who are away from their families. And then you have friends who their families are away, just all of it, you know. I don't know, being close to it, you get to kind of see so much of what it's about. did you because there's kind of this theory i feel like with you for some people that don't know that you got into like the lieutenant dan character right and you got into it so much that you were just like i am now this is like my life calling uh it's it's kind of it's kind of what

Starting point is 00:08:24 happened or is that no i mean i have vietnam veterans in my family i was playing a vietnam veteran lieutenant dan and so prior to playing him i was like keyed up and tuned up to that because with vietnam veterans and my family i i you know i was i was in high school i was a senior in high school when combat operations ended in vietnam wow in 1973 so i remember people coming home and then i met my wife and she introduced me to her two brothers who served her sister's husband served in Vietnam. So I was kind of tuned up to what was going on with our Vietnam veterans, had a lot of compassion for them and what happened when they came home. You know, they were not treated well at all. It was a difficult time for our country, difficult

Starting point is 00:09:14 time to be a soldier. And then when Lieutenant Ann came around, I had the opportunity to audition for it. I very much wanted to get that part. I was lucky to get it. And then I just started, I mean, I remember getting invited to the Disabled American Veterans Organization Convention about five or six weeks after Forrest Gump came out, and they wanted to give me an award for playing a wounded veteran. And this was an organization that at that time represented 1.5 million wounded veterans going back to World War II all the way up to the Gulf War, this because this is 94 and i walk out on this stage get introduced and i walk out on the state

Starting point is 00:10:04 there yeah that's a picture of it um and they gave me their national commanders award and the guy there richard marbs he's he's got one leg he's missing one leg up to his hip and he's standing on crutches there and i looked out into the audience and i saw 2,000 wounded veterans out there in the in the crowd wow and it was very very moving I can feel it right now. It's moving to me to even imagine that somebody saw that. And it was very impactful, and that started me supporting our wounded, going back to that time. And then September 11th happened, and I just turned it into a full-time mission.

Starting point is 00:10:42 Wow. Yeah, it was, it was there. I met a lot of interesting people over the years. I started going on U.S.O. tours in 2003. I started going to the bases. Because Qatar was one of the first bases I went to on my first overseas U.S. Two. Really?

Starting point is 00:10:59 Yeah. It's a beautiful base. Yeah. We were there. We were in Iraq. We were in Kuwait. That was a big tour that Kid Rock was on, and Leanne Womack was on that tour. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:11:16 Robert De Niro was on the tour. I mean, Paul Rodriguez, comedians were on the tour. It was, there were a lot of entertainers. It was called Project Salute. And that's some footage there from that very first trip overseas to Iraq and Kuwait. This is me going out to a place called Camp Udari, which was right on the Iraq-Kuwait border. And I saw thousands of troops that day. And it was very impactful to go out there, see these people in the war zones.

Starting point is 00:11:52 see what they were doing, shake hands with them. I wanted to talk to everybody, and I didn't have time because, you know, there were so many people lined up to see us. But we entertained. You know, I didn't do anything except I'm Lieutenant Dan, and I'm waving to everybody and shaking hands and taking pictures. But Kid Rock put on a show. Oh, for sure, yeah.

Starting point is 00:12:15 Bob's been in here. Bob's ridiculous. He lives across town. He's one of a kind. Good, good guy. We've known each other since. that trip. He's got a big heart, dude.

Starting point is 00:12:24 He's a, uh, yeah, he's a, he's a, he's, loves our military, really? Yeah, yeah. We spend a good bit of time together. He's a special guy. What, what's something, um, yeah, because you just had, like, you, you had so many, like, kind of iconic roles, like, um, you know, and we're in so many, like, just, you know, films that really touch people, um, you know, the green mile, I remember of mice and men. That's crazy, dude.

Starting point is 00:12:50 Did you see that in high school? Yeah. I remember, dude, you know how many people even on the spectrum were not allowed to have a pet after that movie? You can't have a dog. You know how many of my neighbors got their pets taken away after that movie? I never thought of that. Oh, dude, it was, yeah, it took like a month to get them back for some of us. That's hilarious.

Starting point is 00:13:17 But just so many special roles. But then it feels like you really kind of found. this uh like a role that really like like almost a bigger role um in this space of service you know and of feeling like even just showing up somewhere and giving of yourself you know um with the veterans in my family and especially the vietnam veterans i have i have world war two and war one on my side of the family career era my dad was in the navy during korea my grandfather in war one my two uncles in World War II. But it was when I met the Vietnam veterans on my wife's side of the family.

Starting point is 00:13:56 And that was very impactful because they had not been treated well. And I started to have a lot of compassion for them and feel very, very badly. So when we were attacked on September 11th and our young men and women started raising their hand and joining the military and going off to Afghanistan and Iraq and I wanted to do something to support them. I just felt a lot of compassion for them having veterans in my own family and having seen what happened to our Vietnam veterans when they went off to war. And it was starting to, if you recall, the Iraq war was starting to be, you know, the country

Starting point is 00:14:38 was starting to divide itself over whether we should be there or not and all of that. and I didn't want our service members to get caught in the middle of all that. So I just started raising my hand and going out and supporting them where I could. And that led to all these non-profits that I supported

Starting point is 00:14:55 and then I just started my own. And that's the Gary Seney's Foundation? Yeah. Yeah. How do you stay out of the minute, like how do you stay out of the political side of things, right? Like, because I'm sure sometimes that, like you were saying with Vietnam,

Starting point is 00:15:08 it was probably one of the first times that soldiers came back and a lot of people didn't agree with them being there and it's like it's not really their fault right they're just signing up to protect like the freedoms that we have right like like my job is freedom of speech my job doesn't even exist if it's not for somebody out there protecting it right you're you're you're absolutely right but so how do you stay out of that like is that tough sometimes to stay out of like the political side of it and just focus on the like boots on the ground or do you like is that does that make any sense

Starting point is 00:15:39 that question i didn't care about that stuff all what i did care about was them feeling kind of a negative thing coming at them from the country. And we were starting to divide at that point, you know, after September 11th, everyone was sort of united, you know, in, you know, I mean, we got smacked on September 11th. That was a real turning point for me towards service in a greater way. But our country was sort of, you know, reeling from that. And remember, we were all in pain. We were all scared.

Starting point is 00:16:17 Nobody knew what was going on. We wanted, you know, our troops to go over there and do something, find this bad guy that did that to us. And, you know, everybody was sort of united behind that. As time went on, though, you started to feel like, okay, we're, you know, we don't support George Bush going into Iraq. And I didn't want our troops to get caught in the middle of that. So I just said, you know, what can I do as an entertainer? You know, as somebody that they recognize from the movies, I can go over there and shake hands with them and tell them, hey, you know, we appreciate you. We don't, you know, we don't take what you're doing for granted.

Starting point is 00:16:57 And I started doing that, and then I did it some more and more and more and more. And the more I did it, the more I felt like I was having a positive effect on people that were away from their family. families, losing friends, you know, getting blown up, ending up in the hospital, multiple limbs amputated, all these terrible things that were happening. And I felt like I was bringing some positive light into their world, which was, you know, pretty difficult time. I mean, if you're over there and you lose 10 buddies and then you lose your legs, you've got a long way, a long road ahead.

Starting point is 00:17:37 And I wanted to help them. I want, you know, the real life Lieutenant Dan's, I wanted to help them out. And I wanted to help the families out who were losing loved ones. And I just felt that was a role that I could play. And now it's just a big, big part of life. Yeah, you were right, you know. I think so. We can't let our service members get caught in the middle of stuff.

Starting point is 00:17:59 If you volunteer to serve your country, what do you volunteer for to do what they want you to do? You don't have a question, you know, and if they send you into a war zone, you got to go. right so they're just doing their duty and i want to i want to support them and help them through the difficulties of going to war and and the things that they see and the things that happened to them i remember one time on a base we were there and something i think it was in air of john one of those bases near there like uh and there was everybody was in the hospital someone something had happened something had come into the base and somebody gotten uh taken shrapnel or something and they were losing a lot of blood and they basically had this hallway lined up in

Starting point is 00:18:46 this hospital of like people literally going through and donating blood it was like there may have been a hundred people in the hallway and like hey can you just kind of go through and just try to boost people's spirits and it was like man it was just a kind of a harrowing moment because you're like i don't know these people right like i'm not one of them you know i'm one of them in the sense that I'm an American and I have like on I have like empathy maybe something there's something there like a human connection uh but man that was like heartbreaking uh until you were just kind of passing out waters and shaking hands and just like you know patting people on the chest or trying to do anything that you felt like maybe God was pushing you to do without being egotistical to

Starting point is 00:19:27 try and just be there and support sometimes when you were there right they had they had to be there you did not right and so that was that was a special thing, the fact that you took the time to go over there to do that, to pat them on the back, to shake their hand, to hand them a water bottle, to tell some jokes, to break up their day a little bit, help them through that experience. That was, I'm sure that was profoundly impactful for you, but it was also very meaningful for them. I've seen it, you know, hundreds of times. Yeah. And it's helpful, you know, to have somebody from home show up and say, hey thanks for what you're doing um and it was in the next day they found out that the guy didn't

Starting point is 00:20:08 make it you know and it was just like uh it was it was it was uh have you had moments like that on these bases like what kind of moments do you kind of experience on some of these bases have you been in some moments where it's or there have you been on bases where it's a night where it's like man this a a lot's happened today and it might be a tough night for these guys to come and enjoy some music like or what are some of like what are some of the like what are some the things we don't see as regular civilians of what base life is like you know when it when you go to when you go to a war zone um you're you you're keenly aware that at any moment for any one of these folks that you're meeting any of these soldiers who are infantry especially or something like that at any

Starting point is 00:20:56 point they could get called out to a mission get in the get in the get in the humvee or get in the tank or whatever go out on a mission and something bad could happen to them and you're keenly aware of that and that that's happened to me multiple times where i'll be taking pictures with a thousand people or something like that and i know that you know i mean at any minute they could get called on a mission and that could be their last mission anything could happen so the 20 seconds that i spend with them or something like that can be very meaningful i've had mothers come up to me with photographs who was, he was killed the next day, you know, after not, like this is the last picture that was taken. And, you know, as soon as you got that picture, he sent it home to the family and it lit him up.

Starting point is 00:21:44 And then the next day he's shot by a sniper or something like that. And those types of things can impact you in a very profound way. And you don't forget about that. Yeah. You know, and it makes you come back and do it again, you know. I thought the first time I went to a hospital, I would, I remember, it's well over 20 years ago. And I went to Landstool Medical Center in Germany. The Landstool?

Starting point is 00:22:15 It's called Landstool, yeah. And it's where, you know, our service members, if they get hurt. It's the first place they go, right? They will go to Germany. they get stabilized and then they come home when they're okay to be transferred um and that was the first military hospital i went to so you've got people that were in iraq yesterday who got blown up yesterday and flown to the hospital and here they are within 24 hours of being on the battlefield and i'm seeing them wow and that that was very i was very nervous about it i mean i remember the

Starting point is 00:22:55 time. It was kind of, I tell this story about, you know, when I was a kid, my grandmother dying in the hospital and it was, and she was very sick and it was just very hard to be in the hospital and see her like that. And those were my hospital memories. And so now I'm on a bus with the USO and I'm driving to the military hospital where our troops are first taken when they get blown up or something bad happens to them. And I'm going to see a bunch of these people and I'm thinking this I don't know how I'm going to I don't know how I'm going to get through it you know I and I'm nervous I'm feeling sure kind of nervous in my stomach and if one of them opens their eyes and like holy shit lieutenant Dan like I'm in heaven like

Starting point is 00:23:41 where am I or they're hallucinating you know they're on so much medication they think they're nuts and I walked in and I I tell this story about walking into the first room and there were like 30 people in there and they were all banged up but they were going to get patched up and sent back to the war zone they weren't injuries that would send them home and everything was quiet and I'm you know I I wore glasses at the time I had the funny little glasses on a little USO hat and I walk in and I'm not sure what to do or what to say everybody's really quiet and somebody saw me and screamed lieutenant Dan at me and then everybody jumped up and wanted a picture and the whole mood changed into something positive and so that was and then i went to the

Starting point is 00:24:31 hospital rooms and i saw people that were missing limbs and people that were in traumatic brain injuries and just really awful stuff but when i left there i felt i felt like really good that i had done something positive like purposeful yeah that you know when i went there it was i was it was all about me and what I was thinking about how I'm going to react to it. And when I left, it was, I realized, no, it's not about me and my reaction to it. It's about just bringing some joy, bringing some light into a dark situation and trying to lift somebody up. And that's the energy you get. So that made me want to go back. Two weeks later, I was at Walter Reed. And then I was at another hospital, Naval Medical Center at Bethesda. And then it's just now it's a hundred,

Starting point is 00:25:23 of trips and, you know, multiple thousands and thousands of wounded service members and family members. We take care of, you know, families of our fallen heroes. And, you know, you wrap your arms around these kids that have lost a mom or a dad in the military or even our first responders, firefighters, police officers. We take care of all of them. And, you know, you just, you know, you're doing something positive. And it helps you get through the difficult, moments where you meet somebody that's really been through some really bad stuff but i'm just there to help them through so you learn you kind of learn you know how it's it's not about you at all it's about them and what you want them to to get out of you giving them a hug or patting them on

Starting point is 00:26:15 the back or telling them you you appreciate them and that's that's rewarding that's that gives life great purpose to be able to take something you know i'm in the movie business i walk into a room they see lieutenant dan or something but it makes lieutenant dan so much more meaningful when he can actually do something positive for somebody else you know yeah he wasn't a character that just kind of ended right there like no wasn't a character who just had this you know what i'm saying like it was yeah no it wasn't it i realized at a certain point uh lieutenant dan's just gonna that's just he's just It's a part of my life now because so many soldiers relate to them. And, you know, I'd go into the hospitals and I see somebody missing both legs like Lieutenant Dan,

Starting point is 00:27:02 and they just, they want me to talk about the story of Lieutenant Dan. And, you know, the story of Lieutenant Dan is very positive, actually. It goes through dark stuff, but it's a happy ending at the end. And so. Yeah, at the end, do you own a car wash or something? What did he do for a living at the end? No, he's a shrimp guy. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:27:18 Oh, he bought the boat. He's a shrimp guy. He makes a bunch of money. They make a bunch of money on shrimp, and then he invests in Apple. He's like an early investor in Apple, and they both make a gazillion dollars in Apple. And, you know, he's doing well. Look at him. He's married at the end.

Starting point is 00:27:36 He's standing up on prosthetic legs, and it's a happy ending. And you pull for a guy like that in a movie, and you want him to be okay. And so many of the other movies that came out, you know, in the late 70s, early 80s, Um, about Vietnam, you know, you just, you always had this feeling that the Vietnam veteran wasn't going to make it. Right. He wasn't going to be okay. And something bad was going to happen to him. And with Forrest Gump, it was different.

Starting point is 00:28:07 It was a new look at a Vietnam veteran who came home from war, processed everything, and then moved on. Recently, I've been on a mission to partner with more companies that are based here in America. It's just important to me. I had a podcast with Mike Rowe, and he told me about this company called Good Ranchers. Good Ranchers is unique compared to other meat companies as all of their meat is born, raised, and harvested here in the USA. I was shocked when I learned that over 85% of beef in the grocery store was from overseas. Good Ranchers is all about transparency and supporting local farms and ranches, and that's why I'm a subscriber. plus their meat is top quality, steaks, chicken, pork, you name it, they do it.

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Starting point is 00:30:30 We just had, Miles Teller was just on the other day, and he and I actually ended up talking about you, which is crazy, because I had no idea that you were going to come on. When I first started this, my mom, she's had two husbands that served and that passed away, but she was like, I hope you could get Gary Sinise one day on your podcast. You've been her favorite guest, so this is, and she watches every episode, so she'll be excited, but.

Starting point is 00:30:56 Please give your mom a hug for me. Oh, you bet. I will give her one. We started hugging finally about a year ago, so. Okay, good. Well, give her two. It's been a long road, but I'll make sure to. That's another podcast, you can tell me.

Starting point is 00:31:10 Yeah, that is. Miles Tucker was on, and he was talking about just working with servicemen and, and he was talking about just his experience. He had a film called, Thank You for Your Service, I think it was. And he said that a lot of times it's like we know how to package these people and get them ready to go off to war, to serve, to be on the front lines, to protect our freedoms, but we don't bring them home very well. What do you notice in your experience with a lot of this, with spending time with a lot

Starting point is 00:31:42 of these people like what do you think that we can do better as a country and then just as everyday people if there's any and I know this isn't judgment but what do you kind of survey haven't had a lot of experience well Miles Miles has a point about that and we learned a lot during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts I mean the the military the various branches of the military did start to address that. We need to be, we need to fight the war on the battlefield, well, we have to make sure that we don't leave the war on the battlefield and neglect the war that's coming on that's going on at home,

Starting point is 00:32:23 you know, when our service members return. So we've been involved at the Gary Seney Foundation in a number of initiatives and a number of programs to address that, coming home, transitioning from the battlefield to home, coming back to your family. There was a movie that I was involved in that I was an executive producer on back during the Iraq War called Brothers at War. And it was all about that experience of going off to war and then coming back and kind of reintegrating with a family and how difficult that can be when you've seen people blown up and seen people go through

Starting point is 00:33:02 difficult things. This was a buddy of mine who had two brothers. that were serving in Iraq. And he wasn't serving, but he embedded with units over in Iraq. And he made a documentary. His name's Jake Radamacher. And Jake's a buddy of mine. I ended up being an executive producer on this film. And then recently we decided, because there's so many people in the movie that we meet,

Starting point is 00:33:30 not just the two brothers, but we meet the people that they're serving with. And we get to know them in that particular film. We started talking, you know, 10 years later after the movie about, like, where are those guys? What happened to everybody that was in that first film? Are they out of the service now? What's their transition out of the service been like? So we've just done, we've got a new movie out now called Brothers After War. And Brothers At War deals with military life, what it's like to go off and serve, come home, then get deployed again.

Starting point is 00:34:07 as many of our service members would redeploy multiple times. That could be very tough on the family. Just imagine a child, you know, growing up with mom or dad deploying 10 times over a 12-year period. And they're never home when the child is growing up. It's very, very difficult. So Brothers After War deals with the transitioning veteran, the person who's come home and now they're out of the service. Most of the people that we meet in Brothers After War that we met in the first movie, Brothers at War, are out of the service. A few of them, Jake's brothers were just finishing up their service.

Starting point is 00:34:46 The Rotomacher's? The Rotomacher's. Yeah, two brothers. Thank you for your service. So you meet them. And it's a beautiful documentary. I mean, both of them are very beautiful. And we use these movies to help our veterans.

Starting point is 00:35:00 We use the first movie. Jake has done hundreds of work. workshops on military bases, showing the movie and the hands-out workbooks to everybody and says, what did you feel about this when you saw this, the soldier coming home dealing with his children who haven't seen him for a long time? All these things. And all these people kind of start expressing themselves, start talking about it. And we have so many service members that come home and they don't talk about it. Yeah. Right? They compartmentalize. They keep it in. And sometimes it explodes in a very bad and damaging way.

Starting point is 00:35:36 And we don't want that to happen. We want to combat the suicide problem that we have within the services and do everything we can to be proactive to go after it and provide mental wellness initiatives so that we can help these people transition. That's what both these movies are about. And they really are helpful. Jake is now doing workshops with Brother After War for veterans. So Brothers at War and Brothers After War.

Starting point is 00:36:02 Yeah, very, very positive movies. Brothers After War was totally funded by the Gary Seneas Foundation. And thankfully, our donors, you know, allow me to do a lot of great things. And for our donors, they should know that this movie is making a difference in people's lives. We are helping veterans. That's Jake doing a workshop there for Brothers After War. We're, you know, we're making a positive impact, but there's so much more that we can do. Thankfully, there are a lot of nonprofits out there that are focused on this.

Starting point is 00:36:34 We have other mental wellness initiatives. We work with an organization called Boulder Crest Foundation. Boulder Crest, they provide retreats all around the country for veterans to go to. We've sent hundreds of veterans to these retreats that can be very, very positive because so many these people come home and then they isolate, and we don't want them to do that. We want them to tell their stories. We want to teach them how to share their stories. stories, and that it's okay to share their stories. We saw Vietnam veterans come home from war,

Starting point is 00:37:06 and they had to keep everything inside of them. And it was not good. And we don't want that to happen to anybody who serve in our country. So we provide a lot of programs and initiatives of Gary Seney's Foundation to help them through that. Well, we're going to make a donation today, Gary. So thank you. Oh, thanks so much. Yeah. We'll donate $10,000 today just to support the foundation. Holy cow. So I know it's not the largest donation you've got. gotten but, uh, we're, we're happy to do that on behalf of our podcast today. Um, it feels like it's falling upon the private sector to take care of a lot of our servicemen and women. Is that a true feeling, do you think? Or do you think that the government is still doing a good job?

Starting point is 00:37:47 Like, um, and then do you think one part, one political party really does it better than the other? Like, have you noticed any of that? And, and if you feel uncomfortable talking about that, that's okay. I don't want to put you in any weird spot. There's, there's, there's, there's, There's two things. Just imagine, okay, if there were no nonprofits in the military and first responder community that are trying to fill the gaps and help, we'd have a catastrophe. Wow. And if there was no VA system, we'd have a catastrophe.

Starting point is 00:38:22 So both of them are necessary, you know. But I don't think the government can provide all the help. that is needed for our veteran community. It's just, it's a large community. You know, we have veterans going back, you know, pretty far. And some of, you know, like look at our Vietnam veterans, for example. They're aging into their 70s and 80s, and, you know, things are a little tougher for them because they're aging and, you know, they might have needs that they didn't have

Starting point is 00:38:56 20 or 30 years ago. Is it, will the government provide everything that's necessary for all the people that have served our country over the years? While they may try, I don't think it's possible. I think the nonprofits play a pretty significant role in this. And so take the nonprofits away and we'd have a real serious problem. Got it. But we have to work together.

Starting point is 00:39:24 And so, you know, the VA is just one of those large bureaucracies that we have. You know, I mean, there's many, many VA hospitals around the country. There are a lot of hospitals that need upgrades, you know, because they've been around a long time. And so we're, we constantly have to reinvest in that within the government. My dad got help from the VA, you know, so that that was good. Oh, yeah. My stepdad did for sure. I think he was in Korea and he got help from the VA.

Starting point is 00:39:58 But now the nonprofits play a very, very significant role. And there are certain things that the VA does well and there's certain things that they don't do well. There's certain things that nonprofits could do better at. But there's a lot of things that nonprofits do that are really making a difference. And I think we have to all work together constantly to do everything we possibly can to serve the men and women who have served our country and protect. our freedoms and keep us safe, our first responders as well. We have many programs at the Gary Senees Foundation that are serving all these communities. What would you say then just to any lawmakers who are listening, right? Because we've talked to, we've had a lot of politicians on this

Starting point is 00:40:40 show, like we've had a lot of people come through and we've gotten to express things to them about different like laws and things that we would like to see change. Is there anything to lawmakers that you would say if there were any lawmakers listening? Like, Is there anything you would say to them based on, like, your experiences that that could be done or that could be different? Or is that too broad of a thing to even ask? Democrats and Republicans serve our country, right? In military uniform. So do we owe them, you know, or do we not?

Starting point is 00:41:15 And if you're in government, I always believe we can never do enough for the men and women to serve our country. So, you know, let's make sure that they don't get caught in, you know, in some political game that's going on. Yeah. You know, right now we have a government shutdown going on right now. And so certain people are struggling. We don't want that to happen to our military service member. They're going to serve no matter what, right? And the stress of that, knowing the government is shut down, that has to feel weird for some of them,

Starting point is 00:41:48 especially some of the older ones who are going to VA, like wondering if in a month they're still going to be able to get. get if the place they're going to or that they're getting housing from is still going to be availed. It could just be a fear, you know. The stress of so much of that is crazy. That's exactly right. When we don't want them to fall through the cracks because of some political thing that's happening. And that's a political kickball that they use. And it has real life, it has real life. What word am I looking for? Consequences. Consequences. Thank you, sir. You're absolutely right. Here it says on perplexity, it says the government shut down in 2025 has had a significant impact on veteran affairs, although most vets, benefits, and core services

Starting point is 00:42:26 continue. About 37,000 Department of VA employees are furloughed or working without pay, affecting certain services and programs. Critical services that have been suspended or halted include the GI Bill hotline, which assists over 900,000 veterans was shut down. Fifty-six regional VA benefits offices are closed to the public. So I'm not sure how factual some of this is, but even just the fear of this, say if I'm someone who's looking online and I'm a veteran, the fear and stress caused by this is a lot. I know there are things going on. For example, a lot of times when I want to go to a military base, right?

Starting point is 00:43:06 And I have a foundation that provides uplifting events on military bases all across the country and overseas. and many times if I you know I will look at my calendar which we're doing right now and I'll figure out when I can be in different areas of the country and then I'll call up the general or a colonel and say would you like us to come and lift up the base with some entertainment and that kind of thing and you know nine times out of ten there you know if the dates available and they don't have something else going on. They'll want, they'll want me to come. And we provide meals. We do all kinds of things like that on military bases. Well, I'm in the process of doing that right now, winding up 2026. And a lot of the bases that I'm reaching out to

Starting point is 00:44:03 are saying, you know, we're kind of, we got a lot of people furloughed right now so we can't make any decisions, but, you know, we're hoping that, you know, this is going to stop. So, you know, this furlough stuff is already sort of slowing things down a bit. I mean, they'll get this sorted out eventually. It's not going to last forever and everything. But it is, you know, it is kind of a roadblock, you know, for them to just get on with things on the military base and continue serving our country. And part of what I do is just everything in my foundation is all about the heartbeat of

Starting point is 00:44:43 everything we do, I say this, is lifting people up. It's making them feel important, making them feel that they're not forgotten, that we appreciate what they're doing. So often, somebody who's serving in the military, they can just go about their daily life in the military and not even think that anybody knows what they're doing. Yeah. And I've found that my role as an entertainer and somebody who can interact with them on military bases and, you know, talk to the leader, and all that kind of stuff, is to kind of let people know what they do. And I go to these military bases all the time.

Starting point is 00:45:21 I've been to hundreds of them. And I go there and then I come back and I talk to people like you, Theo, and I tell people what I see. And I've met some of the most extraordinary people serving our country out there. Just some of my best friends are in the military. And I'm from somebody who's missing three limbs or four limbs

Starting point is 00:45:42 to, you know, some general who served his country for 42 years and is now retired. And when I met him, he was a major, you know, or something. I mean, you know, so I've been doing this a long time, and I've met extraordinary people. I want to serve them. I don't want them to get caught in the political games and all that stuff. These are our defenders. You know, where would we be if nobody wanted to do that?

Starting point is 00:46:07 Oh, if you had to sleep in fear, too? I mean, the fact that we, I mean, it's a little bit scary, certainly in certain neighborhoods in different places, but the fact if you had a sleeping complete fear, you know, and that somebody else is sleeping is not sleeping, so you don't have to. It's like, yeah, the things like that we don't think about. My dad would always make us pray for this serviceman when we were kids, I remember. I didn't even remember that until you just said that. But yeah, the fact that some of these people...

Starting point is 00:46:34 You did. How old were you? I was probably six or seven. I think when I first could remember that I was praying, you know. but I was I just remember that he would do that but I think uh yeah I think people used to have a different affinity for um maybe the military or some people did I don't know we had a different affinity as a country I remember the Pledge of Allegiance was like the most important thing you know and do it every morning yeah the fact that we were all together was one moment where it felt

Starting point is 00:47:03 like we were all together for something yeah absolutely you know if I could go back in time and do one thing differently for myself. Financially, it would be to save, save a little bit of money, just a little bit. Just put something away. Watch it grow. That's one thing that I really enjoy about acorns. Acorns is the financial wellness app that cares about where your money is going tomorrow. I've got my niece set up on acorns. I've got her mindset is changing. it's learning about investing and compounding interest. Acorns is a smart way to give your money a chance to grow. Sign up now and join the over 14 million all-time customers

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Starting point is 00:48:37 with whether I'm going to buy a product or not. I go right online. I look at those reviews. And it'll say on there, it says, able to stand by itself. It said that for a shelving unit I was buying. And I said, yeah, I won't that. If you run an e-commerce business,

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Starting point is 00:49:24 Upgrade to ShipStation today to get a 60-day free trial at shipstation.com slash Theo. There's no credit card or contract required, and you can cancel at any time. shipstation.com slash Theo. Your foundation does so many unique things. I saw the Snowball Express, which was really cool. Is that what it's called the Snowball Express? Yeah, that's a program for children of our fallen heroes. Yeah, tell me, there's a great photo.

Starting point is 00:49:54 I think it was from this year that you put up. Oh, this is so great. A thousand children of fallen soldiers to Disneyland. You guys all went? Yeah, we take them. I got involved with, there was an organization that started in 2006, and they brought a bunch of kids to Disneyland and Anheim. And after they did that event, they contacted me to tell me about the event.

Starting point is 00:50:20 And they wanted to do it again in 2007. They asked me to get involved, and I did. And started attending the event, started donating my band. American Airlines is a big supporter of that. they provide all the airfare, all the charter airplanes. They'll provide 12 charters from all over the country to fly the kids into this event. Thank you, American Airlines. That's amazing.

Starting point is 00:50:50 American Airlines, and they've been doing it now, you know, going back to the beginning. And I got involved, you know, like I said, it's almost 20 years. And we eventually moved it from Anaheim to Dallas, which is where American Airlines is based. And so we did the event there for about nine years, and I would come bring my band and all of that. And then I have this great relationship with Disney World. I've been narrating a show down there since 2000 every Christmas time. It's called the Candlelight Processional. And I would bring my family there.

Starting point is 00:51:29 and I thought this is the next place that we have to bring the kids. It was going to cost a lot more money. Yeah, that's the candlelight processional. I started in 2000, and I've done it many, many times. I'll be doing it again this year. When do you do it? I used to do it right. Sometimes I do it on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Starting point is 00:51:51 Wow. And now I do it because we're bringing the kids there. We, in 2018, we folded that organization Snowball Express into the Gary Senees Foundation because it was going to cost a lot more money to move it to Disney World. So we had the ability to raise the additional money. So now we take the kids to Disney World. And so when we do two events, we do military kids and we will have close to 1,000 children who have lost a parent. in military service, plus, you know, the surviving spouse, plus hundreds of volunteers.

Starting point is 00:52:34 I mean, we take over an entire hotel at Disney World, you know, 800 rooms and all that. It's very expensive. But what you see happening to these children when they come together and they meet each other and they meet, you know, other children that are going through the same thing, they've all lost a mom or a dad in the military. and they're all heartbroken kids and they're going through all that but they meet all these other kids and they befriend each other and they stay in touch with each other and then we provide year round events in states all over the country throughout the year for these families and then after we do the military event we bring children of fallen firefighters and police officers there and we'll have gosh we'll have 500 something kids of fallen firefighters and police officers there so we do

Starting point is 00:53:26 two back-to-back events, all expense paid. We just want them to come, and we want to shine a spotlight on them, and we want to just wrap our arms around these families and love on them so that they know that they can go home from that and know that there's a big, big, giant community of people that care about them, that don't forget what they're going through, that honor their hero, that they lost, and think about them every day. And that's what we do at the Gary Sinise Foundation. We have dozens of corporate sponsors that love the event.

Starting point is 00:53:59 And, you know, like I say, we probably have 2,000 people there, you know, work in the event with the volunteers and the staff and the Disney folks and then the families that we bring in. It's a gigantic event. And, you know, I'll always send them off on an airplane and, you know, I show up at the airport. That's what you were seeing there with me on the plane with the kids and all that. I mean, it's amazing, you know. It's nice to be reminded that there's an organization that's helping to fill in the gaps of, like, the government organizations. And it's not like, but that's what we need.

Starting point is 00:54:37 That's what we've always been, you know. It's like, in the end, we have to count on ourselves, right? Is there like a moment or two that stands out from some of the experiences on those types of weekends that? Yeah, I'm in hundreds and hundreds of families, you know, and they're all going through some. Difficult loss, you know, and unfortunately, each year there's a new family, you know. I mean, these are, these are, you know, we can't point to a war that's going on right now, but people are serving out there. Unfortunately, we lose people who take their own lives because they don't know where to turn. And they feel like that's the only way out, and that leaves the family behind.

Starting point is 00:55:23 And we don't want those families to feel like nobody cares, you know. This is this is a family who's served and sacrificed for our country. We're all, we all benefit from the service of our defenders and their families. So we have a role to play. I think we as citizens have a role to play. I have said this, that government does a certain amount, but I don't think we can expect government to do everything. everything for everybody.

Starting point is 00:55:55 And we have a role to play as citizens. And if every neighborhood, every community, every town, every city, every state in the country recognize that there are veterans and military families and first responders within those communities that are struggling and we reached out, took the initiative ourselves within our own communities to touch those families and take care of them and let them know, hey, we're here for you, whatever you need. If every community did that in the country, yeah, this stuff that you hear about veterans falling through the cracks and all that stuff and getting left by, they're waiting in line

Starting point is 00:56:35 for different things and stuff, you know, all of that would be greatly reduced, all those problems. If we as citizens just recognize that, hey, there are people out there that protect us, they defend us and uh i i appreciate that so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna neglect i'm not gonna take it for granted and who like who in my neighborhood who in my town who in my township um who has a family member that's over there serving that i could stop by and say hello or do something nice for leave a card in their mailbox or do so you know i'm saying just little things like that it's like i'm even asking myself it's like you know how can i be a part of even just my local community to

Starting point is 00:57:15 help let people, people around me feel recognized that their dad isn't over there in vain or their mother isn't over there serving in vain, that there aren't people thinking about them and praying for them and making themselves available if there's something else that the family needs. That little thing can make a big difference. There are big things that you can do, right? You can donate to national organizations. You can, you know, you can create an organization. But there are small things that you can do too you know you can just pat somebody on the back and say i appreciate you you know that's that's it that gesture you know if you're walking through an airport you see a soldier and you pat him on the back and say i appreciate what you're doing thank you for serving our country

Starting point is 00:57:59 you don't know if that person has just lost three buddies in something if he's coming home carrying a big heavy load and that little gesture that little pat on the back that little acknowledgement of what they're doing, yeah, that can go a long way. That can change somebody's day in a big way, just those little tiny gestures. I remember, you know, the kinds of stuff you hear about, and I made a practice of this. If I saw soldiers or something like that in a restaurant,

Starting point is 00:58:34 I'd always, like, anonymously pick up their check. I mean, this goes along, you know, this goes back a long way. well when I started my foundation we created a program and we call it serving heroes and now we've served well over a million meals on military bases firehouses you know police departments people like that bring me to one of the things next year if you if you do something yeah sure it's called well I know you live here now so oh yeah now I'm screwed now you're stuck I'm going to start learning how to march you'll be serving some heroes with us. I would love to, Gary. That would mean

Starting point is 00:59:14 that would fill my heart up. That's it right there. Yeah. So that's me. Oh, yeah, I love macaroni. That's, yeah, that's macaroni and cheese or beans or whatever it is. You know, we always get great food.

Starting point is 00:59:25 And we, you know, we have multiple programs at the foundation. Now, that little program there, just serving veterans at a VA or some, you know, military base or something like that, that little program can make a big difference. You know, somebody like me comes out,

Starting point is 00:59:41 and dishes out, hamburgers and beans and stuff. And they call home and say, hey, guess who gave me the beans today? Yeah, I mean, it can be doing fine. Yeah, it could be, Lieutenant Dan, he's dished out the beans. He's doing great, dude. But I've done it so many times. No, I love it. You know, remember the Palisades burning down?

Starting point is 01:00:03 Yeah. We were there a couple weeks later. We were dishing out food to the first responders. To all the first responders, the National Guard people that were there. they're serving hundreds of meals, just, you know, and that kind of stuff. They just saw a lot of bad stuff, you know, and those types of things can just help them through, hey, I'm not doing this. Yeah, that's the palisades here.

Starting point is 01:00:27 Wow. I'm not doing, that's Joe Montania on my right there. Is it really? Yeah, Joe. Oh, from CSI? On my left right there, that's John Androsic, who, from five for fighting, and their buddies of mine. They're both ambassadors for my.

Starting point is 01:00:41 foundation. I can't stand to fly. Is that them? Yeah, yeah, Superman. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And they're old buddies of mine. We've known each other a long time.

Starting point is 01:00:51 And I said, hey, we're dishing out food. Come on over. So they came over to do it. And we do these all over the place. I mean, you know, trying to make a difference. I go to some big AA meetings up there all the time. I go to some big A.A. meetings up there in the palisades.

Starting point is 01:01:05 Yeah. Some pretty big ones. We'd go to them at the VA over there. They had one over there. In Westwood? In Westwood. Yeah. Yeah, sure.

Starting point is 01:01:12 With that golf course in the back of that crazy place? Yes. We've done a bunch of those serving heroes at the VA in Westwood. I bet you have. That place, they just keep trying to repaint it to make it look like it's okay, you know? You know what I'm talking about? I told you that some of the VAs need a little work. But it also has a really cool old school feeling there.

Starting point is 01:01:33 But that's a, yeah, I've been over to that one a great deal just to go to meeting. Sometimes sometimes I'll sit out there and talk to some of the guys that are sitting around over there. Um, yeah, yeah, please let me know. If there's something I can do, if there's something I can be, help be a part of, um, I'd love to. I think this is like even just the fact that you came here and are sharing this stuff with us, it's important to be reminded. Sometimes you get, you get caught up in your own life so much. It's, you get, you forget about the things that are keeping your own.

Starting point is 01:01:59 We have thousands of donors that go to the Gary Saniz Foundation and help us do all this stuff. Yeah. You know, and I've been blessed because I've been, you know, I had a, you know, had good, good years. in Hollywood, and I've been able to take those resources and channel it into doing something good, and then, you know, provide something that the American people can support and come on board with. And now, like I said, we have hundreds of corporate donors that help us with all kinds of stuff. We build houses for our wounded. Oh, I just heard you guys are building, you're just building your 100th house, or what did I hear? On Veterans Day, we give away our 99th home in Virginia,

Starting point is 01:02:37 and then a couple weeks, just about 90th. days later, eight days later we give away our 100th home. Let's go. And how do these homes get built? That's wild. We have a great team of builders. These are all professionals. You know, we don't just get volunteers and hammer the nails and stuff. We get, we, we've had a team of very professional builders. They, you know, our, our work is not the only thing they do, but they're very, very good at, you know, building these homes. We come in. We rally the, communities around the service member. We just had just a few days ago.

Starting point is 01:03:19 We just had one of our events here in Tennessee called Walls of Honor, which is about halfway through the home. You can see the frame up in this home. We will do something before the drywall goes in. We'll have the community and corporate sponsors and people that are part of our building, they will come and they'll write messages on the frame. And these are messages that are just part of the house now. These beautiful messages of support and love and appreciation.

Starting point is 01:03:54 And we just had one of those events. I was just there just a few days ago. So you're on the go a lot with these things. This is amazing. And this is so if people wanted to, if people do want to donate, they could just donate to Gary Sini's Foundation and it goes to all these different things. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:04:10 Unless you want to designate it. something special or something like that, you can do that. And they can do it right on your website? Yeah, just garycenesFoundation.org. It helps us to do all the thing. And when I take my band out to a military base, that's, you know, the band is an initiative of the Gary Seneese Foundation, just one of our many, many programs that we have at the Gary Seneese Foundation,

Starting point is 01:04:35 to raise spirits and lift people up and to help them through. Wow, no, it's so great. Because sometimes you're like, what do I give to? What do I donate to? Especially these days you hear of so many charities and you don't really know what's going on. And then like people will create negative press about charities just to, you know, how evil it can be in the media. But just to know firsthand to hear all these great things, it's like, man, this feels like a safe place if I want to donate to that I know that the finances are going towards something important. So that, yeah, just because so many times people don't know what to donate to, they just pick something that they've heard of, which is fine.

Starting point is 01:05:10 but to know that this is there, that's super important. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, man. Thank you so much. I know you've had an interesting few years. Your son got very sick in the past few years. Yeah. Mac, his name, what was his full name?

Starting point is 01:05:29 Mac. First name is McKana, and everybody called him. We all called him Mac. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, there he is, handsome guy. Makanna, Anthony. Yeah, Mac was.

Starting point is 01:05:40 he started playing drums when he was nine years old. And he just took to it right away. Just incredibly had just a natural talent. And played all the way through high school. Look how proud he looks right there. He's pretending to look like that, like kind of austere, you know? Well, you know. Is austere a word?

Starting point is 01:06:05 Yeah, it is. After music school, he went to U.S. music school, and they went on tour. He was touring around overseas and around the country with different bands and whatnot. He came to work for the Gary Seney's Foundation in 2017. Wow. He just was kind of tired of the road, and I kept kind of bugging him a little bit. Well, why don't you dip your toe in the water and just come and work at the foundation part-time?

Starting point is 01:06:36 And he started to do it, and he fell in love with the mission. and that's that's that's mac and i on one of our uh trips where we took uh probably about 45 world war two veterans down to the national war two museum in new Orleans and we take them with our our program called soaring valor mac fell in love with that program and just loved being around the veterans and he was just getting so into working with the foundation he also was a great composer and wrote music for the foundation. And then in 2018, he was diagnosed with a very rare cancer called Cordoma. It starts in the spine.

Starting point is 01:07:25 And he had his initial tumor removed in September of 2018, but he had his initial tumor removed in September of 2018, but the cancer came back in May of 2019. He stayed working for the foundation while he was going through treatment until the end of 2019, and then things got very, very hard for him. And you can see him there in a wheelchair. He was disabled by the cancer,

Starting point is 01:07:56 couldn't walk anymore, couldn't play any music anymore, wasn't thinking about music at all. For 2020, 2020, 2021, 22, in early 2023, and this is a story that you see there that I posted on the Gary Seneese Foundation website about six weeks after he died. He worked for the foundation, and I wanted people to know that we lost one of our team. And people, you know, I didn't talk about this for six years while we were going through it. I just, we were just going through cancer and trying to fight it and hoping we would find some drugs that worked. And we, Mack tried

Starting point is 01:08:36 25 different drugs during a four and a half year period and nothing worked and it's a rare cancer I mean it's there's no cure for it so yeah in early 2023 though he said to me dad I've been thinking about this piece of music that I wrote in college that I never finished and I'm thinking I'd like to try to finish it and you know he hadn't been thinking about music at all when he said that I was just like I was so knocked out by that I said yes that do it do it and so he teamed up with a couple of my band members who he knew mac mac was our number two drummer if my guy danny gotley couldn't be there mac would play he grew up around the band he knew all the band everybody loved him so he went to work with uh dan meyers and ben lewis to start fleshing

Starting point is 01:09:28 out this piece called arctic circles and by july of 2020 He was in the studio right there recording. And he also played harmonica. He picked up harmonica in his hospital bed. He couldn't play drums, so he picked up the harmonica, and he started playing. And that's Mac playing the great American classic folk tune Shenandoah. Oh, yeah. With a string section behind him.

Starting point is 01:09:58 And you can see that video. You can see Arctic Circles and other videos. Mac, Seneese, YouTube, and hear some of this music on the YouTube. You can also download it. And Mac ended up after these sessions for Shenandoah in Arctic Circles. He decided he wanted to do a whole album. So along with his buddy, Oliver Schnee, composing Buddy from, that's Oliver right there, from USC, they went to work.

Starting point is 01:10:29 And Mac did an album called Resurrection and... revival and he finished the music was was done and ready in December of 2023 two weeks before he died he finished the record and we we posted up this story that's one of the sessions with my band for resurrection and revival this story is on the garrisonese Foundation website beautiful handsome young man he was incredible you can actually see right there on his nose there's a that's a tumor and um yeah no you can see his spirit right there and we're listening to one of the pieces played back to us right there and everybody was psyched out about it and thank you for sharing back with us today thank you for letting us

Starting point is 01:11:21 think about you with him and think about him thank for thank you for letting us speak his name today and, you know, it's important that I think when we say people's names that aren't here in front of us, that they feel it, that that's a real thing, right? To me, that feels very real. Sam is when we pray for people that all those things are very real. Like, I think our spirits are very much alive for a long time, and so thank you for letting us. A very faithful guy. Was he?

Starting point is 01:11:52 Was he? Yeah. Catholic faith helped him through the... most challenging difficult stuff and what was something that amazed you about your son as you're watching him go through that you know theo i never heard him say uh you know that why me stuff or why is this happening or anything like that you know it was just i remember when we found out he had a tumor and the way he dealt with it was just oh that's why my tailbone's been you know for two years you know he thought it was a tailbone fracture or bruise from a bike accident or something and oh okay so we're going to take it out and then get on with life

Starting point is 01:12:42 and he faced it like that he always had this sort of he was he was what i called a graceful warrior and such courage and such grace under fire um because because this cancer was devastating. I mean, it was one thing after another. It just kept coming at us. And I was like the one in the family who had to guide us, you know, through it. I stopped acting in 2019 at the end of 2019.

Starting point is 01:13:19 2020 became so difficult that I just never went back to acting. And I stayed, you know, I just stayed in a battle. And he was the inspiration for everything, the way he courageously just faced it and just took it on the chin and took it in stride. And if we could keep him out of pain and if we could keep him from feeling too sick from the treatment and all that, he was just living. He was, you know, he's in a hospital bed and we had to hoist him up with a. a thing called a Hoyer lift, and you lift them out of the bed and put them in a wheelchair or whatever. Like one of those shrimp net things almost, which is crazy. Well, it's a sling. It's a sling that you put underneath them, and then you hook it to this arm, and then you crank it up, and it lifts them out of the bed.

Starting point is 01:14:15 It's kind of cool. It's kind of like a stork. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what we had, and we had to get used to all that kind of stuff. Wheelchair vans and treatment and, you know, radiation, and, you know, you had multiple serves. surgeries, and he went through all of this, which was such grace. And the last year of his life, when he said he wanted to go back and write that music, in some ways, even though it was getting harder and we were running out of drug options and all of that and his health was, you know, deteriorating, in some ways that was one of the best

Starting point is 01:14:54 years of his entire life because he he accomplished what he set out to do he wanted to make this record he wanted to make this music he wanted to resurrect and revive this old piece that he never finished and he did it and he did all of that and and then after he died I found all this additional music in his files that he wrote and tucked away that some some he'd written for the foundation and I had heard it but then I found all this other stuff

Starting point is 01:15:24 Going all the way back to his college days. And so I produced a second record, Resurrection and Revival Part 2. That's actually a story about resurrection and revival part two. Go back to that picture, I just want to see him. Oh, look how happy he is, huh? And that is, we blew up a bunch of pictures of Mac and put them in the studio when we were recording. And, yeah, there they are. We put the pictures around.

Starting point is 01:15:51 You had the orchestra there. They're all playing. And a lot of them played on the first record, you know. And so we made a second record, Redurrection and Revival Part 2, which is a double vinyl album. And Mack wanted all the proceeds that came in. And if people bought the vinyl album, he wanted those proceeds to go to the Gary Seneese Foundation. And so we've... How special, huh?

Starting point is 01:16:19 How special for your son to, like, just to make it such a... family mission, you know? You know what's cool, too? You can see here, like all those messages right in the middle of the screen there, those are, there are thousands of messages that were posted on the Gary Seneese Foundation website after people read this story. And I can't tell you how meaningful that was for people to write in and leave these messages for our family and how helpful that was for us to read. These are from my bandmates and some of the people that worked for the foundation, but these are the messages that came in from the general public and they continue to come in. And to have this kind of support and people sharing their own stories of

Starting point is 01:17:10 loss and going through it and reading Max's story and listening to his music and what listening to his music was doing for them that was all of that has been so helpful to us in our loss it's a you know i mean to lose a son is it's you know it's the hard hardest thing that i've had some hard things in life but uh to to watch our son go through that and and and to lose him in the end was the most difficult thing in life but also like I said the blessings that we've had you know with his music and for sure you know and now I've got a I've got a third record going I found even more

Starting point is 01:17:59 of Mac stuff let's go I mean it's incredible there's a third record going I just he wrote so many things that he never thought would I mean you know how a musician will get an idea they'll kind of chunk it out throw it onto a recorder tuck it away over here and then, you know, go on. And so I found all these things that he wrote and tucked away. And we brought a whole bunch of those to life, orchestral music, jazz things, rock tunes.

Starting point is 01:18:29 Something as big as, you know, him sitting down with his computer programs and doing big sweeping string orchestrations to him singing a melody into his phone that he didn't want to forget. that was in his head and he sings this melody and so i've i've taken those melodies gone to to my my guys at work with me on it and said let's bring these melodies to life and so many of max melodies are coming to life now in in the third record it's really it's spectacular it's beautiful and all the proceeds will go to the gary sinise foundation to help our mission he loved our mission at the gary sinise foundation well it's just so amazing that he got in there and was able to just like just feel the joy of being a part of serving others, you know?

Starting point is 01:19:20 If you get a chance, play some of that. Oh, I would love to. It's good stuff. It's really amazing music. I want to listen to something in just a second here. Do you feel like there was a way that he tried to prepare you for him passing? Or what is that like?

Starting point is 01:19:36 Like, is that a strange question? No, no, it's not. You know what? He was preparing. He knew he had an incurable cancer, and every drug we were trying wasn't working. And he tried like 25 different drugs during a four-and-a-half-year period. And we would maybe... Was there plant medicines and stuff you tried to even?

Starting point is 01:20:01 Yeah. I mean, at one point he was doing sea cucumbers from New Zealand, you know, that were showing some positive signs, like on an immunotherapy side, And we had a very good oncologist who was, we never got to that point where they said we don't know what to do. We don't have any ideas. Our oncologist was like, Mac, as long as you want to keep trying, then I'll keep looking for something to try. And he did. And he kept trying to find something.

Starting point is 01:20:40 And, you know, unfortunately, we'd get to a certain point with one drug and we didn't see enough or something. so you bang into the next one. And, you know, we had a lot of drugs go through Mac at a certain point. And it was very, you know, very, very challenging, you know, to fight that. But I never saw him not want to do it. Later on, I found videos that he made. and when I say he was trying he was preparing himself he was also leaving some things for the family and he wrote some things that I found and he left messages and at one point in 2022 he had to go in

Starting point is 01:21:31 for very serious he was having a very serious bladder issue his bladder was just shutting down and he had to have tubes put in his kidneys to drain the urine directly out of his kidneys and he was in the ICU for about 12 days and at that point he thought this you know he was wondering if that was going to be it you know the end so he started thinking

Starting point is 01:22:01 and he started writing and he started leaving videos and he started and then I after he died I started finding all this stuff messages from him things that he was thinking and not you know to be sad you know no but i i want to leave something he was saying i want to leave something that people so people will know me a little better and he was thinking ahead you know to the time where he might not make it and uh you know with everything that was happening to him he was he was realistic you know he was very realistic about the fight and the uphill battle that we had. And we weren't seeing enough progress, you know,

Starting point is 01:22:41 on the positive side to combat the cancer. So he was preparing in a lot of ways. And, you know, like I said, I've discovered a lot of things. And I've discovered more about my son than I could have imagined, you know, just his talent, his wisdom, his spirituality, a lot of beautiful things that because i've spent countless hours you know all the time digging into things about my son and i'm working on a you know something that will come out next year about him and you know so i'm i'm i'm spending a lot of time and and mac is he continues to help me and and we share you know my band plays two songs and yeah two songs yeah we're playing at the opera next week we're playing at the Opry next week and Mac's going to have his

Starting point is 01:23:37 Opry debut. Let's go. With two of his songs. He sounds like such a gift. That's what he sounds like. Was he always like that even when he was small? Like when he was a child? Yeah, you know, he was a kid, you know, like other kids. But he was, Mac was a very, always very sensitive. His mom, I think he's got this sensitive beauty that his mother has. And she gave him a lot of that.

Starting point is 01:24:03 And at one point he went off to college and he kind of, you know, was doing the college thing and kind of went through a period, you know, where he's a little strayed. But then he came back to his faith in a really big way. You know, when he, at, you know, a couple years out of college, he was looking for something more than what he had. And that's when he started,

Starting point is 01:24:33 kind of revisiting his faith and i'll tell you the fact that he kind of uh reinvested in in that in 2017 in such a profound way that was so meaningful to him the fact that he did that when he did was a gigantic benefit to his fight because the following year he's diagnosed with this terrible cancer and he has something inside to help support him yeah and and and the timing couldn't have been wow better for that you know for him to have that strength and he always relied on that throughout the fight um were you so proud of him oh yeah could not be prouder of anyone. I'm proud of my kids.

Starting point is 01:25:39 Our daughters are amazing. And, you know, through the whole thing, we're all heartbroken, of course, but our daughters were amazing through it all and loved their brothers so much. And that's the three of them right there. Yeah, tell me about Max's sisters if you have a minute.

Starting point is 01:25:59 Yeah. Well, there's the one picture. they're um where they're looking back at the camera yeah that's my daughter sophie on the right and then mac in the middle and then yeah that one there and then ella the youngest ella's pregnant with her third child right now let's go ella somebody's knocking her up huh okay sorry but yeah we know how it happens that's terrible that's terrible i'm just trying to make you laugh i'm just trying to And Sophie on the right, she's got three kids. Oh, he's got a big family.

Starting point is 01:26:37 Mack loved his little nieces. My wife is amazing. That's her on the right there with Mac. We all have a very close relationship, and we all have helped each other through, you know, this very difficult time. No question about it. just the value of family of having people you know you know in the beginning when you're going through a loss like that i mean we've all been through terrible loss but but this particular thing in the beginning you're all you're all exactly in the same place at the same time you're all

Starting point is 01:27:21 crying every day all the time and and then as time goes on you start to manage your grief a little bit more. Just manage those moments. The moments sneak up on you and stuff like that. And sometimes they'll hit me and, you know, all of a sudden I'm in a very emotional place and, you know, my wife will just put her hand on my shoulder, you know, whereas in the beginning she'd start crying herself or my daughter would start crying. We'd all be crying at the same time. And you kind of help each other through those moments you just know okay dad's having a moment here with mac and we just have to help them through you know and so you learn to process your grief a little better and the thing i would say to anybody you know is it is those beautiful memories that you have of somebody that you miss like that

Starting point is 01:28:22 and that you've lost those are the things that sustain you you know and you have to hang on to him. You can't, you know, Mac, I know Mac doesn't want me to grieve and be sad and depressed all day long and, you know, miss him all day long and, you know, all of that. He wants us to go on and live. And anybody that we love that we lose, that's what they, they don't want us sitting around wasting a minute of time, just not making the most out of the life that we have. And that's what we do to kind of celebrate and honor those that we've lost. We live on for them. And I know that Mack is proud of me and what I'm doing with his music, he's probably a little freaked out about it because I'm so obsessed with it.

Starting point is 01:29:12 But he's also like, Dad, you took that little idea and turned it into something. I know. And sure, Oliver, I brought Oliver Schnee back on. And Oliver's producing the second record. Let's go. Thank you, Oliver. Yeah, Oliver's doing a tremendous job with arranging certain things. My keyboard player, Ben Lewis, has taken a bunch of the piano music that I found that Mac did

Starting point is 01:29:36 and woven these things together, these beautiful melodies that Mac created. My violin player, Dan Myers, who worked with Mac on a song called Quasi Love that's on the second record. It's a rock and tune. The last song that Mac wrote, he wrote it with Dan. and Dan is working on three different songs right now. They all came out of Max Piles. So we are doing something pretty cool, and I think Mac has probably just kind of been shocked,

Starting point is 01:30:06 a bit in shock that we're going so crazy with it all. Oh. Well, it's like, yeah, in the end, it's like, it's just how much can we try and love, right? How much can we try and love? How much can we try to be there to fill in the gas? of the world, of the parts that are tough, you know, how much can we be there for each other? Those are the things that mean something, you know, they really are. And it's just, it's the truest thing.

Starting point is 01:30:37 And parents, you know, we just, you know, we just, you know, spending time with your kids and loving on your kids and all of that, that's, that's precious. It's precious stuff, you know, loving on our, loved ones and making sure that they know that we do you know that's that's precious uh because none of us know you know none of us oh yeah especially how you even like touch somebody or hold somebody you know yeah it was like most of my life i just wanted my dad to like put his hand on the back of my neck you know yeah give you a pat yeah or just like even like hold me like that you know it's like a very like uh familial type of thing you know there's things you

Starting point is 01:31:23 Yeah, we just want to feel, you know, connected. We want to feel cared about. And, yeah, I thank you and Mack for creating such an environment that continues to just nurture and inspire that in the world, not in an egotistical way, but in a way of just like, hey, we feel like this is important. So come and join us on this journey of being there to give out a meal, to give out a hug, to watch a family smile when they're. they get to walk into Disney World with pens of their dad or their mother on their chest and feel like they're not alone or they're not forgotten about. That's exactly right. And I know with regards to Mack, he loved the foundation so much.

Starting point is 01:32:11 He loved the people that we serve. He wrote a great patriotic anthem called The Rise. It's really an incredible piece of music. and he wrote it for the foundation after he started going on these trips with World War II veterans. Wow. You know, young people,

Starting point is 01:32:29 we pair young students up, you know, like a 16 or 17-year-old with a 95-year-old World War II veteran who survived Iwo Jima or something like that. Yeah. And they get to learn from them.

Starting point is 01:32:43 And Mack learned from them and he was inspired by them. And now we have his music to share with the, You know what? Can I mention this? For sure. Last May, both resurrection and revival and resurrection and revival part two were among the top ten most downloaded records in America on iTunes.

Starting point is 01:33:10 And this is like Blake Shelton, Morgan Wall and all these guys are on the top ten. And there's Max Seneas with two records. And Forbes, a writer. with Forbes saw that and was like, who's Max Senez? You know, what is this? And so he wrote a story on it, on how these records were among the most downloaded records in America on iTunes. So the music is getting out there. The music is being shared. The music is helping the Gary Seneas Foundation. We have more music come and we wanted to continue to inspire people and, you know, sharing the story of Mac and the foundation is something that I can do all day long

Starting point is 01:33:53 because it's a lot of beautiful work. Oh, well, just the beauty that went into it, the life that went into it, you know? And the fact that, you know, that it's like Mac's life has been it is now in it, you know? It's like it's in it. It's giving your life to making something that's not just of you, you know? Like you were saying, like getting out of yourself.

Starting point is 01:34:17 You know, I know when I'm, not feeling good it's like i got to go do something for somebody else i need to call somebody else and ask them how they're doing the only solution uh to me is you you know that's really the truth for me anyway uh that's that's that's that's true that's and on the way out today we will play a couple of max tunes we'll keep um we'll just go to our screen card of the episode and we'll play arctic circles and we'll play maybe we play that uh the veterans at the anthem what is that one called you It's called The Rise, yeah, that's on the YouTube channel as well. Okay, yeah.

Starting point is 01:34:52 So maybe we can play The Rise. Very patriotic song. Is it good? Well, that's perfect for Veterans Day. Yeah, absolutely. And for this week. And yeah, Gary, we want to double our donation to you guys. Sorry for being cheap earlier.

Starting point is 01:35:07 Thank you. But, yeah, on behalf of our podcast and the people that listen. And just thank you so much for your work. And for just coming to spending time with us today. And for letting us spend time with Max Life. You know, I can even feel him smiling, dude. I don't even know him, but I can feel it. Thanks, Steve.

Starting point is 01:35:24 It's just so special. I'll come back when we got that part three. We can listen to that one. Okay. We can just sit here and listen to it sometime, too, if we want. Awesome, bud. We don't have to talk a bunch. Tell your wife, thank you so much for being supportive of you.

Starting point is 01:35:36 And I don't know what she does with the organization. She may do a ton. But just tell her thank you so much for being a supporter as well, because I know sometimes there's always an amazing woman behind the name sometimes and stuff. so um yeah i've got i've got a great family supporting us both our sons-in-law we we got lucky and you know we're we're just we're very blessed in a lot of ways yeah um gary sinise thank you so much brother uh happy veterans day to you and um and yeah let me know when i can come in uh and help out next year i will but okay good thank you thank you thank you

Starting point is 01:36:17 I'm not I'm going to I'm I'm going to I'm I'm going to I'm I'm going

Starting point is 01:36:31 on I'm I'm going to be able to go to I'm going to be. We're going to be able to be. We're going to be able to be. I'm going to be able to be able to be. We're going to be able to be.

Starting point is 01:38:12 Oh. Oh. Thank you. You know, It's not just you. News is moving faster than ever. And I'm hoping that I can help you make sense of it all. My name is Jamie Poisson and I host Canada's most popular daily news podcast.

Starting point is 01:39:38 It's called Frontburner. We break down one story each day and talk to the reporters, the politicians, and people at the heart of it. Our goal is to help you stay informed without feeling overwhelmed. You can find and follow Frontburner on Spotify.

This Past Weekend - #623 - Gary Sinise

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