‘Top’, an active duty Marine stationed in Japan, joins the show. Top talks about growing up in Dodge City, Kansas, joining the Corps, and being challenged in a way he’d never been before. Starting in Death Valley, where it was so hot that his boots sunk into the pavement, to setting off a massive fireworks show in the desert of Iraq, to the mountains of North Carolina, on to a 10-month tour on a Navy ship and eventually to Japan, Top details a fascinating career and the process of learning to become part of something bigger than himself. Finally, Top talks about starting his own podcast, The Jarhead Podcast, as a way to give back to young Marines, and to the Corps that has given him so much.

The Jarhead Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jarhead/id1499447198

Our guest, Scott DeLuzio, served in the Connecticut National Guard as an infantryman. Scott, like many of his generation, was deeply affected by the terrorist attacks on America on 9/11. His younger brother Steven joined the Vermont National Guard and Scott followed shortly after, joining his home state’s NG. In late 2009, Scott’s unit was called up to deploy to Afghanistan. While there, he learned that Steven had been killed in action. Scott shares this tragic story and the effects on him and his family and how it ultimately led him to start his own podcast, Drive On.

“Garrett” joins the podcast to reflect on a twenty-plus year career in the military, which started in the Army and ended in the Navy. Along the way, Garrett completed boot camp in the bitter cold of Missouri, got his jump wings at Ft. Benning, spent a year in the Gulf during the first Persian Gulf War, and held multiple classified positions along the way.

Brian Anderson, a newly retired Army Officer, joins the show. Anderson talks about being a restless kid in Sacramento who wanted to get out and experience the world. The Army provided that chance. Brian shares stories of getting to boot camp during the coldest Midwest winter in decades and being thrown together with three white dudes, four black dudes, and a Cuban, and making it all work. Brian details his career as first a medical tech and then later in logistics. His career saw him in Korea three times over twenty years with stops in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Washington, South Carolina, Kansas, and Texas along the way.