← Duologue with Leslie Heaney
Duologue with Leslie Heaney
The Real Lt. Dan: Gary Sinise on Service and Sacrifice
00:56:21
This week on Duologue, Leslie sits down with actor, humanitarian, and true American patriot Gary Sinise, best known for his role as Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump, to talk about his life’s mission of service. From his early work with Vietnam veterans to fo...
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- [00:03]
A
Hi, everyone, this is Leslie, and you're listening to Duologue with Leslie Heaney. I am so excited about today's episode with the Amazing Gary Sinise. You probably know Gary from his incredibly successful acting career and his portrayal of Lieutenant Dan and Forrest Gump. But what you might not know is that his real life's mission has been serving our veterans, first responders and their families through the Gary Sinise Foundation. And he spent years helping those who sacrificed so much for our country, especially the families of those who've lost loved ones in the line of duty. Gary is a true patriot. This is honestly one of my favorite episodes I've ever recorded. He is just the most compassionate, selfless person I've ever spoken with. And this conversation is quite powerful and emotional and inspiring. I think it's one that you will not want to miss. I think so many of your fans know you from your iconic acting roles. Obviously, Lieutenant Dan, Lieutenant Dan band from Forrest Gump and Apollo 13 and Ransom. Your character in Ransom actually is one of the scariest characters I've ever seen on a film. I thought that cop was really incredible and the Green Mile and all your work on csi, but I don't think people really recognize that long before your incredible acting career took off, you were supporting veterans and families all the way back to the 1980s, from what I was reading.
- [01:28]
B
Yeah, with the veterans in my family, it kind of starts there, and probably more specifically because of the Vietnam veterans on my wife's side of the family. And I remember meeting her brothers. One was a combat helicopter pilot in Vietnam, and the other one was a West Point graduate, two tours in Vietnam. And I got to know them a little bit and they. They started talking to me quite a bit about what it was like to serve in Vietnam and then come home. And then I met my wife's sister's husband, who was also a Vietnam veteran, a combat medic in Vietnam. And all three of them really had a profound impact on me back in the 70s and early 80s in just that, you know, they weren't that much older than I was when they were in Vietnam and I was in high school and. And it really made me think quite a bit about how little I paid attention to what was going on in Vietnam. When I was going to high school, I was just, you know, doing rock and roll and doing high school plays and that kind of thing. And. And then when I met them, I just started to reflect a lot and think a lot about how oblivious I was, you know, as a kid to what was going on in Vietnam, even though it was on television all the time, I remember, and, you know, the casualties reports were on television and everything. It would kind of. I would see it and it would go right over my head. And I do remember my parents being quite nervous that, you know, I was going to graduate high school and get drafted. But, yeah, the draft ended the year that I graduated from high school. And then when I met. When I met all of them, they really made me think quite a bit. And that's why I started to get involved with Vietnam veterans back in the 80s and just trying to support them in different ways through my theater company, Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago and whatnot. And then, you know, that kind of set the stage for a lot of things that came afterwards.
- [03:53]
A
Yeah, I think, you know, I was reading that, you know, part of it, you know, was your interest in kind of, you know, getting involved and supporting them. As you observe, sort of how they were kind of treated, particularly our Vietnam veterans, obviously treated when they came back from that war. And so coming out of that, you know, you talked about your theater. Were you. Were you. Were you doing fundraisers even back then for veterans or in what ways were you getting involved with them?
- [04:22]
B
Yeah, a little bit. I remember when I was one of the founders of Steppenwolf theater in the mid-70s, and then later on I started to direct plays. And when I. And then eventually I became the artistic director of the company. And when I became the artistic director company, you know, as a. As. As. As a leader, I wanted to direct more. And I started thinking about finding a play that would speak to the Vietnam veteran experience. And there were. There were a few plays that have been written, but I was kind of looking for something new. And I remember as the artistic director, I would subscribe to different publications from around the country to see what was going on locally in their theater communities. You know, New York, I'd get to all kinds of stuff. Well, here's what's going on in New York. You know, Atlanta, different. Different place. In Minneapolis, I'd get different publication, see what was happening. And I had a publication from LA called the Drama Log, I remember, and I was reading the Dramalog, and I found. I started reading about this play that had been written by a group of Vietnam veterans, and they were actually performing the play themselves. And so that was like, right in the wheelhouse. I was looking for that. I got on an airplane. My parents had moved from Chicago to la, so I got on an airplane in Chicago and flew out to la, stayed with my parents and went and saw that show, and it was called Tracers. And I was very moved by it. Now I went back the next night and saw it again. I saw it two nights in a row, and then I asked them if they would let me do it in Chicago. I had to kind of poke and prod to get them to kind of release the rights to me. They felt, like, very possessive of it, as they should. They wrote it. It was all stories. It was written in workshops. So this. Wonderful.
- [06:38]
A
So what year. Sorry, what year is this?
- [06:41]
B
Is this early 80s or early 80s? Early 80s. This was probably around 80, 81.
- [06:48]
A
Okay.
- [06:49]
B
And, you know, I. I really wanted to do the show. And the creator of it was a Vietnam veteran named John DiFusco. And John had put an ad in the paper saying, hey, I want to create a play about Vietnam, and I need fellow veterans to come together. So he got a group of veterans together, and they started workshopping the play. And what they would do is get together every day and start talking about their experiences in Vietnam. And they would talk, and he would write these things down. And then they crafted a play out of it. And. And it was very, very moving. And I wanted them. I wanted to do it. And they felt in the beginning that it should only be done by veterans. And we were, you know, we were a group of actors at Steppenwolf. No veterans in the company. But once they. Eventually, I think about a year later, we took our first play to New York from. From Chicago, and it was a big hit. It was a play called True west that John Malkovich and I were in. And it was the first time we were. Nobody knew who we were, and we went to New York, and all of a sudden we're in this big hit and we're getting all this attention. And then we started bringing other shows to New York, and Steppenwolf was starting to get a lot of attention, which kind of validated us in the minds of the Vietnam veterans who had written Tracers and thought, oh, well, this company is, you know, they could do it. So they gave me the rights, and I went to work on it in 83, and then it opened in 84. And it became a very, very popular show, especially with veterans that started to hear about it and they started to come. And then we started to provide a free performance each week. Tuesday nights were free for veterans. And all of a sudden we would have, you know, a couple hundred veterans in the audience. We have 280 seats in there. And, you know, I mean, it would be filled with veterans, especially Vietnam veterans, because this was the story. This was their story, and it was being told on stage. I actually. There were members of my company that were in it, but I also brought in a couple outside actors who were actually Vietnam veterans, and they were in it as well. So we had two veterans.
- [09:11]
A
Oh, that's cool.
- [09:12]
B
And the veterans in Chicago just started to rally around the show. And that led me to start supporting different efforts with regards to veterans in the city of Chicago. I ended up helping to build a memorial in Lansing, Illinois, that honored our Vietnam veterans. And I was working with a group of Vietnam veterans who came to the show, like, every week. And then I befriended a bunch of them and wanted to help them. So I started helping locally Vietnam veterans in Chicago. And that. That was a full ten years before I played Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump.
- [09:48]
A
When you got that, when your agent sent you or whoever sent you the role for Lieutenant Dan because you'd done all this work for veterans and you kind of read about his story, did you feel like that was a part that you really could relate to and wanted to play, having had this kind of close contact and sort of understanding of the veteran experience by doing so much work with them?
- [10:09]
B
Definitely, definitely. I. I felt like teed up, you know, like. Like the work that I'd done in the 80s and the. And. And the Vietnam veterans in my family and the Vietnam veterans I had met in Chicago and the efforts, you know, to support them and all of that. When Lieutenant Dan came along and I had the opportunity to audition for it, which was a full 10 years after I'd done all this work in Chicago, I just felt like this was right. And luckily, so did the producers.
- [10:45]
A
Yeah, exactly. I guess it was about 10 years later that you founded the Lieutenant Dan Band. How did that. I mean, you mentioned that, like, you know, back in the day when you were in high school, you were, you know, acting and doing some rock and roll. So you all the. You always were a musician, obviously, or had that passion. But how did you decide to kind of bring it all? And of course, the name is so amazing. And I loved yesterday. Before we started, I mentioned to Gary, my husband and I went to the Franklin Family day and saw Lt. Dan Bann play yesterday. And there was one. I guess you were doing a recording the day before, which was Halloween, and a bunch of Lt. Dan's showed up dressed up in Lt. Dan costumes for your recording studio, which was awesome. But tell us, how did the band get started?
- [11:33]
B
My whole band played a joke on Me. And I was sitting in the studio by myself, and I was just waiting, you know, to get started, and all of a sudden, I was wondering where everybody was. And all of a sudden, they all started walking in, and they all had Lieutenant Dan Weed and Lieutenant Dan Hawaiian shirts and cigars and sunglasses. And they all walked in, and it was. It was really funny. And, you know, it was a. It was a great Halloween joke for me. Look, the band. The band came out of USO work that I started doing after September 11th. I felt like teed up after September, you know, first on September 11th. When that happened, boy, I was. I was impacted, like so many of us were, and I wanted to do something else. So when we started deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan, I volunteered to go visit our troops and started doing that. I would just go on handshake tours, and I had some players that I played with for fun in Chicago. When I would go to Chicago and visit for different things, we'd get together and order some pizza and play some music. And, you know, I started doing these USO tours. I'd go out and shake hands and take pictures and visit with the troops and. And I started to talk to the uso. I said, you know, I have some players that I play with. I could. I could bring them on a tour if you. If you'd let me. And I kept going on these handshake tours. I did six or seven of them, and just every time I go on a tour, I'd say, what about letting me go on a. A band tour? So they eventually said yes to that, the uso, and we put a tour together. I called up my bandmates. I mean, it wasn't even a band at that time. It was just guys that I would play with for fun. And I called. I called and said, hey, guess what? I think we can go on a USO tour. And so we started rehearsing, put some songs together, and we went down to Diego Garcia, which is an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. We have a naval base and A and B1 bombers down there that were making runs up to Afghanistan at that time. And so we flew down there. It's pretty far away. Maybe the USO was calculating that. They didn't never ask to hear a CD or anything like that. They kind of trusted me that it was there.
- [14:17]
A
Yeah.
- [14:17]
B
Yeah. Well, they sent us way far away. So we went down to Diego and we played down there, and then we went up to Singapore and then over to Korea, and that was in February of 2004. And they got some pretty good reports from folks, and I asked them if we could go on another tour. And then we did. And then, you know, one tour after, it just went on and on. And I think I did a hundred USO tours between the band and just going on a visit, you know, visiting a hospital or visiting a war zone or something like that. And then when I created my foundation, we just folded the band into the foundation as kind of a program so that I could actually offer the ban to military bases and hospitals on our own. And so the American people who donate to Gary Sinise foundation have helped me do hundreds and hundreds of shows all over the world to support our troops.
- [15:27]
A
You know, I obviously read a lot about the foundation and all the amazing work that you do, but, you know, it was really. I was excited to get the opportunity to see the band, you know, firsthand this past weekend. And not only, as I said, you guys should go on tour, just to be on tour because you're such a great band, but just having so many veteran families in the audience and first responders in the audience and that service that you're providing to them, to know that they're supported and not forgotten, it just was a great feeling of community and love this past weekend. And Franklin was really, really awesome to see.
- [16:00]
B
You know, I always wanted to play music that everybody was going to know and love, you know, from. From the little children of, you know, the. The men and women who are maybe deployed and they're. And the families are. Are still at the base and that kind of thing to. To older veterans and everybody in between. So we play, as you noticed the other day, you know, we play a lot of hits and, you know, it's a. It's a variety show so that everybody gets a little something. And every, you know, most everybody knows every single song that we play and so they sing along and have a great time.
- [16:36]
A
We do every song. Every song. That's what I'm saying you could do. I mean, I feel like there's weddings, fiftieths, birthdays. I mean, you've got all. The music was so great and it was great to see. There was a tent with some veterans and actually many of them that were sitting there were Vietnam veterans, so older veterans that were, you know, so appreciative of what you were doing. So you're doing all these concerts for. For the military. And then what kind of prompted you to formalize it for the foundation in 20. I think it was 2011 or so that you did that. And how did you decide what the focus of the mission for the organization was going to be or the foundation was going to be.
- [17:16]
B
Well, one of the ways I wanted to help as many of our military and veteran community as possible. So one of the ways I did that in the beginning, I started with the uso. You know, what is. What does an actor do? You call the USO and you go out there and support. So I started doing that with the uso, and as I would go around, I would meet a lot of different people that were doing a lot of different things to support the military. And I would volunteer my services to help them raise money or help them raise awareness for what they were doing. I wanted to help as many folks that were defending our country or, you know, veterans or first responders as possible. And so I got involved with a lot of different nonprofits. There are thousands of nonprofits in this kind of military and first responder community. And so I would volunteer to go to an event for them, help them raise money, do PSAs, you know, to raise awareness for what they were doing, raise money, donate money, whatever it was. I was trying to help as many of these nonprofits as possible. And after doing that for, you know, a dozen years, you know, it was apparent that this was something that I was going to continue doing. So how best to do that when I'm only one guy and I'm. I'm trying to support 30 different nonprofits, you know.
- [18:47]
A
Yeah.
- [18:47]
B
And so I thought, well, I think starting my own would be the way to the next good thing to do. And so, having been in the space for a long time, I developed a fairly decent reputation within the military community and with the public that I was trying to shine a spotlight on the people that were serving our country. And so I decided to call it the Gary Sneeth foundation, because that people, when you put your name on something, I mean, people, you know, you gotta. You gotta put your money where your mouth is. And I wanted people to know that I was serious about it, and I wanted them to trust what I was doing. So I put my name on the foundation. We launched it in 2011 and publicly creating a website so that people could actually go to the website, see what we were doing, and donate to help me do more of it. And so as time has gone on, now we're in our 15th year, more and more people have come to join us in the effort, supporting us with donations. We have, you know, we build homes for our wounded, we take care of families of our fallen heroes. We're entertaining, you know with the band, all these different efforts, we send comedy shows and other entertainers out as well as my band. But we want to do, always do more and there's a lot, lot to do. So we, we're very grateful obviously to the people that go to the foundation donate so that we can always spread our arms a lot wider and cover a lot more territory.
- [20:30]
A
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- [22:30]
B
Well, I would say that everything we do at the Gary Sinise foundation has mental health benefits. You know, every program that we have at the foundation is to uplift that's the heartbeat of the foundation, is to make people feel better, to, to raise them up, to give them strength, to give them inspiration, to give them hope and to, and to, you know, impact them in ways that are very positive. So anything from entertaining, I mean, when we go, we take the band out every, we lift everybody up and they know, okay, yeah, you know, we just had a good time. But Gary also delivered a message, you know, an important message of appreciation and gratitude that, that, that's something that they can carry with them. You know, the homes that we build, these are homes that, you know, somebody who's, you know, very, very severely injured, multiple amputations, traumatic brain injuries, severe burns, blindness, whatever it is, they have special challenges in just living day to day. So we provide these smart technology, mortgage free homes that are designed specifically for the needs of each individual service member that we're building. And when you, and when you provide more independence for that service member, you know, they, you know, you have all kinds of things in the house that's, that are set just for them, you know, so that, you know, we talk to them. What are the challenges you're having in your home currently? We want to make that much better for you. And so when you do that for the service member, you provide more independence and support to the family who's there taking care of that wounded service member. So we have multiple partners that help us with our homes. A lot of companies have come on board over the years seeing what we're doing, believing in what we're doing, wanting to be a part of it, providing roofs and flooring and plumbing and, you know, tile and all, all these different materials. We have many, many national partners that do every single one of our homes, no matter where it is in the country. And then when we get someplace, we will always bring in local, local support too, of people that are, and we tell them what we're doing and they either give us a big discount or they donate or whatever. But we want to, you know, we want to bring the community together around that service member. Building communities of support is part of the mission statement I created at the foundation. So we want to build those communities and we have. Yeah, I mean, just multiple programs have come out of all the other things that I was doing before I had the foundation, I saw where the needs were. I was trying to help fill those needs. And then when I created the Gary S. Needs foundation, we just wanted to do more of all of that. And that's what we're doing.
- [25:37]
A
I was reading and I love that you were saying sort of about bringing in the community, because when you do these builds or you retrofit these houses, you're also letting the neighbors know in the community know that they have a veteran in their neighborhood or joining their neighborhood. And that is also part of building that community for that veteran. Right, Is letting the neighbors know that they're there and, and ways that they can support. And I know you also do a lot of work with gold star families, too, which are families who've lost loved ones. And you yourself had a devastating loss of death of your son Mac from cancer. Do you feel that you having that own experience has helped you connect more with those families who've suffered something similar? Or.
- [26:26]
B
You know, I. I don't know that it's helped me connect more with them, because I was. I was very supportive. And, you know, I've been wrapping my arms around these families for. For, you know, a couple of decades. So I have a lot of. A lot of compassion, you know, for what they've gone through in. In their losses. And, you know, I feel as a citizen, you know, the sacrifices that are made in defense of our country, and I benefit from all those sacrifices, and this is a way that I can give back and do something. I would say having met so many of those families over the years and watching them go through their grief and loss and trying to help them through, I think that better prepared me certainly for our. Our loss of our son. And having seen so many families go through the devastation of, you know, bodies being ripped up in bombings, and then them. They're those families trying to persevere through really difficult situations, trying to help their loved one, you know, recover from, you know, very, very severe injuries. I learned. I've learned a lot over the years, and I think all of that, God was just preparing me for the difficulties that come when you lose somebody like a son, you know, And I've met a lot of parents who have lost sons and daughters over the years in military service and have a lot of compassion for them. And certainly I probably. I probably do understand it a little better now that we've had that kind of loss.
- [28:39]
A
And I know Mac also was really involved with the foundation as well. Right. And he helped start the podcast, I think, for your foundation, which tells, you know, allows veterans to come on and tell and share their stories and first responders to share their stories, which is such a wonderful legacy and that is. Must be such a. Also cathartic and important part of the foundation for your veterans and for their families to Be able to share their stories and hear other veterans stories.
- [29:08]
B
Yeah, you mentioned a podcast. Well, Mac was. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2018, and he had in. In August of 2018 and the next month, September of 2018, he had the initial tumor removed. And you know, we of course hoped that they got it all. They got everything. Eight months later, we found out, it came back. So we found out in May of 2019 that we were entering a new kind of cancer fight, which was now we had a metastatic situation where it was spreading and we had to, you know, there was going to be additional surgeries, there was going to be radiation, there was going to be drugs. And Mac began to fight and. And he kept going to the office in 2019. He really loved the Gary Sinise foundation and the work that we were doing there. Toward the end of 2019, he started. Things were getting tougher. He was going to have to go back in early January for another major surgery on his spine. And he was concerned that he wouldn't be able to come into the office, you know, again, but he wanted to still be involved with the foundation. He started thinking what he could do, and he thought, hey, I could probably do a podcast. I could do something from home where I set up my microphones and, you know, record people and interview them. And so he started doing that at the end of 2019, before the major surgeries in January. He did a podcast with our videographer who's followed me around for years with the camera and he's seen all kinds of things. And Mac wanted to talk to him first and get his perspective on all that. And then he said, dad, will you do the next podcast with me? And I am so thankful that we sat down together and. And he interviewed me because I have that on audio. It's an audio recording. And you know, that was the last one because he, he got, you know, it got too challenging for him after those surgeries. But after he died, I was listening to that. I. I was walking and I was listening to it and of course, very moved. And I remember stopping right there when I on. On this walk around the neighborhood here and calling up Kristen Camp Snyder, who has been one of my right hands for 11 years. She came to work for the foundation early on in the foundation as my assistant. And now she's vice president of marketing and communications at the foundation. And I call and Mac worked for Kristen when he was at the foundation. And I called her up and said, you know, I've been listening to the podcast and I think I want to revive the podcast. I want to bring it back in Max Honor. I want to build a podcast studio with his name on it. And then I said, tristan, you're going to be the host.
- [32:33]
A
That's great.
- [32:34]
B
She was good with everything up until that point, and then she kind of stopped. She thought I was going to say, I'm going to be the host. But then when I said, you're going to be the host. So we, you know, we had right at that, you know, right after about six weeks after Mac died, I wrote a story and we posted it on the foundation website telling people about Mac and how he loved the foundation, loved working there, and that we had lost him and everything. And one of our donors at the Gary Sinise foundation, most people, you know, I didn't. I didn't talk about what we were going through for. We were going through this for about six years, and it was not something that was ever public or anything. So even our close donors at the Gary Sneets foundation did not know that our family was going through this. And one of our donors, Terry Yance, read the story and she was very moved by it, and she contacted us and she said she wanted to make a donation in Max Honor and that I could decide what to do with it. And the timing couldn't have been more perfect because I had just decided to resurrect the podcast. So we took Terry's donation, part of her donation, and we built a podcast studio, named it, you know, Max and after Podcast Studio. And now. Now we're in. I think we're just about to start our third season. Kristen is lining people up, and she's made. She's done a lot of interviews. And if you watch the podcast, it starts with Mac and always ends with Mac, too. And he really left quite a legacy for the foundation. And also this incredible music that he's written is now a part of the family.
- [34:33]
A
Will you talk about that? Because, I mean, I had the benefit of listening to some of his songs at the concert on Saturday and. But you had. After he died, you had gone back, right. And gone through his. His iPad and his computer, and you found some of the music that he had written when he was at usc, I think. Right. And. And kind of resurrected that. But he was also. He started. He wanted to finish some of that music, too, that he started. Right. And then you got together a group to help sort of finish those songs or record those songs for him for that, for his album.
- [35:04]
B
Well, what happened was in. In early 2023, he had been. He'd not been thinking about music at all because the cancer fight was so tough and it disabled him. He was paralyzed from the chest down. He could move his arms, but he didn't. He had no feeling from here down, you know, and couldn't move his legs. He was an excellent drummer. He started playing drums when he 9 years old and he played all the way through elementary school and junior high school, high school and went to USC music school where he entered as a drummer and came out as a four, a full fledged composer, wanting to write music for movies and all, all of this. And he wrote music while he was in school. Of course he's in music school and what, you know, first class assignments, you know, write some music. So I started finding these recordings and after he died, I found all kinds of stuff in his files. He had done an album that final year of his life. He started working on a piece of music in February that he had written in college that he never finished. And By July of 2023, they were in the recording studio with an orchestra and him and his buddy from college, Oliver Schnee, who, you know, kind of rekindled their friendship right in there, right during that time, they came together and Oliver helped them finish this piece of music. And it's stunning. I mean, if you go to Max Sinise YouTube, just look up YouTube and look up the. You can look at the videos of some of the music. It's called Arctic Circles. Yeah, Arctic Circles started the ball rolling on something that Yvette and Mac had such a good time watching that old piece of music that he never finished come to life, that he wanted to do a whole album. And by the end of 2023, he had done 10 pieces of music, some original, some where he's playing harmonica. Like on the old American folk classic Shenandoah, Mac plays this beautiful harmonica with an orchestra behind him. And that music is called. That album is called Resurrection and Revival.
- [37:41]
A
Didn't he. He learned to play the harmonica, right, while he was sick because he had. He wasn't able to play the drums. Did I read that like your wife, I think, gave him a harmonica. And he actually taught himself to play.
- [37:56]
B
He had a harmonica, you know, when he was in the hospital, my drummers stopped by to see him and they gave him a harmonica. And he had a harmonica, but he hadn't been thinking about it too much. And then my wife mentioned, you know, when he. Because she spent a lot of time with him in his room while he's in. We had a hospital bed in his room. We had in home nursing care, all that. I mean, he was very, very sick. And, you know, we had. There was a lot to do to take care of Mac. And so my wife mentioned, you know, why don't you start playing that harmonica? And so he started fooling around with it. And then I gave him. I gave him a video of a medal of honor. Buddy of mine, his name's Sammy Davis, and Sammy plays Shenandoah on the harmonica. And I gave Mac a video of that, and Mac learned Shenandoah. And then when he was going to go into the studio to record Arctic Circles, I suggested that, hey, Mac, get with Oliver and have Oliver do a. An arrangement to back you up. Yeah. An arrangement of the strings backing Mac up on the harmonica. And Oliver did a beautiful arrangement. And the day we did Arctic Circles, we. Mac. They finished Arctic Circles, and Mac went in, sat in front of the orchestra and played Shenandoah. And that's also on the YouTube channel. A lot of the music we did some videos for, and you can see those on the YouTube channel. And then, like I said, after he died, I started to find all this other music and ended up producing a second album, Resurrection and Revival Part two. Some of those, like you mentioned, there's. There's a piece called Angel Steam that we played the other day. When you saw that, that is a piece that Mac wrote as a sophomore in college. He plays drums on it, on the record. And I found the recording of it, and it's beautiful. And I went to my piano player in my band, I said, we're going to do this song. Let's get the band together. We'll rehearse it. And I love playing it. And you know what? Next week, we're going to be at the Opry on Veterans Day and for a big Veterans Day show.
- [40:22]
A
I read that. Yeah. So are you thinking about playing Angel's Theme there? Will you play some of Mac's music there?
- [40:30]
B
Mac is going to have his opry debut on November 11th at the Athlete. We're going to play Angel's Theme, and we're going to play his song called Quasi Love as well. So two. Two Mac songs will be at the Opry next week. It's pretty. He would have looked. He would have never in a million years thought his songs were going to be played at the Opry, but they are.
- [40:56]
A
So amazing. What an incredible tribute to him. And are you. So what is next? I know you've got the big concert next week, right on the 11th, and then what's next for Lieutenant Danban do you guys have another, something else scheduled for the military or any other big concerts coming up?
- [41:14]
B
Yeah, I mentioned that we take care of like the children of our fallen Heroes. One of our programs, we do something called Snowball Express. I've been involved, I got involved with that back in 07, almost 20 years ago. And then it was a program to take care of the children of our fallen heroes and just take them on a all expense paid trip to Disneyland. So I, I went down to Disneyland, I brought my band and then I stayed actively involved for many, many years. American Airlines provides all the travel for the kids to get to Disney and everything.
- [41:51]
A
Amazing.
- [41:53]
B
And then we had an idea. Eventually it moved from Disneyland to Dallas, which is where American Airlines, that's their hub, you know, their big headquarters. And then I wanted to, I have a great relationship with Disney World and Disney from the movies and some of the things I've done with them. Wanted to see if we could move Snowball from Dallas to Disney World. And it was going to cost a lot more money. So we decided to fold the whole thing into the Gary Sinise foundation as one of our initiatives under our relief and resiliency program. So we started taking a thousand kids to Disney World, you know, for an all expense paid trip. All the travel provided by American Airlines, hundreds of volunteers. My band has played for the kids every year since 2007. And I go, I take the band to Disney World and play for the kids. And these are the kids of our fallen military heroes. But we also do a second event, two back to back events, the second being for the families and children of fallen first responders. And my band plays for the kids every year. So the final two shows this year will be at Disney World for the children of our fallen military heroes and the children of our fallen first responders.
- [43:24]
A
That's so special, Gary. That is really, honestly, thank God for you and thank God for the work of the foundation. Are you. So any other acting projects coming up that you're excited about or are you really. Is your work right now primarily focused on the foundation?
- [43:40]
B
Yeah, you know, when Mac started to get just more challenged with his cancer at the end of 2019 and going into 2020, we knew he was going to have another major spine surgery. So the last acting I did was December of 2019. I just decided to step away from it. You know, fortunately I've had some good success in the movies and television business. I did CSI New York for nine seasons and then I did Criminal Minds Beyond Borders for another two seasons. And you Know, I did well, and I could afford to step away and just focus on the caregiving and trying to be my Max Battle buddy. So it's been since 2019, since I've done any acting. I'm content with the mission work and the service work. It's very rewarding to be able to help people and to, you know, see that you can do some good, you know, with the success that I've had, will I go back to it, man? You know, I. I can't say no. I don't have anything specific right now. There are a few things that are kind of circling that may, you know, come to fruition at some time. But God is. Has given me a lot of. A lot of good things, a lot of blessings. And, you know, last night we did a fundraiser for the Chordoma Foundation. Max Cancer was called Chordoma, and there's a foundation that was started by somebody who had that particular rare, rare cancer. So last night we did a big fundraiser in partnership with Scott Hamilton and his foundation. We raised money for the Cordoma Foundation. Taking the band and, you know, I had my band play and taking a band of military bases and military hospitals and doing this good work. It's very rewarding. It's fulfilling. If I go back to acting, it'll be because it's something special with some friends and something that makes sense.
- [45:54]
A
So for people that are listening and want to help and want to get involved in the work that you do, what's the best thing to tell them to go to the website or what? How can. How can people help?
- [46:08]
B
Yeah, well, you know, I. When I created the foundation, it was really. I. I had. As I said, I'd been doing this for quite a long time, but I wanted to do more of it. And so I wanted people to have the opportunity to support the. The service work that I. I was doing. So I was always envisioning, kind of creating this sort of reliable resources rallying point is rally point for people to come together and help the men and women that I was. I was trying to. To support. When we launched the foundation, we created a website, we started taking in donations that allowed us to expand our programs. And now we have multiple programs on many fronts. I have a lot of people that work for the foundation, and their daily job is to go out there and make these, you know, defenders of ours and their families feel better and feel appreciated. And again, as I said early on, you know, coming from those days of the Vietnam War, when our service members came home from war and didn't have the services they needed, they didn't feel appreciated. They, you know, in some, in some cases they were even felt to be, you know, made to feel terrible about what they had done and all that. Our nation was very divided. I don't forget any of that and I don't want that to happen to people that are serving our country any, you know, ever again. So I tried to provide an opportunity for our fellow citizens to come together to help me show gratitude and appreciation to these people. So you can go to the Gary Sinise foundation website. You can see, you know, multiple programs that we're involved in that are helping people. You can see videos all over the website that show you the people, introduce you to the people that we're helping. And, you know, of course there are opportunities there for you to get involved, you know, by either donating or donating time or, you know, helping support us in different ways. I want the American people to support our defenders no matter what. You know, I don't want them to ever fall through the cracks because our country might be politically divided over what they're doing or whatever. These are people that raise their hand. They don't have to do it. What, what would we do if nobody wanted to serve our country or protect our cities? You know, we'd be in trouble. You know, it'd be the Wild West. And we're, we're, we're lucky. We're fortunate that we have people that want to do that. And I want to help them, help them through. You know, you remember Lieutenant Dan when he came home from war? What happened? He, he disappeared into the shadows. He was, you know, dealing with very serious post traumatic stress. He's, he's dealing with, you know, alcohol abuse and isolation and all of that. We don't want that to happen to people that serve our country. So we need to rally. And there are many, many organizations that are out there doing that and I've supported many of them. Go to garysinisefoundation.org and check us out. It's worthy. We're doing great work. I have a great team that's facilitating this every single day. And we're impacting lives for the better.
- [49:36]
A
I mean, thank God, honestly, Gary, for you and for your foundation, for being a champion for our veterans, because you really are an incredible leader among all of the groups that support our veterans, known to be a leader in the community. And I know, I mean, I know. I'm just grateful as a citizen to see that you're prioritizing that and helping and supporting our Veterans and first responders. My dad is 86 and he's on the board of the World War II Museum. And I talked to him yesterday and he said, what's going on with the podcast this week? And I said, I'm interviewing Gary Sinise tomorrow. Would you tell him how. What a hero he is and what a wonderful person he is for supporting our veterans?
- [50:15]
B
Oh, gosh. Did he tell you about our program that we had in partnership with World War II?
- [50:21]
A
He told me that you'd done a ton for the World War II Museum and World War II veterans.
- [50:28]
B
Yeah, years ago, Tom Hanks got me involved in There's a movie, I don't know, you've probably been down there, haven't you?
- [50:35]
A
I've been, I've been. And it's an incredible museum. And Tom, he narrates it. I don't know that I think he's one of the main narrators of that film, which is so cool.
- [50:45]
B
Tom's the host of this movie called Beyond All Boundaries. And he asked some different actors to come come on board to do different voices in the, in the movie. And I do the voice of Ernie Pyle. And that's. That was my intro into the World War II Museum. And then I started taking my uncle there who's a World War II veteran and.
- [51:09]
A
Oh, wow.
- [51:10]
B
And then when Uncle Jack died, he had done a video there, a video interview that's in the archive at the National World Museum. I asked them to send it to me and they did. I was very moved by it. And then I called and offered to support their program to record these veterans. So we provide money to, to pay for historians to go videotape World War II veterans. And then we started sending World War II veterans down there. We did 33 charter trips over 1500 World War II veterans down to the World War II Museum over a 10 year period from 2015 to this year. We just finished that up.
- [51:52]
A
That is incredible, Gary. I didn't, you know, we'd already been on the phone for about 45 minutes when we were wrapping up, my dad and I, when he's like, you have to tell him. But he didn't have a chance to tell me all the details behind that. But I've seen those videos and I mean, what a wonderful contribution and what a wonderful thing for those veterans to have that opportunity. Cause it is. It's just them speaking about their experience with the war. And you can see those clips when you go, you know, when you go through the museum. That's an amazing contribution to that. Yeah. And how great for you to have your uncle.
- [52:27]
B
Well, just being able to send, I mean, my Uncle Jack was the inspiration for what we called our Soaring Valor program. And he was the one, you know, because my Uncle Jack served and he was 90 when he died. And having that video of him talking about his experiences at the museum and, and that it's preserved there, I just thought every family of a World War II veteran should have this and should have this, a video like this. So that's why I offered to, to support that. And then I thought, that museum is so magnificent. There are so many World War II veterans that are never going to see that museum. So let's try to do our best to, to get as many of them down there as possible. And so I called my pals at American Airlines and I said, I've got an idea. Let's, let's start sending World War II veterans down to the museum. And so we started doing that and American provided tickets, but 33 charters from all over the country at different times during a 10 year period to get over 1500 veterans there. And then in 2017, we started pairing them up with students. So high school students would have a travel buddy, they're 95 year old World War II veteran traveling with a 16 or 17 year old kid. And for that child to get that experience, it's unlike any education you're ever going to get in high school. So that was a very, very impactful program, for sure.
- [54:06]
A
Oh, for sure. And that's, you know, when you go to that museum, you know, you know, we've obviously talked a lot about today about just the importance of recognizing and supporting and honoring our veterans. But when you giving young people the opportunity to see the sacrifices that those men and women made for our freedom and that our military still does today, is a really incredibly important piece of their education that I'm not sure, you know, I'm not sure everyone's getting that, getting that exposure. But that museum really does provide such an incredible opportunity to get, to really understand those sacrifices better and the importance of honoring our men and women in uniform so well. Gary, thank you. I know I've taken up your morning. It's such an honor to get to spend time with you and thank you so much again for all that you do. And I know that my listeners will be really so excited to learn more about what the foundation is doing. So thank you so much. That brings us to the end of this episode with the amazing Gary Sinise. A huge, huge thank you to Gary for joining us. He really embodies what it means to serve others and he's a great inspiration to me and I hope you enjoyed the episode as much as I did recording it. Also, please be sure to check out our website to learn more about how to sign up for our newsletter and substack the Duologue Diaries. The Duologue Diaries give you behind the scenes scoop on our episodes and special giveaways and offers just for my subscribers. Plus, it's a great way to support the podcast. We really appreciate it, so be sure to go check that out. The website is duologuepod.com also a big shout out to our sponsor, Cozy Earth. Don't forget that with our promo code, our Duologue promo code, you get 20% off all their amazing products. And that's in addition to the great Black Friday deals that they already have going on. So be sure to check out their website, cozyearth.com and last but not least, thank you all so much for listening and for all of your support of the podcast. If you like this episode, please rate or review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We release a new episode every Wednesday, so until next Wednesday, this is Leslie and thanks so much for listening to Duolog.