Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, We've put together a survey for listeners of
Speaker 2: Medal of Honor and we want to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Tell us what you love about the show, what we
Speaker 2: can improve on, or stories you think we've missed. We're
Speaker 2: committed to making this show even better and you can
Speaker 2: help to take the survey. Visit bit dot lee slash
Speaker 2: h survey. That's bit dot l y slash mh survey.
Speaker 2: The link is also in our show notes below. Today
Speaker 2: we celebrate Veterans Day. It's a time for us to
Speaker 2: reflect on the sacrifices made by the men and women
Speaker 2: who have served and protected this country across generations.
Speaker 1: I'm JR. Martinez.
Speaker 2: In the last season A Medal of Honor Stories of Courage,
Speaker 2: I had the privilege of telling the heroic stories of
Speaker 2: some of the bravest veterans to ever put on the uniform,
Speaker 2: like sal Junta, who ran through a hell of bullets
Speaker 2: to save his best friend from capture, or Carl Sitter,
Speaker 2: the wounded marine captain who refused to be evacuated until
Speaker 2: the job was done. Ordinary men who were thrust into
Speaker 2: impossible situations, who didn't just meet the challenge of the day,
Speaker 2: but plowed through it. If you've been listening to our show,
Speaker 2: you know the value of that kind of courage. But
Speaker 2: I'm here to tell you that everyone who has ever
Speaker 2: put on the uniform has a story. So today I'd
Speaker 2: like to encourage you to talk to the veterans in
Speaker 2: your life and don't just thank them for their service.
Speaker 2: Ask them about it. It shouldn't end with just the
Speaker 2: thank you. We're hard at work on the next season,
Speaker 2: a Medal of Honor, and it's coming in May of
Speaker 2: next year. But in the meantime want to hear from
Speaker 2: you about what you'd like to hear from us.
Speaker 1: We put together a listener survey.
Speaker 2: Tell us what you love about the show, what we
Speaker 2: can improve on, stories you think we've missed. As we
Speaker 2: observe this Veterans Day, we're recommitting ourselves to not just
Speaker 2: making the show, but making it better. And you can
Speaker 2: help us to take the survey. Head to bit dot
Speaker 2: lee slash m oh survey. That's bit dot l y
Speaker 2: slash m o h survey. That link is also in
Speaker 2: our show notes. For this episode, I sat down with
Speaker 2: my producer Ryan Swikert to talk about what we owe
Speaker 2: our veterans today and what we can expect in the
Speaker 2: upcoming season of Medal of Honor.
Speaker 3: Well, Jr. I am so happy to be sitting with
Speaker 3: you here in Pushkin Industries in beautiful New York City.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, it's nice, beautiful cool outside here. I am walking,
Speaker 2: you know, in New York and I'm like, and a
Speaker 2: lady sneeze.
Speaker 1: I was like, bless you, and she just kind of
Speaker 1: looked at me, you.
Speaker 4: Know, and just kept it moving, and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 4: I love New York right like, And it's.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited to be talking to you about, you know,
Speaker 3: the things that you learned making this show and what
Speaker 3: the listeners can expect this upcoming season and today's Veterans Day.
Speaker 3: It's interesting, Like I have veterans in my life, and
Speaker 3: you know, as a civilian, sometimes it feels like maybe
Speaker 3: you don't want to broach the subject with somebody to
Speaker 3: get them to talk about bad things that happened to them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: what would you say to that.
Speaker 1: Let them tell you, let them dictate.
Speaker 2: You'll know immediately if this individual wants to talk, and
Speaker 2: if they do, how much they want to share. Why
Speaker 2: are we underestimating that they're capable of telling us a
Speaker 2: lot of us don't want to infringe because they don't
Speaker 2: want to pry because they're afraid, you know. But I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people don't want to infringe because
Speaker 2: they're they don't want that vet to be like, it's
Speaker 2: none of your business. I don't want to talk about
Speaker 2: it because how it's going to make us feel exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, you do these.
Speaker 2: Little events and you know, you get get around kids
Speaker 2: and kids are like kids have no filter, man. I
Speaker 2: mean as brutally, as raw as it may be at
Speaker 2: times when a kid would come up to me and like.
Speaker 1: What happened to your face? I mean, straight up, man,
Speaker 1: these kids are brutal.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, I mean it's
Speaker 2: inspiring to see these kids that are doing that. And
Speaker 2: that's I think as adults to some degree, like we
Speaker 2: need to kind of like still carry a little bit
Speaker 2: of that inner child in us because they're curious, fearless.
Speaker 3: Just ask the questions, just go shoot.
Speaker 1: From the hip man and veterans day.
Speaker 2: You know, again, we're so used to going up to
Speaker 2: a vat, you know, and say thank you for your service,
Speaker 2: and what do they say? Thank you? And they're like,
Speaker 2: all right, have a good day. Walk away, right, what
Speaker 2: happened there? Yes, you allow someone to feel appreciated, and
Speaker 2: then that is equally important. However, you just walked away
Speaker 2: not knowing what that person did, not knowing what you
Speaker 2: really thank them for. That person now doesn't really know you,
Speaker 2: versus if you approached them and said, you know, yes,
Speaker 2: if you want to lead with the hey, I just
Speaker 2: want to say thank you for your service, really appreciated.
Speaker 2: And they're like, thank you, and wou do you mind
Speaker 2: telling me? Like, what what'd you do in the military?
Speaker 2: You know, where'd you serve?
Speaker 3: Just starting a conversation with the veterans in your life, right,
Speaker 3: that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it man.
Speaker 2: I just tell people like, don't make the decision for
Speaker 2: that individual. Let that individual tell you if they're ready
Speaker 2: to talk.
Speaker 3: I want to back up just a little bit. Of course,
Speaker 3: So a lot of listeners are familiar with your story,
Speaker 3: but I think a lot of new listeners might not be.
Speaker 3: And being that it's Veterans Day today, I was wondering
Speaker 3: if you could just tell me the story of when
Speaker 3: you became a veteran.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not all right.
Speaker 3: That's okay. I just wanted to ask, there we.
Speaker 1: Go, there it is put it in practice already. I
Speaker 1: love it, man, understand that. Yeah, I wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: talk about it yet. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: There you go see, and that's but that's that's the
Speaker 2: way to do it. So essentially, I was a senior
Speaker 2: in high school in nine to eleven. Took place, and
Speaker 2: like everybody, of course, confused, afraid, but also I think
Speaker 2: just felt this deep patriotism of what can I do?
Speaker 2: I want to do something, and so the military now
Speaker 2: became that opportunity for me.
Speaker 1: It was an opportunity for me to go serve.
Speaker 2: It was an opportunity for me to get more disciplined,
Speaker 2: as opportunity for me to travel, get money for college.
Speaker 1: All the things. It was a one stop shop.
Speaker 2: And so off I go to the army as an
Speaker 2: Infertruman and six months after I enlisted, I found myself
Speaker 2: in combat in Iraq.
Speaker 1: At first, I didn't really feel like I played a role.
Speaker 2: I was like, what I mean, I'm not really doing
Speaker 2: anything here, Like I mean, not helpful to anybody.
Speaker 1: I don't know any of this stuff.
Speaker 2: And it took one of my leaders to give a
Speaker 2: briefing to our unit, and in that briefing he talked
Speaker 2: about the importance of service. He talked about the importance
Speaker 2: of every single person in the role that they played
Speaker 2: and accomplishing our mission. And he was giving this whole
Speaker 2: speech Man, and I literally was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: all right, I get it. Now, I do play a role,
Speaker 2: I do matter. I am part of this team. And
Speaker 2: you know, I was only in country Man for three
Speaker 2: and a half weeks, that's it. And then on the
Speaker 2: fifth of April of two thousand and three, I'm driving
Speaker 2: a humvey through a city called Carbala when the front
Speaker 2: left tire runs over a roadside bomb.
Speaker 1: There were three other guys in the humvy.
Speaker 2: They were all thrown out, but I was trapped aside,
Speaker 2: and within a matter of seconds, this humvy was now
Speaker 2: in gulfed in flames, and you.
Speaker 1: Know, I can't get out.
Speaker 2: For five minutes that I was trapped inside of this
Speaker 2: burning humvey, I was in and out of consciousness because.
Speaker 1: I had thirty degree burns.
Speaker 2: But the biggest thing that was threatening whether I was
Speaker 2: going to survive or not was the fact that I
Speaker 2: had inhalation damage. So I was inhaling all the smoke
Speaker 2: from the fire. I had broken ribs. It was hard
Speaker 2: for me to breathe, So this is what it sounded like.
Speaker 2: It was like help, help, like that. And then there
Speaker 2: would be these moments where my body would get really heavy,
Speaker 2: like my eyes would get heavy, my body would start
Speaker 2: to kind of get weak, and my eyes would be
Speaker 2: on the verge of closing and they would close. But
Speaker 2: when my eyes closed, there's two things that I vividly remember.
Speaker 2: One is feeling my breath. I could feel myself breathing
Speaker 2: or trying to. And the second thing is my thoughts.
Speaker 2: And then I would tell myself, don't keep your eyes closed,
Speaker 2: because if you do, that's it. You're giving up. Someone's
Speaker 2: gonna pull you out. Open your eyes and I would
Speaker 2: open my eyes and I would continue to screaming. Yet,
Speaker 2: but what I learned from the fifth of Abel of
Speaker 2: two thousand and three is that hopefully I and the
Speaker 2: listener we won't find ourselves in a burning situation right
Speaker 2: where we're trapped. Hopefully that's not the case. However, life
Speaker 2: in itself, because it could be overwhelming and a lot
Speaker 2: of pressures can feel like we're in a burning situation.
Speaker 2: And so what I've learned from that five minutes that
Speaker 2: I was trapped inside of that humvey is that when
Speaker 2: things start to feel a little overwhelming, when things start
Speaker 2: to feel a little out of control.
Speaker 1: I just like to close my eyes.
Speaker 2: I like to connect with my breath, and I like
Speaker 2: to connect with my thoughts well and ask for help
Speaker 2: right and ask for other things and trust that people
Speaker 2: will show up for you. I had to trust in
Speaker 2: those five minutes that somebody was going to show up.
Speaker 2: I had this false sense of hope that someone was
Speaker 2: going to come pull me out, and they did, and
Speaker 2: I was pulled out of the humbee, started the metavac process,
Speaker 2: put into a medical induce coma, ended up in San Antonio, Texas,
Speaker 2: and then three weeks later, came out of my medical
Speaker 2: induce coma to my new reality. You know, after my injury,
Speaker 2: I was in a medical induce coma for three weeks.
Speaker 2: And when I came out of my medical induce coma,
Speaker 2: the first question, no different than any other service member
Speaker 2: that I asked the medical team, was when can I
Speaker 2: get out? And when can I get back with my
Speaker 2: unit and finish my tour. And the first bombshell, if
Speaker 2: you will, that they dropped on me was they told
Speaker 2: me that I wasn't going to be allowed to stay
Speaker 2: in the Army.
Speaker 1: I was going to be medically discharged.
Speaker 2: That was really hard for me because I started to
Speaker 2: create this identity of Okay, I love this military thing,
Speaker 2: I love this uniform, I love this concept of service,
Speaker 2: like I love being a part of this, and now
Speaker 2: you're taking that away from me. Also, within the same
Speaker 2: like week and a half, I saw my face and
Speaker 2: my body for the first time understood this of my injury.
Speaker 2: And so I always say to people, you know, two
Speaker 2: weeks after I came out of my coma, I lost
Speaker 2: both of my identities.
Speaker 1: Like I didn't know who I was.
Speaker 2: And I mean at that point, I was just kind
Speaker 2: of going through the motions, just kind of surviving the day.
Speaker 2: I had to really like go of the pressure of
Speaker 2: what long term was going to look like, and I
Speaker 2: started to really focus on just the short term, the now,
Speaker 2: the today. And six months later, I'm asked to visit
Speaker 2: a patient who was in the hospital essentially navigating the
Speaker 2: same thing I was navigating six months prior, and I
Speaker 2: was encouraged to go in and talk to him, and
Speaker 2: you know, like a typical twenty year old, I was like, now, now, now,
Speaker 2: And you know, the staff who had at that point
Speaker 2: became more like my friends and family and this nurse,
Speaker 2: Miss Walker, she was like, no, go in there, and
Speaker 2: I was like, fine, I'll do it. Gosh, I mean
Speaker 2: literally like a mother's son dynamic.
Speaker 3: And do you know why you were so reluctant to go?
Speaker 2: Because I was like, I'm twenty, what am I going
Speaker 2: to say say? I don't know what I'm going to
Speaker 2: say to this individual, like nothing to offer. And that
Speaker 2: was my first mistake because what I realized when I
Speaker 2: walked into that room and he was definitely in a
Speaker 2: bad place, I realized all I needed to do is
Speaker 2: just show up. And I remember having a forty five
Speaker 2: minute conversation with this patient and when I left, I.
Speaker 4: Was like, hey, man, I'll come back tomorrow. He's like, yeah, man,
Speaker 4: I'd appreciate that. Like it was a completely different vibe
Speaker 4: in his room. And I started visiting patients every day.
Speaker 4: And what that did is that gave me what part
Speaker 4: of my identity back, the ability to serve. I realize
Speaker 4: I can serve again in a different way, in a
Speaker 4: different capacity, but I can serve.
Speaker 1: I learned that I needed to be vulnerable.
Speaker 2: The more that I've done that, I have found some
Speaker 2: really incredible people that I call my family. Now I
Speaker 2: have created deeper connections with people that I probably never
Speaker 2: would have had. I continue to keep this sort of
Speaker 2: shield in front of me, just trusting that you know,
Speaker 2: not everybody, but there are a hell of a lot
Speaker 2: of people out there that are equipped to show up
Speaker 2: for you, but you also have to equally let them
Speaker 2: know that you need that.
Speaker 3: It sounds like a Veteran's day message.
Speaker 1: That's it, man.
Speaker 2: You know, as much as I'm putting you know, we're
Speaker 2: talking to the listener that's potentially civilian, I'm also talking.
Speaker 1: To that vet.
Speaker 2: It's hard walking the streets of the world, even if
Speaker 2: there's only five hundred people that live in your town,
Speaker 2: or there's five million people in New York City, you know,
Speaker 2: in the same borough as you right now. It's hard,
Speaker 2: and it's easy to feel isolated, and it's probably feels
Speaker 2: and the short term better to isolate yourself. But the
Speaker 2: long term, in order for you to be what you
Speaker 2: are destined to be, we have to be willing to
Speaker 2: like just keep showing up. And the military they taught
Speaker 2: us that, and just because we're not in it anymore
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that goes away. Show up for others and
Speaker 2: through that you start to kind of discover more about yourself.
Speaker 2: And that was true for me as I started to
Speaker 2: discover so much more about myself by just showing up
Speaker 2: for others.
Speaker 3: You talk about showing up, and you know, working on
Speaker 3: this podcast, you've seen that, Like, yes, a lot of
Speaker 3: these guys are very heroic and a lot of the
Speaker 3: things they did were amazing, but they got in those
Speaker 3: positions in the first place by just showing up. Yeah,
Speaker 3: do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I mean working on season two of Medal
Speaker 2: of Honor and listening to season one with Malcolm, it
Speaker 2: just reminded me of how important it is to simply
Speaker 2: just show up, to just be there, Like you don't
Speaker 2: have to have all the answers. I mean, you listen
Speaker 2: to some of these individuals in season two and they
Speaker 2: didn't have extensive training, they didn't have combat training, they
Speaker 2: didn't get the luxury to go to this school and
Speaker 2: that school. I did it right, Like that's a common
Speaker 2: and theme in some of these stories. Yet when a
Speaker 2: moment asked somebody to show up, they just showed up
Speaker 2: and they figured it out.
Speaker 4: Like guys were able to just navigate it and do
Speaker 4: some incredible things that I think they surprise themselves, which
Speaker 4: is why I think many of them are like why
Speaker 4: am I being awarded this incredible honor?
Speaker 2: Like why do I deserve this right? I think anybody
Speaker 2: would have done that. I think we all would have
Speaker 2: tried to, you know, navigate it the same way. And
Speaker 2: if there's anything you take away from this podcast, it's
Speaker 2: simply being inspired by these stories that for some of us,
Speaker 2: including myself, they feel like, no, these are fictional stories.
Speaker 1: There's I can't no, that's not real, that happened.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's easy to look at the things that
Speaker 3: these guys do. It's just sort of like these amazing heroics. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but really it's just the confluence of like this training,
Speaker 3: this ability, and the right moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah you're I mean, and a lot of them it's
Speaker 2: just like what would I have done? What would I
Speaker 2: have done if there was someone with a machine gun?
Speaker 2: Like in a position, like what I have charged in?
Speaker 2: What would I have done? And so you easily start
Speaker 2: to kind of think these are like just superheroes and
Speaker 2: they're not.
Speaker 1: They're human beings. We all have this, we really do.
Speaker 2: And I just love that I get to be part
Speaker 2: of the team to help keep these legacies alive and
Speaker 2: then help people that are listening realize that they too
Speaker 2: can be like Carl Sitter, they can be like Jefferson
Speaker 2: de Blanc, they can be like all these individuals that
Speaker 2: we've covered in the first two seasons of Medal of Honor.
Speaker 2: It's a reminder for all of us as human beings,
Speaker 2: as Americans, as listeners of this podcast where we're listening
Speaker 2: to these stories, to just keep showing up. We want
Speaker 2: to run away, but showing up might actually allow you
Speaker 2: to realize the true hero that is in you, that
Speaker 2: is just waiting for that moment to come out.
Speaker 3: Jare I actually recently learned that you were on Dancing
Speaker 3: with the Stars. I did not know this about you.
Speaker 3: You're a man of many talents, you know.
Speaker 2: Man, sometimes I forget that I was on Dancing with
Speaker 2: the Stars.
Speaker 3: Not only were you on Dancing with the Stars, my friend,
Speaker 3: but you won.
Speaker 2: The winners and new champions of Dancing with the Stars
Speaker 2: shut Out and cry.
Speaker 3: Out, which makes you infinitely a better dancer than I
Speaker 3: could ever be. How did this come about? And like,
Speaker 3: I'm just curious about how and if you talked about
Speaker 3: being a veteran on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was on that show and it was veteran first.
Speaker 2: It really was promoted like we have this veteran on
Speaker 2: the show. And what was cool about it is, yes,
Speaker 2: I went on to show the world that I have
Speaker 2: a personality. Obviously I could dance, but it was just
Speaker 2: like this character like I just I'm silly of goofy,
Speaker 2: and but people were like, oh, that's cool. Here's a
Speaker 2: guy that you know, some people will look at me
Speaker 2: like scary to see, you know, like the scars and whatever.
Speaker 2: But look at him, he's actually like clowning, laughing, silly,
Speaker 2: like he's just a goofball. And so it was, it was,
Speaker 2: it was awesome. And I remember week three, I did
Speaker 2: a rumba. We danced to the song Tim McGraths song.
Speaker 2: If you're reading.
Speaker 3: This, you did a rumba to a Tim McGraw song, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: I gotta look at that reading.
Speaker 2: The lyrics are he's telling the story of a service member.
Speaker 2: So he writes a letter to his wife. Essentially he's saying,
Speaker 2: if you're reading this, I passed away while in the military.
Speaker 2: I remember sitting in the rehearsal room with Karina spurnt Off,
Speaker 2: my partner, and I was like, yeah, this is an
Speaker 2: important story to tell. Before we danced, they showed up
Speaker 2: the package again and it was about my recovery and
Speaker 2: oh man, just thinking about it, like they showed all
Speaker 2: these people, they interviewed them behind my back. I had
Speaker 2: no clue they put this package together, which is the
Speaker 2: worst thing to do to somebody. That's about the dance
Speaker 2: in front of millions of people.
Speaker 3: You read to watch us before you.
Speaker 2: I had to watch it, and so I'm standing there
Speaker 2: watching it, waiting for this package to end, the announce
Speaker 2: her to introduce us, and then the music starts playing
Speaker 2: we go, and I tell you, by the time we started,
Speaker 2: I had tears in my eyes, like and it wasn't
Speaker 2: just about me. It was like, I'm telling the story
Speaker 2: of so many men and women. I finished the routine, man,
Speaker 2: and I'm crying. I only like ninety seconds, that's how
Speaker 2: long we dance on the show, and probably the last
Speaker 2: forty five seconds of that routine, I'm crying. In the
Speaker 2: ballroom where they film Dance with the Stars, every single
Speaker 2: person was standing out. The response that we got from that,
Speaker 2: what people told us, what thank you?
Speaker 1: Thank you for telling that story.
Speaker 3: I think that's interesting because that's pretty much what you're
Speaker 3: doing on this show too. You know, you are in
Speaker 3: conversation with these interviews with these veterans who have done
Speaker 3: these amazing things, and you're telling their stories.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think one theme we're circling here in this conversation
Speaker 3: is storytelling. How important that is to the veteran experience, right.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent.
Speaker 2: And we need more vets to be willing to share
Speaker 2: and to talk as much as they.
Speaker 1: Feel comfortable with.
Speaker 3: Why is that important?
Speaker 2: Because it is important for people to learn about who
Speaker 2: we are one so again we can have a connection.
Speaker 2: But you know, we'd like to say in the military,
Speaker 2: we fought for your freedom, We fought for your right,
Speaker 2: and I think some of us we lose sight of
Speaker 2: that when we come home and we're struggling. And what
Speaker 2: I like to remind them is like, Okay, it's easy
Speaker 2: to say you fought for everyone else's right, but you
Speaker 2: also fought for your own. You deserve to live, you
Speaker 2: deserve to heal, you deserve to go through your process
Speaker 2: to get the out. You deserve that you fought for yourself, man, like,
Speaker 2: not just everybody else.
Speaker 1: But for you too.
Speaker 2: I tell my story and I'm hoping that there's a
Speaker 2: VET that's listening right now, or a loved one of
Speaker 2: a vet, and they're like, you know what, all right,
Speaker 2: maybe what I'm struggling with it's.
Speaker 1: Okay, but I should reach out.
Speaker 2: Maybe it encourages the listener right now to say, you
Speaker 2: know what, oh man man, I need to have a
Speaker 2: little bit more compassion and not just look at them
Speaker 2: as like trained robots that just know they're human beings
Speaker 2: that have lives, that have emotions, that have feelings, that
Speaker 2: have the same desires that we do. They have aspirations,
Speaker 2: right like they have those same things, but they also
Speaker 2: still have those complications like we all do.
Speaker 3: One of the things I noticed you said earlier was
Speaker 3: that you would developed this identity as a soldier, right,
Speaker 3: And that was something that didn't come easy to you.
Speaker 1: At first.
Speaker 3: You weren't really sure what you were doing there, and
Speaker 3: then you got leadership that helped you find that identity, right.
Speaker 3: But then you get injured and you have a new identity, right.
Speaker 3: And for the past twenty years you've been a veteran,
Speaker 3: and I just wonder you know what you've learned in
Speaker 3: those twenty years with this identity of being a veteran.
Speaker 1: I'm proud.
Speaker 2: I'm proud of the initial decision to join the military,
Speaker 2: not really understanding this fraternity that I was joining. I'm
Speaker 2: grateful because it gave me the opportunity to discover myself.
Speaker 2: It gave me a space, a platform to identify the
Speaker 2: greatness that lied in me. It gave me the avenue
Speaker 2: to discover that. And the military helped me find this
Speaker 2: concept of service, helped me find this importance of teamwork
Speaker 2: and how to show up and how to be a leader,
Speaker 2: and how to get people, you know.
Speaker 1: To buy in. And I'm grateful.
Speaker 2: I have no regrets, man, absolutely none. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: kind of hard to really encapsulate like what my life
Speaker 2: has been over the last you know, two decades. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's kind of wild, to be honest. I've kind
Speaker 2: of like the Forest Gump in a sense of just
Speaker 2: kind of like just yeah, sure, I'll try that.
Speaker 1: Sure here.
Speaker 2: I mean, I never hosted a podcast like this, you know,
Speaker 2: And here I am doing that, this working with this
Speaker 2: incredible team and telling these incredible stories. And I feel
Speaker 2: the passion and love to tell these stories in such
Speaker 2: a careful way that we do them justice. And it
Speaker 2: makes me feel like I'm kind of back in the
Speaker 2: military in a sense, like I'm part of this team.
Speaker 3: What are you looking forward to in this upcoming season?
Speaker 3: The medal of honor?
Speaker 2: Oh man, what you guys have up your sleeve, what
Speaker 2: you guys do, and how you do all this research
Speaker 2: and put all these stories together, and you know, I'm
Speaker 2: the final piece that comes in and helps, you know,
Speaker 2: try to tell them. It's unfortunate that it's May of
Speaker 2: next year when episode one is going to be released,
Speaker 2: you know, because I feel like I'm like, I want
Speaker 2: this now.
Speaker 1: Well. The good thing is you can go listen to
Speaker 1: season one. It's easy two, right.
Speaker 2: But I'm just I'm excited to just learn and to
Speaker 2: just be inspired because I know there's a lot of
Speaker 2: stories in there that are just going to be incredibly
Speaker 2: motivating and inspiring and a reminder of what humans are
Speaker 2: capable of doing.
Speaker 3: And I can tell you just from having worked on
Speaker 3: some of the stories coming up, that they're capable.
Speaker 1: Of a lot. Yeah. I can't wait, man, I can't
Speaker 1: I can't wait.
Speaker 2: So I hope everyone that's listening now, I hope that
Speaker 2: you put some sort of alert reminder May twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: Medal of Honor, season three. I hope you tune in
Speaker 2: as well and we can go on this journey together.
Speaker 2: But before that, as I said in the opening, click
Speaker 2: on that link in the show notes, I mean truly
Speaker 2: when we say this, we mean that we want to
Speaker 2: hear from you. We want to understand what are some
Speaker 2: things that you want to know. What are maybe some subjects,
Speaker 2: maybe some individuals, whatever it is like, just this is
Speaker 2: a community and we want our listeners to feel like
Speaker 2: they're part of our community.
Speaker 1: Because they are. They matter.
Speaker 2: We want these stories to continue to live, So reach
Speaker 2: out to us, communicate with us. But set that alert
Speaker 2: that reminder for May twenty twenty six, Season three, episode one.
Speaker 3: All right, jay R, thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 2: It was a pleasure, my man, Thank you so much. Yeah,
Speaker 2: same here, brother, But thank you again for listening to
Speaker 2: this special episode of Metal of Honor. Once again, we'd
Speaker 2: love to hear from you. If you have a couple
Speaker 2: of minutes, please take our listener survey. Head to bid
Speaker 2: dot lee slash m oh survey. That's bit dot l
Speaker 2: y slash m oh survey. That link is also in
Speaker 2: our show notes. This episode of Metal of Honor Stories
Speaker 2: of Courage was produced by Ryan Schwiker.
Speaker 1: Our editor is Lydia Jean Kott.
Speaker 2: Sound design and additional music by Jake Gorsky. Our executive
Speaker 2: producer is Gonstanza Gayadovio. Original music by Eric Phillips and
Speaker 2: I'm your Host JR.
Speaker 1: Martinez