Vegas Veteran Voices

Senior Airman Nikki Kraus was a weather forecaster in the Air Force, embedded with Army battalions in Korea, briefing generals on fog and moon illumination while helicopters waited to fly. She graduated basic training with honors at 26. She earned Airman of the Year, two Army Achievement Medals, and three consecutive employee of the month awards in Korea. She was also, at the same time, fighting t...

Happy 250th, America. For our Fourth of July special, the table fills up: Ronnie, Ghost, Jimmy “Pew Pew” Depew, David Lonergan, and Jessica Jay Dee — all veterans, all entrepreneurs — for an unscripted conversation about what freedom actually means when you've seen the alternative. This one goes everywhere: Marine Corps ribbing and dark humor, the hard reality of veteran ho...

Lindsay Gutierrez thought joining the military meant going straight to Vietnam. She was wrong about that. She was also wrong about Qatar having pyramids. But she wasn't wrong about the thing that mattered most, that service doesn't end when you take the uniform off. Lindsay served six years as a Security Forces officer in the Air Force, deployed to Qatar and Djibouti, survived a vehicle rollover i...

She shot an entire season of Stranger Things with cancer. Nobody on set knew. Jennifer Marshall is a Navy veteran, actress, firefighter EMT, and cancer survivor who has spent her entire life showing up when every reasonable person would have stayed home. She joined the Navy at 17 out of a small mountain town in Colorado, her words: “poverty and bad decisions.” She deployed on the USS T...

2K Kenny didn't go viral in a studio. He's Petty and Second Class. He went viral on a Navy ship, after writing a love song during sweepers, recording the melody on Snapchat before he forgot it, and sneaking into the barbershop to lay it down because it was the only quiet room on the boat. The next day his LPO walked in singing it. That's when he knew. In this episode, Kenny breaks down what it act...

Two brothers. Same darkness. Only one walked away. Iraq combat veteran Raivadus Gill came home from war running at 110mph while the world had slowed to 15. He thought he was good. Then one afternoon, alone in a house, a heaviness hit him that he still can't fully explain, and he walked to his brother's room and picked up a gun. A flyer on a table is the only reason he's sitting in this chair. A ye...

Army veteran Steve Ulman shares one of the most raw and powerful veteran interviews we have filmed on Vegas Veteran Voices. In this episode, Steve opens up about his suicide attempt, addiction, recovery, ayahuasca, acting, trauma, off grid living, entrepreneurship, and how he rebuilt his life from rock bottom. He talks about putting a gun to his head, moving the pistol at the last second, and real...

If you've ever come home from a deployment and felt like a stranger in your own house — this episode is for you. Jamie and Cole Waterberry are an Air Force couple with 16 years of marriage, 9 moves, and 6 deployments between them. Stories they're only now comfortable telling out loud — like the time Cole casually drove through IED Alley and described it as "nothing to worry about." Or...

On this episode of Vegas Veteran Voices, we step aboard the historic USS Pampanito in San Francisco for a powerful conversation inside the submarine's mission control room about something a lot of veterans know too well but do not always talk about enough: life after service. LT. Emilio Mackie opens up about his time in the U.S. Navy, serving as a surface warfare officer, being stationed in Japan,...

Maximilian Uriarte, creator of Terminal Lance, joins Vegas Veteran Voices for a powerful conversation about the Marine Corps, infantry life, war, veteran identity, dark humor, storytelling, and life after service. In this episode, Max opens up about why he chose the infantry even though he had the scores to do almost anything else, how Iraq shaped him, and how humor became a way to process anger,...

This shouldn't have worked… but it did. At the Mint 400, one of the largest off-road races in North America, a veteran-led team from Green Beret Racing built their cars in just three weeks… then watched everything start to break in the middle of the desert. A steering failure mid-race should have ended it. Instead, they improvised. Using nothing but a cut-up energy drink can, duct ta...

Most people know Lucky Lopez as the car guy on YouTube. Breaking down the used car market, auto loans, dealerships, Turo, and how money really moves in the car business. What they don't know is… before all of that… he was a 63B mechanic in the Army National Guard. And the story is not what you think. In this episode of Vegas Veteran Voices, Lucky Lopez sits down with Ronnie Long and...

Most people think aggressive dogs are dangerous by nature. A Marine Corps veteran and professional dog trainer explains why that belief is often wrong. In this episode of Vegas Veteran Voices, we break down the real purpose of dog training and why structure, boundaries, and clear expectations are essential for powerful working breeds like German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois. Training is not crue...

What If Joining the Marine Corps Is the Fastest Way to Escape Being Stuck? In this episode of Vegas Veteran Voices, Ronald Long sits down with SSgt Nicholas Milsap, an active duty United States Marine Corps recruiter, for a brutally honest conversation about what the Marine Corps actually gives you and what people get completely wrong about military service. This episode covers everything from esc...

In this episode, we sit down with Gina Elise, founder of Pin Up for Vets, a nonprofit she started in 2006 to support veterans through hospital visits and fundraising that helps provide rehab equipment for veterans hospitals across the United States. Gina explains how classic World War II pin up art inspired a modern mission, including a pin up calendar fundraiser and a 50 state hospital tour where...

This episode shares a real veteran's personal story of transition, identity, and rebuilding after service, Brenton and Ronnie sit down with Jason Lee Morrison, a USMC veteran, writer, and poet, for a raw conversation about the one thing that keeps veterans alive after the uniform comes off: community. Jason talks about what it felt like to disappear from his Marine Recon world for years, then come...

On the anniversary of the day Ronnie Long survived an IED blast in Sangin, Afghanistan, we chose not to isolate. We turned it into an Alive Day. For many combat veterans, IED anniversaries and deployment dates can trigger survivor's guilt, PTSD symptoms, anxiety, and isolation. Instead of staying home and letting the weight of the date take over, we gathered at Adrenaline Mountain in Las Vegas to...

Afghanistan's deadliest fighting, Marines learned that survival depends on connection, purpose, and the people beside you. When service ends, many veterans lose that structure overnight and are expected to rebuild their lives alone. This episode shows how that loss of purpose can be just as dangerous as combat itself and how Race to Erase 22 is fighting back. In this Vegas Veteran Voices episode,...

In this episode of Vegas Veteran Voices, host Ronnie Long sits down with Greg Cope White, author of The Pink Marine and writer and executive producer on the Netflix series Boots. Boots is a military comedy-drama based on Greg's memoir, following a bullied teen who impulsively joins the U.S. Marine Corps and finds purpose, structure, and brotherhood in boot camp. Greg breaks down the real story beh...

Who is Jason Brooks after the Marine Corps? In this episode of Vegas Veteran Voices, Jason Brooks shares his full story, not just where he started, but who he became after the uniform came off. Jason joined the Marine Corps at 24, taught nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare defense, became a McMAP instructor during the program's early rollout, and later received orders to Marine Recon. His ca...

In this episode of Vegas Veteran Voices, comedian and United States Navy veteran Serena Monae sits down with Ronnie Long, USMC veteran, for a real, unfiltered conversation about identity after the military, finding your voice again, and using humor as a survival tool when life gets heavy. Serena opens up about being a secretly introverted performer, navigating anxiety and agoraphobia, and what it...

What happens when an Army veteran who has lived addiction, trauma, psych wards, and identity loss sits down and does real hypnotherapy work on camera? In this episode, Army veteran and clinical hypnotherapist Rachel Veronica walks us through identity loss after military service, addiction recovery, nervous system regulation, and what it actually takes to rewire your beliefs after years of survival...

This episode of Vegas Veteran Voices is exactly what happens when you put a 20 year Air Force bomb loader and stand up comedian in a room and just let it go. Starts funny and then quietly gets heavy in a way most veteran conversations do. Jo MT is a stand up comedian and a 20 year Air Force bomb loader who has lived enough life to joke about it without pretending it did not cost him something. Wha...

In this episode of Vegas Veteran Voices, we sit down with Dean Goble Jr., a retired Army Green Beret Chief Warrant Officer and Director of Philanthropy at Black Rifle Coffee Company, to talk about what service looks like after the uniform comes off. Dean shares his perspective on veteran philanthropy, leadership, and responsibility, including why real impact requires more than writing checks. He e...

In this episode of Vegas Veteran Voices, we sit down with Sandra “Sharklife” Vidrequin, a Norwegian Army veteran, conflict photographer, and humanitarian who documents war zones using the one weapon she believes should be used: a camera. Sandra has photographed revolutions, protests, and active conflict zones around the world, including Egypt during the Arab Spring and, most recently,...