Veteran Story Hour: Voices of Valor, Presented by SALUTE of Virginia

This week on Veteran Story Hour, Jason Parker joins us from inside the Game Corps Bunker at Tech for Troops in Richmond, Virginia. And yes, there is a dog snoring nearby, because even mental health missions need a mascot. Jason’s story moves from Navy deployments and addiction recovery to suicide survival, gaming, purpose, and building spaces where veterans can reconnect before crisis hits. Game C...

In this episode of Veteran Story Hour, Zach Hale sits down with Tom Thompson, a Vietnam veteran, Air Force medic, and lifelong witness to the human cost of war. Tom begins with his early military service in the Army before joining the Air Force in search of real medical work. That path eventually took him to Vietnam, where he served at Bien Hoa and became part of a generation asked to carry out im...

A Waynesboro police officer. A late start in the Army National Guard. A deployment to Syria. And a life completely transformed by faith. On this episode of Voices of Valor , Zach Hale sits down with Doug Williams to talk about military service, leadership, law enforcement, family, and finding purpose in unexpected places. Doug shares stories from joining the Guard at 29, surviving Basic Training d...

Christopher Martin was 17 when college became impossible. At 18, post-9/11, he chose submarines. Five years as a Sonar Technician on the USS Nebraska—seven patrols, listening to the ocean at 500 feet below the surface. The transition home landed him making $100 per glass break detector, then seven years delivering refrigerators. Through the DCMA Keystone Internship Program, Chris finally finds him...

Melissa Patrick spent 28 years in Army Intelligence — from being the first woman in an ROTC classroom at VMI in 1975, to earning master parachutist wings while afraid of heights, to leading NATO intelligence in Afghanistan. After retiring as a Colonel, her civilian work analyzing vehicle attacks led directly to the MRAP decision that saved American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now she runs a VFW...

Most veterans face a digital and emotional divide that can feel impossible to bridge — but Tech for Troops is rewriting that story. Join John and Zach as they introduce Tech for Troops in this episode and discover how a Virginia-based nonprofit is transforming veteran lives through technology, community, and purpose. From refurbishing over 600 tons of e-waste to creating gaming bunkers that foster...

In this episode of Veteran Story Hour, we talk with Banita Teixeira, a United States Navy veteran who served from 1998–2007 during one of the most transformative periods in modern military history. Banita shares stories from - Joining the Navy at 18 Serving aboard the USS Kearsarge Life in naval aviation squadrons The impact of 9/11 on military operations Leadership as a noncommissioned officer Na...

Wanda Vest Hulse: "Just Because I Did a Drafting Class" | Army Veteran She joined the Army because she scored high in mechanical and hated school. A recruiter pointed her toward Illustrator — MOS 81 Echo — and what followed is the single most fun military career we have ever recorded on this show. In this episode, Wanda shares the full arc — from a high school drafting class at Valley Ca...

What if supporting veterans was less about words and more about meaningful action?  At a time when many organizations spend heavily on marketing and salaries, one grassroots effort proves every dollar goes directly to those who need it most—no admin fees, no middlemen, just pure impact. In this special episode recorded live at Virginia’s Foundry during the annual Salute Christmas Benefit, you'...

This Drill Sergeant Quit Drinking, Smoked since he was 10, and Once Led 60 Soldiers to a Football Game… Alone.” Meet Ricky Fiscus: former Cold War soldier, reluctant drill sergeant, Girl Scout leader (yep, really), and certified badass. In this episode, Ricky recounts how a few stray bullets from his side hustle as a drug mule’s driver rerouted him straight into the Army—where he’d end up yelling...

Alec Gunn thought he was joining the Army to be GI Joe. God had other plans. From combat medic to counselor, from military school to ministry, Alec’s path has been anything but straight. But every detour came with a purpose — even the one that stopped him in his tracks: a stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis in 2019. In this conversation, Alec opens up about the diagnosis that shook his world — and the...

In this episode, we sit down with Army veteran and former wildland firefighter Jordan, whose story bridges combat, trauma, soil science, and community. After serving with the 173rd Airborne and deploying to Afghanistan, Jordan pursued forestry, hotshot wildfire crews, and helicopter rappel operations — a career path that collided hard with PTSD triggers tied to smoke, radios, and even sleeping bag...

Emerson Pell: 100 Years of Service, Sacrifice, and Faith In this profoundly moving episode of Veteran Story Hour: Voices of Valor, we sit down in the home of Emerson Pell, a Navy veteran of World War II who is just months away from his 101st birthday. Emerson shares stories that span a century — from growing up without electricity in rural West Virginia, to enlisting in the Navy at 17, to survivin...

Steven Wheelbarger grew up in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The Marines called his family landline in 1990 — and by the following week, he was swearing in at MEPs. What followed was a 20-plus year career that stretched across continents, combat zones, and decades of change. In this conversation, Steven walks us through that journey — from being a 19-year-old combat engineer landing in Saudi Arabia just...

In a world that often forgets the labor it took to build it, this is the story of a man who never did. At 18, Rob Beaton stared at a Navy recruiting sign from a traffic light in the searing Texas heat. Thirty-five years later, he retired as a Navy Commander with a pension, a family intact, and a lifetime of lessons shaped by swabbing decks, late-night watches, and decisions that pulled him across...

Deborah Grassman spent 30 years as a VA hospice nurse practitioner, sitting at the bedside of over 10,000 dying veterans. And what she witnessed changed everything we think we know about trauma, healing, and what veterans actually need from us. This isn't a comfortable conversation. It's not supposed to be. Deborah identified something she calls Soul Injury—a wound beyond PTSD, beyond mora...

It is time for co-host, Zach Hale, to tell his story. In this episode of Veteran Story Hour, Zach shares his journey from rural Virginia to EOD training, through the long nights of medical work, and into the heart of a marriage that taught him what strength really means. This is a story about growing up twice — once in uniform, and once in love. About the weight of duty, the quiet battles no one s...

On this special spotlight episode of Veteran Story Hour , we sit down with Kara from Dynamic Aviation — a Shenandoah Valley company doing extraordinary work behind the scenes of national and global crises. From spraying vaccine-laced bait across forests to combat rabies, to helping contain the screw worm crisis threatening U.S. livestock, Dynamic Aviation modifies aircraft to serve communities in...

On September 11, 2001, America changed. For Chris Spence, it wasn't a distant tragedy—it was a call to action. MSG Spence recounts the earliest days of the U.S. response in Afghanistan, where he carried a piece of the towers with him into war. From horseback missions with General Dostum to satellite comms improvisation on hostile hillsides, Spence brings us inside the uncertainty, improvisatio...

Jim Belcher Jr. joins us to unravel the quiet heroism and generational trauma of a family shaped by both sides of World War II. His father survived the sinking of the USS Indianapolis , the greatest naval disaster in U.S. history. His mother, a Japanese civilian, spent her youth dodging American bombs, caring for siblings in air raid shelters, and surviving the fire that consumed her childhood sch...

Jim Wood has been a soldier, a rock drummer, a nightclub boss, a gun instructor, and now a city councilman in Waynesboro. He’s opened for Kiss, swapped stories with Pantera, and earned the call sign “Doom” in Iraq. But the story everybody remembers? The night he accidentally sang “I Touch Myself” over the comms while laying down fire from a .50 cal. This week on Veteran Story Hour: Voice of Valor,...

In this episode, we sit down with Saul Herrera — a West Point graduate, former Army aviation commander, and current global director with the nonprofit Exodus Road. What unfolds is a decades-spanning narrative of discipline, danger, and duty — from flying Blackhawks in Bosnia and near-misses over the Afghan horizon to leading covert counter-human trafficking operations across Latin America. Herrera...

William Cunningham didn’t take the typical route to becoming an Army officer — unless you count flaming out at West Point, skipping Harvard, and getting commissioned via ROTC after a whole lot of bureaucratic whiplash. In this episode of Veteran Story Hour: Voices of Valor , presented by SALUTE of Virginia, Will takes us through the ups, downs, and full-on faceplants of navigating the military sys...

Born as the twelfth child in a family left fatherless, Fidel Ramirez grew up in the alleys and asphalt of inner-city Cleveland, where survival was the only curriculum. Before he turned sixteen, he'd witnessed death, joined gangs, run paper routes, and been locked up — but he never stopped trying to find a way out. In this gripping conversation, Ramirez walks us through a life shaped by circumstanc...

As a soldier in the Virginia Army National Guard, Bryan and his team cleared obstacles, swept for IEDs, and set up barriers behind moving convoys, making sure the road stayed safe for the next mission. Not ahead of the danger — in it . Right where the risk hides in plain sight. But this isn’t just a war story. It’s a brotherhood story. Because Bryan deployed with people he knew — friends from back...