July 2, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode are documentary filmmaker Jake Rademacher whose new film “Brothers After War“, a follow up to his 2009 documentary “Brothers At War”, is currently available on DVD and digital platforms. He’s joined by his Executive Producer Gary Sinise (“Forrest Gump”, “The Green Mile”). “Brothers After War” finds Rademacher on a journey to reconnect with the veterans (including his two brothers) he embedded with in Iraq during the making of the first film. Combining footage from his time in Iraq with a journey around the World to reunite with the members of these elite combat units, Jake furthers his mission of helping service members and their families navigate the challenges of deployment and life beyond service.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
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(01:27):
host for soft Rep Radio, and I have a totally
awesome episode today. But first, before I introduce my guests,
who you already know is here because you see the
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new to the program, welcome. And if you're a repeat listener,
(02:11):
viewer on YouTube and all the other mediums, you already
see who we got on the show today. So without
further ado, I'm going to go kind of reverse here.
I'm going to introduce Jake Rodemacher, who has created Brothers
at War, Brothers After War. He's a producer, a director.
Somewhere in there it says he's an actor, and so
(02:32):
I really want to welcome him because I just watched
his documentary and you are a rockstar to me right now.
And then also on the screen is Gary Sinise from
of MYSA Men the Green Mile Theater. Oh my Gosh
Forrest Gump. Lieutenant Dan, Lieutenant Dan band who goes and
plays at USO shows to help bring the spirits up
(02:53):
of the troops to see Lieutenant Dan playing cover songs
and probably some of their favorite jams and his jams,
probably some Kretais, Clearwater probably. You know, I just could
only imagine what Lieutenant Dan could play on you play
the bass, right, Lieutenant Dan. Welcome Gary Semis and welcome Jake.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Thank you thanks for having us today.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Wow where do I start? Okay, Well, first of all,
Lieutenant Dan, may I call you Lieutenant Dan for a moment. Yes,
when we first start talking, You're like, are you wear
of that bad Dana? Like Lieutenant Dan? And I was like,
I guess I am. Huh A little bit of love
right there. But I can also cross over. You got
magic legs, Lieutenant Dan through the desert. Yes, I love it.
(03:34):
I'm tired. I think I'm done now. You know, Gary,
I've been growing this on my face for a long
time and I didn't know why, And today I think
I finally met that moment. So thank you for being
on Software Up Radio with us today, and Jake over
to you. Let's just say that I'm a big fan
of your work. Okay, I'm a fan. I find you
(03:57):
to be emotionally charging to me in my brain with
what you've brought to my senses with your family. I mean,
if you ever my listener out there, if you ever
saw Saving Private Ryan where they go and collect all
their brothers who had passed away's certificates and then they
went Saved Ryan, it's kind of like that to me.
You gave up everything to embed in like five, to
(04:20):
go to Mosul and all these different places in Iraq
with your brothers who weren't in the military, who was
like lieutenant or captain private or Private first class at
the time. Holy cow, bro, tell me about it.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Well, you know, Isaac and Joe came back from Fallujah
where they were with the eighty second Airborne, and they
told me the truth wasn't coming home from Iraq.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
So I took all the money ever made.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
As an actor, I got permission from the military, went
back to my hometown in Decater, Illinois, raised a bunch
of money, and went to Iraq to join Isaac on
his third deployment there.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
And what I learned changed my life forever.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
You know, going out with those guys going out with
the Lrist guys out of the Syrian border, also coming
back a second time embedded in the marine advisors in
the Iraqi Army, and the snipers and National Guard infantry.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
And even more than the missions, it was.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
The men and women that I met and their hearts
touched me, and but I learned from them and who
they really are and how this experience was sort of
transforming them. I wanted to capture all that in Brothers
at War and finished that film through a former marine,
Mike Broderick, introduced me to Gary Sinise, and he saw
the film a couple of days before Thanksgiving, and I
(05:40):
don't want to speak for him too much, but he
kind of fell in love with the film and started
telling me what to do, and so we made an
executive producer and that was in two thousand and seven,
and ever since our past sort acrossed, you know, he's
been giving me advice, kind of guiding me, and I've
been kind of continued, I mean to go deeper and
(06:01):
deeper into the experience of our veterans and their families.
The film became a workshop, and then the workshops have
been done for about fifty thousand people over the last
fifteen years, and in around twenty fifteen sixteen, we started
talking and I really wanted to go revisit a lot
of these folks that I met in Iraq, and Gary
(06:24):
had strong feelings about that. They were very positive, and
so together we sort of came up with this concept.
And then with the blessing of the Gary Snede Foundation,
I was able to go across the world and reconnect
with all these guys for the new film Brothers After War.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
You know, I noticed that there was a budget, you know,
that you were getting to go to travel and see
all these different people that wanted to hug you, not
shake your hand because they're brothers. I like that. I
like when they said like, hey, we're brothers, we hug right.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
Gary, of course, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know, And so you got into this, I mean,
Lieutenant Dan really propelled you into the military veteran's life
of you supporting the US. So in my opinion, you know,
watching it in the nineties, seeing you portray such a
every one of my family gump have died in a war.
You know, I should be on that battlefield that actually
(07:20):
came through in the film. Someone said I should have
been like Lieutenant Dan, I shouldn't be here talking right now.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
That's right, look that you know.
Speaker 6 (07:33):
Playing the character was certainly something that was very positive
in many ways. I mean, first of all, as an actor,
I hadn't done that many films before Forrest Gump. And
then when you're in you know, a film like that,
which is you know, the most you know, the biggest
(07:53):
film of the year and all of that, it can
have a positive effect on the career, which it did,
so it changed a lot of things on that side.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
But it also.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
Introduced me to the Disabled American Veterans Organization, where I
started supporting them right after the movie came out and
have continued to support their efforts over these many years.
And then so many of the things that happened after
September eleventh just kind of snowballed into the creation of
(08:29):
a foundation.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
When I met Jake, I didn't have a foundation. I
was just.
Speaker 6 (08:37):
I was getting involved with a lot of other military
nonprofits and trying to support them in various ways to
help our service members and their families out. So I
would get involved in these different efforts, and I was
going out for the USO, and I was playing concerts
with the band, I was going to the hospitals doing
all this this kind of thing and really engaging with
(09:00):
a lot of people that were just there. They were
living the military life, right. And then along and I
and I as a as a public figure, I was
trying to use the public platform that I had to
explain a bit to our fellow citizens about military life
and what folks were going through and what our families
(09:21):
were going through during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. And then,
as Jake said, a buddy of ours, a mutual buddy,
Michael Broderick, he had seen Jake's movie and he thought
that Jake and I should meet and that I should
see the movie, which which Jake and his producing partner
(09:42):
Norman Powell showed me the movie. I arranged for them
to come over to the studio where I was shooting CSI,
New York. We had a little screen over there and
they showed me the movie and it, you know, Brothers
at War just spoke so clearly to the military experience
(10:04):
that what military life was going off to war coming home,
kids don't recognize your spout, you know, getting I mean
all these things. It really was speaking to a lot
of the things that I was trying to kind of,
you know, make the public aware of that our military
was going through during a very very difficult time. So,
(10:26):
as Jake said, I came on board as executive producer
to help him get the movie out there. I remember
I sponsored, Remember I sponsored a screening Jake. I think
it was at Sony, and we invited just a ton
of our friends, you know, and lots of great people.
One of those friends of mine was the singer songwriter
(10:48):
John Androsik, who has the band Five for Fighting, and
John came to that screening at Sony and John offered
to write a song for the movie, which he ended
up doing with Jake. A lot of great things came
out of it, including the many workshops that Jake started
doing on military bases all over the country. Just we
could see that the movie was really because we opened
(11:12):
it in military communities around the country, and you know,
like Fayetteville and Columbus, Georgia, places where a lot big
military presence but also a lot of veterans, and the
movie did well and we could see that it was
kind of you know, people wanted to talk about their
(11:33):
own personal experiences after viewing the movie, and so Jake
started doing these workshops with them on military bases, and
one thing led to another, and then there was just,
you know, hundreds of workshops down the road. And at
one point, as Jake mentioned, you know, after several years
of him doing workshops, and we started funding those at
(11:56):
the Gary Sneze Foundation. And then Jake and I started
talking about, you know, the folks that were in the
first movie. You see them in the military, you see
them overseas in Iraq fighting a war, dealing with the war,
and we started to discuss, well, what where are all
those folks, what are they doing now? Jake had stayed
in touch with a few of them, but there were
(12:19):
others that I think you had lost touch with or
or just hadn't talked to in several years. And so
we thought, let's let's revisit those folks, see where they're at.
How many of them are still in the military, and
how many are not in the military. And if they
aren't in the military, what has that transition been like
(12:40):
for them? What was their experience while serving and getting
out of the military. And that's where the concept for
Brothers after War came from. And we were fortunate because
Jake had made a movie that had all these all
these folks in it, right, and you see them in
the back, You see them coming home from war and
(13:02):
dealing with their families. You see all that while they're
still serving. And now we can look back, use all
that footage and reflect on that footage while we're talking
to them about their transition out of the service. Most
of them are out of the service that we're in
the in the first film, and I just think it's
(13:23):
a It's a beautiful, beautiful film that really shows some
of the some of the challenges of getting out of
the out of the service after going off to the war.
But also the best part about it is that veterans
are sharing their stories very very publicly for a camera
(13:45):
that and they know it's going to go on the screen,
and they're very open about sharing their stories. And for
so many of our veterans, what they face is that
they don't know who to share their story with. They
don't want to share their story, they contain and sometimes
it's very difficult and that can be problematic, and we
(14:05):
want to show them with this film that sharing the
story can be very very helpful and very positive for others.
And that's what Jake did so beautifully drawing things out
of each one of the service members that we that
we see in the film and asking them what's it
been like.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
I mean, Jake will tell you what his brother said
right there.
Speaker 6 (14:24):
On camera, and he never knew anything about that, and
so they really opened up. And that was the beautiful
thing about Brothers after War.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
You know, it's really emotional. I do so many interviews
with veterans who have written books, pursuing acting as a career,
pursuing other things to try to get a job in
the civilian sector. You know, I always ask him how
old were you when you enlisted, how long did you serve,
and now what are you doing today? You know, and
(14:54):
your movie really kind of compartmentalizes all of that. So
the both of them. I'm pretty spoiled because I got
to watch the first one and I got to watch
your second one, which is out on all platforms right now,
right So when I looked it up on my Xbox,
I was like, you know, Brothers after War, and then
it brought me to my YouTube and I was like, okay,
click on YouTube, and I started watching it on YouTube
(15:16):
and then it's like, oh, by the way, it's available
on Prime and all these other mediums, and I with
my wife, I was like, well, let's go watch it
on Prime. So we clicked on that watched the whole thing.
She looked at me, like, really, you're going to interview
Jake and Gary about what we're just watching. And I'm like, yeah,
you know. And then we watched the second one and
(15:37):
we had to kind of stop almost towards the end
where Sergeant first Class Sammy was being talked about, because
it's emotional, and it's not that it was anything hard
to watch, it's just that I paused it and I
just looked at her and we just said, you know,
it's so humbling to see everything after the war. You know,
(15:59):
I got guys that were completely healthy when they got
inspected to go in the military, when they bent over
and shown their brown round, they had no problems at all.
The docs like, you're good to go. Then they get
home and they still bend over. The brown round is
probably right. But up in here there's some things going
(16:20):
on and they're not talking about it. And when there's
a soldier that steps up in one of your workshops
and he starts to, you know, humbly cry about his
service in five and he's never been the same. You know,
there's a lot of veterans out there that just hold
that inside. And you know, suicide is a big thing
that attacks our veterans and people alike when they hold
(16:42):
on to so much inside themselves. And then when you
have everybody to write it out and journal it and
just like kind of document it themselves like you did,
it's like a prescription of healthiness that you're giving them,
like inspiring them to do so well.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
I think that was a big greason and why we
took on the film. You know that that workshop was
sponsored by the Gary Sneeze Foundation. That was twenty nineteen.
There's about a thousand soldiers coming back from the Middle East.
Their families are invited to be participated, and that's typical
of what we experience in a workshop is holding space
for vets, letting them kind of unpack experience, and in
(17:20):
the course of communicating and journaling they find some healing
in that moment. And then in the workshop we share
other things they can do after the workshop.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
And we're really teaching them how to you.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Know, walk through and work through some of these experience
overseas or experiences even that happening for the military. You know,
trauma is trauma, but you can process it, and post
traumatic stress can.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Become post traumatic growth.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
And Gary and I want guys not just survive, We
want them to thrive. And so what's special about the
film is you see in that moment, I've been in war,
I've been in combat.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
I've interviewed my brothers.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
I've been there when they're leaving and when they're coming home.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I've asked the questions. I've been there when people are hurt.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
But I've also spent was that about eight years helping
and learning and understanding the veteran experience, understanding and coming
home and experience. And for me, I think what's special
about the film is that guy then gets sent off
thanks to Gary and the foundation.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Into the world.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
And one thing that Gary said to me, which is unique,
I want to know how they're doing and what they need.
So he sent me off as kind of an insider,
a bit of an expert at this point, to go
and go even further into those experiences. And as Gary suggested,
these veterans were incredibly emotionally courageous and generous with their stories.
(18:49):
And it was for two reasons one, it was it
was a way to unpack for themselves and make sense
of it.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
But it was also because they knew the film was
going to be seen by other veterans. And my brother Joe.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
You know who is the most art and supporter in
my family, the guy who's a corporal.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Busting my chops.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
He's still busting my chops as a master's sergeant and
his mess sergeant. Yeah, everybody gets to laugh at my
expense thanks to Joe.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
But you know, about a third of the.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Way through the film, Joe confesses to me that he
was a half pound of pressure away from taking.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
His own life. And it's the first time he's ever
said it. And I think because he says in the movie.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
If it will help one other soldier, that's why I'm
telling you this, and I have seen I don't know
if it's because he's now a former special operator, he's
deployed nine times.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Jeez, that.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
He's like given permission to almost a generation of warriors now.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
To open up and talk about their own experiences.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
When you look at the statistics, like USC did a study,
thirty percent at risk for suicide.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
So this is something we all just have to talk
about it's actually not that big a deal.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
It runs through the tribe, and by not talking about it,
we're creating his face score vets can't open up and can't.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Share about it.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Complacency, Yeah, it's complacency or just you know, there's a misinterpretation.
It's like you don't want to shove that thing in
the filing cabinet and put it away. You actually want
to open up and talk about it and feeling it
as I heal from it. And it's not a terrible.
Speaker 5 (20:22):
Stigma too, you know.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
And that's what you have to break down because they're
they're trained, they're they're not trained to be vulnerable, you know,
they're trained to be strong and ass kickers, you know,
and being vulnerable and exposing some of the vulnerabilities within themselves.
It just doesn't come natural at all, and so you know,
(20:45):
when you're when you know that that's part of part
of the problem is we don't we don't train people
to deal with the aftermath of going to war, you know,
and how to deal with it. But there are multiple
services out there. There's no shortage of services really, I
(21:05):
mean you you know, the VA can only do so
much right and has whatever, But there are multiple programs
out there and services that are available to our veterans.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
I mean, our stuff of the Gary Snes.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
Foundation is just one little bit of what's available to
veterans out there in terms of helping them, you know,
to strengthen this inner.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Life that they're dealing with.
Speaker 6 (21:29):
We see the outer life that you know, all of that,
but there's an inner life that really can can be
destructive and it can also be very you know, very strengthening.
You know, if you're if you're healthy in here, you're
going to be you know, you're going to be okay.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
And but they they need help with that, you know.
Speaker 6 (21:49):
So what we do with Brothers after War and the
workshops and some of the other programs that we're involved
with that the Gary Sense Foundation is just to try
to provide some helpful tools, guidance, helpful guidance that will
keep them off the ledge. You know, we don't want that,
We don't want them to contain things. Telling their stories
(22:11):
is very very important in healing. Jake's seen it a
million times, you know, somebody said, oh, you know, I
was thinking about going out here and taking my gun
or whatever, and then I you know, saw the movie
or you know, something told me I shouldn't do that.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
I've had that happen with me at concerts.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
You know, people write me letters after concerts, and after
I talked at the concerts to the service members, and
I got one thing from one guy who said, I
saw your poster. I was on my way to the desert.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
I was going to do this, saw your poster and
I thought I.
Speaker 6 (22:47):
Should go over and see the show before I go
out to the desert. And your message hit me, and
I didn't go. And you know, us being proactive is
an important part of mental wellness because so often, right,
(23:09):
how many times have you heard somebody took their own
life or something like that, and you have their spouse,
their best buddies, everybody.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Say I had no idea, right, there were no signs.
Speaker 6 (23:24):
I didn't see any signs at all, no signs whatsoever.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
And quite often there aren't because that inner life, right is.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
Just so protected and so so locked in that they
don't really share, you know. So the proaction of reaching out,
you know, I've done multiple PSAs for suicide prevention and whatever,
just the multiple ways that we can get out there
and let people know that, hey, you're not by yourself. Nope,
(23:54):
there's a lot of people out there that care about you.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
We respect you.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
We want you to know these services are available to you,
and we want you to know that you're.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
You've got a grateful nation out there.
Speaker 6 (24:04):
We don't want you doing something that you know your
family will be hurting.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
You know if you do it.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Friends.
Speaker 6 (24:11):
Yeah, and so the more we can be proactive out there,
the better.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
And that's what that's what the workshops do. They're proactive.
Speaker 6 (24:18):
You know, you don't you know, Jake doesn't know how
many people are sitting in the audience who.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
Are going through tough stuff.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
But if he wasn't there doing the workshops and getting
people to talk about things, maybe something bad would happen.
So we're trying to be proactive in what we're doing
with active duty with brothers at war and transitioning veterans
with brothers after war.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Well, that's commendable. I love it. I love the message.
You know. I've had people reach out to me late
at night with demons, you know, they hit me up
through the Instagram and I'm like, my wife's like, who
are you talking to I'm like, I'm not sure. I
think I know them. I don't know if I know them,
but right now I'm gonna act like I am there
for them. And you know, you don't know if you're
(25:05):
walking that person off that ledge or not. And I
just was always taught to, like, you know, help your
neighbor out, My mom and dad, good people kind of attitude.
And so that's the same thing. You know, all my veterans,
all my people that get on the show, everybody that
listens to this, you know, they all have a value
and a worth and they've we've all gone through trauma.
(25:25):
And even if you like even Jake, Jake, you went
to war, right, I consider that a veteran, you know,
and that you saw things, you deal with demons. You
know you're editing it. You're editing consistently. Do I want
to put this in? Do I not want this in?
Do I need to show this? Probably need to show this.
And that might have blood involved things like that. I mean,
(25:48):
you know, you talking to your brother and him telling
you that maybe one of his first wife or second
wife whatnot took him off that ledge, stopped him from
you know, that extra half pound that he was just
right there. Bros. A sniper instructor knows the trigger knows
the sensitivity against his fingertip understands every single aspect of
(26:10):
what he's about to do clearly with a like. So,
I'm a big believer in freedom of choice. I can't
stop everything, but I can only tell somebody that you're loved,
And if you want to feel love, just hit me
up and I'm here to respond back to you. And
you know, I really love how your brother opened up
(26:31):
about that and the vulnerability that these soldiers are giving
themselves or what am I trying to say. I think
that they're just opening up and just willing to shed
a tear about a story. And when you see them
starting to write at your workshops and they're just writing
out something and they're just going and going and going
and going. They all made them go with to Fallujah
together or Mosul or Afghanistan, but each one of them
(26:53):
has a different thread that wove all that together.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Well one hundred percent right, And like Gary said, you know,
we want to proactively get in front of people. You know,
another thing that's really special, frankly, and I was passionate
about it, was I've been doing workshops for years. We're
going to do workshops well into the future. Gary Sneaks
Foundation sponsoring forty of them around the country for the
(27:20):
next year.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
We got a big calendar comping up.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
But I love that you can go on your Xbox
and find the film. And we also released in movie
theaters and we wanted to do create community with that,
and a lot of that's came and saw it together.
But it's really nice that people can see it in
their own living room because we know that tens of thousands,
if not hundreds of thousands of veterans and civilians who
(27:47):
want to know more about our veterans who want to
have a better understanding already have some empathy, but maybe
want a deeper, richer understanding of that experience so they
can you know, we've had people already reach out and say,
I've been married for twenty nine years. I saw the film.
It helped me understand my husband better. Now imagine that.
I mean, that's a beautiful thing about having the film
(28:09):
available for people to watch in their own living rooms
and to experience and to reflect and contemplate on whether
it's their own experience, or their neighbor's experience, or their
husband's experience.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
And we made the film because we want we know the.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Movies make tough subjects easier to talk about, and we
want people to talk about their experiences.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
And one last thing I want to say is you
said something really important to the beginning of the interview.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
The film is very approachable and manageable, and even though
we get into some of these tougher topics, we also
have a lot of humor and we present a very
well rounded view of our veterans. So Derek, who's mourning
the loss of his friend of Memorial Day, is also
throwing me out of the side of an airplane because
(28:54):
he's also an adrenaline junkie that looks like a Viking.
And that's part of his story too, right, I know,
And that goes.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Throughout the entire film.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
And the film has a lot of solution and a
lot of ways these veterans have navigated some of these
difficulties that all veterans face to get to the next place,
and has a.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Lot of hope.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
And I just think that's an important thing to point
out to your listeners and something that Gary and I
were very passionate about in making this film. You know,
he's got veterans in his own family. I obviously do
my sister's actually actively serving. My nephew is still serving.
You met him in the film, and we wanted to
present these people that we know holistically, so you get
(29:37):
to see them and see what great people.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
They are, you know. To piggyback on the captain's daughter
in the documentary when she shed her tears after she's like,
my daddy went six times, deployed six times, and she's
having nightmares about him not coming home from the desert.
You know, I just thought about my dad being a
(30:01):
Green Beret and I was just a young ten or
eleven year old while Mom watched me at home. Mom
was also dad at home and took me to baseball practice.
Dad was deployed for six to nine months at a
time and then would come home. You know, total hot deployments,
you know, these special operation lifestyles. And so your brother
eighty second Airborne, you know, officer lieutenant colonel, did he
(30:27):
retire as a lieutenant colonel?
Speaker 3 (30:28):
He retired as a lieutenant colonel.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Dude, that's a boss, bro, you know. And to see
his eyes think about his kids when he's gone for
six months, gone for ten months, got to go again,
got to go again, And made me think about my
own dad thinking those same things. Probably I never asked
my dad that before he passed, like, hey, you know,
what was it like to have to leave us kids behind?
You know, because no one ever made a big deal
(30:50):
like Mom always had it under control. That's why she
hangs with him on the mantle because she's just as
special operations as he was. You know. Shout out to
the moms and everybody that helps and the supporting team
at home, right. And I was talking to my wife
about that. I said, you know, some people can't handle
their husbands being gone for six weeks. Imagine if they
were deployed. But then we said, well they would be
(31:12):
in the world of the military and there would be
a support group, hopefully around those other families that needed
that support.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, sometimes the support is there. I have to tell
you that. I'm sure you dad felt that way.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
I've done these workshops for so long that that moment
from the first film when Isaac comes home and doesn't
recognize you know, his daughter doesn't recognize him, and you
see that look of pain on his face and you
see him crying. You know, fifteen years later, when I
come back to that moment, saying it takes six months
to be dad again. I have every workshop impact in
(31:46):
your family. There's a tough guy or too that says that,
who's the moment I relate to? And those moments are
it's so important, you know, we want someone like yourself
to have a conversation with their parents or the parent.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
To open up and say, is that how you feel?
Speaker 4 (32:03):
My brother didn't know that his daughter was having nightmares
until I did that interview, you know, and she's not
the only child that's going through that. So I think
the real power of the film is that it can
open up insight and conversation and give us insight into
those moments. And then the final thought is just I
(32:25):
wanted the American people to know that that's the average
sacrifice of the average father that deploys overseas. Three million
of our service members went overseas for twenty years, and
all of them that were fathers had that experience, had
that moment, that same pain.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
In their chest.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
And that's a sacrifice and a gift that gave to
the rest of us. And I feel and I'm sure Gary,
I know Gary agrees with me on this. This is
why we're so passionate about doing whatever we can to
kind of welcome them home and encourage our fellow citizens
to look out for ways they can help.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Gary says, we can never do enough, but we can
always do a little bit more, and that.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
I want to share with the American public, like this
is the experience that they're having, and this is what
they're doing for all of us.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
I felt it a hundred percent. Yeah, you know, I didn't.
I wanted to come prepare to this with you and
Gary to say that I really was into your footage
and watching it and trying to understand your editing, you know,
from my perspective, and I mean we really watched them
back to back. We're so blessed to have this kind
(33:41):
of media out there where I can see something from
thirteen years ago or fifteen years ago that you filmed,
and now I can say, wait, he was just a
private first class. Now he's a massive sargeant, sniper instructor
Special Operations, freaking out on his brother in the kitchen
over Syria. What's up, bro? What's up?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Well, you know, it's good that I have an edgy
filmmaker and theater guy himself is my executive producer.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
So he was okay, with a little conflict in the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
You know, you did stir some conflict up, bro, I
went to my room when she got mad.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
That's the name of that scene, conflict in the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
It should be well.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
I've had so many military spouses tell me that was
their favorite scene in the entire film, and I've had
a lot of people tell me, oh, when that happened,
I knew this film was real.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
You guys weren't holding anything back, and.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I just thought, brothers.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
It is brothers, you know.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
But in a deeper sense, I think there's value in
watching a guy who banged around our act for three
months debating rustling having a conversation with his brothers deployed
nine times about these things that affect us all And
while it's not the main focus of the film, I
didn't want to suppress the truth of these veterans and
(35:04):
how they feel about Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria, because
some of them are having some pretty strong feelings about
all that, and I felt like we as a nation
owe it to them to reflect back on some of
the decisions that were made, and those who fail to
look at history are doomed to repeat it.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
So as you see, I don't feel like there's a
heavy hand.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
We're not telling how you should think or feel or
anything like that, but we do allow Chief Turner and
Joe and Chief Turner deployed seven times, Chief Intel Officer.
We allow these guys to open up on some of
these conversations, some of these topics so that you maybe
can have that conversation in your own living room.
Speaker 6 (35:51):
And Jake, we have another interview we got to go to.
But where can people download the movie? And why don't
you wy don't you fill everybody in? We we of
course want all your listeners to take a look at
the movie. It's now available and it'll be out there
for a while, you know, I mean it'll be living
(36:11):
online for quite a while. So but we want people
to go to it. We want people to see it,
and we want people to tell their friends about it,
especially if you're struggling, you know, take a look at it.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
There are services available.
Speaker 6 (36:24):
You can certainly go to the Garrisonese Foundation if you
feel like you got a buddy who's in need of
some help or some services. Also, you can just see,
you know, the success that people are having.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
You know, there's there's a.
Speaker 6 (36:38):
Successful story here in Brothers After War with people moving
on and that's that's the main thing at the end
of the movie is we want people moving on and
doing positive things and great things with their lives post
military service. Where can we see the movie, Jake.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
Well, you can go to Brothers Afterward dot com to
find all the places it's available. It's available on Amazon,
it's available at iTunes, it's available Microsoft and YouTube. There's
DVDs on the shelves of Walmart and also available on Amazon.
So the other thing you can do at Brothersafterwar dot
(37:17):
com is if you'd like to participate in a seminar
when it comes to your town, shoot us an email
info at Brothers Afterwar dot com. Someone on my team
will look at all those sometimes it's even me myself,
and we respond to that and we will be bringing
the seminar around America over the next twelve months, and
when it comes to your town, we'd love to have
(37:37):
you as our guest.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Well, there you have it. You have had an awesome
interview with Gary Sonise and Jake Rodmacher who went after
Brothers after War. Brothers at War the Brothers at War
dot com website. Go check that out. If you're a
veteran that's struggling, reach out to me. If you need
to say Hi, what's up. I'll say hi back because
(38:01):
I also have people look at my emails maybe me too.
Just to put it out there. And thank you for
letting me play on the whole gump thing there, Lieutenant Dan.
And if you ever need someone to hit the cow
bell for you, you know, in some blue oyster cold
you just let me know. Bro. I will show up
and I will come and hit that thing. No problem, Okay,
(38:22):
you got it. Thanksving Well, thank you for being on
SOFTWAREP Radio, and thank you Jake, Thank you Gary, and
on behalf of myself Brandon Webb Matthew who helped arrange
all of this behind the scenes, and all the families
of the lost who didn't get to see their loved
one come home. I hope that this film hits you
in the fields and that it makes you think about
(38:44):
them and all of the fun memories that they left
behind for you, because that's what we have at the
end of the day, is the memory and the real
at the funeral of all the pictures. I don't care
about your money, your gold, I just want to see
you smiling in those photos. So you guys keep it up.
And again, this is rad to be kind of somebody today. Peace.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
You've been listening to self revelationa mm hmm
Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
You're listening to soft web Radio, Special Operations, Military nails
and straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
All right, last word, you're already carrying broken dreams, bad chow,
and a mission brief written by someone who thinks logistics
is a mythical creature. Add five ounces that can literally
save your skin. The Scrubble washbag is cheap, durable, and
idiot proof. If it's good enough for Special Ops Canadian
Forces a CSAs and the fifteenth Operations Group, it's good
(01:05):
enough for you and you're busted up ruck. Don't be
the guy who gets nicknamed private pestilence. Stay sharp, stay clean,
scrubb a up, visit the scrubba dot com or find
them in your supply chain. Scrubb a it's not gear,
it's survival. Hey, what's going on? This is rad your
(01:27):
host for soft Rep Radio, and I have a totally
awesome episode today. But first, before I introduce my guests,
who you already know is here because you see the
link you clicked on it. You're here. You know who's here.
But before I introduce them, I gotta tell you about
the merch shop right, soft rep dot com forward slash merch.
We've got all sorts of cool branded hoodies, the new
coffee mugs, everything's out there, and it helps keep the
(01:49):
fireplace going right. So that's what's up, okay, So keep
buying the merch. We really appreciate it. Don't forget to
tag us online. Second is our book club, all right,
books are the gym for your brain. So read one
and go check out soft rep dot com forward slash
book hyphen Club. That's book hyphen Club. And if you're
new to the program, welcome. And if you're a repeat listener,
(02:11):
viewer on YouTube and all the other mediums, you already
see who we got on the show today. So without
further ado, I'm going to go kind of reverse here.
I'm going to introduce Jake Rodemacher, who has created Brothers
at War, Brothers After War. He's a producer, a director.
Somewhere in there it says he's an actor, and so
(02:32):
I really want to welcome him because I just watched
his documentary and you are a rockstar to me right now.
And then also on the screen is Gary Sinise from
of MYSA Men the Green Mile Theater. Oh my Gosh
Forrest Gump. Lieutenant Dan, Lieutenant Dan band who goes and
plays at USO shows to help bring the spirits up
(02:53):
of the troops to see Lieutenant Dan playing cover songs
and probably some of their favorite jams and his jams,
probably some Kretais, Clearwater probably. You know, I just could
only imagine what Lieutenant Dan could play on you play
the bass, right, Lieutenant Dan. Welcome Gary Semis and welcome Jake.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Thank you thanks for having us today.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Wow where do I start? Okay, Well, first of all,
Lieutenant Dan, may I call you Lieutenant Dan for a moment. Yes,
when we first start talking, You're like, are you wear
of that bad Dana? Like Lieutenant Dan? And I was like,
I guess I am. Huh A little bit of love
right there. But I can also cross over. You got
magic legs, Lieutenant Dan through the desert. Yes, I love it.
(03:34):
I'm tired. I think I'm done now. You know, Gary,
I've been growing this on my face for a long
time and I didn't know why, And today I think
I finally met that moment. So thank you for being
on Software Up Radio with us today, and Jake over
to you. Let's just say that I'm a big fan
of your work. Okay, I'm a fan. I find you
(03:57):
to be emotionally charging to me in my brain with
what you've brought to my senses with your family. I mean,
if you ever my listener out there, if you ever
saw Saving Private Ryan where they go and collect all
their brothers who had passed away's certificates and then they
went Saved Ryan, it's kind of like that to me.
You gave up everything to embed in like five, to
(04:20):
go to Mosul and all these different places in Iraq
with your brothers who weren't in the military, who was
like lieutenant or captain private or Private first class at
the time. Holy cow, bro, tell me about it.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Well, you know, Isaac and Joe came back from Fallujah
where they were with the eighty second Airborne, and they
told me the truth wasn't coming home from Iraq.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
So I took all the money ever made.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
As an actor, I got permission from the military, went
back to my hometown in Decater, Illinois, raised a bunch
of money, and went to Iraq to join Isaac on
his third deployment there.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
And what I learned changed my life forever.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
You know, going out with those guys going out with
the Lrist guys out of the Syrian border, also coming
back a second time embedded in the marine advisors in
the Iraqi Army, and the snipers and National Guard infantry.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
And even more than the missions, it was.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
The men and women that I met and their hearts
touched me, and but I learned from them and who
they really are and how this experience was sort of
transforming them. I wanted to capture all that in Brothers
at War and finished that film through a former marine,
Mike Broderick, introduced me to Gary Sinise, and he saw
the film a couple of days before Thanksgiving, and I
(05:40):
don't want to speak for him too much, but he
kind of fell in love with the film and started
telling me what to do, and so we made an
executive producer and that was in two thousand and seven,
and ever since our past sort acrossed, you know, he's
been giving me advice, kind of guiding me, and I've
been kind of continued, I mean to go deeper and
(06:01):
deeper into the experience of our veterans and their families.
The film became a workshop, and then the workshops have
been done for about fifty thousand people over the last
fifteen years, and in around twenty fifteen sixteen, we started
talking and I really wanted to go revisit a lot
of these folks that I met in Iraq, and Gary
(06:24):
had strong feelings about that. They were very positive, and
so together we sort of came up with this concept.
And then with the blessing of the Gary Snede Foundation,
I was able to go across the world and reconnect
with all these guys for the new film Brothers After War.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
You know, I noticed that there was a budget, you know,
that you were getting to go to travel and see
all these different people that wanted to hug you, not
shake your hand because they're brothers. I like that. I
like when they said like, hey, we're brothers, we hug right.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
Gary, of course, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know, And so you got into this, I mean,
Lieutenant Dan really propelled you into the military veteran's life
of you supporting the US. So in my opinion, you know,
watching it in the nineties, seeing you portray such a
every one of my family gump have died in a war.
You know, I should be on that battlefield that actually
(07:20):
came through in the film. Someone said I should have
been like Lieutenant Dan, I shouldn't be here talking right now.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
That's right, look that you know.
Speaker 6 (07:33):
Playing the character was certainly something that was very positive
in many ways. I mean, first of all, as an actor,
I hadn't done that many films before Forrest Gump. And
then when you're in you know, a film like that,
which is you know, the most you know, the biggest
(07:53):
film of the year and all of that, it can
have a positive effect on the career, which it did,
so it changed a lot of things on that side.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
But it also.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
Introduced me to the Disabled American Veterans Organization, where I
started supporting them right after the movie came out and
have continued to support their efforts over these many years.
And then so many of the things that happened after
September eleventh just kind of snowballed into the creation of
(08:29):
a foundation.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
When I met Jake, I didn't have a foundation. I
was just.
Speaker 6 (08:37):
I was getting involved with a lot of other military
nonprofits and trying to support them in various ways to
help our service members and their families out. So I
would get involved in these different efforts, and I was
going out for the USO, and I was playing concerts
with the band, I was going to the hospitals doing
all this this kind of thing and really engaging with
(09:00):
a lot of people that were just there. They were
living the military life, right. And then along and I
and I as a as a public figure, I was
trying to use the public platform that I had to
explain a bit to our fellow citizens about military life
and what folks were going through and what our families
(09:21):
were going through during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. And then,
as Jake said, a buddy of ours, a mutual buddy,
Michael Broderick, he had seen Jake's movie and he thought
that Jake and I should meet and that I should
see the movie, which which Jake and his producing partner
(09:42):
Norman Powell showed me the movie. I arranged for them
to come over to the studio where I was shooting CSI,
New York. We had a little screen over there and
they showed me the movie and it, you know, Brothers
at War just spoke so clearly to the military experience
(10:04):
that what military life was going off to war coming home,
kids don't recognize your spout, you know, getting I mean
all these things. It really was speaking to a lot
of the things that I was trying to kind of,
you know, make the public aware of that our military
was going through during a very very difficult time. So,
(10:26):
as Jake said, I came on board as executive producer
to help him get the movie out there. I remember
I sponsored, Remember I sponsored a screening Jake. I think
it was at Sony, and we invited just a ton
of our friends, you know, and lots of great people.
One of those friends of mine was the singer songwriter
(10:48):
John Androsik, who has the band Five for Fighting, and
John came to that screening at Sony and John offered
to write a song for the movie, which he ended
up doing with Jake. A lot of great things came
out of it, including the many workshops that Jake started
doing on military bases all over the country. Just we
could see that the movie was really because we opened
(11:12):
it in military communities around the country, and you know,
like Fayetteville and Columbus, Georgia, places where a lot big
military presence but also a lot of veterans, and the
movie did well and we could see that it was
kind of you know, people wanted to talk about their
(11:33):
own personal experiences after viewing the movie, and so Jake
started doing these workshops with them on military bases, and
one thing led to another, and then there was just,
you know, hundreds of workshops down the road. And at
one point, as Jake mentioned, you know, after several years
of him doing workshops, and we started funding those at
(11:56):
the Gary Sneze Foundation. And then Jake and I started
talking about, you know, the folks that were in the
first movie. You see them in the military, you see
them overseas in Iraq fighting a war, dealing with the war,
and we started to discuss, well, what where are all
those folks, what are they doing now? Jake had stayed
in touch with a few of them, but there were
(12:19):
others that I think you had lost touch with or
or just hadn't talked to in several years. And so
we thought, let's let's revisit those folks, see where they're at.
How many of them are still in the military, and
how many are not in the military. And if they
aren't in the military, what has that transition been like
(12:40):
for them? What was their experience while serving and getting
out of the military. And that's where the concept for
Brothers after War came from. And we were fortunate because
Jake had made a movie that had all these all
these folks in it, right, and you see them in
the back, You see them coming home from war and
(13:02):
dealing with their families. You see all that while they're
still serving. And now we can look back, use all
that footage and reflect on that footage while we're talking
to them about their transition out of the service. Most
of them are out of the service that we're in
the in the first film, and I just think it's
(13:23):
a It's a beautiful, beautiful film that really shows some
of the some of the challenges of getting out of
the out of the service after going off to the war.
But also the best part about it is that veterans
are sharing their stories very very publicly for a camera
(13:45):
that and they know it's going to go on the screen,
and they're very open about sharing their stories. And for
so many of our veterans, what they face is that
they don't know who to share their story with. They
don't want to share their story, they contain and sometimes
it's very difficult and that can be problematic, and we
(14:05):
want to show them with this film that sharing the
story can be very very helpful and very positive for others.
And that's what Jake did so beautifully drawing things out
of each one of the service members that we that
we see in the film and asking them what's it
been like.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
I mean, Jake will tell you what his brother said
right there.
Speaker 6 (14:24):
On camera, and he never knew anything about that, and
so they really opened up. And that was the beautiful
thing about Brothers after War.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
You know, it's really emotional. I do so many interviews
with veterans who have written books, pursuing acting as a career,
pursuing other things to try to get a job in
the civilian sector. You know, I always ask him how
old were you when you enlisted, how long did you serve,
and now what are you doing today? You know, and
(14:54):
your movie really kind of compartmentalizes all of that. So
the both of them. I'm pretty spoiled because I got
to watch the first one and I got to watch
your second one, which is out on all platforms right now,
right So when I looked it up on my Xbox,
I was like, you know, Brothers after War, and then
it brought me to my YouTube and I was like, okay,
click on YouTube, and I started watching it on YouTube
(15:16):
and then it's like, oh, by the way, it's available
on Prime and all these other mediums, and I with
my wife, I was like, well, let's go watch it
on Prime. So we clicked on that watched the whole thing.
She looked at me, like, really, you're going to interview
Jake and Gary about what we're just watching. And I'm like, yeah,
you know. And then we watched the second one and
(15:37):
we had to kind of stop almost towards the end
where Sergeant first Class Sammy was being talked about, because
it's emotional, and it's not that it was anything hard
to watch, it's just that I paused it and I
just looked at her and we just said, you know,
it's so humbling to see everything after the war. You know,
(15:59):
I got guys that were completely healthy when they got
inspected to go in the military, when they bent over
and shown their brown round, they had no problems at all.
The docs like, you're good to go. Then they get
home and they still bend over. The brown round is
probably right. But up in here there's some things going
(16:20):
on and they're not talking about it. And when there's
a soldier that steps up in one of your workshops
and he starts to, you know, humbly cry about his
service in five and he's never been the same. You know,
there's a lot of veterans out there that just hold
that inside. And you know, suicide is a big thing
that attacks our veterans and people alike when they hold
(16:42):
on to so much inside themselves. And then when you
have everybody to write it out and journal it and
just like kind of document it themselves like you did,
it's like a prescription of healthiness that you're giving them,
like inspiring them to do so well.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
I think that was a big greason and why we
took on the film. You know that that workshop was
sponsored by the Gary Sneeze Foundation. That was twenty nineteen.
There's about a thousand soldiers coming back from the Middle East.
Their families are invited to be participated, and that's typical
of what we experience in a workshop is holding space
for vets, letting them kind of unpack experience, and in
(17:20):
the course of communicating and journaling they find some healing
in that moment. And then in the workshop we share
other things they can do after the workshop.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
And we're really teaching them how to you.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Know, walk through and work through some of these experience
overseas or experiences even that happening for the military. You know,
trauma is trauma, but you can process it, and post
traumatic stress can.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Become post traumatic growth.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
And Gary and I want guys not just survive, We
want them to thrive. And so what's special about the
film is you see in that moment, I've been in war,
I've been in combat.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
I've interviewed my brothers.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
I've been there when they're leaving and when they're coming home.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I've asked the questions. I've been there when people are hurt.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
But I've also spent was that about eight years helping
and learning and understanding the veteran experience, understanding and coming
home and experience. And for me, I think what's special
about the film is that guy then gets sent off
thanks to Gary and the foundation.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Into the world.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
And one thing that Gary said to me, which is unique,
I want to know how they're doing and what they need.
So he sent me off as kind of an insider,
a bit of an expert at this point, to go
and go even further into those experiences. And as Gary suggested,
these veterans were incredibly emotionally courageous and generous with their stories.
(18:49):
And it was for two reasons one, it was it
was a way to unpack for themselves and make sense
of it.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
But it was also because they knew the film was
going to be seen by other veterans. And my brother Joe.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
You know who is the most art and supporter in
my family, the guy who's a corporal.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Busting my chops.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
He's still busting my chops as a master's sergeant and
his mess sergeant. Yeah, everybody gets to laugh at my
expense thanks to Joe.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
But you know, about a third of the.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Way through the film, Joe confesses to me that he
was a half pound of pressure away from taking.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
His own life. And it's the first time he's ever
said it. And I think because he says in the movie.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
If it will help one other soldier, that's why I'm
telling you this, and I have seen I don't know
if it's because he's now a former special operator, he's
deployed nine times.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Jeez, that.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
He's like given permission to almost a generation of warriors now.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
To open up and talk about their own experiences.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
When you look at the statistics, like USC did a study,
thirty percent at risk for suicide.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
So this is something we all just have to talk
about it's actually not that big a deal.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
It runs through the tribe, and by not talking about it,
we're creating his face score vets can't open up and can't.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Share about it.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Complacency, Yeah, it's complacency or just you know, there's a misinterpretation.
It's like you don't want to shove that thing in
the filing cabinet and put it away. You actually want
to open up and talk about it and feeling it
as I heal from it. And it's not a terrible.
Speaker 5 (20:22):
Stigma too, you know.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
And that's what you have to break down because they're
they're trained, they're they're not trained to be vulnerable, you know,
they're trained to be strong and ass kickers, you know,
and being vulnerable and exposing some of the vulnerabilities within themselves.
It just doesn't come natural at all, and so you know,
(20:45):
when you're when you know that that's part of part
of the problem is we don't we don't train people
to deal with the aftermath of going to war, you know,
and how to deal with it. But there are multiple
services out there. There's no shortage of services really, I
(21:05):
mean you you know, the VA can only do so
much right and has whatever, But there are multiple programs
out there and services that are available to our veterans.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
I mean, our stuff of the Gary Snes.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
Foundation is just one little bit of what's available to
veterans out there in terms of helping them, you know,
to strengthen this inner.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Life that they're dealing with.
Speaker 6 (21:29):
We see the outer life that you know, all of that,
but there's an inner life that really can can be
destructive and it can also be very you know, very strengthening.
You know, if you're if you're healthy in here, you're
going to be you know, you're going to be okay.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
And but they they need help with that, you know.
Speaker 6 (21:49):
So what we do with Brothers after War and the
workshops and some of the other programs that we're involved
with that the Gary Sense Foundation is just to try
to provide some helpful tools, guidance, helpful guidance that will
keep them off the ledge. You know, we don't want that,
We don't want them to contain things. Telling their stories
(22:11):
is very very important in healing. Jake's seen it a
million times, you know, somebody said, oh, you know, I
was thinking about going out here and taking my gun
or whatever, and then I you know, saw the movie
or you know, something told me I shouldn't do that.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
I've had that happen with me at concerts.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
You know, people write me letters after concerts, and after
I talked at the concerts to the service members, and
I got one thing from one guy who said, I
saw your poster. I was on my way to the desert.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
I was going to do this, saw your poster and
I thought I.
Speaker 6 (22:47):
Should go over and see the show before I go
out to the desert. And your message hit me, and
I didn't go. And you know, us being proactive is
an important part of mental wellness because so often, right,
(23:09):
how many times have you heard somebody took their own
life or something like that, and you have their spouse,
their best buddies, everybody.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Say I had no idea, right, there were no signs.
Speaker 6 (23:24):
I didn't see any signs at all, no signs whatsoever.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
And quite often there aren't because that inner life, right is.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
Just so protected and so so locked in that they
don't really share, you know. So the proaction of reaching out,
you know, I've done multiple PSAs for suicide prevention and whatever,
just the multiple ways that we can get out there
and let people know that, hey, you're not by yourself. Nope,
(23:54):
there's a lot of people out there that care about you.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
We respect you.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
We want you to know these services are available to you,
and we want you to know that you're.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
You've got a grateful nation out there.
Speaker 6 (24:04):
We don't want you doing something that you know your
family will be hurting.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
You know if you do it.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Friends.
Speaker 6 (24:11):
Yeah, and so the more we can be proactive out there,
the better.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
And that's what that's what the workshops do. They're proactive.
Speaker 6 (24:18):
You know, you don't you know, Jake doesn't know how
many people are sitting in the audience who.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
Are going through tough stuff.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
But if he wasn't there doing the workshops and getting
people to talk about things, maybe something bad would happen.
So we're trying to be proactive in what we're doing
with active duty with brothers at war and transitioning veterans
with brothers after war.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Well, that's commendable. I love it. I love the message.
You know. I've had people reach out to me late
at night with demons, you know, they hit me up
through the Instagram and I'm like, my wife's like, who
are you talking to I'm like, I'm not sure. I
think I know them. I don't know if I know them,
but right now I'm gonna act like I am there
for them. And you know, you don't know if you're
(25:05):
walking that person off that ledge or not. And I
just was always taught to, like, you know, help your
neighbor out, My mom and dad, good people kind of attitude.
And so that's the same thing. You know, all my veterans,
all my people that get on the show, everybody that
listens to this, you know, they all have a value
and a worth and they've we've all gone through trauma.
(25:25):
And even if you like even Jake, Jake, you went
to war, right, I consider that a veteran, you know,
and that you saw things, you deal with demons. You
know you're editing it. You're editing consistently. Do I want
to put this in? Do I not want this in?
Do I need to show this? Probably need to show this.
And that might have blood involved things like that. I mean,
(25:48):
you know, you talking to your brother and him telling
you that maybe one of his first wife or second
wife whatnot took him off that ledge, stopped him from
you know, that extra half pound that he was just
right there. Bros. A sniper instructor knows the trigger knows
the sensitivity against his fingertip understands every single aspect of
(26:10):
what he's about to do clearly with a like. So,
I'm a big believer in freedom of choice. I can't
stop everything, but I can only tell somebody that you're loved,
And if you want to feel love, just hit me
up and I'm here to respond back to you. And
you know, I really love how your brother opened up
(26:31):
about that and the vulnerability that these soldiers are giving
themselves or what am I trying to say. I think
that they're just opening up and just willing to shed
a tear about a story. And when you see them
starting to write at your workshops and they're just writing
out something and they're just going and going and going
and going. They all made them go with to Fallujah
together or Mosul or Afghanistan, but each one of them
(26:53):
has a different thread that wove all that together.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Well one hundred percent right, And like Gary said, you know,
we want to proactively get in front of people. You know,
another thing that's really special, frankly, and I was passionate
about it, was I've been doing workshops for years. We're
going to do workshops well into the future. Gary Sneaks
Foundation sponsoring forty of them around the country for the
(27:20):
next year.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
We got a big calendar comping up.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
But I love that you can go on your Xbox
and find the film. And we also released in movie
theaters and we wanted to do create community with that,
and a lot of that's came and saw it together.
But it's really nice that people can see it in
their own living room because we know that tens of thousands,
if not hundreds of thousands of veterans and civilians who
(27:47):
want to know more about our veterans who want to
have a better understanding already have some empathy, but maybe
want a deeper, richer understanding of that experience so they
can you know, we've had people already reach out and say,
I've been married for twenty nine years. I saw the film.
It helped me understand my husband better. Now imagine that.
I mean, that's a beautiful thing about having the film
(28:09):
available for people to watch in their own living rooms
and to experience and to reflect and contemplate on whether
it's their own experience, or their neighbor's experience, or their
husband's experience.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
And we made the film because we want we know the.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Movies make tough subjects easier to talk about, and we
want people to talk about their experiences.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
And one last thing I want to say is you
said something really important to the beginning of the interview.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
The film is very approachable and manageable, and even though
we get into some of these tougher topics, we also
have a lot of humor and we present a very
well rounded view of our veterans. So Derek, who's mourning
the loss of his friend of Memorial Day, is also
throwing me out of the side of an airplane because
(28:54):
he's also an adrenaline junkie that looks like a Viking.
And that's part of his story too, right, I know,
And that goes.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Throughout the entire film.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
And the film has a lot of solution and a
lot of ways these veterans have navigated some of these
difficulties that all veterans face to get to the next place,
and has a.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Lot of hope.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
And I just think that's an important thing to point
out to your listeners and something that Gary and I
were very passionate about in making this film. You know,
he's got veterans in his own family. I obviously do
my sister's actually actively serving. My nephew is still serving.
You met him in the film, and we wanted to
present these people that we know holistically, so you get
(29:37):
to see them and see what great people.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
They are, you know. To piggyback on the captain's daughter
in the documentary when she shed her tears after she's like,
my daddy went six times, deployed six times, and she's
having nightmares about him not coming home from the desert.
You know, I just thought about my dad being a
(30:01):
Green Beret and I was just a young ten or
eleven year old while Mom watched me at home. Mom
was also dad at home and took me to baseball practice.
Dad was deployed for six to nine months at a
time and then would come home. You know, total hot deployments,
you know, these special operation lifestyles. And so your brother
eighty second Airborne, you know, officer lieutenant colonel, did he
(30:27):
retire as a lieutenant colonel?
Speaker 3 (30:28):
He retired as a lieutenant colonel.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Dude, that's a boss, bro, you know. And to see
his eyes think about his kids when he's gone for
six months, gone for ten months, got to go again,
got to go again, And made me think about my
own dad thinking those same things. Probably I never asked
my dad that before he passed, like, hey, you know,
what was it like to have to leave us kids behind?
You know, because no one ever made a big deal
(30:50):
like Mom always had it under control. That's why she
hangs with him on the mantle because she's just as
special operations as he was. You know. Shout out to
the moms and everybody that helps and the supporting team
at home, right. And I was talking to my wife
about that. I said, you know, some people can't handle
their husbands being gone for six weeks. Imagine if they
were deployed. But then we said, well they would be
(31:12):
in the world of the military and there would be
a support group, hopefully around those other families that needed
that support.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, sometimes the support is there. I have to tell
you that. I'm sure you dad felt that way.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
I've done these workshops for so long that that moment
from the first film when Isaac comes home and doesn't
recognize you know, his daughter doesn't recognize him, and you
see that look of pain on his face and you
see him crying. You know, fifteen years later, when I
come back to that moment, saying it takes six months
to be dad again. I have every workshop impact in
(31:46):
your family. There's a tough guy or too that says that,
who's the moment I relate to? And those moments are
it's so important, you know, we want someone like yourself
to have a conversation with their parents or the parent.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
To open up and say, is that how you feel?
Speaker 4 (32:03):
My brother didn't know that his daughter was having nightmares
until I did that interview, you know, and she's not
the only child that's going through that. So I think
the real power of the film is that it can
open up insight and conversation and give us insight into
those moments. And then the final thought is just I
(32:25):
wanted the American people to know that that's the average
sacrifice of the average father that deploys overseas. Three million
of our service members went overseas for twenty years, and
all of them that were fathers had that experience, had
that moment, that same pain.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
In their chest.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
And that's a sacrifice and a gift that gave to
the rest of us. And I feel and I'm sure Gary,
I know Gary agrees with me on this. This is
why we're so passionate about doing whatever we can to
kind of welcome them home and encourage our fellow citizens
to look out for ways they can help.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Gary says, we can never do enough, but we can
always do a little bit more, and that.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
I want to share with the American public, like this
is the experience that they're having, and this is what
they're doing for all of us.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
I felt it a hundred percent. Yeah, you know, I didn't.
I wanted to come prepare to this with you and
Gary to say that I really was into your footage
and watching it and trying to understand your editing, you know,
from my perspective, and I mean we really watched them
back to back. We're so blessed to have this kind
(33:41):
of media out there where I can see something from
thirteen years ago or fifteen years ago that you filmed,
and now I can say, wait, he was just a
private first class. Now he's a massive sargeant, sniper instructor
Special Operations, freaking out on his brother in the kitchen
over Syria. What's up, bro? What's up?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Well, you know, it's good that I have an edgy
filmmaker and theater guy himself is my executive producer.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
So he was okay, with a little conflict in the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
You know, you did stir some conflict up, bro, I
went to my room when she got mad.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
That's the name of that scene, conflict in the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
It should be well.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
I've had so many military spouses tell me that was
their favorite scene in the entire film, and I've had
a lot of people tell me, oh, when that happened,
I knew this film was real.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
You guys weren't holding anything back, and.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I just thought, brothers.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
It is brothers, you know.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
But in a deeper sense, I think there's value in
watching a guy who banged around our act for three
months debating rustling having a conversation with his brothers deployed
nine times about these things that affect us all And
while it's not the main focus of the film, I
didn't want to suppress the truth of these veterans and
(35:04):
how they feel about Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria, because
some of them are having some pretty strong feelings about
all that, and I felt like we as a nation
owe it to them to reflect back on some of
the decisions that were made, and those who fail to
look at history are doomed to repeat it.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
So as you see, I don't feel like there's a
heavy hand.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
We're not telling how you should think or feel or
anything like that, but we do allow Chief Turner and
Joe and Chief Turner deployed seven times, Chief Intel Officer.
We allow these guys to open up on some of
these conversations, some of these topics so that you maybe
can have that conversation in your own living room.
Speaker 6 (35:51):
And Jake, we have another interview we got to go to.
But where can people download the movie? And why don't
you wy don't you fill everybody in? We we of
course want all your listeners to take a look at
the movie. It's now available and it'll be out there
for a while, you know, I mean it'll be living
(36:11):
online for quite a while. So but we want people
to go to it. We want people to see it,
and we want people to tell their friends about it,
especially if you're struggling, you know, take a look at it.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
There are services available.
Speaker 6 (36:24):
You can certainly go to the Garrisonese Foundation if you
feel like you got a buddy who's in need of
some help or some services. Also, you can just see,
you know, the success that people are having.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
You know, there's there's a.
Speaker 6 (36:38):
Successful story here in Brothers After War with people moving
on and that's that's the main thing at the end
of the movie is we want people moving on and
doing positive things and great things with their lives post
military service. Where can we see the movie, Jake.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
Well, you can go to Brothers Afterward dot com to
find all the places it's available. It's available on Amazon,
it's available at iTunes, it's available Microsoft and YouTube. There's
DVDs on the shelves of Walmart and also available on Amazon.
So the other thing you can do at Brothersafterwar dot
(37:17):
com is if you'd like to participate in a seminar
when it comes to your town, shoot us an email
info at Brothers Afterwar dot com. Someone on my team
will look at all those sometimes it's even me myself,
and we respond to that and we will be bringing
the seminar around America over the next twelve months, and
when it comes to your town, we'd love to have
(37:37):
you as our guest.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Well, there you have it. You have had an awesome
interview with Gary Sonise and Jake Rodmacher who went after
Brothers after War. Brothers at War the Brothers at War
dot com website. Go check that out. If you're a
veteran that's struggling, reach out to me. If you need
to say Hi, what's up. I'll say hi back because
(38:01):
I also have people look at my emails maybe me too.
Just to put it out there. And thank you for
letting me play on the whole gump thing there, Lieutenant Dan.
And if you ever need someone to hit the cow
bell for you, you know, in some blue oyster cold
you just let me know. Bro. I will show up
and I will come and hit that thing. No problem, Okay,
(38:22):
you got it. Thanksving Well, thank you for being on
SOFTWAREP Radio, and thank you Jake, Thank you Gary, and
on behalf of myself Brandon Webb Matthew who helped arrange
all of this behind the scenes, and all the families
of the lost who didn't get to see their loved
one come home. I hope that this film hits you
in the fields and that it makes you think about
(38:44):
them and all of the fun memories that they left
behind for you, because that's what we have at the
end of the day, is the memory and the real
at the funeral of all the pictures. I don't care
about your money, your gold, I just want to see
you smiling in those photos. So you guys keep it up.
And again, this is rad to be kind of somebody today. Peace.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
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