June 18, 2025 • 35 mins
Scotty Hasting is now a popular country music singer but his story of service will explain a lot about the performer you see today.
Hasting grew up in the Cincinnati, Ohio-Northern Kentucky area and developed immense respect for the U.S. military from the movies and television shows he watched. He enlisted in the Army at age 21, which quickly made him the "old man" in basic training. Hasting wanted to serve in the infantry because he wanted to be in the fight. Just a few months after basic training, he was off to Afghanistan with the 4-4 Cav. In April 2011, Hasting was severely wounded after being shot 10 times by an enemy gunman.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Hasting takes us to the day he was wounded in great detail. He explains how his brothers in the 4-4 Cav responded to his wounds and got him evacuated. He will also share how close he came to dying shortly after everyone in Kandahar thought he was stable enough to fly to Germany.
He also tells us about his recovery at Walter Reed and his determination to return to active duty with his unit despite his wounds. Hasting then describes the path that led him to music and a very unlikely career in country music where he focuses a lot on helping veterans. He even shares a powerful story about how one veteran who planned to commit suicide changed his mind after hearing one of Scotty's song.
Hasting grew up in the Cincinnati, Ohio-Northern Kentucky area and developed immense respect for the U.S. military from the movies and television shows he watched. He enlisted in the Army at age 21, which quickly made him the "old man" in basic training. Hasting wanted to serve in the infantry because he wanted to be in the fight. Just a few months after basic training, he was off to Afghanistan with the 4-4 Cav. In April 2011, Hasting was severely wounded after being shot 10 times by an enemy gunman.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Hasting takes us to the day he was wounded in great detail. He explains how his brothers in the 4-4 Cav responded to his wounds and got him evacuated. He will also share how close he came to dying shortly after everyone in Kandahar thought he was stable enough to fly to Germany.
He also tells us about his recovery at Walter Reed and his determination to return to active duty with his unit despite his wounds. Hasting then describes the path that led him to music and a very unlikely career in country music where he focuses a lot on helping veterans. He even shares a powerful story about how one veteran who planned to commit suicide changed his mind after hearing one of Scotty's song.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is US Army veterans Scotty Hasting. You might
know him better as country music singer Scottie Hasting. Hasting
was seriously wounded in Afghanistan in twenty eleven when he
was shot ten times while on patrol with the four
to four Cavalry. Today, we'll learn his story of service,
(00:33):
his attempts to return to active duty, and how he
landed a recording contract just three years after learning to
play the guitar. Scotty Hasting was born and raised in
the Cincinnati, Ohio, Northern Kentucky area, and while he had
some veterans in the family, he grew to admire the
military through television and the movies, and when his time
came to enlist in twenty ten, he knew why he
(00:54):
wanted to serve and why he wanted to be in
the Army.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
You know, I always felt like I needed to be
a part of something that meant something, that I wanted
to do, something that was bigger than myself, and the
Army was just growing up. I watched all the movies
and all the TV shows, and it was always the army,
the people who went and fought like those, to me
were what soldiers were and what my idea of a
(01:20):
soldier was, and when it came time for me to enlist,
that was the only option for me.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Hastings says training was pretty easy and he always wanted
to be in the infantry because he wanted to be
in the fight. Just three months after basic training, he
was off to Afghanistan as part of the four to
four Cavalry. He was struck by the physical beauty of
Afghanistan and the generosity of its people. He was also
surprised by a new role, being the point man on
(01:48):
patrol on the search for the enemy's improvised explosive devices.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I remember when they told me that that was gonna
be my job, and I remember how nervous I was.
So I was a valid operator all is basically a
metal detector, and it was my job to walk in
front of everybody and basically scan the ground and make
sure no one stepped on any ideas, you know. I
remember the first time they told me that, and how
nervous I was that that was going to be my
(02:13):
job and that I literally had everyone's life in my hand.
And on patrols, and then I started training with it,
and then I got really proficient with it and very
good with it and knowing the different sounds it makes
compared to the different metals that are in the ground
and stuff like that. And then it got basically to
the point of where I don't know if I could
(02:34):
have done anything else. Also, when when I got hit,
That's why, you know, losing my friends made it so
much harder because they took over my job after I
got shot.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Hasting found devices of all kinds, but he remembers one
most vividly.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The craziest one that we ever saw was normally they
use wood and they put wires on each side of
the woods, so when you stuff on it, they connect
and then it goes boom. The craziest one we ever
saw was a bottle, just like a plastic bottle, and
it was two wires in the bottle and you step
on the bottle, it compresses. And that one barely read
(03:12):
on the valin and it was that that was crazy.
That was when we realized that they're you know, they're
smart and they're adapting.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Hasting has no trouble remembering his first time in combat,
not only the shooting, but for how real the threat
was to American lives.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
The first one where we took it casually was that
that was the one that really Yeah, you know, the
first one is always artists. We were on patrol with
an engineer group. They had these little machines that would
go in front of us to find I e. D.
S and stuff in the ground and uh and one
(03:51):
of them got shot in the back of the head
back here. And I still remember that that one very clearly.
I mean, that was the first time that we took
any type of casualty or anything. And yeah, that one
sticks with you. All of them really do. But the
first is always the hardest.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
On April twenty first, twenty eleven, life changed drastically for
Scottie Hasting while he and his men were on patrol.
But it wasn't an ied. It was a gunman they
had been watching carefully.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It was just like any other day of going on patrol.
You know. Our mission was to go talk to a
suspected by maker and it was literally just like any
other day. You know. You you wake up, you eat,
you go and start getting getting ready, getting pumped up
and getting ready to go out out of the wire,
(04:43):
and so then we started walking and you know, a
little bit into probably about an hour and a half
into our walk, it was, we came up on a guy,
the guy that shot me. What happened was we crossed
this water area and then we kind of stopped in
place and reassessed where we were and where we were
(05:05):
going to go. And the whole time that we were
sitting there, there was this older guy that was walking
around and kind of just watching us, which is normal
normally if we're around their people, they're curious, you know,
especially kids. The kids over there were always curious. They
wanted to come see what we were doing. But the
older gentleman, you know, he came out, he looked at us.
(05:27):
It was it was very normal. It became less normal
because he kept coming back and watching and then going away.
And then he would come back and watch, and then
he'd go away, and it became very obvious that he
was trying to figure out what we were doing and
where we were going. And we finally figured out where
we were going, we put a plan together and we
(05:49):
started walking again. So we walked right on the right
side of his hut, and then we jumped over the
wall that was right next to it. Over there. You
jump over grape rose, you jump over walls. That's just
what you have to do, which was tough, but yeah,
so we jumped over the wall. We got into this
(06:10):
they call it a road. I would call it a sidewalk.
It was not very wide, which is crazy because they
tried like vans and stuff down these little sidewalks. It's insane.
I don't know if the Afghan people are the greatest
drivers I've ever seen or the craziest drivers I've ever seen.
But yeah, so we were in this little sidewalk roadway
and then we walked right in front of the older
(06:33):
gentleman's house and he was nowhere to be found. And
I was immediately like red flags are just popping up
in my head. I'm like, this dude was so interested
in what we were doing, and now he's just gone.
And I remember looking back and I said, hey, the
old guy that was here is gone, like be ready,
something's about to happen. And literally thirty seconds later I
(06:54):
saw the guy that was standing there behind the wall,
probably twelve feet from me, and he just looked like
every they're civilian there just trying to figure out what
we were doing. So I went back to doing my
valin thing, and I saw him move real quick and
out of the corner of my eye, and that's kind
of what caught my attention, and I kind of squared
up to him. And when I squared up to him,
(07:15):
he had already pulled a rifle from behind his back
and just started spraying, and he was just he was
too close to miss. Honestly, he ended up hit me
ten times. So basically started here in my thigh with
one shot and then formed my hip and then just
kind of ran up me this way, and then I
ended up getting five in the shoulder. There were two
(07:36):
that went through my rifle into my plates. I had
some bruises on my chest, but I don't count.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Those hastings as by holding the valid metal detector. His
life was probably saved by his rifle hanging across his chest.
He says his first thoughts were of the intense pain.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I remember not being able to do anything. I remember
just kind of screaming, letting out a scream. I remember
the pain. You know, whoever said that adrenaline kicks in
is a liar, because I remember every bit of it,
and you know, I remember. I remember getting shot. I
(08:15):
remember the pain, and I remember waking up on the ground.
I noticed that he was messing with his rifle. His
rifle had jammed, and that's why he had stopped shooting.
And that was when I basically took my rifle and
aimed it at him. And he saw that and he
took off running. He dropped his rifle, took off running.
And thank god, he didn't notice that he had hit
my weapon because I pulled the trigger and nothing happened.
(08:37):
And I was like, oh, well, okay, this isn't gonna work.
And I had no way to defend myself in any way,
shape or for him. Thankfully he didn't notice that. But yeah,
I mean it was I was awake the whole time.
Once I hit the ground, I immediately I was awake
the whole time.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
But even more haunting now than the pain, for Scottie
Hasting was the smell.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
It wasn't so much the pain. The thing that really
sticks with me is this smell. The smell of your
own flesh burning is something I wouldn't wish on my
worst enemy. It is It sticks with you and it
doesn't go away. And I remember laying there and in
so much pain and trying to figure out how to
(09:20):
get back to my guys, because me getting shot was
the initiation of a whole other ambush that they had
tried to do, and so they were getting shot at.
They were in the middle of an ambush as I
was laying there, and you know, the pain hurt. But
the scariest part of it was that I didn't know
where that guy went, and I was just expecting him
(09:42):
to just kind of peek his head around the corner
and just finish the job, you know, I mean, he
knew that I wasn't dead. I mean he looked at me.
I looked at him like.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, despite the ongoing fighting, Hasting remembers his friends taking
care of him and getting him evacuated after he was hit.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
You know, my guy saved my life had You know,
when you're go through basic training or you go through
combat life Saver course, you're you're taught that you know,
going to shock is going to be the number one
killer in a combat injury, Like if you if your casually,
try to stay calm as possible. And so I did,
and my guys got to me, and thankfully they understood
(10:21):
the assignment because I started joking with them, and they
started joking with me, and that was my way of
trying to stay calm, and it worked apparently, and you know,
and it was it was it felt like an eternity
and for waiting for that, waiting for the helicopter to
get there. But I remember they were carrying me on
(10:43):
a on a stretcher, but it wasn't one that had
like the bars on the side. It was one of
the ones that like fold up. And I remember they
we had to go back over that water that we
had initially climbed through, and I remember them going through
that water and I remember me almost falling out of
(11:03):
and I will never let them live that down. Absolutely.
They almost dropped me once. And it's so funny. They're
I make I say it all the time to them
and they're like, man, look at you, you're huge. But
they're so funny.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
That's Scottie hasting He's a US Army veteran of the
war in Afghanistan and was severely wounded there in twenty eleven.
Still to come, Hastings survives another scare and begins the
long road to recovery. I'm Greg Corumbas and this is Veterans.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Chronicles sixty seconds of Service.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
This sixty seconds of service is presented by T Mobile,
recognizing these steadfast, edication and sacrifices made by service members
and their families. T mobile is committed to supporting active
duty veterans and military spouses. Visit T mobile dot com
slash military to learn more.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Rick Foley, seventy five year old Vietnam vet from West Haven, Connecticut,
served as a marine engineer in Vietnam. Upon returning home,
he initially believed he had adjusted well, being busy with work. However,
he later realized he had retreated into his own world
due to unresolved trauma. Recognizing the need for connection, fully
became active in the West Haven Vietnam Veterans Group and
the West Haven Veterans Museum, spaces where veterans could share
(12:14):
experiences and support one another. Now, he actively assists younger
veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq with open dialogue and
shared experiences for healing. Today's sixty seconds of Service is
brought to you by Prevagen. Prevagen is the number one
pharmacist recommended memory support brand. You can find Prevagen in
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Speaker 1 (12:34):
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumba's. Our guest in
this edition is Scotty Hasting. He's a US Army veteran
who was seriously wounded in Afghanistan. He's now a rising
star in country music. A moment ago, we learned how
Scotty was shot ten times in Afghanistan and about the
immediate efforts to save his life. He now picks up
(12:55):
the story with the treatment he got in Kandahar after
being evacuated from.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Initially, I went to the Candorheart Airfield Hospital and that
was the initial emergency trauma, just trying to get me
to where I'm able to at least make it through
the night. And that was where they, you know, they
continued to try to clog holes and fill holes with
(13:22):
galls and stuff like that, and uh, and then initially
they immediately started putting me on blood. They started getting blood,
you know, circulating through me again, and yeah, my eyesac
started coming back. I remember laying there and saying that
I couldn't see, and then they started pumping me full
of blood and and started giving me other stuff, and
I remember starting to see lights in the in the
(13:46):
hospital roomb and I was like, I'm starting to see,
like I can start, I can see again, I can
see again. And I remember some lady bending down and saying, hey,
it's okay for you to go to sleep, like we
got you, like you can you can give up now,
we got you, like, don't worry, it be fine, And
so I did. I immediately passed out and I woke
up a couple days later. And the craziest thing about that, though,
(14:10):
is a couple of years later I was talking to
a guy who was in that room and there wasn't
a woman in that room that day. So it gives
me chills every time I think about it.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
But just when they thought Hasting was stable enough to
be transported to Germany, another major problem developed. Hasting walks
us all the way from Afghanistan to Germany to Walter Reed.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
They got me able to where I was able to travel,
so we jumped on a plane somewhere between Kandahar and
launched in Germany. They had lost pulse in my arm,
and they thought that they were going to have to
take my arm. They thought they were gonna have to
cut it off and take it. Luckily, modern medicine being
as incredible as it is. They someone had the amazing
(14:55):
idea that you could actually just take a vein out
of my leg and replace the artery with it. Wish
is insane because I don't know what health class they
went to, but the anatomy class that I went to,
I was told that veins and arteries are completely different,
but apparently a vein will grow into what it needs
to be to help continue the process of blood flow.
(15:20):
And yeah, you know, that's incredible. So whoever made that decision,
thank you. I still had my arm. I'm so thankful
for that. And yeah, so that was at Bogram. They
had to make a stop in Bogram, and I remember
that was the first time I got to call my
family up until that point, my mom, my wife at
the time, my dad, my brother. They were told that
(15:40):
I was shot a bunch of times and that they
weren't sure how I was or if I would make
it through the night. And that was a couple of
days that they had to live with that information, and
I can only imagine how hard that would have been
to hear that, not know, not have any idea. So
(16:02):
I remember I got to Bogram and just got this done.
They just you know, replaced my vein and my artery
and and I remember some a guy came in. He's like, hey,
do you have any like have you have you been
able to call any family yet or anything. I was like, no,
like I would love to. Is there a way I
can do that? And they're like, yeah, yeah, let's let's
(16:23):
make a phone call. Like you can make a phone
call right now. And I called my mom my first,
because I was like, man, the one person is gonna
be really freaked out as my mom, so I should
call her. And uh, I called my mom and you know,
of course she started crying on the phone and stuff,
and I was just glad that I was alive. And yeah,
that was when I was like, I'm like, you know
(16:44):
she was. She was crying hysterically, and I was like, listen,
like there's people way worse off than I am, Like
it's okay, Like I'm going to be fine. Like would
I think they're going to try to figure out how
to get you guys to Walter Reed because at the
time I was planning on going to Walter Reed. So
when from Bogram to Lonstel and Lonsteel was it was honestly,
(17:06):
all of this time was just kind of like a blur,
you know, it was me laying in a hospital bed
on a bunch of medicine and just trying to get
through the day. And so it went to Lonstool and
then that's when they asked me, you know, like they
were like, hey, do you want you can go to Bamsea,
which is in San Antonio, or you can go to
Walter Reed. Like where do you want to go? And
(17:29):
I was like, well, I don't know where Bamsea is,
but I've heard of Walter Reed from like movies and stuff,
so I'll go there. You know, Walter Reid was was
an incredible place. The people at Walter Reed are unbelievable.
I mean they they saved my life.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
He then explained what his recovery looked like at Walter
Reed and how difficult it was for his family to
see him there, at least at first.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Well, I was at Walter Reid. I was impatient for
a month, and that was every other day. I was
getting put under and going to sleep, and they were
cleaning my wounds and I was hooked up to a
bunch of different wound vacs, but won four different wound vacs.
Basically they were just there to keep everything clean and sterile.
And it's insane to think about my family's point of
(18:15):
view too, you know, Like I had these wound vacks
hooked up to me. I was I was fine at
this time, you know, I was. I wasn't gonna die,
you know, but I was hooked up to a bunch
of machines. And I remember Corey, my younger brother, was like, man,
I walked in. I walked into that room and like
saw all these machines and I was like, these machines
are keeping him alive, Like how he's gonna be dope.
(18:36):
And I was like, like, that's not what these machines are.
They're not to keep me alive. Like it's okay. I
can only imagine, you know, walking into that room and
seeing the person you love hooked up to all these
machines in this hospital room and not knowing what the
future looks like.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
That's Scottie Hasting, a US Army veteran of Afghanistan. Much
more on his recovery, his rise in music, and how
his music is hell helping save veterans lives. In just
a moment, I'm Greg Corumbus. This is Veterans' Chronicles This
is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in this
edition is country music singer Scottie Hasting. He is also
(19:14):
a US Army veteran who was seriously wounded in Afghanistan
in April of twenty eleven. Hasting has explained to us
what happened the day he was wounded, how close he
came to losing his life after supposedly being stabilized, and
what recovery looked like at Walter reed. But as Hasting improved,
he had one goal to be back with his guys
(19:36):
on active duty in a line unit. Some may struggle
to understand that desire after such a close call with death,
but Hasting says, once you've served with men and trusted
them to have your back in life and death situations,
you have an unbreakable bond with them.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean the reason you go
back is for them. You know, your whole job, your
whole mission, your whole purpose in the Middle military is
to take care of the people to your left and
to your right, And and there's there's such a relationship that's
formed and bonded like that, that bond that becomes a
thing that to where you I mean, you rely on
them and they rely on you, and there's there's nothing
(20:14):
like that, you know. I mean that's I rely on
them to keep me alive and they rely on me
to keep them alive. And you can't find that anywhere else.
And you build a relationship and you build a bond
unlike anything else, and that makes you do crazy things
like say, I just got shot ten times, but I
want to go back. But you build, you form a
(20:34):
love for these people and a very strong love for
these people, and you want to be there with them
to protect them, you know, And that's that's why.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
But wanting that and getting that are two different things.
Hasting explains everything he tried to do to rejoin his
line in.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
It and that's when it all started. That's that's when
I started, you know, trying to be more active and
work out more. And I started and you know, pushing
for promotions and just tried to pick up more responsibilities
around the Warrior Transition battalion and stuff to try to
to try to build that little bit of yeah, to
just kind of help the resume a little bit. Normally,
(21:15):
when you're going for promotion to sergeant, like you are
given these responsibilities to you know, watch to take care
of these guys and those guys and stuff like that.
But with the word transition battalion, they didn't have the
ability for that, so they had to find different ways
of doing it. A way that we were able to
do it was that I was in charge of the
barracks at one point in time, which was really great.
(21:38):
It gave me the ability to be responsible for something. Luckily,
I had the points I needed and if I didn't,
I went to the you know, did the online schooling
and stuff that I needed to do to get the
points that I needed in order to get promoted to sergeant.
Because again still in my eyes, I'm going back to
aligning it so I'm going to continue my career. And
so with that also came I had to do a
(21:59):
bunch of tests. You know, you had to do a
mental evaluation and emotional evaluation, and then you had to
do a physical evaluation. You know, the mental and the
emotional one. You know what they want to hear. So
that was easy, absolutely. The physical one though, was harder.
You know, I still have an injury. I still you know,
I'm not able to move the way that I used
(22:19):
to and I was still trying to figure all that
out in the middle of all this and uh, you know,
I failed the physical test four different times and uh.
And eventually they were like, man, like, we don't think
that going back to the line uit is something that
you're going to be able to do, but we have
this list of all these other jobs that you might
be able to do in the military. And I looked
(22:41):
at the list and I took it, you know, back
to my house and really thought about what I wanted
to do. If this was something wrong would because you know,
I joined a fight. That was my idea of a soldier.
My idea of a soldier was to be there and
fight and to go after the bad guys instead of
them coming here. And so all of these were non
deployable jobs, and they were all jobs that basically was
(23:04):
kind of sitting behind a desk. And I was like,
I don't I don't want to do that, but this
is that's not what I signed up for. I signed
up to fight, and if I can't fight, then what's
what's the point. And that was really kind of when
you know, all of the depression and stuff really hit.
You know, that that was when I was realizing that
(23:24):
this this thing that I grew to love, you know,
that this this job, this this career that I wanted,
was about to be gone and I wasn't going to
be able to do it anymore. And that's really when
when the depression hit the hardest. And uh but yeah,
you know, I was given that list and I was like, like, I,
(23:46):
this isn't I can't do these, this isn't what I
signed up for. And that's when I made the decision
to get into the med board process and and then
get medically retired.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
After being medically retired, Hasting says he needed something else
to focus on in order to keep post traumatic stress
from overwhelming him, and for a few years at least,
he found that in archery. Until that door was suddenly closed.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I found therapy in archery. I found kind of an
escape in archery. You know, for seven seconds before that
era released, nothing in the world matter to PTSC, the
depression of the anxiety. It all disappeared. So I lived
for seven seconds at a time, that was my life.
With the Paralympic program, all of us on the Paralympic program,
about ninety five percent of us on the Paralympic program
(24:30):
were veterans, and so I had the guys back. I
was able to be with guys who understood it was
exactly what I needed when I needed it, and it
was incredibly therapeutic. And then COVID hit in the world
shut down, which means that my therapy, my escape was gone,
and I needed something when it gets quiet as when
(24:51):
the demon's knock loudest, and COVID was very quiet, and
I needed something to get out of my head.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
During COVID, Hasting knew that being alone with his thoughts
would become a problem, so he sought another outlet. He
had owned a guitar for years but never learned how
to play it, so in twenty twenty, he hopped on
YouTube and taught himself how to play four chords that
could be used to play thousands of different songs. Then
he learned how to write songs, and by the time
(25:18):
Nashville was starting to slowly reopen from COVID, Hasting decided
he was ready to play and sing in front of others,
with his first performance coming in front of just four
other people who were also there for an open mic night.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I don't know what that performance was like it was
probably awful, but for me it was. For me, it
was everything that escape in that sense of purpose, in
that therapy that I had found in everything else before
was there, but it was magnified a hundred times in
that moment. The stage became a sanctuary for me, and
(25:53):
I knew that that's what I needed to do forever.
Like I wanted to get on every stage i could,
because the therapy that I got from it was the
most amazing feeling I've ever felt. So I went to
every open mic night I could find until the world
started opening up again, and then through friends that these
open mic nights, I started hearing that, you know, down
(26:17):
on Broadway in Nashville, you can play three to four
hours at a time a day. And I was like, well,
you telling me for three to four hours a day,
I can all the PTSD, the depression, of the anxiety,
all that can be gone. That's what I want to do.
I want to do that. I don't care what it takes,
That's what I want to do. So I went down
on Broadway and I walked up and down Broadway for
a month and just bugged their crap out of people
(26:39):
until they let me on stage so much so that
eventually I was playing six days a week and three
to four hours at a time, and I lived for it,
you know, and my vocal cords hated me, absolutely hated me.
But the therapy that I got from those three to four
hours were priceless and unlike anything I have ever imagined.
(27:01):
And then it just slowly blossomed and has now become
a career.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
But didn't Hastings say he permanently injured his hand when
he was wounded, So how does he play the guitar?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
You know? I got to say, Luckily, I learned. I
learned how to play after my injury, because if I
knew how to play before my injury, I probably would
have given up. It was hard, yeah, I mean, you
got to think about it. I got no feeling on
my hand whatsoever. I have this much movement in my hand,
and that's all I have, So these three fingers just
kind of sit there. So it was painful, and it
(27:36):
was and it was hard, and it was, you know,
but the the therapy outweighed the pain, and it outweighed
how how hard it was to figure it out and
how hard it was to get this hand. And you know,
because I have no feeling from basically here down, so
the movement and everything that I have to make in
order to strum, like all of that, like trying to
(27:57):
find rhythm in a hand that you can't feel very
hard and you know so not had I not known
how to play. If I knew how to play, I
probably would have given up. So thank god I didn't
know how to play already.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Hasting didn't just play and sing. He did both really well.
In fact, just three years after picking up his guitar,
Hasting signed his first record deal.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
It's very, very quick. Everything has been so incredibly quick,
and I would never take for granted where I'm at.
There are people on Broadway and there are people out
there who have dreamed of being where I am their
whole life and have worked on it and worked on
it for decades. And I've been doing this for five years.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
And I.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Don't know how it has moved as fast as it has.
And it'll never go unnoticed by me that I am
in a place that so many people would dream to be.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
In addition to the therapy he says comes from music,
Hasting says it's also helped him to stay connected with
his army brothers, and he even inc it's them and
some of his songs.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
They love it. It's funny. I'll try to put him
in songs every once in a while. One of my
really dear friends, John Connor is and one of my
songs called the Stories that They Tell, his name is
in the song, and it's funny. That's become kind of
like his thing now. You know, he's like, man, anytime
my kids start thinking that they're so much cooler than me,
I'm like, yeah, but are you in a song? You know?
It's so funny, and you know, they try to come
(29:24):
out and support as much as possible. You know. I
remember my grand Ole Opry debut I had. I had
a couple of them in the crowd with me that day,
and it was it was so much fun, and it
was so much fun, and it's so cool to be
able to see them, and you know, hopefully, you know,
what I'm doing makes them proud.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Given his own battles with PTSD, hasting dedicates his music
in part to helping veterans and encouraging them to, as
he states it, put down the gun and move away
from suicidal thoughts and it's working. Hastings shared one very
powerful story from a com concert just before the super
Bowl in early twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
It was kind of the moment when I realized that
we were doing something that meant something. I was at
a show in Phoenix before the super Bowl. It was
the first time I ever got to open up for
an artist, and I got to open for Dave Girl,
which is crazy. Also, Dave Girl is one of the
most incredible people I've ever met in my entire life.
We did an acoustic show and I opened for him,
(30:25):
and I played a song that I had written two
days before that. There's a song called how Do You Choose?
And it's a song about my survivor's guilt about why
I'm here and my best friend isn't. And the event
that we played was four veterans, and it was there
was two hundred, maybe three hundred veterans in this room,
(30:45):
and I played how do You Choose, an incredibly personal
song to myself and something that I know that I
struggle with all the time about the Survivor's guild and
you know, why am I here? And I played the
song and it was the first time that I'd ever
played a song. And then it was just kind of
quiet afterwards, and I was like, oh my god, they
hated the song, like this song is my heart and soul,
(31:06):
and they hated it. And then I kind of opened
my eyes and realized that everyone was kind of consoling
each other. And that was when I realized that there
was something to that song and that we needed to
record it and that it needed to be out there.
Then fast forward another day and I get a message
(31:27):
from one of the guys who co wrote the song
with me named Jesse Wayne Taylor, and he had a
buddy who was in the military and he was in
he was in Phoenix, and the message went on to
say that he was in Phoenix and he was at
the show and the reason why he was messaging was
because Jesse Wayne Taylor helped me write it and I
(31:47):
said Jesse's name before I sang it, and he basically
the message was like, man, I'm going to be one
hundred percent honest with you, like I was going to
end it. I was going to end everything, and I
was going to be done with this like I was
over it. He said. You know, I figured before I did,
I've always wanted to see Dave Girl play and I
figured if tickets are free for veterans. I'll go watch
(32:10):
Dave Girl play and then I'll end it when I
get home. And they said, but I wasn't ready for
Scotty Like he played this song called how Do You Choose?
And it changed everything and He's like, man, I realized
that I'm not alone in this, Like I realized that
this is something that we all deal with. And Scotty
made me want to continue moving forward and man, like,
(32:34):
that's that's it. That's the whole reason I want to
do this. And that was the moment that made me
realize that that I could actually do some good. And
that was the moment that made me realize that we
have to do more and I have to be out
(32:55):
there and I have to let these veterans see me,
and then I have to let them see my heart
and my soul and I have to let them see
me be vulnerable and let them see me cry on
camera and let them understand that it's okay. That was
the moment that made me realize that we're doing something
that means something. And uh, and that was you know,
that was it, man, That was what lit the fire.
(33:16):
That was what lit the fire.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
And Hasting has a simple message for any struggling veterans
and their families.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
You know, my encouragement is just to keep moving forward,
you know that, and uh that and find something you
love to do and do it all the time. You know.
That's I've been lucky enough to be able to to
find something that I love, and I've been able to
reap the therapy and the benefits from it. And there's
so much therapy and finding something you love to do.
(33:44):
And I hope that with my music, I hope that,
you know, with my story, I hope that someone hears
it and it helps them in some way, shape or form,
whatever that looks like, whether it be you know, just
them understanding that they're not alone in feeling the feelings
that they're feeling, or that you know, PTSD depression and
anxiety is something that we all suffer from. I mean,
(34:06):
even me, I still have bad days, you know, and
I get to do incredible things, things that I never
thought possible, you know, And I hope that it's just
it gives them some type of hope. You know, that
you don't have to be defined by the bad, but
you can be defined with what you do with them.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Scottie Hasting is a US Army veteran of the war
in Afghanistan, and he was seriously wounded there in April
of twenty eleven. He is now a rising star and
country music and continues to focus on helping veterans. I'm
Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
This is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles,
a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information,
please visit American Veterans Center, or you can also follow
the American Veterans Center on Facebook and on Twitter We're
at AVC update. Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube
(35:10):
channel for full oral histories and special features, and of
course please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you
get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening, and please join
us next time for Veterans Chronicles.
Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is US Army veterans Scotty Hasting. You might
know him better as country music singer Scottie Hasting. Hasting
was seriously wounded in Afghanistan in twenty eleven when he
was shot ten times while on patrol with the four
to four Cavalry. Today, we'll learn his story of service,
(00:33):
his attempts to return to active duty, and how he
landed a recording contract just three years after learning to
play the guitar. Scotty Hasting was born and raised in
the Cincinnati, Ohio, Northern Kentucky area, and while he had
some veterans in the family, he grew to admire the
military through television and the movies, and when his time
came to enlist in twenty ten, he knew why he
(00:54):
wanted to serve and why he wanted to be in
the Army.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
You know, I always felt like I needed to be
a part of something that meant something, that I wanted
to do, something that was bigger than myself, and the
Army was just growing up. I watched all the movies
and all the TV shows, and it was always the army,
the people who went and fought like those, to me
were what soldiers were and what my idea of a
(01:20):
soldier was, and when it came time for me to enlist,
that was the only option for me.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Hastings says training was pretty easy and he always wanted
to be in the infantry because he wanted to be
in the fight. Just three months after basic training, he
was off to Afghanistan as part of the four to
four Cavalry. He was struck by the physical beauty of
Afghanistan and the generosity of its people. He was also
surprised by a new role, being the point man on
(01:48):
patrol on the search for the enemy's improvised explosive devices.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I remember when they told me that that was gonna
be my job, and I remember how nervous I was.
So I was a valid operator all is basically a
metal detector, and it was my job to walk in
front of everybody and basically scan the ground and make
sure no one stepped on any ideas, you know. I
remember the first time they told me that, and how
nervous I was that that was going to be my
(02:13):
job and that I literally had everyone's life in my hand.
And on patrols, and then I started training with it,
and then I got really proficient with it and very
good with it and knowing the different sounds it makes
compared to the different metals that are in the ground
and stuff like that. And then it got basically to
the point of where I don't know if I could
(02:34):
have done anything else. Also, when when I got hit,
That's why, you know, losing my friends made it so
much harder because they took over my job after I
got shot.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Hasting found devices of all kinds, but he remembers one
most vividly.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The craziest one that we ever saw was normally they
use wood and they put wires on each side of
the woods, so when you stuff on it, they connect
and then it goes boom. The craziest one we ever
saw was a bottle, just like a plastic bottle, and
it was two wires in the bottle and you step
on the bottle, it compresses. And that one barely read
(03:12):
on the valin and it was that that was crazy.
That was when we realized that they're you know, they're
smart and they're adapting.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Hasting has no trouble remembering his first time in combat,
not only the shooting, but for how real the threat
was to American lives.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
The first one where we took it casually was that
that was the one that really Yeah, you know, the
first one is always artists. We were on patrol with
an engineer group. They had these little machines that would
go in front of us to find I e. D.
S and stuff in the ground and uh and one
(03:51):
of them got shot in the back of the head
back here. And I still remember that that one very clearly.
I mean, that was the first time that we took
any type of casualty or anything. And yeah, that one
sticks with you. All of them really do. But the
first is always the hardest.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
On April twenty first, twenty eleven, life changed drastically for
Scottie Hasting while he and his men were on patrol.
But it wasn't an ied. It was a gunman they
had been watching carefully.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It was just like any other day of going on patrol.
You know. Our mission was to go talk to a
suspected by maker and it was literally just like any
other day. You know. You you wake up, you eat,
you go and start getting getting ready, getting pumped up
and getting ready to go out out of the wire,
(04:43):
and so then we started walking and you know, a
little bit into probably about an hour and a half
into our walk, it was, we came up on a guy,
the guy that shot me. What happened was we crossed
this water area and then we kind of stopped in
place and reassessed where we were and where we were
(05:05):
going to go. And the whole time that we were
sitting there, there was this older guy that was walking
around and kind of just watching us, which is normal
normally if we're around their people, they're curious, you know,
especially kids. The kids over there were always curious. They
wanted to come see what we were doing. But the
older gentleman, you know, he came out, he looked at us.
(05:27):
It was it was very normal. It became less normal
because he kept coming back and watching and then going away.
And then he would come back and watch, and then
he'd go away, and it became very obvious that he
was trying to figure out what we were doing and
where we were going. And we finally figured out where
we were going, we put a plan together and we
(05:49):
started walking again. So we walked right on the right
side of his hut, and then we jumped over the
wall that was right next to it. Over there. You
jump over grape rose, you jump over walls. That's just
what you have to do, which was tough, but yeah,
so we jumped over the wall. We got into this
(06:10):
they call it a road. I would call it a sidewalk.
It was not very wide, which is crazy because they
tried like vans and stuff down these little sidewalks. It's insane.
I don't know if the Afghan people are the greatest
drivers I've ever seen or the craziest drivers I've ever seen.
But yeah, so we were in this little sidewalk roadway
and then we walked right in front of the older
(06:33):
gentleman's house and he was nowhere to be found. And
I was immediately like red flags are just popping up
in my head. I'm like, this dude was so interested
in what we were doing, and now he's just gone.
And I remember looking back and I said, hey, the
old guy that was here is gone, like be ready,
something's about to happen. And literally thirty seconds later I
(06:54):
saw the guy that was standing there behind the wall,
probably twelve feet from me, and he just looked like
every they're civilian there just trying to figure out what
we were doing. So I went back to doing my
valin thing, and I saw him move real quick and
out of the corner of my eye, and that's kind
of what caught my attention, and I kind of squared
up to him. And when I squared up to him,
(07:15):
he had already pulled a rifle from behind his back
and just started spraying, and he was just he was
too close to miss. Honestly, he ended up hit me
ten times. So basically started here in my thigh with
one shot and then formed my hip and then just
kind of ran up me this way, and then I
ended up getting five in the shoulder. There were two
(07:36):
that went through my rifle into my plates. I had
some bruises on my chest, but I don't count.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Those hastings as by holding the valid metal detector. His
life was probably saved by his rifle hanging across his chest.
He says his first thoughts were of the intense pain.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I remember not being able to do anything. I remember
just kind of screaming, letting out a scream. I remember
the pain. You know, whoever said that adrenaline kicks in
is a liar, because I remember every bit of it,
and you know, I remember. I remember getting shot. I
(08:15):
remember the pain, and I remember waking up on the ground.
I noticed that he was messing with his rifle. His
rifle had jammed, and that's why he had stopped shooting.
And that was when I basically took my rifle and
aimed it at him. And he saw that and he
took off running. He dropped his rifle, took off running.
And thank god, he didn't notice that he had hit
my weapon because I pulled the trigger and nothing happened.
(08:37):
And I was like, oh, well, okay, this isn't gonna work.
And I had no way to defend myself in any way,
shape or for him. Thankfully he didn't notice that. But yeah,
I mean it was I was awake the whole time.
Once I hit the ground, I immediately I was awake
the whole time.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
But even more haunting now than the pain, for Scottie
Hasting was the smell.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
It wasn't so much the pain. The thing that really
sticks with me is this smell. The smell of your
own flesh burning is something I wouldn't wish on my
worst enemy. It is It sticks with you and it
doesn't go away. And I remember laying there and in
so much pain and trying to figure out how to
(09:20):
get back to my guys, because me getting shot was
the initiation of a whole other ambush that they had
tried to do, and so they were getting shot at.
They were in the middle of an ambush as I
was laying there, and you know, the pain hurt. But
the scariest part of it was that I didn't know
where that guy went, and I was just expecting him
(09:42):
to just kind of peek his head around the corner
and just finish the job, you know, I mean, he
knew that I wasn't dead. I mean he looked at me.
I looked at him like.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, despite the ongoing fighting, Hasting remembers his friends taking
care of him and getting him evacuated after he was hit.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
You know, my guy saved my life had You know,
when you're go through basic training or you go through
combat life Saver course, you're you're taught that you know,
going to shock is going to be the number one
killer in a combat injury, Like if you if your casually,
try to stay calm as possible. And so I did,
and my guys got to me, and thankfully they understood
(10:21):
the assignment because I started joking with them, and they
started joking with me, and that was my way of
trying to stay calm, and it worked apparently, and you know,
and it was it was it felt like an eternity
and for waiting for that, waiting for the helicopter to
get there. But I remember they were carrying me on
(10:43):
a on a stretcher, but it wasn't one that had
like the bars on the side. It was one of
the ones that like fold up. And I remember they
we had to go back over that water that we
had initially climbed through, and I remember them going through
that water and I remember me almost falling out of
(11:03):
and I will never let them live that down. Absolutely.
They almost dropped me once. And it's so funny. They're
I make I say it all the time to them
and they're like, man, look at you, you're huge. But
they're so funny.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
That's Scottie hasting He's a US Army veteran of the
war in Afghanistan and was severely wounded there in twenty eleven.
Still to come, Hastings survives another scare and begins the
long road to recovery. I'm Greg Corumbas and this is Veterans.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Chronicles sixty seconds of Service.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
This sixty seconds of service is presented by T Mobile,
recognizing these steadfast, edication and sacrifices made by service members
and their families. T mobile is committed to supporting active
duty veterans and military spouses. Visit T mobile dot com
slash military to learn more.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Rick Foley, seventy five year old Vietnam vet from West Haven, Connecticut,
served as a marine engineer in Vietnam. Upon returning home,
he initially believed he had adjusted well, being busy with work. However,
he later realized he had retreated into his own world
due to unresolved trauma. Recognizing the need for connection, fully
became active in the West Haven Vietnam Veterans Group and
the West Haven Veterans Museum, spaces where veterans could share
(12:14):
experiences and support one another. Now, he actively assists younger
veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq with open dialogue and
shared experiences for healing. Today's sixty seconds of Service is
brought to you by Prevagen. Prevagen is the number one
pharmacist recommended memory support brand. You can find Prevagen in
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Speaker 1 (12:34):
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumba's. Our guest in
this edition is Scotty Hasting. He's a US Army veteran
who was seriously wounded in Afghanistan. He's now a rising
star in country music. A moment ago, we learned how
Scotty was shot ten times in Afghanistan and about the
immediate efforts to save his life. He now picks up
(12:55):
the story with the treatment he got in Kandahar after
being evacuated from.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Initially, I went to the Candorheart Airfield Hospital and that
was the initial emergency trauma, just trying to get me
to where I'm able to at least make it through
the night. And that was where they, you know, they
continued to try to clog holes and fill holes with
(13:22):
galls and stuff like that, and uh, and then initially
they immediately started putting me on blood. They started getting blood,
you know, circulating through me again, and yeah, my eyesac
started coming back. I remember laying there and saying that
I couldn't see, and then they started pumping me full
of blood and and started giving me other stuff, and
I remember starting to see lights in the in the
(13:46):
hospital roomb and I was like, I'm starting to see,
like I can start, I can see again, I can
see again. And I remember some lady bending down and saying, hey,
it's okay for you to go to sleep, like we
got you, like you can you can give up now,
we got you, like, don't worry, it be fine, And
so I did. I immediately passed out and I woke
up a couple days later. And the craziest thing about that, though,
(14:10):
is a couple of years later I was talking to
a guy who was in that room and there wasn't
a woman in that room that day. So it gives
me chills every time I think about it.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
But just when they thought Hasting was stable enough to
be transported to Germany, another major problem developed. Hasting walks
us all the way from Afghanistan to Germany to Walter Reed.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
They got me able to where I was able to travel,
so we jumped on a plane somewhere between Kandahar and
launched in Germany. They had lost pulse in my arm,
and they thought that they were going to have to
take my arm. They thought they were gonna have to
cut it off and take it. Luckily, modern medicine being
as incredible as it is. They someone had the amazing
(14:55):
idea that you could actually just take a vein out
of my leg and replace the artery with it. Wish
is insane because I don't know what health class they
went to, but the anatomy class that I went to,
I was told that veins and arteries are completely different,
but apparently a vein will grow into what it needs
to be to help continue the process of blood flow.
(15:20):
And yeah, you know, that's incredible. So whoever made that decision,
thank you. I still had my arm. I'm so thankful
for that. And yeah, so that was at Bogram. They
had to make a stop in Bogram, and I remember
that was the first time I got to call my
family up until that point, my mom, my wife at
the time, my dad, my brother. They were told that
(15:40):
I was shot a bunch of times and that they
weren't sure how I was or if I would make
it through the night. And that was a couple of
days that they had to live with that information, and
I can only imagine how hard that would have been
to hear that, not know, not have any idea. So
(16:02):
I remember I got to Bogram and just got this done.
They just you know, replaced my vein and my artery
and and I remember some a guy came in. He's like, hey,
do you have any like have you have you been
able to call any family yet or anything. I was like, no,
like I would love to. Is there a way I
can do that? And they're like, yeah, yeah, let's let's
(16:23):
make a phone call. Like you can make a phone
call right now. And I called my mom my first,
because I was like, man, the one person is gonna
be really freaked out as my mom, so I should
call her. And uh, I called my mom and you know,
of course she started crying on the phone and stuff,
and I was just glad that I was alive. And yeah,
that was when I was like, I'm like, you know
(16:44):
she was. She was crying hysterically, and I was like, listen,
like there's people way worse off than I am, Like
it's okay, Like I'm going to be fine. Like would
I think they're going to try to figure out how
to get you guys to Walter Reed because at the
time I was planning on going to Walter Reed. So
when from Bogram to Lonstel and Lonsteel was it was honestly,
(17:06):
all of this time was just kind of like a blur,
you know, it was me laying in a hospital bed
on a bunch of medicine and just trying to get
through the day. And so it went to Lonstool and
then that's when they asked me, you know, like they
were like, hey, do you want you can go to Bamsea,
which is in San Antonio, or you can go to
Walter Reed. Like where do you want to go? And
(17:29):
I was like, well, I don't know where Bamsea is,
but I've heard of Walter Reed from like movies and stuff,
so I'll go there. You know, Walter Reid was was
an incredible place. The people at Walter Reed are unbelievable.
I mean they they saved my life.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
He then explained what his recovery looked like at Walter
Reed and how difficult it was for his family to
see him there, at least at first.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Well, I was at Walter Reid. I was impatient for
a month, and that was every other day. I was
getting put under and going to sleep, and they were
cleaning my wounds and I was hooked up to a
bunch of different wound vacs, but won four different wound vacs.
Basically they were just there to keep everything clean and sterile.
And it's insane to think about my family's point of
(18:15):
view too, you know, Like I had these wound vacks
hooked up to me. I was I was fine at
this time, you know, I was. I wasn't gonna die,
you know, but I was hooked up to a bunch
of machines. And I remember Corey, my younger brother, was like, man,
I walked in. I walked into that room and like
saw all these machines and I was like, these machines
are keeping him alive, Like how he's gonna be dope.
(18:36):
And I was like, like, that's not what these machines are.
They're not to keep me alive. Like it's okay. I
can only imagine, you know, walking into that room and
seeing the person you love hooked up to all these
machines in this hospital room and not knowing what the
future looks like.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
That's Scottie Hasting, a US Army veteran of Afghanistan. Much
more on his recovery, his rise in music, and how
his music is hell helping save veterans lives. In just
a moment, I'm Greg Corumbus. This is Veterans' Chronicles This
is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in this
edition is country music singer Scottie Hasting. He is also
(19:14):
a US Army veteran who was seriously wounded in Afghanistan
in April of twenty eleven. Hasting has explained to us
what happened the day he was wounded, how close he
came to losing his life after supposedly being stabilized, and
what recovery looked like at Walter reed. But as Hasting improved,
he had one goal to be back with his guys
(19:36):
on active duty in a line unit. Some may struggle
to understand that desire after such a close call with death,
but Hasting says, once you've served with men and trusted
them to have your back in life and death situations,
you have an unbreakable bond with them.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean the reason you go
back is for them. You know, your whole job, your
whole mission, your whole purpose in the Middle military is
to take care of the people to your left and
to your right, And and there's there's such a relationship that's
formed and bonded like that, that bond that becomes a
thing that to where you I mean, you rely on
them and they rely on you, and there's there's nothing
(20:14):
like that, you know. I mean that's I rely on
them to keep me alive and they rely on me
to keep them alive. And you can't find that anywhere else.
And you build a relationship and you build a bond
unlike anything else, and that makes you do crazy things
like say, I just got shot ten times, but I
want to go back. But you build, you form a
(20:34):
love for these people and a very strong love for
these people, and you want to be there with them
to protect them, you know, And that's that's why.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
But wanting that and getting that are two different things.
Hasting explains everything he tried to do to rejoin his
line in.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
It and that's when it all started. That's that's when
I started, you know, trying to be more active and
work out more. And I started and you know, pushing
for promotions and just tried to pick up more responsibilities
around the Warrior Transition battalion and stuff to try to
to try to build that little bit of yeah, to
just kind of help the resume a little bit. Normally,
(21:15):
when you're going for promotion to sergeant, like you are
given these responsibilities to you know, watch to take care
of these guys and those guys and stuff like that.
But with the word transition battalion, they didn't have the
ability for that, so they had to find different ways
of doing it. A way that we were able to
do it was that I was in charge of the
barracks at one point in time, which was really great.
(21:38):
It gave me the ability to be responsible for something. Luckily,
I had the points I needed and if I didn't,
I went to the you know, did the online schooling
and stuff that I needed to do to get the
points that I needed in order to get promoted to sergeant.
Because again still in my eyes, I'm going back to
aligning it so I'm going to continue my career. And
so with that also came I had to do a
(21:59):
bunch of tests. You know, you had to do a
mental evaluation and emotional evaluation, and then you had to
do a physical evaluation. You know, the mental and the
emotional one. You know what they want to hear. So
that was easy, absolutely. The physical one though, was harder.
You know, I still have an injury. I still you know,
I'm not able to move the way that I used
(22:19):
to and I was still trying to figure all that
out in the middle of all this and uh, you know,
I failed the physical test four different times and uh.
And eventually they were like, man, like, we don't think
that going back to the line uit is something that
you're going to be able to do, but we have
this list of all these other jobs that you might
be able to do in the military. And I looked
(22:41):
at the list and I took it, you know, back
to my house and really thought about what I wanted
to do. If this was something wrong would because you know,
I joined a fight. That was my idea of a soldier.
My idea of a soldier was to be there and
fight and to go after the bad guys instead of
them coming here. And so all of these were non
deployable jobs, and they were all jobs that basically was
(23:04):
kind of sitting behind a desk. And I was like,
I don't I don't want to do that, but this
is that's not what I signed up for. I signed
up to fight, and if I can't fight, then what's
what's the point. And that was really kind of when
you know, all of the depression and stuff really hit.
You know, that that was when I was realizing that
(23:24):
this this thing that I grew to love, you know,
that this this job, this this career that I wanted,
was about to be gone and I wasn't going to
be able to do it anymore. And that's really when
when the depression hit the hardest. And uh but yeah,
you know, I was given that list and I was like, like, I,
(23:46):
this isn't I can't do these, this isn't what I
signed up for. And that's when I made the decision
to get into the med board process and and then
get medically retired.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
After being medically retired, Hasting says he needed something else
to focus on in order to keep post traumatic stress
from overwhelming him, and for a few years at least,
he found that in archery. Until that door was suddenly closed.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I found therapy in archery. I found kind of an
escape in archery. You know, for seven seconds before that
era released, nothing in the world matter to PTSC, the
depression of the anxiety. It all disappeared. So I lived
for seven seconds at a time, that was my life.
With the Paralympic program, all of us on the Paralympic program,
about ninety five percent of us on the Paralympic program
(24:30):
were veterans, and so I had the guys back. I
was able to be with guys who understood it was
exactly what I needed when I needed it, and it
was incredibly therapeutic. And then COVID hit in the world
shut down, which means that my therapy, my escape was gone,
and I needed something when it gets quiet as when
(24:51):
the demon's knock loudest, and COVID was very quiet, and
I needed something to get out of my head.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
During COVID, Hasting knew that being alone with his thoughts
would become a problem, so he sought another outlet. He
had owned a guitar for years but never learned how
to play it, so in twenty twenty, he hopped on
YouTube and taught himself how to play four chords that
could be used to play thousands of different songs. Then
he learned how to write songs, and by the time
(25:18):
Nashville was starting to slowly reopen from COVID, Hasting decided
he was ready to play and sing in front of others,
with his first performance coming in front of just four
other people who were also there for an open mic night.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I don't know what that performance was like it was
probably awful, but for me it was. For me, it
was everything that escape in that sense of purpose, in
that therapy that I had found in everything else before
was there, but it was magnified a hundred times in
that moment. The stage became a sanctuary for me, and
(25:53):
I knew that that's what I needed to do forever.
Like I wanted to get on every stage i could,
because the therapy that I got from it was the
most amazing feeling I've ever felt. So I went to
every open mic night I could find until the world
started opening up again, and then through friends that these
open mic nights, I started hearing that, you know, down
(26:17):
on Broadway in Nashville, you can play three to four
hours at a time a day. And I was like, well,
you telling me for three to four hours a day,
I can all the PTSD, the depression, of the anxiety,
all that can be gone. That's what I want to do.
I want to do that. I don't care what it takes,
That's what I want to do. So I went down
on Broadway and I walked up and down Broadway for
a month and just bugged their crap out of people
(26:39):
until they let me on stage so much so that
eventually I was playing six days a week and three
to four hours at a time, and I lived for it,
you know, and my vocal cords hated me, absolutely hated me.
But the therapy that I got from those three to four
hours were priceless and unlike anything I have ever imagined.
(27:01):
And then it just slowly blossomed and has now become
a career.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
But didn't Hastings say he permanently injured his hand when
he was wounded, So how does he play the guitar?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
You know? I got to say, Luckily, I learned. I
learned how to play after my injury, because if I
knew how to play before my injury, I probably would
have given up. It was hard, yeah, I mean, you
got to think about it. I got no feeling on
my hand whatsoever. I have this much movement in my hand,
and that's all I have, So these three fingers just
kind of sit there. So it was painful, and it
(27:36):
was and it was hard, and it was, you know,
but the the therapy outweighed the pain, and it outweighed
how how hard it was to figure it out and
how hard it was to get this hand. And you know,
because I have no feeling from basically here down, so
the movement and everything that I have to make in
order to strum, like all of that, like trying to
(27:57):
find rhythm in a hand that you can't feel very
hard and you know so not had I not known
how to play. If I knew how to play, I
probably would have given up. So thank god I didn't
know how to play already.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Hasting didn't just play and sing. He did both really well.
In fact, just three years after picking up his guitar,
Hasting signed his first record deal.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
It's very, very quick. Everything has been so incredibly quick,
and I would never take for granted where I'm at.
There are people on Broadway and there are people out
there who have dreamed of being where I am their
whole life and have worked on it and worked on
it for decades. And I've been doing this for five years.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
And I.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Don't know how it has moved as fast as it has.
And it'll never go unnoticed by me that I am
in a place that so many people would dream to be.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
In addition to the therapy he says comes from music,
Hasting says it's also helped him to stay connected with
his army brothers, and he even inc it's them and
some of his songs.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
They love it. It's funny. I'll try to put him
in songs every once in a while. One of my
really dear friends, John Connor is and one of my
songs called the Stories that They Tell, his name is
in the song, and it's funny. That's become kind of
like his thing now. You know, he's like, man, anytime
my kids start thinking that they're so much cooler than me,
I'm like, yeah, but are you in a song? You know?
It's so funny, and you know, they try to come
(29:24):
out and support as much as possible. You know. I
remember my grand Ole Opry debut I had. I had
a couple of them in the crowd with me that day,
and it was it was so much fun, and it
was so much fun, and it's so cool to be
able to see them, and you know, hopefully, you know,
what I'm doing makes them proud.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Given his own battles with PTSD, hasting dedicates his music
in part to helping veterans and encouraging them to, as
he states it, put down the gun and move away
from suicidal thoughts and it's working. Hastings shared one very
powerful story from a com concert just before the super
Bowl in early twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
It was kind of the moment when I realized that
we were doing something that meant something. I was at
a show in Phoenix before the super Bowl. It was
the first time I ever got to open up for
an artist, and I got to open for Dave Girl,
which is crazy. Also, Dave Girl is one of the
most incredible people I've ever met in my entire life.
We did an acoustic show and I opened for him,
(30:25):
and I played a song that I had written two
days before that. There's a song called how Do You Choose?
And it's a song about my survivor's guilt about why
I'm here and my best friend isn't. And the event
that we played was four veterans, and it was there
was two hundred, maybe three hundred veterans in this room,
(30:45):
and I played how do You Choose, an incredibly personal
song to myself and something that I know that I
struggle with all the time about the Survivor's guild and
you know, why am I here? And I played the
song and it was the first time that I'd ever
played a song. And then it was just kind of
quiet afterwards, and I was like, oh my god, they
hated the song, like this song is my heart and soul,
(31:06):
and they hated it. And then I kind of opened
my eyes and realized that everyone was kind of consoling
each other. And that was when I realized that there
was something to that song and that we needed to
record it and that it needed to be out there.
Then fast forward another day and I get a message
(31:27):
from one of the guys who co wrote the song
with me named Jesse Wayne Taylor, and he had a
buddy who was in the military and he was in
he was in Phoenix, and the message went on to
say that he was in Phoenix and he was at
the show and the reason why he was messaging was
because Jesse Wayne Taylor helped me write it and I
(31:47):
said Jesse's name before I sang it, and he basically
the message was like, man, I'm going to be one
hundred percent honest with you, like I was going to
end it. I was going to end everything, and I
was going to be done with this like I was
over it. He said. You know, I figured before I did,
I've always wanted to see Dave Girl play and I
figured if tickets are free for veterans. I'll go watch
(32:10):
Dave Girl play and then I'll end it when I
get home. And they said, but I wasn't ready for
Scotty Like he played this song called how Do You Choose?
And it changed everything and He's like, man, I realized
that I'm not alone in this, Like I realized that
this is something that we all deal with. And Scotty
made me want to continue moving forward and man, like,
(32:34):
that's that's it. That's the whole reason I want to
do this. And that was the moment that made me
realize that that I could actually do some good. And
that was the moment that made me realize that we
have to do more and I have to be out
(32:55):
there and I have to let these veterans see me,
and then I have to let them see my heart
and my soul and I have to let them see
me be vulnerable and let them see me cry on
camera and let them understand that it's okay. That was
the moment that made me realize that we're doing something
that means something. And uh, and that was you know,
that was it, man, That was what lit the fire.
(33:16):
That was what lit the fire.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
And Hasting has a simple message for any struggling veterans
and their families.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
You know, my encouragement is just to keep moving forward,
you know that, and uh that and find something you
love to do and do it all the time. You know.
That's I've been lucky enough to be able to to
find something that I love, and I've been able to
reap the therapy and the benefits from it. And there's
so much therapy and finding something you love to do.
(33:44):
And I hope that with my music, I hope that,
you know, with my story, I hope that someone hears
it and it helps them in some way, shape or form,
whatever that looks like, whether it be you know, just
them understanding that they're not alone in feeling the feelings
that they're feeling, or that you know, PTSD depression and
anxiety is something that we all suffer from. I mean,
(34:06):
even me, I still have bad days, you know, and
I get to do incredible things, things that I never
thought possible, you know, And I hope that it's just
it gives them some type of hope. You know, that
you don't have to be defined by the bad, but
you can be defined with what you do with them.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Scottie Hasting is a US Army veteran of the war
in Afghanistan, and he was seriously wounded there in April
of twenty eleven. He is now a rising star and
country music and continues to focus on helping veterans. I'm
Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
This is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles,
a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information,
please visit American Veterans Center, or you can also follow
the American Veterans Center on Facebook and on Twitter We're
at AVC update. Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube
(35:10):
channel for full oral histories and special features, and of
course please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you
get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening, and please join
us next time for Veterans Chronicles.
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