Actor Gary Sinise and his band, the Lieutenant Dan Band, are performing at the Grand Ole Opry on Veterans Day. In this episode, Sinise talks about the band s upcoming show at the Ryman Auditorium, and how they support veterans and first responders.
00:11:25.680I mean, Paul Rodriguez, comedians were on the tour.
00:11:29.440It was—there were a lot of entertainers.
00:11:33.560It was called Project Salute, and that's some footage there from that very first trip overseas to Iraq and Kuwait.
00:11:44.680This is me going out to a place called Camp Udari, which was right on the Iraq-Kuwait border.
00:11:50.120And I saw thousands of troops that day, and it was very impactful to go out there, see these people in the war zones, see what they were doing, shake hands with them.
00:12:02.900I wanted to talk to everybody, and I didn't have time because, you know, there were so many people lined up to see us.
00:12:38.840Anyway, what's something—yeah, because you just had, like, you had so many, like, kind of iconic roles, like, you know, and were in so many, like, just, you know, films that really touched people.
00:12:51.580You know, The Green Mile, I remember, of mice and men.
00:13:23.920But that—just so many special roles.
00:13:27.460But then it feels like you really kind of found this, like, a role that really, like, like, almost a bigger role in this space of service, you know, and of feeling like even just showing up somewhere and giving of yourself, you know?
00:13:41.220Well, with the veterans in my family, and especially the Vietnam veterans, I have World War II and World War I on my side of the family, Korea era.
00:13:53.860My grandfather in World War I, my two uncles in World War II, so—but it was when I met the Vietnam veterans on my wife's side of the family, and that was very impactful because they had not been treated well, and I started to have a lot of compassion for them and feel very, very badly.
00:14:13.900So when we were attacked on September 11th and our, you know, young men and women started raising their hand and joining the military and going off to Afghanistan and Iraq, and I wanted to do something to support them.
00:14:31.480I just felt a lot of compassion for them having veterans in my own family and having seen what happened to our Vietnam veterans when they went off to war.
00:14:39.660And it was starting to—if you recall, the Iraq War was starting to be—you know, the country was starting to divide itself over whether we should be there or not and all of that.
00:14:51.060And I didn't want our service members to get caught in the middle of all that, so I just started raising my hand and going out and supporting them where I could, and that led to all these nonprofits that I supported, and then I just started my own.
00:15:05.580And that's the Gary Sinise Foundation?
00:15:08.220How do you stay out of the minute—like, how do you stay out of the political side of things, right?
00:15:12.900Like, because I'm sure sometimes that, like you were saying with Vietnam, it was probably one of the first times that soldiers came back, and a lot of people didn't agree with them being there.
00:15:21.180And it's like, it's not really their fault, right?
00:15:24.360They're just signing up to protect, like, the freedoms that we have, right?
00:16:26.620We wanted, you know, our troops to go over there and do something, find this bad guy that did that to us.
00:16:32.460And, you know, everybody was sort of united behind that.
00:16:35.600As time went on, though, you started to feel like, okay, we're, you know, we don't support George Bush going into Iraq.
00:16:43.460And I didn't want our troops to get caught in the middle of that.
00:16:47.660So I just said, you know, what can I do as an entertainer?
00:16:52.900You know, as somebody that they recognize from the movies, I can go over there and shake hands with them and tell them, hey, you know, we appreciate you.
00:16:59.780We don't, you know, we don't take what you're doing for granted.
00:17:03.280And I started doing that, and then I did it some more and more and more and more.
00:17:09.280And the more I did it, the more I felt like I was having a positive effect on people that were away from their families, losing friends, you know, getting blown up, ending up in the hospital, multiple limbs amputated, all these terrible things that were happening.
00:17:27.360And I felt like I was bringing some positive light into their world, which was, you know, a pretty difficult time.
00:17:37.000I mean, if you're over there and you lose 10 buddies and then you lose your legs, you've got a long way, a long road ahead.
00:18:12.720You don't have a question, you know, and if they send you into a war zone, you've got to go.
00:18:16.820So they're just doing their duty, and I want to support them and help them through the difficulties of going to war and the things that they see and the things that happen to them.
00:18:28.660I remember one time on a base, we were there, and something, I think it was in Arifjana, one of those bases near there.
00:19:12.220You know, I'm one of them in the sense that I'm an American, and I have, like, empathy, maybe something.
00:19:18.300There's something there, like a human connection.
00:19:21.300But, man, that was, like, heartbreaking.
00:19:22.960And so you were just kind of passing out waters and shaking hands and just, like, you know, patting people on the chest or trying to do anything that you felt like maybe God was pushing you to do without being egotistical to try and just be there and support.
00:19:42.320And so that was a special thing, the fact that you took the time to go over there to do that, to pat them on the back, to shake their hand, to hand them a water bottle, to tell some jokes, to break up their day a little bit, help them through that experience.
00:19:57.100That was, I'm sure that was profoundly impactful for you, but it was also very meaningful for them.
00:20:03.380I've seen it, you know, hundreds of times.
00:20:05.360And it's helpful, you know, to have somebody from home show up and say, hey, thanks for what you're doing.
00:20:13.760And the next day they found out that the guy didn't make it, you know?
00:20:17.780And it was just like, it was, have you had moments like that on these bases?
00:20:24.820Like, what kind of moments do you kind of experience on some of these bases?
00:20:28.040Have you been in some moments where it's, or have you been on bases where it's a night where it's like, man, this is a, a lot's happened today and it might be a tough night for these guys to come and enjoy some music?
00:20:37.560Like, or what are some of the, like, what are some of the things we don't see that, as regular civilians, of what bass life is like?
00:20:45.040You know, when, when you go to, when you go to a war zone, um, you're, you, you're keen, keenly aware that at any moment for any one of these folks that you're meeting, any of these soldiers who are infantry especially or something like that, that at any point they could get called out to a mission, get in the, get in the Humvee or get in the tank or whatever, go out on a mission and something bad could happen to them.
00:21:28.460So the 20 seconds that I spend with them or something like that can be very meaningful.
00:21:33.080I've had mothers come up to me with photographs of me and their son who was, he was killed the next day, you know, after not like, this is the last picture that was taken.
00:21:46.060Uh, and you know, as soon as he got that picture, he sent it home to the family and it lit him up.
00:21:51.300And then the next day he's shot by a sniper or something like that.
00:21:54.940And, and, and those types of things can, uh, impact you in a very profound, uh, way.
00:22:02.800And you don't, you don't forget about that, you know, and it makes you come back and do it again.
00:22:08.480You know, uh, I, I thought the first time I went to a hospital, um, I would, I remember it's well over 20 years ago.
00:22:18.000And I went to Landstuhl medical center in, in, uh, Germany and Landstuhl it's called Landstuhl.
00:22:57.160And that, that was very, I was very nervous about it.
00:23:01.540I mean, I remember the first time it was kind of, I tell this story about, you know, when I was a kid, my grandmother dying in the hospital and it was, and she was very sick.
00:23:13.460And it was just very hard to be in the hospital and see her like that.
00:23:17.640And the, those were my hospital memories.
00:23:20.840And so now I'm on a bus with the USO and I'm driving to the military hospital where our troops are first taken when they get blown up or something bad happens to them.
00:23:32.280And I'm going to see a bunch of these people and I'm thinking this, I don't know how I'm going to, I don't know how I'm going to get through it.
00:23:54.600And I walked in and I, I, I tell this story about walking into the first room and there were like 30 people in there and they were all banged up, but they were going to get patched up and sent back to the war zone.
00:24:07.760They weren't injuries that would send them home.
00:24:10.600Um, and everything was quiet and I'm, you know, I, I wore glasses at the time.
00:24:16.980I had the funny little glasses on, little USO hat and I walk in and I'm not sure what to do or what to say.
00:24:25.920And somebody saw me and screamed Lieutenant Dan at me.
00:24:28.960And then everybody jumped up and wanted a picture and the whole mood changed into something positive.
00:24:35.860And so that was, and then I went to the hospital rooms and I saw people that were missing limbs and people that were in traumatic brain injuries and just really awful stuff.
00:24:46.760But when I left there, I felt, I felt like really good that I had done something positive.
00:25:20.920Two weeks later, I was at Walter Reed.
00:25:22.680And then I was at another hospital, Naval Medical Center at, at Bethesda.
00:25:28.480And then it's just now it's hundreds of trips and, you know, multiple thousands and thousands of wounded service members and family members.
00:25:38.400We take care of, you know, families of our fallen heroes and, you know, you wrap your arms around these kids that have lost a mom or a dad in, in the, in the military or even our first responders, firefighters, police officers.
00:25:54.080And, you know, you just, you know, you're doing something positive and, and it helps you get through the, the difficult moments where some, you, you meet somebody that's really been through some really bad stuff.
00:26:07.440But I'm just there to help them through.
00:26:10.480So you learn, you kind of learn, you know, how it's, it's not about you at all.
00:26:16.380It's about them and what you want them to, to get out of you, giving them a hug or patting them on the back or telling them you, you appreciate them.
00:26:32.700I walk into a room and they see Lieutenant Dan or something, but it makes Lieutenant Dan so much more meaningful when he can actually do something positive for somebody else, you know?
00:26:51.480I realized at a certain point, uh, Lieutenant Dan's just going to, that's just, he's just a part of, part of my life now because so many soldiers relate to him.
00:27:04.140And, uh, you know, I'd go into the hospitals and I see somebody missing both legs like Lieutenant Dan and they just, they want me to talk about the story of Lieutenant Dan.
00:27:12.500And, uh, and you know, the story of Lieutenant Dan is very positive actually.
00:27:15.900He goes through dark stuff, but it's a happy ending at the end.
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00:30:37.580We just had a miles teller was just on the other day and he and I actually ended up talking about you, which is crazy because I had no idea that you were going to come on.
00:30:45.520When I first started this, my mom, um, she's had two husbands that served and, uh, that passed away, but, um, she was like, I hope you could get Gary Sinise one day on your podcast.
00:30:58.300Oh, she was, she's been her favorite guest.
00:31:00.340So this is, and she watches every episode.
00:31:02.300So she'll be excited, but, um, give your mom a hug for me.
00:31:19.360Miles Tuttle was on and he was talking about just working with servicemen and, and, um, and he was talking about, uh, just his experience.
00:31:25.600He had a film called, um, thank you for your service.
00:31:28.680I think it was, and he said that a lot of times it's like, we know how to package these people and get them ready to go off to war to serve, to, uh, be on the front lines to protect our freedoms, but we don't bring them home very well.
00:31:44.020What do you notice in your experience with a lot of this, with spending time with a lot of these people?
00:31:49.920Like, uh, what do you think that, uh, uh, we can do better as a country and then just as everyday people, if there's any, and I know this isn't judgment, but what do you kind of survey?
00:32:03.740Well, Miles, Miles has a point about that.
00:32:05.680Uh, and we learned a lot during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
00:32:11.940I mean, they, the, the military, the various branches of the military did start to address that.
00:32:18.720We need to be, we need to fight the war on the battlefield, but we have to make sure that we don't leave the war on the battlefield and for, and neglect the war that's coming on, that's going on at home, you know, when our service members return.
00:32:32.820So we've been involved at the Gary Sinise Foundation in a number of initiatives, a number of programs to address that coming home, transitioning, uh, from the battlefield to, to home, coming back to your family.
00:32:45.820There was a movie that, uh, I was involved in that I, I was executive producer on, um, back during the Iraq war called Brothers at War.
00:32:56.220And it was all about that experience of going off to war and then coming back and kind of reintegrating with the family.
00:33:03.700And how difficult that can be when you've seen people blown up and seen people, uh, go through difficult things.
00:33:11.080Um, this was a buddy of mine who had two brothers that were serving in Iraq and he, he wasn't serving, but he embedded with units over in Iraq and he made a documentary.
00:33:23.000His name's Jake Rademacher and Jake's a buddy of mine, uh, I ended up being an executive producer on this film.
00:33:30.340And then recently we decided because there's so many people in the movie, uh, that we meet, not just the two brothers, but we meet the people that they're serving with and we get to know them in that particular film.
00:33:44.180Um, we started talking, uh, you know, 10 years later after the movie about like, where are those guys?
00:33:52.020What happened to everybody that was in that first film?
00:33:57.080What's their transition out of the service been like?
00:33:59.400So we've just done, we, we've got a new movie out now called brothers after war and brothers after war and brothers at war deals with military life.
00:34:09.740What it's like to go off and serve, come home, then get deployed again.
00:34:14.100Cause many of our service members would redeploy multiple times.
00:34:18.420That could be very tough on the family.
00:34:20.620Just imagine a child, you know, growing up with mom or dad deploying 10 times over, over a 12 year period.
00:34:28.320And they're never home and the child is growing up.
00:35:09.380Jake has done hundreds of workshops on military bases, showing the movie and they hands out workbooks to everybody and says, what did, what did you feel about this?
00:35:19.120When you saw this, the soldier coming home, dealing with his children who haven't seen him for a long time.
00:35:24.760All these, and all these people kind of start expressing themselves, start talking about it.
00:35:31.620And we have so many service members that come home and they don't talk about it.
00:35:45.700We want to combat the suicide problem that we have within the services and do everything we can to be proactive to go after it and provide mental wellness initiatives so that we can help these people transition.
00:35:58.780That's what both these movies are about.
00:38:09.440Just imagine, okay, if there were no nonprofits in the military and first responder community, right, that are trying to fill the gaps and help, we'd have a catastrophe.
00:38:43.260You know, we have veterans going back, you know, pretty far and some of – you know, like look at our Vietnam veterans for example.
00:38:51.040They're aging into their 70s and 80s and, you know, things are a little tougher for them because they're aging and, you know, they might have needs that they didn't have 20 or 30 years ago.
00:39:05.860So is it – will the government provide everything that's necessary for all the people that have served our country over the years?
00:39:14.560While they may try, I don't think it's possible.
00:39:18.020I think the nonprofits play a pretty significant role in this.
00:39:23.620And so take the nonprofits away and we'd have a real serious problem.
00:40:03.100I think he was in Korea and he got help from the VA.
00:40:05.320But now the nonprofits play a very, very significant role.
00:40:08.920And there are certain things that the VA does well and there are certain things that they don't do well.
00:40:13.500There are certain things that nonprofits could do better at.
00:40:16.320But there's a lot of things that nonprofits do that are really making a difference.
00:40:21.460And I think we have to all work together constantly to do everything we possibly can to serve the men and women who have served our country and protect our freedoms and keep us safe, our first responders as well.
00:40:34.760We have many programs at the Gary Sinise Foundation that are serving all these communities.
00:40:40.240What would you say then just to any lawmakers who are listening, right?
00:40:44.400Because we've talked to – we've had a lot of politicians on this show.
00:40:49.080Like we've had a lot of people come through.
00:40:51.320We've gotten to express things to them about different like laws and things that we would like to see changed.
00:40:56.300Is there anything to lawmakers that you would say if there were any lawmakers listening?
00:41:01.040Like is there anything you would say to them based on like your experiences that could be done or that could be different or is that too broad of a thing to even ask?
00:41:12.960Democrats and Republicans serve our country, right, in military uniform.
00:41:51.740And the stress of that knowing the government is shut down, that has to feel weird for some of them, especially some of the older ones who are going to VA, like wondering if in a month they're still going to be able to get if the place they're going to or that they're getting housing from is still going to be available.
00:42:03.980It could just be a fear, you know, the stress of so much of that is crazy.
00:42:25.040Here it says, on perplexity, it says, the government shutdown in 2025 has had a significant impact on veteran affairs, although most vets, benefits, and core services continue.
00:42:35.140About 37,000 Department of VA employees are furloughed or working without pay, affecting certain services and programs.
00:42:42.540Critical services that have been suspended or halted include the GI Bill hotline, which assists over 900,000 veterans, was shut down.
00:42:51.92056 regional VA benefits offices are closed to the public.
00:42:55.640So I'm not sure how factual some of this is, but even just the fear of this, say if I'm someone who's looking online and I'm a veteran, the fear and stress caused by this is a lot.
00:43:06.620For example, a lot of times when I want to go to a military base, right, and I have a foundation that provides uplifting events on military bases all across the country and overseas.
00:43:23.100And many times if I – you know, I will look at my calendar, which we're doing right now, and I'll figure out when I can be in different areas of the country, and then I'll call up the general or the colonel and say, would you like us to come and lift up the base with some entertainment and that kind of thing.
00:43:49.340And, you know, nine times out of ten there, you know, if the date's available and they don't have something else going on, they'll want me to come.
00:44:00.260We do all kinds of things like that on military bases.
00:44:03.040Well, I'm in the process of doing that right now, winding up 2026, and a lot of the bases that I'm reaching out to are saying, you know, we're kind of – we got a lot of people furloughed right now, so we can't make any decisions.
00:44:16.580But, you know, we're hoping that, you know, this is going to stop.
00:44:19.920So, you know, it's all – this furlough stuff is already sort of slowing things down a bit.
00:44:26.660I mean, they'll get this sorted out eventually.
00:44:29.640It's not going to last forever and everything.
00:44:31.360But it is – you know, it is kind of a roadblock, you know, for them to just get on with things on the military base and continue serving our country.
00:44:43.440And part of what I do is just – everything in my foundation is all about – the heartbeat of everything we do, I say this, is lifting people up.
00:44:53.760It's making them feel important, making them feel that they're not forgotten, that we appreciate what they're doing.
00:45:02.920You know, and so often somebody who's serving in the military, they can just go about their daily life in the military and not even think that anybody knows what they're doing.
00:45:12.100And I've found that my role as an entertainer and somebody who can interact with them on military bases and, you know, talk to the leaders and all that kind of stuff is to kind of let people know what they do.
00:45:25.520And I go to these military bases all the time.
00:45:28.760I've been to hundreds of them and I go there and then I come back and I talk to people like you, Theo, and I tell people what I see.
00:45:36.480And I've met some of the most extraordinary people serving our country out there.
00:45:40.720Just some of my best friends are in the military and I – from somebody who's missing three limbs or four limbs to, you know, some general who has served his country for 42 years and is now retired.
00:45:56.080And when I met him, he was a major, you know, or something.
00:46:00.020I mean, you know, so I've been doing this a long time and I've met extraordinary people.
00:47:23.440You have something protected around it, I'm assuming.
00:47:25.360Yeah, or else you'll be bleeding out your culo.
00:47:27.100I'm Marianna Van Zeller, and after reporting on black markets for my Emmy-winning National Geographic show, Trafficked, I'm launching a podcast.
00:52:36.060And now I do it because we're bringing the kids there.
00:52:41.280In 2018, we folded that organization, Snowball Express, into the Gary Sinise Foundation because it was going to cost a lot more money to move it to Disney World.
00:52:52.420So we had the ability to raise the additional money.
00:52:56.540So now we take the kids to Disney World.
00:52:59.380And so when we do two events, we do military kids, and we will have close to 1,000 children who have lost a parent in military service, plus the surviving spouse, plus hundreds of volunteers.
00:53:17.460I mean, we take over an entire hotel at Disney World, 800 rooms and all that.
00:53:25.420But what you see happening to these children when they come together and they meet each other and they meet other children that are going through the same thing.
00:53:35.780They've all lost a mom or a dad in the military, and they're all heartbroken kids, and they're going through all that.
00:53:43.880But they meet all these other kids, and they befriend each other, and they stay in touch with each other.
00:53:47.940And then we provide year-round events in states all over the country throughout the year for these families.
00:53:54.140And then after we do the military event, we bring children of fallen firefighters and police officers there.
00:54:01.060And we'll have, gosh, we'll have 500-something kids of fallen firefighters and police officers there.
00:54:09.400So we do two back-to-back events, all expense paid.
00:54:13.300We just want them to come, and we want to shine a spotlight on them, and we want to just wrap our arms around these families and love on them.
00:54:23.540So that they know that they can go home from that and know that there's a big, big, giant community of people that care about them, that don't forget what they're going through, that honor their hero that they lost, and think about them every day.
00:54:36.720And that's what we do at the Gary Sinise Foundation.
00:54:38.460We have dozens of corporate sponsors that love the event, and like I say, we probably have 2,000 people there working the event with the volunteers and the staff and the Disney folks.
00:54:53.540And then the families that we bring in.
00:55:10.680It's nice to be reminded that there's an organization that's helping to fill in the gaps of, like, the government organizations.
00:55:18.860And it's not like – but that's what we need.
00:55:21.200That's what we've always been, you know.
00:55:22.440It's like we have to – in the end, we have to count on ourselves, right?
00:55:27.380Is there, like, a moment or two that stands out from some of the experiences on those types of weekends that –
00:55:33.060Yeah, I'm in hundreds and hundreds of families, you know, and they're all going through some difficult loss, you know.
00:55:40.900And, unfortunately, each year there's a new family, you know.
00:55:46.500I mean, these are – you know, we can't point to a war that's going on right now, but people are serving out there.
00:55:54.660Unfortunately, we lose people who take their own lives because they don't know where to turn, and they feel like that's the only way out, and that leaves the family behind.
00:56:07.280We don't want those families to feel like nobody cares, you know.
00:56:12.080This is a family who's served and sacrificed for our country.
00:56:15.920We're all – we all benefit from the service of our defenders and their families, so we have a role to play.
00:56:25.400I think we, as citizens, have a role to play.
00:56:27.660I have said this, that government does a certain amount, but I don't think we can expect government to do everything for everybody, and we have a role to play as citizens.
00:56:41.400And if every neighborhood, every community, every town, every city, every state in the country recognize that there are veterans and military families and first responders within those communities that are struggling,
00:56:58.260and we reached out, took the initiative ourselves within our own communities to touch those families and take care of them and let them know, hey, we're here for you, whatever you need.
00:57:10.220And if every community did that in the country, yeah, this stuff that you hear about veterans falling through the cracks and all that stuff and being left by, they're waiting in line for different things and stuff, you know, all of that would be greatly reduced, all those problems.
00:57:25.480If we, as citizens, just recognize that, hey, there are people out there that protect us, they defend us, and I appreciate that, so I'm not going to neglect, I'm not going to take it for granted.
00:57:38.640And who, like, who in my neighborhood, who in my town, who in my township, who has a family member that's over there serving that I could stop by and say hello or do something nice for or leave a card in their mailbox or do something, you know what I'm saying, just little things like that.
00:57:53.500It's like I'm even asking myself, it's like, you know, how can I be a part of even just my local community to help let people around me feel recognized that their dad isn't over there in vain or their mother isn't over there serving in vain, that there aren't people thinking about them and praying for them and making themselves available if there's something else that the family needs.
00:58:14.280That little thing can make a big difference.
00:58:34.360That gesture, you know, if you're walking through an airport, you see a soldier, and you pat him on the back and say, I appreciate what you're doing.
01:00:09.300And we, you know, we have multiple programs at the foundation.
01:00:12.080Now that little program there, just serving veterans at a VA or some, you know, military base or something like that, that little program can make a big difference.
01:00:23.720You know, somebody like me comes out and dishes out the hamburgers and beans and stuff.
01:00:28.380And they call home and say, hey, guess who gave me the beans today?
01:00:50.560We were dishing out food to all the first responders, the National Guard people that were there, serving hundreds of meals, just, you know, and that kind of stuff.
01:01:00.040They just saw a lot of bad stuff, you know.
01:01:02.960And those types of things can just help them through.
01:02:48.480You know, and I've, I've been blessed because I've been, you know, I had a, you know, had good, good years in Hollywood and I've been able to take those resources and channel it into doing something good.
01:03:00.680And then, you know, provide something that the American people can support and come on board with.
01:03:05.900And now, like I said, we have hundreds of corporate donors that help us with all kinds of stuff.
01:04:47.140And this is so, and if people wanted to, if people do want to donate, they could just donate to Gary Sinise Foundation and it goes to all of these different things.
01:05:04.480And when I take my band out to a military base, uh, that's, you know, the, the band is a, is an initiative of the Gary Sinise Foundation.
01:05:14.900Just one of our many, many programs that we have at the Gary Sinise Foundation to raise spirits and lift people up and to help them through.
01:11:44.760You can actually see right there on his nose, that's a tumor.
01:11:50.900And yeah, no, you can see his spirit right there.
01:11:55.080And we're listening to one of the pieces played back to us right there.
01:11:58.980And everybody was psyched out about it.
01:12:02.160And thank you for sharing Mac with us today.
01:12:04.600Thank you for letting us think about you with him and think about him.
01:12:09.080Thank you for letting us speak his name today.
01:12:12.240And, you know, it's important that I think when we say people's names that aren't here in front of us, that they feel it, that that's a real thing, right?
01:12:35.760Catholic faith helped him through the most challenging, difficult stuff.
01:12:45.220What was something that amazed you about your son as you're watching him go through that?
01:12:50.260You know, Theo, I never heard him say, you know, that why me stuff or why is this happening or anything like that.
01:12:59.440You know, it was just, I remember when we found out he had a tumor and the way he dealt with it was just, oh, that's why my tailbone's been hurting, you know, for two years.
01:13:14.000You know, he thought it was a tailbone fracture or bruise from a bike accident or something.
01:13:19.980And, oh, okay, so we're going to take it out and get on with life.
01:13:28.420He always had this sort of, he was what I called a graceful warrior and such courage and such grace under fire because this cancer was devastating.
01:13:44.460I mean, it was one thing after another.
01:13:48.500It just kept coming at us and I was like the one in the family who had to guide us, you know, through it.
01:14:00.040At the end of 2019, 2020 became so difficult that I just never went back to acting and I stayed, you know, I just stayed in a battle.
01:14:11.200And he was the inspiration for everything, the way he courageously just faced it and just took it on the chin and took it in stride.
01:14:23.660And if he was, if we could keep him out of pain and if we could keep him, you know, from feeling too sick from the treatment and all that, he was just living.
01:14:37.260He was, you know, he's in a hospital bed and we had to hoist him up with a thing called a Hoyer lift and you lift him out of the bed and put him in a wheelchair or whatever.
01:14:47.900Like one of those shrimp net things almost, which is crazy.
01:14:51.240It's a sling that you put under, underneath them and then you hook it to this arm and then you crank it up and it lifts him out of the bed.
01:15:03.360And we had to get used to all that kind of stuff.
01:15:05.080Wheelchair bands and treatment and, you know, radiation and, you know, he had multiple surgeries and, and he went through all of this, which was such grace.
01:15:16.560And the last year of his life, when he said he wanted to go back and write that music, in some ways, even though it was getting harder and we were running out of drug options and, and all of that.
01:15:31.040And, and his health was, you know, deteriorating in some ways, that was one of the best years of his entire life because he, he accomplished what he set out to do.
01:15:53.480And, and then after he died, I found all this additional music in his files that he wrote and tucked away that some, some he'd written in for the foundation and I had heard it.
01:16:05.920But then I found all this other stuff going all the way back to his college days.
01:16:11.000And so I produced a second record, Resurrection and Revival Part Two.
01:16:17.820That's actually a story about Resurrection and Revival Part Two.
01:17:09.600You can see here, like all those messages right in the middle of the screen there, those are, there are thousands of messages that were posted on the Gary Sinise Foundation website after people read this story.
01:17:24.900And I can't tell you how meaningful that was for people to write in and leave these messages for our family and how helpful that was for us to read.
01:17:39.720These are from my bandmates and some of the people that worked for the foundation.
01:17:43.680But these are the messages that came in from the general public and they continue to come in.
01:17:48.740And to have this kind of support and people sharing their own stories of loss and going through it and reading Mac's story and listening to his music and what listening to his music was doing for them, that was, all of that has been so helpful to us in our loss.
01:18:08.800It's, you know, I mean, to lose a son is, it's, you know, it's the hardest thing that, I've had some hard things in life, but to watch our son go through that and to lose him in the end was the most difficult thing in life.
01:18:30.840But also, like I said, the blessings that we've had, you know, with his music and, you know, and now I've got a, I've got a third record going.
01:18:49.380I just, he wrote so many things that he never thought would, I mean, you know how a musician will get an idea, they'll kind of chunk it out, throw it onto a recorder, tuck it away over here.
01:19:02.620And so I found all these things that he wrote and tucked away and, and we brought a whole bunch of those to life, orchestral music, jazz things, rock tunes, something as big as, you know, him sitting down with his computer programs and doing big sweeping string orchestrations to him singing a melody into his phone that he didn't want to forget that was in his head.
01:21:31.660And, you know, we had a lot of drugs go, go through Mac at a certain point.
01:21:38.200And it was very, you know, very, very challenging, you know, to, to, to, to, to fight that.
01:21:47.060But I never saw him not want to do it.
01:21:51.680Later on, I found videos that he made.
01:21:56.760And when I say he was trying, he was preparing himself, he was also leaving some things for the family and he wrote some things that I found and he left messages.
01:22:10.120And at one point in 2022, he had to go in for very serious, he was having a very serious bladder issue.
01:22:20.600His bladder was just shutting down and he had to have tubes put in his kidneys to drain the urine directly out of his kidneys.
01:22:29.340And, and he was in the ICU for about 12 days.
01:22:32.480And at that point he thought this, you know, he, he was wondering if that was going to be it, you know, the end.
01:22:43.540So he started thinking and he started writing and he started leaving videos and he started preparing.
01:22:48.480And then I, after he died, I started finding all this stuff, messages from him, things that he was thinking.
01:22:54.740And not, you know, to be sad, you know, but I want to leave something.
01:22:59.900And he was saying, I want to leave something that people will, so people will know me a little better.
01:23:06.100And he was thinking ahead, you know, to the time where he might not make it.
01:23:12.320And, you know, with everything that was happening to him, he was, he was realistic, you know, he was very realistic about the fight and the uphill battle that we had.
01:23:22.660And we weren't seeing enough progress, you know, on the positive side to combat the cancer.
01:23:27.840So he was preparing in, in a lot of ways.
01:23:30.940And, you know, like I said, I've discovered a lot of things and, and I've discovered more about my son than I could have imagined, you know, just his talent, his wisdom, his spirituality.
01:23:46.940A lot of beautiful things that, because I've spent countless hours, you know, all the time digging into things about my son.
01:23:58.280And I'm working on a, you know, something that will come out next year about him.
01:24:02.760And, you know, so I'm, I'm, I'm spending a lot of time and, and Mac is, he continues to help me and, and we share, you know, my band plays two songs and.
01:24:31.320You know, he was a kid, you know, like, like other kids, but he was, Mac was a very, always very sensitive.
01:24:38.200His mom, I think he's, he's got this sensitive beauty that his mother has and she gave him a lot of that.
01:24:47.480And, um, and at one point he went off to college and he kind of, you know, was doing the college thing and kind of went through a period, you know,
01:24:57.600where he's a little strayed, but then he came back to his faith in a really big way.
01:25:03.600You know, when he, uh, at, you know, a couple of years out of college, he was, he was looking for something more than what he had.
01:25:13.380And that's why, that's when he started kind of revisiting his faith.
01:25:20.080And I'll tell you the fact that he kind of, uh, reinvested in, in that in 2017, in such a profound way that was so meaningful to him.
01:25:33.880Um, the fact that he did that when he did was a gigantic benefit to his fight because the following year he's diagnosed with this terrible cancer.
01:25:49.640And he has something inside to help support him.
01:26:20.840Um, I'm proud of my kids and, uh, my, our daughters are amazing.
01:26:25.380And, uh, you know, through the whole thing, we're all heartbroken, of course, but, uh, our daughters were amazing through it all and love their brothers so much.
01:26:37.220And, uh, that, that's the three of them right there.