The Unsung Veteran

John N. Smith
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Biweekly

The Unsung Veteran is a veteran-to-veteran interview platform focused on honest conversations about military service, transition, leadership, and life after the uniform. Each episode is a direct, unscripted conversation. There is no imposed narrative, no agenda, and no hero framing. The discussion belongs to the veteran. This podcast exists to document the lived experiences of those who served — across ranks, roles, and backgrounds — and to preserve the perspective that often goes unheard. Full episodes are available in video and audio formats.

  1. Jun 27

    Ep 24: Kelly Galvin — From Infantry to Iraq, Recalled at 52

    Kelly Galvin is a retired Army officer whose career refused to sit still. He enlisted in 1975 as an infantryman, served three years in Cold War Germany, and then rebuilt himself again and again over the next three decades — as a medic, a commissioned signal officer, and finally a medical service corps officer. In this conversation, Kelly walks host John Smith through a path most veterans never see in a single career. He talks about joining right as the all-volunteer force replaced the draft, and a now-famous run-in with General Patton during a training exercise in Germany. He explains the Active Guard Reserve program and what it took to go from a senior enlisted sergeant first class to a brand-new second lieutenant. And he describes the call that pulled him out of retirement at 52, sending him to Iraq to help manage cell-phone frequencies against roadside IEDs before he landed in the Joint Operations Center building casualty briefings. It's a frank look at adaptability, service, the weight of what he saw downrange, and the faith that carried him through it — a signal officer's long view on figuring it out and doing the mission, whatever it turned out to be. Reflections between episodes, and every way to follow along: theunsungveteran.com Know a veteran whose story should be heard? Send them to theunsungveteran.com.

  2. Jun 16

    Ep 23: Carl Able — Marine Intel, Transition, and the Next Mission

    Carl Able is a retired Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant who spent 20 years in military intelligence, joining at 18 and serving through the split between aviation and ground intel before finishing as a training chief. In this episode he sits down with host John "Goofy" Smith for an unscripted, veteran-to-veteran conversation about leaving the Corps and figuring out what comes next. They get into the VA disability claim process — what worked, what went silent after the rating came through, and the 24-hour miss that held everything up — along with the realities of TriCare for retirees and navigating care on your own. Carl talks about why he joined, how his intelligence background shaped the way he sees the world, and the part of the job he misses most: leading, guiding, and teaching young Marines. He's candid about a rough transition and the "clean break" that cut both ways, and about the hard truth that getting out can feel like standing still while the Corps keeps moving. From there the conversation turns to what's next: building Crayon Eater Media to help veteran content creators, finding community through 5051 Veterans and its live show The Smoke Pit, and a planned run for public office. Two Marines who don't share the same politics show what a civil, honest conversation actually sounds like. Reflections between episodes, and every way to follow along: theunsungveteran.com Know a veteran whose story should be heard? Send them to theunsungveteran.com

  3. Jun 3

    Ep 22: Joe Gonzalez — Navy CB, Mother Ocean, and Finding Purpose

    Joe Gonzalez is a ten-year Navy veteran who served as a CB (Construction Battalion) and as an embarkation officer during Operation Desert Storm. Born in Ecuador and raised in Southern California, Joe was a scuba diver before he was a sailor — Mother Ocean was, in his words, his connection to sanity his whole life. He's now the founder of Mother Ocean Fund, a nonprofit using ocean-based programs to support veterans, ecological work, and youth outreach. This conversation covers a lot of ground. Joe walks through the injury he sustained during a Desert Storm deployment — a fuel explosion that threw his bus into a ditch and tore his lungs, leaving him with a pulmonary arteriovenous malformation that the Navy told him to walk off. He coughed up blood for fifteen years and went through six or seven VA denials before a doctor finally connected the injury to his service. He also opens up about the humanitarian deployment to Bangladesh following the early-90s tsunami — burying the dead, and the spiritual cost of that work. We get into his Miami motorcycle accident and the coma that followed, the opioid addiction that grew out of his pain management, and the meditation and ayahuasca programs that became part of his recovery. He shares The Landlord Theory — his framework for managing pain, addiction, anger, and PTSD as roommates in your head — and how Mother Ocean Fund became his purpose on the other side of it. For reflections between episodes, subscribe at https://theunsungveteran.substack.com/ Know a veteran whose story should be heard? Reach out: theunsungveteran@gmail.com

  4. May 27

    Ep 21: Antoinette Berrafato — Army Medic, TBI, and the Comeback

    Antoinette Berrafato served 11 years in the U.S. Army as an air assault qualified combat medic during the Gulf War era. She was also at various times a dental hygienist, x-ray tech, database administrator, and recruiter — a multi-tool soldier who chased every school and every qualification the Army would let her into, even when the slots weren't supposed to be open to women. A rappelling accident in Korea broke her back and caused a traumatic brain injury that, over the years that followed, would slowly take almost everything from her. In this conversation, Antoinette walks through the full arc — from her family's legacy of service (her father and uncles served across World War II, Korea, and Vietnam) through her ethical approach to recruiting duty, her decision to medically separate, and the long decline that eventually left her housebound for 18 months with a walker, a service dog, and a full-time caregiver. She talks about how chronic inflammation, stress, and the gaps in conventional medicine compounded her injuries, and what she's done since to rebuild — including adaptive sports through Team River Runner, biophilic design in her off-grid cabin, lifestyle medicine, and founding the American Adventure Sports Club with her husband, an Iraq War Marine veteran and fellow TBI survivor. Topics covered include the realities of TBI recovery, the limits of allopathic medicine for chronic injury, recreational therapy as a path back, the connection between gut health and brain function, and what Antoinette saw in the suicide rates of the children at her first nonprofit camp. For reflections between episodes, subscribe at https://theunsungveteran.substack.com/ Know a veteran whose story should be heard? Reach out: theunsungveteran@gmail.com

  5. May 20

    Ep 20: Rand Timmerman — Vietnam, the Trail, and Sobriety

    Rand Timmerman enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in March 1966 and shipped to Vietnam as a combined 0141 clerk typist and 0311 machine gunner, serving with the 1st Marine Division out of Da Nang. He pulled perimeter security, ran reaction platoon missions, flew briefly as a door gunner with 1st Marine Air Wing, and was made a Mustang lieutenant in the final weeks of his tour. After Vietnam he attended OCS and the Navy Justice School in Newport, Rhode Island — becoming, by his classmates' later research, the only Mustang officer without a college degree ever commissioned as a JAG. He went on to a 40-year legal career in upstate New York, including a murder trial in which he was the first attorney to cross-examine the FBI lab director on the use of DNA evidence. In this conversation, Rand and John talk about the bar in Syracuse where he enlisted, the airport homecoming that nearly turned into a felony, the decades of nightmares and untreated combat trauma that almost killed him, and the prayer in a parking lot that started his recovery. Twelve years sober, Rand hiked 1,863 miles of the Appalachian Trail at age 72 with his younger brother — an experience he chronicled in his book A Spiritual Passage. He also discusses the Power of Our Story veterans organization, Barry Zworstein's book You Are Not Alone, and the VA resources that helped him. For reflections between episodes, subscribe at https://theunsungveteran.substack.com/ Know a veteran whose story should be heard? Reach out: theunsungveteran@gmail.com

  6. May 13

    Ep 19: Lavelle Lemonier — Deported Veterans and 25 Years of Service

    Lavelle Lemonier spent 25 years in the U.S. Army as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, serving as a nuclear, biological, and chemical specialist. His deployments span four decades of American military history — Operation Just Cause in Panama, the Black Hawk Down situation in Somalia, Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and Afghanistan. He retired in 2012 as an E-8 and has since built a career in film as a writer, actor, and director. In this episode, Lavelle talks about what it was like to be on the ground in Somalia during one of the most chaotic periods of that mission — young soldiers encountering a level of violence that had no American equivalent and being expected to come home and resume normal life. He reflects on jumping into Panama at 19 years old, hearing live rounds for the first time, and the difference between training and reality. The conversation turns to his current documentary project, Served in Exile, which follows non-citizen veterans who served honorably and were later deported. Lavelle walks through specific cases — veterans raised in the U.S. from childhood, who took the enlistment oath, served in combat, and were removed to countries they barely knew — and makes the case for legislation that would protect them. He and John also discuss the generational shift in military culture Lavelle watched unfold over 25 years, the difference between service as duty versus service as a job, and what the entertainment industry has offered him as both a creative outlet and a form of processing. For reflections between episodes, subscribe at https://theunsungveteran.substack.com/ Know a veteran whose story should be heard? Reach out: theunsungveteran@gmail.com

  7. May 6

    Ep 18: Scott DeLuzio — Losing a Brother in Afghanistan

    Scott DeLuzio served as an Army infantryman — 11 Bravo — with the Connecticut Army National Guard, deploying to Afghanistan to a small base near the Pakistan border. His younger brother Stephen, an infantryman with the Vermont Army National Guard, deployed to the same country at the same time. They were stationed about eighty miles apart, and in the mountains of Afghanistan, that might as well have been a different continent. In this conversation, Scott walks through the deployment in detail — the border security work, the village-clearing missions alongside the Afghan Army during Ramadan, the work with interpreters, the stretches of complacency between contacts, and the small ways soldiers stay sane when they're far from home. He also talks honestly about coming home with no brother, no roadmap, and a young family waiting for him to be the husband and father he wanted to be. We get into the worst day of his deployment — getting word about his brother and being back in a firefight fifteen minutes later. We talk about lying through the post-deployment mental health screenings, the moment six months later when he didn't recognize himself in the mirror, and the phone call to the Vet Center that started his way back. Scott is also the author of Surviving Son and the host of Drive On Podcast, where he's recorded close to 600 conversations with fellow veterans. He's a fellow with the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation as well. For reflections between episodes, subscribe at https://theunsungveteran.substack.com/ Know a veteran whose story should be heard? Reach out: theunsungveteran@gmail.com

  8. Apr 29

    Ep 17: Lee Ettinger — From Shore Party Marine to Netflix Survival Show to Supplement Founder

    Lee Ettinger joined the Marine Corps in 1985 as a teenager trying to outrun a serious drug habit. What followed was eight years of service that most Marines never see — shore party beach breaching operations, special operations cross-training under the early MEU-SOC buildup, and Army Airborne School at Fort Benning as one of only four Marines in a class of nearly 700. He left as a corporal with no transition support, a cab ride to the airport, and no plan. In this conversation, Lee and host John "Goofy" Smith cover what that abrupt separation actually looked like for a Marine trained for combat and given nothing on the other side — and the two years of relapse that followed. Lee talks openly about PTSD without combat exposure, the moment something unexplainable broke his drug use cold, and how a veteran overlanding group called Homeward for Heroes finally helped him name what he'd been carrying for decades. They also dig into Lee's post-service career arc: teaching English for the Japanese government's JET program, selling independent films to international buyers, and eventually landing on Netflix's Outlast survival series — which he applied for after seeing a Facebook ad while sitting at his kitchen counter in Montana. Lee shares what the production didn't show: the bear guards, the ten days sequestered in a hotel room during a hurricane, five days without food, and the real reason he tapped out. The episode closes on his current mission — DrinkPowerPlus.com, a supplement combining pain relief and energy that took five years of R&D and twelve Amazon rejections before becoming the first supplement allowed to carry a pain relief label claim on the platform. For reflections between episodes, subscribe at https://theunsungveteran.substack.com/ Know a veteran whose story should be heard? Reach out: theunsungveteran@gmail.com

See All (24)

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

The Unsung Veteran is a veteran-to-veteran interview platform focused on honest conversations about military service, transition, leadership, and life after the uniform. Each episode is a direct, unscripted conversation. There is no imposed narrative, no agenda, and no hero framing. The discussion belongs to the veteran. This podcast exists to document the lived experiences of those who served — across ranks, roles, and backgrounds — and to preserve the perspective that often goes unheard. Full episodes are available in video and audio formats.

Information

  • Creator
    John N. Smith
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    24
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © John N. Smith
  • Show Website
    The Unsung Veteran