Fragout Podcast Ryan Lonergan

Todd Smits and I met 7 years ago in Appleton. He was one of the many Homeless Veterans I’ve helped over the last 17+ years. Todd served 7 Years in the NAVY. He was in the Fleet for 2 years, and did 5 years in Naval Special Warfare as a SWCC Boat Operator. Todd shared his incredible life story loosing both parents at a young age, going to jail, deployments, transitioning, and so much more. Todd recently graduated from college and has turned his life around 180 degrees with a lot of hard work! I am so proud of him.

Jessica Lynch OG Iraq War Veteran, Prisoner Of War, Purple Heart recipient. She is the first POW rescue since WW2 and the first ever Female POW rescue. We covered so much ground and many topics. She is a wonderful woman veteran and great ambassador to our veteran community.

Phenomenal Podcast with my new friend Lindsey Lundgaard. Lindsey is the widow of Mitch Lundgaard. Mitch was a firefighter/EMT that was killed in the line of duty May 15, 2019. Lindsey came on to talk about Mitch, children, overcoming grief, moving forward, and giving back. We spoke about how people handle grief is many different ways, she handled a very tragic and complex situation with grace and compassion. She was very honest about how she felt at various moments in the last 5 years. I learned a lot and honored to share this story.   Please check out the foundation

I spoke to some good friends and my aunt Erin on my birthday. We just had some great topics and laughed a lot. My birthday was a lot of fun. I got to talk to an old friend Marty, who I served with in my first infantry unit. That was a great part of my day. We will get him on for a full podcast. 

Great podcast with Andy VanHandel, Army Veteran and SkyDiving Instructor. He’s been skydiving for 25 years and has 3700 jumps, 2000 are tandems. We had a great conversation about skydiving, his service, and Freedom Freefall coming up for veterans!

Great podcast with Jon Winker founder of Resilience Racing. Jon was on the podcast 4.5 years ago. His organization has seen some great growth. They take amputee veterans and put them in custom race cars, specifically Ford Mustangs. They have special hand controls and other technology. They have great partnership with Road America. We will be working on getting veterans to Road America this summer for “Hot Laps”. 20 min laps, doing 170mph. Veterans are the passenger and get an experience of a lifetime!